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The Wiser Financial Advisor Podcast with Josh Nelson
The Wiser Financial Advisor Podcast with Josh Nelson
Celebrating 25 Years: Josh Nelson's Journey in Financial Advising
Celebrate a milestone with us as we honor Josh Nelson's 25-year journey in the financial advisory world! Learn how early financial lessons from his parents and a job as a credit union teller ignited Josh's passion for guiding others toward financial stability. Join his wife, Sarah Nelson, as she hosts this special episode, offering a heartfelt and detailed look at the mentors, pivotal opportunities, and perseverance that marked Josh's career.
Discover the insights and entrepreneurial decisions that shaped Josh’s professional path, including his time at AG Edwards and his eventual decision to establish his own independent firm. You'll hear about the importance of building strong client relationships, the challenges of navigating industry changes, and the satisfaction that comes from helping clients through various life stages. Josh's experiences offer valuable lessons on the significance of mentorship, seizing opportunities, and the power of dedication to one's craft.
We also delve into modern financial advising tips, emphasizing timeless principles like diversification and the "pay yourself first" strategy. Gain a deeper understanding of how financial planning has evolved, including the shift to fee-only models and comprehensive advice. Reflect on the parallels between maintaining financial stability and the resilience of airline pilots, showcasing how a competitive spirit and commitment to helping others can drive long-term success. Don’t miss this episode filled with wisdom, practical advice, and a celebration of a remarkable career in the ever-evolving world of financial advising.
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Contact Josh Nelson: https://www.keystonefinancial.com
Contact Jeremy Busch: https//www.keystonefinancial.com
Podcast Editing: Tim Leaman/info.primegen@gmail.com
Wiser Financial Advisor – Celebrating 25 Years of Josh Nelson as a Financial Advisor
Hi Everyone. Welcome to the Wiser Financial Advisor with Josh Nelson, where we get real, we get honest and we get clear about the financial world and your money. This is Josh Nelson, Certified Financial Planner and founder and CEO of Keystone Financial Services. Let the financial fun begin!
Josh: Today we have a guest host, and that's my wife and our Director of Strategy and Oversight at Keystone Financial Services, Sarah Nelson.
Sarah: Just recently, Josh celebrated 25 years as a financial advisor. Congratulations! And in light of this, we thought it would be fun to pepper Josh with questions about what he's learned in the last 25 years. And so we asked our team, “Hey, is there anything you want to ask Josh about his last 25 years?” They came back with a lot of questions. which I found interesting. It just shows the culture here and that people want to hear from Josh, the owner and founder, about where he came from and what's inspired him. So the very first question that people had is, “What made you want to become a financial advisor?”
Josh: I think the seed was planted with my mom and dad originally, because they made investments on their own. They had some advisors back in the 80s who were probably more like stockbrokers. As a kid, I remember conversations as far as stocks and investments, and as I started earning money from a paper route, one thing my parents instilled in me was: Don't spend all your money; take some out and invest it for the future. There was some kind of company that allowed you to buy fractional shares of stocks, and so I ended up buying some Coca-Cola stock and maybe Walmart or something like that. Back then, I didn't really get it about what that actually meant, but the seed was planted.
Then in college, one of my jobs was being a teller in a John Deere Community Credit Union. It was an entry level position located in a grocery store in the Midwest named Hy-Vee. They've changed names since then but at the time I just fell in love with the job, and got promoted pretty quickly because I had a lot of enthusiasm and drive, so I moved up into servicing new accounts and loans and other parts of the credit union.
After I graduated college, I figured out that staying in those types of roles wasn't really a career path. So I started talking to other people throughout the credit union. A couple of them were financial advisors. I started asking them questions and then decided that, yep, that's the career path I'm going after.
Sarah: And instead of doing it for a few years and saying “Eh, I'm going to find a different route,” you said, “This is the career for me. I'm going to stick with it.”
Josh: Yeah, I never doubted that at the beginning. When I started out, I just fell in love with the job and the relationships with clients, and the day-to-day stuff—learning about the market and the economy and financial planning techniques. I don't think there's been a single moment the entire time that I thought maybe I'll go do something else.
