#302 Joris Cuesta – Transcript

Jess Brady
Hello, Joris.

Joris Cuesta
Hello, Jess.

Jess Brady
I am excited, and slightly nervous about today’s conversation because I feel I know that you’re going to challenge me, I know that you’re going to stretch my thinking in a very good way. And I am mentally trying to prepare myself for the nuggets of gold that I know you’re about to deliver. But it’s going to, you know, test how I’m thinking about things because correct me if I’m wrong, that is what you excel at? Yes.

Joris Cuesta
Well, you can say so a lot of clients, I’ve said that in the past. It’s not how I intend to come across very as a byproduct of conversation. It does happen. Yes, people are stretched, challenged, so to think differently. But in hindsight, I think it’s always for the best,

Jess Brady
it is always for the best. But maybe that’s a nice little disclaimer, if you happen to be listening to today’s podcast, be ready to come with an open mind be ready to be challenged, and step out of today’s conversation, ready to move ourselves forward. That’s really why I wanted to have you because the financial advice profession in Australia has had a rough run. I mean, we all everybody, irrespective of what profession you work in, given the world recently, we’ve had a rough run, when you overlay some of the really specific things that financial advisors have worked with in terms of education reform and regulatory reform and additional compliance burdens. For us in our little world. It just feels like there’s been years and years and years of distraction. But we need to acknowledge that we need to implement the changes, and we need to get our spark back because there is an enormous opportunity to help people. And that’s why I wanted to have you join us on the couch today. So before we get into all of the things and you help us change our lives in 45 minutes or less, no pressure, no pressure at all. For the people that do not know you, I would love to pass you tell your story.

Unknown Speaker
Oh, wow. What do you think would people be interested in we do a quick, a quick 32nd? What what do we do personal profit.

Jess Brady
I mean, let’s not do it as like a five hour therapy session. That might be too long. But um, the highlights reel of who is Joris? Wherever you come from, what do you do? And how do you help people good?

Unknown Speaker
Well, the highlights will be that through adversity, and through everyone else, saying that things aren’t possible, including moving on the other side of the world that 18 and not speaking the language, then a year later sitting an exam test to get into university, then later on be going into the US for a different culture and great university and FERS further tertiary education, to your opening my own company and travel the world, you know, through all those push backs and you know, conception of the world saying well, you don’t tick all the boxes, you don’t have x y Zed this one happened. I did make it happen in one way or another. So that’s probably me and how I like to look at things. And for me, it’s, you know, never take no for an answer was my module for many, many years. So that’s a little bit of background through my mindset, through adversity in, you know, you build resilience, the famous resilient muscle. So that has been really good. And what I came to do, what I do is, I’ve have a background around brand and marketing, but with a huge commercial acumen, so to say, because, for me, it’s about people are seeing who you are before they can experience it. When you walk towards someone, you see them. And you get a sense for how they’re going to be in you already. Whether you you know, aware enough of it, you pass judgment to some extent. And it’s no different with a business with a product with a service. So I started thinking about, Well, cool, that’s all the brand and the marketing, but how can we work on the what’s behind all of that. And the thing that stands behind companies and products and services is people. So then I started working with people and working about what would make a human, you know, behave or react the way they do? And how does that influence their teams, that company and ultimately, you know, the client, so I reverse engineer, all of that did do much less of the marketing and branding. And we’re more about the human, the performance, the personal development, the alignment and the engagement, engagement, engagement.

Jess Brady
Obviously, we have so much to cover off to things. Not that I want to tell your life story for you. But talking about this overcoming adversity piece. I mean, you’ve done this at multiple levels. I mean, I don’t know how personal you’re okay to be but like you had to learn to walk again. You’ve been through you’ve gone through a big, wide journey. We have things right.

