Build the Right ‘Whos,’ Scale the Right Way: Lessons from a $500 Million Advisor

At one point, Colleen Bowler was doing it all — leading client relationships, growing her firm, and keeping every plate spinning. Then she found her "whos" and built the firm to over $500 million in AUM. Then she sold it.

Now, she’s on a mission to help other advisors scale without sacrificing themselves in the process.

In this episode of Advisors Off Script, Shelby Nicholl sits down with Colleen to trace her journey — from the early days of building a successful practice, to coaching inside The Strategic Coach, to developing tools now used by advisors across the country through her firm C & J Innovations.

What emerges is a story about growth — not just in revenue, but in mindset. About choosing the right “Whos” over doing it all yourself. And about protecting your most valuable resources: your energy, your time, and your vision.

In this episode:

• How Colleen built and exited a $500 million practice
• The mindset shift from do-er to builder
• What the best advisors are doing to scale without burnout
• Why saying “no” is a business strategy
• How assessments can deepen client relationships and accelerate growth

This isn’t just advice. It’s a blueprint for building a firm — and a life — that lasts.

Learn more at MurielConsulting.com 

www.murielconsulting.com

Produced by Shelby Nicholl.
Edited by Aaron Sherman.

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll License code: EV5ON7Y3CSESDSEU

