SPEAKER_03 0:00

The issue I've always had with retirees and helping them spend money and doing all the things that I've done for decades in a lot of cases is just getting the retirees to actually dream a little bigger, right? Quite often they undercut what they're capable of doing and affording. And so what happens is they leave stuff off the table. So I used to get it a lot in the past, and this is what this is where I really notice it is I would go through the whole process, deliver a plan, tell them they have more money than they ever realized they had. And then they'd sit there and go, Well, had I known NET, I would have told you this. And do you think we can add this? And it's like they'd start modifying and you'd watch the dreams grow after the planning process was done because they finally knew how much money they had, or they would make tweaks and just things like that, right? So part of this was actually going, okay, how do I get more of that to come out in what I realized is they just have a hard time dreaming big enough. So I rebranded the discovery meeting as a blue sky session.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the show where financial planning meets human understanding. As an exceptional financial advisor, you know that financial planning is about more than just numbers. It's about giving clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters most. Which is why each episode is designed with that goal in mind. You'll learn how to uncover the psychology behind client decisions and gain insights and behavioral strategies needed to create deeper, more meaningful client relationships. You'll discover techniques for navigating emotional client situations, drawn from conversations with leading industry experts in behavioral finance, psychology, communication, and more. Whether it's mastering discovery meanings, handling sensitive client conversations, or understanding what is truly keeping your client stuck, you'll walk away with not only strategies that you can use in your next client meeting, but also the confidence to do so. Oh yeah, hi. I should probably introduce myself. I'm your host, Ashley Kwame, a therapist who somehow wandered into the world of financial behavior and kind of decided to stay. My mission is to help you bridge the gap between financial planning and human understanding. Because remember, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do. Let's dive in. Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial planning meets human understanding. I'm your host, Ashley Kwame, and today I'm joined by my friend Adam Chapman, founder of Yes Money. I'm ever here with screaming, yes, Adam. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for agreeing to come on.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Yeah, no, I'm super excited. And ever since we met a couple of years ago, I've been looking forward to coming on here and having a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Yeah, and look, today's the day, my friend. It is here. And I will say to those of you listening, Adam and I did a pre-record meeting a few weeks ago prior to this. And we could have made a recording out of that. It was so good. I wish that we had saved that. It was so good. And so I have no doubts that today is going to be a great conversation because Adam, I wanted you here. And something that, you know, we have been trying to do with this podcast is starting to bring on advisors, bring on the actual people who are on the ground, like in the trenches, doing financial planning work, but more than just financial planning work, the human side of financial planning work and really understanding, okay, like what are you seeing that works? How is this landing on clients? What are still some of the struggles? And so thank you for coming on and kind of giving us like a peek behind the curtain. I'm thanking you kind of in advance here. I have no doubts that for those that are listening, they're gonna leave with some really great takeaways there. And with that, let's talk about what we're talking about today. All the great things that, yeah, all the great things that you're doing. Today, we're gonna look at understanding client behavior and designing really a planning process that actually facilitates it. I think that from my work, and Adam, I'd like to hear kind of your thoughts on this too. I think that this is one of the most difficult challenges for advisors, especially those who are human first or like life planners, is understanding that behavior. I understand, maybe they do understand, right, a little bit about what's going on. But then how do I design a plan that in a planning process that facilitates that? What are your thoughts there?

