You've mentioned when we chatted before that selling emotions, much like what Taylor Swift does.
Is key to building trust.
So along those soft skills that you've talked about, how can financial advisors become more like Taylor Swift and incorporate that emotional intelligence into their client relationships to create that same sense of connection and trust that she does with her?
Yeah. So one of the things that I learned from an early mentor is that if we, if we speak on very if we continue to speak on very technical terms, there's a, there's a great line by Zig Ziggler, which is logical, get people to think and emotion will get people.
To act.
Right. So if we continue to talk just on the very technical side of things, it's very you're very forgettable.
But if you can get an emotional response out of people, that's how people people have been wired to to connect in that way on an emotional level. Mm-hmm. So really good capital raising and really good client relations is being able to have emotional intelligence and to be able to communicate at an emotional level. So it's it's kind of like to go back to that analogy.
To say, well, there's rules don't apply in capital raising or and soft skills. It's more principles. It's to give you an example. This is that if you if you're married and you have a.
Spouse or partner.
And you, you catalogued everything that you said and everything that you did and then try to apply that exactly verbatim to the and just a random person I said, well, this is what I did to, you know, to find a partner. And I applied the exact same thing a second time and it didn't work well in the rule based world or or in a very technical world that should work. It's like code.
Always works, right? Just apply the exact same quote and that's why it's disoriented cause it's not.
Right.
Gonna work.
This is the future Ready Advisor, a show about transforming your financial advisory practice. I'm your host, Sam Sivarajan, a wealth management consultant, behavioral scientist and keynote speaker. In this podcast, I dive deep into the real challenges advisors face and bring you insightful.
Conversations with top industry experts together, we'll explore practical strategies grounded in behavioral science to help you better serve your clients, optimize your time, and build a future ready practice.
Hi everyone I'm your host Sam Sivarajan. Welcome to today's episode of The Future Ready Advisor.
Today I'm here with Edmund Chin, a former financial advisor and now coach to capital raisers and executives.
Edmund, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Sam. It's a pleasure to be here.
Good to have you. Let me quickly introduce you to our audience. Edmund is a seasoned business and sales success coach with over 20 years of experience and mentoring and coaching.
A retired army paratrooper and former financial adviser, Edmond built and managed a $70 million book of business.
Fox.
Missing on discipline, trust and genuine care for his clients.
Today, he leverages his military and financial background to help others achieve success by coaching financial professionals and business leaders.
Edmund, you've had a unique career path that started with a decade in the Canadian Army, where you served as a full time soldier and boot camp instructor before transitioning to Bay Street and the Financial Advisory World.
Talk us through this diverse career path and how you think the discipline and methodology you learned in the military has influenced your approach in financial services, especially when it comes to coaching financial advisors.
Yeah, that's a great question, Sam. But just to clarify, I was, I spent ten years in the military. I was a a part time. So I was a reservist, but I spent two years of that time as a as a full time soldier. A lot of a lot of military people tend to be sticklers with those kind of details.
But yeah, I would say that military, I would like to say that it was all thought out and and and calculated, but I I don't think I'm actually that smart. I think part of it was when I was when I was in school, I was looking for something to do and I really felt attracted to the military. There's a lot of different things that that it was like.
Nuanced, but I think a big part of that was things like being being part of something that's bigger than myself, as well as learning some valuable traits, learning some discipline, having good mentorship, a lot of those things were in contributed to it. So I think that it it actually panned out quite well and and it was a great. It was a great.
Wait, that's a great backup. When I finished school and I was struggling looking for work and I ended up going full time military while I was and and and being able to give back, but at the same time being able to to gain a lot of experience. So I think was very beneficial to my transition over into or my my pivot over into financial services.
And what were some of the some of the lessons or skills that you know you would attribute to your, call it your time in the military that you felt helped you transition from?
A very different world into the financial advisory world.
Yeah, I I would say one of the best things. So when I was a like a basic training instructor, one of the major things that we employ is something called EDI explain, demonstrate.
And it incorporates a lot of repetition in coaching, so everything that is taught in the military, both in the British military as well as the Canadian military, it's taught through this method of EDI, especially very complex skills as things that I taught. And then when I went into financial services, I just applied the same.
The same approach to learning and applied it to my own development within financial services. So, for instance, when I wrote my CSC and I became a licensed stockbroker.
Just incredible amounts of repetition. I can't tell you how many times I did the practice test. I just did it over and over and over again to the point where it became like it. It almost came like just instinctive and I could just go through it so fast. And that's something that the military taught me. It's just like we had a a saying. There's something I I taught the military where, you know, we're gonna keep doing something.
