April 1, 2025 • 32 mins
Dr. Amy D'Aprix, President and Founder of Lifebridge Strategies, talks about bridging the gap between the stages, changes, and events of life transitions, how life and money go hand in hand, using the right “script” in your interactions, the 3 levels of listening, why empathy is everything, and offers a tease of what’s to come.
Mentioned in this episode:
Learn more at LifebridgeStrategies.com. Ask us how you can further deepen your client relationships through our Trusted Advisor of Choice practice elevation program.
Learn more at SouthwesternConsulting.com/Coaching/Students
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Adam Outland (00:01):
Today's guest is Dr Amy D'Aprix, president and
founder of LifeBridgeStrategies, a partnership with
(00:34):
the Southwestern Family ofCompanies. An internationally
renowned expert on lifestyleissues related to retirement,
(00:55):
aging, caregiving and familydynamics, Dr Amy, as she's
affectionately known, hasprovided guidance on life
transitions to individuals,professionals and organizations
for over 30 years. Amy, it's apleasure to have you with us.
One of the things we love askingour guests about on our podcast
is a little bit of their historyand their path that helped them
(01:16):
arrive where they are today.Most people in their teenage
years weren't necessarilydreaming about the profession
they made as an adult. In fact,they've gone through a lot of
change and transformation inthat period. But what did you
start off being motivatedtowards as a young woman, and
then how did that evolve?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (01:33):
I love that question. Adam. I get asked a
lot about, how did you get whereto where you are? It's a
circuitous path, which I thinkit is for many people in their
careers, and certainly forentrepreneurs, my background is
social work. So I have abachelor's, a master's and a PhD
in social work. And my originalthought was I was just going to
work with older adults and theirfamilies, you know, to help them
(01:56):
have better lives. And I didthat. I did some of that. Early
on, doors opened, and I walkedthrough those doors, and I
didn't even know those doorsexisted at one point, you know,
and then you walk through andyou have an opportunity, and you
find another opportunity in thefuture. So where that all led me
was after I did work, I actuallyworked as a home care social
(02:18):
worker and worked with familieswho's had a family member with
dementia, did a lot of work inpolicy, and then I ended up
teaching at University for 13years. I worked at university,
both teaching social workgraduate students and doing
training around North Carolinaon issues related both to aging
(02:40):
and on the other end, to youngfamilies. And I was doing my
doctorate at the time, andduring that time, I thought, I'm
not really cut out to be anacademic. I love being in the
classroom, but I'm not aresearcher. I love reading
research, and I really had oneof those kind of existential
crises about, Do I finish thisdoctorate, which I'm halfway
(03:03):
through and have invested a lotof life energy and money into,
or do I just stop it? And I feltlike I should finish it, even
though I didn't think I wasgoing to use it the way I
originally thought. At thatpoint, I got an opportunity to
do speaking and to work for acompany that offers a
designation for business peoplearound aging. That was like an
(03:24):
intro to aging class. Certifiedsenior advisor is the
designation, and I startedteaching for them all over the
United States. That program gotbrought to Canada, and one of
the big banks in Canada broughtthat internal and put all their
advisors and their vicepresident through it, and they
got to know me that way becauseI taught several hours in this
(03:46):
three day program, and theyasked me if I would come up on a
work permit to Canada and helpthem figure out what to do for
their clients on the nonfinancial side of retirement, I
did that in 2008 came up for ayear and then ended up staying
and we developed all sorts oftraining workshop for the
(04:07):
clients around life transitions.And that's really my love. Adam
is helping people. How do theyget through a life transition?
And, you know, I say that's thestages, changes and events we go
through in our life, retirement,estate planning, caregiving, we
developed one to help women havea better relationship with
money, and suddenly I wascompletely immersed in financial
(04:27):
services. What was interestingis I find financial services
gave me a platform to do workthat I hadn't had an opportunity
to do, and it was so excitinggetting to have these
conversations with people andhelp them through these
transitions that justsnowballed.
Adam Outland (04:43):
Well that's an amazing story. What do you feel
are some of the skills that youmay have developed all the way
back when you started doingsocial work that stuck with you?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (04:51):
Empathy is the first word that comes to my
mind, you know, and I say, youknow, when we think about
empathy, I think we all havesome idea of what that. Means,
but, you know, but stepping intoother people's shoes, I say
empathy is really about sayingto someone, I see you, I hear
you, I understand you, andconveying that. And a lot of
(05:12):
people feel empathy, butstruggle conveying it. So that
became something I took from myearly work. I also think a lot
of the love of helping families,because I have a real I, you
know, we live in family,whatever we call family. It
could be family of choice. Itcould be our biological family,
whatever it is. How do westrengthen families as they go
(05:34):
through these transitions andhelp them have a better time?
Because in key transitions likecaregiving and when the estate,
when the estate is settled,these are two key points,
families often blow up, and Ibelieve it's mainly preventable
if people only have what I callessential conversations and
learn how to work togetherbetter.
Adam Outland (05:54):
100%. I mean, empathy has been, kind of a
fundamental trait in general tobe successful, I think in
business in any format, right?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (06:02):
Yeah, it really is. And I think we all crave it,
right? We want to be seen andheard and understood, and we
don't often get it a lot in ourday to day lives. So those of us
who learn how to do it andbusiness people who get good at
it tend to be more successful.
Adam Outland (06:18):
When you started the prior business that you've
built up until this point, itwas called Life Transitions,
correct?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (06:24):
Yes.
Adam Outland (06:25):
There's always inherent risk when you start a
company, and so a lot of peoplerisk averse to doing that. What
compelled you to start somethingfor yourself?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (06:36):
Yeah, I think I've always been pretty
entrepreneurial. In the time Iwas doing social work, a lot of
times I also had a little sidegig doing sales and something.
