Steve Seid:
Welcome, everybody, to The Whole Truth from the Bay Area, California. I am Steve Seid.
Kurt Dupuis:
And in Atlanta, Georgia, I'm Kurt Dupuis. As always, you can reach out to us at thewholetruth@touchstonefunds.com if you have ideas or want to shoot us an email and also subscribe, so you make sure to get all the latest episodes.
Disclosure:
The views expressed herein are those of the participants and not those of Touchstone Investments.
Steve Seid:
So, Kurt, I'm going to start this episode with a couple of stories that I think will resonate with you and our audience. So, two stories here. Story one, person, FA or wholesaler gets on a plane and flies out to a wonderful conference. They're staying at a nice hotel. They're excited because they've got this beautiful slate of meetings that they're going to attend, and it's going to make their business better. And they show up for those meetings over a course of a day or a couple of days, and they've got their notebooks and they're writing furiously. And they get back on that plane and they head towards their office and they're ready to go. They have ideas. They're going to make their business better.
Steve Seid:
So we'll say the following Monday, they go back in with wonderful intentions. That notebook goes on their desk. And then the phone starts ringing and their assistant starts coming in and-
Kurt Dupuis:
They got a sick kid.
Steve Seid:
... and they got a sick kid. And that notebook sits there. And maybe they say something about it to their assistants or their partners, "We really got to do that." But, ultimately no one ends up doing anything with it. Is that something that's familiar to you?
Kurt Dupuis:
That's way too familiar. Way too familiar. I even ask folks that go to conferences where I am not involved, or I am involved with it, you always ask people like, "What are your one or two takeaways?" But I've never actually followed up with them six months later and be like, "Did you do anything with your takeaways? Did anything happen with this?" Because I think we all would know what the answer might be.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. I'm guilty of it too, by the way, we all are. Okay, here's scenario two, you're working at firm XYZ. They have wonderful resources to help you with your business. So, you attend lunch presentations. They may have coaches for you that help you with your business, et cetera, et cetera. You may even set up some individual meetings. Through those individual meetings, again, you have these wonderful takeaways. You want to make changes in your practice. The coach then gets back on the plane or the car and goes away. And then the phone starts ringing. So you see where I'm going with all this?
Kurt Dupuis:
I do, it hits very close to home. I mean, I'm almost 40. So I'm a good decade and a half plus into my career. How many of those little nuggets have you picked up along the way that you just did nothing with? We do have a couple of thoughts and ultimately a tool that we can help advisors with to prevent this from happening. And maybe also some helpful ways to think about it.
Steve Seid:
What we're getting at here and what Kurt's speaking to and the story that I laid out is all about how do we, you've got these good ideas, you have these things that you want to do to make your practice better. How do you actually execute on that? And I will tell you, I'm a little bit nervous sharing this over the airwaves here, Kurt, because this is really when it comes down to our practice consulting work, this is really the secret sauce. This is what has made us better than the tons of other "practice management tools" you could use is we're really good about having people take action.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah. And we're the boots on the ground that are helping with that action. We're not some home office resource that has maybe some tangential connection with the advisor who's trying to implement something.
Steve Seid:
Yeah.
Kurt Dupuis:
And a lot of how I, and I think we, think about this, there's a book that actually someone at my gym started talking about called “Atomic Habits”, written by a guy named James Clear. And it's all about forming new habits. And a lot of the stuff that we talk about that's practice related, it's not really habit forming. Maybe it's a campaign. It's something that you do for a quarter or two to get you where you want to go. It's not necessarily an entirely new habit that's helping you transform as a person. But I think there's some pertinent lessons in his writing that can apply here.
