In this episode of The Bookmore Show, I spoke with Greg McLaughlin, a financial planner with 25 years of experience, about his transition to financial independence and his journey writing a book. We explored how reaching financial freedom allowed him to focus on sharing his knowledge of decision-making psychology and financial planning through writing, though organizing these ideas into a cohesive structure proved challenging.
We examined the evolution of book writing processes, from traditional ghostwriting to using AI for editing while maintaining an authentic voice. The conversation covered how books can bridge relationships with financial planning clients, considering their life stages and goals to create content that resonates with their needs.
During our discussion, we explored a book's many roles - from personal achievement to strategic marketing tool. Greg shared how physical books remain powerful anchors for client relationships in today's digital world, helping guide people from uncertainty to confidence in their financial decisions.
I learned about the importance of consistent messaging across all platforms to build trust, and how understanding individual client perspectives helps maintain strong connections during challenging times.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
I explore Gregory McLaughlin's journey from financial planning to authorship, focusing on his transition to passion-driven work and the creation of a book on financial independence.
Gregory shares insights into the process of organizing financial knowledge into a structured book format, emphasizing the value of foundational knowledge for both new and seasoned professionals.
We discuss the evolution of writing from traditional ghostwriting to using AI for editing, highlighting the importance of maintaining an authentic voice in financial advising narratives.
The episode delves into how books can serve as tools for enhancing client relationships, helping clients understand financial concepts and fostering long-term engagement.
We examine the role of consistent messaging across platforms like books and websites to build trust and familiarity with clients, emphasizing strategic marketing through book creation.
Gregory illustrates how books can guide clients from uncertainty to confidence in financial decision-making, underscoring the enduring impact of physical books even in a digital era.
The discussion includes strategies for client engagement, focusing on understanding individual client biases and maintaining strong connections through personalized communication.
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Website: Centinal Financial Group
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Stuart: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Bookmore Show. It's Stuart Bell here, and today joined by Gregory McLaughlin. Gregory, how are you doing, buddy?
Greg: I'm doing great thanks for having me
Stuart: A pleasure. You can tell we're recording this in the winter because we're both bundled up a little bit. I was just saying to Gregory before we started recording I need a, suddenly realized I need a beard trim. So for anyone watching and not listening to this have to make, don't get too sidetracked by the slightly homeless look of of me in this episode. This is one of my favorite types of episodes because it's obviously someone that we've worked with to create a book, so I know some of the story. We haven't actually spoken before, though, where we pass through the processing without kind of crossing my desk, as it were. So it's as much a discovery process as it is for me as it is for people listening. So why don't we start off by giving people a bit of a background, get up to speed on where you are and what you do up there?
Greg: So, as you had mentioned, my name is Greg McLaughlin. I'm a financial planner. I live in just about 30 minutes north of Boston and practice and have been in the business for about 25 years, and, you know, the idea of writing a book has been something that's always been in the background of my mind, and we were able to. You know, the idea of writing a book has been something that's always been in the background of my mind and we were able to, you know, bring it to fruition it's such a great opportunity because that idea that people have got something that they want to share in the book is a great way of doing it.
Stuart: But the barriers to doing that it's always too much time, too much money, a back burner project. So what I really like about the process we've refined over these past 10 years or so is just really making it straightforward and simple to extract that bit of knowledge and get the first version, the first working version, on the page, which may be fine and some people don't tweak it and other people look at it and tweak a little bit, kind of add here or take away there, just to really dial it in as they want. Those ideas that you had, the kind of thoughts that you wanted to get on the page, was that, relatively, you had quite a clear idea of the message that you wanted to share, or was it more the idea of a book generally was what you wanted to do and then it dialed in after that.
Greg: So I think I had, in my initial call with one of your team members I think I had.
I've done a lot of presentations, so I had a lot of concepts and ideas that I wanted to, but I think what was helpful was organizing the chapters and thoughts and saying, hey, this is a good idea and this can be a chapter, and this is a good idea that could be part of a chapter and this is a good idea that could be part of a chapter.
