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Speaker 1:

This is the ultimate advisor podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful, and scalable practice. Each week, we'll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals, your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets and create the advising practice that you've dreamed of.

 You'll be joined by your hosts, Bryan Sweet, who has more than half a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson the driving force for advisors looking to hire, improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices, marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So, what do you say? Let's jump into another amazing episode of the ultimate advisor podcast.
 

Brittany:

Welcome back to your ultimate advisor podcast. Brittany Anderson here, with Draye Redfern and Bryan Sweet. And we're going to share a big secret, so you really need to pay attention to what I'm about to say. The world is not going to end on December 31st. Now, I guess I can't say that with full certainty, because 2020 has brought us some crazy stuff, so I guess it wouldn't shock me. So if on January 1st, we're not here to grace the world with our presence, we know that it ended.

 But no, in all seriousness. And we talk about setting you up for great success going into the end of the year, planning for the upcoming year, people often become so fixated on a 12/31 deadline, where you want to accomplish everything humanly possible by that one date. And I don't know what that is. I think it's because people are tracking their revenue growth year over year, and you're always trying to beat some proverbial target, and then maybe once you get comfortable with your revenue, you come up with other things, because that's what high achievers do. And we just put these bounds on this calendar year, January 1st to December 31st, and that's what makes us feel good.

 So the problem with that is that we can fall into a trap. We can actually lose focus because we're fixated on so many different things leading up to that 12/31 date. So, I know we talked a little bit about tying up loose ends last week. So if you didn't tune into that, you need to. The week before, we talked about how you can keep your focus with some unique spins on that. So you got to check that one out. You absolutely can have a fresh start on January 1st. I'm not saying that you should never have, I guess what's the word, a new year's resolution? Or you shouldn't have that, that date be a forcing function because I think it can create some really good habits in people.

 What I'm saying is, is do not stress yourself out to the max by adding a ton on your plate at the end of the year, when you're also really busy with everything else that the holiday season presents. There's a lot of stuff that you've got going on. So one thing that I want to push on a little bit, that we haven't talked about yet, is that one way to tackle this ... So last week we talked quite a bit about EOS the entrepreneurial operating system. So we've actually worked with quite a few of our ultimate advisor mastermind members on creating an actual plan ... not just for 90 days, not just for one year, that's all included ... but it's a three year look forward.

 And the cool thing about this is it helps you get past that big 12/31 daunting date, because you have something bigger than that to look for or to look forward to. What you're doing is you're setting a target for three years. You're setting a vision for your company and for your future. And the cool thing about it is you can do it both professionally and personally mixed in one, or you can separate the two, whatever works for you. But it's a really neat process because it allows you to focus your attention on the things that matter, instead of getting caught in the whirlwind and making yourself have a miserable few months, just because it's Q4, just because 12/31 is approaching, which if you think about it from a logical standpoint, is kind of crazy.

 So we stress ourselves out because of some date. But the thing is, it's just an end to a quarter. It's just an end to a 90 day period, and it allows you to roll into the next 90, and the 90 after that, and the 90 after that, and so on and so forth. So again, this has been something that's really enlightening. A lot of our mastermind members come into the program wondering, okay, I've hit the ceiling of complexity. I've encroached or just crossed over the seven figure mark in my business. I feel good. I know that I can scale, I know that I can grow, but I'm not getting quite to the point that I want to get to.

 I'm not quite breaking through that barrier, because I know I'm capable of more. I know that there's more out there that I can do. I just don't know quite what systems to put in place to make it happen. So something as simple as again, you can go to the EOS website, just Google it, and you can find this vision traction organizer that I'm doing, talking about. They put it all online. Just going through that process and getting so crystal clear, I actually just had a call with one of our members last week and they did this process for the first time. It was literally like, you couldn't even keep them in their seats. We had a Zoom meeting, and they're just both so energized, so excited. The second in command was actually more excited than the primary advisor, because she's like, "I feel like I have a track to run on and I am holding him to this. I am keeping him focused if it's the last thing that I do."

