Reinventing Yourself in the Face of Adversity, with Billy Douglass

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a.

Podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect.

The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitor.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molitor Group, Ed Molitor. And man, are we going to keep this podcast guest train rolling is. I have another very special guest for you today. For you Wisconsin Badger fans out there, which I know you have quite a few of them that listen to the podcast, this name will definitely ring a bell. Especially the basketball fans of Billy Douglas. Billy was a point guard for University of Wisconsin Madison from 1987 to 1992. I had the good fortune of being a teammate at bills on the 1987 North Shore Gators team in the Prairie State Games. And those of you not familiar with the Prairie State Games, those were Illinois's version of the Olympics. There was a scholastic division and then there was the open division.

It was really a cool time in athletics because there wasn't all the exposure camps. AAU hadn't taken over basketball. They had track and field, they had soccer, they had swimming, they had gymnastics, they had volleyball, they had track and field, they had fencing.

They had it all.

It was the Olympics. They had the opening ceremonies, opposing ceremonies, and it gave you a great opportunity to get to know your teammates. You lived together, you ate together, you competed together, you had practices leading up to the great state games. And one of the things that really resonated with me early on about Bill was how genuine he was and how sincere he was. He worked his lips off, for lack of a better term, and he was going to do everything he possibly could physically, mentally, emotionally to help his team win. That's what I really liked about him. He's a great teammate and he had what I call compensating factors and get on the floor for loose balls. He was always talking. He was always trying to put people in position to score.

And I love people like that, right?

I mean, those are the kind of people I like to have in my inner circle and be a part of their inner circle. And when he got done playing basketball at the University of Wisconsin Madison, he went into trading commodities, which he did for 15 years. And I was humbled. In 19. I forget if it was 98 or 99. He reached out to me to do his first home mortgage right when I got out of coaching. And it was, like I said, it was a very humbling experience. Now, let me tell you a little bit about what Bill is doing now as a wealth advisor for Merrill lynch and what his journey's entailed. And I'll give you a quick snapshot of what we'll talk about in this podcast and why you'll get so much value out of it.

But with over 20 years of experience working in capital markets, Bill started in the financial Service Industries in 2007. He joined Merrill lynch in 2011, where his focus is on developing strategies for individuals, families, and businesses to help reserve and grow their wealth, investments, and retirement plans. By gaining a deep understanding of each client's unique goals, needs, and risk tolerance, Bill customizes a financial strategy tailored specifically to that individual. As I mentioned, he graduated from University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1992. And I did mention he had a bachelor's in business. And I am so fired up to have Bill join us today. He's going to pull some of the stuff he learned in athletics about being coached, about being coachable, about long term relationships.

You know, if you go back and you follow Wisconsin basketball and the things they have when former players come back, it's pretty cool. And Bill will talk about what long term relationships mean to him and how that plays into what he's doing for his clients. Now he's going to talk about the importance of identifying goals.

Right.

And putting a game plan together, a process to get to those goals, and how sometimes within that game plan, just like in basketball and athletics, you have to make adjustments. So there is a ton of value what Bill is going to share with you, and I hope you have as much fun listening to this conversation as I had recorded.

Billy, thank you so much for joining us today on the Athletics of Business podcast. I am extremely humbled and fired up to have you with us today.

Well, thank you so much, Eddie. You know, athletics and business, that's what I've been about forever. So I'm excited to be here.

Well, let's jump into it. You, you know, obviously we've known each other for quite a while. I've always had a ton of admiration and respect for you. You know, obviously, first as a player and then we got to know you know each other more as. It's funny because I actually did a mortgage for you when we first got out of, when I first got out of coaching, I went in the mortgage business. Was that, was that your first home that you bought?

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you bring that up. I actually forgot about that. But yeah, that was the first house that my wife and I bought. And you know, we've probably bought three houses since then, but man, so we go back a long way. That's what you're telling people. And when you say you respect me as a player, that's something because, you know, that's going back to like almost black and white.

Hey, we still had the rotary three phones. That's fine. You didn't need to really date us. And we're not going to talk about the size of the shorts we wore either.

Well, listen, that was my next thing. So we're so old that the shorts are now coming back.

