#28 Steve Sanduski – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of Financial Planners, South Africa. I am extremely excited to have a long standing favorite of mine, Steve Sanduski. Join our show today. Steve, thank you for so much for being here today.

Steve Sanduski
Well, Louis, it’s great to be here.

Louis van der Merwe
Yeah, Steve, you have a ton of things going on. And the one thing that I look forward to every year is your three words of the year, the words that you focus on, and I want to maybe reflect a little bit on how 2020 ones, words have gone. You know, one piece for you has been core. So what are the things that Steve’s been busy with? Right at the core? What are those things at the moment? Yeah, well,

Steve Sanduski
this idea of three words I’ve been doing, I think for seven, maybe eight years now. And so I typically start January 1 and I and then identify three words that really set the tone for what I want to be thinking about what I want to keep top of mind throughout the course of the year. And for 2021. My three words were long form, core, and connections. And I haven’t published it yet as we’re having our conversation here today. But the the three words, so long form, I’m going to give myself an F. And I’ll give you more detail on that when I do my podcast on it. Core was really about trying to stay focused on the things that are important to me, and that I want to get accomplished and that I don’t really stray too far. And it’s a bit difficult for me because I’m a curious person. And I love to explore a lot of different things. But I realized that I’ll never do anything. Well, if I’m just all over the board. So core was just a reminder that hey, you know, don’t don’t stray too far away. And then connections is just about continuing to deepen relationships with people and having conversations like this. You’re in South Africa. I’m in Wisconsin. So I mean, it’s wonderful that we’ve got the technology and the ability to have conversations around the world like this. And so it’s just about keeping those connections up and expanding connections as well.

Louis van der Merwe
Yeah, I feel like COVID in the pandemic has actually made it possible to connect to people across the globe much easier than actually spending time with your neighbor. Is that something that you’ve experienced as well?

Steve Sanduski
Yeah. And I’ve been using Zoom type technology for more than 20 years. I mean, back in the day, we were using WebEx, and now I don’t I think maybe big companies use WebEx. But we were we were using that and other similar type technologies many, many years ago to do these these large group calls, I think, of course with COVID. Now we’ve got the cameras on most of the time. And so I think that has really helped people maintain connections during during COVID. And I know a lot of people say hey, I’m I’m tired to zoom, I get zoom fatigue. I’m tired of being on video all the time. But I think the reality is that I think it’s really enabled relationships to continue to flourish during during this difficult time. So I am like you and I, you know, we’re looking at each other here on the video. And prior to this kind of technology would we would have just been talking on the phone. And I think there’s a much richer connection that can happen when we can see each other and get our visual cues here. So I’m actually a fan of this type of technology, because I think it expands all of our opportunities.

Louis van der Merwe
Steve, talking about technology. I mean, I know you have a background a little bit in coding and early days with hp, we’ve had quite a few guests on that have got training in coding or thinking, as you know, someone in the IT industry has that shaped your thinking at all?

Steve Sanduski
Well, it’s interesting, because I tend to think of myself as a methodical person as a logical person. And so back in high school in college, I mean, I’m a little bit older than you, I was in high school back in the 1970s. So I was coming of age, as at the very beginning of the personal computer generation. And I remember back in the 1970s, I was in high school, and we had a pretty, pretty nice high school. And I was actually programming in BASIC language, way back in the day, and then went to college and was programming in Fortran and COBOL. So I mean, I had an early taste of, of the technology side, but I realized that I didn’t really want to spend my career doing that, and that my, my real love was investing of all things. And so bought my first stock back in the late 1970s. And really have carried on that interest in the investing and financial side, ever since then. So got an undergrad in finance, got an MBA, as well. So I think maybe one of my benefits is that I understand the technology side, I understand the logic of coding. But then I also have an interest in creativity in interest in exploration, and am open to how things work. So I, you know, I like to think maybe it’s the best of both worlds,

Louis van der Merwe
it sounds like it’s given you a framework to unpack the world, instead of saying, this is something I want to create as a career. It’s something that I want to use to explore other fields and other areas.

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, definitely. And my timing, I think, was pretty good. Because as a result of the microprocessor revolution, let’s say back in the early 1970s, when Intel came out with one of their their first main chips, really started this whole idea of the exponential age, and Moore’s law. And so I think it’s really important for people, if you want to succeed in the world today, that you really need to have some level of understanding of technology. And I think the fact that I was exposed to technology very early on at the very early stages of this exponential age, that I’ve been able to carry that with me. And so I think that has helped shaped the work that I do, and help keep me a little bit at the forefront of what’s happening on the technology side of the business world. Steve, you

Louis van der Merwe
mentioned kind of keeping up with technology. And immediately what jumps to mind, is your show around the digital money advisor, and how advisors should be embracing in a digital money. Is that something that you’re seeing picking up speed? And you know, where do you see this leading to?

