Investing in Trust: Connecting with Women and Next-Gen Investors with Julie Johnson

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the FAST Podcast, Financial Advisor Strategy Talks with Lara Galloway, SVP of Financial Education at White Glove. Lara provides advisors with an opportunity to hear from some of the best minds in the business, follow along to learn quick tips to help you grow your business. From gaining new leads, to keeping current clients engaged and everything in between.   

Now onto the show.  

Aric Johnson: Hello and welcome to the FAST Podcast with your host Lara Galloway from White Glove. Lara, what's going on?  

[00:00:05] Lara Galloway: Hey Aric. I'm excited to be here today, and every day, but this is so fun because I'm going to bring a lot of energy to the podcast today with my guest, Julie Johnson. So, let me tell you a little bit about Julie. She's awesome. She started her career in 1996 as a rookie with Smith Barney in Denver, and by 2007 she and her team managed over 1 billion in AUM. That's pretty crazy. They moved their team in every client, including pensions, foundations, 401k, family offices, and ultra-high net worth individuals to UBS in the fall of 2007 and then came 2008. Julie having obtained her CFP and SEMA designations was named the SVP with UBS. Keep up, this is acronym soup here. But Julie did an amazing job in her work as a financial advisor, and then she did a pivot here and started studying behavioral finance when she got her certification for, behavioral finance certification, in 2016, and began her career as a full-time certified coach, consultant, public speaker, and facilitator, and she speaks all over the place, everywhere with all the big people you know, Baron's, Fidelity, Forbes, Morgan Stanley, wherever. I met her at the SHIFT Conference, which is a wonderful conference we've been talking about on the podcast here, human first, financial guidance stuff, and we just really hit it off. And I told Julie I wanted to have her come to the podcast and talk a little bit about the work she does on building trust and connections with some women and next gen investors, and just give advisors, listening to us here on the show, some of the really like strategic stuff, but I'm very interested in tactical stuff, so how they can be better. So Julie, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to the FAST Podcast.  

[00:01:53] Julie Johnson: Thank you guys so much. Lara, great to see you again.  

[00:01:56] Lara Galloway: Awesome. So let's just jump in and talk a little bit about the, you've been doing a lot of studies and I know you don't call yourself quote unquote a researcher, but you're doing a lot of research on this stuff that's coming out of Wharton and Harvard and Vanguard that talk about the need and the way to be engaging women and those next gen investors so that you can really build that trust and help advisors deepen the relationships with these clients. Can you just share a little bit about what you've learned from those findings?  

[00:02:27] Julie Johnson: Absolutely. I think one of the most important things that we found, which is, I'm always, so I've been a relationship advisor since I started like 25+ years ago, right?  

[00:02:46] Lara Galloway: Before it was cool?  

[00:02:48] Julie Johnson: Way before it was cool. Before soft skills, EQ, any of that was even a thought, right? Or behavioral finance for that matter. And to be completely honest, I was told on a very regular basis, Julie, this is business. It's not personal, move on. You're spending too much time getting to know the clients. You know, you're, this is not time well spent. Respectfully now I'm able to say, and I tried to then, but it wasn't as welcomed, baloney, it's both. It's very much relationships. So, when I find, and I'm constantly searching, and I try not to be biased, right? Because I teach don't be biased. I'm constantly searching for reaffirmation, that trust between advisors or financial professionals of any kind and their clients is predominantly based on emotional engagement on relationships. And again, it's Harvard, it's Wharton, it's Vanguard, it's Fidelity, but what is so important to me is it's not just the financial publications or the financial institutions, it's across the board, right? It's relationships. Relationships are the key to trust, period, the end.  

[00:04:21] Lara Galloway: I think we're hearing that so much now in the industry, is like it's an idea that finally found its time. I mean, I did my life coaching and business leadership certification back in 2005 to 2006. I had to explain when I went back and forth across the border, my husband and I moved to Canada for a few years for his job, and every time I had to go back and forth and explain, somebody's like, so what's your profession? Oh, I'm a life coach. And so you teach people how to live? Like, yeah. And so I would just say, yeah, that's what I do. I teach people how to live. You're exactly right, because nobody knew that profession, and now I look around and I'm so excited to hear so many people incorporating coaching skills and being coaches just as part of life. Like talking about the soft skills, talking about powerful communication, talking about building relationships and trust. So it's not just the financial industry, but I think the financial industry is perhaps one of the areas where we're kind of late bloomers in this area, right?  

