Executive Summary
Uncertainty is a core tenet of life – from markets to technology to economic realities to life decisions. As the saying goes, past performance does not guarantee future results – and people often make decisions in a shifting, unstable, unpredictable environment. This can cumulate into “change fatigue”, where there are too many uncertain and ambiguous decisions to make, and clients are exhausted from navigating them. This is challenging for both clients and advisors because no certain answer exists.
In this 189th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss how advisors can lead effective conversations amid ongoing ambiguity. Advisors naturally want to be helpful and solve their clients’ problems, but this instinct can be counterproductive when the advisor jumps to solutions too early. If the client is still processing uncertainty or doesn’t fully understand their goals, then the solutions may not resonate – even if, by all appearances, the client is “asking” for a solution.
In conversations navigating ambiguity, it may be more effective to slow down. Asking questions and creating space for the clients to sound out their options can help the advisor determine what the client is ‘really’ asking. For example, does the client really want to golf all day… or do they ‘just’ want to quit their job as quickly as possible? Understanding the underlying issue behind a client’s goals is key to providing grounded, helpful advice.
Additionally, the emotional dimension of change fatigue cannot be ignored. Clients may be reacting not just to specific financial decisions, but to the realization that familiar life paths – such as homeownership timelines, career stability, or education outcomes – do not function as expected. Advisors, in turn, can be prepared to acknowledge and validate these concerns, even when they cannot resolve them with a clear-cut answer. This requires a form of leadership grounded in empathy and presence, where the goal is not to restore a false sense of certainty, but to help clients move forward with confidence despite uncertainty.
Ultimately, serving clients well in an era of constant change demands both professional and personal resilience. Advisors are navigating the same uncertainties as their clients, often while their own businesses are indirectly affected by the very changes clients fear. Sustaining the ability to show up thoughtfully in client conversations therefore depends on maintaining one’s own capacity – through rest, recovery, and deliberate practices that build resilience over time. By embracing this more human-centered, adaptive approach to advice, advisors can deepen trust, facilitate better decisions, and reinforce their value not as forecasters of the future, but as steady guides through it!
Authors:
***Editor's Note: Can't get enough of Kitces & Carl? Neither can we, which is why we've released it as a podcast as well! Check it out on all the usual podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Spotify, and YouTube Music.
Show Notes
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Simple Steps for Getting Unstuck: Do THIS and Change Your Life, with Seth Godin- "When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times" by Pema Chödrön
- "The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever" by Michael Bungay Stanier
- Kitces & Carl Ep 169: IS There A Future Of Financial Planning In The AI Era?
Kitces & Carl Transcript
Michael: Well, greetings, Carl.
Carl: Hello, Michael. How are you?
Michael: I'm doing quite well today because for those of you who are not just listening to this on audio, but watching this on...don't cover it up, Carl, who are watching this on YouTube, Carl has a new microphone and it has what I can only describe as a Kitces blue glow. I mean, it's not a whole blue couch.
Carl: This is terrible.
Michael: But it is an amazing, blue microphone. Was this for us?
Carl: Yeah, listen, I...
Michael: Was this special for me?
Carl: I don't know if I...
Michael: I'm so flattered.
Carl: Look, I got a new mic stand. This is the same mic. It's just that this won't fit the other way. And when I turned it this way and saw that blue glow, I was like, "Oh, no, I got to deal with this whole situation with Michael." So, I...
Michael: So, what I'm interpreting is that you were shopping for a mic, and somewhere deep down in your psyche now, when you see the version that's blue, you just gravitate to it. You can't even help yourself.
Carl: This is actually true. I was hoping that everybody who sees me on camera will see this beautiful, blue glow and think of you.
Michael: Oh, it's not for me. It's just that I appreciate now that you were shopping for microphones online and you naturally picked the blue one.
Carl: This is right.
Michael: It's amazing.
How Change Fatigue Can Manifest [01:34]
Carl: Which is an amazingly challenging entree into our conversation, but when you're faced with...
Michael: Bring us in.
Carl: ...so many choices. I've been thinking a lot about this. It's a related problem, but decision fatigue. And I ran across this phrase this last...
Michael: Decision fatigue. Just like, "My brain's tired. I've made too many decisions today."
Carl: Yeah. And I ran across this phrase this week that I was really interested in, which was "change fatigue", and how...