Unknown Speaker
Yes, true, true, true. Look, again, it’s been, it’s been interesting because when you pay attention to what’s happening around you, you look at life differently. So the learner to ReWalk, again, can be quite scary. And people always feel a bit like, What do you mean? Basically, you know, long story short how the medical condition, it became very bad to the point where, you know, I couldn’t do any sport from age 12, I couldn’t run, I couldn’t go to the gym and living in Australia from, you know, late teenage years, there was all this smorgasbord of activity to which, you know, my old country and doctors used to say, no, no, no. And he came to the point where, you know, the country of Australia and my new friends, and doctors here said, Well, your lifestyle is being impacted in a way that is no longer conducive to you being your best self, and really making the most of life. And that really resonated with me. And I had to really internally do the work and separate what the belief on my old country were in terms of that medical condition I had with my back in my hip, versus what I could gain into having a surgery, we’re earlier than expected here. Because back home, they wanted a surgery at 5045. And here, they were like, well, you’re 28, you can not do much anymore, we should go for it. And I went for it. And that meant that then I could stand at a party and functions did not have to be very mindful of my journey, how much work I was going to have to do, how to go to airports, where to stands, and not doing sports, and I started going to the gym, I started and you’re looking way healthier. And when I say to people, Oh, I’ve had, you know, back and hip surgery, so I had a full hip replacement for disclosure, below 30. So a lot of people are shocked. But again, through that adversity city through looking at it differently, through looking at what other people are doing, I was able to make a decision that actually in hindsight, it’s way better for me my lifestyle, my well being and you know, how I approach life now.

Jess Brady
Amazing. And I think it probably just speaks to exactly it’s a beautiful analogy, sort of, of what you do it which is see a barrier, decide if you’re keen to keep it. And if not make change, which I think we as advisors, we like certainty, we like safety, we like calculated risks. And yet, we have been on a journey that has put us well and truly outside of our comfort zone, which hasn’t always felt good. We like being in control Joris. And so, yeah, the reason that I wanted to get you on today is knowing what you do. And knowing the fact that you work a lot and have in the past worked a lot with entrepreneurs who are in a diverse sector. diverse sectors, I should say. And you work with people who are one man bands and large financial organizations and the like. So you really got sort of that breadth of experience around. I don’t know, how do we get our spark back? Like I just, I’m tired. I’m tired mentally and a bit spiritually, given all of the things and I know others are as well. In fact, I’m 100% sure others are as well. So I want to get your What are your thoughts on how to help? So talking about that engagement piece that you were just mentioning before? When you’re feeling like I’m describing? Yes, it can be really hard to take just that very first step, to move yourself forward to get in a headspace where you’re ready to start to want to bring the spark back. What do you say to those people?

Unknown Speaker
I think, look, there’s any way we could approach this, but I’ve been thinking about it today, actually, because there was an article in the AFR, especially on regulation and financial advisors. And what I think it’s whether you, I believe it’s an industry that hasn’t been fully disrupted. He has been shaken by policy regulation and gone, you know, insights and wanting to have their hands in it. But I don’t think it’s been fully disrupted search, you know, Ubers done to its own industry, Airbnb and the likes. So my question would be, do you believe and you listeners, do you believe that you see the regulations and the layers of requests being added on top of each other as it it’s in the way it’s the end? That’s where it stops? Or do you have a vision for what you do? Do you have a mission? Have you develop an idea or where you want to be in 10 years, and those things happening are part of the journey so you deal with it differently? Because you can lose your module when it seems you’ve been hammered? I think That’s a fair word, you know, in the industry guys for more regulation, more scrutiny, then what happened is this comes and brings the let’s say the walls closer and closer versus being in a big field. And yes, there’s walls on the, on the boundary of the paddock, let’s to say but it’s far away. So you have a breath of thinking you have clarity of thinking you can move and experience things versus oh my god, I’m suffocating. There is way too much. I cannot see anything. I’m only struggling day by day. So I think the first conversation is to see where you’re at. Because one of the interesting point is, you know, he, Frederick Nietzsche says he who has a why to live for can bear almost anyhow. And there’s a lot of how that’s been thrown at you guys. Which is do you have a why that’s big enough. And without going all who in crazy, you know, just about what are the Let’s reconnect with the first reason why you as an individual, as got into the industry. And let’s explore that. And I think that’s going to give a different dimension to people, because then only then you can say, okay, cool. That’s actually the reason why I’ve started and that’s fires me up, then where do I find this in my client in which clients? And then starting fueling yourself with that? That’s the first step?

