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Grit.org Podcast Episode 42 - John Thompson

Updated: Oct 4, 2024

Be sure to check out Episode 42 with John Thompson.  John is a distinguished financial consultant from Jacksonville, Florida, dedicated to empowering highly successful individuals to pursue lives of purpose beyond work. With a focus on personalized strategies, John pioneers an innovative approach to wealth management, blending advanced planning techniques with comprehensive private wealth services. His expertise spans various domains, including professional advisor coordination, tax-efficient investing, and estate planning, ensuring clients receive tailored solutions for their unique needs. His mission extends beyond mere financial growth, aiming to foster enduring legacies and multigenerational wealth for his clients. Through meticulous attention to detail and strategic guidance, he helps navigate the complexities of wealth management with clarity and confidence. Be sure to visit his website www.congruentwealth.com to learn more! John Thompson's commitment to excellence and client-centric approach sets him apart in the industry, offering a pathway to true financial security and life fulfillment. Enjoy his story of growth and grit!




Intro: Welcome to the grit.org Podcast with Colby Harris and Brian Harbin!

In these episodes, they speak to top achievers in athletics and business to understand the habits and mindset they apply in order to build more grit.

[I can. I can. I will. I will. I'm going to. I'm going to.]

Colby Harris: Welcome back to the grit.org podcast! 

My name's Colby Harris. Alongside me is Brian Harbin, and we're here with today's guest, John Thompson. John, thank you for being on the show today!

John Thompson: Thank you for having me! I'm honored to be here!

Colby Harris: Absolutely. Well, it's a pleasure to have you here today. One of our prior guests, Charlie Jimerson, actually recommended us to John, a good friend of yours, and any friend of Charlie's is a friend of ours, a friend of the Grit family. So we are super excited to have you here today. Thank you for making the time! 

Go ahead and kick us off. So you've been in Jacksonville for most of your life. Go ahead and tell us a little bit about your upbringing here.

John Thompson: Yeah, I'm born and raised, I guess, which is kind of rare. And it's interesting now because we live in the neighborhood that I grew up in, and my kids are going to the schools that I grew up going to. In fact, my older two kids, I think, go to school with your kids, Brian, at Episcopal. And that's been really full circle. 

But that is in large part the main similarities in terms of my upbringing. And when I think about grit and I think about the questions that you had sent prior to the podcast. You know, it really, it occurred to me that we've taken a different approach with our children. You know, it was very different in the era that we grew up in and kind of how I was raised. 

But I had a lot of challenges as a kid growing up. And so I was in trouble, you know, frequently and ended up bouncing around. I spent my first year at Episcopal in 7th grade, but then went to public school for a couple of years and went to boarding school. 

And so for me, you know, thinking about building grit, I think about it in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and grits, kind of at the top, near self actualization. So in a sense, grit is a luxury for some people, for some kids, because they just need to survive. They need to get out of the circumstances. 

They're, in fact, I was talking to someone today about someone they know that was trafficked as a child by their parents. Well, it took a lot of grit to get out of that, but ultimately she needed to change the situation and get into safety and security and building healthy connections, and then you could get to grit. And I think about my upbringing similarly, was really having a lot of trouble. But I had the right people in my life along the way that lifted me up. 

So going back to Jacksonville country day school, I can remember my 6th grade year. We had an administrator there, Louise Morrow. And I was getting in a lot of trouble at lunch, so I had to go have lunch in her office every day the last six months of my time there. And I was just crying and telling her about my home experience and how tough it was, and she was really there. 

And so as I went to episcopal, I really struggled and got into a lot of trouble. But it's a great school, and for me, I had the opportunity to work with an anger management counselor, to work with me on everything going on at home and how to manage that myself and all the emotions around that. 

And when you're in an unstable environment, you need some other sources of adults that help out. And so he was really instrumental and full circle as our children, we discovered, were highly ADHD. We were recommended to a therapist for the ADHD therapy, and it was him. I walked in, I said, you're Dr. Michael. He said, yeah. And he was instrumental with his partner, who worked with my mentally ill sister, and really addressing with my father in particular, that where things were going physically was going to lead to reaching out to police and that kind of thing. Cause it was just not a healthy home environment that helped me tremendously. 

And so the opportunity to then go to boarding school, where I had a coach, coach Guth, who was my football coach, he was the dean of students, and to know how much he cared and to tell me that, you know, hey, you don't deserve the environment that you've grown up in and the family that you have, and I'm really here for you, and that those kinds of supporters along the way make such a big impact to move up Maslow's hierarchy of needs to get to a place where you can build grit. 

So for me, I ended up coming back home, starting my career, you know, getting married, and then looking for a school for our oldest child. And we went to Jacksonville Country Day school and had a great tour, a great experience. They were very focused on the emotional development of the children, the virtues, the character. A lot of that was new from when I went there, even though it was a very nurturing school experience for me. And a lot of my happy memories were at school. But we decided to go ahead and start sending our son there. 

And my wife said, well, let's just move into Deerwood, where we grew up, because there's a path to the school, and I would ride my bike to school and all of that and had a lot of freedom back in those days when we were kids, we could run around and play sports and all of that, all day with our friends. 

And so we moved back into the neighborhood that I grew up in without really planning on it, and then started raising our kids. And that's when we sort of began to have awakenings about who we were, what we were, about clarifying our values. And so that was. That's been an interesting thing, is sort of reliving my youth as an adult, living in the same place, kids going to the same schools, running into the same people that we knew, you know, when I was a kid.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, that's, and definitely being a parent, in order to fully be the best parent you can be, really, you have to be introspective and understand your own pathway, and, you know, how you get to be who you are as well. I wanted to go back to, you know, so going off to boarding school, so I'm guessing this was, what, 8th grade, 9th grade or 10th?

John Thompson: 11th and 12th.

Brian Harbin: So tell us a bit about that experience. You know, obviously, you played football. You know, coach was impactful. What were some things? Cause it sounds like that really, you know, was a very. It was a big anchor for you in terms of, you know, who you became. Can you tell us more about that experience, the kind of decision from there to go on to Florida?