Kurt Dupuis:
And actually he wrote the book, “Atomic Habits”, feel free to check that out, but there's also a great eight minute compressed video on YouTube. If you want to check out some of his thinkings. But one of his key thoughts and he intros a lot of talks this way is if you just get 1% better at something every day, you would be 37 times better than said thing in one year. And so, because we talk about incremental change, I think that's worth noting, like, the math behind that. If you could quantify 1%, that's difficult to do, but if you could quantify that 1% change daily, how much progress you could make? So, the opportunity here is extraordinary.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. That's a key point. And we'll talk about that slow progress that you're talking about. But “Atomic Habits” is a book that I've been recommended by several FAs. So, the audience should definitely check that out. But let me give you an overview here. Because what we're getting into is how do you take that idea and actually execute or implement them. And here's how we think about it. And it's a framework with three components. The first is turn the idea into goals. The second is slow, methodical implementation. And the third is an element of accountability. Those are the three elements that we've seen work.
Kurt Dupuis:
In researching this episode. I did fair bit of Googling and reading around it and it really struck me. If you just Google how to execute on an idea, there's no shortage of articles that are out there. Not really pertinent to what we're talking about for advisors, but there are plenty of articles. It struck me though as very trite, superficial and really just not impactful. But the first point that we're going to talk about, turning ideas into goals, seemed to be a thread throughout. And the way I would put that is just put your goals on paper, write stuff down.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, absolutely. So let's take that first one, and we'll use an example, something that we work on with FAs, well, we'll use two examples here that we work on with FAs. Moving to more towards an advisory model or cleaning up from an investment perspective. Those are two things that we do a lot. So what do I mean? So, let's say you want to improve in both of those areas. You want to have a higher percentage of your business in advisory, or you want to clean up your book and just get more efficient on the investment management side. What does it mean to set goals?
Steve Seid:
Well, let's take advisory. You could say, "I'm at 20% advisory right now. I know that I can offer something that will better my client's lives with that advisory relationship. So I want to improve by 10% before year end. Or I want to convert X number of households to advisory before year end." You see, we're getting into specifics. And you think about, let me take example two, the investment side. Well, I want to clean up my investments. So what does that mean? Well, I may have 300 mutual funds and by year end I wanted to have 220. You see the difference in that? The difference is I want to get better on this, but to immediately get to the specifics and put goals down on paper, that starts that process, that gets that initial tailwind going.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah, it really has to do with your intentions to implement something. And, I've been guilty of this plenty. I think a lot of people wait for almost like this fairy or muse to strike them with inspiration and motivation just to get going with something when really a much better approach is to just have a plan. Write down the who, the what, the when, write it down on paper, you're way more likely to execute on it.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. Get it down. I know we're in a digital world, but don't put that someplace on your computer, in your email where it's going to be swamped by everything else that's around you. Really get those goals down where you can see them.
Kurt Dupuis:
And there's a really interesting exercise that James Clear talks about and it's called a Failure Premortem versus a Postmortem, where if you're undertaking a big task and if it's that important to you, think through the hurdles that you might run up against in the next six months. So put yourself in six months future-you and say, "What were the roadblocks that prevented me from doing this?" That’ll really help you when you're on that path towards progress, you've already identified them. You probably will have a strategy for getting around them, whether it's some behavioral thing or whether it's some accountability or just hyper-specificity with your plan, you'll get past those hurdles and be way more likely to accomplish the task. So I think it's really interesting idea a Failure Premortem.
Steve Seid:
That is interesting. Yeah. I'm going to be faced with this. What do I do when that actually happens? Yeah.
Kurt Dupuis:
Let's get ahead of it.
Steve Seid:
That's a really good point. Okay. So we've got our goals down on paper. We've taken that idea and put it into goals. Kurt, you want to take number two in that, which is how we think about actually executing once we write down our goals?
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah. So we really emphasize, like Steve said, slow, methodical implementation, because, and this really fits into that 1% way of thinking is, we don't expect anyone that we're working with or for to completely up-end the way they do things on a day-to-day basis. That's not ever what we're talking about. We're really empathetic and sympathize with the fact that the advisors that we work with, they have lives. They have businesses that are typically going okay to good to begin with. So, we just think it's important to take an idea or take one of those goals and slowly implement it over time. We build our plans around that too. We don't expect someone to spend half of their day for weeks or months implementing these ideas.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, you guys are busy people out there. I've come across so many Fas, when we're talking about making change or working on a goal and they're so aggressive and ambitious. And I will tell you, let's use the investment cleanup for example, "Oh, I'm going to clean up 70 funds within the next couple of weeks. I'm just going to go through and plow it."