This is a very weirdcombination, right? So I always
felt a little who am I? Am I thesocial worker or the sales
person for decades, probably atleast for the first couple
decades of my career, I felt alittle out of step with people
(06:58):
who just sort of seemed to knowthis was his Lear path, and they
got a job. And so I, when I wasworking for the company that
offered the designation CSA, Istarted to move out on my own,
and I was an independent and asolo preneur at that point. So
from the time I became asolopreneur, I had no net,
right? Those of us who do thesethings often don't have been
(07:20):
met. And I think you have tohave a certain makeup to do
this, you know, I if you look atmost people, as you said, Adam,
are pretty risk aversive. Theywant the security. And when we
talk about being anentrepreneur, we often don't
have external security. So wehave to find that somewhere in
ourselves that we're okay. And Ithink I just always felt that if
(07:43):
everything fell apart, I couldalways go get a job, but that I
wasn't really cut out at it. AndI I want to tell you a funny
story, because I'm now at an agea lot of my friends are starting
to retire and from jobs withpensions, you know. And those of
us who are entrepreneurs don'tusually have a pension, so one
of my friends and I willsometimes say, why didn't we
just take a job and stick withit for 30 years, like other
(08:05):
people do? But that's not ifyou're an entrepreneur, it's not
in your makeup. You know, one ofthe things I think I would have
done if I had a job was I mighthave met a guidance counselor,
like my dad. And what I joke is,I would have met a guidance
counselor, but then I would havethought I could run the
department, so I would have thengone and become the head of the
department. Then I would havethought that there are a lot of
things in this school that needfixing. And next thing you know,
(08:27):
I would have tried to move on.So, you know, you have to know
who you are as an entrepreneur.So I think I took the risk just
because inherently I felt secureenough there would always be a
Plan B I could operate with PlanB, and I kind of kept that in
the background. And there weretimes it was really scary. I've
gone through those times.
Adam Outland (08:46):
Yeah. Give our audience context for this
business in particular,LifeBridge Strategies, that
partnership with SouthwesternFamily of Companies, what is the
problem that you're specificallyaddressing?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (08:58):
Well, so as I was doing the speaking
engagements for clients. What Irealized was the advisors needed
help in having conversationsabout these topics, so I
developed some workshops for theadvisors that were quite
successful, but what they wouldsay to me after the workshop is
okay, so how do I say that to myclient? And I realized they
(09:20):
needed coaching around theconversations and how to do it.
So I started our first product,which is trusted advisor of
choice. And trusted advisor ofchoice is for advisors to we
call it a practice ElevationProgram instead of a training
program, because it's it'sreally about working with
advisors who want to take theirpractice to the next level. It's
(09:43):
framed around life transitions,so again, the stages changes and
events that people go through.And it's a modularized program
with videos on the topics suchas retirement, estate planning,
caregiving, how to improve yourpractice with women, how to work
with old. Adults, referrals,those kind of things. And in
each module, besides the videos,we have some client facing
(10:07):
tools. We have some advisorresources. And each mod for each
module, there is coaching,available, group coaching, and
Adam, we launched that duringthe pandemic. And I was very
fortunate, because initially,the pushback I got was, advisors
are not going to want to dotraining online. They had no
other choice of ways to do it,and so we launched trusted
(10:30):
advisor choice to fill the gapto meet the need of, how do you
deepen your relationships withclients by better understanding
their life and tying life andmoney together. And one of the
things I say is that life andmoney go hand in hand. And what
we teach in that program for theadvisors is how to go where the
client is, which is on thepractical, emotional and family
(10:54):
aspects of their life, expressempathy. And then segue back to
the business conversation. It'sthat we've actually trademarked
this process now because it'sbeen so successful, and it's
called Lyra, and it's aboutgoing to the client, but coming
back. And what's great about itis then the advisor always feels
in control of the conversation,because they know they can segue
(11:17):
back and forth between the lifeconversation and the money
conversation, which is key. Sothat was the big need we were
filling with that, which was,you know, how do you deepen your
relationships with clients, byunderstanding them better,
expressing empathy better, andtying that to the business. From
that, we developed life map, andthat's for clients, but the only
(11:38):
place they can get it is fromtheir advisor, Adam. What that
is, are really robust resourcesfor clients on these
transitions. And again, it'sabout strengthening the advisor
client relationship, becausewhat we found with trusted
advisor of choice is advisorswould say, Great, I'm
comfortable having theseconversations, and now clients
are sharing things about theirlife, and I don't have any
(12:01):
resources for them on the lifeside. I only have resources on
the financial side, and so it'slike opening a wound without a
bandage. So we created thisprogram that has, again, robust
resources for clients fromprofessionals who are top in
their fields, and the only waythey can get it is from the
advisor. So it again deepensthat relationship.
Adam Outland (12:23):
You know, I hear the empathy come up, but it was
really in the questions that youguide them to ask or not ask,
curiosity and asking greatquestions. Is there a specific
common question that you eitherguide in your trainings advisors
to ask or not ask, that come tomind right now, just as an
(12:44):
example?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (12:45):
Sure, well, and I've got to speak to the
curiosity, because that isactually one of the things I
say, is that you have to go intothese conversations with
curiosity, and you have tolisten at what I call level
three, which is listening forwhat's not being said. So, you
know, level one is listening toreply, and we think, we don't do
it. We all do it, and it'sactually an occupational hazard,
(13:08):
because we want to add value. Sowe're listening to add value.
And then level two is listeningto the content, which obviously
is better. You know, you have tobe present do all that. But
level three is about goingsomewhere beyond that, and it's
about listening to what's notbeing said, to what what the
person feels about what they'resharing with you. And you know,
(13:30):
I often share a story aroundthis that I sat in on an
advisors training who was areally good advisor, and she
knew this client really well.And the client was a 72 year old
woman retired, didn't bring herhusband. She was a physician,
but the advisor knew the client,and they had nice conversations.
We went through a portfolioreview, she went through some
(13:51):
planning, and then at the end,right as the advisor is kind of
wrapping up the meeting, and theclient says, I'm going to Italy
to see my mother. And theadvisor responds at level two
and says, which, again, is tothe content. And says, Great,
have a wonderful time. Let'sconnect. When you get back, and
(14:13):
I'm thinking to myself, thisclient 72 her mother has to be
quite old. And the client didnot look enthused. She looked
upset, you know, and so I saidto the client, How's your mom
doing? And she said, she's notdoing well. She has dementia.