Well, yeah, I know. And you do realize I was gonna, I was actually gonna take a stab at myself and say my senior year is the first year, the three point line. But you didn't have a three point.

Line in high school.

Did not have one. Nope. I, you know, I probably would have averaged another, you know, maybe another half a point a game.

Well, hey, let's jump into this. You, you go to Wisconsin, you play four years at Wisconsin, you get out five. Take us or five years. Excuse me. That's right. Did you red shirted your freshman year, correct?

I did, yeah. You know, it was the best thing that ever could have happened to me because I was kind of a late bloomer coming out of high school. I grew a lot during high school and I happened to have a little bit of a knee problem, nothing major, but it ended up kind of putting me on the IR for a little bit and I decided to redshirt. And that extra year just was so great for me, just, you know, personally to get ready for college and, you know, academically, athletically, and it was great.

Who, now who did you play for? Did you have the same coach for all five years at Wisconsin?

I did. I played for Stevie Oder. So he was a coach there for 10 years. And so he was my coach for five years. It was his last five years. And I hate to say, but I was probably, you know, very responsible for him not coaching after that. Oh, man.

Hey, at least you hold yourself accountable for that. That's, that's a good thing.

That's right.

So you graduate from Wisconsin, you go into the trading business. Kind of take us through your journey to how you've gotten to where you are today with Merrill Lynch.

Absolutely. So I got done, you know, at Wisconsin. And like a lot of kids, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I went down the training floor and I just fell in love with it was like an athletic sporting event. And luckily a company that I worked for was recruiting athletes because you know, athletes just have a natural kind of affinity to be competitive and to set goals and to be successful, especially in a business like that. And so they recruited me, I started working for them and it was like a two year training program where you clerked, where you helped traders with their day to day operations and what they were doing. And then after that they backed me because it was a pretty significant financial backing to become a trader.

And it was a three year contract and you know, we basically split the money and by that time after three years, you know, if you've made it or not, and luckily I was pretty good at it and was able to buy a seat and then, you know, I was on my own after that and continued trading for another 10 years or so. And then you know, that industry completely changed and the way that we made money on the floor as traders no longer exists. We made markets and people had to fill orders and were able to provide them liquidity. And then it went electronic and basically overnight in the summer of 2007, I remember it, my income went from a very comfortable living and a nice lifestyle to where, you know, you couldn't make any more money.

There just wasn't the order flow on the floor to trade like we did. And so, you know, I tried to reinvent myself on the screen and everything that we did on the floor, you know, it really just didn't translate to screen trading was actually kind of detrimental to how you trade. So I figured, you know what I was, you know, I did well but I wasn't at a point where I could retire. I was still pretty young and I've got four young kids so I had to reinvent myself. So I've always been in the financial service, I've always been in capital markets and that intrigues me. So I got into financial services. Initially I was lucky.

I got a really good job on the wholesale side working for the Hartford, which is a great company and kind of taught me the wholesale side of the business, which I was helping financial advisors and helping them with solutions for their clients. And I was traveling around and it was actually a perfect training ground for what I'm doing now. And so I did that for over two years and things kind of got crazy where I was just traveling too much and you know, as I mentioned before, I've got four kids and they were young at the time and I was always coaching and it was. It was taken away from my quality of life. So I said to myself, you know, what can I do? I like what I'm doing, but I've got to kind of do something else for my quality of life.

So. So I went to the retail side, which is. I'm a financial advisor now, and I help people with all things financial, their families. And so I landed at Merrill lynch, and I've been building a book of business ever since. And, you know, it's crazy how life, you know, kind of changes and you have to reinvent yourself. But that's my story and how I got to where I'm at now.

So, as you know, I'm going to get back to the whole reinventing yourself in the different transitions you had to. You had to go through, because that's a huge deal. But tell us a little bit about, just for our listener, tell us a little bit about the type of clients that you've really niched in with and that you work with now.

Absolutely. So, you know, I work on a team. I'm part of a team. It's me and another partner of mine, and we've got support staff, and we help people basically with all things financial. It's really about establishing what's important to each individual, their family, what their goals are, what their needs are. And then we develop a plan that's going to help them attain those goals. Along the way, we help people with mortgages, with credit cards, but mostly it's about investment management and primarily helping them get to a lifestyle in retirement that's going to be up to what they're accustomed to. We've got the resources of an unbelievable company, Merrill lynch, behind us and everything that brings. But our team customizes what we do for each family and each client into what their needs are and what their.

