News & Insights

Conor Delaney (00:18.68)

Thank you, Nick. This is awesome. A little change of pace for us.

Nick LoPresti (00:23.288)

I like it. Yeah setting. It’s a it’s a good vibe today and we’re doing something new today for the first time we have never had a guest with us. So we’ve got Nick Alberino the other Nick from Good Life who’s our people leader inside of the good life system. So Nick welcome. How was your travel? You felt like so far productive couple days here with us. Yeah.

Conor Delaney (00:33.75)

He’s on the hot seat.

Nick Alberino (00:43.278)

Thank you, Nick. Very good.

Nick Alberino (00:49.814)

It’s been great to be together in person.

Nick LoPresti (00:52.852)

And Nick, you joined Good Life When.

Nick Alberino (00:55.982)

I joined at the end of 2025. I was at OPL Financial.

Nick LoPresti (00:58.592)

Okay, and what were you doing before that? Excellent. And before that?

Nick Alberino (01:03.672)

Before LPL I was with Red Ventures, a small technology firm based out of Fort Mill, South Carolina area, Charlotte, North Carolina. And before that I was at Johnson & Johnson.

Nick LoPresti (01:13.624)

Yep, excellent. since Nick’s joining us today, or since he joined the firm at the end of last year, he’s really done a great job in helping us on one of our more important elements, which is the people strategy. How do we acquire great talent around the organization? Because as good as Conner and I are, we always need a little extra help there. So appreciate you being on the show with us today. What’s new in your life?

Conor Delaney (01:41.838)

You know, nothing. It’s awesome being in Chicago. The weather’s better than it was the last time I was here. And it’s good to be together and just be able to throw up some ideas and work on execution together. But I think you hit on a cool thing with the human capital. Remember the journey a couple of years ago, we didn’t have anybody in HR land and somebody said, hey, you really need to get going on this. they, you know, several dozen employees. I was like, what do they even do? You know, and, you know, that journey and that, you know, kind of

to Lily Paz later in terms of growing and building that out, know, having somebody with Nick’s background there, but also his agility to kind of work around the firm and be able to marry that people side with the overall strategy of the firm, participating in the growth and development of that. It’s an awesome asset to have on the team.

Nick LoPresti (02:30.35)

Yeah, for sure and admittedly, you know The term human resources immediately I think about whose birthday it is and is there a potluck in the in the conference room What’s going on with her? But it’s a lot bigger right the the the more we really understand the importance of that part of our world It is about talent and about getting you know, great performance out of our people and creating development programs for them

A lot of people kind of think about HR from a negative standpoint, but you’ve done a really good job, I think, of turning it into something that’s valuable not only for the employees, but also for the executive team.

Nick Alberino (03:11.77)

Yeah, listen, Nick, think, you you have you the leadership team at Good Life has made it clear that human resources is no longer a tactical function. It’s not what you want in bringing me on. so it’s one of the reasons I joined, you know, Good Life is because you didn’t want to treat it as a tactical function celebrating birthdays. Now, that’s part of, you know, one of the things we get to do. really, the most important thing is how do we how do we look at our employees as our most strategic asset or critical asset? A lot of companies say that.

but they don’t put any effort behind that.

Nick LoPresti (03:42.73)

Excited about what the year will continue to bring from from your department and glad to have you on the on the show with us today So we wanted to pick up the conversation where we left off last time we were together and this idea of the front office of the future and What we’re really trying to build inside of good life if you could make it real simple for people to understand what

Does it mean? What is the front office of the future? What is that?

Conor Delaney (04:14.574)

Yeah, I think for us it’s been this journey and exploration around what actually is most important to the advisor. I think when you go back to even where I started as an independent advisor, the world has changed and the needs have changed, both the needs of the end client as well as the needs of the advisor that’s serving them, you and exacerbated actually by all the events in the last five years with COVID and the political.

background and everything. What you have is this sort of constant stress that’s being applied that’s often transferred from the client to the advisor. And then if it’s an organization that cares about the advisors that it serves, we absorb a lot of that stress too. And so now it’s about, okay, how do we take what we know are pain points for our advisors and help them to solve that? Not with some macro strategy around, you know, we’re…

We’re going to enhance our tech stack, or we’re going to make investments here, everywhere. We’re going to speak acknowledgement over what the problems are that the industry is facing, but we’re actually going to tactically get down in the dirt with them and start to build out what those solutions look like. And if we can anchor that in, the four things that we talk about around the firm, are we helping the advisor create more cash flow so that they can make better investments, right, for one example? Two, we’re helping them to lift the enterprise value of the firm. Are they aware of the enterprise value of the firm?

good discipline around their business will generate them in terms of EV. Three, are we creating something that’s unique in terms of an end client experience, which is critically important, especially in those early days of being an advisor, because you only get the first, the ability to make that first impression to those clients that are used to an experience at whatever the other firm was that they were at. And we want to make sure that that’s a great experience. And then four, are we…

doing something to materially impact the quality of life for the advisor so that if we do front office of the future well, advisors are experiencing not one of those things, but hopefully three if not four of those things, and the result of that is an advisor that now is less stressed with a longer runway, and then he passes that ease and convenience and positioning of his head and his heart and his capabilities in a different way to his clients. And then you put all that stuff together, it creates a better ecosystem for the advisors that we’re serving.

