Build Wealth Habits

Speaker 1: [Music] strong client retention happy employees organized financials these are all things that are within your control that make a massive difference without you having to go out and bring one more Dollar in the door hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the Sheed experience with Melanie join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in welcome back to the shilp podcast thank you for joining us Caitlyn you are the CEO of theory planning Partners a wealth creation firm for top female entrepreneurs in America how are you helping clients to better their businesses their strategies and themselves oh that's a great question I would say that one of my favorite things about Theory specifically is that we are a very aspirational model we attract clientele who I'm not sure if you're familiar with the anyr but we attract a lot of threes and a lot of eights so a lot of goal oriented people but we help them get organized with their finances we help them develop an intentional Financial plan so that they are running their business in alignment and support of their goals and values for their families and themselves and then finally we help them execute on that Vision which I think is the most important part and for our industry specifically investing and finance can be very intimidating to people especially if they didn't grow up around wealth or having wealth I think the handholding component and the Very nurturing and nourishing environment that we provide for our clients really allows them to feel safe and supported through the whole journey and tell us about your early career what led you to launch your business yeah I was a Psychology major in college but my grandfather and father were both in finance in different ways my grandfather was a venture capitalist my father worked in data management and I saw them in finance and I knew I always saw myself there as well so after college I joined an asset management firm which is puam Investments for anyone who's familiar it's a mutual fund company and puam was exclusively sold through financial advisors and when I learned what financial advisers did I thought wow what a great marriage between my interests of psychology and finance because you're working with money but you're doing so with families and individuals and I felt like that was going to give me a depth to my experience that I was looking for I I definitely look for a lot of mission and purpose in my career and so I felt like that would be a very rewarding one and money brings up a lot of things when you're dealing with individuals and families yes and money is a huge trigger for people I lean on my psych background every day what are the some of the most surprising things you have learned working with the wealthiest people in America one of them is that money does not exclude you from The Human Experience the same issues that plague people I think people always have that conception of like when I reach this level then everything will be great no matter what level you are at it always comes back to your internal state are you doing the work on yourself do you have self-awareness are you growing personally are you growing spiritually because I think people are looking for money to alleviate a lot of their issues I've seen it time and time again that you get to the top and if you're not doing the work along the way those issues are still there definitely the fact that it's always about your internal State I will say some of the things that set wealthy people apart are their habits wealthy people specifically first generation wealth they tend to have very strong habits and that's really what all wealth creation comes back to to have strong habits I think you also have to have a strong temporal perspective which is a psychology term but temporal perspective is your relationship with time wealthy people have a very strong temporal perspective in the sense that they can think not just moments or days in advance but they're thinking years in advance and they're willing to focus on the inputs not just the outputs how that translates into wealth creation is saving and investing it's saving and investing over a long period of time and not looking for just like a get r quick scheme or results that can also for business owners translate into running a best-in-class company and what that takes to show up every day and run a best-in-class company because I think a lot of people will look at oh they sold their business for $80 million and they just look at that day without looking at everything that it took to get to that day whether you are saving to create a $5 million portfolio or you're selling a company for $500 million it all comes back to habits and what you're doing day in and day out that's so true and when you're talking about your inner self money usually adds more things and when you have more things it's makes it much more important for you to be happy with your inner self yes money is just a magnifier of what's going on specifically for business owners a lot of times business owners assume that Revenue just making more money will solve the problem and usually it's it's covering up the issues and the same thing goes on the personal side the internal State always something our clients are always working on and they probably always think more will make me happy when you add more you have more things to take on which make that internal that more Amplified right and the one thing that I have seen especially working in private wealth management is that there can be a Tipping Point where money starts to create confusion and when there's so much money then it's creating confusion issues interf family issues especially in the private wealth worlds I've seen a lot of intra family litigation which can be pretty sad but I've also seen it done really well and those were for the families that kept the values and the ethos of the family at the center of everything that they do you believe the ultra wealthy have habits which you mentioned what do you think they are my favorite demographic to work with in private wealth was first generation business owners I think again going back to the internal state it was because they had a level of self-confidence that they could get through anything that they could start over that they could make more money sometimes you start to see that trail off for second and third generation wealth which is why in every language there's a version of the phrase shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations and that's because wealth typically only lasts or it dwindles and runs out in the third generation again that goes back to the internal State I've seen a lot of second