Jess Brady
And what about if you run a team that is also perhaps fatigued and lacking connection? Because perhaps they’re still working either fully, remotely or partially remotely? And, you know, that sense of camaraderie and community has sort of dissipated over the last few years, which I expect is also impacting this, like, how do you help those people make sure that they’ve still got their spark? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker
that’s the engagement work I did with a couple of larger financial institution and organization. And what was interesting is to spark is the word that they’ve used in the one, you’re going to give us a spark bag choice. And what’s interesting is people go in automation mode more often than you expect. Yeah. So basically, if I apply for a job in the financial sector, as a financial advisor, or anything else, I have an understanding of where the industry is out and what’s expected. So when I jump in a team, I’ll go into task driven mode straightaway. Because I know my job, and I forget to connect about the reason why does organization exist, the way they’re doing it, that’s different, potentially the uniqueness not only as an as an organization, but as a team, there value to really start that mesh of connectivity with people which, when you are taken away from the office, and we’ve all been, you know, sent back to our corners, in our own homes for the past two years, you don’t have any of that. So obviously, when adversity comes in, you have no buffer. And the first step with the team is to understand which language are we speaking here? Why are we doing what we’re doing? How are we different from the other organization? What makes us unique? What is the seat we have at the table in the organization? Are we really aware of how much pool we have at the big table or not? German reputation turns around is something I do with organization and one of them in particular have in mind from being you know, the dark sheep let’s just say and the team where everyone say Oh yeah, well noon, it’s not as then nothing’s gonna happen to six months later, I think the CEO in a tunnel referring to that team as leading the change that happened through the work that happened through first stop at the one of the big tip for leaders listening here, but and everyone is a leader, but by leader here in this conversation for that question is someone that has a team big or small. It is really extremely important for everyone to not only focus about where you’re heading, but once you’ve decided disclose where you’re heading, be really, really brutally honest, on where you’re at. Because every organization under the sun is always focusing on the next big outcome. Next big goal. But what’s interesting is they don’t know where they’re starting from. And the big scoop, big question I ask solopreneur entrepreneur, individual, Team Leader, team members and leaders is have you ever, ever successfully ordered an Uber and arrived at your destination without dropping the pin of your pickup spot?

Jess Brady
As someone who has used myself Sharon Uber’s? No, no, no.

Unknown Speaker
So why would it be different when it comes to engagement and performance? If you’re not clear on where you at as a team, or where every single human being in the team is out, how on earth can you, you know, sanely reach your goal in a timely manner. We make our life harder.

Jess Brady
Totally. And it’s, you know, these are always the funny things were like these revelations are hilariously ironic that the revelations because they are so obvious when you think about them, and yet we do them so poorly. So let’s talk about practically what you missed. And so is this. So let’s just let’s say that, and I’ll come back to this in a second. But let’s just assume that there is a vision, a mission and a purpose that everyone knows which I think we need to we need to come back to, yes, but when we’re talking about actually knowing and being critical about where we are, helped me understand what people could or should do to benchmark that. And if you do run a team, is this self assessments that get discussed with a manager? Is this performance appraisals? Like, how would people know where they are?

Unknown Speaker
So it’s interesting, because it shows that you’ve got a breadth of experience, you work with large organization, and you run your own business? And I can see in your question, you know, in the industry, that’s possibly not many people would know where they’re at, even just without question, which is really, really interesting. But that is key in moving forward. So first is not only at an individual, the individual level, but as a team level. And what I love to have is when are brought into an organization, we have come to Jesus chat, which is very loving, but it’s more so around. Let’s talk first about the big elephant in the room. And as an example, we’ve realized through a couple of organizations I’ve worked with that previous leaders had ingrain, a very specific way of working, which was deleted makes every decision and everyone is a taskmaster. So the new leaders coming into play, not having that way of working, could not understand and could not even pinpoint this out. And someone in one of our sessions said, I believe we suffer from PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Now does the exact same question looked at me became white as the wall and I gave the talk about, it’s okay, that’s it? Well, we’ve unpacked in front of everyone. And everyone realized that, indeed, two or three leaders previously, they had been really managed by being under the thumb of the leader. And, and what happened is inherited learned behavior, which we forget about. So no wonder when the exec was saying, you got this Go ahead. Nothing was happening outside the meeting room, because everyone was scared of making the decisions. Because in the psyche, the learned behavior, if they made a mistake, they would pay the price in the past.

Jess Brady
Do you think this exists in every business of almost every size beyond one, to some extent, 100%? I think so too. And I think if we have a team, as a leader, it’s incumbent upon us to recognize that we have probably created a culture where I mean, I don’t even know what they would be for my team. So this is a good thinking, and learning opportunity. And I guess this sort of naturally flows into being a vulnerable organization that is willing and open to receiving that feedback and preparing to listen, without needing to be defensive, because I can imagine, especially if it’s your own business, and you’ve poured your heart and soul and life into it, hearing feedback that a certain style has created a culture that may not be as open or dynamic or whatever it is, he would be hard to hear and then it would be harder to overcome Correct.

