Episode Summary

Patti Brennan, CFP®, CFS, CEO of Key Financial Inc., has carved a remarkable path from her early career as a nurse to becoming a leader in the world of wealth management. Through her inspiring story, Patti demonstrates how her compassion-driven approach, honed during her nursing days, has profoundly shaped her financial planning firm. As a mother of four, she balanced building her business with raising a family, offering valuable insights into navigating work-life challenges faced by working moms. Her firm is known for its client-focused strategies, blending personalization, transparency, and technology to deliver tailored solutions that truly resonate with each individual. Patti’s philosophy rests on treating clients holistically, understanding not only their financial goals but also their emotional concerns—a perspective forged by her early experiences in healthcare.

As the head of Key Financial Inc., Patti has embraced innovation to scale her services while maintaining the human touch. Above all, she believes the heart of great advice is addressing the deeper, often emotional concerns at the center of a client’s life.

Here’s What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Balancing Emotional Support with Delivering Financial Expertise
• Learning to Build Trust Through Personalization
• How Implementing the Right Technology Helps Firms Scale
• On Staying Current with Emerging Technologies Such as AI
• Navigating Early Career Stages as a Working Mother
• How to Give Great Advice

Quotes

“I think empathy and compassion are important in this field. And I think it’s really to be honest with you, it’s more compassion than empathy. So let me kinda use the nursing metaphor. If you’re my patient and I’m sitting at your bedside, I have to know and understand everything about you. I have to understand what’s normal for you, and what got you sick, especially if you’re in your you’re in intensive care. Doctors take care of organs. The nurse takes care of the patient holistically. So, if you start having a funky heart rhythm, I don’t have time to call your doctor. I have to understand that that’s not normal for you because to be honest with you, empathy is holding your hand. Right? I’m sorry, but holding your hand is not gonna save your life. Compassion is action oriented.”

“I like to keep track of the metrics. Let’s say that they have a need, and I’ve uncovered things, but I can’t really say, okay, you’re good. Go off and do your own thing because there’s some analytical work that needs to be done. That’s when I bring up eMoney on the screen, and I say, let me explain to you how we would answer these questions for you. And I go through a sample case. I go through the scenarios. We’ve prebuilt “Luke” and “Jen” samples with different scenarios and all the different what-ifs. You know? And people love that.”

“I think it’s important for women in this industry to manage their own expectations. I think there’s been a real injustice communicated to many young people today, and that is this whole thing about work life balance. I got to tell you, it doesn’t exist. To me, it’s not work-life balance. It’s work-life choices with consequences.”

“I started from scratch, and I wrote the (book) thing myself many times over, by the way, many times over. So, it was a process. It wasn’t easy. And by the way, for whatever it’s worth, it is not for marketing. Don’t do it because you think it’s gonna help for marketing. It does not. I don’t think it does. I mean, and I will tell you that my book has been number one on Amazon since it was published in November, every single solitary week. But that’s not really why I did it. I just wanted to kinda document our process, how we do things.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• YMCA of the Greater Brandywine Connect Through Cancer 
• Penn Medicine Chester County Hospital Foundation 
• Am I Going to Be Okay?: Money: Timely Intelligence, Actionable Ideas, Answers to the Questions that Really Matter 
• SEC in New York
• Redtail Technology
• Addepar 
• Forbes
• Barron’s

Full Transcript

Sasha: Welcome to the Heart of Advice podcast presented by eMoney. I’m Sasha Grabenstetter.

Connor: And I’m Connor Sung. We’re your eMoney experts. Today on the podcast, we have Patti Brennan. Patti Brennan is a certified financial planner, a certified fund specialist, the CEO of Key Financial Inc, which started in October of nineteen ninety, a Georgetown University alum. She serves on the board of the YMCA of the Greater Brandywine Connect Through Cancer and Penn Medicine Chester County Hospital Foundation. She’s the author of Am I Going to Be Okay? And ex-eMoney advisory board member. So first off, Patti, thank you so much for joining us.

Patti: Thank you both for having me. What an honor this is to be on your show, The Heart of Advice. I just love the name of your show.

Connor: Well, speaking of the Heart of Advice, what was what drew you into the profession? And can you just talk a little bit about your trajectory?