Kurt Dupuis:
I love that enthusiasm.
Steve Seid:
It's great. It just never happens.
Kurt Dupuis:
It's not realistic.
Steve Seid:
And I'd rather do something that doesn't disrupt your business. But when we look back six to 12 months, we've made some real progress. And I'll tell you something that's really funny that I come across, I think it's funny, is I like to create something I call Embarrassing Goals. Have I talked to you about this before?
Kurt Dupuis:
I don’t know. I've never done that.
Steve Seid:
Okay. So, let's say you're talking, again, we'll use one of our examples. You want to convert accounts to advisory or talk to clients about advisory. So I'll say, "How many people can you call? How many households can you call in the next five weeks?" And they'll say to me, "Oh, let's put five households down, one a week." And then I usually take that and I knock down even more. And I'd say, "What about you just have two conversations with households in the next five weeks?" And they look at me and they're like, "That's ridiculous. I can knock that out in a day. Why would it take me five weeks to do it?" And what I'm trying to get-
Kurt Dupuis:
"Is this even worth my time if I'm only doing-" Yeah
Steve Seid:
What I'm trying to create is this scenario where when I come back in, and this will get to our point of accountability, when I'm back in that office, they should be slightly, not slightly, they should be embarrassed if they don't do those goals. I love goals like that. I'd rather set goals like that all day long, than do something that's call 50 households this week.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah. Do people get embarrassed and respond accordingly?
Steve Seid:
Yes. Yeah. I mean, think about if we talk about that and they're like, "Are you serious?" And then how you would feel if you showed up at the next meeting and didn't do that? And this gets into the point that, item three, which is accountability, which is a really important part of the process.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah. But just researching and Googling around and trying to paint a broader picture of this. There were a couple of themes. Accountability was a huge theme. If it's entrepreneurs starting a business, it's the advisory group they have around there, which I think there's something really applicable or thoughtful there that could actually help advisors. But accountability is paramount. So whether that's us, a wholesaler, whether that's a colleague, that's a couple offices down, whether it's your mother-in-law, it doesn't matter. But accountability is paramount with executing on goals and ideas.
Steve Seid:
That's exactly right. So to sum up our framework for this, and I want everyone out there to use this next time you go to a conference, next time you have that great idea. Those three pieces.
Kurt Dupuis:
Steve Seid's Three Steps to Success.
Steve Seid:
Yes. Another framework that we developed, surprising, I say “we”. Yes!
Kurt Dupuis:
And I know you hate articles like that too. So I'll be sure to over-brand you like that.
Steve Seid:
I know. I should probably say advisors must or advisors have to, yeah. Go back to the episode where I ranted on some of that. Okay. So no, but next time you have that idea, next time you go to the conference, again, there's the three pieces. One is turning that idea into goals. Two is slow, methodical implementation. And the third is accountability, bringing that into the process. So we've got those three pieces. So how do you actually do it? We have a tool for that. You can reach out to us at thewholetruth@touchstonefunds.com. And it's a very basic, what we would refer to as an action plan. So I want everyone to picture this in your head. You can develop it yourself or certainly get it from us.
Steve Seid:
The first thing that we do is we have, it's a fairly simple Word document. Again, we're always about simplicity here. You've got your goals on top. Where do you want to be? What's that future state? Be specific. Then, you have a section that says, what are the strategies to achieve those goals? So what does that mean? Let's say, for example, I'm doing investment cleanup. My goal may be to reduce by 20% over X time period. So what are the strategies to achieve those goals? One is I may evaluate the accounts themselves and identify which accounts are most ready to be cleaned up. That's a strategy. So then you have your strategies.
Steve Seid:
Now here's the critical part. Next to the strategies you're going to have immediate next steps. So this is the strategy that we're doing. What am I doing next with that strategy? Who is doing it? Actually put the name down on paper. And what is the due date? You follow me Kurt? So you've got-
Kurt Dupuis:
that all makes it real, it's tough to escape that.