Sarah: Next question: Is there anyone from your professional past that you give credit to for becoming the financial advisor you are today?
Josh: Yeah, the first people that gave me my start as an advisor. Back then, and even today, the hard part about getting into this business is that nobody really wants to hire you unless you've got experience. So it's chicken and egg. Or they don't want to hire you because you're not licensed. Well, the only way to get licensed is if you're employed by somebody. So you have to get a start someplace. Back in the day, First National Bank of Colorado was called Union Colony Bank, and they gave me my first shot and allowed me to study and take my test and get licensed while I was there. So, I definitely credit that crew at First National for giving me my shot.
In the depths of the 2001 bear market, 9-11 hadn't quite happened yet but we were in a bad bear market and things weren't going so well. In this business, especially when you're first starting, you have to find people who will put some money in your hands to invest it. And nobody wanted to do that, because the market stunk and everybody wanted to leave their money in cash. Then on a random day, I got a headhunter call and somebody from what was HP Credit Union at the time had called looking for an advisor. The rest is history. I ended up spending about 10 years there. A lot of our clients that have been with me for 20 years plus were clients in my very earliest years there.
Keith Weber would have been one of the early ones that gave me a shot. He was an experienced advisor there. Other advisors throughout the country, famous people that I just vaguely know, acquaintances like Ron Carson and Tony Robbins were big influencers. At HP Credit Union, Rich Nerez and Pete Snyder were a couple of the original founding people that started the investment program there. Certainly, there were several key people that gave me a shot and created the opportunity. And from there on out, I've tried to pay that forward with other people that have come in that are younger or less experienced than me.
Sarah: Right, and I think I remember you telling me a story of having just moved to Colorado, when not only did you not know anybody in the state, but also you were brand new and trying to get into the industry. And during an interview, they said, “You don't know enough people.”
Josh: That's right, yeah, they were honest. I'm very thankful they were honest. The company was AG Edwards at the time. This is dating me a little, but AG Edwards was a big warehouse, Wall Street firm at the time. I had applied there, and I went through all their hiring process. Extensive interviews, no script. They said, “You're very qualified but you're not going to make it in this environment. You're not going to make it.” That guy’s name was Todd McClain, and he said, “You know what? I know somebody at First National (Union Colony at the time) and they're looking for somebody. I think you should go talk to them.” I'm sure we all could point to certain people who stepped in at pivotal moments and created an opportunity. You've got to be the one that jumps through that opening when it comes. But yeah, certainly, there are a lot of people to be thankful for that set me up for success.
Sarah: Next question: How have your priorities changed from when you first started in your career versus present day? This can be business or personal.
Josh: Personal could be a rabbit trail. One comment I have there is about the perspective of time. When you’ve got any years behind you, you know how fast it goes. You start hitting high school reunion years and so forth, and now it’s the 25th anniversary of being a financial advisor—and it's like, how the heck did that go so fast? And with the perspective of time, really what matters in the end is relationships.
On the business end of things, in that First National role where I was, they didn't have much of a clientele, and so pretty much everything was me trying to drum up business, trying to get people to talk to me. That was kind of brutal, but I'm thankful for that time because it makes me thankful for the years following that weren't quite so hard. Over the years, we've developed a lot of relationships now. When we get new business, it's almost always because of a referral from an existing client. So it's been great, because the focus gets to be on existing clients and making their lives better, building relationships and working on plans, investment strategies, all the things that create a better experience for them. So, it's a chicken and egg thing. You could probably say that about any business—that it's really hard to get started.
Sarah: What was the turning point that made you want to start your own financial planning firm versus working for the credit union?
Josh: It was opportunity. They were going to go through a merger. There were a bunch of changes that I could see coming down the pike. And I’d always had it in the back of my mind that someday I would open my own firm. Some dominoes started falling, where I could see some major changes and mergers and acquisitions. I just knew that all the clients were going to be going through a big change anyway, and I was going to go through a big change anyway, whether I stayed or did my own thing. I had to think about it. All right, window of opportunity. What do I want to do here? Do I want to stay, go through a bunch of change where I'm at, or create my own destiny?
Sarah: Well, it's turned out well. And along those lines, what would be one thing you would change if you could?
