How to Build a Legacy with a Family First Mindset with Michael Hyatt – Ep 052

Derek Gregoire: Welcome, everyone, to another Retirement Roadmap edition here. I’m Derek Gregoire, joined by Matthew Peck. We are delighted to have and excited to talk with Michael Hyatt, who is the Founder and Chairman of Full Focus. And we’ll get into his background in a little bit but he’s worked in our community, in our financial community quite a bit. He’s very well known. He’s impacted so many friends of ours as well as ourselves over the years. So, welcome, Michael, to the podcast.

Michael Hyatt: Thanks so much, Derek. Good to be with you both.

Derek Gregoire: Awesome. So, for those of you who don’t know Michael, he has scaled multiple companies over the years, including a $250 million publishing company with 700 plus employees. Under his leadership, he’s built Full Focus, which has been featured in the Inc 5000 list of Fastest Growing Companies in America and Inc’s Best Workplaces list, been the author of several New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today best-selling books including Your Best Year Ever, Free to Focus, Win at Work and Succeed at Life, and Mind Your Mindset. More importantly, he’s married for over 45 years to his wife, Gail, who we’ve had the chance to meet, as well as five daughters and ten grandchildren. So, life is not quiet for you these days.

Michael Hyatt: I kept thinking when we became empty-nesters that everything would just kind of quiet down and be easy but all of my grandkids live within five minutes.

Derek Gregoire: Oh, my gosh.

Michael Hyatt: And all my kids live in the same town so we’re like 20, 30 minutes apart. So, somebody is over here all the time. Our lives have never been busier or richer, frankly.

Derek Gregoire: In a good way, right?

Michael Hyatt: That’s right.

Derek Gregoire: So, for so many clients of ours and folks that we deal with on a regular basis, I think I’ve heard recently you’re talking to a mutual friend of ours, you recently are in the process of retiring or kind of passing the torch. Is that correct?

Michael Hyatt: Well, I wouldn’t say retiring because that’s the R-word. That’s not my vocabulary. But no, I believe in definitely slowing down but I want to continue to get focused on the things or be focused on the things where I can add value. So, I did make my daughter, Megan, the CEO of our company three years ago. So, she’s running the day-to-day. So, in essence, I’m kind of retired. I’m taking a backseat to her leadership. And don’t tell her this, but it gives me the opportunity to do all the fun stuff.

Matthew Peck: Yeah.

Derek Gregoire: Exactly.

Matthew Peck: Was that difficult for you, Mike, to kind of hand the reins over? Was it just timed? Did it kind of, I guess, how did you eventually make that decision to retire? Well, not to retire, but to hand the reins over in leadership? And thanks.

Michael Hyatt: Yeah, it’s a great question. And I’ve done a lot of personal coaching with business owners who have gone through a similar transition. And I’ve gone through transitions like that in the past, like back when I was running Thomas Nelson Publishers, which was a publicly held company back in the early 2000. I was a CEO in that company. But my predecessor, who had been the CEO literally for 50 years, it was a very, very difficult transition for him. And part of it was that he didn’t have Act Two planned out. In other words, he didn’t know what he was going to do after he retired. And so, all of a sudden, it felt like a giant loss and then he spent the next two years after I was made the CEO and tried to unseat me because he wanted his old job back. But we’re publicly held. The board had voted. The shareholders had voted. It was a done deal.

So, I saw that kind of a botched transition, something that could have been done really well but here is the key. He didn’t have a vision for his future. And I think this is true for me too. I didn’t want a botched transition to my daughter, but that meant I had to have a clear picture of what I was going to do in Act Two or I was going to be kind of grabby to hang on to everything I’d had before. And I didn’t want to get in the weeds and gunk up the works for her. I wanted to give her the freedom to leave the company. So, I had to get clear on a bigger, better future for myself.