Steve Seid:
You can't.
Kurt Dupuis:
It's all down on paper.
Steve Seid:
So then, once you've put that whole thing down on paper, and then you bring in the element of accountability. Now you've got something that really starts to get those wheels moving towards execution.
Kurt Dupuis:
And I'm a dork too. And several people that I've worked with could attest to that. I like laminating stuff.
Steve Seid:
Look at you.
Kurt Dupuis:
So, whether it's whatever it is, really, if something is important enough to laminate it, to me it just heightens the importance. So as we work through teams and we start developing these plans and getting to the execution phase, I just find that anything that's laminated is more liable to stay on the back of somebody's desk and not just shoved away in some shelf somewhere.
Steve Seid:
It's the little things.
Kurt Dupuis:
It is. Yeah. And I wanted to make one other point about implementing change. This is another James “Clear-ism”. He makes the point that the only reason we do anything, the only reason we repeat any behaviors is because we like the reward from doing said behavior. I mean, have you ever had chocolate cake? It tastes delicious. The reward is you're eating delicious chocolate cake. But have you ever tried to start exercising after being a sloth for six months?
Steve Seid:
Good point.
Kurt Dupuis:
That's way tougher. So he's really big on just creating rewards in the moment. But because we're taking journeys that sometimes last three to six months or longer, it's really important to create some little rewards at the beginning, whether it's just the satisfaction of checking something off the list or something that I've also dangled out there with teams is let's have our, whatever, two week, five week check-in. If you've accomplished what we've said we're going to accomplish, we can have a happy hour, a bottle of wine.
Steve Seid:
Love it.
Kurt Dupuis:
Something where you know that I'm not doing this just because it's written on a paper. I know there's a tangible reward coming.
Steve Seid:
There's a reward. I love it. Yeah. That probably should have been part of the framework. I think that's critical. Okay. So, let's talk about takeaways from this segment. The first is, by the way, you can reach out to Kurt and I, and say, "Hey, we're just starting. Or we're thinking about doing this with our business. Help us with execution." Know that we are here to do that. But in terms of just summarizing what we covered, the first was that execution framework that I just went through.
Steve Seid:
So think about that, write that down, use that the next time. The second is you can get to us and we'll give you a sample action plan that you could start using.
Kurt Dupuis:
That's it. Reach out to us if you want an action plan and crucially put it down on paper somewhere and find somebody to help you hold accountable, whether that's us or someone else.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. So, we're going to do something fun in the next segment. I'm really excited about it. We're going to get into the mailbag. This is The Whole Truth. Stick with us.
Steve Seid:
And welcome back everybody. We're going to get into our mailbag and you can email us at thewholetruth@touchstonefunds.com. If you want us to cover a topic, anything you want to see covered on the show, give us a shout. Sometimes those topics will be entire shows and we'll build a show around something that you suggest. And other times we'll do it just like we're going to do here with the mailbag. So Kurt, I think we have three questions to go through. So I'll let you take it from-
Kurt Dupuis:
I'll play mailman. And then I'll grill you and let you take a stab at some of these. So this first one's a tough one. Man, if anyone has a perfect answer for this, I'd be surprised, but a client wants to incorporate investments outside of your core philosophy. What do you do?
Steve Seid:
Yeah. So you've got your models and they say, "Hey, I want to own this stock. Or I want to own this type of investment." And it's something that-
Kurt Dupuis:
I'm really into Bitcoin.
Steve Seid:
... I'm really into Bitcoin or something like that. Yeah. How do you do it? And you're right, I'm going to do my best to answer it, but it really is very much situational. The first thing that I would say is you can always feel free to challenge your clients. So there's a book that's out called The Challenger Sale, which we'll do a whole episode on that because it's a really good topic. But people want to be led. They don't necessarily want to steamroll their advisors. So the first thing I would say is you can feel free to challenge your client on a particular idea. So that's the first thing I would say.
