June 30, 2023 • 61 mins
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This week on Relentless Hope, Seth Streeter, Founder and Chief Impact Officer of Mission Wealth, teaches us about connection. He shows us how to connect our spiritual lives with our professional lives, and how everything in our lives stem from having a strong spiritual connection. As Seth says, we do not have to keep our spiritual connection in a separate container from the rest of our lives, instead, we can use our connection with God to inspire and motivate all our actions
Learn to love your life, lead with purpose and leave a legacy of helping others with Relentless Hope. The Relentless Hope with Steve Gatena Podcast gives hope a voice by sharing stories from the world’s most passionate leaders.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let us pray Jesus saith unto him. I am the Way,
the Truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the
Father but by me John fourteen six. What a profound statement. Lord,
There is no way to the Father except through your
shed blood and forgiveness of sin. You are the absolute
(00:22):
truth and there is no deception in you. You are
not a man that you would lie. You were the
life breath within us. Many people want spiritual comfort without
confronting sin or Jesus. It's interesting how they talk about
all the false deities they follow, but when your name
is mentioned, all hell breaks loose. Literally, it shows me
(00:47):
how powerful your name is. One day every one in
this world will know the truth that Jesus Christ is
Lord and the only way to the Father. Amen. Thank
you for joining us in prayer. Now for the Relentless
Hope Podcast, where we bring you true stories and personal
(01:08):
testimonies that will help you love your life, lead with purpose,
and leave a legacy of helping others.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So many of us feel alone, disconnected, and deep within,
we feel this ache, this sense that something is missing,
because it is We long to connect, to belong to
a community, to have friends and family, surrounding us who
understand and support us on our journey through life, and
we long to connect with God. This yearning comes because
(01:47):
we know deep down that God never intended for us
to be alone or separate. He made us for connection.
He wants us to open our hearts so we can
know deep spiritual connection with Him. God also wants us
to connect with each other. He knows the pain and
suffering of this broken world. But an honest, loving, and
(02:08):
trusting relations with each other, we can ease our heartache
and enduring anything. This week on Relentless Hope, Cess Streader,
founder and Chief Impact Officer of Mission of Wealth, teaches
us about connection and he shows us how to connect
our spiritual lives with our professional lives. And he explains
(02:28):
how everything in our lives stems from having a strong
spiritual connection. As Sess says, we do not have to
keep our spiritual connection and a separate container from the
rest of our lives. Instead, we can use our connection
with God to inspire and motivate all our actions. We
hear how Seth learned to blend his spiritual and professional
(02:51):
lives after he overcame debilitating panic attacks that threatened his
career and the company he founded and Wealth and Seth
shows us how he's helping people lead more inspired and
fulfilled lives through the Trojan Horse of money conversations. Seth
also teaches us to be great leaders, we need to
(03:13):
connect to our spiritual selves and our people. He shares
how we starts every morning in spiritual connection and how
leadership is about knowing our people, understanding their strengths and weaknesses,
natural rules, abilities, and having realistic expectations for what we
can achieve together. We also learn what Seth's doing to
(03:35):
lead his legacy and the three areas he's focused on
through his company. This includes caring for his team, caring
for his clients, and caring for the communities where his
company serves. Seth also shows us when we prioritize our
spiritual connection to God, that our lives begin flowing in
perfect divine order and we are able to bring God's life,
(03:58):
his love, and his will to everyone we meet. As
we connect to God, we're able to develop deeper and
more meaningful and more fulfilling connections with ourselves and each other.
When Sees Streeter was about to present his company for
a national partnership, he found himself in the midst of
(04:21):
his first panic attack on stage, and.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
All of a sudden, I felt like I was in
the audience looking at me, and I became hyper hyper
aware of my physical sensations. I started to feel my
heart race in my chest. I started to feel my
breath shallow as my breathing really become shallow, and my
hands became clamming, and by the time he handed the
(04:47):
microphone to me, I was staring at the audience in
just sheer terror. I grabbed the mic and I tried
to speak into it, and I couldn't even say a word.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
I was like, ah oh, I was like I was choking, choking.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I can actually remember it now, and I remember I
looked to the man who introduced me, and I handed
him back to the microphone, and I said, excuse me
in a whisper, and I ran off the stage. And
as I ran off the stage, I remember going out
through the back and I saw an exit door, and
just everything in me wanted to just keep running and
just go right out that door in my suit and
(05:21):
lucky tie and just get the heck out of there.
But somehow I forced myself to go to the bathroom,
which was also nearby, and I went into the bathroom
and I splashed water in my face and put water
in my mouth, and I looked my soul in the eyes,
and I'm like, Seth, get your shit together.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
In Part one of this three part series on Relentless Hope,
we'll hear from financial advisor Seth Streeter as he explains
the most pivotal moment in his life. Through blending his
professional and spiritual life, he learned to overcome his fears
and begin to help others.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I was raised in a high performing family. Both my
mom and dad were professionals as teachers and teacher instructors,
and my dad was a biologist in the Fish and
Wildlife Service and worked his way up in the government ranks.
And my brother and I were raised to be the same.
We were raised to really excel in school, sports, student government,
(06:27):
our chores. We had livestock and farm and lots of
responsibilities there and so we were raised to be super
productive and it served me.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
It allowed me to thrive in school.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
It allowed me to get into a great university and
to continue that path in college, to be in student government,
to be involved in interermurals, to be a double major
with honors to have jobs throughout college, and it allowed
me to get a great career. I started working one
week after graduating in the world of financial services, and
(07:02):
I was completely determined to continue to.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Thrive and excel.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And I share this just brief background with everyone because
my life was really about achieving performance, because I thought
that's where my sense of worth came from. I thought
that if I was productive, I was worthy and even loved.
If I could show accomplishments through running a marathon or
(07:31):
an iron mail, or hitting a certain sales goal or
a certain.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Career goal or a certain award, well.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Then you know I had those external validators that I
was somebody. You know, I had a wolf and all
of this really, I would say, kind of climaxed with
the most traumatic experience, or one of the most traumatic
experiences of my life. And it happened when I was
forty years old. I was very involved with my financial
(08:02):
services company. I have a wealth management company that had
really grown and achieved a great deal of success in
the traditional sense, and I opened up this incredible opportunity
to form a national partnership with a huge financial services partner.
And after a couple years of opening up the doors
(08:22):
to this opportunity. The brass at this big partner said, Okay, Seth,
you can come and present your company to us, and
let's form this partnership.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
And so I was so excited.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I thought, finally I've built this national partnership. This is
going to really launch our company to the next level.
And so I prepared for this talk as I would
any others. And I had done a significant amount of
public speaking up to this point, and so I prepared
my words. I wanted to say some slides. And the
(08:56):
morning of I had my normal kind of pregame best practice.
I went for a quick run, I took a shower,
I had a healthy breakfast. I put on my lucky suit,
my lucky tie. I listened to some rock music on
my way to the venue, and I was ready to
rock it.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I had that kind of pregame excitement as I went
to the auditorium. And as I was in the auditorium
waiting to be introduced, ready to just rock it and
kind of realize this huge national partnership that I'd worked
so hard to form for my company, it felt like
the introduction went way too long. They just kept saying, well,
(09:33):
Cees Streeter blah blah blah and Cess Streeter blah blah blah,
and you know, talking about accolades, and I was I
remember I was standing there looking at the audience as
this gentleman was introducing me, and all of a sudden,
I felt like I was in the audience looking at me,
and I became hyper hyper aware of my physical sensations.
(09:55):
I started to feel my heart racing my chest. I
started to feel my breath shallow, so my breathing really
becomes shallow, and my hands became clammy and by the
time he handed the microphone to me, I was staring
at the audience in just sheer terror. I grabbed the
mic and I tried to speak into it, and I
(10:17):
couldn't even say a word.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
I was like, oh oh, I was like I was choking, choking.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I can actually remember it now, and I remember I
looked to the man who introduced me, and I handed
him back the microphone and I said, excuse me in
a whisper, and I ran off the stage. And as
I ran off the stage, I remember going out through
the back and I saw an exit door, and just
everything in me wanted to just keep running and just
go right out that door in my suit and lucky
(10:42):
tie and just get the heck out of there. But
somehow I forced myself to go to the bathroom, which
was also nearby. And I went into the bathroom and
I splashed water in my face and put water in
my mouth, and I looked my soul in the eyes,
and I'm like, Seth, get your shit together. You have
this one moment. Don't waste it. And so I somehow
(11:03):
overcame my fear and my heart, my racing heart, and
I went back into that auditorium and the guy who
was introducing me had a glass of water, and the
audience was kind of standing there or sitting there, wide eyed,
and he gave me the microphone again, and I remember
I started to talk, but I was staring at my
feet because I couldn't even stand to look them in
the eyes, because I felt like I was being so
(11:24):
judged and that it was just such a terrifying feeling
to have those hundreds of eyes staring at me. And
I somehow managed to just keep talking and keep talking
to a point where I could fill the fear kind
of subside out of me. And maybe it was two minutes,
but you know, it felt like a lifetime and I
(11:46):
was able to get through that talk.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
And after that talk, I talked.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
To a friend who was in the audience and I
just said, oh, my gosh, you know, what was that
like for you? And he said, you had like a
frog in your throat?
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Right, you have a cold or something.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I said, no, I just went through the scariest, you know,
five minutes of my life. And I can't even tell
you how horrifying it was inside my body during those
five minutes.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
And so he said, well, it wasn't you know that
noticed that.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Well, you got it back together, and you know, the
talk went fine, and we actually formed that national partnership,
which today is a significant driver of growth for my company.
But at this point in time, I was dumbfounded. I
went home and I was shell shocked that that had occurred,
that I had actually frozen and was completely disabled from
(12:38):
communicating for that period of time. And I tried to
research what it was, and I said, Okay, gosh, it
sounds like I had a panic attack.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Why the heck did I have a panic attack?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I've you know, I've talked hundreds of times before, and
why did I freak out today? And so I tried
to just ignore it and just shut it off to
being a bad day. Maybe I, you know, had too
much tea that morning, or you know, just a bad day.
And so I went to work the next day kind
of just trying to sweep it under the rug. I
didn't tell anyone about it. And I was going in
(13:10):
to a morning meeting with four people in the room,
so not a huge audience, just four people in the room.
And as I went into the room, I met these
clients or potential clients, and I shook their hand and
I sat down, and this is something I'd done again
hundreds of times before. And as they asked me a
question and the kind of spotlight was on me, as
(13:33):
I felt the spotlight was on me to answer the question,
all of a sudden, I started to feel my mind
scanning for the same physiological symptoms I had experienced the
day before, like waite seth, is your heart racing, white seth,
is your breath shallow white seth? Your hands fell kind
of clammy. And sure enough, it was almost like I
invited those symptoms to be a reality. It was almost
(13:56):
like I was scanning my body looking for any clue
that it could then go into a fight or flight response,
and sure enough, you know, if you scan long enough,
you're gonna find You're going to find what you're scanning for.
So here I am in this room with four, you know,
perspective clients and actually a co or three perspective clients
and a coworker, and I became completely unable to speak again,
(14:22):
and I said, excuse me, I have to use the restroom.