Transcript

0:31

/ For most of us we got to where we are by saying I can do that for you. I can do that for you. I can do that for you. To 10 x we've got to change to WE can get that done. I never went into a meeting alone. I wanted them to understand the strength behind the team the strength behind we. If advisors hear nothing else on this podcast your a plus team members are your best clients. And when you ask how did I get to half a billion that's how I did it. From $14,000 to $500 million in AUM Our guest is Colleen Bowler. Colleen's secret to scaling was finding the right who's for her team. After selling her $500 million practice in 2020. She started c and J Innovations A firm that developed question-based tools now used by financial advisors everywhere to deepen client relationships and scale the right way. we dig into her story Let's dive in. Colleen, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here. Hi, Shelby. So good to see you. I work with a lot of advisors who are going independent, launching their own practice, for the first time. And especially launching a new RIA. It's a moment of reset. We can reset our structure, our team, our vision. You've been with Strategic Coach for 20 years and one of Dan's signature books is Who Not How, and it. Feels like to me a business in transition is especially a time when the who's are critical. Can you kind of share a little bit about this book of who, not how and maybe how who's can help create a protective moat?'cause I know those are some words that I've heard, heard you say before. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And I actually brought the book, um, who Not How took it off my shelf. for most of us as advisors, as we start in the business, I didn't even realize I was starting a business, but we are everything. you know, whenever we think of something. We think of, how can I get that done? And I think as entrepreneurs, as business owners, we have a lot of ideas. And then that piece that goes well, how can I get it done But especially as you're going through transition, especially if you are wanting to scale, and I kind of make the distinction, and actually the industry does as well between lifestyle entrepreneurs. And significant entrepreneurs and lifestyle are ones, you know, I'm really happy where I am. I am happy with the money that I am. It fills my needs and please hear me. I don't, money. Money does a lot of great things. but if I hang out in lifestyle, I really don't wanna grow. And then I keep those old habits, the old habits of when I say, wow, I'd really love to, Scale my business, I'd love to 10 x my business. The current habits we have will not allow us to do that. So the who, not how is a mindset switch that when we think of something else we want to do, like thinking about transition instead of how can I do that? Who could I reach out to that has either done this before, that could support me in a, someone like you and, you know, building those who's around you? Or how can I put these processes into my business? Well, it's not, how do I do it? Who is really the best qualified to do it? I, um, circled a couple of things in, um, the book and the how part. says, how requires that you be the one to engage your time and attention? So how says, how can I get it done? I've gotta do it, but who is about getting the desired result as effectively as possible? And I would add in as easily as possible. It's bringing in the who's with their wisdom, knowledge, and expertise to help you get to the next level and the next level. Yeah, I feel like with the, how it becomes about process, like what is the process I'm going to use in order to accomplish this goal? And when you think about the who it becomes, who can I hand this to that's just gonna run with it and go and do it. It is, it is a total mindset shift. of like who, not how as an entrepreneur. Now I was like, oh, I've been looking at this all, all wrong.'cause in my corporate world I was all about how do I hire the team members that I need in order to do X job, X action? And now I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I wanna scale this business. Who do I need on my team who can help me? Go and do this in a very different way than maybe what I was thinking about, and especially if you wanna 10 x your business. Yes, and I think expands our mindset to collaborating with other partners. It's just not, when I started in Coach, maybe it was 24 years ago. Those who's we always thought about as employing people, people on our team. But we really are embracing, and I did in my planning firm and with CNJ Innovations, with all our businesses, really embracing who's that are collaborators bringing in outside talent, that that's what they do all day long and that's what they love to do. So like our marketing person is a, who our tech teams are, who's right. It is about who can help get us to where we wanna go. Yeah, I think even about, you know, businesses like yours. In mind and even large practices that are wanting to scale, right? Who might be a PR firm? Yes. know, it might be, how do I get the, the, the word out? And that's always been something often that was sort of, decentralized if you will, right? It was sent to an outside supplier. But it's like, what else can you do that way? One of the things also that comes up. For me, and that I see in a lot of entrepreneurism, um, not sure I hear it as much in the financial services sector, but just in entrepreneurial sectors in general, is this idea of a protective moat and that you wanna build a moat around your business so that, that's what creates competitive advantage. Right. I think if you're reliant on people as, uh, the people are like one of your key ways to. Create differentiation in the, in the marketplace for your business is gonna be through the people on your team, the people that you're bringing in, the, the people that are part of your world. but we've gotta be able to retain them on our teams and, and keep, keep their skillsets