Episode 5
WHY PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY YOUNG INVESTORS, NEED A COACH/BEHAVIORAL COACHING
Episode Description
In episode #5 of The Big Bo $how, Big Bo (a.k.a. Jason Blumstein, CFA®) reviews the importance of coaching, how this has shaped his life personally, and how he seeks to implement into client's lives. Additional topics Discussed:
- Finding your "why" to help embed accountability, discipline, and perpetual learning into your life
- Lessons learned from legendary coaches he had in his sports life
- The power of "We" vs. "I"
- The importance of getting comfortable being uncomfortable
Hope you enjoy the $how!
Episode 5 Key Takeaways:
00:00 The background on Shane Morrow, the founder and managing partner of Ironbridge Wealth Council.
04:25 The two qualities great coaches instill in players that also pay dividends in professional and personal lives.
08:54 Is it better to lean on strengths or focus on weaknesses in business?
18:39 What are the characteristics of former athletes that make for good investors?
24:41 The importance of "being comfortable being uncomfortable" in both life and finance.
30:45 The two-part equation for financial freedom.
36:22 The value of positive peer pressure in achieving your goals.
39:18 Uncovering passion and purpose in life through helping others succeed.
Episode Transcript
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
All right. Welcome to episode five of The Big Bo $how. On episode five of a special guest for you and Shane Morrow. Shane Morrow was the founder and managing partner at Ironbridge Wealth Council, where he led a strategic direction as well as the investment management division. More importantly though, Shane, I've known Shane for almost my entire life and we really started to become close my sophomore year in high school when I transferred to St Thomas Aquinas, when he and his dad took me under their proverbial wing and really trained me hard to be successful in football. People know a little about the history of St Thomas Aquinas. They are a powerful football program located in South Florida. And Shane and I played offensive line together and in this training, and I would say coaching by mainly his father, which we’ll probably get into it, into this, into this episode, we were able to go on to win the state championship and both of us were able to get scholarships to play football in college. So this show is going to be about the concept of coaching and why the concept of coaching is important and how this gets integrated into our personal and business life. So with that said, welcome to the show, Shane.
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Shane Morrow
Thanks for having me, Jason. Appreciate it.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
No problem. No problem. So just give me. I know I gave a little bit of an introduction to you, but can you just give me, in your words, a brief introduction of yourself and your background?
Shane Morrow
Sure. I'll give you the 30,000 foot view. So I moved around a little bit as a kid. From Jersey to Ohio to the Bahamas to South Florida. I went to high school, as you mentioned, in South Florida at St Thomas. We connected there. I went to Amherst College and played football at Amherst. And obviously you went to Lehigh. And then after college, I moved back down to South Florida and started an investment management consulting world, spent about ten years at a boutique consulting firm, worked with a lot of private wealth and institutional clients, did a stint in New York City for two years on the corporate side of the investment management world, and paid my time in New York City with my wife and I enjoyed it. And that said, take our household. And we moved to Austin, Texas, spent about a little over a year or so on the institutional investment management side, and then decided I was going to take an entrepreneurial leap. And I was fortunate that my wife was very supportive and as a CFO, she helped carry the household in that first first venture, but started a private wealth firm about seven years ago with former couple former partners and have moved back since.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Awesome. Awesome. The part you didn't mention about your time in New York City is I think you were living at the time in a one bedroom apartment with two massive dogs. So you left that out of there.
Shane Morrow
And she was massive for a pug, but at least a pug. She had a massive ego and attitude. So I suppose we enjoy having a yard here in Austin, Texas, for sure. When it's rainy and not having to go down 20 flights of stairs in an elevator that's sometimes broken.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Fantastic. So with that all said, I just I guess, you know, you've played sports your whole life. We talked a little bit, I guess. Can you just name a few influential coaches that you've had in your life and why?
