Justin Castelli of RLS Wealth has built a successful practice that many advisors look to for inspiration. While many advisors seek to grow their practice by adding advisors to their firm, Justin has found a different approach that has led to more freedom and growth for his firm. In this episode, Justin talks extensively about his journey back to solopreneurship, how he currently works with clients, and the one decision that brought it all together.
EPISODE SUMMARY:
Justin Castelli of RLS Wealth has built a successful practice that many advisors look to for inspiration. While many advisors seek to grow their practice by adding advisors to their firm, Justin has found a different approach that has led to more freedom and growth for his firm. In this episode, Justin talks extensively about his journey back to solopreneurship, how he currently works with clients, and the one decision that brought it all together.
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Jason: All right. Hey, everybody, this is Jason from The Advisor Journey. And today I've got my good partner and friend, Dasarte Yarnway, and we've got an incredible friend of the pod and friend personally, Justin Castelli, with us. So definitely tune in. This is going to be a very unique episode. We're going to get deep into spirit, mind, body and money and those connections. Justin is just one of the best givers in our industry. You're going to hear a ton about his path, kind of how he got to where he is today. He's not afraid to try new things. He's not afraid to try and live his authentic life. He puts what's most important at the forefront of every decision he makes. It's incredibly inspiring. So sit back, relax, enjoy, and welcome to The Advisor Journey.
Jason: Welcome to The Advisor Journey. A podcast by Altruist dedicated to giving advisors the edge they need with proven RIA growth strategies. Each week, Dasarte Yarnway and I will have hard hitting conversations about the topics that matter most to the modern RIA, how to scale, how to maximize efficiency and how to effectively reach your goals. It's real advice from people who've really done it. And we're so glad you're here.
Dasarte: Welcome back to The Advisor Journey. I'm your co-host, Dasarte Yarnway along with my partner in wealth, Jason Wenk. Jason, how are you doing?
Jason: I'm doing awfully good today. Just had breakfast with Justin Castelli. It's pretty darn good way to start the day.
Dasarte: You know, when you told me that I was kind of jealous.
Jason: You weren't here yet.
Dasarte: We were staying at the same hotel.
Jason: Oh, whoa, whoa. Whoops.
Dasarte: And he was like, we'll talk about that after the podcast goes off, but let's do an introduction of my good friend, our good friend Justin Castelli. First things first. Justin, thank you. I got to say thank you because I want to say in 2017, I was a solopreneur. Started my firm, left the bank, and at the time it was Birkdale Financial Group, and this guy reaches out to me and he's like, Hey, would you join me on my podcast? Never been on a podcast before in my life. Never. I didn't even know what the podcast world looked like, creating content. I wrote a book, I think at the time that was Dating Benji, which I self-published myself trying to make a name for myself. Justin invites me on this podcast. I remember the two earphones in my ear for the iPhone, plugged it in, holding my mic. I think I was driving in the car. Podcast was awesome and he told me, You can do this, right? So I just want to thank you for saying that. This, to me, is representative of the kind of person that Justin Castelli is a servant leader first. All about, the pursuit of happiness in life. And then, an advisor after a bunch of other things, husband, father, friend. So I'm super honored to have you on the podcast, man. Thanks for joining us.
Justin: Well, thank you for that. Thank you for having me, both of you. And the funny thing is, like that was in the early days of my podcast. So, as a podcast host, getting people to come on and you're a nobody. It's hard. And I just remember it was actually Young Money, that book is what I had you on for. I saw that and I was following you on social media and I was like, This guy is doing it right. I want to have him on and hopefully he'll come on because I'm just getting started and he's just getting started. And you know, the cool thing about that is from that podcast, we got a good episode, but a friendship was born and probably a lifelong friendship, which is really, really cool.
Dasarte: Yeah, I mean, I'm super thankful. I'm sitting next to Jason Wenk doing this podcast. If I was never on your podcast this probably wouldn't have been an opportunity for me after refining my skills, et cetera. So I'm excited to talk about your journey and I introduced you, but why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to the advisors that listen to our show?
Justin: Yeah. So Justin Castelli, we've already gone over it a couple of times, but I always start off with I am a husband and a father first and foremost. And I used to feel kind of corny saying that. But then as I've kind of grown and gotten older at the ripe age of 41 and kind of being like, I look at you, Dasarte, and I see you as my peer, but I'm significantly older. I don't care. It's not corny. That is who I am first and foremost. And I think you see that as you get to know me more and more. So husband and father, founder of RLS Wealth. I launched that back in 2015 and that was after numerous stops as we'll get on to here in a little bit about my journey as an advisor, co-founder of the AGC, an awesome community of financial advisors, 175 ish strong across the globe. And then I am creating a new kind of passion project called PRST, which is PRST. And the cool thing is, after kind of wandering around to find my way over the last eight years, everything is in synchronicity. PRST feeds off of RLS Wealth. They feed each other and they're all aligned, which is really, really cool. So just a little bit about me.