Nick LoPresti (06:28.534)

Yeah, and you mentioned enterprise value of being one of the key elements of the front office of the future, meaning we focus on that with our advisors. One of the key drivers in that enterprise value is people, right? And a lot of our advisors, when they start, it’s just them, right? They are a startup for all practical purposes. And then as they grow, they say, hey, I need staff support.

I need to hire people, but I was never really trained on how to select talent. Nick, what’s one piece of advice you might offer to an advisor who’s thinking about their talent strategy? Whether do I have the right people now? Do I need to hire new people? What would you say to an advisor who might be listening about a talent acquisition really having a strategy?

Nick Alberino (07:20.802)

Yeah, well, number one, you we have our Thrive program at Good Life, which is just a tremendous help to our advisors. And I can probably get to that a little bit later on. But I would want to sit down with that advisor and really understand what are you know, what are they seeing in their practice? What types of clients are they working with? Because you want to always make sure that your human capital strategy, your talent acquisition strategy is aligned to your business strategy. So depending on that business strategy will determine what types of talent.

you want to go seek. If you’re seeking growth in terms of AUM, that might attract different types of talent. If you want to, you know, if you’re focusing on your service levels, you want to also attract different types of talent to serve that well. So your business strategy is going to determine what your talent acquisition strategy is. But ultimately, what it comes down to is having a vision that you can share with the talent because talent

I’ve seen this trend where when I was coming at a business school, everybody wanted to just go make the top dollar, right? Brand recognition was very important. Who can go get an offer at the highest paying company or the one with the highest brand recognition? I’ve seen a shift in the industry where people want to believe in the mission. And so if an advisor can attract talent by communicating their vision really well, they will attract the right talent to that. Talent want to believe talent.

At least top talent they want to believe in what they’re doing every day, right? We’re showing up to work We want to believe that you know what we’re contributing to is is meaningful and so if an advisor can communicate that they might not have a large market of people to go attract but they will attract the right people eventually because they’re connecting with people that could then connect to that mission and believe in it and then when you bring them on if they believe that mission There’s gonna be buying there. There’s gonna be loyalty to that mission

and they’re going to want to outperform because of that mission that they originally signed up for in the first place.

Nick LoPresti (09:15.918)

So having a vision that they can share with a potential new hire super important I think it’s also interesting, you know in the work that I do around the organization directly with advisors and you ask questions like So you have this staff. What’s their next career move with you? And you get the blank stare

They have no thought of that. So if you hire me into your practice, am I just your admin forever? Or is there something else that you’re going to develop me on? Right. Are you going to teach me to be a financial advisor? Is that where this goes? Or am I stuck in this seat? How important do you think it is for advisors to have some sort of, it may not be as defined as you have in a large corporation, but having some sort of

career progression in mind for someone that they hire.

Nick Alberino (10:14.892)

Yeah, it’s very important to most people. There are some that want to come in and do that role for the rest of their career and that’s perfectly fine. And we hire for both, right? And every organization understands that not everyone is going to want that growth. as a small firm, it’s very challenging to solve for that in a very defined way where a big firm can say, here’s a career path that you can go pursue.

A smaller firm, think what’s going to be important to that talent is just the flexibility to know that that leader is invested in their career. That might mean that the leader invests in them and that talent decides to leave at some point because the opportunities aren’t there. But that’s what strong leaders do. They understand that they don’t own that talent. They want to develop them, help them get to where they want to go. And if those ambitions lead them somewhere else in the future, so be it. And if you can do that, I mean that…

that employee who just grew with you is gonna go refer their best friends and their other colleagues in the future to your firm. And so I think it’s having the flexibility to say, listen, you’re not just coming in and filling a role where you’re just going to do X, Y, Z every single day. Yes, you will do those things, but it’s leading to more room. Let’s have conversations. Let’s focus on your development, what your ambitions are. And those ambitions might change. They might join one in one thing and learn something.

Conor Delaney (11:26.03)

let’s talk about.

Nick Alberino (11:32.812)

Now they want to do something different. And so it’s just having that flexibility as a leader to really understand the employee or the candidate, understand their ambitions and be flexible with them as they come in, teach them things, open up opportunities for them, whether it’s inside your company or outside of it.