Unknown Speaker
You’re very hard but you know, for example, if a leader and or company get me in for facilitation, or what were whatever it is, they already ready for it. And the people that are going to have this conversation to some extent they are but what’s most interesting is some time we realize in doing this facilitation that the very thing that has been a corner turn in the way people will engage with the organization in the way they would go the extra mile is some time more than not very few tile. Sometimes it was an email that hasn’t been set at Christmas, or the way someone left their job. Where circumstantially sequence of events meant that it was a loving person left for personal reason. But because of timing, no exit interview was done and I was found out and then a an old rumor got started and people thought that the personnel being pushed out in a very bad Way, and everyone thought, oh my god, who’s next, when in fact, it was just simply circumstantial. And then by having that open conversation by me in the room saying, is anyone on LinkedIn with that person and close to them, I said, Go ahead, send the message now, if it is what it is, and show us, we’ll put it on the screen, but they answer. So it’s very, very funny, because then that that did happen. Within an hour and a half, the person replied, saying, Oh, my God, no, I had so much shit to get sorted. This happened in my life, and I didn’t want to talk about it. And it’s all good. And they’ve been actually really good, because they’ve helped me with x amount of holiday and this and that. And that person went blind with all the good things that company had done, when the sentiment internally through things that were out of everyone controls, gave a total different story.

Jess Brady
I think this is fascinating. And I know there will be people listening going, Oh, that doesn’t happen in my team. My team don’t, they would never happen. It does. It does does it happens in yours. It happens in mine and happens in probably everyone’s I want to talk about how leaders can think about facilitating these conversations if they want to themselves to create that culture. You know, if you’ve had a culture for years, where, frankly, we’ve been busy, and we we probably haven’t created the dynamic that we needed to. I would imagine it would seem quite inauthentic to get everyone together and say, write Kumbaya, tell me all your secrets that you think about the business? Yes. How can you start to create a vulnerable culture where people feel safe.

Unknown Speaker
So I think there’s, ideally you want that to be face to face, if you can. And then the professor gets around the fact that, you know, perhaps, as a leader, there’s been some thinking done, and they’re really looking into starting a conversation around the fact that things the way things were done before, not only because of the organization, or the culture, but more so by what’s happening worldwide, is no longer probably conducive to bringing a lot of meaning to people and connection. So it’s just a conversation around finding where everyone is out where the team is out, and what could be done so we could better in terms of a disclaimer, if, as a leader, you have retired and you feel like you could get triggered, try to get someone to facilitate this conversation. Because you know, if you get triggered at the fist corner office, and again, people may not have anything against you. But they have something to say, and we don’t know what people are going through at home. And as a result, you get triggered? And your answer is actually casting a huge shadow on everyone, you would have done more harm than anything. So think

Jess Brady
you’ve completely told the team, inadvertently, hi, give me your feedback. But definitely never give bad feedback ever, ever again. And that was.

Unknown Speaker
And that happened, you know that that does happen. But I think the four points you can do is openness. So anything that we never taken the time to share, let’s share. And that’s an easy one. Also, I think, is asking for feedback. And the way to do that is to give permission, but instead of saying give me two things we do wrong, or give me two things we suck at as a company, which obviously, you know, everyone will be fearful on both sides of the aisle, you just say look, I think we can always improve, and what are the things you think that we could really do differently or a bit better. And then you would have threads coming out? People might say, Oh, I think one of our processes blah, blah, blah, and then you start pulling and unraveling. But other languages are very important. So instead of saying, Give me two things we bat out, or that needs to change and say, what are the things we could improve? And what are the things we do well, so people will get comfortable in saying what is doing well. And then the second base is what can we improve? As a reverse little tip for a leader? This is how you give feedback. You always tell them what they do well and you reinforce what you still want them to do. And then two areas that perhaps could be improved.

Jess Brady
What do you do when you get everyone together? You’re starting to have these conversations people are starting to open up and there are some personalities in a team team dynamics are fascinating. I started to study sociology because I thought I would like to become a sociologist and turns out being a financial advisors probably a close second. Given that it’s much more personal than I thought it was gonna be. What do you do when some of your team members are really happy to engage and be honest and vulnerable and others are completely quiet or naturally more reserved or introverted?

