November 19, 2024 • 29 mins
We often talk about wealth and wellbeing interchangeably, as though they’re the same thing. They’re not.
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(00:00):
Welcome to the top advisor marketing podcast brought
to you by Proudmouth.
I'm your host, Matt Halloran.
Being your own loud is not new to
marketing, but the mindset, strategies, and resources to
help you get there are evolving faster than
this industry is keeping up. It is time
to find a new perspective on what works,
why,
(00:21):
and how to move your business forward.
Listen as I interview guests to help you
learn from them how to be your own
Loud. Let's
get to the show.
Hello, and welcome to another Top Advisor Marketing
podcast. I'm your host, Matt Halloran. We seem
to have been on a behavioral finance kick
lately, and partially that's because we just love
(00:43):
it here at Broadmout. We love it for
so many reasons, but the main reason is
it changes the conversation
that you have with your clients and makes
it much more meaningful. But even better than
that,
if you do have this sort of a
focus,
your content marketing can fundamentally change. And we've
got somebody who I just I love seeing
you at conferences. I love hanging out with
(01:03):
you. I love talking to you. I love
reading your stuff. Doctor Preston Cherry is our
guest today. Welcome to the show. Thank you
again. I appreciate you, Matt.
Listen. Right before I hit record, which damn
it, I should hit record because we were
just talking about something. I wanna go right
there, and then we'll talk about some of
the other stuff. We're talking about the books.
Right? So there are books out there when
it comes to behavioral finance,
(01:24):
and a lot of people don't think
that as an adviser, they can buy a
book by you, and your book is called
Wealth in the Key of Life, and they
can give that to their clients. And I
think this is such a powerful marketing strategy.
Would you mind talking a little bit about
how an adviser could buy a bunch of
your books and use those, and what would
be the desired outcome of the adviser doing
(01:46):
that? Yeah. Sure. Thanks for the platform. But,
yeah, I think,
bar Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Books A Million,
all that so they can go there. But
here's the thing with books. Right? My, my
grandfather
had a famous line that he shared with
me millions of times. But the first time
I heard it was about 12 years old
and he told me a story about life.
(02:07):
And then he followed it up and he
says,
do you understand what I'm saying, son?
And I said, no, not understand what I'm
saying. He said, do you understand what I'm
saying?
And I said, no, grandfather, not right now.
And he said, don't worry, son, keep living.
Does that matter to the book? It's because
if that story or that lesson
(02:27):
came from my grandfather,
then I either I don't know how to
hear it or I'm not trying to hear
it from him at the moment. It's like
your parent telling you something is, ah, and
then somebody else down the street tell you
that and you go back home and you're
like, mom, dad, you know what? Johnny Joe,
miss Susie Johnny Joe told me that. And
they'd be like,
I just told you that. But they said,
I'm glad you learned anyway. So what does
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that all have to do about a book?
A good book
that's written to the public.
Okay. That has philosophy in it as far
as connecting with yourself. We're talking about this
money, psychology,
aligning your life of money, all of this.
And it comes from a perspective of somebody
respected and whatnot.
Advisors struggle
at delivering why that's important,
(03:11):
that why, what is that value?
What is the client?
Why are they working with you
during their life and money journey? Why is
that? And
can you explain it? I'm talking about the
advisor. Can they deliver that without
salesmanship?
You're not trying to convince somebody. You're just
trying to transfer
(03:31):
why they're here.
So a good book
is say, you know what? If you're not
gonna listen to me or if I don't
have the skillset in order to really hone
in on that, on those, on that, on
the meat on the bone,
then how much you read this book right
here? It'd be a couple of these books
that you're going to be on the beach
with or on your, maybe you're listening to
(03:51):
your, on your car or something like that.
And then they come back and tell you,
they were like, mr. Weiser, I want to
align my life and money cause X, Y,
and Z such and such said and everything.
And then they were like, you know what?
I was going to try to tell you
that, but you wouldn't have listened for
me. Just keep living.
And now they're ready to start the process
a little bit more and to have a
(04:12):
better understanding because they heard it from someone
I love that. My my grandmother shared with
me that, Matt, you have 2 ears and
one mouth, so you listen twice as much
as you talk. And I she probably told
me that a 1,000. I'm mostly because, doc,
man, I just I talk way too much.
And she just wanted me to shut up
really is what she was saying. But I
love that, and I love the fact that
and your story is so perfect. I can't
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tell you how many times I would come
home to my mom and say, I was
over at my friend's house, and they said
this. And my mom's, oh my god. I
have spanked you over that, right, 20, 30
times. And so I absolutely love that. So
that idea of
borrowing an expert and bringing it into your
practice
is such a powerful thing to do to
begin a difficult conversation.
(04:55):
And one of the things that I love
about what you wrote here, what you post
consistently on social media,
is there's so much value that advisors can
use and take what you're saying
and repurpose it for their audience because it's
really coming from a great place of massive
levels of education and experience.
Yeah. I appreciate that. And I told both
(05:17):
lines. Well, I told a couple of lines,
actually. I have a professor hack that talk
with students. I'm an, I'm a wealth advisor
myself because I have a firm
and also a thought leader. And I appreciate
folks that think of me as such. And
so advisors look great. What I don't necessarily
work for
or
deliver content for advisors.
That's not my primary audience.
(05:39):
All right. They happen to see it.
There's a difference because I'm delivering
my philosophy
with my clients and also to how I
personally believe what I professionally
am astute at and then how I deliver
it with the folks that I serve. And
then also the general public, man, my, my
(05:59):
go to, it's just not a go to
line. It is a personal and professional statement.
Advance the human condition through financial advice and
education.
And so I truly believe that financial wellness
overall is a public good and everyone
should have it. I don't want too many
shoulds in life, but yes, everyone should across
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the social economic status because you have financial
compassion
and you have financial education, you have financial
literacy, which is informed decision behaviors. And that
includes rich folks and wealthy folks. And they
need literacy too. And then you get to
wellness,
which is
confidence and security in your finances. So that's
why it's a public good. So when I'm
talking with
my, the people that I serve and our
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team serves,
then advisors are then seeing that and be
like, man, that's pretty good right there. And
if they're, if they are doing it fantastic,
then they get the, put some polish on
what they're doing. If they're not doing it,
then they'll say, okay, there are some ideas.