I'm not sure she'll recognizeme, and I'm guessing this may be
the last time I see her. And Isaid, I am so sorry. I can't
(14:36):
imagine how hard this trip is.She said, it's very, very hard.
So in that moment, I made theconnection that deepen, not the
advisor, because they didn'tswitch to level three. She had
left the room and wanted to movethings on, so that and the
curiosity factor helps you getto where you are. And then you
said, Is there specificquestions? This is one I. Have
(15:00):
advisors. Ask advisors oftensay, Tell me about your family.
Instead, I ask them to say, tellme about the people that you
want to take care of. When welook at financial planning or
estate planning, now you maysay, Well, what's the
difference? Well, the differenceis they may have people who are
not in their immediate familywho they're taking care of that
(15:22):
you'll never know about unlessyou say something. They may have
a niece. They may have somebodyoutside the family. And what you
want to do by asking these kindof questions is create context.
The person knows exactly whatyou're looking for when you ask
a question like that, tell meabout your family is you know,
what do you want to know about?So asking questions with context
(15:43):
is a key thing to do. And withadvisors, I try to get them
instead of saying, So, what areyou going to do in your
retirement, asking specificthings like, So, what are the
three most important things toyou that you're going to do in
your retirement? And I had oneadvisor tell me he shifted to
that question, and one of hisclients said, wow, I've not
(16:03):
thought about that. I've got twothings I've been thinking about,
we're going to travel, and thisclient was a big golfer, I'm
going to golf, but when you askme about the third, I realize
that my wife and I need to havedifferent conversations. Those
two things aren't going to beenough for me to do. And they
ended up getting to thisconversation about how so many
people struggle in retirementbecause they don't have purpose.
(16:25):
And the client came back andsaid that question for him was a
game changer. So it seems likesuch a little thing, but
specificity in questions andcreating contexts makes a huge
difference.
Adam Outland (16:37):
Also not telling people that you can imagine
things that they're goingthrough, but instead telling
them that you can't imaginethings they're going through.
You know, people aren't feelinggood that you're sitting with,
but you want to relate and say,Oh man, I can imagine that must
be really hard, when maybe whatthey prefer to hear, and what's
probably reality, is to say, Ican't imagine, I cannot imagine
(17:00):
how tough that must be.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (17:02):
And you know, one of my favorite takeaways on
empathy is you can say tosomebody, if they cut you off
guard, I'm so sorry that you'rehaving to deal with this. And,
you know, I don't even know whatto say right now, except I'm so
sorry that is a great thing tosay instead of trying to say
something profound. Or, youknow, I think that again, if we
think about being present andwanting to convey to somebody
(17:25):
that you see and hear them, andit's hard when we get hit in a
going to be business or personalwith something pretty
significant somebody's goingthrough. It's a skill that we
all need to practice. You know,I always joke. Some people
think, of course, I must begreat in empathy, because I
teach it. And I used to jokewhen my daughter was a teenager,
don't ask my daughter, she had adifferent perspective on that.
Adam Outland (17:48):
But in, you know, in reality, that's, it's, it's
really important training. And Ioften, you know, as a consultant
with that training andbackground that I have, have
often thought that people oftenmisconstrue consultancy or sales
as being very scripted. And Ioften reflect on the fact that
it's actually what we're allvery scripted. I mean, we all
have our response mechanisms tointroductions. It's Hi, how are
(18:12):
you? I'm good. How are you? It'sjust what we say, and you don't
even realize it. Do you go to adifferent country? Like if you
go to Germany and you asksomeone walking down the street,
Hi, how are you doing? It's soweird to ask that question to a
German that they'll look at youand they'll tell you exactly how
they're doing and it's not well.So I always think that, you
know, good, effective salestraining and script building
(18:32):
helps us build more effectivelanguage to truly be impactful
in life, versus we grew up with,which is most likely not the
best script.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (18:40):
Yeah, I agree with you on that. You know, very
few of us grew up in homes wherewe where we heard warm, empathic
responses to things, and itwasn't because they weren't
loving people. It was just adifferent time, right? And a
different approach to parenting.
Adam Outland (18:53):
That's right, yeah, that's such a good point.
What's the vision where you wantto take Lifebridge into the
future, and what's your hope interms of impact?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (19:03):
I always want to have a huge impact. So I'll
start with that. I'm here in atthis time, in the world, at this
time, to do what I can to makepeople's lives easier and to
help people have better qualityof lives and more peace of mind.
So that's that's the impetus forwhat drives everything I do. We
have two offerings right now,the trusted advisor, choice for
(19:25):
the advisors, life map for theclient. And the goal there,
again, is to help clients,really all of it is to help
clients have better quality oflife as they go through
transitions. So our goal is towork with advisors all over
North America and beyond to helpthem have again practices that
are, you know, the other word Ilike to use is more fun. It's
(19:46):
more fun to do business this waythan it is to not really know
your clients. So help advisorshave more effective businesses
and help their clients getthrough life more easily. That's
our vision. We want. Take it,you know, as big as we can to do
that, and then behind that,Adam, we have another offering
that I'll just tease, which iscalled Essential conversations.
(20:08):
And I'm excited to really getlife map and trusted advisor out
there, so I can start gettingessential conversations out to
Adam Outland (20:16):
I love that. But in any part of the population
the world.
where you can focus on, youknow, just instilling curiosity
at a different level is helpingeveryone. Because we could all
benefit from being betterstudents and learning how to
listen first and ask betterquestions instead of coming in.
