Stop Waiting for Your Turn to Talk with Jack Sharry, SEI LifeYield

Are you listening to understand, or just listening to respond?

In this episode of Don't Do That, Kelly Waltrich is joined by Jack Sharry, who shares his journey from LifeYield to Managing Director at SEI following their December acquisition. Jack discusses his excitement about building the industry's first full Unified Managed Household (UMH) platform, reveals the philosophy behind his book on authentic and ethical persuasion, and explains why truly listening is one of the most powerful skills anyone can develop.

Kelly and Jack discuss:

01:20 Jack's journey from corporate life to entrepreneurship with LifeYield
03:25 The December 2024 acquisition of LifeYield by SEI
05:41 Jack's passion for teaching and making a difference beyond business
10:52 The power of UMH (Unified Managed Household) to improve financial outcomes by a third
13:18 Jack's personal experience with financial planning and what matters most
14:23 What made the SEI acquisition work well - a thoughtful, disciplined approach
18:26 Jack's "Don't Do That" - stop waiting for your turn to talk and start truly listening
19:21 The "Trust Triangle" concept: authenticity, empathy, and narrative
26:04 The challenge of slowing down to focus in a busy world
31:19 Jack's four-point approach to meaningful conversations: location, vocation, relation, and recreation
32:16 How Jack learned to listen better - a homework assignment that changed his approach

Resources

• Know The Score: An Independent Validation Of SEI LifeYield By E&Y

Connect with Kelly Waltrich: 

• LinkedIn: Kelly Waltrich
• LinkedIn: Intention.ly
• X: Intention.ly
• Instagram: Intention.ly

Connect with Jack Sharry

• LinkedIn: Jack Sharry
• Website: SEI
• Wealthtech On Deck

About Our Guest:

In Jack’s distinguished financial services career, he has been a fierce advocate for innovations in product development, technology, marketing and financial advice to lift clients' interests and retirement security and enable advisors and firms to maximize organic growth.

Jack hosts a highly popular B2B podcast, WealthTech on Deck, where he explores the confluence of digital and human advice with industry leaders. He writes frequently for Financial Advisor magazine on industry trends. And his book, “Authentic and Ethical Pers

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💬 Let’s Talk!
Have questions or ready to start your next marketing campaign? Contact us:

(00:02):
on the fundamental importance oflistening and how most people
don't do that. So instead oflistening, what most people do
is impatiently wait for theirturn to talk, or, more often
interrupt,anxious to share their next
brilliant thought. So my don'tdo that is, don't do that. Stop
waiting for your turn to talk.

(00:23):
Listen. So as I'm a big fan ofDavid Brooks, who's a New York
Times columnist, and he wrote arecent book called How to know a
person, the art of seeing othersdeeply and deeply being seen and
being deeply seen.
So as he describes it, you wantto listen so hard you burn
calories, you lose weight.

Kelly Waltrich (00:46):
Hi Hi everyone, and welcome to the
Don't Do That Podcast. I am yourhost, Kelly Waltrich, and I am
here today with Jack Sharry.
Most of you probably know Jackfrom his many, many, many years
at LifeYield, but today we'regoing to talk about the next
iteration of Jack, what he'sdoing today and what you can
expect from him over the nextcouple of years. So welcome

(01:06):
Jack.

Jack Sharry (01:07):
It's great to be here. Good to spend this time
with you, Kelly.