Steve Sanduski
Well, I think that what’s happening with our money system with our financial system is I think there’s two things happening as it relates to things like digital money. So one is that the financial infrastructure is being completely remade before our very eyes. And what I mean by that is, we look at the the plumbing of our financial system today is very archaic. I mean, it goes back several decades, and is built on old coding technology and old coding programs. And so it is being remade with defy decentralized finance, it’s being remade on blockchains. So that’s kind of point one is that the infrastructure is changing, because we’ve got new technology. The second thing that I think is changing because of this digital technology, is the actual type of assets that we can invest in. And I think Bitcoin is a perfect example of that, whereby it is a new type of asset that is built on a blockchain a new type of money, a new store value. I mean, it’s so many different things, actually, that is leading to a lot more opportunities. And so as a financial advisor listening to this, I think it is critical that you really pay attention to what’s happening there. And that you really start to try and understand what is going on in this whole area of digital assets and digital technology because there’s no question in my mind, that that’s where the industry is evolving toward both a change In the infrastructure, and how we actually deliver what it is that we do. And then the second is the spectrum of investments that we can invest in. So typically we think of stocks, bonds, cash, maybe real estate, maybe gold. But going forward, we’re gonna have so many different things that we can invest in, we’ll be able to invest in people, I mean, people are now tokenizing, their income, or they’re tokenizing, their communities. So it’s just really boggles the mind when you take a look at everything that is becoming available. And so that’s one of the things that just really excites me and keeps me excited about what’s happening in the industry and in the world is just all these new things that are coming on board. And that’s one reason why I started the digital money advisor podcast is to continue to explore those things, bring those ideas to the financial advisor community,

Louis van der Merwe
Steve, I can hear the excitement. And a part that I’m wondering is how do you translate that back to a client? I mean, is it still relevant to be talking about the intrinsic value of these crypto currencies? Because it sounds like you’re saying this is more about the infrastructure than investing in a single digital currency?

Steve Sanduski
Well, I think it’s both. So and I think it’s gonna be hard to disaggregate them from each other. So the infrastructure is, is definitely going to be changing. I mean, just, for example, look at things like Robin Hood, I mean, now, people can just download a Robin Hood app, and they can press a few buttons, and invest in stocks, and they can buy fractions of a stocks, they can buy bitcoin, they can buy, you know, eath, just at the touch of a button. So the way that we invest is definitely changing. And that’s not stopping. But then the second also, as I mentioned, is the types of things that we can invest in because of technology are changing dramatically. So I don’t think you can bury your head in the sand and just hope that this goes away, or that it doesn’t become a big thing. If you’re, you know, 234 years away from retirement, you know, you’re probably going to be okay, you’re probably not going to worry too much about it. If your clients are 7080 years old, you’re probably not going to be too worried about it. But if you’re 3540 4550 years old, and you’re a financial advisor, you absolutely have to get up to speed on this. And you have to prepare yourself and your business to embrace what’s happening here. Because if you don’t, you’re not going to make it.

Louis van der Merwe
That is a very powerful statement. Steve, and I agree with you it is that evolution of, you know, financial products. But at the same time, there’s this evolution of being a financial adviser. I want to rewind a little bit in kind of your early days of getting involved in financial advice. How do you see it contrasted to where we are today?