Shane Morrow
Yeah. No, it's. It's funny, I was thinking about this a little bit earlier, and I look at, as to say, several periods, especially my first coach in Ohio. I started playing football when I was seven years old in the same football league as Cris Carter, where he grew up and things like that. So. For for, you know, literally your peewee football is pretty competitive. And my first coach is his son who actually went and played college football and he got drafted but it was pretty intense and it was kind of that formative period of time where we won the championship and it was much more to hold us accountable. And I say more disciplined than most of the other coaches. So at an early age, at seven and eight years old, we learned kind of how to be disciplined, I guess, in terms of sports. And then I would fast forward. The second one would be in high school where, you know, both you and I had the pleasure of working or playing under George Smith, who's kind of a Hall of Fame high school football coach in South Florida now or since retired, and then also had the same offensive line coach, Jay Connelly, you know, very different personalities. But I think George really emphasized and instilled over, you know, his tenure there, 40 plus years, multiple state championships, that no one is bigger than the team. And culture really does matter in terms of routine, in terms of belief systems, and really integrating people from various different backgrounds that, you know, being one of the few Jewish kids at a Catholic school. I don't know if you know about various different backgrounds. We all are one team. And, you know, regardless of where you came from, we're all brothers on the football field. And I think Jay Connelly, you know, he was tough, but at the end of the day, we knew he loved us. And I think that came across pretty, pretty consistently. I'm not sure how you feel about it, but as you know, Jay was a great coach. You know, technically, I think he was good. But I think that, you know, he cared about you. And I think I think that's a key that you gotta be tough and disciplined and hold people accountable. But ultimately, no, they got to know that you care about that.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Yeah, I, I thousand percent agree, I think. I think that, you know, my biggest takeaways from those very formative years and successful years, I know for me, I was, you know, obviously a little intimidated going to play for a school like St Thomas Aquinas. Also, as you mentioned, I was a Jewish kid, still am obviously playing for a Catholic school, so that was intimidating as well. I do remember Coach Smith very fondly telling me that, you know, not to worry about that whatsoever. He was also very open with me during Jewish holidays. If I didn't want to practice or didn't play, I didn't have to. And I thought that was great, that he understood that even though he's the head coach at a Catholic high school. So that again, shows you what you said, is that no one's bigger than the team. The team always has your back no matter what you choose to do. And then leading into Coach Connelly, Coach Connelly, I sometimes I still think I have I wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares of him yelling at me during practices and all that. But I think you said it's always a tough love, right? Because I always remember, no matter what, when we won or he scored a touchdown, he was the first person to give you a massive bear hug.
Shane Morrow
Right.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
At the end of the practice. So they always instilled that. What you mentioned. I wrote down two words, accountability and discipline, which I know you have. I know that those are the two biggest things that I took away from my playing days at St Thomas Aquinas, which led, I think, both of us to some success in our personal lives. So with that said, I guess I would ask you areas of your personal and business life that you see where some people make some common mistakes that sports or coaching has influenced you.
Shane Morrow
And yeah it's you know I think one of the big area well one of the there's multiple but I think one of the big areas is that you know I think in a team sport you got to play a role and you know, it's not that the quarterback can't be, you know, a good wide receiver, but I think in the day you got to really specialize. And, you know, especially on a football team, you're going to be working together. And 11 people on each side, they'll be doing their role. And I think one of the things that you learn that I learned there is there's a lot of weaknesses that we all have and there's some strengths. And I believe that you got to focus on your strengths and partner with people that compliment you. And I think sometimes people say, Hey, identify your weaknesses, work on those and prove them, and that's true within your domain. But in the day, as much as I try to be the best receiver, I was never running right at the end of the day so I could train and do everything and work on that weakness. But my goal was to be the best offensive guard that I could. So I think in life, and especially in the business, I've been fortunate enough to partner with really good people that complement my weakness and it allows me to really put gasoline on the areas that I do really well and focus on there. So I think, you know, the lesson learned was don't try to be all things to all people really focus and identify what you're good at, be self-aware, be humble enough to identify what you're not good at and and, you know, have the gratitude to put good people around you, to make sure that collectively you're better than any one individual.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Wise words. Wise words. So that kind of goes into your responsibility as you see yourself as a teammate. What do you see yourself, you know, now leading your own firm? But you're also, like you said, your teammate, right? You know, no one's bigger than the team, even though you are leading the firm. At the end of the day, you're just a teammate. So what do you see as your biggest responsibility in that area?
