PODCAST EPISODE 173: INVESTING IN YOU FROM THE INFLUENCE ECOLOGY ANNUAL MEMBER CONFERENCE

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Paul 0:01

Welcome to your business your wealth, where your hosts Paul Adams and Corey Shepherd teach founders and entrepreneurs how to build wealth beyond their business balance sheets.

Hello, and welcome to your business, your wealth. My name is Paul Adams

Cory 0:38

I and I’m Corey Shepherd, president of sound financial group here with Paul Adams, senior Shepherd,

Paul 0:45

a man who does not mind interrupting his business partner in the middle of his intro that was going to be hilarious. But instead I’m just going to say first episode we’ve ever had where you’ve actually worn your sunglasses and they’re on your head. Think the night You’re wearing sunglasses, but they’re not even on your eyes. I

Cory 1:01

was gonna say it’s the first episode we’ve had where I can actually see the shirt under your shirt.

Paul 1:06

Oh, that’s true. Yeah. Just for full disclosure today we’ve been traveling. So for those of you listening to the podcast, we’re actually sitting poolside at the Ohio Valley Inn in spa outside of Ventura, California. We’re actually here for a conference today, to do what we’re going to talk with all of you about which is efforting to increase our human capital. Core, do you want to tell me a little bit about the conference Rep.

Cory 1:31

Well, first, I want to tell everybody about the beautiful mountains that I see in the background here. We really wish we could have had that at our background, but there’s also going to be a bunch of people in the pool that probably didn’t want to be on camera. So that’s why we

Paul 1:43

say Korea was perfectly fine with just shooting until somebody got mad at us. And for the first time ever, I was the one looking not to offend people so it was a riot chips. Development. Yeah, that’s really yeah, maybe maybe it just, I automatically become the less offensive one. If you become offensive.

Cory 2:01

Whoo. That’s deep. That’s our next episode. The the yin and yang of offensiveness yet. So anyway, your to your question, we’re here for a conference with a group called influence ecology, which is, they would describe themselves as the preeminent business education in transactional competence. Now, if you want to learn more about that, we’re going to give you a chance to meet some folks from influence ecology, but for now, I’ll just leave you with as humans, we’re all interacting with each other, you might say, transacting with each other, whether that’s in a business relationship, or getting your kids to make their bed when you ask them. And there’s ways to do that more powerfully and less powerfully to have worse or better outcomes. That’s what we’re here to learn about this week.

Paul 2:44

Yeah. And and just to add on to what Corey said, something that people see all the time is you get all kinds of business education, how somebody sells better or how someone can do a better job of the financials or doing employee reviews and there’s all these educational outlets you can go to to do that. But fundamental Finally, each of those is a transaction. So it’s learning the frameworks underneath all those other things that you might go to about being better at that interaction and transaction with others. So, near the end of the episode, we’ve got a little giveaway for anybody that is interested in having a conversation with influenced theology. So I was recently on a podcast called Puget Sound underground, which we’ll be releasing slightly before this episode comes out, but I

Cory 3:28

haven’t even heard it yet. So he said it went well. And I hope I think that it probably went went well. Well, we’ll find out. I’m sure it went well, I’m sure it went well.

Paul 3:37

And if it didn’t go, well, wouldn’t that be a great episode to listen to? I just watched flames. I was just offensive enough in that episode. But during the episode I was asked, what if somebody just has $10,000 they don’t have anything else. What would you suggest that they invest in? And, you know, this guy’s had other people on the show who have talked about everything from crypto So currency mining to buy rental properties. And the thing that I says I don’t think you should deploy that financial capital into other financial instruments, what ought to be done is invest in your human capital. And your human capital is your ability to be able to go out into the marketplace and be compensated more or be compensated the same with more autonomy and freedom. But people don’t talk about that often enough, and certainly not financial advisors, though, I think they should, because it’s the highest rate of return, nearly anyone who’s going to see is being able to make themselves better at what they do. Because being better at what you do, creates more capital every single year on a recurring basis.

