693: What Happens When a Career That Works on Paper Stops Working in Real Life

[00:00:00] Scott Anthony Barlow: Tom took a risk. He told his company that he was exploring other job options. So, they gave him a deadline.

[00:00:06] Tom Wilder: We have to have an end date. We're not just gonna drag this out forever. So we're going to set a deadline of March 31st because we're just gonna have to make other moves. We're gonna have somebody else in your seat and have to replace you. All these other pieces.

[00:00:21] Scott Anthony Barlow: For months, he'd been talking to a team he thought was going to hire him. But when he told them about the deadline, this was the response.

[00:00:30] Tom Wilder: I just kind of got met with this blank stare of, "Well, what were you expecting from us? Are you thinking that we're going to hire you? Because that wasn't our plan."

[00:00:40] And that was when I kind of went, whoa, hold on a sec. Now I feel like I'm in a really, really scary spot.

[00:00:47] Scott Anthony Barlow: 48 hours later, his phone rang.

[00:00:50] Tom Wilder: I got a call from a recruiter, and she basically described the exact job I had been looking for and said, "Would this be something you're interested in?" And I said, "Yes! That's exactly what I'm looking to do."

[00:01:05] Scott Anthony Barlow: Lucky guy. Right place, right time. But that's not what actually happened.

[00:01:10] Tom Wilder: The reason I was in the "right place at the right time", in quotations, was because I had put myself there. And all the work leading up to that point, to be aware of what I wanted, how I wanted to look, where I wanted to do it, was ready. So that when that opportunity presented itself, I was not only able to say, "yes, I'm interested in this", but also say, "and here's why they should be interested in me."

[00:01:41] Scott Anthony Barlow: This is Happen To Your Career, and you are about to learn how what happened to Tom wasn't actually luck. For 15 years, he worked in financial services, not as the advisor across the table from clients, but as the person behind the scenes who made those advisors better.

[00:01:58] Tom had a law degree. A credential stack longer than his name, and deep expertise in the kind of advanced planning work most people never even know exists. But none of it prepared him for what came next.

[00:02:12] Tom Wilder: So, I would go all the way back to 2008, and that's when I graduated from law school.

[00:02:16] Scott Anthony Barlow: Yeah.

[00:02:17] Tom Wilder: Which was a terrible time for young attorneys, particularly where I live, where the state is the biggest employer of young attorneys, and they were not hiring at all at that time. So it was difficult to find a job in the law market in general. And I bummed around and did a few different things. I actually did do a little bit of legal work for about 10 weeks, and it was the worst job I've ever had.

[00:02:39] And then I ended up falling into finance. The advisor that I had been working with as a client reached out and said, "Have you ever thought about this? People with a legal background can do a lot here." I joined his team, and I worked with him for a decade, just really him as a solo practitioner with several staff people.

[00:03:00] At one point, I was the only person on his team after people moved and went on. And at another point, we had three other people working in various different capacities, and I had a lot of opportunities to do a lot of different things related to finance in that role. And we were very successful. We were one of the top firms in the company.

[00:03:18] We had leadership, we were getting recognition, we had some speaking engagements every now and then. And then in 2020, he merged his practice with two other advisors in our office who were also both very successful. But the idea was that it was economies of scale.

[00:03:34] Together, they could do more than any one of them could do individually. And so our practice suddenly became a team of 20, and some of whom were very siloed in terms of what they were doing. And that was intentional. Rather than having a bunch of people that were an inch deep and a mile wide, we were gonna have people that were an inch wide and a mile deep, and you had specific experts on every subject matter.

[00:03:58] And with that, I moved a little bit further away from day-to-day management and more into an employee type role. Not that I wasn't an employee before, but I lost some of that influence on what was happening because there were now three bosses and a business manager and an operations manager, all of whom kind of stepped ahead of me. And I started doing a more limited set of work.

[00:04:25] And in some ways, this was really good at first. Because bringing all these other teams together, we had a lot of knowledge, we had a lot of experience, and then just, it was good until it wasn't. And that was when I started to say, "Is this what I want to do for the next 20 years?" I was thinking, 20 years until I retire, which is some ways is a really long time, and it is some ways a very short time.

[00:04:50] Scott Anthony Barlow: What I'm curious about is what was the change in feeling along with that? You went from this number two person in this role that was very different, and that transitioned over a relatively quick period of time. What started to feel off for you?