I would I would do a lot of repetition with my students.
And a lot of the candidates would say, well, how much longer are we going to do this? And I say we're going to keep doing this until you're absolutely sick of it. And then we're gonna call that the halfway point.
I think that's an interesting and I totally see the the application. Can you, for our listeners dive in a little bit on each of those components, Ed and I and what exactly that means and maybe you can talk a bit about how you got applied as in the military and the examples that you use and how you brought that to bear?
In in the day-to-day life of some of your financial advisory work.
Yeah, EDI is a great thing that I used even to train junior advisors when I was, you know, when I was in financial services and it it kind of goes off that quote that many people have heard, which is I hear and I forget, I see. And I remember and I do and I understand and that it's it's basically incorporating that. So E i.e.
Answer explained. So whenever something brand new is being taught or new skill is being taught, the first part of it explain what the outcome is. Well, you know the reasons why we're doing this or how it works. All mechanics, all classroom.
And just because I tell you, it's like if I was gonna tell you how to drive a car, I could, I could tell you all day long. You're still not going to be able to drive a.
Car.
So after I explain it then I demonstrate. So once get in the car and I'll show you how to how I drive. And then you observe and then you just watch and see how I do it and take notes. And then after that then we switch over and then you go off and.
You imitate me and it's basically shadow.
So when I was learning about financial services, I would apply this to myself, so I would read a lot. I would seek out mentorship and have people explain. And then for my when I became an advisor, I I followed a senior advisor and I went to all.
His.
Meetings, right. So I would observe I just sit there observing his meetings and then after that.
For a period of time, I asked that mentor to come to my meetings.
And to evaluate my meetings and to critique it. And we just went back and forth for a while until I was very, very comfortable and they became instinctive. So lots of repetition. So I went, I I asked for that mentorship a lot longer than most advisors did, and even my mentor said, like, I don't know if we want to keep doing. I did it for a year, and once it was like, oh, we only need to do this for, like, 2-3 months.
It's like, no, I want to do it for a full year because this is my new job. This is my new vocation and I want to make sure I really have this down Pat. And was that kind of military discipline and really that stamina on that that gave me that perspective just to keep going to learn it until the point where it's instinctive.
Yeah, our muscle memory, I I think that's such a great insight, Edmund. I know that the research shows that experience, which is to some extent what that demonstrate and that imitate component of what you're talking about is critical for people to feel comfortable. And research shows that having experience and investing makes a difference in terms of your comfort and.
Your ability to understand the risks of investing so that EDI framework that you described, I think it's critical for new advice.
Browsers.
But perhaps it's also something that advisors can use with their clients to get them comfortable as they develop financial plans or insurance policies, or even investment solutions.
Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of these things like when we go into a meeting there, you're gonna be put under cognitive load or cognitive.
Stream and the more you can prepare, like for instance the the more familiar you are with your investment products and you can explain it in many different methods in many different ways. The less you have to use that cognitive load when you're in a when you're in a client meeting because most of your energy in a client meeting should be reading the responses.
Of your prospect or of your?
Client and if you have to go and try to dedicate time to memorizing and remembering verbatim what you were gonna say, then you're gonna lose cognitive attention and you won't be able to pick.
Up.
The small cues, so really good your client facing advisors are people that know their material so well, they could explain it.
Almost instinctively, so they can maximize their attention towards reading your client and understanding your client.
Makes sense?
Now, Edmund, you've spent years working in the financial advisor industry with large banks and insurance companies before moving into the world of capital raising. And I think your focus right now is particularly on real estate projects raising capital for real estate projects. How are you applying your financial advisory experience to this sort of new role?
And what insights do you think that financial advisors can take from your capital raising strategies to grow their own practices?
Yeah, that's that's interesting.
Because I sort of see myself as a like I was a capital raiser from the beginning and that's how I got into finance. And I would say that I'm a sales guy like even when I was in the military, I spent the the two years that I spent full time as it was a recruit as a recruiter. So that's a form of sales. So I see that, you know, my skill set or my value that I brought to financial services is capital raising.
The beginning. So and when I started off, I started off in private equity where you had to be an accredited investor, which is essentially $1,000,000 of investable assets. So is that a very, very high level in, in, in terms of capital raising and I think one of the biggest challenges that cause today, I coach people on on how to sell or how to.
How to do that capital raising and I think the the biggest challenge that I encounter with people that come from a finance background, especially from a very technical background, is that it's a completely different paradigm. So especially people that like I've talked to our coach, people that come from an engineering background and there's a lot of set.
Roles.
