Women, Wealth & Organic Growth: A Blueprint for Advisors Who Want to Win the Next Decade | Shannon Spotswood

By 2030, women will control over $30 trillion in investable assets — and yet 70% of women change their financial advisor in their moment of greatest need. That stat hasn't moved in 20 years. So what does it cost your practice to keep ignoring it?

In this episode, Shelby sits down with Shannon Spotswood, CEO of RFG Advisory and the force behind "Strong-her Money" — RFG's practice management framework built to help advisors intentionally serve women clients and unlock double-digit organic growth.

Shannon's career spans investment banking, hedge fund management, entrepreneurship, and wealth management. She brings a rare, multi-chapter perspective on what it really takes to build something that lasts — and why now is the moment for advisors to act.

We cover topics like:

• Why 70% of women change their advisor at the moment they need one most — and exactly how to stop it from happening in your practice
• How the Stronger Money framework is generating $20–$25M in new wallet share annually per advisor
• The real difference between mentorship and sponsorship — and why women are over-mentored and under-sponsored
• What "unreasonable hospitality" looks like in a financial advisory practice and why it drives referrals at a 5-to-1 rate
• How to recruit, retain, and truly empower women advisors on your team
• Why the future belongs to the "financial life advisor" — and how to position yourself to capture the next generation of clients

Whether you're a male or female advisor, this episode is a blueprint for growing your practice by serving the clients your industry has long underserved.

Hosted by Shelby Nicholl. Produced and edited by Aaron Sherman. Operations and Guest Coordination by Shelly Hadel.

Transcript

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When I think about our industry, it is impossible to miss that it is still pretty stale male and pale And at the same time, women are coming into the highest wealth transfer ever known and yet the industry wasn't really built for us. So if you're recruiting women advisors. You're serving women clients, do you think that you're doing it to the best of your ability or is there maybe something that's just a little bit off? Today's episode, we're gonna give you a blueprint. We're having a really wide ranging conversation about all things women in the industry, and my guest is somebody who has built across multiple worlds in the financial services sector. She's built in investment banking in hedge funds in entrepreneurship and now is CEO of an RIA platform, RFG Advisory. Shannon Spotswood is that CEO. She's also the force behind Strong her money, their program for reaching women investors. This is our International Women's Day episode. This year's theme is Give to Gain, and today we're gonna talk about what does it mean to give, what does it mean to give sponsorship versus mentorship, and what is the gain that practices can have in terms of organic growth just by changing how we serve our women investors. Let's dive in. Welcome to advisors Off script stories from the independent front lines. I'm your host, Shelby Nichol. So Shannon, welcome to the podcast. I'm delighted to have you here. I am so honored to be with you, Shelby. This is such an important and exciting day for women and uh, we're gonna have a great conversation. You have spent your career really building. within multiple segments of our industry, hedge fund, investment banking, and now at RFG, tell us about your journey and you know, really what you're excited about at RFG. Well, in a nutshell, I was very blessed to fall in love and have a clear idea that I wanted to work on Wall Street as a teenager. So I've had somewhat of a one track mind with my eye, uh, clearly focused on as you laid out investment banking, hedge fund management, wealth management, and, and being an entrepreneur. And what I learned as I've gone through each of those very distinct chapters, and we're gonna touch on this. I had this reflective moment after the first hedge fund, the investment bank, the second hedge fund. My, my hard left turn into children's clothing and then back into, building RFG. Is that. What makes me tick is I'm a builder. I love to be on the ground floor. I think there is nothing more energizing than the intersection of talent and opportunity, and what I believe is one of life's greatest gifts, which is to build something bigger than yourself, to lock arms with people who are aligned on mission, on purpose. so what makes me tick is sitting right there at that intersection as a builder. I think there's a lot. Of us in this industry that are fundamentally builders. I used to say in my corporate life that don't give me a business really to run. I don't love to run it. If it needs to be reinvigorated, if it needs to be changed, it needs to be modernized. That's the pieces that I personally love. I do wanna hear, and you just alluded to it, you just alluded to, like these lessons that you learned in each of those chapters. Can you, can you tell us what those lessons were? Let's just start there today. So I wish that I could just take what I experienced and bottle it up and give it to everyone as like a single dose, because I really did have this incredible chapter, 20 plus years in San Francisco on the institutional side of the business at a time that, today's modern, both technology sector as well