Derek Gregoire: Awesome. I think, for those listening and watching, our community that we’ve been involved in, myself, Matt, Keith here at SHP and then so many other amazing financial planning firms, and I would say, Michael, the group that we’re involved with, Triad, it’s a different group in the fact that doesn’t matter, we check our egos at the door, and these folks are like-minded individuals where it’s not about running a business, making a profit, paying out shareholders. It’s more about growing as individuals and leading our companies in a way that can impact others, impact our clients, but leave a long-lasting legacy. And I think you’ve done for those of you who don’t know, Michael, you’ve coached a lot of we haven’t done one-on-one coaching per se but we’ve benefited so much from all the different group coaching.

You’ve done so much coaching to the entire community on just basically being a better leader, how to build proper scheduling with both family and business, how to set boundaries. And I think that’s impacted a lot of the folks listening. So, I think if you can share how that works or like your mindset behind that when you’re consulting companies like ours, in essence, what you’re doing is you’re impacting a lot of the folks that are listening to this podcast because they’re clients of ours. They’re folks looking to work with firms like us. So, maybe dive into that a little bit. I really didn’t ask a question, but…

Matthew Peck: You can tell we’re not professional podcasters. That’s why we need your help so bring us along.

Michael Hyatt: You guys are great. I would say that my approach to life, which is similar to Triad, is that I believe in something I call the Double Win, which is winning at work and succeeding in life. And I think that one of the big mistakes people can make in their career and in their business life is investing everything in their business. And I’m not just talking about money but I’m talking about their time and their focus. And in my world, work is just one of nine different domains of life. And so, if you want a rich, full, integrated life, you’ve got to give the appropriate amount of attention to each one of those domains. So, you’ve got your health, critically important, right? Your spirit, your mind, your family, your community, your finances, your vocation, your hobbies, all of that you need to give proper attention to.

Because a lot of times when people have put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, and you guys will certainly understand this, it’s not the right portfolio allocation to put everything in one bucket. If that one bucket does great, awesome. But the truth is there are going to be setbacks from time to time and they don’t usually happen in all the same areas at once. So, if your career takes a little bit of a hit or a setback but you’ve got a rich family life, you’re in good health, your mindset’s good, you can be resilient and recover from that. Same thing if you get a health crisis, if you go through that but you have all these other things that were intact, that makes you more resilient. So, I think that when we give attention to these different areas of life, then we show up as our best self in each area of life. So, we’re not showing a burned-out, rung out ready for a break, but we can be fully present and bring our best to everybody we encounter.

Matthew Peck: Well, Mike, let me ask you this. Did we learn these nine areas and to avoid burnout the hard way? Or did you feel like you were kind of keying on this at a very early age and this idea has just continued to evolve?

Michael Hyatt: I feel like basically, my career has been about monetizing my mistakes. Every solution that I’ve come to it’s because of some mistake or screw-up that I had a front-row seat to. So, let me tell you the story of how I got to this Double Win idea. So, back in about 2000, I got the career opportunity of my life up until that point. I was working for one of the largest book publishing companies in the US, Thomas Nelson Publishers, now owned by HarperCollins. But, at the time, I was just a divisional manager of one of the 14 publishing divisions that Thomas Nelson has. And so, I was given that responsibility in July of 2000 and what I didn’t know until I took on the responsibility was that that division was dead last. It was 14 of 14 in terms of revenue growth. In fact, it was shrinking. It was 14 out of 14 in terms of profitability. It had lost money the previous year and the team morale was terrible. So, the CEO said, by the way, that’s a great way to inherit a division. I couldn’t screw it up.

Derek Gregoire: Yeah, right. Worst you can do is stay in last.

Matthew Peck: Yeah.

Michael Hyatt: That’s the great thing about being in last place. So, the CEO said, “How long is it going to take you to turn this around.” And I didn’t have any idea, I pulled a number out of the air and I said, “I think it’ll take about three years.” He said, “Well, that’s kind of what I was thinking. Have at it.” So, I went back to the team, kind of painted a vision for a different kind of future, where we were number one in all those metrics, and I really believed we could do it. So, we rolled up our sleeves but we were working 70, 80-hour weeks, spent a lot of time away from our families working through the weekends, no vacations, and all of that. The good news was that we turned that division around in a year and a half. So, half the time that I told the CEO it went from number 14 to number one in terms of, we were the fastest growing division in the company. We were the most profitable division in the company. And everybody loved working on our team because everybody loves winning.