Michael: I feel like decision fatigue is, "I don't want to make any more decisions." Change fatigue is just like, "Well, the whole fricking world stopped changing so fast and chill out for a moment so I can catch up."
Carl: Yeah. It's interesting because anybody with an investment background is fond of saying... We don't want to say this time is different. We're always sort of weary of that idea. And so, it may not matter whether the world is changing or more volatile. All that really matters is that it absolutely feels that way. That's what really matters.
Michael: So, when you talk about change fatigue, is there a context to this? I mean, is this an investment markets fatigue? Is this an AI and tech is changing the world fatigue? Is this a politics and the dynamics of change in politics fatigue? All of it? I mean I don't know if there's a...
Carl: Yes.
Michael: Yes. Okay.
Carl: Yeah. I mean, this is why I want to talk about this. Because I think that one thing that's become clear to me, and I'm getting asked a lot about this lately out at sort of FPA chapter meetings and other big speaking engagements. The world feels like it's moving so fast. Things are changing so fast, and it's in your face every day. Things that used to feel stable, feel unstable, work. And so, every little... Sometimes we get caught up in the specific examples. AI is a really good example of like, we're going to... But I think it's part of a broader picture. And that broader picture is change.
And I want to make sort of a... I don't think we need to spend our time arguing about whether this is true or not. I think it'd be fun to just maybe hold it as true, and then talk about what we do. What I think is happening is that there was a period of time, sort of post-war, that maybe my grandfather... And I want to absolutely recognize upfront that it was a select group of people. But for a select group of people, there was this really predictable path of progress. We've all heard stories. Sometimes we even loosely call it an American dream. And I don't want to get too caught up in the landmines around that.
Michael: Go to college. Get the job. Buy the house. Start the family. Raise the kids to go to college. Repeat the cycle.
Carl: That's right. And it was, for a period of time, however long that was, I mean, I know people, that that actually worked. They went to college. When they got out of their first job, was enough to afford their starter home. They stayed in that home for a very, very long time. My neighbor, we talked about him before, we talked about my neighbor, Homer, oh, they're in that home for a very long time. Had a pension, retired. Well, that's not reality anymore. Whether it was reality in the first place, let's just set that aside for a minute, but...
Michael: I would say, there are some debates out there of...
Carl: Ever.
Michael: ...was it really more stable during the Civil Rights Era and all the turmoil, or are we remembering fondly? But...
Carl: Yeah, for sure. And I hear all of that. I'm simply saying that it seems to cause a lot of turmoil to want to get back to something that's either, A, was never there in the first place or, B, is not coming back either way you look at it. So, sometimes sitting around longing for like, "Gosh, when are things going to be just stable again?" So, that's point number one on the way to our discussion. Point number two is I heard Seth Godin on Mel Robbins podcast, and he said something. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like, "If you're tired of all the change, I have bad news for you. Right now is as stable as it's ever going to be." Essentially, this change is...
Michael: Well that's kind of a downer, Carl.
Carl: I know, I know. But it's also very interesting because change leads to massive creative opportunities. And it may have been more like...
Michael: Well, it's an interesting point even to say that, because, I don't know, I think certainly where my head didn't go, I'll dare say a lot of people listening as well, when you said... What was it? This may be the most stable...
Carl: Something like, this is the most stable it's going to be.
Michael: Yeah. Like, this is the most stable part of change that it's going to be. I don't think anybody I know who heard that was like, "Oh, awesome. So, creativity boom coming."
Carl: Well, I don't know what that says about me. But I feel the same way. I just want to get in my bed and pull the covers over my head some days. Because you can't even engage with the world without being confronted with something that used to feel solid, feeling a little bit less solid, at the very least. It just feels unmooring to walk through the world right now. And the flip side to that is that idea of like, wow, there's going to be some opportunities to do some things that could be different, could make a massive impact, could make some change.
But here's what I really want to talk about. If the world is... If we can just hold all these things as assumptions for a minute. If the world is indeed a little more uncertain. And I'm not even sure. I think the wisdom traditions and Pema Chödrön's book, "When Things Fall Apart", there have been people saying impermanence being a core tenant of Buddhism, right? People have been pointing to this idea for a very long time. Maybe we're just getting a dose of reality. But if this is reality, we're going to have things change a lot. It demands a different type of posture from a leadership perspective.