Dasarte: You know what? When I think about your story and I think about just the advisors that have sat in this room, I think about evolution. I see advisors getting better over time if they're really being laser focused, right? We mentioned Thomas Kopelman, which we'll talk about a little bit later in the episode. We've had a bunch of advisors that like, I started this way, but I saw that this could be the thing that takes me to the next level. So why don't you walk us through that journey of you and how you've been able to kind of discover yourself, right? And make yourself not only a better husband and father, but an advisor overall.
Justin: I think that's an important part to understand is that where you start is not necessarily where you're going to end. And as a financial advisor, it's almost most certainly not going to be where you end because you don't know what you don't know when you come into this industry. Depending on what part of the business you come into, I came in the insurance channel, you get educated one way of being an advisor and if you never get outside of that, you never know. So where you start, isn't always going to be where you end up. I mentioned I started at an insurance firm. I was there for a year, realized that that was not the approach I wanted to take. So I went to, I escaped to work at a bank for a year and realized I didn't want to be confined to an office next to my manager trying to get people to convert from banking customers to investment customers. Spent time at a 403(b) company after that, and that was really a big part of my journey because that was when I fell in love with being a financial advisor. When I graduated college, I didn't know what I was going to do. And I look back and realize how lucky I am because I went to college, I played basketball. I thought I would go to law school, I met my wife Ange, realized I didn't want to go to school for three more years. So I graduated with no job. I networked and found this career that sounded interesting. I went into it. I had one finance class leading up to it. I got a C in it. I didn't care about this stuff. I didn't know about it. And I luckily found my way in there. I stayed with it. But at the 403(b) company is when I saw the impact I could have. And that was when I realized, okay, this is what I'm going to do. Got my CFP designation, and then started to realize to do the things the way I wanted to do it, I had to get out to the independent side. I didn't know about RIA back then. I just knew I needed to be out from underneath a corporate company. And I kind of took the approach of I'm going to build up clients that see me as their advisor. They don't care where I'm at, and hopefully one day they'll follow me. I'll navigate any non-competes, but one day I want to go independent. And I had a game plan to start my own firm. I pivoted at the last minute, which I'm not afraid to pivot. I joined a firm that was supposed to be a succession planning opportunity, which we know oftentimes doesn't play out the way you think it's going to play out. Was there for two years, and then that is when I started my firm and that is when I became an entrepreneur. Was back in 2015. So I think the takeaway I want people to realize through that is you're going to bounce around, especially as an advisor, and that's okay. I think one of the things that was really beneficial for me was, all of my stops, they weren't necessarily calculated. I was following my interests and following what I thought felt right. And in hindsight, they ended up not being the right choice for the long term, but they were the right choice for that moment. Because my last stop at the independent firm, I could look at and say that was a waste. But I learned a lot about the way I wanted to run a business, the way I didn't want to be as an advisor, what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do things. So it was a great two years and I picked up some technical skills as well. But you mentioned being laser focused. When it comes to my career, I'm not quite as laser focused. I'm getting better now. Plans are one thing for clients, but I very much am led by my heart and by my passions, which is oftentimes not very laser focused. You just kind of think, this is the path I want to go. It feels right. I feel like I need to go that way and I just go. Because I'm not afraid to pivot, I go down paths that maybe aren't right, but I'm happy to come back because I'm going to learn something on that moment that I'm doing down that path that will help me in the next phase of where it is I'm going.
Dasarte: You know, it's interesting because as advisors, I talk to a lot of advisors, they help me appear unto them like we're all kind of this fraternity. No matter what sexual orientation, creed you are, we're all together in this trying to build. So when I talk to advisors and they communicate what they want to do, sometimes they're thinking like ten years out. And I admire that. Oh, you know exactly what you want to build. But based on what you just said, you had to make the right decision for that moment. That's a hard balance for us sometimes because in the moment I feel like I should do this, but that doesn't necessarily align with the long term goals. For example, I was talking with somebody the other day, Emlen Miles-Mattingly. I'm like, Hey, if I want to get to where I know I can go, I probably can't charge people these type of fees because it's not scalable. But in the moment, I thought it was the right thing to do, right? So I know advisors are listening probably will take that as a gem because sometimes you do have to make very hard decisions for your career.
Justin: But the thing is, even though that fee structure maybe isn't right for scalability, it is right for that moment because you learned that lesson. There's no way for you to know if a fee you want to charge is scalable until you actually do it. And that's why I think it's so important to sometimes take some risks and take some chances with what it is that you try knowing that if it doesn't work out the way you might want it to, you're going to learn something and you can always come back. Think about if an advisor wants to go launch his own firm or her own firm, they go out, they do it. They realize getting new clients is harder than they thought. You could always go back to another firm, but you only, you don't know if you can do it on your own if you don't try. So plan and do all the right stuff. But if you feel like that's the path you need to go down, go down it. And if it doesn't work out, you can always go back somewhere else. You can find a spot to go.
Dasarte: For sure. I use the analogy of being a kid inside, looking at kids play outside. And I don't want to be the kid looking between the blinds like, Man, I wish I can go out there and play. I've always been the type of person that wants to get in the game, and I see that in you all the time. We talk a lot about it, right? But it's better to find out for yourself versus guessing what could have been.