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, well, I started out in corporate America back in the 80s. And then I got into the financial industry back in 1993. So coming up on 30 years now in the business. And when I started in 1993, at an independent broker dealer, it was just the very beginning of advisors making a shift from a commission business to a fee based business. And so my first job was to help the broker dealer set up a corporate Registered Investment Advisory arm, and then to help advisors make a shift from a commission business to a fee based asset management business. So I think I was really at the early beginnings of where we are today, which is this whole fee based asset management way of doing business? So yeah, so So clearly, it was a commission driven product driven business back in the day. And now we have shifted to, actually I’ll give you a give you a couple of thoughts here. So one is we started out with the Commission business, then we moved to this fee based asset management business, which was simply based on picking mutual funds, and doing asset allocation and charging a fee for that. Then we got around to say, the early 2000s. And we had the rise of E money, we had the rise of money guide Pro, which are financial planning software tools. Now advisors started to realize, oh, my gosh, I’m getting paid 1% per year, or one and a half percent per year, just for managing assets. Ultimately, that turns out to be a lot of money just for managing assets. So now they’re like, Well, I got to add some more value. So then they decide, well, let me start doing some financial planning because I got these cool new gee whiz tools. So now we start doing financial planning. And that’s great. That adds tremendous value and a lot of people would certainly suggest that the real value is in the financial planning and not so much in the Investment Management. Well, now I think we’re making another shift, which is the shift toward what we call at RRL advisor, life centered planning. And so the focus here is putting the client’s life at the center of the conversation, not the performance of their money. And I view this really as the the ultimate form of financial advising. And what I mean by that is, we’ve got the assets, the investing piece, which is a subset of the financial planning piece, which is a subset of the life planning. So I view life planning as its overall umbrella, which is the peak of which you can get to of what you can offer to a client, because there’s nothing more than life itself. And so to me, the highest performing financial advisors are the ones who take into consideration the entire life of the client, of which money and investing is certainly an important part. But at the end of the day, we need to ask ourselves, and we need to ask our clients, what’s the money for, and to me, that’s what life Center planning is about. It’s about helping you use your money to make decisions that help you live the kind of life that you want to live.

Louis van der Merwe
It’s wonderful to hear that evolution. And you know, we can see in South Africa even be slightly slower, we can see that evolution move from asset management, to financial planning to what you’re saying called life centered Finance, Financial Planning, and one of our early guests there. Klinefelter is also a user. And I’m sure you’re familiar with Derek, and the work that he’s doing in South Africa. I want to expand a little bit on the RRL toolset, what would be the main offering for financial planners that maybe at that point with financial planning, not 100%? Certain how do they get into this life centered financial planning? Where would someone start?

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, well, my partner and I, Mitch Anthony, who some of you may be familiar with, we started a company a few years ago called R O L advisor in RL stands for return on life. So as I mentioned that the idea is really about putting the client’s life at the center of the conversation. And so we ended up creating a variety of digital tools that really help you facilitate having a deeper and richer conversation with your clients. And the way that we think about it, is, we want you to get your clients storyboard. And by that we mean, we want you to really understand the story, the biography, the history of the client. So we think of it as a timeline in the sense of, we want to know, where have you been? Because what has happened in your life up to this point, has shaped your beliefs around money. So we want to understand what are the experiences that have shaped your beliefs and your perspectives around money? So we created a tool for that called the fiscal law Sufi profile. So that’s fiscal philosophy. So we want to understand, what is your philosophy around money? And also, what are, you know, your comfort level around that? So that’s really about getting some of the past stories, then we’re like, Okay, well, where are you today? Right now? How well are you using your money to live your best life possible? And we have a tool called the RRL index, which helps answer that question. And then the third is, where are you going? We call that the lifeline. So we want to understand what are the life transitions that you can foresee happening in the future that have a money impact? And which of those do we need to start planning for right now? So when you’re all done kind of working through these three tools, and having these three conversations with clients, you end up with? Where have they been? And understanding the stories that have shaped their beliefs around money? Where are they right now? Because we need to know well? Where are you right now in order to know where we want to go? And then the third is, where do we want to go? What are those transitions? How can we plan for those, so we have this whole storyboard, this whole timeline of their past. And once you have that information, you can do a much better job, putting a plan together a much better job, putting a portfolio together that is going to match up with with where they’re trying to get.

Louis van der Merwe
So Steve, it’s about creating tangible deliverables for those clients to say, okay, you know, it’s a process that I’m working through, but at the end of the day, I can see what my financial planner is delivering, it’s not only about my money, it’s about my life. It