It's a blue ocean.
It's not competition, it's collaboration.
And if it works out where everywhere it,
a ride and tide lifts all boats and
(07:03):
it helps the public good
of financial wellness, helping people overall work with
a financial advisor and improve
how they feel
about their life and money, then it's all
good. I'll add to that, man. I wholeheartedly
agree. And the numbers are astronomical.
There are more people out there that need
your advice as a CFP than are ever
(07:25):
going to hire any of the CFPs that
are out there or financial advisors. Okay. So
let's talk a little bit about the book.
Where did the title come from?
How are you using this within your own
practice?
And how are you using the content here
to beget more content? We talk about the
atomic content method here all the time, how
you create a piece of long form content
(07:46):
and then chop it up into a whole
bunch of other pieces. Let's break those things
down. Okay. When I started writing the book,
I actually started writing this book and what
is this? It's 2024, so 2016.
And it's actually a part of the story
of the book, Wealth and the Key
of Life,
which I'm very much inspired by an album
(08:06):
called
songs and the key of life by Stevie
Wonder.
It's head right here.
And the first song on the album is
love is in need of love today. I'm
very much a humanist.
I've written poetry for 30 years, 35 years
now, all of my life.
And music is a big part of my
life. I have a vinyl record collection, all
(08:28):
of this, and I think music is very
much universal, like math. So you have music
notes and then you have numbers and you
have language.
So all of those are and then you
have emotion.
Okay? You have experienced you have human emotion,
human experiences.
Folks, that is the connective element. Like earth,
wind and fire ish. Right? Is those are
(08:49):
the connective elements of you do your laugh
right there because you know why the earth
went on fire. And those are the connective
elements of humanity. And then when you transfer
that into the humanity of money, which I
coined the term is in a book,
then
now we can, that now we can have
an open dialogue about relationship with money. So
that really started, that's the root
(09:09):
of the title and the conversation of the
book. And then I started
writing the book conceptually in 2016 when I
had a life transformation experience. I had a
lot of them. But with the book talks
a lot about
transforming, the willingness to change, the want to,
or as aspirations
and abundance.
And when I started the firm,
(09:30):
I actually wrote down
all of
the life money balance, which is now a
registered trademark term. I wrote the concepts of
all of this down
in a 6 month period. So I started
this new journey of mine
back in 2016. It was very intentional, Matt.
So what I did was, is when I
was fortunate enough and blessed enough is faith
(09:52):
has you, as you find it, as I
like to say, faith as you find it.
I was fortunate, blessed enough to receive a
large, publishing deal.
And I just put all
of this information
that I've been writing and saying and doing
and delivering to clients and all that for
about, so it says 2016 to 2023.
(10:12):
That's 7 years.
And so that humanness
of money and just that, not just the
humanness aspect of myself, the poetry and all
of this stuff, coupled with this transformational
experience that I had in 2016 along with
launching the company in 2018,
it just came together.
And I was like, you know what? If
(10:32):
I went through this, I know somebody else
has gone through this. This is the way
to practice
is how to serve. This is how to
experience
couple that feelings and finances allow you to
flourish,
then place it in a book because it
circles back, Mac, to that, that the line
that I was talking about, which is
(10:53):
advancing the human condition through financial advice and
education. That's what the book does at a
large scale.
How long so after
7 years, how long did it actually take
for you to get it to where it's
now? That's where all the dementia or guidance
or partners or whatever coaches and whatever you
wanna call it. Even the publishers, they were
like, man, you got 6 months. And I
had a couple of extended deadlines in there.
(11:15):
Cause I had, me and my wife and
I had a child. He's 6 months now.
His name is Laith. Bless your heart in
a good way. Cause in the South they
can go 2 different ways.
And they're actually calling our baby precious, which
is in a good way, which is precious
meaning, Oh, he looks well, he's healthy and
everything like that. So if you say, no,
(11:36):
actually it's adorable because precious could mean that
you have an ugly child. So actually it's
adorable. The reason why I say that is,
is because
there's a, there's been extended deadlines in there.
So it took 6 months. And also it
was a therapeutic
process for me, Matt, because it, it allowed
me to find some thoughts and also just
go through, I say gratitude
(11:56):
again because it allowed me to relive
some of the journey
and get it to a point to where
it, it
took me out of it, except for the
first chapter, because I wanted to implore some
stories in it. But how is what I
went through or going through or deliver a
philosophy for his education? It's all this other
(12:17):
stuff.
All right. How do I transfer
that
to someone else's life?
And that was the exercise. So it was
a little bit of gratitude by going through
the process,
but it was also
very incumbent of making sure someone sees themselves
(12:37):
in the book and say, you know what?
This is my life and money. This is
how I want to go about it. I
want to align my life and money in
a way so I can give my life
assignments and do all these philosophies that are
in the book in a, just a plain
speak manner.
And for people to see themselves and say,
man, I wanna do that too.
You said something there. I wasn't really intending
(12:58):
on chasing this rabbit because I hadn't heard
you say that before.
But I love the idea of going through
the process
made you refine your language and your thoughts
around these concepts that have been closely held
concepts for you for quite a while.
We talk about that a lot in You
Have A Podcast. Right? And I know that
when you're podcasting, you'll say something and be
(13:19):
like, damn.
I really like how I just said that.
I'm really glad I recorded that. And it's
the same sort of thing anytime that you're
doing that period of reflection,
you're practicing,
whether that's writing a book, whether that's creating
content, that's really powerful. What out of the
book right now
have you seen has gotten the most traction
for
(13:39):
you when it comes to conceptually
where when you post something about it, people
are like, I really like where Doc's going
with that. Yeah. It some of the a
lot of the book is a book of
permissions.
Alright?
A book of permissions, which is giving folks
helping folks give themselves
permission to have better relationship with money
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in their life without justification,
shaking some money stigmas that we all are
conditioned with.
And I want advisors to do the same
as to
de bias
oneself.
Alright? And that way folks can organically
and objectively
explore
(14:21):
their relationships when their pathways was money is
one thing that I call an honest self
audit,
which is admit how you feel about
your life and money at the point, acknowledge
how you feel about it so you can
process. And then now you can take some
action that you are inspired to take. And
then it's followed by some as aspirational steps,
align your money,
(14:42):
aspire and achieve.
