Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Healthy Advisor: Closure at the Grave With Vance Barse

June 29, 2022Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedAcceptance, Death, Emotions, Exercise, Grief, Health, Loss, PersonalJourneyhealthy advisor

The loss of a loved one can lead to a tidal wave of emotions before reaching acceptance and continuing on in life without them.

Before starting his own practice, advisor Vance Barse experienced profound grief after losing five family members, including his biological father who he had never met. However, this darker time in his life was followed by a period of life-changing introspection, which forced him to rethink his personal and professional life.

In this episode, WealthManagement.com’s Managing Editor Diana Britton is joined by Vance Barse, wealth strategist and founder of Your Dedicated Fiduciary, who shares his journey through grief toward acceptance. Vance reveals the emotional struggle he faced and what led to the completion of the journey his father never took.

Vance discusses:

The “18-month window” that changed his life forever
The moment when the emotional baggage related to his father was lifted off his shoulders
How to overcome the struggles of acceptance and closure
The biggest realizations he had on his motorcycle journey across the country
How mindfulness and meditation helped him overcome the challenges
How his experiences shaped the work he’s doing now

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About Our Guest:

Vance Barse, is a wealth strategist and founder of Your Dedicated Fiduciary. He began his career in the financial services industry at Altegris Investments, where he served as an investment consultant to leading private wealth and retail financial advisers throughout the U.S. He saw firsthand that many advisers are constrained in their approach to planning, often leaving clients underserved. After nearly a decade in this role, Vance became a financial planner and founded Your Dedicated Fiduciary with a simple mission: to be authentic, transparent, and have a positive impact on the lives of his clients.

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The Healthy Advisor: Reducing Employee Burnout With Gabriela Mauch

June 15, 2022Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedEmployee Burnout, Financial Services, Health, Organizational Efficiency, Practicality, Productivity, Technology, Wellbeinghealthy advisor

Managing employee burnout is key to creating a healthy workplace environment. But what steps should advisory and financial services firms be taking to reduce stress and burnout in the workplace?

In 2022, ActivTrak released a benchmark study on productivity and wellbeing within the financial services industry, revealing that this space is, in fact, better at managing burnout risk than other industries. For instance, compared to a cross-industry sample, 19% more employees have a healthy workload, and 23% fewer employees are overutilized.

In this episode, WealthManagement.com’s Managing Editor Diana Britton is joined by Gabriela Mauch, vice president of ActivTrak’s Productivity Lab, who says the positive statistics may belie the issues financial services firms need to work on. Gabriela provides a deeper dive into ActivTrak’s research and looks beyond the data to help us understand the real drivers of employee burnout and happiness.

Gabriela discusses:

How financial planning firms today are managing burnout risk
Other indicators of burnout, beyond hours worked
What other dials companies can move to improve their employees’ wellbeing
How to efficiently manage meetings among other routine tasks
The importance of quality conversations over quantity
Leveraging team resources to increase productivity
The power of distraction
How companies can reward the work and the outcomes of that work
And more

Resources:

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About Our Guest:

Gabriela Mauch joined workforce productivity software provider ActivTrak as head of Productivity Lab following a career in organizational effectiveness, leadership and design at management consulting firms including McKinsey & Co. and KPMG LLC. Gabriela helped stand up McDonald’s first Organizational Effectiveness & Leadership Center of Excellence where she worked across the McDonald’s system to improve its business performance and maintain relevance in the digital age. She earned a bachelor of science in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University and is an expert in helping teams understand how productivity extends beyond business performance and is deeply rooted in employee well-being and engagement.

Gabriela, originally from Boston, resides in Denver, Colorado where she spends her free time enjoying all the mountains have to offer. She is involved in mentoring college-bound high school youth, career counseling at the Bean Project, a non-profit women’s social enterprise, and volunteering at the Latin0 Cultural Arts Center.

