#86 Susan Bradley – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of ensemble advice, South Africa. I’m very excited to have with me today in the studio, Susan Bradley. Susan is the founder of the sudden money Institute, someone that I’ve looked up through out my studies with the transitioners Institute. And it’s just wonderful to have you here today. Thank you so much, Susan.

Susan Bradley
Thank you, Louis is lovely to spend some time with you. I’m looking forward to our conversation.

Louis van der Merwe
There’s so many avenues we can explore. But I do want us just to maybe as at the start, share with our listeners, in a how the sudden money Institute started, you know, you you shared that it’s almost 25 years or 23 years for the institute. I’d love to hear that beginning days.

Susan Bradley
Oh, you know, I was cleaning out fails over the weekend. And coming across our mission statements from 23 years ago, it was June 25, year 2000, that the Institute began and backup for a moment but tell you that I discovered there was a big gap in my training as a financial planner. I’m a CFP since the early 80s. This were kind of the pioneering days when we were all figuring it out. And I thought that I really knew it. I taught it in the local college, and I did financial literacy for kids and women. And I was all in on but when I found that we didn’t have a protocol for life disruption, a big life disruption. And in my case, it was medical settlements for medical injuries for a group. And I was asked by the lawyers managing that, or they were actually just bragging and telling me how much money they were going to get people. And I realized that people were in trouble, because they were getting getting money without or thinking they were getting money without a date or anything. And they were making decisions of what to buy houses, how to get divorced, or how to help a parent or making all kinds of commitments not working. Because the money was coming in the money never came. So people were in financial trouble as a result of it. And as I was looking at this situation, for a couple months, I was looking for financial planning protocols for it a model. And we had models for widowhood and divorce and retirement, which are big life events. But we didn’t deal with the human side. And decision making, it seemed to be very troubling people made pretty bad decisions. And the attitude was, I gave them good advice. They didn’t take it, they crashed and burned. Oh, too bad for them. And that wasn’t okay. I heard that quite a bit. So I started to write the sudden money book. Because I really needed to know I needed a model. And I was doing some media and writing at the time. And I’m not particularly good writer, but I just needed to know this. So I created the first model really for for doing this. And it very much looks like the first model right now. It is not complete, like fully knowing it, I kind of shut her up every once in a while, like in the book, I said, you should avoid emotion based decisions. Well, that’s just ludicrous because all decisions have the emotional component effect. It’s probably the driver. So I didn’t know that kind of thing in the beginning. But in 2000 there were enough colleagues, mainly from my estate planning work that I did and Nasrudin that people wanted to gather around the topic and help figure it out. So we really started as kind of a collaborative back then. And it turned out that none of them wanted to do any of the exploration work. They wanted me to do it. I thought I was joining together with a group. So eventually, I’m captured enough by the topic, and that I sold my practice 16 years ago. So I could do this work full time, because it really needed full time attention. Now that I’m thinking about it. I’ve said 16 years for so many years, it was probably more like 20 years ago. You know, I just don’t really think about that too much. But it’s a very complex topic, that doesn’t seem to have an endpoint, there’s always more. And now the, the profession really does look at transitions, not quite the way we do. But the it’s more recognized. It isn’t just a retirement or the death of a spouse. They’re looking at the human side. And it’s both sides are equally important, and equally complex.

Louis van der Merwe
Susan, have you seen people’s interest wane or come and Wayne, around this topic, because it feels like right at the moment, and maybe it’s just part of my awareness is that the so many people starting to talk about or even using the word transition, maybe not in the same context, we would use it. But it does feel like the time is ripe. For the work for financial planners to become aware and share with the clients? Do you feel that this is a different time than in the past? Yeah,

Susan Bradley
it really is, like, you know, transitions, these life disrupting events that pivot life in a new direction, because you’re not the same. After you sell your business, your retire, your parents pass and you’re now taking over some you you are at the core may be the same person, but you’re in a whole new life chapter. These kind of events have always driven the financial planning profession, right from the very early days, people want to hire someone to help them prepare for the events that they assume will happen in their life. And the things that might just happen. Thing, the the sense that these things are part of the the lifetime line. And then people also hire once the event happens, because they realize it isn’t just retirement or, or just the selling of a business, there’s a lot going on. So they need someone to help them put everything back together. And then they also the next time that someone would hire if you didn’t do it right in the beginning in anticipation, you hire an advisor to help you adjust to all that just changed. And the timeline for transitions is really long. So it’s always driven our profession, but we never wreck is like recognize it. It’s like the forest through the trees. It was so close to us, the human side, that we for some reason as a profession, chose to look at the technical side, the nuts and bolts, the facts, the things that we were trained in. I think the pandemic changed everything. But actually, there’s two things, the pandemic, and also the demographics, the aging of the baby boomers in America makes a really big difference. But then the pandemic that we found around the world has changed how we think about disruption and adjustment afterwards to the transition after such a big disruption.