And the reason why I say all that
is because
some of the concepts get, they get her
raise and then they also, they're like, Oh,
did he say that out loud?
And 1, a few, a couple of them
is a relationship with spending
and frugality and then miss because I call
it the miseducation of frugality.
(15:03):
And many folks, and I know some folks
have touched on this, but they haven't stressed
it as hard, which is
frugality is not, you don't have to live
way below or just, but you don't even
have to have a modifier. You don't have
to live below
your means. You have to live within
and there's a difference.
And then there's not, you don't have to
(15:25):
put a should on it either. Far as
folks was like, if you want to be
successful with your money and then you should
do this, what the hell do you know
about this other person's finances? And does that
already that does that automatically
give that person some sort of illiteracy label
far as financial literacy label, or maybe they
have some sort of personal maladaptive behavior.
(15:45):
And yes, if you're having what you call
unintentional spending, so emotional spending and all this
at it. Yes. All right. Aimless,
all that. Then of course that's gonna, that's
gonna hurt you in a long way. If
you have more outflow than you have inflow,
obviously that's gonna hurt. That's gonna hurt. That
said, there's a lot of information that says
(16:05):
folks that even in retirement, they do something
that would, I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna say
something just a little bit ahead. My dad
says, you need to unask that,
which is, are you separate? Are you allowing
yourself to spend your money that you've earned
during retirement? And some folks have these
thoughts
or experiences or value systems
that say they're either boundaries, barriers, or boosters.
(16:29):
And they say, this is the well-being that
I've aspired to have, but I don't want
to do it. And that comes from way
at the beginning, either through childhood or even
right now in what I call lifestyle vitality
years when those folks are gen X's when
you're in your forties and all that. So
why don't we start having permissions
to have better relationships with our intentional
(16:50):
spending?
All right. Having a purpose, a plan,
your preferences,
your points of life, your life stage,
placing that all in a plan,
right? And be comfortable with spending without having
to justify
to folks. Oh, I spent $20,000
on a vacation. Oh, I have a $2,000
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to suit.
Oh, I have a $80,000
truck. Oh, I have whatever the, Oh, I
went skiing or camping and I spent this
much of running. Whatever the experience value or
material item it is,
then you say, last year we saved 25%.
What does that have to do with anything?
And so it's the, one of the concepts
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is the, as a book of permissions and
having a better relationship with spending across the
life cycle. I call that there's a speech
I have is called spending shame to spending
success. And it is, touched on in the
book. Doc, that's one of the things that
I hear from advisers
all the time. We do a pretty substantial
amount of episodes here for financial advisers.
(17:52):
And I can't tell you that
one out of every 4 episodes that we
produce is talking about giving yourself permission to
live the life you've worked so hard to
live in retirement, man. I think that's great.
But you said something else that that I
wanna just hit the rewind button here for
a minute.
So I don't want this to not sink
into the audience,
(18:13):
which is
advisors need to get right with their own
hang ups surrounding money. And you and I
have talked about this before. We were actually
we were sitting on a couch in Las
Vegas, by the way, and we had, we
both had a drink in our hand. And
you didn't know that I was a therapist
in a past life, and so we were
talking about that very quickly. And one of
the things in graduate school that our teachers,
(18:35):
all of our professors, were very
adamant about was we had to know what
our own issues were so that we didn't
transfer those issues to our clients because that
happens all the time. Freud talked about that
with transference and then it's been really looked
at much, much deeper. But that's what you're
saying here. I don't know how many advisers
have done that. You called it something. Oh,
(18:58):
Sandra Davis is good at this as as
well. She's one of the pioneers. So shout
out to miss Sandra Davis, which is and
also Rick Taylor, but the doing the therapy
of the self,
this therapy of the self.
And it goes back to one of my,
the honest self audit of oneself. I call
it There it is. That's about yeah. Thank
you for that call.
The E HSA because of the HSA, because
(19:19):
as I share with people all the time,
the HSA is one of those small moments
where the IRS
lost their mind
and gave us a triple tax advantage
account. They were like, I don't know what
they were smoking that day, but I'm like,
use that because they don't do that. And
so the E HSA is the emotional
HSA, which is the audit self audit because
the mirror in of itself
(19:41):
can be an effective audit, a great audit
or an expensive tax.
If you don't, if you're not in that
mirror
with a healthy mindset. All right. And the
reason why that is, and we talked about
the EHSA going through the process of admitting,
having that courage
to admit, and this is on the consumer
(20:02):
side, the individual side
and on the advisor side, all right, to
work your therapy through the self
and admit where you are
and then acknowledge how you feel about it
so you can process and identify some areas
and then you can take action to go
to the next steps. And if the advisors
haven't done this and also they participating
(20:24):
in group think,
all right, when they participate in groupthink,
the social capital of that is, is that
so many other folks have talked about this
version of frugality,
all right, which in the shaming and the
shoulding,
then
it's incumbent on me that I just agree
with that and pass that along to now
(20:44):
that may be a value yours and that's
fine. If it's a preference or a value
system, that's okay as well. But don't transfer
that value system.
Alright, by default
to others
when their preferences
and their points of life, their life stage
is very important and all and their purpose.
And then these are the 5 P's that
(21:04):
go into prosperity.
If those are different,
then
an advisor must remain objective.
And then also the individual
must
have a self
permission
to allow themselves
to live the life that they aspire to
have. And as long as they are satisfying
their plan and they're good to go. And
(21:26):
it also to the advisor,
it's a remote
de bias oneself, take a shower because you
feel funky a little bit.
And again, I'm not trying to always bring
this back to content creation, but
I just love
you. If you're not following doctor Preston Cherry
(21:46):
on
everything,
you're really missing out on a lot.
One of the things that I absolutely love
is when advisors are vulnerable and how wonderful
of a piece of content,
a presentation,
a seminar, a webinar, a podcast, a video
series, talking about how you have deconstructed
(22:07):
your
money issues
and how unbelievably
approachable that makes you with your clients. That's
why at the beginning of the show when
you talked about this is a really great
book for an advisor to read for their
own and then also really great to share,
and maybe do a book club. How wonderful
would that be for advisors to sit down
with this book and say, hey. We're gonna
(22:28):
go through this together.