[00:05:27] Julie Johnson: Couldn't agree more.

[00:05:29] Lara Galloway: It's like, and the relationship building, we've always said, oh, it's about relationships. But people kind of paid lip service to that in some ways, and now there's the real pressure from the industry, and from...

[00:05:42] Julie Johnson: It's becoming a pain point.  

[00:05:43] Lara Galloway: Exactly. And women and younger investors who just aren't going to accept that it's about a portfolio that...

[00:05:50] Julie Johnson: The status quo.

[00:05:51] Lara Galloway: Right, right. So talk to me a little bit about like what are the strategies that you're teaching your clients and that you're speaking about? What are some strategies and some tactics that you're giving them for building that trust?

[00:06:05] Julie Johnson: Absolutely. So if I may back up before we get into the strategies, I'd like to touch on why this is so important for advisors to really, because obviously for advisors to embrace this concept, they need to be sold, right? They need to buy into it. And so, many, many studies talk about how investors more and more are wanting wealth transfer advice, wealth lifecycle advice. I call it before, during, and next, if you will. So, and they're wanting it while they're still alive. So this is, call it Gen 1. So it's the grandparents, the parents. They want this wealth transfer advice. And one of the studies, from the American Association of Insurance Providers, and if I'm mistitling that, I apologize, but I'll reference it better in the subtitles. It talks about how over 96% of investors want their advisors, financial professionals, to provide this wealth transfer advice to them while they're still living. And that's not necessarily new news. What's new news or what hit me over the head was the fact that in this study, it states that fewer than 25% of financial providers, financial professionals, are providing this for their clients. And some may say, holy cow, what a disconnect. I say, holy cow, what an opportunity for financial professionals who are willing to A, figure out, which is some of what we're going to talk about today, figure out what those investors need from them, how to provide it, and it's such a sort of, if you give it the opportunity, it's such a paradigm shift and it lends itself directly to this relationship stuff that we're talking about today. And so that's so important as far as, okay, why should advisors care? They should care because it's a huge opportunity, number one, for them to grow their business. Number two, it stated specifically that this is what your clients, your prospects are wanting. There's a huge opportunity to grow. And then number three, to answer your question and to get into your question, and then I'm going to let you interject whatever you were going to interject, it goes specifically to women and younger generations and what they're looking for. So, what were you going to say, Lara?  

[00:09:05] Lara Galloway: Well, you just, you made a big point and if everybody wants, like 97% is everybody, so if everybody wants wealth transfer guidance and advice, that's really like, that even is just a stopping point. So if advisors aren't doing wealth transfer advice, again, let's just be, let's break it down to the basics here, Julie. What are they giving? What are they giving? Is it just, here's how your money's growing, here's how much money you'll have for retirement. Here's how much money you can expect to spend on healthcare concerns. So it's all just stopping with the individual and not concerned about how they're passing on all this money that they won't need at some point when they're no longer here. Is it just about drawing down that, like, is that what they're doing? Because I want people who are listening to this to go, oh crap, that's exactly what I'm doing, is I'm spending all my time focused on these things and you're telling me there's this whole extended piece that I'm not listening to. So can you just, again, make it really basic and address what advisors who aren't talking about wealth transfer strategies are doing. What is it they're doing right now?  

[00:10:20] Julie Johnson: Absolutely. And I want to acknowledge the fact that those who do respect missing this huge other piece, in a lot of ways it's not their fault. Right?  

[00:10:34] Lara Galloway: Right.  

[00:10:34] Julie Johnson: They don't know any better because it's always quote, and I'm doing quote marks, it's always how it's been done, right? That are you beating the S&P by 50 basis points? Are you tracking with the 60/40 portfolio? Are you this, are you that, is the documentation of my estate plan, the documentation of my will, the operations or the appropriate beneficiaries in place.  

[00:11:05] Lara Galloway: And with a new tax legislation, yeah right?

[00:11:08] Julie Johnson: Yes!