Michael: In terms of what we're, what we're doing in leading our firms, in terms of what we're doing with clients, any, all the above.
Carl: So, I think of it as like, if I were to sketch this, it'd be a little, small circle that would say, you, me, personal leadership. And then I would be thinking firm of any size and then I'd be thinking of clients and then I'd be thinking of community and maybe world.
Michael: Layers of the onion.
Carl: Yeah. Using the term 'leadership' really broadly, I think what this time is asking of us is rather than control, precision, predictable planning, it's a different posture that's much closer to the ability to tolerate ambiguity. Live in complexity. Be okay with uncertainty.
Michael: I don't like tolerating ambiguity, Carl.
Carl: It doesn't surprise me. I mean, to be honest, very few of us do. That's why certainty is so easy to sell. Because everybody wants to buy it. It's just impossible to deliver. So, I'm just sort of curious about the tools. If somebody were to say to you, how do I get better at that? How do I get better at creating a container for a client and being honest about... I mean, what do you tell a client who's asking about their 26-year-old daughter who just landed a job as an analyst at one of the largest accounting firm and is worried about their future? In the sense of, is she going to be replaced by AI?
Michael: If she wants to sign tax returns, we have a lot of clients. We can't find anyone to refer to. Come on over.
Carl: Yeah. What do you say to your kid, your client, who's trying to decide if their child should go... Got accepted to a really fantastic four year Ivy league institution, but it's going to cost them $250,000 in debt. How do we plan in those sorts of environments? And are those tools...? Because I don't think they're different tools. Sorry. I don't think that changes the need for precision and planning and calculators and spreadsheets. I just think it adds a layer to it, to be able to tolerate the ambiguity of it all and to not rush in and solve problems too fast. To allow people to be seen and heard when they're feeling nervous and worried. So, that's kind of what I wanted to set up, a little conversation about that.
Differentiating Change From Complexity In Decision-Making Scenarios [12:02]
Michael: I mean, I'll admit it, it's challenging to me. I like solving problems. I can't solve your problem, but I can sit here with you in it while we agree that it sucks that things are changing so quickly is challenging to me as a financial advisor. I get it. I don't even disagree. I'm just like, okay. You're making me a little bit squirmy.
Carl: Yeah. That was my main goal.
Michael: I know it all.
Carl: Was to get you to use the word squirmy.
Michael: Squirmy, yeah.
Carl: Yeah. Let me give you another little thread. Michael Bungay Stanier, who is, I think, really great coach and has written The Coaching Habit and The Advice Trap, some of the... He was on the Society of Advice monthly call a while ago, and he said, if you can imagine, to a couple of hundred of the best financial planners in the world, he said, your, this is a direct quote, "Your advice almost always sucks." And then he waited.
Michael: On a call to the society full of advisors.
Carl: The society of advice. "Your advice almost always sucks." And he waited a beat or two. And then he said, "Not because it was wrong, but because it was too early."
Michael: So, what do you mean by too early? What does he mean by too early?
Carl: He calls it the advice monster, right? The moment somebody in a client meeting, the moment a client brings up something like... I don't know, we could think of lots of examples. But the moment the client brings up something that you could help them with, out jumps the advice monster. Because we want to solve that problem.
Michael: Well, now, you're just talking about my marital dynamics with my spouse.
Carl: Yeah, this works really well with spouses and kids, too.
Michael: Who would like to share her problems and challenges, and I want to solve them and she wants me to listen. So, yes. Okay, now this resonates.
Carl: Okay, good. We got there. Now you're feeling extra squirmy. But we all know that with clients too, the presenting problem often isn't the problem. And so, that's it. That's maybe an easier entry... Yeah, go ahead.
Michael: I know that feels easier. That feels different. I mean, my evolution on the planning, and has very much been this journey from clients tell me the problems and the goals. And I do the analysis and come back with the recommendations. To now... I mean, I sometimes joke, but I assume every client is wrong when they tell me their goals. I never believe the first thing that comes out of their mouth. I never believe it. There's always something else, something deeper, something they haven't articulated. "I said I want to retire to this place." And in reality, "It's because we used to summer there when I was a kid, and I really just want to get back to my roots." And, "I want to retire as soon as I can to play golf." It's like, "You don't actually want to golf seven days a week. You just really hate your current job and want to get out there." There's something else going on.