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Well, there are so many people now that are taking an interest in BFI, right? Like how humans react with money, how do we work with them and elicit better behavior from them or change the behavior that they're doing? All these things are incredibly difficult. And I think one of the biggest challenges for planners who are trying to be a little bit more human first is modifying some of the things that were built for a different purpose, right? Like your data intake, your projections, and then your recommendations would be a typical sort of financial planning process, but it doesn't always do the greatest job of weaving in that human side. So I think one of the challenges for people who are trying to get better at this behavioral finance thing, if we want to call it that, is just how do you actually incorporate it into the systems that you're using and how do you modify this stuff that's been around for a while and go, let's tweak this. We've got to make this work a little bit better with a slightly different angle than what it was originally designed to do, right? And that's where I think part of the conversation for this sort of became really interesting, is it's something I've been chipping away at for probably close to 15 years at this point. I've been in the industry for 20, but started bumping into behavioral challenges with the retirement spending challenge, right? Which is something I started working with long before people even realized there was an issue here. In fact, I used to have to prove to people that retirees would struggle to spend. It seems to be a little bit more common knowledge now, right? And this is that just a great example of behavioral finance moving to the forefront of financial planning conversations. But then you still really struggle to take some of those human-first conversations and the behavioral change and questions that we have to work through and put it in a system you can repeat. That's a very difficult thing, especially if that system wasn't built for it. And I think that's that's one of the big challenges that I think this will be fun to discuss.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah. I mean, it's not to that point. I think that what is becoming clearer, more spoken about, more out there is that financial planning is a behavioral profession, uh, which is fantastic. It's like kind of check one, right? Can we first recognize this? And it's like, whoo, yes, okay, all right, we're starting to get there, right? And knowing the numbers, it's really not enough. That's a given. That's table stakes. Giving someone good advice also doesn't mean they're gonna follow that advice. I know that has been a headache for many advisors, oh, for years, right? The knowing and doing gap. I think, you know, you and I have talked about this too. And I think that where I know we're gonna be getting into is a lot of the processes that advisors use, they're still really designed around, you know, gathering information, identifying problems, building the plan, presenting recommendations and kind of just a hope and a prayer that clients are gonna act on them. And maybe even more than a hope and a prayer, maybe an assumption there. So let's kind of start here. If an advisor says behavior is one of the most important parts of financial planning, what should they expect to see in their planning process that really proves that?

SPEAKER_03 7:58

It's a great question. And I would say part of it, and I think on this angle, like if I were looking at it as an outside sort of third party looking at another advisor's process, one of the things I would be looking for is just even in the language of their planning process, right? Because if you look at the traditional sort of advisor thing, and this is on a lot of advisors and financial planning website, it's like here's our intake call, you know, document collection, discovery meeting, recommendation meeting, and then annual review. And it's it's always in that sort of little circuit. But I find language when we start talking about things like behavioral finance, one of the things we actually have to do in a lot of cases is rebrand a lot of what these things are. They need to be named something different because a lot of these things are actually the technical versions that we named them so that we understood our own process.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Right? Not necessarily the things that they should be named for what the clients have to do when they show up. And you know, my Michael Kitsus always makes fun of me when I do some of the work for his Kitz's summits as an ambassador, because I'm very picky on language. And it's amazing how changing a word or changing something like that can actually change just the whole way clients and advisors come to the table. And I'll give you one of the best examples because this was probably the first thing I ever changed in the process to get to a slightly different narrative. Because a lot of planners have to have people sign an engagement agreement. I don't love the connotation of it's okay, client, you are hiring us to do X, Y, Z. So you are engaging us to do work for you. So the first word I changed years ago was I called these collaboration agreements instead.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

Just because I love the simplicity of, you know what, that's what financial planning actually is. And it even changes the way that you would write how that sounds, how you describe it, how you view what the engagement actually is. So it actually even changes the client's behavior because they're even coming in with a totally different wording and presumption of what this work together actually is. It actually sets the stage of you have your work to do, I have my work to do. And it's the two of us coming together and collaborating that's going to get you the best result. If you just hire us and you do absolutely nothing and then we do all kinds of work, you're probably not going to get a really good financial plan. True. Collaboration really seems to work better and just a simple wording change, but then you will find it filters through the document. If you label something collaboration agreement and then read it, it needs to sound like a collaboration agreement too. So simple changes like that, when we're looking at sort of the process, can often start with just let's look at what you're calling some of these meetings and some of these documents and say, is there a better way to name it or do it to get us better behavioral results as clients work through it? Right. And collaboration, I think, is a great place to start, but there's obviously other areas I would rebrand as well as in this whole process.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

