EP 40 | Travis Parry on the “Make Time Method” to Balance Work & Life

David DeCelle  6:53  

It's funny, one of our clients, I'll call him out on the show, Eric Nelson, that I've been working with for a while now; I did something similar with him, where I had him track his time in 15 minute increments and talk about, you know, pain in the butt. So he wasn't too happy with me when I assigned that to him, but he was a good sport and actually followed through. And I think this happens with most people that go through this exercise; they realize, oh, wow, there's two or three hours in the day that are just wasted on other things that could be spent with family, it could, that's where you can work out. So I agree with the time tracker. Pat, over to you. So in someone who—and I know that you're a little bit of a psycho in terms of like working and whatnot. So for the audience, just know that. But when it comes to running two companies, and think about some of the folks who are listening here, maybe they're involved in more than just their financial planning practice, or involved in their family, which is a business in and of itself, in terms of needing to invest time in that. How are you organizing your time to make sure that you're staying organized, you're following through? And quite frankly, you're not drained at the end of the day and maintaining energy levels?

 

Patrick Brewer  8:06  

Yeah, it's a great question. I think part of it is the exact thing that just happened right there on this podcast. I used to run the podcast, and we have found a host who is better and more energetically inclined to continue to show. And I think it's really about delegation, effective delegation. And, as Travis said, clarifying the things that you actually value. We actually talk about this, David, the process that we created inside of our coaching program called Advisor DNA. Over the years, what I've found is that we ask a lot of financial advisors, we ask them to be experts at financial planning, we ask them to do business development, we ask them to understand marketing, to lead, to improve their team dynamics, to set up different incentive and accountability systems for their staff. All these different things that pull from different types, or different parts of your brain and your skill set. And I feel like as an industry, we just really expect a lot from a financial professional, to be successful in their business for themselves, their family, and their clients. And what I realized over the years is that I'm energetically inclined to work on very few things. I feel like I have two to four productive, creative hours in a day. And if I miss that window, then I'm always feeling like I'm playing catch up. So what I've tried to do over the past, I would say 12 or so months, is identify potential in people where we can get them energetically placed inside of the business somewhere where they feel excited to continue to do the work that they're doing, and to expand their role inside of the organization so that I can step back and do things that interests me. Strategy, leadership, figuring out different products and services and things that we can offer to improve advisors’ and consumers' experience with our industry. So I think there's no magic bullet, and before we even started the podcast, one of the things I said was I've got three more calls after today's podcast. And right now it's, what, three o'clock on a Friday? So there's no solution that I think is right out of the box gonna work for everybody. And the way I guess I’ve evolved as an entrepreneur is, initially, you go into that rise and grind mode where you're just hustling. So you've got that hustle period, where you're just borrowing from your future energy stores, you're literally just depleting your future energy at the expense of doing the things that you want to do today; and you reach a point where you're not really able to do that effectively anymore, and you actually start to burn out. So what I found is you need to acknowledge that as an advisor, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you will go out of balance. And Travis may challenge me here and this might be a good point of discussion, but I believe you will go out of balance, and that's okay. But you need to make sure that you have a system and a process and some form of values alignment, so that you will pull yourself back into equilibrium intentionally at some point, but I feel like there's certain things in the business that do require a significant amount of creative energy and time and intention. And it will pull you away from just having that, you know, four hours a day, life on the beach, kick up your feet, run the 100 million dollar practice. Now, you can get there, but I feel like most advisors want more once they've reached that point. And I feel like if they stop evolving, and they just kick their feet up, they get bored. So I think the key is that you need to recognize that you can go out of balance, and that's okay, but you need some type of system to pull you back into alignment. And Travis, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that. As far as kind of like, what is balanced? How do we think about these things? And like, am I crazy with the way that I've kind of come to this realization? Or would you say I'm in somewhat of the same camp as you as it relates to this stuff?

 

Dr. Travis Parry  11:51  

Really well spoken. It's interesting, because I'm holding my book in my hand looking at it going, did I name this book right? I thought about calling it The Myth of Balance, okay. Because then I think the 1980s version of balance is not what we're dealing with today. That is the old notion of somehow being able to have perfect time allotment for each area of our life, and yada yada. So and I get you—on the cover of the book, I've got this back and forth between work and life with this equilibrium being the time, and a clock that is the fulcrum. And I think it's not in balance, it's out of balance. Because the old notion of being somehow perfect in every area is not accomplishable. And there is this, what I call the workaholic trap, just like you said; it's the beginning, as an advisor, you're in this hustle mode, and the more you hustle, the more you develop those skills to be really busy, busy, busy. You work nights, you work weekends, you work all weekend, and there's no break, and your family doesn't see you. But the firm says if you just do this for five years, in five years you'll be okay and you'll have this income that lasts forever, and it'll quadruple every year. And so I think advisors get stuck in that mentality, if I can just do this for five years. Well, I was in my fourth year in a firm, I started at Northwestern. I interviewed a veteran financial advisor who was still in the hustle. And I said, that is not for me, this is not what I want. This is a farce, this is not what's going to happen. I think it's because we develop those skills early on, we stick with it. And then we fill our time, instead of trying to build the business. It's well, now I've got to manage my clients; and I got to do more marketing in the community; and I've got to do more nonprofit; and I've got to be on the board. And you know what I mean? We start to fill our time with those things. We justify it all along the way, instead of saying, nope, from the very beginning, I'm not going to build my practice. As an advisor, I made that choice. And it came after my father passed away very suddenly; he was 49, I was 26. And I was like, man, if I only live till 50, what am I doing with my time, if time is my only asset? And I decided, nope, I’m not working nights. I'm not working most Fridays. This is an exception with us, you called, this Friday is an exception. But I was also up at 5:40 this morning—I was up at five o'clock on Fox News this Morning for an interview. So you know sometimes—

 

Patrick Brewer  14:37  

Showing off over here with your Fox News.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  14:39  

Not at all! It's a local Fox News. This is not national Fox News Money or anything, so don't be searching. But you know, sometimes we make an exception for things and that's the balance, Patrick. That's exactly what the balance is. It's going back and forth; it's fluctuating. But to believe that we're somehow trying to create this middle equilibrium forever, I think that is where the old notion of balance goes out the window. And the ideal is to create an ideal calendar that you are happy with, that you are living, and that 80%, 90% of the time you're hitting. Because we all know life happens, emergencies show up, exceptions can be made. But the justification of making the exception every day; if I worked every Friday, my wife would be like, I thought you were taking Friday's off? I thought we were doing that. I can do that once a month, especially if I take a vacation the whole week before, like, that's an exception that can be made. But we need to be the good stewards of that time, so that we can keep a balance.