Steve Seid:
The second thing I would say is what is the type of client that we're dealing with here? If it's a tier C or a tier D client, I'd probably push back pretty hard on this and say, "Listen, I don't want to have something that I'm not going to follow, and I'm not going to cover. We spend a lot of time with our portfolio management process. And we're not just going to put random things that we're not going to follow. Because that's not our job to do it, or that's not going to be beneficial."
Kurt Dupuis:
So both sides of the table. Fee compression is a trend we're all seeing. So that's forcing advisors to run more streamlined, optimized practices. So, that means on the platforms they use, on the products they use. And I think it's okay to tell clients about that. It's like, "I can't be all things to all people. We've spent a lot of time and effort getting to this point where we do business this way. And this is why." And what I've found is that the more that teams and advisors have got buy-in from their clientele, even if those clients are experiencing that transition with them, the more buy-in they have, they are way more likely to take that advice and not go off the ranch.
Steve Seid:
Very good point.
Kurt Dupuis:
So, I mean, I'm sympathetic to having, I mean, I have clients myself that they pull things out of left field and I understand it's a delicate balance, but in a fee compression world, having centralized, well thought out practice is just going to be the way of the future.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. And I think that's a really good point. And back to the point of challenging, I've had clients come up to me with Touchstone Fund X, Y, or Z that they've screened out and looks good on paper. And it's really easy to take that sale. But if I don't necessarily believe that that's likely to continue, I will push back and say, "You could do it, but the stuff that I bring to you, I spend a lot of time making sure the best that I can, that it's going to be a great client outcome. This, I can't guarantee that."
Kurt Dupuis:
Because your name's on it.
Steve Seid:
That's right. Yeah. I mean, I'd rather bypass a sale and have that relationship than get the quick sale. The last thing that I would say about this though, is that there's just, with all that being said, there is a certain number of those types of investments that you could take. I'm not talking about something that you completely disagree with. That's different. But if a really solid client comes to you, think about an A or a high end of a B tier, and they have a stock that they want to own, that you didn't suggest to them. There's a number that you can take to do that. I think the point is you don't want to get that completely out of control where you have all these one-offs. And two, you want to make it clear that this is not part of what you're doing. You're going to do this for them. But-
Kurt Dupuis:
Articulate that this is a one-off.
Steve Seid:
This is a one-off.
Kurt Dupuis:
This is not the core competency of what I do for clients. I think that's fair.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. So that's how I'd answer that question, but I'd emphasize The Challenger Sale for a lot of those situations.
Kurt Dupuis:
Okay. All right. Digging back into the mailbag. We've also got the question. How did the podcast start? And why was it you two that started doing this at your firm as opposed to anybody else?
Steve Seid:
I love this question. I love this question. So our firm has been investing heavily in business consulting capabilities. And not only are we doing that at the firm level, but there's subgroups of wholesalers at our firm that actually are getting together to build out our capabilities and brainstorm and trade ideas. Because the truth is, there's a lot that our firm can do, but the wholesalers are the ones that are in front of the FAs, seeing the problem, seeing the challenges, implementing this stuff. So we had subgroups working on this stuff. And I will just say that I found, even though there was about, I don't know how many of this in that group? Kurt, maybe a dozen wholesalers.
Kurt Dupuis:
10, a dozen, yeah.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. Maybe a little bit less than half of our force, even though there's a bunch of us on this group, I just found that Kurt and I tended to be the ones that would put more energy in a lot of cases that would connect after the calls and start talking about ideas. Kurt and I just had this different relationship that we collaborated really well. And then I got really into listening to podcasts and I got this crazy idea. So I said, "Kurt, what do you think about that?" And you can respond. What did you think when I came to you with that idea?
Kurt Dupuis:
But you know those people that you work with that as soon as you get off of a company wide call or you're at a conference, the meetings break and the person you want to go talk to like, "Hey, did you hear this? Well, what do you think about this take? Or what do you think?" Steve and I had just started developing that. And then I think what Seid's really saying is that on these internal calls with our smaller group is I was the loudest voice. And so he thought maybe recording some of our banter back and forth and some of our sharing of ideas might be applicable for the folks that we're trying to help and do business with.