We have a kind of a crudeexpression that you be in their
(20:36):
industry often shows up andthrows up all over their
thinking they have all thethings and the magic sauce
that'll help. But while we aredriven by adding value, usually
greatest value can add isunderstanding.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (20:50):
And I think it all comes down to authenticity,
right? If we can just bring ourauthentic selves in. And when
we're nervous, we're not as goodat it, and when we're, you know,
feeling pressure in ourbusinesses, it can be sometimes
hard to do that, but thatauthenticity and true caring for
those people that we'reinteracting with that comes
through and people want to workwith people who care about them.
Adam Outland (21:11):
100%. One of the kind of lightning round
questions I always love asking;pieces of technology, is there
an app or something that youfound useful or constructive in
your practice, business withadvisors?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (21:25):
Well, I have to tell you the thing I'm I've been
drawn to AI, and I'm not usingit a lot, but I'm using quad or
cloud, depending on how you sayit. And I'll tell you how I use
it, because for me, this ismaking a huge difference in
speed of getting things done,but also in creating more depth.
So I act like Claude is mygraduate assistant, and so I ask
(21:50):
Claude questions that come backwith, you know? So I'll give you
an example. We create theseclient facing tools that are
around life issues. So now,after we do that, I go to Claude
and ask a question about thattopic area and see what comes
out from AI that we might havemissed. And what we've done on a
(22:12):
couple of the tools is is reallydeepen and improve them based on
those responses. And sosometimes I use Claude to
generate an I, you know, as I'mthinking about an idea and
thinking, Where should I takethat? And sometimes I use it,
and on the other end to say, howdid we do but it is like having
a graduate assistant in who doesthis in three seconds. So I'm
(22:35):
only using AI like, a teenylittle bit, but I'm amazed how
much it's shifting how I do mywork in a really positive way.
Adam Outland (22:43):
Yeah, but it's pretty amazing how it's going.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (22:46):
It IS amazing. And I know we have lots of
concerns about where it's going,but I'm pretty excited about
what it's doing for me and mybusiness.
Adam Outland (22:56):
I love that. And what's something that you've
learned here in the last coupleof years through your work
directly with the advisors orthe client that you didn't know
before. Like, what's I mean,we're always learning, but is
there something that's thatlight bulb moment that over the
last few years that's reallycome to you through these
conversations and discussionsthat you that you have so often?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (23:17):
I think that one of the things that surprised
me with the advisors, that Ilearned was how many of them
struggled to make thatconnection, because they were
afraid of being intrusive inclients lives, and so that was
an interesting thing that we hadto work through about, you know,
because curiosity, you know, youthink about, They're sitting
(23:40):
with someone. They're talkingabout deep life issues. It's
like, how far can I take thatconversation before I'm being
intrusive? And so I wassurprised by that. That was
something that was kind of asurprise. And also with the
advisors, how open they were toadding the things that I talk
about into their practice. Youknow, the people I work with
(24:00):
want those relationships withclients, because you do better
work. And I think on the clientside, you know, a lot of the
people I work with arefinancially well off because
they've got financial advisors.And one of the takeaways is that
we all, we all are strugglingwith the same things. It doesn't
matter what are income level youknow, if I ever thought money
(24:23):
solved problems, I let thatbelief go when I started working
with ultra high net worthclients. You know, more money,
more problems, sometimes withyour if you haven't done the
work about yourself and yourfamily and you're not grounded.
So those things that we do toground ourselves, to learn, to
grow, the things we do to cementthings in our families, they
(24:46):
matter and matter no matter whatincome level you're at.
Adam Outland (24:50):
There's an organization you might be
familiar with called Tiger, 21people who come together peer to
peer, advisory to some degree,where they have a certain amount
of liquid well. Wealth thatpresents, within itself its own
challenge. And, you know, somepeople listening to this might
be a challenge I'd like to have,right, but you know, in
conversations with a couple oftheir chapter leaders, what,
(25:11):
what I've found is that, yeah,one of the big challenges they
face because of wealth is the isthe secession planning
component. Oh, yes, you know,giving your wealth to your
child. If you don't do it andyou have it, it can screw up the
relationship. And if you do doit and you have it, then it can
screw up the teenager or whoeveris about to have it, if you
don't construct it in the rightway. And there's very personal
(25:33):
things, even as a consultant,working with business leaders of
companies, when you come to thebusiness being passed the next
generation, yes, that they're,they're incredibly challenged by
and it's often not the structureas much as it is the emotional
implications of therelationships itself.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (25:49):
Everything you said, I concur with. I get to
work with business ownerssometimes. And you know, it's,
it's like having a baby thatyou're, you're thinking, how do
I, how do I pop past this babyto someone else, or or, and one
of the issue with businessowners that surprised me was
they often give absolutely nothought to this, and they say,
I'm just going to work forever.And the problem with that is, at
(26:12):
some point they're not going tobe able to work in that
business. Something hits themnow or because they pass on, and
they have to, you know, and alot of people haven't done very
good planning. And I thinkthat's another takeaway I had,
is I've been working with or onbehalf of older adults and their
families for about 40 years now.And I think one of my big
(26:32):
surprises is, or big takeawaysis, people don't do very good
life planning for that lastthird of their life. We do it
well for earlier than the lastthird. So that's one of my real
passions, is helping people dothat planning so they have
choice, control and independenceand have the best quality of
life possible. So that was ahuge thing when I started
working. You know, again,doesn't matter what income level
(26:54):
you're at. People often don'tthink about those things.
Adam Outland (26:58):
Yeah, being intentional with your life at
every stage.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (27:01):
Yes, at every stage. And we're, you know,
we've done a better job early,and then we sort of get people
say, Oh, I'm going to retire.And they sort of see that as one
long stage. But it's actuallymany chapters within that to
continue to have passion aboutyour life forever. In order to
do that, we have to be intentional.
Adam Outland (27:18):
Well, you've just made me decide to alter the
final question. I always endwith asking our guests to give
what advice they might give totheir 20 year old self. But I
mentioned a different question.Okay, what advice would you like
your 100 year old self to beable to tell you now?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (27:38):
Oh, I love that. That's a great question.