[00:11:08] Lara Galloway: That changes all the time. Yeah.  

[00:11:10] Julie Johnson: So, and that is all, I'm not meaning to take away from the importance of that, but Lara, that should be table stakes. Right? That should be something that if you are a financial professional, you're giving it regardless, period, the end. What makes and what will going forward, call it because of AI Chat GPT, call it because of the needs and the requirements of investors. If you do not put yourself in a position where you are connecting with investors the way they want you to show up more emotionally engaged. And this isn't just me talking. This is statistically proven and I can spout as many stats from as many sources as you want, but it's statistically proven that going forward, investors require emotional engagement. They require you to be a safe space for them to come, to navigate divorce, to navigate death, to navigate inheritance, all of those things. And if we as advisors are not that safe space for them to help them navigate all of those inevitable changes, they're going to go find somebody who is.

[00:12:41] Lara Galloway: Yeah. These transitions drive us to think about our money. They drive us to think about our finances, right? And then I love, just again to make the connection really clear, because you're saying advisors need to be sold on this. We've all, the industry has trained advisors to say you've got to do performance, performance, portfolio, portfolio, risk mitigation, tax...

[00:13:00] Julie Johnson: Market knowledge, CSP, and that's competence. Right? And competence is key. And being a fiduciary, the knowledge is key. But study after study says emotional engagement and relationships are the make or break.

[00:13:18] Lara Galloway: So let's talk about that. What does that look like? How, I mean, and an advisor may be listening to this going, I'm not a therapist. I can't all of a sudden just become one. So, what do you suggest here, Julie?  

[00:13:30] Julie Johnson: Absolutely. And you're in good company. You know, if you're saying, holy cow how do I do this? And oh my gosh, do I want to do this? And you know, when we start talking about the emotions, and in my humble opinion, that is in large part why there is that 98% of investors wanting this wealth transfer advice and only 25% of advisors giving it, in my humble opinion, it's because the emotions and the navigation and oh my gosh, there's going to be so much, so many arguments between the family members and oh my gosh, I don't want to think about death, I don't want to think about divorce. Well, you know what? It's going to happen. So the sooner we as advisors or financial professionals get on board and figure out how to be that safe space for our clients and meet them where they need us to be the better. So how do we do that? First and foremost, and this is, and again, this is, it's a conversation of discomfort, but I really hope that you engage and you know, dig in, if you will, because if you do, it will put you as apart from the pack, it will make you an advisor of financial professionals that investors seek. So it's worth you doing it. So first and foremost, I invite and I encourage advisors and financial professionals to figure out what's your story? What is your, and to quote Simon Sinek, and this is a very overused, but very important statement. What's your why? Why did you become an advisor? Why did you become a financial professional? And the answer to help people isn't good enough. We've got to go back for ourselves. We've got to go back to how we were raised to feel about money. And if we're talking depending upon the generation, many people experienced 2008 and 2009. So, many you know, we got to think about the emotional perspective and experiences that our clients, well, excuse me, to start with, that our, that advisors or us as financial professionals, have because that is the foundation for how we feel about money. And our foundation for how we feel and our experience about money. And we have to become comfortable and confident with that first, because even though it is not our job as advisors to talk about necessarily our experience with money, because it's about the client, it's about the investor. We have to have that story in our brain and have done that self-assessment and that work ourselves to then be able to guide our clients, our prospects, to then be able to have those same conversations with us. This is potentially deeper, Lara, than many financial professionals have heard before. And they may think I'm nuts, but in time they're going to realize that what you and I are talking about today is right. And so we must embrace and empower our clients to go back and to guide them in a very authentically, confident, and comfortable way. What was your, Mr. and Mrs. Client, what was your experience with money growing up? How did your parents teach you about money or not? Did you hear them talk about money? Was it stressful? Was it dreams? You know what? What was it for you? And go back and share those memories with me, because if we don't take them back to that, then we talk about 2008, 2009, we talk about COVID. These are how we figure out our clients' true risk tolerances. It's not an algorithm or maybe it is in part an algorithm, right? It's not, okay, you know, can you tolerate a 15% loss from a long term performance standpoint? Yeah, that's part of it. But the part of it is the fear, the anxiety, the nausea, that is what keeps us up at night. It not will another financial crisis happen, it's when, right? And so it is our job as financial professionals to help our clients think that through. And we can't, it's our job to say, okay, we don't know what we don't know as far as what's going to happen and when, but we know that something's going to happen. We don't know how bad it's going to be. We don't know those things, but it's our job to work with you, Mr. or Mrs. Client, to make sure that your future is protected, as Brian Portnoy often says, will we be safe? And that is the number one factor that women and the younger generations want to know. Is my family, am I, and is my family going to be safe? Are we going to have, we're living longer than we ever have before. Do I have enough money to live the way I want to live until I pass? And then is there potentially going to be money left over for my family?  