Shane Morrow
Yeah, it's and it's something I think about especially when you start out, any business owner, you know, struggles with especially successful people, you know, historically that you want to do all things. My sole job is to drive the success of the firm. And what that means is it's a commitment to three different things, right? It's a commitment to our clients to make sure that from an experience standpoint, it's best to breed in our domain and within our client profiles that we work with. It's a commitment to make sure from an employee standpoint that they're getting a career track and they have a path to success as they individually design and define it professionally. And it's a commitment to our community to make sure that we're influencing them in a positive way and giving back, whether it's time, whether it's finances or whether it's resources. So I look at my job as driving the mission of Ironbridge, which is to tangibly improve our clients, our employees and our communities' lives. What I admit that I am not good at is I'm pretty good at strategy and vision and and kind of driving the firm forward from a business standpoint where I lack is in short term execution. And so I was fortunate to work with some good people over the years that have come back together and working with Ironbridge that I can lay out the five year business plan. I would say this is strategically where we want to go and they do a great job of kind of taking it from there and saying, Here's the action steps, here's the accountability that needs to take place today, next week, next month to make sure that vision gets executed. So my weakness is detailed communication and short term execution. So I fully, fully admit that and I need a task master. I meant that. So I need someone to stay on top of me. And I think as you can attest to, maybe that's because that's how I grew up with that, with having that taskmaster and being told kind of what to do and where to go. But I look at my, you know, my quote unquote superpower, if you want to be cliche, is kind of strategy and kind of identifying blue ocean strategies where the competition isn't playing, where we can add strategic value and differentiate ourselves in the marketplace.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
That's great. Yeah. I mean, you said a few different things there, that I, that I agree with. And I've seen that take place in the business world a lot of times where people try to be what's like. I'd say like you're the jack of all trade master of none. Right. Where you have to really understand what your strengths are and try to hone your weaknesses, but also realize that sometimes there's a better person or better place where you can outsource those weaknesses. Because, you know, if you try to spend so much time strengthening your weaknesses, your strengths could become dull. And then plus, you know, as they say, time is money, right? Like if you're spending so much time trying to strengthen your weaknesses versus just outsourcing or finding someone that can complement your weaknesses, that's probably the best use of everyone's time. And I even know for my go ahead.
Shane Morrow
I was going to say it's economics one on one, right? I mean, think back to economics class. It's competitive advantages. You know, you can make, you know, make widgets and dresses better than the next country. But if you have a competitive advantage in one, it makes sense to trade. And I think from a business standpoint, like you said, egos get in the way. And it's also I think I find it scary in the sense that and I think I don't know if you see this but as you progress professionally and also let's say within sports competitively, you get a higher, higher level. You realize you get to specialize more and more. And, you know, LeBron James would be a great tight end, I'm sure, in the NFL, But he's a lot better as a you know, as a guard in the inter forward in the NBA. And I think we learn that through sports. I'm not sure if you saw that, but guys in the locker room, they're not trying to be all things to all people. But in the professional world, especially in our you know, in our space, in the advisory world, it's. I guess it gets old to hear that I can work with anyone and I can, you know, do all these different things. And if we're honest with ourselves, we get to really hone in on who we work with for target client profiles and who we can impact the most, because it can't be working with anyone.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I wish we came from similar backgrounds. We'll probably agree on a lot here, but I agree. And I say that a lot to people that I kind of joke around a little bit, but, you know, you'll probably say I didn't, but I thought I had a great arm. Right. You know, growing up, I thought I had a great arm and baseball and and football. And I probably would have made a great quarterback, but I was probably too big to be a quarterback. And that's not necessarily where my team needed me. So what I do, you know, I'm bigger than the team you play. I played offensive line, right? Because that's where the team needed me. When I came to St Thomas Aquinas, that's what the team needed me to be, right? So I developed into an offensive line offensive linemen because, you know, that doesn't matter what Jason wants to do. He can be a quarterback. Maybe I wanted to play defensive tackle because I idolized Warren Sapp back back then, but that's not what the team needed me to be. And yeah, I agree with you that that's something that I think when you know when I've talked to younger people like I was just on a I started volunteering and talking to two Lehigh football players. And the one thing I always notice being in the business world is that I can easily identify people. I grew up playing team sports. You can easily see the people who grew up playing team sports and people that you know didn't play sports or played an individual sport like tennis or something.