Kelly Waltrich (01:09):
Yeah, I always love spending time with you. So
tell our listeners a little bitabout your journey over the last
maybe 12 months and what it'slooking like into the future.
I'm

Jack Sharry (01:20):
Well, I'm going to go back to when I left
corporate, corporate,corporate-landia, which was
about 16 years ago I was, hadspent most of my career at asset
managers, insurance companies,wealth managers and all that
kind of stuff. I won't bore youwith all that, but joined
LifeYield in 2008many people know, if they follow

(02:03):
me on LinkedIn at all, becausewe do a regular podcast on our
end, and then. So that wasalways the idea. When I
originally joined. The idea wasthat we would sell life field in
the next three to five years.
Well, 16 years later, December10, we were acquired by SEI
LifeYield in what is now calledSEI LifeYield at the time, which

(02:23):
is SEI buying LifeYield.
They were a client for the pastsix years, so we knew them and
got to know them over the yearprior to the acquisition. And in
doing that, we really got toknow them well. They got to know
us well. And we started buildingstuff, frankly, ahead of the
announcement, started, you know,planning and plotting and what

(02:44):
we're going to do and how we'regoing to do it together and get
to know folks. And I have to saywe it's about four months in
now, as we do this podcast inlate March. And couldn't be more
thrilled. I was just on a callwith the person, the senior
person in our world, MichaelLane, and just talking about,
then you and I were justchatting about this prior to

(03:05):
getting on, Kelly, I woke up atfour this morning because I was
too excited. I couldn't wait toget up, so I just got up. And so
we're very excited to be here.
We're doing all sorts of amazingthings. We'll probably talk a
little bit about that. But whatI do in addition to that, and
you sort of alluded to it, andwe'll probably spend more time
on this is I've written a bookon that. It's entitled,

(03:25):
authentic and ethicalpersuasion. I teach that at
Babson College. Have done so forthe past 10 years. We'll talk,
we'll get into it, but it's allabout listening. And so I'm in
the unusual spot of doing a lotof talking here, which I get a
little uncomfortable with, andit's like, shut up. But in any
event, I'm sure we'll have arobust conversation, as we do

(03:47):
when we get together from timeto time on Zoom or the phone or
teams or whatever.

Kelly Waltrich (03:54):
Yeah, all right, so I was going to ask you that I
see a spark in you over the lastcouple calls that we've had and
you like you said, you told me,before we got on this call, that
you woke up at four thismorning. So excited. So what is
it like? What is the change?
What is what is causing that?

Jack Sharry (04:10):
So I probably the best way to say it is, I'm a
real student of our business. Istarted off not knowing much of
if, of anything. Early, early,early on, I started as a
wholesaler, way, way back. I'vebeen around this business over
40 years, so I got some I gotsome longevity going, and over
that time, I've always beenpassionate about doing more and

(04:31):
better business as a wholesaler.
That was my statement toadvisors, I will help you do
more and better business. That'smore business and a better
quality of business. Andimplied, and I would always say
it a better quality of life,that that was my commitment. So
I'm very mission driven, as Ijoke with friends. I'm just glad
that this industry pays well andbut I like to make a difference.

(04:51):
I like to really contribute. Soit's really been the driver, and
that's why I teach at Babson.
I'm thePresident of a not for profit
board outside of Boston calledHale Education. And we've we
raised thirty-eight and a halfmillion dollars over the past
five years under my leadership.

(05:11):
So I'm like a non-stop missionmachine about making life
better, and then specific towhat's going on today with sei
life field is where thereception to our our coming
together has been phenomenal. Sovery excited about that. And so
everywhere I turn Life is good.
Yeah, that's awesome. I feellike, you know this is so

(05:33):
cheesy, but I really love what Ido too. Yes, I know,

Kelly Waltrich (05:41):
Yes, and I feel like no matter how hard the day
before was, I always try tostart the day like super jazz to
get going again. And I thinksometimes that probably makes my
team a little crazy, becausethat's just the way. But I am
really excited to hear you saythat, because I feel like life
is short and we gotta, we gotta,we gotta love what we do. We

(06:02):
gotta love the people that we doit with, and we gotta be excited
about what we're working on.