Patti: Sure, what drew me into it? Well, you guys know me. Many people who are listening or watching probably know the story. I actually have no business background, no financial background. I used to be a nurse. I worked in oncology first and then was promoted into intensive care. And I suppose to answer your question, Connor, the real answer is, you know, I always felt like I always wanted to be financially secure. I grew up. I’m one of seven kids, always fifth of seven, and my parents kinda live paycheck to paycheck. And, boy, when they thought, they always thought about money. And I gotta tell you, it kinda makes a kid, seven-year-old kid, feel a little insecure. And so here I was. I was working in a hospital, working intensive care, getting my cost of living raises, and worried about, you know, wanting to have a family, buy a home, the same thing everybody kind of thinks about, wondering how I would ever get there. And, you know, it just kind of evolved into one of these things. I read somewhere that if chances are if you like to do something as a hobby, because I like to look into this stuff on my own, chances are you’d probably be pretty good at it. And one thing led to another, and here we are today. I got my CFP. I worked for a firm in Philadelphia who really they were on the forefront of what I would consider real financial planning even though it was really kind of a closet insurance shop. That’s the way it was way back then. So that’s kinda what drew me in. I wanted to learn how to do this stuff for my own for myself and my family, and I figured if I can help enough people get what they want, maybe I’ll get what I want as well. In terms of the trajectory, I’m not gonna I’ll give it to you straight. I flew under the radar for the longest time. Nobody ever knew that we even existed. And, frankly, I was working out of the basement of my home because I am the mother of four kids. Nobody really knew about Patti Brennan, and, eventually, I did start Key Financial in 1990. And I just was doing what I thought I would want if I were the client. And lo and behold, I guess one might say we got I got discovered. I was still working out of the basement, still sloughing over, you know, doing all the meetings, doing the planning, reviewing, doing all that stuff myself, hiring people one by one and building my team. So that’s really the answer. It was kind of a very low, you know, keep doing what I was doing, go through all the different crises, focus on the clients, and then the hockey stick growth did occur.

Sasha: I am just so impressed with your with your story. Patti, I really wanna know if coming from your background in nursing, empathy and compassion really seem to be clearly part of your DNA. So how do you really strike that balance between offering emotional support and delivering the financial expertise that clients really need to make those tough decisions?

Balancing Emotional Support with Delivering Financial Expertise

Patti: You know, it’s a really good question. I think for whatever it’s worth, I think empathy and compassion are important in this field. And I think it’s really to be honest with you, it’s more compassion than empathy. So let me kinda use the nursing metaphor. If you’re my patient and I’m sitting at your bedside, I have to know and understand everything about you. I have to understand what’s normal for you, and what got you sick, especially if you’re in your you’re in intensive care. Doctors take care of organs. The nurse takes care of the patient holistically. So, if you start having a funky heart rhythm, I don’t have time to call your doctor. I have to understand that that’s not normal for you because to be honest with you, empathy is holding your hand. Right? I’m sorry, but holding your hand is not gonna save your life. Compassion is action oriented. To the left of the monitor, I’ve got the lidocaine hundred milligrams already pulled up along with nine other different emergency drugs. I take the lidocaine, put it in your IV, and within about thirty seconds, you’re back in normal sinus rhythm. But here’s the thing, and this is what makes, you know, our industry this is the I think this is the key differentiator. When you wake up, because you’ve passed out. Right? I’ve got to explain in words that you can process and understand what just happened. Right? And that’s what we do. It’s not just about the portfolio or the insurance needs. It’s about taxes, the cash flow, their goals, what they want for their children, holistic planning that’s action oriented. That I think is the key differentiator.

Sasha: Well, I love your definition of compassion. And as a in my household, my dad was a physician and I have a sister who’s a nurse, an ICU nurse, actually. So, hearing these analogies, like, really stick with me and hopefully with our listeners as well.

Patti: And by the way, the physicians of the world, the best ones are the ones that have the good bedside manner. Right? The communicators, the ones that understand that it isn’t just about the organs and the treatment plan and the chemo and all of that. It’s understanding what that, how that patient might be feeling and maybe even freaking out inside.