And just if I can ask more questions, I guess you frame it, before the advice monster comes out, I can get to a better reflection of what the actual issue is that they really want to solve. And then we can get better recommendations or fill in your fail so I can run a more awesome or spreadsheet because now, I got to the real heart of the issue or the inputs or whatever the thing was. That to me feels very different than... Well, I guess, there are two versions, either life is changing so fast. It's all changing. And, well, what you said early, this is the slowest it's ever going to change. And I'm already feeling change fatigued as is.
So, that to me starts giving the gut impulse of like, well, throw my hands up in the air and say, "What the heck am I supposed to do? How the heck are we supposed to plan for this, right?" Maybe this is a little harsh, but that makes the planning feel hopeless. Whereas the presenting problem isn't always the real problem. Careful, you just don't pull out the advice monster too quickly. Now, at least, we're still on the puzzle, the mystery, the exploration of like, what really is going on, and how can I help my client solve it?
Carl: Let's, go back to, makes the planning feel hopeless. Because that's a really interesting... Because that response, throw the... For those of you just listening, Michael made the action of throwing the plan in the air and sort of feeling hopeless.
Michael: I head, all the pieces of paper are floating down.
Carl: All over the place water like...
Michael: They're floating down, like when you've had a really big stack up in the air, and they're floating off.
Carl: For sure. Well, but here, let's see if we can find some scenarios where the two of those things combined...
Michael: Yeah, like, what do I do with this?
Carl: Yeah, let's find a scenario where the two of those things combined, because that feeling that you're having, it resonates deeply with me, too. And what some of kind of the complexity literature would refer to that as this deep desire and need for certainty can often show up in actions that, that language was really cool premature, the premature collapsing of complexity into a simple narrative. Like, just get me out of the middle of this. I don't this nuance edge case craziness. Never mind. And...
Michael: I can deal with the complexity. I mean, going back to where you started it, it's the change. It's the change fatigue. It's the...
Carl: Which I would just...
Michael: ...what if you can't plan for anything because it's all changing too fast that by the time you ever make a plan, it's moving out from underneath your feet?
Carl: Yeah, and I would just say that I think that's a result of, because we live in a complex adaptive system, and so, we would say that it's complexity. It is going to be clumsy, but I want to try and find the scenario. So, let's pretend I'm trying to make a decision about whether in my... The kids are out of the house. I'm a client asking for a friend. Hypothetically speaking, the kids are out of the house, and I may want to go back to school. And where I want to go back to school is not where I live. So, maybe it's in London maybe it's in Boston, who knows. And that may or may not require us selling our home to go do that. So, it's a really big decision, but it's two or three years away, and I'm not really sure if I want to do it. But it's got practical implications like selling the house.
So, there's a little bit of what you pointed to, unclarity about goals, which is called life. We're exploring making a big decision. So, often, you see a lot of this complexity show up sort of a peak in complexity, when you've got the world's changing a lot, but now, I got to make a decision. And that that would be one example of like, "I just don't know if should we sell our house, should we not sell our house? The markets really high where we live. I mean, housing has done really well. Is it going to go down? Our energy prices and the terrible winter we've had in a location going to change values. Oh, no, should we should we were thinking about selling our house in two or three years, should we sell our house now?" So, there's a... I'm coming to you with that this messy interface between economics, finance, historical averages, complexity news, and my own life.
Michael: But is that what's giving you change fatigue?
Carl: Well, part of it is that... I'm not saying I have changed fatigue, although I feel it exactly everybody else who's asked me about it. Part of it is it, used to just feel so stable. "We'll just sell our house three months before we move." Or, "We'll just keep our house, because we can come back to it. But are we ever going to be able to afford a house in the town that we live in two years if we want to move back because housing prices have changed?" So, how would you, if you were the planner...?
Michael: Then hold on to the house and don't sell it and go rent it for two years and then you can come back if you want to. I mean, there is an aspect of... Well, I mean, I guess, to tell you, I guess, what do we do as humans when we're dealing with unmanageable amounts of change? We try to hold on to stable points or slow it down or find something we can anchor to.