Jack Sharry (06:06):
So I have to interject here. I'm a super fan
of you, because not only are youdoing really incredibly powerful
work, in my estimation, becauseI watch Intention.ly closely,
believe it or not, I do payclose attention what you guys
are up to.
But the other aspect of all thatis that you have with two kids,

(06:27):
three kids, 100 kids. What doyou

Kelly Waltrich (06:28):
got? Feels like 100. I have two toddlers. I have
a just turned three year old anda five year old. Yeah,

Jack Sharry (06:33):
so check that out.
Audience of in this podcast, Iguess we I shouldn't say don't
do that. It's too late, but goodfor you to do all the good work
you're doing in your day job,and then the rest of the
many hours in a day that youtake care of two little guys.

(06:54):
Whatever you got. What do yougot? Boy and a girl, boy and a
girl?

Kelly Waltrich (06:57):
Yeah, we have an Intention.ly mom's channel on
Slack Jack at Intention.ly, andwe, We so we're we watched the

(07:20):
acquisition, and you are superexcited about everything that's
happening. Are you allowed totell us, like, are you allowed
to talk about exactly whatyou're working on, what is the
market going to see? How arethey going to benefit who can
get access to what you'rebuilding? Give us a little bit
of a glimpse into that.
that.

Jack Sharry (07:37):
So yesterday, funfire ran a story which was
sort of our coming up party. Soeverything I'm going to share is
public, and I believe there'sany constraint, but this will go
through compliance at SEIgladly, so so we'll
see if it gets through. But Idon't think anything I'm about
to say would be problematic, butin any event, so it was a story

(07:59):
in funfire about will be thefirst out with a full, full
blown umh unified managedhousehold, a lot of pretenders,
a lot of people kind of talkingaround it or near it or kind of
little bit maybe. But what weare building, we already have
the wherewithal to do it, givenwhat LifeYield could do via API.
Sorry for the technical term,but we can do that now. We do a

(08:22):
good chunk of it for one of thelargest global asset and wealth
managers in the world. I don'tthink I'm supposed to say their
name out loud anymore, but inany event, but one of the big
ones that anyone who follows meat all knows the name. But the
bottom line is thatby the end of the year, we'll

(08:49):
have a full-blown UMH, well,that's underway and and exciting
all by itself, just because it'scoming. And just got off a call
just before this call, workingwith one of our large clients
around what we're building, andwe have many that are sort of in
the queue around this is that aswe're, as we're going forward,
we're, we're talking withliterally every firm. We've

(09:13):
reached out to every firm youcan name, and we've, we're
having robust conversations withmost about how they can play,
and that's wealth managers,asset managers, insurance and
annuity companies, fintechs,custodians. So in other words,
we can work with anyone andeveryone, because our ultimate
aim is to shift from vendor topartner and from

(09:59):
Of that aim much more to come.
But ultimately, when we connectall the dots, and that there's
no small undertaking, right,we'll be able to improve
outcomes, as EY did a study onour methodology a few years
back, many years back, and weimprove outcomes by a third for
a million dollar household, soby a third. So I don't think
that one's going to get throughcompliance, but the point of

(10:21):
that is we improve outcomessignificantly by minimizing
taxes by asset location, what wecall tax alpha. That includes
asset location and tax smarttransitions and household level
rebalancing and incomegeneration across multiple
accounts, all mindful of taxesand how to minimize those so

(10:43):
that's what we're building.
That's what's underway. That'swhy I woke up at four this
morning, because I just couldn'twait for the sun to rise and I
had to get going.

Kelly Waltrich (10:52):
I love that for you.
Okay, so a third, I know youwere gonna have to delete that
everywhere. Your compliance teamis gonna but I am. I am a never
enamored by that as a marketerwho has every company under the
sun come to me and tell me theycreate efficiency, scale and
growth. I'm like, do youbut you really are. And that's,

(11:14):
that's an amazing I mean.

