SPEAKER_01 0:00

Would you be willing to take that jump?

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial advising meets the art of meaningful conversations. I'm your host, Ashley Kwamey. As a certified financial behavior specialist and a passionate advocate for personal growth, I'm here to help you elevate your practice and deepen your connections with clients. In each episode, we dive into the intersection of psychology, therapy, and financial advising. You'll discover practical strategies, insightful stories, and expert interviews that will empower you to not only excel in your profession, but also thrive in your personal life. Together, we'll explore the human side of financial planning, from understanding client emotions to mastering the nuances of effective communication. We'll also focus on your own growth because the best advisors are those who are continually evolving. Get ready to transform your practice and yourself. This is Planning and Beyond. Welcome to the Planning and Beyond podcast. I am your host, Ashley Kwame. So excited to be here for episode four of the series Understanding the intersection of psychology and financial planning through this series. If you've not checked it out, uh Dr. Megan Lawrence has been joining me having brilliant conversations, wonderful practical insights, takeaways. Meg's kind of laughing here. I think they're brilliant, but I mean, I'm also just kind of in the company of brilliance. And so, you know, I don't know. We'll see. Uh we'll see kind of what everyone else thinks about it. Uh, but today we're gonna dive into actually an audience question. So what I wanted this fourth kind of episode to be in the series, just to give some context here, is I want the chance for audience members to be able to connect with um, you know, myself and my conversation partner. In this case, it's you. And so giving the chance for people to ask questions that they'd like to maybe hear us talk about, um, learn about, maybe gain some better understanding, some takeaways, further takeaways, um, is kind of the idea here. So the question for you and I to talk about today is I'm gonna read it, is what is the most difficult part of integrating financial psychology into a firm? What do you see firms do or where do they start? Kind of loaded question, I think. I've got a few, I've got a few ideas. I don't know if you need let's start with those.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

I'm I'm interested in what what you you're doing this right now. This is like your bread and butter.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah, a little, yes, a little bit of that. Yeah. So the I guess maybe when firms reach out to me, it's it is probably in a different way or they have a different idea. So this is not the way to do it, but it is a way. Because as you said, like you guys at Shaping Wealth do it differently, which I'm also very much an advocate for and cheerleader for everything that you guys do and put out. So when firms or advisors maybe reach out to me, the integrating piece usually comes with wanting a person, uh, a subject matter expert to kind of be that team member uh that helps, you know, put certain aspects in place, um, deliverables, um, processes, um, but also be that sounding board from a learning standpoint and a resource for not only the team, but also maybe even their clients uh as well, too. So I'll answer like the starting point. Like the starting point is maybe researching or deciding, right? Do I want to go through and have some kind of education? Um, go through like training, uh, or maybe do I want to bring in somebody, or both, right? Maybe it's both. I don't know, but or do I want to bring in somebody onto the team that can be that role or play that role? So that's what that's kind of what I see. You and I are on different sides of that uh, you know, kind of coin there with shaping wealth and with beyond the plan. What do you see? What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Well, to to piggyback off of what you said, I think that oh, maybe like an overarching theme is that there are many ways to do this and even do it right. For sure. You know, like hiring and working with a subject matter expert. For those of you that don't know, you know, Ashley is a marriage and family therapist, you know, she is she is trained, you know, in how to be with people. Um, she works, you know, with financial advisors and can can give them feedback on their meetings, can actually have meetings with clients, you know, so there's that way when you're actually working with a person that has more of a maybe a heavier mental health background. But then there's also maybe a uh more of like, if you if I could say like the shaping wealth way, you know, we say like one of our one of our slogans, if you will, is that that we train the guides. Yeah. And and and this just goes back to that idea of financial planning is a journey. Like we're gonna, we're gonna beat this metaphor up. Financial planning is a journey. And you know, it it's hard to travel that on your own. And so having a guide, you know, being and a guide isn't it's not that it's not that uh the guide knows exactly the right way. I mean, the path is different every time, different seasons of life, different, you know, things change. And so the guide is full of skills that that navigate uh change because change is a is a human thing, adaption is a human thing. Right. And when when we can develop those guide skills, which is what we focus on at um at Shaping Wealth, whether it's through one of our flagship programs or through working with Joy one-on-one. Joy Leary is a clinical psychologist and works with advisors one-on-one. She also hosts office hours. We do different presentations and things like this for advisors and advisory firms. Um, so education, obviously, um, different workshops if you really want to like, you know, get in some experiential work, which for communication is so important. You can't unfortunately listen to Ashley and I's lovely voices and wake up after, you know, listening, let's say all four sequentially, and now you're just like two hours of opmosis and you're like, bam, all right, I can do it. Got it. It doesn't work that way. I liken it. So like if you want to be Tom Brady, you know, you got to get out there and like practice. You you have to practice in real time and get feedback. And that like communication in that way is so much like sports that practicing in real time with other people when the game matters, that that is what you need to become skilled in this area. And I don't mean that to scare people away. You can still start small. Right. Um, and you know, throwing in this type of we talked about questions in the last one, you know, thinking about, you know, structuring a meeting differently, saying, saying, I'm curious, you know, and just starting there so that they know you're coming from a place of curiosity versus whatever. Um, there are small things that you can do, you know, just as an individual and getting some of that practice. And I will also say, like, uh, you can find just about anywhere motivational interviewing, uh and you don't have to be a psychologist, like you can just go and be trained in motivational interviewing. Pessi.com has some things out there. Yeah. Yeah. If you're if you're a financial planner, basically, if you're a financial planner and you got your CFP anytime before the last three years, because and about three years ago was when the psychology of financial planning uh was released and the um subject matter was added to the exam. But even that, you know, is is just rote education. We're not like there is no part of the CFP process that is experiential training. Maybe, maybe one day, especially if Ashley and I had our way, that would that would be a direction that we would go. Or it would be incorporated into that 2,000 hours that you have to have, that certain aspects of that are experiential as it relates to communication. Um so if you got your CFP before the last three years, then you weren't even exposed, you know, to some of this client psychology, uh, psychology of financial planning, in particular, client psychology, yes, but psychology of financial planning um different in the sense that that relates to that relational side of it, which is more than just I know, like in in class, I say great, it's it's great to know that your client is exhibiting overconfidence. Go on ahead and say that to them and find out what happens. You know, like just knowing that a bias exists or being able to name, you know, that heuristic that that matters, but not as much as it matters to recognize it and know what to do about it. And so these these are the skills. I keep getting lost in what I'm that these are the skills that we want to help people to have, and that you can pick up in many ways. There are also many emotional intelligence trainings that you can do. Um, so there is the CFP, but there's also what's known as the um accredited financial counselor, the AFC. And any CFP would probably go through the financial part of the AFC and think this is pretty simple. A lot of it's gonna focus more on budgeting and very basic aspects of financial planning because financial counselors are doing, they have a slightly different job, a slightly different scope. But the thing that's in the AFC curriculum that is different than what's in the CFP curriculum is that there is a lot of focus on counseling skills and like how to be with somebody. And so if you've already taken the CFP, go pick up the AFC. Like that's a great, that's a great thing. There's an organization, the Financial Therapy Association, which is how Ashley and I became friends. And you don't have to be a financial therapist, but the things that you will learn at that conference, the stuff that you will hear about in their monthly webinar series, that the those are communication things that will increase your knowledge as a communicator so that your advice, you know, is really heard. And and so to the idea that you can hire somebody to help with this, and that would probably immensely increase learning. But there's also lots of learning opportunities, which I think doing, you know, like a yes and, you know, having both, that you can become better and practice more individually, and just being a great communicator, not doing therapy, just being just being a great communicator, um, being an exceptional listener, that these are things that are actually very difficult, but can make the relationship like rocket ship different in terms of connection and uh understanding and advice that you share, and you know, they're feeling good about that. Like there's so many ways to get better at this. And this is not this is not even require saying, well, I know I'm bad at this. This is saying everybody sucks at communicating, period. We can all be better at it. If I I think I've said this on many podcasts, you know, if I had my way, we would stop teaching like trigonometry and we would teach people some uh communication skills and about the transherotic model of change, and we would do that, you know, at a much younger age, because yeah, like that that's that's where it's at.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