I like the collaboration aspect, shockingly, right? Like the therapist likes the word collaboration. Yes. Um, but I I like it for all the things that you said. And when I was practicing clinically, part of my consent forms, you know, I was bound by HIPAA. So there's, you know, I don't, and I know you guys are have your own, you know, two, but you know, there's a little wiggle room that I had there, but explicitly would state like that this, that this is a relationship and that, you know, we are both in this together. And I know that I did have the word like collaboration. It is a collaborative process, right? That's what therapy really is. It's you and me giving input, right? And I think that that word, it just lands on clients. It lands on people just in a way that says, like, oh, okay, from a power dynamic place, right? Like we're partners in this, right? It's not just you telling me what to do, and then I have to go and do it, right? It is, oh, I get a say in this. I can really help to craft what this plan is and have input. So listen, you don't have to sell me on why the word collaboration is a great word to use. I think that it's fantastic for all the reasons that you stated and just the psychological impact there, like the meaning, even if it's subconscious, right? It just feels it feels better. I'm curious, like when you started to make some of those changes, like to language, languaging, starting with the collaboration agreement, even then some of your meeting like names, like what did you notice? Either like for yourself or with clients.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Yeah, I think it was both sides. Cause again, as soon as you change collaboration, right, and you pick something like that, it's also inserting some of your own beliefs into what that is, right? So you speak more confidently to this is what I believe financial planning to be about. This is what I think it is. And it's amazing how just having your own connection to that word or that brand, as opposed to taking the industry phrases and go, what does this mean for me? What do I want my branding of these things to be? You get really good at articulating it. It's no longer just a templated thing that the industry handed you. It's your version of it based off of the kind of work that you do. And then it starts to trickle into other things. Like the collaboration agreement, I would say, you know, clients weren't super enthused. Like, you know, I don't know if they necessarily notice a difference themselves, but definitely the type of people I attract with that kind of conversation because my belief on what it is is so deep. They understand this is a two-way street and working environment. And they're gonna have work to do. And like, we're gonna have some tough conversations. We're going to, as I often have to say to them too, like, we're gonna make you uncomfortable at certain times when we talk about certain subjects, right? But that is part of the collaboration. It's not just let's talk about the numbers. It's we're gonna work on conversations together. And so once I started doing that, and I I realized how taking and getting away from the industry terminology and putting my own spin on it really actually helped me as much as it did the clients. When I started looking at some of the other angles, right? And going, okay, what else in these systems do I think have a name that doesn't work? The next one, and this is this is probably the biggest change where there is a much deeper result that comes from this from the client perspective, but the discovery meeting. That was the one that I targeted next.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Okay, tell me a little bit about why that is. So coming into crossing over into the dark side of financial services, right? I've heard like discovery meeting. It has always been a bit of an enigma to me, though, because I'm like, what does it even mean? So why, why was this for you like kind of that next one?

SPEAKER_03 15:11

Yeah, well, because it's one of those things. I think discovery is a term. It's like, okay, we're gonna go into a meeting and we're gonna discover as much as we can about the clients, right? And we're gonna go dig, we're right. We collect all the paperwork document, maybe you do it a bit before, a bit after. But the idea is through that discovery process is to discover them.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

The problem is, at least for me, because I work mostly with retirees, that telling them, okay, or at least having them think that they're coming in to be discovered, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

It's just feels awkward as soon as you say that. It's like, okay, you're gonna come into this meeting and you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

You just got really uncomfortable. I got really uncomfortable. Yes. Okay. It's not like horrible, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:52

