December 18, 2024 • 50 mins
Meet Rory!
Zane speaks with Rory Henry, a certified financial planner and behavioral financial advisor, about the integration of behavioral finance and holistic wealth management. Rory discusses his journey from tax professional to wealth management, emphasizing the importance of a holistic approach that considers all aspects of a client's financial life. The conversation delves into the evolution of financial advisory, the significance of understanding clients' emotional relationships with money, and the necessity of having difficult conversations to guide clients toward their ideal futures.
Rory also explores the concept of money scripts and how they influence financial decisions, advocating for a values-based planning approach to create meaningful financial strategies. In this conversation they discuss the intricate relationship individuals have with money, the importance of self-assessment in financial planning, and the need for holistic approaches in wealth management. Rory shares insights from his new book aimed at accounting professionals, emphasizing the integration of behavioral finance and the necessity of engaging non-financial spouses in financial discussions. He also highlights his mission to reduce financial stress and expand financial literacy through media.
Takeaways
- Holistic financial planning encompasses all aspects of a client's financial life.
- Behavioral finance plays a crucial role in understanding client decisions.
- Asking the right questions can lead to deeper client insights.
- The emotional side of finance is often overlooked but essential for effective advisory.
- Engaging in future self-exercises can provide clarity on financial goals.
- The accounting profession is evolving into a more holistic advisory role.
- Improv can enhance personal development and public speaking skills.
- Asking for help is essential for growth and learning.
- The future of accounting is bright with many opportunities.
Sound Bites
"Return on relationship is key."
"We need to ask the right questions."
"We're advising clients from womb to tomb."
"Don't be afraid to ask for help."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Holistic Wealth Management
05:14 The Evolution of Financial Advisory
10:00 Understanding Holistic Financial Planning
15:10 The Role of Behavioral Finance
19:51 Navigating Difficult Conversations in Advisory
24:58 Exploring Money Scripts and Their Impact
30:01 The Future of Financial Advisory
30:01 The Importance of Self-Assessment in Financial Planning
31:00 Introducing the Book: A Guide for Accounting Professionals
34:18 The Value of Holistic Financial Planning
36:57 Engaging Non-Financial Spouses in Financial Conversations
38:49 Rory's Mission to Reduce Financial Stress
39:45 Future Goals: Expanding Financial Literacy through Media
41:18 The Role of Improv in Personal Development
46:58 Advice for New Accountants and the Future of the Profession
Connect with Rory:
LinkedIn personal - https://www.linkedin.com/in/roryshenry/
Get the book - https://advisror.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Proteon Conversations, the podcast where leadership in business and accounting
(00:09):
isn't just discussed, it's explored.
I'm your host, St. Stephens, and thank you for joining me as we delve into the minds of
some of the most influential leaders in the industry.
Our journey is one of discovery, from unraveling the unique stories that shaped our guest careers,
to invaluable advice that fueled their success.
We add to provide you with simple, actionable advice to accelerate your career and personal
growth.
Whether you're a budding professional or a seasoned executive, these conversations are
(00:31):
designed to offer insight and perspectives that resonate with everyone.
So tune in, engage, and be inspired as we build better leaders together.
Welcome to Proteon Conversations.
Today we're speaking with Rory Henry, director of Arrowroot Family Office and co-founder of
AFO Wealth Management, Ford.
Rory, a certified financial planner and behavioral financial advisor, has pioneered that visor
(00:54):
and that is AEDVISROR methodology, emphasizing return on relationship.
With nearly two decades in the field, Rory is also the author of Alistic Guide to Wealth
Management, the comprehensive work featuring insights from over 24 thought leaders in finance.
Outside the office, Rory enjoys sports, golf, and performing in private Los Angeles.
(01:15):
Join us as we explore Rory's integration of behavioral finance and holistic wealth management.
Rory, thanks for joining me.
Zane, thank you so much for having me on the show.
We're both part of accounting influencers, so I have been looking forward to this conversation
and speaking to your audience here.
Yeah, it's always great to have you.
(01:37):
It was nice to meet you through the Arrow Group, which I always feel out of my depth.
Everybody's got so much going on in those groups and you have got a ton going on.
As I was preparing for this, that picture is like the perfect picture of your book.
You always think there's a little bit of Rory that I knew, and then when you start digging
into it, there's so much more to it.
(01:58):
I had 50 questions, which I had to like, you're down.
I've got my standard ones, and I'll tell everybody to prepare, and then I have some key points
I want.
There's a lot I want to touch.
But as anything, when we do start with this conversation, we sort of want to delve into
how did you get started?
How did it all begin?
How did you decide first to get into the tax world, and then how did you get into the
(02:19):
wealth management side of it?
That's a great question, Zane.
I got into the tax business.
I ended up owning a tax firm, and then I got restless back in 2014, 15, 16 time.
I saw that the tax profession, the accounting profession, didn't have a CRM.
(02:41):
I asked myself, as I saw HubSpot and Salesforce starting to make businesses more efficient,
I said, the accounting profession, we're kind of far behind when it comes to utilizing the
CRM.
So I set out to build a tax practice management technology and two other bright minds out there,
one carbon overseas, and then canopy over here, we're doing the same thing.
(03:05):
And so I went to the venture community and went out to raise money.
And during that same time, Zane, is when canopy tax, I think they raised 77 million
in a couple of rounds there, and they blew it all on a failed sales and tax prep solution.
And so actually, as everybody knows, probably listening, they're doing well now, but I went
(03:25):
back out to the venture community and they said, Rory, it's a great idea.
This is a large TAM, so there's no market, but we're not going to put our money behind
a young buck like you.
My dreams of having a technology company were dashed at that time.
So I, as the owner of tax firm and understanding the value that we provide to clients, I said,
(03:47):
you know what, we have the ability not only to be more efficient, but to create more value
through doing the cash work, right?
I saw the evolution of the profession.
And I went through Thompson Reuters practice forward program, and I saw the push from moving
from compliance to advisory.
But I asked myself, Zane, the question, if we want to truly be advisory, shouldn't we
(04:08):
be financial advisory and integrate financial planning and wealth management?
And that's when I met Rob Santos here at Error Root Family Office, and I saw the advancements
in the wealth tech solutions and the ability to really integrate the accounting and the
wealth management world to do what we do at the family office for the ultra affluent,
(04:29):
right?
The Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, they have a lawyer, they have a CPA, they have a financial advisor,
they have a baker, everybody working in collaboration to advise the family businesses as well as
the personal affairs.
And so the technology was advancing.
I said, well, let's connect these professions.
Let's make sure that we can provide truly holistic advice.
(04:49):
So I set out to do that in around 2020.
You know, started my podcast, I was able to interview some of the brightest minds in accounting,
wealth management, behavior and finance and technology and learn from, you know, the subject
matter experts in different areas, and then from there I created a book and I said, you
know, we need to guide a roadmap, a playbook for accounting professionals to be able to
(05:11):
integrate these solutions in a holistic and authentic way.
That was a long answer to your question.
No, no, it's a great answer.
And it gives a lot of insight and why I said you've got a lot of things going on.
I mean, you touched on the podcast as well, which has been really successful and great
to listen to.
And I think, you know, one of the things that I think when people hear what you've just
said, they're going to ask the question, what do you mean by holistic?
(05:35):
Yeah.
Like, what does that actually mean?
Well in the wealth management space, you know, for a couple of decades now, we talk about
in a holistic financial planner or holistic wealth management, it's taking a look at not
just the taxes, the tax planning, the estate planning, the insurance, right, the investment
management.
Most people, when they think of financial advisor, Zane, maybe some of those folks in
(05:58):
the audience, you know, they think of the stock picker, right?
They think of investments only.
But really there has been an evolution in the wealth profession from being that stock
picker or picking out that portfolio to really being a holistic financial planner, making
sure that the client has a financial plan, making sure that they're taking consideration
of the proper insurance, right?
(06:19):
They have an estate plan.
You know, 66% of the population doesn't have an estate plan, Zane, or an up-to-date estate
plan, and that boggles my mind.
So holistic financial planning is really looking at the whole parts.
And one aspect is the tax component.
And so I asked myself on the wealth side, yeah, this is great.
We're doing holistic financial planning, but if we're really trying to be holistic, we've
(06:40):
got to make sure that small and medium-sized business owner, the people you advise, you
know, the small and medium-sized business owners, the wine owners out there, also are
taking consideration of the business advisory aspect of their finances.
Because one decision affects the other.
Should I put more money into my business?
Should I diversify into investments?
I got to make sure that I have an estate plan that takes into consideration these businesses,
(07:00):
having a succession plan, buy-sell agreements, right?
So making sure that these two professions that have historically worked in silos are
working collaboratively to advise the family businesses, or a business, right, to advise
the personal affairs of the family as well.
Why do you think people think of those functions so much separately?
(07:20):
Like a lot of people see it as a silo.
Like this is my tax person.
This is my wealth advisor.
This is the person who keeps, you know, my, like, why do you think we all have that mindset?
I mean, me included.
Like why do we do that?
Like, I mean, I had that mindset as well.
Yeah.
It seems obvious when you say it out now.
It's like, like, of course, all these people should be talking to each other at least once
in a while, right?
But yeah, my three people have never spoken to each other.
(07:42):
Yeah.
And that's good.
Yeah, it's just like they've never spoken to each other and I sit there going, that
seems dumb of me.
Like why am I not being told that these people should speak to each other?
And there's probably some conflicting information there, right?
And that's where I long argued, Zane, that the accounting professional, hopefully those
listening, they're uniquely positioned to be what I call an advised roar and the roars
(08:05):
for return on relationship, really being that quarterback to that client's financial
life.
I'm not saying that you need to learn investment management.
I'm not saying you need to be a holistic financial planner, but you can bring together the other
subject matter experts to start advising your clients on what matters most of them.
So as we'll probably touch on, I'm sure you have questions in regards to behavioral finance,
(08:26):
but there's this really big push in the wealth side.
I'm introducing it to the accounting and tax side about having the ability to do a deep
discovery on really what matters most to your client.
So doing that personalization by understanding really what the values are of your client,
looking at the dimensions of who they are outside of their occupation or outside of
(08:46):
their finances, looking at their intellectual wellbeing, looking at their physical, emotional
wellbeing, and also doing the exercise of really asking them if their best hopes were
realized, what would that life look like?
So all the research that I've been doing is really looking at how we can make better
decisions in the near and now to make that future life actually happen.
(09:09):
A friend of mine, Hal Hirschfield has a great book for those in the audience that want a
good read.
It's called Your Future Self and he did research that showed that we see our future selves
zane as really no different than a stranger.
And I think for those in their audience and can probably understand is when they go to
the supermarket when they're hungry, they probably load up on too many groceries because they're
(09:30):
not taking that future self in mind that, hey, that personal week from now probably is not
going to need all those groceries.
So the research into that is showing how we can make better decisions in the near and
now to make that future life come true.
It's things like doing a visual exercise of what that future self looks like.
(09:50):
So let's do it.
If you want it right now, do an exercise.
You have some goals I'm sure in mind, 10 years from now, what does that future life look
like for you?
Is vivid in as visual as possible, where are you?
Who are you with?
What are you doing?
And then how do you feel?
(10:11):
Yeah, I mean, I'm like the worst person at this because I beat it for myself all the
time.
Like I'm all about right now, everything I do is for plans in the future.
But most of the time those plans ignore the me side of it.