When I think about that, I thinkabout what I would hope because
I'm 62 so it's almost 40 yearsto continue to plan your life,
to continue to stay engaged andcontinue to make sure you have
purpose and connection for thenext 40 years, because that's
what's going to get you through.
Adam Outland (27:59):
Well said. Thank you so much for giving us your
time, Dr. Amy.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (28:03):
I appreciate it. Thank you.
Today's guest is Dr Amy D'Aprix, president and
founder of LifeBridgeStrategies, a partnership with
(00:34):
the Southwestern Family ofCompanies. An internationally
renowned expert on lifestyleissues related to retirement,
(00:55):
aging, caregiving and familydynamics, Dr Amy, as she's
affectionately known, hasprovided guidance on life
transitions to individuals,professionals and organizations
for over 30 years. Amy, it's apleasure to have you with us.
One of the things we love askingour guests about on our podcast
is a little bit of their historyand their path that helped them
(01:16):
arrive where they are today.Most people in their teenage
years weren't necessarilydreaming about the profession
they made as an adult. In fact,they've gone through a lot of
change and transformation inthat period. But what did you
start off being motivatedtowards as a young woman, and
then how did that evolve?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (01:33):
I love that question. Adam. I get asked a
lot about, how did you get whereto where you are? It's a
circuitous path, which I thinkit is for many people in their
careers, and certainly forentrepreneurs, my background is
social work. So I have abachelor's, a master's and a PhD
in social work. And my originalthought was I was just going to
work with older adults and theirfamilies, you know, to help them
(01:56):
have better lives. And I didthat. I did some of that. Early
on, doors opened, and I walkedthrough those doors, and I
didn't even know those doorsexisted at one point, you know,
and then you walk through andyou have an opportunity, and you
find another opportunity in thefuture. So where that all led me
was after I did work, I actuallyworked as a home care social
(02:18):
worker and worked with familieswho's had a family member with
dementia, did a lot of work inpolicy, and then I ended up
teaching at University for 13years. I worked at university,
both teaching social workgraduate students and doing
training around North Carolinaon issues related both to aging
(02:40):
and on the other end, to youngfamilies. And I was doing my
doctorate at the time, andduring that time, I thought, I'm
not really cut out to be anacademic. I love being in the
classroom, but I'm not aresearcher. I love reading
research, and I really had oneof those kind of existential
crises about, Do I finish thisdoctorate, which I'm halfway
(03:03):
through and have invested a lotof life energy and money into,
or do I just stop it? And I feltlike I should finish it, even
though I didn't think I wasgoing to use it the way I
originally thought. At thatpoint, I got an opportunity to
do speaking and to work for acompany that offers a
designation for business peoplearound aging. That was like an
(03:24):
intro to aging class. Certifiedsenior advisor is the
designation, and I startedteaching for them all over the
United States. That program gotbrought to Canada, and one of
the big banks in Canada broughtthat internal and put all their
advisors and their vicepresident through it, and they
got to know me that way becauseI taught several hours in this
(03:46):
three day program, and theyasked me if I would come up on a
work permit to Canada and helpthem figure out what to do for
their clients on the nonfinancial side of retirement, I
did that in 2008 came up for ayear and then ended up staying
and we developed all sorts oftraining workshop for the
(04:07):
clients around life transitions.And that's really my love. Adam
is helping people. How do theyget through a life transition?
And, you know, I say that's thestages, changes and events we go
through in our life, retirement,estate planning, caregiving, we
developed one to help women havea better relationship with
money, and suddenly I wascompletely immersed in financial
(04:27):
services. What was interestingis I find financial services
gave me a platform to do workthat I hadn't had an opportunity
to do, and it was so excitinggetting to have these
conversations with people andhelp them through these
transitions that justsnowballed.
Adam Outland (04:43):
Well that's an amazing story. What do you feel
are some of the skills that youmay have developed all the way
back when you started doingsocial work that stuck with you?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (04:51):
Empathy is the first word that comes to my
mind, you know, and I say, youknow, when we think about
empathy, I think we all havesome idea of what that. Means,
but, you know, but stepping intoother people's shoes, I say
empathy is really about sayingto someone, I see you, I hear
you, I understand you, andconveying that. And a lot of
(05:12):
people feel empathy, butstruggle conveying it. So that
became something I took from myearly work. I also think a lot
of the love of helping families,because I have a real I, you
know, we live in family,whatever we call family. It
could be family of choice. Itcould be our biological family,
whatever it is. How do westrengthen families as they go
(05:34):
through these transitions andhelp them have a better time?
Because in key transitions likecaregiving and when the estate,
when the estate is settled,these are two key points,
families often blow up, and Ibelieve it's mainly preventable
if people only have what I callessential conversations and
learn how to work togetherbetter.
Adam Outland (05:54):
100%. I mean, empathy has been, kind of a
fundamental trait in general tobe successful, I think in
business in any format, right?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (06:02):
Yeah, it really is. And I think we all crave it,
right? We want to be seen andheard and understood, and we
don't often get it a lot in ourday to day lives. So those of us
who learn how to do it andbusiness people who get good at
it tend to be more successful.
Adam Outland (06:18):
When you started the prior business that you've
built up until this point, itwas called Life Transitions,
correct?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (06:24):
Yes.
Adam Outland (06:25):
There's always inherent risk when you start a
company, and so a lot of peoplerisk averse to doing that. What
compelled you to start somethingfor yourself?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (06:36):
Yeah, I think I've always been pretty
entrepreneurial. In the time Iwas doing social work, a lot of
times I also had a little sidegig doing sales and something.