That are always going to be the same 1 + 1 is always going to equal 2 in that paradigm, right? A lot of engineers also think of very binary time to terms terms. It's either gonna be on or off, but when we go to soft skills and when we go to sales it just completely throws them for a loop because those paradigms don't exist in soft skills. The difference is is that we.
It's it's like art. So art is we don't follow any kind of set rules in art, soft skills is is a form of art. It's a set of principles.
False.
And principles can be broken because people are all different. So today you could say you know 1 + 1 = 4 and then tomorrow 1 + 1 = 6 and 1 + 1 can equal 2 and 1 + 1 can equal 1.5. And it's very disorienting for that that type of people. And that's the importance of understanding the realm of capital raising and the realm of soft skills, because every client is going to be different.
And every client's gonna respond to in different ways to things that you say. You could say something. One way to a client and you close and you say the exact same thing to the next client. That and you won't close.
No, I think it's a great point and along those lines, you've mentioned when we chatted before that selling emotions, much like what Taylor Swift does.
Is key to building trust.
So along those soft skills that you've talked about, how can financial advisors become more like Taylor Swift and incorporate that emotional intelligence into their client relationships to create that same sense of connection and trust that she does with her?
Plans.
Yeah. So one of the things that I learned from an early mentor is that if we, if we speak on very if we continue to speak on very technical terms, there's a, there's a great line by Zig Ziggler, which is logical, get people to think and emotion will get people to act right. So if we continue to talk just on the very technical side of things, it's very you're very forgettable.
But if you can get an emotional response out of people, that's how people people have been wired to to connect in that way on an emotional level. Mm-hmm. So really good capital raising and really good client relations is being able to have emotional intelligence and to be able to communicate at an emotional level. So it's it's kind of like to go back to that analogy.
Saying, well, there's rules don't apply in capital raising or soft skills. It's more principles. It's to give you an example. This is that if you if you're married and you have a spouse or partner.
And you, you catalogue everything that you said and everything that you did and then try to apply that exactly verbatim to the and just a random person I said, well, this is what I did to, you know, to find a partner. And I applied the exact same thing a second time and it didn't work well in the rule based world or or in a very technical world that should work. It's like code.
Always works, right? Just apply the exact same quote and that's why it's disoriented cause it's not gonna work it. That's where the different. That's where it highlights principles. But when we're talking about emotional.
Right.
Level interesting enough is I went to my bachelors is a Bachelor of Fine Art in theater and a lot of people don't realize that. And that's very high level soft skills and understanding soft skills. That's essentially what art or what theater is all about. How do you, how do you connect with the audience? And that's my understanding when I dissect what's going on with Taylor Swift, which has got the highest grossing.
Concert tour in history is over a billion dollars, and what is it about that that's just so attractive to her?
I think a big part of that is being able. She understands that she has a human experience and capability to express emotion that resonates with her audience because her audience can have the same type of emotion, but maybe not the skill to be able to express it. So the fact that she can do that and the audience sees part of themselves in that expression.
It draws them out because they they it resonates and that that trust starts to build. The more I can see parts of the same where I can relate to a lot of the experiences that you are talking about for a lot of the experiences that you're presenting in that type of emotion. If I can see parts of myself or I can resonate or understand what you're.
Talking about then, that really catches me.
Yeah, I think that makes total sense. I think what you're saying is that humans aren't algorithms, and along the lines of that zig Ziglar quote that think it reminded me of the quote by Maya Angelou, which is that long after people forget what you said, they will remember how you made them feel.
And I think that's.
The key that you're getting at is that there is this.
Soft scale or this kind of relationship thing that you're creating with your client that is giving them a sense that you're a genuine person, you're authentic, you're, you know, you're relatable and it's it's it's an interesting point. I had a conversation with another advisor and he talked about.
3D listening and 3D talking skills and what he means is that listening it's not just listening to respond and asking this question, but it's listening to understand and you convey that you understand. And he says part of the way. And I think this is the point you're making part of that way is that you also share, right? I mean you're you're not just asking your client.
What are you? What are your biggest fears or concerns about not having enough for retirement or looking after your elderly parents in an appropriate way that you might actually share?
There, as an advisor, your own experience, your own concerns in that area, so that it gives the client a sense that.
You're having a shared experience, a shared moment that this isn't simply that. Yes, you're the expert, but that you're not talking out of a textbook or out of a code or an algorithm that you're talking about that you're actually human being, that they can relate to.
Yeah, and and to define it a little bit for, was it something that I teach my coaching clients is that essentially like really good capital raisers? Have these skills set of empathy not to be confused with sympathy? Empathy is understanding what it feels like to be somebody.