So I think you know that was obviously, as you know, the phase one of that process is getting you know the organization of are you going to have six, eight chapters and what are the key ones that have enough meat on their bone, for lack of a better term, right, yeah, and so I knew I wanted to write a book. I'm on a financial planner, so I knew I wanted to do it in that space. And I wanted to do it in that space and I've always been kind of mostly intrigued by, like decision making psychology, how people from different backgrounds make decisions and think about things and, as you know, that's just like your business. That's the unique thing about talking to clients. No one's the same. Every situation is a little different. So I knew I wanted to kind of have that theme, you know, throughout the book. But you know the process definitely helped me organize those thoughts.
Stuart: That's the great thing, that idea that, hey, these books aren't necessarily to, we're not that interested in selling them as authors as such. It's not. We're not trying to become writers. It's not fiction pieces where the job of work is the book itself. This is conversation starters and helping people in particular ways, so to be able to pull together those pieces of knowledge that you've built over those 20 plus years and put them together in a way that is helpful oftentimes. So usually when I'm talking to people in the process, it's either very early, kind of before their clients, or later in the process, once it's coming together and we're kind of strategizing how to use it. So in those early conversations I often find people undervalue the knowledge that's in their head because I mean, you like me, we've been in this for years now.
The entry-level stuff or the basic stuff that just ticks through all of the processes are refined and it's pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, the beginning part of the journey, what find? And it's pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. They're the the beginning part of the journey. What we deal with is the variances and the differences and the more complicated pieces and I think that does as a disservice because it benchmarks what we think people's questions are at a more complicated level when 90 of the population out there just have those 101 level questions. They've got those entry level questions. So did you find that at all and perhaps that comes across in the presentations you were talking about? Do you find you have to kind of separate the day-to-day of what you deal with, which might be more complicated, with the more straightforward, which is actually often the starting point of the conversation?
Greg: I think at this stage, stewart, I've been able to kind of morph that because I've I think I've met enough clients where I've seen that they're brilliant in their world. But something very simple and obvious to me is not necessarily simple and obvious to them. And so, you know, I actually had a really good experience with one of my best friends. I was over his house last week and the book just came live, and so I was. He was like hey, what's going on?
No-transcript, a small percentage of the student body who are just brilliant and they have something that is just really unique to them. They're just born that way but it's not transferable. Everybody else really just does probably a few things simply at a very high level, incredibly well. And so I find that in trying to connect with clients and get these messages out, you know, the simple things are what resonate with people they don't want to talk about, even if they're really brilliant, and they don't want to talk about, even if they're really brilliant, and they don't want to talk about complicated things. They want to keep it simple, precise and to the point and it's that outcome-based approach.
Stuart: They're not in it for the academic exercise of talking about deep financial theoretical models, sure. They just want the outcome of knowing that they're not going to die before their money runs out or they can leave stuff to the kids, and all of the layering in of complicated terms or trying to make people feel like they've made bad decisions in the past because they didn't know these things. All that does is it puts a barrier or bridge between the barrier rather than bridge between you two, and is more of a turnoff than than an attracting element of you're the right person for the job and this is the right time to do it. And yes, this book is the thing that's kind of telegraphed some of this knowledge, but really we just want to move towards the outcomes and feel like you're the right person for the, for this particular relationship absolutely yeah, the thought that people undervalue the basic stuff and overvalue the magic, special things that only they do different.
It's such a I think it holds people back and I wonder sometimes whether it's just another procrastination tool coming out of. Well, this has been said before, this isn't unique. I think if you look across the swathe of all marketing pieces, which, effectively a book in this context, is a marketing piece, it's not a literary piece, it's not a work of fiction. As I said before, it's not the product isn't the book. The product's the conversation. So when you look across all of those marketing pieces, everything's been done before for the most part. But in the one-on-one conversation with that client, either they're resonating with you because it's you and the way that you say it's not necessarily what you're saying or just the timing happens to be right for them. So if you'd have the conversation a year ago, it might not have resonated. A year's time, they might have moved on to something else, but that point at, or this point at this time with this message it's. That's why we see it as such a great way of starting the conversation yeah, no, I.
Greg: I think that's very accurate. I think there's. I mean, you can think that anything in your own life when you're ready for something and you're not ready for something, right, you know when you're ready to hear the message.