Steve Sanduski
is and particularly with the lifeline, which is a very visual tool. So those of you this is audio, I think that you’re listening to this so you’re not you’re not going to be able to see the tool in front of you. But if you want to you can go to R O L advisor.com. And you can get all the information. But let me just kind of briefly describe it to you. So let’s say that someone is was born and say 1950 So we put their, their the year that they were born 1950 into the tool, and then It creates a timeline that starts in 1950 5152 goes all the way to the present day. And then we have six broad categories of life transitions. And within each of those six broad categories, we have view it as a drop down box, where we’ve identified these are the life transitions related to these six broad categories. And then as the advisor, you walk the client through a conversation and ask them, okay, let’s go through some of these transitions. Let me know which of these do you anticipate happening, when might you anticipate them happening, and what is the priority level at which you want to start planning for them. So you may end up with a couple transitions that are happening right now this year, that are high priority that they want to plan for. So we just click those, and it pops it right on the year, whether it’s 2021, or 2022, there might be something that’s going to happen seven years from now, let’s say they’re gonna plan on retiring in seven years. So we can put plan for retirement, we can put a date seven years from now click it, and it pops right on the lifeline seven years from now. So when they’re done, they have this visual representation. By year, you can also look at it by age of everything, all the transitions that they envision happening going forward, the year or the age at which they anticipate those happening, whether that’s going to happen for you know, one spouse, or the other spouse, or whether it’s going to happen for both, because we can identify these transitions individually or as a couple. And then you know, the priority level. So now we know what do we need to be planning for? And then every time you meet with the clients, you pull this lifeline back up and say, let’s review. Has anything changed here? Are there’s Are there any transitions that that that you know, have come up new, since we last talked that we need to put on the lifeline? Have any of the priorities change? Do we need to move something up? Do we need to push something back. So it gives you a clear roadmap for all of your financial planning conversations. And it’s based on what the client wants, it’s based on what the client has identified is most important to them. So we think this is just an incredible planning tool, an incredible visual tool to help advisors and clients know exactly what they need to be planning for and when and what the priority level is.

Louis van der Merwe
So in the old days, financial planning days, it would be okay. These are your financial goals. Now, you’re saying these are your financial transitions? That’s coming up? And let’s link the money to that. Steve, I’m curious what changes for the client when they actually see this? In a document? You know, they their future lives planned out?

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, well, it’s helpful because now you’ve got a visual because all of us learn in different ways. So some of us like to learn by audio, some of us like to learn by visual, some of us like to learn tactile, we like to feel things some of us like to learn through experiences, some of us like, you know, all of that stimuli happening all at once. So it’s gonna vary a little bit by person. But having the the visual people can just see, like the passing of time, they can see, oh, that’s a year from now, or that’s three years, or that’s five years from now. And then it’s real easy to change that too. If they’re like, Well, I thought maybe I wanted to retire when I was 65. But now I’m thinking if I could, I’d like to retire at 62, because I’ve got this other thing that I’m interested in. And I’d like to get working on that sooner rather than later. And I really can’t dig into it until I’m actually retired. So it’s easy to like change things on the timeline. So I think it just helps give people a sense of time, a perspective of time, a sense of the flowing and the passing of time that by seeing it on this lifeline. So we found it to be a very powerful tool.

Louis van der Merwe
That’s so true. We’re really engaging, we’re getting to a point where we can engage clients in the coaching world that often say, you know, a lot of the coaching takes place in between those sessions. And what I’m picking up is that you’re saying, Well, it’s a seed that you can plant the client, they can go home, they can start thinking about in the next time we can reengage it. And it’s not just a financial statement that they look at.

Steve Sanduski
Right? Yeah, in fact, actually, just yesterday, I had a conversation with a husband and wife and I was walking them through the first two of those tools, the fiscal ossipee in the firewall index, and we spent an hour and a half going through those two tools. And what we ended up with was a few what I call action items. And so based on the conversation that came out between the couple, we identified several things that a that they agreed to do, and B that they agreed to talk about. So when you talk so when you just mentioned here, it’s like things that happen And in between meetings, that’s a perfect example of and I sent them a recap, follow up email that identified the things they committed to. But one of the things they committed to was they were going to have a meeting as a couple, kind of a big strategic meeting between between the spouses. And we identify these are like the three big questions that you need to answer. So I’m not part of that dialogue. That’s them as a couple getting together, they agreed to do it before year end. And they’re going to answer some big questions. So to me, you know, that’s an example of just how powerful and impactful it is, being a financial advisor is being able to help couples identify and clarify what are the big issues? What are the big questions that are really going to drive meaning in their life, and you as the advisor can be a catalyst and a guide and a facilitator on that. And then ultimately, it’s the client that goes that last mile that actually does the work and gets it done. But it’s just a great feeling to be part of that.

Louis van der Merwe
Absolutely. Aren’t we in the best occupation or position to be able to facilitate these things? Steve, Dr. Maura summers talks about clients struggling to actually take action. You’ve mentioned now that, you know, there’s some deliverables that’s on the clients table to to do. How do you see clients actually taking action? Do you think it’s a pot that they’re struggling with?

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, well, there’s this idea that’s been around for a long time called the knowing doing gap. And it’s basically the idea that most of us know what we knew what we should be doing. But not all of us actually do it. And so I think there’s, there’s a couple ways to think about that. One is, if you want to do more of what you know, then you you need to increase your motivation, you need to increase your desire. And I like to ask advisors that might be struggling with execution, or following through. And the simple question is, does your desire match your dream? The reality is, dreaming is free. But executing your dream can be very costly. And so you just have to decide, do I really desire that? Or do I just like the idea of being a business of a certain size, but I like the idea of it more than I like the reality of actually having to do the work that’s going to get me there. So I think that’s one key is just does your desire match your dream? So I don’t know if you have any thought on that. But there’s a second piece I could add here as well.

