From Comfort Zone to $7 Figures: What Top Advisors Know with Nick Davies

Nick [00:00:00] It tends to be the default. If someone asks you what you want, you tell them what you don't want, and we know that what you focus on is what you get. Right? And if you're focusing on what you don't want, you're not gonna get what you do want.

Amos Boom, boom. Alright, Nick, finally. Good to be here. Here we are.

Nick That's right.

Amos Finally, oh my days. We have some time blocked off. Super excited to have this conversation with you. You and I have. A lot of conversations about a lot of different things, and I always feel like it would be great for people to be a fly in the wall on some of our conversations. So today we're gonna give people a sneak peek of the conversation. How are you today, man? How are I?

Nick I'm feeling really good right now. I've got this sprint on, business sprint, health sprint, and, been working out a ton. And, I started to see the effects of it, so I just think clearer. I look better. it's my day off today. workout wise, but I just did a ruck this morning.

Nick Did like a 30 minute ruck, one of those like weighted vests, some, and, uh, walked around it. That's good. That's good.

Amos [00:01:00] That's what you do on your day, working out actually. That's your day off. Working out. You walk around.

Nick Active rest. Active rest,

Nick active rest, or a couple issues.

Nick Well, you know what, what I'd like to share about that, if I may just real quickly, is that. How I, I've been lifting weights for years on and off in different ways, and now in my forties, I've actually just reset a lot of things of what I believed to be true.

Nick And I've realized I had so many old beliefs in there from when I first started lifting weights when I was like, in my teens, early twenties, and like, like it's so easy to overtrain and I, I can only do certain things together. It's just been really interesting journey. Like right now that like the last few weeks I've been doing a split of push pull legs.

Nick So I have three day split and then repeating it. So I'm essentially training everything in twice in six states, whereas before, like I wouldn't have, but now because my workouts are tight and it's like there's also, you can also train the recovery to get quicker. So I, I just like that concept has been really interesting to me.

Nick Right. The rot getting the rotations right, you fit more in. So before I were like, okay, I only do those things once a week. So if I'm tight [00:02:00] on that, I get it done once a week. That's great. I'll do it again next week. Now I'm hitting it a little bit less time, but more frequency. So I'm actually getting in two rotations of success each week and I feel that that's just interesting overall as well.

Amos Why the change in your overall workout? Like did you have some type of epiphany that made you say, oh my gosh, I gotta, changed the way I'm working out. Was it just because you hit a certain age, why the change in your routine?

Nick I'm a big fan of sprints. I'm a big fan of saying, at this period of time, what do we wanna achieve?

Nick From a business perspective, from a health perspective, from a relationship perspective, whatever it might be giving back and what we're trying to achieve right now, how can we create parameters around this so we can win in multiple levels. after the school holidays, it girls back to go back to school, we were away at a beach, came back first day back from the beach.

Nick I've been preparing to go on this sprint end of August to end of October. And I've got this big event I'm doing, I'm speaking event I'm doing in [00:03:00] Texas at the end of October, the week before that, we've got a couple days away in Cancun. And I thought, okay, what perfect time for me to focus on my health and to focus on business to get prepared for this event, plus loads of other things I've got going on.

Nick But those are the anchor things. So if I can work on my health, which actually allows me look, my health, when I say health, I mean not just my physical body. I mean, my thoughts, my clarity, my articulation.

Amos Okay. Mental health, everything. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick I can think better. I can speak better. I've got more time. I can execute quicker.

Nick My focus is better. that's the mental preparation. So that's the business reason for going on the sprint right now. And then they overlay it with like the health focus and then going towards this Mexico break, you just get like a double whammy of extra juice, man. And so like just.

Nick Enjoying leaning up to it. So this

Amos mental or this, mind shift or this way, you are thinking in general, right? This doesn't [00:04:00] just come to you one day and you've been living like this. This has been over time, right? And you pinpoint a time in your life where you could say, I started to think. Because your story is mad, by the way.

Amos I love your story personally. Like it, it's probably the closest resemblance to my story. Yeah. When you did it in, you just went to the extreme, in my opinion, with travel and all that. But was there a point in your life that you can just kind of pinpoint and you could say, alright, I was going this way and then this happened.

Amos And my life has since been going this way.

Nick Yeah. there's a few for sure, man. But the one I'd like to share, Amos, is a distinction that what got me relative success early on in my banking and my finance background. Like I spent 20 years working in big banks with other world, you know, that.

Nick But for everyone else. And what I found when I first started into that, and I fell into that at a really young age, was what I assumed as just getting on and working. Some people wouldn't do it and they would like take breaks [00:05:00] and like the first job I had was like handing out trading tickets, like manually handing them out.

Nick And the guy that would work with me who was in tech rooms, there was so much going on. one other guy worked with me, you know, like, I've gotta stop to eat. I'm hungry. And I was just carry on guy out. I'm like, what are you talking about? There's all these things to hand out, like, we've got time. These are time bound like things.

Nick And And just having that mentality shifted me to stick out a little bit. I got to stick around. I got more opportunities from that. And then, so the mentality I started to develop there, Amos, right, is taking opportunities. I'll be the guy that takes the opportunities. I'll do the thing that no one else wants to do.

Nick Like I'll take on this team, go work in this team because like it's doing terrible, I'll do that because if I take on a team that's doing terrible, make 'em better. Everyone's gonna notice that, that it's better. 'cause I've got like a difference. So taking opportunities, taking opportunities to make opportunities, that was what really helped me.