John Thompson: Sure. Yeah. Darlington was an awesome experience for me and boarding school. I was the ideal kid to go thrive there and be in a healthier environment and make good connections with healthy adults and teachers and coaches. We think about it. As a parent, though, it would be really an abject failure to have to send our kids to boarding school, because it's really our role to love them, support them, give them the guidance they need. 

In fact, there's a great book on grit called do the hard thing by Steve Magnus, the performance coach. He's written a number of other books, and that's what we get wrong about grit, is, and I don't think grit.org does, but I think that the old fashioned view of being harder on people gives them grit is not really true. 

We've got to give a lot of support, a lot of resources, a lot of guidance, and that's what Darlington really did for me, is it had all the right people in the makeup, and then the right connections with other kids who maybe had similar experiences and were away from home and were finding their way. 

And the motto at Darlington was wisdom before knowledge, service beyond self honor above all. And because we didn't have a focus on values and principles growing up. And it was just a different environment that became my guiding light around. And it took a long time to learn what wisdom before knowledge was, because you spend a long time when you're young learning knowledge and gaining your skills, abilities. 

But wisdom is that ability to know when to use those skills and who to trust and key relationships and to know yourself, service beyond self. And that's what led into my community. Involvement is everything we do, if you think about it in life, is in service of others. And it really doesn't matter if you're in business or nonprofit or healthcare or military. You're there to serve others. 

And if we think about that, that really is where we get so much gratification and so much joy, is when we help others and when we, you know, really provide our best to others, which is a big challenge many times. 

But at Darlington, I really got a lot of those foundational values. And so when you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I was beginning to move up that pyramid with safety and security and beginning to make connections, but was never really a driven student while I was there. And then ultimately ended up getting going to University of Florida, which that was where my parents met at the clock tower. So we had a family history. I grew up being a gator, which was not real popular in Georgia country, off at Darlington in Rome, Georgia.

And again, for me, school was not the focus that it could have been, but I didn't struggle with school so I could study the night before a test, that sort of thing. But I was very focused on the social connections. And so I was moving up that sort of the pyramid of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to wherever. When I graduated and began a professional career, I was really driven to succeed and to grow and to perform. 

And it was after that I began reading a lot more and studying more and becoming more of a student than I had been, although I had a lot of interest when I was in college in world religions and in psychology, really trying to understand my inner experience and the experience of others to get some perspective on what is this all about? Why are we here? And that became a driving factor for me in a lot of the decisions that I've made up until today.

Colby Harris: Yeah, one thing I want to ask, because, you know, I've similar high school late middle school experiences, like, kind of just a hellacious kid at home and in school and, you know, been to therapists, different things like that. And, you know, I kind of know what really helped me go from that place that I was into. You know, life has its challenges, but honestly feeling like I was thriving, you know, living a life that I could be proud of. 

So for you, if you had to think back to those years from, you know, freshman year of high school to by the time you graduated from Florida, what do you think? One or two things were that really changed for you, that helped you get that emotional maturation.

John Thompson: Getting out of the home environment was a critical factor. Getting to a healthier place where I could, where there was peace and where there was support, and where there was the right kind of coaching and encouragement and those kinds of things was critical because I grew up in the kind of house where you do the wrong thing and it's a belt or it's a paddle, or you say the wrong thing, it was a smack on the mouth or a kick. And you really gotta have, you have to get out of that kind of psychological environment to be able to flourish. 

So I struggled till I got out of the house, and then I went to Darlington. And that is where I began to be able to grow and develop and having those right influences with those right mentors and coaches. In fact, I think about it, I went back to Darlington to speak on alumni day, where alumni come back and they have breakouts with classrooms and then a main chapel and share their experiences. 

And I had prepared all this material on the stock market and on investing and on financial planning. And the day before the event, I showed up and saw some of my old teachers and coaches. And it occurred to me that stuff was really secondary to talking to the kids about finding the right mentors, finding the right relationships. 

And of course, I've learned over my years that the three really important relationships we have in life are mentors, peers that you're growing with and learning with, and then someone that you're mentoring and giving back to. And I think that goes through your whole life. You can continue to do that and it's learn and it's share and it's, you know, give back. 

So, in any event, I think Darlington and Coach Guth were a big impact for me to really begin to flourish and then getting on on my own and being independent. But from a young age, I mean, I was from when I was 12, I started in the patio home community that my father lived. I would go and try to do some landscaping work and make some money. 

And when I had a car, first job I had, I could go. I worked at Target and got a job there and worked at a record store for a while and different places, and I actually, in college, sold door to door like you, Brian.

Brian Harbin: Oh, did you really?

John Thompson: Yeah, for a little bit.

Brian Harbin: Which company was that?

John Thompson: It was a and m marketing, and it was a company here that sold ticket packages for different venues, and we were selling, like, riverboat cruise packages at the end for the Anna Maria boat. And I learned the five step close, hard clothes and all of that, and was going door to door, and people would say, hey, no soliciting here. I said, I'm not soliciting. I just want to sell you some tickets.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, that's right. Well, and, yeah, I mean, nothing humbles you more than being door to door shells. I mean, you are the lowest of the low, and but it's good to go through and experience that. So I was curious, you know, I'm not sure. How old is your, your oldest at episcopal?

John Thompson: 15.

Colby Harris: Okay.

John Thompson: About to be 16.

Brian Harbin: So I've got one that's a sophomore. And. And, you know, obviously, we're kind of getting ready for the college. And, you know, it's just a lot different. I went to Georgia, my wife into Florida. But, you know, now those schools are, you know, the requirements to get in are a lot more challenging, and so the opportunity for college and everything's changed a lot. 

But, you know, looking back over your experience at Florida, any particular moments that kind of help pique your interest? I don't know if that's where the interest in finance came in or Miss Thompson, any other kind of takeaway or any advice related to college that you give currently now, based on your experience?