Louis van der Merwe
That’s brilliant. I do have some thoughts. But I’d love for you to continue. Yeah. And

Steve Sanduski
the second thing in terms of kind of the execution is I get back to this idea of structural thinking, which I’m really fascinated by. And as it relates to, basically execution and following through, and I spent time working on this with my coaching clients as well, is thinking about creating some tension. And what I mean is, let’s say that we have this big goal. Okay, maybe we want to double our business, or we want to 10x our business serve, you know, some some big dream, some B hag that we have out there. Okay. So let’s call that the desired state, then we have to go back to well, where are we today? What is our current state? What’s our current situation? And so now we’ve got a gap between the two on one hand we’ve got here’s where we are right now. And let’s put a description of that. I mean, let’s really put a narrative around. What’s my current state? What’s, what are the risks, the financial resources I have available to me? What are the human resources I have available to me? What are the obstacles that have current that are currently in my way that might be preventing me from doing some of the things that I want to do, just give me a good description of the current situation where I’m at right now. Then at the other end, we’ve got this desired state. This is the vision, the goal, the objective, B hack, whatever you want to call it, let’s describe that. Let’s make that really, really interesting, as well. So when you when you do that, what you’ve done is you you’ve created this gap or in structural thinking, we think of that as a tension. So let me give you another visual to think about, let’s say that you’re an Archer and you’ve got a bow and arrow, so you, you’re pulling that that that you know that bow back that arrow back. So what’s happening the more you pull that arrow back, you’re creating more and more tension. Well, if you are directing that bow, right on the target and that arrow right on the target, what does that tension want to do that tension wants to relief so when you let go of that arrow, and it’s shooting straight toward that target, okay, that’s kind of the video For that, I want you to think about same thing with this current state and the desired state, we want to create a tension between those two. And what happens with tension, what tension wants to be resolved. And so what I help my coaching clients do is I help them resolve that tension, following the path of least resistance. And what I mean by that is, Energy wants to follow the path of least resistance. So we want to create structures, we want to create design, we want to create processes, and values in such a way that the easiest way to follow through with getting to that desired state, the easiest way to do that is the way that’s going to get me to that desired state. So we have to create all the structure around it that makes the easiest path, the one that leads toward that desired target. So that’s conceptually, how I think about closing this knowing doing gap and actually following through and executing on what it is that you say that you want to do.

Louis van der Merwe
There’s a wonderful example, Steven, I think what comes to mind is that a lot of this content sounds familiar and and what I’m guessing is that it’s from that proven in the trenches book that you co authored, and that truly is a gem for any financial planners starting to build a business. But that was kind of iteration number three. I’m curious to hear how that evolution took place, just to create that amount of content.

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, so tested in the trenches, you’re referring to a book that I co wrote with Ron Carson. So some of you may be familiar with Ron, he’s a very successful financial advisor here in the States. And Ron and I partnered back in 2001. And we started what is now Carson coaching. And so when he and I started in 2001, we decided to create a financial advisor coaching program. And Ron was continuing as an advisor. And so I was the full time guy, the managing partner, of building that thing on a day to day basis. So I ran that business for over 11 years. And we ended up building that from zero to about 1000 advisors by the time I left, and I love creating content. And so as part of the coaching, obviously, we have to create content. So I ended up writing a couple of books with Ron while I was there, one of which is tested in the trenches. And so basically what we did with that book was we identified a multi step process on how to build a million dollar financial advisory practice. And so we took a lot of our concepts that we taught in the coaching program, organize them along a series of nine steps, and detailed those in the book. So yeah, it’s, we’ve had a lot of good feedback. You know, I think it first came out in like, 2005. So it’s about 15 years old, we did come out with an updated version in about 2012. I think it was, and yeah, but I think the the concepts are pretty much timeless. So you know, it’s still valid here today,

Louis van der Merwe
completely agree those concepts, you can almost apply to any business, you know, and I often think of people like Tony Shea talking about we in the service business, we just happen to deliver shoes, where financial planning is about the same thing, to a certain extent.