Louis van der Merwe
What is it about the next generation that makes them want to talk a bit more about purpose and meaning because it feels to me as if a lot of the conversation now are now leading into that? And when someone says to me, I just want to sound bored or just want someone to help me think this through a smile because that’s the part that duck Yes. Okay. This is where we can actually add value. All the other things are just, you know, the nuts and the bolt says you often say that, yes, we should do but this is the piece that we can actually, like really add value.

Susan Bradley
Yeah, the y part of it. The y part of it. I think it’s the maturing of our of our cultures. As I said the baby boomers, which would be on the the the higher end of the age spectrum, are going through the events, the younger generations. are looking around and seeing a world that’s very different than the baby boomers grew up in. And the idea of having purpose and life plan and choices where the world is no longer so linear, you go to college, you get a degree, you get a job with a degree, your house, the kids like that. There’s choice, and there’s movement. I know financial planners that are digital nomads, and they do very good work. They live wherever they want, they work in all kinds of time zones. And they’re spectacular. That never happened that I know of before. And it isn’t just one person, there are several that I that I personally could name. And that’s unusual. So we’re moving into a very fluid kind of world with more uncertainty, and more choice. And in some ways, more threats to our well being than we had had before. A pandemic is definitely a threat to well being whether you had the COVID experience yourself, or you were surrounded by people are having it. It changed, it changed everything. And it lets us know, we live in a very connected world. So good things and bad things can swirl around and touch all of us. It’s a and we all have some voice. Now, you didn’t have voice before you had social media.

Louis van der Merwe
Susan, it feels like you’re trying to predict the future and where things are heading. And you’ve successfully done that now more than two decades, is that something that comes easy for you to determine to say these other skills we need to work on to still be relevant. Was that cultivated? Where does that come from?

Susan Bradley
I don’t know. In the beginning it the sudden money book, I had a couple of tools that decision Free Zone Tool, reality checks, things like that. I really didn’t know much about it. I was just I’m a scout, I’m not a pioneer, a Scout goes out into unknown territory and figures it out and brings back information to the pioneers. The Pioneers are the ones who build things. So I guess I was born to be that I am deeply curious. As the human condition. I’m transitions, human condition gets amplified. So it, I have apparently Undyne interest you think I’d be bored by now. Because I do know, I do tend to like shiny new objects. But it’s all within this same context. And so I think that what’s happened? Well, I know what happened. We had this community of the first this sudden money Institute, and now we call it the financial transition Institute. We have equally curious dedicated financial planners from around the world. And we look at the human dynamics of change, we talk about it. And as we talk about it in the various ways we get together, we see challenges differently. And then we start to try and address the challenges with the tools we have. And if that doesn’t work, we figure out a new tool. It’s called f5, to figure it out, and I seem to live in that space. And but it has to be practical. It can’t be so steeped in psychology or neurology or physiology, or even the adaptive change models that are out there in in the business of change management. It has to be centric to financial planning has to be practical has to be able to fit into the flow where you know this because you are one that it isn’t just hypothetical, you bring it into real life. Because it’s for planners buy planners.

Louis van der Merwe
And that’s so true. I mean, Susan, you’ve created this platform where advisors can come together and share their stories from the clients, but also work with the tools you’ve created. For people that are maybe not familiar with what the training entails. Can you share with us? How many CERTIFIED FINANCIAL transitioners are out there? What does it take to become one?

Susan Bradley
We’re still under 300. We’re probably closer to 200 than 300. And we’ve stayed pretty focused on our small group because that’s what it takes to really develop things. So instead of building stuff that you could put out there under this banner we’ve been doing it from the inside out. Now we have built a platform for 2000. So now we’re ready to to grow. And what we did, Louis is we looked at some of the reoccurring challenges that people have. And we build tools for them. So for instance, communication is a fundamental aspect of being a human being. But when you go through disruption and change in your life, the way you communicate or the way you need other people to communicate with you, frequently shifts, you go from socialized behavior for communication, they’re very hard wired. And you need it a certain way. Otherwise, you don’t hear you don’t absorb, you don’t remember. Or you you short circuit in some ways, the brain is not the same, in change as it is in status quo. So the brain kind of people say that frontal lobe, the frontal part of the brain for problem solving, long term thinking goes offline and the short term brain amygdala hijack. So communication is a is a really big issue. So we had to figure out how to have reset the communication between an advisor and the client and keep it fluid, because it might not be the same next year as it is now. So one of the first tools that planners learn when they come to our training is what we call communication preference. So people can say, this is what I need to be productive and comfortable and follow through. When you work with me as my certified financial transition is, please remember, my tendency to and my need for, I wish someone had taught me that when I started over 40 years ago, that is fundamental to good financial planning. But it’s essential in transitions, we realize that people were having trouble with all of the possibilities, all the noise, all the things in their head, there’s just like this confusion that goes on when you’re trying to put your life back together. So we use the decision free zone, where we talk about all of that. And then we help people sort and prioritize by what is urgent, what will hurt you, if you don’t take care of it right now. And then put everything into a soon or later category. It according to the neuro psych people, it changes the way the brain is it creates what some people call a calm brain. So decision making communication expectations, how to explore possibilities. So as we find these things, we created tools. So in our first in our core training, which is really advanced studies in certification and life transitions, there are nine tools, and that we call it core because they’re the core, you know this because you you’ve learned them, you use them, not all of them every day with every client. But they they’re, they’re really workable for all kinds of clients, high net worth low net worth young old people that really just suppose they just want to talk about their investments. And now introduces another side, you’re laughing with that? Do you have a story around that?