John Thompson: Well, for me, I was still finding myself and maturing at that time. And what we've learned, for example, about ADHD with our children is the frontal lobes are delayed in their development. They're not getting enough dopamine. And that is the area where you're making good judgment, having good judgment, making good decisions, planning ahead, that kind of thing, being strategic, all the necessary things.

Colby Harris: To do anything of significance anytime.

John Thompson: Setting goals and being political and knowing when to bite your tongue and those kinds of things. And so, in talking to the doctors we've worked with for our kids, and our kids are thriving and doing great because there's a lot of support for that today. They have said that there's no way that my wife and I didn't have ADHD for our kids to have it at the level that they have it. 

And so I probably had some of that. So there was some potential lack of maturity at that stage. And at Florida again, I started out in college in journalism. I was very interested in people's stories. I really wanted to learn, and I've always had an interest in biographies. And as I meet people and friends, like, knowing their stories, how they met their spouse and what their childhood was like and that sort of thing. 

And I think part of it was trying to, like, contrast the experiences I had had and understand what other people had and how they became successful and how they became healthy or whatever it might be. And so I realized a couple years in that journalism was going to be a consistent process of telling other people's stories. And there was a pretty consistent method of doing that. And to me, that didn't offer enough variety. 

And I thought, man, I want to write my own story. And the closest degree in business because I knew I wanted to be in sales, since I was in sales in college. And not only was I doing door to door, but I was selling waterbeds and futons and running a store here locally in my holidays for the owner. And so I knew I wanted to be in business and work directly with people. And advertising was the closest thing in business where I didn't have to start all over again.

 And so what's interesting for me is in my undergrad, I didn't study finance and accounting in the areas that a lot of kids think they then want to be a financial advisor. But I got hired at Merrill lynch downtown, and I was interviewing at bank of America, first Union, and even for pharmaceutical rep positions. But I went into Merrill lynch downtown, and they had marble floors and wood walls. And I figured if I was going to flame out somewhere, I might as well start there at the top and work my way down. 

But, yeah, it just took for me, because it was so much about people, there was a sales element, which is absolutely critical. You're very much on your own. And I was kind of used to going on doing things on my own. So it was very entrepreneurial, which didn't bother me for a lot of folks. They get into the, with the way wealth management used to work was you get a phone book, you go make phone calls. 

And I literally reverse, did a reverse lookup back when you had the white pages for Ponte Vedra Boulevard and River Road and was calling everyone on there and using the training I was getting at Merrill lynch to do financial planning and to do manage money is what we called it at the time, and it took for me. 

So I ended up going back to school and became a much better student with my designations and everything after the University of Florida. But in Gainesville, I made some great friendships, some great connections, had some good professors, had a good experience, and that really was a good launching pad, you know, as I became a professional. And Darlington had a big impact on a lot of that finishing that you get at a good private school as well.

Colby Harris: Yeah. And tell me a little bit more about, so were you still, were you balancing Merrill lynch while going back to school, or did you step back to just go to school full time for a period of time?

John Thompson: Well, in the designations, they're designed for self study, and then you spend some time at the universities where I finished them.

Colby Harris: Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about that. And then kind of those first couple years in the professional world. Cause I think it's especially these days, it's a huge adjustment for a lot of people to get out of college. Like I'm afraid so many people find the day to day to be mundane.

John Thompson: Right.

Colby Harris: Like, a lot of what we're talking about are the ways that you make life better in the professional world. It's like talking about enjoying the people, enjoying your craft, developing. But tell us a little bit about that transition, just kind of how you went through that, kept your head up, continued to learn, and continue to develop. I'm really interested to hear more about that timeframe, because those can arguably be the hardest years of your professional careers. Just getting into that flow.

John Thompson: It can be. I thought about it for a long time. Like, ignorance is bliss. I didn't know better, and I didn't know how hard it was going to be. And I remember going up the elevator with a guy who ended up being the trainer for the new hires at Merrill lynch, and he was trying to impose upon me the first day how hard it was going to be, be, which isn't really helpful when you think about it. And I didn't know any better and was pretty hard headed and figured, well, great, give me the challenge. 

And ultimately learned that at that time, it's all about sales. It's all about getting out in front of people to develop business. And there were guys that graduated Harvard and Princeton and were sitting by the phone all day, you know, and one of them didn't make it to Harvard graduate, because you just had to pick up the phone, make the calls, figure it out. And I would go into every office and get advice from people, how do you do it, what do you do? 

One of them got offended because he's like, you came in my office and asked me a question, then went to the next office and asked that guy the same question. Well, you want different perspectives. It's like the 12 blind men around the elephant, all touching different parts of the elephant, and you ask one of them, what's an elephant, what's it look like? And he's going to have a, you know, he's touching the ear versus another one that's on the tail, it's going to look different. Well that's life. We're all kind of blind men going through life.

Colby Harris: That's how we run this podcast. Similar question. It's like upbringing, what was your family like? College, no college. What did you do 1st, 2nd, when did you start your business? And now what do you do in your community? It's like we ask everyone very similar things, but everyone's experience is different. You gotta ask the question at least twice.

John Thompson: Completely. And that's why I love hearing people's stories, because it gives you the panoramic of what's really going on in the world. And I think it's so important to keep learning and keep doing that. But for me it was just a process. 

Those first few years of, I'm not an early morning guy, so getting in the office at nine, but working till nine at night, and I was cold calling when people would be home, so I would cold call businesses during the day. And because I didn't know better and I had a big name like Merrill lynch behind me, I was calling the CFO's of major public companies, I was getting in at St. Joe and talking to them about their four hundred one k and pension plan, and just that was what we were supposed to do and just kept going after it. 

And that's really the key is it's just, just about that, making those incremental decisions to keep going, keep trying the next one, keep moving forward. And it makes me think about a lot of the big gains we have in life are incremental. It's about working out, taking care of your body, eating well, staying disciplined, and over a long period of time doing little things the right way can build something great. 