And I went to my restaurant at my office. Again,
I looked my soul in the eyes.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
And I'm like, what is up?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
You can't even talk to flipping four people in a room,
get it together? And I did the same thing as
last time. I kind of like scolded myself. I felt
such disgusted with my inability to just overcome this. You know,
I prided myself on being someone who could overcome things.
And I'd pushed through, you know again, endurance races. I'd
(14:54):
pushed through tough business challenges. You know, I'd pushed through
going through it challenging divorce and health challenges. I mean,
I'm a guy who's tenacious, who can persevere what the
heck is happening.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
So I had.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
This little discussion with myself wasn't a really kind one,
I can tell you. And I went back into the
room with the clients, and I somehow mustered through. I
kind of asked my coworker to communicate, and then I
eventually got to where I could breathe normal and I
was able to get through it. But it began a
whole pattern of six months where I truly thought I
(15:31):
was going to have to quit my career. I was
going to have to completely change my lifestyle, maybe move
my family to Mexico or somewhere that I could afford
to live, because I wasn't going to be able to
make any money. You know, as a financial advisor. I
could lose an arm, I could lose a leg, and
I could still do my job, but if I can't
(15:51):
communicate with people, I truly can't earn a living. So
during those six months, I really dove into what the
heck was happening. I went and saw a therapist. I
read a ton of books, and you know, watched videos,
and I really learned about panic attacks and you know,
what triggers could be, and you know what, you know,
(16:14):
were the ways to overcome the sensations when I was
feeling them. Come on. And I came up with a
three step process of how I could overcome them. I
would need to acknowledge my sensations as I first felt them. So,
oh wow, Seth, you're feeling a little bit nervous right now.
You can't deny those feelings because the body is going
to turn up the volume if you do. So, I
(16:35):
would just acknowledge, Oh, Seth, you're feeling kind of some
nerves right now.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Your heart's racing a little bit.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
And then the second step is I would assure myself, Seth,
you know, there's no sabertooth tigers in this room. These
are just nice people who want to be educated. Or
this is a friendly audience. You know, these are people
that I can really help and serve. And I had
to kind of get out of myself and have empathy
for the people that I was communicating with. And then
(17:02):
the third step I came up with is to have
a coping technique. So a coping technique is just a way, frankly,
to ground me in the moment. Maybe I'm holding a
cold glass of water and I filled that cold sensation
through my fingertips, or I fill my feet on the ground,
or I look at a tree outside through a window,
or I look at a person in the audience and
I actually have empathy for them. I make up a
(17:24):
story that, you know, maybe she just lost her husband,
or you know, maybe they're suffering with the real financial
hardship right now. So I came up with a process
to overcome that fear.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
But it was.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Something that from that day forward, and it's been eight
years since that time, I still always carry a significant
amount of humility in me over you know just how
close any of us can be to that point of
no return where we truly allow our mind and our
fears to take over us. And I have to say
(17:59):
that as I look back now, that was truly a
huge blessing in disguise for me. It completely shaped the
person that I am today and the person I know
I'll continue to evolve to be going forward.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
And my.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Whole kind of mindset prior to that panic attack was
that I was a professional who was achieving, who was
all about execution, and on the side, I had a
spiritual side, a deep spiritual part of my life, and
I was really into community service and I did a
lot of service work and developing countries. I would go
(18:35):
down to Latin America and volunteered orphanages and even take
my kids to volunteer with me. But some of those
two worlds as being distinct. I had my professional life
where I was a successful financial CEO, and I had
my service work, and my spiritual life was over on
the other side. And the biggest blessing out of the
(18:57):
whole panic attack lesson for me was I learned to
blend those two worlds. I learned that I could be
of service deeply connected to my vulnerable spiritual self in
my career and it's completely allowed me to evolve my
business forward to being in the world of transformation human
(19:18):
transformation through the trojan horse of a money conversation. And
I have completely opened up new incredible gateways in my life,
both personally and professionally as a result of this new
blended spiritual combined with my career dimension. And I have
to say that a year after my panic attack, I
(19:41):
was still kind of struggling a little bit, but I
was able to do my work as moving forward. I
wrote in my journal and I said, Seth, you know
you're going to completely overcome this fear, and in fact,
it's going to be a catalyst to take you to
a whole new level. And I want you to think,
what would be the scariest thing you could do as
someone who would freak out with just a couple people
(20:04):
in a room and not able to talk to them.
What would be the biggest reach goal, the biggest Harry
reach goal I could think of, And that Harry reach
goal when I journaled was to give a TED talk.
I thought, my god, getting up on stage for sixteen
minutes in front of a huge audience with live video
footage without any notes would be the flip and scariest
(20:27):
thing I could imagine. I mean, that would be prime
time for a panic attack. And I wrote my journal that, Seth,
one day you'll give a TED talk, and that will
be your sign that you've progressed forward with this what
I thought at the time was like a debilitating tragedy.
And so sure enough flashed forward to twenty sixteen, and
(20:49):
I didn't sign up out of the blue through serendipity
or through divine intervention. I had someone contact me from
the TED organization and says, Seth, we'd like to give
a TED talk. And I thought, oh man, shoot, got
to be careful for what you wish for in this life.
But I knew I had to say yes. I knew
it was my destiny to say yes to this, and
(21:10):
so I leaned into this opportunity to give a TED talk,
and I spoke about this blending of my spiritual life
into my professional life and how I see it as
kind of a manifesto for people to move forward and
find more consciousness, more love, more purpose and fulfillment in
their lives from this kind of mindset of looking at
(21:30):
wealth through these ten dimensions, looking at your spiritual level
of wealth, looking at your physical, emotional, social, intellectual, the
degree of impact, a number of dimensions beyond just the financial.
And this has been my launching pad going forward, and
it's really been what's going to allow me to have
(21:51):
the most aligned legacy that I could have ever ever
hoped for, all because of this panic attack, which truly
ended up being a blessed in disguise. When unexpected events happen,
that's when leadership skills can be the most valuable, and
I've had the opportunity to have to step up in
(22:12):
these circumstances. A recent example of this was in in
late twenty seventeen, there was a major fire in Santa
Barbara County called the Thomas Fire, and then in early
twenty eighteen, after the fires had charred the hills, there
were some major debris slides, landslides that actually ended up
taking the lives of twenty three of our local residents,
(22:35):
and it was extremely stressful time in our community. Roads
were closed, resources were shut off like electricity, phone lines,
internet access, and there was flooding. There was just a
real huge confusion around information access. And so as a
(22:57):
service business, again a financial services company, we've always been
committed to doing the very best we can for our
clients and for the communities that we operate in, and
so this was a time where we had the opportunity
to shine.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
In Part two of this three part series on Relentless Hope,
Seth explains how vulnerability creates power in leadership roles. By
connecting to those who you lead and understanding their strengths,
you will have a more productive team.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
For me, being a leader is being an example. We
know that actions speak louder than words, and so as leaders,
we need to truly walk the walk, and for me,
this means showing up as what I call the chief
energy officer, the CEO and as a chief energy officer.
I know that as my well being, as my positivity,
(23:58):
as my sense of possibilit goes, there will be a
ripple effect through my entire organization and through all the
community groups that I lead. So I work on myself
being the best person I can be and putting myself
in the best state possible so that I can go
out there and help others be in the best state possible.
(24:18):
And I do this through having time in the morning
for spiritual connectivity, to get grounded in a framework beyond
myself and to know that I am here to serve
the world, to use my gifts in my fullest expression
to truly impact people and help transform the planet. And
I see myself as being a catalyst for good, and
(24:41):
I want to put myself in the best state possible
to create the greatest good I can. And it comes
even on the small parts of the day. You know,
I'm commuting into the office, smiling at a stranger or
being kind to an animal, or the music I listen
to or the podcast I listen to, the food I
(25:03):
put into my body. I try to just be mindful
of the choices that I make and the consequences. They
have all add up to be the collective impact that
I'm able to bring. So as a leader, my goal
when I deal with team members or clients or partners
(25:25):
is to truly be vulnerable, because I've learned there's such
power and vulnerability. I don't need to try to have
all the answers. I can just truly be present with
people and listen and be kind, and that goes so far.
You know, I'm in an industry of financial services, and
I've led you know, large groups of other financial executives,
(25:46):
over two thousand executives in one group I led from.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Around the globe.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
And unfortunately, in our industry and in other industries, we've
kind of been taught to be so connected to the
left side of our brains and to be so almost
unemotional and to you know, think about facts and figures
and data and metrics, which is all critical to the job.
But we also are human beings, not just human doings,
(26:15):
and so remembering the human part and working on you know,
my own emotional intelligence and my own ability to be
connected to humans in a deep way has allowed me
to take those facts and figures and you know, the
dashboards that are inherent in any business and apply them
(26:35):
and relate them in a way to people that they
will be able to really connect with and be able
to be motivated by.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
And want to be part of.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
So as a leader, I see the connectivity with human
beings as being really the most important part of my job,
because if I don't have an empowered team, then you know,
we're not doing anything as a business. And also I
realized after many years of trying to be so serious,
especially starting off at a young age, when you're trying to
(27:08):
build trust with people and you know, let them believe
that they should give you their wealth to manage when
you're only twenty two years old and kind of pretend
to know it all. So I was so lucky once
I finally lost my hair, because boy, that made me
look older. I remember actually thinking that. So the thing
I've learned is that you can actually be playful. You
(27:30):
can have fun and still be productive. So as a
leader now I try to be playful with my team
and you know, have a smile and connect with them
on a personal level and not just always be about
execution and about the job task. We do need to
get things done, We do need to have a degree
of accountability and obviously a work ethic, but we can
(27:52):
also have some levity in our day and have some
levity and how we relate to other people. And so
for me, a leader is being positive, being playful, listening, caring,
and knowing that I have to be the example that
my actions will always speak louder than my words. For me,
this is the key to being an empowered leader. When
(28:17):
unexpected events happen, that's when leadership skills can be the
most valuable. And I've had the opportunity to have to
step up in these circumstances. A recent example of this
was in in late twenty seventeen, there was a major
fire in Santa Barbara County called the Thomas Fire, and
(28:38):
then in early twenty eighteen, after the fires had charred
the hills, there were some major debris slides, landslides that
actually ended up taking the lives of twenty three of
our local residents. And it was extremely stressful time in
our community. Roads were closed, resources were shut off like electricity,
(28:59):
phone line, internet access, and there was flooding. There was
just a real huge confusion around information access. And so
as a service business, again a financial services company, we've
always been committed to doing the very best we can
for our clients and for the communities that we operate in,
(29:22):
and so this was a time where we had the
opportunity to shine, and we did so by really becoming
a command post for our over one thousand clients. We
contacted them, we shared evacuation notices and locations, We let
them know about emergency resources that were available, and even
(29:44):
offered to take clients' pets. For our clients who were
out of town at the time, we offered to try
to get photo footage of their homes to see if
they were still okay and standing and kind of what
the current status was of the fire movements, and we
personally got involved. We ran a donation where we collected
(30:05):
household goods and clothing that we donated to local families
that had been evacuated from their homes, and we also
volunteered with some different organizations that were there supporting the
kind of crisis control that was happening. So as a
service culture in our company, our focus is just always
(30:27):
on how we can best serve our clients and the
communities we operate in, and so this was the way
that we could be of the best service, and as
a leader, it was amazing to see my team come
together for our clients, and the tremendous loyalties that it
brought for our clients I think will just never be replaced.
