SPEAKER_00 0:00

So there's ways to offer the solutions, offer the advice in an MI consistent way. All of it is keeping client autonomy at the forefront. So autonomy is a basic human need. It shows up in many different models of well-being. And when we tell people what to do, they don't have autonomy. So if you go back to the evolutionary psychology or evolutionary biology thing, if you tell me what to do when I do it, subconsciously or not, I've just taken a lower rank in the social order because you're you told me what to do. You're my boss. You're the superior.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial advising meets the art of meaningful conversations. I'm your host, Ashley Kwame. 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 Planning and Beyond, the show where financial planning meets human understanding. I'm your host, Ashley Kwamey. Today we're diving into a powerful framework that really can truly transform how you approach client conversations. That is motivational interviewing. It's a framework that for many mental health practitioners, we have the outside privilege of learning about, typically in our graduate programs. And what has been amazing for at least me to see moving into the financial space is motivational interviewing starting to take some roots and take off for financial planners. I'm thrilled to be joined by my friend, I'll say friend and colleague, Derek Hagen. He is the director of education and communication at Money Quotient and a financial behavior specialist and about five other, I think, designations, letters there behind his name. And Derek is going to talk with us today and help us understand how this evidence-based approach can really enhance your practice and deepen those client connections. Derek, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Thanks for having me. It's so fun to be talking about one of my favorite topics with one of my favorite people.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Thank you. I appreciate that very much. I couldn't imagine having this conversation with anyone else. It was a very obvious choice for me. So I'm glad that you're here and willing to share all of your wisdom today. Before we jump into exploring kind of what motivational interviewing is, I'd love if you wouldn't mind maybe just sharing a little bit about your journey into this model specifically. And maybe also like what drew you, what was it about motivational interviewing that drew you to this approach?

unknown 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

So my journey, I come from, I talk often in terms of exterior finance and interior finance, so nuts and bolts, mechanics of money, and relationship with money. So I come from the heavy math and spreadsheets, CFA, CFP style approach to financial planning. And somewhere in the middle 2010s, 14, 15, something like that, I started realizing that listening is a skill that let me say a lot of advisors could stand to benefit from learning more of. So I set out to try to learn more about listening and naive at this point that I thought that there's two groups there's bad listeners and there's good listeners, and that's that's it. That's all there is to it. So as I researched it, I learned that there's a whole maze of words that I've never heard of active listening and exquisite listening and reflective listening and empathetic listening and totally confused because I have no, I thought it breaks my belief that there's two camps. There's there's a bunch of camps here, apparently. So I happened to come across an article in Journal of Financial Planning called Exquisite Listening that person who would become my mentor, Ted Kwanz, wrote, Ted and Brad wrote. But this is before there's no links, there's no email addresses, so I had to spend a bunch of time figuring out what they are talking about. They mentioned some kind of a workshop in this article, and I had to find out what these workshops were. So eventually I find my way to Franklin, Tennessee, outside of Nashville, but actually outside of Franklin, somewhere just in the country in Tennessee, to this weekend-long workshop on how to listen, which is what I thought it was going to be. What it turned out to be it was the whole weekend about evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, basically everything that our brains do when we're existing. And listening was part of that. That's Ted Kwantz was one of his claims to fame, is that he calls it exquisite listening. So I followed him from there to Creighton and did their graduate certificate. In his class, Financial Communication, he had us read both nonviolent communication and motivational interview as kind of a base for his style of listening. But through that process, I had to read the textbook, or I got to read the textbook, motivational interview, it's third edition. And I it was unlike anything I've ever read before. It felt like felt like reading the book that that magicians use. Like, whoa, this is how this is how this happens, this is what's going on. It just blew my mind. So I've read that book every year, probably for several years now.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Oh my gosh, that's a clunker too. My goodness. That's a big, it's a big clunker.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