And when you're not ready to hear the message whether that's a conversation with your significant other or a child or a sibling or a parent, you know, sometimes you're just not ready. You know, and I think there's definitely some readiness factor which is a luck factor. You know, that is not a predictable factor, that you know we can know in our worlds. But I think it's definitely nice to have the opportunity to, when the person is ready, to have a tool and a resource. And I actually I read a lot and what I've started to do differently recently I think I was and I listen to a lot of podcasts sorry, and someone was talking about it. And what I like about the book too, is you can kind of bounce around. Obviously it's not a long book. It's 110 pages or something like that. Right, so it's. But you can also kind of bounce around and be like, hey, I'm curious what this topic is and I want to read this chapter. I'm not going to read the whole book.
And you started the conversation and that's what I've said to everybody. I'm not going to get rich selling books. I know that, or maybe I'll surprise myself someday, but I doubt it. But it is the accomplishment of creating something which obviously you and your team and I had other people, because I think you articulated something really important, which is it got you to the first draft on paper and for me, I ended up having to get some additional help to kind of fine tune it because I started working on this. You of fine tune it because I started working on this. You might not know, but I started working on this, I think in 2018 or 19. It's been a while, was it that long ago?
Stuart: Yeah, that's the COVID problem.
Greg: It's like 2020 is back in the middle and then it quickly, yeah, and I went dormant and I got yeah, and I got kind of paralyzed because I kept on like refining it and I just I couldn't get it and that's not my unique ability or skillset, right, so that.
So I basically then ended up hiring someone to edit and organize it, you know, and clean it up, you know, because I just couldn't, I couldn't take it from the version you guys created on my own. I needed that extra assistance to kind of fine tune it. But the organization part and getting that first draft done real quick it was on me to kind of and I know someone else who used your firm and they were able to kind of clean it up themselves, but I think they're more of a wordsmith person and writing was more on their skills on their sometimes people um, we tend to see a mix of people who are less concerned about the individual words and more concerned that it just exists and it's out there and then it's straight on to the next part of the process.
Stuart: It's just a link in the chain and then other people who are closer to the words are more interested, and then of those more interested people, it's like I say, it's very I find it very difficult as well to edit my own stuff. I much prefer to put time and effort into the outline and then get 80 of the way there with the content and then move forward because, like you, if I try and if I try and deal too long in that last 10, 15% of really trying to dial it in, it takes forever. And then, of course, a couple of shoes problem of when you're doing it every day and you've got a whole team set up to do it, you never get around to doing your own stuff. Yeah.
Greg: And just taking the time to go through it and it kind of all blurs together after a while. Frankly, I'm similar. I can get it with the team's help. I got it to 80 to 85 percent quick. You know, it was like we got the outline, we had the conversation and I had that first draft quick and then I tried to refine it a few times and then I went dormant for a couple years and then I actually had a client who's written. He's written a bunch of books. He wrote a bunch with a co-author and then, unfortunately, that person passed away so he just did another one and probably a year ago we were just on a typical review meeting and he was like, hey, how's the book coming? I was like you know, and that kind of just gave me that shot of jolt of energy to be like you know what, I gotta get back to this and and finish this, you know, and get it complete it's interesting.
Stuart: So the process back in 2018, 2019 was very much taking your word. So, as we probably talked about the conversation with our guys at the time and what we have said in the past to most people is the ghost writing type world of gathering some ideas and then writing something. Having a human write something is crazy expensive, like it's not uncommon for those projects to run to 30 to 90 to 100 plus thousand dollars, which the return on investment for this type of world like. If you've got a contract, like a traditional publishing contract and a big audience and you think that it might really like supercharge something like the Rich Dad, poor Dad or the Atomic Habit, all of those types of books, okay there's maybe a return on investment there.
But for most of us, where we're trying to start conversations within 50 miles of the office with real people, that ROI is difficult. So in the old world it would. It would have been okay. Well, let's outline an interview to the best possible and kind of coach people to say the best words and then we'll clean those up, but there's only so much that you can do.
One of the real benefits now in an ai world is not that ai replaces your ideas and we my personal opinion is absolutely don't just press a button and hope that something gets spat out, but instead go through broadly the same process of outlining what your thoughts and what's important to you and then talking to those ideas.