They could tell that we truly truly cared for them
(30:48):
and that we're willing to step up in that time
of need. And so oftentimes, as a leader we have
the ability to really step up in a time of
crisis and take draft measures and to really use the
organizational assets for the greater good. And this was an
example that my company Mission Wealth definitely stepped up in
(31:11):
this way. If there's one thing a leader has a
great deal of experience in its failure. You know, leaders
are just really good at not quitting. They're really good
at just being tenacious and persistent and trying and trying again.
I've had all sorts of failures as a leader, and
(31:32):
of course I look at failures just simply an opportunity
to grow and learn and reapply it in the future
and not make the same mistakes twice. I'd say the
top couple failures I've had as a leader. If I
had to look at the mass groupings in themes, would
one be being overly ambitious, not always setting realistic goals
(31:55):
with you know, bite size actions that can be taken,
but instead setting really a lofty vision without the nailed
down strategic plan to get there. And that really doesn't
set a team up for success when you're just setting
a huge, lofty goal without a realistic way that they
can achieve it. The second area I think I've failed
(32:16):
is I'm such a people person. Oftentimes I overweight my
relationship with someone versus taking a really honest assessment of
their natural strengths and the roles in which their strengths
can be best utilized. So something that I've seen as
an example is I will come up with an idea
(32:37):
of maybe an event we're going to put on, or
a new growth opportunity will be tackling, and I might
share it with someone who I think has the ability
to implement that, but in actuality, that person might be
looking for really a black and white, nail down plan.
So what I feel is a clear directive to them
feels like a lot of gray without a lot of
(32:59):
the meat up on the bone, and so they don't
have a clear way in which to implement. And I've
left thinking that I've delegated, and so then both parties
end up getting frustrated. So, as a leader who prides
himself on learning from these mistakes, I've learned to really
identify people's strengths across four key areas. And the four
(33:23):
areas are as originators those who are really good at,
you know, creating the big vision, creating unique solutions or innovations.
Number two is as advancers, people who can take the
idea from an originator and kind of refine it further.
The third group I call refiners. They're the people who
(33:43):
say that's not going to work because and they bounce
the idea back up and say that's not going to
work because or that doesn't work within our system or
you know, they bounce it back up to the advancers
and the originators and make them really get it nailed down.
And then the fourth group are the implementers. These are
people who do like things to be black and white,
and they are great at executing when you give them
a very clear action plan of what to do. So
(34:06):
as a leader, I want to make sure I understand
the strengths and the natural roles and abilities of my
team members so that when I do have a big vision.
I make sure I speak to one of my advancers
first and then from there we bounce it down to
the refiners and then ultimately get it to an implementer.
And I've learned to really understand who people are and
(34:29):
it has nothing to do with how much I like
them or maybe have a personal connection with them. I
work really hard to find personal connections with all of
my team members, but it's more about really understanding their
unique roles and how we all need each other to
work together toward achieving our long term vision. So leadership
(34:49):
is about knowing people. It's about understanding their strengths and
weaknesses and having realistic expectations and for being able to
put a group together based on their strengths to achieve
the desired outcome. As human beings, we all have different
fuel that gets us up in the morning. And as
(35:10):
a leader, I know that one of my greatest sources
of fuel has actually been criticism or when people have
told me that something isn't possible that really just gets
me up and makes me want to prove them wrong.
An example of that was I wanted to bring to
Santa Barbara a unique and innovative community building program called
(35:31):
Fast Pitch. What Fast Pitch is is it's where we
take nonprofit leaders, typically of nonprofits that are under the
radar and not really highly exposed in the community, and
we put their leaders through a two month communication coaching
exercise so that they can give a very compelling three
(35:51):
minute pitch about their organization. Specifically, they talk about the
history of their organization, why it exists, and what their
greatest need is to launch their organization to the next level.
We then, after coaching these leaders over two months, prepare
a large community event where we put them in front
(36:13):
of three hundred and fifty plus community members who get
to vote by text for their favorite pitches, and then
there's cash prizes that are given out to the top
performing leaders, and there's also a panel of judges that
give very valuable feedback. So it's essentially like Shark Tank
(36:35):
meets American Idol for the nonprofit sector. Well, I saw
tremendous value in this concept for our community, and when
I first got sparked with the idea to bring this
to Santa Barbara, I had a whole.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Host of.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Naysayers who said, you know, set, this will never work.
Santa Barbara is way too small of a community for this.
If you want to pull it off, it's going to
take two or three years to organize. We have limited
resources to make this happen. There's already so many nonprofits.
There's not room in the calendar to try to put
(37:11):
on another big event like this seth nonprofit leaders do
not have two months of time to dedicate to pitching
one three minute speech, and so on and so on.
And the more I heard these critiques, the more I said,
we need to do this, our community needs this. We
will prove that we can do it. And sure enough,
(37:32):
it took us only nine months to put together our
first Fast Pitch event, and we had forty nonprofits go
through this program over two years. We did it two
back to back years. We had tremendous success. Amazing synergies
opened up, not just to the community directly, but in
between the nonprofits that each were pitching and in theory
(37:55):
competing against each other. There was beautiful collaboration where they
supported each other, and the outcome couldn't have been better.
I was so proud to see our community rally, especially
our nonprofit community, and I was so happy that I
was able to override the negative feedback that I was
getting as I was starting to put this together, and
(38:16):
again those critiques ended up being my fuel that allowed
me to be the chief Energy Officer for Fast Pitch SB,
which is something that I'm really proud of that has
really helped shape the Santa Barbara community. So what we're
doing is we're bringing the community together around these campaigns,
and we're highlighting the top actions or programs that these organizations, businesses,
(38:39):
or city agencies have to help support progress, and then
we're tracking the collective results. So my vision is that
we're going to start by making Santa Barbara County, the
home of the first Earth Day, a shining example for sustainability,
and then we're going to be spreading this out into
other counties all over the country and hopefully eventually across
the globe make a difference for our planet, which I
(39:02):
care so deeply for. And it all comes from micro
actions that we can each take each and every day.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
In Part three of this three part series and Relentless Hope,
Seth explains how he's leaving a legacy through helping others
achieve their full potential by applying experiences from his past companies.
In the book, that Seth wrote, he's helping his employees
and clients learn about themselves and how to achieve their dreams.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
I am so excited about the legacy that I know
I am leaving behind, and that I want to continue
to expand my footprint of legacy throughout the remaining years
of my lifetime. For me, it really comes in three
broad areas. Beyond being a parent, because I just love
my son and daughter so much and I feel like there.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
In so many ways on my ultimate legacy.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
But beyond being a parent and seeing my kids launch
into the world and bring their unique gifts into the world,
my main legacy will be the way in which I
left a footprint, and the main ways that I see
myself leaving this footprint will be first of all, with my.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Company Mission Wealth.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
As a national firm, I know that we're really helping
families all over the country find and enjoy financial freedom
and even more to have deep fulfillment in their lives.
So we are using again the Money conversations as a
way to help people find greater connectivity in their lives,
maybe with family and friends, or to explore their artistic
(40:39):
side and go take a photography class or write a book,
or to.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Take that dream trip to.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Bali, or to really develop meaningful friendships, or to get
super involved in the community and.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Have community impact.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
So I just love the connection and the transformation that
I see with the client that we serve.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
And I also really am grateful for our team and
I want to know that we empowered our team members.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
And that we continue to maintain a fantastic culture and
had top awards for that.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
Knowing that we were truly caring.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
For our team members and seeing them have their own
career development. And then also to know that we were
improving the communities that we operated in, that we always
gave back, and that we led the cause of various
nonprofits and community building opportunities that our team members.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Had passions around.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
As a founder and leader, I am very excited to
see my business mission wealth become a key part of
my legacy. I see that happening really in three key ways.
First of all, how we care for our team and
how we're expanding our team across the country. We truly
invest in our culture. We provide fully paid for education
(41:59):
for our team members. We promote a collaborative environment where
we do a lot of training and team building exercises,
and we have a really fun culture as well. We'll
go do community service events together, We'll go get involved
in all sorts of social activities in the community, and
we really support the whole family of our team. We
(42:22):
do retreats twice a year where partners and spouses are invited.
We invite children to events, so we see our team
and its expansion and the deepening of our team as
being a key part of our legacy. In our most
recent retreat, we had my friend Sean Thompson, who is
a world renowned surfer and business leader and also a
(42:43):
ted X speaker and author, come and share an exercise
he calls developing your I Will statements, and these are
twelve personal declarations or affirmations of things you're truly committed
to in your personal life. And we had our team
go through an exercise to that each write their twelve
personal I will statements. We had every team member stand
(43:05):
up and share vulnerably what their twelve I will statements were,
and then select their one most important personal I will declaration.
We then took all of those top I will declarations
and we've put them on a really nicely created board
that we've put on our wall, So it just showcases
that we're not just here to achieve the company goals
(43:28):
and to serve our clients, but that we truly care
about the top personal goals of our team members as well,
and this creates a tremendous loyalty and connectivity across the
whole organization. The second form of legacy for Mission Wealth
is really how we care for our clients. You know,
(43:48):
we're growing out our national presence all across the United States,
and our passion is not just to help people find
more optimization on their personal finances, their balance sheet, their investments,
their cash flow, their state plans, but it's to help
them off the balance sheet as well, to spark greater fulfillment,
(44:08):
maybe to make it a career change into a more
aligned career, and really looking for ways that we can
help them have more joy and impact in their lives.
You know, it might come from helping them really think
about their bucket list and nudging them forward to tackle
some of those things on their bucket list. We just
had a client who retired after a forty year career,
(44:31):
and we were sitting down with she and her husband,
and I was kind of talking about some of these
potential bucket lists wishes and she said, you know, my
dream is always to be in a hot air balloon.
I've never been on a hot air balloon ride. And
her husband of almost fifty years said, I had no
idea he wanted to go on a hotter balloon ride.
And so as a retirement gift, we took both of
them on a hot air balloon ride and it sparked
(44:53):
so much joy in her to have this dream come true.
And sometimes it's just the little things, but we love
helping our client find deeper meaning, purpose and joy in
their lives. And if we can support that in any way.