Jack Sharry (11:18):
Yeah, this what's fun about is it's legit. It's
real. It's impactful for anyone,anyone that has two accounts,
yeah, we have, it's designed toimprove outcome, because we're
just avoiding unnecessary taxes,just because people don't think
about that going in and then,over time, buy this and buy
that, and just really no frankrhyme or reason to what they

(11:40):
buy. And I'm a good example.
Just this an example. I my wifeand I are in the midst of tail
end of a financial planningprocess ourselves, and we shift
it to a particular firm that hasall the tools. Not surprisingly,
they're all tools that ourcompany has developed, and we
have put together our own Umh,because that firm is not fully

(12:00):
connected. No firm is right now,that's that's where we're going.
And worked with a great team.
They just did a terrific job interms of understanding our
issues. And something that I'mespecially excited about is that
in the process, the financialplanning process, which I've
always been a proponent of, butvery different when it's your

(12:21):
own situation. And so as aproponent, my wife and I had to
prioritize, and the first thingis, so what's most important to
us as we we're not going toretire immediately or in the
next couple of years, probablytwo, three years out, four years
out, who knows. But the wholeidea is that as we go forward,

(12:41):
what's important to us. And nosurprise, what's important to us
is our four sons, they'rethey're partners and spouses,
and our three grandchildren, andwe have a pretty good hunch that
there's going to be some more.
So that's what matters, and allthe rest of the mechanical stuff
we're doing around minimizingtaxes and all that stuff that we
talk about ad nauseam in ourworld, it's not ad nauseam,

(13:04):
really, but it's this, what youknow, the mechanics of it all.
But for us and everything, allof our decision making is starts
with what's most important tous, which came out of this
planning process, and now we'regoing about then managing the
money, consolidating the assets,all that kind of stuff, to get a
better outcome for our childrenand our grandchildren and who's

(13:24):
ever next?
I love that. Okay, so we'regonna get into your don't do
that here in a second, but Ihave one more question before we
do Sure. Sure

Kelly Waltrich (13:39):
really focused on how M&A is happening in our
space. I feel like,I feel like I've been through
good and ugly and and I'm suresort of, sort of good and okay
and everything in between. AndI, I think there's a right way
and a wrong way to do it. Yeah,there just is. There are leaders
that get it and understand theimportance of bringing firms

(14:00):
together well with strongcommunication and strong
integration and strong culturalalignment. And then there are
some that are doing M&A for thesake of M&A, you seem to have
nailed it with this comingtogether with sei if you're
getting up at four in themorning and so excited and
you're building before thedocuments are signed. So give me
a sense of like, what's yourwhat's your secret?

Jack Sharry (14:23):
Well, it's, it's not my secret, really. It's
really a collective secret, notso secret I'll share with you.
So the little history on SEI andI know you have familiarity
because you're in theneighborhood, so to speak, and
your husband used to work there,all that stuff. So you have a
familiarity beyond most. So I'llgive you the story as I tell it.

(14:45):
SEI was founded 54 years ago,started as a back office
operator for banks, and overtime, built out additional
capabilities, includingtechnology and asset management
and added advisors, and thenRIAs and did a TAMP and then a
lot of.
An alts platform called SEIAccess. The prior company they

(15:07):
the company they purchased, wascalled Altco, and that's now
converted to SEI Access. They dothe back they're the largest
private credit back officeoperator in the industry. So and
I, by the way, I learned stufflike this every single day,
often from our clients. I wasjust on the phone with a senior
person that the big firm Imentioned, and didn't say their

(15:28):
name, and he was the one thattold me that 80,000 of their
clients have their alternativeinvestments processed through
sei who knew I found out fromhim, because I've been learning
so much, I'm just gettingbombarded with information. So
yeah, so basically, as all thathas come come together,

(15:51):
it really is, is that SEI, overtime, built itself out and very
it's a very in my observation,very thoughtful, very smart,
very deliberate, verydisciplined, so you don't
there's no surprises. It's avery thoughtful process that
I've observed, that weexperienced,