Learning to Build Trust Through Personalization

Connor: For sure. Definitely. I think you hit on a very important topic, and it sounds like that you’ve kind of parlayed that experiences as being of a nurse to a lot of probably how you’re delivering some of your financial plans. And if we can just transition a little bit, you and your team are pretty well known for making some very complex financial topics feel much more approachable, understandable, personal. How do you kind of weave some of the firm tenants plus your experience into your approach to building trust and working with clients that kind of goes beyond just the financial plan, the analysis, the recommendation. And then how do you think about doing that? Not just for your clients, but more broadly for the firm’s clients.

Patti: It’s a great question. And to me, my role here is to mentor my team because, yeah, I might have this background, but anybody can do this. Anybody can do this. The first step, I think, is you have to do the work. You gotta have substance. It can’t be all fluff. So, when you do the work, you just go into that meeting that much more confident. So, to me, as the CEO of this firm, my goal is to give my team the tools so that they can feel confident for them to know that they’re doing the best thing for that client. And, you know, I think personalizing it is also really important. You know, we don’t want the boilerplate crap. Right? You can take boilerplate and personalize it also, which is frankly what we do because you gotta scale this. Right? That’s the beauty of software like eMoney. I gotta tell you that has been a game changer for me, for Key Financial, and for our clients, is to be able to personalize it. They look at their plan. They look at the data that we’ve put in for them. It’s got the kids’ names there. It’s got where the kids wanna go to school. It’s got their home address and, you know, all that kind of stuff. It’s you can tell when we when they look at the system, it’s all about them. So that’s really, I think, what’s important. You gotta have the substance, and you gotta have the tools to be able to know the right thing to do for that particular client.

Connor: And as a long-time user of eMoney, we definitely wanna get your perspective on eMoney, but I’d say more broadly for, financial technology. But before we go there, can we just click one level down? I know Key Financial has a running 98 percent client retention rate real year over year, which speaks number one to your firm culture, the way that you’ve mentored many folks on your teams, as well as the relationships that you’ve built with your clients. Can you just go kind of one level deeper to the some of the processes that you’ve put into place to get to that level of personalization, to build those relationships and or the way that you’ve been able to build enough scale inside the practice to deliver advice at that personalized level for that many clients?