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, it is. And one of the things that I love to do, since you mentioned, Tony Shea is I love talking to people outside of the financial industry. And that’s one of the things I do with another podcast that I host, called the way forward, and it’s with Barron’s advisor. And I have a co host with it. So one week, I do a show the next week, he does a show. And the way we split it is my focus is on interviewing people outside of the financial industry. And then what I do is I take what they do, and then apply and translate how that applies to what financial advisors do. Because the reality is businesses business, whether you’re running a financial business, whether you’re running a manufacturing business, whether you’re running a retail business, I mean, it’s business, you know, we run into the same issues from leadership, from operations, from customer service, from technology, all those things are the same from business to business. And so what I try and tease out are what are the principles? What are the underlying ideas that can apply from one industry or one profession to another, and with my deep knowledge of the financial advisory profession, I can then apply that to what advisors do. So it’s been a tremendous amount of fun in doing that, and then my co host he tends to interview people in the financial industry, whether they’re financial advisors or Leaders of advisory firms or technology firms? So yeah, so it’s a really good complement of outside industry perspectives, as well as inside industry perspectives.

Louis van der Merwe
That’s wonderful. Steve, is there been anything that surprised you from these guests things that you heard that you maybe didn’t expect?

Steve Sanduski
I don’t know that I would say surprised, because I’m a guy that does a lot of research. So before I invite someone to be a guest, I listen to the podcasts that they’ve been on, I read any books that they’ve written. So I, I typically do a deep dive on the guests before I actually interview them. So usually, I’m not surprised during the conversation with them just because I’ve done so much deep research. And I’m not going to invite them to be a guest on the show, unless I’m really interested in what it is that they do, or I’m fascinated by what they do. So I wouldn’t say there’s so much surprises as much as I just think they’ve got something great to share. They’ve had some great success, they’ve had some tremendous insights. And so my role then, is to try and tease them out during the conversation so that everyone else can benefit from their knowledge and benefit from the things that I’ve learned as well doing my research on them, which is such

Louis van der Merwe
a wonderful skill. I mean, listening to your podcast, I can hear the time and energy that you’ve spent to understand your case and how you’ve crafted those questions. I’m just curious, how do you balance everything? Because there’s a ton of shows going on? There’s a lot of content is RRL tools, the I’m sure you have a life outside these things as well. So how do you think about creating those boundaries and balance in your life?

Steve Sanduski
Well, I surround myself with great people. So it’s not a one man show here. So I’ve got other folks that I work with and collaborate with that make my life much easier than it would be if I had to do all these things myself. I mean, I couldn’t do all these things myself, clearly. So. So I think that is a key, not just for me, but everyone listening is you have to surround yourself with great people. I mean, that’s like the number one rule in business or it’s right up there is if you want to have a successful business, you’ve got to surround yourself with great people. So that is absolutely a key. And then also, I think it gets back to systems. So I talked about, you know, structural thinking systems thinking here is I’m very much a systems and structural thinking kind of guy, meaning I like to put systems in place. So for example, I have templates. So when I put a podcast together, I put together a detailed outline, briefing documents for my guests. And so that’s a template. And basically, the main thing that changes within the template is I’ll have like arc of the conversation. So I have one or two sentences that describes for the guest, here’s kind of the arc of where we want to go with the conversation, then I’ll have a working title. So I’ll come up with a working title for our conversation just so the guests can think, Okay, I got a sense for the message that you want to get across, because here’s your working title, then I have several bullet points, and I’ll say areas to explore. Sometimes those will be questions, sometimes those will just be bullet points. So I try and give the guests a pretty good sense for where it’s going to go. And, and then I’ve got a lot of my notes behind the scenes as I’m having the conversation that I’ve taken through all of my deep research. And yeah, so again, it’s kind of like I use the systems, I use templates, checklists, surround myself with good people, and pick and choose my spots too. So I mean, I can’t do everything as much as I’d like to. And so I’ve just got to decide what’s the highest and best use of my time? What am I really driven toward? What what’s really attracting me and follow those.

Louis van der Merwe
I can seem to podcast about training other people to deliver better podcasts coming on. Steve, what are the top advisors spending their time on in terms of improving their skills? Like where do you see them really spending time and crafting out their skills?