But there are a few decisions you make in life that can create exponential gains. And those decisions are around the key relationships in your life, who you marry, who you work with, and that's where it gets into values. 

And I can tell you that for example, the values at congruent wealth, which are the values of our family, are mutual respect. Do people treat each other respectfully? Do they talk respectfully about other people? Are they gossipers? Are they focused on being their best and respecting their profession? Mutual regard, you know, how we affect one another. Extreme reliability, doing what you say you're going to do, being honest, fidelity, loyalty, those are critical factors. 

And so when you go to work for someone and you go to work for a company, that's going to drive your success, regardless of the name brand, the manager that you have, the training, people that you have have a huge impact on you. And if they're not people that you can trust, those are the key foundational aspects of trust, then that's going to drive some of your success, or a large part of it in many cases. I didn't always have clarification on those values. I didn't always practice those as well as I would have liked. Looking back. And that's been a part of your ongoing growth in life without limit to when you die.

Brian Harbin: I wanted to ask you, too. And I can definitely. It's funny because I interviewed with Merrill lynch. We first moved to Jacksonville. I interviewed this guy, Tom. He had like a shaved head, you know, the top office and everything. But so I could definitely picture that whole environment as you're talking about it. 

But, so, if I remember correctly, was it two years at Merrill lynch? And tell us about that decision to leave and transition, why it was important to stay two years. Cause I think that's an important benchmark, especially in a job that's that difficult. And then kind of how, where you were in your personal life at this point, and kind of how that tied in to your decision.

John Thompson: Well, I was still very single at that point, and I had some friends that had gone to the company that became, well, Fargo, where I spent 20 years that I had already made that move. Merrill lynch is notorious for a phrase called feed the sharks, starve the minnows. And that was really a little bit of the business concept. Just bring in these young people, have them cold, call and show them the door. Once they have a little business.

Colby Harris: Make money for the big dogs, take the other guys out.

John Thompson: That was a common saying. So there were some cultural challenges. And with the industry in general.

Brian Harbin: Well, I can say, too, one of the things what turned me off in the interview is because I knew exactly what the job was like. Dialing for dollars pretty much. But in the interview, he's asked me about how wealthy my parents friends are. And I'm like, well, you want me to come into the hard way. And then you want me to refer you my, you know, to your more established. And I'm like, yeah, it just didn't sit well.

John Thompson: Right.

Brian Harbin: But I understand that mentality. It is back then. Yeah.

John Thompson: And I had success. I mean, I was over $20 million in assets in the first two years. But that environment was not the right environment for me. And that's something we want to really do with congruent wealth. I mean, the reason we say congruent is it's an alignment of values, an alignment of principles. 

You know, what you think and feel is what you say and do, and helping clients align their values with their planning and their families and the meaningful aspects of their lives. When you talk about that Merrill lynch experience that you had, I think about a recent video that I saw by a psychologist on a study of what they had done in politics. 

And looking at, gosh, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And they really inverted it. I think that's important to think about these concepts. Power attracts corruptible people. When you get into the halls of power in every institution, you're going to be dealing with people that are willing to do, in their minds, whatever it takes to get what they want. And that's going to happen at big companies. 

And we see it all the time in the news. It's going to happen in politics. And I think that's where having that foundation of wisdom before knowledge, service, beyond self honor, above all the foundation we're trying to give our children of values, that's where grit is useful in helping others and serving others and living our purpose.

Colby Harris: Well, I think, too, a lot of what you said is like, it's hard. You know, these days you can do a lot of different things that wouldn't necessarily be considered respectable, honorable. Like, there's quick cash left and right these days. There's tons of different things you can do to essentially, someone's going to win and someone's going to lose. Right? 

And some people are okay with that. Even just through this conversation, I've, like, been sitting here and I'm like, man, I would trust this guy with my money any day of the week. So it's fine. Is just like, laugh for it. So I want to circle back to that as we continue to get back to leading into launching congruent wealth and things like that, because I feel like that just sitting here is processing of, like, you want to talk about the number one thing you could be in business is trustworthy. 

Like, anyone's going to work with you if they feel like they can trust you, but we'll circle back to that one. So, I know we were talking about kind of the transition. Did you say that you spent 20 years in another company with Wells Fargo?

John Thompson: That's right.

Colby Harris: Or that became, well, sort of. Tell us a little bit more about that. Were you doing a similar role there? Were you working with a lot of high net worth individuals? Tell us a little bit more about that time and the career you had there.

John Thompson: Sure. It was really just a parallel transition. At the time, it was prudential securities. So the cold calling. Hi, this is John Thompson with prudential securities. Didn't have the same power as Merrill lynch in terms of a brand name at the time. And I then transitioned more into networking, but I was still a financial advisor, and that's when I began my civic activities and involvement and joined the Mennonack Club here in Jacksonville, which does a lot of great things for kids in the community, and began networking to build the business. 

And over the course of that 20 years, I really kept working at my skill set, learning, gaining designations, building my capabilities, getting any training that I could get, reading what I could read. That was really key, because the insecurity of having an advertising degree and being in finance was heavy on me. 

And so my first designation was the certified investment management analyst designation, which was through the Wharton School of Business and what is now called the Investments in Wealth Institute. And it was originally designed for consultants of pension funds and endowments and institutional ways of approaching money using the academic approach and a number of other methods. 

And that was in 2008 and then in 2013, as I wanted to keep working up the market. And I knew I didn't want to work directly with institutions as my clients, because you have a lot of turnover, and it's not as personal as working with families and really developing these long term relationships, which we now have clients for 20 years. And I wanted to work with families, but I wanted to keep growing and moving up market. 

And that is where I knew I wanted to focus on working with entrepreneurs and went back to the booth school again with the investments in Wealth Institute for the Certified Private wealth advisor designation. And that is really all around tax planning, asset protection, exit planning for business owners, multi generational consulting, all of the needs that high net worth business owners and families have. Philosophically, my perspective on working with entrepreneurs is entrepreneurs make all the sacrifices, takes all the risks, and then who benefits? 