Patti: Yeah. It’s a good question because, you know, you got you can’t really wing this stuff, Right? When someone comes in and they want help, I basically and I you can’t wing it and you gotta make it easy. That’s those are the two most important things. I think for me; I always do the first meeting. Okay? Because I wanna make sure it’s a good fit and communicate how we work and how we go about doing this and make sure it’s a good fit. The way that we do, we have workflows. We have processes. I can go into detail if you’d like on the process. For example, when a client calls in, they talk to somebody. They talk to Katie. Katie finds out what they’re looking for, yada yada yada. It’s not really prequalifying. It’s just understanding what their interests are and how we might be able to help. Um, we offer free consultation to anybody really who calls in. Doesn’t mean that we’re gonna take them on as a client. Uh, and I do those meetings. I just think it’s easy for me to do. It’s an hour of my day, and it’s a wonderful message that is sent out into the into the world, right, that we’re legit and that we’re here to help. And we really do help them. As part of that, we send them a questionnaire that gives us the information that we would need if we wanted to do a real financial plan. So, they are told, here’s the thing. If you give this to us, give us this checklist in advance, the questionnaire, your tax return, your statements, yada yada yada, we promise we will look at it in advance. And when Patti meets with you one on one, you’re gonna she’s gonna hit the ground running, so it’s gonna totally focus on you. It’s amazing. Just that message, people fill it out, and they send it in advance. So, we have a file. I get the file in advance. I know what I’m walking into. So that’s step one number one. Step number two is when I’m in that meeting, my goal is, and I tell them this. I say, you know, my goal today is to, you know, uncover or share three things that I observe that maybe you didn’t know about or may not have understood. And that’s my goal. And people are like, wow. And it’s so interesting about that because at towards the end, after I’ve kinda done all of that, they say they’re waiting for a pitch. And I say, you know what? Here’s the deal. I’ve shared a few ideas. This is low hanging fruit. You don’t need to pay us or, frankly, anybody else. Go do those things and keep in touch. Let me know how you’re doing. And they walk out of there. And I gotta tell you, they walk out of there like, wow. I can’t believe you just gave us so much of your time, gave us really tangible action items, and you’re not gonna charge us. You’re not gonna give us a pitch. And it’s really, it’s a wonderful thing. I think that’s the reason we get so many referrals because somewhere I kind of managed to tell people, hey, listen. Here’s what you can do for us. Spread the word. There are so many people in our own community that don’t even realize that we exist. And if you introduce people to our firm, they’re gonna be treated exactly as I’ve treated you today. They’ll be safe. And it’s just a good thing to do. It feels good, and it’s the truth. So, basically, that’s one outcome. Outcome number one is they go off and do their own thing. It’s amazing how many times they call us five years later and say, okay. We’re ready to meet with you again, and we’d like to hire you. We get so many people that way. It’s pretty interesting, and we keep track of that. I’m a pretty big person. I like to keep track of the metrics. Let’s say that they are they have a need, and I’ve uncovered things, but I can’t really say, okay, you’re good. Go off and do your own thing because there’s some analytical work that needs to be done. That’s when I bring up eMoney on the screen, and I say, let me explain to you how we would answer these questions for you. And I go through a sample case. I go through the scenarios. We’ve prebuilt “Luke” and “Jen” samples with different scenarios and all the different what ifs. You know? And it’s people love that. They absolutely love that. And then they say, how can we get that? How can you do that for us? And so, um, you know, we talk about that, and then we talk about the process of doing a real financial plan. And I give them the heads up right then and there. After this meeting, you know, I do this one meeting. I think it’s important for all of you to know do you guys to know that you know? See these see this road in the middle of my forehead? Right? Okay. For the record, I’ve earned every wrinkle I have, and they’re staying, by the way. And I think it’s important as a fiduciary for you, the client, pretend I’m talking to a client right now, to know that if something happens to me, everything will continue seamlessly. So, you might as well meet the people who are actually doing the work. And so, I explained right then and there. You know, Eric Fermi is our chief planning officer. He will review the plan and the recommendations with you. And then at the end of that meeting, we’ll decide. Does it make sense for you to become an ongoing client of Key Financial, or is that enough? It’s gonna be a joint decision. We’re not gonna even offer that to you unless we can feel like we can justify our presence in your lives. Now we’re not gonna justify it every quarter of every year. Right? Typically, with planning, with wealth management, it tends to come in chunks. And what’s interesting about it, and I’ll share a story a call I had earlier today. A lot of times, the value that clients receive has nothing to do with rate of return, has nothing to do with saving money on taxes. It’s the intangible stuff. So that’s basically it. There’s lots of steps in between, lots of touch points, things of that nature. You know, I’m running an ICU unit. Even though our clients aren’t sick, they just need help. They want help, and we’re here to do that.

Sasha: They need that triage, basically, coming in and then going through there. Yeah.

Patti: Alright.

How Implementing the Right Technology Helps Firms Scale

Sasha: I love the fact that you meet with every client initially. In academia, usually, when you have those initial, like, classes for going into the major, they have their most, you know, well known professor or charismatic professor do that. And so, I love that’s how you kind of set that up for those. But you didn’t mention eMoney, so I do have a question about it. So, I Alright. Go for it. So, we really wanna know how we want your perspective on fintech. And can you share more about what you and your team use and how you use it and how you think about the evolution of technology?