as wealth management sector was being built. And so I got to see up close and personal, the foundation as it was laid. what I share with my team, with my children about the lessons and the takeaways, investment banking, and you hear about the, the story sleeping under your desk, working a hundred plus hours, having pitch books, tossed at your head. Because on slide 212, the footnote font is wrong. It's all true. It was all true and the greatest thing that I took away from that investment banking experience was endurance excellence and resilience. Those are such fundamentally important skills that you're not born with. You have to seek out opportunities to build endurance, to build resilience, and to seek excellence. And that to me was my, my biggest takeaway from my investment banking chapter. My hedge fund chapter has been instrumental, in helping me be confident as a visionary leader, and I honed that muscle memory around the mosaic theory of decision making. How do you take disparate points of data and connect them together to be able to give you a clear idea of where you wanna go? What is the next best decision? How do you execute to get there? So that to me, of how do you learn that outside the hedge fund industry is being curious, committing yourself to lifelong learning and not having tunnel vision. Just to develop a domain expertise in the area that either your job is directly in or you find most interest, like challenge yourself to understand disparate parts of the economy, different business models. That curiosity is so vitally important, particularly now that we're living in this incredibly disruptive, exciting moment. Like there is tatonic shift in the structural economy happening as a result of ai, so that curiosity. So important. The other key lesson that I took away from hedge fund management, it is the most brutal way to live because you are judged on a daily basis of are you good or are you not good at your job? It's very black and white. Did you generate alpha and or did you not? And if you generate alpha. You're just doing what you're hired to do. And if you don't, then you suck. So what I learned about that was today is day one. Every day is a day one opportunity. If you get too committed either to the decisions that you've made, the biases that you've inherited, you're not willing to pivot from what you have done before to make the next right move. I think that that is such a critical part of a success formula. So adopting this day one mindset, and I would play this game if today was the first day that I was running this fund. Would I own these same securities long and short? Would I look elsewhere for, uh, for ideas? Those same principles can be applied to each of us in our businesses. In the children's clothing chapter, and this is one of the most important lessons that I bring to advisors, is the emotional connection to your brand. I was so clueless having had this long trajectory in hedge funds and investment banking about people connect with people, brands are built on an emotional connection, and advisors have this incredible opportunity, their superpower. Is building trusted relationships, yet they're, and oftentimes too afraid to be vulnerable and authentic in the brands that they are building. Once they have that light bulb moment, that that is what makes them special. That is what makes them referable. And everything that they do in their brand should be shouting their values, shouting that emotional connection from the rooftops. And I don't think I would've. Had that aha moment, had I not had this crazy, you know, three years building a luxury children's clothing company and seeing up close and personal, the, the true human connection that we have with brands that we love. the children's luxury brand is one of the most interesting things about you, I must say. every time I think about the fact that you did that for three years, I'm just like. Okay. This is a woman who is multifaceted, multi-passionate about things, is not just about the numbers, but has this like creativity side to her as well, which I think is what makes us so good. One of the things I've been wondering about with that. Section of your career in particular. And you mentioned a, a lesson that you've already learned on it. Um, but I always think about like the hospitality also element. Right? Many of us have read, you know, the, the, the book of, um, oh my gosh, I'm just blanking on it, of unreasonable hospitality. Yes. Yes. And I, and I'm starting now in our industry to see this word of hospitality come up. But I think about that book and how they created these experiences that felt insanely personal. To the individual receiving them. But we're actually a little bit behind the scenes, perfected over time with repetition. Right. And so how do you think about hospitality and did you bring those lessons also from your, your store? This is another one of those, superpowers that advisors can tap into and unlock, and particularly female advisors. The referable moment doesn't happen by accident. It is being willing to be intentional when you see a need. And I think women are really good at this. We're the first when you know a friend is in need to show up with dinner for their family. We're the first to, you know, just instinctively raise our hand. Let me make that phone call for you. Let me run that errand for you. Let me pick up your kids from school. All of that can be applied into our businesses, and I think