Justin: And one thing I, before we go on, one thing I learned through all the trials of the different things I've done is that when you let other people kind of steer where you're going to go try something. So the example is Josh Brown is my hero in the profession. And I've gotten to become friends with him. And there was one time he told me that he thought I could be a CEO of a bigger firm, like almost be like a Ritholtz of the Midwest. Next day I go to LinkedIn, I change my title to CEO like I'm going to be a CEO because Josh said I could do that. I'm going to build a bigger firm. But that wasn't right for me. And it's easy sometimes to try to force yourself to go into a path because someone you respect gives you some advice because they see something in you. But if it doesn't feel right, 99% of the time, if you're going against what feels right, it's not going to work out. So I think that as you're trying these different things and you're evolving, stick to your intuition, stick to your heart, what it's telling you and let that kind of be your guide. Take that influence from other people, but realize that that, don't force yourself if it doesn't feel right.
Dasarte: Have you, and before we move on, Jason, I want to get you to chime in here a little bit. But before we move on, have you figured out a rubric for how you evaluate the feeling that this is something that I should pursue, right? I was actually talking to our good friend Samuel Dean a couple of weeks ago, and he asked me a question. He was like, Hey, Dasarte, so what do you want to do with your firm? And I'm like, That's a great question, Samuel. And on that Zoom call, I communicated with him the purpose of my firm right now is I want to annuitize the income. I want to serve, and I want to leave a legacy. You know what I mean? And I just said that on a whim, it was like a 15 minutes, Let's just link up and let's just have a conversation, right? If it doesn't align with that right now, I try to stop myself from acting on impulse. Does it help me to provide for my family and the people that may be working for Yarnway Wealth? Am I serving, right? Am I helping people get to their best self or their authentic life, which we'll talk about? And does it leave a legacy, right? So I wanted to know if you have anything that allows you to think about the next move or this is how I judge whether it's a go or no.
Justin: Unfortunately, I'm going to disappoint everybody. I don't have a rubric. It is honestly, it's gut feeling. It's intuition. And I just I follow it. I think that through years of doing that, I've gotten better at maybe sensing that feeling earlier and being able to identify it. But I don't think too long term because the way I think about it is if I'm doing what feels right and authentic and I keep on doing that, then it's going to compound and move me in the direction that I need to go. And if I look back, that's where I gained my confidence. There are so many breadcrumbs over my career, even dating back to when I was in high school. We talked about the authentic life. There's the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance, and in that movie, Will Smith talks about an authentic swing, Jason and golf. And that always resonated with me, even though I hate golf. And I took that to mean my authentic shot.
Jason: Hey, hate's kind of a strong word.
Justin: I hate golf. But I took that to basketball, my authentic shot. But then I had this epiphany of like, oh, like that concept of the authentic swing was planted in my mind back in high school for when I'm a 41 year old financial adviser who's gone through his own spiritual journey to realize how that plays into money to create this concept of the authentic life. So looking back, I see all the breadcrumbs that gives me the confidence that by following my passions and the things that are my interests and making sure they align with what it is my responsibilities are today, it's going to take me in the right direction. And I think that's hard because especially as financial advisors, many of us are so data driven, we're so spreadsheet heavy that to just say, Hey, just trust your gut. It's kind of hard to accept, but for me, it's worked. And that's the thing with these types of shows, my advice to everybody, take it with a grain of salt because my experience is different than yours. It's different than Jason's. I think you take all of these different experiences that people have had and apply them to your own life, but ultimately you have to find what works for you. And for me, it's just trusting my gut.
Dasarte: There you go.
Jason: Well, I'm glad, this has been fun, by the way, just sitting and listening. But just two things to kind of add. So one is just a thanks much like just said. I think it's funny, you and I were just chatting before we started recording and I was talking to you about network effects and how if you want to do certain things, right, you want to be an actor, you should probably be in LA, right? If you want to work in, whatever, Wall Street, you kind of have to work on Wall Street, right? In New York and, there's a number of areas, right? But what I find really interesting is there's probably so many people in our industry that part of their network effect is, Justin, right? So I remember you were one of the first people I reached out to. Altruist was just an idea. There were no mock ups, there was no website. There was, it was just like an idea. It wasn't super well formed yet. And I was a total stranger, and you took the time and you said, Yeah, listen, I'll hear you out. And that was four and a half plus years ago or thereabouts. And I actually remember, to prepare for you coming in I was looking at some of my old notes from that first meeting. And I remember I was trying to almost sell you on, Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could do this, this, this? And I was rattling off all these product features and you, you might not even remember this, but you actually gave some feedback around certain features that sort of didn't do anything for you. I'm happy to report none of those features exist today and it's probably a good thing they don't exist today. They would have been us going down the wrong path. So, just that selflessness of someone reaches out to you for help, you seem to always be willing to help. And then you actually reach out to others when you notice, hey, they might be at a point, Oh, you're launching a new firm Dasarte, we should. You just wrote a new book, we should have you on the podcast, right? There's just countless advisors I run into that are like, Oh yeah, I was just on a call with Justin, and he gave us. So as a thank you behalf of me, Altruist again, but I also think probably who knows, hundreds. Between AGC and other advisors you've connected with over the years. So, big thanks. That's one. Two, I want to dig into something you mentioned about pivot. I think that's a skill a lot of people don't have, financial advisors don't have, entrepreneurs don't have because it feels to a lot of people that feels like failure. They'll be like, Oh, I was doing this, and it didn't work. So now I'm doing this. But I feel like every time I've seen you pivot, it's been in pursuit of, I think, something that feels more authentic to you, right? Which makes a ton of sense with the work you're doing today. So I'm just curious kind of how you think about, you know, when do you know it's time to pivot? When do you know it's, Hey, that's not fun for me anymore? I mean, is it that simple, I guess? And then, any advice you might give to advisors? Because I think there's a lot of people that they do this as a job. They start with a ton of passion and they fall in love with it. And then at some point it becomes a real chore. They're unhappy. They're pursuing something that wasn't authentic to them. It was like something the industry told them they should do. But then, like opportunity, cost or fear or embarrassment or whatever it might be, they just struggle. They never choose to make that pivot. So I'd love for you to kind of help coach us all through. How do you know how to do it? Because I think you do it very gracefully.