 

David DeCelle  15:42  

I really like what you said about an ideal calendar. And then Pat, I'm going to go back to you, back to something that you said about delegation and finding where other people derive energy because there’s a book recommendation that I want to make. But while we're on the ideal calendar, one thing that's been super helpful for me is little things to put in the calendar so that you build it around. So typically, and again, you got to be good with this 80 to 90% of the time, because life happens, or there's a meeting that you're okay with making an exception for, but making sure that things from—like I have when I'm going to journal in the morning and in the evening, when I'm going to go to the gym, when I'm going to advance relationships, when I'm going to do business development, when I'm going to listen to an audio book, when I'm going to have dinner, if I'm going to walk or run that day, when I'm going to plan out my following day, meditate, etc. And then I typically have meetings between 10:00 and 4:00, and all the things I mentioned are before or after that. They're literally in my calendar so that I have to make the conscious decision to overbook that. And because we're not used to overbooking things, it would be easier to fill in a blank space in your calendar. So just set up those meetings with yourself, like secure your mask before helping others like they say when you go on an airplane, and just have those as recurring events into the future. That's been something that's been super helpful for me, because if I can spend—I mean I’m a little bit of a psycho too, waking up at four or 430 in the morning, so if I—

 

Patrick Brewer  17:05  

A little bit of a psycho?

 

David DeCelle  17:07  

A lot of a bit of a psycho? But you know waking up that early, and then not having any meetings until 10:00, I have five or six hours to do what I want to do. To move my health and fitness forward, to move my business forward to move, to move those things that are important to me forward, before then giving myself up to everyone else and being of service to them for the remainder of the day, or at least till four o'clock. Pat, one thing that you mentioned, I think over the last 12 to 18 months, you've really elevated this skill set, which is empowering other people in our company to go and do things that they're special at and relinquishing control. And this is going to lead into one of the questions that we received. But one book recommendation for folks who are struggling either with capacity or feeling drained and not having as much energy is by Dan Sullivan called Who Not How; that's an amazing, amazing book. So feel free to go check that out. And then in terms of one of the questions that was submitted by Andrew Rose, Andrew, thanks so much for taking the time to submit this question. So, Andrew's question is, how does a control freak learn to delegate more tasks and let the reins go, yet not lay awake at night worrying about the tasks and their accurate completions? And he went on to note that this was submitted by a self-admitted control freak.

 

Patrick Brewer  18:30  

I guess I'll take a crack at it first. I mean, obviously, Travis probably deals with this day to day with his consulting and everything related to achieving balance. I would say for me, specifically, I started out as probably a little bit more of a control freak. And over time, I think it was just a process of realizing that there are so many things that are outside of my control, and if I want to actually build anything of significance, the only way I can do that is to relinquish control in almost all areas. And then it started to dawn on me that I wasn't really good at that many things. I was  like a 12 out of 10 on maybe like three or four things; and when I started my business, I felt like I was at least a 10 out of 10 on probably most things. I was like, in operations I’m at least a nine. And then I brought on our COO and I'm like, I'm definitely a three now in operations.  You start to see people's ability to execute, their ability to organize systems and processes. And one of the things that really helped me, I know that there's zillions of personality tests out there, and you can look at Strengths Finder, you can look at Enneagram, you can look at the predictive index. The one that I really like, and it's probably, I would say it's one of the more commonly used one, is Myers-Briggs. And the reason why I like the Myers-Briggs tests, and I'm sure there's more that are like this, this one just intuitively works well for me, is it looks at how people derive energy from their environment. What do they actually like to do; not what are they good at, but what do they feel natural at doing. And once I realized that about myself and I could start to recognize that quickly in others, I could start to place people in positions inside of the company that allowed not only me to achieve a degree of leverage, but also for the company, our clients, our advisors, everyone who is working inside of the enterprise immediately just leveled up, and people became a lot more excited about what they do. So I think the key to relinquishing control is understanding that, regardless of how much you want to control the process, you'll never really be able to control everything. And you'll never be able to move beyond that. So if your goal is to build, and it could be a defense mechanism too, in my mind; if you want to control everything, you might just be scared about clients firing you or something like that. If you were to bring somebody else on, and then let's say the work product slipped slightly, maybe the real fear isn't that you don't have control, it's that you could be fired by a client or some other thing could happen. So I think it starts with a level of introspection around what is the real fear that is driving you to have to control everything, and then exploring that and seeing what the unmet need is there, and seeing if you can close the gap so that the control can become less of a driver. But I've definitely struggled with it. I think we all do as business owners and entrepreneurs as financial advisors, but I will kick it over to Travis. What are your thoughts on that as far as control and how to get out of your own way with running your business, managing your clients, and all the stuff we have to do as financial advisors?