[00:05:07] Tom Wilder: I think a lot of it had to do with management style. I mentioned that now I had five bosses instead of one. And there was a lot of systems that had to be put in place for a team that was that much larger, which in some ways is good. It keeps the workflow going, but it also restricts your freedom of movement. I felt myself getting very siloed, and I was moving away from some of the work that I liked to do.

[00:05:36] Scott Anthony Barlow: Sure.

[00:05:36] Tom Wilder: And getting more work that didn't excite me, put on my plate. And I also felt like there was a lot more scrutiny in terms of how I was doing my day-to-day operations and stuff that felt very micromanaging, and I just wanted to be like, "Let me do my work. Trust me, I know what I'm doing." But it also, the role that I was doing more was more sales-based.

[00:06:01] And success in the sales factor is based off of actual results, the final numbers for the year. And that part didn't inspire me a lot. I helped, like, helping support somebody that was doing that, but being beholden to it myself was not that exciting.

[00:06:19] When it came time to pick up the phone and call people or start working on new leads and new prospects and introducing myself to new people, that would just suck the life out of me.

[00:06:29] Scott Anthony Barlow: Interesting. So really quick, I'm curious then. When it was really great, what did that look like? What was the difference there? Help me understand what that felt like and what you were doing at that particular time.

[00:06:43] Tom Wilder: So in the earliest days of it, I was not meeting with clients very much at all, and the advisor that I was working with was doing all of that, and I was helping him getting prepared for those meetings.

[00:06:54] Sometimes it would be interesting and unique questions that he would say, "Hey, can you look into this? You've got the law degree. Can you call our advanced planning attorneys at our home office and talk through this with them? And bring it back and explain it to me so that I can then go and explain it to a client."

[00:07:10] When I started in finance, I didn't have any financial degrees. I just have a law degree. And then over the years, I added several of them. Somebody told me the other day, I have more letters than I do in my name, in my email signature.

[00:07:25] Scott Anthony Barlow: We're gonna have to add your middle name or something...

[00:07:26] Tom Wilder: I know I have to spell the whole thing out. But as I added those, I learned more and became more advanced and more familiar with advanced planning topics, and that was the spot where I could flex some of my legal background a little bit when I was talking to those advanced planning attorneys coming in with questions for them.

[00:07:43] I could frequently say, "Hey, I've got a law degree. You know, we can take this conversation up a notch here. You don't need to start at the basics here." So that piece disappeared a lot, and it became much more of, like I said, that sales side.

[00:07:57] I really loved working with clients because I could pull that educator piece out, and now I was teaching them about something that was very specific to their plan, and I loved those conversations. It was everything that took to get there that was stressful and painful.

[00:08:17] Scott Anthony Barlow: So tell me about that. When you say everything it took to get there, what are you thinking of?

[00:08:22] Tom Wilder: If I had a four appointments in the calendar, those were the best parts of my day. The rest of it was reaching out to people to schedule them.

[00:08:30] It's, you're trying to get somebody new in the calendar that doesn't know you at all, trying to cold call them or get as warm referral to them was difficult. And I had to put a lot of systems in place for myself to motivate myself, like, "Okay, here's how many phone calls we're going to make. Here's how many have to be to brand new people you've never talked to before. Here's how many new names you have to find by the end of the week, including contact information and preferably somebody else that knows them that might be able to help you get introduced." That part was very painful and difficult.

[00:09:06] And that was something that once a month we would have a meeting where we'd go over, "How many meetings did you schedule? How many meetings did you keep? How many of them were new people? How much business do you expect to write off of those meetings?" Like I said before, that felt very micromanaging, where I knew, "Hey, this is my goal for the year. Am I on pace for it? Am I not on pace? Am I doing what I need to do for the most part?" Yeah.

[00:09:31] Scott Anthony Barlow: So you're in this situation where you're feeling more micromanaged than you ever have before, and you continued to stay. What was causing you to stay?

[00:09:44] Tom Wilder: When I think about it at that time, if I was looking for something else, I would go out and end up looking at the same role someplace else and say, "I'm doing the same exact thing."

[00:09:55] And I felt like I was working with a good company that had a good philosophy on planning, a good track record, good performance, all these things. And then the other thing I would look at would be maybe I'll dust off a law degree, and I'll jump into that, and I'll try and get into something where I can use some of my background and find a way to do that.