[00:19:55] Lara Galloway: Yeah.  

[00:19:55] Julie Johnson: That and the reason why we need to focus also, I'm going to jump into why women and why next gen, by 2030, women and people under the age of 55 will be responsible for, depending upon what place you look, what statistic you reference, as much as 65% or more of investible assets. So that is the answer to why do I need to engage better with women? Why do I need to engage better with the younger generation? It's because in less than seven years, they are your client.  

[00:20:41] Lara Galloway: That's an eye-opening stat.

[00:20:44] Julie Johnson: Right? I mean, and that's going to be in the blink of an eye. And so it's not an if, it's a when. We need to meet them where they need us to be. And again, statistics prove women and the younger generations, and we need to be careful. And so legal subtext here, never ever assume based upon gender or age or anything else that we, and I'm doing air quotes again, that we know where they are. We have to be curious. We have to ask the questions. So don't go into a conversation with assumptions. Go into a conversation having done your homework, but pose everything as a question. And you know, my understanding is that women care a great deal about their family and their safety, and that is more important to them than you know, is our portfolio beating the S&P by 50 basis points. Is that how you feel and share more about that with me, right? So you pose it as a question, and you can even say, based upon the 10 years of work that I've done as an advisor and the clients that I've worked with, here's what I've found, because that also shares with them, hey, this person knows what they're doing. They're socially connected. They're psychologically and emotionally connected with the needs, and they're paying attention to the overarching needs, not just the market, but the needs of their clients. And so I think that I feel pretty good that they're going to do that with me too. And they're not making an assumption because I'm a 60 year old woman or a 50-year-old man or what have you, they're asking questions. And so they've done the homework. You got to do your homework before you go into any meeting, of course. But they're asking it, they're posing it as a question. And that, by asking questions, that also drives emotional engagement and inherently drives trust.  

[00:23:09] Lara Galloway: Yeah, and just, I love what you're saying here and laying it out really strategically for our workshop hosts. I've heard a lot of our advisors using a really smart approach that I think makes a lot of sense and it's when you're getting someone that maybe attended a workshop and now they're coming to your office for that first time meeting, or maybe you're calling them and reminding them and making sure that maybe prepping them a little bit, maybe doing a fit call, whatever, before that meeting, people have different approaches, this all works, but I've heard that one of the best ways to open that conversation with a prospect when you're sitting down in that meeting is to just ask these big open-ended questions about what did you grow up hearing about money? How did your parents treat money? Was it a positive? Was it a negative? Like, just tell me a little bit about your history because I understand that the majority of our decisions in the world are based on our emotions. They're driven by our emotions, and I want to make sure that I'm listening to you and understanding what sort of emotions might drive some of the decisions, the goals, the things that you might choose to do with your money, or the things that you want me to understand about your money. And I think go like, again, strategically asking those questions, what a great way, A, to start a relationship, right? Not asking a lot more just very tactical, numeric questions, but asking a very open-ended question and saying, and putting it in context about, I understand that this is going to drive some of the decisions that you make, and that makes perfect sense. So for us to get on the same page, tell me a little bit about that. And that shows you are a relationship person. It gives the person the chance to get engaged. Right? Advice and engagement is huge right now. So getting them to be the one talking and telling, the more questions you ask, the more the other person talks. That's what you want in a relationship from the start. And they're going to give you so many pieces that you can work with when you're developing their plan and when you're developing a relationship with them over time.  

[00:25:19] Julie Johnson: Yeah. And the golden nuggets, the other thing too is the golden nuggets of what they don't say.