on our teams. Yes. Okay. So let's talk about it from the financial advisor Yeah. you know, which I sold my firm in 2020. Um. Started with 14 K and then obviously half a billion of asset under management. A top 1% firm. The who's that were on my team, the ops manager, the paraplanners, other advisors, et cetera, were really, really important. And instead of how can I get this done, who, you know, we built. A process driven practice. And me, originally, I like run from process, but I learned to embrace it from being in Strategic Coach because that is how you create scale. I think in the beginning of my career I was worried about losing team members. So maybe one of the worst things. Worse things I did as an entrepreneur was keep people longer than they should. but it was when I learned this thing, you know, Shelby, if you're on my team, you know, you cannot take vacation unless we have a process for every thing that you're doing. So we had processes in our process. From how do you greet someone? How do you create that report? How do you put the stuff in CRM? What do you do? So. I think having a process driven firm allows you to build the who's around you in the firm, but also not be constrained by them. Be allowing them to grow and get better, um, and then bringing someone else in because those processes are in place. Does that make Yeah. Yeah, it does. Definitely As, as well as, I think what you've acknowledged is that the person's career path doesn't end with that one job that we've asked them to do. Yes. Yeah. And because if you're building a 10 x team, you don't want people that just have a flat career path. Right? You want people to grow, you want people to continue to learn. You want to like you do, So if we keep them in a certain role, um, I have. have a lot of advisors as clients, obviously, but as friends as well, and they're like and so left and they took all the wisdom with them. Well, yeah, that's when you don't want them to leave, right? Because they put all the wisdom of the clients or the processes, they held the advisor captive. So I love who's that wanna grow, that wanna build that? Um, our growth oriented to be on our teams. And the way to do that is having a process driven practice because there may come a time, and there was oftentimes I had this great person on my team and we were talking about things they loved to do, and she was in charge of our customer service, and she said, you know, I really hate talking to the client. And she was so good. She was so good. And so I'm like, I ended up helping her go back to school to get her PhD in statistical science. Right. was a great who on my team and not a right fit, Interesting. She did the job, but it didn't bring her joy. She wasn't living up to her full potential in that role. right, right. And who creates 10 X teams or 10 X teams that you've got almost every who in this seat that they're really loving coming to the office or wherever their office is, right. Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. When you think about your business and growing it to a half a billion dollars is such an accomplishment. you. What did you do that sort of made your business kind of defensible or sustainable? Why? How did you get it to 500? 500 million, right? Lots of people struggle with, with getting to that number. you know, I, I tell you, I talk about building a moat around our clients. I really focused in on what I do really well, which is asking questions and finding out where someone wanted to go. After a couple years, I realized I love numbers. That's fine. I'm really good at it. I can debrief a will document all day long, but I don't want to. I'd rather have a conversation with you about what's going on and where you wanna go, and then. Our team creating the plan about it, right? So how we built that mode around our clients was. Either partnering with another advisor or bringing on the team, an insurance specialist, a life and disability specialist, the ops manager. We had, you know, several advanced estate planning attorneys we loved to work with. We had several CPAs that we loved working with, that they loved working with us and our clients. So as you build this moat around the clients, you become. indispensable for their future. They don't see a world without you in it. oftentimes, try to be all things to all people. Um, it is one of the best ways to get business is you have a prospect that's like, you know, but I've worked with this guy for 25 years. Alright, what happens if he gets hit by a bus? Hmm. And they pause. You know, maybe they, you know, but I have his cell phone number. You don't wanna give me your cell phone number. I'm like, no, you don't get my cell phone number because I have this incredible team around me. You don't want just me. You want this wisdom, knowledge, and expertise of this whole team. what's the magic. It isn't I, I mean, I'm really wicked smart, but you know, there's so many people on my team that are smarter than me. The advisor has to step out of their ego. For most of us, we got to where we are by saying, I can do that for you. I can do that for you. I can do that for you. I can, we've got to change to 10 x to, we can get that done. And so you gotta put your little ego over there, which can Yes. It's a new habit. It's a It is, it is. And I can appreciate how advisors, you and, and really entrepreneurs in general, you build your business on yourself first. Right? And that's how you get your early success. Yeah. then you have to convert to the we. And it's, it is a transition. And, and one of the worries is that you're going to lose the magic of your business. By converting to we. Right. And that is the ego to your point. That's the ego that is talking. Yeah. And the real magic is right now, I think current stat, Shelby, and you'll be able to, you know this better than me, is advisor spends 60% of their time running the business. most advisors, that is not what they love to do. Yeah. Yeah. building the who's around to be the ones