There's a fourth edition now, which is a little shorter. So I have moved on to the fourth edition, although I do still like the third edition better. But it's every time you go, every time I go through it, it's just a refresher, a reminder of it's this weird tension of this is groundbreaking stuff, but also this is super obvious stuff. Both of those exist at the same time. It's both obvious and groundbreaking that this works. And not that it works, just how simple can be at a high level how this communication style works to help people.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yeah, yeah. I think that that might be actually kind of maybe the next place to kind of go, because I would imagine that while you and I know motivational interviewing, and while it is starting to move its way into the financial planning space, there's probably a lot of people that this is the first time they're hearing about motivational interviewing. And so maybe let's just start there, kind of where you left off, like that high-level place. What is motivational interviewing? Let's maybe kind of break that down a bit.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Yeah, I'll go to the highest level first. It's a conversation style, it's a way to have a conversation. And more specifically, it's a way to have a conversation about change. And there's this term that I learned through this process called ambivalence. Ambivalence is multiple motivations. It's I'm motivated to lose weight. I am also motivated to be healthy, I'm motivated to eat a bunch of pasta, I'm also motivated to lay on the couch and sleep in. All of those things are happening at the same time, even though many of those are incompatible within one another. So that's a high level of what ambivalence is. I both want A and I want B, but A and B might not be compatible. So what that means in the framework of motivational interview, when it kind of got its start in addiction treatment, I don't want to be addicted to the substance, but I also am addict, I want to have another hit. So I want both of these things at the same time. So all of those motivations, it's not just two, all of those motivations exist inside me already. I don't need somebody else to tell me you're gonna lose weight if you stop eating pasta. I already know that. I'm gonna be healthier if I go to the gym. I already know that.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

That's a myth, Derek. I feel like I feel like you can lose weight and eat pasta.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Uh I'm gonna subscribe to that school of thought for now. I found one. I found my confirmation bias that'll help me justify.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I'm happy to support you in that.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

So that's it. It's so you got this ambivalence. So motivational interviewing is a way to have this conversation that helps clients work through this ambivalence and see or uncover or find or discover or rediscover the motivation that they already have to make this positive change that they want in their life. It's a it's a way of talking to people. I'm not adding motivation, I'm just helping to draw out motivation to make this positive change for them. That's the really high level. It's interviewing people in a way that draws out their motivation. The kind of medium high is especially some creative license here. You're not going to see this in a textbook. I call it the four S's of motivational interviewing. So there's a spirit that goes through this, which is this has to be done in service of the client. It's not something that I'm doing to make somebody do what I want them to do or to get them to implement my advice. There's a lot of overlap here. I want you to implement my advice, is different from saying, I want you to make the change that you want to make. It might be the same thing, but if I view the lens of I want you to make the change that you want to make, that's explicitly the spirit of motivational review. So that's the first S. The second S is the stages, there's different stages that people go through. The FEP, they like their acronyms, speak up. There's engaging, which is to say, should we go on this journey together, me and the client? And then there's focusing, which is to say, where are we going to go? Where do you want to go? Where can I help you get? And then evoking is to say, why would we go there? That's where we find the motivation. And then planning is how do we get there? So those are the stages. And then there's the skills. Anybody with even a little bit of familiarity with motivational interviewing probably has heard of the ORs, O A R S. These are the skills of motivational interviewing. And it's really reflective listening skills, but it stands for open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries. I add a little bit of the Ted Klantz stuff, which is to say questions aren't as effective as statements. So open-ended prompts will say try to get away from using question marks. But we're using these skills, maybe a little differently depending on what stage we're in, but we're we're really focusing on these reflective listening skills. And then the fourth S is really where I really take the creative license. That's the speech of motivational interviewing, which is change talk, is a term that people have probably heard. So change talk is dialogue, it's communication in favor of change. And we go back to the stages, the focus is defines what changes. Sometimes it's easy. An addiction treatment is to get off, is to break the addiction. Sometimes it's easy, like I need to get a will because I don't have a will. Sometimes it's not so easy. Like, should I relocate to be closer to my grandkids, sell my house and move, or should I just increase my travel budget and go to them more and bring them to me more? I can't define what that is, but once the client defines that they want to relocate, that becomes change talk. Any dialogue in favor of doing that becomes changed talk. Any dialogue or speech that goes against that is set called sustained talk, rest of tones call it status quo talk. So medium high level, we're using these four S's, reasoning skills of motivational interviewing different at different stages, differently at the different stages, draw out a certain kind of speech, keeping the spirit in mind. So that one's probably a little more in the weeds, but it it helps to see that there's a process like to this.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