It's like, let's make sure my kids are in a good place.
Family's in a great place.
My wife's in a great place.
The business is a good place because I got to keep people employed.
And I think very little on what effect that could have on my own life.
(10:36):
And I know that's a mistake and I know I got to do better and I'm trying to do better.
And I've done a great job actually this year.
I'll give myself a tap in the back.
I get what you're saying because my picture of my future is literally me standing looking
at other people and making sure they're in a good space and it never considers me being
in that picture needing to be there to support them.
(10:56):
Well let's build that picture then if we can paint that.
And I like this is actually good.
Can you give me a picture of maybe you being in a spot where all those people are being
successful.
You know, is there a celebration of maybe a corporate achievement or something, a kid's
graduation or something where you're at like, oh my gosh, this is that ideal state that
I'm looking for that I know the people that I care most about are being successful and
(11:18):
that internal give me peace of mind.
Yeah.
I mean, it's fairly easy for me because my kids in 10 years time will be sort of at
the end of high school.
I have a seven and a nine year old.
So, you know, my big goals right now is getting them through.
The schooling stage and putting them in a position to be able to enter a school that
they want to enter and do something that they love.
So you know, a lot of what I do right now is setting them up for success.
(11:41):
And then at the same time is making sure that I create a good relationship with my wife.
Her and I on the same page in terms of what our goals look like where we want to be in
10 years.
And then I need to sort of part of that and I'm having personal discussions about this
with my business partner is adjusting my role to make sure I get to that place of that.
In 10 years time, I'm able to enjoy the fruits of my labor that I'm putting in for the next
(12:04):
10 years.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
And we always grapple with right planning for that future self, but also making sure
that we're living in the experiences for the now, right?
We can't overwork ourselves working 60, 70 hours a week and then we miss our child's
sporting events, right?
So it's making sure we have that delicate balance between, okay, you know, saving for
tomorrow or making sure tomorrow is okay, but also having those experiences in the here
(12:28):
and now that are rewarding that we can look back on and that we're not regretting.
And that is, I think, a really great takeaway for anybody listening to this.
Like you've got to live in the now and you can't always just plan for the future.
Planning for the future is important.
And this is why good advisors are critical.
And I do want to sort of roll back to, you know, you were talking about the, you know,
the accountant being the quarterback.
(12:49):
And I feel like that's really good advice for the accountant that does the tax portion
of it, right?
I made a note of you when you were saying that what advice would you give to a person
like me that doesn't do taxes, right?
I just see the business side of it.
I know who their tax person is.
And I, you know, most of the time, know they don't have too much going on the personal
(13:12):
wealth side.
How do you, what advice would you give me to be able to help people push to that direction
that they are doing this type of planning?
They're finding somebody that is thinking about them holistically and putting these
pieces together.
Really hard for me to do, right?
Other than some of my advisory projects where I can tell people like, Hey, you're not doing
(13:34):
this, this and this, we should really find some people.
You have some great, you know, contacts.
I got a great list of people talk to these people.
And you know, I know some of them that also practice holistic wealth management and I
can put them in front of it and they would bring pieces to the table, which I know can
be helpful.
But my general client, especially any accountant doing a cash practice, we don't really have
(13:55):
that opportunity to have those conversations.
Well I think that's where the beauty of actually diving deeper and doing that work because
I think, Zane, you probably do a lot of the business planning and aspects of what I just
covered in the personal financial planning side, but just doing it with the business.
And then you know, the mission statement of the business values of the business, right?
(14:16):
And just taking that step further and if you're working with that business owner, it's like,
okay, let's understand, you know, how this is going to impact the personal finances,
right?
And then it's just doing the other holistic aspects with the estate planning, right?
Making sure they have the correct insurance in put in place.
But I think really you have the ability to have those conversations with that client,
(14:38):
you know, ask those deeper questions.
I always say that we need to move from being the person that has all the answers, Zane,
to being the person that asks the right questions.
It's a great book by Michael Bunga Stanger called The Coaching Habit and he talks about
this very aspect, how we have an inner urge, he calls it the advice sponsor, to want to
(15:03):
give advice to people.
And it's in our nature, especially if we got credentials, we went to schooling, right?
We want to show people that, you know, we have expertise and we can solve their problem.
You know, a lot of times we want to save them, right?
Or it's actually, they say it's a control issue, we want to control the situation.
But if we go deeper or maybe ask that small means to the business owner, you know, what
they want out of their business, you know, what does success look like for them?
(15:26):
I always say, you know, there's business owners that want to IPO, there's business owners
that want a great lifestyle business so they can spend more time with their family.
So I think it's important to really maybe ask those questions, dig a little deeper.
You know, we were working with a CPA partner bars and he brought a client to us and it
was just a tax question and 401k, right?
Saving for retirement for him, for his employees and I paused and I asked him, okay, great.
(15:50):
You know, this is, we'll do tax, we'll have tax savings here.
But really what do you want out of that business and what is that ideal situation?
What is your best hopes for your future?
He paused saying he thought.
And he goes, Rory and the folks that ran the zoom call is that, you know, I really want
to be able to retire in 10 years and I want to travel the country and RV and visit different
(16:16):
national parks.
So that simple question, right?
Went from a tax technical conversation, right?
So like, this is the ideal future that I want because I don't want to necessarily lead my
business, but I want to be able to have a succession plan in succession, but I want to
have a plan to have my team members take over and I'll do more consulting work.
I want to be able to do that from on the road in my RV.
(16:38):
So it's once again, it's that conversation can flip from just technical advice to more
than more transformational advice.
And when people have that ideal state in mind, like we talked about that future state and
they can provide that feeling as, you know, it's freedom to me.
I have that feeling of knowing I'm on the road and experiencing life, you know, that
becomes more tangible and then they're more likely to make better decisions for their
(17:01):
business, their personal life to make that cross country dream come true.
And the question like that is well received by most people or is it, you know, I'm thinking
of my clients who are like underwater, right?
Life is tough.
The wine industry is struggling this year.
I'll call beverage in general.
And a lot of the time they're just trying to focus on how do I meet the next covenant?
(17:21):
How do I meet the next payroll?
And I know they need to step back and think a little bit about what the future looks like.
You know, sometimes you want to ask the question and they probably can't ask it this way.
Like is this really worth your time right now?
Yeah.
But people are, I mean, 99% of people are not going to be very accepted to that question.
(17:43):
You're probably, you know, risk losing the client.
But effectively I'm asking the same question that you put to that client going, what do
you want?
Like what is the ultimate goal?
What do you want to achieve?
Yeah.
But it's not always well received.
So how do you get to points?
How do you, I mean, from your side, how do you coach somebody to be able to ask those
(18:03):
questions?
But first and foremost, it's this empathy, right?
Like, oh, I understand that it's very difficult right now.
The wine business is going through some, you know, some changes and I know you're trying
to meet payroll, make sure your employees are taking care, you know, I understand that.
So it's not that empathy perspective, right?
But I think you hit it on the head there, Zane.
I think of when you put it into that, are you frame it into the way that they look at
(18:28):
what their optimal life looks like, I want to make sure I can retire with a couple million
dollars.
You might not be able to do that on a career trajectory or an, you might have to switch
industries, right?
So particularly you ask that question, they'll come up with the answer themselves.
Like, you know what, I really believe in this business where we're dealing with a dip
here in what's going on.
But I know that we've made it through the past or we can make it through again.
(18:51):
You know, I think they'll come up with the answer on their own.
It's when you pose the question and let them think about it, they'll find ways to see if
it makes sense for them to continue on.
So once again, I think it goes back to, you know, you have an answer, you see the numbers
in your head, but you don't know the emotional aspect of where that person's at.
They may be like, Hey, no, I've done this before, I'll do it again.
I'm going to grow this business, right?
(19:12):
Or you know what, Zane, I think I need to make a move here.
I'm looking at the numbers here and I don't think I could put in 80 out of weeks trying
to turn this thing around.
So once again, it's asking those questions and maybe let them come to the solution on
their own.
Yeah.
I mean, the emotional side of it is so tough.
You know, think about, you know, the wine space, it's an art, right?
People are putting their heart and soul into a bottle and it's tough to have those difficult
(19:34):
conversations with people.
But you know, that's at the end of the day, what advisory is, is having the tough conversations.
And even if, you know, you know, the answer is like, Hey, this is going to be really
tough.
You want to retire on this project, like it's probably not going to happen unless you make
a severe change, which you might not want to do, but then I'm going to show you the
picture of what it would look like if you don't make it, right?
(19:54):
And it's tough.
It is emotional.
It's difficult conversations to have.
People don't always want to hear it.
I know sometimes where I like literally hold the platter and said, Yes, your solution.
And they're like, I don't want to do that.
I'm like, well, it's that or it's not going to work.
Like that's the only answer right now.
And they'll just bang their head and continue to go.
So it gets emotional.
(20:15):
And I think this is sort of where, you know, your methodology advisor comes in.
Explain this again to me.
And like, how do I implement this with my clients?
Yeah.
Once again, it's like I said, it's that return on relationship and it's really using the
science and psychology behind how we make decisions.
You know, it came from behavioral finance and behavioral finance was really the study
(20:36):
of how we made decisions when it comes to our investments were irrational beings and
the behavioral finance in the well space moved on to this human first approach of really
understanding what matters most to our clients.
So we're big on values based planning.
So I really value travel with my family.
I want to make sure I have that goal of traveling in the RV across country.
(20:58):
Or if I want to IP on my business and I'm really motivated to grow my business, I'm
going to put all my effort into my decisions to making sure that reality comes true.
So once again, it's that it's really understanding what matters most that our clients doing the
values based exercises.
And then it's having that team of advisors having Zane in the room, right?
(21:19):
Having that CP that tax professional having the financial planner working collectively
to make sure that person is being advised, you know, on their finances, both with their
business and their personal finances.
So it's, I mean, it's currently effective as far as the clients we work with.
Now not everybody can have always a team of advisors, but there's great tech enabled
solutions out there that you can integrate into a practice to start providing always
(21:43):
a family office level of care.
For instance, the state planning, the technology partner out there called trust and well, they
can do an estate plan for as little as $500.
I believe a will for his little as $189.
So it's making sure that their family's taking care of any unforeseen circumstances.
So once again, it's more that white glove treatment to go above and beyond the cash
(22:05):
work or the tax planning to making sure that their family's taking care of, you know, in
case of any unforeseen circumstances.
Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about behavioral finance because you've brought
it up a few times.
Yeah.
In a nutshell, it's, you know, it's obviously about more than just the investments.
There's more to it, right?
Explain this to dummy.
(22:25):
I'm the dummy.
Explain to me what is behavioral finance.
So there's a couple ways of explaining it.
I say we need to look at the past, the present, and then the future.
I've touched on the future with your future self, right?
You know, our relationship to money is many times formed in our childhood.
Most of it is formed in our childhood.
It's cultural, right?
It's brought down from generation to generation.
(22:46):
And there's four types of money scripts.
Psychologist Brad Clontz wrote a book with Dr. Prasiatuleta who's been on the web podcast
a couple of times.
That's called financial therapy.
She and he basically formed the financial therapy association way back when a couple
of decades ago when they saw that people were having so many issues around money and the
relationship to money.
(23:07):
And so we fall many times into four different money scripts.
There's money avoided where we believe that money is evil, right?
And that we don't, we don't like money.
