The Influential Advisor

081: Beyond Money Management: The Value of Personal Connection in Financial Advising with Urban Adams

• Paul G. McManus

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Episode Summary:

In a world dominated by digital platforms, Urban Adams offers a refreshingly human approach to financial advising. With 25 years in the industry and a philosophy grounded in stoicism, Urban helps clients balance enjoying the present while planning for the future. His new book, "Wealth Your Way," challenges traditional mindsets about wealth accumulation, advocating instead for an intentional, values-driven approach. Urban shares how he applies stoic principles to help clients navigate financial uncertainty, why he maintains a high-touch service model in the digital age, and how his experience as a father of three daughters has shaped his approach to serving women clients. From comprehensive planning strategies to emotional decision-making during market volatility, Urban offers insights that emphasize the human side of financial advising.


About the Guest:

  • Urban Adams entered the financial industry in 1999, just before Y2K. After spending years in back-office operations for a large broker-dealer, he launched his own practice 13 years ago. Based in the Phoenix area, Urban serves clients across all U.S. time zones and has acquired two practices from retiring advisors, both of whom were women.


Key Concepts Explained:

Stoicism in Financial Planning: Urban applies stoic principles to help clients embrace financial uncertainty. Rather than fearing market volatility or unknown lifespans, he encourages clients to make peace with ambiguity while making intentional choices about their resources.

Present vs. Future Balance: One of Urban's core philosophies challenges the "unending accumulation of wealth" mindset. He shares a poignant story about clients who took a European vacation he helped plan, only for one spouse to pass away unexpectedly six months later - reinforcing the importance of not endlessly deferring life experiences.

Comprehensive Financial Planning: Urban defines this as going beyond investment management to include tax planning (current and future), estate planning, risk management (life and long-term care insurance), and income planning (Social Security and pensions). He notes that focusing solely on investments is like planning a trip without considering the mode of transportation or timeframe.

High-Touch Approach: Urban differentiates himself by being exceptionally accessible - answering his own phone during business hours and being willing to assist with decisions beyond strict financial matters. He's helped clients shop for electronics, asked tough questions about real estate transactions, and even supported widowed clients navigating the dating world.


Practical Takeaways:

Emotional Decision-Making: Urban prepares clients for market downturns at the beginning of relationships, telling them exactly what questions he'll ask when markets decline. This proactive approach helped his clients stay invested during COVID-19 market drops.

Tax Planning Strategy: Rather than focusing solely on current tax situations, Urban helps clients build tax-free wealth through Roth contributions and conversions. He explains to clients that a million-dollar traditional IRA isn't truly worth a million after taxes are considered.

Gender-Inclusive Advising: Drawing from his experience raising three daughters and coaching female athletes, Urban ensures both partners in couples are equally engaged in financial discussions. He also emphasizes helping clients (particularly women) achieve financial independence.


Connect with Urban:

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Speaker 1:

What if your financial advisor didn't just manage your money, but truly understood your life? In a world where digital platforms rule our finances, the human touch can feel like a thing of the past. But today's guest, urban Adams, proves that personal connection is everything. So much so he still makes house calls. Welcome to the Influential Advisor Podcast. With 25 years of experience and a philosophy grounded in stoicism, urban helps clients find that crucial balance between enjoying the present and planning for the future. His new book, wealth your Way, challenges the traditional mindset of endless accumulation, offering a more intentional, values-driven approach to building wealth. If you've been looking for an advisor who treats you like a person, not just an account number, you'll want to hear this conversation. Urban, great to see you. How are you doing?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing great, Paul. How are you?

Speaker 1:

I am doing fantastic. I've been looking forward to doing this episode with you. I know you recall this because we talked about it, but the way that you and I met originally was through a podcast, and so this is exciting for me to come full circle and have you as a guest on my podcast, so it's great to have you here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and great to be here and great to have reached this milestone aspect of that whole process as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely, and that's what we're gonna be diving into in today's episodes. You have just released your new book, which we'll be talking about, and just maybe a little bit of the process. First and foremost, I'd love to have our audience just get a better idea of who you are and you can take the snippets that make the most sense, but you've been in this industry for a while, so who is Urban Adams?