Justin: Well, thank you. And I don't know if pivoting is a positive trait or not. I think the ability to recognize the path I'm going down is not the right one, and here's the reasons why. And not having any shame or feel a fear of failure and turning back. So how do I navigate a pivot? It really has been that there has been something that has come along that felt more right. So the example I'll give is there was a period of time where I wanted to transition RLS Wealth to focus on working with entrepreneurs. Launch a blog, Entrepreneur's Blueprint. Launch a podcast, Entrepreneur's Blueprint. Because that's what I do. That's how I'm going to grow. And I had different relationships that would teeter between personal professional planning with the business owner and then business planning. And then the top tier would be we're going to do content marketing as well. And I was really excited because I had this vision that I was going to have a building in downtown Fishers where I would work out of and have a co-working space for my clients, and I would create this community of entrepreneurs in Fishers. And if you wanted to be in there with all these movers and shakers, you had to be a client of my firm. Business plan, everything. I was really excited about it and I was going down that path. And then around that same time I reached out to Taylor and I was like, Hey, let's do like a marketing and branding email, Nick Murray style once a month. And he hit me back with, Well, what do you think about a community? And that was when the light bulb went off and the pivot happened. I'm supposed to build a community, but not for entrepreneurs, but for entrepreneurial financial advisors. So I take down Entrepreneur's Blueprint, close it all down and start going into AGC. And I didn't worry about the fact that I turned down the blog and turned off the podcast because that no longer felt right and this felt more right. And if I look at the two things, I'm glad I went down the AGC path because of what it's grown to be and where I'm going personally. You know, The Entrepreneur's Blueprint would have taken me down a different path. So it is a little bit of a feeling thing. And you just know. Everybody's had experiences in their life where their gut told them one thing and they did the other. And the outcome usually isn't what you want it to be. We know that feeling. I think it's just trusting that feeling enough to know that it really will steer you in the right direction. And then when it comes to when you actually make the pivot, you have the choice. You can make a big deal about it and say, Hey, I'm not doing this anymore, or you can just quit doing those things and no one's going to notice. And then you just kind of move over here. And I think that I will admit that I think that has been, a barrier I've had to overcome over the years is that, like Dasarte said this to me before, Who are you? What do you do? You're doing this. You're doing that. You're doing this. You did this. You did that. You're all over the place. Truth of the matter is, that's how I am.
Dasarte: I didn't say it like that, though.
Justin: No, you said it a lot nicer. But I mean, at the end of the day, that's. So, my growth as an advisor and the size of my firm has probably been hindered by my shiny object syndrome when it comes to trying new things. But I'm okay with that. And I knew that going into it. So I think you have to figure out kind of what your goals are as well. My goal was never to build the biggest firm. And to have the ability to follow my interest, which the more I do, the better it gets. I want to be able to do that. That's not going to be right for everybody. But I think on the pivot, don't make a big deal about it and chances are most people aren't going to notice it if you don't draw attention to it because the reality of it is most people are worried about their life. And we recreate these stories in our head that if, oh, if I if I do this and I don't succeed, then people are going to think these things. No, you do it and then you learn something new from it to take to the next thing. And then there wasn't a waste. And you might waste, you might have some sunk cost of some money and maybe a little bit of time. But there is an important lesson that you will learn in every pivot that might happen. The only failure I think would be is if you fail to learn that lesson, otherwise there's no failure. Giannis got all this praise this summer about talking about how it wasn't a failure when the number one seed got beat by the play-in team in the NBA tournament, which it's true, there is no failure. There's a lesson to be learned in everything that doesn't go right. Take that lesson. It's going to help you go forward. So I think that that's the other thing is to know that if it doesn't work out, you're going to learn something that's going to help you in the next part of your journey. And so that should make it okay.