And so, you know, we may, we may not want to generate wealth or generate income there
because we think money is bad.
So sometimes people fall into that.
Examples of that may be my parents got kicked out of their house when they were, when I
(23:31):
was a child, it's why I associate money with being something bad.
So it's one of the money scripts, your money scripts.
There's also money status where we want to show how much money we have.
That is also fraught with issues because we're, we want to overspend because we're keeping
up with the Joneses, right?
Those Instagram, those people on Instagram, you know, who look like they have money, but
(23:52):
we all know they probably don't have a lot of money.
So money status is another type of money script that we can fall into.
Another one is money worship where we believe that money can solve all our problems and
we're constantly chasing after money.
We believe that money is going to be the solution to our family problems and, and that
could be issue, cause issues of never want to be happy and that we're constantly chasing
after money.
So that's another one.
(24:13):
The other one's money vigilance.
It was probably the healthiest of the money scripts and it's making sure that we're budgeting
properly, right?
That, you know, that we have our finances in order.
The issue with that one is we're not having those experiences, right?
We're saving for tomorrow, but we're not experiencing today.
So most of us fall into, you know, one of those money scripts, we may fall into a couple
(24:34):
here, but it's understanding that relationship to money that we have because that dictates
how we make decisions with our finances or their business, right?
And our personal finances.
So really looking back on, on our upbringing and seeing how we really think about money
and our relationship to money is part of this human first approach, you know, uncovering
(24:55):
what that relationship to money is.
I didn't say that what the present is, is doing the values based planning.
What is our top five values?
We value our family, we value creativity, we value travel, right?
It's doing that values exercise because from there, I think if city four, our business
decisions or personal decisions will emanate from those values.
(25:15):
It makes our decisions easier.
So that's the present.
And then once again, doing that future exercise of what that ideal life looks like.
We use the best of us question.
If all your best hopes realized money was an issue, what would that life look like?
And people will paint that picture, which gives them a North Star to meet those goals.
So once again, it's doing this deep dive discovery on where people at, what was their experience
(25:40):
with money, who influenced their beliefs around money.
Usually there's either an event, a younger childhood, or we had a mentor or a family member
who is influential around our beliefs with money.
And then when they have a better understanding of where they came from, where they're at,
and then where they want to go, we think can craft a financial plan that includes the business
advisory aspect of it, right?
(26:02):
To help them meet those goals, those aspirations and optimize their wellbeing.
I always say, Zane, I'm a behavioral financial advisor.
I'm in the belief in the behavior business, helping people believe they can do something
and then create the necessary behavior changes to make sure that life comes true.
And part of that is showing them the financials, right?
Yeah, I'm sitting here thinking like this is very, it almost like the touchy-feely side
(26:27):
of finance, which it always should be, right?
Because money is emotional.
It has an effect on very important parts of our lives.
But I can imagine that this doesn't necessarily sit well for every person that you get in
front of, right?
There's going to be people that are just like, no ways, not, not, I'm not, I'm not thinking
(26:48):
into the past, you're not my psychologist.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, if someone's uncomfortable, they don't want to talk about their relationship
to money, you know, we wouldn't get into it, right?
We can look at other ways, you know, that's, you know, obviously I'm being present, right?
Making sure that nobody's uncomfortable.
So, but the more that people like think about it, they look back and go, this makes sense.
(27:09):
This is why I make the certain decisions I do.
And this is more the advanced stuff.
I'm not saying those accounting professionals or everybody should adopt this type of methodology,
right?
I think we can all do the self assessment ourselves and have that self awareness.
You know what?
This is why I make certain decisions, right?
Or doing the future self exercise on where we want to go.
We don't ask ourselves these questions.
(27:30):
See, I didn't, right?
Before I went through this methodology, I never asked myself what money meant to me
or what my, the cultural influences around my beliefs around money.
I asked myself what my values were, right?
But when I did the exercise, went through it, did the future self, you know, practice,
I then was able to have the greater, greater clarity on where I was, where I'm at, and
(27:51):
where I want to go.
And I think that's incredibly effective.
When you do the work on yourself, it's like doing a business, you know, planning yourself,
right?
Or doing a personal plan.
Your plan, once you understand your current finances, you know, and doing that work, then
you're like, okay, this is where I'm at.
This is where I want to be.
Here's the choices that I need to make.
It makes it easier and clear.
No, and I, you know, listening to you is like a light bulb in my head.
(28:13):
I feel like I need to go home, read your future self, I've written it down on a piece of paper,
I'll go add it to my audio, audio wish list.
I think I actually have a credit at the moment, so maybe I'll go buy it, buy it after this,
this recording.
But it definitely feels like an exercise that everybody should go through, even if you don't
want to do it in front of a professional who can help you properly, but it's a good place
to start, you know, have some honest conversations with yourself, figure out where, where you're
(28:36):
going.
Yeah.
Let's talk about the book, because this is sort of where this all gets tied in, right?
This is, you know, all the, you know, the methodology, there's the behavioral finance
advice, there's like, you know, your company, like, and now we've got the book.
And from what I've heard, there's some amazing people in the book.
(28:58):
I got to get myself a copy of this book soon.
Now we can just find copies.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let's say I got to figure out a signed copy of this and give it a read, but tell us
about the book.
Yeah.
So the book came out of a conversation I was having with Seth Feinberg, you know, Seth,
former editor at accounting web, um, he's now CPA trend lines and since the Rory, I
(29:19):
see all the great work you're doing.
I'm talking about holistic wealth management, holistic financial planning, bringing this
is virtual family office model to the accounting profession.
So he said the accounting professional needs a guide.
You know, they need a playbook.
They need a blueprint on how to do this.
And so I was like, okay, I'd already book.
Yeah.
It's like the goal I had is write a book.
(29:40):
And so I set out to write it.
And I, what I quickly realized Zane is, and I didn't want it to just come from me.
I wanted to get others involved.
As you know, I'm like I said, I'm big on relationships.
And so I was able to, you know, round up a, you know, 34 plus thought leaders from accounting,
wealth management, behavioral finance, the estate planning worlds, folks that people
(30:03):
are probably familiar with Blake Oliver, Randy Johnston, Seth Feinberg's in there,
then another tech CEOs on the, on the wealth management side to really talk about the different
service offerings.
It's really an end to end solution.
If you really look at these two worlds, the accounting and wealth advisory world, it's
really taking all the way from the debits and credits, right, to the estate planning
and exit plan and everything in between.
(30:25):
Ron Baker likes to call it from womb to tomb.
We're advising clients from womb to tomb, helping them start that college plan for their
kid.
Helping them start their first business, grow that business, right?
Start retirement plans for themselves and their employees, right?
If there's a sale of that business, that liquidity event, right?
And then having those investments managed, right?
Having that estate plan.
(30:45):
And so really the book is a guide to integrate these two wonderful professions who have historically,
like I said, didn't work together because one decision, like I said, affects another.
And so I, I got the best of the brightest in each of the subject matters, whether it's
the estate planning, exit planning, life insurance, marketing, client communications,
what else?
(31:06):
Investment management, Vanguard did a 20 year study on the value of an advisor.
And for those in our audience that may be skeptical about financial advisors, I was
too because I didn't come become a financial advisor later in life.
And they're, oh, what are you doing?
You're not even really doing anything, right?
They showed, and this is an investment advice, but they showed that the value advisor can
be upwards of 3% of net returns.
(31:29):
And that's through tax efficient strategies, asset location, right?
They can talk about withdrawal strategies, right?
As well as behavioral coaching.
And behavioral coaching is just making sure people don't make dumb decisions when it comes
to the market, Zane.
So when COVID hits in March of 2020 and the market dips in double digit percentages,
people are scared and going to sell everything, go to cash.
(31:51):
If you stay the course, right?
Most likely that market's going to rebound because history is shown.
So they allowed me to put information from their 20 year study into the book there.
And it really shows the value of the advisor from the investment side.
And it goes into the value of holistic financial planning.
And then I just take it a step further.
I'm saying, okay, let's make sure that we include those great business advisors, the
(32:14):
accounting professionals who are advising these businesses because a lot of people's
net worth is tied up into their business, right?
So it's once again, it's looking at the whole instead of just these different silos of tax
or accounting or investment management or insurance, right?
Or estate planning.
It's really making sure you can put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
Fantastic.
Wait, I'll get the book.
I'll get you one, Zane.
(32:35):
No, but other people, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Let's find it.
Let's do a quick sales pitch.
And you can get the book at CPH Rennlines.
There's shop there.
You can get through that.
I also have a website, a landing page there that gives you more information on the book.
It's adviceroar.com, a D-V-I-S-R-O-R.com is up there.
But you can purchase a book at CPH Rennlines on their shop.
(32:57):
Right.
So we should all go do that.
From what I mean, you've got me excited about behavioral, financial, finance.
I'm sort of sitting here already like rolling through my head over everything I need to
go do on the personal side, which I've been on the back line for a long time.
So I'm feeling motivated to go relook at my life and my goals and change things around,
(33:18):
which we've been talking about 30 minutes and you've got me there.
Sorry, clearly, I mean, what do you do?
But you can apply a lot of the stuff that we talk about behavioral, financial, human
first approach.
You can apply it to the work that you're doing and the client work that you have and
advising these business owners.
It's really doing the deeper discovery and understanding what they want out of their
(33:39):
business.
And so you take principles of what I talk about in the book that we do on the personal
finance side and just apply that to the work that you're doing or the businesses that you
advise.
So it's very effective.
And once again, it's just, we go back to that human first approach.
So instead of having a cookie cutter solutions or just being strictly technical, there's
nuance involved.
Right?
(33:59):
What we said, there's emotions involved, right?
There's psychology involved.
And the better that we can understand our clients, the better we can advise them.
And then when you have happy, successful clients, they want to refer more happy and successful
clients to you as well.
So it's a great referral strategy.
We also talk about in the book, a big advocate for getting the non-financial spouse involved.
(34:20):
And so someone who might not know the numbers that are scared by numbers, right?
I want to make sure that that person, that non-CFO spouse is just as involved as the
financial spouse.
And we can do that by talking about the non-financial metrics, right?
The values.
What do you want out of your family life?
What does an ideal situation look like for you, for your family?
(34:41):
What does success look like for you?
So we can ask those questions and get that non-CFO spouse involved.
You make, in turn, it helps out the other spouse because they understand they're involved
in the situation.
They can maybe help or give suggestions and improves the relationship you have with the
client and with that family.
You know, that feels like a good strategy even for the spouse who maybe is financially
(35:02):
minded, knows the numbers, but has that poor relationship with money as well, right?
Because there's the, these three accountants and the mathematicians out there that just
have that bad relationship.
And anytime you bring up money in a relationship, then they'd end up in a fight.
And I think it's a really great way to sort of take that trauma out of the conversation
because you're talking about something that's important to them and the numbers just happen
(35:25):
to be a means to ensure that that thing that's important to them is safeguarded rather than
let's focus on what the numbers look like.
So I like the idea of just having that conversation, talking about the values and the goals rather
than the nickels on the dimes.
Yeah, you know, what there's a American psychological association study that showed that continually
(35:48):
saying that finances are the top stress for Americans.
And this study's been going on since 2007.
72% of adults report feeling stress about money at least some of the time.
26% of adults report feeling stress about money all of the time.
I'm on a mission to really eradicate that stress and help people have a better understanding
(36:13):
about money, but also making sure that they can optimize their well-being and not be so
stressed out.