Shane Morrow
I was just going to ask you that question because I find the same thing, you know, And what have you seen as is the difference, I guess, on a surface and a deeper level of someone going to say as a tennis player or swimmer, that's just going against the clock, for sitting in the huddle and knowing that success is based on all every year, you know, five people in basketball or whatever maybe.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Yeah. I mean, you know, not not to rag on tennis players or swimmers, but you know, a lot of the time it's them versus them. Right. So when you play a sport like football in a special especially offensive line where I always tell people the offensive line is the ultimate team sport within the ultimate team sport right. You and your dad didn't really have to take me under your wing to help me out. But you knew that if I was better, you were better, right? Right. So a lot of times what I see to answer your question directly, is that it's really that the difference is the collaboration and the teamwork, right? Knowing that it doesn't matter how great I am, it matters how great we are. Right? Right. And that's also the way that I think about business when you work with clients, Right. It doesn't matter how great I am or how great you are, we need to work together to get all of us to the place that we need to get to. So I guess that's a good segway. Into my next question for you, which are the characteristics that you've seen from sports and from coaching that make clients successful in your practice?
Shane Morrow
Yeah, it's a tough one, right? Because someone smarter than me said success is going to be based not on who you work with, but who you don't work with. And I think, you know, over time that becomes more ingrained in my mindset. And I know I'll call the key things and maybe some of the issues that I've seen too historically as a folks one is just pure coach ability. Right. I mean, that means that someone that comes to a meeting and knows that they're at a certain level and they want to take it to the next level. And they also know that they don't have the time, resources, energy, knowledge to get there and they're willing to listen. You know, I think that's the first challenge because we always come across, I mean, anyone that's listening to this, you don’t have to be in finance. You've come across someone that thinks they know everything. We say it all the time in finance. Obviously, when it comes to investments, everyone thinks they're Warren Buffett or, you know, they're Jack Bogle or fill in the blank and they get a glimpse of themselves and they don't somehow keep track of their stock picks. But anyways I think coach abilities are one. Just kind of being humble enough to know that you need a team around you to make you better. I think someone that wants a consultative approach, meaning that someone that wants to learn, right, Someone that says, Just give me the answer. I don't really care why they don't internalize it. It's tough because they're not learning, they're not getting better. They're not intellectually knowing the philosophy of making money or building your net worth and things like that. So I think someone that's willing to have a consultative relationship and actually ask really good questions because they want to know more, not that they want to do what your job is, but they want to know why. I think that's a key, key thing to someone that is accountable to themselves. You know, we can build the best financial plan or be given the best investment position, but if they're not willing to follow it, you know, it's worthless. So I think someone that's accountable to actually making change, you know, is a third thing. And I think if you have those three things, you know, the coach ability, the willingness to learn or the interest to learn and holding yourself accountable, you're 90% there and you know, you don't you know, intelligence is great because I think it just takes it to the next level. But you don't, you don't have to be, you know, Albert Einstein to be a good cleaner, frankly, to have a successful financial situation.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Yeah, very true. Very true.
Shane Morrow
Would you add anything to that?