Goals are, which has to be pretty rewarding. And we started talking about a little bit before we started the podcast, you know, transactional versus transformational relationships. And when you were trading commodities, that's pretty transactional, right? You're talking about making markets and things like that. And then as you moved into, you know, with the Hartford on the wholesale side, the Merrill lynch now, that's got to be a real focus on transformational, like you say. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, as a trader, you really got accustomed to. I ate for dinner what I killed that day, if that makes any sense.

Total sense.

I would go in and, you know, my mindset was, okay, I've got to, you know, Try to figure out a way to make some money today. And it would, basically it was like a sporting event and you know, you got geared up and you played the game and when the day was over, the game was pretty much the game ended. So you went home and the next day you played a new game. And it was, I mean, it was exhilarating and it was fun and it was pressure filled and it was financially rewarding and it was all that stuff, you know, Fast forward today. Now it's not so much, you know, I don't eat in a day at night what I killed that day.

No, I have a, a fee based business where it's annuitized and you know, I know going in January 1st kind of where I'm at, of course I want to, you know, improve my quality of life and bring in new clients and make more money and help more people. But that's the biggest difference between trading, you know, transactional and now transformational, where it's more annuitized business, if that makes any sense.

No, it makes total sense. And it's funny how they both, I mean, so here you are, you're trading for 15 years. I mean, that's like a complete lifet, right? When you start at the age of. What did you start? 22, 23. And it's like a whole other life.

Yeah.

And then you got to. So, so then you have to reinvent yourself. How big of a challenge was that?

It was ridiculously challenging. I mean, like, I don't recommend it. You don't have to, but, you know, that's life. I mean, you know, not everything is, is super easy. And you know, and also the things that are rewarding, the things that are important usually aren't easy. And so, you know, I went from being really good at what I did and then that was gone. And I had to figure out a way to use my talents, whatever, you know, if I have any talents and figure out a way to, you know, support my family and do that in a different way. So I mean, it was, it's still difficult. You know, it's still, you know, I think back of, you know, how far, how different this is now than when it was, you know, 15 years ago for me.

But you know, there, it's rewarding in a different way now. You know, I'm really helping people and that's important to me. And you know, this podcast is about athletics and business and I don't want to jump ahead, but, you know, I've Always been a coach. And you know, coaching is just a part of me. And I consider myself a coach. I always have. You know, I'm a father first and foremost, and that's a coach. I've been coaching basketball since I was in college. My summer job, it was coaching. I coached at camps and I did that sort of thing. And then after college, I always coached grade school teams. And then I started coaching travel teams and feeder AAU teams. I started the feeder program at Lake Forest for the boys, I started for the girls. So I've been involved in all that stuff.

I coached at Lake Forest High School for a bunch of years at all the different levels. And it's really rewarding to help people and see people grow when you're coaching. And the same exact thing applies to what I do right now as a financial advisor. And that's what's most rewarding to me. I mean, coaching is what, you know, you got to identify goals, you got a game plan, you got to make adjustments and you got to instill confidence, you know, and that's what I do. That's what I do every day now. It's just on a different platform. You know, I'm not helping someone finish their layups or, you know, improve their jump shot or, you know, I'm helping people identify their goals. What do they need to retire at and you know, where they at now and how are we going to get there?

And so that's what we do.

That's really cool. And you know, in coaching, one of the things that we all love about the game of basketball or whatever your sport may be and about coaching is the relationships, right? And the long term relationships and how, you know, you would, you have each other's back, you're not going to let each other fail. It's a long play. In terms of the relationship. Talk a little bit about that. In terms of your clients, how you watch them grow, how you watch their kids grow. You might see their kids get married and talk about that whole process.

Well, that's very interesting. And before I even talk about that, it's funny that a lot of my clients are the parents of kids that I had coached over the years, which is, you know, I don't think there's any, you know, that's not just by, you know, chance. You know, I think a lot of, you know, those people saw me coach and saw, you know, how I conducted myself and what I did as a coach and saw that could be translated into being a Financial coach also. But it's, you know, it's just like when you see the rewards of, you know, one of your athletes getting better, you know, over the course of a year, of a couple of years, it's very rewarding.