Patti: Absolutely. I’m an open book. I’m here to share whatever you guys want to know. Happy to do that. So, I am a long-term user. I will tell you how long term. So, I met with the founder of the company in, let’s see, 2001-time frame, and they were in an office, little office, just a few employees, etcetera, etcetera. And they were kinda pitching me on it. I said, God. This is so amazing, but you’re not there yet. So, years passed, 2007, they worked on the thing. I gave them a couple of ideas on, you know, it would be really, really great if you did a, b, and c. So, anyway, by 2007, they were ready and so was I because it was very clear. Because we’ve always done financial planning and comprehensive wealth management. That’s kind of in my DNA. But the technology back then was not conducive to scale at all. So, the evolution of this was, to me, the biggest thing was and where eMoney really set them set themselves apart was aggregation. But here’s the thing. Aggregation is fine. It’s wonderful, yada yada yada, but that’s just an accounting function. The real value is to be able to pull all that data and then run the scenarios to model what a client’s future could look like. Because we all know, look what’s happening right now. You know, the dates, time stamp this. Right now, we’re in the middle of this tariff action, and it’s making people feel really uncomfortable. Right? So, we get to say to our clients not to worry. We’ve modeled this already. We’ve modeled a thirty percent decline in the market and your portfolio to figure out what your risk capacity is. But I don’t think people really know what their risk tolerance is until they’re in it. And, frankly, the last time we went through a crisis, they were in a different season of life. They may have been working. They may have been younger. They may be retired right now. So, it feels different. So, risk tolerance, I don’t think that can be measured. I do think risk capacity can, and that’s very personal. Right? So, it’s wonderful to have a total model out. What would happen? Would you be okay if this happened? And for them to understand it and for us to make decisions in advance. In that first meeting, I tell everybody. I say, you know, here’s the thing. I wanna understand what’s gonna make this thing fail. I wanna understand where you’re vulnerable. Because when we model that, if we understand that you’re vulnerable for long term care or something like that, we can take step steps to mitigate the impact of something like that on your financial affairs. So that’s basically the way that we communicate, and that’s exactly what eMoney helps us to do. So, I don’t know if that answers your question. It’s a long answer. Where are we today? I would say that the innovation I will tell you that you guys eMoney was the only game in town as far as I was concerned, uh, for many, many years. You’re probably feeling some competitive pressures. I think innovation is long overdue in this industry, in fintech. It’s been kind of I mean, none of the technology talks to each other. You gotta go here and there and here and there. We built some tools internally to pull, to scrape data so I have a one-page scorecard for every client we have. I can walk into a meeting with one piece of paper. I have everything I need to know. It’s pulling from eMoney. It’s pulling from our portfolio system. It’s pulling from our CRM, everything that I need to know. Birthdays, kids’ names, the hip surgery, everything I need. So that’s the stuff that’s been lagging is the innovation. It’s coming, but it’s not there yet. I’m really excited about OCR, the, you know, the ability for, you know, statements to be fed into a system and they get read. I think we’ve gotta be very careful or if I may say, you guys in the fintech industry have to be very careful because there are people out there, I think, that are they’re overpromising and underdelivering, and that’s been going on for about five years now. There are systems that we have demoed and chosen not to move forward because they weren’t there yet. And, you know, I’m a bit of a nerd, but I feel like I’m making a promise to clients that if we’re using certain technology, that it’s gonna be accurate, that it’s not gonna be a fairy tale. We don’t do fairy tales. And, Connor, you weren’t there when I first got the system, but I will tell you, I drove your engineers crazy before I we adopted it. And that was back in two thousand and seven. Drove them crazy. You talk about kicking the tires and lifting the hood. I wanted to understand exactly how these calculations were being done. The thing that I appreciated and have appreciated about the relationship is that on your own and maybe with a few nudges from Patti Brennan, you guys just kept on getting better and better. So, anyway, anybody that’s listening, go ahead and nudge. Nudge away because this is these companies want to make our lives better and increase their own market share. So, message to you guys, OCR. Because this data input crap that we have to do, it’s for the birds.

Connor: Amen.

Patti: Amen is right.

On Staying Current with Emerging Technologies Such as AI

Connor: I do think there is a lot that’s happening out there, and I would just echo the sentiment. A lot of, you know, eMoney is here in the business of enabling more and better advice, and we can only do that through advisers. And if we’re not developing stuff that helps enable that advice, quality, quantity, whatever it is, then we’d wanna know about it. I do wanna hit on one specific spot there. Uh, you talked about OCR, and I think more generally, you know, know, AI and ML are the more known terms for some of the, you know, underneath technology that you’re talking about. But you guys use a lot of tech. You’ve built a lot of processes, both in house and vendor relationships. How do you think about Key’s approach to staying current and deciding what is worth adopting and implementing into the process?