 

Dr. Travis Parry  21:24  

I’ll reply with a question, Patrick, are you a psychologist? I mean, it was just, you nailed it. I'll add a few things here. That is, most people, if we look at the human motivation, we've all heard of Maslow and the hierarchy of needs. Well take that basic understanding of what motivates us, and really, at the bottom, it is the fear of losing our life. It is motivated by fear and fear is a base motivator. It does keep us from doing dumb things, and from calculating risk and staying alive and surviving as a species. Moving beyond that is relationships and how we interact with other people. And then what Maslow theorized in the 1950s, 40s is the self-actualization. Now, I'm going to get back to this later. But in the basic underlying psychological levels, we really a lot of times are motivated by fear. So if there's a fear factor in trying to control something, it's typically a fear of loss of something, losing something, which is typically a fear of failure, or it could be a fear of success. A fear of success is a little bit different, but it kind of is built on the same fear tree. And the fear of success says, well, if I do become successful, if I get there, what will people think of me? Will they think of me differently? Will there be greater problems? Advisors see this when they're dealing with people with large assets, and they're trying to avoid either A. losing it, and they're attached to it, so they're worried about it; or they're worried about other complications when it becomes too big—tax consequences and other things. But they also can see this with young clients who don't know what happens. They don't see that future. And so they may have a fear of failure because they entered the market at the wrong time and tried to time it when they were day trading, and they lost a bunch of money. So that control can come from a base of fear, but it kind of depends on what fear. Now, how do we fix this? I'm going to piggyback on what you said, Patrick, and kind of go a little bit deeper. I call this your sweet spot. When you identify what your sweet spot is, you know, sports fans out there, I played t-ball as a kid; hitting that metal bat with that ball in the wrong spot. I can still feel the ringing in my hands, maybe a little PTSD, right? 

 

Patrick Brewer  23:53  

When it’s cold outside in the northeast. 

 

Dr. Travis Parry  23:56  

Just bam! Yeah, well, I grew up in Southern California, it was never cold. But anyway. I'm not complaining. I’m just saying, I remember that ringing, and it hurts. But when you hit your sweet spot, and you get right there in the bat, like you’d barely swing, and you knocked it out of the park. And that's exactly what I try to help advisors do is figure out, what is your sweet spot? What are those three to five activities that if you could just do this every day, all week, you would be in heaven, and you'd be profitable. We're not talking about being lazy; we’re talking about being profitable and doing this. When I can get to that formula with them, ultimate clarity shows up, and then we can have a plan on this is now what we need to delegate; and we prioritize that plan so that eventually they can move from 75 hours of working a week to manageable 30 to 45. And that has been a huge difference, but you have to identify that fear first, and know what is it that is making you control and hang on and not delegate—I really think automate, delegate, or delete, because some things you have to  just let go. Some things you can delegate; some things it's fine to automate, and you don't need to hire someone to actually do and it does take a little bit of practice to know the difference.

 

David DeCelle  25:17  

I'm a big fan of automating the non-human components of your business. That way you can put more of your human effort into experience and things like that. I like the start of the process. So they get very granular for Andrew, who asked the question to start, from what I'm hearing from you two is identify the why. Why is this occurring? Or why is there angst? I think step two, quite frankly, is, one thing that we do with our clients is we perform an energy audit with them, where we identify where their zone of genius is compared to their zone of incompetence and everything in between. And basically, whatever's in the bottom two quadrants, they should just be automating, delegating, or deleting. Is there a step beyond that, Travis, that you can identify outside of just starting to automate, delegate, and deleting? Is there a step in between? Or is it just a matter of identifying the why, identifying the what, and then taking action?

 

Dr. Travis Parry  26:12  

I believe you hit pretty much everything that I would hit on, but I would go maybe add something in between. And that is, when we identify what our values are or really what our why is, then we can create action, which becomes goals. I think so many people go straight to I'm going to accomplish something, I'm going to do this, I'm going to check these boxes. If it's x amount of premium, I just want to get 40 million assets under management. Okay, but what is the reason behind that, the why, but really understand the values. What is it that you are going to become? What will this action, this accomplishment, or the action towards this accomplishment, what will that help you become? What kind of person? Really at the end of the day, the problem with work/life balance is it’s not just work and life, it is ten areas of life (or maybe more, but that's what I've identified is ten areas of life), and that makes up who we are. But we're the same person; maybe have different goals for each area and different priorities. And so that's the next step for me is values, goals, and then create a prioritization exercise to decide these are my top priorities in life. And if everything hit the fan, I’ve really just got to make sure I do these top things, and do them well, and I can still feel balanced. In 2020, I think this is where a lot of things hit the fan, didn't they? When they did, I found those people who were proactive and knew what their priorities were, they were actually more successful than in 2019. The ones that were struggling and who came to me for advice and coaching, etc., when we identified that they were able to really make, you know, lemonade out of lemons or whatever analogy you want to take with it here. Because their clarity, it was real, and they knew why they were working. So I know we talked about the why and the what, but there's some layers here. And honestly, the first myth of balance, if I was to call this book The Myth of Balance, there's really three myths. That's why the first myth is just this idea that balance is doing everything at once; instead of trying to spin all the plates just prioritize those plates. And then if you need to spend less energy or focus on these other areas, then that's okay. That's totally okay and you're gonna feel balanced, because the top priorities in your life are working. For me, it's spiritual, it is physical health, mental health, it’s my relationship with my wife, and with my family; and if those things are doing really good, man, everything else is going to be great. Even if it's not. Does that make sense?

 

Unknown Speaker  29:02  

Hey, Model FAs, I know you're enjoying this conversation. But I wanted to take a quick break to talk to you about the Model FA Accelerator. This is a unique collaboration between us and you, where we help you build a financial advising practice that you can be proud of; we focus on the foundational concepts around how to pick a niche or a specialization; how to price your services; how to construct an offer that people are going to buy; and then how to market and sell it in a way that will get people to sign on the dotted line and become clients of your firm; all while giving you the information to scale and set up workflows and operational processes that will allow you to reclaim your time and build a practice that doesn't run you. So if you'd like to hear more about that go to www.ModelFA.com/accelerator or www.ModelFA.com. Hover over Work With Us and click on Accelerator and hope to see in the program.

 

David DeCelle  29:52  

It does. I really like how you're attaching basically the future version of themselves and the vision of what that looks like to everything that we just said. There's a quote that I I wrote down from a book that I read the other day, which is, preplay the future, rather than replaying the past. I think oftentimes people will feel stuck, because they're fearful of, well, last time I tried to delegate, this happened, right? Well, just start to envision and put out to the universe of what it could look like. So I'm glad that you brought up the vision piece of that. So next question from one of our friends on social, Brian Thorp, who is actually going to be a guest here in a few weeks. So stay tuned for that episode, excited for that. His question was, and this is actually good timing because you just brought up how a lot of stuff hit the fan here in 2020 and this is a little related to that. So for financial professionals continuing to work from home who previously worked in an office setting, how has your guidance on time management evolved? Has it evolved? And do you feel like working from home makes it easier or more difficult to achieve the work life balance?