And that might be making changes in their personal or their business life, right?
Business isn't working out well, maybe we need to make a change and so you're not so
stressed about money.
So I think using this human first as behavioral finance approach is really helping people optimize
their well-being and understand how they can make the necessary behavior changes to not
(36:37):
live that stressful life when it comes to money.
That's a great call.
So tax guy, wealth advisor, podcaster, book writer, all around great guy, but what are
Rory's new goals?
What are your short term goals for yourself?
Actually, I mean, I got quite a bit.
So I'm going to be doing a lot of the book promotion.
(36:58):
I just had a call today with a Hollywood development company that I partnered with.
My next step is a television show, Zane.
There's only one really big show that's been on Netflix called How to Get Rich by Ramit
Setti.
And I think there's an opportunity for more financial literacy shows to help people with
(37:18):
their understanding around money.
So it's taking what we just talked about today, behavioral finance, psychology of money and
bringing this to a wider audience.
So I just had a development call earlier today.
We're looking for a mainstream host.
So we're looking for our Gordon Ramsay-esque person in finances that can help bring this
to the masses because only a third of the people have a financial advisor, Zane.
(37:43):
Very few of those actually probably do the approach that I talk about with behavioral
finance and this human first approach.
I go back to the tax and accounting side.
Everybody's got to file taxes.
Most people, a lot of it, they're the networks in the business.
Small mediums are businesses or the backbone of our country.
So I'm going to mission to help more people have a better understanding when it comes
(38:05):
to their money, help them create generational wealth and optimize their well-being.
So I think the next step and what I talk about is really giving this to this methodology
to a wider audience in TV and streaming services are the best way to do that.
That's a holocaust.
My gosh.
It does roll nicely into.
I did want to ask about the improv and I know you do a lot of that and just give us a quick
(38:29):
breakdown improv.
How did you get into that and why?
So it was 2016.
I had a fear of public speaking and I said, I need to get over this fear.
It happened when I was in the seventh grade, Zane.
My brother was in high school and I was doing my ASB speech to become president of ASB and
(38:50):
I was doing the generic speech of, okay.
Let's have more pizza parties, more movies on Friday, right?
Just a generic speech.
And my brother in time goes, Rory, scratch that speech.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to go on stage and I want you to sing Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love
You.
So I got up on stage in the seventh grader, crackled voice and I started singing Whitney
(39:11):
Houston and all the kids started booing.
Oh, gosh.
I got bright red Zane ran on stage.
Right.
Traumatic experience.
And for a couple of decades, I had a fear of public speaking.
So I said, I need to get over this fear of public speaking.
And so I took an improv class, level 101, went up there, made an absolute fool of myself.
(39:34):
And I was like, I don't think I can do this.
But I pushed myself to do level two, did all six levels, started performing on stages
in LA and it became such a rewarding experience.
Zane, it taught me a couple of lessons.
And it taught me to be okay with failing, taking chances in life.
And so I don't think I would have a podcast.
(39:55):
I don't think I would have been able to write this book.
I don't think I'd be having a development.
Okay, we're going to show if I didn't take that leap of faith and started becoming okay
with failing.
So that was one lesson that took that helped me out with to it helped me to start actively
listening to really being present in scenes and an improv scene or class.
A lot of people try to be funny.
(40:16):
And so you'll come up with a joke in your head.
But the other person you're seeing partner has no idea what, you know, what story you've
created.
So it makes for bad improv when you're not actively listening and taking the last thing
it was self said and then building off that.
So what that allowed me to do is to really take that and start building off of, you know,
what people say in my improv interviews, but also just in life and try to see how I can
(40:36):
work with somebody and build off what they're doing and what we can combine together.
So that was the other thing it taught me.
Then lastly, it taught me to have a yes and mentality.
So the main tenant improv, I don't know if you know the same is saying yes and so taking
off kind of what we just said is taking someone's suggestion and ending that saying yes and
so it taught me to have that mentality in life going to that conference, right?
(41:00):
Taking that trip just saying to yes and to things.
And because you never know what doors are going to open up.
You know, I had a great meeting with Clayton notes.
I don't know if you know Clayton Clayton accounting strategist, technology guys, keynotes,
speaker and accounting profession for a number of years.
And you know, I took a red eye out to Vegas to, I think it was to Jill CPA or QuickBooks
(41:23):
Connect one of the two a year ago.
I had a heartfelt conversation with Clayton.
He was one of the most influential people on accounting.
Just talking about life.
And if I didn't take that red eye out to go to that conference, I would never have had
that conversation.
He actually wrote the four to my book and it's great.
I'm so, I'm so fortunate and grateful for him to do that.
(41:43):
So it's having that yes, Sam mentality that taught me to just start saying yes to things.
Yes, this interview, right?
Yes to that mastermind group.
And I think with more people can have that mindset, you know, they can, you know, have
success in their endeavors.
Yeah.
I think people underestimate what a team sport improv is and how much it is.
It's not about being the funniest.
It's about how can you react to any that happened with somebody else, which is, is life, right?
(42:09):
You can have the best laid plan, but it doesn't matter if everybody else hasn't got the same
plan.
And, you know, it's, it's working on and creating a self that you're, you're prepared enough
to that you can react to that situation.
And I've never really thought of improv as a really great place for people to learn to
be a good team member and how to react to life properly.
But, you know, where you explained it in the, you know, what your, your learnings.
(42:32):
And I somehow got down the improv space a couple of months ago, just like, nice, but
just like some random piece on, I don't know, I can't, maybe on Facebook, Reels, I came
to somewhere and I went down it and they were explaining like how improv works and what
really makes great.
I was like, geez, I'm out of actually, when I was reading super communicators, I think
they have a chapter in it.
(42:53):
Charles, do it again.
Yeah.
So they talk about, about improv there.
So I might have run down a, you know, some rabbit hole on improv and it is, I mean, likely
for me, I have no problem to talk in front of people.
I'm probably not smart enough to care.
It's never been an issue.
I've always enjoyed that type of, you know, just talk on the spot.
But, you know, I think it's a great, a great tool that many people should consider using.
(43:16):
Yeah.
I think if everybody didn't improv, you know, it's the world would be a better place.
It allows you to be a kiddie in Zane and you can kind of forget the stresses of the day
and you can go out there and just almost make like a kid and play and round and make stuff
up and have fun.
And it's currently warning assault to the earth people too.
So if anybody's thinking about doing it, but pushing yourself out of your comfort zone,
(43:39):
I strongly recommend it.
And the same goes if you want to do, go to a standup comedy class or you go to your
Toastmasters, it's the same sort of thing.
They're pushing you to be a little bit different, to put yourself out of that comfort zone.
That's always great.
For sure.
Rory, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
That is a good question.
I would say don't be afraid to ask for it because people are willing to help you out.
(44:01):
And so I think maybe in my younger years, I was nervous to ask for help and wouldn't
reach out to folks, but I found it incredibly rewarding back to that return relationships.
When you work hard, you put yourself out there.
People are willing to help you out.
That's why I think I got so many great people to help contribute to the book because they
wanted to help me out.
They see what I'm doing.
And so I think that's some advice that I've gotten from a mentor early on.
(44:25):
It's like, hey, Rory, ask for help.
Just ask.
And if they can't do it, maybe they'll put you in touch with somebody who can.
So once again, leave a leap of faith in asking someone for assistance because most people
want to help you out.
Yeah.
I know it's a great piece of advice and something to repeat.
They always say, hey, there's never a silly question.
It's really true.
(44:46):
People want you to ask questions.
They're never going to come out and say, ask me a question.
People inherently want you to ask.
They have knowledge to share and they want to give it to you.
So feel free to ask those questions.
You'll learn so much more that way.
And I mean, it's the best way to learn because I'm asking Rory questions today and I've learned
a ton.
I've made a bunch of notes of you.
I've got like three books I need to go read.
(45:07):
It makes a difference.
It will change your perspective on life.
It will give you learning and it will drive you forward.
Yeah.
If I was a new accountant and I was considering entering the accounting field and wasn't too
sure about it, what advice would you give me?
That your perception of accounting or what accounting is becoming is probably not accurate.
(45:27):
And this is the golden age of the profession.
I'm collaborating with a number of really awesome folks and our relationships with some
other folks that are doing some really neat stuff.
And I always say, I run the chapter of the book, perception is funny because a lot of
people perceive or a public perceives wealth advisors or financial advisors still with
stock pickers, like I mentioned.
(45:49):
You probably see accountants as more of the devs and credits and being counters.
And we are so much more than that.
We're strategic advisors.
We're helping people start their first businesses, grow their first businesses, sell their businesses.
On the wealth side, we're helping people grow their personal finances, helping them
understand what they want out of life.
And so it's so much more.
We're really those strategic advisors that are really helping people, guiding them along
(46:12):
life's path, their financial journey, their financial life cycle.
So you're really helping people optimize not only their businesses, but I always say we're
helping people optimize their wellbeing.
So it's a wonderful time to join accounting or wealth advisory, right?
I really say that we're moving to a point in time where technology is going to take
over a lot of that, the media work, and we're going to be able to connect with people and
help them transform their lives.
(46:33):
I'm a big fan of Ron Baker and the work he talks about.
And really we're not just trusted advisors.
We're transformational advisors.
And we're doing that by helping people build better businesses.
And hopefully in turn, have personal wealth as well.
So I think for those that are thinking about coming accounting, things are changing rapidly,
(46:54):
right?
But it's a great time to be in the profession.
There's so much opportunity, especially if you want to go out on your own to build the
practice of your dreams.
There's opportunity to do that and have a successful business.
Exceptional, Rory, at prettier conversations, we love to end with some rapid fire.
(47:15):
I have five questions for you.
Are you ready?
I'm ready, Zane.
Okay.
Question number one, what would your death row meal be?
What would your final meal be?
Oh my gosh, that's a good question.
So my mom makes really good Mexican food.
She grew up on the border of the California Mexican border in Calexco.
She makes really good tamales.
(47:35):
On February, December 26, she makes like 400 tamales and she passes around the community.
And then she makes amazing carrot cake cupcakes from scratch.
And I just had some recently and I can't have like one or two.
I usually have like five or seven or eight.
So give me my mom's tamales with some Spanish rice and then let's top it off with some carrot
(47:59):
cake cupcakes made from scratch.
Oh my gosh, exceptional choice.
Do you prefer audio books or paper books?
I do prefer audio books and I listen at 2X, which is dangerous because what I'll end up
doing is having to put a note in, I'll have to go back, re-listen to that part of the
book and put a note in.
But I'm a big audio book learner.
(48:19):
I have probably, you know, 300, 400 plus books in there.
Same.
If you had 20 minutes to exercise, what would that exercise be?
So I do at 45, which is 45 minutes.
But the actual exercise is about 24, I believe.
So I love the high intensity training.
You can do like 45 seconds exercise, 15 seconds off.
(48:41):
But it's great high intensity training that really gets the blood flowing.
Great.
What is your favorite piece of technology that you're currently using to make your life better?
So I bought this TheraMind.
It's probably the same company that has a TheraGun.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So these goggles that you put on, that massage your forehead is a heating factor as well to
(49:06):
you and you can meditate while using it.
That has been a really useful piece of technology that allows me to get into a meditative state.
So I'm going to say the TheraMind product.
It's a great choice.
Last question.