Carl: Yeah. Yeah, I love that because that, from the change work, is really interesting. And the same thing like backcountry skiing, if I get to a place where the terrain feels scary, I want to flee to simplicity, a flight to... Get out from complex terrain and find a place that's simple. And so, I think that's...
Michael: Find the thing that's simpler. Find the thing that's safe. Find the thing that's stable. It's...
Carl: Yeah, break the decisions down into smaller steps like, "Well, let's spend the next couple of months figuring out, do you want to go to school?"
How Financial Advisors Can Navigate (Perpetual) States Of Uncertainty [22:48]
So, what do you tell... How do you help clients make decisions? Or how do you advise a client when they're asking questions about their 22, 24, 25-year-old kids going to school, thinking about graduate school, thinking about first homes, and it's not like it was. When I bought my first home, 30 years ago, we could afford it because we rented the basement. Now, there's no chance any of my kids could afford that same house. How do we help people make decisions in an environment where things feel they are actually different? Do you know what I mean? Housing prices are actually different.
Michael: Well, yes, but for better or worse, that still feels solvable to me. When I grew up, the formula was, you went to college and got the job and bought the starter home and then did the journey. And now, the version is you go to trade school, you move in with your parents for a period of years while you save money, then you rent for a period of time and try to build a little bit more savings. And housing just is not a thing that normally gets done in your 20s in this day and age and generation.
So, there's a difference to me between the world changed. Let's understand how it works in the current environment, how to plan for it. I don't like part of the current environment. I wish it was different. That's a whole other conversation. But there is a series of rule sets that we can try to navigate to, which just happens to be different than how it worked in the past. And just the piece I keep coming back to, because it's where you started, and I think it's really powerful and I still don't know if we fully scratched it, which is, just tired of the amount of change stuff going on right now. Are you living...
Carl: Let me ask you, are you noticing that?
Michael: ...in this constant state of uncertainty?
Carl: And you're noticing that?
Michael: I run a media platform in the age of AI. Working with an industry where a whole bunch of people say our whole industry is going to be replaced by AI. I don't actually believe that's the case. I've formed my view on it, as it were. But, I mean, to me, that's an element of the change fatigue we're all living with. Even though I feel pretty good about our ability to sustain as financial advisors in the AI era, it's a little tiring to have to say it every fricking day over and over again, and then watching the next new thing that's come along, next new thing that's coming along, having people say, "Well, but now, it's really changing." "Well, no, it's really not." But like, "Now it's really changing." "No, it's really not." But...
Carl: Is there any part of you, in that repetition you just did, which is really great, like, "Now it's really changed." I remember in 2008, 2009, after a meeting in the conference room with Dan and Barbara, where I assured, I had to be overconfident that the best course of action was to stay the course. And this almost sounds cute and quaint now, but if we can all just go back there and remember in the moment, I remember the feel of the conference room door when I shut it, thinking to myself for the first time in my entire career, "Oh, my gosh, I hope I'm right." Is there any part of you that recognizes that even after all you've done, there's still a pile of uncertainty there about the media company and our profession? There's a pile of uncertainty there, like AI.
Michael: Oh, always and forever. I mean, you can't literally extinguish the uncertainty.
Carl: Okay, great. So, that uncertainty, I just wanted to get to that spot, that uncertainty, how do you win it when it shows up where you're like, conference room door, "Gosh, I hope I'm right?" How do you deal with it?
Michael: I'm trying to think practically. My, I would say, coping with it... That's a very negative word. My coping with it is sort of twofold. For all the ways that we talk about the pace of change and how quickly the world is changing, it really only changes so fast. In terms of how quickly things really move, right? I mean, it's some version of the Bill Gates, we overestimate change in two years and underestimate change in ten years. Because it really can't happen a lot of fascinating ways that compounds. Ten years actually a lot of time to adapt and adjust. Maybe if I ran a giant monolith, publicly-traded corporation where it takes ten years to turn it two inches, I really need a clear view of ten years from now. Because if I'm not already steering into the curve now, I'm already gonna be dead. But we run smaller, nimble businesses. I can change quite a bit over a couple of years if the business really needs to whether it's the advisory firm or...
Carl: That's one thing you do, is you hold like, "Hey, we're pretty nimble."
Michael: We're pretty nimble and the change doesn't actually happen that fast. It feels fast.
Carl: Do those words feel hard to say right now?
Michael: No.