 

Dr. Travis Parry  31:00  

This is a great question. So full disclosure, I was an advisor from ‘02, I was licensed up until 2010. So good seven, eight years run. And I worked from home about half of that time; I moved to a home office like 2006, or something. So if I do some of that math, maybe a little bit less than half. And I found that when I'm working from home, especially with children, you have to have very clear boundaries. If you do not, like I can get distracted. Because again, my priorities are time with my family, enjoying to do stuff with them, and so it's easier for me to justify. So back in the day, my wife would even go as far to put a sign on the door that said, dad's at work. And on the other side, I flipped it around, dad's home, and my kids would know that that's what's going on. And we just had to train them from a very young age, dad works from home. Like what, your dad doesn't? It's weird for them to hear about, oh, that's cool, where does your dad work? And so this has been something that I personally have been doing for a very long time and have found great productivity from it. Now, it's not for everybody. That was never part of my curriculum. But when 2020 came, and everybody was doing this, at least for a period of time, or in some form or fashion. The big question is, what do we do now? And with my children all being home, as we homeschool, there's a lot of things that I have been accustomed to doing. I have these noise cancelling headphones, because if they're playing the piano, and if they're singing, or they're loud, banging on the drums, or the guitar or whatever, making something out of wood in the other room, but I've gotta stay focused. And so I've got to create those boundaries. Some of it is training them. I wear a work shirt every day. And that's just my preference so that my four year old, when I come out of the office, she looks at me and says, okay, dad, you're at work. Instead of me having to tell her every single day, no, I can't play. I've just trained her that when I change into my T-shirt, I'm yours. I get to hang with you. I'll do whatever, we'll read books, we'll play dolls. We'll go outside and play kickball, whatever you want to do, ride bikes, and then she knows. I don’t have to constantly be breaking her heart because she likes hanging out with dad, and that's a good thing, right? So there's boundaries. And the way I try to explain to other people is, envision your place of work, even at home, as like a castle. That castle has walls and it has a moat, it has a drawbridge, it has these things to protect you so that you can protect it. And any outside influence whether you're working at home, or you're in the office, sometimes it was easier at the office to walk down the hall and have conversations with Jim and Joe or whoever and get totally sidetracked when I didn't have the time to do that. And I was pulling away from their time because I was doing an avoidance activity instead of doing the things I should be doing so I could go home. We all struggle with that in some form or fashion. So the best thing that I could say as advice is to build that fortification. Decide what works for you, decide what works for your family, decide what works for your employees—wherever you're working: home or at an office or on the road or anywhere in between. So that you can have that structure and then be okay with changing that up a little bit. Be okay; have some flexibility but try it. Give it a good college try for a good quarter and see how it works for you and switch it up. For me, I've got four walls, I've got a door, there's no lock on the door, people who come in. I've trained my family that you know, the door’s open, they can come in and give me a hug. We can chat. The door’s closed, it’s closed door policy, don't bug me unless the house is burning down. Those things are really important that you explain to your employees so they're not knocking on your door and bugging you all the time. Or virtually—email, text, phone; what are the company's policies? What are your policies? Make them very well known so that you're protecting your fortress.

 

David DeCelle  35:11  

So boundaries, expectations, communication, and I'll call different ways in which, for example, when I journal in the morning, and in the evening, that's an easy thing to just forget, if you wake up and you use the restroom, then you go out and do whatever your morning routine is. So, I'll leave my journal in front of my bedroom door, so I have to knock it over when I open it, and I'll leave it on my bed for when I get into bed. Those are like my triggers. So leaving those triggers around the house, whether it be the sign, the shirt, all those different things. So boundaries, expectation, communication, and certain triggers.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  35:47  

Yeah, very well said.

 

David DeCelle  35:49  

So one of our own, Natalia, on our team who, just side shout out to Natalia, she's frickin awesome. She's such a pleasure to work with. So Natalia, thank you for all that you do. And in terms of your more so a statement that you want us to riff on. So she tends to take more of a contrarian position on time management; she believes that time is time, right, we all get the same 24 hours. And no matter how much you manage it, you don't necessarily get any more, but what you can ultimately manage and her belief is your focus and your energy. So her preference is to do everything that she can to get her focus and her energy right. And she just wrote she'd be curious to know how Dr. Travis Parry would respond to her thought process.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  36:40  

You know, I think it's interesting because Patrick brought this up earlier. And I think I even mentioned it too. The energy is important, and one of you mentioned the energy of where people fit in the company. But anyway, I think we've been talking about this idea, energy is important. But time is still this asset that we need to have a map for. So for example, if there is no ideal calendar, if everything is so fluid and flexible, that you're just flying by the seat of your pants, good luck. But on the other end of the spectrum, if everything is so rigid, that the ideal calendar can't ever vary, good luck. There's terms for either one, right? That's like military, and we're talking like hippie, right? If we're gonna throw this out here, okay, I'm trying to be PC. But if we look at the spectrum here, where we ought to be on this spectrum, we ought to be at the place where we've got this ideal calendar, but be flexible and wise enough to know when we need to transfer energy to a certain place to be flexible. Like, for example, again, I make an exception for a Friday. But if that becomes the rule, the ideal calendar means nothing to me, it means nothing to me. But if I can be there, 80% of the time, the whole Pareto principle 80/20; I can be 80% and 20% flexible, I feel good about that and so should she. However, that said, that whole explanation, if your energy is wrong in the morning, if you're not taking care of yourself from the beginning of the day, it doesn't matter what it says on your calendar, you could destroy it. And so I understand what she's saying; I don't see it as either or. I see it as a little bit of both make sense.