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The Healthy Advisor: Getting Financially Sober With Matthew Grishman

May 25, 2022Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedFinancial Advisor, Financial Planning, Financial Sobriety, Money Addiction, Rock Bottomhealthy advisor

Early in his career in financial services, Matthew Grishman was working as a wholesaler, making a lot of money, and on the outside, he looked as though he was living his best life, with the Rolex watch, the shiny Allen Edmonds shoes, the Hickey Freeman suits. But on the inside, he was empty and trying to fill a hole with money, alcohol and other things.

But one day his money addiction got so out of control that he was broke. He had hit rock bottom and was faced with a critical decision: make massive changes to how he was living his life, or die broke and alone. He chose change.

In this episode, Diana Britton is joined by Matthew Grishman, principal and wealth advisor at Gebhardt Group in Roseville, Calif. Matthew opens up about how his money addiction—and later on, an alcohol addiction—almost cost him everything. He shares his journey getting to a place of financial sobriety, including the pivotal role a financial advisor (and now business partner) played in his healing.

Today, through his book, “Financial Sobriety: Rebuilding Your Relationship With Money One Step at a Time,” and podcast, Matthew is dedicated to helping others become more intentional with three complex and interconnected relationships: money, people, and self.

Matthew discusses:

The events that led to his out-of-control money addiction
How he responded initially when he hit that first critical bottom
The realization he had after meeting with an advisor for support
What happened to him when he reached a second critical bottom in life, and how overcame an alcohol addiction
What prompted him to start sharing his deeply personal experiences with others

Resources:

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About Our Guest:

Matthew Grishman began his career in financial services in 1995 with A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. and became fully licensed as an Investment Broker in 1996. He spent 17 years as a national spokesperson for large mutual fund and insurance companies (Lord, Abbett & Co, Putnam, and MetLife).

Matthew left corporate America in 2011 to devote his time and experience in financial services to his family, friends, and neighbors.

In 2014, Matthew joined Gebhardt Group, Inc., an independent Registered Investment Advisor. He became an owner of the firm in 2015.

As a Principal and Wealth Advisor of Gebhardt Group, Inc., Matthew provides wealth management services for families experiencing major life transitions (inheritance, sale of a business, death or divorce of a spouse, planning for retirement, career change, or sudden loss of a job).

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The Healthy Advisor: Finding Healing in the Gym With Deadlifter Jess Bost

May 11, 2022Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedBalance, Community, CrossFit, Financial Planning, Health, Mental Health, Physical Fitnesshealthy advisor

Jess Bost found CrossFit during a traumatic time in her life. About her workouts, she says, “I went to the darkest place I could, and I fought my demons in that place.”

CrossFit, which stands for cross-discipline fitness, became her bridge to healing.

In this episode, Diana Britton is joined by Jess Bost, the vice president of brand partnerships at Alpha Architect and part-time CrossFit Coach. Here, she opens up about how her experience with intense workouts and a supportive community gave her the outlet she needed during a time of profound grief. She also shares how exercise and community have shaped how she views the role of financial advisors.

Jess discusses:

How she applied the concepts she learned from psychology and working with children with autism to CrossFit and also financial services
How she got into CrossFit and how it keeps her healthy from a physical/spiritual/emotional standpoint
How CrossFit helped her heal from trauma
Why and how she’s become an advocate for fitness in the financial services industry
Where she sees the intersection of fitness and finance

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About Our Guest:

Jess Bost is the vice president of brand partnerships at Alpha Architect, and she also runs her own financial planning practice under the firm’s ADV. She’s also host of “The Breakthrough Factor” Podcast.

Jess has been in the wealth management industry for about four years. Prior to that, she was a CrossFit coach and a personal trainer. Jess still coaches CrossFit part-time and plans to take the CrossFit Level 3 Certification in the near future. In 2017, she won a national title in Olympic weightlifting and qualified for the 2018 Pan Am Masters Weightlifting Championships.