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
I would just sort of round it out. I mean, I wrote down a few different things as you're talking. I think one of the things you said were people asking the question why. Right. And wanting knowledge. And that's why for me, when I founded my firm, I had three core values: integrity, knowledge and passion. Right. And I think knowledge and I put them all in that specific order on purpose. But you have to have integrity. If you don't have integrity, then you can't have a relationship. Right. Then knowledge. Knowledge comes second because that's if you're not trying to understand the why behind the what. Which is what I always try to tell people who don't understand what? Understand the why you understand the why. That's a deeper level of understanding. And and I've always said to people the reason why I think a lot of people get scared or terrified or whatever of of finance and why there's these two statistics that always stick out in my mind of that 40% of Americans can't afford a one time expense and that the real the the percentage of millionaires on real terms in this country hasn't increased in 25 years. I think the reason why is that people lack the knowledge. So, for example, I was on a call with a client, a new client yesterday, and she was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm asking so many questions. I'm annoying you. And I'm like, You're not annoying me. Like, the more you understand why, the better you're going to sort of buy into this process together and the more success we're all going to have. So ask as many questions as you want. And then the final part that I'll say to you that you said about when you talk about the control being 90%, they're the one thing I always I always hone in on, you know, because I tell people I do, you know, financial planning, investment management and behavioral coaching. And that's also sort of what this podcast is about is the coaching. And the coaching piece comes in. I tell people you can have the best plan, but if your investments tank, it doesn't matter. You can have the best investments, but you don't understand what you're investing for. Well, it doesn't matter if you own or if you have the best plan and the best investments, but your behavior is terrible and you can't be coached. That's going to derail both of them. Right. So I think on the behavioral side and the ability to be coached and have that knowledge, I think is paramount for long term success. And, you know, I can personally attest to it. Right. And you'll probably agree here, I'm definitely not Einstein, but I have studied these concepts. All right. And I was able to build some wealth for myself, essentially coming from not very much. So those are some concepts that are important that I would definitely agree with you. And more more really round out what you said. On a different note and delving into a little bit of your personal life. I was very happy to hear a little over a year ago and now four months ago, you had your first child.
Shane Morrow
Six months ago now. I can’t tell if it's been six weeks or six years. It feels like it's been a blur.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Exactly. Exactly. It’s been a blur for me?
Shane Morrow
Yeah.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
My kids are a little bit older than Shane’s, so I was able to give him a little bit of coaching yesterday when we were working on this concept. Not much. You know, as many people have kids can attest. It's the young kids. Everyone's unique in that sense. But with that said, having your first child and a boy, what are some of the things you will teach your son that you were not taught?
Shane Morrow
What was I not taught? So I thought. I think I was very fortunate to have very supportive parents that pushed me when I was not taught. Is probably to kind of identify things you’re grateful for, you know, just be more thoughtful and explicit, be purposeful with kind of acknowledging the things you're appreciative of, things you're stressed out by and not internalizing as much. I think that's a key thing for any person, you know, that identify here's what I want, you know, whether it's journaling or, you know, meditation or whatever, however it comes to be really self aware of insecurities of, you know, goals of areas that you may feel like you're being, whatever it may be. I think that's true for clients, too, you know, in the sense that you get to know where you're going before you can kind of build a plan and until you're honest with yourself and self-aware of that. I think it's hard because, as I say, you know, and yeah, so I would just say being intentional with what your concerns, what you're grateful for, what your fears are and being in having that is an open dialog. And then, you know, a couple of other things I think is, well, I you know, it's not that my parents didn't teach me this, but I think being aware that everyone is going through a struggle and life is a struggle that's part of the deal that is not like an exception. It's not a bug, it's a feature. And the toughest things when you look back or think you're more appreciative of, I think my parents, you know, pushed me to do that and I learned it retroactively. But I think being more communicative, you know, embracing the suffering or however you wanted to say it, is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. That is part of the deal. And that's how you really excel in life, I think, is by doing the things that other people don't want to do. And also not just, you know, bitching about it, embracing that part of it. Because, you know, when you look back, that is still a very cliche in that cliche. But the thing that I've embraced from Jocko Willock is that, you know, discipline equals freedom. You know, the more you're disciplined, the more you do the hard things, the easier life is. When you look back on it.