But that first round of editing, the ability to take the spoken word into something that is more, that's a better narrative version of it that's been quite a game changer recently and I think it's helped people a lot because it's enabled them to detach from the way they speak and the way they present which is very good in person, but when you see it written it's not necessarily the best medium into something that is written and reads more correctly for want of a better term but still represents their ideas and their way of doing things and the things that are important to them, which, at the end of the day, that's the more important piece the fact that you've got the book out there, the retirement strategies that you're talking about and the important things that resonate with the reader. Now, once they come in through the door, they're already primed slightly for what you're ultimately going to talk about, because they were your ideas in the first place.
Greg: Yeah, no, I've seen that. I know. When I have to craft lengthy emails to clients, I've just bullets AI organized quick, you know, versus me hemming and hawing on an email and what word to use for 70 minutes. So I can totally see how you get the essence of the person and that's what it was to it, as you know, you get.
you know when I started this process, you get a Greg McLaughlin speak back right, that's the terminology which is not good for writing you know, because it's the way that I communicate, which I think is effective one-on-one or in a group setting but it's not how a book's that can easily transform the ability to streamline the process of getting this done even better and more efficiently for clients.
Stuart: Yeah, and maybe it takes it from 80% to 90% and then that last 10%. Just again. Hopefully it's just streamlining each part of the process to make it more manageable for people, without losing the essence of what it's really trying to do. It's not really trying to write a book as such. The book just happens to be the useful way of starting the conversation with a client. So the people that you're working with then, do you work with people in a particular stage of life? Obviously, we worked with a number of financial advisors. Some people are going for their early career, some people are going for their post-retirees, other people are around that kind of 60, 65-ish transition period. Where's the sweet spot for you?
Greg: I would say our sweet spot is probably kind of in the executive business owner space ages to like mid to late 50s, because at that point, if we meet them in that stage, we feel like they've still got enough runway where our ideas can impact. You know their ability to retire or become financially independent or whatever the goal is. I mean I think that you know, you know I always talk about, you know the importance of defining words, right? So, like I try to focus on financial independence because I't know if it's good for someone to retire Not everyone it's good for right, right, yeah, but I know that I've seen the switch change. When someone knows they're financially independent and now they're, either you know they're either working because they want to or they're consulting because they want to. It's not because they have to. So that you know switch is is is a nice thing to kind of witness firsthand with the client, for sure.
Stuart: Yeah, and understanding where people are in that journey and what the motivations are and why it is that you want to work with that group of people as opposed to another group of people.
It does make the whole process much more streamlined, because the book is a great way of getting people on the list in the first place, of helping them raise their hand so they know who you are and you know who they are.
But, just like you said before, you don't know whether it's today or a month or a year from now that they're ready so to be able to stay in touch with them over that long term until today is the day for them. That's where the real opportunity comes from, and if you know who that audience is, then you can talk in a way that is more likely to resonate with them over the long term, rather than just collecting anyone and everyone and then just shouting out into the void and it might be a bit hit and miss in terms of who you're talking to. So the book itself does that, the way that you've structured that and the talking points within it. Does that reflect on things like the website? And you were? Does that reflect on things like the website and you were talking about presentations that you delivered in the past. Is that part and parcel of the bigger piece?
Greg: Yeah, I feel like if you read the book and if you went to our website and if you talk to me, you would know we're related. Right, we're not triplets that are identical, but you would get a feel that we're related and we're siblings or cousins or something. There's some commonality, there's some core there, for sure. So, a lot of the concepts that we use in client meetings, especially the key ones, we try to definitely capture in the book Because, again, I think that those are the things that you know.
As you said earlier, you deal with a lot of financial advisors. You know my office is 15 miles west of Boston. There's probably 1000 within, you know. You know, not that far distance. So you know, and we always try to communicate to the clients that you know, just like they're evaluating us, we're evaluating them because we want to make sure it's a good fit, because, ultimately, if we make the right fit, it's a long term. It's a long journey, right? You know, if I start working with a client, you know not just necessarily me, but me and the next iterations of our team and our firm. You know they can work with someone for 30, 40, 50 years, you know, and so we want to make sure that you know when we share concepts and ideas.
We want them to be things that resonate with them, that they see the value in the. You know. You know we started Stuart recently adding like another meeting as part of an onboarding process where you know we haven't come up with the name of it but it's kind of like your money mindset and decision making. But I just spend probably 45 minutes to an hour. I have one this afternoon with a client who's in the process and I just go back and start with life lessons learned when they were kids, how they grew up with money. Did they have the right amount? Too much, too little?