Patti: It’s a great question. I gotta tell you that it’s for me again, I’m a nerd. I’m really curious. I’m always looking at ways to make my team’s lives easier and better and so that they can focus on what really makes the difference, which is giving good advice to our clients, not doing data entry, not doing that kind of stuff. But, again, you know, you’re right. AI is out there. Machine learning is out there. I am also very nervous about cyber security and all of that. So, we’ve gotta be really careful about the relationships and the vendors that we choose to work with. So, you know and there’s a lot of you know, the SEC in New York is coming out with some new standards that we’re all gonna have to adhere to. I think that’s a good thing. You know, you’ve got the note taking systems that we’ve and we’ve got a note taking system. This is kind of interesting. The note taking systems that are out there for the advisers that are listening, be really careful that it’s a summary that is sent to you and that no recording or transcript is saved because you gotta really be careful about client privacy and HIPAA and, you know, who’s using that data for their own machine learning. So, for us, we use it we use a technology where there is no recording that is saved. There is no transcript. Even if we wanted access to it, we can’t get it because it evaporates. We just get the summary. And then we have to review the summary and make sure that it’s accurate because it’s not always right. So, we have to do the proper edits, etcetera, before we put it in into our CRM. Okay. So, to be specific, every client of Key Financial has eMoney. We start that’s the hub of every relationship. Okay? From there, we also use Redtail. The reason I like Redtail is not because of its price or anything like that. It’s because, again, I wanna consolidate the tools. So, what I like about Redtail is it captures all that client’s emails back and forth. Um, it has the Redtail imaging for that client, so we can put that all their documents right there with the client records. So, it makes it easier. You’re not going here and there and here and there. I really like that. I do have some concerns longer term. We’re big. We’ve got about two and a half billion dollars that we manage all internally here. And it’s now owned by Orion, which is a wonderful firm. We evaluated Orion for our portfolio management system. We use Jump for the note taking because, again, it’s programmed so that it doesn’t keep any of the data. We what I also like about Jump is they’ve built the templates so that the things that we would normally be putting in our notes, it automatically captures it in that organizational way. I love that. So, we don’t have to, you know, edit and put it the way that we like it. Our portfolio management system is Addepar. So that’s how we’re able to scale two and a half billion dollars and make trades accordingly, but we still keep it customized because my team, they’ve got eMoney on one monitor and the portfolio on the other. The e money is what drives the decisions. That’s why we manage all two and a half internally. We’re not offloading that to third party managers, so I have to have really good tools.

Navigating Early Career Stages as a Working Mom

Sasha: Patti, you have witnessed a lot of change in the financial planning industry, especially when it comes to opportunities for women. And as you might know, women make up twenty four percent of all CFP professionals, and that number is growing, which we love. But I as a mother of four, um, I wanna know how you how you really worked on that successful career and what advice you’d give to new CFP working moms, um, to navigate the early stages of their career.

Patti: I think, you know, I think part of it is, you know, managing expectations. We manage expectations for our clients. I think it’s important for women in this industry to manage their own expectations. I think that, you know, I think there’s been a real injustice communicated to many young people today, and that is this whole thing about work life balance. I gotta tell you, it doesn’t exist. To me, it’s not work life balance. It’s work life choices with consequences. Hey. I chose to bring four children into this world. They didn’t ask to come in. We chose to bring them into the world. So that was a choice that I made. So, while they were little kids, I was not going out every other night. I was not you know, it was it was literally it was work and my family. That’s it. I was a very lopsided tire, and I had to be creative in terms of how to do that. So, it was work life choices. You know, I worked out of the basement of my home. My team, many people who still work for me today, came into the back door, raided the refrigerator on the way down to the basement to work all day. That’s literally how it worked. So, you know, you gotta kind of think creatively as a young mom, and it’s okay. That’s the only thing I can say. Be kind to yourself. You’re not gonna be perfect. The kids aren’t gonna, you know, look perfect every single day. I remember going to a conference, and I love this conference. And this woman, she was up on the stage and she said, you know, I got it. I heard a tip at a different conference, and I thought this woman was crazy until I tried it. And the tip was, you know, getting kids ready for school in the mornings is unbelievable. Getting them dressed. They’re fighting you. I don’t wanna go to school. So, basically, this woman said, I started putting my kids into their I put them to bed with their school clothes already on. How’s that for a time saver? No fights in the morning. They wake up. They’re already dressed. They get something to eat, grab their lunch. They’re out to the bus. That’s an easy tip. Right? So, you know, don’t should on yourself. No shoulds are allowed. Okay? Be creative. Think outside the box. You figure it out, and it’s all gonna be okay. The kids are gonna be great. They’re gonna grow up. You’re gonna set an example for them. That to me is the coolest thing about being a working mom is that, you know and I will tell you that I’ve got two daughters and two sons, and this is a true story. I said to one of my daughters, I said, God, what was it like growing up with a mom like me? You know, I was, I was literally, I can remember being in the kitchen. My, you know, my daughter was talking to me and she’s like, mom, mom, did you hear what I just said? That I was, you know, I will tell you that no matter where I was, I always felt like I needed to be the other place. When I was working, I felt like I needed to be home with the kids. When I was home with the kids, I felt like I needed to be working. The guilt that we put on ourselves is ridiculous. Enough of that crap. You’re doing a great job. You know, be kind to yourself and understand that it’s a season of life. It’s just a season of life. It will get easier, and everybody’s gonna be okay. And you don’t have to be a superstar, by the way. You’ll have that time too.