[00:25:27] Lara Galloway: Yeah.  

[00:25:27] Julie Johnson: But potentially, and this is another thing of learning, even when you're Zoom to Zoom, read their facial expressions. Listen to their tone of voice. Listen to their cadence. When they're looking away, is it because they're stressed? Is it because they're uncomfortable? Is it because they're talking about something that's clearly emotionally, like, oh it was very, very stressful? And so, and unfortunately, or fortunately, some of that for the newer advisors comes with experience. But the more you know, hey, I need to be paying attention to body language and tone of voice and words, and this is a totally aside, if you can record a meeting, if it's Zoom, because then you can go back and you can watch for those things and not just be listening for the words. Or if you can have an associate with you to be taking notes so you can really hone in on, again, body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, all of those things. There's so much I want to unpack with what you just said and I hope I remembered it all because it was really good. Number one, when you meet with a prospect or a new client, do it like you're meeting with a new friend for coffee. Okay? It's very much you want to get to know about them. You just, like you said, right? And it's very, when you approach it like that as opposed to an advisor investor, an advisor prospect, it's very much more comfortable. And you'll see as you start talking to them as a person, again, whether it's Zoom or in-person, they'll start to relax. Okay? If they don't start to relax because you're talking about emotions and maybe they're like, okay, whoa, I don't know you, I'm not ready to go there with you, then it's really important for us as financial professionals to be able to say, hey, I get it. You don't know me from Adam, and I'm asking you some pretty vulnerable questions and some pretty deep things to share with me. Let me give you an example, and then you share whatever that example is for you as the advisor. For me, I would often say as an example, my parents are older and I didn't live through anything sort of scary, and so I never heard my parents talk about money until my dad lost his job. Very unforeseen, very out of the blue, and it scared them very much. And so all of a sudden they were arguing about money. I was in my mid-teens. I'd never heard this before, and that scared me. And so that is why I became a financial advisor. And so we need, as financial professionals, to have that level of a story, but it needs to be in the form of kind of an elevator story. And I know this is a lot, it's confusing. I'm happy to discuss this with anybody. Have it be short to the point and then 30 seconds, 60 seconds, and then move on to the person that you're speaking with and say, and the reason I share that story with you is because I want you to feel safe in sharing the vulnerabilities with me if that's okay with you. So you ask their permission, but you've given yourself up as a vulnerable person as well, and therefore because of showing yourself as a vulnerable individual, they're more likely to feel comfortable doing so with you.

[00:29:33] Lara Galloway: I love you just made it short. Yeah.

[00:29:36] Julie Johnson: Super short. It has to be short.  

[00:29:38] Lara Galloway: Yeah.  

[00:29:38] Julie Johnson: Because then they're going to be like, wait a minute. I thought this was about me, not you. And so it just, it has to be short. And that goes back to having the intelligence in ourselves of have a few stories in your brain that you can utilize if and when necessary to build that engagement with your clients and or prospects. Have it ready, have it on the go. It must be super authentic. Women and younger generations are great BS sniffers. And if they're like, okay, you just pulled that outta your butt and, believe it or not, they may be able to sense that from you and that's going to pull their trust away. Right? So it has to be authentic. But, okay. So that was unpacking number one. And really, again, from what you said, Lara, the most, I think the most important thing that clients need to see from us is that we care about them. We're not, so many, even to this day, so many advisors, managers, teams that I work with, talk about what they bring to the table. Talk about their knowledge, their experience, perhaps what their firm can do. Well, you know what? the client cares about that. But again, that's table stakes. And you don't know what to highlight about yourself, what to highlight about your firm until you've done the discovery. Discovery with your prospects and clients early, often ongoing, is so critical and it's not discovery of okay, you know, where do you have your accounts? How much money, what's taxable? What's not taxable? You know, that's, you need to do that too. But it's again, what are your goals? What are your dreams? Where have you failed? And I have a huge list of discovery questions for anybody that wants to see it. And it's always growing.

