The One System That Finally Stopped the Work-From-Home Bleed

Intro Welcome to the seven Figure Advisor Podcast,

Speaker 3 the show for financial advisors ready to scale their business to seven figures and beyond. Each week you'll get proven growth strategies, leadership insights, and best practices. From someone that's helped countless advisors break past the million dollar milestone.

Intro Here's your host, Nick Davies.

Nick Being distractive at dinner with your kids and your family is not as easy as it used to be. "Oh, I'm thinking about that thing, that specific thing, that client. Did that client sign that? that big roll of, did that client sign that? And that EOM, did it come in?" It's not often as obvious as, like, a specific thing that you're thinking about.

Nick It's the fact that you're just not present. And so it's not like there's one thing on your mind, "Oh, I've got to just deal with this, and then I can move on." It's a bunch of different things which has just taken away your [00:01:00] presence. And so if someone asks you like, "Hey, are you paying attention? Are you here right now?"

Nick and you wouldn't be able to, like, focus on one thing. If you were, to say, "Okay, it is that one thing. I was just waiting for this one thing to come in," then you can compartmentalize that and say, "Oh, that's done. Now I can move back to it." But because it's not clear about what a given thing is, you take all of it with you.

Nick It's kind of like with your spouse, if you have an argument about something silly, like emptying the dishwasher, and it gets a heated discussion about that, it's not about the dishwasher. It's about the 5,000 other fights that perhaps didn't get resolved in a, in an appropriate way beforehand, then it all stacks together.

Nick Same thing. And so bringing that stuff home is not as simple as just that one thing. Oftentimes it's a stacking effect. And so what do we need to think about is that we need to think about, okay, how do you give yourself permission, especially in the world that we live in now. Often if you're a planner advisor, you're hybrid or you're, fully at home, fully remote.

Nick You- maybe your office is at home, like many of my clients. and so you wanna make sure you can give yourself that [00:02:00] delineation between when I'm supposed to be working and when I'm not, right? And it's not uncommon to work and then go do family stuff and pick up your laptop and go sit down again, right?

Nick And there's nothing wrong with that per se. The point here is being really clear about what is it for you and when are you giving yourself permission to say it's done. And literally when you're done at the end of the day to say, "Okay, this is now. When I close my laptop, that's it." And tell yourself, like, that is where it sits together.

Nick And you might be thinking, "Well, what about this? What about that? what if that client needs me? Or what if my team needs me? what if I suddenly have a client get into a point where they, like, they need me immediately?" One of my clients told me this week, I thought it was perfect, is that if it's something that's urgent that's wanted from you as an advisor, as a planner It's probably not actually that you need to deliver it because clients don't urgently need to go and do the-- r- review their plan, right?

Nick They might have a, an issue that they n- need to put the fire out on, but nine times out of 10, someone on your team or [00:03:00] someone in your team could do that. And so n- not gonna have an emergency planning session. If they do have an emergency to plan, then it's probably that, it's kinda too late and we're backing into it anyway.

Nick So think of it from that perspective. As you go through your day, what do you need to put in place such that you can give yourself permission to move on to the next thing, rather than just having constantly in your mind going, "Okay, I'm gonna go have dinner now," or, "I'm making dinner," or, "I'm being with my kids," or, "I'm going to the gym," or, "I'm going to go date night with my wife."

Nick But you're thinking about that thing in the back of your mind. So putting it together as a process in your business, the right sort of cadence and thinking about, okay, what are the operating processes? How do I need to make sure that my team is putting this together such that I know that I can give myself permission?

Nick Because we've got two things at play here as always is that we've got the mindset of success and we've got the science of success and setting up your environment for success. Because absolutely you could say, "Okay, that's it. I'm on vacation," or, [00:04:00] "This is family time. I'm not doing any work." And you can do yourself out and you can do that for sure, but it requires willpower and it requires you going, "All right, screw it.

Nick I'm open to whatever happens. This is the time I need. I'm burnt. Like I need the time." And you will do that when you need to do that. When you take the vacation, you'll be like, "Okay, I'm out. That's it. I'm good." Or you'll do the periodic check-ins, whatever it might be. But you could also build the system such that you know when you're not there, it does work for you.

Nick And you can test this out on a smaller basis as well, rather than waiting for the big vacation. Okay, letting your team know that you're not around after 4:00 p.m., letting your team know you're not around at all on a Friday, and making sure that, like, they're-- they ask them what they need. Empower your team.

Nick Create, again, that ownership in your team in order that they can step up and be the best version of them, and your clients are gonna end up with a better value proposition anyway. Because, as always, it's worth reminding us that, like, nine times out of 10 when our [00:05:00] clients come calling, they ask for you because you're the person.

Nick You're the person that delivers the value. You're the person that knows the most stuff. You own it. you're the primary contact. You're the primary relationship, and nine times out of 10, they don't actually need you. They just need to get the result they want to get to. And so they're gonna ask for you by phone, by email.