To coming to fruition, we feel like we're really helping
to create a legacy in that way. And then the
third form of legacy generation that I'm proud of that
(45:17):
mission Wealth is really creating on a daily basis is
a service work that we do in the community. Every
one of our team members is encouraged to volunteer and
we will support their charity of choice. We do group
volunteer days. We will go do food sorting at a
local food bank. We've worked on building a home for
Habitat for Humanity. We've done relay marathons for charities. We
(45:43):
always come up with unique ways that we can get
involved and contribute and give back along with some of
the community building efforts that we've actually organized for the
entire community with Fast Pitch SB as well as Sustainable
Future and even a recent example as we're involved with
the local Museum of Natural History and they have a
really incredible Sea Center museum that's out on the wharf
(46:07):
of Santa Barbara, and as a way to give back
and to promote our values around sustainability, we are actually
sponsoring for them to get solar panels put onto this
Sea Center museum so that they will have electricity provided
in perpetuity and that'll help with their utility costs, it'll
help promote sustainability. We're going to be able to highlight
(46:28):
in the community, you know, the importance of solar into
becoming more renewable as a country. And so it's a
way to give back and to help educate and empower
people to just become more aware of other options. So
being able to care for our team, caring for our clients,
and caring for our community are always that we feel
(46:48):
we're able to really promote a super positive legacy from
Mission Wealth. So that's my company, and that's just one
area that I know I'll leave a legacy. I also
know that the workshops that I've been doing and the retreats,
and I'll be writing a book on this life three
point zero vision will be another form of legacy for me.
(47:09):
And essentially what I came up with was a framework
that in life we have one point zho phases when
we're kind of getting our sense of identity. You know,
are we the athlete or the academic? Are we the
funny guy over the introvert, Are we the musician? We
kind of get our sense of identity eventually and we
go into two point zero where we start our field
of study, we start our career, We maybe get married,
(47:32):
we have children, we buy a home and get a mortgage,
and two point zero is a phase of responsibility when
our head is down and we're essentially growing our families,
we're growing our careers, we're maybe starting a business, and
we're in that responsible phase. But there comes a time
when our kids become more independent and maybe launch into
the world where we've achieved a lot of what we
(47:54):
wanted to professionally, and we start to think about what's next.
And in that phase of three point zero, it's really
a phase of freedom, and it's a phase where we
want to think about our legacy. We want to think
about the relationships and did we invest in them enough.
We think about maybe improving our health or taking that
bucket list trip to Africa. And so what I find
(48:18):
is a lot of people who've been working so hard
in their careers and raising their families, They've been so
dutiful for others that they get stuck around two point
eight or two point nine. They look back and a
lot of their sense of identity is caught up in
their past accomplishments or you know, in their past family experiences,
(48:39):
and they really don't know how to launch forward into
a three point zero where they feel alive and excited
and still growing and evolving. So my legacy work in
this area of three point zero planning is to help
people design and ignite the most meaningful and exciting and
joyful and impactful three point oho phase they could ever imagine.
(49:00):
And I'm really loving holding retreats and putting together different
exercises and programs to help people find more joint meeting
in this third phase of life with the Developing Your
Life three point zero vision work that I do both
with large group presentations as well as small group facilitations.
We also are doing one on one coaching with our clients.
(49:24):
And what I'm really excited about and spreading this message
through these workshops as well as through a book that
I look forward to publishing, is to highlight real life
examples of where everyday people have dared to reinvent themselves
and to be able to find ways to live a
more aligned life. Maybe it's a career change, you know.
(49:45):
I had a client who was a corporate attorney who
really wasn't passionate about his work that required a lot
of travel away from his family and intense stress of
always having a deal after a deal, And through working
with their family, we were able to to help them
imagine a life and where he was living close to home,
not traveling, and working in an area of passion of
(50:07):
his which is becoming a history teacher. And so now
he's a high school history teacher. He has summers off
to spend time with his wife and two teenagers.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
They have really evolved as.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
A family through this career change and in this three
point zero work, We also love to help people develop
what we call their inspired life purpose. And the inspired
life purpose is really when you find a way to
intersect between your natural gifts, your acquired skills, your greatest passion,
and with what you feel is a huge trend or
(50:40):
need in the world. We help our clients and individuals
go through a visioning exercise where they really identify.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
Their greatest gifts. These are the things that have come
just natural to them their whole lives.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Maybe you've just always been a strong communicator, or you've
always been great at developing first impressions, or you've always
been good at math problem solving.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
And then you think about your skills.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
These are the talents that we've gained through maybe hands
on experience or through education, and so these are acquired
skills that we've honed over the years. The third circle
has to do with our passions. This is what we
really love to do. If we had all the time
and all the money in the world, this is how
we would spend it. And then the fourth circle has
(51:26):
to do with what you think the world needs most.
What is a cause that you're deeply touched by. What
is a trend that you see happening in the world
that you really want to get in front of. It's
maybe something around automation or robotics or AI or climate change,
or any trend or movement could be positive or negative
(51:47):
that you see really as being imminent.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
How can you get in front of that?
Speaker 3 (51:51):
How can you help move the needle on illiteracy in
Africa or clean water in Haiti. So were people's natural
gifts intersect with their acquired skills, intersect with their greatest
passions and what they believe is a trend or what
the world needs most, This is where their inspired life
purpose resides. And if we can help people kind of
(52:13):
awaken to what this inspired life purpose might be, well,
then it's pretty amazing to see how excited they get,
the energy they find, and just the opportunities they can
create when they're working from this space. So I love
to talk to clients and ask them, you know, what
purpose is truly worthy of your life? We all have
(52:34):
these infinite gifts and we need to be fully expressing
them into the world to be making the greatest impact.
And when we can help people light up and find
this in their three point zero vision and in their
three point zero phase of life. Well, then that is
part of what our true legacy really is, and it's
something I'm super passionate about helping people to find or
(52:55):
you know, add fuel to what they're already doing to
take it to the next level. Are some of the
exercises that we will push forward in the three point
zero visioning work that we do. We will look at
all ten dimensions of wealth and help people identify where
they feel they need to put more resource, whether it's
intellectual growth, spiritual development, improving their physical state, how their
(53:19):
body looks, feels and functions, their career alignment, how much
fun they have. You know, are they having a lot
of fun in their life, their emotional well being, which
is kind of their general levels of stress or know
how they wake up, their general attitude, the quality of
their family and friendships, their social capital, and then the
(53:39):
amount of impact that they really feel they're having. Are
they satisfied with the level of impact they're having in
the community or in the world at large. So as
we all take a look at this holistic lens of ourselves,
we can find areas that we can put more energy
and time and attention into and then as a result,
feel more well rounded and a greater sense of meaning
(54:02):
and fulfillment in our lives. And then the final area
that I am super passionate about continuing to build my
legacy is in an organization called sustainablefuture dot org that
I founded. And sustainable future dot org is an organization
that's here to help combat human induce climate change.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
You know, I've been.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Passionate about the environment for my lifetime, really, and I've
worked on so many different nonprofits, and I saw this
silo effect that existed where these great nonprofits were doing
great work, but they're each kind of operating in their
silo from each other, and they weren't really collaborating. And
I saw the same thing in the business community, in
the public sector, and in schools and universities and even
(54:47):
faith based organizations. I thought, if somehow we could unify
these big pillars of the community and all the organizations
within each of those pillars, so all the nonprofits and
all the businesses into one rally cry, then we could
really have incredible impact. And so there's an African proverb
that says, if you want to go fast, go alone,
(55:09):
and if you want to go far, go together, And
so sustainable Future dot org was really a way in
which we could all go further together. And what it
is is is it's a platform. It's an app that
allows us to use gamification and technology to bring awareness
and empowered actions around all sorts of various campaigns. So currently,
(55:33):
we have campaigns around minimizing single use plastics. We have
campaigns around water conservation, around smart transportation ways that we
can be more mindful of ride sharing or using mass transit,
or using electric vehicles or biking to work. We have
a campaign around food waste. Did you know that forty
(55:54):
percent of food in the United States is wasted and
there's so much we can do to help with food
rescue programs and to be smarter with our food practices
and even with our food that we get rid of
to become posting that food instead of just putting it
into the landfill. So what we're doing is we're bringing
the community together around these campaigns, and we're highlighting the
(56:16):
top actions or programs that these organizations, businesses, or city
agencies have to help support progress, and then we're tracking
the collective results. So my vision is that we're going
to start by making Santa Barbara County the home of
the first Earth Day a shining example for sustainability, and
then we're going to be spreading this out into other
counties all over the country and hopefully eventually across the globe.
(56:40):
So I want to make a difference for our planet,
which I care so deeply for, and it all comes
from micro actions that we can each take each and
every day, the small choices of how we shop, how
we eat, how we dispose of things. We can be
the difference in our daily daily steps. And if we
can do so in a way that we feel empowered
(57:01):
and educated and we get peer validation and it's all
happening from an app that's super simple from your phone,
then we can actually have a ripple effect throughout the world.
So for me, legacy is about continuing to grow myself,
about continuing to invest in my children and my friendships
and my family. It's about growing into my partnership with
(57:24):
my romantic partner. It's about being able to make a
difference through my business, through the coaching work I do
on the side, and through the nonprofit Sustainable Future dot
org that I've grown. And I feel so grateful to
be of service and every day to show up as
a light for the world.
Speaker 4 (57:40):
And that's really what I wish for.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Everyone, is that everyone would be able to really feel
that spark within themselves that is their true gift, and
to be able to lean into that spark and allow
it to grow and illuminate even brighter, and then bring
that fully into the world, express it into the world.
Dare to be honorable, dare to be truly authentic to
(58:02):
yourself and to those gifts, and then just express them
with a huge smile on your face, because that's what
the world needs.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
God never intended for us to be alone, to feel disconnected,
or experience separation. Instead, God created us for connection. He
wants to be relation to us, and through Jesus, he
gave us a path to be connected to Him always.
This connection is our foundation for how we live our lives,
including all of our actions and words we speak. And
(58:35):
God also wants us to be in connection with each other.
He made us for relationships and to create community. He
made us to love, honor, and cherish each other, to uplift, unite,
and draw strength, courage and conviction from each other. By ourselves,
we can do nothing but with God and with each other,
anything is possible. When you connect with God. We bring
(58:59):
His life, light and love into everything we do to
everyone we meet. And God has given us amazing tools
to help nurture and grow our connection to Him and
each other. From daily prayer to reading scripture, God shows
us how to relate to Him and to each other.
This week on Relentless Hope, Cesst Reader, founder and Chief
(59:21):
Impact Officer of Mission Wealth, showed us the meaning of
connection and what happens when we make our spiritual connection
the foundation of our days. Seth taught us how he
learned to blend his spiritual and professional lives and how
it opened incredible gateways personally and professionally for him. And
(59:42):
he showed that by connecting our spiritual and professional lives,
it acts as a kind of manifesto, helping us to
find more consciousness, love, purpose, and fulfillment. We learned how
to be great leaders, we need to value our spiritual
connection and connection to our people. Seth taught us how
(01:00:02):
he begins each morning in spiritual connection, which helps put
him in the best possible state so he can create
the greatest good throughout his day. And we learned how
Seth prioritizes empowering and getting to know his people and
He encourages us to work on our emotional intelligence so
(01:00:22):
that we can better connect to people. By doing so,
we can better lead and motivate people to be a
part of what we're creating. And Seth taught us how
he's working to leave a lasting legacy of care through
his company Mission Wealth. Every day, Seth tries to care
for his people, care for his clients, and care for
(01:00:43):
his community his company serves it. And we learned about
what Seth calls three point zero planning, which is a
phase in our lives that's about freedom and thinking through
our legacies and designing and igniting the most meaningful, exciting, joyful,
and impactful three point zero lives we could ever imagine.