generation wealth just not have the same confidence in themselves that is a signature thing of first generation wealth which is I know no matter what I'm going to be okay I know that I can survive off of nothing I can create something out of nothing that level of just alignment can be really cool to see I think it's self-confidence and then also going back to the habits doing the things day in and day out that reinforce that confidence and that can be like daily routines that can be a commitment to go to the gym that can be a commitment to go to bed early a commitment to get 8 hours of sleep I think that the smartest and most successful people I've seen know that they can't pour from an empty cup and so it's very much about self-care taking care of yourself but again having a strong routine also making things that are positive as thoughtless as possible when it comes to investing having Auto invest Auto investing every month the other thing that I saw for everyday Americans that were getting ready to retire the two biggest assets they that they would come in with were their house and their 401k and the reason for that is because they had to pay their mortgage and their 401K would get taken out of their paycheck before they got their paycheck those are two assets that we're building alongside or complimentary to human behavior and that's why they got accomplished knowing that about human behavior setting yourself up to have strong thoughtless habits that can make a significant difference especially when you're looking out 10 20 30 years over the future and with all the tech we have that makes it so much easier and I see why it would be fun to work with first generation due to the grit that they have yes absolutely the grit for sure just knowing that if you start a company for example you might not be paying yourself for two three four years and just having to be okay with the fact that the inputs will eventually lead to the outputs you believe female entrepreneurs can best balance the masculine and feminine energy of wealth creation tell us about that I would say that the feminine is a lot around receiving energy right being worthy of receiving which again I think has a lot to do with the internal state are you taking care of yourself are you putting yourself in a vibration of Attraction and believing that you are worthy of receiving this money the masculine side of things comes down to the actual execution of it it's taking aligned action right it's again managing your internal State people have different ways of doing this but let's say meditating every morning for example that can be a really strong habit that can make a huge difference in your day and can make you a really strong attractor of money because you do know and believe inside like I am okay no matter what and I know how to manage my internal State getting aligned with yourself personally and then the action piece being the masculine piece which is we do need to make money to keep a roof over our heads we do need to invest to create a wealth portfolio so I think aligned action is a great phrase that perfectly encapsulates the balance between the feminine and the masculine if you're hyper masculine and you're just focusing on executing you're likely to yes potentially make it to the top have a big house have all the things but feel very empty inside and then if you're two on the feminine you could sit there meditating all day and if you're not taking any action not much is going to come around no matter how much you are trying to attract it that's why the balance between the two is so important and I think that's why for Theory specifically we attract a clientele that gets that message and wants to strive for that balance I've thought about both sides but I haven't ever thought about the importance of marrying the two together and recently through Co and everything we all went through I thought I need to get my habits back in order and I had two small children things flow in different times of life but now I joke it only took nine years but now I'm reading books every night instead of watching the streaming shows and I have started meditating I don't know pelaton has a five-minute meditation that I do in the morning and then I'll do between 10 and 30 minutes at night and you're right it is a and when I fall off of that I can tell in my energy and my execution the next day that is such a great example and it reminds me of the phrase meditate for 20 minutes and if you don't have enough time meditate for two hours so five minutes think about the things we all do in a day for five minutes exactly and it really only takes five minutes and that can give you the clarity to hear your intuition I think one of my biggest regrets is that I had I unfortunately I experienced a lot of sexual harassment in my career in wealth management before I left and started my own company and I feel like I never took the time to get quiet and actually listen to what my body was trying to tell me I just pushed it down and tried to push through and keep going and then I just jumped from burning platform to burning platform and I thought man like at 26 if I just took 5 minutes a day to sit down and ask myself how I was truly feeling I would have gotten the answers versus just keeping on unconsciously and thank you for being honest about that because I know a lot of listeners that we have probably shared similar experiences and I think about the youth of today with even my kids and how much Tech is there I almost want to go tell them go sit in your room for 10 minutes you're not in trouble I just want you to be alone with your thoughts because you're right it really is important it is I don't know if you've read the body keeps the score I'm still only like a few chapters into it but when I look back it was so true it was like my body was trying to tell me things and I was ignoring it because I was thinking that my mind was more intelligent than my body and especially also since having two kids I'm like wow my body is ridiculously intelligent you work with some clients who are building a business to sell tell us about the process and do you have a favorite client success story and why is it your favorite we do have clients that are building to sell and again it does come back to those daily habits to give you an example we have a client who has an accounting firm the company is currently valued at a million doll and to fulfill her personal financial plan we are planning for a $5 million exit in 2028 when we plan for something like that a $5 million exit we also need to take taxes into consideration she will need to net $5 million from the sale of that company so in ordered for her to move from being worth 1 million