Speaker 2:

Thanks, paul.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, I'll spare us, since it's going on 25 years, if not a shade more Now at this point.

Speaker 2:

I got into the industry right before Y2K so 1999, I was on the front lines talking to individual investors and it just so happened that maybe two years or so into it I had the opportunity to join a burgeoning program. That really got me an introduction to the advisory business, and it was for a very large broker-dealer firm dealing with internal advisors. So I was not serving as an advisor at that point, I was on the back office service operations team. But it really gave me an opportunity to be a little bit of a student of the game, so to speak, and over time, as I learned more and more, I kept on putting that information in the database there, and about 13 years ago now I launched my own practice. I joined Dynamic, who afforded me the opportunity to build a practice while I was still doing some behind the scenes work for them, for the advisors that they support. And now here we are full-time responsibilities working on my advisory practice, acquired a couple in the meantime and really just excited this phase. I never could have imagined this 25 years ago.

Speaker 1:

You're located in the greater Phoenix area, is that correct?

Speaker 2:

I am, yeah. Primarily my clients are located in Arizona or the Phoenix metro area, but I've got clients all over been working with for a number of years.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you also acquired a couple of practices, so that's a bold move. Are those practices that you acquired? Are they also in the Phoenix area?

Speaker 2:

They are and they were, while they were still active, the advisors that retired from the business. I'd known professionally for a number of years and had the opportunity to build a relationship well in advance of any discussions of a transition, so that really made it a smooth process when we ultimately made those two moves.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. Let's jump into the main topic here. So I'd love to have you share about your book Wealth your Way, and what I find so interesting about your book is that you've taken your experience as an advisor, but you have a unique twist at least I think which is you also have a background as practicing stoic, and if you can explain what that means for someone that doesn't know it. But you've twisted, you've added in elements of stoicism into your overall philosophy of financial planning, which is now captured in your brand new book, Wealth your Way.

Speaker 2:

So feel free to dive into that wherever you'd like to. Honestly, I could talk for hours about it, but I got introduced in an early in my college career philosophy class and admittedly I didn't do great in the class of all things. But what happened is over time and not aiming for any shout outs or anything like that, but 2007, 2008, I read four hour work week. M Ferris inserts a great deal of stoic philosophy, although it doesn't necessarily make it too overt, but at the same time recognize that there were a lot of principles in that book that, quite frankly, I didn't know how they were going to shake out at the time really have come to fruition in a way and I'm certainly working more than four hours a week, but what I mean is the principles in there.

Speaker 2:

And then stoicism is more in the practice and more in me taking a focus on it. That's been over the last four or five years and have really embraced that for a lot of reasons. One is that, let's face it, I tell clients virtually every day that we deal in ambiguity. There's so many unknowns, so many uncertain things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis, working with our clients and in a way, one of the tenets of stoicism is embracing that unknown, embracing the ambiguity in a way, and being open to however things happen to evolve and roll out. And I've really embraced that to mold that to how I work with my clients and how I help them deal with the uncertainty of the future and help relieve some of that stress or that anxiety.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned in the book the 4-Hour Workweek, which I'm a fan of, that it's not overt, right, it's kind of built into it, but it's not overt. So when you typically talk to your clients, are you calling out stoic principles or are you blending them into the overall messaging?

Speaker 2:

I will confess that sometimes I am using some of the attributed quotes to some of the stoic philosophers not to pull anyone out or not, but one of the ones that is central to what I do for my clients and being able to serve them appropriately is I try to make sure that I remember at all times the quote about the reason why we have two ears and one mouth, and that is to listen more than we speak. And the more I listen, the more I learn and the better I can help my clients.

Speaker 1:

Big picture. I heard you say that. In terms of stoicism, everything, a lot of what you do in financial planning. It's like the stock market today, right? Literally it's up, it's down and sideways. I mean what's going to happen? Who knows? We have a reasonable expectation that over time it's going to go up, but in terms of the short term it's kind of hard to predict the future.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Just kind of like big picture when it comes to your clients. Clients is there, like any central tenant, that stoicism helps them embrace. I believe, in reviewing your book, that one of the key questions that comes up for someone that's in retirement or planning for retirement is that we fundamentally don't know when we're going to die, and so we save for the future because we want to be responsible. But at the same time, how do we enjoy the now and make sure that we're doing both effectively?