Else.
And what experiences that you're going through and to dissect it a little bit further?
The the recipe for empathy in what we what you know what we teach in psychology. The recipe of empathy is seen, heard, understood.
So do I see you and do I understand and hear what your what your experience is and do I understand what that means? And when we do that we start to build this emotional bridge. So give you an example if you got invited to a.
Party.
And nobody talked to you. People didn't acknowledge that you were there. You might physically be there, but you don't feel like you belong to that.
Right.
Nobody had talked to me and I didn't match anybody else, and it was just like you just, you know you.
Probably.
Stick around for 5 minutes, but if I was your host and I saw you and I just, I just greeted you once like hey, Sam's great to see you. And then I just ignored you for the rest of the night. So I saw you, but I didn't hear you. I didn't. You know what? And we don't understand. Right? So yeah, I just looked like practically. You felt like I just looked right through you. But if you can establish those things where you just genuinely.
Care about people and you see, hear and understand what they're saying. And they say, well, this is like some of my concerns. These are I, I mean, a lot of people, what they say is not necessarily what.
Me and having the soft skills to be able to like when they when they mentioned something or they say something, it's reading the subtext behind that. What do they actually mean? What is that? What's the deeper meaning behind that? And if you can see that and really understand where they're coming from, you've built a very strong bridge to that person and it doesn't take long.
To build that rapport.
Yeah, I totally agree. And to your point, it's seeing that subtext, or at least even recognizing that subtext is there. It may not be that, that you understand it, but it's an opening that you don't proceed directly to your next question to the next item on your agenda, you dig a little bit further at that point to say.
Hey, tell me a little bit more about this. I sense there is something more here that you're prompting that person to kind of open up because in many cases what I found is that the the other person themselves may not.
Be aware of that subtext in in a very defined way that there is something there, but they don't know what what exactly it is. And by probing and prompting and encouraging them to explore that a bit further, you're actually getting them to.
Go down a path that they may not have before, right to to explore some issues or concerns or thoughts that they it didn't actually articulate in the past.
Yeah. And a big part of that where that's where that subtext is found is usually through tone and body language. There's a concept called the 355038557 rule in human communication. So 38% of communication is tone, 55% is body language, and only 7% is the actual words.
So if you pay attention, I'll give you an example. Right. And it's like, say, Ed is there, is there any other concerns that you have? Nope, Sam, everything's.
Thing.
Right. It's like and if you read into that, it's like, does it sound like every like? Ohh I'd said everything was fine and was like, no, you read his body language and everything is not fine, right? So you've gotta pay more attention to somebody's tone. And if somebody's got very close body language or somebody scowling at you, it's like, you know what, Sam, this has been the best podcast I've ever been on, right? It's like, I don't believe you.
Right. So it's it's reading that's and that's where the subtext falls into right and being able to understand being able to read people and recognizing. But I've I've come across a lot of technical people that would just write down was like Ohh Ed said everything was fine and I progressed.
But that's to me, is is bang on and that's the difference between we've talked about it or touched on it between AI and the human advisor, right? AI isn't going to be able to get that 93% of that communication that you said is nonverbal, which is the critical component.
A human advisor that has got.
The awareness to be paying attention to those things is going to be able to run rings around an algorithm or an AI that doesn't isn't aware of that and can't capitalize on that.
Yeah, because there there's far too many. There's far too many potential reasons, like something we talking really fast because they're excited or because they just finished the run or because they gotta go to the washroom or because they got a meeting of 5 minutes and you add in all those other things. Plus they're what they're saying plus the tone. And there's far too many parameters of what's going on.
Yeah.
To be like for and maybe I can catch up to eventually, but right now with it's kind of struggling to be able to do that.
I absolutely and I hope it doesn't, not because I'm worried about it, but I think that it takes away the humanity of our business, etcetera. But in the interim.
It is a real opportunity for advisors to be able to continue to set themselves apart, not only from AI, but from others in the marketplace who are maybe not able to do it as well.
When we chat and when when we chatted before the show, you talked about emotional bounds being bankable.
Can you explain a bit what you mean by that and how financial advisors can translate these bonds into tangible business growth?
Yeah, absolutely. So of course, like the deeper connection that you have it, it really starts to draw people into you.
So when we're talking about capital raising and sales, it's always a struggle to find clients and the ideal is is that you know when you first start out, it's always what I call a pull. You're going out and you're prospecting, you're going hat in hand and you're trying to pull people to come in and become your, you know, your clients. But if you could start to communicate on an emotional level and if you can start to deepen a lot of those relationships.