Unknown Speaker
So naturally more reserved, introverted, you then have different ways so you can if you have 10 people or 20 or 50 in a room, you then do breakout sessions in lot of three or four. And what you do is you give a job to everyone, one person is in charge of the time, one person is in charge of taking notes. And one person is in charge of actually making sure the questions you want to be asked and spoken about are asked and spoken about. And the way you do that cleverly, as a leader, because you meant to lead your people and help them grow, you assign those. So you make sure that the job he assigns are always you know, the time and the questions to be covered. Plus the resume, let’s just say the executive summary from what has happened, or the points that I’ve emerged in this conversation, you assign that to the extroverted, which means that the introverted has to start the conversation.

Jess Brady
Hence why I’ve been timekeeping and night note taking all my life See,

Unknown Speaker
see exactly, but yeah, that’s why you know, this stuff professional than other tricks. Now, I don’t want anyone else in a future session being Oh, yeah, I know what he’s going to do now. But the those are one of the things you can do, then the other thing is really about starting a conversation where explaining that this is a safe space. And there’s a lot at stake in the way of being better for the for the clients for the meaning the fulfillment of them, but also the end result for the people experiencing the product or services you’re working on. And I think it’s about you know, first reestablishing the reasons why the business exists, then talks about needs and once at a team level, whether it’s within the team, or externally among the organizations, and try to clarify what is a need, what is a want, and then go lower and lower on the ladder to an individual want and need. Because that is going to first enable people to get to know each other better. They’re going to connect on a different level and understand that ultimately, and weirdly enough, they’re all very similar to one another. There were, a lot of the people in the session says to me, I would have never thought that I had decent decent, this in common with a head of blah, blah, blah, my gosh, it’s hard to know because of this title and what I do. And so you need to have those little conversation, then there’s the values. And I’ll actually have a look at you know, lived value, ideal value, company value, personal value and mapping all that now, you know, as a leader, you can’t do that on your own, you have to bring someone that knows how to do that. But it’s very interesting, at least to discuss the value and one hack, if you want to do it on your own. Or if you’re ready to have an external person is to just say to your team, if we were to only focus on I know we have six or eight or 10, or I don’t know how many values in the company. But if we were to look at the one we should focus on on the next quarter to be better, which one would it be, and you would see that everyone together, if they vote in discuss it will mostly agree on the one they have to focus on. Now. If you bring them into focus, and everything through those value, you will see the team performance and morale and engagement increasing,

Jess Brady
I think there would be lots of financial advice businesses that have a mission of helping people get great advice, but probably don’t have a document that very well outlines their mission, their value their purpose, how important is that for a business of any size?

Unknown Speaker
Well, I would answer by saying if you have any kids or see any kid, how important is it to give food and water and love to a kid.

Jess Brady
I mean, I have a dog and I would say quite important if I don’t feed her every few hours, she’s not a happy camper. So very important. jerris it’s very,

Unknown Speaker
very similar that the livelihood of your organization of your company of your business depends on how much you take care of it, and the type of care you give.

Jess Brady
And so you’re now talking about the working in the business working on the business. Yes, you can have great client or member outcomes. But if we don’t turn our focus to the running and the entrepreneurial element of the business, which is having stated values, missions, etc, having team culture events, having performance appraisals, are you saying that that is effectively not giving the business the oxygen that it needs to thrive

Unknown Speaker
entirely and if you don’t have oxygen, you need to have something else you need to have money and time. So funnily enough for the people that are not invested in the for the leaders sorry, and business owners or boards that aren’t invested in their people. Then I say to them, you need to have a ton of cash and time because you will need to make them happy through bonuses. You will need to buy their loyalty so to speak, because it’s it’s a relationship that is just about once I come to work, I do work and I get paid versus developing your people spending a bit of time with them. And under long run, you realize that you’re not going to have to pay a manager for putting someone on a performance management plan, you’re not going to have to have HR involved because there’s a cancer culture and there’s some nastiness happening. And then everyone is involved. And there’s a lot of documents you fill in, and so on and so forth, you’re not going to have the amount of hiring and firing involved. So it’s it nowadays in 2022. And to illustrate this, there’s a lot of organization that says to me, Well, I decide and they should do what I want them to do. And ultimately, even Gen X and Y will fall into line. And, you know, candidly, I just said, well, good luck with that. And they usually look at me like, What am I paying you to tell me good luck. And then I said, Well, you know, statistically speaking by 2025, which is now you know, around the corner 75, up to 75% of the workforce will be made of millennial, so to any organization or board that said to me, we don’t really care, so to speak, not in those words, but you know, you can read between the lines, that they’re not invested in the people so to speak, while I said, you’re going to have to choose from ultimately 25% of the workforce of people that are over a certain age and already looking at their retirement, and not at the peak in their life. That’s going to be very hard to clinch all your goals and keep the performance up and also have bums on seats. So it’s a choice.