But as a client, that's what you're sitting there doing on the other side of this, is going, oh, what are we doing in this meeting, right? And so at least for me, the the issue I've always had with retirees and helping them spend money and doing all the things that I've done for decades, in a lot of cases, is just getting the retirees to actually dream a little bigger. Quite often they undercut what they're capable of doing and affording. And so what happens is they leave stuff off the table. So I used to get it a lot in the past, and this is what this is where I really notice it is I would go through the whole process, deliver a plan, tell them they have more money than they ever realized they had. And then they'd sit there and go, Oh, well, had I known that, I would have told you this. And do you think we can add this? And it's like they'd start modifying and you'd watch the dreams grow after the planning process was done because they finally knew how much money they had, or they would make tweaks and just things like that, right? So part of this was actually going, okay, how do I get more of that to come out in what I realized is they just have a hard time dreaming big enough. So I rebranded the discovery meeting as a blue sky session, right? So this is what my clients know it as. And it really is it's like, okay, so now just by changing the wording, their purpose and when we say, okay, when because people are, what kind of what do I need to prep to go into this meeting? Right. It's like, I don't want you to prep anything, but we're gonna go through a very long conversation and just get you dreaming a little bit bigger, get you talking about what things might need to look like in retirement, what you might like to spend money on, but come to this meeting prepared to dream a little bit. And that's that's actually all they need to know to come into that meeting prepared. Now they know exactly what they're showing up to do and what I'm gonna take them through without needing to go too far. And I quite often I say, like, if you want to sit and chat a little bit, the two of you, and talk about what you think dreaming bigger might actually look like, please go right ahead. But otherwise, this is what we're gonna do in that meeting. And to sort of your question earlier about the collaboration agreement and like what effect does it have on clients when you make changes like this? This was the meeting where I noticed it the most because what I get clients asking for now, they don't ask for a new financial plan, even though we redo them quite often. When they'll come up and they'll say, Adam, can we do another one of those blue sky sessions?

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

They want that, right? And it's it's because they know what they're showing up for, they know they struggle with something, and they're going, this now branded right with the right process underneath, is now something they actually want. That it's almost like they don't even want the financial plan that comes after. They want that meeting.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

They want the clarity, right? Like I'm like what comes up for me hearing you talk about this blue sky meeting is you know, leaving like with clarity, right? And good gosh, oh Molly. Like that clarity is one of those things that when you've got it, like you just know how good it feels, right? Instead of like being in limbo or feeling lost or just living in uncertainty, right? And and wondering. So I could see where more blue sky, right? Hashtag more blue sky meetings, we would want.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

But there's also a fascinating psychological thing that I've noticed over the years is that when clients, especially when they're existing clients and they know that you know their financial situation, the blue sky actually shifts a little bit. Because usually when you're doing it with a new client, they don't know how much of like you haven't done the full financial plan yet. But when you do it for clients that you've already had for a few years and you do a new blue sky session, one of the reasons why they like it so much is because a lot of people when they get dreaming and they start going, okay, well, can we do this? Can we do this? Right. If there's no one to put that check of like, well, have you gone too big? And a lot of them are afraid of going too big and then being disappointed that they can't do it. So when you're sitting in the room while they're dreaming and you're just letting them go, and you're not saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't afford that, if you're not doing that, then that's an automatic permission that they're okay to dream the thing that they're dreaming. And they need that safe space for just someone there who knows their financial situation. And it's like, it's kind of like, I mean, I don't love this analogy, but it's kind of like a two-year-old testing their boundaries, right? Like, yeah, okay, can we go further? Like, what about this? Can we do this? Can I do how much further can we push this? And they're doing it because they still don't understand where the bounds of their own finances start and stop in retirement. And so those blue sky sessions become really important for them. And I can just sit there and let them even have conversations facilitated by me, but you can watch them push ideas back and forth because a lot of couples don't necessarily want to do all the same things together in retirement. So it's even like, can we have separate dreams? And those cost different kinds of money. You know, doing those kind of things in a space where they can talk about it. Because sometimes I think when those conversations happen behind the scenes, if they don't think they can afford them, it's easy for each other to shut it down. Whereas if they do it in front of me.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Or defer, or even be like, no, no, you'll see some that have people pleasing tendencies, right? That they're like, no, no, just we'll do what he wants. He wants this. Don't worry about mine, right?

