He’s spent 26 years helping advisors grow. Then his two-year-old saw the bag by the door.

Episode Summary

Michael Kitces has spent 26 years in financial planning, and his firm studies something most of the industry takes for granted: how advisor well-being changes as income grows. His answer to whether money buys happiness is yes, to a point. In his firm’s research, well-being rises with income and then levels off, and for advisors who keep resetting the goalposts, it can dip. There’s always a bigger fish.

He isn’t telling anyone to stop being ambitious. He’s suggesting they change what they count. Michael shares the morning his daughter saw his travel bag by the door and started crying, how it led him to rebuild his business around more time at home, and why he believes you can do well by doing good.

Key topics

• Does money buy happiness? Why Michael says yes, to a point
• What his firm’s advisor well-being research shows about income, goals, and enough
• The bigger fish problem and why the goalposts keep moving
• Keeping your ambition while changing what you count
• The bag by the door and rebalancing work and family
• Reach and impact as a driver beyond money
• Working backwards from a long-term vision to the one next thing
• Doing well by doing good

Memorable quotes

[04:15] “Yes, to a point, right?”

[13:35] “They have better clarity in essence on what is enough.”

[14:10] “I think I’d rather just hang out at their soccer game on Thursday and not go do another new client meeting.”

[17:14] “We’re too goal oriented to say I’m not going to have goals.”

[36:32] “It turns out you can actually do well by doing good and those can live in alignment and harmony with one another.”

Bio

Michael Kitces has spent 26 years in financial planning. He started out working with individual clients, became a director of financial planning, and went on to build Kitces.com, an advisor education platform that more than 27,000 advisors use for continuing education. He also runs the Financial Advisor Success and Kitces & Carl podcasts, and his newest venture, Advisor Economics, provides benchmarking and KPIs for advisory firms. Before financial planning, he studied medicine. He has played duplicate bridge with his dad at the same weekly club game for about 35 years.