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The Healthy Advisor: Barred But Not Broken

April 27, 2022Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedBelief, Financial Advisors, Future, Hedge Funds, Hope, House Arrest, Investment Planning, Legal Trouble, Success, Trialhealthy advisor

In 2011, Jeff Martinovich was barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority from any role in selling securities or associating with FINRA members, and he’s currently serving a 16-year prison sentence, with about 2.5 years more on home confinement in Norfolk, Va. An ankle monitor on his left ankle keeps tabs on his movements.

But Martinovich has few regrets with the decisions he made, including rejecting three government plea deals. He hasn’t let his experiences defeat him, as many barred brokers have; rather, he believes it’s all part of a larger purpose in life and that what you take away from those moments shapes who you become in the future.

“I don’t think we come down on the planet to lead this life of luxury, retire and go fishing every day,” he says. “I think it’s all a journey, and it’s about overcoming fear and all of us are faced with these incredible challenges at different times.”

In this episode, Diana Britton is joined by Jeff Martinovich, First Gulf War veteran, CEO of JAM Accelerator, a business consulting and incubation firm, former founder and CEO of MICG Investment Management and author of “Just One More: The Wisdom of Bob Vukovich.” Jeff shares his experience growing his first business and how he found himself in legal trouble, eventually going to trial against the U.S. Government and ultimately prison.

Diana and Jeff discuss:

How Jeff’s legal troubles began, his experience with trial and in prison
What made him reject three government plea deals
What kept him from falling victim to despair
How Jeff was able to grow from his experience and build a new company
Whether he has any regrets with regards to how he handled the ordeal
The love story that was going on during this whole experience, and the good things that came out of it

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About Our Guest:

Jeff Martinovich has thirty-years of experience building startups and executing mergers and acquisitions. He has enjoyed extraordinary success in business and life, as well as overcome great failure, all which provide JAM Accelerator clients and partners a rare library of wisdom for not only building significant shareholder value, but also protecting it. Jeff’s commitment to stand up for what’s right following the 2008 Financial Crisis, and the resulting legal challenges, are the topics of multiple books and national articles.

Jeff is generous with his expertise in leadership and management, financial statements and strategies, sales and growth outperformance, and operational efficiencies to increase gross and net margins. On top of everything, Jeff’s engaging personality and commitment to joint success create an enjoyable experience with advisor and client. Many great successes and failures bring wisdom, experience and the ability to now see around corners.

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The Healthy Advisor: Finding Balance With Dr. Travis Parry

March 16, 2022Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedBalance, Business Owners, Financial Advisors, Goals, Health, Life, Marketing, Mental Health, Time Management, Workaholichealthy advisor

Dr. Travis Parry started his career as a financial advisor. But when Parry was just 26 years old, his father died of a sudden heart attack while mountain biking, and he had to clean up the financial mess left in his wake. That included processing his father’s death claim, paying off his mother’s house, helping her relocate and covering the funeral expenses. That changed the course of his career.

He fell into a workaholic trap, as many advisors do. Parry realized that while many advisors mean well and have great ambitions to help their clients, they are sacrificing their own health and life balance in the wake and putting themselves at undue risk. So he decided to become a balance coach to help financial advisors deal with their stress.

In this episode, Diana Britton is joined by Dr. Travis Parry, a balance coach for financial advisors, founder of the Make Time Institute and author of Achieving Balance: The Make Time Method To Help Advisors Reach Business AND Personal Goals in an Overworked World. Dr. Parry reveals the struggle many advisors face when starting a new business, focusing on the mental and physical strain it places on business owners at the beginning of their career. He shares the information he has gained through interviewing many advisors, discussing the traps many fall into and shares how to balance productivity with a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

Dr. Parry discusses:

The trap many financial advisors fall into while building their business
What he learned from interviewing more than 350 advisors
Ways advisors can overcome workaholism
The three myths of balance
What he’s learned about personal development and human motivations
The importance of couples development in achieving balance

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About Our Guest:

Dr. Travis Parry’s professional journey started in 2002 as a new financial advisor. He found a natural market with business owners and young married professionals. As his practice was building, Dr. Parry noticed that many of his clients needed more than financial advice, they needed advice about life in general. There were many clients who were unhappy in their careers, relationships, and overall health. He was unable as a financial advisor to give much more than financial planning advice.