(01:01:06):
When we prioritize our connection to God, then our relationship
not only deepens, but it also spills into all areas
of our lives, making everything and everyone we need better.
Through our connections to God and each other, we come
to know love, peace, and hope.
Let us pray Jesus saith unto him. I am the Way,
the Truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the
Father but by me John fourteen six. What a profound statement. Lord,
There is no way to the Father except through your
shed blood and forgiveness of sin. You are the absolute
(00:22):
truth and there is no deception in you. You are
not a man that you would lie. You were the
life breath within us. Many people want spiritual comfort without
confronting sin or Jesus. It's interesting how they talk about
all the false deities they follow, but when your name
is mentioned, all hell breaks loose. Literally, it shows me
(00:47):
how powerful your name is. One day every one in
this world will know the truth that Jesus Christ is
Lord and the only way to the Father. Amen. Thank
you for joining us in prayer. Now for the Relentless
Hope Podcast, where we bring you true stories and personal
(01:08):
testimonies that will help you love your life, lead with purpose,
and leave a legacy of helping others.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So many of us feel alone, disconnected, and deep within,
we feel this ache, this sense that something is missing,
because it is We long to connect, to belong to
a community, to have friends and family, surrounding us who
understand and support us on our journey through life, and
we long to connect with God. This yearning comes because
(01:47):
we know deep down that God never intended for us
to be alone or separate. He made us for connection.
He wants us to open our hearts so we can
know deep spiritual connection with Him. God also wants us
to connect with each other. He knows the pain and
suffering of this broken world. But an honest, loving, and
(02:08):
trusting relations with each other, we can ease our heartache
and enduring anything. This week on Relentless Hope, Cess Streader,
founder and Chief Impact Officer of Mission of Wealth, teaches
us about connection and he shows us how to connect
our spiritual lives with our professional lives. And he explains
(02:28):
how everything in our lives stems from having a strong
spiritual connection. As Sess says, we do not have to
keep our spiritual connection and a separate container from the
rest of our lives. Instead, we can use our connection
with God to inspire and motivate all our actions. We
hear how Seth learned to blend his spiritual and professional
(02:51):
lives after he overcame debilitating panic attacks that threatened his
career and the company he founded and Wealth and Seth
shows us how he's helping people lead more inspired and
fulfilled lives through the Trojan Horse of money conversations. Seth
also teaches us to be great leaders, we need to
(03:13):
connect to our spiritual selves and our people. He shares
how we starts every morning in spiritual connection and how
leadership is about knowing our people, understanding their strengths and weaknesses,
natural rules, abilities, and having realistic expectations for what we
can achieve together. We also learn what Seth's doing to
(03:35):
lead his legacy and the three areas he's focused on
through his company. This includes caring for his team, caring
for his clients, and caring for the communities where his
company serves. Seth also shows us when we prioritize our
spiritual connection to God, that our lives begin flowing in
perfect divine order and we are able to bring God's life,
(03:58):
his love, and his will to everyone we meet. As
we connect to God, we're able to develop deeper and
more meaningful and more fulfilling connections with ourselves and each other.
When Sees Streeter was about to present his company for
a national partnership, he found himself in the midst of
(04:21):
his first panic attack on stage, and.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
All of a sudden, I felt like I was in
the audience looking at me, and I became hyper hyper
aware of my physical sensations. I started to feel my
heart race in my chest. I started to feel my
breath shallow as my breathing really become shallow, and my
hands became clamming, and by the time he handed the
(04:47):
microphone to me, I was staring at the audience in
just sheer terror. I grabbed the mic and I tried
to speak into it, and I couldn't even say a word.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
I was like, ah oh, I was like I was choking, choking.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I can actually remember it now, and I remember I
looked to the man who introduced me, and I handed
him back to the microphone, and I said, excuse me
in a whisper, and I ran off the stage. And
as I ran off the stage, I remember going out
through the back and I saw an exit door, and
just everything in me wanted to just keep running and
just go right out that door in my suit and
(05:21):
lucky tie and just get the heck out of there.
But somehow I forced myself to go to the bathroom,
which was also nearby, and I went into the bathroom
and I splashed water in my face and put water
in my mouth, and I looked my soul in the eyes,
and I'm like, Seth, get your shit together.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
In Part one of this three part series on Relentless Hope,
we'll hear from financial advisor Seth Streeter as he explains
the most pivotal moment in his life. Through blending his
professional and spiritual life, he learned to overcome his fears
and begin to help others.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I was raised in a high performing family. Both my
mom and dad were professionals as teachers and teacher instructors,
and my dad was a biologist in the Fish and
Wildlife Service and worked his way up in the government ranks.
And my brother and I were raised to be the same.
We were raised to really excel in school, sports, student government,
(06:27):
our chores. We had livestock and farm and lots of
responsibilities there and so we were raised to be super
productive and it served me.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
It allowed me to thrive in school.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
It allowed me to get into a great university and
to continue that path in college, to be in student government,
to be involved in interermurals, to be a double major
with honors to have jobs throughout college, and it allowed
me to get a great career. I started working one
week after graduating in the world of financial services, and
(07:02):
I was completely determined to continue to.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Thrive and excel.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And I share this just brief background with everyone because
my life was really about achieving performance, because I thought
that's where my sense of worth came from. I thought
that if I was productive, I was worthy and even loved.
If I could show accomplishments through running a marathon or
(07:31):
an iron mail, or hitting a certain sales goal or
a certain.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Career goal or a certain award, well.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Then you know I had those external validators that I
was somebody. You know, I had a wolf and all
of this really, I would say, kind of climaxed with
the most traumatic experience, or one of the most traumatic
experiences of my life. And it happened when I was
forty years old. I was very involved with my financial
(08:02):
services company. I have a wealth management company that had
really grown and achieved a great deal of success in
the traditional sense, and I opened up this incredible opportunity
to form a national partnership with a huge financial services partner.
And after a couple years of opening up the doors
(08:22):
to this opportunity. The brass at this big partner said, Okay, Seth,
you can come and present your company to us, and
let's form this partnership.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
And so I was so excited.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I thought, finally I've built this national partnership. This is
going to really launch our company to the next level.
And so I prepared for this talk as I would
any others. And I had done a significant amount of
public speaking up to this point, and so I prepared
my words. I wanted to say some slides. And the
(08:56):
morning of I had my normal kind of pregame best practice.
I went for a quick run, I took a shower,
I had a healthy breakfast. I put on my lucky suit,
my lucky tie. I listened to some rock music on
my way to the venue, and I was ready to
rock it.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I had that kind of pregame excitement as I went
to the auditorium. And as I was in the auditorium
waiting to be introduced, ready to just rock it and
kind of realize this huge national partnership that I'd worked
so hard to form for my company, it felt like
the introduction went way too long. They just kept saying, well,
(09:33):
Cees Streeter blah blah blah and Cess Streeter blah blah blah,
and you know, talking about accolades, and I was I
remember I was standing there looking at the audience as
this gentleman was introducing me, and all of a sudden,
I felt like I was in the audience looking at me,
and I became hyper hyper aware of my physical sensations.
(09:55):
I started to feel my heart racing my chest. I
started to feel my breath shallow, so my breathing really
becomes shallow, and my hands became clammy and by the
time he handed the microphone to me, I was staring
at the audience in just sheer terror. I grabbed the
mic and I tried to speak into it, and I
(10:17):
couldn't even say a word.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
I was like, oh oh, I was like I was choking, choking.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I can actually remember it now, and I remember I
looked to the man who introduced me, and I handed
him back the microphone and I said, excuse me in
a whisper, and I ran off the stage. And as
I ran off the stage, I remember going out through
the back and I saw an exit door, and just
everything in me wanted to just keep running and just
go right out that door in my suit and lucky
(10:42):
tie and just get the heck out of there. But
somehow I forced myself to go to the bathroom, which
was also nearby. And I went into the bathroom and
I splashed water in my face and put water in
my mouth, and I looked my soul in the eyes,
and I'm like, Seth, get your shit together. You have
this one moment. Don't waste it. And so I somehow
(11:03):
overcame my fear and my heart, my racing heart, and
I went back into that auditorium and the guy who
was introducing me had a glass of water, and the
audience was kind of standing there or sitting there, wide eyed,
and he gave me the microphone again, and I remember
I started to talk, but I was staring at my
feet because I couldn't even stand to look them in
the eyes, because I felt like I was being so
(11:24):
judged and that it was just such a terrifying feeling
to have those hundreds of eyes staring at me. And
I somehow managed to just keep talking and keep talking
to a point where I could fill the fear kind
of subside out of me. And maybe it was two minutes,
but you know, it felt like a lifetime and I
(11:46):
was able to get through that talk.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
And after that talk, I talked.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
To a friend who was in the audience and I
just said, oh, my gosh, you know, what was that
like for you? And he said, you had like a
frog in your throat?
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Right, you have a cold or something.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I said, no, I just went through the scariest, you know,
five minutes of my life. And I can't even tell
you how horrifying it was inside my body during those
five minutes.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
And so he said, well, it wasn't you know that
noticed that.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Well, you got it back together, and you know, the
talk went fine, and we actually formed that national partnership,
which today is a significant driver of growth for my company.
But at this point in time, I was dumbfounded. I
went home and I was shell shocked that that had occurred,
that I had actually frozen and was completely disabled from
(12:38):
communicating for that period of time. And I tried to
research what it was, and I said, Okay, gosh, it
sounds like I had a panic attack.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Why the heck did I have a panic attack?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I've you know, I've talked hundreds of times before, and
why did I freak out today? And so I tried
to just ignore it and just shut it off to
being a bad day. Maybe I, you know, had too
much tea that morning, or you know, just a bad day.
And so I went to work the next day kind
of just trying to sweep it under the rug. I
didn't tell anyone about it. And I was going in
(13:10):
to a morning meeting with four people in the room,
so not a huge audience, just four people in the room.
And as I went into the room, I met these
clients or potential clients, and I shook their hand and
I sat down, and this is something I'd done again
hundreds of times before. And as they asked me a
question and the kind of spotlight was on me, as
(13:33):
I felt the spotlight was on me to answer the question,
all of a sudden, I started to feel my mind
scanning for the same physiological symptoms I had experienced the
day before, like waite seth, is your heart racing, white seth,
is your breath shallow white seth? Your hands fell kind
of clammy. And sure enough, it was almost like I
invited those symptoms to be a reality. It was almost
(13:56):
like I was scanning my body looking for any clue
that it could then go into a fight or flight response,
and sure enough, you know, if you scan long enough,
you're gonna find You're going to find what you're scanning for.
So here I am in this room with four, you know,
perspective clients and actually a co or three perspective clients
and a coworker, and I became completely unable to speak again,
(14:22):
and I said, excuse me, I have to use the restroom.
And I went to my restaurant at my office. Again,
I looked my soul in the eyes.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
And I'm like, what is up?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
You can't even talk to flipping four people in a room,
get it together? And I did the same thing as
last time. I kind of like scolded myself. I felt
such disgusted with my inability to just overcome this. You know,
I prided myself on being someone who could overcome things.