 

Patrick Brewer  38:30  

Yep. I would agree with that. I think there's a combination of time blocking and making sure that you have the appropriate amount of time. And you also have the right level of energy to work on the thing that you're time blocking for. And I would also say that, if those two things don't line up, it's okay to not do something if it just doesn't feel aligned with where you're at, and to push it, but make sure that you're assessing why. What is the cause for why you don't feel like you want to work on this thing right now? So for me, what I've been introducing into my routine to just get breakthroughs on things that just require more strategic and creative energy, is I'll go and do an infrared sauna. And then I'll do a cold plunge right after that; cold plunge right into a hot tub. And then, oh, dude, it's great. And for two to three hours after that, my level of mental clarity, and then I'll walk back to the house, because I just want that to set in. And then from there, I'll do the hardest thing that I need to work on for the next two hours. And there's no cell phones, there's no meetings, there's no interruptions.

 

David DeCelle  39:32  

Is that why you're not responding to me, Pat? 

 

Patrick Brewer

I respond very infrequently to—

 

David DeCelle

You just silence David DeCelle.

 

Patrick Brewer  39:41  

Well, most people will pick up their phone in the middle of the day when they don't have a call scheduled; and they'll answer that, and that’s just asynchronous communication from everywhere. I think you need to really tune that stuff out over time, unless your role is such that you're—like you, David, right. The podcast, advancing relationships, all this stuff that's required to make a business run and grow. But if you need to solve a really hard problem related to the team or strategically within the business or create a new product, you can't be communicating with people and being interrupted; you need stretches of time that are uninterrupted. So I think that's what Travis is saying with this idea of making sure that your time is also accounted for appropriately, while considering your energy. Both of these things are very, very important, because I've definitely gone through stretches where I'll block the time. And I'll show up and get nothing done. So it's more about the post mortem on that and figuring out why that is and how to fix it. I don't know if advisors do a whole lot of that right now. You know, I feel like as advisors, we get pulled into the day to day and since our responsibilities are so diverse, it's easy to get stuck in that momentum trend of, this is just what I do. And this is just the way that it needs to work. So I think, Travis, what you're kind of advocating for here a little bit is taking a step back and saying, what is actually valuable to you as a person? Who are you? What are you trying to accomplish? Let's look at everything that's going on, and figure out the things that we can cut, and some of the things that maybe we double down on.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  41:08  

Yeah, and if I can piggyback on that, Patrick, as you were talking and you were mentioning some of those things, I was thinking back to the ideal calendar. How I set the ideal calendar and how I suggest advisors set it, is based off of what they feel is best for that time. So for example, Mondays for me is more of an operations day. I meet with all my staff, I do all of my own training, I get geared up for the week, it's my ops day, the majority of it. I do some marketing at the end of the day, in the afternoon, and then Tuesday and Thursdays are more my coaching day and some marketing. And then Wednesdays is mainly marketing. So I like to have a theme for each day. And then I can show up mentally, and my energy for that day is Monday, I'm in a collared shirt and jeans and I am just meeting with people. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'm in my dress shirt and I've got a different energy. Same place, same office, but different mental energy to prepare me for what I'm doing in those days. And then Fridays, again, this is typically writing books, doing media related type of videos and things for content. That's my content focus day. So that allows me to have that beginning. So however you want to set up your ideal calendar is up to you. I'm not the Dave Ramsey of eight steps of how to do this; it's very much based on your values and how you feel. And so therefore, the energy that goes into it should match. I love what you mentioned about that. And you really make me want to just leave and go to the gym and sit in a hot tub. But you know, that's a different story.

 

Patrick Brewer  42:45  

Cold plunge first. You gotta get the pain.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  42:48  

Can’t forget the pain, the pain usually is like working out. But I like that idea. I think some professional athletes I've heard of do something very similar. I had a friend who was a decathlete, and that's what they would do: cold plunge, and then just sit in the hot tub. And Pat, that is incredible.

 

Patrick Brewer  43:03  

I'm training for the financial services charity boxing event that I want to throw. So I'm going to be challenging some people in the advisor circuit, more on the thought leader side, but we need a little bit of that after 2020 to get everybody back together. Different type of conference.

 

David DeCelle  43:20  

One thing to piggyback off the whole idea of an ideal calendar. And then I do want to transition over Travis to your favorite book that you had told me about when we chatted. I think planning out your week is fine. So if planning out your year is 30,000 feet, right and planning out your quarter is 20,000 feet and month is 10,000 feet, week is 5000 feet, I do think it's incredibly important to plan the night before for what you set out to do. And so Pat, when you had said something to the effect of, hey, there's certainly been times where I blocked off time and just not done what I had set out to do. At least when that's happened to me, I'm willing to bet for you, it's when you didn't have a plan. So if you have business development in your calendar, like I do in the morning, and it's just business development, it's like, what does that mean when you wake up? So what I do, and for those of you who are just listening in and not watching the video, I have a notebook where I'll just take chicken scratch on what I'm setting out to do on a daily basis, specifically around with business development, who am I reaching out to and identifying the company or the name. When it comes down to working out what am I doing for the workout? I've eliminated the need to think about what I'm going to eat because I just eat the same thing every day except for weekends. So just planning out what book are you going to listen to, what content are you going to consume, and then you wake up and you just do those things as opposed to having to spend time during that hour block thinking about what you're going to do during what's now a 45 minute block right and losing out on that precious time. Whereas it takes 10, maybe 15, minutes in the evening to actually plan that stuff out.