Carl: Because, I mean, it feels like I'm asking myself the question, right now, is that actually true? Change is happening faster than I've ever seen it happen. It's still not that fast, is what you're saying.
Michael: Well, I mean, I'll pick on our business because it's the one I live in.
Carl: Sure. Sure, we need to narrow down.
Michael: Strong advisory firms have 95%-plus retention rates. A lot of us gets 97% or 98%. So, if the entire world is going to change, my entire value proposition is going to be invalidated, it will take 30 years for my average clients to get around to leaving me. Which means, if you have the most amazing, unbelievable, new AI-enabled thing, 97% of my clients won't even notice. They don't care. They're not looking. I serve them well. They're happy. Now, my growth start might slow down if I'm not competitive in the marketplace as a business. It's going to show up in the growth first. My growth will get a little slower or harder, but my business, we don't run a business that lives in a technology world where WhatsApp appears, and in 6 months, 50% of all text messaging moves to WhatsApp.
Carl: Totally get it.
Michael: Our business has a certain relationship friction, which means we actually have a remarkable amount of time to steer this.
Carl: Yeah, that's fine. Now do software. And all I mean by that is...
Michael: But I don't live software.
Carl: I know, but this discussion... I know, but I actually think that was important. But let's move beyond, like, let's not talk about our... I didn't really mean for this to be a discussion about how our businesses are going to be disrupted. I meant more of like, what type of leadership is it requiring from you with your clients in the world? You're a human your, your daughter is in a CS program at Stanford, and 50% of the software engineers got laid off. How are we...? What sort of tools are becoming more important? And the reason I wanted to ask the question of you, so for you, it sounds like when you think about the complexity, disruption change, one thing that you can go to real quickly is like, okay, my own business, in this "industry/profession", You don't believe it's changing that fast.
Michael: Believe is a lot of word. I see it's not changing that fast. But what that means is, okay, so then I can look at the incremental places where it will show up to tell me that it is changing.
Carl: Okay, wait, wait, wait. That's really important. So, now, we have the crunchy bit binoculars a couple episodes ago. Now, we've got the disconfirming evidence binoculars out. We can sort of, you know, things are pretty good inside the industry. I do want to move to our interface with the other part of the world. But inside the industry, now we can be looking, we can sort of just be, not paranoid, but on the attentive lookout for places where things are changing.
Michael: Yeah, well, I look at it. We're three years into, AI was supposed to cause mass layoffs and eliminate 50% of jobs. And that's not how it's playing out.
Carl: In our industry.
Michael: In most industries. I mean, ironically, it may turn out that the only industry that's getting most materially disrupted aside from maybe the transcriptionist is the fricking developers who may have made the thing, and it turns out the only industry it's really nuking is themselves, go figure. Because LLM's are good at language, so the transcriptionists and translationist folks have gotten hit pretty hard. And it turns out, one of the other careers that was very dominant by an esoteric language that you had to learn with specialized knowledge was coding language. Oops.
But if you look across the rest of the industries... I mean, even industries were talking about there are layoffs, which a lot of people are even debating about whether it's really AI layoffs or whether it's economic layoffs are getting blamed on AI, but even if you want to go down the road that it's AI, we're talking about a few 3% here and 5% there and 10% there. And granted, economy-wide, 5% and 10% unemployment rates would actually still be a very material, sizable number. But we've done worse than that with good old-fashioned recessions done the normal hard way, not with technology displacement.
Carl: Okay, I am totally following. And I don't want to turn this into an AI discussion. Because remember, AI is just one of the places I think we're all feeling, whether it's happening or not. Because you live in an area where we could now have a discussion about the political landscape changing. And that has had a material impact on jobs among a certain population of people. And again, not a discussion about whether that's good or bad or whether it's... It's just purely change. Go back to change fatigue. How do you...? Let's move out of our business real quick, and as we wrap up, have sort of a discussion about, "Okay, great. I'm an advisor. I believe, Michael, I feel pretty confident my business looks great. I'm not too worried about AI. I don't see as a threat." I actually think AI is not a threat it's a reminder. It's a reminder of our deep value, which we've talked a bit about that. But, okay, great. I'm on the front lines of answering the phone, looking people in the eyes in meetings, who are feeling tired and unmourn and uncertain. What do you do there?