[00:10:16] And I just instantly thought, "Hey, I'll be an attorney in the corporate offices for an insurance company or an investment company, I'll be part of the assistant general counsels or something like that." And when I started looking at that background, like I really don't feel like I'm experienced enough to do something like that.

[00:10:37] Again, I just felt lost. That was when I eventually reached out to HTYC and said, "Hey, I'm curious what I should be doing here because either I'm doing the same thing that I'm doing right now and not enjoying. Or I'm looking at something where I don't feel like I'm experienced enough to do it. Have some of the background on paper, it was perplexed about what to do."

[00:10:58] Scott Anthony Barlow: For you, somewhere along the way, you had described it as that light bulb type of moment where something clicked, and you realized that you just couldn't keep going the way that things were. Can you walk me through what happened?

[00:11:15] Tom Wilder: I was about halfway through the calendar year at that point. Earlier that year, I had turned 45. Something in my head was saying, "You've got 20 years until retirement, and you've been doing this for about 15. So if you stay where you are, you're about halfway through. Do you want the next 15 to 20 years to look like the last 15 years? Or even the last 5 years? And really strongly, I just felt something saying, "No, this is not... What we're doing right now is not it."

[00:11:48] And looking at it, I didn't feel like there was any place to advance where I was. And even if I got to a partner position, I'd still be basically doing the same work. But I was also thinking about it and saying, "Okay, we would have to buy out the most senior partner who owns over half the practice. And I don't have the type of money to just put down a big lump sum to do that, so I'd probably have to finance it over several years."

[00:12:18] And then I just started doing the math in my head. I said, "If it's five years until he retires, then I'm gonna have 15 years left." And then if it takes 5 or 10 years for me to finance out whatever I buy, then I've only got 5, maybe 10 years left till I retire.

[00:12:37] And that's when I finally start seeing some of the potential growth if I bought into being a partner, but I'd still have to spend another 10 to 15 years doing exactly what I'm doing before I saw any of this income and fruits of my labor.

[00:12:53] And all of a sudden it's, that's right before I'm getting ready to retire. I'm not really going to see any of this before I'm getting ready to leave myself. And I just didn't feel like the result, the end result, was big enough to be like, "Okay, yeah, we'll wait this out for that much longer."

[00:13:09] And I've said a few times, 20 years is a long time, but it's also a really short time. And that was just the feeling I had so much is, oh boy, this is like far away, but not far away. Little mini midlife crisis.

[00:13:23] Scott Anthony Barlow: Yeah. So when you're in that moment, as you're having that set of realizations, which had been building for some time, what did that feel like for you? Do you remember?

[00:13:35] Tom Wilder: It was scary. It was just this feeling of being trapped and not really knowing how I was going to move on from it at that point.

[00:13:46] Scott Anthony Barlow: What caused you to take next steps? Where did that go after that? Because I think it would be, for many people, it would be really easy to give up at that point. And again, just move back into toleration.

[00:13:59] Tom Wilder: Interestingly enough, I found the Happen To Year Career podcast, not because I was looking for a new job when I had first done it. One of the titles had just shown up one day as something that I thought, "Oh, Happen To Your Career. And this sounds like a good way to perform well in your career."

[00:14:18] And I had listened to it on a whim. And then just kept on coming back to it. And so it started resonating a little bit more as I was thinking about some stuff, and I started listening to it regularly, and it was a few weeks before I actually did reach out and say, "Yeah, I would like to have a conversation and talk about it some more."

[00:14:37] But because that seed had already been planted, when I started feeling that way about my career, I started realizing maybe I do need somebody else to help walk me through this, because the solutions I'm finding on my own just aren't working.

[00:14:50] Scott Anthony Barlow: So let's talk about that then. As you start trying to identify what that right move to make is, what did that work look like for you?

[00:15:01] Take us through what were some of the surprising areas as you started to explore what was actually right for you as a next step.

[00:15:12] Tom Wilder: It was really interesting to sit there and look at what was right for me and what wasn't right for me. I found a lot of value in looking at my Clifton strengths because as soon as I saw them, I said, "Yes, this is me."

[00:15:26] I don't know if I would've picked those five adjectives to describe myself on my own, but when I saw them and read the descriptions of them, I said, "Yes, this is definitely how I operate."

[00:15:35] After I did that, I started realizing I like doing certain things, certain ways, because of how my strengths work. So then it was useful to me to sit there and think about what I was doing during my day that I would like to keep doing, and what I didn't really wanna do, what was motivating me, what I enjoyed, and what I didn't enjoy.