And I'd pushed through, you know again, endurance races. I'd
(14:54):
pushed through tough business challenges. You know, I'd pushed through
going through it challenging divorce and health challenges. I mean,
I'm a guy who's tenacious, who can persevere what the
heck is happening.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
So I had.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
This little discussion with myself wasn't a really kind one,
I can tell you. And I went back into the
room with the clients, and I somehow mustered through. I
kind of asked my coworker to communicate, and then I
eventually got to where I could breathe normal and I
was able to get through it. But it began a
whole pattern of six months where I truly thought I
(15:31):
was going to have to quit my career. I was
going to have to completely change my lifestyle, maybe move
my family to Mexico or somewhere that I could afford
to live, because I wasn't going to be able to
make any money. You know, as a financial advisor. I
could lose an arm, I could lose a leg, and
I could still do my job, but if I can't
(15:51):
communicate with people, I truly can't earn a living. So
during those six months, I really dove into what the
heck was happening. I went and saw a therapist. I
read a ton of books, and you know, watched videos,
and I really learned about panic attacks and you know,
what triggers could be, and you know what, you know,
(16:14):
were the ways to overcome the sensations when I was
feeling them. Come on. And I came up with a
three step process of how I could overcome them. I
would need to acknowledge my sensations as I first felt them. So,
oh wow, Seth, you're feeling a little bit nervous right now.
You can't deny those feelings because the body is going
to turn up the volume if you do. So, I
(16:35):
would just acknowledge, Oh, Seth, you're feeling kind of some
nerves right now.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Your heart's racing a little bit.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
And then the second step is I would assure myself, Seth,
you know, there's no sabertooth tigers in this room. These
are just nice people who want to be educated. Or
this is a friendly audience. You know, these are people
that I can really help and serve. And I had
to kind of get out of myself and have empathy
for the people that I was communicating with. And then
(17:02):
the third step I came up with is to have
a coping technique. So a coping technique is just a way, frankly,
to ground me in the moment. Maybe I'm holding a
cold glass of water and I filled that cold sensation
through my fingertips, or I fill my feet on the ground,
or I look at a tree outside through a window,
or I look at a person in the audience and
I actually have empathy for them. I make up a
(17:24):
story that, you know, maybe she just lost her husband,
or you know, maybe they're suffering with the real financial
hardship right now. So I came up with a process
to overcome that fear.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
But it was.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Something that from that day forward, and it's been eight
years since that time, I still always carry a significant
amount of humility in me over you know just how
close any of us can be to that point of
no return where we truly allow our mind and our
fears to take over us. And I have to say
(17:59):
that as I look back now, that was truly a
huge blessing in disguise for me. It completely shaped the
person that I am today and the person I know
I'll continue to evolve to be going forward.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
And my.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Whole kind of mindset prior to that panic attack was
that I was a professional who was achieving, who was
all about execution, and on the side, I had a
spiritual side, a deep spiritual part of my life, and
I was really into community service and I did a
lot of service work and developing countries. I would go
(18:35):
down to Latin America and volunteered orphanages and even take
my kids to volunteer with me. But some of those
two worlds as being distinct. I had my professional life
where I was a successful financial CEO, and I had
my service work, and my spiritual life was over on
the other side. And the biggest blessing out of the
(18:57):
whole panic attack lesson for me was I learned to
blend those two worlds. I learned that I could be
of service deeply connected to my vulnerable spiritual self in
my career and it's completely allowed me to evolve my
business forward to being in the world of transformation human
(19:18):
transformation through the trojan horse of a money conversation. And
I have completely opened up new incredible gateways in my life,
both personally and professionally as a result of this new
blended spiritual combined with my career dimension. And I have
to say that a year after my panic attack, I
(19:41):
was still kind of struggling a little bit, but I
was able to do my work as moving forward. I
wrote in my journal and I said, Seth, you know
you're going to completely overcome this fear, and in fact,
it's going to be a catalyst to take you to
a whole new level. And I want you to think,
what would be the scariest thing you could do as
someone who would freak out with just a couple people
(20:04):
in a room and not able to talk to them.
What would be the biggest reach goal, the biggest Harry
reach goal I could think of, And that Harry reach
goal when I journaled was to give a TED talk.
I thought, my god, getting up on stage for sixteen
minutes in front of a huge audience with live video
footage without any notes would be the flip and scariest
(20:27):
thing I could imagine. I mean, that would be prime
time for a panic attack. And I wrote my journal that, Seth,
one day you'll give a TED talk, and that will
be your sign that you've progressed forward with this what
I thought at the time was like a debilitating tragedy.
And so sure enough flashed forward to twenty sixteen, and
(20:49):
I didn't sign up out of the blue through serendipity
or through divine intervention. I had someone contact me from
the TED organization and says, Seth, we'd like to give
a TED talk. And I thought, oh man, shoot, got
to be careful for what you wish for in this life.
But I knew I had to say yes. I knew
it was my destiny to say yes to this, and
(21:10):
so I leaned into this opportunity to give a TED talk,
and I spoke about this blending of my spiritual life
into my professional life and how I see it as
kind of a manifesto for people to move forward and
find more consciousness, more love, more purpose and fulfillment in
their lives from this kind of mindset of looking at
(21:30):
wealth through these ten dimensions, looking at your spiritual level
of wealth, looking at your physical, emotional, social, intellectual, the
degree of impact, a number of dimensions beyond just the financial.
And this has been my launching pad going forward, and
it's really been what's going to allow me to have
(21:51):
the most aligned legacy that I could have ever ever
hoped for, all because of this panic attack, which truly
ended up being a blessed in disguise. When unexpected events happen,
that's when leadership skills can be the most valuable, and
I've had the opportunity to have to step up in
(22:12):
these circumstances. A recent example of this was in in
late twenty seventeen, there was a major fire in Santa
Barbara County called the Thomas Fire, and then in early
twenty eighteen, after the fires had charred the hills, there
were some major debris slides, landslides that actually ended up
taking the lives of twenty three of our local residents,
(22:35):
and it was extremely stressful time in our community. Roads
were closed, resources were shut off like electricity, phone lines,
internet access, and there was flooding. There was just a
real huge confusion around information access. And so as a
(22:57):
service business, again a financial services company, we've always been
committed to doing the very best we can for our
clients and for the communities that we operate in, and
so this was a time where we had the opportunity
to shine.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
In Part two of this three part series on Relentless Hope,
Seth explains how vulnerability creates power in leadership roles. By
connecting to those who you lead and understanding their strengths,
you will have a more productive team.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
For me, being a leader is being an example. We
know that actions speak louder than words, and so as leaders,
we need to truly walk the walk, and for me,
this means showing up as what I call the chief
energy officer, the CEO and as a chief energy officer.
I know that as my well being, as my positivity,
(23:58):
as my sense of possibilit goes, there will be a
ripple effect through my entire organization and through all the
community groups that I lead. So I work on myself
being the best person I can be and putting myself
in the best state possible so that I can go
out there and help others be in the best state possible.
(24:18):
And I do this through having time in the morning
for spiritual connectivity, to get grounded in a framework beyond
myself and to know that I am here to serve
the world, to use my gifts in my fullest expression
to truly impact people and help transform the planet. And
I see myself as being a catalyst for good, and
(24:41):
I want to put myself in the best state possible
to create the greatest good I can. And it comes
even on the small parts of the day. You know,
I'm commuting into the office, smiling at a stranger or
being kind to an animal, or the music I listen
to or the podcast I listen to, the food I
(25:03):
put into my body. I try to just be mindful
of the choices that I make and the consequences. They
have all add up to be the collective impact that
I'm able to bring. So as a leader, my goal
when I deal with team members or clients or partners
(25:25):
is to truly be vulnerable, because I've learned there's such
power and vulnerability. I don't need to try to have
all the answers. I can just truly be present with
people and listen and be kind, and that goes so far.
You know, I'm in an industry of financial services, and
I've led you know, large groups of other financial executives,
(25:46):
over two thousand executives in one group I led from.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Around the globe.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
And unfortunately, in our industry and in other industries, we've
kind of been taught to be so connected to the
left side of our brains and to be so almost
unemotional and to you know, think about facts and figures
and data and metrics, which is all critical to the job.
But we also are human beings, not just human doings,
(26:15):
and so remembering the human part and working on you know,
my own emotional intelligence and my own ability to be
connected to humans in a deep way has allowed me
to take those facts and figures and you know, the
dashboards that are inherent in any business and apply them
(26:35):
and relate them in a way to people that they
will be able to really connect with and be able
to be motivated by.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
And want to be part of.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
So as a leader, I see the connectivity with human
beings as being really the most important part of my job,
because if I don't have an empowered team, then you know,
we're not doing anything as a business. And also I
realized after many years of trying to be so serious,
especially starting off at a young age, when you're trying to
(27:08):
build trust with people and you know, let them believe
that they should give you their wealth to manage when
you're only twenty two years old and kind of pretend
to know it all. So I was so lucky once
I finally lost my hair, because boy, that made me
look older. I remember actually thinking that. So the thing
I've learned is that you can actually be playful. You
(27:30):
can have fun and still be productive. So as a
leader now I try to be playful with my team
and you know, have a smile and connect with them
on a personal level and not just always be about
execution and about the job task. We do need to
get things done, We do need to have a degree
of accountability and obviously a work ethic, but we can
(27:52):
also have some levity in our day and have some
levity and how we relate to other people. And so
for me, a leader is being positive, being playful, listening, caring,
and knowing that I have to be the example that
my actions will always speak louder than my words. For me,
this is the key to being an empowered leader. When
(28:17):
unexpected events happen, that's when leadership skills can be the
most valuable. And I've had the opportunity to have to
step up in these circumstances. A recent example of this
was in in late twenty seventeen, there was a major
fire in Santa Barbara County called the Thomas Fire, and
(28:38):
then in early twenty eighteen, after the fires had charred
the hills, there were some major debris slides, landslides that
actually ended up taking the lives of twenty three of
our local residents. And it was extremely stressful time in
our community. Roads were closed, resources were shut off like electricity,
(28:59):
phone line, internet access, and there was flooding. There was
just a real huge confusion around information access. And so
as a service business, again a financial services company, we've
always been committed to doing the very best we can
for our clients and for the communities that we operate in,
(29:22):
and so this was a time where we had the
opportunity to shine, and we did so by really becoming
a command post for our over one thousand clients. We
contacted them, we shared evacuation notices and locations, We let
them know about emergency resources that were available, and even
(29:44):
offered to take clients' pets. For our clients who were
out of town at the time, we offered to try
to get photo footage of their homes to see if
they were still okay and standing and kind of what
the current status was of the fire movements, and we
personally got involved. We ran a donation where we collected
(30:05):
household goods and clothing that we donated to local families
that had been evacuated from their homes, and we also
volunteered with some different organizations that were there supporting the
kind of crisis control that was happening. So as a
service culture in our company, our focus is just always
(30:27):
on how we can best serve our clients and the
communities we operate in, and so this was the way
that we could be of the best service, and as
a leader, it was amazing to see my team come
together for our clients, and the tremendous loyalties that it
brought for our clients I think will just never be replaced.