Dasarte: What I am continually impressed by you is, you have no problem saying bye to something, right? Bye, this wasn't right. I'm moving on to the next thing and I'm going to take these lessons from this thing and hopefully pour that into the next thing. And that's respectable to me because oftentimes I, you know, I was brought up to be like loyal and all these things. But at the end of the day, you got to be loyal to yourself. And if something's not serving you or making you a better individual in a number of ways, it's probably time to disconnect from that thing, right? So I've always respected that. And I think that pivoting or segues well to the PRST, right? You've been talking about the PRST passionately to me, what seems like for years. It didn't have a name at first, right? But why don't you explain the PRST to our audience, our listeners, those advisors, and why it's so important?
Justin: Yeah. So even in the last year, this concept of the pursuit has evolved and it's really about helping people pursue their authentic life. So I mentioned Legend of Bagger Vance. I genuinely believe we each have a life that we are supposed to live. So many of us never get that opportunity. Some of us never get the opportunity because we don't even realize that we have greater choice and greater control over our life. But there's so many barriers and restrictions that are placed on us from a young age that kind of send us down paths that may not be right. And I want those individuals that realize there's something more or something that they want to be doing that's greater than what they're doing today that will make them happier. I want them to pursue it. I want them to try it and have that opportunity. And maybe that thing that they think it is, is the pivot they need to make to get to the thing that's really it. But if you never try it, you never know. So, initially the PRST was just kind of a creative brand. I call it a collective. Long term, it'll be something much bigger. But I've actually, pivoting, decided to kind of put that on the back burner of kind of growing that brand and spend more time evolving my brand away from the advisor that's known for content and likes hip hop and has tattoos and is kind of like a fun guy to be around. I'm still always going to be that because that's who I genuinely am. But I want more people to see me as the advisor that is comfortable bringing spirituality, mindfulness, taking care of your body to the money picture. Because what I've learned personally, and that's what steers where I'm going, is my own journey. I went through a period of burnout. I've always been doing lots of things and I actually had a lot of pride in people saying, I don't know how you do all of that. I was always juggling balls and I did it and I had good success with it. And I kind of maybe staked my identity to that a little bit. But it hit a point that I burned out. And after that, burnout is when I began to take better care of myself. And I had alignment in my spirit, mind and body. And I saw what that did for my life in every area, in all aspects. And I want more people to experience that as themselves. So PRST, I think, will be a bigger focus of mine in the future. But right now it is getting my own thoughts about this concept of PRST and authentic life and connecting spirit, mind, body and money, and then becoming the advisor that's known for that. Because if I can become the advisor that's known for that, then I get to do more podcasts, I get to do more speaking, which then takes this message that I believe so strongly in and get it in front of more people. And then I can bring PRST up to offer different ways to help them do so. But, I mentioned having synchronicity when it comes to the concept of the pursuit of the authentic life. I have some things I've already done through PRST, which is just PRST. I stripped vowels out. I have some free downloads. I did a five day meditation that's designed to begin to connect your spirit, mind, body and money. I have some free things there, more that'll come. And then on the top end of the scale, I have my LifeDesign+ relationship, which is new to RLS Wealth that basically takes all of that concept and theory and puts it into a financial planning relationship. So now we're connecting spirit, mind and body and we're actually doing the planning to align with that. Everything on PRST will be non-advisory so I can keep them separate and clean. But then my ultimate goal is that I want to help anybody, no matter where they are in life, no matter where they are financially, to be able to begin to connect spirit, mind, body and money and pursue their authentic life. So if you don't have a lot of money, you're just getting started. Great. I've got a daily note, I've got a podcast, all this free content that will help you. Then you can step up and do the free download and I'll do another guided meditation that'll be really cheap, have a course, have all these things that will help people stair step their way and maybe a handful of those will come over and become a client of RLS Wealth and we'll get into our monthly meetings and really get into designing their life and pursuing that authentic life. But I want to be able to help anybody, no matter where they're at, and that's kind of where things are going.
Dasarte: I love that. I actually just pulled up one of my journals from last week, so every morning I try to get up and journal and you just hit on something that I wrote about last week. And the thing that I wrote was, Jason, you ready? Do little but do it extremely well. And I think that for the entrepreneurial individual we think that doing more makes you more ambitious, right? But if you're just, you're spreading yourself too thin, you don't really do anything well. And I think what I see from your growth is that you're focusing on one thing, right? And if you can do that extremely well, you bring a lot of value to a lot of people. You mentioned brand. I hear you using this word. We should have like a brand counter on the podcast, like brand brand brand, right? But you're saying brand a lot. Talk to me about why it's important to create brands and how you've built your business. Just getting into the advisory talk, using the content that you've created.