But the consumers that they're solving a problem for or helping the families, the employees that work for them and their families and the communities that they often give back to. And while they're making all the sacrifices they make and taking the risks that they take and everyone else is benefiting so much, a lot of times there's things that they have to give up in terms of family time, or they need to delegate the work that we do, which is a critical function of what we provide. 

And so we think about, well, what's really meaningful to them, and what are their values? What are their values around money? What are their values around family? What are their key relationships? What are their goals personally? What are their goals professionally? What do they feel their top accomplishments are? What are their goals for their children? What are their goals for any other family that is important to them? What are the goals for their employees? I mean, I can't tell you the number of clients that want to do more for their people. 

And we're putting together deferred compensation plans and you name it, employee stock ownership plans. They want to give back. They know that by taking care of others, everybody wins. And so I think about the freedoms that we have in a capitalist democracy like we live in, and the basis of that are successful business owners, because the more that they can succeed and are able to allocate capital intelligence back into the economy through hiring the right people, through investing in the right investments for the business, and through investing in the markets with us, that really perpetuates the growth and distribution of wealth across the entire country. So it supports our freedoms, it supports our values, it supports our way of life. 

And I think that a lot of times, because there isn't a focus on grit, individual grit, and how important that is, and we want other people to solve our problems, it gets lost everything that entrepreneurship entrepreneurs give back to our society. And so by helping them and helping them be smart allocators multi generationally, and helping their children in a number of different ways be effective at the inheritance and managing that well, we can really promote our entire community and our country in a positive way while they do the right things with it. 

And I think there's a little bit of a misnomer around how that capital works through the systems positively for everybody, and it really does. And that's something that we look to try to help and support.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, I'm really curious, too. So, I mean, 20 years at Wells Fargo, I mean, at this point, and obviously you're reading a lot, you know, kind of improving your own personal skills at how deep into that did you know that you wanted to start your own company? And then what were some of the things that you knew you had to get in place in order to make that happen.

John Thompson: Great question. About 2013, when I finished the CPWA and knew I wanted to focus on working with business owners, and felt confident that I knew how to run a business. And the more I enjoyed working with entrepreneurs, because they delegate well, they're good decision makers. They can size people up pretty well, and they live a happier kind of existence. They're easier clients to work with. They can often be more appreciative. They don't need as much time because they appreciate that we're the professional and can handle everything for them. 

And I realized, you know, that's really what I want to do. They seem to be happier because they're more in control of their life and their decisions. They're more in control of who's around them and can live their values more openly and more clearly and, you know, live their standards. It's kind of like Nick Saban always said, high performers don't like working with mediocre performers, and mediocre performers don't like working with high performers. 

And so I realized I was in a partnership at my company, that the partners didn't have the same mindset around a lot of things or shared values. And so in 2015, I initially talked to my manager because Wells Fargo had an approach to roll out and go independent with Wells Fargo, and they've got a couple ways to do that. And he was very much against it and pushing back. And my partners were not really on board, and they had a lot of other personal things going on, too, separately. 

And so I knew ultimately, when was in a tough situation. And I continued to work with it for a while until some things occurred. And I realized, man, our family values are not the same. Our views of integrity and all of that were not the same. And it wasn't affecting our clients, but more of their personal decisions. And I just had to get out of the partnership and be able to look my kids in the eyes and be proud of the people I worked with and the work that I was doing. 

And I knew at that time I was going to end up wanting to go independent. But I certainly feel that offers from other big companies and great offers, I mean, huge opportunities to make a shift. But I also realized I wasn't going to be able to, as Bill Parcells used to say, is, if I'm going to do the cooking, let me buy the groceries. I wanted to make the whole, all the decisions about the business, and couldn't see myself going from the frying pan to the fire of where we had limited decision making capability in a number of areas. 

And the way we split the resources with the company around revenue Limited, what I could do with my revenue to invest in the ways that I really wanted to in the business for the betterment of our clients. So we knew we could do much better work for our clients, being independent, but we also needed resources around that. 

And so the Wells Fargo options didn't appear to be better. And we decided we were going to be fully independent, and we were going to align with organizations where our values were aligned, where the resources were there to support us to do great work for our clients, and to be more involved, for example, in their estate planning and tax planning, and working with their attorneys and accountants and other professionals around asset protection and getting support around our compliance and all kinds of things that we need in the back office. And so we decided to make that launch. 

And so I think in 2021 is when I officially was qualified. Wells Fargo was going to support us to be a fiduciary and launch our own business and custody assets at Wells Fargo. And I was going through that process, but looking at all the resources that were out there with other organizations, and it was, obviously, they really cared a lot more about having independence because of what they were doing and how they worked with you and how they spoke to you and all of that, just night and day, differences in cultures and those kinds of things. 

And so that became what I really wanted to do. And ultimately, we launched fully independent to be congruent wealth, which was, that concept is an evolution of our clarification of our values through those experiences. Well, and kind of recognizing the principles we've talked about today and how important that is, obviously, as a parent or a spouse, but also a business owner and a business leader, and then as an advisor to clients and how we help them, and think about how do we put them first in everything that we do.

Colby Harris: So, new business, new company, you've gone fully independent. I want to circle back to what we were talking about earlier, because I think the trusting is like, when you're talking about things like this. I mean, finance is one of those industries that, like, depending on who you ask, just like you said, like, the entrepreneur might be like, love my finance guy. We play golf together twice a year, and I trust him wholeheartedly. Some people, you're gonna talk to me like, you work with a financial advisor, they're scamming you, that sort of thing.

John Thompson: And we know who those guys are.

Colby Harris: Yeah, probably not the guys with a lot of money in the first place. But I did want to ask, going back to that trust aspect. So having your own new company, you've obviously had to build a lot of trust in the past with people I would definitely consider like an expert on that nature of networking and just building trust in a, maybe not a timely manner, but just over time. 