Conor Delaney (11:48.206)

It’s probably one of those things are like I remember early on early on 22 years old and Assistant would leave somebody that was around your business would leave and back then like you’re almost insulted like that I not provide you a good enough experience But I think as we have grown as an organization and I think you know with just more awareness It’s actually it’s not something to be Offended by it’s actually a good thing right like we

we’ve talked about the coaching trees of the NFL coaches and they, that offensive coordinator goes and takes a head coaching job somewhere else. Like that’s something to celebrate, not something that, and if, so if we’re doing our job as, as people leaders and as, as folks that have the, the great opportunity to sign the front of the check instead of the back of the check, then we have to look at that and say, if we’ve done our job well, then we’ve had the opportunity to launch some of these people into greater trajectories for their career.

That’s an awesome experience. Having gone through that with a couple of folks, it’s great. We’ve done our thing. We serve them in that season of their lives, and they’re going on to a greater opportunity. Cool for them. And then it’s incumbent on us, and as an advisor, incumbent on the advisor to make sure that you don’t have that kind key man, central risk, which again, in theory, in those capabilities we talked about, different things that we talked about in terms of how we define success, that actually is gonna hurt your enterprise value, right?

I’m either a great advisor or I have a great admin. Cool, how about we put great processes in place so that neither one of these are the linchpin to the success of the business and the enterprise value, right? So all that stuff, all that strategy, all that human capital dynamic needs to be thought about when you’re going to the advisor. I think the interesting thing is, especially in the new days of being an advisor, first couple days of being an independent advisor, you’ve maybe hit.

level of success as an advisor somewhere else at another broker dealer or whatever and you come over here and it kind of humbles you, right? Because you’re now all of sudden you’re independent. We’re learning how to walk again. It’s that first year is all these firsts, right? Maybe for the first time I’m my own investment manager. Maybe for the first time I’m my first I’ve left a bank advisor channel. I got to go and create my own prospects to walk in the door. But almost all the time it’s I’m gonna be the I’m gonna be an employer for the first time in my life. And so

Conor Delaney (14:09.538)

you know, it’s probably one of the more over thought or under thought parts of the independent process is if you are leaving, yes, the clients are the most important thing, right? Without the clients, there is no business. But two, you’re also shepherding the lives of those people that are coming with you in terms of the admins and the support system and stuff. And so the great advisors are the ones that will take that and not as a burden, but a responsibility and invest heavily in

what that experience looks like for those people down the line.

Nick LoPresti (14:41.856)

It’s one of those areas that in our CEO summits that we talk about, you know, as the business owner, a lot of advisors we focus on, you the growth of the business and, you know, revenue and assets and net new assets. One of the KPIs for the business owner is also the development of their people. Right. You measure yourself against not just how well you’re doing or the business is doing, but the people side.

of the business and whether you have one admin or you have, you know, a team of people, their, their progress, their success and how you’re investing in them is a huge KPI for, for any business. Right. And by the way, if you haven’t, you haven’t been invited to a CEO summit yet, like you should reach out because we get great feedback on that. and it has been an invite only, right? It’s not for everybody, but, we we’ve got,

some ideas as to who might be really good in those sessions, come spend a couple days with myself and Conor and Nick, you come along to that too, right? You’d show up. Good. So we talk a little bit about the front office of the future as a way for advisors to manufacture capacity. And you touched on a little bit around the technology and workflow in those systems.

Conor Delaney (15:48.438)

Yeah, that’s right.

Nick LoPresti (16:07.83)

What are we talking about manufacturing capacity? What is that?

Conor Delaney (16:11.214)

Yeah, I mean, think, you know, an advisor, a lot of times they they’re at pick a place, right? A regional or they’re at a large firm or whatever the case is. And they’re already at capacity a lot of times. And that’s really with the infrastructure that exists around the Merrill’s and the Morgan’s and the whatevers. And so they come over and they’re like, so my move from this culture of sales and a changing number every year where somebody else is dictating my outcome to this culture of service. Awesome.

What does service look like? And then before you know it, they have the same amount of clients, because the clients are loyal and will follow the advisor instead of following the brand. Awesome, that’s a sign of a good advisor. But the capacity doesn’t, they don’t get any, they haven’t elongated their runway. And so what we’re trying to make sure that we’re spending our time and our investments in is how do we actually help the advisor stretch that runway out? How do we put the right bells and whistles around them and

If you look at the other side of that, that the unsupported independent model, it puts too much pressure on the entrepreneur. First of all, Mr. Advisor, you’re an entrepreneur now. Nobody told you that, but you are. The advisors that are going through this recruitment journey, a lot of times they’re saying, like, hey, are the capabilities there? If I’m going from this company that provided all this stuff but took three quarters of my income to this company over here that’s gonna give me a way higher payout, and that’s so cool, but does the trading tools…

Does the technology, does my computer go on when I press a button? All those sort of base level ideas, cool. But they haven’t really thought about like, well, who’s gonna be doing the SEO, AEO, and all the optimization around the blog post? Who’s writing the blog post? How does the blog post get approved? What’s the subject that we’re talking about? All these downstream effects that the advisor’s not really thinking about.