If you're stuck on a deserted island and you could only bring three items with you, what
would they be?
My gosh.
(49:27):
If I'm on a deserted island, it'd be nice to have a jet ski or a sea dew, right?
You can bring whatever you like.
Whatever I like, right?
I would try to probably bring a Starlink satellite so I can, and a TV so I can watch
sports and incurry enthusiasm reruns.
Incredible.
Rory, I really appreciate your time today.
Thank you for joining us in Partial Conversations.
(49:48):
Zane, thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Now with that, we ended another Partial Conversations.
Thank you for joining us in this journey of learning and inspiration.
Today we've gained insight from our guests and taken another step towards understanding
their diverse chemistry of leadership and business and talent.
Remember, each conversation is a step towards the positive transformation of business leaders.
(50:09):
We hope our discussion has given you valuable takeaways to apply in your own career and
life.
Don't forget to subscribe to Partial Conversations on YouTube and Spotify, so you never miss an
episode.
Thanks a lot to you, your thoughts and experiences, so connect with me on social media channels.
I'm Boussakthiv on LinkedIn and I love you to join the conversation.
Join us next time for more engaging stories, advice, and conversations like that.
(50:32):
Until then, keep striving for excellence and a great single.
Thank you for listening and good bye for Partial Conversations.
Welcome to Proteon Conversations, the podcast where leadership in business and accounting
(00:09):
isn't just discussed, it's explored.
I'm your host, St. Stephens, and thank you for joining me as we delve into the minds of
some of the most influential leaders in the industry.
Our journey is one of discovery, from unraveling the unique stories that shaped our guest careers,
to invaluable advice that fueled their success.
We add to provide you with simple, actionable advice to accelerate your career and personal
growth.
Whether you're a budding professional or a seasoned executive, these conversations are
(00:31):
designed to offer insight and perspectives that resonate with everyone.
So tune in, engage, and be inspired as we build better leaders together.
Welcome to Proteon Conversations.
Today we're speaking with Rory Henry, director of Arrowroot Family Office and co-founder of
AFO Wealth Management, Ford.
Rory, a certified financial planner and behavioral financial advisor, has pioneered that visor
(00:54):
and that is AEDVISROR methodology, emphasizing return on relationship.
With nearly two decades in the field, Rory is also the author of Alistic Guide to Wealth
Management, the comprehensive work featuring insights from over 24 thought leaders in finance.
Outside the office, Rory enjoys sports, golf, and performing in private Los Angeles.
(01:15):
Join us as we explore Rory's integration of behavioral finance and holistic wealth management.
Rory, thanks for joining me.
Zane, thank you so much for having me on the show.
We're both part of accounting influencers, so I have been looking forward to this conversation
and speaking to your audience here.
Yeah, it's always great to have you.
(01:37):
It was nice to meet you through the Arrow Group, which I always feel out of my depth.
Everybody's got so much going on in those groups and you have got a ton going on.
As I was preparing for this, that picture is like the perfect picture of your book.
You always think there's a little bit of Rory that I knew, and then when you start digging
into it, there's so much more to it.
(01:58):
I had 50 questions, which I had to like, you're down.
I've got my standard ones, and I'll tell everybody to prepare, and then I have some key points
I want.
There's a lot I want to touch.
But as anything, when we do start with this conversation, we sort of want to delve into
how did you get started?
How did it all begin?
How did you decide first to get into the tax world, and then how did you get into the
(02:19):
wealth management side of it?
That's a great question, Zane.
I got into the tax business.
I ended up owning a tax firm, and then I got restless back in 2014, 15, 16 time.
I saw that the tax profession, the accounting profession, didn't have a CRM.
(02:41):
I asked myself, as I saw HubSpot and Salesforce starting to make businesses more efficient,
I said, the accounting profession, we're kind of far behind when it comes to utilizing the
CRM.
So I set out to build a tax practice management technology and two other bright minds out there,
one carbon overseas, and then canopy over here, we're doing the same thing.
(03:05):
And so I went to the venture community and went out to raise money.
And during that same time, Zane, is when canopy tax, I think they raised 77 million
in a couple of rounds there, and they blew it all on a failed sales and tax prep solution.
And so actually, as everybody knows, probably listening, they're doing well now, but I went
(03:25):
back out to the venture community and they said, Rory, it's a great idea.
This is a large TAM, so there's no market, but we're not going to put our money behind
a young buck like you.
My dreams of having a technology company were dashed at that time.
So I, as the owner of tax firm and understanding the value that we provide to clients, I said,
(03:47):
you know what, we have the ability not only to be more efficient, but to create more value
through doing the cash work, right?
I saw the evolution of the profession.
And I went through Thompson Reuters practice forward program, and I saw the push from moving
from compliance to advisory.
But I asked myself, Zane, the question, if we want to truly be advisory, shouldn't we
(04:08):
be financial advisory and integrate financial planning and wealth management?
And that's when I met Rob Santos here at Error Root Family Office, and I saw the advancements
in the wealth tech solutions and the ability to really integrate the accounting and the
wealth management world to do what we do at the family office for the ultra affluent,
(04:29):
right?
The Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, they have a lawyer, they have a CPA, they have a financial advisor,
they have a baker, everybody working in collaboration to advise the family businesses as well as
the personal affairs.
And so the technology was advancing.
I said, well, let's connect these professions.
Let's make sure that we can provide truly holistic advice.
(04:49):
So I set out to do that in around 2020.
You know, started my podcast, I was able to interview some of the brightest minds in accounting,
wealth management, behavior and finance and technology and learn from, you know, the subject
matter experts in different areas, and then from there I created a book and I said, you
know, we need to guide a roadmap, a playbook for accounting professionals to be able to
(05:11):
integrate these solutions in a holistic and authentic way.
That was a long answer to your question.
No, no, it's a great answer.
And it gives a lot of insight and why I said you've got a lot of things going on.
I mean, you touched on the podcast as well, which has been really successful and great
to listen to.
And I think, you know, one of the things that I think when people hear what you've just
said, they're going to ask the question, what do you mean by holistic?
(05:35):
Yeah.
Like, what does that actually mean?
Well in the wealth management space, you know, for a couple of decades now, we talk about
in a holistic financial planner or holistic wealth management, it's taking a look at not
just the taxes, the tax planning, the estate planning, the insurance, right, the investment
management.
Most people, when they think of financial advisor, Zane, maybe some of those folks in
(05:58):
the audience, you know, they think of the stock picker, right?
They think of investments only.
But really there has been an evolution in the wealth profession from being that stock
picker or picking out that portfolio to really being a holistic financial planner, making
sure that the client has a financial plan, making sure that they're taking consideration
of the proper insurance, right?
(06:19):
They have an estate plan.
You know, 66% of the population doesn't have an estate plan, Zane, or an up-to-date estate
plan, and that boggles my mind.
So holistic financial planning is really looking at the whole parts.
And one aspect is the tax component.
And so I asked myself on the wealth side, yeah, this is great.
We're doing holistic financial planning, but if we're really trying to be holistic, we've
(06:40):
got to make sure that small and medium-sized business owner, the people you advise, you
know, the small and medium-sized business owners, the wine owners out there, also are
taking consideration of the business advisory aspect of their finances.
Because one decision affects the other.
Should I put more money into my business?
Should I diversify into investments?
I got to make sure that I have an estate plan that takes into consideration these businesses,
(07:00):
having a succession plan, buy-sell agreements, right?
So making sure that these two professions that have historically worked in silos are
working collaboratively to advise the family businesses, or a business, right, to advise
the personal affairs of the family as well.
Why do you think people think of those functions so much separately?
(07:20):
Like a lot of people see it as a silo.
Like this is my tax person.
This is my wealth advisor.
This is the person who keeps, you know, my, like, why do you think we all have that mindset?
I mean, me included.
Like why do we do that?
Like, I mean, I had that mindset as well.
Yeah.
It seems obvious when you say it out now.
It's like, like, of course, all these people should be talking to each other at least once
in a while, right?
But yeah, my three people have never spoken to each other.
(07:42):
Yeah.
And that's good.
Yeah, it's just like they've never spoken to each other and I sit there going, that
seems dumb of me.
Like why am I not being told that these people should speak to each other?
And there's probably some conflicting information there, right?
And that's where I long argued, Zane, that the accounting professional, hopefully those
listening, they're uniquely positioned to be what I call an advised roar and the roars
(08:05):
for return on relationship, really being that quarterback to that client's financial
life.
I'm not saying that you need to learn investment management.
I'm not saying you need to be a holistic financial planner, but you can bring together the other
subject matter experts to start advising your clients on what matters most of them.
So as we'll probably touch on, I'm sure you have questions in regards to behavioral finance,
(08:26):
but there's this really big push in the wealth side.
I'm introducing it to the accounting and tax side about having the ability to do a deep
discovery on really what matters most to your client.
So doing that personalization by understanding really what the values are of your client,
looking at the dimensions of who they are outside of their occupation or outside of
(08:46):
their finances, looking at their intellectual wellbeing, looking at their physical, emotional
wellbeing, and also doing the exercise of really asking them if their best hopes were
realized, what would that life look like?
So all the research that I've been doing is really looking at how we can make better
decisions in the near and now to make that future life actually happen.
(09:09):
A friend of mine, Hal Hirschfield has a great book for those in the audience that want a
good read.
It's called Your Future Self and he did research that showed that we see our future selves
zane as really no different than a stranger.
And I think for those in their audience and can probably understand is when they go to
the supermarket when they're hungry, they probably load up on too many groceries because they're
(09:30):
not taking that future self in mind that, hey, that personal week from now probably is not
going to need all those groceries.
So the research into that is showing how we can make better decisions in the near and
now to make that future life come true.
It's things like doing a visual exercise of what that future self looks like.
(09:50):
So let's do it.
If you want it right now, do an exercise.
You have some goals I'm sure in mind, 10 years from now, what does that future life look
like for you?
Is vivid in as visual as possible, where are you?
Who are you with?
What are you doing?
And then how do you feel?
(10:11):
Yeah, I mean, I'm like the worst person at this because I beat it for myself all the
time.
Like I'm all about right now, everything I do is for plans in the future.
But most of the time those plans ignore the me side of it.
It's like, let's make sure my kids are in a good place.
Family's in a great place.
My wife's in a great place.
The business is a good place because I got to keep people employed.
And I think very little on what effect that could have on my own life.
(10:36):
And I know that's a mistake and I know I got to do better and I'm trying to do better.
And I've done a great job actually this year.
I'll give myself a tap in the back.
I get what you're saying because my picture of my future is literally me standing looking
at other people and making sure they're in a good space and it never considers me being
in that picture needing to be there to support them.
(10:56):
Well let's build that picture then if we can paint that.
And I like this is actually good.
Can you give me a picture of maybe you being in a spot where all those people are being
successful.
You know, is there a celebration of maybe a corporate achievement or something, a kid's
graduation or something where you're at like, oh my gosh, this is that ideal state that
I'm looking for that I know the people that I care most about are being successful and
(11:18):
that internal give me peace of mind.
Yeah.
I mean, it's fairly easy for me because my kids in 10 years time will be sort of at
the end of high school.
I have a seven and a nine year old.
So, you know, my big goals right now is getting them through.
The schooling stage and putting them in a position to be able to enter a school that
they want to enter and do something that they love.
So you know, a lot of what I do right now is setting them up for success.
(11:41):
And then at the same time is making sure that I create a good relationship with my wife.