That's real marketing. Oh, talk about viral marketing
and real deep connection with existing clients or
prospects or heirs or whatever.
Man, that can be super, super powerful.
Yeah. It is. And also too being real
with your own stuff and meaning, this is
actually eating your own cooking, so to speak.
Listen, I tell people all the time, that
(22:49):
you hear this little crinkling back here. I'm
doing that intentionally.
I've done my audit. Here it is right
here. I've done it several times and I
keep it right by my desk as a
gratitude. And I don't, it's not something to
be braggadocious
about, but one of the top of the
lines, it says,
forgive yourself,
do better
onward and upward.
And I said, then it goes to says,
(23:10):
hello Preston, blah, blah, should you need any
proof? So on and so forth. I'd look,
I've, and then there's statements in there. And
then one of my go to lines in
the book
is
there are stories
in your financial statements
and your stories.
Yep. And your stories
help you achieve what you need to achieve
(23:30):
while you're auditing your stories. So there's stories
and statements, and your statements inform your strategies.
Right? Your stories and statements, and your statements
have helped you, and your stories help you
form your strategies. And this is not only
for individuals for an audit to go through.
Alright? This is for
advisors
to have a process to help folks
(23:50):
go
feelings is a line item in your statements,
Matt. They're a line item.
And how you feel about money, preferences,
purposes,
all of these aspects about money.
They have a value. They have a dollar
amount.
They have a dollar amount. And one of
the other concepts with the book is that
(24:11):
wealth and well-being are 2 different things. I
know folks to conjure up these and be
like, Oh, I have a wealth of time.
I have a wealth of this. No wealth
is dollars.
All right. I know it's ample amount or
an abundance of, I get that. All right.
But when you go, and that's way back
in the Latin times or whatever, you could,
you go to the Latin root. Oh, yeah.
It's a, it's an abundance of, yes. All
(24:31):
right. But
wealth is dollars
being
is domain.
You use your wealth to fund your dollars.
Right? And one of the kickoff phrases of
the book is that money is not just
a tool. I know like folks like say
that. So this is what I'm talking about.
It was, you know, the book and they,
people like, did he say that out loud?
And he's like, because money, everybody says money
(24:53):
is a tool, right? But it's not just
a tool because it downplays
the essentialness,
the soulfulness
of money plays in our life. So I'd
like to say money is just not a
tool.
It is an, it is a partner
with a soul
that is an essential part of our lives.
(25:14):
And what it, what that allows is it
opens up
the essentialness of money and not for us
to discount it
as though we're not supposed to earn an
abundance or that or the other love. There's
no issue with having an abundant mindset.
It's your priority and your pathway towards.
All right?
And we are due prosperity and abundance.
(25:36):
And if there's another way of giving, it's
a book of permissions.
This is about relationships with money and it,
and these relationships and parallels,
so almost parables, so to speak,
they go straight into the line items of
your finance. So when I say stories and
your statements help your strategy, inform your strategies,
(25:57):
it has a dollar amount tied to it.
So when folks say, Oh, I don't want
to do all that mushy mushy stuff. Alright.
But nope. You gotta have it's like peanut
butter and jelly. You gotta have one and
the other.
And with that, yeah, I just realized I
I didn't eat enough lunch, and I need
to go have a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich. But that's I love that because I
think a lot of advisors do push that
away
(26:17):
and don't realize that's actually where the relationship
lies. That's gonna make you more referable, more
engaging, more trusted, more liked, and more respected.
Alright. Here's the deal. Where can people go
get the book? It should we're gonna put
the links, but I just want you to
say it out loud. Yes, I know. I
appreciate it. They can go to Barnes and
Noble,
Amazon
(26:38):
Books A Million
to go in those 3 platforms and purchase
the book. I'm redoing my personal website right
now, doctorprestoncherry.com.
By next week it'll be up. But right
now, if you wanna go as pre order
comes out December 24th, it's a great gift.
You can bulk order the book for advisors
who wanna give it out to your clients,
family, friends, all of that. But go on
right now, there'll be a Kindle version out
(26:59):
shortly and an audio book out later. And
you can follow me on all the socials,
Doctor Preston Sherry. Yeah. Please make sure that
you're following. I just I you're one of
the people who I have tagged on Twitter,
x, because I just love your content. And
I just also like you as a human
being, and I'm really truly impressed with everything
that you've done.
Lots of stuff from the show, so I'm
(27:20):
just gonna unpack just a couple of things
here. Number 1,
any sort of long form content that you
have, a book,
a blog, a seminar, a podcast can be
turned into more content, and you guys are
gonna see this all in 2025.
Most of what Doc's gonna be talking about
is the stuff that's in the book, not
(27:40):
just how the book itself, but how he's
applying it in his practice, in his daily
life, in his speeches, which is the second
thing. One of the greatest things about being
a Renaissance man, which you are truly,
a poet, an author, a business person, and
a speaker. Right?
I want everybody to think about that. Just
sit with yourself for a moment and realize
(28:03):
what you know is so unbelievably
valuable
that you can express yourself in lots of
different ways. And I believe that the more
ways you can express yourself,
the more opportunities you're gonna have. You're truly
gonna be able to live your own life
of abundance, which, of course, we know with
an abundant mindset more abundance comes to you.
And last but not least, if you're looking
(28:25):
for an amazing speaker for your conference,
for a group, if you're in a Vistage
group, or if you've got a local FPA,
NEFA chapter,
listen, go reach out to doc. He's an
unbelievable speaker and because I've seen him speak
a bunch of times because we are at
a lot of conferences together, But please make
sure that you book him for your conferences
(28:45):
in 25
and for years to come. Alright. Doc, I
wanna appreciate you for coming on the show
and for everybody here at Proudmouth and doctor
Preston Cherry. We'll see you on the other
side of the mic very soon. Thanks for
listening to the Top Advisor marketing podcast brought
to you by ProudMouth.
If you wanna know more about how you
can be your own loud, visit us at
proudmouth.com
and sign up for the PodRocket Academy.