I I love like this idea that you know, hey, firm planner, here's where you can start. You can do some education kind of on your own through other certifications, and there are some great programs right out there. Um, I went through K-State's financial therapy um graduate certificate program. It's wonderful, it's brilliant. Um there, so there are some things that you can do there formally um from an education. UGA also now has um their financial therapy graduate certificate uh you know program there. Uh so there's that. There's the education focus that you can take. You know, there's also shaping wealth, you know, joining them, um going through one of their programs, whether it's OCBO or, you know, uh building better advice, right? Building the better advisor uh is what I think it is. Uh and then Meg's got a new course that's coming out, um the Navigator series. Uh so there's these like learning aspects that you can do and dive into you andor your firm, right? You guys can kind of do or bringing in someone to teach active listening uh or better communication and doing that. Those are great. You can also, in addition to that, it doesn't have to be, as you said, kind of an either or it can be both and bring in someone, you know, to help facilitate that, somebody like me as a financial behavior officer to be kind of that person to maybe drive some of that. That's also an option. What I guess I'm like listening to you talk about all these options, I'm just like, man, I think the most important part about all this is just that you start. Like, I don't know if it matters so much on maybe where you start, but I what I think is important is that you just start and that you you just pick one thing and just start going in that direction, see where it leads. I know in my own journey, professionally, like personally, like when I just kind of and I'm gonna get like frozen here, Disney's frozen. So I apologize. It's like my kids, I blame them. But if you just kind of do the next right thing, you know, like it's gonna lead to then like the next right thing. So just take that step in that direction, right? It'll lead to further steps, kind of, you know, uh down the road there. So so Meg, you work with firms, you work with advisors, I work with firms, I work with advisors. Where do you feel like, or where do you see some of the like stuck points? What's hard about implementing some of this? Do you see any hurdles um that firms or advisors uh kind of bump up against that make implementing some of this hard? What do you see on your end?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