Developing Emotional Resilience To Continue Showing Up For Clients [35:56]
Michael: What do you do there?
Carl: Nice. Nice. Well played. This is my claim, my argument is that that's requiring a different type of leadership. And that's the ability to, I can't always give you an answer that's as clean as... I can't tell you whether your daughter's going to have a job when she gets out of CS school. I don't know. So, let's now decide what the most probable or likely path is by having a goal and a plan, whether that's 3, 5, 10, or 30 years. It didn't eliminate the need for a plan. Then let's break it down to the simplest component places like we talked about. Let's get to as simple as we can make it and let's talk about next steps.
And so, because I've had this conversation, and I've had this conversation rather, I want to use the word very carefully, but explosive conversation. I want to use the word violent, but violent in an emotional sense where people are like, "Wait, how come I'm not gonna be able to afford a house? What do you mean I'm going to graduate...? I'm graduating $300,000 in debt. Everybody told me that was a good idea." And the ability to now sit in that space and say, "Yeah, yeah, okay. I hear you. Now, let's make a plan." "Your plans have been known. I've been following plans." How do we help people who are feeling so unmoored? And I think we have to make room for absorbing that with empathy. "Gosh, I hear you."
Michael: The fact that the playbook is changing in real time is horrific for a lot of people, that were following a playbook that was supposed to work a certain way, and now suddenly, it doesn't.
Carl: Exactly. And I think that ability is something we haven't talked a lot about in our industry, because we're used to being sort of map makers, or really, almost navigators on a map that's been pretty...it feels it's been pretty stable.
Michael: The conversation you're describing still feels like a navigating conversation.
Carl: I agree. It's just turbulent water. Yeah, and to me, there is a skill, and I think we got a taste of it during the spike during COVID. And I think it hasn't really slowed down since, which is, sometimes, as somebody whose job it is to give people mission-critical advice when you don't have all the answers, you don't know, and you still have to help them decide. Well, that points to a sense of emotional resilience, the ability to tolerate ambiguity. The advice monster can't jump out as early as it's always used to be able to jump out.
I have to be able to sit... And I think there was this great line I read in a research paper is reading that said, "The best leaders were not the ones with all the answers, they were the ones that created the best conversations and sort of allowed for collective interpretation of what was going on." And I thought of that collective interpretation idea in a client meeting is so beautiful, right? It's not necessarily about me having all the answers. It's about, "It's your journey, you're the hero, and the world's getting crazy, and I got great spreadsheets. Let's now create a container for that collective interpretation to be really, really valuable for you."
Michael: And I'm just tired.
Carl: And guess what? I think we need to make more room for that. That's what I've heard at all the FPA chapters, is like, "And I'm just tired." Well, guess what? We need to be having conversation around, what does it mean? Take care of yourself. Is there bed early? Is there something about a diet? And this is the last thing I'll say about this, to me, the ultimate skill in the ability to be present for people amid change is general resilience. Not event-specific resilience, but general resilience, the ability to be tired, rest and recover, and show up and do it again. And we saw that in COVID. So many, all of us wanted to hide. We all wanted to hide because we were human. This is the thing that's so fascinating about this industry or this this profession, is we're humans too, dealing with the same uncertainty. Sometimes even a spike in the uncertainty because our revenue might be related to the uncertainty, or often is related to the uncertainty.
Michael: Oh, it usually is.
Carl: So, in moments when everybody's depending on us, we got our own stuff to deal with. I think we have to be better about talking about that. So, maybe that's the whole point we were trying to get to. What's the answer? And I'm super hesitant to offer answers, but I have found that my 8 to 12 hours a week outside with no headphones and no phone, might be the single most important thing I'm doing in terms of my ability to continue to do the work. That sounds weird. But whatever it is for you, your walk around the park, your digital Sabbath. You're turning the phone off, your time with your family, the warm bath twice a week. Whatever it is for you, please understand, that's not a reward for doing the work, it's a prerequisite for continuing to do it.
Michael: To find your periods of recovery.
Carl: Yeah. Or else, we all know what sort of happens, right? You end up a broken human moving to New Zealand. Speaking for a friend.
Michael: On that wonderful tourism note. Thank you, Carl.
Carl: Cheers, Michael. Super fun. Thanks for tolerating the ambiguity of that conversation.
Michael: Thank you.