But when you see, you know, your clients on the financial side, you know, building up their nest egg, making the proper adjustments, getting to a point where they can retire, it's unbelievable. It's really rewarding. And then you see their kids starting to grow up and you know, I've got so many of our clients, you know, their parents are our clients, and now their kids are graduating college. We help them get through college, and now they're our clients. You know, they're starting to build their financial future, and we help them with that, too. So really cool stuff.

That is awesome. Now, let me. So you have to, at some point, some of these clients, you're probably going to see struggles, right? You're going to see some different challenges, some different adversity, whether it's in their industry, whether it's with their health, whether it's with their family. How much do you tap into? Because I always considered you a very physically, mentally tough person, right? So how do you tap into sort of your disposition as a player, as a coach, and share that with your clients in this world of financial management?

Well, it's a great way to kind of put, you know, what's really hard about this job sometimes is, you know, just like when you're in your coach of sports, I keep going back to it. As much as you need to instill confidence and try to build them up, there comes a time when you have to have, you know, a very honest conversation with people and say, hey, this is where we're failing. This is where there's a shortfall. We need to make some changes here. You know, whether it's, you know, losing a job or, you know, a death in a family or something like that, sometimes changes have to be made that are not always easy.

And I think just going back to, you know, the challenges that I've had as an athlete in life and then as a coach, you know, that helps me, you know, be able to have those tough conversations with people and to do it with, you know, with some compassion and still, you know, have an end goal in mind. So, you know, I think all, you know, I mean, it's your and I's life, Eddie, that, you know, we've always been around sports and been around coaching and all that stuff, and it all applies across, you know, the spectrum of life. It really does.

It does. And I'm gonna shift gears, but not really because one of the things, and you know, this about me, when we got fired at Tex and I went into the mortgage business, I, you know, when I was a college basketball coach, my why was real simple. It was to make a positive impact on kids life so they can maximize their potential on and off the floor. And then when I got in the mortgage business, it was so transactional back then in 98, it was the first refi boom. And it was all about your pipeline. It was all about origination and close, you know, closed loans. I missed the whole, I was so wrapped up in the competitive side of it that I missed the compassionate side of it. How do you find a way to balance that?

Because you're an extremely competitive person, right? You're going to take, you're going to take a kid out of the city, but you're never going to take the city out of a kid. How do you balance that? Because that's a very unique skill that you have.

Well, you know, I want to win, whatever that means. And sometimes, you know, in this business, winning isn't always about bringing in the new clients and, you know, gathering more assets under management, which, you know, that's the chase here. And that's, you know, that's where I can be very competitive and that's never going to change. But, you know, you also have to understand that, you know, I'm a fiduciary and I have to treat everybody and their assets like they're mine. So, you know, as much as I want to keep people invested and, you know, and make sure that we're getting the returns that, you know, I think are appropriate, we have to do what's best for our clients. And that has to be first and foremost all the time. You know, the interests of our clients come first.

That's Charles Merrill, you know, that's on our, you know, our billboard basically for Merrill Lynch. And, and not only do we adhere to that, I mean, I believe it 100%. You know, our clients have to come first. You have to do what's first for your clients before you know what's good for me.

And, you know, being a part of something bigger than yourself is exactly what you're talking about, right? Doesn't that go back to athletics and realizing what your role is on the team and you know, what you, in terms of, I don't think we really knew it at the time. But having a servant mindset as a teammate, you know, being a great teammate, being able to be invaluable without being most valuable. And where do you see that as you bring people on board for your team or you were bringing people on board, how do you find people that fit that mindset so you're all aligned?

Well, you know, the best teams are the closest teams and you know, the teams that you were on, I'm sure Eddie, just like me, the closer you were, you would, I mean, you would do anything not to let down your teammate. I mean, I would run through a wall, run through a window, do whatever I could to win or to win that play or do it, do whatever I needed to do. And you look for the same things when you're building a team in business. You know, you look for people that are like minded, that want to be a part of something bigger than just going to work from eight to four each day. You know, it's about building something that you can be proud of, building something that is going to, you know, build itself in the future.