Nick But the shift that I made and the realization I got is if I'm just taking opportunities, all I'm doing is helping, as I saying, goes, helping someone else get their dreams rather than [00:06:00] getting my own.

Amos Mm mm Okay. Okay. Walk us down this plane, man.

Nick So when I lived in the Philippines, That was an amazing experience, but I was also in a lot of ways, like it was a terrible experience, right?

Nick I was miserable, but I got a lot from it. And I remember saying, I wanna do something else. I go into my bosses and go, I want, I wanna do something else. Like, I'd love to, work in a different country. I'm your guy. Like, tell me what it is. What do you need fixing? I'll go and do fix it. And I really thought that was the best attitude to have because I was like, well, I got you.

Nick Like whatever it's, you need, like, I got you. What I realized was I was actually causing a problem for them because they then had to go and figure out something to give me. So I had a smart guy, my boss, like. He was smart. He said, think about it like a bit box grid.

Nick He said, give me three types of jobs that you would want and or nine box grid, three types of jobs you want, and three locations they could be in. So I got like a matrix and for me to get clearer about what I want, but it would also help him go and find those opportunities for me. 'cause I, I thought like, by saying someone, oh, I'll, I'll do [00:07:00] whatever you want.

Nick You are now giving them the problem, then they've gotta figure out, it's like, okay, all right, you send me whatever you want, but I dunno what you want. so that mindset of like taking opportunities works early on. But when you start to have a bigger feel where not everyone knows everything that's going on, you've gotta flip it around.

Nick Start to define your own opportunities. Right. And I just could, so that's the difference.

Amos you deal with advisors in their own right already, and you are not just trying to get people up there, you are helping 'em maintain.

Amos Leapfrog into the next bound next areas of what they're trying to do. So how have you been able to take that and apply that to advisors essentially, where don't create the problem, right? Just kind of help me, help you identify what you are really trying to achieve. Like how have you been able to take that into your work with advisors?

Nick So this whole thing now translates to the fundamental question that we all ask ourselves. Now some of us are really aware, some of us are less aware and most in [00:08:00] between. Fundamental question is, what do I want? Fundamental question. Right.

Amos It depending on the day, the answer could change honestly. And that just means you really don't know.

Amos Right.

Nick I was, putting my oldest daughter to bed the other night and like, she's about, to be nine lights are off. We just, we're talking a little bit and I'm about to leave. She's like, daddy, What's it like to be you? I was like,

Amos that is a question.

Nick That's a good question. I thought that was really cool I said, oh, okay. how do I ask her a question back? Not to like bamboos of her, but like, just to help her gain more clarity so she can ask me a question that she actually wants an answer to. Because like that's the question she wanted, but it's so broad, right?

Nick Like, the obvious question about is like, what do you mean, right? When I, so I was like, okay, what could she, well, from her, she's like, you mean what's it like to be a daddy? She's like, yeah, that's, what it's like. And I just said to her, you know what it's like to be me.

Nick right now when I know it's really important for you to go to bed 'cause you've gotta get ready outta for school. And you don't wanna go to bed. And, you just say, I don't wanna go to bed. I'm not tired, I don't wanna go to bed. And then in the [00:09:00] morning when your alarm goes off and I'm here at six 15 and you tell me you don't wanna get outta bed

Amos because you're tired.

Amos Oh my gosh. Isn't that frustrating? But the

Nick point is that that's the flip on the the question. It's all about the question. Right. And I, I knew what she meant, or at least I could have an idea of how to figure out what she meant. But when it comes to, you know, asking other people and asking ourselves fundamentally what we want, it's too big of a question, even though it's a very small question.

Nick It's a big question. what do you want in context of right? The second,  uh, what part of your life? Like it. because if you just ask the question, like, just like that dryer, people will just start to tell you the things that they don't want. I don't want my business to be like this anymore.

Nick I don't wanna be running so many meetings anymore. I don't wanna do my applications anymore. then they might like dip into, I wanna have a better, you know, relationship with my spouse or like, I wanna spend more time with my kids.

Amos Are you saying that's not really the right way to approach it? Is that what you're saying?

Nick Yeah. it tends to be the default. If someone asks you what you want, you tell them what you don't want, and we know that what you focus on is what you get. Right. And if you're focusing on what you [00:10:00] don't want, you're not gonna get what you do want.

Nick The best you can get is being okay with what you don't want.

Amos Okay. Because you get what you focus on.

Nick Right. Exactly. Now, it's interesting for me, Amos right, knowing you, like I know you now. Right? I know where your mindset is at. And that you don't think like that. I'm sure you have your moments as well, but most of the time you're thinking about what can I do?

Nick What can I create? Where do I want to go? What is it? There's obviously always clarity opportunities,  that's the baseline, right? So that's how I translate it. So it's, everything comes back to what you want. In order to really help people figure that out, you've gotta ask more specific pointed questions.

Nick What are you trying to accomplish right now in your business? It's too broad of a question, but it's a nice place to start. Okay? So you're trying to put better systems in. You're trying to lead a team. You're trying to figure out how you get more people to buy some of your time back. You're trying to grow,

Nick You wanna make sure you got better client service, better onboarding. there's a whole host of things, right? It's like, okay, cool. And then next question you might ask is, okay, I've got all that stuff so people feel good about sharing it. [00:11:00] And then you might say, alright, specifically, out of those, what would you point to to say success is?

Nick out of all those things you shared, I know that they're all important, but at the end of this year, on New Year's Eve, what would be one thing out of that stuff? If that could happen, would make you really happy.