 So she was so stinking energized going into this, and it's because of one simple thing: it's because they had a vision for the future that was clear. And what that allowed them to do is exactly the things we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks. It allowed them to set a one-year plan, and then back into that one year by creating those 90 day focus items, as the process likes to call under EOS, they call them rocks. But essentially, it's a fancy word for a goal, a target, an initiative. Whatever you are comfortable saying, that's really what it is.

 So instead of just throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks, be strategic. One of the questions we ask ourselves at Sweet, and ultimate advisor, and I know Draye does this in Redfern media is, if this isn't supporting the three-year vision, if this isn't supporting what we're shooting for as the future of the company, then why the heck are we spending five seconds on it? So it helps you say no a lot faster. It helps you say no a lot more, and in turn, say yes to the things that get you really stinking excited.

 I can't stress this enough: stop stressing yourself out just because of some proverbial deadline. Stress yourself out about having to go to the holidays with your in-laws. That's a legit stress, not stressing about having to come up with a business plan. So, Bryan, I know you can add some light to some of the things that we've done. And in particular, I think, because you have been that person that, that let the end of the year really stress you out in the past, and it has gotten light years better in the last handful of years. So I think, talk maybe a little bit about how shifting to a June full year planning meeting has made a difference, and how living in 90 day increments has really made an impact for you.
 

Bryan:

Yeah. You hit the nail on the head. I was absolutely terrible when it came to the end of the year. What it did to me is, when we weren't focusing on the three-year goals and the 90 day goals, I just looked back at all the things that we didn't get done, versus all the great things that we did get done. And so I really, really struggled with that. And it has gotten much, much better, for the reasons Brittany mentioned. But it really turned what was supposed to be a great holiday season into the most stressful time of the year. And I literally hated to come to work.

 And a couple of things that Brittany alluded to has been immensely helpful. The three-year focus, where are you on that three-year focus? It's not all about what are you going to get done in the last month or tie up things before the end of the year? The 90 day focus and focusing only on three items has been a remarkably helpful. But as Brittany alluded to, one of the biggest things is that we changed our year end planning. Our calendar year is our end of our year, but from a planning standpoint, we use a meeting in June as our two day away from the office planning time, and that really has changed my focus, because all the year end planning that you normally had to do in November and December now is done in June.

 So I don't have to worry about factoring where our goals are going to be and all of those things, because that's actually middle of the year. So that's been one little tweak that's been remarkably helpful for us. And I think one of the things that you want to do is recognize when you're in that condition. And as Dan Sullivan alludes to, it's called the gap versus the gain. And I mentioned before that open brain syndrome, you'd probably see my picture in the dictionary. Well, if you looked at the word gap and you'd probably see my picture in the dictionary also for that.

 What's amazing though is that, if you really focus on this gap versus gain, as I alluded to in the last podcast, it's amazing what you can get done in a long period of time. Unfortunately, us high achievers, we always like to focus on what we haven't done, what the next goal is, where we want to be. And you don't take the time to say, "Where have I come from and what gains have I made?" If you spend a little bit of time at the end of the year, or just maybe even doing it monthly, you're going to shock yourself as to all the amazing things that you've actually gotten done, especially if you follow some process like EOS and traction that we've alluded to, because it's forcing you to always work on the big things. And then a lot of the little things, as we alluded to, also get done.

 And it's really, really important. And now that I'm aware that I did that, and we've made a couple of changes, I look forward to the end of the year. I spend a lot more time talking about the wins, as Draye likes to call them. It's a lot more fun, because seriously, whether you're at a level you want to be or growing, everybody has done some amazing things over the last 12 months. And you just need to look at what it is, celebrate it, be aware of it, and don't worry that you didn't get every single thing done, because you'll never get every single thing done.