They could tell that we truly truly cared for them
(30:48):
and that we're willing to step up in that time
of need. And so oftentimes, as a leader we have
the ability to really step up in a time of
crisis and take draft measures and to really use the
organizational assets for the greater good. And this was an
example that my company Mission Wealth definitely stepped up in
(31:11):
this way. If there's one thing a leader has a
great deal of experience in its failure. You know, leaders
are just really good at not quitting. They're really good
at just being tenacious and persistent and trying and trying again.
I've had all sorts of failures as a leader, and
(31:32):
of course I look at failures just simply an opportunity
to grow and learn and reapply it in the future
and not make the same mistakes twice. I'd say the
top couple failures I've had as a leader. If I
had to look at the mass groupings in themes, would
one be being overly ambitious, not always setting realistic goals
(31:55):
with you know, bite size actions that can be taken,
but instead setting really a lofty vision without the nailed
down strategic plan to get there. And that really doesn't
set a team up for success when you're just setting
a huge, lofty goal without a realistic way that they
can achieve it. The second area I think I've failed
(32:16):
is I'm such a people person. Oftentimes I overweight my
relationship with someone versus taking a really honest assessment of
their natural strengths and the roles in which their strengths
can be best utilized. So something that I've seen as
an example is I will come up with an idea
(32:37):
of maybe an event we're going to put on, or
a new growth opportunity will be tackling, and I might
share it with someone who I think has the ability
to implement that, but in actuality, that person might be
looking for really a black and white, nail down plan.
So what I feel is a clear directive to them
feels like a lot of gray without a lot of
(32:59):
the meat up on the bone, and so they don't
have a clear way in which to implement. And I've
left thinking that I've delegated, and so then both parties
end up getting frustrated. So, as a leader who prides
himself on learning from these mistakes, I've learned to really
identify people's strengths across four key areas. And the four
(33:23):
areas are as originators those who are really good at,
you know, creating the big vision, creating unique solutions or innovations.
Number two is as advancers, people who can take the
idea from an originator and kind of refine it further.
The third group I call refiners. They're the people who
(33:43):
say that's not going to work because and they bounce
the idea back up and say that's not going to
work because or that doesn't work within our system or
you know, they bounce it back up to the advancers
and the originators and make them really get it nailed down.
And then the fourth group are the implementers. These are
people who do like things to be black and white,
and they are great at executing when you give them
a very clear action plan of what to do. So
(34:06):
as a leader, I want to make sure I understand
the strengths and the natural roles and abilities of my
team members so that when I do have a big vision.
I make sure I speak to one of my advancers
first and then from there we bounce it down to
the refiners and then ultimately get it to an implementer.
And I've learned to really understand who people are and
(34:29):
it has nothing to do with how much I like
them or maybe have a personal connection with them. I
work really hard to find personal connections with all of
my team members, but it's more about really understanding their
unique roles and how we all need each other to
work together toward achieving our long term vision. So leadership
(34:49):
is about knowing people. It's about understanding their strengths and
weaknesses and having realistic expectations and for being able to
put a group together based on their strengths to achieve
the desired outcome. As human beings, we all have different
fuel that gets us up in the morning. And as
(35:10):
a leader, I know that one of my greatest sources
of fuel has actually been criticism or when people have
told me that something isn't possible that really just gets
me up and makes me want to prove them wrong.
An example of that was I wanted to bring to
Santa Barbara a unique and innovative community building program called
(35:31):
Fast Pitch. What Fast Pitch is is it's where we
take nonprofit leaders, typically of nonprofits that are under the
radar and not really highly exposed in the community, and
we put their leaders through a two month communication coaching
exercise so that they can give a very compelling three
(35:51):
minute pitch about their organization. Specifically, they talk about the
history of their organization, why it exists, and what their
greatest need is to launch their organization to the next level.
We then, after coaching these leaders over two months, prepare
a large community event where we put them in front
(36:13):
of three hundred and fifty plus community members who get
to vote by text for their favorite pitches, and then
there's cash prizes that are given out to the top
performing leaders, and there's also a panel of judges that
give very valuable feedback. So it's essentially like Shark Tank
(36:35):
meets American Idol for the nonprofit sector. Well, I saw
tremendous value in this concept for our community, and when
I first got sparked with the idea to bring this
to Santa Barbara, I had a whole.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Host of.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Naysayers who said, you know, set, this will never work.
Santa Barbara is way too small of a community for this.
If you want to pull it off, it's going to
take two or three years to organize. We have limited
resources to make this happen. There's already so many nonprofits.
There's not room in the calendar to try to put
(37:11):
on another big event like this seth nonprofit leaders do
not have two months of time to dedicate to pitching
one three minute speech, and so on and so on.
And the more I heard these critiques, the more I said,
we need to do this, our community needs this. We
will prove that we can do it. And sure enough,
(37:32):
it took us only nine months to put together our
first Fast Pitch event, and we had forty nonprofits go
through this program over two years. We did it two
back to back years. We had tremendous success. Amazing synergies
opened up, not just to the community directly, but in
between the nonprofits that each were pitching and in theory
(37:55):
competing against each other. There was beautiful collaboration where they
supported each other, and the outcome couldn't have been better.
I was so proud to see our community rally, especially
our nonprofit community, and I was so happy that I
was able to override the negative feedback that I was
getting as I was starting to put this together, and
(38:16):
again those critiques ended up being my fuel that allowed
me to be the chief Energy Officer for Fast Pitch SB,
which is something that I'm really proud of that has
really helped shape the Santa Barbara community. So what we're
doing is we're bringing the community together around these campaigns,
and we're highlighting the top actions or programs that these organizations, businesses,
(38:39):
or city agencies have to help support progress, and then
we're tracking the collective results. So my vision is that
we're going to start by making Santa Barbara County, the
home of the first Earth Day, a shining example for sustainability,
and then we're going to be spreading this out into
other counties all over the country and hopefully eventually across
the globe make a difference for our planet, which I
(39:02):
care so deeply for. And it all comes from micro
actions that we can each take each and every day.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
In Part three of this three part series and Relentless Hope,
Seth explains how he's leaving a legacy through helping others
achieve their full potential by applying experiences from his past companies.
In the book, that Seth wrote, he's helping his employees
and clients learn about themselves and how to achieve their dreams.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
I am so excited about the legacy that I know
I am leaving behind, and that I want to continue
to expand my footprint of legacy throughout the remaining years
of my lifetime. For me, it really comes in three
broad areas. Beyond being a parent, because I just love
my son and daughter so much and I feel like there.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
In so many ways on my ultimate legacy.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
But beyond being a parent and seeing my kids launch
into the world and bring their unique gifts into the world,
my main legacy will be the way in which I
left a footprint, and the main ways that I see
myself leaving this footprint will be first of all, with my.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Company Mission Wealth.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
As a national firm, I know that we're really helping
families all over the country find and enjoy financial freedom
and even more to have deep fulfillment in their lives.
So we are using again the Money conversations as a
way to help people find greater connectivity in their lives,
maybe with family and friends, or to explore their artistic
(40:39):
side and go take a photography class or write a book,
or to.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Take that dream trip to.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Bali, or to really develop meaningful friendships, or to get
super involved in the community and.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Have community impact.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
So I just love the connection and the transformation that
I see with the client that we serve.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
And I also really am grateful for our team and
I want to know that we empowered our team members.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
And that we continue to maintain a fantastic culture and
had top awards for that.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
Knowing that we were truly caring.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
For our team members and seeing them have their own
career development. And then also to know that we were
improving the communities that we operated in, that we always
gave back, and that we led the cause of various
nonprofits and community building opportunities that our team members.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Had passions around.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
As a founder and leader, I am very excited to
see my business mission wealth become a key part of
my legacy. I see that happening really in three key ways.
First of all, how we care for our team and
how we're expanding our team across the country. We truly
invest in our culture. We provide fully paid for education
(41:59):
for our team members. We promote a collaborative environment where
we do a lot of training and team building exercises,
and we have a really fun culture as well. We'll
go do community service events together, We'll go get involved
in all sorts of social activities in the community, and
we really support the whole family of our team. We
(42:22):
do retreats twice a year where partners and spouses are invited.
We invite children to events, so we see our team
and its expansion and the deepening of our team as
being a key part of our legacy. In our most
recent retreat, we had my friend Sean Thompson, who is
a world renowned surfer and business leader and also a
(42:43):
ted X speaker and author, come and share an exercise
he calls developing your I Will statements, and these are
twelve personal declarations or affirmations of things you're truly committed
to in your personal life. And we had our team
go through an exercise to that each write their twelve
personal I will statements. We had every team member stand
(43:05):
up and share vulnerably what their twelve I will statements were,
and then select their one most important personal I will declaration.
We then took all of those top I will declarations
and we've put them on a really nicely created board
that we've put on our wall, So it just showcases
that we're not just here to achieve the company goals
(43:28):
and to serve our clients, but that we truly care
about the top personal goals of our team members as well,
and this creates a tremendous loyalty and connectivity across the
whole organization. The second form of legacy for Mission Wealth
is really how we care for our clients. You know,
(43:48):
we're growing out our national presence all across the United States,
and our passion is not just to help people find
more optimization on their personal finances, their balance sheet, their investments,
their cash flow, their state plans, but it's to help
them off the balance sheet as well, to spark greater fulfillment,
(44:08):
maybe to make it a career change into a more
aligned career, and really looking for ways that we can
help them have more joy and impact in their lives.
You know, it might come from helping them really think
about their bucket list and nudging them forward to tackle
some of those things on their bucket list. We just
had a client who retired after a forty year career,
(44:31):
and we were sitting down with she and her husband,
and I was kind of talking about some of these
potential bucket lists wishes and she said, you know, my
dream is always to be in a hot air balloon.
I've never been on a hot air balloon ride. And
her husband of almost fifty years said, I had no
idea he wanted to go on a hotter balloon ride.
And so as a retirement gift, we took both of
them on a hot air balloon ride and it sparked
(44:53):
so much joy in her to have this dream come true.
And sometimes it's just the little things, but we love
helping our client find deeper meaning, purpose and joy in
their lives. And if we can support that in any way.
To coming to fruition, we feel like we're really helping
to create a legacy in that way. And then the
third form of legacy generation that I'm proud of that
(45:17):
mission Wealth is really creating on a daily basis is
a service work that we do in the community. Every
one of our team members is encouraged to volunteer and
we will support their charity of choice. We do group
volunteer days. We will go do food sorting at a
local food bank. We've worked on building a home for
Habitat for Humanity. We've done relay marathons for charities. We
(45:43):
always come up with unique ways that we can get
involved and contribute and give back along with some of
the community building efforts that we've actually organized for the
entire community with Fast Pitch SB as well as Sustainable
Future and even a recent example as we're involved with
the local Museum of Natural History and they have a
really incredible Sea Center museum that's out on the wharf
(46:07):
of Santa Barbara, and as a way to give back
and to promote our values around sustainability, we are actually
sponsoring for them to get solar panels put onto this
Sea Center museum so that they will have electricity provided
in perpetuity and that'll help with their utility costs, it'll
help promote sustainability. We're going to be able to highlight
(46:28):
in the community, you know, the importance of solar into
becoming more renewable as a country. And so it's a
way to give back and to help educate and empower
people to just become more aware of other options. So
being able to care for our team, caring for our clients,
and caring for our community are always that we feel
(46:48):
we're able to really promote a super positive legacy from
Mission Wealth. So that's my company, and that's just one
area that I know I'll leave a legacy. I also
know that the workshops that I've been doing and the retreats,
and I'll be writing a book on this life three
point zero vision will be another form of legacy for me.