Couple Development turned from a theory into a practice. This helped him introduce the concept of Couple Development to UVU students and for whom he wrote and published a manual for in 2011, called “Couple Development: How Couples who Build Thriving Marriages are Healthier, Wealthier, and Happier.”

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Transparency With Diana B.: Coming Back From Failure with Eric Arnold

November 17, 2021Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedFinancial Advisors, Financial Independence, Financial Planning, Freedom, Survivinghealthy advisor

Eric Arnold is no stranger to failure. In fact, he failed out of college, got fired from two companies, failed at nine different startup ventures and lost everything on a bad investment.

In this episode, Diana Britton speaks with Eric Arnold, CEO of Planswell, about how he has learned from those failures and has been given a second chance with Planswell.

Toronto-based Planswell, which was founded in 2015, was humming by late 2019 and was in the middle of another funding round. Then accusations of sexual harassment within the company ranks surfaced, and investors pulled out of that funding round. Arnold had to fold up shop, with some 60 employees losing their jobs.

But in 2020, he had the opportunity to buy the Planswell brand, and he retooled the software to work with retail financial advisors.

In this episode, Arnold opens up about the ordeal, which turned into a social media storm about how he and his firm reacted to the accusations.

Eric discusses:

How his early experiences in life shaped his entrepreneurial drive
How a car accident that occurred when he was 17 years old, killing his father, grandmother and family dog, impacted his life and family
The journey that led him to start Planswell
How the allegations of sexual harassment at Planswell impacted the company and its funding
How he would have approached the situation differently
How he is doing things differently at Planswell today
And more

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About Our Guest:

Eric Arnold dropped out of college, was fired from two companies and failed nine startups. Yet he is still an entrepreneur. He discovered how to make money from a young age and has been working hard ever since.

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Transparency with Diana B.: The Road to Recovery

October 20, 2021Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedDiana Britton, Financial Education, Financial Planning, Gary Schwartz, Madison Planning Group, Transparency, Wealth Managementhealthy advisor

Advisor Gary Schwartz was always able to make money; at the young age of 12, he started delivering newspapers in the Bronx. That’s also when he discovered drugs and alcohol, which became a way for him to self-medicate and cope with his self-esteem issues. From there, the addiction progressed; cocaine and speed were his drugs of choice.

In this episode, Diana Britton, managing editor of WealthManagement.com, is joined by Schwartz, president and CEO of Madison Planning Group in White Plains, N.Y., who’s been clean for 32 years. Gary shares about how he eventually got on the road to recovery. But once he got clean, he felt the need to overcompensate for his addiction and his past by buying things for his family and sending his kids to the best schools. But that eventually caught up to him as well, and he nearly had to file for bankruptcy.

He discusses his journey of overcoming those struggles to build his own advisory business, which is now thriving.

Gary discusses:

The experiences that shaped him early on in life;
What led him to become addicted to drugs and alcohol;
What his career looked like while he was struggling with addiction and how it has changed throughout recovery;
How family and friends played a role in getting help;
How his desire to overcompensate eventually led him to near-bankruptcy; and
How Gary’s experiences shaped his career in financial services.

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About Our Guest:

Gary Schwartz opened the doors to Madison Planning Group in White Plains, N.Y. in 1997, followed by the Syracuse office in 2007, Long Island office in 2013 and Lake Worth, Fla. office in 2017. He attributes the firm’s success to the fact they are focused on one thing: managing the success of every single client. As part of his personal commitment to financial education, Madison Planning Group provides worksite educational seminars for employees of state agencies, unions, as well as financial workshops for employees of private and public corporations.