(16:21):
by the time we got there, we weknew this was going to this was
a lifetime commitment to put itin the social context and and
that we were a great match, andI did not know that going in so
unlike I watch the news like youand see who's doing what around
M&A and so forth, and I thinkI've seen more,

(17:21):
I've been in past lives. I'vebeen involved with M&A. They're
not always pretty and they'renot always fun, and they don't
always work. So I know what thatlooks like. But this one, this
one, really, I could not imaginehow it could have gone better.
That's amazing. And you are veryhumble, because I'm sure it was
a lot of them being thoughtful.
And I think that you in the wayyou communicate, in the way that
you listen to people andintegrate yourself and learn

(17:42):
about I'm sure that played avery large role in why it's
going well as well, probably alittle bit. But more
importantly, frankly, one ofthe, one of the assets that
frankly, doesn't have any realvalue, other than it really is a
powerful tool, is our thispodcast, I do you've been on on
that podcast, Tina has been on.

(18:02):
We have a recording underwaywith Randy Lambert, so, but that
that has become a powerful tooland a central part of our
marketing, so we'll probablytalk about that a little bit
too. Yeah.

Kelly Waltrich (18:14):
All right, Jack, so let's get to it. You know
that the premise of this podcastis that we learn more from our
mistakes and our wins. So whatdo we what are we telling our
audience not to do today?

Jack Sharry (18:26):
So let me frame this up if I could, so most
people don't listen. In fact, Iwrote a book on the fundamental
importance of listening and howmost people don't do that. So
instead of listening, what mostpeople do is impatiently wait
for their turn to talk, or, moreoften interrupt, anxious to
share their next brilliantthought. So my don't do that is,

(18:48):
don't do that. Stop waiting foryour turn to talk. Listen. So as
I'm a big fan of David Brooks,who's a New York Times
columnist, I've read his books.
He's a sort of a sociologist andresidents for the times, and he
wrote a recent book called Howto know a person, the art of
seeing others deeply and deeplybeing seen and being deeply

(19:08):
seen. So as he describes it, youwant to listen so hard. You burn
calories, you lose weight.
That's how hard he'srecommending you listen. So what
I've done going back to 2019during COVID, looking for
something to do. As I wrote abook on this, something I

(19:30):
studied going back to 1983 so Iwas wet behind the years that my
first time in a professionalsales role, and I got connected
to this course. It was held atthe New York Hilton under a
crystal chandelier, as thoseare. And it was a gentleman by

(19:50):
the name of Dr Fernando Flores,who has a fascinating story I'll
get to in a moment. But hetaught the course, brilliant,
brilliant course. And. Thatchanged my life. And basically
what he taught was people, andit's comes from Martin
Heidegger, the philosopher,early 20th century philosopher,
the what flat, what Heideggersaid is that people are always

(20:14):
already committed. Who we are iscommitment. That's the human
species. Is all that. And thereare no other species that that
do that, that that are committedin that way. And an example he
gave back then was a dog can'tbe late. Do you happen to own a

(20:34):
dog? Kelly, by chance I do. Ihave two, two pugs, and I'm
guessing you've not yelled atyour dog for being late. No,
never, no, no, never, good,good. Okay. I have had people
try to argue with me. They have,but it's all another matter in
any event. So what Flores wassaying is that we, we humans are
We are human. Our humanness isabout commitment. That's who we

(20:56):
are. What's all about Heideggeralso said something else, all
this I learned from him. I'vetried to read Heidegger, and I
don't know what the heck he'stalking about. So these are all
the translations from 40 plusyears ago when I took this
class. Is that when we're heard,when people hear us, and all
that we're committed to, andI'll give you an example, your

(21:17):
commitment is to your business,to your family, to your two
kids, your husband, to yourpartners. I watch how you guys
communicate as a as a team, allin the public square, all
online. You guys are very publicabout, I love that, very honest,
authentic, so I know who you areas as a commitment. That's,
that's that commitment I'mtalking about. It's, it's how