(29:07):
Through courses and office hours led by professional
podcast producers and digital marketers, you will learn
everything you need to know to become the
trusted subject matter expert you are meant to
be.
Welcome to the top advisor marketing podcast brought
to you by Proudmouth.
I'm your host, Matt Halloran.
Being your own loud is not new to
marketing, but the mindset, strategies, and resources to
help you get there are evolving faster than
this industry is keeping up. It is time
to find a new perspective on what works,
why,
(00:21):
and how to move your business forward.
Listen as I interview guests to help you
learn from them how to be your own
Loud. Let's
get to the show.
Hello, and welcome to another Top Advisor Marketing
podcast. I'm your host, Matt Halloran. We seem
to have been on a behavioral finance kick
lately, and partially that's because we just love
(00:43):
it here at Broadmout. We love it for
so many reasons, but the main reason is
it changes the conversation
that you have with your clients and makes
it much more meaningful. But even better than
that,
if you do have this sort of a
focus,
your content marketing can fundamentally change. And we've
got somebody who I just I love seeing
you at conferences. I love hanging out with
(01:03):
you. I love talking to you. I love
reading your stuff. Doctor Preston Cherry is our
guest today. Welcome to the show. Thank you
again. I appreciate you, Matt.
Listen. Right before I hit record, which damn
it, I should hit record because we were
just talking about something. I wanna go right
there, and then we'll talk about some of
the other stuff. We're talking about the books.
Right? So there are books out there when
it comes to behavioral finance,
(01:24):
and a lot of people don't think
that as an adviser, they can buy a
book by you, and your book is called
Wealth in the Key of Life, and they
can give that to their clients. And I
think this is such a powerful marketing strategy.
Would you mind talking a little bit about
how an adviser could buy a bunch of
your books and use those, and what would
be the desired outcome of the adviser doing
(01:46):
that? Yeah. Sure. Thanks for the platform. But,
yeah, I think,
bar Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Books A Million,
all that so they can go there. But
here's the thing with books. Right? My, my
grandfather
had a famous line that he shared with
me millions of times. But the first time
I heard it was about 12 years old
and he told me a story about life.
(02:07):
And then he followed it up and he
says,
do you understand what I'm saying, son?
And I said, no, not understand what I'm
saying. He said, do you understand what I'm
saying?
And I said, no, grandfather, not right now.
And he said, don't worry, son, keep living.
Does that matter to the book? It's because
if that story or that lesson
(02:27):
came from my grandfather,
then I either I don't know how to
hear it or I'm not trying to hear
it from him at the moment. It's like
your parent telling you something is, ah, and
then somebody else down the street tell you
that and you go back home and you're
like, mom, dad, you know what? Johnny Joe,
miss Susie Johnny Joe told me that. And
they'd be like,
I just told you that. But they said,
I'm glad you learned anyway. So what does
(02:48):
that all have to do about a book?
A good book
that's written to the public.
Okay. That has philosophy in it as far
as connecting with yourself. We're talking about this
money, psychology,
aligning your life of money, all of this.
And it comes from a perspective of somebody
respected and whatnot.
Advisors struggle
at delivering why that's important,
(03:11):
that why, what is that value?
What is the client?
Why are they working with you
during their life and money journey? Why is
that? And
can you explain it? I'm talking about the
advisor. Can they deliver that without
salesmanship?
You're not trying to convince somebody. You're just
trying to transfer
(03:31):
why they're here.
So a good book
is say, you know what? If you're not
gonna listen to me or if I don't
have the skillset in order to really hone
in on that, on those, on that, on
the meat on the bone,
then how much you read this book right
here? It'd be a couple of these books
that you're going to be on the beach
with or on your, maybe you're listening to
(03:51):
your, on your car or something like that.
And then they come back and tell you,
they were like, mr. Weiser, I want to
align my life and money cause X, Y,
and Z such and such said and everything.
And then they were like, you know what?
I was going to try to tell you
that, but you wouldn't have listened for
me. Just keep living.
And now they're ready to start the process
a little bit more and to have a
(04:12):
better understanding because they heard it from someone
I love that. My my grandmother shared with
me that, Matt, you have 2 ears and
one mouth, so you listen twice as much
as you talk. And I she probably told
me that a 1,000. I'm mostly because, doc,
man, I just I talk way too much.
And she just wanted me to shut up
really is what she was saying. But I
love that, and I love the fact that
and your story is so perfect. I can't
(04:33):
tell you how many times I would come
home to my mom and say, I was
over at my friend's house, and they said
this. And my mom's, oh my god. I
have spanked you over that, right, 20, 30
times. And so I absolutely love that. So
that idea of
borrowing an expert and bringing it into your
practice
is such a powerful thing to do to
begin a difficult conversation.
(04:55):
And one of the things that I love
about what you wrote here, what you post
consistently on social media,
is there's so much value that advisors can
use and take what you're saying
and repurpose it for their audience because it's
really coming from a great place of massive
levels of education and experience.
Yeah. I appreciate that. And I told both
(05:17):
lines. Well, I told a couple of lines,
actually. I have a professor hack that talk
with students. I'm an, I'm a wealth advisor
myself because I have a firm
and also a thought leader. And I appreciate
folks that think of me as such. And
so advisors look great. What I don't necessarily
work for
or
deliver content for advisors.
That's not my primary audience.
(05:39):
All right. They happen to see it.
There's a difference because I'm delivering
my philosophy
with my clients and also to how I
personally believe what I professionally
am astute at and then how I deliver
it with the folks that I serve. And
then also the general public, man, my, my
(05:59):
go to, it's just not a go to
line. It is a personal and professional statement.
Advance the human condition through financial advice and
education.
And so I truly believe that financial wellness
overall is a public good and everyone
should have it. I don't want too many
shoulds in life, but yes, everyone should across
(06:20):
the social economic status because you have financial
compassion
and you have financial education, you have financial
literacy, which is informed decision behaviors. And that
includes rich folks and wealthy folks. And they
need literacy too. And then you get to
wellness,
which is
confidence and security in your finances. So that's
why it's a public good. So when I'm
talking with
my, the people that I serve and our
(06:42):
team serves,
then advisors are then seeing that and be
like, man, that's pretty good right there. And
if they're, if they are doing it fantastic,
then they get the, put some polish on
what they're doing. If they're not doing it,
then they'll say, okay, there are some ideas.