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I believe that you address that question in your book, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 2:

I do, and I really stress that in that I know that I've got some clients who will never come close to worrying about spending down what they have, and I have others who are. Maybe the margin of error isn't as great, but at what cost do you continually kick the can down the road of the things that you want to do or you'd like to do or you're putting off? And I share one story in the book that talks about this couple who went on a rather very nice vacation in Europe a couple different destinations, river cruise and we spent a fair amount of time planning for that and how to do it in the most tax efficient manner and also assuage some of their fears about whether or not it would have an impact long term on their financial plan. And I met with them and we talked about nothing other than the vacation. With the meeting after that, and not six months later, one of the members of the couple had passed away from an unexpected illness.

Speaker 2:

And I just remember reflecting not only the fact that losing a client that I felt dearly about, but the idea that if I had discouraged this in some way or somehow this didn't work out and things happened the way they did, I would have felt terribly, and I want to stress that I'm not the gatekeeper when it comes to my clients and their investments, their money I remind them all the time it's theirs. My job is to help them manage the trade offs that exist for any decisions they might make and be a very loud no when I know there's something that I truly believe is detrimental to their long-term plan. But ultimately, they're the gatekeepers. They say yes or no. I'm there to help them synthesize all that information to make an informed decision.

Speaker 1:

You find that more often, they're the ones that are more conservative and are more less likely to spend, and you're the ones saying no, you can spend, you have the money. Or is it the reverse?

Speaker 2:

that I'm not simply a yes man for anything they want to do, because I will, like I said, I won't be shy about telling them anything that I think is not helpful in their long-term plan or I think could be impactful. But I am very much about the hey, I think you might be holding this too close to the vest. Go out and do it yourself, because none of us have an amount of time that is promised to us, and I remember there's a something from Seneca about that, the on the shortness of life.

Speaker 1:

Another aspect of the book is that it's geared towards both men and women, but I think there's a little bit more emphasis at least on addressing women's concerns and their needs, and I understand that you have three daughters, and so tell me a little bit more about just your background there and maybe in helping women more broadly, and what specifically did you add to the book that is unique for?

Speaker 2:

women it's what I mentioned and what I was thinking about as I was writing the book is the fact that being the dad of three daughters, I will say, had an influence on my communication style. There's no two ways about it. The fact of the matter is and they're all individuals, there's a different way to interact with all three of them. At the same time, there are similarities in that All three played supports to some degree and I coach sports and you have daughters, you're going to be coaching female athletes. After a certain age group, the co-ed teams go away and it's all female athletes. And I learned a great deal from other coaches members of the national team for Team USA, learned from them and really molded my style, and I'd be remiss if I didn't say it didn't influence my style in interacting with clients and it wasn't anything that I specifically set out to do. But I understand that, yes, it hopefully resonates with all of my clients, but, in particular, and thinking back to the two acquisitions, both of the retiring advisors were female advisors. It's probably not a surprise that, to some degree, whether it's my style, whether it's the way I communicate, whether it's the listening skills that I've worked to improve over time, something resonates maybe a little bit differently, and I'd heard all of the you know the anecdotal things where advisors talking, you know, has the husband and wife in the office and they're staring straight at the husband and never or barely acknowledge the wife in the room.

Speaker 2:

When talking about the financial plan, I've made a point to insist upon making sure that both members of a couple are engaged in the planning discussions, making sure that they're both there and neither one, regardless of gender, is being removed from that process because, well, first of all they have to be.

Speaker 2:

It's their plan to and they do. But I have a client who went through a rather long legal separation, ultimately finalized the divorce, but was very dependent on some things personal finance wise from their now former spouse. And part of the effort over the last four or five years in working with this client is helping them gain their independence and not be as reliant on the former spouse, regardless of the level of help they might be willing to offer. It's about working on making sure that they were independent and what I aim to do is help be that objective party in that respect. And if I'm the opposite gender, so be it. And it goes back to lessons that I've aimed to teach my daughters, and that is one of financial independence for themselves, so that they're not dependent on a mate or any other person for that matter and hopefully that those principles make its way through to the conversations that I'm having with my clients.