This is a very weirdcombination, right? So I always
felt a little who am I? Am I thesocial worker or the sales
person for decades, probably atleast for the first couple
decades of my career, I felt alittle out of step with people
(06:58):
who just sort of seemed to knowthis was his Lear path, and they
got a job. And so I, when I wasworking for the company that
offered the designation CSA, Istarted to move out on my own,
and I was an independent and asolo preneur at that point. So
from the time I became asolopreneur, I had no net,
right? Those of us who do thesethings often don't have been
(07:20):
met. And I think you have tohave a certain makeup to do
this, you know, I if you look atmost people, as you said, Adam,
are pretty risk aversive. Theywant the security. And when we
talk about being anentrepreneur, we often don't
have external security. So wehave to find that somewhere in
ourselves that we're okay. And Ithink I just always felt that if
(07:43):
everything fell apart, I couldalways go get a job, but that I
wasn't really cut out at it. AndI I want to tell you a funny
story, because I'm now at an agea lot of my friends are starting
to retire and from jobs withpensions, you know. And those of
us who are entrepreneurs don'tusually have a pension, so one
of my friends and I willsometimes say, why didn't we
just take a job and stick withit for 30 years, like other
(08:05):
people do? But that's not ifyou're an entrepreneur, it's not
in your makeup. You know, one ofthe things I think I would have
done if I had a job was I mighthave met a guidance counselor,
like my dad. And what I joke is,I would have met a guidance
counselor, but then I would havethought I could run the
department, so I would have thengone and become the head of the
department. Then I would havethought that there are a lot of
things in this school that needfixing. And next thing you know,
(08:27):
I would have tried to move on.So, you know, you have to know
who you are as an entrepreneur.So I think I took the risk just
because inherently I felt secureenough there would always be a
Plan B I could operate with PlanB, and I kind of kept that in
the background. And there weretimes it was really scary. I've
gone through those times.
Adam Outland (08:46):
Yeah. Give our audience context for this
business in particular,LifeBridge Strategies, that
partnership with SouthwesternFamily of Companies, what is the
problem that you're specificallyaddressing?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (08:58):
Well, so as I was doing the speaking
engagements for clients. What Irealized was the advisors needed
help in having conversationsabout these topics, so I
developed some workshops for theadvisors that were quite
successful, but what they wouldsay to me after the workshop is
okay, so how do I say that to myclient? And I realized they
(09:20):
needed coaching around theconversations and how to do it.
So I started our first product,which is trusted advisor of
choice. And trusted advisor ofchoice is for advisors to we
call it a practice ElevationProgram instead of a training
program, because it's it'sreally about working with
advisors who want to take theirpractice to the next level. It's
(09:43):
framed around life transitions,so again, the stages changes and
events that people go through.And it's a modularized program
with videos on the topics suchas retirement, estate planning,
caregiving, how to improve yourpractice with women, how to work
with old. Adults, referrals,those kind of things. And in
each module, besides the videos,we have some client facing
(10:07):
tools. We have some advisorresources. And each mod for each
module, there is coaching,available, group coaching, and
Adam, we launched that duringthe pandemic. And I was very
fortunate, because initially,the pushback I got was, advisors
are not going to want to dotraining online. They had no
other choice of ways to do it,and so we launched trusted
(10:30):
advisor choice to fill the gapto meet the need of, how do you
deepen your relationships withclients by better understanding
their life and tying life andmoney together. And one of the
things I say is that life andmoney go hand in hand. And what
we teach in that program for theadvisors is how to go where the
client is, which is on thepractical, emotional and family
(10:54):
aspects of their life, expressempathy. And then segue back to
the business conversation. It'sthat we've actually trademarked
this process now because it'sbeen so successful, and it's
called Lyra, and it's aboutgoing to the client, but coming
back. And what's great about itis then the advisor always feels
in control of the conversation,because they know they can segue
(11:17):
back and forth between the lifeconversation and the money
conversation, which is key. Sothat was the big need we were
filling with that, which was,you know, how do you deepen your
relationships with clients, byunderstanding them better,
expressing empathy better, andtying that to the business. From
that, we developed life map, andthat's for clients, but the only
(11:38):
place they can get it is fromtheir advisor, Adam. What that
is, are really robust resourcesfor clients on these
transitions. And again, it'sabout strengthening the advisor
client relationship, becausewhat we found with trusted
advisor of choice is advisorswould say, Great, I'm
comfortable having theseconversations, and now clients
are sharing things about theirlife, and I don't have any
(12:01):
resources for them on the lifeside. I only have resources on
the financial side, and so it'slike opening a wound without a
bandage. So we created thisprogram that has, again, robust
resources for clients fromprofessionals who are top in
their fields, and the only waythey can get it is from the
advisor. So it again deepensthat relationship.
Adam Outland (12:23):
You know, I hear the empathy come up, but it was
really in the questions that youguide them to ask or not ask,
curiosity and asking greatquestions. Is there a specific
common question that you eitherguide in your trainings advisors
to ask or not ask, that come tomind right now, just as an
(12:44):
example?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (12:45):
Sure, well, and I've got to speak to the
curiosity, because that isactually one of the things I
say, is that you have to go intothese conversations with
curiosity, and you have tolisten at what I call level
three, which is listening forwhat's not being said. So, you
know, level one is listening toreply, and we think, we don't do
it. We all do it, and it'sactually an occupational hazard,
(13:08):
because we want to add value. Sowe're listening to add value.
And then level two is listeningto the content, which obviously
is better. You know, you have tobe present do all that. But
level three is about goingsomewhere beyond that, and it's
about listening to what's notbeing said, to what what the
person feels about what they'resharing with you. And you know,
(13:30):
I often share a story aroundthis that I sat in on an
advisors training who was areally good advisor, and she
knew this client really well.And the client was a 72 year old
woman retired, didn't bring herhusband. She was a physician,
but the advisor knew the client,and they had nice conversations.
We went through a portfolioreview, she went through some
(13:51):
planning, and then at the end,right as the advisor is kind of
wrapping up the meeting, and theclient says, I'm going to Italy
to see my mother. And theadvisor responds at level two
and says, which, again, is tothe content. And says, Great,
have a wonderful time. Let'sconnect. When you get back, and
(14:13):
I'm thinking to myself, thisclient 72 her mother has to be
quite old. And the client didnot look enthused. She looked
upset, you know, and so I saidto the client, How's your mom
doing? And she said, she's notdoing well. She has dementia.