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Yeah. So for me on the things that you just mentioned. I think what I can relate to are three things that you just said. Know where you are going. Right. And this is one of the things that I think that you know about me. And also I try to hone in to clients and the process and really just society as a whole, know where you're going. What that means is having a longer term mindset. Right. Know where you're going. So for me, as you know, or where was I going? You know, ever since I was ten years old and understanding finance and personal finance and my background with the influential pieces of my grandfather and things that happened with me as a child and not having as much struggling from a family side with finances where I was going, I always wanted to start my own business. I always wanted to do this. And one of those steps to get there was getting a full scholarship to college. And one of the ways I had to get there was to play football for Saint Thomas Aquinas, even though I was a Jewish kid playing at a Catholic high school, which was extremely intimidating, though I was 6'2, 275 lbs. But know where you're going. I knew where I wanted to go, right? And one of those stepping stones was I had to play football. St Thomas Aquinas. Not like I had to. It was a bad thing. It was a great thing. It was a great, great, great way to get me to where I was going. Part of that is what you said about being comfortable being uncomfortable. I think, you know, I think that was a big part of my life. There were always situations that I had to go into being uncomfortable like playing football at St Thomas Aquinas. Not only was it a great school, but again, being a Jewish kid it was very uncomfortable, but I had to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And that's really the only time you see progress from my vantage point, you see progress when you jump into a situation where you are uncomfortable and you experience personal growth and team growth, right? So don’t ever, you know, I always hone into people and especially we talked about kids, right? That's what I try to hone into my own children is that I don't really worry about what other people think of you. Right. Do what you feel is right. And maybe it might feel uncomfortable, but that's when you're and experience the most growth in life. And the final piece that you mentioned, we talked about it earlier, also about discipline. I actually didn't even know that was a saying by Jocko. But discipline equals freedom. I have this thing. Maybe it's cheesy, but I have it on the end of my signature card and I kind of made up this only equation for how people get financial freedom because everyone thinks it's tough. Like you said, Oh, Einstein, you know, you have to be Einstein to have success in finance and investing. And to me, it only really takes two things. It takes time, right? So start when you're young and it takes discipline squared, a whole bunch of discipline. So I kind of leaned into what you said, right? Discipline equals financial freedom. And that's really, to me, what, like the magic formula, is just having a bunch of time. A lot of people sometimes start too late but no matter what, even if you have time, if you don't have a bunch of discipline, you're not going to really see that success. And that's where the concept to me of coaching and behavioral coaching comes into play. And fortunately for you and for me, we have that in our lives at such a young and such a young age.
Shane Morrow
Well, I think the point you brought out, right, is discipline is important and, you know, the discipline squared formula and it's tough. I mean, we only have so much willpower. So what I've you know, and I think it kind of circles back to your original comment about going to the gym, you know, routinely and religiously, discipline is tough. You almost have to build routines that are that you don't even think about, that. You just go along with that, that the outside world looks at discipline. But for you as an individual, that's just part of who you are as an individual, whether it's going to the gym every day and certain time, because that's just what you do or going to, you know, and you go to the synagogue or certain religious things, that it's not just that that's just part of the routine. That's part of what you do as an individual, as part of your identity. And I think that makes it so much easier and sustainable when you make that as part of your identity. And so, like in terms of like the financial planning side or the investment side, it's not, you know, oh, I got to say, this is or this, or the more you automate, the more you make your team, the more you identify who you are as an individual and your why. The action steps don't seem as much as like, hey, go make your bed discipline. It makes it seem like this is just who I am. It's like if I'm a vegetarian, I'm not going as good as a hamburger may. Look, I'm not eating that. And I'm a friend. I'm not a vegetarian. But I was right. I wouldn't be tempted. It's the same thing, I think when you talk about working out or, you know, for us it's if you want to be successful, you want to go to play golf the way you want to do it. It's like going to the gym. It's just what you do, right? I mean, it's just part of the routine and took me a while to learn that, frankly, it took my dad. Can I just get home after work and say, let's go. And I didn't have a choice whether I felt good or bad. That's just what you did, you know and know. Looking back, it created that muscle memory that you just get up and go regardless if you feel like crap. Yeah, that's just part of the deal. You go and it's consistent with that. That's tough, but you have to build those. It is kind of almost part of your DNA as who you are. But the first thing is you have to identify who you want to be or who you are and. You know that the Simon Sinek book starts with why? It took me a while to kind of come to terms, especially from a business standpoint, with my wife professionally. I grew up in a you know, in a law enforcement household that I'm used to. I grew up watching my father. You know, an undercover video was buying cocaine from drug dealers as when he was in the DEA. And that's what I knew. So going into finance, it was relatively unexciting. And it took me a while struggling for kind of what my why is in the industry. And I read that book and I really was trying to be purposeful with identifying that for myself as kind of an introspection because I was at a turning point career wise. And I kind of came to the point I wrote in the book, my wife, and towards the end I realized it is to protect people. And that's kind of what I grew up seeing with my father. And in our profession, that's what we do, too. You know, people say, are you at Alpha, you do this. But what we really do is protect you. We protect people from themselves. We protect their futures. We protect them from other, you know, bad players in the industry. And once I identified, that was my reason, from a business standpoint, that's kind of what permeated all those other decisions that that kind of are on the surface business or strategy, things like that. But at the end of the day, our goal is to protect people. And I think when you have that, why when you build in those rituals, there's those customs that just become second nature, that that makes discipline so much easier. And when looking back you can say I was disciplined by doing this, this and this, but it's because you ingrained it as part of your DNA, as part of your culture, as part of your identity. And that's the only way you can do something consistently for 40, whatever, maybe years.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
You know, maybe you can think about when we both played offensive line, our jobs were protecting people as well.