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Because they don't think they can afford to do both.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

Right. So so sitting there with someone who knows their finances actually lets them dream bigger and more precisely and do so in a way that when they come up with it, they know they can afford it because the advisor hasn't objected to it, saying, ah, that that that's actually out of your price range.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

I like this point here around kind of doing it with them and as the advisor, like being in the room there. And as someone who has had the privilege of sitting in on client meetings, listening to you know, their advisor say, Hey, that dream. That thing that you wanted, like it actually, we can actually do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

It's possible. And just watching the client like experience that and to take it in and soak it in and process it even like um a little bit. I mean, I used to think that in therapy, when I was doing couples therapy, and we would work through a particular intervention and it would go well. Well, in the sense of like there would be some kind of connection there. I used to think like that was such a great feeling. And it was, I won't dismiss that. And watching clients experience this, like, oh, my dream, this thing that I want, it can come true. Like I'll still be fine. It provides a very similar experience for me. Like there's a lot of just satisfaction. It gives me a tremendous amount of joy, uh, but also like fire, like that. This is the kind of work, right? And this is the reason, right? Why we're doing financial planning is to help clients in these, like experience more of these moments, right? To be able, it's like that Ty Pennington show. Do you remember like the dream house where they would like renovate the house and then the family would like come back and see like their house has been like renovated and they would like open their eyes and like say and then be like, oh my gosh, right? Maybe not quite the same like emotional experience, but it reminds me a little bit of just that, like watching someone, you know, who very much has worked hard and has you know, unrealized like dream, like being able to say, Yes, like this can happen. This can happen for you. How is it okay? Talk about for you a little bit. I'm hearing how blue skies like kind of changed like clients and how it's helpful. What's it done for you, though, as as a planner?

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Well, as soon as you start to do that and you realize, like, as you just described, how good it feels to have people dream a little bit bigger in front of you, like that now meant that as soon as you rebrand to a blue sky session and the goal is to get retirees dreaming more, then your next questions are like, okay, well, how do I do that better? Right. Like that now becomes the objective of the meeting. And now it doesn't even feel like a discovery meeting, so to speak, right? But you have a different angle of asking questions and just how you roll through that meeting. And the funny thing is, and you know, I know a lot of people won't do this this uh length, but pretty much these meetings for me are bare minimum two and a half hours, though I did have one go as long as six hours. So they typically sit between two and a half and three and a half. But it's it's my approach in that meeting. It's not just straight goal setting. We're going further back. Okay. We're doing a lot of stuff because my planning process in general goes into a lot of detail and we actually like handwrite our plans kind of thing. So there's a lot more we do in this blue sky session, but the main thing is to set a target that they perhaps haven't actually set before so that we can then also do and figure out what the price tag needs to be so that we can actually do the math part.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Got it. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Yeah. So for me, like I find these meetings to be some of the most rewarding meetings out of the whole career, I would actually even say, because you really get to learn a lot about people and the people you're working with. But there's also something fun about getting to know someone really well in a very short period of time that you didn't know before. So the reason for the length on this, too, is it's amazing how much you can get to know someone and their relationship with money, their relationship with their family, their relationship with work and retirement and everything in a two and a half hour span. And then you do actually come out of that meeting going, okay, I think I know these people. I haven't met someone exactly like this before. Because the funny thing is, I I used to believe when I started doing this, working with retirees and only retirees, because that's pretty much all I've done for 20 years. I thought, okay, eventually you'll start seeing the same kind of things over and over and over again. And you can systematize and get better and just just make things shorter and easier. And then every time I do one of these meetings, it's like, well, they're kind of similar, but they're also very different. And even different over generations, too. Like I've done these meetings now for retirees who were part of the greatest generation, silent generation, baby boomers, and now the Gen Xers who I have retiring. And it's it's just interesting to see how even these blue sky sessions are different between the generations because of the questions that we ask, because of what we do. And I just find that kind of stuff fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Oh, yeah. We might have to nerd out on some of those differences at some point uh here next time we chat, because I would be very curious to know just what those are.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Can I give you one fun one? Because I think I find this one fascinating. So I love, because this is part of the goal setting thing, and there's probably a whole conversation here too. But one of the things I have the hardest issue with, and this is where, again, trying to get people dreaming, I had to tinker a lot with the questions, the order, how you do it, that you can't just come in and ask the dream question out front. It's kind of like handing someone a blank page and saying, okay, write an essay. It's so much easier when there's stuff on the page already. So what I tend to do in this meeting is we look backwards first. So we go back and have a conversation of how everything's happened and how they got to here before we look forward. So one of the first questions I ask, especially with couples, and I love going in and it's like, because they don't know it's coming. It's like, okay, tell me about your first date.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Right? And I look straight at the guy, and it's surprising because a lot of the wives most of the time think that they're not going to remember the first date. But the men pretty much always, they may not remember the date, like the actual day or anniversaries, but they remember the first date.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