(21:39):
you show up. It's how you be.
It's what you do. That whenpeople talk about Kelly, they
said, I can trust her. This iswhat, by the way, fundamentally,
what this listening thing isabout, the kind of listening I'm
describing is listening so hardand so well that I really get
you now, Heidi recalls that wecome into existence. We human
beings come into existence whenwe're heard. So when you think

(22:02):
about that, if somebody hearsme, and you've had this
experience, you and I have thisexperience when we talk, I hear
you, you hear me. We want tofinish each other's sentences.
We just we have that kind ofsimpatico And and frankly, and
we'll This will bring it backdown to earth. I spent the past
43 years working at the craft,the practice, the exercise, the

(22:25):
discipline of listening,listening in a very deep way.
Brooks calls it a moral posture.
I'm listening so hard thatyou're gonna, you're gonna what
ends up happening, by the way,you're going to tell me more
stuff about yourself than youprobably should or could, and
I'm going to never abuse that.
But what ends up happening is,and I'm going to refer to

(22:48):
another favorite author of mine,and
that is Frances Fray. She is aHarvard Business School
professor. I don't think I'vetalked to you about her. You're
familiar with her. Listeners.
Check her out. She's got apodcast, she's got books, she's
got a TED Talk. Start with a TEDTalk. It's 20 minutes of of
glory. But she's a HarvardBusiness School professor. Has

(23:08):
done work with Uber and WeWorkand so on, trying to help them
do things. And one of the thingsshe talks about, she calls it
the trust triangle. And thethree prongs of it, if you can
visualize it. Actually made apresentation on this at the last
MMI meeting a while back. At thetop is authenticity, that where

(23:28):
you want to come from is beingauthentic, by the way. This is
my adaptation. She didn't sayall this stuff, but it's the
basis for what, how I'veI've talked too long, I'll stop

(25:00):
here.

Kelly Waltrich (25:01):
No, that's good.
Oh my gosh, there's so many goodnuggets there, and I'm signing
up for anything that's I'm gonnaburn calories for sure.

(25:42):
and we talk a lot about itIntention.ly, like, if you're in
a meeting, you need to be in themeeting. Your other stuff needs
to be off. You need to be payingattention. The person on the
other line needs to feel likeyou're engaged. To like, how
help? Help, how? I mean, yeah,how do you do it? Because I know
for me, I It's a strugglesometimes, yeah, for every one

(26:02):
of us so.

Jack Sharry (26:04):
So I've been teaching at Babson for the past
10 years, and the book came outhalfway through, I think, well,
2019 So,and a lot of it was stuff I was
saying I used to train, and whenI was way, way back, I was head
of insurance and annuity salesat Dean Witter. It's now part of
Morgan Stanley. And so I used toteach the training. I used to
teach this we I called it backthen, "The Elements of

(26:27):
{ersuasion." And I taught allthe trainees. This is back when
they were doing 100 trainees amonth, you know, every year for
many years. This was in the late80s and and I was, I would teach
this about listening. And sopersonally, what, what's worked
for me throughout my career,whether it was the the want to
be financial advisors, many ofwhom are still friends, to

(26:50):
working with the Babson studentsI work with, both the undergrad
and MBA students.

(27:58):
these are the basic questions Ilearned from a financial advisor
in Britain, Florida, probably 25years ago. He learned it at a
dude ranch. It's location,vocation, relation, recreation.
So where are you from? Soanytime I meet someone, I ask
where they're from, for no otherreason to see if there's maybe
some off chance that we have aconnection. That's all I'm

(28:20):
looking for. Connection, that'swhat I'm really looking for. And
then we talk about that, no, oryou're from, you're from the
King of Prussia area, you know,tell me about that. And and then
so location, then vocation, whatkind of work you do. I know all
about Intention.ly. I do myhomework before I talk to
clients. I find out what theyhow they show up in LinkedIn,

(28:43):
and all the rest of that stuff.
Okay, so location, vocation,relation, tell me about your
family. I know you got two kids.
You got a husband, you he usedto work at SEI. I don't know all
that stuff.