Jess Brady
And we within the advice landscape, we’re already seeing this play out. I mean, anyone, everyone knows that the financial advice numbers have gone down substantially over the last few years, because of the education requirements. We know that the professional year, which is when new entrants come into the profession is new, it’s complicated. And we actually just don’t have a lot of people entering the market. And so practically, what I’m hearing from you is, if we don’t have an attention and a focus from this, not only are we fighting from candidates from the same pool, but culture and who you are, as an organization is going to have the candidates self select where they want to work. So no matter how much you think you can pay them, it’s not the same world that it was where

Unknown Speaker
no, I get choice, they get choice. And I mean, look at the moment how many clients I have, whether in the financial industry or not, but if I think of two in the financial industry, right now, they’re trying to hire that data analyst, they cannot get anyone and CommBank at the moment is very well known to offer an extra 20 to 30k to you know, middle leader to secure them, and they actually, you know, going like scavenges into all the organization to get some talents because the borders are closed. Because as jobs are really hard to get even in the tech space. So it’s already showing people that it’s coming across all industries.

Jess Brady
Yeah. And that’s just going to keep getting worse for us. And then that, of course just affects profitability as well. One thing that you said very early on in this conversation that I sort of philosophically bookmarked to come back to was around this idea that when someone is new, if you don’t take the time to suffer, we’ve just discussed action item, if you don’t have one mission values purpose, not a nice to have, it’s a must have you heard it here, first.

Unknown Speaker
Not just a commercial one, don’t go a PR agency to get some cute words, if he doesn’t resonate, feels right, and does something to you, then keep working at it.

Jess Brady
Agree so once that once you have them and they’re authentic, and they’re right for you what I was thinking about, and we’ve on boarded, and off boarded a few people in our short history, I think one of the comments you made around people coming in and being very task oriented is so true for two reasons. By the time you bring someone by the time you’ve made a decision to hire someone, by the time you’ve been able to find someone, and they’ve given notice and all the things, it’s more likely than not that you’re sort of very much in need of that help and support. So there’s also a huge impact on particularly for in a small business. The resourcing required to train someone, I think most of us probably do an average job at actually really setting the scene in terms of who we are and where we’re at and what we’re about. Other than sort of a good morning coffee, this is who we are, etc. And similarly, I think people that are coming into the job, want to prove that they can do the job. So they of course task oriented because they want to learn the tasks, the processes to show I’m competent, I got this. But what I’m hearing is if you miss that whole step of educating them on the macros of your business, you’re creating a culture where people don’t really understand Who the organization that they work for is have I understood that correctly?

Unknown Speaker
Yeah, no true. And what’s even more interesting is questions for everyone here. Have you ever had anyone that started the great and suddenly something happened, they do something and you think what happened, we would have never done that. We’ve dropped a ball with his client. And with that? Well, one of the reason is because when you don’t do the onboarding, they cannot get the finer detail about how invested you are with your clients. They don’t understand the level of engagement you have, they don’t understand what a client means for you.

Jess Brady
And just to be really clear, this isn’t about processes. This isn’t about tech. And how we do things from a practical perspective, correct?

Unknown Speaker
No, no, this has nothing to do with it. This is more the nuances and the subtlety. And this is where company wins. This is where Apple has become Apple,

Jess Brady
what do the best companies do from a culture perspective.