You know what are the things that them and their significant other are 100% aligned on. Where are their? You know. Where are their points of conflict? You know, not in a negative way, just they don't see necessarily eye to eye right. Where are they at presently? What's their focus? You know what's their decision making process. Where do they get information? Do they read the New York Times, the Journal, the Boston Globe here in Boston, right, like, where do they consume information? How do they best learn, you know? So we've now created a whole meeting about really understanding and and I've done about a half dozen of them in the last month or so and it's been really fascinating because even with some longer-term clients, I've learned a couple of things that that I didn't know that was really impactful by asking, you know, 20 or 30 questions just to get a dig a little deeper and again, like you were saying before, it's about building a relationship for the long run.
Stuart: Most of us I think almost all of our clients, if not definitely all of them, but most people are like you are in the relationship rather than the transaction business, and this is something that isn't just make some money, charge a bill and then people out the door never to be seen again. This in some ways is generational, because when the clients pass on, then hopefully the next level down, the children, see you and the organization as the incumbent, as the people who have taken care and built that relationship for the extended period of time. I think that's the it's easy for with the same age, I think I've got a year on you, I'm 49, so we're kind of a pre-internet, that pre-insert cohort where we can remember the speed of transactions increasing from. I mean, what would it have been before? Like newspaper ads, I guess newspaper ads, tv commercials, maybe radio ads, word of mouth, mailing pieces all of that is a lot slower than like facebook ads. But what gets lost in that speed and scale is that one-on-one connection and it's not that we're trying to burn insurance churn through leads from a Facebook ad to a book, to an immediate conversion. Instead, it's again comes back to the idea of starting the conversation.
What I really like about the book that you've pulled together, both in the way that it's structured but also the way you talk about it, is that it does connect with all of these other pieces.
It is that it does connect with all of these other pieces.
So someone's going to raise their hand to get a copy, either because it's been recommended or referred by someone, so there's a personal connection there, or they might see an ad and resonate with the copy.
But as they're going through and looking at those chapters that, as you described, are very pick and chooseable depending on what resonates with you at the moment, when, when they do eventually come in, those exact same words and that exact same language is reflected in the other work that you do with them, so as they're looking at the website, as they come in for those initial discovery calls, do you find that makes it a lot easier when people come in kind of almost predisposed to think that they're in the right place because they resonated with the material beforehand. So they're almost in those initial meetings as, yes, we want to continue. Unless anything kind of flags a warning, we want to leave, but yes, we're coming here to continue, as opposed to just someone stepping in off the street and it's almost all discovery. And there there are no, maybe heading towards yes rather rather than a yes, hopefully not heading towards no.
Greg: Yeah, absolutely, when we have a client that's come in and they've done a good, I call it a deep dive on us, right, they've been on the website, they've watched a video or two, they've seen some things, like the probability of the connection obviously is dramatically higher, right, because they've listened, they've read, they've seen some things that we share, where they're like okay, you know, this thought resonates with me, right? So I know, when we have an initial discovery, we, you know, thematically, there's probably three key things that we focus on. You know, one is in the book, like do simple better. The second is, you know, improve decision making. And the third is thinking to knowing. So I always say that a lot of people come in and they think they're in good shape, but they don't definitively know and sometimes, when it's like you know a big decision, like can we afford this second home, can we afford this bigger home? Can we send our kids to these colleges? Can we retire? Send our kids to these colleges.
Stuart: Can we retire Like?
Greg: you don't want to. You want to be pretty certain that you're making the right decision. You know, and obviously a lot of people aren't, but you know, I think that you know when I share with them. These are the things that, by going through the process of working with us, you're going to gain, and I articulate and say that these things need to be important to you. If thinking about your decision making and I articulate and say that these things need to be important to you If thinking about your decision making, doing things simpler and thinking to knowing are not for you, then we're probably not for you. You know, if you're focused on getting the highest rate of return you know and that's all that you care about then we're probably not the right fit. Obviously, I want clients to get as high rate of return as possible, but that's not the goal that resonates with us.