And you know, most importantly, it's, you're building something that's going to actually make a difference and help people. And if you get people in like mindsets that want to do that and understand there's a bigger picture at the same time, are really competitive as heck like us, then that's a good thing. And that's what we look for.

Talk a little bit about that. So the whole, you know, here's the thing, we're working with a workforce now and people have a tendency to slam the millennials.

Right.

Which I totally disagree with that. Yeah, we have, every generation has its challenges, but here's the bottom line. They want, they want to know that their work matters. They want to know what they do is important to and they want to know that they're needed. Right. Isn't that what we all want in athletics as well?

It is, yeah.

Yep.

And how do you communicate with folks that first get in your industry, whether they're on your team or whether it might be someone's son or daughter that you're mentoring, Whatever the case may be, how do you communicate to them in such a way, Hey, I get it. You want to advance, you want to advance fast. But here's the thing, like you said it when you first got in the commodity business, right, you started in a two year training program, you had to learn the ins and outs of the business. How do you get to these Young folks and tell them, hey, this is really what you need to do, and here's why you need to do it.

Going right back to what we talked about before, Eddie. You know, it's just like athletics. I mean, you can't skip steps. You don't become a great football player or basketball player on day one. I mean, there's. There's things you need to do and, you know, there's fundamentals. You got to learn. You got to learn to lay the right way. You got to learn to do this business the right way. I mean, this business, financial services and how we help people, it's a language on its own, and it's a completely different animal than anything else that's out there. So you can't skip steps and go right from being a master of laddering bonds and picking stocks and putting portfolios together before you understand the basics and the fundamentals.

And so, you know, there's a learning curve and a process and a training that everyone has to go through. Just like football player, just like a basketball player, just like a doctor, just like, you know, if you want to become a very good financial advisor, you can't skip steps and you have to go through the appropriate training and practice. And, you know, it's funny, so I mentor a lot of kids in our training program, and it's called the FAD program, which is a financial advisor development program for Merrill Lynch. And this is. I think this is unbelievable, but you look at a basketball player or a baseball player and all they do is practice. I mean, you practice so much for just a little bit of game time, right?

I mean, you know, you shoot thousands of shots and then you get a game and you take a couple shots or whatever it is, right? In our business, you get in front of a client, it's game time or a prospect. And very few people put the practice in before that. And when I mean practice, I mean, role playing and going through objections and being able to handle that kind of stuff. And, you know, you can just wing it, go in front of people and try to be the best you can be. And, you know, some people can do that. Okay, you're never going to be, you know, super great at it unless you have a lot of experience. But you need to put the practice time in. It's just like.

Just like sports, you gotta practice, you know, the 10,000 hour rule, you know, to be an expert on something, you have to do it for 10,000 hours. And you don't get 10,000 hours in front of a prospect or someone you're trying to bring them as a new client. You've got to do it. You got to role play. And so practice is so vital and so important. And so, you know, Did I go off track?

No, no, actually, hey, no, you didn't get off track because the first, the next thing I had written down was mentors. We're going to talk about your mentors. But I want to go back to this because this program is unbelievable. Because here's the thing. When people role play, sometimes they do it to check the box, right? We did it. We role played. Everyone hates it. It sucks. Let's just, let's get it done. And I, you know, I remember when I was in a mortgage business, the role playing was, you know, I sat there, had an imaginary phone, and they said, okay, pick up the phone, make a cold call. And I literally picked up the imaginary phone. I looked at him, I said, there' chance in hell I'm doing this. And I walked out of the room. That was my role.

So can you share a little bit? Because this is, this could go across all industries, but specifically in your industry, financial industry, how do you get these folks in role playing outside their comfort zone in a sincere way, Right? In an authentic way. Like they're literally not comfortable, but you don't let them off the hook. No, you're going to teach them how to hear. No, you're going to teach the objections. You're going to teach them being uncomfortable in their own skin because a client says something. How do you go about doing that? So like you said, I mean, we took thousands and thousands of shots for maybe get up five shots a game, Right? How do you get to that point in your industry when you mentor these people?

You know, it's. I try to beat them over the head with it, honestly. I mean, it's. We can't emphasize it enough. And, you know, I go to, I went to a session this morning, you know, where we're, we did some role playing practice with some of our trainees. And hey, listen, there's nothing more uncomfortable than getting in front of your peers and having to, like, show yourself. You know, you're basically like undressing in front of them. Okay, this is how I'm going to present to a prospect. And it's embarrassing because you're being judged and people know what's right and what's wrong, and it's really uncomfortable. But you've got to make them understand that if you can do it in this environment, that's really uncomfortable. Then it's going to be much easier when you're doing it for real in front of a prospect. Right, Right.

You know, I mean, you can practice, you know, you can practice, you know, practice till you get it right. No, that's not. That's not correct. You have to practice so much that you can't get it wrong.

Exactly.

You know, and so we try to. We try to instill that in. In these, you know, trainees. And, you know, some get it and some don't. And, you know, the more that you can practice, just like, you know, anything else, you're gonna get better at it. So we try to make it realistic, and we try to make it meaningful, and, you know, it's just like the movie Miracle. Miracle on ice. Again. Again, again, again. And.

Or Palatine basket.

Get on the line again.

Yeah, how about that one? Get on the line. I still. You just. I mean, seriously, I just got nauseated when I. You said that.

Yeah. Well, we used to have it. When I was in college going off track here a little bit. Coach Yoder used to say, used to tell our managers, go get the weight jackets. And, oh, my gosh, our stomachs. Our stomachs would just fall down, you know, fall out of our. Our guts, because we knew it was going to be bad. We put weight jackets on and we started running stairs and doing tip drills, and it was, you know, people start throwing up. It was awful. But, you know, what get you to where you are now.

Well, that's it. So, I mean, hey, let's do. Hey, put on the weight jackets in this. Right? So let's. Here's the thing. In moments like that, though, as an athlete, as a player, as a coach, didn't you always have to go back to your. The purpose, like, the singleness of purpose? Here's why we're doing this. And I, you know, I can remember and we joke about, you know, the words in a miracle and ice again. But, you know, and my dad used to say. Coach B used to say. I mean, I said it as a coach and, you know, one more time. No. One more time. And you do it so you can't get it wrong. But when you start to. When you start to kind of think about why in the hell are we doing this?

Doesn't all go back to what is the reason we're doing this? And I got to imagine that you beat your folks over the head with that. Like, here's why we're doing it.

Absolutely. And you know what? There's. There's a lot to be Said for another quote for you, Vince Lombardi, the harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. You put the time in and, you know, you put this much work in, you're not going to let yourself fail. And I think that, you know, that's a part of developing confidence and bettering yourself is you have to put work in. If you don't do it, then you're not. It's not going to mean as much to you, and it won't be as important to you. So I really believe that.

Yeah, there's no question. And, you know, you talk about always being a coach, and when you're a coach, you get to know your people, right? You get to know what makes them tick. Talk a little bit about how you do that with your clients.

Wow, that's very valid because, you know, just like, you know, when you're coaching, personalities are different and people respond to different things. And, you know, that's part of getting to know my client base is, you know, what really makes them tick and what's going to make them respond or, you know, be actionable. And so, you know, everybody's different. You know, some people are going to respond to direct, you know, comments and advice, and some people, you have to be a little bit more, you know, ginger with and. But, you know, everybody's different. And, you know, that's. That's something that the great coaches have always been able to do. You can't put everybody, you know, in the same box, treatment the same way, because not everybody responds the same way. So that's just having to get to know your clients and.

And knowing what makes them tick and trying to coach them in the most responsible way.

Do you ever run into this? I don't know why this just popped in my head, but I know as a coach, there's a lot of times I would look at a kid and I would ask a question, they would give me answer, but I would try to figure out what they're not telling me, whether it be by their body language, whether it be, you know, where their eyes are, their head down. Do you ever run in that, to run into that. Excuse me. With your clients when you're first kind of working through their. Their situation, okay. Before they become your client, or whether it be your initial meeting where you figured out, okay, they're not telling me something, and I've got to get to that.