Amos I call that the future lookback.

Amos That's the, term I've coined for it. The future lookback.

Nick And it's the only way to work because the number one thing I see with advisors that's who I work with. So I see it for advisors, but I, you know, I have some legacy clients. They're not advisors. I've worked with plenty of other businesses.

Nick It's business owners, successful people that once you get to a point, you start to ask the question, what opportunity should I take right now? Which one should it be? And so smart people. come and say, okay, I've got these five opportunities. Which one should I take? I can see a path for them all. Which one should I take?

Nick you can figure out an answer to that, but that's for me the wrong question to ask. To your point, Amos, the be question is, what's the future back? Where do I want to get to? What to quote, Covey, Steve, [00:12:00] Stephen Covey, start with the end in mind in the relative timeline that I'm looking at. what do I wanna get to?

Nick And when you're looking back, it's much easier to see which one of those options. Can get you to where you wanna get to because when you are actually assessing the options

Amos saying, you could also play out the steps

Nick and you can play out the steps. Absolutely. Right? Because if you're looking at all the options you've got in front of you, you can't help but be influenced by their all their potential.

Nick And that's why it's, it's confusing to get to that. That's the biggest thing, is like, it's actually right in your own ticket. Write in your own story. Be in charge of what you want. if your lifetime is a collection of books, if your lifetime is a collection of movies. poems, like whatever it might be, it's which one are you in right now and how does it end?

Nick Not what's the next scene? How does it end Right before the credits come up? what's happening, right. And like start at that point wherever you are. And then as you said, then look back and see which opportunity you need right now.

Amos I used to, not many people know this, right?

Amos But back in the day, growing up London, I used to ghost, right? Right. [00:13:00] Lyrics. Yeah. Multi-talented man, multi-talented. And I remember, if I was having a challenge writing four bars or 16 bars, whatever it was, if I could figure out what my punchline would be, right, that ba, that part that line in the verse that you would hit you like, Ooh, I would write that out.

Amos Then I would work backwards. To build up the story towards that punchline, to allow the punchline to be like, Ooh, like, I didn't expect that. wouldn't be surprised to find out. A lot of other people do that, so I have to ask the question, 'cause this who I am. Right. What is it like being you?

Nick from a business perspective? Is that where you want to start?

Nick yeah, yeah, yeah. I find that number one, right? Like, A lot of people, I think when you, first start out in something like many years ago, there's a questioning of yourself, I remember when I was gonna get, I was getting into coaching. I was just trying to figure out what it is because I, I feel like I was doing a lot of that when [00:14:00] I was still working corporate big banks. But I was kind of just instinctive rather than like, what actually is it? And I remember saying to my wife, I'd be good at that.

Nick Right? Like that, says I, so I'm be good at that. Like, you don't really know until you do it. And then there's that filling out process and like developing it and then making it real and validating that and going through those stages. Right. And there's always a case of like, the biggest thing that's the start off piece is that how can I really help like these people, what is it that I can do that to add value?

Nick what's the mind? Proposition to helping people. And when I was a Tony Robbins coach as well, I, he used to hear from a lot, lot of other coaches. And I certainly felt like sometimes myself, like getting a client that was a, you know, like a, an owner of like a billion dollar business or like a, you know, a hundred million dollar business, whatever else, like lots of money and coaching them for success.

Nick And I go, well, I, I've never done that direct thing. Never done that direct thing. And there's an argument about that, right? Like, it kinda makes sense. It's not about that, right? It's about understanding where people are, understanding what people want, and then using not only from a coaching [00:15:00] perspective, which is helping them lead through exploration for themselves, but also overlaying experience.

Nick So that's why I love working with advisors. That's my sweet spot, right? 'cause everything is through the modality of coaching, but I also get to overlay my significant leadership experience. I get to overlay what it means for me to create operationally how things systematically come together. How to get the right people in your team.

Nick And that's always fun for me 'cause I love helping people get to that next place. I love helping people go, oh yeah, like that's it. There's that little tiny breakthrough, and the more I work with advisors, obviously the more I know specifically about that and the more I can help back. Right.

Nick And it's just, it's so cool for me. Happens every single week, most days of the week where I've got like a whole bunch of advisors back to back to back. And. The themes will be like a lot of the same things for the week, and I'll work with one advisor and I've already talked to someone else about that same thing, that same day, and all the stuff that came outta that, that next advisor gets as well.

Nick Right? It's like it's this really cool web of like, you know, [00:16:00] as you know, like some of these, some of these letters gentlemen know each other, but some don't. Right? It's like they get this, really cool overlay. but it's a lot, it's a lot

Amos best, best to have you or, or to meet with you at the end of the day.

Amos 'cause you would've absorbed all this information and then you can get it loaded on. So, so I'm curious here, pivoting outta you into just advisors and your experience. You met with whole of them and you're on a mission to meet with a certain amount of advisors by a certain period of time. and definitely you could share on that too.

Amos What if you were making a gumbo, right? We're New Orleans, we're making a gumbo, we're making the right stew. Right? And we're putting in different spices. And this gumbo will essentially be a successful financial advisor. And when we say, when we talk about success, we're talking on the financial side success.

Amos What are some of the ingredients you have found common? Hyper successful financial advice.

Nick I really like this question [00:17:00] because I've got take on it, that often comes to me is a bit different than how I think it's normally answered, this type of question, right? Because you can say, okay, what makes a super successful entrepreneur?