What advice would you have for building trust in relationships business wise, personally, how do you think you've been able to do that so successfully, especially through the process of launching your own company in the last few years?

John Thompson: Well, so we think about it in a few different frameworks, and as a parent, for example, it became clear to us we needed to have goals for what we wanted, not for our children's accomplishments, but for what we wanted in our relationship with them. 

And the goal in our parenting, for example, and this is trust oriented, is we want to raise kids that we would want to be friends with when they're adults, and we've got to treat them in a way that they want to be friends with us by the time they're adults. And that's a lot of work when you think about it. You've really got to step up as a human being and be respectful with each other, be regarding of their feelings and how they work, be reliable. And that became the framework that really already aligned with who I wanted to be and who I was. 

And when you think about clients, networking and business, it's a similar framework of having those values and then thinking about the goal. The goals are, how can I help them in whatever's important to them? And by digging into their values and understanding their relationships and understanding their personal goals and health goals and family goals and all of that, and really listening, really documenting what's important. We create a mind map, for example, of what's important to the family that we work with. 

And through that mind map, we then set up their financial goals, but we also have resources to help them with the non-financial goals. There's often costs around that, so there becomes a financial component to it. But it could be family governance consulting and bringing in someone that works with family businesses. It could be any number of things, but helping them through that clarifying process and really focusing on what's important to them and how we can help them and then delivering with our values and, you know, aligning, helping them align their values as well. 

Well, we think about it in the same way with the professional partners that we work with, the attorneys and accountants and other professionals as we look for mutually beneficial partnerships where we can add value to our partners, whether it's through sharing a lot of research and content that we've acquired over the years from mastermind groups we've been in with high net worth advisors, to providing opportunities for them to grow their practices. 

And they see the way we operate and we think, for example, that attorneys and accountants should be involved in the process. And this gets back to building the trust and developing the network for the business. 

But something like over 70% of Nobel winning scientific teams that are creating new therapies and new discoveries are not 20 oncologists studying for the cure for cancer. But you've got chemists and physicists and all these different experts that bring in different knowledge and experience, and different pattern recognition, and a lot of new discoveries in certain fields, or pattern recognition from another field. We see the value of having the accountant involved in the wealth management and having the estate attorney involved. And so we want them engaged. 

And in fact, we will often compensate the accountant to be part of the team, so that they can, because they're paid for their time, they can be in the meetings, they can review the portfolios, we can be doing tax planning together. And even in the estate planning they contribute a lot, because like the twelve blind men, they've got a perspective on the family, that they may have an idea on the estate planning that I didn't have or the estate attorney didn't have. 

So that team approach is really critical. And another way that we build trust. And for the estate attorneys and tax attorneys, it's similar in the sense that we think that clients, particularly complex, high net worth clients, should be reviewing that estate planning each year, and we should be talking with the estate attorney. There's certainly changes in tax law and state laws, but also changes in the family, changes in the business. 

And so those things need to be evaluated on an ongoing basis. We extend it from there. Where there's estate planning done, that's really done. For who? Quite often it's for the family. So how well are parents discussing with children their responsibilities with that estate? And it doesn't mean getting into details and into financial numbers, but who's going to be trustee? What does it mean to be a beneficiary? How do trusts operate? 

We're big proponents of trust because they really protect from creditors, from divorce, from spouses, predeceasing a spouse and getting remarried. And you want your kids' trust to maybe go to your grandkids, for example, in that sense, and understanding how trusts work, and what is a reasonable distribution rate or a spending rate, and what are some reasonable ways to invest it, but ultimately getting that family involved. 

And as clients age, we have family meetings because sometimes the next generation wants to think about the estate planning as it dovetails into their own. They're doing their own tax planning around estate planning and may not want to inherit the assets outright, or they've got some changes in their family, or they might say, hey, mom and dad, I'm good, but my brother or sister, they really need more of the resources. You don't have to do it equally. 

So I think as the adult children are older, those productive conversations are critical, and we try to, well, we set up an environment that's respectful and regarding and where that dialogue can occur. And at minimum, we encourage the conversations so they're involved in it. So I know that's a long answer to developing trust, but we do that with the client process, we do that with the professionals that we work with. We do that with those, the folks that we network with. 

And I've really only grown through word of mouth over the years and haven't marketed really, and haven't been big on marketing and sales, but we're about to make that shift. But it's all been word of mouth introductions over the years because of the relationships that we have had.

Brian Harbin: I was going to ask you too, the cause, going from being a financial planner to now you have all those duties on top of being an entrepreneur, an employer, and you've got a, you know, obviously have a family. I know you have a 15 year old. And then you guys have… 

John Thompson: 13 and 10.

Brian Harbin: Okay, so you've got three kids.

John Thompson: Yeah.

Brian Harbin: So tell us about just kind of navigating all of that over the last couple years, in addition to bringing on new clients, managing them, but then the responsibilities of an entrepreneur, entrepreneur family man, and then also just kind of taking care of yourself personally.

John Thompson: Sure. Well, when you're going through that kind of a transition, something's got to give, right? So it's a combination. But, you know, as a business owner, there are things, decisions that need to be made. But key in that is who you're going to trust with different aspects of the business. So the vendors that you work with and the partners that we have, which are new edge advisors, is our RIA, which is how we are a fiduciary, and they really deal with our compliance with the SEC. And LPL is a custodian for us. Fidelity Schwab. 

So by selecting great partners, they take care a lot of the things that are important for our business, and we can focus more on what we do best. And then by hiring great people, we're really, really pleased with the folks that we bring on board. We go through behavior, behavioral interviews. We have a psychometric assessments, math and verbal assessments, emotional intelligence assessments. 

So we really make sure it's the right fit and we bring them on board. And we set a very high standard. You know, it's a fast pace, there's a lot going on. But by getting those right people, we're really able to focus on what we each do best. From a business standpoint, when it comes to everyday family life, you know, I want to be home for family dinners, we do a gratitude exercise with our kids at dinner, where we talk about the best parts of their day and on their birthdays, everyone talks about their favorite parts of that person. 