The deed in the details, like a lot of the contextual details. I am a sucker for a meat cue story. That is like I want, I want to know. And I think that you're right. Like the details there most do most do remember.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

So the baby boomers, first dates, pretty much every single one that I have, movies. They went to the movies and they remember the movie. They remember maybe going for ice cream afterwards or going to some sort of uh Did they share a pop?

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Did they share a pop?

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Yep. But they remember the movie that they went to for their first date.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Whereas like newer generations, right? Like that's not a thing. Like that's not really a first date thing anymore, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:52

No.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

But that is that's where a lot of the baby boomers met each other. Yeah. If they're still that, you know, high school sweetheart or college or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah. My grandparents was uh coke in a moon pie. They shared.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Part of me is like, oh gosh, that is like you did well. But I think it's it's sweet. Oh, life out on the farm, you know. Let's just drink a bunch of sugar for our first date and eat like marshmallow like just process. Oh yeah. Uh, but yeah, it's okay. Um, no judgment. No judgment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Okay, Adam, you've talked about language and how powerful language is and what we're in terms of a planning like process and how we talk about things, how we even like describe meetings. We got into your blue sky meeting here. I would love to know a little bit, maybe more or further, I guess, about what else, like kind of would you change about the traditional financial planning process? If the goal wasn't really just to create a good plan, but it really was truly designed to help the client behave differently with money or just feel differently about money.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

Yeah, I think that comes into probably I think the most underexplored and underexamined area is actual what's the final delivery? What's the final thing you're giving them? Because we have that one-page financial plan that Carl Richards kind of wrote a book on and is quite popular. You've got the hundred-page projection or plan that's kind of existed for a very long time. I find both of them to be a little bit less than perfect. I think the one page was a big improvement because it offers some clarity, but I still really struggle to call it a plan. To me, it's far closer to a dashboard. Like it's like an executive summary of the hundred-page version.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