Yeah, of course. I mean, you know, it's just like, you know, when you go get a diagnosis from a doctor and the doctor's Going to give you the best diagnosis if he gets all the information. And so, you know, as an advisor, we need all the pertinent information, you know, is there. You know, sometimes you run into a situation where a client, you know, has money elsewhere and they're just keeping it from you for some reason, you know, and those aren't relationships that I want to be a part of. You know, I want total honesty and I want to be able to provide the best advice and diagnosis that I can. So you need that honesty from your clients and, you know, we expect that, you know, and that's just a matter of being able to have your clients trust you.

And sometimes that takes a little longer. I mean, not everybody's the most trustworthy person, you know, when you first meet somebody. So it's just, you know, just like, you know, we're coming back to it all the time. But, you know, the best coaches are trusted by their players, you know, 100%. And sometimes that doesn't happen overnight, but, you know, sometimes it takes a little time to get there.

Well, you hit the nail on the head what I was trying to get at. So there's that trust factor where the client can actually make themselves vulnerable to you. Right. And they can actually tell you the things that you really need to know so you can help them come up with the solution they're looking for. Come up with the game plan you're looking for. And I'm going to go back to folks that just get into your industry. Someone's young, or they may not be young, they might be like you in another industry for 15 years. They're reinventing themselves. But regardless, you're always going to have that little inner voice sometimes of self doubt when you first get started. So you're trying to, you know, I hate the saying, fake it till you make it right. You can't, not in your industry.

You cannot do that. But how do you get them to be able to crack the code to keep asking the questions? Because I remember when I first got in the mortgage industry, like I didn't want people to know that I didn't know, you know, I didn't want them. Yeah. Like when I'm sitting there working with Billy Douglas on his closing settlement statement, trying to estimate costs, I don't want him to know I had absolutely no idea what I was doing right. And you know, I want. But how do you, how do you get to these young folks, say, hey man, it's okay. Here's it just figure this out and go ahead and keep asking the questions and have that level of self confidence. How do you get there with them?

Well, I think it's really important to understand that not everybody knows everything. And I don't think people expect you to know every detail of every possible thing that could happen in the financial universe. You know, lucky, luckily, you know, working at Merrill lynch, we have specialists that know everything. So if I don't know, you know, the specific sharp ratio of some specific type of investment, I'm not afraid to say I don't know that, you know, I mean, I can, but I can find it for them. And so that's the kind of, you know, information that we try to relay to our newer trainees is that, you know, you don't have to know everything, you don't have to be a specialist and everything, but you've got people behind you that do know that.

So you can rely on the resources that Merrill lynch and what we can bring to the table as a firm.

So in along those lines. So I always talk about compensating factors as you know, someone in your position. So in other words, you may not have the answer, but there's still ways to develop that trust. A, obviously you're just transparent and honest with them. You told them you weren't. You may not have the answer, but you can find out the answer. But what are some of the other things as a person in your position as a financial manager, a wealth advisor, a wealth manager, what are some of the other things these young folks can do in those conversations to develop that level of trust?

Well, you have to be, I think that you have to do what you say you're going to do. You know, that happens so much in this business where you go meet with a potential advisor and they say they're going to put, you know, put a financial plan for you together and they're going to do this and it doesn't happen or you're asked to evaluate something and it doesn't happen. So I think first and foremost, you know, if you say you're going to do something, you better do it. So that's a really easy way to develop a trusting relationship is to, you know, be able to do that. As far as. Sorry, I lost my train of thought there.

No, that's okay. Just some other things that they can do in terms of so, you know, act with integrity, do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. You know, Be honest with them and what are some other things? Like as you sit there and you help these, here's how you work through the conversation because obviously you don't want to just, you sit down, all of a sudden you start talking about things and you want to end the conversation with, I don't know, is it, ask more questions, is it, you know, keep following with follow up questions, get to know more about them, get to know what else matters to them, what other things can they do?

You know, I think in this business more than anything else, you have to find out what's really important to the client. Okay. What are their, what are their real needs and what are their true goals. And that's really what matters. And if we can help them get to that point and solve for that, everything else is going to fall into place. So to do that, it's just like you said, it's asking more questions, it's digging deeper, it's talking less and making our clients and prospects talk more. All of those things together help you build a better, deeper, more trustworthy relationship with a prospect or a client.