And we just try to focus more on gratitude, because what you often see in high achievement is high achievers are focused on the gap of what they're not accomplishing or what they want to accomplish next. And so you're always living in this where I want to get to, as opposed to appreciating how far I've gotten. And that's a critical component that we are trying to instill in our children. 

But in the transition, most of our clients came, and it was just a lot of work and paperwork and discussions, and a little bit of this change is difficult for everyone. So some clients needed a little convincing, but ultimately, we had a great group of associates that were associated with LPL that we hired to help us with all of the administrative and operational transition. 

And Renee kind of came back out of retirement, and she's got an MBA, that's my wife, and she stepped right in. And she's really smart, so she can figure out everything and helped with the transition. But we both agree that we want her to be with the children. We want them to have that connection. And people like her better anyway, so she's better to be home with the kids. 

But, yeah, that was a really stressful time for both of us because we were both working, and we were working on the weekends, and the kids were pretty understanding and kind of a funny story that my kids won't let me live down. But after a few months of that couple months of the transition, which was a ton of work, we hadn't spent time with the kids. I'm like, guys, it's Saturday afternoon. I'm going to do whatever you want to do. And the girls really wanted to go roller skating, so we went to the roller skating rink that I grew up going to, which hasn't been updated or repaired since then.

Colby Harris: Shock.

John Thompson: So, like, the floors are warm and there's dings and all that. And I'm skating better than my kids, and I'm, like, getting pretty confident and doing the lazy leg and that whole thing. And my kid says something to me, and I turn around and I start to fall, and I fell, and I landed on my hand, and I got up, and I was in so much pain, and it turned out I fractured the radius in my arm, so I broke my arm. But it's my, like, I'm writing. I'm doing all the documents and signing things and everything. I'm like, how am I gonna. How am I gonna work? But ended up.

Brian Harbin: The worst parts haven't explained it.

John Thompson: Right. Yes.

Brian Harbin: Well, and those wheels, too. They don't have, like, the perfect spin, so it's like, they'll catch and they'll stop. It's like, I've probably been to the same roller skating rink.

John Thompson: Yeah. There. It's over in Mandarin.

Colby Harris: I'm glad I got to grow up in those. I was originally from North Carolina. Very small town. Highlands, Carolina. I don't know if you're familiar.

John Thompson: We go up near there every year.

Colby Harris: Yeah. So I grew up there. It's like. But it's a. It was a very funny town. And, you know, my mom, like, didn't own an iPhone ever until we moved up. I feel like I'm in a – I am, like, Gen Z. I was born in 2002, but I'm with older brothers. Like, I was just kind of raised in a different atmosphere than a lot of kids get to at a similar age than me. But we did, like, the roller rink, the bowling alley. Like, those things are awesome. Me and my brothers are now just waiting on beach bowl to finish up because we're stoked to just go play and, like, hang out the bowling rink.

John Thompson: Back when people used to spend time together.

Colby Harris: Yeah, right. Like, good old times. Definitely a huge, like, very grateful for that. Cause similar of, like, what you were talking about. I mean, the support system. Like, having. Having brothers was incredible for me. Yeah, I know we're gonna have to button things up here in the next few minutes, but one thing I wanna ask you about John now is, like, looking at what you. What you've gotten to. 

One thing I told Charlie, who we mentioned earlier, like, good mutual friend of ours, when I first met Charlie, he told his story. He spoke at our summer camp. And the first thing I went and told him afterwards is I shook his hand, and I just said, like, I, at the time, I was 17 or 18 years old, maybe, and I was like, I respect you so much for what you did in the military and the patience you've had through this process, because that's probably the number one thing I personally struggle with and many young, ambitious people struggle with. 

So thinking about that for you, like, how do you feel like you maintain that patience while also having an eagerness, like a feeling that you wanted to move with pace through this process?

John Thompson: Sure. First of all, Charlie Jemerson is a special guy, so I'm glad you brought him up. He's a unique human being that is extremely thoughtful in all aspects of his life and relationships, incredible values, incredible work ethic and contribution to others, and is one of those friends that I know I'm going to feel better after I have a conversation with Charlie.

Colby Harris: He's a lot fun, too. It's like, don't be overshadowed by all the philosophical things he does. He's hilarious. It's like talking to a college friend or something.

John Thompson: Exactly. Yeah, we have some fun conversations, and his firm does some exceptional work. They're our firm. We use multiple attorneys there for different things. It's always a great experience, and I highly recommend it to anybody. But in terms of patients, don't have a lot. It's something I've had to work on. 

In fact, I caught myself recently not having enough patience with my family and my team. And I was, in fact, yesterday talking to one of the consultants that we work with and speaking about mentors and all of that. I've always liked to hire coaches and consultants, and I think that's an important component, is you can always get better. 

And so this is someone in our industry that has industry experience and works with us on a granular level, on the team issues, on the marketing, on the things we're going to be doing. And we were talking about the patients and my personality, right? And he's like, you know, we just gotta hire the right person. 

And we've got some interviews coming up that can act like a coo, handle the day to day, and I've been told this for years, handle the incremental day to day things, because I'm always thinking, how do we make huge leaps ahead? What are some big, great things we can do? You know, we start to offer coordinated services for clients before we've staffed out for it, because I want to go ahead and get going that, and so we're staffing out for it and growing the team. But that patience is difficult. 

And again, I think it's an important virtue but if you can build systems around it so you can run at the pace that you want to run, that's important. And I've, you know, one of the things that really frustrated me being in a big bureaucracy is they would tell me to slow down and I'm like, we can grow the business and we just need more resources. 

And they, you know, big bureaucracies don't have vision, right? Because if they did, they wouldn't be there doing what they're told by somebody else. They'd be out running their own business. Businesses are led by visionaries, and that's a key piece of the entrepreneur operating system, you know, the traction book in eos. And so I'm really looking at how to staff the resources we need to run at that high pace. And I work on my patients, and that is a challenge to answer your question.