Her and I on the same page in terms of what our goals look like where we want to be in
10 years.
And then I need to sort of part of that and I'm having personal discussions about this
with my business partner is adjusting my role to make sure I get to that place of that.
In 10 years time, I'm able to enjoy the fruits of my labor that I'm putting in for the next
(12:04):
10 years.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
And we always grapple with right planning for that future self, but also making sure
that we're living in the experiences for the now, right?
We can't overwork ourselves working 60, 70 hours a week and then we miss our child's
sporting events, right?
So it's making sure we have that delicate balance between, okay, you know, saving for
tomorrow or making sure tomorrow is okay, but also having those experiences in the here
(12:28):
and now that are rewarding that we can look back on and that we're not regretting.
And that is, I think, a really great takeaway for anybody listening to this.
Like you've got to live in the now and you can't always just plan for the future.
Planning for the future is important.
And this is why good advisors are critical.
And I do want to sort of roll back to, you know, you were talking about the, you know,
the accountant being the quarterback.
(12:49):
And I feel like that's really good advice for the accountant that does the tax portion
of it, right?
I made a note of you when you were saying that what advice would you give to a person
like me that doesn't do taxes, right?
I just see the business side of it.
I know who their tax person is.
And I, you know, most of the time, know they don't have too much going on the personal
(13:12):
wealth side.
How do you, what advice would you give me to be able to help people push to that direction
that they are doing this type of planning?
They're finding somebody that is thinking about them holistically and putting these
pieces together.
Really hard for me to do, right?
Other than some of my advisory projects where I can tell people like, Hey, you're not doing
(13:34):
this, this and this, we should really find some people.
You have some great, you know, contacts.
I got a great list of people talk to these people.
And you know, I know some of them that also practice holistic wealth management and I
can put them in front of it and they would bring pieces to the table, which I know can
be helpful.
But my general client, especially any accountant doing a cash practice, we don't really have
(13:55):
that opportunity to have those conversations.
Well I think that's where the beauty of actually diving deeper and doing that work because
I think, Zane, you probably do a lot of the business planning and aspects of what I just
covered in the personal financial planning side, but just doing it with the business.
And then you know, the mission statement of the business values of the business, right?
(14:16):
And just taking that step further and if you're working with that business owner, it's like,
okay, let's understand, you know, how this is going to impact the personal finances,
right?
And then it's just doing the other holistic aspects with the estate planning, right?
Making sure they have the correct insurance in put in place.
But I think really you have the ability to have those conversations with that client,
(14:38):
you know, ask those deeper questions.
I always say that we need to move from being the person that has all the answers, Zane,
to being the person that asks the right questions.
It's a great book by Michael Bunga Stanger called The Coaching Habit and he talks about
this very aspect, how we have an inner urge, he calls it the advice sponsor, to want to
(15:03):
give advice to people.
And it's in our nature, especially if we got credentials, we went to schooling, right?
We want to show people that, you know, we have expertise and we can solve their problem.
You know, a lot of times we want to save them, right?
Or it's actually, they say it's a control issue, we want to control the situation.
But if we go deeper or maybe ask that small means to the business owner, you know, what
they want out of their business, you know, what does success look like for them?
(15:26):
I always say, you know, there's business owners that want to IPO, there's business owners
that want a great lifestyle business so they can spend more time with their family.
So I think it's important to really maybe ask those questions, dig a little deeper.
You know, we were working with a CPA partner bars and he brought a client to us and it
was just a tax question and 401k, right?
Saving for retirement for him, for his employees and I paused and I asked him, okay, great.
(15:50):
You know, this is, we'll do tax, we'll have tax savings here.
But really what do you want out of that business and what is that ideal situation?
What is your best hopes for your future?
He paused saying he thought.
And he goes, Rory and the folks that ran the zoom call is that, you know, I really want
to be able to retire in 10 years and I want to travel the country and RV and visit different
(16:16):
national parks.
So that simple question, right?
Went from a tax technical conversation, right?
So like, this is the ideal future that I want because I don't want to necessarily lead my
business, but I want to be able to have a succession plan in succession, but I want to
have a plan to have my team members take over and I'll do more consulting work.
I want to be able to do that from on the road in my RV.
(16:38):
So it's once again, it's that conversation can flip from just technical advice to more
than more transformational advice.
And when people have that ideal state in mind, like we talked about that future state and
they can provide that feeling as, you know, it's freedom to me.
I have that feeling of knowing I'm on the road and experiencing life, you know, that
becomes more tangible and then they're more likely to make better decisions for their
(17:01):
business, their personal life to make that cross country dream come true.
And the question like that is well received by most people or is it, you know, I'm thinking
of my clients who are like underwater, right?
Life is tough.
The wine industry is struggling this year.
I'll call beverage in general.
And a lot of the time they're just trying to focus on how do I meet the next covenant?
(17:21):
How do I meet the next payroll?
And I know they need to step back and think a little bit about what the future looks like.
You know, sometimes you want to ask the question and they probably can't ask it this way.
Like is this really worth your time right now?
Yeah.
But people are, I mean, 99% of people are not going to be very accepted to that question.
(17:43):
You're probably, you know, risk losing the client.
But effectively I'm asking the same question that you put to that client going, what do
you want?
Like what is the ultimate goal?
What do you want to achieve?
Yeah.
But it's not always well received.
So how do you get to points?
How do you, I mean, from your side, how do you coach somebody to be able to ask those
(18:03):
questions?
But first and foremost, it's this empathy, right?
Like, oh, I understand that it's very difficult right now.
The wine business is going through some, you know, some changes and I know you're trying
to meet payroll, make sure your employees are taking care, you know, I understand that.
So it's not that empathy perspective, right?
But I think you hit it on the head there, Zane.
I think of when you put it into that, are you frame it into the way that they look at
(18:28):
what their optimal life looks like, I want to make sure I can retire with a couple million
dollars.
You might not be able to do that on a career trajectory or an, you might have to switch
industries, right?
So particularly you ask that question, they'll come up with the answer themselves.
Like, you know what, I really believe in this business where we're dealing with a dip
here in what's going on.
But I know that we've made it through the past or we can make it through again.
(18:51):
You know, I think they'll come up with the answer on their own.
It's when you pose the question and let them think about it, they'll find ways to see if
it makes sense for them to continue on.
So once again, I think it goes back to, you know, you have an answer, you see the numbers
in your head, but you don't know the emotional aspect of where that person's at.
They may be like, Hey, no, I've done this before, I'll do it again.
I'm going to grow this business, right?
(19:12):
Or you know what, Zane, I think I need to make a move here.
I'm looking at the numbers here and I don't think I could put in 80 out of weeks trying
to turn this thing around.
So once again, it's asking those questions and maybe let them come to the solution on
their own.
Yeah.
I mean, the emotional side of it is so tough.
You know, think about, you know, the wine space, it's an art, right?
People are putting their heart and soul into a bottle and it's tough to have those difficult
(19:34):
conversations with people.
But you know, that's at the end of the day, what advisory is, is having the tough conversations.
And even if, you know, you know, the answer is like, Hey, this is going to be really
tough.
You want to retire on this project, like it's probably not going to happen unless you make
a severe change, which you might not want to do, but then I'm going to show you the
picture of what it would look like if you don't make it, right?
(19:54):
And it's tough.
It is emotional.
It's difficult conversations to have.
People don't always want to hear it.
I know sometimes where I like literally hold the platter and said, Yes, your solution.
And they're like, I don't want to do that.
I'm like, well, it's that or it's not going to work.
Like that's the only answer right now.
And they'll just bang their head and continue to go.
So it gets emotional.
(20:15):
And I think this is sort of where, you know, your methodology advisor comes in.
Explain this again to me.
And like, how do I implement this with my clients?
Yeah.
Once again, it's like I said, it's that return on relationship and it's really using the
science and psychology behind how we make decisions.
You know, it came from behavioral finance and behavioral finance was really the study
(20:36):
of how we made decisions when it comes to our investments were irrational beings and
the behavioral finance in the well space moved on to this human first approach of really
understanding what matters most to our clients.
So we're big on values based planning.
So I really value travel with my family.
I want to make sure I have that goal of traveling in the RV across country.
(20:58):
Or if I want to IP on my business and I'm really motivated to grow my business, I'm
going to put all my effort into my decisions to making sure that reality comes true.
So once again, it's that it's really understanding what matters most that our clients doing the
values based exercises.
And then it's having that team of advisors having Zane in the room, right?
(21:19):
Having that CP that tax professional having the financial planner working collectively
to make sure that person is being advised, you know, on their finances, both with their
business and their personal finances.
So it's, I mean, it's currently effective as far as the clients we work with.
Now not everybody can have always a team of advisors, but there's great tech enabled
solutions out there that you can integrate into a practice to start providing always
(21:43):
a family office level of care.
For instance, the state planning, the technology partner out there called trust and well, they
can do an estate plan for as little as $500.
I believe a will for his little as $189.
So it's making sure that their family's taking care of any unforeseen circumstances.
So once again, it's more that white glove treatment to go above and beyond the cash
(22:05):
work or the tax planning to making sure that their family's taking care of, you know, in
case of any unforeseen circumstances.
Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about behavioral finance because you've brought
it up a few times.
Yeah.
In a nutshell, it's, you know, it's obviously about more than just the investments.
There's more to it, right?
Explain this to dummy.
(22:25):
I'm the dummy.
Explain to me what is behavioral finance.
So there's a couple ways of explaining it.
I say we need to look at the past, the present, and then the future.
I've touched on the future with your future self, right?
You know, our relationship to money is many times formed in our childhood.
Most of it is formed in our childhood.
It's cultural, right?
It's brought down from generation to generation.
(22:46):
And there's four types of money scripts.
Psychologist Brad Clontz wrote a book with Dr. Prasiatuleta who's been on the web podcast
a couple of times.
That's called financial therapy.
She and he basically formed the financial therapy association way back when a couple
of decades ago when they saw that people were having so many issues around money and the
relationship to money.
(23:07):
And so we fall many times into four different money scripts.
There's money avoided where we believe that money is evil, right?
And that we don't, we don't like money.
And so, you know, we may, we may not want to generate wealth or generate income there
because we think money is bad.
So sometimes people fall into that.
Examples of that may be my parents got kicked out of their house when they were, when I
(23:31):
was a child, it's why I associate money with being something bad.
So it's one of the money scripts, your money scripts.
There's also money status where we want to show how much money we have.
That is also fraught with issues because we're, we want to overspend because we're keeping
up with the Joneses, right?
Those Instagram, those people on Instagram, you know, who look like they have money, but
(23:52):
we all know they probably don't have a lot of money.
So money status is another type of money script that we can fall into.
Another one is money worship where we believe that money can solve all our problems and
we're constantly chasing after money.
We believe that money is going to be the solution to our family problems and, and that
could be issue, cause issues of never want to be happy and that we're constantly chasing
after money.
So that's another one.
(24:13):
The other one's money vigilance.
It was probably the healthiest of the money scripts and it's making sure that we're budgeting
properly, right?
That, you know, that we have our finances in order.
The issue with that one is we're not having those experiences, right?
We're saving for tomorrow, but we're not experiencing today.
So most of us fall into, you know, one of those money scripts, we may fall into a couple
(24:34):
here, but it's understanding that relationship to money that we have because that dictates
how we make decisions with our finances or their business, right?