Well, everybody got a big bonus check for that turnaround. I got the biggest bonus check I had ever received. It was more than my annual salary. And so, I went home knowing, just knowing that my wife was going to be over the moon with this achievement. So, I kind of came in sort of beating my chest and unfurled the check and said, “Look, babe.” And she wasn’t that excited. And so, she said to me, I can hear her saying it now, she said, “Honey, we need to talk.” And I went, “Uh-oh.”

Derek Gregoire: You knew that. That’s not a good phrase.

Matthew Peck: That introduction, you know it’s something serious.

Derek Gregoire: I felt nervous when you said that.

Michael Hyatt: It’s like the most dreaded phrase that you can hear as a spouse. So, we went into the den, we sat down and she began to tear up, and she said, “Honey.” She said, “First of all, I appreciate everything you’ve done for this family, the way that you provide for us. Thank you. But I’ve also got to be honest. And if I’m honest, you’re never at home. And even when you are, your head is somewhere else.” Then she began to cry a little bit, and she said, “Your five daughters need you now more than ever.” And then she really began to cry and she said, “Honestly, I feel like a single mom.” Well, that wasn’t what I was going for. I wanted to be a true partner, and I love my wife dearly. You know, as you mentioned, Derek, when we started, I’ve been married for 45 years. Gail is my best friend. And the thought that I had hurt her and was not there for her just slayed me.

But I also felt like I was facing this impossible choice. I can either win at work and continue to succeed there because basically I was succeeding by brute force, or I could pump the ambition break and give time to my family and just kind of let go of my career ambitions. And neither one of those seemed really attainable. And I kept thinking there’s got to be a third option. And so, I spent the next several years working on that third option and really studying it. You know, how can you both win at work and succeed at life? That was my objective. And everything that I’ve written, everything that I’ve done since then has been to answer that question not just to help myself but to help the people that I serve win at work and succeed at life.

Matthew Peck: Now, do you feel the principles that you would bring to the work-life you would also bring to the home life? Or is that kind of almost like too much structure? You know, it’s like, “Okay. Honey, we have to have this appointment.” I mean, is that kind of creating undue stress? Or no, that you almost need that approach, that type sort of organization, if you will.

Michael Hyatt: Yeah. I think each domain sort of requires a different way of thinking about it. There’s also a lot of overlap but let me give you an example. Like, my five daughters are the youngest one’s 33, the oldest one’s 43. I still take one of them out on a date each week, and so I rotate that through. So, obviously, it takes five weeks and probably we don’t always hit every week because vacations and other things but basically every week. Now, that is like a business meeting in the sense that I get my assistant to schedule it because I have the intention but left to myself, I wouldn’t follow through but he makes sure that happens. Date night, he makes sure that happens. So, that’s where there’s the saying there is some structure in my view, what gets scheduled gets done.

And so, the simple hack that I’ve had of getting things done, like this afternoon, I’m taking two of my grandsons to golf lessons. Well, the reason that’s happening is because I had Jim, my assistant, research golf instructors in Middle Tennessee where I live, and we found a simulator because it’s still too cold here to go outside in golf but we found a golf simulator. And so, every Monday afternoon I take those two boys to golf lessons. And I’m a little out of commission because I have a broken shoulder, so I can’t play with them but I love that. But that happens because my assistant researched it and scheduled it, and now I get to be the hero in that situation without a lot of effort on my part.

Derek Gregoire: That’s amazing. You actually struck a chord back in our early lives talking about we started the company in 2003 so we were 23, 24, and 25. And it wasn’t much to brag about. The company was not. It was a different-looking company back then. And when we, even at that early age, I was 23 years old and we’re just starting this thing out. We knew we had a good group, myself, Keith, and Matt, we knew we had a good foundation to work off of. I knew we had good people that we’re going to make the right moves and right decisions for our clients. But I remember always, as in the early years, being petrified, so nervous over time that I was going to miss, I was going to be one of those people who just got wrapped up in work and didn’t see my family.