I actually uh, you know, as we talked a little bit about in the episode we were talking about advisors and doing their own work, I it it can be another thing. You know, it's another thing. I'm already taking care of my clients, I'm already trying to take care of myself. I'm like trying to go to the gym, I'm trying to eat healthy, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and now you're telling me that I have to like do all this communication stuff. And I can't be that bad of a communicator. I have clients. Fair point. Well, it's true, it is true. So, you know, I um I so it really has to for this to work well and be sustainable, it really is about um, we also mentioned like the importance of of communities, like whether whether it's people in your firm or you know, you're a solo or maybe a solo with like a couple people that work there, you know, but mostly, mostly like you're the main dude or do that. Um, and you you find another person, another firm that has you know similar setup, and you're like, okay, we're just gonna commit like one Friday a month. And maybe we're gonna go get you know some of those articles from the Kids' platform, or we're gonna sign up for a class at Shaping Wealth, or we're gonna do the AFC together, and we're gonna talk about it. Or um, you know, there are lots of different places to get continuing education. Like again, we mentioned the Financial Therapy Association. The Financial Therapy Association is a membership organization, which means you can just pay to be a member. You do not have to pursue the designation. And I mentioned that they have a monthly webinar. So attend that webinar, make that like your CE day in your office and attend like focus on the CE that you already have to do, um, and make it very uh communication focused. And and you will find over time, I guarantee it, that some of it resonates and it will begin to help. And you'll notice, and now you'll become more interested. Like this is always how it happens with financial advisors and all of them that I've talked to. You know, it starts out like, well, it's just kind of like woo-woo, and then they try it, and then they're like, oh, okay, well, that worked pretty good. Maybe, maybe she's not lying. Maybe I'll try this other thing. And so, like, it it becomes this, and then then all of a sudden they want to be financial therapists. And so it's like there, there is a way forward, and I think it's important to think about how to integrate it into your life and not make it an extra thing that you have to do in your life. Um, you know, hiring somebody like Ashley, she's she's gonna have stuff for you to do, but you've hired her, she's a she's a part of your life. Um, making time, whether it's once a month or signing up for a course that we provide at Shaping Wealth, it's it's a consistent time, you know, for weeks at a time, but this kind of gets you gets you into it. And then even once that's over, or you know, taking a class at Kansas State University, we have a uh a financial therapy path. There's also at Creighton University where Dr. Brad Klantz is at. Uh, they have the behavioral finance advisor designation, which I've done, which is great. Um, there's the money quotient people. Uh, they Amy is amazing and her stuff is amazing. They've been working on it forever. There's the financial transitionist, which is Susan Bradley stuff. Like, I have done all of these programs, believe it or not. And there, there's like something that I get out of each one of them. They are they're all different in their own way. If you're like more of a George Kinder follower, like go through his program, you know, like you're you will feel the feels. And when when you have felt the feelings, recognize that that you don't have to stick to like one dogma, you know, like there, there are many ways to just continuing to get access to this because it is a lifelong practice. Being being a good communicator is something that we can always practice and has immense benefits when we do so.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Um you use the word integration, and I love that. My hope is that wherever you decide to start, however you decide to start, that eventually this doesn't become a thing that you do, it becomes who you are. Being a good communicator is not a thing that you do, it's just who you are, right? It's just who you are. And so my hope is that through that journey and that learning process, it's just innate and it's just part of who you are and how you are with clients, it's no longer that thing that you actually do or have to do, right? Um, you know, like maybe some so many other other things. So I love all of that. Meg, I appreciate you. I hope that the answers to this question are helpful for those that are listening out there. If you have questions that you'd like for um us to dive into uh in the future um on future episodes, you can shoot those to me uh at ashley at beyondthefp.com. We'll put that information in the show notes there for you. Meg, any other takeaways from this series that we've talked about? Episodes one, talking about the client, two, episode two is the advisor, episode three is questions. Here we're answering the question on implementation. Any other lasting takeaways before I before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Uh I I would just sum it up with a bow that we've we've talked about relationships and and every one of them. And I think that that um you know we're more connected than ever before, but people are dying of loneliness. There's like literally an academic of loneliness and financial advice, even though you're with people all the time, it is a very lonely job. And I think that being connected to get better at communication, being connected to to be a good communicator and have deeper relationships personally and professionally, like this is something that every person wants, you know, you included. And so I I would end with a question, you know, like would would you be willing? Would you be willing to take that jump?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

No better way to end our series than with that. So that being said, go think about that, journal about it, write about it, talk to a friend about it. Uh heck, even shoot me an email. I'm not gonna subject you, Meg. I'm not gonna volunteer you for that, but shoot me an email, right, with maybe that answer. I'd love to hear your response. Are you willing to take that jump? I'd love to know your thoughts uh on that, listeners. Uh, until next time, I hope that everyone has a great day, a great week. And Meg, thanks for joining us. I appreciate the insights and uh conversation. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond. I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more advisors like you who are dedicated to making a difference. For more resources, tips, and to continue the conversation, visit our website at beyondthefp.com. You'll find articles, tools, and information about upcoming episodes designed to support your journey and practice. Stay connected with us on social media and never miss an update. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. And remember, the best way to grow is to keep learning and sharing. Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond.