Nick (00:02)
Welcome back to Thinking Independently. I’m Nick Lopresti, Chief of Staff for Connor Delaney and Good Life Companies. Connor, welcome to the show.

Conor (00:14)
Hey man, it’s good to be back. Good to be back in the right time zone and, and, ⁓ feeling good, man.

Nick (00:19)
Yeah. Good to see you again. And excited to talk about, you know, the big event, the big undertaking that you’ve had over the last several weeks. And, you know, we’ve made some posts out there in the social media world and the amount of feedback that we’ve received is unbelievable. The DMS, the texts, the emails, the phone calls asking, what’s he doing? What on earth is this 777? And I’m like,

Conor (00:35)
Okay.

Nick (00:49)
Yeah, the guy went out and seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. And it’s hard for people to get their arms around the undertaking and what you really did. And the first question that they ask always is, why would he or anybody else do this? And it wasn’t just you, right? It was other people or so that all volunteered, signed up.

Conor (01:15)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (01:19)
to do this. So why did we do this? Why did you go out and do that?

Conor (01:25)
You know, was, it’s cool having a week or two to kind of process everything because I think in the moment you, you you just go ahead and doing it, whether that was a training leading up to it or all the logistics and the planning and everything. ⁓ But, you know, I’ve just said to the group of guys today, cause we’re all in a WhatsApp text, like you really after the fact, get the chance to kind of reflect back on.

and we were able to do. for that one week in time, just how that was super transformative to in so many different ways, the people that were following as well as to just the experience that we went through as athletes competing. ⁓ It was an awesome, awesome experience. And really the why behind it was a couple of different things. think, you know, if I gave that answer purely through the lens of my role as the chief executive here, it would be to just hopefully share.

some inspiration with some of the advisors that we serve that, you know, those that are saying like, man, I run a large business and I’m so busy and there’s kids at home and there’s other commitments and there’s other things that I can apply my time to. I would agree with them. Like certainly there is, but the discipline of being able to set a goal and to go out and do that and that body of work leading up to it. What I was hoping to do was to show advisors like, Hey man, we’re the same way. We have a large company that we have the good fortune of shepherding and running. I have five kids at home, but

I wanted to go out and tackle something that from a business standpoint would hopefully inspire some of our advisors. The cool thing is from a family standpoint, I I was trying to find the exact first, but ⁓ my family and I just leaned so hard on, I think it’s Isaiah 5812, where he basically says like, you’re going to rebuild your life now and this generation now and restore all that brokenness from the generations before you.

Because we can call that in existence and have the actions and the activities that lead to that completed body of work. And that was what Liz and I have really been a core part of our theme is like, had a lot of brokenness. I think we all do, right? There’s all things that family wise, like, you know, from my family, like we had a history of alcoholism and just a losing mindset and a giving up mindset and poverty and this and that. And for me, this journey was really to show my kids like there’s, there’s.

a different way and a different path. And ⁓ I was able to show them really in that last race, and you were there in Miami, ⁓ that with grit and determination and the right mindset, you can push through anything.

Nick (03:50)
Yeah, right. mean, to undertake something like this, it really has to be a ⁓ personal decision, right? There’s a bigger reason that people want to go out and do this kind of thing. And my, know, when people would ask me after they got done with it, is he crazy? And maybe, maybe he is maybe a little bit was, you know, the bar has officially been raised. So how do you, how do you, how do you handle somebody who might come to you today?

with the all the things that go on in life. You know, like you said, the family, the kids, there’s business, there’s, you know, other things that come up and man, you’re just feeling kind of like tired.

So how do you approach it now, post-race, when people want to come in and say, you know, how busy and how tired and how are they ever expected to get all this stuff accomplished?

How do you tackle that now with people?

Conor (04:49)
⁓ It’s a question, Nick. I think some of it, this is a cool opportunity for me to put even more discipline around the way I’m thinking about things. I think the same way that if you were an advisor that got an award for being a top advisor or whatever the case is, it’s easy to let a little bit of confidence or ⁓ even ego show up. And I think one of the things that has always kept me grounded is

And I’ve said this before, it’s like mile 21 in every race. it is, that’s the punch in the face that like some people have it once and they never want to experience it again. Some people had it seven times in a row and they went back and got the eighth one a week later in Italy. But you know, so like you have to operate from that, that like feeling of what mile 21 is, which is like, I’m going to be grateful that I’m here, but I’m going to be empathetic to those around me. And, and I think like when

the challenge before this and really after this is like people will come in and they want to share with you what the challenges that they’re going through in their life. And we have to be great listeners. think leaders is one of the core components. We have to be great listeners and meet people where they’re at, you know? And if what I did starts a conversation with people with me or with people with you or whatever the case is that allows us an opportunity to listen well and then hopefully just leave them a line or two that will leave them inspired.

I mean, I don’t care if it’s going and doing a 5k or if it’s just, hey, I’m going to go and try and eat better or, or I’m going to go and try and look at something that I thought was like a big, hairy, audacious goal. And I’m going to try to tackle it because I watched you do that. ⁓ I mean, that’s, that’s really what I was aiming for. And, you know, even in reflecting on my experience, like, and you know this, but like, I broke my foot five days before I was leaving for Cape town.

And so just put another element of just complexity into it. And I think like people will look and say, yes, I was going to go do this public speaking event to try and grow my business, or I was going to go make this acquisition, or I was going to meet up with this person for lunch, but then I got stuck in traffic or but then little Tommy got a head cold or whatever the case is. And it’s not about whether or not something comes in your way. It’s what are you going to do when it does? It’s not about whether you’re going to have a challenge. It’s what are you going to do in the challenge?

presents itself. I think back in Miami, again, on this theme of breaking curses and being in that mile 165 in a week and having traveled almost 40,000 miles, ⁓ my foot was really badly broken and I was audibly in pain. And my daughter was running one of the laps with me and

She my oldest, feel she her and I feel the pain with one another or any emotion more than the other kids sometimes. And she looked at me and she’s like, Dad, you don’t have to do this anymore. ⁓ Like, you know, you’ve run six and a half of these things. You’re home. You’re in Florida. Like, let’s let’s go home. Let’s finish now. Like you’ve done what you needed to do. And I remember, like, in that moment, just being like, no, like, this is that hurdle. This is that traffic on the way to go present. This is that thing that came up in the way of going and building a business. This is

And that’s the professional side. On the personal side, this is where you saw the generations before you throw the towel in. And so I said to Blake, I’m like, if we stop now, then we’re no better than those that came before us. We’re finishing this race and we’re going to do it as best we can because this is where we start to break those generational curses. And I think that’s the thing. Like if you’re going through something in your business and your personal life, whatever the case is, a lot of times are

inclination is to reach for the excuse instead of reaching for the grit and the determination to go and get across that finish line. so that’s the, think there’s a lot of ways to translate that, but you got to approach those conversations with people with humility and, and, with an honest desire to meet them where they’re at, even if they’ve never stepped to a starting line before.

Nick (08:41)
For sure.

Sure, absolutely. Plus, the oldest guy that was in the group, how old was he?

Conor (09:01)
And Dan, Dan was 83, I think, and he had done this before. like, man, I don’t know if I do, but having done this one time, I’m cool about doing it again. 83 years old and he went out and knocked it down every week, every day.

Nick (09:11)
you

Yeah, every

day. Absolutely. So when you, you know, when you take on this, ⁓ undertaking, and I know we were talking about it back in the spring and you’re starting to train, you know, how confident were you after all the training, after all that you were going to be able to step away from your business for two weeks and, know, not worry because you were going to be out of pocket. You, you, weren’t going to be accessible.

⁓ when most of your day or night was spent on an airplane with no Wi-Fi.

Conor (09:53)
Yeah. And there’s not great cell phone reception in Antarctica either. ⁓ which speaking of that place is that place is the cold version of hell. ⁓ so, you know, here’s the thing I think, which is not the answer you would expect, but like I have so much confidence in the people around me that having control over over the business ⁓ isn’t something that I think about every day. It’s it’s.

Nick (09:57)
you

Conor (10:19)
What I was worried about was if my team needs me and they can and or they need somebody to swing a shovel, not need me because of my brilliance or good looks, but need somebody to swing a shovel with them on any given day for a week. And I can’t be there to do it. I don’t want to my people down, but it wasn’t a control thing. And I think a lot of times, especially as we’re building a private practice, the business is bottlenecked around the performance of the advisor or the actions and the activities of the advisor.

And I think one of the things that we’ve been intentional about at GoodLife is to say, you know, how do we build a business that’s built to last and that business can’t be bottlenecked around one person, certainly not this person. you know, we’ve also been intentional to make sure that we put very smart people around us. I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn to say like people that are much smarter than you and me to help us run this. you know, in doing that, I felt a lot of peace.

Nick (11:11)
You’re sure.

Conor (11:16)
I thought I was going to want more control while I was gone, but the reality is I didn’t know what time zone I was on. I didn’t know where I was flying to. You just wake up and look outside the window and you’re like, yeah, it looks warm or it looks cold. And off we went running. ⁓ To know I didn’t have to worry about anything other than running ⁓ and my people were governing this great business that was left behind was a pretty comforting thing because I didn’t have the space to think much about the business.

Nick (11:41)
Yeah, for sure. just, you know, speaking from my seat, everybody really did step up in your absence. Like there was everybody was rowing hard in the same direction. And it really showed, I think when you came back and you know, things were moving right along as where they should be. So it was, was fun to, fun to watch that part of it too. But going back to when you started like training for all of this, like, how did you, how did you come up with a plan for training? Cause it’s not like you just go out and say, well, I’m going to run.

three miles today and then 10 miles. Like there had to be some recipe for the, for the training.

Conor (12:16)
Yeah. mean, you having done other marathons before, I kind of had an idea on what I needed to do to get to a line for a marathon. ⁓ and so my training actually was to start to train for the Florence Italy marathon. And then this thing, this opportunity came about sort of maybe a month into training for that. And so I definitely had to alter some things. The really cool thing is, and I think there’s translations to the business world here. Is it like the, the, the idea of sweating and working hard didn’t change.

just the result and what happened did. so ⁓ going for seven, really eight ⁓ marathons instead of just one, the dynamic part of the training that I wasn’t really training for speed the way I would with a normal marathon, I was training for endurance. And actually there was a cause and effect there. training to get up to 26 miles one time, ⁓ you work a lot on speed. And with speed, actually does a lot to your

body that creates like, okay, we’re going to get faster. Think I’m to lose all the body fat and the muscle and everything that you go as like a little, you know, skinny guy to the starting line with this one, the training leading up to it. And then my last training week, I had four 20 mile runs in a row. And so your muscles actually don’t break down. ⁓ they, they start to build up again. And so I actually got like, I came through the line in Cape town, not as like a skinny little bean pole, the way I would normally want to for a race.

I went with a ⁓ muscle utilization and need than I would have had the first one. So it transformed the body in a completely different way. Because the outcome that I was seeking was completely different, you know?

Nick (13:58)
What would you say was the toughest moment on the course? And, know, I think about when in the last race and I had watched you come through a few times and I said, I was standing next to somebody and I, you came by and I’m like, don’t listen to it. Don’t listen to it. Don’t listen to it. And the person standing next to me went, don’t listen to what? And I’m like, the voices in the head. Don’t listen to those voices in your head, right? Telling you to.

Conor (14:18)
Mm-hmm.

Nick (14:28)
pull up and stuff. And I’m just curious if there was a moment that really stands out of all those where you had to question, what am I doing? Like, let’s just stop. Let’s just stop.

Conor (14:39)
Yeah, I could

say I could tell you exactly where it was. It was the second one. The second marathon, it was in Antarctica. It is so cold, your phone doesn’t even go on. So you can’t listen to music. You’re you’re head to toe in gear because it’s so cold outside. You got a visor on that. If you take the visor off, you’ll go blind for the rest of your life. I mean, I’m telling you, man, this is this is hell. And it was the first lap there that at least 100 times on it was 10.

Nick (15:01)
Hmm.

Conor (15:07)
two and a half mile laps or 2.6 mile laps. It was the first lap there that I was like, this is so dumb. What am I doing here? I’m out. And I thought about quitting a hundred times. The minute that you cross the starting line and start the next lap, there’s a hut that you could go into to get warm and get food. And you kind of eat your way through all these marathons because you need all the calories and you get hot water and all this stuff. And so people go through and like duck off to the right.

I didn’t stop one time in that hut. was like, if I go into that hut, I’m not leaving it. And so my, my mindset instantly changed from, want to quit to they’re going to have to cut me out of this place. They’re going to find a block of ice with Conor Delaney in it, and they’re going to have to cut me out. That’s the only like, I’m finishing this race or they’re going to be finding my carcass somewhere. And, ⁓ it was the craziest thing in the whole race. And I was so excited for this to happen. And it happened early on for me. It was race two was that there was a moment where your mind breaks.

Nick (15:39)
Thank

Conor (16:05)
And then it’s like, okay, well, my mind and my body and my, my everything is broken. What’s going to happen next. And there was a crowd of guys, 60 of us that started this thing where I would say like a third of the group, started to break down from that same moment. They broke down and then the rest of the group broke out. And that was a really cool thing to see because, that’s, that’s life. When circumstances have circumstance happens, a body that state or something that stays in motion or yeah. How does it, how does it go?

A body stays in motion, continues in motion. The question wasn’t whether we were moving. The question was, were we breaking out or were we breaking down? And I thought one of the cool things was watching myself and other people break out, you know, where every day, and there was a science behind it too, Nick, where like, I was looking at my heart rate every day. My heart rate was going down with each race, meaning your body’s getting more used to what you’re putting it through.

And that like that was a breakout moment. And I would encourage anybody like whether whatever that is, that might be a 5k or that might be climbing a mountain, who knows, but like get to that point where your body and your mind are willing to break and then push through. Because what’s on the other side of that is that transformation that happens in your head, in your heart and and the confidence to able to walk through stuff. It’s it’s worth it. It’s worth the break to get to that point.

Nick (17:31)
Sure. And you know, we talk about it all the time when you see advisors or other leaders who might be in that coasting zone, right? I run a lifestyle practice or whatever the case might be versus getting in that challenge zone where you’re really having to have those moments with yourself to decide, I breaking down or am I breaking out? Right? That is a, there’s a lot of lessons that come with that. So what was of all the seven races, like what was the, what was the best moment?

Conor (17:52)
Yeah.

Nick (18:01)
out there on the course.

Conor (18:03)
I mean, the best is, and I’m so glad it happened, was the finish line. ⁓ And I had this awesome picture of myself and my son and my daughter crossing. And then my other daughter is on the other side holding up a sign. And then my wife is right behind her, which we didn’t get in the picture with our two other kids. ⁓ that’s a core memory that my kids will have that I didn’t have with my dad. My dad was awesome.

Nick (18:08)
Thank

Conor (18:31)
And he died far too young, like, I don’t have that picture of doing something insanely cool with him. And like my son has a picture of like him and his dad, like crossing a finish line in a marathon. Like to me, that was the coolest thing in the world because you can’t like, he’ll look, I said to my daughter the other I’m like, guys, I’ll be 95, like some like skin and bones dude right now at 95. And you guys will look and say like,

man, that guy, you’ll tell your kids like that guy and I cross the finish line at a marathon one day and like that it changes the way the kids think, you know, for me, my parents, the bar was so low because my parents were so sick from such a young age that like, Hey, if you could just go and not wind up in a ditch, awesome. But when you can, when you can lead your kids through a finish line, whatever that looks like, my case was an actual finish line, but when you can accomplish something with your kids,

Nick (19:16)
Mm-hmm.

Conor (19:24)
you’re changing the trajectory that they’ll have for their life and the expectation that they have for their life. I saw this cool thing the other day and it said, it was on Instagram, it was like a reel or something and it said, ⁓ I go out and run marathons so that my daughter’s not impressed with your son’s 5Ks. To say like, it’s just when you can have your kids aspire to want to do something else that…

Nick (19:41)
Yes, yes, yes.

Conor (19:52)
It’s an awesome, that made the whole thing worth it, you know?

Nick (19:55)
Yeah. ⁓ And by the way, while you were away as your chief of staff, I met with your oldest daughter to talk some actual, very serious business things that she had come up with. And I think I sent you the notes on it. So, you know, she’s definitely tapped in. Like she’s, she’s going to take my job one day or yours. I’m not sure which it might be yours.

Conor (20:15)
Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, that’s,

that’s the cool thing about, you know, about, again, I think there’s so much here that I love for advisors to hear is like, we don’t have to just be financial advisors, it’s okay to be a financial advisor, and a great dad at the same time, and a great husband at the same time. And by the way, you can do all of those things, you know, and, and again, the proof is, is, I’ve always said, like, let your body of work be the things that people judge you by. In other words, like, if, if, if I come home, and my kids are like, there’s my dad, he’s a great financial advisor.

Or there’s my dad, he’s a great business executive. But how about there’s my dad, he’s awesome at reading those bedtime stories. There’s my dad, I remember him doing XYZ when I was a kid. Or there’s my dad, I know he prays for me every night. You can do both. And that’s the cool thing, it’s like the complexities of the business doesn’t have to mean that there’s gonna be deficiencies in the other ways that you’re leading and living your life. You just gotta put the right tools around you and put the right people around you. And if you surround yourself with great

people, which I’ve got the good fortune of like having awesome people, awesome mentors, awesome men, awesome people around me. It just, helps you to lift, lift your whole gang. And I think that, you know, we have a natural desire as advisors to lead, but that leadership starts at home and it starts with, you know, making sure that your kids know that you’re, you’re somebody worth following. And, and if you are awesome, if you want to be better at it, just like today’s a great day to start, you know,

Nick (21:25)
Thanks.

Yeah, no, I love it. And, know, there’s a lot of ties in here and the way you approached like the training and preparing and we’re in this season here in December where a lot of advisors talking about creating that plan for 2026 and they’ll oftentimes lay out the goals. Here’s what I’m trying to do, but it lacks commitment, right? The commitment to the goal is as important.

as the goal itself. So how did you in your preparations, what kind of commitments did you have to make to yourself, to the objective you were trying to do, and how often did you have to remind yourself of those commitments?

Conor (22:24)
I mean, for me, it’s hard to, and maybe I’m weirdly this, but like, if I don’t have something on the calendar to go and race for, or to go and run after, or to go and do, if there’s no goal out there on the horizon, I’m not great at execution. And it’s the same way in the business, you know? I mean, I think a lot of times as advisors, like your first 40 million, you are goal oriented and you are ⁓ activity driven. And then you get to 40, $50 million in assets and you hit this like,

All right, I’m okay. Like maybe I’ll peel back a little bit on the intensity, but then, you you went from zero to 40 in four years and then you went from 40 to 50 and sometimes it takes like five or six years because the intention’s not there. I think it’s the same thing with, I needed to put this crazy thing on the calendar because if not, like I remember I was coming home from Dallas, Texas and I got to my front door. was 11, 16 at night.

And my job that day in the business was to go in and perform in Texas, which I met with advisors. did some strategic thinking, et cetera. And I came home tired, mentally tired. And it was a long day out and back the same day. And I looked at my calendar and I was like, Oh man, I have 11 miles to run yet. It’s 11 15 at night. The last thing that somebody would do is go and run 11 miles. But my wife, I texted her on way home from the airport and like, Hey, you know, I really want to go to bed. And she’s like, Hey,

we made this commitment, you made this commitment, tonight we’re gonna perform, I’ll stay up for you. And I got home and right by the front door was running sneakers, a Clif bar, and a bottle of water, shorts and a t-shirt. And I changed right there out of the suit and off I went 11.30 at night. And of course my awesome wife was right there at one o’clock in the morning when I got done. But like without that specific goal, without it saying your job tonight is run 11 miles, I wasn’t gonna do it. I was gonna go home and go to bed.

How many of us without that goal, without that thing that you have out there on the horizon, how many of us are just gonna say, hey, you know what, I’m gonna punch a clock, it’s 5.01, let me stop on the way home, grab a beer and go and think about how tough my workday was. No, let’s put goals out there on the horizon and then the daily activity to get there will give you the opportunity to cross that finish line in a meaningful way that becomes a core memory to somebody. Maybe it’s to you, maybe it’s to your kids, maybe it’s to your clients, maybe it’s that person that otherwise, if it’s not for you,

You don’t have the ability to affect and their financial situation doesn’t turn into the greatness that it could turn into if you were there because you put the intention around being there, you know?

Nick (24:52)
Yeah, yeah.

And speaking of your wife, by the way, talk about your biggest cheerleader, right? And don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s the middle of the night. You’re running in wherever you’re running and we’re watching it on the streaming, the Twitch, which I didn’t know anything about. I didn’t know what Twitch was until this started, but I’d see, I’d see Liz’s name on there. She’s watching, I’m watching and we’re texting back and forth and we’re both putting those messages in so you can, can you can hear. I know we had some other people from good life that were

Conor (25:07)
Twitch. Yeah.

Nick (25:22)
to happen into how important was that to have that not only the commitment partner that she is for you, right? Saying, hey, I’d like you to come to bed too, but it’s you got 11 miles to give me now. Like that’s next on the list. How important is that for you in this whole thing? And then what about those messages like that, you know, we would try and get in there. How did that affect your ⁓ experience?

Conor (25:47)
I mean, I think what it boils down to is like, life is hard when you’re running by yourself. ⁓ But when you’re going after it and you know that there’s people that are going to be affected in a positive way, and you know that there’s people that are rooting for you, that’s awesome. I there was a point in my life where I was motivated more by the people that were rooting against me than I was for the people rooting for me. But I think the cool part about this season is that like, you know,

Be that guy and gal that is willing to go out and put that hard work in because the beneficiaries of that are going to experience something awesome as a result of it. ⁓ to them, you’re worth getting up at 1 o’clock in the morning and cheering for. Literally, and you know, these races were nuts. was 1 o’clock in the morning, your time, when I was in Antarctica. No, no, midnight, your time. 1 o’clock, Liz’s time. ⁓

And then the like the race in Columbia was at three o’clock in the morning Eastern time, two o’clock in the morning, your time. And I’m running through and I’m sitting here and like, Hey, Chicago says hello. And I’m like, wait a second. Why isn’t Chicago in bed? It’s two o’clock in the morning. know? Um, so that, you know, those were, those were awesome. And they came at the right time, man. I mean, I remember being in Abu Dhabi and the air quality was so bad. You’re like spitting brown phlegm out because of all the dust and dirt and everything. And it’s a hundred degrees and like,

Nick (26:59)
That’s right.

Conor (27:13)
Again, like here I am having to do 12 laps of two miles on that one or two and half, whatever it was. And I’m running past and it was like, Nick says the bears won today. And I was like, man, this is awesome. Like my guys are tapped in with you. And like, how cool is it to be able to run a race and not be by yourself? And so like, you know, for advisors, like we think that we’re the guys that are out there running at this thing alone.

But if you surround yourself with other people in the business that understand the emotional ups and downs of the business and are willing to play with you, go put those good people around you. And again, I think like when you look at your home life and your family and the people that like your friends and those that are around you, man, like they’re cheering for you. You may not hear it all the time, but all you need is two or three of them at three o’clock in the morning to be willing to lift you up the way that I had it when I was running all over the country or all over the world.

It ⁓ was a real big motivator for me because I didn’t want to let my people down either.

Nick (28:15)
So I think you’re on to it, right? We talk to independent advisors all day who say, feel like I’m on the island. I’m by myself. And how important to find your people as an independent advisor. You have to find your people that celebrate your victories, are there to encourage. And it’s tough sometimes in the business world to share our goals, to share our commitments with others, and to not recognize where we’re winning.

Like we had an advisor a couple of weeks ago. Hey, he had a nice big account came in and, you know, wanted to just call and tell somebody about it. I love that. he got, I want, we want to be that, that person for our advisors, like where we want to know when you’re winning and when those things come up and we want to be the, person who says, Hey, you know what? You still got, you got 11 miles to go run tonight. Like there’s no reason that the firm can’t be that.

Conor (28:58)
Yeah.

you

Nick (29:14)
for the advisor. You know what mean?

Conor (29:16)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, a lot of times the, in our, in our world, like the businesses are all kind of connected. We’re all kind of, ⁓ aligned in the outcome because everybody benefits when, when each other is successful. What was cool for me in this, in this run was like my last race, there was a guy, name was Ahmed. He’s from Turkey. Awesome. Awesome guy. And he had nothing to gain by hanging with me. ⁓ in other words, whether I finished or didn’t finish, he was finishing. He didn’t have a broken foot. and this guy hung with me the entire time.

You know, the guy, was every time we took a lap, he was either 10 feet behind me or 10 feet ahead of me. And, you know, it was so cool because I wasn’t tied to his outcome. He wasn’t tied to mine. But during that, that four hours together, we’re kind of pulling each other through. And that’s the thing, like, you know, these 60 people that I had the good fortune of hanging with and running around the world with, like you create bonds and go through things with them for one week. And these folks will stay connected with us potentially forever, you know? And the same thing in this business, like a lot of times, like you said, like these guys,

feel like they’re running the race by themselves. And if you have an Ahmed running next to you and somebody that’s encouraging you, even though they’re not necessarily directly tied to your outcome, man, honor that person, praise that person because your world is better as a result of their participation in it. that’s, think, one of the negativities in this industry is like, you create such a, my corner is over here. And so we have to keep our own business separate from one another.

But the reality is like, there’s so much to go around. This is a business is going to go from 35 trillion to 70 trillion over the next years. It’s business that’s going to see the same number of headcount. I’ll be a lot of advisers will switch in and out, but the business is going to grow in terms of headcount. So align yourself with people that you can encourage when they’re sweating and dehydrated and don’t want to do it anymore. Come on, man, let’s keep going. I must’ve said that a hundred times on that run.

And then those people that’ll celebrate you, even though you’re down and getting kicked a little bit, you know, ⁓ that always makes it better when you’re in a community of people that are aligned in their thought process and that are willing to kick butt together. So translate that into our world, right? We are this independent company inside of this very large ecosystem, but it’s that sub community that matters. And I think the sub community is often discounted because it’s like, let’s just get rid of the sub community and go to the mothership. Certainly you can do that.

But who’s going to be the one that’s saying, man, one lap left. Let’s go. We got this thing together. Or like, hey, here’s a bottle of water or a cold towel to put around your neck. Like, find yourself a community of people that you know are willing to take a lap with you and sweat and be in a little bit of pain with.

Nick (31:57)
Yeah, for sure. know, a real life example of that for our advisors is, know, when we were last week, we were working with some of our partners who are coming to Orlando this week. And one of them trying to work on a strategy that he’s, that he’s thinking about, relative to Roth conversions and wasn’t really sure. And what do do? And where we got to was, well, we have a group chat for our partners. These are pretty smart people.

all working towards the same thing. What would happen if you threw that question into the group chat and guess what happened? He threw that question in the group chat and like piranhas, boom, everybody was on it. Like, hey, call me, I got you. Here’s what we did, right? Like that’s the type of community that by the way in the independent space does not exist.

Conor (32:45)
Yeah, yeah, I know we have to wrap up here, but I think you you hit the nail on the head. There is a ⁓ there’s a appetite to help one another. There really is. I think we’ve been trained to think differently than that. there’s there is there’s a reason to help each other is not necessarily directly tied to to one another or to my economic benefit by helping somebody else. But I see it all the time. There are other firms like us that exist and

we talk to each other and if we’re willing to exchange ideas and collaborate and help one another, there’s a good thing that can happen ⁓ that comes out of that. If you’re willing to put the time and understand that life is a two-way street and there’s equal participation, it oftentimes benefits people to be inside of a group that’s gonna help them get to their destination in a way that pushes the whole team forward together. ⁓

Nick (33:43)
Yeah,

that’s right. And you, you had, you had a pretty big setback at the beginning, right? Like you showed up to the start line on the first race with a fracture in your foot. Right. So how did, what is, you know, running on a fractured foot for a week and 165 ish miles, I think somewhere like that. What, what does that, what’s the lesson there about perseverance and setbacks and, know,

Conor (33:54)
Hehe.

Nick (34:11)
What did you take away from just being able to finish that with a fractured foot?

Conor (34:16)
So my first, the first race in Cape Town, it hurt and I had to figure some things out. I took some braces out and just tweaked things a little bit and it worked out well. But then it got progressively worse each time. And so by the third race, I said to myself, okay, today’s going to be the day that it’s going to fully break. And if it does, I want to know that I threw my best performance at it. And so I went from like 21st to 19th to 16th and I said, I’m just going to dump all my bullets. And I did.

And I think I finished in seventh or eighth that day. And, ⁓ and I was like, it didn’t break. Let’s do that again tomorrow. And so my approach was very much like, Hey, let’s just take it one race at a time. And then in the race, like one mile at a time, and just put this thing together long enough that, that you’ll get the right outcome. And, ⁓ that’s really what happened. Like, and at the end, the last day, and there’s probably a life lesson that I could have learned here, but the last day, was actually hard to even tie my shoe because my foot was so swollen.

And I said, all right, I’m going to take all the bracing out, make my sneaker as light as it can, because if I can, I can catch the guy that’s overall in ninth place if I beat him by 12 minutes. I only beat him by 11 minutes, but my foot fully broke three miles into it and having 24 or 23 miles to go after that. And I just remember putting my head, my earbuds down, my phone down. I was like, today we’re just going to, today’s going be one of those days at the office. You got to put your head down and just grind it out. It’s just me, myself and I.

And so that’s what we did is kind of one step after the next. you get through those things and ⁓ the challenge was all up here. The body is going to hurt no matter what. So the challenge is all up here. Like, how are we going to mentally get through this and take it one lap, one thing at a time?

Nick (35:59)
Yeah.

I think that’s a great lesson for anybody who’s listening. mean, there are going to be setbacks and obstacles and challenges that, you know, it’s easy to let fear take hold. How bad is this going to be? How bad is this going to feel? And breaking it down to what you just said, look, I just got to get through the next mile. I got to get through the next step. Right. And it might be that same thing for advisors when it seems like, you know, something is significant and it’s a setback, it’s a challenge.

Conor (36:26)
Ahem.

Nick (36:27)
being able to break it down into something that’s bite size.

Conor (36:31)
Yeah, I remember, I I leaned on my college experience and when I was in college, I broke my shoulder two times, two seasons in a row, early in the season. And both times, like a dummy, I played the entire season. And my thought going into every game was like, hey, they’re gonna wrap this up so all I can do is win face-offs. But ⁓ at the end of the game, I’ll deal with whatever’s going on in here, but I have job to do right now. And that puck goes down, when the clock says zero, we’ll deal with whatever the repercussions are.

And that was very much the same thing. Like when you cross the starting line, it’s game on. We’ll deal with it in three and a half or four four and a half hours. ⁓ And I think that that mental approach helped me there. And I think when you think about the business, I mean, even as new advisors, there’s not a single one of us that didn’t break a bone, so to speak, in our first years. We had the setbacks, we had the losses, we had the things that we hoped would be a win, and it hurt because we lost. Especially in this business, because this business has a way of

being a personal, when somebody says no, they don’t wanna work with you or they move an account or something like that, they’re not saying, hey, I didn’t like the house that you showed me, Mr. Realtor, or hey, I didn’t like the product that you tried to sell me, Mr. Product Salesman. They’re saying, no, I don’t like you. And we tend to take it personally when the client decides not to work with us. ⁓ When you can lean on the people around you and that first year experience when you’re 10 years in the business, like go back and think about it, man.

If you can lean on that stuff to build over to your experience today, that a lot of times I think helps people get through the pain of whatever that year 10 or year 12 or in my case, like race three or race four pain looks like, because I had that experience in the past to lean on and to grow and learn from. It didn’t just happen to me so that I can let it happen and forget it. It happened to me so that can have it be a part of who I was going to become at 40 years old doing this race. ⁓

Nick (38:27)
Yeah, for sure. And as you know, final thought here is as advisors might be again, preparing their game plan for 2026. What advice would you give them relative to maybe how they define success, not just by revenue and those types of results, but, know, building goals that really align with their life, not just the, not just their revenue.

Conor (38:40)
You

You know, as you’re saying this, something hits me. Like the glory is in the finish line. But the work is what you do in the gym. know, ⁓ nobody sees that. I might have passed four cars that night that I was telling you about going to do an 11 miles at night. And those four cars are probably like, look at that crazy guy. You know, it’s like from old school, like, hey, we’re going, they’re right behind me. ⁓ You know, except I didn’t have anything to drink except for water and electrolytes. But ⁓

Nick (39:17)
Yeah.

Conor (39:22)
You know, nobody sees the work that gets done in the gym. In this case, nobody sees that 11 o’clock at night financial plan, you know, or the business planning that you’re doing on a Saturday morning. ⁓ But you don’t get to the finish line if you don’t put that work in, you know. ⁓ And I think that that’s that would be my recommendation is like the cool thing is if you can operate with with a servant’s mind and a humble heart, then it’s natural for you to put in the hours at both.

both sides to be the first guy in the office and the last one to leave to be the first one in the gym and the last one to leave to be the guy that’s willing to jump on that treadmill for two, three, four hours. ⁓ Knowing that not a single person cares. My treadmills in my house in the back of the house. My kids don’t care that I’m out there. My neighbors don’t care that I’m out there. But if I’m not out there doing that work, the finish line never happens. And so, you know, be willing to put in that work, understanding that if you don’t do that,

you’re not going to get to the finish line. At least you’re not going to get there with the ability to sprint through that line. You’re going to get there maybe stumbling through, but when that work that you do that nobody sees, when you’re participating in those activities, it makes the finish line all that much better and you get there with a better result.

Nick (40:39)
Absolutely. And I would just say to advisors who might be listening or anybody, as you’re thinking about your 2026 game plan, start with your non-negotiables. What are my non-negotiables for 2026? What are your statements that sound like this? I will run three times a week. I will make every game that my child is playing in. will write. What are those non-negotiable? I will hold more.

appointments in the office to create more efficiencies. I will rework my client service. What are those non-negotiables? And you had to do that when you started your training. These are my non-negotiables. These are the things I’m committing to. Start there and watch what happens to your plan as it comes together that matches your business needs with your personal needs. It’s a rare opportunity to do that, but this is a great time of year to be thinking about it.

Conor (41:37)
It’s a great

point, Nick. It’s the integrated life. that’s not, integration isn’t meant to be an excuse. I’d love to work more, but I got to go pick up Tommy from his baseball game. No, it’s an integrated life, meaning you’re going to be there coaching Tommy’s baseball game, or you’re going to be there present at the game. That it’s not meant to be an excuse. It’s meant to be this thing that we’re putting together that is holistic in its nature. It’s like, have my kids’ open house. I’m not missing that.

Yes, the client wants to meet with us, but we have certain, to your point, non-negotiables. And I’m going to build the rest of my calendar and my activities around those things that are not worthy of missing. ⁓ And it doesn’t have to be all business. Your business plan should be holistic in terms of how am I taking care of my family? How am I taking care of myself? And how am I taking care of my business? And probably in that order.

Nick (42:30)
Yeah, for sure. Great conversation today, Connor. What a huge accomplishment. You you ran really carrying the majority of the good life people, our advisors with you on that journey. Everybody was incredibly proud to see you out there doing that and repping the logo out there at the same time. So congrats and I’ll be seeing you in just a few days. Can’t wait.

Conor (42:57)
Yes, sir. Thank you.

Nick (42:59)
Alright everybody, thanks again for listening and tune in next time for another edition of Thinking Independently. Nick Lopresti, Connor Delaney, signing off.

Conor (43:11)
Peace.