It's a blue ocean.
It's not competition, it's collaboration.
And if it works out where everywhere it,
a ride and tide lifts all boats and
(07:03):
it helps the public good
of financial wellness, helping people overall work with
a financial advisor and improve
how they feel
about their life and money, then it's all
good. I'll add to that, man. I wholeheartedly
agree. And the numbers are astronomical.
There are more people out there that need
your advice as a CFP than are ever
(07:25):
going to hire any of the CFPs that
are out there or financial advisors. Okay. So
let's talk a little bit about the book.
Where did the title come from?
How are you using this within your own
practice?
And how are you using the content here
to beget more content? We talk about the
atomic content method here all the time, how
you create a piece of long form content
(07:46):
and then chop it up into a whole
bunch of other pieces. Let's break those things
down. Okay. When I started writing the book,
I actually started writing this book and what
is this? It's 2024, so 2016.
And it's actually a part of the story
of the book, Wealth and the Key
of Life,
which I'm very much inspired by an album
(08:06):
called
songs and the key of life by Stevie
Wonder.
It's head right here.
And the first song on the album is
love is in need of love today. I'm
very much a humanist.
I've written poetry for 30 years, 35 years
now, all of my life.
And music is a big part of my
life. I have a vinyl record collection, all
(08:28):
of this, and I think music is very
much universal, like math. So you have music
notes and then you have numbers and you
have language.
So all of those are and then you
have emotion.
Okay? You have experienced you have human emotion,
human experiences.
Folks, that is the connective element. Like earth,
wind and fire ish. Right? Is those are
(08:49):
the connective elements of you do your laugh
right there because you know why the earth
went on fire. And those are the connective
elements of humanity. And then when you transfer
that into the humanity of money, which I
coined the term is in a book,
then
now we can, that now we can have
an open dialogue about relationship with money. So
that really started, that's the root
(09:09):
of the title and the conversation of the
book. And then I started
writing the book conceptually in 2016 when I
had a life transformation experience. I had a
lot of them. But with the book talks
a lot about
transforming, the willingness to change, the want to,
or as aspirations
and abundance.
And when I started the firm,
(09:30):
I actually wrote down
all of
the life money balance, which is now a
registered trademark term. I wrote the concepts of
all of this down
in a 6 month period. So I started
this new journey of mine
back in 2016. It was very intentional, Matt.
So what I did was, is when I
was fortunate enough and blessed enough is faith
(09:52):
has you, as you find it, as I
like to say, faith as you find it.
I was fortunate, blessed enough to receive a
large, publishing deal.
And I just put all
of this information
that I've been writing and saying and doing
and delivering to clients and all that for
about, so it says 2016 to 2023.
(10:12):
That's 7 years.
And so that humanness
of money and just that, not just the
humanness aspect of myself, the poetry and all
of this stuff, coupled with this transformational
experience that I had in 2016 along with
launching the company in 2018,
it just came together.
And I was like, you know what? If
(10:32):
I went through this, I know somebody else
has gone through this. This is the way
to practice
is how to serve. This is how to
experience
couple that feelings and finances allow you to
flourish,
then place it in a book because it
circles back, Mac, to that, that the line
that I was talking about, which is
(10:53):
advancing the human condition through financial advice and
education. That's what the book does at a
large scale.
How long so after
7 years, how long did it actually take
for you to get it to where it's
now? That's where all the dementia or guidance
or partners or whatever coaches and whatever you
wanna call it. Even the publishers, they were
like, man, you got 6 months. And I
had a couple of extended deadlines in there.
(11:15):
Cause I had, me and my wife and
I had a child. He's 6 months now.
His name is Laith. Bless your heart in
a good way. Cause in the South they
can go 2 different ways.
And they're actually calling our baby precious, which
is in a good way, which is precious
meaning, Oh, he looks well, he's healthy and
everything like that. So if you say, no,
(11:36):
actually it's adorable because precious could mean that
you have an ugly child. So actually it's
adorable. The reason why I say that is,
is because
there's a, there's been extended deadlines in there.
So it took 6 months. And also it
was a therapeutic
process for me, Matt, because it, it allowed
me to find some thoughts and also just
go through, I say gratitude
(11:56):
again because it allowed me to relive
some of the journey
and get it to a point to where
it, it
took me out of it, except for the
first chapter, because I wanted to implore some
stories in it. But how is what I
went through or going through or deliver a
philosophy for his education? It's all this other
(12:17):
stuff.
All right. How do I transfer
that
to someone else's life?
And that was the exercise. So it was
a little bit of gratitude by going through
the process,
but it was also
very incumbent of making sure someone sees themselves
(12:37):
in the book and say, you know what?
This is my life and money. This is
how I want to go about it. I
want to align my life and money in
a way so I can give my life
assignments and do all these philosophies that are
in the book in a, just a plain
speak manner.
And for people to see themselves and say,
man, I wanna do that too.
You said something there. I wasn't really intending
(12:58):
on chasing this rabbit because I hadn't heard
you say that before.
But I love the idea of going through
the process
made you refine your language and your thoughts
around these concepts that have been closely held
concepts for you for quite a while.
We talk about that a lot in You
Have A Podcast. Right? And I know that
when you're podcasting, you'll say something and be
(13:19):
like, damn.
I really like how I just said that.
I'm really glad I recorded that. And it's
the same sort of thing anytime that you're
doing that period of reflection,
you're practicing,
whether that's writing a book, whether that's creating
content, that's really powerful. What out of the
book right now
have you seen has gotten the most traction
for
(13:39):
you when it comes to conceptually
where when you post something about it, people
are like, I really like where Doc's going
with that. Yeah. It some of the a
lot of the book is a book of
permissions.
Alright?
A book of permissions, which is giving folks
helping folks give themselves
permission to have better relationship with money
(14:01):
in their life without justification,
shaking some money stigmas that we all are
conditioned with.
And I want advisors to do the same
as to
de bias
oneself.
Alright? And that way folks can organically
and objectively
explore
(14:21):
their relationships when their pathways was money is
one thing that I call an honest self
audit,
which is admit how you feel about
your life and money at the point, acknowledge
how you feel about it so you can
process. And then now you can take some
action that you are inspired to take. And
then it's followed by some as aspirational steps,
align your money,
(14:42):
aspire and achieve.
And the reason why I say all that
is because
some of the concepts get, they get her
raise and then they also, they're like, Oh,
did he say that out loud?
And 1, a few, a couple of them
is a relationship with spending
and frugality and then miss because I call
it the miseducation of frugality.
(15:03):
And many folks, and I know some folks
have touched on this, but they haven't stressed
it as hard, which is
frugality is not, you don't have to live
way below or just, but you don't even
have to have a modifier. You don't have
to live below
your means. You have to live within
and there's a difference.
And then there's not, you don't have to
(15:25):
put a should on it either. Far as
folks was like, if you want to be
successful with your money and then you should
do this, what the hell do you know
about this other person's finances? And does that
already that does that automatically
give that person some sort of illiteracy label
far as financial literacy label, or maybe they
have some sort of personal maladaptive behavior.
(15:45):
And yes, if you're having what you call
unintentional spending, so emotional spending and all this
at it. Yes. All right. Aimless,
all that. Then of course that's gonna, that's
gonna hurt you in a long way. If
you have more outflow than you have inflow,
obviously that's gonna hurt. That's gonna hurt. That
said, there's a lot of information that says
(16:05):
folks that even in retirement, they do something
that would, I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna say
something just a little bit ahead. My dad
says, you need to unask that,
which is, are you separate? Are you allowing
yourself to spend your money that you've earned
during retirement? And some folks have these
thoughts
or experiences or value systems
that say they're either boundaries, barriers, or boosters.
(16:29):
And they say, this is the well-being that
I've aspired to have, but I don't want
to do it. And that comes from way
at the beginning, either through childhood or even
right now in what I call lifestyle vitality
years when those folks are gen X's when
you're in your forties and all that. So
why don't we start having permissions
to have better relationships with our intentional
(16:50):
spending?
All right. Having a purpose, a plan,
your preferences,
your points of life, your life stage,
placing that all in a plan,
right? And be comfortable with spending without having
to justify
to folks. Oh, I spent $20,000
on a vacation. Oh, I have a $2,000
(17:11):
to suit.
Oh, I have a $80,000
truck. Oh, I have whatever the, Oh, I
went skiing or camping and I spent this
much of running. Whatever the experience value or
material item it is,
then you say, last year we saved 25%.
What does that have to do with anything?
And so it's the, one of the concepts
(17:31):
is the, as a book of permissions and
having a better relationship with spending across the
life cycle. I call that there's a speech
I have is called spending shame to spending
success. And it is, touched on in the
book. Doc, that's one of the things that
I hear from advisers
all the time. We do a pretty substantial
amount of episodes here for financial advisers.
(17:52):
And I can't tell you that
one out of every 4 episodes that we
produce is talking about giving yourself permission to
live the life you've worked so hard to
live in retirement, man. I think that's great.
But you said something else that that I
wanna just hit the rewind button here for
a minute.
So I don't want this to not sink
into the audience,
(18:13):
which is
advisors need to get right with their own
hang ups surrounding money. And you and I
have talked about this before. We were actually
we were sitting on a couch in Las
Vegas, by the way, and we had, we
both had a drink in our hand. And
you didn't know that I was a therapist
in a past life, and so we were
talking about that very quickly. And one of
the things in graduate school that our teachers,
(18:35):
all of our professors, were very
adamant about was we had to know what
our own issues were so that we didn't
transfer those issues to our clients because that
happens all the time. Freud talked about that
with transference and then it's been really looked
at much, much deeper. But that's what you're
saying here. I don't know how many advisers
have done that. You called it something. Oh,
(18:58):
Sandra Davis is good at this as as
well. She's one of the pioneers. So shout
out to miss Sandra Davis, which is and
also Rick Taylor, but the doing the therapy
of the self,
this therapy of the self.
And it goes back to one of my,
the honest self audit of oneself. I call
it There it is. That's about yeah. Thank
you for that call.
The E HSA because of the HSA, because
(19:19):
as I share with people all the time,
the HSA is one of those small moments
where the IRS
lost their mind
and gave us a triple tax advantage
account. They were like, I don't know what
they were smoking that day, but I'm like,
use that because they don't do that. And
so the E HSA is the emotional
HSA, which is the audit self audit because
the mirror in of itself
(19:41):
can be an effective audit, a great audit
or an expensive tax.
If you don't, if you're not in that
mirror
with a healthy mindset. All right. And the
reason why that is, and we talked about
the EHSA going through the process of admitting,
having that courage
to admit, and this is on the consumer
(20:02):
side, the individual side
and on the advisor side, all right, to
work your therapy through the self
and admit where you are
and then acknowledge how you feel about it
so you can process and identify some areas
and then you can take action to go
to the next steps. And if the advisors
haven't done this and also they participating
(20:24):
in group think,
all right, when they participate in groupthink,
the social capital of that is, is that
so many other folks have talked about this
version of frugality,
all right, which in the shaming and the
shoulding,
then
it's incumbent on me that I just agree
with that and pass that along to now
(20:44):
that may be a value yours and that's
fine. If it's a preference or a value
system, that's okay as well. But don't transfer
that value system.
Alright, by default
to others
when their preferences
and their points of life, their life stage
is very important and all and their purpose.
And then these are the 5 P's that
(21:04):
go into prosperity.
If those are different,
then
an advisor must remain objective.
And then also the individual
must
have a self
permission
to allow themselves
to live the life that they aspire to
have. And as long as they are satisfying
their plan and they're good to go. And
(21:26):
it also to the advisor,
it's a remote
de bias oneself, take a shower because you
feel funky a little bit.
And again, I'm not trying to always bring
this back to content creation, but
I just love
you. If you're not following doctor Preston Cherry
(21:46):
on
everything,
you're really missing out on a lot.
One of the things that I absolutely love
is when advisors are vulnerable and how wonderful
of a piece of content,
a presentation,
a seminar, a webinar, a podcast, a video
series, talking about how you have deconstructed
(22:07):
your
money issues
and how unbelievably
approachable that makes you with your clients. That's
why at the beginning of the show when
you talked about this is a really great
book for an advisor to read for their
own and then also really great to share,
and maybe do a book club. How wonderful
would that be for advisors to sit down
with this book and say, hey. We're gonna
(22:28):
go through this together.