that run their business. So maybe you spend 25% running. Can you imagine the impact? That you're a team and you would have if you could free up that time. You know what I was great about was asking questions, And then yes, we all get in there and, and go back and forth on design and things like that, but that happens where the client doesn't see it. I never went into a meeting after about year 10 alone. Because I wanted them to understand the strength behind the team, the strength behind we, you know, and, and that is a egos flip. It goes from pitch and everything about you and the confidence, oh, I'm A CFP, which is really important, but it is switching to the client and their future and where they wanna go. And in order to do that, to have the team that 10 Xs, that 10 xs easily. And when you ask, how did I get to half a billion, that's how I did it. Right? That's how we had a full financial planning firm. We did life, we did disability, we did long-term care. We, we made sure the foundation was in place because we had many people come to us who had investment advisors that when a spouse died, there was. The foundation wasn't in place and I could never have that happen, right? It's a horrible thing to have somebody go through. so those who's are really important, One of the things that you've talked about is your, your value in asking questions and your special skillset there. One of the other pieces, and I think they're related, is that you are, you were always really comfortable also about who you were gonna work with and what your ideal client looked like and. Maybe even saying, Hey, you're not my ideal fit, or, you're not a fit for me for whatever reason. Yeah. some people who are. Can you talk a little bit about that?'cause I think a lot of advisors, just like we're afraid to hand, um, hand things to our team, we are really afraid to say no to work and to, to not serve a certain client. Yeah. I think that's the flip from scarcity mindset to abundance mindset. And the beginning I'm talking to everyone, right? That to say I had a right fit client when I started. No. And I, I think we need the practice and we need the, the connection. And if I was a new advisor right now, I would go into a organization that had great. Advisors in it. That would be my my thing. because that's a great place to learn. Those are all who's to learn right from, so probably, um, it was when I was able to get into Coach, which was maybe my 10th year in the business, and we talked about right fit clients and so it was really thinking what is a right fit. A good example was I had one client,$10 million in net worth, which tenure. That was a really big deal. I mean, at that point in time in my deal. Um, and he said, you know, we only had meetings on Sundays. That was only time. And coach is like. You know, you've gotta decide when your free days are. And my free day was Sunday. That was my time with my son. I was a single mom, and I said, you know, I can't work with you on Sundays anymore. He goes, well, everybody works with me on Sundays. My accountant does. My attorney does my, and I realized in that moment, gonna have to let him go.'cause I, I, I have to set a boundary. And I said, I can't do this, but let me introduce you to several. Advisors that I know that would, um, he was really mad. And at the next meeting with my team, they're like, thank you. I was like, do you mean? Thank you? And they're like, he was so rude to all of us. He disrespected us. He didn't, he treated you so well. He treated us poorly. And I'm like, why didn't anybody tell me? Well, because he was one of the top five clients of the firm at the time. They didn't wanna lose that revenue. They were protecting me. if advisors hear nothing else on this podcast, your a plus team members are your best clients and. I don't want any of my clients messing with my team. So right fit means how do they treat me, but also how do they treat my team? Do they welcome the questions? Do they wanna be woven in? Do we, we had multi-generations, you know, if we don't wanna do that, it's just not a right fit. If somebody comes in and only wants. Return on investment, that's not a right fit for us.'cause I don't know where you wanna go, but return on involvement. You telling me where you wanna go and us, I'm right there with you. So. as I got more and more successful, I do believe 10% of our practice we did have for, anyone I would meet with anyone. If, if you recommend someone to me to talk to, I'm gonna talk to them. But if they're not a right fit, I'm gonna say, you know, you don't need me. I'm the last person you want, you know, I'm, know, it's just too much of an investment for you, which the planning fee I always said. Was an investment, not an expense, because I do think it's an investment in the family, but let me connect you with either an advisor on my team I knew a little bit about 'em, I might've already had them there and I would've been pivoting or somebody in the industry that I met at a meeting. You know, you just got back from future proof, which I'm fomo about. But, there's so many great advisors that that could be a right fit for. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I feel like sometimes when we take on something. That is not in our wheelhouse or is not the right fit client for us. It. We think we're doing the person a favor, but over and over it shows up that we've actually done them a disservice. And I did this recently. I, um, I talked with somebody and I just enjoyed this person so much, Yeah. and what he needed is not really what I do. I still sent him a proposal anyway, and I'm like, why? Why am I doing this? I know this is not work I should be doing, and what I should have done is send him to, in this case, a leadership coach, right? He was gonna be a people leader for the first time, adding people to their team, wanted to understand first hire, et cetera. I can help with hiring people, but I. Our firm could, I shouldn't even say I, right. We Wait, my, my team and, 'cause it's really Tanisha West on our team. Like we can help with hiring people, but it. This leadership coaching that this person need is not really what I should be doing and isn't my wheelhouse. But I liked him so much that I wanted to say yes, and, and it's been such a lesson to me. I was like, okay, I will never do this again. Because afterwards I was like, why am I sending him a proposal? I feel like he'd be better served by others, and that's what I should have told him. Yeah. it's such a poignant lesson. Yes, and it is. And it is an abundance mindset that says, I want you to be served and I am not the best fit. Right. I really like you, and I had a call with an advisor yesterday, and I really like the person. He's with a team. I'm, I'm happy to spend 15 minutes or 30 minutes with anybody, but coaching for me is not what you need because that's, I don't, you know, I'll do 15 minutes or, but I'm not a one-on-one coach. Right. So Yeah, I think Shelby, I call it staying on our side of the line yeah, like we'd review. Clients every year, are they still our right fit? Because I never wanna let anyone go. Right? I yeah. I We like these people. Mm-hmm. these people, if we're working below our capacity, we get bored and we create messes. And so we're really not serving them. You know? We think we are, but yeah. Yeah. You've said, and you, you just said the word board. You've said there's nothing worse than a board entrepreneur. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that? Is is, really to Dan Sullivan saying, is it? create messes. We create fires. He said, we're the arsonist and then we're the firemen because we need the excitement. Right. So it is, it is having people around you to say, Hey, Shelby. this really a right fit for the firm right now? I know you're very excited about this person, but let's take a step back. So it's allowing your team also to step in and say, is this a right fit? Yeah. Yeah, and I think that board entrepreneur thing, it feels like a hunger for challenge and it's. You know, my journey is that I didn't become an entrepreneur until I was in my late forties. I'd like to say mid forties, but it's really kind of towards the later end of my forties. but I took all this entrepreneurship courses when I was in college in my MBA program, but never took the leap into entrepreneurship. And, but one of the things I always was worried about in my corporate career was getting bored. I was. Terrified of being bored, which now I think is, oh, that was probably a clue. I should have been an entrepreneur. Well, you are. Now I am. Yeah. Yeah. you are. And I would say all that background. such a great foundation. You know, people's like, I should have started earlier. I should have done this. Or you know, clients or prospects come in saying, I, you know, and we as advisors can either make them feel good about where they are or make them feel shitty about where they are. Yeah, you should, you know, but we can get Right. No, it's like, you know what, we all start when we can start and you know, you are going to have so much. Different impact because of your corporate foundation Yes, than absolutely. started in their twenties as an entrepreneur. It's Yeah. right? It is different and I definitely bring, I learned a lot. There's a lot of skillset that I gained that now I can apply to my work. right. of the things I feel like when people are moving to RIA or they're making a big transition in their business is, you know. Sometimes they're doing it because they've gotten bored. Sometimes it's because even in age, you know, I was talking with someone the other day and, and this person had, had, had gone through a, a milestone in of age and they're like, if not now, then when, you know. So there's lots of things that trigger us into the action for the next phase of our career. it's a mindset shift, right? Yeah. that reminds me that you exited your business, you had grown it to about 500 million of a UM, and many advisors don't sell their businesses until they're in their sixties, their seventies. I. Know of advisors who are in their eighties that are, are still working every day and Yeah. owning their practice and in some cases don't even have a good succession plan. It also in a lot of cases, right, it's something we really see. What led you to the decision to kind of sell your practice, and then what elements made the biggest impact on that valuation or your deal structure do you think? So, you know, part of it is, you know, I had grown it so vague and I was only working about 50% time, and people could say, oh. That's be everybody was so well cared for. One of the things that adds to valuation is can the business owner take vacation and not call in? And how long can it go for? Right? And so I could be gone. A process driven practice leads to a high valuation, a practice that anybody can come in and go into the CRM and there are. Checklists and spreadsheets, the planning, et cetera, that leads to a higher valuation. Um, multi-generation we were talking about that leads to a higher valuation, uh, retention. I mean, we had all those things that leads I mean, two things to really pay attention to. Um, 70% is the current number of. spouses who lose their spouse change advisors. I just had my best friend, um, a couple years ago lose her husband. Four financial advisors. All of them are no longer her fi because they only listened to him. So 70% at a time when this person is in the biggest amount of pain they're in, to change financial advisors. How horrible is an industry. And the second thing is current stats, Carli, um, BlackRock, all these are coming in from all those people. Vanguard. It's 70 to 80% of adult children who inherit, don't stay with their advisor. That's right. We had metrics of retention and multi-generation because of asking questions and client's future and bringing in the whole family and all that. Maybe we had one widow leave in all the years and client retention for. adult children was in the 