And I got married in 2004 so that’ll be 20 years and I remember the first 2 or 3 years of our marriage, same thing. Well, fast forward to about 10, 12 years ago, and this is a call with Brad, we had just hit our goals. We had just had an amazing year. Everything was great. But we had our meeting with Brad who kind of was a business coach of ours, and he’s like, “All right. Let’s set everything up for next year.” And he said, “What’s your goal for next year?” And we went through the goals and he’s like, “Wait a minute, wasn’t that lower than your goal this year?” And Matt and I and Keith, we said, “Yeah,” but we looked at each other and we said what it took to hit those numbers last year was not worth the impact on our families. Like, the nights, the time away, all the events, it was just too much. And so, we want to go backwards.

And that’s really the time when we hired our COO, really started hiring out to build a practice that was much more than just us three. Because that was the fear and that’s the direction in that year we kind of headed, and we weren’t there for everything we could have been for our wives. We had young kids at the time. And that was a change that had to be made. So, we made it a point to make sure we had built a proper team in place because you can’t do it on your own, especially in our business. You need good support. And here we are 10 years later, 15 years later, we feel like we’re in so much of a better spot with the support we have here. So, we can have some freedom if we want to take a little bit of time off. Our clients know that we need that and we have a team to support that and they don’t miss a beat. And so, that’s the balance that we didn’t have before that’s really changed over the last several years.

I will say not one thing. My OCD is killing me on this one. You said there were nine items, but I only read eight. So, you know all those areas that you mentioned that had needed attention? I have health, spirit, mind, oh, my gosh, can’t remember. I’m writing. Hobbies, vocation, financial. Do you have the other ones? Community.

Michael Hyatt: Yeah. So, love.

Matthew Peck: Love, oh yeah.

Michael Hyatt: I think that’s what I missed.

Matthew Peck: Yes.

Michael Hyatt: So, love would be your spouse or your most significant relationship and then family, you know, beyond that like my parents are still living. I would include them in that block along with my kids and grandkids and then community. So, those are kind of all three go together but that’s kind of my relationships.

Derek Gregoire: Love is the one. Thank you. I feel better now. I’m at ease. And then one of the question because this is a big question for so many listeners that we have and just try to find out any tips you can provide because so many clients we’ve had for decades have then they’ll come in and they’ll say, “You know what, I’m looking for…” It’s actually that time we talked about so many years ago. I’m actually thinking about pulling the plug and leaving my job, and maybe I’ll do something part-time or consult part-time. But that is a lot of difficulty because sometimes they don’t have hobbies. They’ve been so wrapped up in work over the years. How do you help or how would you advise someone going through that and how to change their mindset because they’re going from working the occupied 40 hours of their week, if not more, to now having that free time, is that something you’d recommend almost planning for, almost building a plan?

Michael Hyatt: Yeah, I would. Absolutely. And the things that ultimately got me out of that situation where I was at Thomas Nelson working so much and trying to find that third option that really began when I created a life plan. So, I met with the business coach to walk me through that process, and I began to see that there was so much more to life than just work. And he helped me develop a vision for each of those different domains. And in fact, he and I ended up writing the book together many years later called Living Forward. Daniel Harkavy was my coach, and we wrote that book together was all about life planning. But here’s the cool thing, we’ve just now come out with a brand new life-planning product that makes it fast, easy, and fun. The thing we found when we try to get people right away, I mean, you guys know how hard it is to get people to do a financial plan.

Well, imagine a life plan which is even more comprehensive, and it can seem daunting. You know, thankfully, your clients have you all as guides to lead them through the process. And you can just ask the right questions and put together the plan for them. But with a life plan, it’s not quite that simple. And so, we found that it was difficult for people who didn’t consider themselves to be writers to write out a vivid, compelling statement about the future that they wanted in each of these life domains. So, we gamified it. We created a brand new product called Life Focus, and you basically get a kit, and we’re leading the retreat on this in April, but you basically get a kit and it has 11 sets of cards. And so, for example, there’s a set of core values cards and it’s got probably 50 different values plus their synonyms.