Justin: I know nothing technical or formal education on branding and marketing. It's all been seeing what other people do. What is it that I like? And then how do I want to express myself and go do it? So when I set out to do all of the content, that was to grow my business, I never, ever thought I would create a brand. Which is kind of weird to think about, but we all have brands, and I actually gave a 18 minute speech on this, TED Talk style, at the CPA designations conference. And it just basically is your brand is your reputation. So we all have a reputation. It's what people say about us outside of the office. What are you like as an advisor? What's it like to work with you? So you have a brand, so you have the opportunity to take that reputation and brand and tell people and control your narrative, which I think is smarter than letting other people control your narrative. So the concept of the brand is just taking your reputation, putting it out there, letting people know who it is you serve, what it's like to work with you. I think it's very important to blend personal in with your professional so people get an idea of whether or not they're going to like you. Common interests are always a nice thing to have when you're working with clients. And at the end of the day, if you take this and package it up right, you end up growing a business with people who like you for you. Who want to be around you, and you're probably going want to be around them. So you have this great business of people that you want to be with and work becomes a lot easier. I think where a lot of times people get this wrong is they want to create their brand, but they should be really kind of growing into it. What I mean by that is I don't think a strong brand is, I'm going to be that person. It's, I am that person and I'm just going to tell people that over and over. And then the brand develops. I don't think you can reverse engineer it because then it's not authentic. And authenticity I know is a buzzword and people hate hearing about it, but it's true. The best brands are the ones that are truly authentic because when you're creating this persona of who you are and what it's like to work with. If it's fake, then you have to maintain this fake persona all the time. Because when people meet you in person, you have to match what they think. You have to match who they think you are. And if it doesn't, then our business is built on trust and you're done. So to maintain a fake persona all the time is exhausting and you're going to burn out. But if you're just being yourself all of the time, it's easy to maintain that and then it ends up bringing the right people to you. It deflects, as an advisor, if part of your brand is you do specialize in Sacramento business owners, then if somebody on the Internet finds me and is in Sacramento as a business owner, I can say, Hey, that's not me. But that's Dasarte. Let me get you guys connected. So there's business reasons amongst your peers to take hold of your brand and own it and control that narrative.
Dasarte: First of all, I don't think advisors have heard of Sacramento until listening to this podcast. Nobody knows where it is. But I agree with you 100%. I was actually working or talking to a brand person last week and I just pulled up what he sent me. So for advisors that are listening and you're thinking about brands, as you know, Justin Castelli has a great brand. The outreach brand is growing and great, right? But there were several components that he put into what makes for a good brand. So the simplest thing was a professional logo, right? Having an irresistible offer. For you, I think that's LifeDesign+, which I hope that you can kind of explain for us a little bit more on the show. Professional content. That's where you kill it. I think that you have the most content of any advisor that I've seen over a long period of time, 3 to 5 years. Social proof, right? So people are talking about you, whether that's advisor to advisor or client to client, especially in Fishers. Featured personal initiatives, social media and a clear call to action. So if you're an advisor and you're thinking about building your brand, I think you have to go and kind of figure out what that looks like for you, and that will help the visibility of the digital presence, right? And all the things that help you to attract your ideal client or your tribe, if you will. And I think you're spot on with that.
Jason: Yeah, it's interesting. So so the list you had there, those are a lot of those are brand assets. And I think at the core, what I resonate with, it's funny you said, Well, I'm not really a brand expert. And literally goes and gives like a masterful, whatever two minute dissertation on brand. But I think one of the things that, it's funny as you were saying that, it tied together my questions earlier about a pivot. Or, Dasarte's observation about, Hey, you've not had a hard time saying, Hey, I'm done with this and I want to move to this other thing. And it's, I think, I'll paraphrase, but kind of the way you said, it was it's exhausting to be someone you're not, right? And so it doesn't matter, you could have, again, all the brand assets in the world, but if they're not who you really are, that game is really hard to keep playing. And we see this a lot. I think if you think about really iconic brands and, whether it's people or it's companies, because people as you point out are brands, there's a number of people who, an Elon Musk, right? He's every bit as much a brand as Tesla is or Twitter is or, right? Or Facebook or whatever. And he lives a pretty, I mean I think he's living his most authentic life. I'm not sure like, some high percentage of people might not like it, but the guy's doing what he wants to do, I guess. But, I think this is so important. I don't think people maybe put enough kind of context behind that. And I think especially in financial advice, man, is it important because it is really, really hard. I think what's kind of funny is I can imagine being in Fishers and they run into you on the street and you're exactly the same as you are when you're in your office, right? Um, and if you're, whatever, coaching one of your kid's games or whatever it might be. It's literally the same person at all times. It's that same person in Fishers or anywhere. They listen to you on a podcast, same person that they ran into, whatever, at the coffee shop and had a ten minute conversation with, right? So man, is that powerful. And it's also incredibly freeing. And so I just think it's a great one to underscore. I don't have a ton to add other than to say, just listening, it's a great reminder, I think, to every person who's a financial planner or financial advisor or entrepreneur. We have fintech executives, investors, lots of people who listen to the show. But man, does that hit home to me because I feel like I've been there, done that. Lived kind of the inauthentic life, built brands around it, had a lot of success and then found burnout. And then had a hard time being honest with myself and saying, Hey, this is it. This is not. I'm done with this. I got to go move on to the next thing. So anyway, so kudos to you, man, for sharing that. And again, I think if people want to bookmark that little two minute clip, man, that really ties up I think, so much of the work you've been doing. I know we don't have a ton of time, but we did want to get a bit more into LifeDesign+. This is, kind of this newest initiative. I know you're super passionate about it. You've been sharing this a lot. It's very evident and obvious in your work because you're really crafting a message around what does this look like? You've also proclaimed this is the only way you'll take new clients, right? So I think it's you're walking the walk. You're not just talking about it. So please fill us in a bit more in kind of how you're tying, you know, if I get it right, right? Mind, body, spirit and finance, I might not get the order right, but.