what's really interesting for advisors right now. The The future belongs to the advisor who is defining their identity as a financial life advisor, a financial life coach, a financial life decision maker, a financial life designer, and the emphasis is on the word life. I find this to be such an exciting moment because data is very clear. Gen X and younger clients are telling us, I want my advisor to be my quarterback. I want them to be my. Of course, financial planner and investment manager, but I'm looking for tax planning, estate planning. I'm looking for wellness coaching. I'm looking for life design. And what better way than to incorporate these unreasonable hospitality moments into your financial life? So thinking outside the box, you know, it goes well beyond the handwritten note. Show me you, you care. And what is so cool about the unreasonable hospitality message for advisors, hyper-personalization at scale is what that book is really about. You can you have these touch points that you've built into your client phone calls, into your annual reviews, into your next gen beneficiary strategy. That goes beyond just the blocking and tackling of are we managing the assets? Do we have a financial plan that says you're gonna retire and meet your financial goals. So for me, that hospitality moment is really cracking open. What can be low cost, high impact opportunities for advisors to deepen their relationships with their clients and build these bridges that are gonna translate into expanded wallet share and double digit organic growth for the next decade. what's interesting is you said. Women are really natural at this, right? And the book tells us how to, how to do that. Hyper-personalization at scale gives us great ideas that we can take to practices. I think some of the stats right now, by 2030, women will control 35 trillion in wealth or investible assets. You know that also we've got this industry mismatch still where we don't have as many women advisors as, obviously we have women clients just because of how the industry has evolved over time. I think it's something like 24, 20 5% of CFPs are now women, And then we've got, you know, less than 20% of advisory firm partners or equity owners are women. And so if I'm in, in the seat of, of a guy advisor. how do I take these lessons, take these feelings, and sort of build them into my practice? This is such an important question and what I think, is just fundamental. Is the realization that female advisors cannot solve this problem or meet this need on their own. There's certainly, as you pointed out, there's not enough of them. What I love is that the men in our industry who are raising their hand and saying, I want to intentionally build a practice that supports women, always have an emotional connection. It's their mother, it's their daughter, it's their wife, it's their sister. There are people that are very close to their heart that they recognize they want to take care of. They want to provide a service that is deliberately designed for the ones that they love, and then be able to transcend that and throughout their business, which I. That's a big unlock is you don't have to set out, you know, on this Herculean mission, you just have to have an authentic calling in your heart and someone in your life that you can imagine as you're designing this, this intentional way to serve female clients in mind. So, couple things on this. You know, RFG has been for the most part, on a mission for the past seven or eight years to help both male and female advisors. Serve clients that are, that are women, and this program is called Stronger Money. Our foundational mission has been to empower women through education to live financially fearless. That is our tag tagline. Let's empower women to live financially fearless. We had a couple advisors who helped co-founded at RFG and really bore that flag, hosting events, reaching out to women, designing intentional experiences so that both prospects and clients would feel heard, seen, and, and cared for. And so now I have some actionable data that I think anyone listening to this podcast will be able to learn from. So we built this and it was very important as a practice management framework. This is not just marketing, this is not, you know, pink it up and put it out there in the market. This a a little bow on it. It's, it's more than that. That's right. This is a practice management framework that is designed to generate ROI. It is designed with very specific a UM goals in mind, both from increased wallet share. From retention, which is so hugely important from winning new prospects, and it is designed for both male and female advisors. So this framework is multifaceted. We've looked at the entire ecosystem. How do you design marketing campaigns, onboarding experiences, client servicing, journeys, events? One of our most popular events is harnessing stress. Harnessing stress for financial freedom. That is what women are talking about. They are shouldering the responsibility for aging parents, for children, for family members, for spouses, for running their business, for being entrepreneurs, for leading their companies, for their career pathway. They're wearing all of these different hats. So how do you design each one of those pieces, events, Prospecting campaigns, onboarding experiences, and then the ongoing service model that really answers that multifaceted need. And what has been so interesting to me, the first cohort we had, 70% of the cohort were women and 30% were male advisors. The second cohort. 