 

Patrick Brewer  45:01  

Yeah, and I'll say, just a plug for one of the consultants that we've worked with, similar vein to Travis but way different. He's more on the productivity side, it's more about project planning, being more productive with your time, which is, I think, different than time management and energy management. I started with productivity and I got really, really productive. But I was a total workaholic. The productivity just skyrocketed me to the point where workaholism was just right there. But if you are a healthy individual, and you have worked some of the things out that Travis helps people with, and then you layer on top a system for productivity, project planning. Like David was saying, making sure that your list is actionable and it's not just “do website.” “Do new website” is gonna be on the calendar for like nine years. But reach out to three agencies and vet out options for website; start search on Google. Maybe that gets done; at least the first step of that project can get done. So I think that's what you're saying, David. Just being more intentional about next level actions, and not just like broad categorizations for projects.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  46:09  

Yeah, good points about planning the day before. There's two things I'll mention, I know you want to move to the next part of this, David. But first thing, and you brought it up, Patrick, is that I actually started in the productivity space, trying to figure out time management. And as I was training people in productivity, it was the tendency for workaholics to say thank you, Travis, for teaching me all these principles, these are excellent. Now I can work just as much time; I can still be in the office 80 hours a week, and now I'm making more money. The reality is that that's actually not true. Because we do wane in our energy, we do peak at certain points of the day. And it's just now sitting in front of a screen absorbing, and not actually being productive, and neglecting those other aspects of your relationship. And hence the idea about balance. So productivity is essential, because you can have an ideal calendar and work 30 hours less, but if you're not more productive, you'll lose money. Cuz you were used to doing all these other activities. So that's being part of it; it’s probably the middle portion. However, I call this the productivity myth or the myth of productivity. And that is exactly as you mentioned, you can become a workaholic. And really what you become as a very productive workaholic. So thank you, world of productivity.

 

Patrick Brewer  47:27  

Yeah. I like to make all the mistakes, mistakes.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  47:33  

Dude, you nailed it!

 

Patrick Brewer  47:34  

When you say, are you a psychologist? No, I just make every mistake. And then I try and internalize them. Some I make more than once.

 

David DeCelle

You analyze the crap out of them. 

 

Patrick Brewer

I forgot to plug our productivity consultant who, like I said, is awesome. If you're a well adjusted human, his name is Chris Belfi. So Chris Belfi at Max Potential does wonders for people on the productivity side. But Travis, finish your thought there.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  47:53  

So here's the layer that I figured out, because I made very much the same mistake. With good intentions, trying to have balance became a productive workaholic, and realized that my relationships were on the line. And it was that whole, my father passed away at 49, I was 26, trying to figure out what to do next. That's why I did the degree in psychology and got the PhD—to test what I learned. And back to Maslow. Remember, I talked about Maslow and the hierarchy of needs? Well, in 2010, a paper was published, it happened to be my last course in my psychology class and my last class in the degree, and I found it like the night before. It was one of these like, just godsend right to me going wow, this is exactly what I needed. It was a study, relooking at Maslow's theory. And these were evolutionary psychologists, clinical psychologists; these were not family professionals. They found that Maslow, although somewhat correct in his hierarchy, had at the very top, I can’t remember exactly but something like focus on self. If you reach your potential and your goals, that was the biggest motivator in life. Well they questioned his theory and found that it is not the focus on self.

 

David DeCelle

It’s self-actualization.

 

Dr. Travis Parry

Thank you for looking that up, David. Self-actualization. It wasn't necessarily that. It was actually the highest motivator in life is being a parent and having and keeping a spouse. Let that sink in for a second. These are evolutionary psychologists, these are clinical psychologists, they're not focused on family; but they realized that looking at all the data, his did not match up with the current theories and trends of the day. Understanding that actually, if we preserve and create the next generation, and don't we all want our children and or employees or however we look at the next generation of what's coming next, want them to be better, do better, have a better life? Makes total sense. So I took that and went to my PhD experience trying to figure out, how do I help people who are really motivated by family, quit being Workaholics? And what I found is that when spouses are incredibly supportive of said workaholics, control freaks, people who don't manage their time well; all of the above we've talked about this time; if they can be a support in this transition, that once you create a productive person who has balance, they won't go back. They won't revert back to the mistakes that they've made in the past, if those two can work together and move forward. And that's really the end of my book, Achieving Balances, that whole idea that if we just try to do this on our own through personal development alone, it's a good start. But it's not the end all be all, as Shakespeare said. It's really just a really good start. But we need to involve our family, we need to involve our spouse, we need to involve business partners. We need to involve each other so that we can keep accountability and not revert back to old ways.

 

Patrick Brewer  50:44  

I think that is very well said.

 

David DeCelle  50:47  

So transitioning over to your favorite book. So for everyone listening, what we're going to be doing moving forward is, we have some badass guests lined up, including Travis, who we're talking to today. And I don't know about you, but I'm very curious to see what books people have consumed that have made the biggest impact on their life, because I want to consume those same books. Because if it has a big impact on them, then it's certainly going to have or most likely will have an impact on me, and I want to promote learning outside of our industry. So I find a lot of times advisors consume industry-related knowledge. And this is my effort to hopefully get you to think outside the box and outside the industry and try and pick up principles with people who are in totally different industries or have totally different paths than what you're used to consuming. So Travis, your favorite book is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. And I did have a chance to listen to that before this session here. And one of the things that, I guess stuck out to me the most, and then I want to go back to why it was your favorite. And then you also mentioned in our conversation that you bring this up a lot with some of the folks that you work with so I want to know why that is too. But the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the idea that someone's, whether it's a man or a woman, people's last freedom in life is to have the ability to keyword “choose” your attitude in any given circumstance. So this, for those of you who haven't read it, is a story about someone's journey through the Holocaust, and the attitude and the hope that he had along the way. And it was just interesting to me how something so evil and so scary, he could maintain a positive attitude throughout that journey. So with that being said, Travis, why is it your favorite book? And when you're bringing it up with clients, what happens in those conversations to where you're like, hey, you should read this, or hey, remember this?