 It took me a lot of years to get there. But let me tell you, it is such a much better feeling, and you just appreciate every day so much more. I don't know, I'll turn it back to you, Brittany. I don't know if there's anything you'd add having had to live through me being in that gap a lot. But please feel free to add any clarity to that.

Brittany: 

Yeah. I was thinking about this, what Bryan doesn't realize is, we used to actually draw straws on who had to go into the meeting with him first.
 

Bryan:

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
 

Brittany:

I'm only kidding. No, it's a real thing. I think it's something that's really important to honor and just embrace, is that if you've been that person that turns into kind of a crab at the end of the year, it's not because you're a bad person. It's just because you're focusing on exactly the things that Bryan just talked about. You're focusing on all that you wish you would have done, all the things that you still want to pursue, and it can cause you to go into a negative mindset or what we like to call stinking thinking.

 And in reality, there's been great, amazing things that you've done. So, I think Bryan brought up a really great point, and Draye, I'm going to have you jump in on this in a minute, but there's one point I want to push on. That's that I think the highest achievers ... and a lot of people listening are very high achievers ... but the highest achievers are the ones who can recognize when they're in the wrong state of mind. Because what happens is, for those that don't, and I believe this is a choice, that choose not to recognize it or just to keep going down the rabbit hole, are the ones that get stunted in their growth.

 So when Bryan brought it up that he actually touches himself. He knows when he's going down that path of falling into what Dan Sullivan calls the gap, when you're focused too much on how far you have to go versus how far you've come, it's like a switch can go off, because you're like, Oh shoot, I'm going down this path. Maybe I just need a quick boost, and then I'm going to be back on track. Let's just put the big elephant in the room right now, the pandemic. This has messed with people's heads. There has been a lot of uncertainty. There's been a lot of stress. There's been a ton of pivoting that's had to happen for businesses. We're in an industry where I feel we are very, very fortunate that for the vast majority of us, especially the high achieving type practices, we have not been devastated like other industries.

 So we were deemed essential through all of this. We're able to carry on business as normal, with some tweaks and changes, but that's not the case for everyone. So the thing I want to point out here, which is kind of a side note, but I think very relevant to all of this, is that if you find yourself in a negative state of mind, or you're looking into 2021 going, "I have no idea what the heck is going to happen."

 We have the other elephant in the room, the election coming up, or the election that just happened actually. So you look at that, and whether you're happy with the result or not, it doesn't matter. It causes uncertainty across the board. So I think it's one of those things where if you don't know ... None of us have a crystal ball, we don't know what the future is going to bring. You just have to understand that if you find yourself going into a negative funk, or you're focused on all the things that you have to do, or the things that you're unsure of ... How many times in life have we all stressed about things that haven't even existed or happened yet? We're like, "Oh my gosh, this could be the worst thing in the world, and let's talk and spend hours stressing about it."

 In reality, it's like we're creating problems that don't even exist yet. So there's a point in being proactive and being prepared, but there's that fine line where you cross over into, okay, maybe I'm going down the rabbit hole a little bit and I need to reel it in. I want to press on that, because I think, when you're looking at the end of the year, you got that high achieving personality, you might find yourself focusing on how far you still have to go versus how far you've come. The biggest thing that you can do is catch yourself, is just know when you're going in that direction. So Draye, I want to bring you into this because I know, number one, you do a whole ton of work around mindset, which I think is really powerful. But also, I know that you put different plans in place within your business. We do it within ultimate advisor coaching as well. So if you could shed some light for our wonderful audience.
 

Draye:

Yeah. I said actually, it's been fun to listen. And part of me is like, man, after all of this talk ... and I've known you guys have done it for some time, but after all of this talk, I think I want to change to mid-year planning as well. I like it. It's hot as heck in Texas in July or June. So maybe you're onto something. Maybe I ought to do that for next year. But as of this year, there's a couple of things I think that, going into the end of the year and the 90 day blocks and all of these sorts of things. Without reiterating too much, I'd say the biggest things that we really focus on is, Bryan mentioned it a bit ago in the last podcast as well, as focusing on the gain over the gap, the Dan Sullivan concept is, I have like the Peter Thiel of, I want to accomplish 10 years in six months.