to 8 million once we account for taxes she needs to be running a best in-class company now that doesn't always equate to just more Revenue I'll give you a little bit of a one-on-one in how valuations are done so EV valuation of a company is iida times a multiple so IA stands for earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortization and then that company gets assigned a multiple so let's say for accounting firms the multiple is anywhere between four and eight four for the mediocre company eight for a best-in-class company if her Evita is a million dollar and she's running an average company a buyer might be willing to offer her $4 million so a million time four if her eah is a million and she's running a best-in-class company a buyer might be willing to offer her an8 mon multiple $8 million so same Revenue but completely different and results because of the quality of the company and so that is a misconception that a lot of business owners have is that okay if I have to grow to 8 million I just have to keep growing my Revenue not necessarily if you have loyal clients strong client retention happy employees organized financials organized legal documents these are all things that are within your control that lead towards having a best-in-class company that can make a massive difference without you having to go out and bring one more Dollar in the door for owners who have expressed a desire to sell that's something that we start working on years in advance because those things take time having a good company culture getting your financials organized having great credibility with your clients that stuff isn't done over night and it's something that again always goes back to the habits so what are we doing day in and day out that solidify our reputation within the industry or make us special or make us differentiated or make us organized in the eyes of a buyer that can be super attractive that client is actually a really good example because she conceptually understands this she is already working to implement that and in terms of being an adviser an educated client which is on us right to educate her as to why this is so important but then actually listens and respects what we have to say and then goes out and does it and executes it that's a dream client and that makes for a really strong partnership which I was very intentional about nameing my company Theory planning partners because they truly do see our relationship as a partnership we're going to come to the table and do our half and you have to come to the table and do your half and we're going to get there together so she's a great example of a client who really embodies the partnership mentality I love all our clients really but she was a good example of someone that comes to mind that is fun to work with and as women we tend to like to be collaborative it doesn't mean we can't go do things on our own and build things on our own it's just usually more fun for us if there is a piece of collaboration involved absolutely and I think that's another thing that's been so uniquely cool about starting my company theory is that what I saw a lot of times in wealth management previously is everyone has their Silo of expertise and they can be a lot of ego in the silos where I have to know the most or I can't admit if I don't know it all and I thought this is really silly why don't we bring everyone to the table the CPA the insurance agent the estate planner and everyone put their ideas out there of what they think is the best now CPA we the highest level picture for a client because we're looking at their entire balance sheet which is going to include all their assets and liabilities the business is one of their assets there's so much more going on in their life outside of the business and we have that whole Vision but we're also looking at the vision across their entire lifetime because we hold that holistic view sometimes we might come at things differently than a CPA who is typically interested in saving the most amount of taxes that specific year being able to have an open conversation and being collaborative about hey how do we all arrive at the best solution and then of course the client should have the final say because they're the one telling us what the end goal is yeah women just really thrive in this collaborative environment and it's very rewarding to see and you're so right if everyone comes to the table with their expertise you're going to get the best result yes absolutely it's more fun you learn things and people have an immediate sigh of relief when it's treat me like a kindergartener like talk to me in basic language and it allows everyone to set down their armor and we're all very smart in our respective Fields but that doesn't mean that we can't learn something new and I'm always inspired by all the women that I talk to that come to the podcast and say I had to take a look at myself and realize what I'm really good at and either delegate or hire out or learn the pieces that I needed for the business that weren't necessarily my strong points yes I know I mentioned the anagram at the beginning of the podcast but we use the anagram with our clients and our team because it's very helpful to understand strengths and weaknesses as a business owner you become acutely aware ofely whether you like it or not exactly magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy Joy what is one way that you make sure to find and live your joy on the personal side moving my body going getting back to yoga this morning literally like since Luke was born so almost a year that felt so good too to start moving my body again and on the business side to the whole ego thing historically I very much identified with my worth being in my skill set and my knowledge I have recently brought on a team over the last six months and being okay with the fact that I love being more high level I love going on podcasts I love speaking at events that is where I come alive and thankfully I hired a phenomenal adviser who loves the planning software way more than I do being able to hand that off to her and delegate that to her and really finding my joy and educating and empowering women has been a really I'm still going through it I still feel like I'm only a few weeks into it realize wow I think this is what I was meant to do thank you for joining us today Caitlyn can you share with us how and where we can find you sure so we are on Instagram at Theory planning partners and our website is theory planning.com if you were interested in booking a call there's a calendly link at the bottom thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at she builted on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave