Amber Stitt [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to The Amber Stitt Show. I am your host, Amber Stitt. And today we welcome a legend in the financial services arena, Jamie Hopkins. Welcome, Jamie.
Jamie Hopkins [00:00:10]:
Thanks for having me on, Amber. Yeah, I guess a legend, that's an interesting one, but...
Amber Stitt [00:00:17]:
Well let's just say you're a friend of mine and a true advocate for those in financial services and different variations. We'll dive into that today. So I appreciate you being here. I know that you're truly a busy person. You've had some changes, I think, most recently in the last few months, and we'll talk about that, and we'd like to let people know a little bit about you. And in one of your books that I've read, "Rewirement", you share a little bit about growing up. Do you mind if we start there? Because I would like to take people through the journey of Jamie, because I think it's important to see some of the different places that you've been to lead you to where you are now, which has been a big change, I think, for you. And I'd like to tie it all together because on the podcast, I want people to find some inspiration, motivation.
Amber Stitt [00:01:03]:
I think you could be that for the audience. So let's go back in time. Are you good with that?
Jamie Hopkins [00:01:08]:
I love back to the future movies. So let's travel back in time.
Amber Stitt [00:01:13]:
So I'm assuming that you got your JD and now LLM. Is that the designation for the...
Jamie Hopkins [00:01:20]:
Yeah.
Amber Stitt [00:01:20]:
Okay.
Jamie Hopkins [00:01:21]:
That's correct.
Amber Stitt [00:01:21]:
So prior to that, I'm assuming you were always a learner, but I'm just judging based upon what I've read about you. Let's go back, and I want to find the origin story behind why this was so important for you to participate in. Almost a different pathway, I think, into financial services. Is that okay?
Jamie Hopkins [00:01:37]:
Yeah, that's a great starting point. And I think I have 13 or 14 degrees and designations right now, so it's a lot. And whether I get any more, I don't know. I do believe in lifelong and career learning, but I think I'm about capped out on letters and degrees. I'm a PhD dropout, too, so that's good. I gave up on that one. But going back in time. Yeah.
Jamie Hopkins [00:02:02]:
Look, I came from a household where neither one of my parents graduated college, but they both thought that school was important. And I say more so for my mom, just because I think she saw that as an opportunity for us to develop and get jobs that didn't kind of exist within the world that my family grew up in, which was mostly the construction world. Nothing wrong with that. My mom still runs the construction business still today. It's what gave us all this opportunity. But my dad passed away when I was eight on a site, on a work site accident. And my mom had to kind of pull the family together and keep leading. And she's my hero because of that.
Jamie Hopkins [00:02:39]:
But she really prioritized the education part and sports. She wanted us to be well rounded, but she really pushed into school. And even though my mom says she doesn't remember this being true, I found, like, that standardized test report. I have a photo of it. If I write another book, it's going in there. But I wasn't always good at school. I was like a C and B student for most of my life. And I actually ranked, I think it was the bottom 6% of people in verbal, spelling, and all those things and the national test score.
Jamie Hopkins [00:03:13]:
So I was not somebody who is just from birth in the top tier of testing. I was very average in most of my test scores were in the bottom 6%, which I was like, "Mom, you didn't tell me I just couldn't spell at all." And she's like, "I don't think it was that bad." I was like, "I have the report." She's like, "Yeah, that looks pretty bad."
Amber Stitt [00:03:32]:
She was your biggest fan from the beginning. She wasn't going to let you see that. "You're going to be great."
Jamie Hopkins [00:03:37]:
Yeah. So I went along that path and I kind of had this experience with school where I'd say by the time I got through, like fifth grade, then eigth grade, then high school, I had gone from probably in the bottom 25% of each of my classes to that top 50%, or top 25%. And that essentially kept occurring all the way until law school. Even in law school, my first semester of one l year, I struggled. It was hard for me. By the time I graduated my 3L year, I think my last semester grades, I was in the top 5% for that semester. So I had continued to get better along every time. By the time I got to LLM and MBA, I was pretty good at school then.
Jamie Hopkins [00:04:22]:
But all the way through law school, I always felt like I was starting at the back end of the group, behind everybody, trying to catch up. And so a little bit of that's probably my personality, but, yeah, it's helped me a lot. It's taught me how to think and be more of a critical thinker, I think is a big part of the education world that I've been part of.
Amber Stitt [00:04:41]:
Yeah. And I appreciate you saying that. I don't know that I've ever shared this with you, but you know, I have family in Omaha. You and I both have friends and business partners in different variations where we've met through I think a NAIFA event in DC originally, but I did not want to be in the industry because I similarly had poor grades in a lot of the classes but more of the English wordsmithing, like maybe I could have been okay as an attorney, I don't know, but I didn't test well, but mathematics, all of that. I thought I can't be a business owner like my father and be in the industry and I would hide the commentary on that because I thought, "Gosh, clients are not going to want to work with me if not my accounting grades and I'm in financial services." I know that you've worked alongside a lot of successful people and you are yourself, but very high net worth people, they're not always the ones with the best grades. I found and a lot of them could have been fired at one point, difficult to work with. So I'm not saying fail in school, you'll be okay, but there can be other ways around that to find your passion. So I appreciate you sharing that because I felt like that was the main reason why I took until my thirties to get into the business.
Jamie Hopkins [00:05:47]:
Yeah, I think one of the things you brought up there is you don't have to be great at every domain or discipline in school to be really great as a professional, or person. So some of the business owners and leaders that we know, I mean they have really high emotional intelligence which is hard to test in school. It's actually not impossible to kind of gauge. One of the ways that a lot of places do that, even though they don't state it, is that they hire athletes that played on teams. It shows this ability that you can operate within a team whether you're a captain, or a leader. It shows that you're able to gather those around you and actually relate to them. It's not a perfect measure, just like school's not a perfect measure, but it's one of the things that I found is what you'll see is like team leaders tend to grow up to be managers and leaders of companies. There's really high correlations between all those things.
Jamie Hopkins [00:06:35]:
So again, it's not perfect but you look at a lot of the...I'll pick on Ron because we both know him, but Ron Carson, right? Like football player, athlete, yogi shaman. Yeah, yogi shaman. You know, Ron will say too Ron's actually really smart. He remembers everything. But Ron wasn't always the best at every aspect of...(Oh, he's going to see this.) Yeah, I know, but he said it before, too. But he is really smart. He's an interesting person like that.
Jamie Hopkins [00:07:02]:
He does remember everything. He reads a lot, so he's adopted a lot of really good learning behaviors. But he doesn't pretend to be the world's smartest person in every conversation either. And I appreciate that about him.
Amber Stitt [00:07:14]:
Yeah, I think as we study leadership, you don't want to be the smartest one in the room. Sometimes we might think we are, but we want to surround ourselves with people that we can learn from. And I know that's key, especially with how you like to innovate. Especially, I know Ron does, too. And I know there's a little backstory on how you guys met because you're trying to create new opportunities, new ways to advocate for financial services and beyond. Do you think that the reason for your alphabet soup, through a lot of those designations, even into American College, that you've had over the years, was there a part of it from your history of maybe not having the best grades that you wanted more and to continue learning more, or you just found interest and it wasn't about where you came from?
Jamie Hopkins [00:07:53]:
No, it's definitely a little bit of both. It's about where I came from and a little bit of it to me was I viewed academics and continued learning and designations as a way to remove some of maybe my hurdles into success, being that I didn't come from a family that had business connections and ties to networks that I could leverage very well for this career. So part of it was I need to over steer into some other areas, meaning get as much education and learn as much as I can about this industry and profession. So that if I'm in a room and I'm young entering into this, and I can't rely on my family's connections in the room, I've got to rely on my knowledge and ability. Same thing I did with writing. I way over steered into the writing area because I was like, "I'm going to generate knowledge.
Jamie Hopkins [00:08:43]:
I'm going to write a lot." Both of those things. I could do that, I guess you could just choose to do them in a sense, and nobody could stop you from doing it. I'm going to go home on Saturday and write articles, and I just remember doing that a lot. Early in my career. I'd be watching football, or whatever on Saturday, sitting in my apartment, and I'd write articles, and that's what I was spending my time doing. So I think by the time I was, like, 28, I had roughly 28 peer reviewed publications.
Amber Stitt [00:09:11]:
Wow.
Jamie Hopkins [00:09:12]:
And so from like an academic standpoint, I was tremendously productive, but I was just using my spare time to write that, because I looked at the other ways to advance inside the academic world, and it was hard because I couldn't teach an extra ten classes. You couldn't do that, but I could write ten more articles than everybody else. I couldn't have 20 years of teaching experience overnight, but I could write more than the other people. So I kind of picked areas. Same thing. Like, I could take more classes education wise, and where other people would stop. And so both of those were things that I could do more of under my own control. You can't just get more experience overnight, but I could do those things overnight.
Amber Stitt [00:09:51]:
I found myself going down that path, too. And that's how I eventually knew of you, was taking courses at American College online. And who's this guy, Jamie? He's an attorney. He's doing this, or that. And then I see you out and about through NAIFA and a connection Sue through WIFS. That's where I approached you and said, "Hey, I know you." And you're like, "Okay." But then we happen to have friends through business, and then here we are.
Amber Stitt [00:10:11]:
So, I suppose part of the alphabet soup for me was, yes, you want to accelerate as much knowledge as possible. It's not so much about how many years you've been in the business. I think it's about how much knowledge and then how many meetings and interactions with people that can pave the way for helping others. And I know you're a big advocate for that.
Jamie Hopkins [00:10:30]:
I am. Well, good job on getting yours, too. That's awesome. Right?
Amber Stitt [00:10:35]:
Well, you have a few more than I do. I think I'm done getting my designations for a little while.
Jamie Hopkins [00:10:40]:
What's the last one you got, Amber?
Amber Stitt [00:10:42]:
CLU®. I did the ChFC®. Then, CLU®, did you help develop the RICP®, is that correct?
Jamie Hopkins [00:10:48]:
I did, yes.
Amber Stitt [00:10:49]:
Was there something different about the approach that you wanted to develop that retirement mindset? Is there something that you just needed to get out there for others?
Jamie Hopkins [00:10:58]:
Yeah. The RICP® was a blast to develop. CLU® and ChFC® have been around for decades. I mean, CLU® has been around 90 years or whatever, and it's been around a long time, but RICP®, it's the reason I ended up joining the American College and taking a job there as a professor was they were looking to build that out and they were looking for a young attorney really to come in and help because there's a lot of ERISA pension law attached to it. So distribution roles, and that's kind of part of the skill set they were looking for, was to come in and supplement David Littell at the time, who was leading up the program. So I got to come in and do that and it was really exciting. I mean, part of it's getting lucky, but I think I was also paying attention to what's going on in the world, which was, you see all these tv ads saying, "Come do your retirement income planning here," but nobody was really teaching on it.
Jamie Hopkins [00:11:49]:
I mean, this kind of surprises people, right? But CFP® didn't include retirement income planning back in 2012. I think it's like '17 or '18 somewhere right around there that the CFP® board introduced retirement income planning into the curriculum. So we had about a five or six year head start even on CFP® education, on retirement income planning, there wasn't much else out there in the world. There were a couple other programs, but they hadn't really caught traction. And so we built what was really, at the time, the first kind of digital version of a retirement income program. There was some stuff taught in person and CE credits and those types of things, but one of the approaches that we took that was very different from anything else out there is we really built the whole thing with academics and practitioners together in an interview style. So we didn't write a textbook.
Jamie Hopkins [00:12:37]:
We wrote more of like a really detailed outline and interviewed people. And the whole thing was built off this interview format. So it wasn't just David and I lecturing for like 40 hours at a time. It was interacting with experts and getting that kind of practitioner feel into the program, which I think was super important because there just wasn't enough academic work out there on retirement income planning either. So we actually had to go to who was doing the work. So we went to the Ambers of the world and said, "What do you know about how insurance relates with retirement income planning?" And we pulled that into the program.
Amber Stitt [00:13:09]:
I'm thinking back, and you've always tried to innovate this very traditional industry that we're in. There's some good, but there's maybe some things that need to be modernized. But we come into this industry, the we, whoever it may be, that might take a job, maybe at a broker dealer, maybe at an institution of some sort, but you get kind of thrown in and go get your insurance license and go get your series, whatever it might be, and then you're kind of in this mode of, "I don't even know what that really is, but I guess I have to go do this and then I need to start working." And you don't even really know, I think sometimes, what you love until you're hired on this job, and then there's these credentials. So I remember those videos being able to be helpful. And it probably feels awkward to even film those.
Amber Stitt [00:13:50]:
Like, okay, and you're at the desk, but there's computer. Was it Sophia? There was a female that was in some of those.
Jamie Hopkins [00:13:56]:
Sophia Duffy was in some, too.
Amber Stitt [00:13:58]:
Yeah, that helps play it out. It's like playing pretend. Like this is what that interview would be like. This is how it really goes down. I think those are helpful to give that visual. And you and I grew up probably in an era where we're reading a lot, but they didn't have more digital learning opportunities for people. And we don't always glean everything from reading a textbook. And I think you are probably a part of that modern approach, and it's amazing.
Amber Stitt [00:14:21]:
Yes. There's other ways to learn and receive information. So I know you've been instrumental in that, and I know that retirement income planning has been a big part, like you have mentioned. What was so important about that, to modernize and change the viewpoint of how it's been done from your perspective?
Jamie Hopkins [00:14:37]:
Well, we did have to modernize. And I think part of it, though, was just coming from a recent graduate of some programs. Right? Like, I'd just been through law school. I'd studied for the bar exam. I'd actually taken two different bar exams, did the prep courses for that, had started an MBA program at Villanova. I guess I was done by the time I took the job. So I had my MBA. And you're kind of looking at what all these different programs are starting to do.
Jamie Hopkins [00:15:04]:
Now none of those were super modern either, but they had elements of it in different classes. And you were starting to look at that and saying like, "This is what I really enjoyed about this process." I took the CFP®, I took the CLU®, ChFC®. And they felt very antiquated to me in the sense of the learning style. Now, the interesting part, though, about the American College is it had a really big jump in the sense that people were already familiar with this distance self-study approach. So that part was really good, that framework existed, but the next part was, well, it can't just be textbooks. We have to develop this online learning.
Jamie Hopkins [00:15:41]:
And we did have courses there, but the instructors weren't really that engaging. They were long lectures. They weren't really dynamic. And so we started to, over time, shorten them and chunk them down. But even that part we probably got wrong at the beginning. We started doing, instead of an hour lecture, we were doing 25 minute ones, and we learned that that was way too long. So then you had to get them kind of down under this ten minute slot. And I think today where that exactly...
Jamie Hopkins [00:16:09]:
is it a bunch of two minute videos? Is it seven, or eight minute videos? To be honest, I actually think that seven eight minute videos can be really good from an instructor standpoint. I think sometimes in the short form videos that, I do them almost every week for five years now, and you do lose some of the nuance in it. I've read a whole article about the problem with short form content today is that we skip over a lot of the background and the history, just give us a headline, and there's some risk with that from an education standpoint, as we don't really know the "Why" behind something. TikTok is a great example of that. It's entertaining, but I don't know that you get the full picture. So there's some happy middle ground in there somewhere, but there's stuff we never got to that I really wanted to see. Like I mentioned that type of stuff like YouTube and more interactive based content, which we had started down the path. I don't know if it's in there, or not now, but we really wanted more of like a software you could interact with from a retirement income standpoint and walk through case studies.
Jamie Hopkins [00:17:14]:
I know that we had built some of that out in WMCP®, the wealth management certified professional program there. I was part of building some of that content, but that aspect of teaching still isn't there. This really dynamic approach to it. The other interesting thing about professional designations is, is there a better way to incorporate the pro bono work into programs? That's something that I really found interesting. I don't know of anything that's actually kind of married that together, but we used to talk about like, "Well, how do we do case studies at the end?" And then it was like, "Well, why don't we just have people actually interact in a pro bono manner?" But how do you manage that is super challenging, some of the risks that come along with it. But when you really take a step back and think there's almost no better way to train people than to put them into pro bono situations as part of the education, and that's part of their training path.
Amber Stitt [00:18:07]:
The CFP® curriculum, that's great to hear all these case studies or to test for the case studies that show up on the screen, but some of it is not legit. How you would interact with somebody in real life. It's, "So are they trying to help you fail?" I don't know. We will leave that alone. We'll just leave the CFP® alone.
Jamie Hopkins [00:18:25]:
But that's test questions. I always tell people that you can't answer test questions, how you would actually react in real life.
Amber Stitt [00:18:31]:
That is so bizarre.
Jamie Hopkins [00:18:32]:
Yeah. The cases would help. Oh, yeah. You have to answer this really weird...like, I remember taking the CFP® exam and reading one, and I think the answer was put them in short term bonds based off the fact they wanted liquidity and these other, you know, it was like short term municipal bonds because they didn't want to pay taxes, but they wanted liquidity. But you looked at it, you're like, but your job is to tell them that that's a bad strategy here. And as a professional, you're like, you should not save for college via short term municipal bonds.
Jamie Hopkins [00:19:05]:
What we should do is use a 529 or anything else besides the strategy. Right. But the test question, it's in a vacuum. So, yeah, it's hard.
Amber Stitt [00:19:16]:
I want to touch on something. I did some research about Villanova through Uncle Google, and it says that it's hard to get into that, in general. So I think there's a story to tell. There's a way to kind of keep on trucking and persevere. If that's all true. B's and C's got you into Villanova, correct? Yeah.
Jamie Hopkins [00:19:32]:
I mean, I was like, a 3.0 college graduate. Like, I was not a 4.0, but, I mean, I was captain of a division one team. I had won some awards via that, too. I played music. So, again, I was not kind of, like, singularly focused. I think if anybody looked at just my GPA, I wasn't going anywhere. Davidson is a hard school, though, too. But even, like, going to Davidson, it was a similar thing.
Jamie Hopkins [00:19:32]:
On GPA alone, I wouldn't get into either one of those places. I did test okay, like, LSATs, I studied a lot for, and I did fine on those. I definitely outpaced on that versus my GPA. I'm a decent test taker when it comes down to it. I don't suffer from some of the things that others do. I've got a really good internal clock, so like, time management, for me works pretty well. And then I don't get stressed about exams.
Jamie Hopkins [00:20:25]:
Like, a lot of people that are really smart, prepared, have a lot of anxiety.
Amber Stitt [00:20:29]:
That just can ruin it walking into that weird room where you can't have gum or anything in there, and then you're just shutting down. This is awkward.
Jamie Hopkins [00:20:36]:
Yeah, that stuff doesn't really bother me, so I don't know why. Well, I used to tell people, I think it was because I was in a band and I played on stages and you never knew how the stage was going to be set up, what wasn't going to work, what you were going to plug into. Audio stuff would fall apart, lights would be messed up. And so you kind of got this like, "Hey, you're going to go perform and you're not going to have a controlled environment. It will be messed up every time you go."
Amber Stitt [00:21:05]:
Well, let's kind of hang out there. That's actually a good segue because you do a lot. So you have, I think, three books with many, many articles. You now have a podcast. Again.
Jamie Hopkins [00:21:16]:
Yeah, again.
Amber Stitt [00:21:18]:
And you are highly sought after for speaking and showing up at conferences. So let's go into this transition that you've had. You had about five years with Carson and then a switch as of last year. And I think from what you just said, even about education, but interacting in other ways that I think collectively pulling in your community, being active, being an advocate, having some nonprofit, I think that just can build out this well rounded universe that you can kind of build out. You talk about time management, so I assume that's why you were able to travel and do so much, but now you've changed that tune. So let's talk about the last five years and then the push to get you into a different life as you know it for business. And you can kind of take that big monster commentary of all the things and dissect it. Share with the audience whatever you want to.
Jamie Hopkins [00:22:09]:
Okay. Share whatever I want. That's always a dangerous proposition. So I got to spend five years at Carson, and it was a wonderful opportunity. I love Ron, you know, Aaron Shaven, Terry Shepard. The leadership team there is fantastic. There's a million people there I love. And I probably would have liked to have stayed there longer, to be honest. I've said that in some media interviews.
Jamie Hopkins [00:22:32]:
I didn't really feel my time was up there and I wasn't looking for something else. And kind of an opportunity came around near my house. And Bryn Mawr Trust is in my area, and I care a lot more about my local community than I used to as my kids have gone to school and are in public school. And my wife works here and she's with a local firm and the local community kind of, I don't know, I'd say grew upon me and this became home. I live outside Philly, but I wasn't born here, but I went to Villanova and I've been here about 17 years here. And so being part of this community just started to grow and having the opportunity to come in and lead a team here was really appealing and gets me off the road a lot, which was important. But I think sometimes people hear that and they're like, "Oh, the only reason he made the switch was to get off the road." It's like, no, but that's a factor and it was a big factor for me.
Jamie Hopkins [00:23:26]:
I've got three young kids and I was gone a lot and Omaha is really not close to Philadelphia, so it's hard to get there. It takes two flights and travel got bad after Covid, too, if you have connecting flights. So you wrap all that together with the opportunity here and it was the right decision for me and it's been a short period of time, but I love the team at Carson and I'm excited to be here with the new team and I get to have a different challenge and flex some different muscles in a different way. When I joined Carson, I think we were about 6 billion. When I left, I think maybe we're about 32 billion under management in about five years. So we like 5X'ed. We went through a private equity swap out, we went through new Burt White coming in and having a new vision there from him. I think the team grew from like 65 people to 350 people and we got to build really fun stuff and the future is bright for that firm and
Jamie Hopkins [00:24:23]:
I mean they're one of the few aggregator style RIA's that have created an integrated platform. So they're super well positioned. And I get to step over here, which is a very different offering. It's a trust company and bank offering kind of historically at its core and I would say an RIA that's more at its infancy stages. Well, that's not true from a time perspective, but from a platform and integrated offering it is, because WSFS, which is our parent company, a publicly traded bank, acquired Bryn Mawr Trust about a year and a half ago. So pulling all of those services together into an offering is really part of my role here to figure out what that vision is, build it and pull it together. The team here is super talented. It's a lot of JD's and really smart people, CFP® professionals.
Jamie Hopkins [00:25:13]:
And so I was impressed by the depth of the talent here, which isn't true for a lot of firms out there. I mean, I think talent is one of the most important things in this industry right now going into the future. So that's the opportunity here, is to pull that together in our region and really be that leading wealth firm. So I got to step in SVP of Private Wealth here at Bryn Mawr Trust. The official title is CEO of the RIA. So I got to step in and lead that team.
Amber Stitt [00:25:40]:
Oh, that's the other title. That's the other one.
Jamie Hopkins [00:25:43]:
Yeah. There's another one. Yeah. And so those were important things to me, and it's been great so far. Art, who kind of helped recruit me in, I really respect. He's got a ton of industry knowledge, and the CEO of WSFS is a great leader, Roger, he grew up with the firm and has really led the firm well over the last five years.
Jamie Hopkins [00:26:02]:
So it's exciting to see that. I'll hit on a couple other things. I know I kind of rambled there for a bit, but I talked about talent, next gen talent, super important. So I'm still president of FinServ Foundation, which is a nonprofit. I launched that when I was at Carson. It is separate, but Ron and Aaron Schaben and others have been really big supporters of it. But we've got an amazing board. Kate Healy, who is really an industry legend, joined our board recently, and Danny Harvey, who runs the Prairie View program.
Jamie Hopkins [00:26:32]:
So we've got a strong team there. We're nearing 500 students across about 35 different universities in there, and it's a powerful program. So we do six months of mentorship, two years of coaching, and then we take all those students out to an industry conference where we cover all the costs to it. And that's kind of the two year program. Our thought there is this exposure to the industry via the conference, coaching, and mentorship will increase the number of these young professionals that stay in the business. And so we'll track that at year five against that five year industry mark, which is just atrocious. And right now it looks really promising.
Jamie Hopkins [00:27:11]:
The students in there are just, I mean, they really kind of make you feel like anything's possible. They come in with such enthusiasm and gusto about this profession and making an impact that it's really inspiring. And so I love being part of that aspect of this industry, too.
Amber Stitt [00:27:28]:
Well, I appreciate you sharing that, because we typically hear no one's coming into the business or the industry. And some of us professionals grow up with our kids going, "I don't ever want to do that job. It looks horrendous." And it's like, "No, it's really great and you should do it, too." "No, I don't want to do that, mom and dad." I think it's so important. Back to what I was saying about we get kind of thrown into these jobs and take this test, and if you can have the mentorship and have friends bring you along for the ride and show you a conference and let you see all the different aspects of it. There's so many ways to be in this business now, and if you're providing a solution, you could be a consultant.
Amber Stitt [00:28:01]:
You could have one or two or pick a designation that applies. There's so many opportunities, and I know that you see that, and that's why you've always been trying to innovate, modernize and bring more to the table. So it's pretty exciting. You talk about talent and on the podcast, Jamie, the reason you are important for me to have, just as a friend, but also because I think you've been true to your talents, and that's my step one, is focusing on talents. You've kept that foundation throughout all of the work that you've done. But I also want people to know that you might not ultimately know in ten years out, I will be here. You might put some ten year goals out on paper, but different pathways are going to pop up. But I think you've stayed true to those talents, would you agree? Learning, market research, developing, and people have sought you out for that.
Amber Stitt [00:28:47]:
I want people to let their talents shine and not downplay them. I think we all can be a little guilty of that. But if people are coming to you for certain things and you haven't made that part of your potential solution for people, that could be your other business opportunity. Kind of listen to what people are finding in your talents, that could be your next path for success.
Jamie Hopkins [00:29:05]:
I think the focusing on your talents and strengths is really important, and I'll give a couple of pieces of advice. I guess it's always useful on shows. So one of the first ones is you're going to fail a lot, and that's okay and give yourself some grace with that. I fail all the time at things, and I am not always the best leader. I'm not always the best listener. There are things that I wish I would have listened better in the past or reacted to things in a more effective way. Now, it doesn't mean that I didn't try to at the time. It's just I still wish I had been better for people at different points.
Jamie Hopkins [00:29:41]:
And I can learn from those and try to evolve over time as I move into different opportunities. And that's kind of the goal from when you fail at stuff. I do always tell people, I'd rather learn from other people's failures, but I'll try to learn from mine, too. I tell people, focus on their strengths. Not everybody agrees with this. There are others that say you need to shore up weaknesses and pay attention to those. I'm more in the line of focus on your strengths. And I think you get really good at your strengths, and then you outsource your weaknesses to other people.
Jamie Hopkins [00:30:12]:
And so if you're not good at something, surround yourself with that talent that is good at the things you're not good at. If you have weaknesses or issues that are like, I don't know, there's kind of, like from Star Wars, right, the Death Star. And you have, like, one button that can blow up the whole system.
Amber Stitt [00:30:29]:
You need to know about that. Pay attention to that blind spot.
Jamie Hopkins [00:30:32]:
Yeah, but now, look, they since fixed that in the story, right. They put it in on purpose as a weakness. Right? The rebels did. So it is fixed now. It was there because the rebels created a weakness. But that being said, those you have to be wary of. So if you have a blind spot or an issue that could cause your whole career to dissolve, you need to deal with that. But otherwise, I say focus on your strengths.
Jamie Hopkins [00:30:55]:
I use the football analogy all the time on this one. It's in the "Find Your Freedom" book, I think, too, which is about Tom Brady. Most people know who Tom Brady is, so I use him. Tom Brady didn't go to the offseason and say, "Hey, I'm going to spend the whole season learning how to tackle better, because I'm one of the worst tacklers in the NFL." It provided no value for him to get twice as good at tackling. Right? He threw the football. When he got to the offseason, he practiced throwing the football because the better he was at that, the less likelihood it was that he would ever have to tackle anybody.
Jamie Hopkins [00:31:27]:
And at the end of his career, he just kind of, like, got out of the way. He didn't even bother that he had ten other guys on the team that.
Amber Stitt [00:31:33]:
Were trying to stress out about that.
Jamie Hopkins [00:31:35]:
Yeah. So surround yourself with a good defense, and they did the tackling, not him. Right? He didn't have to play special teams because he had better people around to do that. And so that's really how I kind of look at developing your own talents, steering to the things you're good at. Figure those out and then build your brand around it, too. That's another important thing is align your talent and what you do to your brand, which has been a challenge for me. It did divulge a little bit, I guess is the right word.