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, great question in terms of when people a lot of times when when advisors come to me for coaching, a lot of them want to grow. But what I find also very fascinating is they come to me and they say, Yeah, I’d like to grow. But that’s really not my number one objective. My number one objective is I just want to get better. I want to know what do I need to do to be one of the best advisory firms to be one of the best advisors to really improve the quality and the value of the service that we deliver to create an experience for our clients and for our team members. And create an organization that people want to work for and that I want to lead. And, and to me that’s that’s very exciting. And so I think that’s one of the key things that a lot of people come to me for is, I want to just get better. Now, the thing is, though, that when you do that, the growth comes almost automatically. And so rather than putting the focus specifically on, I want to grow, it’s about, I want to do all the other things, that that would lead to growth, without the emphasis on the growth, knowing that if I do all these other things, the growth is going to come. And it reminds me of one of my favorite books, it’s called, the score takes care of itself. I don’t know if you’ve if you’ve heard of that or not, but it was written by Bill Walsh, and Bill Walsh has since passed away, but He is the former coach of the San Francisco 40, Niners football team. And when he says the score takes care of itself, what he means is, we didn’t focus on we’re gonna win this game, we got to win the Super Bowl, you know, we got to win the division championship, that was not the focus, the focus was on doing all of the blocking and tackling all of the specific day to day things, that when you get those 100 things, or 1000 things or 10,000 things done, just write consistently, over time, you’re gonna win football games, the score will take care of itself. And so I mean, I believe that as well. So I’m not a guy that sets these, you know, big grandiose goals, I’m someone who’s like, I just want to get better, I want to do a better job as a podcast host, I want to do a better job. As a business coach, you know, those are the kinds of things that I want to continue to get better at. And I know that when I do that, it’s going to lead to top line growth and bottom line profitability,

Louis van der Merwe
almost those input goals, as opposed to just focusing on the output where you have probably less control on and saying, Okay, these are the things that I have to spend time on. And what I’m also picking up is that you’re saying you need to track that progress, you need to know where you are improving, is that right?

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, you definitely need to track progress. And this is probably gonna sound strange to some to you, maybe to some of your listeners, but I track everything. So I’ve got spreadsheets, I mean, I, you know, I sort of gave away my age here earlier. But I mean, I was using spreadsheets back in the VisiCalc days, which was pre Lotus 123. You know, which then, you know, became Excel and so on. So, I mean, I’ve been a big spreadsheet guy. So I mean, I can tell you by month, I mean, I have a balance sheet, a net worth statement by month, going back to 1993. So I mean, I can tell you, and you know, I have a chart, you know, I have a graph that shows you know how my net worth has changed over the years since 1993. I’ve tracked every single workout that I’ve done since the late 1970s, I was a track and cross country runner back in high school and college, and have have continued to exercise since then. So I mean, I have a spreadsheet that shows every single day, what I worked, you know, if I worked out what my workout was, and then it calculates year to date, what’s the percentage of number of days year to date that I’ve worked out? This year, I’m at 92%. So I’ve worked out 9.2 days out of 10 this year, and I can go back every single year and see, oh, at this point last year was I at 92 Was I you know, 83, whatever. So I mean, I’m just very meticulous about that. And one of the reasons why I do that is it gives me motivation. Because when I can track the progress, and I can see the movement, the forward progress, it gives me a nice feeling gives me a little hit of dopamine. So every day when I work out, I pull up the spreadsheet, I put a one in the column that says I worked out today. And then I type in what my workout was. That is a feeling of success. And I get that every single day. So instead of setting just, I mean, I do set a goal to work out 80% of the days. So eight days out of 10. I’m at 9.2. I’m an overachiever, I guess. But I’ve been healthy. So fortunately, you know, I’ve been able to hit that. But instead of just setting a goal of eight days out of 10. And then at the end of the year, see if I hit that and I get one dopamine hit. I get them every single day. So it’s that little progress each day. That keeps me moving forward and feeling good. And I think that’s a little key to hitting your goals is to not just set one or two or three big goals, set little daily goals and pat yourself on the back each day. Steve or financial advisors

Louis van der Merwe
using this concept enough in their clients, because immediately what comes to mind is that if we could apply this to our clients in such a kind of micro dosing manner for them to build momentum, surely we can have much better outcomes.