 I want to move quick and move fast and just make things happen. That's great most of the time. But there are limits to that, obviously. So it's easy to get for me to get down on myself, like we didn't this and we didn't do that. What about this? What about this other thing there that we didn't even get started on this year? Oh, woe is me. And that's not my natural modality. I'm a very happy person, but it's tough not to be a human and go there.

 So it's really just, I think at the end of the year, we talked a little bit about it last time, as we do the away from the office, renting a space. And then more than anything, just celebrating, celebrating the group and celebrating the team and celebrating the wins. Because at the end of the day, we have people in humans that work in our business, and if they're not happy and if they're not feeling motivated and they're not showing up with the absolute best potential and bring in new ideas and concepts to the table, then it's easier for stagnation to occur, and I don't want that.

 So complacency is not allowed. At least for us, when it comes to going into the new year, recognizing that it doesn't just end at the end of the year, but also realizing we've got a lot of other opportunities. It's something else for the team to look forward to. So I just think all around, it's definitely served us well there. But I would definitely want to reiterate some of the things that you guys said earlier, just reinforce that. You might've made a convert of me on the mid year planning session.
 

Brittany:

Yes. We've got him. Well, I guess before I go any further, anything else you guys want to add just on this topic to round out really helping people focus past the 12/31 deadline? All right. Good, good. I'll keep going. This is the biggest thing here, is that we want you, out of this podcast, to have things that you can tangibly focus on. So intentionally, normally we wrap up each podcast episode with a few key things we want you to do. Well, I skipped over that the last couple of weeks, because I want you to have a plan out of this whole entire series. We did these three episodes back to back. You need to listen to all of them. Go back and download the one from two weeks ago. Download last week's, and listen to this one again.

 And the reason for that is I don't want to give you an overwhelmingly crazy amount of things to do before year end. You've got a short period of time to close this out and to hopefully help you feel mentally more prepared than you have been in previous years. So the top three things that I would recommend that you do to set yourself up for a killer end of year, and to really roll into 2021 with great focus and clarity and drive and hunger and excitement: number one, we have said this so many times, and I'm going to say it again, create a three-year vision. Whatever method you feel necessary that fits you, create a three-year vision for your company, because it allows everything else that we've just talked about over the last few weeks to really come into focus and come into play.

 So, allowing you to focus on the few key things that are moving you towards that bigger picture in a 90 day period, it essentially eliminates any calendar year. So whether you do your planning meeting in June or December, it kind of doesn't matter. It does for us, because it's kind of a mental game, but it really doesn't matter because you're constantly making progress towards something that's bigger than today, that's bigger than the whirlwind that you're in. So that's the first thing that I highly recommend you do. Can't say it enough.

 The second thing is to really decide between now and the end of the year, what are a couple little housekeeping things that you could knock off? Again, maybe it's a little bit of organization. Maybe it's a new calendar. Maybe it's creating a planner like Bryan did, something that's absolutely fitted to you and what you want. Maybe that's something that you tackle. But whatever it is, do something that's going to help you feel like you're closing out 12/31 without derailing you from your big focus items and getting you fixated on that date. Because really, that date doesn't matter. You're going to go to sleep and wake up the next day just like you did last night. It's one of those things where, don't put too much stress on that, but maybe do something to give yourself a little bit of a positive momentum going into the calendar year.

 Now the third thing, and this is the little golden nugget for those of you who are still listening. So here's your gift. And that gift is, one thing that we have done at Sweet Financial to help you consciously celebrate the wins, because I know how hard it is. And for a high achiever, you accomplish something and you're like, "Awesome. Cool. Go team. Onto the next." Right? Because now you're ready to tackle the next big thing. One tiny little thing, a little habit you can get into, is creating a weekly email for your team.