And people resonate and want to see you succeed. Then the polarity starts to change and people start to push towards you.
Because you're an attractive person that draws people into you and those are emotional, so it it starts becoming your your capital raising starts to become more effective and you start to have a lot more credibility. It's being it's it's basically being a likable person, the like the more likable of a person you are, the more people are drawn into you and it just makes your capital raising a lot easier. But it also builds.
Hedge around your clients so clients don't leave you or is not as receptive to leaving you as well as there's less liability because if people you know if people really like and they they they will tend to give you, they'll give you a lot more concessions.
Markets are always going to go up and down.
And if you have no emotional relationship with somebody and they the the, the, the the results are not what they expected, they're more likely to either leave you or even to, you know, to complain against you. But if you have a deep relationship with them and you've given a lot of concession and they really trust you and they really, then they're willing to work a lot more with you and there will be a lot more understand.
And just think of the difference between you know, if you have kids and your kid does something bad, you would approach it with a lot more graciousness and and and understanding a lot more mercy than if some random kid that you didn't know and came and kicked you in the shin. Right and and or hurt.
You and I'm.
Like, I'm very angry, right? It's not kind of deeper relationship that and it it it.
Starts becoming more bankable because your business continues to grow and people start to provide referrals. That's what that's the point of being bankable. The more likable you are.
I like that. I think we've implicitly all billed currency, whether it's with our colleagues who is, whether it's with our boss, whether it's with family members and translating that idea into a financial advisory practice, I think is important because you're right, markets are gonna go up, markets are gonna go down.
The returns are going to be there, you know in one period and may not be there in another period. And the person or the advisor that has built that bankable bond through relatability, through trust, through communication, through added value and a sense of shared values that we've talked about.
I think is more likely to survive or go unscathed through these periods of ups and downs that are natural because of what happens in the market or in the economy.
Yeah, it's, it's a bond. I think that's really important. So one of my mentors, when I was at Nesbitt burns, he said to me.
That essentially what you're doing, your practice and your clients think of them like your tribe.
And if they feel a belongingness to your tribe, and the way that you build belonging, this is seen, heard, understood. And if people feel like part of that tribe, then it's it's less likely that they leave you when markets go down because.
If you're only selling feature is that I can give you great returns better than anybody else. Eventually somebody else is going to have a better return.
You you can't like. That's a very that's a practice that, that, that which that should make advisors very anxious because you cannot guarantee the highest returns all the time. It's impossible and and markets will go down but as well as performance against other advisors. So that is your only selling feature is on returns. Your clients are very easy to leave you.
Right.
But if somebody feels like part of a tribe that they're part of your tribe and your practice, then it's less likely that that those clients could be stolen from you. And it's more and the better you do it, it's not only that clients won't leave you clients will start to refer you better. The better you can do that.
100% and.
Again, when we've talked before, this is a process that it's, it's ongoing. It isn't 1 and done this idea of building that relationship or that relatability and the analogy that you know we used when we talked before was that that the client advisor relationship is similar to dating, right? Where trust has to be built.
Gradually.
So.
How does this translate into practical tips that you would give advisors to similar to dating to avoid rushing client relationships and instead developing them organically over time?
Yeah, saying this is this is the hard part of capital raising in in soft skills because it's gonna be very disorienting. And the answer is gonna be, it really depends on how you read the other person. So if we use the analogy or the example of of dating and trying to go out and date.
They're the people that you talk to. They're all going to be different. Some of them are based on their current life circumstance. They're gonna be a lot more receptive and a lot more open and they'll be you're ready to to go and and begin an emotional relationship. But then there could be some others that have just gone through a breakup and they're very guarded and it takes a much longer for them to open up.
So reading clients is exactly the same thing. It comes down to experience. So it's it's many different facets that you start to paint a picture and and and really what I explain to people is high level capital raising or high level sales turns into psychology and it's going into reading body language but also recognizing what they're saying. If somebody says, yeah, well, I just had.
I I I'm I'm seeing you because I had this. You're you're like the third advisor that I've had in as many years.
And like you know what it's like somebody said I've had some 3 bad breakups. And now here's another guy that's gonna go and break my heart. Right? And so you can read into that, but you can also have to read the body language. It's it's a person very upset and guarded. Same thing with advisors, if they if. But if somebody said that. Hey, you know, I've had an advisor for 10 years and we just recognize that we're outgrowing that advisor.
They really care for that advisor, but just that they they don't have the skill set and that the practice doesn't have the investments that we're looking for. We wish them the best. But you know we we want to look for something else then that person is a little bit more not as emotionally raw. So it's reading a lot of these things, not just what they say, but also how they how they're.