I appreciated that kind of breakdown around like the four S's, right? So when we're thinking about motivational interviewing, there is a spirit to it. And some of that I spirit and kind of intention or way of thinking around it. And I love what you said. I'm just kind of in that place of spirit, and where I hear a lot of advisors, they'll say things like, I just need to get my clients motivated to do this, or if I could just motivate them to do X, Y, and Z. And from a motivational interviewing from that spirit place, it's changing that, reframing that thinking to it's not about you getting them to feel motivated. It's about drawing that out. And there's a wonderful process here with MI going through, as you said, then the stages and then the skills and the speech there. So I think that's a wonderful framework that I hope everyone is listening here, jotting down some notes or maybe earmarking some timestamps, because I think that going through kind of each of those four S's, as you said, will give you all of the creative license for that. Walking kind of through those, I think can be a really great maybe starting place for rethinking how you are engaging and working with clients, maybe particularly those who are stuck. If we talk about maybe kind of some other kind of ways where advisors can start to implement this. And I guess I'm laughing because I'm just imagining maybe Clayton specifically here as kind of like that advisor that's hearing this for the first time. No offense, babe. Like hearing this, like maybe for the first time and is like, oh my goodness, like this is a little overwhelming. I'm kind of like tracking what you guys are saying here, but this is a little overwhelming in terms of implementation. Do I have to read this big book once a year for like the next five years in order to be an expert in it? Let's talk a little bit about what are some maybe key techniques in motivational interviewing that advisors can start using immediately. Where can they start, Derek?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Yeah, first let me talk about this expertise because William Miller, one of the founders of it, has said, I'm still learning this. And he invented it. So it's it's hard to it's hard to even say that this is something that you can perfect when the founder is still saying, I'm still learning this stuff. So give yourself permission to say, I can learn and I can keep learning. You don't have to be an expert in this. Now, I would say the low-hanging fruit is they talk about something called the writing reflex, or at least they used to call it the writing reflex. In the fourth edition, they call it the fixing reflex. I still like the alliteration of writing reflex. Fixing reflex is it doesn't roll off the tongue as easy, but they their point is that it's the instinct we have to jump in and fix something. This is true for humans, it's certainly true for people in helping professions like financial planners and financial advisors. It happens with your friends too. You know, somebody is doing something, and you know, because this is what you do all the time, because it's your job or it's your hobby, or you've done this for your whole life, you say that you're not doing that right. There's a thing you need to be doing better. And so you say that. You say, Hey, you should do this, or you might want to do that, or I do it this way. That reflex kills or has a tendency to kill conversation. Because most of the time, people already know that that's not enough. Knowledge isn't enough. So the low-hanging fruit is to resist the writing reflex. If you're gonna feel it, let it go and see what happens. You can still, there's a time later to offer advice or to offer solutions, but when your friend or your client or whoever you're talking to is trying to articulate a point, jumping in with the you're feeling this reflex and acting on this reflex to fix them is less likely to get them to make that positive change anyway that they want to make. In fact, when people are ambivalent, that is, let's just use two examples. I want two things. And if you, the advisor, argue one side of my ambivalence, Derek, you you want to lose weight and you want to keep eating pasta. And no matter which side you argue, say, Derek, pasta, don't you get it? That's just a bunch of cards, and you're gonna be tired all the time, and you're just gonna make you gain all this weight. You know, it puts me out of balance because I'm keeping this delicate balance when I'm ambivalent. And so you argue one side, it tips the scales. So I often will get myself back to equilibrium. And you hear, yeah, but if you hear yeah, but that's an indication that they're arguing the other side. Well, yeah, but this is my favorite meal. This is most of my dishes that I eat, or this is so delicious, pairs well with great wines and so on. Or maybe you argue, argue the other side. You, Derek, you only live once. Drink the wine, who cares? Eat the pasta, it doesn't matter, live it up, you're not gonna be here long. And I'll say, Yeah, but when I weigh 20 pounds more, it's harder on my knees and it's kind of an active guy, you're not even listening to me. So, no matter which side you argue to an ambivalent person, they're gonna argue the other side to keep that balance. And then people tend to believe what they hear themselves saying. So when we let this writing reflex dictate what we say, we make it easier for them to stay the same, or we make it easier for them to not implement what they want to do. So I would say that the the low-hanging fruit is to just one resist the writing reflex. And then two, it's I don't know if this is in the books, but I sometimes call motivational interviewing strategic reflective listening. So it's reflective listening done in a strategic way, depending on the stage that you're at. And I often draw, and people who know me know I draw these stupid little drawings. One of the drawings I draw is a little flow chart. In the lower left, it's this is what your client means. I've got thoughts, unarticulated thoughts. We've got, I've seen as high as 70,000 but 40,000, 50,000 thoughts a day, unarticulated. So we have all these thoughts, most rendering ahead. And then you ask a question, or a client tries to articulate something. So they say something, but what they say might not be what they meant, especially if this is the first time trying to articulate something. And then what they say, you have to hear. And this is the line that I would say most people, not just advisors, but most people think listening is you said the words, I heard the words. But even if I heard all the words you said, and even if you said exactly what you meant, now I have to make an interpretation of why what I think you meant. So there's this long chain here of clients say something that they might not mean, and you hear something that they might not have said, and then you decode this, which might not be the proper decoding of what they said. So reflective listening is to close the loop and to say it sounds like, and then say what they were saying in your own words. Basically, here's what I here's what I thought you meant. Is that right? And they'll say yes, and you look like you're a great listener, or they'll say no and correct you, and they're happy to do so. So you close the loop. That's uh strategic reflecting piece. So another piece of lower hanging fruit is to just start to learn reflective listening, start to offer what we call reflections, just to check in for understanding, put on a curiosity hat and see why are you saying this? Here's what I think you mean. Is that close? What's different? What would you change about what I what I just said? So between those two pieces, learning or leaning into and learning about reflective listening and avoiding the writing reflex. I think those are the two two things that'll get you a lot of the way there.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