And, you know, and I keep going back to this thing in my head, the transition. I mean, that's such a big deal. I want to talk about that a little bit, if it's okay with you. Like how you reinvented yourself not once, but basically twice. Because you think about it, you get done playing college basketball, you graduate from college, you go out to the quote, unquote, real world, you trade commodities. I mean, that was a whole. Even though it was like, you know, athletics, even though it was that whole competitive nature, you still had to learn the business, right? You still, to go back to knowing absolutely nothing about it. You do that now, you do it for 15 years and then you get out. We touched on this a little bit, but we got away from it.

What were the biggest challenges for you when you walked away from the trading world?

Well, you know, I just, like you said, I mean, I had done something for 15 years and I'd been very successful at it. And then that was gone. And so I had to figure out something else to do with my life and something that was meaningful, something that was financially rewarding as well as rewarding in the terms of I wanted to help people. So that's daunting if you think about that. How are you going to do that and what are you going to do? And I go back always to what's formed me as a person and how I got to, you know, how I did anything in my life, and that was how I played sports. You know, it was. You know, I always had goals for myself. You know, I need to get to this point. How am I going to get there?

And then there's a process that you have to develop to get there. You know, I was never kidding myself that I was going to be super successful overnight in any of these ventures or. Or jobs. You know, it's something that takes time, and there's a process in the system that you need to follow to get there. But if you set goals and you're competitive and you're honest with yourself and, you know, you're relentless, you can do it. And that goes back to, you know. You know, my biggest goal growing up, Eddie, you know, was I wanted to play in the Big Ten. That was my goal. I mean, since I was five years old. You know, we grew up in Big Ten country right here. I grew up going to Northwestern games. I wanted to play basketball in the big time.

So, you know, how was I going to get there? You know, I played basketball every night of my life. You know, I spent more. I shot more shots at the Lake Forest Rec center than anybody in the history of Lake Forest.

Including Rob.

Played football, but. Including Rob. I know I played football, but after football practice, I'd go to the wreck, right? You know, I'd shoot and, you know, so that was the process to get to where I wanted to get to. And the same thing applied here. You know, I had to. I had to. I had to study, I had to. I had to learn, I had to practice. And I, you know, I had to reinvent myself. And so, you know, I did it.

And doesn't that. That's got to actually add to your ability. I mean, your empathy for your clients in the sense that what you're really preparing for them is that day of transition, is it not? Either the day when they absolutely, you know, something happened that they absolutely need access to the funds or, you know, it's the end. It's the end of the line, it's the end of their professional career. And they need to know that they're set up and that they. They plan properly, they've reached their goals, they've grown through some challenging times, but you went about it the right way. So that's got to. I think that does nothing, you know, that this whole reinvention of yourself that you went through does nothing but make you even more powerful as a wealth manager.

You know, I don't know about that, but, you know, it helps me understand that, you know, it's really important to set goals and to do what you need to do in terms of game planning and making adjustments. And it can apply across the board to whatever you're doing in life. And it absolutely applies to my clients. And, you know, mostly what we're trying to do is prepare them for life after they're done working, that they can continue their lifestyle and sleep well at night, knowing that they've done what they can to maintain that lifestyle. You know, we want to make sure they're not taking undue risk, that they're appropriately allocated, that they're going to have enough income in retirement. And, you know, that's what we do.

So I think, you know, everything you go through in life, any little challenge that you go through, you know, just prepares you to for other challenges you're going to have later in life. And I think that, of course, that applies to me today.

I absolutely love it. And, Billy, where can folks find out more about your team at Merrill lynch, your specific team in any information that you want to share?

Sure. So, obviously, you know, my name is Billy Douglas, but my email is william douglasl.com you can Google me and I will show up and you can look at our website and, you know, check out our team. Now. My phone number is there also. 847-582-7814. Again, we help families, individuals with all things financial, but really what we do is we help people identify specific goals and put a plan together to help them reach that.

All right, Billy, it's been an absolute. I mean, it has been a blast. And you please go to itunes and rate and rank this podcast. We are downloaded in over 20 countries right now. Find out more about what we do at the molitor group@themolitorgroup.com that's M O L I T O R group dot com. You can listen to this episode and all the other great episodes on itunes, Stitcher, Google Play, as well as the podcast website theathleticsabusiness.com. Billy, I can't thank you enough. It's been a blast.

Thanks, Eddie. All right, buddy. Take care, man.

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