[00:15:59] So from that perspective, I think it was really valuable to take a moment back and see what type of work I liked and then use that as a springboard to start looking at other places and other opportunities and people to talk to that might do more work related to that, and see if I might be more interested in that type of work.

[00:16:21] Scott Anthony Barlow: So it sounds like what you're saying, Tom, is that for you, as you started delving further into understanding your strengths at a deeper level, then what that allowed you to do is be able to reflect on it and [00:16:40] then determine how does that relate to what you wanna spend your time doing.

[00:16:44] Tom Wilder: Even thinking about what I was doing in my personal life. At one point, I realized why I like working out the way that I do, because I take an approach to it of just like knowing what I'm going to do every single day of the week, because I'm strategic and futuristic, and I've planned out all those things.

[00:17:02] And just all these little things about it. I was like, everything about how I'm doing this aspect of my personal life is reflecting my strengths, and so can I take that into other parts of my life as well? Or just realizing why I might get frustrated about something is because it doesn't play into my strengths, or I want other people in my family to operate a certain way because that's how I operate.

[00:17:28] Scott Anthony Barlow: I think that's a really fascinating thing for me. Actually, way back goes way back for me when I used to do HR management at Target, lifetime ago it feels like. Anyhow, they were my first touch point to strengths. And I think what you're saying is that looking at it much more holistically helped you understand just how you operate as yourself.

[00:17:49] And learning much more about the research later on, long after my Target days, that's still the definition I love the most when we think about strengths is. Strengths, really... Yes, there's a collection of your talents and experiences and everything else, and how that evolves over time, but really, it's just how can you be more of you? So then what did that do for you?

[00:18:11] Tom Wilder: It helped me a lot to say, "If I'm gonna be happy and I'm gonna get up and be motivated every single day, or just about every single day, right? What things am I going to need to do? What am I gonna wanna see out of my job?" And I had started to do some of the test drive conversations with people inside my industry and people doing things that were completely unrelated to what I'm doing now, but might've been able to pull on some of my other strengths and background and everything.

[00:18:44] And as I did that, I had the fortunate advantage that I was working for a large company, even though I was working with a small firm. There were thousands of people in my company that were readily available in the email directory that I could just look up their email, and 99% of them got back to me very quickly and said, "Yeah, I'd be happy to have a conversation about what I do."

[00:19:10] So I got the opportunity to explore a lot about what the different roles were with our company and our home office, and how they work on the corporate level, not necessarily out as part of the field force selling, but the people supporting them. And ask a lot of questions about what they do and how they operate, and start to discover the different roles there.

[00:19:33] Scott Anthony Barlow: Let me ask you about that, 'cause I think that's a really underutilized resource for so many different people as they're going through the process of designing and executing what we would call career experiments, and you doing so in the form of test drive conversations.

[00:19:48] And being able to reach out to some of those, I don't know, you might call it low hanging fruit because there's a lot of incentive there to say, "Yes. Yeah. I'd love to have a conversation with you." But can you tell me a little bit about one of those conversations that you remember that stands out? What did you go in with? What did that conversation look like? What was the dialogue? What did you ask about?

[00:20:11] Tom Wilder: The one that really comes to mind was a woman who was in a role to support teams like ours. And she really, she took the moment to say, "What do you wanna do? What's interesting? What's the stuff that lights you up, and where could I steer you?" And so we took some time to talk about what she does, but just also, she took a lot of time to say, "I know a lot of people. I could put you in connection with lots of people. What are you looking to do?"

[00:20:41] And that was a really helpful conversation because a lot of times, I would always try and make sure to ask, "Who else should I be talking to based off our conversation? And a lot of times you get put into somebody's mirror, "Oh, there's four of us. Go talk to the other three that do the exact same thing that I do."

[00:21:02] And sometimes that's good. Because you get a different perspective on it, but sometimes you just have the same conversation over again.

[00:21:08] Scott Anthony Barlow: To your point, when you're going back, and I think you did a really great thing here where you're continually asking, "who else should I be talking to?" And a lot of the time, I find you almost have to filter out who's going to be useful to talk to in one way or another.

[00:21:26] Otherwise, people look at it through their own lens. "I became a *whatever the position is*, and here's how I did it. So let me put you in touch with this, when that may not be your path or your trajectory."