Seeing it to be able to understand how fast can I go. So I think the biggest like really good people in that kind of realm understand how much modulation to use sometimes when you're new, it's about trial and error and he's like, you know what? I think I read those cues wrong. I thought it was this and it went a little too.
Fast.
And then they started ghosting me before they freaked out, you know, I mean, it's so it's like.
You you learn, just like in dating, right? It's like, oh, I met this girl. She was great. She said call me and I I waited 10 minutes and I called her and she freaked out. And I was like, ohh.
You know, I I guess I did that wrong or I waited. I waited a week and I called her and she didn't answer. She was so mad that I didn't call was like ohh. So maybe a week is too long and 10 minutes is too fast. So I gotta find somewhere in between there and it's just a process of learning which can be speed up if you have a mentor.
No, it's a great point. And as you're talking and I think this is probably it, it resonates with your army background, but it's like special forces or other kind of army units you you train, you get mentored, you practice, practice, practice maneuvers, etc.
Not because that you expect your next mission to go exactly as you practiced it, but it creates that muscle memory and it, as you say that it reduces that cognitive load so that when you see a new situation, you can decide which parts of your training and experience.
Apply in this case and which ones don't and how to adapt different pieces of what you.
Learned for that specific situation, and I think you're saying the same thing when it comes to whether it's dating or whether it's advisors building client relationships. I think overtime as you get more experienced, you've got the building blocks that you would bring to each.
Particular situation, but you're not putting it into a linear type of code or recipe that says first do a, then do B, then do C then do.
D.
You're going with the flow of each situation to kind of adopt as.
This is Eric.
When you're dealing with principles and you brought up a very good .1 of the things that one of the the exercise of the, the mechanisms that we have in the military is commonly used is when we're dealing with principles and not rules we go through and we want to do continuous learning. That's essentially what we're.
Trying to do.
So there's a a mechanism that's used in the military called AR, and it stands for.
After action review so and I use this in the, I use this in my coaching and I use it in financial services. So when we go out to a sales meeting, we have a briefing. So this is the you know, let's study about the person we're talking to. Let's get an idea and the intent for the expectation is to get them to bring their $1,000,000 portfolio.
Go over to me. So that's that's the outcome we're that's the objective. Then I go.
Into the.
Meeting the meeting is a complete flaw, right? So then afterwards and I think a lot of people don't want to do this. We review what happened, right? So I showed up five minutes late and it's it's accepting full responsibility. So I showed up late. They were upset. I was flustered. I was sweating.
I couldn't find my grounding. Then I went into the pitch I they weren't really engaged, and then I screwed this part up. I screwed that part up and then so next time when I go through it, I recognize, you know what, I have to make sure that I'm never late because it will screw up my whole meat. That's what I.
So if you if you make a mistake or if things didn't go the way that you planned, it's really important to put ego aside and dissect what happened and go through it so that we can maximize the learning so it doesn't happen again. And military does that very, very well. A big part of that is not assigning blame.
Is being able to open up and accept responsibility because that's where we're going to grow the most and utilize that mistake as a learning experience so that we get better and better and better. So we constantly do AR's and that's how you learn in a principle based world, not a rules based world.
No, that's a very important discipline and I don't think it happens enough in practices. And I think the key thing that you've said is it is not about assigning blame. It's not about living in the past. It's not about having regret. It's done. You can't change what happened in that last meeting, but fresh after it, if you sit there and do an objective.
Analysis of what that went what went right, what didn't go right. You can learn from it so that you can adapt to.
Door.
Dating analogy that 10 minutes is too short and 10 days is too long. It allows you to be able to pivot and learn from it so that you've got.
To.
You've got the background so that the next time the next meeting or the next opportunity that you've got, you're prepared to knowing what the best practices that you should bring to bear.
Yeah, absolutely. So there's a a really great book you're you were talking about special forces, but there was a really great book by U.S. Navy Seal called Extreme ownership by talk of welling and what he talks about is after when we do an after action review we if if we don't accept responsibility that we had an ability to change the outcome.
And then analyze that so that I can make a change the next time. If we don't do that, then we'll never change and we won't. We won't become successful. So give you an example.
So if we went in and say, you know what, I I I text that girl 10 minutes after she gave me or I called her 10 minutes after she gave me her phone number and she just blew me off. It's like, well, if we have an external locus of control, meaning it's her fault instead of my fault, then I would say, like, well, that because that girl, she just lied, she said call me and I called her and she it was her problem. So I'm just gonna keep calling girls 10 minutes.