 Now, we have a pretty strenuous template created, but the biggest goal is to do a few key things in that email. Number one, give them a little dose of inspiration. So I write it out every single week. We have a positive quote and then some context around that as to why that quote was chosen, and why they're such a great team. So even if it's been a tough week, even if you've had a couple people that maybe have had an off week, when you have that note to look forward to, it's basically saying, "Hey, we're here to pull you up. We know that things can happen, but we celebrate you because we've chosen you on this path and you've chosen us." That secondary is probably even more important than the first.

 So doing something to celebrate the team, but also making a client notation. I can't tell you how many times in a week we have clients make comments about how wonderful the staff is, so we put those little snippets in there. We put a little question for them to answer. And then we also honor who is living up to our company core values on a consistent basis, and we actually give tangible example to that every single week so we're honoring the great things that are happening amongst the team.

 Now, the cool side effect of this is what do you now have? You have a bank of a whole entire year's worth of awesome weekly stuff that's happened in your company. So we also include in there, if we have a revenue milestone or an amazing quarter or we give light to how many assets we've brought in for the week. Not to just talk about the assets, but to actually show the work that the team is doing to make that happen and create experiences for people. So it really helps you keep focused on what matters and it's a really simple task. Yeah, it takes a little bit of time and it takes a little bit of thought, but it's worth it.

 So that's something that I highly recommend. If you're going to put one thing into play going into the new year, start that weekly email, that again, highlights a win for the week from a client, that inspires the team, that calls team members out, that catches them doing things right. It is stinking easy to catch them doing things wrong. It takes conscious effort to catch them doing things right. So I highly, highly recommend you put that in place. And then, like I mentioned briefly, we have a fun question I like to throw in there and I am telling you right now, I ask really bizarre questions. But there's a reason for it. I like to get to know the team. We want to understand what makes them tick.

 And sometimes, it takes asking them ... What was the question I just asked recently? It was, if you could bring one thing into the afterlife, what would it be? Now, regardless of what they think about the afterlife, the answers that you get back to a question like that are hilarious, and it speaks to who they are as a person. So it's just cool stuff like that that helps you deepen the relationship with the team, helps keep you focused on the big wins. We always include what the key initiatives are for that quarter. It's listed in black and white so people are seeing it every single week, without fail.

 So, that's something that I highly recommend you do, that I think is a big win, and that'll help you keep your focus going into the new year and help the team rally behind you to help you keep that focus for your business as well. So all of that being said, I'm going to give you one more chance, Draye, Bryan, anything else you want to add?
 

Draye:

I really liked this series. I think that it's definitely been something that's needed, that's easily overlooked as far as the things that are talked about or the sexy things or the non-sexy things rolling into a year, just to hopefully give everybody definitely some good perspective as far as what they can focus on. This has been a fun one and I've enjoyed this one for sure.
 

Brittany:

Awesome.
 

Bryan:

Yeah. And I would add, we've done 80 plus of these podcasts, and we've not talked about the little weekly email and that has ... I'm sure glad you brought that up. Cause that has had such a positive effect in the office for something relatively, very simple. And it's just such a great way to capsulize the week, and great things that have happened, and it forces you to get everybody in the same page. I just can't say enough things that, that's the secret sauce, and if you're going to take one thing from that series of podcasts, maybe do that one thing.
 

Brittany:

Excellent, and I could not agree more with that. Well, that rounds out this wonderful episode of the ultimate advisor podcast. We will be right here, back with you next week. Hey there, Brittany Anderson here. If you are loving what you're hearing on our ultimate advisor podcast, don't keep us a secret. Share us with other advisors that you think would benefit from the messages that you are hearing. The easiest way to do that is just simply send them to ultimateadvisorpodcast.com.

 And, if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimateadvisormastermind.com. As always, we are so happy to have you here with us as part of the ultimate advisor community, and we look forward to a continued relationship.