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Transparency with Diana B.: Empowering Women to Take Control of Their Finances

September 15, 2021Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedDiana Britton, Financial Advisor, Financial Planning, Retirement Planning, Transparency, Wealth Management, Womenhealthy advisor

Advisor Robert Schein’s father worked hard his adult life to provide for his family, and just four months into retirement, at the age of 70, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 stomach cancer. After about three years battling the disease, his father ultimately passed, thrusting his mother into having to take over the family finances.

Luckily, Schein and his brother stepped in to help and set her on a positive financial path. But many women aren’t as lucky. The experience inspired Schein to launch The Society of Financially Empowered Women, a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating a community and forum where independent women may acquire the confidence to take control of their financial lives, in 2011.

In this episode, Diana Britton, managing editor of WealthManagement.com, speaks to Schein, managing director and partner of Blanke Schein Wealth Management, a Hightower firm, in Palm Desert, Calif. about why he decided to dedicate his life to helping women better understand their personal finances.

In this episode, you will learn:

About his father’s journey to America and the values his father taught him growing up;
How his father’s stage four cancer diagnosis changed his life;
How Robert helped his mother navigate her finances after his father’s death;
Robert’s impression on how Wall Street treats women;
What inspired him to create the Society of Financially Empowered Women (Society of the FEW) and the Confidence Summit;
About the mission of the Society of the FEW, and how its efforts are expanding

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About Our Guest

Robert L. Schein, is Managing Director, Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of Hightower/Blanke Schein Wealth Management. With more than 25 years of experience as a financial professional, Robert demonstrates a strong commitment to both his clients and community.

Robert leads the asset allocation, design, and implementation of the investment portfolio review process for Hightower/Blanke Schein Wealth Management. He specializes in developing and supporting investment strategies for high-net-worth individuals and families with complex estates, as well as philanthropic and retirement planning needs.

Robert also specializes in the leadership of a community and forum where independent women can acquire the confidence to be leaders in their financial lives. As Founder of The Society of Financially Empowered Women Inc. (www.thesofew.com), he has vowed to empower women with education, support, and community. Recognized for his leadership in this area, Robert has been featured in various publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, CNBC.com, Forbes, Yahoo! Finance, On Wall Street, Investment News, The Desert Sun, and Palm Springs Life. Robert is a national speaker on the topic of financial education for women and was recently asked to speak at the Desert Woman’s Show and P.E.O. International.

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Transparency With Diana B.: Bad Timing and Bearing the Loss of Loved Ones

August 18, 2021Finance Industry, Mental Health, UncategorizedFinancial Advisor, Financial Services, Transparency, Wealth Managementhealthy advisor

Advisor Anne Marie Stonich was just 28 years old when she and her two partners started building their own wealth management firm from scratch. For anyone in the business, that first year can be brutal. But she did it while also caring for her newborn baby, and shuttling to and from the hospital to see her mother, who’s health was deteriorating. Later that year, her mother passed away. And just six years later, her older brother died suddenly of a heart attack.

In this episode, Diana Britton, managing editor of WealthManagement.com, sits down with Anne Marie Stonich, chief wealth strategist and relationship manager at Coldstream Wealth Management, as they talk about her life journey and the struggles she faced along the way. She shares how her past has allowed her to grow and change who she is as a mother, wife and financial advisor.

Anne Marie discusses:

The events that unfolded during her first year building the business;
How she was able to balance her work, a newborn baby and a sick mother;
The challenges she faced in raising three young kids while running and growing a business;
The events leading up to her brother’s death;
How the loss of loved ones impacted her outlook on life; and
How her experiences have shaped her career as a financial advisor.

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About Our Guest:

Anne Marie co-founded Paracle Advisors LLC in 2004 in order to provide financial advice that is truly objective and highly personalized in its nature. Paracle recently merged with Coldstream Wealth Management, and she now serves as chief wealth strategist and relationship manager at Coldstream. She has over 20 years of industry experience, including two years at Deloitte and Touche and four years at Brighton Jones Wealth Management as a lead advisor.

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