Josh: That's always a hard question. It's like the butterfly effect. If you change this, then maybe you’re also changing all these other good things that happened in the future. So I try to take negative stuff that happens—and we all have some things happen in our lives and careers, things that were maybe a setback or a frustration of some sort. Instead of dwelling on it, try to reframe it and ask, what can I learn from this to get even better in the future? So I wouldn’t change a whole lot. I mean, sometimes you get the question what would you tell your 20 year old self or your 10 year old self. I'm sure I would have advice. But again, butterfly effect, maybe I wouldn't want to tell myself, because I'm pretty happy with my life and my business where it is right now.
Sarah: So if I go with that exact question, if you could go back and talk to a young Josh with all the wisdom and experience you have now, what would you tell yourself? What decisions would you have liked to make that you didn't?
Josh: That's a long time frame. If I look back at school, although I always had a good work ethic at work, I didn’t have it so much in school, especially in middle school and high school. I was plenty smart, but could have done a lot better academically. I was that kid who said, “When are we ever going to use this?”
Sarah: And now your own kids are asking their teachers that.
Josh: Yeah exactly, and you're slightly giggling. Yeah, so thankfully, I got into college and got my master's degree and everything. It was relevant, because I knew I’d be using it on my career path. But as far as advice, I’d say, enjoy the time while you're in whatever spot that you're in, because there's only so much we can control about the future. Obviously, the past is immovable. We can't go back. So, live in the present and enjoy the moments we've got, especially when it comes to relationships. You don't know how long you're going to have. You don't know how long you're going to have in your career or with your health. You can apply that to a lot of things. Control what you can control, live in the present and enjoy it.
Sarah: What was the biggest blessing you've received from your 25 years of work in the financial advising industry or financial planning industry?
Josh: There are a lot of things I could say there, but most importantly, the relationships. That's been the most fulfilling, for sure. I get to do interesting work with the money and finance and economics and politics that shape our world. Within that, the most fascinating and impactful part is the relationships we get to have with clients. Most of our clients we know almost like family. We know each other's kids and anniversaries. We go to funerals and weddings with each other. It's true it's a business relationship, but the intimacy of the relationship is high trust. I think a lot of people do business with us not only because of the substance of what we provide, but also because of how trust is built into that relationship.
Sarah: Along those lines, can you give a story from your career, that without naming names, you made a significant change in someone’s life?
Josh: As Certified Financial Planners, where we tend to step in is usually when people have big life changes. Oftentimes, that is when we first engage with somebody; because they come to us when they've got something big going on. Sometimes it's good, like maybe a kid being born or a retirement offer or something like that. And of course, there could be other situations where somebody's spouse has passed away, or their parents passed away, or they just got laid off and are trying to figure out what’s next during those big life moments. A number of times, especially early in my career, I worked with people who got laid off unexpectedly and they'd worked at the same company for decades and then all of a sudden, boom, in one moment, they're unceremoniously told that they're not needed anymore, earlier than they were expecting. So they’re trying to figure out, how do I make this work? Can I retire? How many more years would I need to work? What kind of income do I need to make? So when people come to us, it's not usually for minor things.
Some stuff is pretty easy, things like “Can you invest my money?” Well, of course we can, but the decisions that people make along the way mean that what they're trusting is not only our education but our experience. That's one benefit of being here 25 years. I've seen so many situations. The fun part is that every day we still get new ones. Everyone’s life details end up being a little different. Also, the market changes and the economy changes and the rules change. That's why I see myself doing this for a while, because it's not just about the money. It's also about the relationships and how the impact of what we do can change the trajectory of somebody's decision, which can make or break what kind of quality of life they have.
Sarah: It seems like the moments that stand out the most to you are when people were in a time of need or a time of crisis, and you could be that counselor for whatever they were going through. You have that confidence that we'll figure this out. We'll make it happen; we'll make it work. We'll walk through this with you.