Steve Sanduski
Totally. I totally agree. In fact, one of the tools that we have that I mentioned earlier with RRL advisor is this firewall index and the firewall index is that middle of the three tools. So it’s the tool that says, Where are you right now? How well are you using your money today to live your best life possible. And what it does is it has a series of 20 statements, and you move a slider between zero to 10. And it has basically a bookend statement and you move between zero to 10. To determine how strongly you feel about that, well, then what we do after they complete that is it gives them a visual, and it gives them some dials. And it shows in three broad categories progress, well being and freedom on a scale of one to 100. If you’re at 100, that means hey, everything’s perfect. If you’re at one, it’s like oh my gosh, you know, life is terrible. So then we simply ask them, I’m, you know, say I’m an advisor, and you’re my client, Louis, I’m gonna ask you, well, Louis, as you look at these different areas here, is there an area that you would like to improve that you’re feeling like, I’m just not doing as well here? I need to make some progress. I need to make some improvement here. And you might say, Yeah, I’m just not happy with my my work right now. I’m just not feeling appreciated at work. I don’t feel like I’m paid enough. I’m just frustrated with work right now. And I would say, okay, Louis, let’s talk about what are some things that you think you could do that could improve your situation at work? And you might say, well, you know, I suppose I could talk to my boss, and, and, you know, just tell him what I’m frustrated with. Or maybe I could ask for a raise, or maybe I could hire a recruiter and start looking for a new job, you know, just kind of do a little list of things that we could do, then I would say, okay, Louis, looking at that list, what’s, what’s one thing, what’s one action that you could take today or tomorrow, that would be a step in the right direction. And so to your point, we’re asking them to identify what’s what’s one thing that you can do immediately, because we want you to get that little hit of dopamine, so to speak, we want you to take that micro action, and start making progress, because it’s much harder to go from zero to one than it is from one to 20. Okay, so as an advisor, I want to help you go from zero to one. And the easiest way to do that is to take a micro step, because once you do that, you’re off zero. And now it’s much easier to get some momentum going and go to one to two to three,

Louis van der Merwe
I love how specific Your words are around getting you to move in the right direction, has there been a specific process that you follow to improve your quality of your questions? Or is that just come naturally, given the amount of content and research that you do?

Steve Sanduski
Well, I would say that I’m widely read and widely listened to. And what I mean by that is, when I say widely read, meaning, I read a lot of different things in a lot of different areas, from psychology, to philosophy, to technology to future is to I mean, just about any area, I have an interest in learning. So I read a lot. And then second, I listen a lot, I listened to a lot of podcasts. I mean, if you look at my podcasts list, you’d see a really wide variety of folks that I listened to, just because I’m I’m like a sponge, in terms of picking all this up. And, and what I think one of my skills is, is just kind of like taking all of this incoming information, running it through my filter, and then putting it back out in a way that people can understand and make sense and is organized in some kind of structure that becomes usable. So I think that’s sort of my superpower, if I had to say I have a superpower is doing that. And and I think as a result of all of that, that I can then come out with what the questions are. And having done over 400 podcast interviews, where I interview people, you know, you get some amount of skill through that just because of the of doing it, and then also the work that goes into it. And I love to learn. So I mean, I hope that I don’t just give the same interview 400 times that I’m compounding the learning. And so I learned well, that worked. Let me do more of that or that didn’t work. Let me not do that again. So hopefully I’m compounding learning as well.

Louis van der Merwe
The Steve Sanduski distillery just being able to distill this massive amount of content into those games that you’ve delivered for us today. Steve, I want to thank you so much for being here. It has exceeded my expectations. It has been so wonderful. Thank you so much for being here.

Steve Sanduski
Well, thank you, Louis. Really appreciated and appreciate all the great work that you’re doing with your firm and with this podcast.

Louis van der Merwe
Thank you, Steve. If people want to reach out to you to maybe sign up for RL two sort of checkout segues or any of the content that you produce, what’s the best way for the producer?

Steve Sanduski
Yeah, let me give you two websites. So if you want to learn specifically about me and what I’m doing on the coaching side, and on the podcasting side, you can go to Steve sanduski.com. And that’s spelled s t e, v e, s, a n, d uski.com, you can just Google my name, and it’ll come up pretty quickly. And that has information about the coaching and about the podcasting work. Also there, you can sign up for what I call GT K, which is my email loot newsletter, GT K stands for good to know. So it’s kind of a distilling of all the things that I’m picking up and learning and experiencing and pushing back out to the adviser community. So please subscribe to that it’s free. And then the other website would be R O L advisor.com. And that’s the program with me and Mitch Anthony and the rest of our team, where we have these digital tools that help you have deep life centered planning conversations with your clients. And it’s not just the tools. It’s also the training. So Mitch and I do monthly, we call them learning hours. And you have the ability to to participate in those. We’ve been doing it for several years now. So we have dozens of, of learning hours, we have all kinds of training in there as well. So it’s really a comprehensive program and windows, I would encourage you to take a look at that as well.

Louis van der Merwe
I want to echo that. Steve, the just the amount of content that you’ve put out there is just so wonderful. I think it’s progressing industry and this podcast is all about moving financial planning into the future. And, like who better to have a guest than Steve Sanduski? Thank you so much, Steve.

Steve Sanduski
Thank you Louis. Appreciate it.