I think that those are great starting points is because it's likely there are many, many just humans just in general, but advisors that I hear at least that they'll acknowledge, like, yes, I struggle with that writing reflex. Hey friends, we'll be right back with the episode. But before we do, I wanted to take a quick second to let you know about what we do at Beyond the Plan and how we support financial advisors who are committed to growth. At Beyond the Plan, we specialize in integrating financial and client psychology to enhance your advisory practice. From client meeting facilitation, advisor training and coaching, even client onboarding strategies, we are your implementation partner and dedicated in-house expert. Visit our website at beyondthefp.com to learn more about our services and how we can collaborate to elevate your practice. Together, let's go beyond the plan to deliver meaningful client experiences that foster long-lasting relationships. Now, back to the episode. So if they're gonna make some moves into trying to resist that impulse, resist that reflex, if a client is talking and they're bringing up a problem, like this is what I'm struggling with, and they're going on and on, would resisting that writing reflex, from your opinion, would it be then more that reflective listening? Or what if they're not going, if they're gonna resist walking in and giving solutions, like what then should they do? How should they respond in those moments if they're not giving advice and solutions?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Tell me more. That was actually the the advice. So you can lean into so the the skills of look of MI are open-ended questions or open-ended prompts, affirmations, reflections, and summaries. Reflections are just one of those uh skills. So closing the loop, checking in for understanding. And if you got really into the weeds, there's different ways that you can reflect. You can reflect different things to move the conversation forward, but at this high level, reflecting for understanding. But asking open-ended prompts, open-ended questions, tell me more about that. So I have some ideas, but I'd like to hear more about your thoughts on this and help them talk, help them articulate what's going on in their mind until they feel like they've talked about everything that they need to talk about or they've offered you enough information that you can offer advice later. And in the MI consistent way, we're maybe a little in the weeds here, but you offer advice with permission in motivational interviewing. So illicit provide illicit, and that that's used in a couple of different ways. One is eliciting permission. So I've got some ideas. Is it okay if I tell you what's worked for other people? And then they'll say yes, usually. If they say no, you honor the no. This again, this isn't a reverse psychology trick or something like that. Most people want to hear what you have to say, but by asking permission, you've opened the door, they've opened the door to be willing to receive that information. And sometimes, even if they ask you, hey, what do you think I should do? Permission there is implicit in the fact that they asked you for it. But even then, you can still do use the illicit provide illicit instead of saying you should do this or here's what I would do. You can say, Have you heard about Roth IRAs? What do you know about Roth IRAs? What do you know about Roth IRAs? Conversions. What do you know about life insurance? And then they'll tell you what they know. And then you can, is it okay if I fill in the gaps or tell you a little bit more about why I think this is a good strategy for you? So there's ways to offer the solutions, offer the advice in an MI consistent way. All of it is keeping client autonomy at the forefront. So autonomy is a basic human need. It shows up in many different models of well-being. And when we tell people what to do, they don't have autonomy. So if you go back to the evolutionary psychology or evolutionary biology thing, if you tell me what to do and I do it, subconsciously or not, I've just taken a lower rank in the social order because you're you told me what to do, you're my boss, you're the superior now. Wiring is still kind of with us. Most of us wouldn't be able to articulate what's happening there, but it's I use this joke. And you see it in every comedy almost. The joke is I was gonna go, you know, shovel the driveway. And then my wife said, Hey Derek, go shovel the driveway. And I said, Well, no, I don't want to do it. Or I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it because I want to do it, not because he told me to do it.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