Jamie Hopkins [00:31:59]:
Whereas I built a brand around the talents I had at one point, but then what I really started to do changed from that. So kind of to your point is my brand got built around retirement planning and people kind of knew me as that person. But for the better part of the last five years, I've really been more a builder of offerings. I've launched two joint ventures. I've built a whole marketing organization with Bain Capital and BCG and now I'm CEO of an RIA. I've launched a nonprofit, I've really spent my time in that world, but my brand was still very connected to that first version of me, which was, "Hey, this guy teaches retirement income." And that's where my brand was. So it's been hard to rebuild a brand.
Jamie Hopkins [00:32:43]:
I don't think it's been detrimental to me, but in some cases it could be for others.
Amber Stitt [00:32:48]:
Well, I think there's a constant. People trust where you've been from an education, they've seen you in action, but there's a loyalty there. I mean, people know they can go to you for solid advice. Even though you say maybe you're not always the best leader, I think you're pretty good at working with people, very kind hearted and always looking to provide the best for people, really trying to find your core values in your brand. Even if you're shifting your brand a little bit along the way, that can always help out. As we wrap up the episode, do you have any advice for people that are maybe pondering a change? Is there like a way to avoid the risk? Always go towards the risk? Is there any Jamie advice, if you're just maybe dabbling on the new venture, what would you say to them? Since you've had to make some hard decisions and you're still obviously pretty close to that previous firm, how do you know when it's time? Any advice there? It's a tricky one.
Jamie Hopkins [00:33:35]:
Yeah, I mean look, there is never any perfect time to make change. You could always come up with a reason not to make a change, not to do something. And so I tend to tell people, if you feel it, that you're interested in making a change, then make the change. You could always come up 5-10 reasons why not to do it. And that could be anything. It could just be at work, like you don't want to change the comp structure, the reward system, or you don't want to change 401K providers. You can go on and on and on for all these reasons you don't want to change. But one of the interesting things is you can look at change management as how to go through some of these things.
Jamie Hopkins [00:34:11]:
So there's nomenclature, things like ADKAR®, which is like, you start with awareness, just like, do I need the change? And then the knowledge and then desire to do it. And you can kind of work through that. I think a lot more decisions in life can be approached through a change management framework. I've even started to talk about that with retirement planning, is that we don't treat it like a change management project for individuals, but really, it's probably one of the most difficult changes we go through. We probably should treat it just like a change management project. And then an interesting thing that I learned from Burt White was he pulled it from a study somewhere out there. But companies that reallocate basically their budget each year the most are the fastest growing firms. And so it's a really interesting thing.
Jamie Hopkins [00:34:59]:
So basically, companies that are willing to adapt and change their budget the most each year actually grow faster than their peers. And it's a really interesting thing because it kind of bucks the like, "if you're doing something right, keep doing it." It's really this. You do have to be constantly adapting and changing, and if you're afraid to do that, you will fall behind. It doesn't mean you throw everything out, but constantly be testing new things and be open to that change, because there's not a perfect time to ever pull the trigger and make that big leap. If it's going independent, if it's starting your own firm, there's never going to be a perfect time for that. So if you feel ready for it, you've got the desire, take that leap.
Amber Stitt [00:35:40]:
I like that, change management. It's a necessary thing. And as we apply things in business, we can always bring them into the home, too, and just make sure everything's moving smoothly as a team and a partnership. So I hope we can have you back soon. There's more to uncover in 2024 for you. So I really appreciate everything you've shared about your backstory, and I'm excited for you to see what the next path could be, or pathways could be. So I really appreciate it,
Amber Stitt [00:36:07]:
Jamie, thank you for being here.
Jamie Hopkins [00:36:08]:
Thank you for having me on, Amber, and thanks for sharing all these stories of me and other guests out there at the industry. It's powerful to give people a platform. So thank you for doing that for so many.
Amber Stitt [00:36:18]:
Thank you. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of The Amber Stitt Show. For more information about the podcast, books, articles, and more, please visit me at: www.AmberStitt.com. Until next week, enjoy your journey at home, and at work. Thank you for listening!