Cory 4:48

Well, it’s like when we ask couples, what’s the most valuable part of your balance sheet, and a lot of folks might point to their house or their 401k depending on what they’ve got going on. There. And I say well, is no, it’s the two of you. Like, obviously, I would hope the two of you are the most valuable part of this balance sheet to each other, you know, just from a personal standpoint, but if we actually add up the value of your ability to go out and earn an income, that’s the most valuable asset that you have. So investing in your human capital is just increasing the size of that bucket that’s out the the transdimensional bucket that’s out. Yeah.

Paul 5:30

Yeah, think of it like a tank of money. You’re working your way through those two great reasons to think about that tank of money that you’re living into. One is, it’s not, it could be a lot higher than your current level of capital, your current level of income because of merit increases or getting better at your business increased profitability, and there’s not a limit that anybody puts on it, but it does come to an end. Likely one day unless you come to an untimely end or list. So if you think about that as a, an account of money that’s ticking down, it really allows you to pay more attention to your current finances, because even if you’re making eight 900,000 a million for a year, it’s like, oh, wait one day, this is not going to come in anymore. And whenever that day comes, it puts you in a position to have enough capital on your balance sheet to be fine. So we call though that capitalized current value of all your future earnings, human life value. Now, some of you may be familiar with this concept, because of a tragic event because of 911. You see 911. During that tragedy, there were countless lives lost and the federal government set up the victims Compensation Fund, that they use human life value calculation and say, oh, somebody was a janitor on the 18th floor, and they were making X amount per year and they were 42 years old. And what’s that earning going to be like over the rest? A lifetime and what did their family miss out on? Now, we all walk around with that human capital every day, but we’re not calculating it. And it’s hard to think about that rate of return. But if you spent $10,000, investing in your future earning capacity, you’re going to repeat that increase, say, for that 40 year old, maybe 2025 more years, which is a reason why it’s pretty tough to beat that by putting it, say, into a husband or wife, Roth IRA.

Cory 7:28

When I think about the person who says, Well, I just want to, you know, I’m gonna go find some real estate to invest in or, you know, I think this business is a good one to invest in. If you haven’t done it before, you can’t point to a series of accomplishments that prove that you have some expertise, you might not have the knowledge to make that money, get put to good use to recognize what the good deal is in the first place. So So education helps you become a better investor. And that way, too, I think,

Paul 7:57

yep. So so you may be thinking maybe As you rolling around your mind a little bit, well, what does that mean for me? What should I invest back in myself? And we kind of designed a few steps to think through. One of the first is you’ve got to set your aims. What do you want your future to look like with your family? Now, we’ve talked about this in past episodes, we’re not going to revisit in depth. But the idea of personal ambition first is how much I want to work where I want to work, how I want to live, then financial ambition, which is how much money is it going to take to live that lifestyle? And only after that, should we be doing things like setting our career and business aims? Because if we don’t have our personal names figured out why how do we know if we wake up in the morning, that we should get out of bed and head to the office or we should get out of bed and go to a movie, or that maybe we don’t get out of bed till noon. Now we do it every day at a force of habit, mainly because so often it’s easy to live inside someone else’s strategy, your your employer, or it could be your business is just sort of taken over. And it’s its strategy and you find yourself stretched to the limit. And you didn’t go into business originally thinking, wow, what I’d really like to do is be away from my family or kids and, and you know, be grinding 16 hours a day that the business has become the boss. So you got to sit back first and say, Okay, what are my aims for this year, maybe three years out five years out, and that can start to let you know where you need to invest in your human capital, then you can invest in deficiencies or you could invest in strength, but how

Cory 9:37

would you unless you know where you want to be going, you don’t know how hard you would need to be working or how much effort to go, how much time to take away from your family to get there. And I think that’s really important. A lot of people listening, if you stopped and thought about it, your life is already in a really like pretty good spot and maybe, you know, evaluating the next business deal or go and spend some more time with your found that you may be more happy during that time with your your family if you’ve already got everything you need, but you won’t know, unless you actually map that out.