So it's a joke, but it's a joke because that's fundamentally how we are. So offering advice and motivational interviewing is to keep client autonomy in play. So we're not offering the writing reflex, we're avoiding the rating reflex. We're learning more about what they've already tried, we're learning more about what's worked for them, and then when it's time, we offer advice with permission and we elicit what they already know. We keep them in in the loop, we keep them as part of the process.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

I like how you framed that in terms of how to offer it, but it is also okay to give advice too. I think that's where maybe sometimes I hear that advisors get stuck is like, okay, I'm supposed to do all this listening, but like part of my job is actually to also give advice. And yes, that is true. That is a big part of what you are being paid for, drawn into, and knowing how to give that advice, though, I think in such a way that invites really the client in to want to receive it. I think you said it beautifully. You put it out there wonderfully. I'm curious, though, if you know, advisors start implementing some of these lower hanging fruit strategies, or if they start getting into a little bit more of the framework, though, from what you've seen from your perspective, are there any maybe pitfalls, red flags? Like what are some things that maybe advisors should be watchful of when it comes to implementing these techniques?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Are you asking pitfalls in terms of the client advisor relationship or discomfort in offering or using this technique?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Oh yeah. I didn't think that you were gonna go there. Those are two actually great directions. Let's for the sake of time, let's go with the client relationship, that part. Let's go with that part. What are some things maybe in that relationship or that maybe a client, if they start saying, showing, displaying, like maybe what are some things to kind of be watchful of as they're implementing some of these techniques?