Speaker 1:

By extension to that, do you find that maybe the single female clients versus the married clients versus the single men? Are there different specific needs that they come to the table with, or is it more or less the same types of issues?

Speaker 2:

I think there are other things that separate them with the types of issues that they're dealing with is, ultimately, whether it's single male, single female couple, you name it whatever the client relationship is at its core. The reason I think they're working with me is because it's not simply about the unending accumulation of wealth. It's about enjoying their lives while they're doing that and making sure that the wealth that they accumulate affords them the freedom of their time to do what they want. And those are the clients, regardless of background. Those are the clients who ultimately, I think, will enjoy working with me.

Speaker 1:

What is comprehensive financial planning versus financial planning?

Speaker 2:

It can certainly fall into a number of different definitions. As I define it, it's not only making sure that we've got an investing strategy for specific goals that the client or clients are looking for, but we're being mindful of tax consequences, not only in the here and now but in the future. We're taking into consideration their estate planning and making sure that when that eventual time comes, when we don't know, things are tied up pretty tightly. We talk about risk management when it comes to early in life, whether it's using life insurance or, later in life, using some form of long-term care insurance to help make sure that that is as smooth a situation as possible, and we also talk about the fact that, yes, between Social Security and, potentially, pension income for those who are eligible, we're managing that as far as the overall picture is concerned. And if I were only managing investments for a certain strategy, for a certain risk level and this is the return we got One of my colleagues many years ago said well, I could do that.

Speaker 2:

It's like you telling me you want to go from Phoenix to New York, but you haven't told me how many days you want to do that or how many months, weeks, you want to take, whether you're flying bus, train, just investing. While it's very useful, it's a very important tool, don't get me wrong. But ignoring the other assets could really derail any investment results you might achieve.

Speaker 1:

Just as you were saying that, I can see how you embrace stoicism, because every single one of those things is a high degree of uncertainty, right From investments to risk management, to estate planning, to all these different things. I mean, you can plan for them, but you never know when it's going to happen or what's going to happen.

Speaker 2:

Exactly and embrace it however it evolves.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So another thing that came up during the process of working with you to write the book is that you have a very high touch approach to your clients, and just I'll frame it out where in today's Internet world, and really in today's AI world, there's a lot of options that are not high touch. Tell us about your philosophy behind high touch, maybe share a story or so about what that really means, and maybe even just the future. What does that look like going forward in today's world?

Speaker 2:

I think it evolved just out of my personality. I'd always been that person that sort of connects others. My daughters would tease me and say you can talk to anybody. And I would back to my earlier comments. I would say, no, but I can listen to anybody. The skill is in listening. And what it really evolved from is as I began working with clients, many of whom were friends well before I even joined the industry. Now, granted, I've earned other clients along the way who didn't know that background for me but were attracted to the method in which I do business.

Speaker 2:

I've been iPad and iPhone shopping with clients not really acted as a consultant on a real estate transaction, but ask the questions, the devil's advocate, questions that the client needed to ask in order to get to where they needed to be on that decision. And I find that, in the way I describe it to my clients, is if you think it has anything to do with your overall financial picture, ask me. I'll give you my thoughts. I'll ask questions. I'll ask questions, and a lot of the times I'm just asking questions they hadn't thought to consider asking and end up getting the answers elsewhere. I'm not the one telling them what to do or what not to do in that case. Just more of a. Here are the things to consider. Here's what I'd be thinking about.

Speaker 2:

If that were the case, and if you become that first in line person with those things, you've got a better data set to help clients with their plan. You know so much more. I shared recently that you know. I've got a couple of widowed clients who were starting to wade back into dating and online dating and companionship and things like that, and while I was certainly grateful that they shared it with me, further reflection says wow, imagine the level of trust that they're willing to share that with me in the first place. Sure, and so I get to know my clients very well and what I try to do is understand them the best I can, so that all of the nuance that comes into financial planning. Humans make decisions emotionally plain and simple, so I try to remove the emotional decisions out of it, but by first understanding where they're coming from.