[00:31:59] Lara Galloway: I definitely want to just make sure that everybody hears that and I want to make sure we include it in the show notes, because you've referred to that before and I think it's so valuable sometimes when you're, again, what I want people always taking away from this podcast is some actionable information. And we're talking about big ideas that can feel hard to implement. So one of the biggest things, again, like I was just trying to say that I've heard advisors who start building this from the prospect level after they come out of a workshop, they've got some leads they're going to follow up with, ask these questions. So now if you can, and we'll copy it. We'll put it in the show notes, Julie, but if we can get that list of discovery questions, again, this is one of the tactics that you're sharing with our listeners about how to start actually bringing in those bigger, deeper connection, trust-building conversations that you want to have with the women and the next gen investors. So like I totally want to take it, and I know like we can talk for another hour, but we're going to have to wrap it up here because this is good stuff and I think people are going to need a chance to like process just some of the stuff that we've shared today because you've given, like I said, both the big ideas, as well as some very specific actions that people can take to start implementing this trust and the building that bridge to the next gen. So I want to let you finish your thoughts here, but I also want to just, I have a one final question I want to ask you before we go. So finish your thoughts and then we'll go to that next one.

[00:33:32] Julie Johnson: Awesome. And yeah, we never have enough time. Which is a blessing in disguise, I suppose. So the biggest takeaways that I would ask are, women, again, are most caring often. Again, do your discovery. Don't go in assuming, ask what matters most to them and then implement, okay, how do I best serve you? How do I best meet you where your needs are? Number one, next generation. They, and I want to focus a little bit more on them because A, we're talking about inheritors, right? Number one. Number two, if you are uncomfortable, and so many advisors, and again, I'm making a broad generalization. The younger generation believes very much and is driven and value based on work-life balance, on perhaps taking time off, taking a sabbatical, two months to go do whatever they want to do. So when we're budgeting for them and working with them on their budget, that comes into play. So if you hear them talk about that, some of us as older financial professionals are like, wait, what?  

[00:35:04] Lara Galloway: Yeah, it's like a pre-retirement, right?

[00:35:07] Julie Johnson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, have a poker face, a smiling poker face, so nothing kind of...  

[00:35:16] Lara Galloway: Or just admit it. Sounds like a great idea, I wish we'd thought of it.  

[00:35:19] Julie Johnson: Exactly. Perfect. Perfect. And another thing, what other younger generations are often worried about is where's social security going to be when they retire? So they're having young kids, how do I plan for college? And how do I plan for retirement at the same time? And many of them have a huge amount of college debt. Right? So it's, again, these knowledge points are imperative if we as financial professionals want to connect authentically with the younger generation, which again, I can't stress to you how important it is, we must understand what potentially are their pain points. What are they struggling with? One other thing too, Lara, that I wanted to talk about that's really important is for financial advisors that are asking their existing clients, older clients to be introduced to the younger family members and the older clients are like, oh my gosh, I know we need to talk about that. I know we need to do that, but it's depressing. I don't want to talk with them about death yet. I don't want to talk with them about X. I get it, Mr. and Mrs. Client, I know. It's not something that any of us want to talk about. However, do you agree that they will be so relieved that when, God forbid, that day happens, that inevitable thing happens, that you all have had the conversation, they know where everything is, they know the documentation, they know who's in charge, those conversations have been had? So even on the most, even on the highest level, when, God forbid, you do pass, so, I know or I would imagine that you don't want them to, while they are grieving, you don't want them to have to stress about financial stuff. So the more we're able to prepare and bring them into the conversation, I say early and often, right? Because you've removed the stigma of money. Dennis Jaffe and Jim Grubman, quote it, I could quote them so much. They, they're responsible for Wealth 2.0, Wealth 3.0, their books, they're fabulous. And they talk about make it a preparatory and collaborative conversation. Something that we're working toward together, not something that you as the younger generation have to, oh my gosh, prepare for. Make it positive. And so it's all a mindset. Right? So it's helping your Gen 1 grandparents, parents, helping them see it as a positive, not a negative, and then bringing in the younger generations into the conversation early and often. Younger generations, again, statistically speaking, love to collaborate. They love to be in the know. They love to understand what's going on because that's how they were raised, right? They were raised around the dinner table, talking about, all right, where do you want to go to college? Where do you want to go on vacation? They had a vote. So if all of a sudden they don't have a vote or even an understanding, they're going to, it's really going to take them off the tracks. And if you, as the financial professional, haven't brought them in to the conversation, how are they going to trust you to take care of them going on, right? So, it's it's a win-win. You're building the relationships, so hopefully you're able to maintain the assets, the relationships going forward, but also it just alleviates our job as financial professionals is to alleviate the stress for our clients and to let them share with them so that they know that that's what we're doing. Right? We're alleviating the stress. So anyway, so much more to touch on, but.