Shane Morrow
Right. So you're usually pretty well, sometimes not as well. But yeah.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
I only gave up one sack in my entire career. But it was a bad sack.
Shane Morrow
I remember. That’s alright. We won state the next year.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
So yeah. So I agree, like yeah, that was very powerful. What you did was you identified why you are who you are as a person, then it's not an individual, it just becomes routine, right? Like so, you know, for me, I kind of was the opposite. You know, as we talked about earlier in the show, I am doing my way. I knew my wife since I was probably ten years old. Right. So it wasn't very hard to find my way. And once I knew my wife, like I said earlier, like, I basically have taken every single step in my life to try to fulfill my wife. And so for me, it wasn't you know, it wasn't, you know, all the people think discipline is hard. So it wasn't that hard, Right. The analogy that I gave to you and we're talking about this yesterday was going to the gym like part of my life or my life was to do this to to start my own business, to try to help people out with their personal finances. But now I don't. So I went to the gym all the time. When you're in, your daddy used to come over to my house, you know, Sunday mornings and 8:00 at night to pick me up to go to the gym. It wasn't hard for me. I wanted I wanted to go. But now it is hard for me to go to the gym, mainly because, like, I don't you know, I don't have that coach right now and that that motivator to get me there. And that's why hiring a coach or when you talk about the gym a personal trainer it's I don't I've done it before and I was actually talking to one of my good friends the other night once watched once watch the came together. He did the same thing. And I was like, well, you know, you know how to work out. I know how to work out. But a lot of times you still need that person to motivate you and push you. And that's also what you know in what we do. I always talk about the powerful concept of behavioral coaching because people need, in my opinion, that motivator to get them to fulfill their why.
Shane Morrow
Yeah. So like positive peer pressure I think is a very good thing, right? You know, if we're working out together and I see you try and outwork me and it makes me work harder. That's a positive feedback loop that makes us both better. And in terms of your analogy with the coaches, that's what they do. Personal trainer, financial advisor. A good financial advisor is going to make you a better version of yourself from your personal finance side. It's not that they're going to give you some magic formula, you know, that's going to revolutionize your life, but they're going to hold you accountable. And there's only so much willpower that we all have. To your point, and I'm sure part of the reason why it's hard to go to the gym is because you've got other priorities. Right. Your key priorities are your kids, your profession. And there's only so much you can have positive willpower. And that's why you need people around you, you know, to help kick you out, to help push you, to help people get accountable when they have your best interest in mind.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Amen. So I talked about three core values that I have: integrity, knowledge. And the final one is passion. And I'm a big believer that in life you gotta do what you're passionate about. If you don't do what you're passionate about, then it is again a good time to be just going through the motions and you're going to wake up one day and realize you kind of live an unfulfilled life. So I know we've talked about a lot so far on the show, but to wrap it up and ask you the final question, what's your biggest passion in life and why?