After they give me their phone number and I'm gonna keep repeating that mistake because it's all their problem.
It's not my problem.
But if I'm willing to examine myself and say, what did I do wrong there? Did I? Did I read that cue wrong is like is there?
I should do different and then you start increasing that time and you start realizing you know what, I can make a change. Now if I have the capacity to change my situation. But if you assign blame as somebody else which?
Is.
A human defense mechanism. Well, the reason why I didn't pick up that client is because that client didn't realize how smart I am.
And then you just realize, you know, it's because you were just so offensive and you weren't able to warm them up to you. So if if you assign blame to them.
Then you'll never make a change and you won't improve. But if I say that, what could I have done better in order to become in order to close that client? Because there's something I did wrong.
Well.
And more importantly, rightly or wrongly, the human defense mechanism is typical, as you say. But the only thing that you can control is yourself and what you do next. You can't control, even if that client, if it's the clients fault or whatever it is, you can't change that clients values, preferences, approach, whatever.
Yeah.
You may learn from it to say, OK, you know that type of client.
You know, they're very analytical. They're very hands on. It may not be the right type of client from you. That's also a learning, right, but it requires that objective, no holds barred, self reflection and analysis to say, what did I do right? What did I do wrong and what do I take away from this from this interaction?
I would say that that's probably one of the biggest challenges that I've had as a, as a coach for financial professionals. So when talking to people, a lot of financial professionals will try to go in and assign, have a an extreme external locus of control. So give an example sometimes, like, well, I can't. I can't increase the book of my the sale. You know, I can't increase my book of business like my branch manager.
Wants me to is because ex firm over there spends 10 times as much in marketing.
So I just might as well just give up. There's no way I could beat that. So and I don't understand why my branch wants me to increase my book of business when they refuse to spend as much in marketing as that other firm. Well, if you go under that premise, you will never increase. So you can't change that. You can't change the fact that your firm is or you can argue as much as you want. They probably don't have the budget or want to do that.
Or have the ability. So if you say that it's, it's always the reason why I'm not successful is because of somebody else. Then you will always be stuck.
Where you are instead of saying we don't have that capability to do that, what do we have the capability to do that I have to go and and and change my approach in order to accommodate the fact that we spend 10 times less in marketing than somebody else.
Yeah, I think it's a great point. You, you, you, you play the hand that you're dealt unless you decide you want to get up and go to a different table, right? But.
You play the hand that you're dealt.
Edmund, we're coming to the end of our podcast, so I have a few final rapid fire questions for you that I ask all my guests.
So if you're ready #1 professionally, what is the most important lesson you've learned over the years?
I think the most important lesson I've learned is always have a mentor. Always have a mentor and a senior advisor that you can learn off and that speeds up your learning curves.
I couldn't agree more. I mean, I I'm blessed to have had good mentors throughout my career and they've taught me they they've radically improved and and speed up my development. So I totally agree with you on that.
#2 what is 1 practical tip you would offer listeners keen on applying your insights.
I think this is imperative is continuous.
Personal growth. So I've had objects I had people say look, I can't access a good mentor or I I don't have any mentors. I can't find anybody. You can always find mentors. They just some of them don't have to be physical. So if you go and find published books of, you know, experienced people, you can have those you know, sort of mentors like not official mentors.
And you, they they they can teach you as well. And that goes back to the explain. So go off and have this mic.
Consent of continuous personal improvement, no matter where you are in your in your career, always improve. You can always be better.
Our.
Couldn't agree with you more I that that to me is always something that has driven me, which is that you could always be better. It it. It's not that you're trying for perfection but progress.
I think that that to me, I've never liked the idea word best. I think what does best mean? You're best at what it what time period? I think the aim should be to get better always better because I think all of us, no matter whoever is at the top of the game, can always be better, right? And it's a question of.
What do you learn from each situation? What new skills are you? Are you taking on board and more importantly, applying using your EDI type of framework?
Any parting words of advice for listeners?
Yeah. I think part of it is to continue off on, you know that last point where it think of it like pro athletes, they can always be better like it's it's not about being best or perfect. And even if you are best, it's no guarantee you're gonna be best next year like Tom Brady was the best. But then he's, you know, he can. He can't continue to play forever.
Just like we as advisors and and that talks about the human experience, you could be at the top of your game, you could be the best advisor that's out there in the street. But The thing is you can, like Tom Brady can always be better and he always has.
Right.
The coach, right and and now he can't even play anymore because you know a new kid like Brock Curry. First time he came out, he ended up beating Tom Brady, right. Yeah, that's an example. And so a continuous learning is things like have a mind that always wants to read, always wants to improve, always looking and recognizing that I don't know at all. Like there's more I can learn.