Sasha: I think that’s really good advice, Patti. And I love that your call your colleagues would come in the house and raid your fridge and then go in the basement. That’s awesome.

Patti: Oh, yeah. Oh, you know what? We have we have an office building. I still have refrigerators that are filled because everybody wants you know, it’s the way they just you know, they’re putting in the eMoney and they’re getting up and running and getting something to eat. They need a distraction. That’s so fun. And by the way, I learned that from eMoney because eMoney’s headquarters was stacked with candy and food and all that stuff.

Sasha: It’s true.

Patti: Unbelievable. It’s true.

Sasha: Yeah.

Patti: Yeah.

Connor: I mean, making sure that enough Patti to get around to everyone, I I think is, uh, not possible. But between Forbes, Barron’s, you on the conference circuit, just attending you on the conference circuit presenting, there’s quite a few places for our listeners to find you and come run down whatever follow-up questions that I’m undoubtedly, we’ve generated throughout the discussion today. But I did wanna just talk to you about your book. Am I Going to Be Okay? Can you talk a little bit more about it? Kinda what’s one or two takeaways that you’d like listeners to get from it?

Patti: Sure. So, I’m gonna give it to you straight because you know me, and that’s the way I work. It was probably the worst decision I’ve ever made, honestly and truly. It was it was one of those things. I was speaking at one of the major events, was at Forbes, and I got a phone call the following Monday. And the person on the other line said, you know, I’m so and so and so and so. We’ve been following you, and we’re wondering if you have a book in that brain of yours. And I said, no. I do not. I don’t have time to go to the bathroom, much less write a book. There’s no. I do not have a book. That’s honestly what I said to him. He said, you know, we kind of think different. We think you’re fascinating. We love the way that you communicate. Why don’t you just try to put a pen to a piece of paper and see what you can come up with? So, I did, you know, whatever. And it turned out to be an interesting experience for me. It’s very hard. It’s really hard to write a book. I’m just gonna tell you because I didn’t want it to be one of these things that, you know, drones on and on and talks about all the things you should do, etcetera. And it’s really boring and uses a lot of big words. I wanted it to be relatable with lots of stories, etcetera. And one of the pitches behind this whole idea was, oh, don’t worry, Patti. We know that you’re busy. We know that you’ve got your own company, yada yada. We’ll give you a ghostwriter. We’ll make it easy. It’ll be seamless. Piece of cake. This is what we do. Well, okay. Here’s the deal. Ghostwriter number one didn’t work out. So, they got me a new ghostwriter. Ghostwriter number two, a little bit better. Oh, it didn’t quite work out. So then at that point, I was already deep in it. And, of course, I made a commitment. So, I said, okay, screw it. I’m gonna just write this thing myself. And I started from scratch, and I wrote the thing myself many times over, by the way, many times over. So, it was a, it was a process. It wasn’t easy. And by the way, for whatever it’s worth, it is not for marketing. Don’t do it because you think it’s gonna help for marketing. It does not. I don’t think it does. I mean and I will tell you that it’s my book is has been number one on Amazon since it was published in November, every single solitary week. So, but that’s not really why I did it. I just wanted to kinda document our process, how we do things. And what’s interesting about that, you might be interested in this, and you guys probably don’t even know this. But I had to get permission from eMoney because I use some of your graphs because that’s what we use. So, if you read the book, you’re gonna see cash flow, the five-year cash flow report, the reports that I love and that I think communicate so effectively. They are in the book. That’s the way it is. And it’s just it’s just, um, it’s not marketing. It’s not any of that. It was just to document the process.

Connor: So just make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.