70% are men, 30% are advisors. They're seeing that once you understand the personas of women, you have clarity around how to segment your book properly so you have the time available. You start thinking about unlocking the talent on your team in order to lean in and provide these, as we, as we talked about, these unreasonable hospitality moments throughout your experience. The male advisors are raising their hand and recognizing that as we model this out, we're expecting that stronger money is gonna unlock 20 to 25%, or excuse me, 20 to $25 million annually of new wallet share and, and, and retention and prospect opportunity as a baseline per advisor. Like this is an economic engine. Yes. That's incredible because what we also see, of course, is that so many widows and, and other women in transition, they're always changing advisors at those points. So it feels like there should be this huge opportunity for organic growth, and that's what you're teaching people essentially to tap into. This is one of the most sobering, heartbreaking stats in our industry, and it has not moved for 20 years. 70% of women in their moment of need, 70% change their advisor. They feel left outta the conversation. They feel misunderstood. They've been talked over, talked down to. So when they need their advisor, their the most, they actually have to go out and find another one. And here's what is like why the advisor needs to care about this. Women refer at a rate of five to one. So you serve your female clients in an intentional way, it will pay dividends beyond anything that you can imagine from what you've cultivated in A COI relationship. So it's kind of like, hello, like let's wake up to what we're doing here and here's what I will tell you. It is not hard to do, but it does demand intentionality. You have to check yourself. The industry is so. Comfortable in our jargon, in our agenda. In our agenda. What boxes do I need to check in this annual review, in this quarterly review in this, you know, in this phone conversation. How do I get that liquidity event. How do I move those assets over? I've got an a UM goal that I need to reach. You have to flip that on its head. You have to start thinking about, I am a financial life designer, I'm a financial life advisor. How do I make this easier? How do I give more time back? How do I remove the hurdles? How do I free myself from the jargon? How do I make women feel safe and secure on the financial path that they are pursuing? Women are great with money. Women investors generate a greater return than male investors over time. So are not scared of risk. want measurable risk, right? Yes. We just wanna understand it. So have a playbook. Lay it out. This is what onboarding looks like. These are the steps we're gonna go through. This is how you're gonna interact with my team. This is how you're gonna be able to compliantly text me a question when you wake up at two o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Yeah, and this expect. I may not answer you at two o'clock in the morning, but will answer you and it will. And we will figure this out together and in community together. I think what's so interesting is that emotional connection, right? for us to refer five to one, right? We are going to have to feel safe in that environment. That woman investor is going to have to feel safe. They're gonna have to feel the care and some of these small. Unreasonable hospitality elements are gonna be one step towards it, but you've also gotta bring down that person's anxiety, and I think that's what you were really talking about by telling them what's happening next. That is just an anxiety reducer, right? It's like going into a store and being able to see the signage, right? We all like to know that we know where we're going, and so if you tell people where they're going, it just creates that safety feeling, especially in those gender dynamics, I think. One thing that I think is, uh, a really interesting, and I am the first to raise my hand of being guilty of this, is that women are not necessarily forthcoming in talking about their careers. Mm. Yeah. can sit at, you know, on the sidelines at cocktail parties. Like I find myself doing this all the time. People will ask me, oh, what do you do? Oh, I work in finance. Right, right. We downplay ourselves so much. We don't, we were taught, and especially our generation, Shannon, we were taught not to shine too, too brightly. We really were. And so I think of these, you know, these anxiety reducing moments and opportunities to have conversations with women about their career path, how they're thinking about negotiating their salary, if they wanna start a side hustle or a full blown. You know, entrepreneurial business, what does that look like? What are the steps like that is where being a financial life advisor is going to translate into retaining these assets, tapping into this 30 plus trillion dollars. And the key thing about honing these skills is it not only puts you in the poll position to take advantage of this incredible bull market that we have for advice, the demand for advice is increasing by 30%. Over the next 10 years, while the number of financial advisors is decreasing by 0.2%, doing this work sets you up to be relevant for the next generation. So that's what I love about this, is that if you take a big step back and you reevaluate, how do you