And all of a sudden that runway that was this long, but they were at capacity at Merrill, now they traded that runway for this cool experience to make more money managing the same amount of people. But the runway just went like this, because you have all of these other responsibilities around the horn that you weren’t contemplating that now are right in front of your face. And if you don’t solve them, no problem, but you’re on page three of the Google Pay search. And all these people that are half the advisor that you are have found their way above, and we know that everything on the internet is true. So if they’re on page two and you’re on page three,

Conor Delaney (18:31.704)

they’re gonna get the call that you’re not gonna get. your clients are gonna see that, right? So just one example, but that’s what we talk about, manufacturing capacity. It’s like, how do we have the advisor focus on what the advisor’s good at, which is that client relationship, the depth of that relationship. How do we have the advisor partner with AI, for example, to create more capacity, which elongates the runway. How do we put the right tools and resources around them so the things that they’re not good,

We’ve talked about this, analyzer, socializer. What does the analyzer need? More people to talk to you because they’re afraid of their own shadow. What does the socializer need? Somebody to remind them how to turn on their computer, like me. And so we have, when you can build out those skill sets to either A, pour the gasoline on the good things that that advisor’s already good at, or B, support him with the things that he needs or she needs to be successful. Those two things are the things that when we’re manufacturing capacity, we’re focused on those two elements. How do we bring out the best of the advisor?

and compliment where they’re not as great. You know I mean?

Nick LoPresti (19:33.038)

And manufacturing capacity is kind of interesting. You have to start to think about, why is there a capacity issue to begin with? And a lot of it has to do with advisors who start maybe like you did or like I did, which is my first client, at $50 in a checkbook. And I took that business. And then I wanted somebody who had $100 in a checkbook and continued to grow and grow and grow.

You know what got you to where you are won’t necessarily get you where you want to go, right? In fact, there’s a great book, but got you here won’t get you there. And it is one of the main reasons that we see advisors running into capacity issues is they’ve got a lot of the client relationships that they started with. Are really at this point, maybe not profitable for him anymore.

There’s smaller clients that doesn’t, I don’t mean small in terms of importance, but just in terms of the assets that they might be, that they might have in the household. What do you say to that advisor that has too many clients?

Conor Delaney (20:47.534)

You and I have had debates about this and it’s gonna, I’m gonna go completely against the grain, right? Cause we were, we were all, we all have all talked about like, man, you know, your, your top 20 % make up 80 % of your revenue and the bottom 20 % take up all your time and everything. And so what does the industry tell you to do? It’s like, man, you gotta have the, the, the gumption and the fortitude to fire those bottom clients. No, I was completely pushed back against that. I think that’s a terrible idea.

I don’t think it’s a terrible idea because it’s not the right thing for the entrepreneur. It most of the time is. I think it’s a terrible idea because that’s the world that we’re living in and it’s fundamentally flawed and broken. Why are we judging people based on how much money they’re generating us? Why not just create a better off-ramp for them or a better side-ramp for them or a better way to serve those people? I mean, to me, there’s nothing more disrespectful than saying, hey, you can’t even talk to your advisor, call this 800 number.

Like we know the big wire house firms are doing. And then by the way, that number started at a hundred thousand hours. Now it’s up to five hundred thousand hours. If you have less than five hundred thousand hours, don’t even bother calling this time. You can call him on his personal cell. Maybe he’s giving it to you because he likes you, but he’s not even getting paid on that account. Man, why don’t you just tell them that they’re not worth it? You know? And I think if you just imagine if, if, if Verizon was like, Hey, you don’t have enough money to have an account here. Like at the end of the day, why not just create a model that

can meet people where they’re at instead of forcing the model that says the industry wide of you’re going to you got to fire your bottom class and telling you it goes against the grain. I was with the guy the other day does only takes clients that have two and a half million dollars or more man kudos to him. He’s got a killer business. He makes a ton of money. But what about all those other people that he’s that he’s given the Heisman to those people need help too. And and and so put that decision in the client’s hand.

don’t put that decision in the advisor’s hand. And there’s ways that you can cut that up and do it in a respectful way. Maybe it’s, I can help you and I can dive head over heels, but I need to charge you a financial planning fee or something like that. Give the client the chance to walk away, don’t castrate them. I think the industry has created this whole model. Every coach you talk to will tell you, the bottom 20, every year fire the bottom 20%. Every year fire your 20 % of your least,

Conor Delaney (23:10.05)

performing employees. Having a company that has a number of employees, cool conceptually because you’re always raising the bar, but what about those people? What about their families? What about the people like the, maybe this is the best that they can do. And if we can build the right disciplines for them to be successful, if they’re not successful, shame on me.

Nick LoPresti (23:11.896)

Mm-hmm.

Nick LoPresti (23:33.958)

That was the Jack Welch model, So he would, every year he’d go in and clean out the bottom 20 % of his workforce. That was how he built an empire.

Conor Delaney (23:44.174)

call that performance tension or something. But I just think, I think the great people, forget about the great entrepreneurs, forget about the people that make the most money. The best humans are the ones that figure out a way to meet people where they’re at. And if we can look back at the journey of life and say, cost us a few more pennies, but we did the right thing by our people, far better than, hey, we’ve built this cool thing by firing the bottom 20 % every year, those 20 % have to go somewhere.

Nick LoPresti (24:13.144)

So what you’re saying is don’t necessarily fire the bottom 20 % but solution for them. And is that where good life steps in to help create those solutions?

Conor Delaney (24:22.53)

Yeah, I mean, if I’m an independent advisor, I’m contemplating everything, right? Maybe that becomes that career track where you can say, hey, that junior advisor, everyone talks about a junior advisor. I’ll put all the 20 % of them. Okay, well, what’s the how are you going to what’s the business model look like? What does that framework look like? How do you monitor that? How do you create the right the right KPI is that you can over you can govern that business and look over it without being a part of it so that you’re empowering that junior advisor to be successful, right?

I think there’s number of different ways to You can institutionally create a carve off and say it’s a small account desk or this is sort of an offshoot platform. But let’s give the, again, let’s give the advisor the control to say, as a smaller advisor or as a smaller client, maybe that advisor still wants to retain that small account in a way that completely keeps them in control. Cool. So let’s, do you want to find the junior advisor? Do you want us to find it? Do you want us to train him or are you going to train him?

Do you have the right training manual in place or do you want to use ours? That’s the sequence of decision making that empowers the financial advisor. Remember, three lanes. He’s got to operate as an advisor. What do my capabilities look like? He’s got to operate as the CEO. Cast vision and execute against that vision. He does those two things well, he enjoys a better enterprise value. Those are the three, every decision that you make, everything that you’re thinking about has to do with one of those three elements. And if he can, or she,

can take the hat off and know, okay, in the next hour, I’m working on my people strategy. That means I’m putting on that manager hat instead of that advisor hat. Or hey, I’m doing it the financial plan. Taking off the manager hat, putting on the financial advisor hat. The good ones can go up and down in altitude regardless of what time of day it is to solve the needs that’s right in front of them.

Nick LoPresti (26:08.77)

Absolutely and Nick what about you? mean Can you hire people you have staff on you know for your practice? How do you deal with those? Maybe underperforming employees that that you have and again most advisors aren’t equipped to handle those either conversations or policies because I think a lot of advisors or business owners in general, know, nobody wants to have a lawsuit

thrown at them because they missed a step or whatever. What do you say to those advisors who might be having a talent issue inside their firm right now?

Nick Alberino (26:50.412)

Yeah, clear expectations. Clear expectations is, you know, one of the things that is so easy to do, but often gets missed in almost every situation when it comes to leading talent that is underperforming. Oftentimes the talent that employee that’s underperforming doesn’t actually know the expectations that were set out for them because the leader’s not communicating it. They think that the employee would just know. And so it’s making sure that the employee understands what is expected of them.

having check-in conversations along the way and yes documentation is important in that process, right? So if I was coaching an advisor right now I would I would say hey go have a verbal conversation a one-on-one with that employee and set the expectations and tell them where they’re they’re missing the mark and then follow up with an email so that the employee can refer back to that email which would also help the advisor hold that employee accountable but do it with compassion so many leaders they put so much pressure performance pressure on their employees that

it often leaves their employees feeling that there’s no success that could be overcome here. Once I’m spoken to about my lack of performance, that’s it, especially if an advisor or any employer puts them on what’s in the industry called a performance improvement plan. The intent of that is to help them improve. Some employers use them for, know, just ways to manage talent out. But I would say don’t go into that situation thinking that you have to manage the talent out.

Think about it as, hey, where did you fail as a leader? To what Conor’s point was, how do you take ownership of that? How do you lean in and help that employee and give them a development plan that would help them overcome? Now, unfortunately, sometimes they don’t overcome those challenges. And so that requires tough decisions to be made. And sometimes that would require a termination to take place. But then that brings up a separate topic of how do you handle those situations? You do it with compassion.

Right? You they’re people that are going home to their families, you know, and we want to do that with care. We want to do it with empathy and compassion. And so I would suggest setting expectations, communicating very clearly throughout the process of managing that, telling them their wins. And then if the time comes where you do have to separate, help them. Help them figure out what their next step is. Don’t just say, hey, you’re done here. Good luck. Give them an opportunity to share, you know, what things they…

Nick Alberino (29:13.047)

what things they would need help on to continue to grow and then see how you can lean into to help them beyond their employment at your firm.

Conor Delaney (29:19.348)

So people management aside, Nick, one of the things that you and I, that I’ve said to you from the first time I met you is that you’re called to lead. You’re called to into leading humans, but also into leading strategy and running businesses and things like that. so as you, with your experience in the military and things like that, what are three elements that you think make up a successful team? And then how do you apply those elements to

a successful mission. How do you say mission complete, we’ve done the right thing?

Nick Alberino (29:53.56)

Yeah.