Patti: That is the most important. Just make sure you know what you’re getting into. And I will tell all of you, it took me six years beginning to end. So, it’s not something you’re gonna do overnight, not necessarily, you know, unless you’re gonna stop and drop everything and just focus on that. I learned a lot about myself in the process too. I didn’t realize how particular I am. I never thought of myself as a perfectionist, but it is what it is. When you put your name on something, I think that that so some of that’s naturally gonna occur.

How to Give Great Advice

Sasha: I totally understand that. As an author of curriculum, that perfectionism definitely comes out when you’re like even Connor and I today were just talking about he reviewed some of our curriculum, and I was like, oh my goodness. So just to hear that feedback, I totally understand. But yeah. Patti, as we wrap up, I loved I love your candor, and I just wanna ask you, how would you define the heart of advice when it comes to financial planning?

Patti: Oh, good question. So, here’s the deal. I’m gonna give you I’m gonna answer your question with a story. Something that happened this morning. So, I have a very large client, you know, worth a lot of money, yada yada, has been a client, came from one of the wire houses, etcetera. And he basically reached out to me yesterday and said, can you give me a call? I’d like to talk to you about something. So, I’m trying to figure out, because we had a meeting about a month or two ago, trying to figure out what was on his mind. Basically, it had hit basically, what was on his mind was he wanted his wife wanted to do some gifting to family members, and he was worried about what that might do to the family dynamic. And he specifically said, “I’ve experienced this in the past, and I’m worried that they will resent us because we’ve had a level of success because they’ve got a lot of success. And, you know, and apparently, this you know, every family’s messed up.” And I told them, I said, “you know what? For whatever it’s worth, I have yet to meet a normal family. Family dynamics are unique. We all think that we’re alone. We’re not. Everybody’s dysfunctional, so not to worry. Okay?” And he immediately I could just feel the weight come out, like, ugh. You know, because, you know, one of the things that I like to tell people when they come in is you’re in the no judgment zone here. Let me tell you about my family. Let me tell you about my life. And sometimes showing that vulnerability is a good thing because it makes them feel like, okay. They’re not alone. But, anyway, long story short, in this particular example, okay, it had nothing to do with his, you know, millions and millions of dollars in his portfolio that we manage. It had nothing to do with his taxes that he just filed yesterday, which were a lot. It had nothing to do with the estate plan that we are working on with his attorney and the corporations that he owns and the entities and all that and the CTA and all the stuff that we’ve guided him on. It had to do with this family dynamic. And because we’re holistic, I was able to get to the heart of the advice, my heart to his, and to say to him, hey. Listen. Here’s the deal. Pretend his name is John. When they go low, you go high. You know, it’s that much what Michelle Obama said. When if the if they become resentful, if they exhibit behaviors that are not really what you would expect when you’re giving somebody, you know, thousands of dollars. Understand it, recognize that it’s there, and go ahead and still do it. Still give it to them. Stay high. Stay on that high road. And he ended up he ended the call with the following statement. He said, you know, Patti, he said, “I really appreciate being able to talk to you about this stuff.” The people that I was with before, there’s no way I would have shared what I shared with you just now. He said, “I really appreciate being able to talk this through and brainstorm with you on it.” And I said to him, I said, “You know what? You do whatever you wanna do. I’m just giving you my best judgment based on other families we’ve helped in the past,” and he said, “That means everything in the world to me.” That’s it. That’s the heart of advice.

Sasha: I love that. That’s a wonderful story, Patti. I think you being a nurse initially really helps bring out that trust building with clients, and I think that’s beautiful.

Patti: You know what’s really interesting for whatever it’s worth. I actually use four letter words in the conversation today. Again, be real with people. You know? I’m not stuffy. I’m here in a turtleneck shirt. I’ve got Skechers on, by the way. And people will appreciate that. You know? Be real. Be vulnerable because that’s you know, it makes people feel more comfortable. And when they can get deep like that and reveal things like that, you talk about sticky, that that person, they will be clients for life.

Sasha: And it sounds like you’ve got some real good clients for life. So, I just wanna thank you, Patti, for being on the podcast. And I’m gonna wrap it up. But, you know, thank you for joining.

Patti: I hope it’s been helpful. I hope there’s been a few tips that people can get glean from it. And thank you. Thank you for including me on this.

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