85%. Those metrics are all part of evaluation, so paying attention and building that process driven practice is really important. So I had gotten to the place where I was ready for a new challenge. And after all those years in the industry, I saw so many great financial tools and financial resources, but so little on the human side. And as I said, my magic is in asking questions and finding out about where you wanna go, and then building the plan around it. And I'm like, gosh, you know, I wish we could find something in the human side. And I was sitting next to someone. Speaking of a who, her name is Jeannie Hurlbert, a PhD in assessments who's like, well, this is easy. We could put it into a quick five minute assessment. I'm like. So other who's around you? One of the things to pay attention to is they bring a whole different skillset. So we created these two quick five minute assessments that are easy, that are scalable, that are repeatable, that advisors are using in their practice, not just with prospects, but with annual reviews that. curiosity and connectedness to really create the value and the impact that advisors wanna have happen. And they have that on the financial side, but not on the human side. So, very fun. Very Yeah. Yeah. So you really were able to sell your business and then take everything that you've learned and what you knew to be successful, and now turn that into the assessment that you developed as the passport package. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's awesome. And I love the the questions because it feels like you are getting so deep with your clients, right? You are getting, and I guess that's what's leading to the multi-generational aspect is because you're talking with them about how are you, my assumption is, is that you were probably saying things like, how have you brought your kids into this conversation? Right. It, it's all about mindsets. The assessments are all about mindsets. and while we know there's money attached to those mindsets, and advisors, that's how they build underneath it. Knowing where clients are now and where they want to be. But we as advisors walk in thinking that we know what the plan is that this person really needs. And so these quick assessments allow advisors to find out ahead of time what it is really that the client wants, and to measure something, return on involvement, return on the human side, which. We know Shelby all financial decisions to measure that instead of just what their return on investment is. Having that conversation first, I'm not saying we're not really good at what we do, we just, it's weaving in that human side. How can we do that? Easy and repeatable. And I feel like that's a place where many advisors do struggle still. You know, what I hear in the industry is, is people saying women advisors have an advantage in that space. It's we're, we can be more intuitive, we can be more emotional. I think some of that is that we let ourselves be. And I think though from. The, the male side, right? It's always skills that we can continue to learn and that I even had to learn, right? I had to learn how to be a networker, as an example, when I was in corporate land, well, that has taken me through as an entrepreneur, but I had to, I taught myself those skills, and so it seems like what you've created with the passport package and the questions that you're using in those assessments, it's a way of bringing in some, some science to the emotion. Yeah, absolutely. And there are action items with each mindset that we strategically made eight to 10 action items. Any advisor's gonna say, okay, eight mindsets, eight to 10 extra. There's no way 10 things are gonna, you know, let's pick one or two from the things that are most important to you and let's see what you wanna have happen in the next six months. I mean, so we have all kinds of coaching around it. And I started in the industry in 1991, there were 15% women. There are now 20% women, so we a long time to have only added 5%. Yes, yes. And I have so many male friends, obviously in the industry who use the assessments, who I think are really good. But it is a way to make it easy and repeatable and scalable to open up questions that they might have a harder time asking. Right. But it also allows both spouses a really important piece of the conversation so that they're connected with both spouses. I always say any partnership there is a Yes. side. So how do you bring the quieter side forward? And that's one of the ways. Yeah, I love that. You know, there's, I was at Futureproof this past week and dear friends and, and, and a client of mine, um, Douglas and Heather Bonar have written a book called Money Together, and every time they talk about the book, Heather will say something like. Because money is not just money. Money is built on a whole set of emotions and experiences that we all bring to the table. It's identity and it's ego, and it's it's fear even. And it could be resentment, right? Like money has a lot of emotion to it. And for advisors to be able to get underneath it, that's what creates those really lasting relationships. you know, if we're talking about what sells in the sense of a business and valuation that sells, right, that there is documentation about where these. have been from the beginning that somebody can come in and see that and become a part of it easily and quickly instead of just, here's the plan from this year, this year, this year. As CFPs we're supposed to do quantitative and qualitative, but somehow the human side doesn't get in there as much. and the other thing that I'm sure they talked about there is a lot of blended families out there, Hmm. included, my husband's. spouse died in her early forties. I was divorced and single mom until my son was in college. You know, there's all kinds of stuff underneath that needs to be addressed and if we can do it easier and, repeatable, it's a great way to do it. Yeah. I love the repeatable piece of that too because, and