So I think the the best part in words that I have is it comes from another book recommendation, which is a curious mind by Brian. Brian grazer. He's a he's a a producer, but the he's the producer for Ron Howard.
Fascinating book. And he says that they can go into industries they know nothing about. Like they have Apollo 13 for an example. Didn't know anything about space, but they were just curious. Curious enough to ask questions. And when you have that curious mindset, that's the attitude you have when you meet a brand new person, be curious cause they have a life experience that you know nothing about. So be curious. Ask them be genuine.
And really trying to uncover what is it like being you and when Ron Howard and and Brian Grazer do that, they end up making, you know, blockbuster movies as a result of that. So in, in this particular example, it's when you're curious about people and generally want to know about them.
That's how we build on that bankable. So have a curious mind be understand that there's more out there that you don't know and then just read and try to absorb it and try to learn.
And to pick up on that Tom Brady example that you gave, yes, he's not playing football anymore, but he's learning still because now he's going to become a commentator and probably make even more money than he did as a, as a football player. Right. So I think to your point, the just because the door is closed and to be fair.
Tom Brady's the door is closed for him and you know Rafael Nadal just retire for because all of us age.
But that doesn't mean that that's the end of the road. It just means that you have to continue to stay curious and learning and adapt and look for the next Rd. that you're going to take, right?
Absolutely. And you? You're totally right. Like, I saw some videos of Tom Brady and he has got, like, binders and binders that he's studying now to make him become a better commentator. It's that attitude and thirst for continuous learning regardless, even if you switched completely switched careers like I. I'm retired from the industry now. I don't hold any licenses and all my energy is focused in on being a.
Coach because as good as a coach as I am and I can't just leverage, I can't just sit back on my laurels and then recognize, you know, like I got all this experience being a really good coach. The best part of being a coach is diagnosing. It's not about what you know and your experience. It's more about diagnosing what problems people are having because we're we're analyzing that principle the exact same thing is what Tom Brady is doing is that.
You've got to go and it have that energy and have that excitement to go and expand and learn, especially about in a realm that you don't know very much about. He knows a lot about football on the field. He knows very little about football, talking about it on the sidelines. And that's what is exciting.
And see him get to that next level and it's like and that that's the encouragement I wanna have for advisors as well. Is just go in and get your, you know, get your hands or roll up your sleeves study, learn. And that's where the mind gets exciting. It's just like there's a whole world like it's a hill to climb go and go and climb that hill.
And it makes you more relatable to your clients as you're learning new things and being able to relate to them, etcetera.
Absolutely.
Edmond, this has been a great discussion. If listeners want to learn more about you or find your work, where did they go?
The best place to do is find me on LinkedIn. So my last name is a unique spelling is CHIN. Interestingly enough, it's it in. In Chinese it's it's the character for money. So all my ancestors were financial professionals, but it's Edmund, Edmund and reach out on LinkedIn, I'll be happy to connect.
That's awesome, Edmund. Thank you for joining us today and the future Ready advisor.
It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
In this episode of The Future Ready Advisor, I spoke with Edmund Chen, a coach to capital raisers and executives about leveraging military discipline and emotional intelligence in financial advising. Here are my three key takeaways #1.
Mastery through EDI.
Edmund shared the explain demonstrate imitate or EDI framework he honed in the military.
This structured hands on learning approach builds expertise and confidence advisors can use EDI to simplify complex financial concepts for their clients while enhancing their own skill set.
#2 the Taylor Swift effect like Taylor Swift's ability to connect deeply with their fans by expressing relatable emotions, advisors can forge lasting client relationships through empathy and emotional intelligence, making clients feel seen, heard, and understood fosters trust.
And loyalty. What Edmund calls a bankable bond that strengthens practices and Shields them from AI competitors.
#3 the power of reflection, continuous growth and adaptability are essential tools like after action reviews or Aars help advisors analyze their interactions and learn from every experience. This discipline ensures they can navigate the principle driven world of advising.
With confidence and the.
Ability.
As I said in the episode Discipline, Connection and learning are the cornerstones of a future ready advisor. By combining structure with heart, advisors can build resilient practices that thrive in an ever changing world. Thank you for listening to the Future Ready advisor.
You've been listening to the future Ready advisor. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify, or share your feedback wherever you listen. Be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. For more insights on how to keep your practice future ready, visit.
Www.samsonbrajan.com you can find the link on the show notes. There you'll find free tools and resources along with exclusive bonus content from these podcasts.
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to sharing more strategies with you in the next episode.