Paul 10:07

Yep. And so first once you have your aims, I think it’s important to think about your talent stack. Now Scott Adams, who was on the podcast several episodes ago, talked a little bit about this and talked about a lot his latest book loser think. He talks about the fact that we don’t have to be the best at any single thing. What’s more, like Tiger Woods is amazing at one thing for sure. But if you take

Cory 10:33

other cars, no cars on camera,

Unknown Speaker 10:35

no, no, no, that should be used as

Paul 10:39

its primary talent. I see. I see. Okay, so they’ll consider and I often give the example of say like a navy seal. So to any Navy SEALs listening if this offends you, go to Carson. But if but the thing is that a navy seal is not the best at Have the single things by themselves except for maybe specific weapon systems, sniper, etc. But if you were to take somebody who was a navy seal, can they run a long distance relatively quickly? Yes. Are they better than the best marathon runners? No. Are they the very best weightlifters? No, but they’re very strong. Are Do they have the best endurance? Are they smartest ever out there? No, but they are super smart. And it’s not any one of those things that makes them look superhuman to people. But in fact, it’s not being 10 in any single category. But being a seven in a whole bunch of categories, makes them appear superhuman. That’s the talent stack. So you in your career already have a talent stack. Now that talent stack might be the way that you interact with people part of your talent stack might be your ability with numbers, your ability to market or sell what your company does, but it’s probably not one thing. It’s a mixture of several things. Maybe The team building and the amazing team that you’ve built around you. But any one of those things, it’s part of your talent stack, you’re gonna say first, before I deploy any human capital, I need to know what my aims are, my personal, my financial and my business aims, then I needed to do an inventory of what are my current talent stacks. Now you can do one of two things. You either invest in the talent stack, that’s going to give you the greatest output, because it’s something you’re really good at. While you may have a talent stack that’s dragging against you, that you don’t necessarily need to get great at but you’ve got to just stop it from being an anchor pulling you back from what the other talents are pulling you forward.

Cory 12:39

But you know, what comes to mind is, it’s saying that is, if you don’t already have everything that you want in life, then it’s because you’re deficient in some part of your talent stack. Or what someone once said to me, is they said, here’s how you have to start behaving or start moving or what you need to start doing and I said, Oh, that doesn’t really feel or sound like me. And I said, Yeah, that’s because you suck right now. I think that might have been Paul. I don’t,

Paul 13:09

it may have been a bit of pull right now.

Cory 13:12

But it was with all the love and Karen in the world. And the truth is that if you’re going to if you would already have this thing you want if you are already equipped and prepared to

Paul 13:24

have it, man, Corey, that is, that is such a big deal. I think that that deserves to be said again, that if you knew how to get to where you want to go, you would be there now. Now, that’s a hard thing to think about. Because something we hear all the time from people is I know what it’s gonna take for me to have success now whether there’s somebody we’re coaching or somebody that is a client of ours or somebody considering becoming a client, how often have you heard like, Oh, I know what I need to do. I just need to go do it

Cory 13:56

all the time. I know how to run a marathon. Right? Well, and that one’s a hard one because you just have to go do it but something in business like I know how to build a business to X dollars a year of revenue. Well, if you did know, you would have done it. Well, we’ve talked about mountains and gazing into each other’s eyes. Hard to say where we’re going to go next in this extra special setting, but stay tuned. When we come back from this break and a brief message from sound Financial Group.