(30:49):
So I've done everything I can tohelp her do that. I've referred
her to people. You know, there'sall sorts of ways that I do that
I'm looking to advance thediscourse. I'm looking for to
achieve a better outcome in herlife, and and guess what? I can
call her up and say we're goingto be in Minneapolis. Oops,
probably shouldn't say thateither, but we're going to be in

(31:09):
the Midwest, and we'd love tomeet with you, and we have a
meeting, and now another week ortwo, I'm going to write to her
and tell her what we're meetingabout.

Kelly Waltrich (31:19):
That's a level of trust for sure. So Jack, do
you feel likethe ability to listen, the way
that you're telling us tolisten, comes with building your
own confidence? Because, let mejust tell you, what's going
through my head is sure I feellike there's, you know, when I
think of my own career, therewas definitely a period of years

(31:43):
where I thought I had to saysomething smart for people to
know I was smart, right? And nowI am much more confident in in
so listening feels easier to nothave to be the one talking all
the time, and I want and Iwatch, sort of, maybe my more up
and coming peers, sort of goingthrough that same Sure, sure

(32:07):
process. Do you feel likeconfidence very much plays a
role in your ability to listenbetter?

Jack Sharry (32:16):
You know, it goes both ways. I'm not sure it's a
chicken or egg thing. I didn'tstart way back when as a
wholesaler, as a very confidentperson, in fact, a story I'll
share when I when I was afterthe sales course, I went out
into the field, and I was, I wasa wholesaler of annuities, and I

(32:36):
didn't know how to spellannuity. I didn't understand it.
And I was out, and I had my bossriding shotgun, as we used to
say, with me. And I'm talking,we went to a back then it was
pain. Weber paint. Weber officein in in Hartford, Connecticut.
My boss is watching me, and I'mand I'm talking, my fool head
off. I had about 20 brochures,had 20 conversations, and I'm

(32:59):
thinking, because I gotta. Ilearned the pitch, I learned the
story, I learned the, you know,the product. And I thought to
myself, I'm brilliant. This ishe's gonna just love this. So we
go to lunch and we sit down. Hesays, So what learned today? And
after scrambling around, Ifinally said, I can't think of
anything. He says, Well, you'reexactly right. You didn't learn

(33:21):
anything because you didn't askany question. Ask any questions.
Are you going to learn anythingunless you ask questions? So he
gave me a homework assignment.
And for those dear listeners, ifyou're willing, and I recommend
you do this, my job was to gohome that night and not make a
declarative SET statement forthe first hour with my wife, and
to do that five the followingfive nights, and the exercise

(33:41):
was to listen and ask questions.
So to continue the story, I gethome, kiss my wife, hello, ask
her, How was her day? So shestarts to tell me. Now, one of
the things you'll notice, thoseof you who suffer from this
wanting to interrupt and talkall the time. I kept thinking

(34:03):
about all the brilliant thingsthat I wanted to share, and that
what she was saying was of lessinterest to me, but I really had
to listen, because I didn't knowwhat the next question would be
unless I paid attention thatwhich is certainly part of the
whole big part of the exercise.
So about five minutes into it,my wife says, So tell me. Why
are you asking me so manyquestions? And I had to think
fast. I said, Why do you askbecause my job was to ask

(34:27):
questions. I came up with aquick one, and she's no no,
what's going on here? So I hadto admit, my boss said I was a
lousy listener. She agreed. Iwas crestfallen. But what it did
is it just taught me, and Irecommend you do this with
spouse, partner, friend,colleague is, is it's a
practice. It's something youwork at, and I've worked at it