The goal that resonates with us is giving people the opportunity Just like you and your team giving someone the satisfaction of getting a completed book. We went away skiing during Christmas break and when I got home there was a book. And I have a 14-year-old and a 9-year-old and my kids were pretty excited when they opened up the box and my daughter was like you wrote a book Because I didn't really tell them, and that was a pretty impactful experience to kind of have the pride and excitement that their dad wrote a book Right.
Stuart: There is something that's non-transient about it. I say to people all the time that the same 10,000 or so words, 15,000 or so words that are on the pages here, if they were in emails or on a website or on a transcript of a youtube video, I mean, the actual information is exactly the same. But there's something qualitatively different and I think I wonder for how many more generations that will be the case as everything gets digitized. But there's definitely something tactile and different about bringing it together into a book and I think the the benefits that. It's why, as a marketing tool, it's disproportionately beneficial compared with the same time and effort spent doing something else. There's something psychologically anchoring about going through school and dealing with physical books, being told that books are this big, complicated, difficult, revered thing that makes it last longer than the amount of effort that it took to actually do the thing in the first place. So as, uh, the longevity of the project, it's something that's going to be fit for purpose for years and years into the future, even if it there's some iterations and updates. But just the fact that it exists in the mind of a receiver, it's it has more of an impact than if you were just sending them the same words in a really long pdf.
Yeah, we've got a a little bugbear when people say oh, yeah, I want to do uh, or can I do an ebook, or does it include an ebook, or this should be an ebook. Keep saying to people don't call it an ebook, there's no. You're doing yourself a disservice by referring to the digital version of your book as an ebook, because it's exactly the same. It's a PDF document at the end of the day. But referring to it as a digital version of the book or referring to something as an ebook, it's a psychological switch in the mind of the recipient. So the PDF versions that you've got, it's the same layout. There's left right justification, there's the blank pages where the blank pages go.
And it's not an accident that we do that. We do that because when the person receives it, they're receiving the digital version of the book. So all of that extra psychological not quite as grand as shock and awe, but all of that extra psychological gravitas that comes along with it is transferred. And the importance of those words when people come through the door, it just anchors that little bit more. So it's such a again, it's just such a. We're in a point in time where it's become more straightforward to do so, makes it more accessible, more straightforward to deliver because you can print on demand one copy. You don't have to have a garage full of a thousand copies and it's still received by someone in a way that makes them stop and pause and they take time to think about it yeah the idea that people we talk about, this idea of starting the conversation so kind of moving people through the steps on the back of the book and your book is the same.
We give people the idea that the back of the book isn't for the blurb or promoting the book like it would be in a bookstore, because in a bookstore the job of work at the back of the book is to sell the book. Well, here we're not doing that. The job of work is to encourage people to take the next step. So, like most people we talk to, took the advice and have got here's some ways we can help you next. Talk about that a little bit. Was that a straightforward thing to think about, because you've already got a number of assets that you can point people towards, or did it take a little bit of thinking and cajoling your ideas into what they could do next in terms of something that didn't need you to hold their hand?
Greg: yeah, no, I think there was a little thinking. I think it was kind of one of the you. You know, I was just looking on the back so I was like I'm curious what is on the back, you know, and it makes sense.
You know, one was, you know, around doing simple better and a blog report that I wrote, a blog post. And the second was on a decision simplifier, which obviously is, you know, two of the themes that I just mentioned to you five minutes ago. Right, so I think that I've tried to over the last three to five years. I think we've kind of landed on those two three themes Cause I wanted to. I always just wanted to make it be like this is why you want to work with us, and so those are. Two of the three are from that. So I don't recall, stuart, because it has been a while, as I mentioned in this journey, but it does make sense that two of those most important three themes. But I did have to take some time and think about how I wanted to create the tool and the resource and what were the key things that I wanted to share for sure.
Stuart: That consistency, though I mean that's the perfect example. As you say, it's's been a little while, so back when you were looking at it, whether it took a little while to bring them together or whether they already existed the fact that they represent and reflect some of the words that have already been in there. So, just as you said before, when you think about someone's journey from getting a copy of it to reading and resonating, to taking a kind of an interim next step to eventually coming in through the door, I mean that's four, three or four yeses that they resonate with you and the way that you work and your goals and objectives are aligned, so that they're coming into the meeting so much warmer than they would be if they were just off the street.