Paul 14:28

Paul Adams here at sound Financial Group. Are you curious what you can accomplish with our help? You’re here enjoying the show? Our philosophy is helping you increase your effectiveness with money. And now we have a way to help you take another step on your financial journey. We have designed a financial inquiry call for you and the thousands of other listeners of your business your wealth. This is a complimentary 15 minute conversation where one of our team members will ask you some key questions. understand your concerns. If appropriate schedule a time for further conversation with an advisor. If you look at the episode description, you’ll see a link to schedule a call at a time that’s least invasive for you. And even if now’s not the right time for us to work together, we’ll point you toward resources to help you in your financial journey. We always look forward to connecting with our listeners, and we look forward to talking with you soon.

Cory 15:26

All right, welcome back to the Ohio Valley Inn and spa. I think we’re okay. It’s a free advertisement. They’re not gonna lie. We didn’t ask them if we could mention their name, but I think they’ll they’ll like that very, very much.

Paul 15:38

And if they don’t, I just want to apologize on behalf of my is

Cory 15:42

all my idea. My idea. So Paul, on the break, you reminded me of a really great way of distinguishing that understanding and knowledge. We share it. Yeah, everybody else.

Paul 15:54

Yeah. So when, if if we think about it, people are either familiar with something they understand. stands for they know it and two Coreys point earlier. Would you want to be having a pilot fly you and your family somewhere if they said, Well, I understand how the plane works. And I understand how to fly or they said I know how to fly. Now the problem in our life is not that people say they understand something when they don’t know it. The problem we have most of the times people say they know something when they only understand so let me just give you some distinctions. If you’re familiar with say parachuting, then what you would think about is, well, I know someone gets into a plane, they fly up in the air, they hurled themselves out of the aircraft, and they end up on the ground A few minutes later, and they’re not dead. That’s familiarity. Now, if you’re totally unfamiliar with something, it’ll just totally surprise you. Like the first time my kids saw a parachute or floating to the ground. It was like you could see their biology was tuned up, you see something totally new and unfamiliar Think of a surprise party, your body actually reacts to that unfamiliar situation. So you’re familiar you understand how it works, it doesn’t shock you anymore. Then there’s understanding, understanding might look like, Well, I know somebody takes this thing called a parachute. And they fold it a certain way when they’re on the ground, and they put it in this little backpack, and then it goes around their legs and around their shoulders and they click it together. And then they get it on aircraft, it goes up to 13,500 feet. And then you jump out and you count to some number. Or you look at an altimeter and see how high you are. And then you pull the ripcord and then you steer yourself with these two handles. And then when you’re close to the ground, you do this and then you land on the ground. Do you don’t die.

Cory 17:52

All right now something I need to point out right there. Notice how many facts figures, details that he has about this whole experience, people can parade understanding as knowing really, really well or confused themselves as to which one they have. That whole list of figures is just understanding it doesn’t go as far into knowing as we need to go.

Paul 18:15

Well, and and that is, to your point earlier, you talked about the marathon. And somebody can totally understand what they need to do to do a marathon. There’s an app on my phone and you run this bar and then this bar and then this bar in this, but the the doing see the being able to do it is the proof of knowledge. And so it and here’s the thing that just humbles me every time I catch myself in why to be humble about it simply because starting at that position of I don’t know how is the first time you have the opportunity to find someone who does, or somebody who can give you what you need, so that you can know Because every time corn I’ve heard like, let’s say we’re coaching some other financial advisor every time I say, Well, I know how to the second, we would hear that we’re like, oh, we actually can’t help you. We can’t help you because we can’t get through the barrier that you just cognitively built for yourself in not knowing. And so that’s the other thing is everybody around you that might be able to be helpful and help you achieve some outcome as soon as you say, Well, I know you, if especially if they’re super capable. They just go Oh, man, that’s good. I’m glad that you’re, you know, you’re headed toward it because think about how detrimental it can be to a relationship or to future possibilities together. For them to have to crash through that wall like the Kool Aid man, to be able to our audience is old enough to know where the Kool Aid Yeah, thank you. So, if Cory knows what my cultural references are, I know I’m still good.