(47:09):
And essentially what I came up with was a framework
that in life we have one point zho phases when
we're kind of getting our sense of identity. You know,
are we the athlete or the academic? Are we the
funny guy over the introvert, Are we the musician? We
kind of get our sense of identity eventually and we
go into two point zero where we start our field
of study, we start our career, We maybe get married,
(47:32):
we have children, we buy a home and get a mortgage,
and two point zero is a phase of responsibility when
our head is down and we're essentially growing our families,
we're growing our careers, we're maybe starting a business, and
we're in that responsible phase. But there comes a time
when our kids become more independent and maybe launch into
the world where we've achieved a lot of what we
(47:54):
wanted to professionally, and we start to think about what's next.
And in that phase of three point zero, it's really
a phase of freedom, and it's a phase where we
want to think about our legacy. We want to think
about the relationships and did we invest in them enough.
We think about maybe improving our health or taking that
bucket list trip to Africa. And so what I find
(48:18):
is a lot of people who've been working so hard
in their careers and raising their families, They've been so
dutiful for others that they get stuck around two point
eight or two point nine. They look back and a
lot of their sense of identity is caught up in
their past accomplishments or you know, in their past family experiences,
(48:39):
and they really don't know how to launch forward into
a three point zero where they feel alive and excited
and still growing and evolving. So my legacy work in
this area of three point zero planning is to help
people design and ignite the most meaningful and exciting and
joyful and impactful three point oho phase they could ever imagine.
(49:00):
And I'm really loving holding retreats and putting together different
exercises and programs to help people find more joint meeting
in this third phase of life with the Developing Your
Life three point zero vision work that I do both
with large group presentations as well as small group facilitations.
We also are doing one on one coaching with our clients.
(49:24):
And what I'm really excited about and spreading this message
through these workshops as well as through a book that
I look forward to publishing, is to highlight real life
examples of where everyday people have dared to reinvent themselves
and to be able to find ways to live a
more aligned life. Maybe it's a career change, you know.
(49:45):
I had a client who was a corporate attorney who
really wasn't passionate about his work that required a lot
of travel away from his family and intense stress of
always having a deal after a deal, And through working
with their family, we were able to to help them
imagine a life and where he was living close to home,
not traveling, and working in an area of passion of
(50:07):
his which is becoming a history teacher. And so now
he's a high school history teacher. He has summers off
to spend time with his wife and two teenagers.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
They have really evolved as.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
A family through this career change and in this three
point zero work, We also love to help people develop
what we call their inspired life purpose. And the inspired
life purpose is really when you find a way to
intersect between your natural gifts, your acquired skills, your greatest passion,
and with what you feel is a huge trend or
(50:40):
need in the world. We help our clients and individuals
go through a visioning exercise where they really identify.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
Their greatest gifts. These are the things that have come
just natural to them their whole lives.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Maybe you've just always been a strong communicator, or you've
always been great at developing first impressions, or you've always
been good at math problem solving.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
And then you think about your skills.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
These are the talents that we've gained through maybe hands
on experience or through education, and so these are acquired
skills that we've honed over the years. The third circle
has to do with our passions. This is what we
really love to do. If we had all the time
and all the money in the world, this is how
we would spend it. And then the fourth circle has
(51:26):
to do with what you think the world needs most.
What is a cause that you're deeply touched by. What
is a trend that you see happening in the world
that you really want to get in front of. It's
maybe something around automation or robotics or AI or climate change,
or any trend or movement could be positive or negative
(51:47):
that you see really as being imminent.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
How can you get in front of that?
Speaker 3 (51:51):
How can you help move the needle on illiteracy in
Africa or clean water in Haiti. So were people's natural
gifts intersect with their acquired skills, intersect with their greatest
passions and what they believe is a trend or what
the world needs most, This is where their inspired life
purpose resides. And if we can help people kind of
(52:13):
awaken to what this inspired life purpose might be, well,
then it's pretty amazing to see how excited they get,
the energy they find, and just the opportunities they can
create when they're working from this space. So I love
to talk to clients and ask them, you know, what
purpose is truly worthy of your life? We all have
(52:34):
these infinite gifts and we need to be fully expressing
them into the world to be making the greatest impact.
And when we can help people light up and find
this in their three point zero vision and in their
three point zero phase of life. Well, then that is
part of what our true legacy really is, and it's
something I'm super passionate about helping people to find or
(52:55):
you know, add fuel to what they're already doing to
take it to the next level. Are some of the
exercises that we will push forward in the three point
zero visioning work that we do. We will look at
all ten dimensions of wealth and help people identify where
they feel they need to put more resource, whether it's
intellectual growth, spiritual development, improving their physical state, how their
(53:19):
body looks, feels and functions, their career alignment, how much
fun they have. You know, are they having a lot
of fun in their life, their emotional well being, which
is kind of their general levels of stress or know
how they wake up, their general attitude, the quality of
their family and friendships, their social capital, and then the
(53:39):
amount of impact that they really feel they're having. Are
they satisfied with the level of impact they're having in
the community or in the world at large. So as
we all take a look at this holistic lens of ourselves,
we can find areas that we can put more energy
and time and attention into and then as a result,
feel more well rounded and a greater sense of meaning
(54:02):
and fulfillment in our lives. And then the final area
that I am super passionate about continuing to build my
legacy is in an organization called sustainablefuture dot org that
I founded. And sustainable future dot org is an organization
that's here to help combat human induce climate change.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
You know, I've been.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Passionate about the environment for my lifetime, really, and I've
worked on so many different nonprofits, and I saw this
silo effect that existed where these great nonprofits were doing
great work, but they're each kind of operating in their
silo from each other, and they weren't really collaborating. And
I saw the same thing in the business community, in
the public sector, and in schools and universities and even
(54:47):
faith based organizations. I thought, if somehow we could unify
these big pillars of the community and all the organizations
within each of those pillars, so all the nonprofits and
all the businesses into one rally cry, then we could
really have incredible impact. And so there's an African proverb
that says, if you want to go fast, go alone,
(55:09):
and if you want to go far, go together, And
so sustainable Future dot org was really a way in
which we could all go further together. And what it
is is is it's a platform. It's an app that
allows us to use gamification and technology to bring awareness
and empowered actions around all sorts of various campaigns. So currently,
(55:33):
we have campaigns around minimizing single use plastics. We have
campaigns around water conservation, around smart transportation ways that we
can be more mindful of ride sharing or using mass transit,
or using electric vehicles or biking to work. We have
a campaign around food waste. Did you know that forty
(55:54):
percent of food in the United States is wasted and
there's so much we can do to help with food
rescue programs and to be smarter with our food practices
and even with our food that we get rid of
to become posting that food instead of just putting it
into the landfill. So what we're doing is we're bringing
the community together around these campaigns, and we're highlighting the
(56:16):
top actions or programs that these organizations, businesses, or city
agencies have to help support progress, and then we're tracking
the collective results. So my vision is that we're going
to start by making Santa Barbara County the home of
the first Earth Day a shining example for sustainability, and
then we're going to be spreading this out into other
counties all over the country and hopefully eventually across the globe.
(56:40):
So I want to make a difference for our planet,
which I care so deeply for, and it all comes
from micro actions that we can each take each and
every day, the small choices of how we shop, how
we eat, how we dispose of things. We can be
the difference in our daily daily steps. And if we
can do so in a way that we feel empowered
(57:01):
and educated and we get peer validation and it's all
happening from an app that's super simple from your phone,
then we can actually have a ripple effect throughout the world.
So for me, legacy is about continuing to grow myself,
about continuing to invest in my children and my friendships
and my family. It's about growing into my partnership with
(57:24):
my romantic partner. It's about being able to make a
difference through my business, through the coaching work I do
on the side, and through the nonprofit Sustainable Future dot
org that I've grown. And I feel so grateful to
be of service and every day to show up as
a light for the world.
Speaker 4 (57:40):
And that's really what I wish for.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Everyone, is that everyone would be able to really feel
that spark within themselves that is their true gift, and
to be able to lean into that spark and allow
it to grow and illuminate even brighter, and then bring
that fully into the world, express it into the world.
Dare to be honorable, dare to be truly authentic to
(58:02):
yourself and to those gifts, and then just express them
with a huge smile on your face, because that's what
the world needs.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
God never intended for us to be alone, to feel disconnected,
or experience separation. Instead, God created us for connection. He
wants to be relation to us, and through Jesus, he
gave us a path to be connected to Him always.
This connection is our foundation for how we live our lives,
including all of our actions and words we speak. And
(58:35):
God also wants us to be in connection with each other.
He made us for relationships and to create community. He
made us to love, honor, and cherish each other, to uplift, unite,
and draw strength, courage and conviction from each other. By ourselves,
we can do nothing but with God and with each other,
anything is possible. When you connect with God. We bring
(58:59):
His life, light and love into everything we do to
everyone we meet. And God has given us amazing tools
to help nurture and grow our connection to Him and
each other. From daily prayer to reading scripture, God shows
us how to relate to Him and to each other.
This week on Relentless Hope, Cesst Reader, founder and Chief
(59:21):
Impact Officer of Mission Wealth, showed us the meaning of
connection and what happens when we make our spiritual connection
the foundation of our days. Seth taught us how he
learned to blend his spiritual and professional lives and how
it opened incredible gateways personally and professionally for him. And
(59:42):
he showed that by connecting our spiritual and professional lives,
it acts as a kind of manifesto, helping us to
find more consciousness, love, purpose, and fulfillment. We learned how
to be great leaders, we need to value our spiritual
connection and connection to our people. Seth taught us how
(01:00:02):
he begins each morning in spiritual connection, which helps put
him in the best possible state so he can create
the greatest good throughout his day. And we learned how
Seth prioritizes empowering and getting to know his people and
He encourages us to work on our emotional intelligence so
(01:00:22):
that we can better connect to people. By doing so,
we can better lead and motivate people to be a
part of what we're creating. And Seth taught us how
he's working to leave a lasting legacy of care through
his company Mission Wealth. Every day, Seth tries to care
for his people, care for his clients, and care for
(01:00:43):
his community his company serves it. And we learned about
what Seth calls three point zero planning, which is a
phase in our lives that's about freedom and thinking through
our legacies and designing and igniting the most meaningful, exciting, joyful,
and impactful three point zero lives we could ever imagine.
(01:01:06):
When we prioritize our connection to God, then our relationship
not only deepens, but it also spills into all areas
of our lives, making everything and everyone we need better.
Through our connections to God and each other, we come
to know love, peace, and hope.
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