Nick LoPresti (29:54.894)

That’s a great question by the way. I’m giving you a second to think about that one because it’s a big one. I would like to give you an A plus on the questioning line there.

Conor Delaney (30:02.702)

Right off the cuff too man. was really good. I wrote something on my hand this morning not sure what it was

Nick Alberino (30:07.148)

So three things that make up a successful team. Yeah. And then three things that.

Conor Delaney (30:12.57)

And then how do you take those three things and call a mission successful? How do you apply that to create a successful?

Nick Alberino (30:18.966)

Yeah, well, I would say number one there needs to be a leader, you know for a successful team You need to have a leader that leads from the front critical The Marine Corps had you know saying and I know there’s a book Simon Sinek. I believe wrote it Leaders eat last and certainly in the Marine Corps that was that was the case every leader When we get in the chow hall line that leader would take the the last spot and eat after all of his his Marines did and so leaders need to lead from the front that’s the foundation of

of a team, there then needs to be a mission. What are we all lining around? If everyone has their own individual missions, not tied to one core mission, the team’s gonna fall apart. And so, or the work’s gonna be just all over the place. So having a set mission of a team, and then having a leader lead that and making sure that whatever the goals are of that team are ultimately tying up to that overall mission of the firm. And then I would say the team chemistry is important, right? We like to work with

people we like to be around. And so when you hire, I’m not saying to pick people that are similar to you, you want people to challenge us, but team chemistry is very important in the military. It’s very important in corporate America. So when you interview, it’s critical that you have them meet the team because you want the person that you’re hiring to also enjoy the people that they’re working with. And so I’ve seen it said before, you know, over social media, but people don’t leave.

Companies they leave managers, but it’s also it could be true for the people that they’re surrounded by if they’re surrounded by people that are just bringing them down. They’re not going to be happy at that employer. If you’re surrounded by people that you enjoy going to work with and having that team chemistry, that’s that’s a critical piece of you know, just being engaged at in your role.

Conor Delaney (32:04.662)

I just want to point out two things that you just said first you hang out with people that you like I don’t know if you notice but Lee’s not here. Lee’s not here, was not invited. second of all I don’t know if you both knew this but I definitely ordered less at lunch today. don’t know if I bit into my food less but I ordered less.

Nick LoPresti (32:11.566)

out

Nick LoPresti (32:17.016)

potentially

Nick LoPresti (32:29.616)

The guy that orders last or the guy who paid?

Nick Alberino (32:31.95)

You

Conor Delaney (32:33.294)

So then to define for us quick, how do you define success?

Nick Alberino (32:34.773)

of that.

Nick Alberino (32:41.516)

Yeah, so.

There should always be KPIs, right, as a team. Like we should always know what we’re after. I say KPIs, I don’t even like using that term because it should just be like, what is the outcome we’re trying to achieve and how do we measure that? So I think, you know, looking at how do we know that we’ve been successful, it’s when we all have the same goal and we’ve accomplished, you we know what we set out to do and we’re able to look back and say that as a team, we were able to accomplish that. Even if we missed the mark, we can measure that.

you know, the hopefully the progress that we made in whatever it was. you know, every every venture is going to have different levels of success to it. Right. You may fail at small battles, but when the overall war, you know, obviously referring back to the military here, but same could be true for any project. Right. You can fail along the way. But as long as you reach that that goal along the way and learn as you go and then you’re going back to the people side of it.

if those employees walked away and that team walked away learning about those things, even if the overall mission was a failure, if we can look back and point to the development that took place throughout that process, I think that would be success in most leaders, good leaders’ eyes. I saw a post on LinkedIn one time and it was this executive at Amazon that shared that he worked for Jeff Bezos and at the time he shared that he made a million dollar mistake.

And Jeff Bezos chose not to fire him because then he said that he would not he would have lost a leader that You know would have learned so much Right, so he would he’s ultimately looking at the the long-term win of that million dollar mistake and he was willing to keep on that employee because that executive because of what he learned in that mistake regardless of how Much it costs the firm and I think that’s how we have to look at things It’s so easy to just look at KPIs and say you’re not performing because you did this

Nick Alberino (34:38.314)

And if the employee’s not learning along the way, then yeah, that’s a problem or the team’s not learning. But if we can look back and say, hey, what did you learn throughout that process and how did you grow from it? And what are you gonna do differently next time? That goes a long way in the success of the team.

Conor Delaney (34:53.646)

Last question from me and then you’re off my hot seat. I don’t know about Nick’s, but you’re off mine. Then individually, take all the corporate stuff away. How do you define success?

Nick LoPresti (34:58.092)

He’s coming back to my

Nick Alberino (35:07.64)

How do I define success? Just in general, my terms are.

Conor Delaney (35:10.286)

What no for you individual aside business military all that stuff aside, how are you how do you define success?

Nick Alberino (35:15.342)

Yeah.