I'm not sure she'll recognizeme, and I'm guessing this may be
the last time I see her. And Isaid, I am so sorry. I can't
(14:36):
imagine how hard this trip is.She said, it's very, very hard.
So in that moment, I made theconnection that deepen, not the
advisor, because they didn'tswitch to level three. She had
left the room and wanted to movethings on, so that and the
curiosity factor helps you getto where you are. And then you
said, Is there specificquestions? This is one I. Have
(15:00):
advisors. Ask advisors oftensay, Tell me about your family.
Instead, I ask them to say, tellme about the people that you
want to take care of. When welook at financial planning or
estate planning, now you maysay, Well, what's the
difference? Well, the differenceis they may have people who are
not in their immediate familywho they're taking care of that
(15:22):
you'll never know about unlessyou say something. They may have
a niece. They may have somebodyoutside the family. And what you
want to do by asking these kindof questions is create context.
The person knows exactly whatyou're looking for when you ask
a question like that, tell meabout your family is you know,
what do you want to know about?So asking questions with context
(15:43):
is a key thing to do. And withadvisors, I try to get them
instead of saying, So, what areyou going to do in your
retirement, asking specificthings like, So, what are the
three most important things toyou that you're going to do in
your retirement? And I had oneadvisor tell me he shifted to
that question, and one of hisclients said, wow, I've not
(16:03):
thought about that. I've got twothings I've been thinking about,
we're going to travel, and thisclient was a big golfer, I'm
going to golf, but when you askme about the third, I realize
that my wife and I need to havedifferent conversations. Those
two things aren't going to beenough for me to do. And they
ended up getting to thisconversation about how so many
people struggle in retirementbecause they don't have purpose.
(16:25):
And the client came back andsaid that question for him was a
game changer. So it seems likesuch a little thing, but
specificity in questions andcreating contexts makes a huge
difference.
Adam Outland (16:37):
Also not telling people that you can imagine
things that they're goingthrough, but instead telling
them that you can't imaginethings they're going through.
You know, people aren't feelinggood that you're sitting with,
but you want to relate and say,Oh man, I can imagine that must
be really hard, when maybe whatthey prefer to hear, and what's
probably reality, is to say, Ican't imagine, I cannot imagine
(17:00):
how tough that must be.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (17:02):
And you know, one of my favorite takeaways on
empathy is you can say tosomebody, if they cut you off
guard, I'm so sorry that you'rehaving to deal with this. And,
you know, I don't even know whatto say right now, except I'm so
sorry that is a great thing tosay instead of trying to say
something profound. Or, youknow, I think that again, if we
think about being present andwanting to convey to somebody
(17:25):
that you see and hear them, andit's hard when we get hit in a
going to be business or personalwith something pretty
significant somebody's goingthrough. It's a skill that we
all need to practice. You know,I always joke. Some people
think, of course, I must begreat in empathy, because I
teach it. And I used to jokewhen my daughter was a teenager,
don't ask my daughter, she had adifferent perspective on that.
Adam Outland (17:48):
But in, you know, in reality, that's, it's, it's
really important training. And Ioften, you know, as a consultant
with that training andbackground that I have, have
often thought that people oftenmisconstrue consultancy or sales
as being very scripted. And Ioften reflect on the fact that
it's actually what we're allvery scripted. I mean, we all
have our response mechanisms tointroductions. It's Hi, how are
(18:12):
you? I'm good. How are you? It'sjust what we say, and you don't
even realize it. Do you go to adifferent country? Like if you
go to Germany and you asksomeone walking down the street,
Hi, how are you doing? It's soweird to ask that question to a
German that they'll look at youand they'll tell you exactly how
they're doing and it's not well.So I always think that, you
know, good, effective salestraining and script building
(18:32):
helps us build more effectivelanguage to truly be impactful
in life, versus we grew up with,which is most likely not the
best script.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (18:40):
Yeah, I agree with you on that. You know, very
few of us grew up in homes wherewe where we heard warm, empathic
responses to things, and itwasn't because they weren't
loving people. It was just adifferent time, right? And a
different approach to parenting.
Adam Outland (18:53):
That's right, yeah, that's such a good point.
What's the vision where you wantto take Lifebridge into the
future, and what's your hope interms of impact?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (19:03):
I always want to have a huge impact. So I'll
start with that. I'm here in atthis time, in the world, at this
time, to do what I can to makepeople's lives easier and to
help people have better qualityof lives and more peace of mind.
So that's that's the impetus forwhat drives everything I do. We
have two offerings right now,the trusted advisor, choice for
(19:25):
the advisors, life map for theclient. And the goal there,
again, is to help clients,really all of it is to help
clients have better quality oflife as they go through
transitions. So our goal is towork with advisors all over
North America and beyond to helpthem have again practices that
are, you know, the other word Ilike to use is more fun. It's
(19:46):
more fun to do business this waythan it is to not really know
your clients. So help advisorshave more effective businesses
and help their clients getthrough life more easily. That's
our vision. We want. Take it,you know, as big as we can to do
that, and then behind that,Adam, we have another offering
that I'll just tease, which iscalled Essential conversations.
(20:08):
And I'm excited to really getlife map and trusted advisor out
there, so I can start gettingessential conversations out to
Adam Outland (20:16):
I love that. But in any part of the population
the world.
where you can focus on, youknow, just instilling curiosity
at a different level is helpingeveryone. Because we could all
benefit from being betterstudents and learning how to
listen first and ask betterquestions instead of coming in.
We have a kind of a crudeexpression that you be in their
(20:36):
industry often shows up andthrows up all over their
thinking they have all thethings and the magic sauce
that'll help. But while we aredriven by adding value, usually
greatest value can add isunderstanding.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (20:50):
And I think it all comes down to authenticity,
right? If we can just bring ourauthentic selves in. And when
we're nervous, we're not as goodat it, and when we're, you know,
feeling pressure in ourbusinesses, it can be sometimes
hard to do that, but thatauthenticity and true caring for
those people that we'reinteracting with that comes
through and people want to workwith people who care about them.