Matthew Jarvis will talk about consistency for advisors a lot, but it. It's like once you are repeatable, then you are incredibly comfortable and confident with what you're doing, right? Lack of confidence comes from not knowing, not having the experience. So if you're repeating it, you get the experience. And we're all trying to bring up this next generation of advisors bring up, right? But there's not the training programs. Now the training programs I went through were like disturbing tracks and I even just hate that word. Um, so nobody else needs to be disturbed. Everybody's disturbed enough. Let's. Think of something else, but how are we training that next gen? And we, we want other advisors in our practice. How do we help share that wisdom, knowledge, and expertise? Something on the human side, not just the financial side, is a really good way to do it. Yeah, it, it seems as if as you built your practice, you probably, I don't know if you were actively thinking about exit or if you were just thinking about, how am I scaling? Because it feels like a lot of what we've talked about today around your exit is like just good practices to be building into the. Into the business anytime, and especially when you're in a transition or you're making a, a substantive change in your business in some way. It's a place, like we said, at the beginning to, to reset and so you can bring in new tools like Passport Package. You can bring in new processes and bring in new, who's to really create something that's got a lot of value as a business too. Yeah. And Shelby, you know, with all the work work you do with advisors, we all exit. Whether we Yes. business, we become disabled, we die. You know, your 80-year-old, they are going to exit. And for whatever reason, advisors are really good at helping business owners figure out exit strategies, death and disability plans, succession plans. But not the best for ourselves. So I think that mindset shift you just talked about, as we build, thinking about thinking about exiting is not a bad strategy. I kind of like, I kind of like that build to leave or build to something, um, because just don't know. And. That's how we build the who's around us that make it very scalable, repeatable, sellable. Oh, awesome. Well, this has been such a wonderful conversation. I always love to end my episodes with a little bit of like a lightning round of questions, just some like really quick hit once I know, I know. Lightning round. Um, what is one belief that you've outgrown as an entrepreneur? that I have to do it all myself. Oof. That's a good one for sure. Um, what is one belief that financial advisors should really in general, get rid of or retire from their life? The word pitch Ah, yeah. Okay. that Uh, it all about the client, not about them. yeah, we are not pitching, we're listening. We're listening. Yeah. Ooh. Yeah. Um, your favorite question to uncover what clients really want. My favorite question is a Dan Sullivan question, and that is if we're meeting here, you know, three years from today, what has to have happened both personally and professionally for you to feel really happy with Hmm. Yeah. That is a powerful one, right? It's future oriented, but it also really action oriented. That's very powerful. And then what is your favorite question? We've talked a little bit about who's today. What's your favorite question for uncovering if a, who is the right fit for your team? if it were you, I would say, Shelby, know, a client calls in and they've got this huge problem. Tell me what you would do. I would make up a problem and just say, tell me what you would do. And if it was only about them not listening to the client and getting others involved and you know all that, then I would worry. Right. Because we build a team of who's. Definitely. I think that's a great piece. And it also kind of gives you a lens into the strategy and how they would accomplish work, how they get things done. I like that. This has been such a good conversation. tell listeners how they can find you. How can they find out more about Passport package? let's see. So if any of this resonates, number one, I am very happy to talk to any advisor in this industry. You can, um. Click on my calendar on LinkedIn and um, Shelby may we'll send it to you for show notes. A quick 15 minutes if you've got one thing for. the end of the year or for the next year that you wanna talk about, I'd be happy to talk about it. Also, 15 minutes to hear whether or not to talk about whether or not the passport package might be a right fit for you or not. Um, I, I love this industry. I love the impact that advisors are making. Um, so reach out on LinkedIn, uh, the passport package.com. click on, uh, calendar link and I'd love to talk to you. Awesome. And then I love to ask this question at what is one way that you're living off script today? I would say it's building this because I really had no intention of another business. and. Impact is so amazing. I couldn't go sit and eat Bombon. I mean, it, it just, so that's probably off. That's probably the biggest thing. Off script. That's great. Okay, and I saw you hold up that book. Tell us more. so Shelby and I talked about this in the beginning. If you would like a copy of Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy, Dr. Ben Hardy's book Who, not how Ben Hardy was the who that helped get this book together. Dan was the wisdom. Um, actually they both have a lot of wisdom. Uh, just send me, DM me on LinkedIn. We'll get it to you. We've gotta get an address. We'll get Coach to send it to you. Oh, how great. Thank you so much. That's so generous. All right, well that is it for today's episode of. Advisors off script. If you found this conversation valuable, subscribe. Leave a review, share it with another advisor who is building something bold. And remember, it's not just a podcast. It really is a playbook for living boldly and building a life that is off script. Until next time. Thank you, Colleen. Thank you, Shelby.