Nick And people can talk about the traits and stuff. I think that there's lots of value, for thinking about that overall, but I'd like to dive into it a little bit more. Right. To think about what makes them successful, moneywise at which stage, because I, I'm sure you can do this reflection for yourself, like right now with the amount of time you've been in a business, the transitions you've gone through, what you need to do now to hit that success for you for right now. If you went back to year five, if you did those activities, it wouldn't work.

Nick Right.

Amos What they say, what got you here won't get you there. Right? Like I didn't go this far just to get this far of, yeah, yeah. No way. The person I was in year five compared to where I am what? 1718. To even get to the next level. working hard. It [00:18:00] doesn't get me to another level. At this stage, working hard is not even the equation anymore.

Amos That's like a minimum. It's the way I work is what's different now. But you know, back to you on that. So how do you answer that in terms of what you need at each stage? Like, are you gonna answer that based on someone being at this stage, someone being at this stage? Like, how do you answer that?

Nick Yeah. that's exactly the point though, right? So like, depending on who's listening to this, if you are, an advisor or if you're not, it is true for business overall, right? Because everyone grows at a different rate. So you could pick five years. For that person in five years, you know? And like a different business could be already like cranking at 10 million or something.

Nick Right? Like, or they could be just trying to get for their first six figures. So the years aren't necessarily, they're correlative for sure. because advice of not working any harder is great advice for someone where you are and you're a level experience. Telling that someone in year one not to work any harder probably aren't gonna be the right thing, but there are some themes, right? Like overall, so first of all, it's knowing. It comes back to that same question, [00:19:00] right? Knowing where you are and what you want. they're not the same thing. They've gotta know where you are. 'cause some people aren't clear.

Nick Where they are. What actually is true in your business and, and what actually is it you want from that?

Nick Right? So some of the traits overall, right? Like when you're first starting, you gotta think about the resources that you've got. Most of the time, the resources you've got is your ability to pick up the phone and add value to people. And you gotta start to think about, okay, at a certain point, working hard runs out to your point, right?

Nick Okay. I can't work hard anymore. If I just push more on it, it doesn't make any sense. How might I be able to buy a time back for myself? And we both love the book buy back time, right? but you can think about that earlier on as well, right? Right. Now if I'm cranking right now, I'm spending, how much time am I spending doing applications, doing admin stuff?

Nick If you're early on. How can I get someone to take some of that stuff off my plate, right? how can I think about going trading up activities, trading up activities? And, I've gotta share this with you 'cause this is a, this is like an, an analogy that I had in my [00:20:00] head. Like I've had this in my head for years let's see if it resonates or not.

Nick Right? I, I just, my thought is like an aircraft hanger. Aircraft hangar, like big open space and all around the inside of it is like shelves and things to put stuff like tools and like empty space and that. And each time, like something comes into the hangar, right? A plane comes in or just like let's say we're using it for like some big, big thing.

Nick Like this big like tent comes into the hangar basically fills up the whole hang. That tent is the thing. You gotta work on your business right now and the tent is like up, right? And it's falling down a bit. But like you've gotta do maintenance on it. Like you make it work, you make it stable. You are like, now I've figured out how the tent works.

Nick I've figured out how it comes together. I can put it back up. I can put it around, I've got the tent. But your whole workspace, which is the hangar taken up by this huge tent. So at that point you've actually gotta disassemble the tent, put it in the little spaces, in the slots at the back. Which all numbered and lettered so you can access it if you need to.

Nick Creates new space. Next tent please. And that process of knowing [00:21:00] which tent to work on in your workspace at any given time is success because that workspace is that hanger, that open hanger is your head, is your brain, power's your juice. And if anytime that's full up, you can't use it for anything else.

Amos I'll say I understand that analogy. And the same token, I could understand why somebody wouldn't understand that, because I think you have to get to a certain point where you have to understand that you can only focus on three to five fingers a day.

Nick Yep.

Amos To fully understand that analogy, you know, because at first I was like, where is he going with this?

Amos And why is the hangar important? But I fully get it. The hanger is your capacity, your overall capacity in there, and the tent or whatever it is that you're building. What you're focusing on. But the reality is what you may be focusing on is not the priority. And some things you can have others take off, take off your plate.

Amos Focus on the primary focus. So I'm gonna flip it I know you long enough to [00:22:00] know I can't corner you on a question, right. And get an answer. So I'm gonna flip it. What are the seven deadly sin? And it could be less, but you've seen advisors succumb to. That has led to, or the falling of an advisor or that keeps some advisors from leapfrogging to the next level.

Amos What are some of the deadly sins that you know of that you rattle up? This one, I feel like regardless to stage, you can identify it.

Nick you put some numbers on it, man. That's cool. Let's see what we can get to. Alright, number one is the dreaded comfort zone.

Nick you gotta train yourself to have a visceral reaction to that word, like, Ugh, makes me shiver. Right? Comfort zone. What is the comfort zone? We all know this one. It's a place that dreams go to die. It's a place where like, Everything's okay. Everything's okay. Isn't nothing wrong with being okay.

Nick It was just like, oh, just like, just, tell a like day down and just like be okay with things and, look, we're all looking for that comfort. We're all looking for that certainty where if you spend too much time in your comfort zone, [00:23:00] things get worse and worse and worse. And there'll be a day there you'll go, how did that happen?

Nick How did that get so bad? then you are massively in a pain. And so you always wanna be. Through the comfort zone. You wanna, touch the comfort zone and bounce back up to the pleasure. You don't wanna be in the pain and bounce back up to comfort zone and then just come back down to pleasure.