And our personal finances.
So really looking back on, on our upbringing and seeing how we really think about money
and our relationship to money is part of this human first approach, you know, uncovering
(24:55):
what that relationship to money is.
I didn't say that what the present is, is doing the values based planning.
What is our top five values?
We value our family, we value creativity, we value travel, right?
It's doing that values exercise because from there, I think if city four, our business
decisions or personal decisions will emanate from those values.
(25:15):
It makes our decisions easier.
So that's the present.
And then once again, doing that future exercise of what that ideal life looks like.
We use the best of us question.
If all your best hopes realized money was an issue, what would that life look like?
And people will paint that picture, which gives them a North Star to meet those goals.
So once again, it's doing this deep dive discovery on where people at, what was their experience
(25:40):
with money, who influenced their beliefs around money.
Usually there's either an event, a younger childhood, or we had a mentor or a family member
who is influential around our beliefs with money.
And then when they have a better understanding of where they came from, where they're at,
and then where they want to go, we think can craft a financial plan that includes the business
advisory aspect of it, right?
(26:02):
To help them meet those goals, those aspirations and optimize their wellbeing.
I always say, Zane, I'm a behavioral financial advisor.
I'm in the belief in the behavior business, helping people believe they can do something
and then create the necessary behavior changes to make sure that life comes true.
And part of that is showing them the financials, right?
Yeah, I'm sitting here thinking like this is very, it almost like the touchy-feely side
(26:27):
of finance, which it always should be, right?
Because money is emotional.
It has an effect on very important parts of our lives.
But I can imagine that this doesn't necessarily sit well for every person that you get in
front of, right?
There's going to be people that are just like, no ways, not, not, I'm not, I'm not thinking
(26:48):
into the past, you're not my psychologist.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, if someone's uncomfortable, they don't want to talk about their relationship
to money, you know, we wouldn't get into it, right?
We can look at other ways, you know, that's, you know, obviously I'm being present, right?
Making sure that nobody's uncomfortable.
So, but the more that people like think about it, they look back and go, this makes sense.
(27:09):
This is why I make the certain decisions I do.
And this is more the advanced stuff.
I'm not saying those accounting professionals or everybody should adopt this type of methodology,
right?
I think we can all do the self assessment ourselves and have that self awareness.
You know what?
This is why I make certain decisions, right?
Or doing the future self exercise on where we want to go.
We don't ask ourselves these questions.
(27:30):
See, I didn't, right?
Before I went through this methodology, I never asked myself what money meant to me
or what my, the cultural influences around my beliefs around money.
I asked myself what my values were, right?
But when I did the exercise, went through it, did the future self, you know, practice,
I then was able to have the greater, greater clarity on where I was, where I'm at, and
(27:51):
where I want to go.
And I think that's incredibly effective.
When you do the work on yourself, it's like doing a business, you know, planning yourself,
right?
Or doing a personal plan.
Your plan, once you understand your current finances, you know, and doing that work, then
you're like, okay, this is where I'm at.
This is where I want to be.
Here's the choices that I need to make.
It makes it easier and clear.
No, and I, you know, listening to you is like a light bulb in my head.
(28:13):
I feel like I need to go home, read your future self, I've written it down on a piece of paper,
I'll go add it to my audio, audio wish list.
I think I actually have a credit at the moment, so maybe I'll go buy it, buy it after this,
this recording.
But it definitely feels like an exercise that everybody should go through, even if you don't
want to do it in front of a professional who can help you properly, but it's a good place
to start, you know, have some honest conversations with yourself, figure out where, where you're
(28:36):
going.
Yeah.
Let's talk about the book, because this is sort of where this all gets tied in, right?
This is, you know, all the, you know, the methodology, there's the behavioral finance
advice, there's like, you know, your company, like, and now we've got the book.
And from what I've heard, there's some amazing people in the book.
(28:58):
I got to get myself a copy of this book soon.
Now we can just find copies.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let's say I got to figure out a signed copy of this and give it a read, but tell us
about the book.
Yeah.
So the book came out of a conversation I was having with Seth Feinberg, you know, Seth,
former editor at accounting web, um, he's now CPA trend lines and since the Rory, I
(29:19):
see all the great work you're doing.
I'm talking about holistic wealth management, holistic financial planning, bringing this
is virtual family office model to the accounting profession.
So he said the accounting professional needs a guide.
You know, they need a playbook.
They need a blueprint on how to do this.
And so I was like, okay, I'd already book.
Yeah.
It's like the goal I had is write a book.
(29:40):
And so I set out to write it.
And I, what I quickly realized Zane is, and I didn't want it to just come from me.
I wanted to get others involved.
As you know, I'm like I said, I'm big on relationships.
And so I was able to, you know, round up a, you know, 34 plus thought leaders from accounting,
wealth management, behavioral finance, the estate planning worlds, folks that people
(30:03):
are probably familiar with Blake Oliver, Randy Johnston, Seth Feinberg's in there,
then another tech CEOs on the, on the wealth management side to really talk about the different
service offerings.
It's really an end to end solution.
If you really look at these two worlds, the accounting and wealth advisory world, it's
really taking all the way from the debits and credits, right, to the estate planning
and exit plan and everything in between.
(30:25):
Ron Baker likes to call it from womb to tomb.
We're advising clients from womb to tomb, helping them start that college plan for their
kid.
Helping them start their first business, grow that business, right?
Start retirement plans for themselves and their employees, right?
If there's a sale of that business, that liquidity event, right?
And then having those investments managed, right?
Having that estate plan.
(30:45):
And so really the book is a guide to integrate these two wonderful professions who have historically,
like I said, didn't work together because one decision, like I said, affects another.
And so I, I got the best of the brightest in each of the subject matters, whether it's
the estate planning, exit planning, life insurance, marketing, client communications,
what else?
(31:06):
Investment management, Vanguard did a 20 year study on the value of an advisor.
And for those in our audience that may be skeptical about financial advisors, I was
too because I didn't come become a financial advisor later in life.
And they're, oh, what are you doing?
You're not even really doing anything, right?
They showed, and this is an investment advice, but they showed that the value advisor can
be upwards of 3% of net returns.
(31:29):
And that's through tax efficient strategies, asset location, right?
They can talk about withdrawal strategies, right?
As well as behavioral coaching.
And behavioral coaching is just making sure people don't make dumb decisions when it comes
to the market, Zane.
So when COVID hits in March of 2020 and the market dips in double digit percentages,
people are scared and going to sell everything, go to cash.
(31:51):
If you stay the course, right?
Most likely that market's going to rebound because history is shown.
So they allowed me to put information from their 20 year study into the book there.
And it really shows the value of the advisor from the investment side.
And it goes into the value of holistic financial planning.
And then I just take it a step further.
I'm saying, okay, let's make sure that we include those great business advisors, the
(32:14):
accounting professionals who are advising these businesses because a lot of people's
net worth is tied up into their business, right?
So it's once again, it's looking at the whole instead of just these different silos of tax
or accounting or investment management or insurance, right?
Or estate planning.
It's really making sure you can put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
Fantastic.
Wait, I'll get the book.
I'll get you one, Zane.
(32:35):
No, but other people, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Let's find it.
Let's do a quick sales pitch.
And you can get the book at CPH Rennlines.
There's shop there.
You can get through that.
I also have a website, a landing page there that gives you more information on the book.
It's adviceroar.com, a D-V-I-S-R-O-R.com is up there.
But you can purchase a book at CPH Rennlines on their shop.
(32:57):
Right.
So we should all go do that.
From what I mean, you've got me excited about behavioral, financial, finance.
I'm sort of sitting here already like rolling through my head over everything I need to
go do on the personal side, which I've been on the back line for a long time.
So I'm feeling motivated to go relook at my life and my goals and change things around,
(33:18):
which we've been talking about 30 minutes and you've got me there.
Sorry, clearly, I mean, what do you do?
But you can apply a lot of the stuff that we talk about behavioral, financial, human
first approach.
You can apply it to the work that you're doing and the client work that you have and
advising these business owners.
It's really doing the deeper discovery and understanding what they want out of their
(33:39):
business.
And so you take principles of what I talk about in the book that we do on the personal
finance side and just apply that to the work that you're doing or the businesses that you
advise.
So it's very effective.
And once again, it's just, we go back to that human first approach.
So instead of having a cookie cutter solutions or just being strictly technical, there's
nuance involved.
Right?
(33:59):
What we said, there's emotions involved, right?
There's psychology involved.
And the better that we can understand our clients, the better we can advise them.
And then when you have happy, successful clients, they want to refer more happy and successful
clients to you as well.
So it's a great referral strategy.
We also talk about in the book, a big advocate for getting the non-financial spouse involved.
(34:20):
And so someone who might not know the numbers that are scared by numbers, right?
I want to make sure that that person, that non-CFO spouse is just as involved as the
financial spouse.
And we can do that by talking about the non-financial metrics, right?
The values.
What do you want out of your family life?
What does an ideal situation look like for you, for your family?
(34:41):
What does success look like for you?
So we can ask those questions and get that non-CFO spouse involved.
You make, in turn, it helps out the other spouse because they understand they're involved
in the situation.
They can maybe help or give suggestions and improves the relationship you have with the
client and with that family.
You know, that feels like a good strategy even for the spouse who maybe is financially
(35:02):
minded, knows the numbers, but has that poor relationship with money as well, right?
Because there's the, these three accountants and the mathematicians out there that just
have that bad relationship.
And anytime you bring up money in a relationship, then they'd end up in a fight.
And I think it's a really great way to sort of take that trauma out of the conversation
because you're talking about something that's important to them and the numbers just happen
(35:25):
to be a means to ensure that that thing that's important to them is safeguarded rather than
let's focus on what the numbers look like.
So I like the idea of just having that conversation, talking about the values and the goals rather
than the nickels on the dimes.
Yeah, you know, what there's a American psychological association study that showed that continually
(35:48):
saying that finances are the top stress for Americans.
And this study's been going on since 2007.
72% of adults report feeling stress about money at least some of the time.
26% of adults report feeling stress about money all of the time.
I'm on a mission to really eradicate that stress and help people have a better understanding
(36:13):
about money, but also making sure that they can optimize their well-being and not be so
stressed out.
And that might be making changes in their personal or their business life, right?
Business isn't working out well, maybe we need to make a change and so you're not so
stressed about money.
So I think using this human first as behavioral finance approach is really helping people optimize
their well-being and understand how they can make the necessary behavior changes to not
(36:37):
live that stressful life when it comes to money.
That's a great call.
So tax guy, wealth advisor, podcaster, book writer, all around great guy, but what are
Rory's new goals?
What are your short term goals for yourself?
Actually, I mean, I got quite a bit.
So I'm going to be doing a lot of the book promotion.
(36:58):
I just had a call today with a Hollywood development company that I partnered with.
My next step is a television show, Zane.
There's only one really big show that's been on Netflix called How to Get Rich by Ramit
Setti.
And I think there's an opportunity for more financial literacy shows to help people with
(37:18):
their understanding around money.
So it's taking what we just talked about today, behavioral finance, psychology of money and
bringing this to a wider audience.
So I just had a development call earlier today.
We're looking for a mainstream host.
So we're looking for our Gordon Ramsay-esque person in finances that can help bring this
to the masses because only a third of the people have a financial advisor, Zane.
(37:43):
Very few of those actually probably do the approach that I talk about with behavioral
finance and this human first approach.