flex all of these skills that you have as an advisor? Estate planning, tax planning, financial planning, investment management. Let me talk to you about longevity healthcare planning. How are you gonna communicate about wealth multi-generationally? This is the superpower of advisors. They're now being asked. To call on their superpower and deliver in a holistic way. And if they design their business around these fundamental tenants, not only will they serve women more successfully, but they will be the go-to advisor in serving the next gen, which is where all the money is ultimately headed. It passes through the hands of women. They live seven years longer than men. And then it's going to the next gen, and that next gen wants something very different from their advisor. That's a time also where. Of the kids are starting to get involved in the decision making and they're helping mom often choose who that advisor is. So it's a great opportunity to both become the, the, the primaries advisor, but it's also a great opportunity to set off with a multi-generational relationship from the beginning that is going to have decades of staying power. I think that's really lost. I, you know, when I hear about advisors who are just gonna continue to work, work their business until they're 70 and 80, et cetera, that is great for them. It, it really is. You're having a great life. Your clients are probably pretty happy with you, et cetera, but when you pass on. Those clients are going to just distribute everywhere. There's no staying power in that book of business. If you haven't built the relationship with the female and the family that's most likely to live longer, and that next generation, the person who wins the widow client is going to win the family as. Their client. That's that 20 to 25 million. I mean, that's incredible numbers. If you could gain 20 to 25 million every single year into your book of business, that is an organic growth level that is not often seen by most firms, by most advisors. Well, and what is so exciting, Shelby, and I think this is where we can really have, you know, let's, let's, let's throw some grenades here. If you are not the advisor who's like, I'm just gonna run my sunset, you know, my clients serve 'em into the sunset, and you're, let's average age of an advisor at RFG is just south of 45 years old, so we're at about 43 and a half right now. You guys are young. This is great. I. Like, so we think a lot about what does this look like? This is where I am so excited about technology and upending some of the calculus that have really governed the way that quote unquote, successful, high performing firms are built. So I don't disagree that advisors have a number of client households that they can serve and that they can work with. Let me tell you something. You cannot be well positioned if you have decided that you can only serve a hundred to 150 clients and your minimum is a million dollars. You have to leverage all of this technology to segment out your book and be able to build those relationships with the next gen. Whether it's for fees charge just for isolated financial planning when there's not assets to be managed. We're big early adopters and partners of wealth.com. I think they've got one of the most exciting Next gen solutions show up. Provide a healthcare directive, a power of attorney, a basic will for those next gen. Provide value ahead of being the advisor who's shepherding and caring for all the assets. The only way you can do that is leveraging your most valuable resource, which is your time and aligning your business to take advantage of all of these FinTech tools that are, have really upended the entire industry. And it's like we're not there yet. We're still just like, oh, bogged down in non-revenue generating activities, both the advisor and their team. So free your team up from all of that so that the team has more bandwidth to be able to deliver unreasonable hospitality, and most importantly, design your business so that you're not taking care of 150 clients. You're taking care of 300 clients, but technology is doing the heavy lift on 150 of them. every time I hear people talking about 150 clients, I think back to my days at Edward Jones, right. And you would've had some of the most successful advisors at Edward Jones were serving 1500 clients. 800 clients, right? This enormous amount. And those clients felt like they were served pretty well in many of those markets. Were they? Maybe, maybe not, but they felt like they were, and those clients were pretty sticky. And so it's always to me okay, we can actually do more than a hundred, 150. We can. We just need to put in place all these other tools and the right support around us. In order to scale that impact. And then I think about the, both the economic impact I could have as an advisor on for my own family, but also the impact that I could have on a community of people. I wanna scale up. I'm like, like you, Shannon, I'm a builder, right? Like my business went through a major transition last year where I really went from, initially when I started the business. Thinking I was gonna be kind of a solopreneur type of person to then building a team around me and, and building Muriel into a team. And the reason is, is that I like to say yes. I don't like to tell advisors. No, I don't like to say no, I can't help you with that. I like to say yes, and the only way to continue to say yes and have greater impact is by scaling. And