Nick So comfort zone is the number one thing. People that are already successful, you need to be constantly stirred up in order to be focused on what you really can create as well. So comfort zone for sure. And that probably covers a, covers a few over. belief in themselves. It's a big one.

Amos Lack of belief, you say?

Amos Is that what you mean?

Nick if I invest in on getting another team member, what if I can't afford to pay them, with weather businesses right now? Right. So really you could translate that to like a scarcity mindset as well.

Amos Yeah. But that applies to every part. Like, you know, God knows how many advisors I've spoken to about getting staff on board.

Amos Just the fact that you free up time and you know, the fear is, oh my gosh, I can't afford it. I said, bro, trust me, [00:24:00] when you've got that bill to pay, you'll find a way to afford it. Plus you freed up so much of your time to be able to do more of what you are already doing anyway, so yeah, I'm with you, man.

Amos And even at the highest level, when people need to scale out, they still don't do it. Even if they have enough coming in, they still don't do it. So

Nick Yeah, I mean that, it always feels, so that's why the belief in itself is required okay. Maybe you're in a position where you are just starting out, kind of, I got some business coming in I need an assistant.

Nick Oh, I can't pay something like 40 hours a week. I can't figure it out. Get someone for 10 hours a week, pay people for the results more focused and do it that way round. Like just create a little bit of space. Maybe you've already got three people in your team. Like I kind of thinking about, I want a marketing person.

Nick Ah, that's a big lift I got, like, believe in yourself. Think about what those things are. spoke with an advisor yesterday and never met before. Really cool guy. Came out of management, created his own firm. Two other advisors. Well, one partner, another advisor coming in, [00:25:00] he said 2023, decided it was all in.

Nick spoke to my, my partner and we just decided we're going all in in marketing. We spent a hundred grand in marketing the first six months, website, videos, all stuff. He's like, he's like, burn boats, burner boats. We're going. he said it's been a dream ever since.

Nick Only been two years. He's rocking. And that like all in, the more you go all in, the more results you get quicker. Massive action, massive results. Right. Okay, so here's another one as well. Advisors, that believe that they're the only ones that can speak to their clients and add value. They add

Amos that's something that you, at every level that you at.

Amos Every level. Yeah, that one just hit deep, man, that one hit deep when you said that. my fault on that is because essentially it's allowing your staff to be able to, all your team, to be able to speak with some clients and so forth. The reality of it is if you [00:26:00] think it's more of a question on the people you have around yourself as well.

Amos Right. Like if you have these people around you or you are not comfortable with them dealing with the people that they're supposed to be dealing with, yeah. That's something that really needs to be addressed. that fear of, oh man, I'm sorry that that just cut deep. Cut deep.

Nick Yeah, I mean, there's interplay in all of these, right?

Nick Like it's, oh, they, like, if someone else calls my client, they're gonna think, why, why, why am I not calling? that's a possible outcome, right? But it's all in the framing. It's all in the setting up. And what you are saying is that I'm limiting myself, limiting my capacity, and ultimately limiting the amount of impact that I can have on more clients because I'm just focusing this, you might say, that's okay.

Nick Like I've got a boutique business. I just wanna focus on like these a hundred clients and I really don't want to grow any more than that. Alright, that's cool. That's on purpose. That's specific. But also you gotta bear in mind that if things aren't growing, they're dying. If things aren't growing, they're dying.

Amos That's very true. Things don't stay [00:27:00] still, man. Yeah.

Nick even if unfortunately, and it's kind of sad, but if everything in your life is just the way you want it right now, if you leave it the way it is, it will get worse.

Amos It'll fail. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick You have to push forward. You have to constantly push forward.

Nick That's a huge one. Yeah,

Amos that's very fair. That's very fair. Okay. I like that. All right. All right.

Nick Okay, so how about, there's a ton, a ton of great advisors. There's much less great business owners.

Amos Man. Let's go, because I've been saying a lot of advisors are great at giving advice, putting together plans, blah, blah, blah, but they don't know how to run it.

Amos And the reality is, regardless where you are, if it's captive, if you're in the banking channel, if you are independent, you are running a business at some stage, you're running a company, essentially, right? The RIA and all that, I just don't get how people don't spend time on the. Business management side and just running the business.

Amos It's a business. Like anything else, it's a business, right? [00:28:00] Like, you know, debits and credits for business, so that's interesting. Do you find that as more apparent, the higher up you go? Or is it more like in the middle you find people don't really know how to run their business, but they're good at what they're doing and that's what prevents them from.

Amos Going from like that middle range to the elite range.

Nick I had a call with, an advisor out of Canada last week as a guy I've known for a little while. And, we were talking about advisors around the 300,000 GDC, just, just income, revenue numbers. And, and he was saying, he wasn't, he's a really humble guy, but he's like, I, I could do 300,000 in my sleep.

Nick He said, advisors that are about 300,000 number. Probably don't realize that they could double it like that.

Amos Yeah. You know what, that's an interesting number and I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. That is so crazy

Nick there's definitely certain like levels and breakthroughs, right?

Nick Because, Tony Robbins quote I love is, proximity is power, if you are relatively at the top of the people that you interact [00:29:00] with, it's really difficult to go to the next level 'cause you're not seeing it in action with others. If you're at 300,000, and that's why it's great to be in teams, it's great to have masterminds.