[00:21:38] Tom Wilder: And it's also some people, you know, when you're working in that situation, are sometimes looking at it too, as like, how can it benefit them to talk to you?

[00:21:47] And there was one person that was very helpful, but he was looking for somebody for his team, and so he was happy to have conversations, and he liked me and everything. But joining his team would've meant moving halfway across the country.

[00:22:00] And I said, "Yeah, that's really not something we're looking to do."

[00:22:03] Scott Anthony Barlow: Yeah. It didn't align with your minimums on what we would call the ideal career profile.

[00:22:08] Tom Wilder: Exactly.

[00:22:09] Scott Anthony Barlow: So not an option for you. We're not gonna consider it for sure. So when you were going in, and you're first starting to have these types of test drive conversations, you're first getting into exploration and experimentation, what were you hoping would happen from some of those conversations? What were you hoping to learn?

[00:22:29] Tom Wilder: I think the biggest thing was really trying to get clarity on what I wanted to do, and that was the biggest thing, is I had some ideas, but seeing if it was gonna be something that motivated and excited me as I was doing it, and not just a new job for the sake of a new job and a new title, and doing work that was going to be draining.

[00:22:51] And I don't know, maybe I'm quick to talk myself outta things, but I would see a lot of stuff and I say, "No, that doesn't sound exciting." It's important work. It's definitely important work. It's interesting a little bit, but if I had to do that every single day for a month, I wouldn't enjoy it anymore at that point. So getting a sense of understanding that.

[00:23:09] Scott Anthony Barlow: What did you find was useful when you're thinking about prepping for those conversations? How did you go about preparing for those types of conversations?

[00:23:19] Tom Wilder: This is funny. I think all that stuff that I was talking about before, when I was talking about the sales side of things that I didn't like, reaching out to people, setting those new appointments, getting in front of new people, I was using all of those skills as I was doing my career search.

[00:23:37] And I was taking that playbook and repurposing it for myself, so I would take some time to look up the person's background, not just within the company, but if I could find them on LinkedIn particularly, I would go there, see how long they've been with the company, see where they came from, see what they're doing right now, what department they're in, what they're supporting.

[00:23:57] So know a little bit about them and how they came to be where they are and try and see some ways that were similar. So I would start that. I would ask some questions about that, but I would have some questions already written out, usually three or four that I specifically wanted to make sure that I asked during that conversation.

[00:24:17] So I would always have some context like that, just understanding a little bit of who they are and where they came from.

[00:24:23] Scott Anthony Barlow: What you just described is almost engineering in experience as opposed to going and having a random conversation for somebody who said yes. Two very different things.

[00:24:34] Tom Wilder: I was gonna say, and sometimes, most of the time I wouldn't look on Facebook, but every now and then I would peek in, and sometimes you find a little bit of personal information about them. And one of the great conversations I had with somebody that kind of became an advocate, I just saw that we both like Lego, 'cause she was a member of a Lego group on Facebook that we are.

[00:24:52] And so I snuck it into the conversation and all of a sudden you saw her light up and say, "Wait a sec." You know.

[00:25:00] Scott Anthony Barlow: That's what I'm having right now. Hold on. Legos, we might derail the conversation here. I think that is, it truly creates a different set of results. It's so nuanced. It can feel, I think, a lot of people to nuance, but it really truly is when you're doing that level of prep, you are setting a conversation up for success so that you are getting some of the learning.

[00:25:22] But also, they're having a better interaction with you, which then creates a better experience, which then creates a better relationship, and it all goes together. So super smart. I want a topic shift a little bit on you, because I think you did something that was very, I'm gonna say brave, that I wanted to ask you about.

[00:25:41] A lot of people feel very fearful about telling their boss or their team or anybody that they might be leaving in the future, before they fully secure a job offer or the next step or whatever it is. Because you're putting yourself out there in a lot of different ways, and this is incredibly vulnerable, but could you share what led you to that decision to tell your partners that you were exploring other options?

[00:26:09] Tom Wilder: If I'm being completely honest, this is the one piece of the process that I don't know if I would do it a second time. To give some context, I eventually came to the conclusion that what I really wanted to do was work as an attorney for a financial planning firm, but not one of those general counsels, one of the people that is there consulting on advanced planning cases.