So, when you’re trying to figure out what are your priorities and what you stand for, you flip through those cards, you set aside those that resonate, those that don’t resonate, and those that sort of kind of resonate. And then we force that middle group into one of the other two. So, literally in 30 minutes, you could identify your core values. We did the same thing with a personal mission statement, which answers the question, why do I exist? Why am I here? And so, the mission statement has a very specific format but again, it’s a deck of cards where you can flip through it and do it very quickly. And then we have a different deck for each of those nine domains. So, when it comes to your health, we’ve got all these amazing vision statements and you can assemble the ones that resonate with you so that you get a paragraph that’s a compelling vision of your future in that domain. And so, bam.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. So, sorry to interrupt, Mike, so just to understand you correctly, when you talk about the domains, you’re talking the similar nine domains, not necessarily the stages. So, if I hear a life plan, for better or for worse initially, right, I’m thinking in terms of, okay, your 30s or 30 to 35 or 35 to 45 or 45 to 50 or what have you, your approach is more so not necessarily the calendar wise, as they call it, called the calendar attack, if you will, or the calendar approach. You’re still more on the domains. And then that kind of merges into the stage that you are in your own life. Is that right?

Michael Hyatt: Well, think of it this way, the life plan basically is what you envision your life to be ten years from now.

Matthew Peck: Okay.

Michael Hyatt: What does my marriage look like? What does my relationship with my kids look like? What does my business look like? What do my finances look like ten years from now? Now, some people, and maybe people in your audience will say, “Well, I’m too old to have a ten-year plan.” I just got done reading the most amazing book by Dr. Gladys McGarey called The Well-Lived Life. Highly recommend, Gladys McGarey. Gladys has a ten-year plan. She’s 103 years old.

Derek Gregoire: No way.

Michael Hyatt: Is that amazing?

Matthew Peck: Yeah.

Derek Gregoire: And that vision keeps her going and keeps her motivated and keeps her on track.

Michael Hyatt: Yeah. I mean, my personal coach is 77 years old and has a 25-year plan.

Derek Gregoire: That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Michael Hyatt: So, Dan Sullivan says you’ve always got to make your future bigger than your past. And I think that’s critically important for psychological health and for a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in life. And that’s why the life plan, to get back to your question, the life plan is basically we suggest a ten-year horizon. But then from that, every year you’ll tweak it a little bit but you’ll create milestones for that year. In other words, what do I have to do this year to make progress in those domains so then I actually realize that ten-year vision? Everything works together.

Derek Gregoire: Is there a place that if listeners want to go to learn about that? Is there like a site or a web page or something like that on that?

Michael Hyatt: If I was on my game, I would have given it to you already. Yeah. Go to FullFocus.co/LifeFocus.

Derek Gregoire: So, FullFocus.co/LifeFocus.

Michael Hyatt: It’s the coolest thing we’ve ever developed. I mean we’ve got a ton of products as you guys know but it’s the best thing we’ve ever developed because we’ve taken… Now, we’re doing a retreat with a bunch of clients on, I think, April 5 and 6. And when you get to that page, you’ll see that that’s an opportunity for anybody to join. But we took all of our employees and their spouses through this last fall. They were over the moon. They loved it. Then we took all of our business coaching clients through it, about 200 business coaching clients through it. They were over the moon. They loved it. And each time we iterated, it made it better. So, now it’s being manufactured and it will ship in April. But, yeah, I’ve never been more excited about a product than this one.

Derek Gregoire: Well, I think it’s so easy to get to float through life per se. You kind of get ready to retire, you retire, okay, get up, I read the paper, go for a walk. I watch a show, I take a nap, I eat dinner, we call a friend, we go golfing, we go to bed, and then I wake up. There’s not like a… It’s almost like the compass has gone, right? There’s no guide, there’s no direction, there’s no vision. And where you lack vision that’s never a good end game. And so, I think, in our business and in the life of our clients, it’s only in the last several years I’ve realized this that early on, I know people want good stocks and bonds and annuities and financial this and really a lot of these folks just need a leader, right?