that's really what you're talking about. You're enabling people to have a greater impact. Let's talk about hiring of women advisors. I hear this a lot, I'd like to add a woman advisor to my practice. We wanna hire a woman. W only women, et cetera. We hear it all the time. Right? And it's, and it's a tough fill sometimes, right? We have an arm of our business that does servicing advisors, paraplanners, et cetera, hiring. And sometimes when we say we want a female candidate, it can be a tougher fill because 80% of the, of the industry, 80% of the industry is male. Tell us about, why do you think that is? How can we bring more women advisors? Both into the industry and then also into leadership. Mm. Well first I just want, you know, I know you've heard it and I've heard it. It is such a huge red flag turnoff when it is like, you know, can someone please get me a woman for this role? Um, so I understand what they're trying to do, but yes, I hear you. Yeah. And so I think that one of the critical decision making, pathways that advisors need to go through, who want to build their team and want to welcome both women into their team and women into leadership is to first make room for them at the table. It means that you have to listen to their ideas and implement them. It cannot be a situation where you just want a female in the room so that you can appear to be paying attention and more intentionally serving women. You have to be open to changing how you are doing things, whether it's your financial planning process, your onboarding process, your marketing. The, the values and messages of your firm, the principles, the underlying principles. This is what I hear from women when they're either burnt out or they're frustrated, is they just feel like they're consistently slamming up against a brick wall and they're not being fully appreciated and realized. For the extraordinary impact and talent that they're bringing to the table. And so what I really encourage an advisor to do, if you want this, you know, tremendous, like I've been so blessed to have both female and male partners along the way, and what I have learned as a leader is how important it is to let go. You have got to be willing to release the rain and watch your organization evolve and shift in a way that might be tangential to how you imagined it. It might not look and feel exactly the way that you had it in your mind, but the only way to truly empower A players is to let them be a players. Let them have the impact on your organization. And so for women, it is micro wins, and if it doesn't work, give them the opportunity to take risks and have a high enough degree of resiliency built up in your organization to embrace failure. If it doesn't work, then you make the next best decision and you keep going. And so that to me is just critically important of like, give room at the table, make the breathing space available. So that there is an opportunity. Women are, you know, this is, it just is facts. It's it, it, it just is what it is. We're not gonna raise our hand for that position until we feel like we've checked 70% of the box. Whereas men are gonna raise their hand for that opportunity when they feel like they've checked. 30% of the box, which means like if we just accept that to be, we're gonna show up, we're gonna feel like we need to have all the experience overly prepared. We're we got our ducks in the row and we have to be willing to say like, no, no. Jump into the deep end of the pool. Start swimming. I trust you. I believe in you, and if you make a mistake, I got your back and we're gonna make, make the next best move. So that to me is just like truly a values-based decision that you're going to pivot your posture to having more of this iterate to excellence, more of this practice, radical candor. And then on the flip side, women need to not be so self-critical. They need to not take things so personally. They need to be willing to just accept the fact that we're not perfect and we're gonna roll with it anyway. We're gonna show up and keep going. And then I would also say sometimes I think we don't need to conflate competence and confidence. There are lots of people out there that have this amazing confidence, but they have zero competence and women often will be the opposite of that. They actually have a lot of competence, but they haven't figured out how to shine. They haven't figured out how to tell the story of their work in a way that, feels okay to them because we were taught to be humble and not braggy and all of those things. I can, I'll never forget my grandfather. For years and years as a small child would say, well, don't get a big head. Don't get a big head. You know, I don't know any woman with a big head. Right. I really don't. I really don't. And so, so sometimes we have to, I think as, as all of us have to remember, I have to remember it for, for the women on my team too. Like I have, as the leader, I have to push them along also. And that's part of my responsibility as a leader, is how do I, how do I enable them to do more than they ever thought that they were capable of? It's, you have to get the reps in. Confidence is built by having those, you know, having that opportunity at bat. Get the reps in That's right. and the only way you can do that is doing things you haven't done before. Failing. Failing forward, succeeding, winning, get the rep in. So I I think that. One of the most important, both on both sides of the table, is