[00:26:32] So I call it the advisor to advisors. The person that they call when they get something that's outside their wheelhouse. And just about every financial planning firm has a team like this that's on call. And there's various different versions of it, but I was talking to the group at my company at the time and I got the indication that I needed a little bit more background, and so I enrolled in some classes to do that on my own, and those were going very well.

[00:27:02] And we started to have quarterly conversations with the person that would be the hiring manager if they were going to hire somebody new. And as we talked, we said, "Yeah, you probably should bring your team into the loop so they know why this is showing up on your calendar every quarter. We don't want to create waves internally. They work with us, they subscribe to our service. We don't want to pull the rug under out from underneath them, and we wanna maintain good relationships.

[00:27:30] And it also gives you an opportunity to see a little bit more about what some of the other advisors on your team might be doing and how the work that we're preparing for them is being done.

[00:27:40] So it could be a good collaborative thing. After thinking over a little bit, uh, I actually talked to my boss' boss to get his insight 'cause he knew, had known all of them longer than I had and say, "Hey, what would you recommend if this is the situation?" And he was also supportive. His recommendation was, "Don't do it unless you're greater than 50% sure that this is actually going to happen." But I went forward and said, "Yeah guys, I'm looking at this opportunity. It's a possibility to make a move internally to our home office and do something that really excites me and pulls all of my background together." And thankfully, they were very supportive of. They knew that I had a lot of other talents that were getting utilized.

[00:28:23] It did rock the boat a little bit because the one older partner was starting to move towards retirement and was transitioning some of his clients outward, so we had to change the plan. But they really appreciated the fact that I didn't wanna leave them in the lurch. Now, the backside of that is, that was August of last year.

[00:28:42] By September-October range, they came back to me and said, "Okay, we support you for this. We want it to happen, but we have to have an end date. We're not just gonna drag this out forever, so we're going to set a deadline of March 31st for it to happen because we're just gonna have to make other moves. We're gonna have to have somebody else in your seat and have to replace you. All these other pieces."

[00:29:07] So suddenly I had a deadline for this to happen, and I'm still talking with our team at our home office at the time. And so I brought this to their attention and said, "Okay, so here's the timeline that I'm working with on my end." And I just got met with this blank stare, "What were you expecting from us? Are you thinking that we're going to hire you? 'Cause that wasn't our plan."

[00:29:30] And that was when I went, whoa, hold on a sec. Now I feel like I'm in a really scary spot and I just was perplexed. And that lasted about 48 hours because about 48 hours later, I got a call from a recruiter who was looking for another company, one of our competitors, another highly respected company, and she said, "I normally do the recruiting for lawyers for financial planning firms.

[00:29:55] They're asking me for someone to come in and be one of their financial planning attorneys that would have this type of background. And she basically described the exact job I had been looking for and said, "Would this be something you're interested in?" And I said, "Yes, that's exactly what I'm looking to do."

[00:30:14] And it was just crazy. And she said, "Somebody in your network gave me your name." And basically described exactly what I had been looking for and what I had wined out of all the possible ways that I could go, there was.

[00:30:26] And so when I talked to her, I had a lot of questions that said, "Here's what I know that we do at our company, but I've also talked to other companies in the industry. I've already started looking outside, so is it more like company A or company B or company C, or is it something totally different?"

[00:30:43] And so right away she was like, "Yeah, we gotta get you talking to the people there." And then being able to have those conversations and ask those questions as early as the first interview, showed that I knew a lot about this space and was familiar with how they operated, and could have a really good conversation about that.

[00:31:02] Scott Anthony Barlow: Okay, so I think so many people are going to hear this story, your story, and they're going to say, "Okay, alright. Tom was just in the right place at the right time. And you're so lucky, Tom. I wish I could be as lucky as Tom." And I think that there is that possibility that it could come off that way, but I don't think that is the case at all. So how would you describe that, in one sentence, why is that so completely wrong here?

[00:31:32] Tom Wilder: The reason I was in the "right place at the right time"", in quotations, was because I had put myself there. And all the work leading up to that point, to be aware of what I wanted, how I wanted to look, where I wanted to do it, was ready. So that when that opportunity presented itself, I was not only able to say, "yes, I'm interested in this", but also say, "and here's why they should be interested in me."

[00:32:01] Scott Anthony Barlow: Love that. And what I am really curious about is if this had happened, say, 18, 24 months in the past, would you have continued to engage and have that conversation, or what would've happened at that point? How would you have handled it differently?