Adam Outland (21:11):
100%. One of the kind of lightning round
questions I always love asking;pieces of technology, is there
an app or something that youfound useful or constructive in
your practice, business withadvisors?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (21:25):
Well, I have to tell you the thing I'm I've been
drawn to AI, and I'm not usingit a lot, but I'm using quad or
cloud, depending on how you sayit. And I'll tell you how I use
it, because for me, this ismaking a huge difference in
speed of getting things done,but also in creating more depth.
So I act like Claude is mygraduate assistant, and so I ask
(21:50):
Claude questions that come backwith, you know? So I'll give you
an example. We create theseclient facing tools that are
around life issues. So now,after we do that, I go to Claude
and ask a question about thattopic area and see what comes
out from AI that we might havemissed. And what we've done on a
(22:12):
couple of the tools is is reallydeepen and improve them based on
those responses. And sosometimes I use Claude to
generate an I, you know, as I'mthinking about an idea and
thinking, Where should I takethat? And sometimes I use it,
and on the other end to say, howdid we do but it is like having
a graduate assistant in who doesthis in three seconds. So I'm
(22:35):
only using AI like, a teenylittle bit, but I'm amazed how
much it's shifting how I do mywork in a really positive way.
Adam Outland (22:43):
Yeah, but it's pretty amazing how it's going.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (22:46):
It IS amazing. And I know we have lots of
concerns about where it's going,but I'm pretty excited about
what it's doing for me and mybusiness.
Adam Outland (22:56):
I love that. And what's something that you've
learned here in the last coupleof years through your work
directly with the advisors orthe client that you didn't know
before. Like, what's I mean,we're always learning, but is
there something that's thatlight bulb moment that over the
last few years that's reallycome to you through these
conversations and discussionsthat you that you have so often?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (23:17):
I think that one of the things that surprised
me with the advisors, that Ilearned was how many of them
struggled to make thatconnection, because they were
afraid of being intrusive inclients lives, and so that was
an interesting thing that we hadto work through about, you know,
because curiosity, you know, youthink about, They're sitting
(23:40):
with someone. They're talkingabout deep life issues. It's
like, how far can I take thatconversation before I'm being
intrusive? And so I wassurprised by that. That was
something that was kind of asurprise. And also with the
advisors, how open they were toadding the things that I talk
about into their practice. Youknow, the people I work with
(24:00):
want those relationships withclients, because you do better
work. And I think on the clientside, you know, a lot of the
people I work with arefinancially well off because
they've got financial advisors.And one of the takeaways is that
we all, we all are strugglingwith the same things. It doesn't
matter what are income level youknow, if I ever thought money
(24:23):
solved problems, I let thatbelief go when I started working
with ultra high net worthclients. You know, more money,
more problems, sometimes withyour if you haven't done the
work about yourself and yourfamily and you're not grounded.
So those things that we do toground ourselves, to learn, to
grow, the things we do to cementthings in our families, they
(24:46):
matter and matter no matter whatincome level you're at.
Adam Outland (24:50):
There's an organization you might be
familiar with called Tiger, 21people who come together peer to
peer, advisory to some degree,where they have a certain amount
of liquid well. Wealth thatpresents, within itself its own
challenge. And, you know, somepeople listening to this might
be a challenge I'd like to have,right, but you know, in
conversations with a couple oftheir chapter leaders, what,
(25:11):
what I've found is that, yeah,one of the big challenges they
face because of wealth is the isthe secession planning
component. Oh, yes, you know,giving your wealth to your
child. If you don't do it andyou have it, it can screw up the
relationship. And if you do doit and you have it, then it can
screw up the teenager or whoeveris about to have it, if you
don't construct it in the rightway. And there's very personal
(25:33):
things, even as a consultant,working with business leaders of
companies, when you come to thebusiness being passed the next
generation, yes, that they're,they're incredibly challenged by
and it's often not the structureas much as it is the emotional
implications of therelationships itself.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (25:49):
Everything you said, I concur with. I get to
work with business ownerssometimes. And you know, it's,
it's like having a baby thatyou're, you're thinking, how do
I, how do I pop past this babyto someone else, or or, and one
of the issue with businessowners that surprised me was
they often give absolutely nothought to this, and they say,
I'm just going to work forever.And the problem with that is, at
(26:12):
some point they're not going tobe able to work in that
business. Something hits themnow or because they pass on, and
they have to, you know, and alot of people haven't done very
good planning. And I thinkthat's another takeaway I had,
is I've been working with or onbehalf of older adults and their
families for about 40 years now.And I think one of my big
(26:32):
surprises is, or big takeawaysis, people don't do very good
life planning for that lastthird of their life. We do it
well for earlier than the lastthird. So that's one of my real
passions, is helping people dothat planning so they have
choice, control and independenceand have the best quality of
life possible. So that was ahuge thing when I started
working. You know, again,doesn't matter what income level
(26:54):
you're at. People often don'tthink about those things.
Adam Outland (26:58):
Yeah, being intentional with your life at
every stage.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (27:01):
Yes, at every stage. And we're, you know,
we've done a better job early,and then we sort of get people
say, Oh, I'm going to retire.And they sort of see that as one
long stage. But it's actuallymany chapters within that to
continue to have passion aboutyour life forever. In order to
do that, we have to be intentional.
Adam Outland (27:18):
Well, you've just made me decide to alter the
final question. I always endwith asking our guests to give
what advice they might give totheir 20 year old self. But I
mentioned a different question.Okay, what advice would you like
your 100 year old self to beable to tell you now?
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (27:38):
Oh, I love that. That's a great question.
When I think about that, I thinkabout what I would hope because
I'm 62 so it's almost 40 yearsto continue to plan your life,
to continue to stay engaged andcontinue to make sure you have
purpose and connection for thenext 40 years, because that's
what's going to get you through.
Adam Outland (27:59):
Well said. Thank you so much for giving us your
time, Dr. Amy.
Dr. Amy D'Aprix (28:03):
I appreciate it. Thank you.
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