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah, I would start with when we're using motivational interviewing, we're acting as a guide. So that's different from say a directing approach, which is telling people what to do. That would be maybe your stereotypical advisor or like an attorney or something. Somebody comes in and I tell you, here, you should do this. You need to do that, you should do this. There's also a follow-in approach, which I think motivational interviewing sometimes gets lumped into, which is I have no idea where this conversation is gonna go. Let's just this is like a good friend is going through a tough time. You don't have any agenda, you're just listening to your friend and seeing where that goes. In the middle is motivational interview and some guiding. So think of yourself as a vacation guide, right? Somebody comes to you and says, I'm gonna go to Europe. And the directing approach is to say, Well, you need to go to these pubs and you need to go to these soccer matches, and you need to go to these places, and you need to go here, and then you need to eat lunch here. But I don't I don't know if you even like pubs or soccer. So maybe you do. I just got lucky. The the following approach is to say, Cool, tell me what you're gonna do when you're there. That that's I'm not doing really anything there except listening to what their idea already is. Guide says, tell me some of the things that you like. Okay, good. This here's some things that you might try, or here's some things that I think you might get some benefit from, or something that you might like to do. So if you think of yourself as a guide, when you're having this relationship, you can follow your client's lead. This might be a few, not everybody's into jazz or improv music, but when improv musicians play, they follow each other's lead. And so if somebody goes one particular direction, you follow where they're going. And so it's kind of the same idea with our client relationships or the conversations that we're having with our clients. So we're paying attention. Do they seem agitated? If they seem agitated or irritated, or why aren't you telling, why aren't you giving me advice? You're an advisor. Give me advice, advise me. Okay, then pick up on that and say, Is it okay? It sounds like you're looking for something to something concrete to do. Is that right? Okay, good. Well, have you heard about a trust? Do you know what a trust is? And then you can go down that path. So if you feel resistance, you can lean into it. And so, you know, in motivational interviewing, they call it they call it dancing. So wrestling is when we're fighting each other. When you move, I'm trying to counter you move, I'm trying to prevent you from going a particular way, you're trying to prevent me from going a different direction when we're dancing, kind of like the jazz of the improv music. If somebody moves a particular way, I move with that, and that person's movement dictate what actions I can do next, and my actions dictate what the other person can do next. So in in the textbooks, they call motivational interviewing kind of like a conversational dance where I'm picking up on what you're doing and I'm responding to what you're doing, and it kind of is you know an ebb and flow kind of like a dance. So I would say you don't know how the client's going to respond. So just pay attention. And if you pick up on resistance, you can use that. And you can actually, if you want, if you're comfortable with it, this a lot of this takes practice. If you want, you can actually ask. It seems like, or I'm sensing a little bit of agitation here. Is tell me more about that. Is that true? And they'll tell you, they'll tell you yes or no. And sometimes we're wrong, we're not always right. We're not always good mind readers. So sometimes checking in with what looks like resistance or what looks like frustration, maybe that's maybe this is the first time they've talked this much, and they're didn't know that they were gonna say this much, and they're confused. Why am I? Ted Flus calls this speaker's remorse, where you get yourself into a into a good listener's uh trance and you start talking and talking and talking and talking, and even in your head, you're saying, Why am I talking? Why am I saying this? That I've been on the receiving end of that. It's it's uh it's it's weird. I didn't know I was gonna say all this. So sometimes it could be that I didn't know I was gonna spill my beans to a or you spill the beans or spill my guts to a financial advisor. But here I'm telling you about what happened in my childhood, and I'm telling you about all these weird things that happened, and it didn't even seem to be about money. So maybe it's not so much frustration, and maybe it's vulnerability. And so sometimes it's not as clear. So just checking in and seeing what's what's going on. Reading the cues, though, is the biggest piece of advice there. So if it looks like they're not connecting with what you're saying, you can you can pivot. It's okay. You can come an audible if you're a football fan.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah, I like I like that. That being able to attune right to the situation, which includes the client and also yourself, I think is important. And that permission, like you just mentioned, that it's okay to pivot if there is some resistance, if you're being met with that, you don't have to rigidly stick to the path of this is I'm only doing exquisite, reflective, like listening here. And that's all I'm gonna do here. Like, even though I can tell you're wanting some advice, like, nope, I'm sticking to the script and I'm going to, you know, be the best listener in this situation. It's okay to pivot. I think having that permission and flexibility there as a guide and some discernment knowing when to and when not to is pretty critical. So if we're thinking about, you know, this is kind of conversationally like client conversation, how we're interacting when it comes to using MI techniques. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions around where MI fits into like the process standpoint? I'm thinking about meeting structure, whether it's discovery meeting, you know, prospect, plan delivery, annual review. Like, what are your thoughts around how maybe advisors can incorporate whether it's questions or MI techniques, maybe into that process?