The way I define success is had I made a positive impact, did I make a positive impact on the people around me? I want to go home knowing that the people around me felt better because of my presence. They felt more encouraged, more challenged. I find it a joy when I can pull up and just have a very candid one-on-one with someone and challenge them on their way of approaching a situation and make them think differently about it or ask them questions that just expose some things that

they were not thinking about. One of the core themes of coaching is asking the right questions to those around you, to the leaders that you’re coaching. And so when I can walk away from a situation knowing that I listened intently and asked really good questions to at least make that person, whether it’s a leader I’m reporting into, a leader I’m coaching or an employee on my team, whatever it is, a peer, if I can help them think differently about a situation by asking really good questions, I go home pretty fulfilled.

And that’s the positive impact that I want on individuals is to just have that opportunity to speak life into them, whether it’s personal or business, both are the same, asking questions, intentionally and being a voice for them when some may not choose to do that.

Conor Delaney (36:37.358)

remember five years ago about I was pulled up in a traffic light with one of my partners and I said it just dawned on me. I don’t know where. like man, we have the opportunity almost every day, especially driving cars, to either be a blessing or a curse. People are either gonna say, man, thank God for that guy. He let me go through the crosswalk. Or that guy, because he, know, and flip him off. There’s a ripple effect to that. You go through the entire day and you’ve been a blessing to others, you sleep better.

You go through the entire day and you’re, you know, people have been cursing you and saying bad things about you. You don’t sleep as well. And it’s a cool Testament to how, like to what you’re saying, like, man, at the end of the day, we’ve got to look back and say, we made more deposits than we took withdrawals. know,

Nick Alberino (37:23.478)

Yeah, and it could be exhausting too, right? Like it’s one of those things where I think we talked about this earlier is it’s hard to say yes to everything because if you say yes to everything, you’re saying no to quite a bit. But it’s also one that’s think willing, I’m willing to sacrifice on and I want to see the success of those around me. It’s one of those core things where you get joy from seeing those around you be successful. I think my faith plays a huge part.

and me joining Good Life and me being here. And so if I can reflect Jesus Christ in everything that I do, then I’m going to go home knowing that my mission was complete for that day.

Conor Delaney (38:08.92)

Awesome.

Nick LoPresti (38:10.122)

Excellent. So I want to I want to go off script just a little bit here just a little left field. We’ve been in the human resource and the people people world for a long time. What’s the craziest human resource story? This rabbit hole. Let’s change names don’t call.

Nick Alberino (38:24.056)

You’re really dead. man.

can call I will. Which one do I want to pick? This is hard. Okay, so won’t say the company, but I did, unfortunately, part of my job is to, you know, when there’s reductions in force, I’m often, you know, part of the team that has to have those conversations with the leader present. But there was a situation where I thought I was going to get hit by this employee. They were raging. And so,

This is back in the day where you did everything in person. There was no zoom meetings for layoffs, no emails. Today’s your last day. This was a time when everything was done in person. It was in person with this other guy and sat across the table. Actually, I sat next to him because I don’t like that across the table. I chose to sit next to him and had him come in and sit down next to me and had the conversation. wasn’t…

anything related to performance, company just had to reduce a certain amount of people and he was a security risk. Oh yeah. Yeah. well, you know,

Nick LoPresti (39:30.658)

He raged out.

You have a button on your desk that you could just like hit.

Nick LoPresti (39:38.44)

Nick is a Marine. Thank you for your service.

Nick Alberino (39:39.82)

Yeah, thank you. Thank you guys. You know, that situation, I had already briefed security. This is what made it funny. I briefed security because I knew this could turn a bit dicey. I briefed security and I said, hey, like, be outside this area. Right. So and anyway, that it goes off the rails. And where was security? No idea. No, they were not there. And so you went out. Yeah. And

Conor Delaney (40:05.912)

for the

Nick Alberino (40:09.038)

I had to like chase him down because he went storming out and went to go collect his things. And I had to go make sure that there was nothing further that was gonna happen. And anyway, it was fine. Like we were able to have a conversation later, but that was probably the most intense moment that I’ve had.

Conor Delaney (40:28.814)

Hey, we don’t have security at Goodland, we have Nicola Presti. Right, exactly.

Nick LoPresti (40:32.342)

Yeah, security usually comes with like a bowl of &Ms because it makes everybody happy. Including Cynthia, makes her feel better. There’s &Ms, it everybody happy.

Nick Alberino (40:41.358)

But this goes back to what I said before, if you do it with compassion, if you do things with just business results in mind, you’re not gonna have that type of impact the way I define success. If I have to have that hard conversation with someone, it’s gonna result in a positive outcome for the most part. That was a very difficult situation right there then in that moment where I thought it was gonna get physical, but I was able to calm that situation down.

Nick LoPresti (41:06.2)

That’s a major skill to de-escalate like that is a major skill for sure. So one question for each of you. I’ll ask Conor first.