So some of the areas I think that financial planning has yet to really well define is like, what is a plan that actually works? And I'm still in the process, I think, of really nailing this down. But for us, what we do, it's more of a 20-page sort of handwritten plan. Like it's not a projection, it's taking the conversation. So all the stuff we pulled out of the blue sky session, what do we know about them, right? Not just their goals, but what are their beliefs that may or may not be holding them back? That it could be something as simple, they still believe in active management and timing the markets. Okay, I have to, in a plan then, write something, a convincing argument that says, okay, this is why you might want to change this, right? I can't just put a projection down. I can't put things that are just graphs and numbers. I have to explain with an actual argument. I have to help them change that belief into something different. And I think that is actually where the largest struggle in getting clients to execute a plan actually sits, is being able to identify those things in the planning process and then picking them out before you write the plan. So you go, okay, these are the higher order beliefs I need to change in order to move someone from here over to here. And there's lots of different examples that you can run through, both technical and behavioral, right? Just even the question of enough. Okay, let's let's talk it through because there are different angles of enough. And quite often the question is coming from a lot of different places in their history, right? So, how do you then create something in a plan that changes a behavioral belief? Like the technical ones are almost easier. That's where you see a lot of the YouTube content on, you know, I'm Canadian, so we have different things, but like, you know, 401ks are horrible or whatever that sort of, okay, great. If someone comes in with that kind of language and belief, you as the planner then have to reshape that. But let's say someone comes in with a scarcity mindset, you still have to use some kind of argumentation to shift that belief and help them pull that out. And that's actually, I find that to be more difficult using numbers. So you have to use their story, their background, their things, and help them work through an argument that says, okay, maybe this isn't serving me well anymore. It served me to this point, but not now. Do I understand why? Do I understand where it's coming from? Which almost digs a lot deeper into sort of the therapy kind of and counseling approaches of reshaping something that isn't a number or a technical belief. It's a behavioral or human belief that needs to adapt. And this is the way that I I guess try to talk it through when we do the recommendations and stuff. It's I I think some of these things are actually so ingrained in people by the time they hit us, especially on the spending and saving thing, that it's actually really difficult to actually change it. But we don't actually have to ignore it or try to change it. We just have to acknowledge it's there, the kind of ways that it's holding them back, so that we can say, okay, that means in these instances, when you go to do these couple of things, you're gonna feel this sucker tug. Let's just make sure we're aware of it when it's happening and figure out a way to do it anyways.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

And so I think like when you're looking at sort of the process of financial planning, I still think there's actually a lot of room and wiggle room to explore what the actual plan is and what it should be doing.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

That would be the area that I still want to see a much better version and better definition of like, I don't want a projection, I don't want graphs. And especially for me working with retirees, there's actually a lot of data because one of the issues I have to deal with is capacity decline. Sure. So that's the other issue I have to deal with with presenting information, is it has to be convincing, but it also has to be incredibly simple. Because I think, and people don't love to hear this data, but typically around the age of 50 is when you start to enter some form of cognitive decline.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Please don't say that ever again to me.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

But once you know that, okay, anyone who's working with retirees, like you have to realize they are in a state of cognitive decline from the moment they show up. And they can still be really with it. It doesn't mean they're they're having issues the moment you see them, but they are slowing down. So I find even in the financial planning process, it's looking at your client base and the way that you rebrand and reassess these things is to actually look at your client and say, what are the things that my particular client group is struggling with? If your clients don't struggle to dream bigger, then I wouldn't label it a blue sky session. I think you shared an example actually in our pre-call that uh Jake does, where he has meetings just to help people get stuff done.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yes, we can't say that word because I'm not putting the E explicit, but yes, it is the get bleep done meeting. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Because he's identified a problem with his client base, that that's one of the things they struggle with. So he's made specific meetings to do the thing that they struggle to do the most. And I think that's the really cool thing about doing this from a behavioral perspective with your own firm and your own clients is identifying those things that are difficult and then working through the whole process to go, how do we rebrand and restructure everything to help them with that behavioral element that they're really struggling with? And then that's, I think, where it even starts to work into that financial plan of how do we develop that better? How do we rework that to make that work better for our clients who struggle with these processes? So that would be the area that I would be encouraging a lot of people, because I I think after this kind of a conversation, there's probably a lot of quick ones that people can pick off and rebrand and rework some of the language they use around some of these meetings. But then the financial planning part is like the actual plan itself, is one of the areas that I think is the toughest and best one to put a lot of effort in. And that would be where I would I would hope people would target once they do a few of these things.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Maybe they could collaborate with other like-minded professionals there. Well, as we are kind of wrapping things up here, you've given a lot of fantastic suggestions here. But if if someone is listening and they're like, hey, this Adam guy is really cool, and I would actually like to start to think about my process a little bit more thoughtfully, what are maybe one or two tips that you would give to somebody who's looking at redesigning their own financial planning process?