Josh: Yeah, absolutely, and in most cases these people were already clients. They call us up and tell us something that just happened, either good or bad. Every day, we're having those conversations with people. And yeah, the ones that stand out are the ones that were more emotional, like somebody losing a spouse, or losing their parent, or a layoff; those kinds of really big moments of core things that happened in their life or career timeline. We can step into that instead of them feeling like they don't have somebody they can trust to help and come alongside. Oftentimes people are just left to the internet. They're left to search and ask coworkers or family. Not to say that those things can't be supportive, but it’s helpful to have somebody that is an experienced fiduciary—meaning we have to give you advice that's in your best interest—which is what we're trained to do. That's our job.
Sarah: What was the first big financial trend or event that you remember shaping your career?
Josh: I started as an advisor in 1999. We were coming up on Y2K and all the alarmist stories that said things like “When things click over to January 1st, all the nuclear bombs are going to go off,” or crazy stuff like that. “All the computers are going to shut down and we'll go back to the Dark Ages.” Thinking back, it was absurd, but there was a massive amount of money being spent on technology, upgrading computers and systems and everything like that. Therefore, a lot of tech company stocks were doing really well for a number of years there. And I think the mistake that still happens today in certain areas, is that when something starts going up a lot, people want to pile into that one thing. So, I saw some people make some big mistakes where they wanted to own tech stocks only or even wanted to have just one individual tech stock. In some of those situations where they didn't follow my advice to diversify, they ended up losing 80% of their money. Depending on what they were invested in, some of them never recouped it.
I saw the same thing happen with the real estate bubble. Back in the mid-2000s there was a lot of speculation on flipping condos down in Florida or Arizona. There were certain areas where people sometimes lost everything they had invested. So, yeah, I definitely saw some cautionary tales. Obviously, we try to advise people to diversify. That's a general principle: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. But people are tempted to do that over and over again and often it just does not end up pretty. So that was formative for me in understanding risk and how sometimes people can do irrational things based off of fear or greed.
Sarah: So, what piece of advice or insight have you given most throughout your career?
Josh: Most commonly it’s this: While you're working, what percentage are you putting away? Everybody's got a different situation, but it could be to put money into some type of retirement account or an investment. It’s the same principle that my parents taught me early on: When you earn money, don't spend all of it. The average American spends everything they earn and don't have a whole lot to show for it. In fact, the stat I saw a while back is that about 30% of retired Americans are just living on Social Security. They don't have a dime to their name other than their Social Security check each month. I'm sure there are a lot of tough situations that have happened with some folks, but I've got to think that a chunk of that 30% probably just didn't save.
Sarah: Lack of planning.
Josh: Yeah, lack of planning, lack of thinking about the future. So I'd say the biggest piece of advice I give is: During the accumulation phase of life, we advise people to take 15% to 20% right off the top to save for the future. And I say that generally because everybody has different goals. For some people it's more about retirement; some people it's about paying off their mortgage early; some people it's about paying for the kids' college—or maybe all of the above. Make sure that saving is automated, that it’s coming out of your paycheck every single month. Every single paycheck, it's going away. Most of our clients have what they have for that reason—because if you do that and you do it over several decades, nothing's guaranteed, but you're probably going to do okay if you started that from an early age.
Flipping to the other side, in retirement it’s important to be careful about how much we're taking out. Nothing's guaranteed, but we typically use the 4% to 5% rule. 4% is probably a safer percentage, not taking out any more than that from your investments every year. We use those general rules over and over again. We do more detailed calculations and things, but when you look at certain percentages or principles like that over time. they work most of the time.
Sarah: That leads me into my next question. Is there an old school financial principle or strategy that you think still holds true today?
Josh: Yeah, pay yourself first. I think that's even in the Bible. in Proverbs, written a couple thousand years ago.
Sarah: What does that mean, to pay yourself fist?
Josh: It’s basically taking some money off the top. Taking money out when you earn it. Take some of that money for the future; invest it for the future.
Sarah: So pay yourself first it isn’t like get your nails done and go to Starbucks.
Josh: Americans are really good at spending. That’s a good thing for the American economy. That's why it usually does pretty well over time, because we're good spenders. We’re not so good at pay yourself first. But if you do pay yourself first and you've got money going away automatically where you're not seeing it every month, then that means whatever is left is fair game. You can go do your nails or whatever, as long as you're not going into debt to pay for it. That's where you have to be careful. The average American would say, “Well, all right, I'm going to pay myself first and I'm going to spend money, and if I don’t feel like I have enough, now I'm going to put it on credit cards.”