[00:39:44] Lara Galloway: I know, well, I know it's hard, it's hard to get, slow it down once we get going, but this is all amazing stuff and really valuable information that I think, again, we're breaking down some big ideas and making them pretty simple for people to start applying so that they can connect with the next gen and with the women investors and be a part of the great wealth transfer, not get left behind by it. There's so many, I know you've got so many stats on that, and it's amazing. We're seeing more and more about this every day, but just to wrap us up today, it's been awesome having you here and I would love, thank you for being here, I would love for you to share what I ask everybody to share at the end, which is just a definition of success for yourself, for your clients, whatever. I would just love to hear some sort of idea mindset that you have that helps you determine success in your life.  

[00:40:40] Julie Johnson: You know, I love this question, and thank you for giving it to me ahead of time, as it let me think it through a little bit better. For me, the greatest level of success that I feel that I've been honored to achieve through so many experiences and so much training is the ability to come when I have conversations with people professionally, and personally, with what I call, and many philosophers call, a blank slate. And what that means is I do the best I can to come into a conversation with no bias so that the person I'm speaking with can share with me whatever is going on for them. And I do the best I can to react in a curious, I want to understand that better. I want to learn more, not what? You know, like what are you thinking? And the vibe and the energy that we give to our friends, our family, new people we're meeting, professional people, clients, prospects, peers. If we embrace their perspective with a point of curiosity and wanting to learn more and not putting our experiences and our biases on them, then it invites this fabulous conversation. It invites this fabulous engagement and this building of trust and this openness, this reciprocal openness that otherwise we're potentially missing. And I mean, that's industry agnostic, that's person agnostic, that's culture agnostic. Embrace curiosity and, yeah.

[00:42:45] Lara Galloway: That's awesome.

[00:42:47] Julie Johnson: Thank you.  

[00:42:48] Lara Galloway: I love it. I haven't heard that, from, I've certainly heard the idea, but I haven't heard that as somebody's definition of success, so I love that and I think it's a really ponderable definition of success. So thank you for sharing that.

[00:43:00] Julie Johnson: Thank you so much, Lara.

[00:43:02] Lara Galloway: It has been a pleasure, Julie, thank you for joining us on the podcast and just tell us how we can reach out if people want to connect with you and find more or reach out for those discovery session questions. How do they do that?  

[00:43:14] Julie Johnson: Thank you. And I love and I invite any kind of questions, any kind of thoughts, any kind of, hey, I'm dealing with this challenge. Help me think it through. I love it. Please email me, Julie, J U L I E, @xycommunication.com. Communication is singular, so no s on the end, so XY, julie@xycommunication.com.  

[00:43:41] Lara Galloway: Perfect.  

[00:43:42] Julie Johnson: It's the best way.  

[00:43:43] Lara Galloway: Thanks, Julie.  

[00:43:44] Julie Johnson: Thank you all so much.  

[00:43:47] Aric Johnson: Julie, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for being an amazing guest. Lara, if people are listening to this going, Lara has shared so much, with us through multiple guests and they want to get in touch with you, can you give them some contact info as well, please.

[00:44:03] Lara Galloway: As always, you're welcome to go to our website, whiteglove.com, or email us at info@whiteglove.com.  

[00:44:11] Aric Johnson: Thank you both again. Of course, our last thank you always goes to you, listening audience. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to the FAST podcast with Lara Galloway. If you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, please click the Subscribe Now button below. This way when Lara comes out with a new podcast, it'll show up directly on your listening device. And we humbly ask that you share this podcast, rate it and leave a review, as this actually does help others find the show. Again, thank you so much for listening today. For everyone at White Glove, this is Aric Johnson reminding you to live your best day every day, and we'll see you next time.  

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