We talk about the advisor journey and onboarding an advisor and we’ve got a whole pathway that we take them through like the journey, right? Where we have a stop in that CEO summit. have a stop with the operational team to manufacture capacity form. We’ve got to stop with our performance enhancement team to help them get a better swing and really become sharp as a business owner. And ultimately we get into that succession and legacy part of their, of their journey.

And on an individual level, right? Just for you guys, you think about your own journey and you know that sort of, well, if I could, if I could. So if you think about it in this way, if you knew you wouldn’t fail, if you knew you wouldn’t fail, success is guaranteed. What would you try?

Conor Delaney (42:10.702)

Hmm.

Nick Alberino (42:12.27)

I’d try out

Conor Delaney (42:14.638)

I mean, that’s a bar.

Nick Alberino (42:16.574)

Right right right now

Conor Delaney (42:19.278)

If you knew you couldn’t fail What would you try well depends on what a success and failure look like I mean if I if it was like a guaranteed win

Nick LoPresti (42:33.199)

The success is guaranteed.

Conor Delaney (42:34.49)

I’d run the Boston Marathon. Yeah, because if I could win, then I would run. I’d look at the Ethiopians on my left and right and go right through the finish line before them. No, I mean, think for me, I would imagine it would be something else around leadership. I think the thing that changes is as you get older, your appetite for risk goes down. Not because you lose…

Nick LoPresti (42:36.386)

you’d run the Boston Marathon.

Nick LoPresti (42:44.376)

Okay.

Conor Delaney (43:02.55)

the edge, but because there’s other people that you have other stakeholders, right? I got five stakeholders and I go home and they’re all hungry every night. And then I have the sixth, their mama. And you know, so you just, you, you, calculate risk differently. So I think like the really cool thing that you could get lost in dreaming and imagining is what you said, which is if you did something and you knew you were going to be successful because it unlocks a whole world that

frankly most people that are the breadwinners in their family between the ages of 30 and 40 lose. And when you lose that edge and you lose that fire, it changes how you approach everything. But if you had a way to define like, no matter what, I’m gonna be successful, I’d take the biggest swing I could at the most aggressive goal that could leave the biggest impact. I’d run for president.

Nick LoPresti (43:59.182)

there it is. There it is. Yeah, we got some

Nick Alberino (44:02.606)

That’s a good question.

Conor Delaney (44:04.27)

It took me a while to get there, but that’s That’s what I would do. I would run for president.

Nick LoPresti (44:07.362)

I don’t like it. Well, chief of staff, can still do that. Yeah. At that, you know, that, that would be good. It wouldn’t know what to do with us up there. Nick, how about you?

Nick Alberino (44:18.542)

I’ve thought a lot about this before your question. I would open up, I love hospitality. Like for me, the experience is everything. When you check into a hotel, when you stay at any type of venue or there’s an event, the experience is everything. And I just find joy in that, especially when it’s such a positive one. I would want to start a Christmas tree farm with an event venue attached to it.

And so I’d want to have this whole experience for kids, you know, just to come in and, you know, just just have those memories of cutting down a Christmas tree and but then also having the space to have maybe a wedding venue that’s just unmatched, you know, with the experience and the types of people that I would bring on to make that experience. You know, one that’s just an amazing memory. That’s how it was for my wife and I when we got married. It wasn’t a Christmas tree farm, but it was a beautiful

venue and experience and we still you know over 10 years later I just reflect on that being you know the was no Chester County

Conor Delaney (45:22.414)

Right in Chester County, by chance.

Chester County has a couple of really nice venues.

Nick Alberino (45:29.548)

You know, I have to look up the county. was in Highlands, North Carolina.

Conor Delaney (45:32.91)

North Carolina. I was going to say, there’s a couple of places in Pennsylvania that…

Nick Alberino (45:36.686)

Bring me back. Oh, you’re talking about Pennsylvania, because I don’t know the county in North Carolina, but yeah, Pennsylvania has beautiful venues. that’s probably where I started to get that Christmas tree farm, venues, know, something about that experience. And, you know, you’re meeting people when they’re they’re planning for months and months for whether it’s a wedding or another type of, you know, retirement party or anniversary. They’re planning for months. And so they they’re nervous. Right. So when that that day comes and to be able to make that incredibly special and just blow them away. Yeah.

would be so much fun to do.

Nick LoPresti (46:09.294)

Amazing, amazing. So if you’re an advisor out there listening to this, now you just heard what a couple of folks would do, I would encourage you to think about what’s that one big business idea that if you knew you wouldn’t fail, you’d give it a shot. And if you need help with that, here’s the crew that we should be talking to. Right? If where you’re at, you can’t see the path, you don’t see the journey that you’re on. Believe me, you’re going somewhere. But if you can’t see it, come talk to us.

Come talk to Good Life. We can show you what it could look like for you. any closing thoughts, Conor?

Conor Delaney (46:48.302)

I got nothing. We did a lot of talking today. It was good. It was.

Nick LoPresti (46:51.627)

Yeah. Well, thanks everybody for tuning in. We’ll see you next time on thinking independently. Have a great day