Justin: It's close enough. Spirit, mind, body and money.
Jason: All right. So, you know, Jason, got to use my dyslexia here to massively mess that up. But put this together for us. What that looks like if you're a client? And tell us kind of also why you made that change.
Justin: I'll go the why first. The why is that is the only way I think about growing RLS Wealth. That gets me excited. I love the clients that I have today and if I really wanted to go all in, I could master up some strategy to kind of sell my business and start over from scratch. But I love my clients and I don't want to do that. And they've been with me and have given me the freedom to be me. Start the AGC, go to on ramp for a period of time. They've embraced what me and who I am. So I don't ever want to give those up. But when I think about sitting down with a new client, it doesn't excite me as much to do what I call traditional planning. What excites me is sitting across from somebody who realizes there's more in life that they want to pursue, but they don't know what it is. So if I can be a part of that journey, helping them align spirit, mind and body in the ways that work for them, and then bring my expertise as a financial advisor to the table, that excites me. So I said, All right, if that's what I want to do, then I'm going to take every other relationship off of my website. Grandfather everybody in, as I've always done in the past and say, This is the only way I'm growing going forward because that's the only way that excites me. That I think will allow me to be my best version of advisor for that person. So LifeDesign+ is a build it and they will come. I have no interest in it today from anybody outside that I know of, which is perfectly fine because I wasn't looking to grow aggressively anyway. I'm at a stage where my boys are 12, ten and five and they are my priority. Clients are second priority, so I don't want to grow and take away from either side. I think this will grow slowly. The relationship is called LifeDesign+ because I want it to be more on the life design part. The plus represents the money falling back to if you align spirit, mind and body. I think money becomes a lot easier. Solves itself in many issues when you have that alignment that I don't think a lot of people do. So the relationship is a monthly standing meeting, same day, same time every month. If you miss two, you're fired as a client and those meetings will really be building upon the previous month's conversation. I created a notion dashboard that has a spot for writing their authentic life out. Some affirmations, a daily journaling exercise which I get to read, and then they have to track their spirit, mind and body practices. I don't care what they are. I'm not somebody who lives in a world that has absolutes. So what I do spiritually and mindfulness in my body may not be right for you. I don't care what it is that you do. You just need to have a practice. You need to bring those into alignment. So you have to track those. And then I can curate content. There's a space to create, I think expressing ourselves creatively, whether that's writing or video or podcasting or art or gardening, whatever it might be, is an important part of figuring out who you are, all in this dashboard. You have to complete that dashboard. And then we'll have a 13th meeting every year, which will actually be your update of your financial plan. And our month to month, if there's money things that come up, obviously we'll bring that plan in and do that. But I really want to help people find that authentic life. And then when they find it, I want to be the one that is able to bring the money to the plan and be creative with the way that we do it. Because I think that for a lot of us, our authentic life requires creative financial planning. It's not going to be maximizing your 401(k) and maxing out Roth IRAs. There might be some more creative things that don't fall in line with what CFP curriculum says is best, but it's best for that person. And I am fully comfortable going against the grain if it's what's best for the client. So that's what I want to do and that's on my website. It's the only way you can book to become a client. I'm not forcing any existing clients to go into it, but if they want to, they can. And a really cool thing that's happened is I've been creating more content to try to build attention to this. Some of my clients are bringing spirit, mind and body to our meetings on their own, which is really cool because that's not why they came to me in the past, right? But it's finding its way into my day to day with existing clients.
Dasarte: I got a question for you that's not on kind of the cadence of the conversation, but talk about life design. What is your ideal life look like before you?
Justin: I'm pretty close to it, so my ideal life stems back to an exercise Jason had me do. And I make a lot of people do it. I tweaked it up a little bit, but planning out your ideal day and that ideal day exercise is really important to me because that is what helped me realize in my point of burnout. I had my ideal day except for living in California. If I just made one minor change, one major change would make a change. So I did it. But my, you know, my authentic and ideal life is being a financial advisor. It is creating content around spirit, mind, body and money and the authentic life, and then having the freedom to continue to pursue any interests that come up. That's my professional. Obviously family's a part of it as well, but that's my authentic life and I'm basically doing it. I want to, the nice thing about it is, especially with the goal of not growing fast, is I'm realizing that I am continuing to refine my thoughts and what I'm learning about the connection of spirit, mind, body and money and the authentic life. This is really an idea that I started writing about about a year ago. To your point, it's been something that's been brewing inside of me for years. I just didn't know it. So I look at what I was writing back in December versus what I'm writing now. It's just continuing to grow and build. So I have time to do this thing that I love. I love creating content and putting it out there to refine my message, which will only help me be better at what it is I do, when that first LifeDesign+ client comes in.