Colby Harris: It's reassuring to hear.

Brian Harbin: I had a question here that this would be my last question I wanted to ask, though. So kids and money, so what's any advice or philosophies that you have around, and especially teenagers too, at that age where they're spending more and they want to have their own money to. So any thoughts process on allowance kids with money, helping them understand that at the base level, sure.

John Thompson: So I think when you get back to the Maslow's hierarchy of needs concepts, we've got to make sure no matter how much financial education we give a kid or a person, if they don't have that foundational stability and they're not reaching self actualization or utilizing grit and achieving, then it's the emotional state and psychological maturity of the child that's going to dictate the financial decisions. So we really focus on that initially. Right? 

And, you know, are they making good decisions in their life? Are they having discipline in general? Because that carries over to money. There's a lot of very wealthy people that didn't get financial education as kids. They just had the right discipline and the right process of growing and learning. So that's the baseline. You know, all the financial education in the world doesn't do a lot of good if the child's struggling with other things. 

But then from there, we have taken a perspective that we don't provide allowance because everything we do in the home is because we live there. Nobody pays you to empty your dishwasher and clean your house. So it's yours, you take care of it. And it's because we take care of the things that we have in our life. We take care of the people we have in our life. 

And there's another great phrase I love, which is love. People use things, right? But in terms of the financial education, we don't pay allowance, but we do pay when they go above and beyond the normal household duties. 

And one of my proud moments is my wife and I were away for a quick getaway weekend a couple weeks ago, and we get a phone call from my daughter, and she and her friend had spent the evening before building all these. Making all these desserts and popcorn and things, and walked like 2 miles to the park in the neighborhood on the other side to go sell things. With a goal of $200 of inventory, they wanted to sell 100 met their goal. And because rainstorms came in, her grandfather and his better half came to go pick them up. But I was really proud that she had the determination to go do that. 

And so to me, you look at a lot of success stories, and 80% of millionaires are self made. They weren't getting financial education at home, like is being provided quite often to folks that are more well off. So it's really about that determination. How do we give them an opportunity to have agency? 

You know, as my son turns 16 this year, he's getting a job this summer, he's going to spend ten days at a medical school because he's a really good student and really loves it, but he's got to, got to get a job, and we're going to really focus on that as our 13 and 10 year old get older. Now, we discuss the concepts of saving, spending, and charity, and that's an important concept that we work on together, and that's an ongoing discussion. 

But, you know, at every age, there's a different level of maturity. Now, formally, the education I got as I was getting, my designations show that you can make the most impact before they're 14. And that's when you want to have a lot of the conversations to build that foundation, because then when they're 14, for some reason, they don't listen very well and they're not as receptive to things after a while.

So we tried to have a lot of those conversations early on. And fortunately, because the foundational work that we're doing with our values, I still have a very good relationship with my son, and he's very receptive to feedback compared to how I was.

Colby Harris: Yeah, I love that! I think that that's a really good point. I've never really heard anyone, Mike say it that way before. Like, before, 14 is really kind of the threshold of when you can really buy in to your parents. You know, it gets a little crazy from there. But, John, this has been a real pleasure having you on today. I mean, this will go down again. 

One of my favorite episodes of just, you know, I think one thing that's really valuable for me and so many other people that listen to our show is, like, one thing that I appreciate that we've been doing recently with a lot of our guests is just different people of different backgrounds that they're just everyday people. We've had, quote unquote, celebrities and NFL players and stuff. 

And I think there's something so cool about just having different people on there doing what every person should be doing, like leading a life of profit, purpose, mission, family based in values, principles. Like this is just great alignment. Like, I can't wait. Charlie, if you're watching this, you're the man. I almost texted him this morning. Be like, I can't wait. We're going to meet John this morning. 

But last question we always ask every one of our guests. As you know, the grit creed is twelve principles that grit.org is really built on. So looking at that now, what part of the grit creed resonates most with you and why?

John Thompson: Well, I'll tell you. I think as I was going through it, the first line said a lot. I am someday going to be what I am now becoming. We're always in a process of becoming. And I was talking about this with someone earlier. If you look at this in a lot of different ways, the people who stop learning and reading and growing and improving themselves often get stuck and unhappy. Right? 

And I see it with people who retire if they don't have something to go improve themselves for and to go contribute to and grow and become, you know, they really struggle. And Carl Jung, in fact, the famous psychologist and philosopher, he had a great saying, and I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it. Life really does begin at 40. Up until then, you're just doing research. 

But I think the research continues beyond that, and you continue to learn and grow and be open to that. And that's a critical component. So I am still becoming. I think that's really fantastic. And then the last line, I will lead by example, because my purpose is larger than me. I think you've got to have a purpose larger than you. We talked about in the beginning, everything is in service of others.

So how can you really serve others and provide value and make lives better? That's the key. And I think with values as the foundation of all of it, grit's a powerful force for good people. We just got to make sure we have more good people.

Colby Harris: Love it, John! Well, thank you again for being here today! This has been awesome. I'm very much looking forward to sharing this with everyone at home, so hopefully we can find more ways to do this in the future.

John Thompson: Thanks so much!

Colby Harris: Opportunity.

John Thompson: Glad to be here. I'd love to come back, but let me know.

Colby Harris: Yeah, maybe we can help you out, too, with finding that job for your son over summer. I might have some opportunities in the works.

John Thompson: That would be great!

Colby Harris: All right, well, that's a wrap here at the grit.org Podcast. Leave us a comment. Tell us something you enjoyed about John's story. Share it with someone you think it would resonate with or impact. You can get in touch with John at congruent wealth or find him on LinkedIn. You're on LinkedIn as well?

John Thompson: I am.

Colby Harris: LinkedIn. And then congruentwealth.com.

John Thompson: Yes.

Colby Harris: Perfect! All right, so that's it for us here at the grit.org Podcast. As always, we appreciate you tuning in.

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