Speaker 1:

I think that's fantastic. I think who wouldn't? Because what you're describing to me is really you become that trusted advisor I think financial advisors aspire to be. Is the person that the clients actually trust and reach out to and ask their, get feedback on things that are meaningful decisions for them, and so I think of that picture. Perfect, or very well, I guess. The question I have, though, is there's only 24 hours in the day and there's only seven days in the week. How do you manage all this?

Speaker 2:

I certainly delegate out a lot of very important work and it doesn't mean that I don't have an arm's length contact to it. I leverage tools wherever I possibly can to ensure that the most time available during the day is available for my clients and I tell them and I've told them the entire time. I've had my practice if you call and it's Monday through Friday business hours and I'm not in a meeting, I'm going to answer the phone, and it took a while for clients to get used to that. I had quite a few who would say, gosh, I thought I was going to leave you a voicemail and I said, well, maybe you shouldn't. And I do strive to get back within a day emails and things like that. But the more I can delegate out to stay available and accessible to my clients, the better, and I'm doing more high value activity by being accessible to them.

Speaker 2:

I'm not adding tremendous value by being behind the monitor and pressing buttons on trades, for instance, and in doing so I do recognize that my practice won't grow infinitely. There is only a certain amount of time, no matter how efficient I get, and I've accepted that because, first and foremost, for the clients that are already working with me. They are accustomed to a certain level of service which I do not intend to degrade from, and the other is anyone else that I bring on who is a good fit for what I do is going to be that much more appreciative of the time that I can give to them as well. So I recognize that it might be somewhat limiting as far as the number of clients I can work with, but I'm going to have very high value long-term relationships with clients.

Speaker 1:

And as part of that, you just mentioned earlier on that you've acquired two practices which I guess. I'm just curious, it's what were the new clients' reaction to this high-touch approach? Because I don't think what you're describing is the norm for most advisors. I think it's we have three or four meetings per year, but I don't think that they're answering the phone if you call their office. For the most part I could be wrong. And so, just out of curiosity, did you get any reaction or notice anything different when you brought on these couple new acquisitions?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was one of the clients that I work with as a result of one of the acquisitions and I I offered to do the house calls. They're locals of the Phoenix area, so I go and meet and I can assure you that two existing clients now who I was introduced by that client explained to them I made house calls and that may not be the only reason they chose me, but I'm sure that that factored into the decision. Very cool.

Speaker 1:

One of the big things and I think we may have touched upon this a little bit, but I want to explore a little bit more, because you do talk about it in your book and it's just the idea of emotional decision making, and I'm just going to frame it again where, literally yesterday, today, this week, the markets have been crazy and, as we all know, there's a lot of there can be fear and there can be greed that drive decision making, a lot of probably irrational decision making. Is there anything else you'd share just about from the book or just what you do day-to-day in terms of how you guide or coach your clients to make decisions that are in their best interest?

Speaker 2:

I try to do my best to prepare them at the very beginning of our relationship. So, upon the decision to work with me or us to work together, the first thing I will say typically, as we're doing a sort of a that risk assessment, looking at their existing investments, how we're going to ultimately invest that, and I'll explain whether it's soon, whether it's far in the future. However many times it happens, however long we're working, the mark is going to go down significantly and you're probably going to be tempted to make a change in the investing strategy. Here's what I'm going to ask you when that happens. I'm telling you the questions now so that you can be prepared when that happens. And I talk through it and it's not scripted questions, it is conceptual in nature and saying, okay, what significantly has changed for you other than the external events, the things that we can't control? Nothing, oh, okay, how does that? Or what's the trade-off of selling into a down market and realizing losses that aren't actually losses until you take action?

Speaker 2:

I tell a story about a client who I worked with for a long time and they would call especially early on and would say, hey, am I losing money today? I'd say only if we did something unwise like sell today and we wouldn't, we would talk about assessing their risk profile again and didn't make any changes and ultimately never did. So it's about being very proactive on the front end to establish that I'm going to be consistent on the messaging. In fact, during COVID so just about five years ago I fielded a number of calls not everyone, but there was a healthy number of calls, and rightfully so. Clients were concerned and I can't think of one that capitulated and went to cash or anything like that and some jokingly admitted hey, I've been working with you long enough. I knew what you were going to say. I just wanted to hear you say it out loud and I said if I'm nothing, I'm consistent with that.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to change the message based on what external things I can't control are going on, and that gets back to the idea of, I think of comprehensive financial planning is that you've helped your clients get prepared for these events. And your point with a client just calling anyways, just already anticipating your answer, just goes to the point. Like myself, it's like I'm not calling my advisor because there's planning in place. I already know what the future is. I don't. If I call it, it'd be for the same reason that your client called you. It's just like, hey, what's going on? But you know, I already know the answer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think of it now too, and this was funnily enough with another advisor and I was visiting with them. They happen to have their own plane, private plane, small, four seater I'd never been on anything other than a commercial and we get up in the plane. We're 13,000 feet, they're turning. I never took the controls and I didn't want to. I was taking pictures and things like that. But I remember at one point they made the comment that said hey, you don't look all that concerned or nervous up here. And I said if you're not, I'm not and I think of myself as that pilot for my clients. If they call and I'm panicked, then that's real cause for concern and that can create some other difficult conversations.

Speaker 1:

Very cool and again getting into the idea of comprehensive financial planning. But it's not just investments. One of the things that you had mentioned was it also you look at the tax implications, both now and in the future. Can you tell us more about that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what we do is and it depends on each client, where they are in their investing lifetime, so to speak we'll look to reduce the tax impact, not necessarily just in the here and now, of course. We're looking to do that and I'll coordinate with their CPA, their tax preparer, to make sure that we're making coordinated moves, all oars rowing in the same direction, if you will. But when it comes to the tax planning, I'm thinking about also creating tax-free wealth in retirement through either contributions to Roth or contributions to the Roth 401k or even Roth conversions over time. I was just having this conversation not long ago with a client who has a rather sizable IRA and let's just say, for illustrative purposes, it's a million dollars. I said, well, technically it's not really a million dollars because if you're the 22% bracket it's $780,000.

Speaker 2:

And in thinking in real dollars, I think turn the light bulb on to help them understand. Okay, we're not avoiding taxes. But let's put it this way Whatever we convert now, 10, 20, 30 years from now, is hopefully considerably more, and it's also tax-free on top of that, and that win is there. So there's definitely an eye toward efficient distributions. So if clients have tax-deferred money, tax-free money, non-qualified money, we're using it in the most tax-efficient manner on a distribution side.

Speaker 2:

If we're already at that stage For those, who are accumulating we're trying to accumulate as much as we can on the tax-free side, within, of course.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so a couple of questions while we're just wrapping up, and the first one is for someone that's listening to this, and if they don't already have a copy of your book, wealth your Way. What is the best way for them to get a copy of your book?

Speaker 2:

Right now they can find it on Amazon. Wealth your Way and my name as the author, of course. That'll be the easiest way to find it. They can also contact me through my website, just simply urbanadamscom. That's a really easy one to remember, hopefully. And right now those two ways would be the easiest way to get a hold of the copy.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. And for someone who's listening to this, maybe they have your book and they're ready for your high touch, comprehensive approach. What is the best way for someone to reach out to you to learn more about how you might be able to help them with their own financial planning?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's a couple of ways, much like they could with the book. They can visit my website, submit a request online there to request a meeting. I'm happy to get that scheduled with them and truly get a better understanding. It's great that they would have had the background of reading the book and that way hopefully have a little bit better idea about me and my approach. With the meeting we can determine if that is indeed the case and I'm open to speaking with anyone about that.

Speaker 1:

And you work with people both in Arizona but also outside of Arizona as well.

Speaker 2:

Yes, without a doubt. So yes, certainly there's a. There's a concentration of clients here in Arizona where I'm physically located, but I've got clients coast to coast all time zones and really it's just a matter of if there's a willingness to work remotely, for the most part happy to do that. I do visit clients. I've been over the last couple of years. I've been to the Kansas city area, denver, southern California, and if my personal travels end up crossing paths where clients live, I will always let them know that way. If there's an opportunity to meet in person, I always seek that out.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. Well, Urban, thank you very much for your time today. I've enjoyed the conversation and congratulations on your new book.

Speaker 2:

Paul, thanks very much, it was a pleasure.