Well, it’s so much more than just challenging folks or just to have folks, “Hey, you made 20% last year. You can withdraw your normal money and live a good life.” No, it’s challenging. We’re trying to really challenge like, “If you keep going down the same path, you’re going to leave $50 million to your family, so you’re not going to take those vacations you want to take so you can do that.” Like, we have to challenge our clients quite a bit to spend money like what would make you feel different? Would it be giving to your church? Would it be taking a trip? Would it be a mission trip? Would it be supporting a mission trip? I mean, my faith is kind of showing here but just using different things that we think about. But everyone has different thoughts of what their mission statement is and what their goal is with their money.

So, I think having something like you just mentioned for whether it’s financial advisors or folks ready to retire, Matt and our team, we create what’s called a vivid vision every three years. And having that keeps our team kind of focused on the path ahead instead of where we are going. There’s a known direction. I think that’s so important and so overlooked in this community as well as the entire humankind. A lot of people don’t ever have, like a lot of my friends don’t have that vision, if that makes sense.

Michael Hyatt: Well, it’s so important. I mean, there’s a reason for people that are listening to this and for you guys too, for me, there’s a reason we’re not dead yet.

Derek Gregoire: Yeah.

Michael Hyatt: And I think that’s because there’s still a purpose we have yet to fulfill in our lives.

Derek Gregoire: Correct.

Michael Hyatt: And in fact, if you’re not dead yet, I would argue that your most important purpose has yet to be fulfilled. And when you think about people who have retired or they’ve made a lot of money, they’re set financially, they are in the perfect position to make an outsized contribution, not financially so much, but in terms of their time, their talent, and especially their wisdom. And the thing that I’m finding today is that there are so many young people who are desperate for mentors, business owners that are desperate for mentors. And you have to remember that so many kids today grow up in single-family homes where they didn’t get, you know, there’s no shame in single parents because they’re doing the best they can but they’re not getting the benefit of two parents. Maybe they grew up without a dad or they grew up without a mom.

And so, I think this is one of the places where retired folks can make a huge contribution. That’s why I don’t like the word retirement so much. You know, it’s basically just a shift in focus. Like, to me, just sitting around and staring at the wall all day in an assisted living center is not my idea of a good time.

Matthew Peck: Well, that’s what I say. And, Michael, if you ever do, if we ever do develop a word that’s better for retirement that we can use, let us know because I completely agree. It’s a negative word to a certain extent because it implies less effort. It implies less being, less intent, and less involvement when usually it’s the exact opposite for all of our clients or for majority of our clients. And back to what Derek was mentioning about being that leader or being that coach is by far how I think that we’re a little bit different and not to sort of toot SHP’s horn but more asking them and kind of probing them and asking those types of questions where they probably at least, again, I’m speaking on behalf of our clients and generally speaking, maybe they never asked themselves those questions before about what it was all worth or and what it was all for.

Because in your 20s, 30s, and when you have kids and whatnot and you have bills to pay and your nose is on the grindstone and then it’s like, “Hey, guess what? Later, remember how you were saving for later, all of those times? Well, guess what? It’s later. Now.” So, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about what we want to do with later, now that we’ve arrived.

Michael Hyatt: Well, one of the great questions that I like to ask is what would this make possible? And with retirement, a great question for anybody that’s in that situation is what would retirement make possible for you? What can you do now that until this moment you just weren’t in a position to do? Maybe you were encumbered with a lot of career responsibilities or raising a young family. It could be a lot of things. But what’s possible now? I think people that are in that retirement phase could make the biggest contribution of their life and the biggest impact on the people around them. And to me, that’s what it’s about. You know, I’m not going to take my money with me, right? Like, Chuck Swindoll famously said, he’s never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul. You know, nobody’s going to take it with them but it doesn’t mean you can’t leave it to your kids. But money is only one kind of capital to leave to my kids.

Derek Gregoire: Correct.