SPEAKER_00 30:48

One of the trickiest parts, I think, for implementing MI into financial advice or financial planning or life planning or whatever we're doing is we want ongoing relationships. When MI was invented, it was short term. There's one focus. I'm addicted to alcohol, I want to kick this addiction to alcohol. Once I've kicked the addiction to alcohol, we're done. Financial planning is there's not just one focus. There's, I mean, there's investing and estate planning and insurance and cash flow. Those are just the high levels. Within investing, there's multiple focuses. Within insurance, there's multiple. So there's that EFEP of stages, there's multiple of those going on at the same time, depending on what the client wants done, what kind of strategy they want, or what kind of outcome they're looking for. And we want ongoing clients, most of us. So there's not, okay, you've done it, tell your friends, you know, we want to keep this, we want to keep this going. So those are kind of the two tricky parts with implementing this strategy into financial planning, is the recognition that, all right, we're gonna meet the client where they are. So if it's a discovery meeting, say, we're in the engaged stage of motivational interviewing. And at the engaged stage of motivational interviewing, we're not really using these org skills strategically. We're not looking for any change talk, we're not looking to do anything except make the client feel heard and understood and acknowledged and safe. Sometimes, if it's a discovery meeting, uh sometimes they're coming from another advisor, but sometimes this might be it might be the first advisor that they've talked to before. And boy, I don't want to show you all the things that I've been doing wrong. And that's what advice is you telling me all the things I've been doing wrong. And boy, that's that's kind of scary for me. So the engaged stage is just to help the client feel from the prospect, I suppose, at this point, be understood. So you're reflecting everything that they say because you want to you want to make sure that they feel like like they got you. And when you do this, they're looking at three, five advisors, those other four aren't aren't doing this. They're not they're getting told, here's all the great things that we do, and here's how we help people, and here's the strategies that we're gonna use, and the whatever. But you come in and you say, love to hear what gets somebody like you to be talking to somebody like me, and then that's it, just super open-ended, and and you reflect and let them feel heard and understood. So just helping the prospect feel understood. That's how we're using that maybe in the early stages. Once they're a long-term client, so maybe the other end of this extreme is every time they the client wants something, they want to do something new, or they're thinking about doing something new. You've entered now a new kind of EFEP, a new stage. You've entered the new kind of it's a new version, new version of the EFEP stage. So I'll use this example. Man, I have some grandkids now, and I might want to move to Texas and sell my place in Maine. Maybe not, though. So this has been a client for 10 years. Now you, but this is a new thing. I haven't thought about this before. So we can still enter the engage stage. It's gonna be shorter than that the prospect stage because we know who they are, but I still want to hear tell me what's going on. What what was the straw that made you think you might want to move? Why are we talking about this now and not last year or yesterday? So we can start with that, but then we can quickly get into the focus, which is I want to remain neutral most of the time in terms of setting this focus. I shouldn't bring my values into this conversation and say, Well, of course, of course, you should move to be close to the grandkids. Are you kidding me? This is gonna be so great. You should sell this place in Maine and move there, or probably vice versa. No, it'd be great to have you got this place right on the coast, and it'd be a great place for the grandkids to come. Not our job at this point. We can still have those thoughts, we just don't client in. We want to help them get to their own focus. So now we're using the or's skills to tell me what it would look like if you moved down to Texas. Tell me what it would look like if you flew down to Texas once a quarter and flew your grandkids up every summer, or and then do which one of these feels closer, which one feels like you, if it feels more feasible. Now we can maybe run some scenarios and see which like financially you're gonna be okay for both cases, or maybe the fact you know the money says one way is better than the other. Well, now they've decided okay, that you're right. We're gonna move, we're gonna sell and move to Texas. Okay, then we enter the engaged stage. So now it's you know back to the original. It's it's should we go on this journey together? Is engaged. Focus is where do we want to go? So I want to move to Texas is the focus. Why would we want to go there? So now this is kind of, I would say, what motivational interviewing seems to be most known for is evoking motivation. So now you've told me you want to move to Texas, and I can start to use these ORS skills a little more strategically. I can ask for, well, first I'm training my ear to listen for ChangeTalk, and we can sign a prism on ChangeTalk, but that might that might be a whole conversation.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