Nick It's great to be around other, other people, that bring that together and have that. Observation. If you are making 300 and you are, you are, you are with other advisors that are well into the seven figures, it's gonna rub off on you, right? You're gonna start to see some of the things that you could do, and even if it's just like you are just where you are in your, journey and your, like, you've, ready for speaking to these other guys that you are just getting started, like it will prevent you hitting those ceilings or make it easier to break through that.

Nick So I think that's the distinction because certainly one of the things early on that advisors do is not think about their business as a business. They do think of it like a job. I'll come up and do these things, especially if you are coming into an organization you know what, from a leadership perspective, what happens, right?

Nick Like there's an expectation that I've gotta do something for my boss, and that's helpful because like that's

Amos manager says I should do this, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Nick My manager [00:30:00] says that. Right, so that sounds like a job. It's like, what are you thinking about? And look, let me say outside of this.

Nick anyone listen this, that does have a job that like their job is getting paid another salary, then still think of it like a business. It's your life. Own your life. No matter how you do it, you've gotta think about you, you're in, you're in charge of that. So yeah.

Nick Making that distinction

Amos Correct way you show up and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're not guaranteed that paycheck, man. You're not like, you're really not. So if you are W2 or not, so, I like that a lot. That that was a. So, like I tell a lot of the newer advisors, you hang around newer advisors, like, you're not gonna learn much there.

Amos And misery loves company. Like, it doesn't make sense. Like, if you want to succeed in this business, attach yourself to the hip of a successful or successful advisor. Like if you hang around the barbershop long enough, you'll get a haircut. Right? That's what Denzel says. So it's the truth.

Amos Like I, I think about it. I never hung around really. Advisors [00:31:00] are at my level or whatever it was, because I knew we weren't gonna learn much. Like, you know, I mean, we're all gonna complain about how tough it is. I always hung around those that were doing better off, significantly better off. So that was always my thing, so I, I loved that.

Nick okay. So that, comes back to again, what do you want? Right? Because if you are in a business to make the best possible business you can, and to be the best advisor, planner, impact person you can to do the best for your family, you are gonna be thinking more like that.

Nick If you're thinking, this sounds like a good idea, someone told me it's all right. You are gonna be looking for the pathways resistance mode. Yeah.

Amos It's a job.,

Nick And my experience directly from that was 20 years in banking till I realized, oh, this is not what I really want.

Nick It's a game to me. I was pretty good at the game actually. it afforded me lots of things. I got lots of experience, but ultimately it wasn't a place where I was like, passionate about. Doing that next piece and ultimately what led me to leave as well as the pull to coaching the other side of it was that I realized that in order to really [00:32:00] leap to make this really successful, I'd have to want it so much more.

Nick not work harder, right? Because we know that doesn't work. I work harder, doesn't work, for us anymore.

Amos But this part here, the hard, like you need to push, like,

Nick it's like I have to be into it. Like I have to care about it. I just didn't care about it. So after what, you can play a game like, oh, that's good.

Nick It's fine, it's fine. It's fine. But there were a point where the game starts to get really difficult and then at that point you've gotta really care to push you through. Yeah. I was like, I don't wanna play anymore. I was like, I'm out. Like I don't care enough to bother play anymore.

Amos It was fun for the meantime, but Yeah, .

Nick All right, so that was five. Okay, so leadership is the next one. Leadership kind of overlaps a little bit.

Nick So again, thinking like a business owner, but you gotta start thinking about how am I leading myself, leading my team? And it starts to become more about not how do I deliver for my clients, although obviously that's too important. It's like how does the firm deliver to my clients? And I think that's what's important as well of thinking about having a firm or producer group.

Nick And think about it as a separate entity and not thinking about it as [00:33:00] yourself. That way it's much easier to act like a CEO act, like a leader to deliver for that entity that can't talk for itself.

Amos give us an example of that then. That be the dead least too.

Nick Yeah. Example, you know, would be that right now I'm thinking about there's a advisor, he has two other advisors under, then three people in, like on his staff and what gets as leaders, we're all our, the biggest choke holder in our success.

Nick Right? the goal is always to get out of our own way. And what's been really helpful working with him is that rather than thinking about things, from his perspective, like, like he's gotta do that. he thinks it through the firm's perspective and uses that name so. It's less encumbered by the emotion of those things.

Nick 'cause he's thinking about it from an entity perspective. Oh, I've gotta do that. And then now what are they gonna think about me if I do that the team plays? Like, and how can I represent myself to that client? Or I don't want those clients 'cause they, ' they don't feel good to me anymore because I, yeah.

Nick So rather than thinking about it from his perspective, you can bring it back from a, from the firm perspective [00:34:00] that maybe that smaller client. Still is a client of that firm, but as an advisor, he's not the one delivering or servicing that client. So it's much easier to say, oh, I want that. We do want that client.

Nick I won't be serving them. But that's part of the bigger picture. And so just that enables you to see things a bit differently. So that's a great way to think about leadership overall. And ultimately, the most important thing about leadership is being able to share the vision about what you are trying to create and where you're going.

Nick That's it. Here's the distinction between management and leadership, which I think gets conflated all the time. Management, you can't manage people. you can only manage processes if you try and manage people, meaning tell them what to do, even if they're getting paid to be told what to do. They might do it for a little while and then they'll be looking for the first opportunity to get the hell outta there.

Nick you have to lead people. and that's frustrating because you can't actually make them do it. create the picture, paint the picture and say, look, this is where we're going. How cool is it? Get excited about it. Well, if you're not excited about it, then you won't walk anyway.