It's not that it's necessarily completely sifting and sorting and excluding people, but it's definitely helping those people who are inclined to be good clients to move their way through the machine, so that they walk through the door primed and enthusiastic about hearing what you've got to say yeah, absolutely yeah, the last point that came to mind just as we were talking about the book and how it resonates or reflects the meetings that you have with people, I was talking to someone on a podcast early last year somewhere and they had reiterated something I'd said to people in past that if the book really does reflect the way that that you want to onboard, people have a copy of it there next to you and point to the chapter.
So, as you're talking to someone, it's oh well, of course this is what we were saying in the book and then flip to the table of contents and point to something, and not that you're going to sit in the front of the classroom and read it out to them again, but just the very fact that you've opened it and point it and made that physical connection with a theoretical thing that you're describing again. It's just another one of these anchoring points that bridges the words in the book to the action that you want taken at that point. And again, these persuasion ideas of someone who's enthusiastically there and anchoring back why they have that enthusiasm towards that ultimate decision. It's just such a great tool.
Greg: Yeah, no, I hadn't really thought about that. But you know, my, my immediate thought, you know, when you mentioned that was, you know, one of the on the decision making like I feel like that's probably the one I would go back to the most. We have a whole section on biases that you know affect people and I talk about that all the time. So I think that would be. You know, I usually talk about two or three, but I think in the book we have a list of like seven or eight, right, so I can usually say, hey, you know I want you and one of the things that I've that's been helpful is I kind of go through it and now what I could do with the book is say I want to read about all these biases and let me know which of the ones do you think affects you the most.
You know so that we know is it overconfidence, is it recency bias, is it loss aversion? You know so that when we're, you know so when the market, if it's loss aversion, I need to be prepared when the market goes haywire, stewart's going to be more sensitive than someone else who doesn't bring that up, right, you know, and I need to be more proactive to be like. Hey, I probably should reach out to stewart just to see how he's doing, because I know he's probably having some anxious moments right now about kind of the market going haywire actually that's such a great point as well, because I hadn't really.
Stuart: The last time I was talking about it was in a I can't remember. I don't think it was a dentist, but it was kind of like a. I think it was like a medical procedure. We've done a couple of books with, like stem cell knee surgeons, that type of procedure where it's not it's not like life-saving surgery, but it's surgery nonetheless.
It's something so a lot of the anxiety that people are bringing towards it and the steps that they can take. It was around that. So the person I was talking to was kind of pointing, saying, hey, it's okay, don't worry, as we said, here's the steps you can take. But you took it to another level by identifying, within those seven pools of potential anxieties that they could have, identifying who's in which category, that ability to just get ahead of sending someone that touch point and just maintaining that relationship. I mean, you can imagine a scenario where if you sat down for half a day and wrote down all the things that you would ideally do, if you had all of the time and memory in the world, you'd probably be writing down some of these things. So to be able to facilitate it a little bit more to really kind of bridge, close that gap in the relationship and keep people front of mind. Yeah, such a great trick and trick, in the nicest sense of the word, I mean there's obviously all of this could be used for evil as well.
It's good, hopefully we're using it um, I think I seem to wrap up every podcast by looking up at the clock and realizing how fast time goes, so I really want to say thanks for the time today. Where's a good people that people can find out more about what you guys are doing and follow along with with kind of your journey and the business?
Greg: certainly you can. You can find me on linkedin just under my name. Our team website is www living well, team c, as in christopher f, as in frank g, as in gregcom, and, like I said earlier, you'll get a good sense of things. We'll shortly be putting the book as a link on the website so people can look at it that way, and those are probably the two best ways to reach out fantastic.
Stuart: I'll put links to both of those in the podcast player and on the website as well, so as people listening just click straight through and connect. Again, thanks for your time. It'd be really great to at the beginning of 2025, really great to check in later in the year and see how things are going and talk about some more strategies and ideas. So it'd be great to have you back. If you're up for that, I would love to Perfect. Well, greg, thanks for your time. Everyone, happy new year. I think we're probably three or four weeks away from releasing this, so we'll be well into we might even be a 12th into the year already by the time this goes up. But if you want to follow along, we'll put the links to Greg's stuff in the notes and then any questions about writing your book, always just reach out to us or head over to 90minutebookscom and we'll help you from there. So thanks everyone. Thanks, greg, and we'll catch you in the next one.
Greg: Thank you.