 

Dr. Travis Parry  52:44  

Yeah, I appreciate that. And Viktor Frankl became a psychiatrist and very world renowned because of his work here, and it really propelled him forward. Spoiler alert, something that I’ll mention, I'm not going to give everything away, but I'll mention one of the big reasons why it's one of my favorite books, I have lots of favorites. So when you asked that question I was like, oh, man, I gotta put something right. He didn't give me, top three. He's like, what's your favorite? Okay, this is the one that I use a lot for and for this context is really good. I mean, because really, I've pored over this my own book for the last, really the last 15 years, writing it in my mind all the time. So it's my favorite and my worst favorite at the same time. But this book by Viktor Frankl really gets to the heart of what motivation truly is, what do people live for? And I know there's books out there about like, what's your why, and all those things. But this book, I believe, precedes most of those other books. It was written in 92, as a Jewish Holocaust survivor, he actually quotes Nietzsche and he talks about and he quotes, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” And Frankl figured out that his why was to be there for his wife, who was in another concentration camp. If he didn't show up for her, if he didn't survive, then he was a failure. He wanted to be there for her. I'm not going to give the spoiler, so a little bit of a spoiler alert, but not completely. His “why” was to actually live out his life and his motivation, his will to live, what kept him going and his defense mechanisms, his reactions and everything, were a product of that survival through the experience so that he could be there for her when she was freed. And he, obviously he was freed, he lived to tell the tale and everything else of what happened and used this to help hundreds of clients of his the rest of his professional life. But I think there's deeper meaning, and why this is actually required reading for most of my clients is at the very beginning, to really understand what are our values? What is our motivation? What is our direction? And if we can dig really, super deep there, then life is meaningful. After my father passed away, that was really a hinge point; I talked about it a lot, even three times today on the show. After he passed away, it was a hinge point in my life; he was my very first death claim, okay. I had to process his life insurance policy, pay off my mom's home, her cars, set her up on a direction to get her going the rest of her life. That fundamentally changed everything that I saw about financial planning. I saw the beginning and the end, in only four years of being in the industry. And I realized the work that you guys continue to do and the work that I have done is incredibly valuable, incredibly valuable. But I also realized that I wanted to help people; for me, not just in the financial goals arena, but in all areas of life, to really reach their purpose. And hence my tagline live life on purpose is really what I help people to do. It's more than time management; it is balancing so you can achieve your goals both personally, and business.

 

David DeCelle  56:05  

Love that. I think one of the interesting things with the book as well, in terms of his meaning to survive and be there for his wife. What was interesting is that she was at a totally different concentration camp and he had no idea if she was even still alive. So I feel like a lot of times when people whether it's any type of goal: personal, professional, financial, whatever. They may not know if that's possible, they may not know if it's going to shake out in that particular way. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't in turn choose to take the action to actually get there. So I thought that was pretty interesting in the book as well. Cool. Well, Travis, thank you so much for being a guest on our show. Patrick, obviously, thank you for joining as well. And Travis, you have a book, you have a podcast, you have your own services. Where's the best place for folks to find you?

 

Dr. Travis Parry  56:54  

They can get me at Travis Parry, with an a, not an e, TravisParry.com has all of my website, my Make Time Institute, and the book. If they want to go to achievingbalancebook.com, remember Achieving Balance is the title, achievingbalancebook.com. Right now I have a PDF, they can download for free, they can read it. It's available on Amazon and Kindle and everything. And I've got the proof copy in my hand, the paperback comes out March 24. And so that'll be coming out soon. But in the meantime, if they want more in time management in this similar vein, I have a download with the book. It's a three hour time management mastery training; we go over processing, productivity, organization, and getting out of the office so that you can be more productive while you're there. So that's all available for people right now at achievingbalancebook.com.

 

David DeCelle  57:45  

Awesome, my selfish challenge to you. I did this with another one of our guests, which was our latest episode, Ivan Farber. It's tough for me to sit still and read a book. And I challenged him to record an audio book, and I challenged him to do that towards the end of December, I believe it was when we shot that episode. And it's submitted to Audible and it should be ready by February. So that's my friendly challenge to you.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  58:12  

It's coming; it’s on the project. It goes ebook, paperback, Audible, and then we'll work on a hardback cover later. But yeah, it's in the mix. It's coming.

 

David DeCelle  58:22  

Love it, I appreciate it.

 

Dr. Travis Parry 58:23  

That's how I digest books; I listen to all the books I can, and then the ones I really like, I actually purchase and then I mark it up like crazy. Because I use it more as a resource, you know. 

 

David DeCelle  58:34  

Love it. Well, for all of our listeners, don't go away just yet. We do have a special edition to the show here in a minute. But before we wrap up, for all of our listeners, one asked I do have for all of you is if you found value in today's episode, share it with a friend, share it with a colleague, share it with your office, if you're in an office of advisors, share it on your social media, we'd really appreciate that. And then one thing that I'm going to be doing for these episodes, it would be really helpful to build up our reviews on iTunes. So if you go ahead and write a review on the show, screenshot that review that way I know it's done, and then shoot me a text at 978-228-2338. Again, 978-228-2338 just shoot me pay and the screenshot. I will then enter you into a pool and every episode may be different. But for this episode in particular, I'm going to offer a free 30 minute coaching session to chat about whatever it is that you like. So go ahead and write a review, screenshot it, shoot me a text and we will on the next episode share who that was; depending on when the recording is of course. If not, you'll get an email and a shout out at a future episode, but appreciate you nonetheless. Thank you for sharing it. Thanks for writing the review and stay tuned for the next part.

 

That was awesome. Thanks, man.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  1:00:10  

You guys are great. I was just thinking what we ought to do for this next episode is just sit in a sauna someplace and put the microphone up and just relax. 

 

David DeCelle  1:00:23  

We should just do the Ice Bucket Challenge after each episode. Travis, so you’re speaker and one thing I am going to want to do at some point in the coming weeks or whenever we have time is hop on another call and just figure out from a strategic standpoint, obviously serving similar audiences, how do we elevate each other and cross pollinate the things that we're doing. I'm most intrigued about your speaking career; we’re ramping up our speaking as well. So there could be some cross introductions that are done at that point. But I've had some funny instances as it relates to speaking. So I am curious to know what's probably the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you in your speaking career that you're usually uncomfortable sharing, but you're going to be so kind as to share that with us today.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  1:01:13  

I'm going to have to, I think a lot out loud. I'm thinking of, okay, I'll tell you. My very first time ever speaking to a group was actually to a bunch of business owners. And there were some financial advisors at, like a Kiwanis Club. Okay, right. Everybody says, get started, to cut your teeth someplace. And so I was speaking for free at Kiwanis and Lions Clubs and etc. And I must have been so boring, that there was a guy who literally fell asleep while I was speaking, and I was probably 10 feet away from him. He literally just fell asleep on me. I felt mortified; you try to do everything you can, like entertain people, tell a good story. But you know, he was probably just tired. He probably just had a rough day or whatever. But I took that, I took that really personal; I'll never have somebody fall asleep in anything else I do, long live! But I know that as speakers, you do the best you can. You're not going to connect with every single person in the audience. If you can connect with the majority, you win the crowd. But if I decided to take that as a learning opportunity, and as I've taken several speaking courses, several, one tip I really like is as I walk into the room now, if I'm up on a pedestal, or I'm doing something, I'm waving hi to somebody, or I'll go up and shake somebody's hand before. I'll learn their names so that I can reference them as I'm speaking, or I can just talk to that person that's engaged. If I can focus there, I can focus my energy. I don't get all embarrassed about it and worried if some dude’s in the corner and taking a nap. It just rolls off my back now.