Nick You gotta, like we've talked about before, right? to influence [00:35:00] people, what we've gotta do. Let them know that you are influenced.

Amos Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Nick Right. Or also differently to influence people. You've, find out what already influenced, and so you are painting the picture. You are telling 'em what the picture is.

Nick This is what leadership is, this is where we wanna get to, and this part of it, I think you'd be fantastic for, as you grow in your role, you can really fill that gap. How does that look for you? And you're not asking that person to take on your whole vision. What you're saying is that that 20%, their 10%, their 5%, their 50%, whatever it might be of your vision.

Nick Does it overlap enough with their vision? they can create the person they want to be inside your vision. And sometimes what leaders do is just open people's minds up to the fact that they need to know where they're going to have a vision. And sometimes it's enough to go, I'm really excited about where we're going in this company and this, this firm, and I want to be following this guy.

Nick 'cause I'm excited about it. right now that's a proxy for my vision. Man.

Amos I think that's a big challenge for advisors, especially with staffing. And especially with hiring, know, a lot of companies [00:36:00] have hiring goals where it puts pressure on a lot of people in leadership roles, right.

Amos Leadership roles and intents. They have a tight, don't mean they're really leading. And with these pressures, they're hiring people. Don't have a goal aligned with them. Yes. Even when you're hiring staff, like you know, you've gotta know what their long-term vision is and you've gotta find a way to get rid of the fluff of people interviewing well and really figure out what they really want to do.

Amos And can you add value to them as they are adding value to you? One hand's washing the other. Right. And I feel like that is a big, big challenge. When you find a lot of people, that's a big thing to hire, right? I think the vision has to be aligned in some way higher, right? So I love that. Alright, we've got one more.

Amos We've got one more. The big one. What's the big one, man? The big one.

Nick The big one's. Actually the little one. It's back to basics. It's back to basics.

Amos It's always the bloody basics,

Nick the analogy I always give, right is likes [00:37:00] the champion, MMA guy. you know, he win the title goes off, takes a few days off back to the gym.

Nick First thing he does, throws jab cross. first thing he does those like warms up jumps, rope like basics to build up. Has he done anything in times of fall? Yes. Yes. Is there a nuance. to doing it more and more. Yes, like repetition. That's another tongue of Robin's quote. Repetition is the mother of skill.

Nick And you think about when you first start off, going from zero to one is the biggest leap, and then going from one to 10, you might get a big distinction going from one to a hundred. Like that's, excuse me, 10 to a hundred, that's a big thing. Maybe 10 to a thousand. You start to see that. And then from a thousand, is it that 10,000 you need to get to, you know, like it starts to become exponential.

Nick How much more you need to do to make a difference, but there is a difference, it's hard to tell what a difference is unless you're someone who's done that many as well. So if you've done a thou like let's the old Bruce Lee quote, right? Fear not the man that knows a thousand kicks, but done one kick a thousand times or 10,000 times, right?

Nick [00:38:00] Like it's, if you've done that kick 5,000 times and you see someone else that's done it 10,000 times, you might be able to see it. But if you're a guy who's done it a hundred times and you see the 10,000 guy, you go, oh, what's the difference between the 5,000 and 10,000? It's like nice wine or nice whiskey.

Nick You dunno, you dunno. You've gotta draw the distinctions because on the face of it, it's the same. It's the same. and so like back to that basics, 'cause the basics aren't the basic. Here's a very specific example advisor that I worked with, last week. we're talking about. Referrals, his favorable introduction focus.

Nick And one of the things that we realized that it's not, set up in the right way. I said, talk to me about your agenda with your clients. How do you think about your agenda when you meet the clients? I don't have one or more specifically. I used to have an agenda and this is what happens, right?

Nick The basics are you need an agenda. 'cause you dunno what, you, dunno what you're doing. Well, you gotta be reminded what you're doing. And then after a while people know what they're doing. They get good at it, they go, I don't need it anymore. Bang. And that, that's not wrong. But here's what happens when you put the basics back in, when that person's already [00:39:00] elevated.

Nick Now the agenda serves a different purpose.

Amos Correct?

Nick It creates even more clarity for the client. You can be even more pointed and specific. And he said to me, ah, I dunno if I can, if I've got time right now to create a new agenda, I've got a really busy week coming up. I've got this, this, and that. I said we can do it right now in five minutes.

Nick And we did it right then in five minutes.

Amos You know, we used to say, we do things so well, we stop doing it.

Nick That's bang. That's it.

Amos That's, that's what we used to say in my old office. We do it so well, we stop doing it. it's so true. 'cause it's funny, I'm thinking about it too, the agenda and everything and I'm just like, whenever you know, you and I have spoken a lot of times, and anytime I tell you I need to go run right, like a tear, I go right back to the basics.

Amos Pick up the phone. Call. Pick up the phone. Call back to the basics. I put my whole team, all right, let's start going back to the basics. Whenever we wanna do another quick run or whatever it may be. It's so amazing to me 'cause people feel like they have to kind of reinvent the wheel every [00:40:00] time. Right. To get back on track or whatever it is.

Amos Right. I never understood that. Just go back to what got you in the seat in the first place. Which was your repetition as the mother of the skill. Sometimes your jab is off, sometimes your jab is off, right? So I used to do a thing when if I felt like I was just wasn't hit and right in my practice, I would just go on a closing run.

Amos On a closing run. That's it. I would write every case, every case, not because I needed a client or wanted a client or whatever it is, and I'm always trying to help. So that's good. But sometimes you just wanna sharpen up. Sometimes you can't figure out, you know, it's like a tire, right? When they have a hole in the tire, you could like take the tire out of the car, spin it around, and never find a hole.