Nick But if we're setting up the system in the team where your team's asking, "Hey, absolutely we can get you in contact. What is it exactly that you, you need?" And getting clear about that, they can probably deal with it in that moment as well. Because the clients don't-- again, they don't necessarily want you, they just want to get to their result.

Nick So if you can think of it that way around, your firm, your team is providing a result. It comes through you. It doesn't have to be directly into you. One of my favorite tweaks and hacks here is to be thinking about rather than you... And this is what happens when as you grow through your practice.

Nick When you first start out, it's just you. You're starting to get things going. You're getting some production rolling. You're starting to see-- [00:06:00] maybe you're starting to see the AUM stack. You're starting to see GDC rolling. You're starting to see the PCs coming in. Okay, cool. And then now you've got something you know you, you can do it.

Nick It works. And then you've got to start thinking about, okay, going from a producer to a business owner. And after you start to think about being a business owner, you've got to think about, "Okay, who do I serve here? Okay, I serve my clients, but also I want to serve myself, and my family, things that, that matter and are important to me."

Nick But you've got to think about the business as a separate entity. This is why having a DBA is really helpful as well, because you can think about... You can call it something else. You can call it that DBA and say, "Okay, what does the DBA need? What does my business need?" Not me. I'm just part of it. And if what-- You can put yourself in a place where you're seeing the business as different that you and your team serve, that way s- it-- we can think about providing the value to your clients, not through you, but through the business in its entirety.

Nick And you can disassociate yourself from that clamp that sometimes we feel is so powerful, that you can go home [00:07:00] or you can go out of your office and know that, "Okay, I'm done for the day." And giving yourself permission to say like, "I'm now done for the day," not just because of like sheer will, "I'm so tired, I must," but to know that you've got some systems, you've got an operating procedure, you've got a rhythm with your team which moves you towards what's most important for you as well.

Nick Because think about the impact otherwise. you take it home and maybe it's one of those days where it's not acute, right? It's just ch- it's chronic. It's in there somewhere, and you're at dinner and maybe, your kids or your spouse or both are there, and everything's okay.

Nick There's not one big thing that's on your mind, but you're not quite as present as you want to get to. you didn't quite rush over to give like your daughter or your son a hug as they walked in the door. It was a little bit sluggish. Or,you went to make sure that like you ran upstairs quickly as you came in the door before you went over and talked to your wife or talked to your husband, whoever that might be.

Nick and even if it's not a big deal in the moment, your spouse will feel that as [00:08:00] well, and that starts to be a weight. And this is how it's really true that im- our businesses can impact all other parts of our lives. And if you take that person that's not quite you in that moment, and you're pulling too much of the other stuff with you, then there's some resentment that can build into that as well.

Nick And your spouse will start to feel it. You'll start to feel some of that weight, and that will slowly spill into the-- that part of your life. And this is what happens oftentimes, and we don't notice it because it's so gradual. It's so gradual over time. And I just thought about a, an old book when I-- that I read when I was a kid, where we-- where there was this, It was a Roald Dahl book, and, the piece of the book was that, in order to, th-think about that this person was getting short, this old person was getting short, every morning, the kid would come and glue this tiny, like, millimeter-thick piece of wood to their walking cane. And that one day, and two days, and three days makes no difference.

Nick But after six months, like, it's like it's a big difference. [00:09:00] And by that point, it's kind of too late. You've built some sort of, depth into what you believe it to be true. Belief builds slowly over time through evidence gathering, and if you don't notice it until that you're too far in, it's really hard to unwind as well.

Nick And what happens is planners get to a point, advisors get to a point where it's like, "Okay, well, I need to back off on my business 'cause it's impacting my most important relationships." And whilst that must be true, backing off is not the answer. it's thinking about it clearly. It's stepping up and being proactive.

Nick It's thinking, "Okay, what must be true in my business? How must I raise my standard in my business such that I can continue to hold the standard that I must be with the people that I love around me?" And by doing that, you solve everything. This is really a- A, a story about operating procedures, but really a story about who do you wanna be as a person.

Nick Do you wanna be the sort of person that says, "Okay, I've got a situation here. I've got a challenge. This is the next version of it. How must-- How might I win overall, and such that [00:10:00] everyone in my universe can be better off from this?" s- having a win-win approach, which I believe was popularized by Stephen Covey back in the day, "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," fantastic book.

Nick And I believe in four wins. So rather than a win for me and you, how about a win for me and you, and a win for the people that are immediately affect- affected by the thing that we're doing right now, and a win for the greater good overall? Think about that in your business. What do you need to put in place, that structure that's systematic through you, through your team, correct the cadence, such that you know that you can win in the time-bound focus that you've got for your business, and you can win in your personal life because you're making the delineation between the two.

Nick Not the separation, not two different people, not it's so far away that, like I can't get my head in either space, it's too hard to flick, but making that space where you say, "Okay, this time I do this, and I'm free to do that because I know that I've closed a loop on that other thing." Go forward.

Speaker 4 [00:11:00] Thanks for listening to today's episode. Hit the Follow button to be notified of new episodes and visit seven dash figure advisor.com for more resources and to connect directly with Nick. See you next time.