 

Patrick Brewer   1:02:59  

David, do you remember when we were down in Florida and we gave that event and I introduced one of the speakers by the wrong name.

 

David DeCelle  1:03:09  

(laughs) Sorry, I laughed too loud. Finish what you were saying.

 

Patrick Brewer   1:03:12  

I believe that pretty much caps the story, but I just remember, I didn't remember—we met him one time, and we all flew down to Florida. We were doing this advisor business mastery event where we were talking about marketing, biz-dev, all the stuff, and we had a sponsor for the event. And their topic was going to be more on captive insurance and other like business related insurance solutions for financial advisors; and I kicked off the meeting, and they were gonna go first. And I just looked at the guy and I'm like, is he Frank? Is he Tom? Brian? I'm like, I just went with like the second option, and then I could just see his face go, who? And I'm like, all right. And then I click the slide with his face on it and his bio. I was like, yep, totally got your name wrong. Very awkward cocktail hour after that.

 

Dr. Travis Parry 1:04:06  

He's not gonna be looking at you the same. We all make rookie mistakes. I think, I look back to one...

 

Patrick Brewer 1:04:12  

You’re calling me a rookie? This was like six months ago.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  1:04:14  

Oh, what? No, way, this was like ten years ago, come on.

 

David DeCelle  1:04:16  

This was a year ago. 

 

Patrick Brewer

Yeah, it's been a year. I'm a total rookie, though, for sure. I’m going to maintain my rookie status; I’m just going to introduce everyone wrong the rest of my life.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  1:04:29  

Oh, you should just introduce him with the same wrong name every time. 

 

David DeCelle  1:04:33  

This is your new name. Like Travis. We're just going to call you Travis Perry from now on because it seems like you've struggled with that your whole life. So we're just going to keep doing that. That's

 

Dr. Travis Parry  1:04:41  

That's right. That's right.

 

David DeCelle  1:04:42  

When I was winding down my career as an advisor, Pat, you'll love this. When I was winding down my career as an advisor and Travis, obviously with our Northwestern connection, there wasn't a ton of recurring revenue when you're early on in your career, because you're basically doing a lot of insurance planning and stuff to gather assets early on in your career as a 22, 23 year old. So I was winding down my career, didn't know what I wanted to do next before I got into consulting, but I still had obligations of meeting with people for reviews and stuff like that. So what I had done, because throughout my advising career, I was at the six figure mark, but for the last six months I just lost energy to do that stuff, and I just didn't care about the money and I was, I'm just gonna let this dwindle down. So I was like, well, what am I going to do for money? I was like, well, I have a car. So you know, screw it, I'll drive for Uber. So I'm driving for Uber, and typically what I would do is (I’ve got finger quotes up now for people listening to the audio) I would “work” during the day, which I was just a lost puppy at this stage. And so I wasn't actually working or generating revenue. And then at night, I’d drive for Uber. So I get this request and I go and pick this couple up, and lo and behold, it's my clients who I have a review scheduled with two weeks from when I picked them up. So they open the door and they're like, David? Cuz I'm helping guide them in their financial plan, and they were actually clients in mind where I did win over their assets. And here I am freakin’ driving for Uber and I'm just mortified, like, absolutely mortified. And then I walked into their house two weeks later with a suit and no one says anything about it. Like everyone just knew it was so awkward. 

 

Patrick Brewer  1:06:30  

Helping them accomplish all their dreams and goals from the front seat of an Uber.

 

Dr. Travis Parry  1:06:38  

There's so much you can play on that. Yeah, like, let me help you. Let me drive your financial plan financial.

 

Patrick Brewer

Financial driver.

 

David DeCelle  1:06:47  

I will drive you to your future.

 

Dr. Travis Parry 1:06:49  

Honestly, you probably get more productive discovery meetings because people would be driving around, they’d feel more relaxed. Maybe we're onto something here. We get some people in the backseat. We give them a nice little old-fashioned. They have their cocktail of choice. We just take them around town. Ask them feelings questions.

 

David DeCelle  1:07:05  

Well when we have our Sprinter van, maybe that will be part of the strategy, Pat.

 

Dr. Travis Parry   1:07:10  

I'm not sure about the Sprinter van. There's too many connotations there. They might think that you're taking them someplace, but a nice car could work.

 

Patrick Brewer  1:07:17  

Are you on to us, Travis? Are you on to us?

 

Dr. Travis Parry  1:07:22  

I donated to some really good organizations that help find people that are lost, but anyway, we'll leave that one there.

 

Patrick Brewer  1:07:30  

We’ll run counterintelligence against those people.

 

David DeCelle  1:07:35  

Well, I think that's enough embarrassing stories for today. So Travis, again, appreciate you joining, you were a blast. Pat, you're always fun, dude. So thanks for joining.

 

Patrick Brewer  1:07:48  

I don't know if that's true. But thank you.

 

David DeCelle  1:07:50  

Well even though you're like hey, David, take the podcast from here, you’re like, I kind of want to still hang out for a little bit. So for everyone listening, you'll see Pat intermittently, and we'll bring him on and we got some really, really compelling guests moving forward. So excited to add some value, enjoy some banter, and allow you guys to meet some new people. So thanks for tuning in.