Shane Morrow
Oh, well, it's you know, I have on my wall, on one of my walls, you know, the Henry David Thoreau quote, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” Right. To your point about you kind of have that passion, otherwise you're living someone else's life. And that's not very fulfilling. You know, my passion, if I would, you know, say, what do I like, really get juiced up? It's about building. I like building a business. I like building relationships. I like building, you know. You know, building their people up. But I like the creation process. So for me, it's an inspiration from kind of the entrepreneurial drive and, you know, ultimately maybe being that team thing. I love to see people around me succeed. My goal and one of my mentors was this guy named Buzzy who was my first first manager. So shout out to Buzzy. And it took me a while to connect with him because we were very different personalities, you know, and municipal bonds, salesmen from Jersey, Jewish municipal bonds, salesman from Jersey. And I remember starting out in college and and and he would say stuff and I'm like, I don't I don't really understand that. And over years that I internalized more and more and really came to appreciate it. And I still talk to him, you know, probably once a month now about business things and running things by him. But, you know, he said something which I very much agree with, but he said it better was like at the end, from a business standpoint, your goal should be to make all your partners really successful. And if you do that, you're going to be just fine. And I look at that as similar in terms of my goal is to build and build the infrastructure and build the firm and and and create things for people to help them be successful. Because that's my strength. And if they're successful, that's my passion, right? That's what I enjoy seeing. You know, if you did a great job in your, you know block this blitzer, pick him up and and you threw a touchdown, that's the kind of exciting part. I don't need to score the touchdowns. I just like building the path to success for sure, for people around me that I truly care about.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
That's fantastic. Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing that I take away from what you said is seeing other people around you succeed. And that goes back to, you know, our playing days and playing football and office line. And I give this analogy or the story to people all the time. When I was in college, I played guard when I got to college and then the tackle next to me, we'd have a play and I would, you know, drive my guy down the line ten yards and pancake them. For those of you who don't know what that word means, you know, look it up and the play would go negative five yards. Next play, same thing. I'm like, okay, this doesn't make sense. Like if I'm driving my guy ten yards down the field and we’re losing five yards, what's going on? So the next play I held the guy, I held the defensive linemen out of the line, didn't really move them and I noticed that my tackle, my left tackle was getting beaten on every single play. So that goes to show you the power of teamwork and the power of seeing other people succeed, that it didn't matter what I was doing, it mattered that I needed to take the time to coach up the tackle next to me because the play was going nowhere. Right? And if it doesn't and if and if, if I'm doing great, but other people aren't doing great, then then we're not going to succeed as a team and we're not going to succeed together. So the importance of seeing other people around you succeed. Very powerful.
Shane Morrow
I mean, ultimately, you know, it's almost It is. Can you ever be truly altruistic? So, you know, I think if I was being really honest myself, what makes me feel good is seeing other people feel good. So I don't know what you know, where the altruistic nature of all that is. But at the end of the day, I think if you just succeed alone, for me at least, and everyone's different, but for me it's relatively unsatisfying, right? Because there's, you know, there's a quote that goes, “success without satisfaction is still failure.” So for me, seeing those people around me succeed makes me happy. And if you know, whether that's selfish, I don't know. But that's kind of what my quote unquote, to your question of passion drives me.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
Passion. Yeah, I agree. And I don't think I could’ve said it better than you just did. So with that said, Shane, I will. I just want to thank you for coming on to the show. I want to also thank you for our relationship. It's probably almost spanning at least 30 years, almost at this point, since before. Before football I knew you from playing baseball, and I didn't know that well, because I was, you know, slightly better than you. But I appreciate your time, appreciate the relationship, and wish you nothing but the best. And I look forward to knowing you for another at least 30, 30 plus years.
Shane Morrow
I'll definitely be following your parenting advice for sure. Appreciate you having me, Jason.
Jason Blumstein, CFA®
All right. Thank you. All the best. And with that said, this is going to wrap up our fifth episode of The Big Bo $how. And we'll remind everybody to always live a life of integrity, live a life of knowledge, gain as much knowledge as you can and always live a life of your passions. All the best.
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