Sarah: And then whatever's left over, hopefully I'll save for retirement with that tomorrow, right?
Josh: Tomorrow, yeah, exactly right. Or next year—and it never seems to happen.
Sarah: When I get that raise, that'll go towards my retirement.
Josh: That's why it's so important to start early with these principles, because once you're used to a certain kind of paycheck going into your account every month, it's painful to have to start making adjustments. You want to start that as early as possible, so you don't even have to think about it, right? It's already taken out. Obviously, we're all going to learn to live with what's left going into that account.
Sarah: How has the role of being a financial advisor changed since you first started 25 years ago? I think you even alluded to how back then they were stockbrokers, not financial advisors.
Josh: The shift was just starting to happen when I entered the industry. At the time, most people who called themselves a financial advisor or an investment advisor were really stockbrokers. In fact, I had my stockbroker's license originally. That's one of the first licenses you get—a Series 7 license—meaning that you're paid on commission. So by and large, that was how everybody got compensated at the time, with a commission based off of investing in some kind of product. That shifted dramatically over time. It isn’t that people don't still do that, but it's much less common. Now, it’s more common for people to pay a percentage of asset center management. We are fee only now, so we don't charge any commissions. which really makes sense.
Sarah: It's a big shift. It makes sense on the on the client side, because if your advisor buys this product and gets paid X amount, maybe that'll fund his trip to Disney World. How do you know that's in your best interest? It really makes sense that the regulations have changed to steer away from that. Not saying there's not a time and a place for a commissioned product, but how do you know that it's in your best interest if there's a higher commission on buying this versus that?
Josh: Right. Not to say anybody's a bad person, right? But let's say your broker calls you up and says “Hey, you own this mutual fund. Now I think you should buy this other mutual fund.” Well, if they're being paid a commission only when they make changes to your stuff, that's a conflict of interest. How do you know that the stuff you already own isn't good and they're just telling you to switch it to make more money so they keep getting paid?
There's probably no perfect model, but being fee-only, I think is as pure as I can ascertain. We're being paid based off of the client's success as long as they stay with us, and ideally we're growing their money, which means we're getting paid more. And of course, in a really bad market, things are down. Say, if the market's down by 50% (which happens every decade or couple of decades), we're suffering too. We're all suffering when that happens. And of course, if we do a lousy job as a financial advisor, then you're going to move your money. If it's a pay-as-you-go situation, then we're getting paid nothing If you transfer your money out. So, yeah, that's a trend.
The other one is that now there’s much more focus on financial planning as opposed to just investments. Early on, there wasn't a lot of consideration given to financial planning. And back to Keith Weber, I can thank him for getting me started. He was a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) at the time, and I got my CFP after that. He was an early adopter of putting the focus on financial planning, and he taught me how to do that from a practical standpoint.
Sarah: That's interesting. I didn't know that, because CFP has become more common in maybe the last 10 years. And 25 plus years ago, he would have been unusual.
Josh: Yeah, most people didn't have their CFP back then. It is a lot more common now in college programs. And what it means is more widely known too. I think the CFP Board has done a good job educating the public as well. So a lot of consumers know to look for that standard; if you're going to find an advisor, make sure they're a CFP, which is the gold standard in our industry.
We've definitely tried to be a leading edge firm as far as doing tax planning with clients. Previously, especially 30 years ago, it was almost unheard of to talk much about income taxes with your clients. The reality is, it can have a huge impact on people's situations as far as how much tax they're paying now and how much tax they’ll pay later, or how much tax their heirs will pay in the future. That doesn't make us tax advisors. We don't do people's taxes or give tax advice, but it comes up a lot in conversation. We help people think about the implications of different moves they could be making.
Sarah: When you think about sitting down with a client or a prospective client, what technique, if you will, have you found the most useful for having a positive interaction? What technique do you use that you feel is the most useful to have a great consultation meeting?
Josh: Something I’ve learned along the way is that the best meetings are the ones where the client is doing most of the talking, and we're asking a lot of questions so we understand what's important to them. Obviously, we need to also do some educating, which is a two-way conversation. But especially in early conversations with prospective clients or clients, if we're doing all the talking, that's probably not a successful meeting. If we're making it about us and not about them, that's not the best approach.