Steve Seid:
But when I brought the idea to you, what was your immediate impression? You could be honest about it, did you think I was like-
Kurt Dupuis:
So, I've always largely been guided by this idea of pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. And immediately when you brought this up, you know that feeling that you get in your stomach where it's excitement layered with a level of nervousness?
Steve Seid:
Yes.
Kurt Dupuis:
That's exactly what I had. And every time I've had that feeling, I felt like something good was going to happen after that. And I think I told you in that first call, I was like, "Look, I'm scared to hell with this, but let's give it a go and see what shakes out."
Steve Seid:
Yeah. And we just came to the conclusion there wasn't much of a downside. It was time, which is important, but we were going to get better doing it. And we had this incredible support along the way. And I just thought Kurt also had just a wonderful voice for radio, that's why you're here.
Kurt Dupuis:
Very true. My mother has always told me that.
Steve Seid:
Yeah, exactly. Okay.
Kurt Dupuis:
All right. Last one, going deep into the mailbag. And this is a big one. We'll actually have some guests that we'll have on the show that dig into this more thoroughly. But the question, and this is a question that comes up every now and again with clients. What does wholesaling look like in 10 years?
Steve Seid:
Yeah, it's a good question. I'll tell you what it's not going to be. It's not going to be the wholesaler that's primarily focused on hosting lunch meetings and buying drinks and taking people out to steak dinners and selling five star funds that they know at the superficial level.
Kurt Dupuis:
You know my favorite phrase from wholesaling, maybe in the '80s or '90s, I've never actually seen this, but apparently fact sheets used to be laminated or have a really glossy sheen. So people would say, they would flip them their slick. They were called slicks.
Steve Seid:
Is that right?
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah.
Steve Seid:
That's funny. Flip them their slicks. Yeah. I think that's dead.
Kurt Dupuis:
Slicks are gone.
Steve Seid:
Slicks are gone. So that's number one, those people are going to be gone. I think there's going to be industry consolidation. Right now we know there's a lot of wholesalers that are out there. I think there is likely to be less of them. And I think they're going to be of higher level. So much better on the investment side or on the product side, if you're on annuities or something else. Really good on the product side. And I think they're going to be much better about adding value in a way that we're discussing here, which is practice consulting and solving the needs of advisors.
Steve Seid:
Again, people are trying to do that now. I just think they're doing so very superficially. And I think it's got to be a lot more than that. So, that's what I'd say. I'd say there's going to be industry consolidation, less of us, but those that are around are going to be of a much higher level. And I also want to make the point because some people will say, "Oh, are wholesaler's going away." No, they're not.
Kurt Dupuis:
They can't.
Steve Seid:
They can't.
Kurt Dupuis:
I don't see how that happens.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. I mean, what we do can be a really valuable thing. And if they don't exist, I think the firms will be in trouble. But also I think FAs will miss the insight that wholesalers bring. That's how I'd answer that question.
Kurt Dupuis:
I see a few different trends. And the first is deeper product knowledge. That's no surprise. So CFA, CIMA, you see on more and more on the back of, or CFP, there's a multitude of designations out there. I think that's a trend that will continue, that advisors will expect wholesalers to go deeper. But I also think there's another trend where the wholesaler is almost more of the quarterback for the territory and not just the lone wolf that's out there hunting on his own.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. That's another point.