A whole other episode.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Yeah. But high level, there is they like they like their acronyms, DarnCats. I like acts better. But D-A-R-N stands is like the motivational component for it. So you're listening for D is desire, A is ability, R is reason, N is need. So your desire language is I want to move to Texas. Ability is if I did decide to go there, I think it's good. I could make that work. Reasons is I have specific reasons. My grandkids are there, and I don't want to miss them growing up. And perceived need is it's important to do this. And that builds up the motivation. And then on the other side, it's kind of the action side of it. So you got the motivation side and the action side, ACTS. So activation language is I'm getting ready to do something. Commitment language is I'm I'm going to do this. I promise I'll do that. And TS is taking steps, they did something. So you're training your ear to listen to these types of talk in favor of their focus. In this case, moving to Texas. And then now they've they're sufficiently motivated, and now you can say, How do we get there? Is it okay if I share with some strategies? I have some things in mind. I'd love to share them with you. Is that okay? Uh, you know, if you sell the house, we've got to be careful about capital gains, or we gotta, you know, there's all these different strategies. This is where you get to shine. This is where you really get to offer your advice, give you the strategies, give you the techniques. But we've first established rapport, figured out what they wanted, built up the motivation. Now they're primed for it, they're ready for it, take our advice, and then they move to Texas and live happily ever after. And so they have a new thing that they want to do.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Right. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I love kind of what you mentioned there about from a time and place is that usually those engaging more deeply in use of MI skills is usually later on in the relationship. It's likely maybe not best use for kind of first time out the gate, first meeting there. As you said, some of that is focusing more just on the reflective listening and reflecting back to make sure that there is a level of emotional safety that is built up on the client side that's built between the two of you. So, Derek, if listeners are wanting to learn more, if this is their like article experience, right? That maybe you had many, many moons ago, if this is that experience for them and they're like, gosh, this sounds like something that would be really helpful for me. I could see myself utilizing some of this and I'd like to learn more. Where would you suggest them starting? Where can they start to learn more and dive into this model?

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Well, if they're readers, I and don't mind big honking books. I like the textbooks. So go straight to the source. There's a fourth edition out now. A lot of people that I know have the third edition. If you still have that one, that's still a good book. PsychWire is a website where you can learn asynchronously from the founders of motivational interviewing. Or there's a lot of YouTube videos. These are great ways to really dip your toe in and see, got this taste. And I kind of want more of this. Now, admittedly, this worked well for me because I was very interested in just the whole style. If you go into the textbooks, though, you're going to see a lot of examples around parenting issues and substance abuse issues and things that don't really apply to financial planning. So I have a course together through Money Quotient, a bootcamp, where I kind of do a lot of this translation for you, and I take these examples and I translate it into financial examples. So motivational interviewing boot camp to a course thing for those who want to, but even if you don't want to go that far, there's still tons of YouTube videos. There's still tons of resources. PsychWire, often there's discounts if you want to take it directly from the you know the founders of it. But there's just just look for information on it. Once you start looking for it, you'll see it out there everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, YouTube for sure, going directly kind of to the founders, the book. But I love that you guys at Money Quotient are creating, have created, I should say, this boot camp there for. And to your point, I think this is what's kind of tricky sometimes, is that here's this model that it's built out of the mental health field and the translation piece of okay, but how do we translate that into where it makes sense and feels applicable for financial advisors? So kudos to you guys at Money Quotient for being able to take that framework and make the translation there. So, Derek, as we wrap up, I say unfortunately, as we as we wrap up, I like to ask all of my guests a question. And that question is that looking back at your earlier professional self, whatever age you consider that to be, but earlier professional self, what are maybe one to two pieces of advice that you would give to your younger self when it comes to starting in the profession, taking care of yourself? What are one to two pieces of advice?

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Well, I'd be honest, I I don't know that you know anybody more esoteric than me. So when I first read that, my my gut says, I wouldn't change anything because I like where I'm at. Anything that I would change in my past sets me on a completely different trajectory and I'm living in a different city with different people, and better and worse, or just value judgments and I don't know. So that's not the answer you're looking for. The real answer that to actually answer your question is I would lean into and learn and dive into mindfulness a lot earlier. So if motivational interviewing is a magic trick for helping clients change, mindfulness is the magic trick for changing yourself and changing how you interact with the world and cutting reactivity and choosing to be present and recognizing that the past and the future are only thoughts, and right now is all you have. But you can still get to choose mindfully what to do going forward. It's just a practice that I wish I would have done a lot sooner in my life.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Awesome. Well, I will validate the esoteric part of you that says I will change and would have changed nothing. And then there's this other part of me that says I would have incorporated mindfulness a lot sooner. So I think both can exist. Both answers and responses can exist. Typical therapist response, right? I can't help myself. Well, for all of you out there, thank you for joining us today on Planning and Beyond. Remember that exceptional financial planning goes beyond the numbers. It's about creating deeper understanding and meaningful connections with your clients. Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond. 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 enjoy 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.