I go back to the tax and accounting side.
Everybody's got to file taxes.
Most people, a lot of it, they're the networks in the business.
Small mediums are businesses or the backbone of our country.
So I'm going to mission to help more people have a better understanding when it comes
(38:05):
to their money, help them create generational wealth and optimize their well-being.
So I think the next step and what I talk about is really giving this to this methodology
to a wider audience in TV and streaming services are the best way to do that.
That's a holocaust.
My gosh.
It does roll nicely into.
I did want to ask about the improv and I know you do a lot of that and just give us a quick
(38:29):
breakdown improv.
How did you get into that and why?
So it was 2016.
I had a fear of public speaking and I said, I need to get over this fear.
It happened when I was in the seventh grade, Zane.
My brother was in high school and I was doing my ASB speech to become president of ASB and
(38:50):
I was doing the generic speech of, okay.
Let's have more pizza parties, more movies on Friday, right?
Just a generic speech.
And my brother in time goes, Rory, scratch that speech.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to go on stage and I want you to sing Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love
You.
So I got up on stage in the seventh grader, crackled voice and I started singing Whitney
(39:11):
Houston and all the kids started booing.
Oh, gosh.
I got bright red Zane ran on stage.
Right.
Traumatic experience.
And for a couple of decades, I had a fear of public speaking.
So I said, I need to get over this fear of public speaking.
And so I took an improv class, level 101, went up there, made an absolute fool of myself.
(39:34):
And I was like, I don't think I can do this.
But I pushed myself to do level two, did all six levels, started performing on stages
in LA and it became such a rewarding experience.
Zane, it taught me a couple of lessons.
And it taught me to be okay with failing, taking chances in life.
And so I don't think I would have a podcast.
(39:55):
I don't think I would have been able to write this book.
I don't think I'd be having a development.
Okay, we're going to show if I didn't take that leap of faith and started becoming okay
with failing.
So that was one lesson that took that helped me out with to it helped me to start actively
listening to really being present in scenes and an improv scene or class.
A lot of people try to be funny.
(40:16):
And so you'll come up with a joke in your head.
But the other person you're seeing partner has no idea what, you know, what story you've
created.
So it makes for bad improv when you're not actively listening and taking the last thing
it was self said and then building off that.
So what that allowed me to do is to really take that and start building off of, you know,
what people say in my improv interviews, but also just in life and try to see how I can
(40:36):
work with somebody and build off what they're doing and what we can combine together.
So that was the other thing it taught me.
Then lastly, it taught me to have a yes and mentality.
So the main tenant improv, I don't know if you know the same is saying yes and so taking
off kind of what we just said is taking someone's suggestion and ending that saying yes and
so it taught me to have that mentality in life going to that conference, right?
(41:00):
Taking that trip just saying to yes and to things.
And because you never know what doors are going to open up.
You know, I had a great meeting with Clayton notes.
I don't know if you know Clayton Clayton accounting strategist, technology guys, keynotes,
speaker and accounting profession for a number of years.
And you know, I took a red eye out to Vegas to, I think it was to Jill CPA or QuickBooks
(41:23):
Connect one of the two a year ago.
I had a heartfelt conversation with Clayton.
He was one of the most influential people on accounting.
Just talking about life.
And if I didn't take that red eye out to go to that conference, I would never have had
that conversation.
He actually wrote the four to my book and it's great.
I'm so, I'm so fortunate and grateful for him to do that.
(41:43):
So it's having that yes, Sam mentality that taught me to just start saying yes to things.
Yes, this interview, right?
Yes to that mastermind group.
And I think with more people can have that mindset, you know, they can, you know, have
success in their endeavors.
Yeah.
I think people underestimate what a team sport improv is and how much it is.
It's not about being the funniest.
It's about how can you react to any that happened with somebody else, which is, is life, right?
(42:09):
You can have the best laid plan, but it doesn't matter if everybody else hasn't got the same
plan.
And, you know, it's, it's working on and creating a self that you're, you're prepared enough
to that you can react to that situation.
And I've never really thought of improv as a really great place for people to learn to
be a good team member and how to react to life properly.
But, you know, where you explained it in the, you know, what your, your learnings.
(42:32):
And I somehow got down the improv space a couple of months ago, just like, nice, but
just like some random piece on, I don't know, I can't, maybe on Facebook, Reels, I came
to somewhere and I went down it and they were explaining like how improv works and what
really makes great.
I was like, geez, I'm out of actually, when I was reading super communicators, I think
they have a chapter in it.
(42:53):
Charles, do it again.
Yeah.
So they talk about, about improv there.
So I might have run down a, you know, some rabbit hole on improv and it is, I mean, likely
for me, I have no problem to talk in front of people.
I'm probably not smart enough to care.
It's never been an issue.
I've always enjoyed that type of, you know, just talk on the spot.
But, you know, I think it's a great, a great tool that many people should consider using.
(43:16):
Yeah.
I think if everybody didn't improv, you know, it's the world would be a better place.
It allows you to be a kiddie in Zane and you can kind of forget the stresses of the day
and you can go out there and just almost make like a kid and play and round and make stuff
up and have fun.
And it's currently warning assault to the earth people too.
So if anybody's thinking about doing it, but pushing yourself out of your comfort zone,
(43:39):
I strongly recommend it.
And the same goes if you want to do, go to a standup comedy class or you go to your
Toastmasters, it's the same sort of thing.
They're pushing you to be a little bit different, to put yourself out of that comfort zone.
That's always great.
For sure.
Rory, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
That is a good question.
I would say don't be afraid to ask for it because people are willing to help you out.
(44:01):
And so I think maybe in my younger years, I was nervous to ask for help and wouldn't
reach out to folks, but I found it incredibly rewarding back to that return relationships.
When you work hard, you put yourself out there.
People are willing to help you out.
That's why I think I got so many great people to help contribute to the book because they
wanted to help me out.
They see what I'm doing.
And so I think that's some advice that I've gotten from a mentor early on.
(44:25):
It's like, hey, Rory, ask for help.
Just ask.
And if they can't do it, maybe they'll put you in touch with somebody who can.
So once again, leave a leap of faith in asking someone for assistance because most people
want to help you out.
Yeah.
I know it's a great piece of advice and something to repeat.
They always say, hey, there's never a silly question.
It's really true.
(44:46):
People want you to ask questions.
They're never going to come out and say, ask me a question.
People inherently want you to ask.
They have knowledge to share and they want to give it to you.
So feel free to ask those questions.
You'll learn so much more that way.
And I mean, it's the best way to learn because I'm asking Rory questions today and I've learned
a ton.
I've made a bunch of notes of you.
I've got like three books I need to go read.
(45:07):
It makes a difference.
It will change your perspective on life.
It will give you learning and it will drive you forward.
Yeah.
If I was a new accountant and I was considering entering the accounting field and wasn't too
sure about it, what advice would you give me?
That your perception of accounting or what accounting is becoming is probably not accurate.
(45:27):
And this is the golden age of the profession.
I'm collaborating with a number of really awesome folks and our relationships with some
other folks that are doing some really neat stuff.
And I always say, I run the chapter of the book, perception is funny because a lot of
people perceive or a public perceives wealth advisors or financial advisors still with
stock pickers, like I mentioned.
(45:49):
You probably see accountants as more of the devs and credits and being counters.
And we are so much more than that.
We're strategic advisors.
We're helping people start their first businesses, grow their first businesses, sell their businesses.
On the wealth side, we're helping people grow their personal finances, helping them
understand what they want out of life.
And so it's so much more.
We're really those strategic advisors that are really helping people, guiding them along
(46:12):
life's path, their financial journey, their financial life cycle.
So you're really helping people optimize not only their businesses, but I always say we're
helping people optimize their wellbeing.
So it's a wonderful time to join accounting or wealth advisory, right?
I really say that we're moving to a point in time where technology is going to take
over a lot of that, the media work, and we're going to be able to connect with people and
help them transform their lives.
(46:33):
I'm a big fan of Ron Baker and the work he talks about.
And really we're not just trusted advisors.
We're transformational advisors.
And we're doing that by helping people build better businesses.
And hopefully in turn, have personal wealth as well.
So I think for those that are thinking about coming accounting, things are changing rapidly,
(46:54):
right?
But it's a great time to be in the profession.
There's so much opportunity, especially if you want to go out on your own to build the
practice of your dreams.
There's opportunity to do that and have a successful business.
Exceptional, Rory, at prettier conversations, we love to end with some rapid fire.
(47:15):
I have five questions for you.
Are you ready?
I'm ready, Zane.
Okay.
Question number one, what would your death row meal be?
What would your final meal be?
Oh my gosh, that's a good question.
So my mom makes really good Mexican food.
She grew up on the border of the California Mexican border in Calexco.
She makes really good tamales.
(47:35):
On February, December 26, she makes like 400 tamales and she passes around the community.
And then she makes amazing carrot cake cupcakes from scratch.
And I just had some recently and I can't have like one or two.
I usually have like five or seven or eight.
So give me my mom's tamales with some Spanish rice and then let's top it off with some carrot
(47:59):
cake cupcakes made from scratch.
Oh my gosh, exceptional choice.
Do you prefer audio books or paper books?
I do prefer audio books and I listen at 2X, which is dangerous because what I'll end up
doing is having to put a note in, I'll have to go back, re-listen to that part of the
book and put a note in.
But I'm a big audio book learner.
(48:19):
I have probably, you know, 300, 400 plus books in there.
Same.
If you had 20 minutes to exercise, what would that exercise be?
So I do at 45, which is 45 minutes.
But the actual exercise is about 24, I believe.
So I love the high intensity training.
You can do like 45 seconds exercise, 15 seconds off.
(48:41):
But it's great high intensity training that really gets the blood flowing.
Great.
What is your favorite piece of technology that you're currently using to make your life better?
So I bought this TheraMind.
It's probably the same company that has a TheraGun.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So these goggles that you put on, that massage your forehead is a heating factor as well to
(49:06):
you and you can meditate while using it.
That has been a really useful piece of technology that allows me to get into a meditative state.
So I'm going to say the TheraMind product.
It's a great choice.
Last question.
If you're stuck on a deserted island and you could only bring three items with you, what
would they be?
My gosh.
(49:27):
If I'm on a deserted island, it'd be nice to have a jet ski or a sea dew, right?
You can bring whatever you like.
Whatever I like, right?
I would try to probably bring a Starlink satellite so I can, and a TV so I can watch
sports and incurry enthusiasm reruns.
Incredible.
Rory, I really appreciate your time today.
Thank you for joining us in Partial Conversations.
(49:48):
Zane, thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Now with that, we ended another Partial Conversations.
Thank you for joining us in this journey of learning and inspiration.
Today we've gained insight from our guests and taken another step towards understanding
their diverse chemistry of leadership and business and talent.
Remember, each conversation is a step towards the positive transformation of business leaders.
(50:09):
We hope our discussion has given you valuable takeaways to apply in your own career and
life.
Don't forget to subscribe to Partial Conversations on YouTube and Spotify, so you never miss an
episode.
Thanks a lot to you, your thoughts and experiences, so connect with me on social media channels.
I'm Boussakthiv on LinkedIn and I love you to join the conversation.
Join us next time for more engaging stories, advice, and conversations like that.
(50:32):
Until then, keep striving for excellence and a great single.
Thank you for listening and good bye for Partial Conversations.
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