That's real marketing. Oh, talk about viral marketing
and real deep connection with existing clients or
prospects or heirs or whatever.
Man, that can be super, super powerful.
Yeah. It is. And also too being real
with your own stuff and meaning, this is
actually eating your own cooking, so to speak.
Listen, I tell people all the time, that
(22:49):
you hear this little crinkling back here. I'm
doing that intentionally.
I've done my audit. Here it is right
here. I've done it several times and I
keep it right by my desk as a
gratitude. And I don't, it's not something to
be braggadocious
about, but one of the top of the
lines, it says,
forgive yourself,
do better
onward and upward.
And I said, then it goes to says,
(23:10):
hello Preston, blah, blah, should you need any
proof? So on and so forth. I'd look,
I've, and then there's statements in there. And
then one of my go to lines in
the book
is
there are stories
in your financial statements
and your stories.
Yep. And your stories
help you achieve what you need to achieve
(23:30):
while you're auditing your stories. So there's stories
and statements, and your statements inform your strategies.
Right? Your stories and statements, and your statements
have helped you, and your stories help you
form your strategies. And this is not only
for individuals for an audit to go through.
Alright? This is for
advisors
to have a process to help folks
(23:50):
go
feelings is a line item in your statements,
Matt. They're a line item.
And how you feel about money, preferences,
purposes,
all of these aspects about money.
They have a value. They have a dollar
amount.
They have a dollar amount. And one of
the other concepts with the book is that
(24:11):
wealth and well-being are 2 different things. I
know folks to conjure up these and be
like, Oh, I have a wealth of time.
I have a wealth of this. No wealth
is dollars.
All right. I know it's ample amount or
an abundance of, I get that. All right.
But when you go, and that's way back
in the Latin times or whatever, you could,
you go to the Latin root. Oh, yeah.
It's a, it's an abundance of, yes. All
(24:31):
right. But
wealth is dollars
being
is domain.
You use your wealth to fund your dollars.
Right? And one of the kickoff phrases of
the book is that money is not just
a tool. I know like folks like say
that. So this is what I'm talking about.
It was, you know, the book and they,
people like, did he say that out loud?
And he's like, because money, everybody says money
(24:53):
is a tool, right? But it's not just
a tool because it downplays
the essentialness,
the soulfulness
of money plays in our life. So I'd
like to say money is just not a
tool.
It is an, it is a partner
with a soul
that is an essential part of our lives.
(25:14):
And what it, what that allows is it
opens up
the essentialness of money and not for us
to discount it
as though we're not supposed to earn an
abundance or that or the other love. There's
no issue with having an abundant mindset.
It's your priority and your pathway towards.
All right?
And we are due prosperity and abundance.
(25:36):
And if there's another way of giving, it's
a book of permissions.
This is about relationships with money and it,
and these relationships and parallels,
so almost parables, so to speak,
they go straight into the line items of
your finance. So when I say stories and
your statements help your strategy, inform your strategies,
(25:57):
it has a dollar amount tied to it.
So when folks say, Oh, I don't want
to do all that mushy mushy stuff. Alright.
But nope. You gotta have it's like peanut
butter and jelly. You gotta have one and
the other.
And with that, yeah, I just realized I
I didn't eat enough lunch, and I need
to go have a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich. But that's I love that because I
think a lot of advisors do push that
away
(26:17):
and don't realize that's actually where the relationship
lies. That's gonna make you more referable, more
engaging, more trusted, more liked, and more respected.
Alright. Here's the deal. Where can people go
get the book? It should we're gonna put
the links, but I just want you to
say it out loud. Yes, I know. I
appreciate it. They can go to Barnes and
Noble,
Amazon
(26:38):
Books A Million
to go in those 3 platforms and purchase
the book. I'm redoing my personal website right
now, doctorprestoncherry.com.
By next week it'll be up. But right
now, if you wanna go as pre order
comes out December 24th, it's a great gift.
You can bulk order the book for advisors
who wanna give it out to your clients,
family, friends, all of that. But go on
right now, there'll be a Kindle version out
(26:59):
shortly and an audio book out later. And
you can follow me on all the socials,
Doctor Preston Sherry. Yeah. Please make sure that
you're following. I just I you're one of
the people who I have tagged on Twitter,
x, because I just love your content. And
I just also like you as a human
being, and I'm really truly impressed with everything
that you've done.
Lots of stuff from the show, so I'm
(27:20):
just gonna unpack just a couple of things
here. Number 1,
any sort of long form content that you
have, a book,
a blog, a seminar, a podcast can be
turned into more content, and you guys are
gonna see this all in 2025.
Most of what Doc's gonna be talking about
is the stuff that's in the book, not
(27:40):
just how the book itself, but how he's
applying it in his practice, in his daily
life, in his speeches, which is the second
thing. One of the greatest things about being
a Renaissance man, which you are truly,
a poet, an author, a business person, and
a speaker. Right?
I want everybody to think about that. Just
sit with yourself for a moment and realize
(28:03):
what you know is so unbelievably
valuable
that you can express yourself in lots of
different ways. And I believe that the more
ways you can express yourself,
the more opportunities you're gonna have. You're truly
gonna be able to live your own life
of abundance, which, of course, we know with
an abundant mindset more abundance comes to you.
And last but not least, if you're looking
(28:25):
for an amazing speaker for your conference,
for a group, if you're in a Vistage
group, or if you've got a local FPA,
NEFA chapter,
listen, go reach out to doc. He's an
unbelievable speaker and because I've seen him speak
a bunch of times because we are at
a lot of conferences together, But please make
sure that you book him for your conferences
(28:45):
in 25
and for years to come. Alright. Doc, I
wanna appreciate you for coming on the show
and for everybody here at Proudmouth and doctor
Preston Cherry. We'll see you on the other
side of the mic very soon. Thanks for
listening to the Top Advisor marketing podcast brought
to you by ProudMouth.
If you wanna know more about how you
can be your own loud, visit us at
proudmouth.com
and sign up for the PodRocket Academy.
(29:07):
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