Sarah: And how does someone truly understand if they are in the right place and whether they need us to be their financial advisor?
Josh: If someone is interviewing a bunch of advisors, some advisors may launch into their sales pitch. It's very obvious that this is a scripted thing, which might include asking questions, but only as a means to steer you into their sales pitch. In that case, the person looking for an advisor can probably tell that this is more of a sales conversation as opposed to an interview about whether you’re the right fit for each other. Asking whether it’s the right fit is important, especially at the beginning of a relationship. No matter what kind of competence there is or products or services, none of that matters until there's some trust established. And the only way you're going to get to that level of trust is by having a real conversation about what's important. From there, you'll figure out if you click or not. I'm not a fit for everybody, right? Sometimes somebody else is their cup of tea. And obviously, we've been successful with clients that we see eye to eye with.
Sarah: We see each other and it makes sense with what they're looking for and what we're providing. Is there an ideal type of person or client that you love working with?
Josh: I love working with people when I know it's not just a transaction. If somebody wants us to invest their money or do the mechanics, it's a lot more fun if we enjoy each other and get to know each other. That's a lot of how trust is established too, because there are going to be dark days; there's going to be a time when something bad happens in the market or in somebody's life. It all comes down to trust. Has that trust been well established or not? That makes the difference for people being able to come to us and follow the advice.
For example, back in 2008, there were a lot of days—and this is not an exaggeration—there were days when I remember getting up in the morning and pulling up the internet to see if the stock market had completely crashed and gone to zero or something crazy like that. I’d wonder, did the whole financial system go down? And now, after the fact, some key players from back then have written books and spoken about that period, and they say, “Yeah, we could have gone into the abyss at the time.” So in my career, that was the hardest time for somebody to hang on without making a rash decision while waiting “for things to get better.” Well, now the market's gone up a bunch. So now we're buying back in at a higher price. You get stuck as an investor who tries to time the market. It's nearly impossible. Even Warren Buffett and people like that that who are some of the most successful investors of all time will say they've never met anybody who can consistently time the market. It's tempting. It would be great if there was some way we could do that, but there's no way to do it consistently.
Sarah: What's been the hardest part about being a financial advisor?
Josh: Balancing time is one of the most challenging parts. Maybe it's more challenging for me; I tend to have ADD brain a bit, and there are a lot of priorities. You're wearing different hats and you've got a lot of people counting on you—not just your clients, but also your team and then your family and friends. You've got people outside of work counting on you. So balancing that out is the wheel of life—you may have gone through that exercise where you color in the slivers of the wheel, and if there's an area where you're not very happy, that's a low number. When there’s a piece you’re happy with, that’s a high number, so it looks like an uneven wheel. If one area such as your health or your family has a low number, even if career and all the other stuff is doing really well, it's still going to be a rough go because that's an important part of your life.
When hitting hard times, I think of airline pilots. When there's severe turbulence or a thunderstorm or mechanical failure or something like that, it comes down to their experience and training to get through it safely. There are going to be hard moments in the market, the economy, and in people's lives. Those are the moments that you're trained to know what is the right thing to do at that time.
Sarah: Speaking of days being hard, people that know you well know that you have a lot of energy, a lot of drive. How do you stay energized and motivated and driven day after day? You know, after 25 years , how do you keep that energy up?
Josh: I guess that's just how I'm wired. I've always been that way since I was a kid. Some of it I attribute to being self-competitive, seeing every day as a new opportunity to learn and grow and figure out how to help people. For most of us in this industry, the reason we got into it to begin with is to help people. Yes, we needed a career of some sort to pay the bills, but why do we do this as opposed to something else? Most of us would point back to wanting to help people, and seeing financial decisions as an area that would make a huge positive difference in people’s lives, if we got good at that. And I do a lot better when I get exercise. If I go a chunk of time without workouts, it’s not a good thing. Then we get crabby Josh.
Sarah: A question from the team members in the office here is: What tools did you use when you first started in the industry that don't really exist today?