Kurt Dupuis:
So bringing in portfolio managers, external resources, internal resources, you're almost more of the relationship quarterback guy, which I know goes contrary to the product, because people want to hear directly from the PM. So PMs are traveling more, client PMs are getting out. So it's as much being a quarterback for the territory and being able to pass the ball off rather than just being that lone wolf contributor. I see that continuing.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. And that reminds me of something I didn't bring up, which is territory structure. So some firms right now are playing around with, do you have the wholesaler that has bigger territories and have more junior people supporting you? Or does the wholesaler partnered with someone, like Kurt's describing, like a specialist in there? So I think some of those models will be experimented with as well.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah. Because there's no one homogenous way to do that right now. Everyone's tinkering. And the last thing that I see, it's really all driven around value add and digital engagement. So I think what we're doing with this is going to be the way of the future. I think advisors are more and more going to look to third party asset managers or third party and asset managers to keep them updated via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook maybe, podcasts. Taking your message to the audience digitally in a way that you haven't seen widespread adoption in our industry yet.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. I mean, think about how innovative we're being by this podcast. I mean, a lot of the industry is doing the same thing that they did 15 years ago. And I think with the new mediums, it doesn't always have to be that in person meeting, where you're handing physical materials across the desk and things like that.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah. They have 100% digital wholesalers now. I've seen, I don't know the name of any companies that do that, but all of their meetings are digital.
Steve Seid:
So, that's a really good point and we're going to close up the mailbag. I will say Kurt, I hope we do a lot more of these because I love mailbags in every shape, form.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah, keep the questions coming.
Steve Seid:
Keep the questions coming, thewholetruth@touchstonefunds.com. Costanza Corner is next. This is The Whole Truth, stick with us.
Steve Seid:
And welcome back, everybody. We are in our Costanza Corner and I know Kurt's got a good one. This one will be simple, but certainly uplifting.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah, we're definitely going to close on a high note, albeit a slightly sleep deprived high note. We talked about several episodes ago that we were expecting, well, baby number three and first boy of the Dupuis family has finally arrived.
Steve Seid:
Congratulations my friend, first boy. How does that feel?
Kurt Dupuis:
It's oddly familiar. It's all the same at the beginning. A lot of diapers, a lot of bottles.
Steve Seid:
I've got a question for you with a boy. I have a girl and in my head with her, I've already tried to pick out the sports that I'd like her to play. How have you handled sports with your kids? And did that differ from your girls to now your son?
Kurt Dupuis:
I mean, he's very young, so he's not doing anything obviously, but my two girls-
Steve Seid:
No, but I mean, how are you thinking about it? Like do you say, "Oh, I'd like my," Benji, right? "I'd like Benji, when he gets older, to play basketball and baseball."
Kurt Dupuis:
Quite honestly, I would just be very interested in a kid that wanted to play sports because my two girls thus far have shown very little-
Steve Seid:
Have not.
Kurt Dupuis:
... interest in anything. I've got my four year old out hitting Wiffle balls in the backyard maybe once every week or so. And that's a big win for me. My second daughter seems to show a little bit more agility and interest in sports. So I'm hoping that's the case. But I don't know, they lead that train, at this point, I'd be happy if they played anything.
Steve Seid:
I think I'm asking you this because I want to know if I'm crazy. Because I've already in my head started picking out the sports that I want MJ to play, and the activities. And I've been trying to roll balls to her at a very early... Trying to her used to looking at a ball, go in a hoop and stuff like that. I don't know. I'm a little, maybe I'm overboard on the sports. I don't know. But regardless-
Kurt Dupuis:
If they're anything like me, it's not which sports, it's just all the sports. It's whatever sport is available. That's what I was doing when I was a kid.
Steve Seid:
Yeah. It's interesting though, and we won't digress too much, but now they get specialized really early these days.
Kurt Dupuis:
Yeah, way too early.
Steve Seid:
... in terms of, yeah. I'm with you. You got to play a bunch of different ones to see what it is. But anyway, see what I did? I always make this about me. Why do I do that? It's about you. Congratulations, my friend.
Kurt Dupuis:
Thank you, Steve.
Steve Seid:
Certainly an amazing Costanza Corner. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll be back with a new episode shortly. This is The Whole Truth. Thanks for listening.
Kurt Dupuis:
You can find The Whole Truth and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We'd love it if you took the time to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, it helps others find the show. And for more episodes of The Whole Truth, go to www.touchstoneinvestments.com/thewholetruth. That's Touchstoneinvestments.com/thewholetruth. All one word.