practicing radical candor. I love five dysfunctions of a team. I think every team should read it. Like it is just such a powerful book that teaches you about the importance of. A players want to win. They want to execute. They want to, relentlessly show up and deliver exceptional value. And the only way you can get there is being okay, practicing radical candor. Be in a posture to give and receive feedback, and your organization will unlock. And I think that that is such a powerful and beneficial environment for women to thrive in. You know, that really makes me think about a few of the questions that around sponsorship and mentorship. We would talk in corporate land about what did it mean to have a mentor, what does it mean to have a sponsor? And many of us. Are over mentored and under sponsored. When you think about mentor and sponsorship, what do you think of? I love this question, and quite honestly, I, I'm so grateful to you for bringing this up because until you asked this, I don't think I had clarity in my mind. I was conflating the two based on my own personal experience Mentorship is, let me tell you, sponsorship is, here's a seat at the table. Yes. incredibly blessed in my career. My very, the very first hedge fund that I worked for, the reason I took the job, it was led by one of the only female portfolio managers running a hedge fund in this country. And when you ask this question, I've always said I was blessed because I had the greatest mentor. No, no. I was blessed because I had the greatest sponsor. She taught me how to model companies. She taught me, she pushed me to sit at the trading desk and learn how to trade IPOs. She put me at the table to make presentations on why we should invest or not invest in this company. That is not mentorship. That is not, let me tell you that is, here's a seat at the table. Go. Go seize it and then let me help you iterate after. Let me give you feedback. Let me help you improve from there. So sponsorship is intentionally creating opportunities for women to get the reps in, Wow, that is so. Profound for opportunities for women to get the reps in. Sponsorship is not putting you into the slot when you're exactly ready. It is giving you the opportunity to get the reps in that isn't. That's an incredible line that is. Exactly correct. I can think about times where I've had great sponsorship. I can think even, even in my life at Edward Jones, I had one leader there who I was in all the rooms when they were originally, going for the bank charter, and I was presenting to the executive committee every couple of weeks And she put me in the room where I could practice, where I could get the reps in. That was the incredible gift that I got from that leader. I then had a leader right after that who took me out of the room because he's like. He, he, you know, he didn't want me in the room 'cause he was, he was in a different phase of his career and his life as well. So it's really interesting too, if I think about also like how do we continue to keep in the room when we face a leader That doesn't put us in the room. And this is probably for more my, my corporate friends, right? When we have leaders who don't put us in the room, we have to find other ways to get back in the room and we, and that may be moving to another firm, it may be moving to another team. But to your point, Shannon sponsorship. Is getting put in the room where you can do the reps. That's incredible. And I wanna talk about something that I think is so critically important and that this can be just a I, I think a really enlightening. Posture to take, and it's something that I read, you know, young Pueblo, if you follow, you know his, we'll call it enlightenment philosophy. He was talking about how your central nervous system, we'll send you signs like we will, we will call that women's intuition. There are there, there are opportunities where you might feel nervous and you might feel challenged and you might not feel ready. You know, we all have that adrenaline that comes from that, that's healthy. And then there are situations where you feel unsafe, like you're, you have a physiological reaction, whether it be to, you know, your boss or your colleagues, or. That is your body telling you this is not the right place for you. And one of the, the, the most important lessons that I try and share about my career trajectory, I left one of the biggest, most successful firms, you know, at Symphony Asset Management hedge fund, that I'd been 10 years on this incredible leadership trajectory. We'd grown that firm just exponentially. And I took this blind leap of faith. To build this luxury children's clothing company and I 100% can say, I am not sitting, I would not be sitting in the CEO seat at RFG advisory had I not made that massive life pivot. family needed it. My children needed it. I needed to learn, you know, building a company out of a garage and sweating post-it notes and how to build a tangible brand. I needed all of those lessons, and I had reached a point where I was paralyzed. I started to just have this. This physiological reaction, not because I didn't love the company or I didn't love the work, it just didn't suit my life anymore. And when I read that quote about like, your central nervous system will give you clues if you are in the right place, it was such an like aha moment for me of like, oh. That's what that was. So I really encourage women, as you're thinking about plotting your career, as