Unknown Speaker
So what’s interesting is in a lot of large, big company, there’s going to be seven or eight rounds of interviews, and people don’t really understand. I have heard at Google at one point in time, it was up to 10, or 11 rounds. And every single one had a different focus, but it covered everything. Now, if we shorten all of that the ideas, I say to anyone that I coach for the job, for example, one on one, if you get invited to an interview, the minute you walk in, you have to drop, the minute you start opening your mouth, you may lose it. So when someone comes into an interview, where as a leader, you have the person in front of you, this should be the right person for the job. Because if we look at the capabilities, or their ability to perform the task, they take, what you want to know is to make sure that they are culture fit, make sure they have the same vision or similar vision you have, make sure the value are shared. So when they come into the organization, it doesn’t matter about the process, and the systems you have in place. They really understand the reason why you’re in business, and they will do right by you buy the business and the clients. A process can always be learned a way of doing things. Yeah, I mean, it’s quite easy. You should have a you know, ABC, but you need to spend the time to make sure that you know, there is some subtlety here there is a there is a uniqueness we want to share. And I think the biggest opportunity in your industry guys, is to start embracing your uniqueness. I do believe that it’s all very, and you know, a lot of people might scream right now, but get ready. It’s only beige talks. Well, yeah, someone talks about, you know, financial advisors, it’s all very bad. You usually know what you get, you get some people that are a bit older that I’ve done that that have done great things. But I know that if I want something different out of life, am I think or no not going to go because he’s going to ask me about my superhero and this and that, and I’m not doing it this way. And I’ve got aspiration. And does that mean I need to let go of all my dreams and and so there is an understanding or a perception right or wrong about the industry. So if you embrace more of your uniqueness, yes, focus on the rags and do all that. But have fun with your uniqueness, who you want to work with how you want to work with what you want to be known for. You might be a financial advisors want to be known for helping your clients building the biggest property portfolio, go for gold, I tell you, you’ll be busy. You want to be known for the financial advisors that give the best lifestyle to people. And that is fine as well. There’s the hundreds of 1000s or millions of people in Australia that would want to create enough income or revenue stream to have a lifestyle. There might be other people that just want to give back and want to create as much money as possible to give back like I’m only talking land now I have different ideas with all of those are could be one of your uniqueness, or target market or a niche or the way you do things on approach. Now that I think is the biggest opportunity for any financial advisor listening here today.

Jess Brady
Let’s just say you provided some constructive feedback to me when we were going to launch our business. But in all seriousness, it helped it helped cement some thinking it helped challenge us to be comfortable with being more loud and probably owed T T than we thought we wanted to be because of course we came from I mean, we came from an organization where you legitimately could not post on LinkedIn, anything that wasn’t written by the organization without the company’s approval. So like we came from being babied more than we could ever understand. And we were probably quite scared to be wild. Well, now if you look at our LinkedIn, we’ve probably gone too wild and perhaps need to come back. But you’re right. I think once you’ve got that, and even if it’s not that you’re really, really nation, sort of who you’re targeting, but whatever your authentic self is, and you’re human element is, there obviously has never been a better time to.

Unknown Speaker
Oh, yeah, I’ve been craving for it. Yeah, tell people I mean, you know, already when we were kind of free and roaming around, we were looking at each other. And you know, when you arrive into a bar or restaurant, you look around, oh, yeah, I belong here. Oh, this is V, or this amount of people coming. Yeah. You know, you’re at a conference that Oh, my God, I just love you that stay with me. Let’s go for drinks, you are fun. I love what you do. You know, that happens. Now. Now that we are in our, in our homes, we are deprived from all of these little moments. So to compensate, because that’s what we do. We want to find that in company more than ever, while I’m on a website, or while I’m on a podcast, I want to hear someone I can relate to, I want to hear someone that seems to get me, I want to give them my money. And definitely not to someone that I don’t really agree with,

Jess Brady
oh my gosh, Swift’s covenants we’ve covered so much. So, you know, we’ve talked a lot about firstly, organizations needing to have, irrespective of size have very well defined values mission, and also making sure that we impact our team in a way that we possibly aren’t always cognizant of needing to do. And recognizing that culture is going to take all of our businesses to the next level. And that is the secret sauce that’s going to help us it’s not going to be any fandangle new regulatory update or downgrade or tech because we’ve had a lot of tech come in, it’s actually the culture and the team that make or break us. And now you’re also talking about how to, then once you’ve really got that, and you’ve got that secret sauce in your team are awesome. Helping the world understand and see that and then, of course, leads to lead generation. Fascinating, I could talk to you all day long. In fact, you already know that sometimes I wanted to talk to you all day long. Before we move to rapid fire, and then how people can learn more about you is that any last piece of information or advice that you would give to financial advisors, who maybe a learning about how to think about this process and perspective for the very first time.