Josh: Well, fax machines still exist, but I don't even know how to work them anymore. It’s all cloud-based now. It's funny, when I was a little kid, one of my favorite things to play was “Office.” I had my office set up with a typewriter and everything. So it's funny to think that I work in an office today.
Sarah: I have heard that story from your mom that you had a little suit and you would play office.
Josh: Yep, and I went to work. so maybe the seeds were planted early for this career. What was the question again?
Sarah: What tools did you use when you started in the industry that you don't use today or that don't exist? And one of the examples she wrote was typewriters with a smiley face.
Josh: Well, we didn't use typewriters at the beginning. We had computers, but back at the credit union, when somebody needed a cashier's draft, that was done with a typewriter. Everybody hated it when somebody wanted one of those, because nobody knew how to use the typewriter.
Sarah: What about doing trades? Did you have the trade tickets with the spiky thing?
Josh: Yeah, you did paper trade tickets. Sometimes, you could call into the trading desk. But we did have computers. We could execute trades over the computer, but you still had to fill out a paper trade ticket at the time. There was a lot more paper back then, for sure. There's hardly any paper we deal with now. If somebody was opening up a new account, you would type the stuff in on the computer and print it out. The person would put pen to paper and sign their name, and then you would fax that piece of paper into the home office. Somebody else manually entered it on their end, and you’d keep the physical paper in a file or it got FedExed out or something like that. And it's not that many years ago, when scheduling meetings, we’d look at the calendar and go back and forth to find openings. Now, we use scheduling software that automatically finds the spots and they can choose their time and decide if they want it to be over the phone or Zoom or in person. It's made things a lot more efficient.
Sarah: What's something you use today that you think probably won't be here in 25 years?
Josh: I mean, artificial intelligence certainly is going to play a bigger part. It’s already a big part, but it's going to be a lot bigger. We're going to be counting on more digital assistance. I don’t think they’ll replace us necessarily. I'm not worried about that as much as keeping up with technology. That's always been the case, though—I mean, 100 years ago, there were pieces of equipment to telegraph things.
Sarah: For my last question, overall I would say, and your team would say, and your clients would say, and your family would say, that you've been successful, so here’s a two-factor question. What do you define as success and to what do you attribute your success?
Josh: Success means different things to different people. For me, it means always learning and growing and helping other people. I think it boils down to that, regardless of how financially successful somebody is. You can talk to people that have billions of dollars who are miserable. By most people's standards, they've been successful. It’s all relative. Regardless of extra zeros, in a hospital bed, people don't care about their money, right? The last thing they care about is the stock market or things like that. It's about relationships and memories. So, I think it's always important to remember that as we go on this journey. It really it does come down to the experience of living. Were we learning, growing and serving others? Were we connected to other people? So it's kind of Choose Your Own Adventure.
There are so many opportunities in this industry and other career paths. Right now, kids are going back to school, and we're all wondering, what are they going to do as they go along? Regardless of what that is, as long as you're learning, growing, and progressing, I think that is happiness for most people. It's feeling like things are gradually looking up, despite the tough stuff that happens.
Sarah: Thank you for letting us pick your brain. It's fun to hear from somebody that's been in the career or the industry for so long and been successful. I think it's good for anybody younger that's wanting to get into this career to hear where you started and where you came from.
Josh: Hopefully for listeners and for clients too, it's a little backstage pass, to explore the past and get some perspective. I'm just so grateful that all of you have gotten to be part of that: the team, clients, family. It's kind of like a high school reunion anniversary. How did that happen so quickly? So many things don't seem like they've been 25 years ago. But that's life. Time passes, so you've got to enjoy it all. Thank you, Sarah, for being the guest host for today and thank you for all of you who are listening and being on this journey with us. Have a wonderful week and God bless.
We love feedback and we'd love it if you would pass it on to me directly at josh@keystonefinancial.com Also, please stay plugged in with us, get updates on episodes and help us promote the podcast by rating us five stars and subscribing to us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast service.
The opinions voiced on the Wiser Financial Advisor show with host Josh Nelson are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine what may be appropriate for you, consult with your attorney, accountant, financial or tax advisor prior to investing. Investment advisory services offered through Keystone Financial Services, an SEC registered investment advisor.