Dasarte: We're rooting for that first one. And I can't wait to see what, you draw from that first experience. It's time for one of my favorite parts of the podcast, Rapid Fire Q&A. So if you're ready, we'll ask you the first of three questions before we close this thing up. So question number one, what is the most interesting thing that you've read this week.
Justin: The book, The Four Agreements. I've had it for years, didn't read it, picked it up and read it in a day. And I'm actually almost done with the fifth agreement which builds upon it. But it's very much a spirit mind body book.
Jason: Excellent. All right. This one is always, have to, it's awkward for me to ask, but I know some of this already. What is your, this is so irrelevant, today's conversation. We've had this beautiful, spiritual kind of conversations, super enlightening. But now we're going to ask you about your tech stack. But feel free to tell us about maybe it doesn't have to be your planning tech stack. You're building something entirely different. Presumably, you have to use some different tools. So, I heard Notion, you have a couple of things, but yeah, tell us a little bit about what you've put together to make delivering your business and your authentic life and your services to clients' reality.
Justin: I've been trimming my tech stack. I want to get it down to as few pieces of technology as possible. And I would be lying if I said that I don't, that your influence on me in saying that Jason hasn't carried weight. It just took a while to realize it. So, custodian wise, I still am on the TD Schwab platform, but not because I'm here, but I'm moving more over to Altruist. So Altruist is my client portal. I made that change about a year ago now. I'm using it for billing. So using the Altruist platform for a lot. And I anticipate moving more clients over time. Just in waves. So that's a big part of it. Wealthbox is a CRM. I've moved away from risk tolerance software. Partly because I have my client's risk tolerance documented. It's 15 years of working together. I'm good there. And with LifeDesign+ it'll come up in conversation, I'll have enough to document so I don't have that as much anymore. I use YCharts and Quantee. There's a little bit of overlap between the two for kind of portfolio analytics and thinking and looking at my portfolios. But there's enough differences between the two of them that I keep it. And MyRepChat is one I always tell people about so I can text message my clients. So that's a really important piece and that's really it. I've tried to cut out all the things I don't really need because I want things to be more simple and lean. And then, yeah, I mentioned Notion for the dashboard for LifeDesign+, but I've been using Notion for years just to create and document my ideas and eventually I'll hire somebody to help me make that dashboard better. But for right now, I've been using it and it works. But I'm sure there's some things I can streamline and make it better. Um oh, Holistiplan is another big one for the tax planning. So, those are the primary tech stacks that jump out.
Dasarte: That's awesome. Last question for you. What is a new hobby that you've recently started?
Justin: I was telling Jason this that for most of my life I have not considered myself a runner. I would have told you I'm not a runner and I hate it, but it sounds minor. But I have done two 30 minute runs where I didn't stop. And for me that's big because I would usually get 3 or 4 minutes into a run and I'd be like, I don't enjoy this. Why am I doing this thing that I don't like? I'm going to quit and I'll go ride the Peloton or something. But I'm actually enjoying it. And so I would say running is the the newer hobby that I think I'm going to stick with to compliment all the other things I do to round out my my wellness plan.
Jason: Just wait and see. In five years, Justin's going to come on. He's going to be like, Yeah, I just picked up golf. It's amazing. I love it.
Justin: I told you, the only way golf comes into play is if the boys want to play. Then I'll do it. But otherwise, not for me.
Jason: I'm just teasing. But I'm glad to welcome you to the running club. And may your knees and lower back and ankles all hold up well as you kind of put on those miles. Awesome. Well, I mean, Justin, thanks again, man. It's cool to have you on the show and share this conversation with others. I mean, very selfishly we, Dasarte and I, we get lots of other time with you and feel pretty gracious for that also. And thanks for what you do for the industry. I think there's again, there's there's a handful of people that represent just all the things that are good about the space. There's a lot of frustration and kind of weirdness and strange behavior and bad planners. And I think that loyalty to clients, the respect for the clients, the importance of putting your family first and being self-aware, it's so hard. These things are just hard things, you know? So anyway, man, just thanks for setting an incredible example. And it gives me a ton of encouragement about what the next decade plus is going to look like in our industry. Hopefully, as you influence and touch and build the Justin Castelli network effect, which is a good thing and our industry needs more of it. So thank you for that. Thanks, everybody, for listening in. This has been a ton of fun for Dasarte and I. Obviously we'd love to see you subscribe and download and share. So if you're watching a clip on YouTube, make sure you subscribe. If you're listening in on your favorite podcast, just make sure you get and subscribe as well. And we'd love to share more of these stories. This is a very unique one, but it is the quintessential advisor journey. This is a real journey, man. So thanks so much for being on. And Dasarte, thanks a ton man for coming down from Sacramento all the way from Canada. All the way from Sacramento, Canada. Just kidding, but thanks for coming down, man. It's always fun. On behalf of myself and my partner, Dasarte, everybody have a great day. Talk to you soon.
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