Unknown Speaker
So if they have people in their teams, I would leave them with become very aware of the fact that you are responsible for people, not the outcome or the results. So your job as a leader is to grow and expand your team, your individuals. And in turn, those people are the one responsible for the outcome and results. So don’t be attached by the result. And think it’s a reflection of who you are and good about you as a leader. The reflection of who are good or better the leader you are is the result that your team has produced while you’re supporting them in growing interesting. That’s we often have that V as a conversation. And leaders love that now for the financial advisors that are on the Iran, I want you to get pumped, you have a massive opportunity. Tomorrow can be the first day in which you’re going to show up differently, you’re going to start being you you’re going to look at your edge your uniqueness, and you can become the talk of the town, not just another base, financial advising organization or company. But you will be the guy that people refer at coffee or at the playground saying, oh my god, you know, Steve, or Jess, or Glenn that did all my documents and helped me get the house. They are so cool. They get me that’s how you want to be talked to. And now it’s about how he’s going to happen. Well, how can you become more you? Can you inject more you into your everyday in your business. That’s what I want to leave you with?

Jess Brady
I love that. Okay, we’re gonna go into rapid fire questions. But just in case I forget, because I get really scared to how can people learn more about you and all of the interesting, amazing things that you do and I should say from a personal disclosure perspective that you have helped us and it has been fascinating and challenging and very rewarding. So I highly recommend, um, how can people learn more about you?

Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Well, there is the website, which is my full name.com, Joris questor.com, spell it spell it JORISCU e s t a.com. And you can look in the show notes, or you can find me on LinkedIn and I’m also on Instagram, same name. What I would want people to do is reach out, reach out, reach out for conversation, comment on some posts, and we can start a conversation. always keen to have a church.

Jess Brady
Thank you. I love that you have faith in my show notes to know that I will put a link in there so well done you for trusting in my capabilities. All right, to end today’s fence tastic conversation for us, I would like to know, what is one thing that you do to look after your mental health?

Unknown Speaker
Or I tried to stay true as possible to the mantra it’s a new one is when you know better you do better. So I need to know what drains me what fuels me what’s worth the battle or not? And stay true to that. Love that.

Jess Brady
That’s hard. I love that. What is one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self? Oh,

Unknown Speaker
okay. Stop overthinking everything, develop your 135 and 10 year plan and dive in. And the reason is life has your back anyway.

Jess Brady
Oh, I need to collate these and like go and hand them to teenagers. Ah, what is one thing that you haven’t done yet? But it is on your bucket list?

Unknown Speaker
Okay, this is a biggie. Space travel to experience. Zero Gravity. Well, looking back at Earth,

Jess Brady
sorry, you want to go to space?

Unknown Speaker
Yes, I want to experience zero gravity and one of those you know, whether it’s thanks to Jeff Bezos or to Elon budget, or to Richard Branson, you know, I want to do I really want to do that. I want to do a flight where you can experience zero gravity and look back at the amazing thing. Knowing all there is he in have the different perspective on things

Jess Brady
physically. As a claustrophobic person, that seems like a terrible idea to be stuck miles from anywhere you can escape from but good on you. And you know what? It sounds like it’s becoming more attainable as the years go on. Last question, I have a fake book club, which means that I just read a lot. The list of books is ever growing. So I hope there’s some other people out here who are reading some of the books because I’m fastly falling behind. What is one book though, that you would give me to read as part of my book club list?

Unknown Speaker
I think Man’s Search for Meaning from Viktor Frankl will be good. Basically, the bottom line of the book is about that if you’re able to find meaning in life, you’ll be able to move forward even after experiencing the worst experience imagine imaginable to humankind like you did. So.

Jess Brady
Lots of people have told me about that book, and yet I haven’t read it. So that’s a good reminder, Joris, you do such unique work you are in people possibly can tell you are not backwards in coming forward, which I love. And you hold space for challenging conversations, which often people shy away from. And so I want to say personally an enormous thank you for all of the great work that you’ve done with me. And I want to say thank you for having today’s conversation. It is an important one and no doubt you will help people reinvigorate their team, their business and themselves to succeed in the next part of their journey. So a huge thank you.

Unknown Speaker
Thank you so much to you for having me. And it’s always fun and a pleasure and anyone that wants to have a conversation. Feel free to reach out anytime to more than other day and tomorrow is the day you can start do things differently.

Jess Brady
Thank you, my dear. Thank you