Financial Services – The Healthy Advisor Podcast

The Healthy Advisor: Becoming Victorious, Not a Victim With Marissa Nehlsen

By The Healthy Advisor | September 18, 2024

It was not just one struggle in her life that shaped Marissa Nehlsen. Since her formative years, she’s faced adversity and come out stronger every time.

Despite significant hardships, including the loss of her family farm, enduring domestic abuse from her father, and coping with Stargardt disease, which has led to blindness, Marissa has built a seven-figure business and become a coach, speaker, and podcast host.

In this episode, Nehlsen, the founder and CEO of Freedom Financial Group, discusses her journey from a challenging childhood on a North Dakota farm to leading a successful financial advisory firm. She offers a story of hope for others in pain, as she has yet to slow down or limit her goals.

Marissa discusses:

How she fought back against domestic abuse initiating a major change in her life
Learning resilience while living in a trailer park with her mother and siblings
Workplace challenges like sexism, favoritism and rejection
Her battle with Stargardt disease and how her brother helped her through it
Mourning the death of her fiancé
The importance of faith and community support in overcoming life’s hardships

Resources:

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About Our Guest:

Marissa Nehlsen is the founder and CEO of Freedom Financial Group. She rose from humble beginnings as a rural North Dakota farm girl to build a multi-million dollar financial services company.

As an accomplished leader with proven results, Marissa Nehlsen’s unique style and approach enable clients to achieve extraordinary and sustainable outcomes. Fueled by the growth of others, she has over 23 years of solid experience. She built a holistic planning firm based on the core principles of educating, empowering, and equipping individuals, organizations, and businesses to make wise choices. Marissa Nehlsen delivers results by connecting with people to share her practical ideas and techniques, helping them achieve their goals and transform their lives through coordinated tax plans, legal plans, and financial plans.

If you have a struggle and wish to share your experiences and help others in similar situations, please reach out to Diana at diana.britton@informa.com.

The Healthy Advisor podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Android, Stitcher, Spotify and wherever podcasts are found.

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The Healthy Advisor: Rebuilding Healthy Habits After Traumatic Loss With Jonathan DeYoe

By healthy advisor | September 21, 2022

A little over a year ago, advisor Jonathan DeYoe was in a healthy place; he was meditating on a regular basis, working out, eating and sleeping right.

But in the summer of 2021, he tragically lost his only brother and business partner when he drowned in the Pacific Ocean. He says his life came to a “screeching halt” that day. While coping with grief, he struggled to stay healthy. Since then, he has been on a journey to rebuild healthy habits after experiencing this huge loss.

In this episode, Diana Britton, managing editor of WealthManagement.com, speaks with Jonathan DeYoe, senior vice president of EP Wealth Advisors in Berkeley, Calif., author of “Mindful Money” and host of the Mindful Wealth Podcast, about the struggles of maintaining healthy habits during tragic times.

Jonathan discusses:

How his habits changed while working on Wall Street
The wake-up call that motivated him to improve his lifestyle
What happened in the weeks and months after his brother’s passing
Reasons to seek help and support, instead of trying to manage grief on your own
The process of rebuilding healthy habits following a major breakdown
How his brother’s passing impacted the work he’s doing now

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About Our Guest:

Jonathan DeYoe has been involved with the financial services industry for more than 25 years. Prior to joining EP Wealth Advisors in 2021, his career journey led from being a seminarian and Buddhist academic to a financial advisor. After spending 5 years with large Wall Street companies (“just enough to know better”), Jonathan launched his own firm, growing it from 6 clients to 280 over the course of 20 years.

If you have a struggle and wish to share your experiences and help others in similar situations, please reach out to Diana at diana.britton@informa.com.

The Healthy Advisor podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Android, Stitcher, Spotify and wherever podcasts are found.

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The Healthy Advisor: Reducing Employee Burnout With Gabriela Mauch

By healthy advisor | June 15, 2022

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:

Connect With Gabriela Mauch:

Connect With Wealth Management & NREI:

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

By healthy advisor | August 18, 2021

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.

Connect With Anne Marie Stonich:

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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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Transparency with Diana B.: Life as a Female Latina in Financial Services

By healthy advisor | July 21, 2021

Silvia Tergas has been fortunate to pursue her passions and use her differences to her advantage within the financial services industry. Silvia’s father, who escaped from Cuba during the Cuban Revolution, paved the way for her to get educated in the U.S. The values he taught her and the rest of the family led to several opportunities throughout her life, including her pursuit of a career in financial planning. It wasn’t an easy path, however.

In this episode, Diana Britton, managing editor at WealthManagement.com, speaks with Silvia, a financial planner with Prudential Advisors in Bethesda, Md., about how she found her passion in finance, the challenges she faced as a Latina woman in this industry and how she uses her differences to her advantage.

Silvia discusses:

Her father’s story of getting out of Cuba and meeting her mother in Honduras;
Growing up in and traveling around Latin America;
The values her father taught her and how those led her into financial planning;
The struggles she faced as a female Latina in the industry;
How she embraced and worked through the moments of discomfort in her life; and
Her work with the Hispanic community within financial services.

Connect With Silvia Tergas:

Connect With Diana Britton:

About Our Guest:

As a financial planner with Prudential Financial Planning Services, Silvia specializes in comprehensive financial planning services for a fee. Throughout the consultative financial planning process, Silvia works with her clients and their advisors, as applicable, to formulate a detailed and robust financial plan that is tailored to their needs.

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