Michael Hyatt: And I want to leave character and rich experiences and a set of values and all those things to my kids so that they can leave them to their kids. And that’s how we leave a legacy. I think it’s not that our name is going to be remembered in 100 years for most of us that want to, but our lives can live on in the lives of the people that we touch. And to me, that’s what gets me excited.

Derek Gregoire: Yeah. It’s awesome. I think from personally speaking, like just growing up as a Christian and trying to do it the most, obviously, it’s not a works-based faith as we know, but faith does produce good works. And so, the flesh kind of kicks in. It’s like, “Am I doing enough? Am I doing enough for the world?” And granted, there are some things I want to do, like you mentioned, in terms of like I remember my dad was part of the Big Brother program, and he helped a lot of kids along and mentored kids. And it’s funny, as I thought about it over the years, we kind of collectively realized we feel like a lot of the value, almost like a mission field, is what we do here. And if we can impact people in the communities and impact other advisors and their communities and the people that they work with, I think there’s a lot of value we can add.

And that’s why we ask the hard questions to our clients. We ask the questions that are more vulnerable about what is this all about. What does this whole life mean to you? And like you said, you have these assets. What does it mean? What do you want to do with it? And that’s been almost like refreshing mentally for me knowing that even at work, we feel like we can do more. And that’s why we built a… People say, “Why do you build a big team?” Well, we want to support our clients’ dreams. We need to have that team to support it so we can plan to support their dreams. And sometimes people do just want to be thrifty and leave a big legacy of money to their kids and other people. But a lot of other folks that are listening and that are working with us, they have a vision in how they want to leave a legacy. It’s not just about the dollars and cents.

Matthew Peck: Yeah. And I’ll just chime in. I know we’re kind of coming up towards the end a little bit here but it’s along the same lines that Derrick was saying and so I’ll just kind of echo it a little bit. But the idea of values, I mean making sure that, okay, yes, I want to pass down a certain amount of assets to my kids but we’re just as focused on what would the values that got you to where you were? Because I want to make sure those values get passed on to your kids. And so, we talked about that during our meetings to say, “Okay. We’re looking for continuity. I’d like to be introduced to your 20, 25-year-old child. I want to have them part of this conversation not to kind of, because Mike grew up in the northeast, and it’s kind of like politics and religion and money is the third rail up here. We don’t talk about that stuff as much as maybe the others might be.

But we’re like, “No, no, we have to break that down because, yes, a certain amount of money may or may not be inherited, but we got to make sure that what went into that in the type of blood, sweat, tears and the values that are there, we also want to kind of really sort of honor them and then make sure that they get passed on as well and help facilitate those types of conversations.

Michael Hyatt: That’s amazing. I mean, I think I work with a lot of financial advisors, and I love what you all do because you’re in a position to speak into the most intimate parts of people’s lives and help them have conversations that they would otherwise never have. And money is usually sort of the doorway to that. But as you pointed out, Matt, there’s a whole plethora of other things that need to be discussed because money is just one thing that you can pass on. It’s important and that’s, like I said, the doorway but people need to consider everything else, too, if you’re going to have an impact on the next generation.

Derek Gregoire: Yeah. And as we wrap up here in terms of mentors, sounds like you had some good mentors in your life. And I know you’ve been a mentor to our good friends, Brad and Shawn, and they spoke so highly of you. How’s that process gone? And what made you buy into their vision? Brad and Shawn are owners of Triad, and we do a lot of business consulting with them on just better ways to shape your business, your vision. They curate a community of just like-minded individuals and teams. So, just on your experience, when you had that, I think you met with them before. We were the first advisor to kind of join up with them a little bit into their community but before that even took place, they had approached you and looking for some sort of mentorship. And I guess what was there? How’d that all go down?

Michael Hyatt: Well, Brad was in a mastermind that I started back in 2015 and he was one of the first people to join. And he was in it for three years, and he loved it. And so, I was able to make a difference in his life. And so, when he and Shawn started Triad, Brad convinced Shawn, whom I’ve not met, that I needed to be an advisor to their company and a coach to the two of them. So, they flew out to Nashville, where I live, sat down with me, shared their vision. And I think the world of Brad, now of Shawn too, because he’s also become a dear friend but I just bought into their vision. Not so much the business vision because, frankly, I didn’t understand it when they started talking to me about it but I was committed to what they were committed to. We had the same values and I knew their families were very important to them. Their faith was very important to them, and those things are very important to me too. So, I felt like there was a values overlap and I, frankly, felt like I could really help people.