Amos You put it in a bucket of wall or something, and then you see the bubbles coming out. Okay? That's where, so sometimes like you just don't know what the issue is until you start throwing those jabs. Or you [00:41:00] start going for closes nonstop. Closes, nonstop, closes, and then you see. Speak in a certain way. I keep saying this word I keep, this might be what's throwing me off, you know?

Amos So I'm big on that, man. Back to the basics.

Nick Yeah. and those reps, right? Like the stuff that you, you can see now, but you wouldn't have spotted, all those years ago. Right? Because it wouldn't have been relevant then. Right. Like the nuance doesn't matter then it's just like get the basics, right? now the basics take on a different impact. So back to question earlier, right? Like, this ties back to the, what are the traits for a successful advisor? And these are, you know, as you said, seven deadly, deadly sins, right? But all of these apply different levels, right?

Nick overall, if you think about maybe the, okay, so let me do this. Biggest trait for success overall is awareness of being able to constantly zoom out and look, look at yourself, and review, review.

Nick 'cause getting stuck in a pattern. We all get in patterns. We, you are able to come out and review, come out and review, then you can cycle through the things that you probably already know. The question is, one of my favorite quotes lately as a [00:42:00] take on an old quote, which is, we need to be reminded way more than we need to be talked.

Nick So the question is not, do you know the thing? it is, are you doing the thing and are you doing it in the right way? Because as you said, we know it so well, we forget to do it. Or we, we stopped doing it. That's exactly what's like. Be reminded way more than we need to be. it's about 50 50 working with advisors and much less for people I've been working with for a long time.

Nick the stuff we work on is stuff that is new stuff versus stuff that we just, need to come back to. Like at a certain point, you lived in your house for a while. You got a garage full of tools. You got an outside shed outside. Like if you, something goes wrong, you wanna fix it, like you wanna do it yourself 'cause like it's fun on a Saturday, whatever.

Nick Most of the time you've got a tool. You've got a tool there, right? But you wanna go to Home Depot or Lowe's and just get yourself a new tool, right? Nah, because it's fun. let's go get a new tool. Let's get, and we get a new shiny hammer. It's like, man, you've got like six hammers. Yeah, that one's a bit rusty.

Nick But it will do the job. Go back to that. Get the result. Move on.

Amos I [00:43:00] love that. I love that. We're covered to the end, man. We're wrapping up. This has been fun. What is that message that you are trying to deliver to advisor? You are on a mission. You've declared your mission. Once again, you've mentioned it on this call, on this as well. What's that message you are trying to get out to advise in general?

Amos Just that one message that you are trying to get out.

Nick Yeah. Well, I said my mission is to help a hundred thousand advisors the next three years or so, and that doesn't mean I can work with a hundred thousand advisors directly. Right. But it allows me to think bigger about how I help them. this, I hope is one way to do.

Nick Right. I hope there's something that advisors to this, Take away and able to put into their life for their business. that's the my, my mission, but the message I like to share is for me, it's about working with advisors on and through their seven figure journey without sacrificing working on their health or time with their family.

Nick The message from that is to say, you can have the best business you possibly can want. You deserve to have [00:44:00] that. You maybe even have a responsibility to have that because once you get to a certain level, there's a place you have to go from, right? 'cause you've, it's easier to get to that next place.

Nick And so I find that with people settle up to about where things are because they think it's gonna compromise is other parts of their life. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, there's a way where you can have both. In fact, the only way you can have any of them is to have all of 'em at once. Sustainable growth, right in your business means that you show up as a better parent, a better spouse, that you look after yourself, if you can't crank it in your business and also go work out X amount of times a week, that's somewhere along the line, you're not gonna be healthy enough to crank it in your business. Correct? and if you're doing that, but you're not spending time with your spouse or your kids, somewhere along the line, that will fall apart.

Nick And then your business will fall apart and your health will fall apart. And then the last part of that is you've gotta be giving back somehow. And that doesn't mean giving money away necessarily. It could be, but just giving back somehow it could be just your family, it could be your community, could be, you know, colleagues, could [00:45:00] be, you know, the wider business.

Nick But like those areas. it's what it's all about, right? Just believe in yourself that you can get to whatever it is that you want, in fact, way further along than you want there. In this industry, there's plenty of, plenty of people that approve what massive success can look like, and yeah, there's huge outliers as well, right?

Nick but think about it like there's so much success. There's so much opportunity, so many people out there to help. last piece I say on that is that, you know. One of the reasons why I work with advisors is because of the impact and the importance of this industry. It's not about money. It's not about finances, it's not about wealth.

Nick It's about relationships and people and great advisors are really integral parts of like people's and their clients' lives. And it really makes a difference the quality of their life overall, not just through their finances. That's just the vehicle for the support. I really appreciate it. Thanks for inviting me on, man. Always just anytime I spend with you, man, it's always great.

Amos We get pumped. Listen, man, I hope it's a treat for everyone listening. You get not [00:46:00] just one, but two English accents on the conversation in the states. You don't get that often. Love to bring these messages out. Nick Superstar, I've always said that about you.

Amos Onto the next time, man, let's go, man. Appreciate it. A Message to Our Guest Thank you for joining us on Two Gems and sharing your valuable insights with our community of high-net-worth professionals, founders, executives, and operators. We've prepared comprehensive promotional materials to help amplify your message, which you can find on your dedicated promo page.