(34:48):
for literally 43 years. Youknow, this is something I think
about every day. And to yourconfidence question, I had
little to no confidence to startright? I talked so much. Yeah, I
at least knew the pitch. I knewwhat to say, but I didn't have
to interact. And then over time,I just kept getting better and
better at it, frankly, because Ikept working at lots of

(35:09):
mistakes, lots of dumb things Idid, all that kind of stuff
occurred too. It's that's partof the trial and error of
learning about life. And now,now where I find myself at the
tail end of my career, I'm I'venever been more confident, more
assured, and, you know, I gotnothing to prove and and
frankly, that's why I spend asmuch time as I do sharing this

(35:30):
with, especially with youngerfolks. I do a lot of mentoring
around the industry, around allthis.

Kelly Waltrich (35:37):
So funny. I go home every day and I ask my
kids, what did they learn today?
As just like a normal thingparents do, sure, sure, but
you're right. We should do alittle gut check and do that to
ourselves as well, because it'sso easy to move through your
days and and not be aware. Oh,I'm having a self reflection
moment here. Jack, yeah, I

Jack Sharry (35:57):
get it, but this good point, so here I am
pontificating about listening.
And if my wife were on the callwith me, she would say, Yeah,
but it's not quite the same athome here. You know, it's, she's
been known to say thatfrequently as I'm pontificating
about listening, yeah. And it'sjust, it's our habit, it's Hager
calls it being thrown. We'rethrown like dice. You know,

(36:20):
that's just how it's you know,that's what comes up, is we? We,
we have a lot to say. We want tosay it. And and, frankly, the
degree to which you can justreally listen, get people
understand what they're tryingto achieve, help them get there.
That's the other part. Is, whatcan you do to contribute to
advancing the discourse,all that's important amazing.

Kelly Waltrich (36:43):
Amazing. All right, for everyone listening,
what we're not doing today iswaiting for our turn to say the
next bright thing we have in ourhead. We are
we are taking the time to listenso hard that we burn calories.
And I will never forget thatJack, just so you know, and I
have loved every second of thisconversation with you. I feel

(37:04):
like we could talk forever.
Guys, Jack mentioned a lot ofresources his book, some other
books that he has written, Ithink you mentioned a white
paper. So to the extent you'lllet me Jack, we'll link all
those resources along with therecording of this podcast, so
that you can access everythingthat he talked about, and we can
all practice our listening. AndI'll let Jack report back on if

(37:26):
I'm getting any better at thisover time

Jack Sharry (37:29):
You are already better. One more thing for our
audience, if you do the homeworkassignment, I would love a no.
You can just connect with me onLinkedIn.
And would love to hear becauseI've written a book on it, but
I'm going to write the nextversion of the book, which
includes a lot of things thatI've learned since writing the
book, and a lot of which I'veshared here. So So I'm starting

(37:55):
to collect stories around peoplethat that listened and how that
how that went.

Kelly Waltrich (37:59):
Awesome. All right, drop Jack a line. Connect
with them on LinkedIn, and dropthem a line about what you
learned about your spouse, maybethat you didn't know happened
that day. I'm gonna have to gohome and do that, because, you
know, Steve Walter listens tothis, and he's gonna give me a
hard time. WhenI get home, I ask our kids what
they how their day went. I don'tknow how often I ask him, so I
will do better at that as well.

(38:20):
All right, Jack, this was great.
Thank you so much for your time.
And like I said, Guys, you can,we'll make it so that you can
access all the things that thatJack mentioned during this
podcast, on the way, on theDon't Do That website.
Great, great talk to you, Kelly.
It's been a lot of fun. I reallyenjoyed it. Thank you so much.
Thanks so much for tuning in. Ifyou enjoyed today's show,
subscribe to be notified whennew episodes become available,

(38:41):
and please consider giving us afive star review on Apple or
Spotify. This podcast issponsored by Intention.ly, a
financial services growthengine, design consultancy and
agency. If you want to learnmore, please email me at Kelly,
at grow intentionally.com,

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thank you again for listening and check back to hear
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