Derek Gregoire: Yeah. And you have. Look at their company now. It’s tremendous. The thing I love about it is they bring the right like the other advisory teams, like I said, clients that know us and work with us, they don’t realize the benefit of what we have to be in a community where so many good ideas, so many good practices in how people run their offices and their businesses are shared. A lot of people are like stingy with ideas because they think they don’t want to share ideas. That’s a kind of a really tough mindset I feel like to have where like the scarcity mindset is not enough. And we’ve always believed that we’ll share anything to help other people do better and almost pay it forward to have them be better advisors, better for their clients, right, in their community. And so, I think, as you know, Matt, Triad has this great group of community that we’ve worked together, and it’s helped us bring ideas that impacted our clients and our families that we work with.

Matthew Peck: And I would just say too, man, I think and, Mike, you talked about yourself about during your time and work in the 70 to 80 hours per week and then having that sort of difficult conversation with Gail. I mean, I think what they’ve been able to do, and I think we’ve been trying to truly live is that idea of that balance between work and life about finding that third way. Because I think it’s funny because even though we might look young, I don’t know, I don’t know how it appears on the screen right now but we’ve been doing this now for 20 years, now almost all of slightly more than that. And occasionally, now that, you know, it’s funny. Well, let me tell you the story, Mike. When we first started out, people were like, “Oh my goodness, are you old enough to even get licensed?” Now, it’s occasionally like, “Oh, are you going to eventually move on? You’re getting to the older end of things.”

But I think with striking that balance and living that type of mentality of finding that third way, finding that balance, doing of both life and then business and making sure that you’re spending those times, those nine domains, it allows you to avoid burnout and it allows you to continue on working and continue on building, continue on having that, yeah, whatever that purpose may be, if it’s defined or not, as of yet. So, I think that really unleashed our own, it took the ceiling. It took the roof off because now you can just keep on going up if you really honor those types of beliefs.

Michael Hyatt: Well, you guys are obviously very purpose-driven. And inside the Triad community, you’re legendary and you’re legendary mostly not because you build a successful big practice but because you give back so much to the community. And I just admired your abundance mindset and what you’ve offered to the community. It’s been awesome to the whole.

Derek Gregoire: Well, same right back. I appreciate that. We feel the same about you, and I know you’ve given so much to the community, so it’s a double win. Like you said, winning at work, succeeding at life. Triad’s mantra is DBDL, do business, do life. And so, it’s kind of all coming together. And that’s something we want to continue to pass on and share with our clients so that they can have more of an impact, maybe do things that they didn’t dream of, they didn’t think about. It never really crossed their mind. If we can challenge them beyond the finances and make that where all of our advisors are doing that and we can share with other advisors across the country, it’s just better that I don’t know another way to put it better.

As we wrap up here, this has been amazing, truly valuable. I know folks are going to take a lot out of this. Any other closing words, things we should have asked that we didn’t? As you know, we’ve been doing podcasts for a while but we’re definitely not veterans of this or we’re not professionals. But anything else that we missed or anything like that that you wanted to cover?

Michael Hyatt: No, I don’t think so. I think we’ve hit the high points and I would just say to your audience, they’re in a very unique position. And first of all, to have you as advisors and to have the financial aspects of their lives buttoned up. And again, I would just leave everybody with this question, what does your situation make possible in terms of your contribution to the world?

Derek Gregoire: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much, Michael Hyatt. On behalf of SHP, man, we truly appreciate the time. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other soon at one of our awesome experiences coming up and we’ll catch up with Gail and yourself at one of those. But in the meantime, keep doing you and appreciate everything you’ve done.

Michael Hyatt: Thanks, guys.

Derek Gregoire: Take care.