you're looking for sponsorship opportunities, as you're calibrating the risk taking that you have to make that women's intuition tap into it. Tap into that emotional voice, because you know yourself better. You know where you wanna go, you know what you wanna build. It's all right there. You just have to be You know what you are capable of. You know, when you aren't getting to live into your full potential and you're not getting to have the impact on this world that you should be able to have. We know when those are happening. Um, so I love that, you know, as we close up here. I wanna do a few kind of lightning round questions. I always end with just a few quick hit ones. I've got some good ones for you today. Um, so let's talk about first, what is a belief about leadership that you have outgrown? Vulnerability is weakness. Ooh, yeah, for sure. Right? Yeah, Yeah. the true story is not a weakness. I, you know, I, I was raised by wolves on Wall Street. I had learn emotional intelligence, and I know that seems crazy, but I, I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't know what it looked like. I was, I was raised in a performance environment and to, I spent an entire year developing that leadership skill, and I'm immensely grateful to my partner who said to me like. You will be limited as a leader unless you develop emotional intelligence. And what, what I uncovered in that journey was vulnerability. I have to be willing to be vulnerable, like true vulnerability, uh, in every sense of the word. And that to me has been, uh, you know, a game changer. Yeah, you've done some vulnerable moves in here too, right? You've done some calculated risk and that is a, a level of vulnerability that you brought forward too. What is a tool or a ritual that keeps you sharp? I. I am habitual, so I am uncompromising on how I start every day. Uh, I'm a firm believer in you've got to have. Develop habits that will sustain you to perform at a high level. I am fiercely committed to get 1% better every day. And the only way I know how to do that is I start with prayer. Uh, I am just seven day a week of, of, I don't wanna call it exercise. It's just movement. So spiritual practice, movement, practice. And then I am, um, this might sound crazy, my kids are now, I have two in college, one at home, but I don't let a day go by without telling those that I love that. I love them. Love that. Really important. We never know what tomorrow holds. What is a give that you make constantly, that always pays you back? My personal mission is to have a disproportionately positive impact on our team, our advisors, and their clients, and an industry as a whole. So as much as I would love, like you, as much as I would love to say, like, oh, I'm really disciplined about, no. I'm really not. Um, I like to say yes, I am an open door policy, both with my team. I want to, if I'm called upon, I love the opportunity to be on a podcast to share my story. So I try to always make that effort of if someone is looking for career advice, if they're looking to network, if they're, you know, can you be at this event? Can you speak here? Can you show up here? Will you take this meeting? I try and say yes as much as possible. And the other rule that I have is that when someone cold calls me, like into my email in particular, I always respond. Even. Even if the response is, you know, thanks, but no thanks, we've all been in that seat and I just believe so power powerfully in the positive, pay it forward that if I can show up and I can be of service, I wanna do what I can to honor that it. Love that. Love that. Well, we'll close now with our, with our kind of final signature question. What's a way that you are living an off script life today? Oh my goodness. Um, I think I'm gonna be 55 years old, uh, May 1st, so I have spent 30 years, almost now, over 30 years of working in financial services. I have never been more energized and more excited about what we are building than I am right now. I truly believe. I sat on the front lines. The hedge fund experience I had was sitting in drafting rooms, writing what is the worldwide web, what is the internet? I saw an industry come to life. I never thought I would be at a moment where I would get to see a second industry come to life, and that is what is happening with ai. So I believe the way that I am living off script is. Leaning in with more passion and more energy than I've ever had in my career to try and bring just a positive force to what is going to be so disruptive. It would be, you know, not easy, but it would not be unexpected to take my foot, foot off the gas. At this point in my career, and I am going the absolute opposite direction, all in, let's build something that we can all really be proud of for our industry to serve more people at a disproportionately positive level. Fantastic. Love that mission. Love that living off script. I can see you are not anywhere close to slowing down for sure. Um, the level of energy and positivity that you are bringing is fantastic. Shannon, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much, Shelby. I loved it. It was so great to be with you. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in This has been such a playbook of an episode, which is really our signature. We want to provide you with information that you can take away, actionable steps, and we got all of that in spades from Shannon. Please like and subscribe to the podcast and we'll see you next time.