[00:32:17] Tom Wilder: I probably would've still had the conversation at that point if we were at the start of the process, but I don't think I would have done as well in the conversations because I wouldn't have known as much about other people that are doing it elsewhere. I wouldn't have had those test drive conversations, and I wouldn't have been able to ask really detailed questions about how their team operates, what their philosophy was, why they do it one way or another. And I think those were really good conversations to have, to find out about the culture, to find out about their processes.

[00:32:50] But like I said, a moment ago, to know, to show that I knew something about the industry and this specific niche part of it. I think that was really important and really valuable. So yeah, I might've taken the conversation. I don't think I would've done as well either.

[00:33:04] Scott Anthony Barlow: You referred to this as what we might call your unicorn opportunity or your unicorn role, and those that so many people just don't believe are even in existence, if you will.

[00:33:16] And so tell me a little bit about that and how you [00:33:20] are thinking about this now in hindsight.

[00:33:22] Tom Wilder: Yeah. It is, in some ways, still a little bit of a unicorn role. Yes and no. Now I'm on a team of about 15 to 20 people. A lot of them have law degrees and advanced planning degrees. So, like a little herd of unicorns, right?

[00:33:39] Scott Anthony Barlow: Well, everyone has a unicorn role here.

[00:33:41] Tom Wilder: But most of these people, at least in the attorney space, a lot of them have come from private practice and pivoted into the financial planning world. So they might have estate planning experience or business planning experience, and now they're using it to help advisors.

[00:33:58] I'm coming from the other side of the fence here, and I'm starting with the financial planning background first. So when I talk to advisors now, I know what they're doing in their day-to-day life and what their experience is. Again, I still get really motivated talking to people, getting into that slow state of just being able to talk without having to do a lot of thinking about what I'm going to say.

[00:34:22] But the feedback has been great from them so far of, "Oh wow. Really nice to have somebody here that gets what we're doing, but understands this higher level stuff." So even though I say we're a little bit of a herd of unicorns, I think there's still a little aspect of that, that I'm bringing something to the team that they didn't have just yet, and they're excited to add in and there's a lot of opportunity to continue to evolve and serve our teams better because of that.

[00:34:47] Scott Anthony Barlow: Because you knew so much of what you wanted and what you were looking for, and were very comfortable in a lot of ways with, you know, what you brought to the table in terms of your strengths and talents, how did that change how you showed up in the interview process throughout this journey?

[00:35:04] Tom Wilder: Yeah, so with my old company, there was an opening last summer, well, I guess a year and a half ago now, that I initially applied for and had an interview for. And this was before I had taken some of the other classes. And I got the first interview, and I didn't really get any further than that.

[00:35:20] I did get a nice personal email rather than the form letter that said, "Thanks for your time, but we really need somebody with more hard experience, particularly in this case, in the estate planning world." On the back end, with the one that I did end up taking, I had that experience, and so I was able to ask some very pointed questions about what they expected in terms of background and knowledge and what they were looking for.

[00:35:45] Scott Anthony Barlow: Love it. So what it did for you, having those first sets of experience early on, then going through the process of identifying what you were looking for, it sounds like, on one hand, this constraint of deciding, "Nope, I'm not interested in 10 years of sidestepping in order to get to one place. So we gotta do this a different way."

[00:36:08] Then two, it allowed you to be able to be much more specific in what you were asking of them and what you're searching out for information throughout the process for what they need as well, so that you could make a better decision. Is that right?

[00:36:24] Tom Wilder: Exactly.

[00:36:24] Scott Anthony Barlow: Once you had this offer in hand, what was the hardest part of actually making this move?

[00:36:31] Tom Wilder: For me, the hardest part was really leaving the clients that I had worked with behind, because that was probably the part that motivated me the most in my job. And I loved having conversations with them, hearing about their families, hearing about their goals.

[00:36:48] One of my strengths is learner, and part of learner is that it also really is like learner slash educator. And I loved teaching them about stuff and telling them why we're recommending something, and I didn't want to feel like I was leaving them in the lurch. So I had a three week parade of saying goodbye to all of these people as much as I could. And that was really the hardest part, I think, especially because they were family members that had started working with us as well, and I didn't want any of them to feel like I was abandoning them.

[00:37:22] And for the most part, they were very supportive and understanding. And they appreciated the fact that I had taken the time to try and do an internal handoff properly. The partners that I'd worked with also appreciated that I wasn't leaving them in the lurch. I left them a list of, "Hey, here's all the open cases that I was working on. Here's what the next steps are, who's in charge of it, and everything."