Cory 19:57

That’s not maybe true. Because I like have old lamb brains for all those kind of things. So

Paul 20:02

both of you are the youngest old fogies our wives I’ve ever met. So, so the big deal is to just be clear that we don’t know that we may understand how to get somewhere. But now what we have to do is close close the knowledge gap. And the only way to close the knowledge gap is to accomplish the outcome. So kind of wrap us today, let’s just talk about what you can do from here. A quick review is first, investing back in you and your human capital. Best thing you can do second, though, before deploying any money to what you’re going to do a coaching program, you tripped over a new book, you’re going to read whatever it is possible. Wait, what are my aims? What do I want out of my future? What are my personal, financial and business aims? because only then should we take in, whether it’s that next YouTube video, or it’s a book you’re gonna read or a coaching program, you’re gonna pay five figures for Then we have to come up with. Well, I don’t know what what’s next. What do we cover? Oh, well,

Cory 21:06

I will say on that, making a plan for all of your aims getting really clear on what those those are. Very few things I’ve been involved with has helped me as much as this group influenced ecology that we’re here to be a part of today. In fact, even the language, what are your aims is something we learned from them. So in a moment, we’re going to give you a offer as to how to get in touch with them. Be ready to write down how we tell you to do that. So actually,

Paul 21:35

Dallas tech, yeah. So distinguish your current talent stack. And then last, be aware of what it is you actually know, what is your proof of knowledge and do you know how to do the things that you want to do?

Cory 21:48

And and part B of that last one is do an inventory of even the last week, there’s probably two or three times where someone could have been really helpful to you and you pretended to know Everything I’ve done at least three times this week myself, that’s why I’m saying you might as well. And so it doesn’t go away easily. But think about all the resources of help you might be pushing away right now and how you could help give them an invitation and come back and and be a part of helping you build whatever you’re going to build.

Paul 22:17

So for those of you listening on the podcast, we’re sorry, we’re not talking on these amazing SM seven B’s and instead, we’re using these lavell ears. But we hope you’ve enjoyed the birds chirping behind us as much as we have. Cory, why don’t you take us out and share with them a little bit about

Cory 22:33

so. Drew Nalls is the Vice President of influence, ecology and partner and partner and board member and one of the best people in the world for just talking about the kind of work that they do and helping folks find out if it might be a fit for them at this point in time. So send us an email to info at SF GW a with Drew in the subject line and write us whatever note you want to about the episode and make sure drew When the subject client gets there so we can get that tag. And then we will make an introduction to make sure that you get a call with Juno’s to talk about education in your life. And even if now’s not the right time for you to work with influence ecology, you will walk away with from that call with some new insights into yourself and in ways to increase your learning.

Paul 23:18

Yeah, I think they also will give you 30 day free access to some online stuff. Oh, yeah. And it’s that what they offer kind of the first in their course and they give you guys an idea I’ve been studying with them. Three and a half years now just took a final for the end of their program. And now I’m moving into some they call esteemed alum. But what this program has allowed us to do is not only understand one another, better as business partners, understand our team better and have better understanding of our clients, their concerns and how to help them better understand their aims and achieve that future. We have people in this discourse from people that are just independently wealthy to executives for Fortune 500 companies, to entrepreneurs who have you know, locations all over the country, and watching them get insights and being part of this group of people has allowed us not just to learn what’s being taught from the front, but have a group of people around us here for the next week that we’re learning at this conference to our right and left there. We’re learning from the front of the room. And from our right and left to the people all around us in the room, whether it’s, you know, a conference break or something like that, but they’re, that first program they have is all remote. You can go to the conferences, but you don’t have to just to give a little bit of extra background before they take us out of the episode. It’s very

Cory 24:40

well, email us to get a chance to talk to drew Make sure to leave a review on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you’re listening to this and just know that it helps us more than you could possibly know get this out to the world and all the all the people that can benefit from hearing these strategies. And as always, we hope this is contributed to you being able to design and build a good life.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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