SPEAKER_03 37:41

Yep. First thing I would do is sit with your clients or just sit with the kind of clients that you're trying to replicate and the ones that you typically solve problems for. And I find people can actually do this pretty quickly and just go, okay, like when we have meetings, what's the thing they struggle with before or after the meeting? And then go, okay, then we need some kind of a meeting in our planning process that helps them do that thing. It can be the busy people who don't have time to get stuff done. But then I remember I used to work a little bit in the family market. And it's like sometimes they just even didn't sit to take like family time to talk about the future of the family. And there were a few times like we would do it with the kids, right? And it's like, because what it did, it's just like having a couple sit there and go, okay, let's have structured family time and just talk about things that are important to you. And it's amazing. Like when you get kids involved in those kind of conversations. Now, I also do other elements that include things like giving conversations, right? Because that's a thing that I have to do. But I would look for those kind of problem sets of like, okay, what are the things that that our clients really struggle with? And can we create a space for them to do that thing? And then just sit and think about a way you could rebrand it or work with the language on it. So I would I would identify the client issues that they struggle with, execution, dreaming, whatever that is. And then just look at your financial planning process and just start to go, okay, what are some better words we can use that describe what these things actually are, but not for us, the financial planner, for them, the client. Right. And if you can use language that is meant for them, not for us, you'll find it really starts to shape a completely different planning process for both sides. Because you can get more articulate if that's actually the word that we need to use, what does that mean we have to do in the meeting? Those would be the two things I would look at is framing and rebranding that process in a way that it's language that's meant for them.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

And I think that's the end result people are looking at when you're doing this, because that is what actually has the ripple effect to the questions and the process and everything else you would develop underneath it, all starts with that, right? What do we need them doing when they come into these sessions or whatever step of the plan it is? Let's use language that is meant for them.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Fantastic. Awesome. All right, Adam. If people want more Adam Chapman in their life, yes, if they want more Adam Chapman in their life, please share it with us. Uh, where can they connect with you?

SPEAKER_03 40:23

Yeah, LinkedIn's probably the best spot to connect. I don't have a whole lot of other places I publish and do. Well, I mean, there'll be a book coming out next year, but that's on a totally different topic and everything like that. But LinkedIn's the place to follow me.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Perfect. We'll make sure that we include that in the show notes. And we will send an open invitation for when the book does release to come back and share with everyone. That'll be a fun one. About it, I would love that. Well, thank you to all of you for allowing Adam and I into your ears and into your mind today. It's a part of your week that you don't have to give us, but you're choosing to. And for that, I think I speak for Adam and myself and saying we're both incredibly grateful. If this conversation resonated with you, I would also love to keep the conversation going. You can find me on LinkedIn at Ashley Kwame, where I share weekly insights on the human side of planning. You can also find me on YouTube. I don't think I've talked a lot about that on here, but we are getting into YouTube, my friends. And so you can get out and follow us on YouTube at Beyond the Plan Solutions. You can check us out there where Meg and I record. I think they're cool videos, you can tell me, but nonetheless, we hope that they're at least helpful if they're not cool. You can also head over to our website and sign up for our monthly newsletter. And soon to be coming out in 2027 will be the practice. Now, if you want to know more about the practice, you're gonna have to shoot me an email for right now to get on our waiting list to learn more. But what I will tell you is that the practice is a 12-month training program that Meg and I have been working on that is centered on helping advisors develop the relational skills needed. A lot of what Adam was talking about here today are things that we bring into this. And so this is a 12-month training that you are not gonna want to miss. So shoot me an email if it's something that you're interested in finding out more about. You'll be seeing that come out on all of the socials, all of the things here later in the year. If you would like to follow the show, please check us out wherever you listen to podcasts, Apple, Spotify, all the things will be there. Go ahead and hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode like this one. And as always, my friends, remember finances don't have feelings, but your clients do. 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 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.