[00:37:42] But yeah, I think for me that was the hardest part, was saying goodbye to those people that I had built close connections with. And I'm surprised by how many of us still reached out separately to just talk a little bit and hear what was going on.

[00:37:54] Scott Anthony Barlow: That's amazing that they reached out separately, and also not as surprising. You spent 16 years cultivating some of these relationships, right? And definitely understand that the hardest part was leaving those people. What did it feel like on your end? How did you feel about that after it happened?

[00:38:12] Tom Wilder: After I left, I was, it was like a weight off my shoulders, honestly. As much as I was sad to leave the people that I'd worked with, I was just very happy to be out and able to start fresh and go into something that I was excited and curious about.

[00:38:27] Scott Anthony Barlow: When you finally got an offer, what did the process look like for you to negotiate what you wanted, or think about negotiation, or think about whether or not this is even an offer that you want to consider or take? Take me through that process and how you went through it.

[00:38:47] Tom Wilder: I was lucky with the offer and the negotiation, that the recruiter that had reached out to me took care of a lot of the negotiation for me. She took the time to sit with me and say, "Okay, what's your current salary? What was your last bonus for the last two years? What are some of the other perks that you get right now? And really figure out, okay, all in, what's your total compensation look like?"

[00:39:14] And we know the salary range has been advertised is from point A to point B, but what's the point in the middle that if we have anything below that, we're just not even. And we're gonna try to aim for something above that, but figuring out that range. That was really nice because I don't know if I would've done all that on my own to that depth and to understand it, but it was eye-opening to say, "Okay. We gotta think about all these other little pieces here, and this is what I really need just to even break even with what I'm doing."

[00:39:48] And thankfully, she did a great job, and the offer came back very strong. But a lot of that, thankfully, was done for me. I was not looking forward to that piece.

[00:39:56] Scott Anthony Barlow: That's not always the case, and that definitely makes it more palatable sometimes, for sure. Let's talk about the first few weeks in your new role, new opportunity.

[00:40:08] When did you have that very first moment where you thought, "yeah, this right here is exactly what I'm looking for."?

[00:40:14] Tom Wilder: I remember here I am, it's two o'clock in the afternoon on a Friday, and I feel like I've barely started, and I just said, "Yeah, this is it. The day has just flown by, and I've been really interested in what I've been doing. We're in the right spot."

[00:40:27] Scott Anthony Barlow: How did that feel when you think back now, comparing that experience, those initial moments where you're like, yeah, this doesn't even feel the same at all compared to what you were previously doing, and it had been a great career for you, but very different. What would be some of the biggest differences?

[00:40:47] Tom Wilder: Well, I would think some of it would be that, you know, at that time of the day, so it's, you know, mid-afternoon on a Friday.

[00:40:54] Scott Anthony Barlow: Yeah.

[00:40:55] Tom Wilder: And I'm not sitting there like, "okay, how much longer do I have until it's the weekend and I'm free?" You know. It was like, "Alright, that was great. When am I gonna be able to do that again?"

[00:41:03] This morning, even I was sitting there, I was like, okay, I've got this big project I'm working on, and that big project I'm working on, which one do I want to dig my teeth into first? Because they're both really interesting. And I could write a whole bunch of information about both of them.

[00:41:16] Scott Anthony Barlow: Hold on. This is...

[00:41:17] Tom Wilder: Where do we wanna start?

[00:41:18] Scott Anthony Barlow: That's phenomenal because what it seems like is happening there, first of all, you identified the right company, right environment, right opportunity, and then now you get to go in there and do all the things that you can't stop yourself from doing anyways. And then you get to have these interactions and help and add value in the way that you are.

[00:41:37] And then, people want more of that and are now coming and literally filling up your calendar. It's all working cyclically in a really fun type of way, it looks like. That's super cool. Looking back at your career journey, what would you change knowing what you know now today?

[00:41:56] Tom Wilder: I don't think I would've waited as long to make this move. It took me some time to figure out what I wanted to do, but all the pieces were there for a while. And I would've just done it sooner because it was really helpful to get that insight. And just having those pieces that I knew didn't feel great, but maybe if I could work harder to get past 'em or just put my head down and grind, that wasn't the right answer. There was a lot more value of starting sooner and getting some professional guidance.