Louis van der Merwe
I too, because I’ve realized that these tools are the life tools, right. And I’ve probably used them as much with family members going through complex transitions than I have with clients. And they should be some kind of roadmap, right? You say these are the things that you can you can use in your everyday life, as opposed to Hey, when we talk about finance, so I’m wondering is, how much of this really has to do about the manual? Or is it just that the money is like such a key decision? Why did you decide to couple it with money?

Susan Bradley
Well, as I understand what we now call transition literacy, so we probably all know about financial literacy. And I was very dedicated to that in particularly in the 90s, when it was new, and we were forming it and I was on different boards and that kind of thing. So and the belief there is that money is a powerful force in all of our lives. It’s not as powerful as spirit, but it’s, it’s pretty powerful, some say the most powerful force. So just take that as a given, if you will. But there’s another powerful force again, besides spirit, it’s change. It’s change. We are built to change as human beings we don’t come in as babies and stay babies. We go through all these different events. So you take these two powerful forces and Wouldn’t it be great if from a young age, we developed financial literacy and transition literacy, because when those two forces come together, together, that’s when the amplification happens. That’s when the stakes are high big stuffs happening. And it’s like, a chance to write the next chapter of your life if you get it, if you understand what it what’s going on when those two intersect. So change is a really, really big force. And it is the human side. So what we would advocate is that you start on the human side, and you blend into the technical. Right now the in the profession is still more on the technical, and then you understand the human. We think it’s the other way around.

Louis van der Merwe
That’s very similar to the financial Therapy Association, which I think also defaults to, you know, typically therapists. So would you say that would be a more suitable path to take if this is what you want to lead from? Purely from an academic study perspective? If you could guide future financial planners? What do you think would be a reasonable place to start?

Susan Bradley
I think it depends upon the individual. I know the work of a Certified Financial transition is is therapeutic. People hear that all the time? Oh, yes. Like you’re my therapist. It’s, it’s it’s therapeutic. But it’s not therapy. Therapy is a very distinct profession. And it’s, it requires a lot from someone who wants to be that continuous application and advancement and all, I have tremendous respect for therapy and financial therapy. I do think it it depends, we find people who have done some version, and there’s so many different ways to enter the space of financial therapy, who have said, I, I’ve done this, I have a, I have a some kind of a foundation, they’re probably still active there. But now they want to go to the transition side, they’re still even within therapy. Transitions are the different experience. Remember, transitions are a finite period of time, there’s a beginning and ending is usually what happens. And then you’re in transit and movement to the new. And that’s a big gap that takes years. It takes years. And to be aware of that and lean into that and be able to be present for that and it’s called liminality. Is, is a big deal. Some people will certainly benefit from a therapist and financial transition hast some people would need more than more one than the other. I think, I think you you check it out. And you see what really resonates with you.

Louis van der Merwe
I think for me, the work around a slightly more positive approach around the you know, the positive psychology work, and also the fact that we can look to the future, as opposed to most therapeutic interventions that tend to work with the past and say, you know, how is this formed? Where you are, is the piece that really excites me is is that a piece that you find people struggle with to have a clearer picture of what the future might look like, specifically someone going through transition?

Susan Bradley
Well, I agree with you. My take on therapy week, Courtney POLIN has been with us since the second year. So he’s kind of like one of my brothers. And by the way, I have seven brothers. So I don’t take on new brothers very, very frequently. But Courtney and Dr. Moira Summers is also an our faculty and they helped us understand the distinction, kind of what you said. One is for the past, the other is for the future. I don’t think it’s cut and dry like that, but it’s a good base. One of the exciting things that happens around the human dynamics of change in the world in this happens, it beyond human beings happens in science, it happens in education. When you have a break in the norm and there is no going back. You have nothing but forward. How you want to address that is up to you and to have a guide that normalizes the awkwardness of separating from the past and moving towards your next chapter is is what I think the world has been missing except for in some ancient cultures where they had a lot of ritual around becoming a man or becoming a woman and that kind of thing. In in our culture, we, we just want people to get back on tracking, get going. So to be with someone in that pause that anchors in now and then look at possibilities without without locking yourself or, or, you know, dedicating to one next version, I always say leave yourself room so you can back up and turn around. So you, you want to taste you want to experience you want to say what if? What’s, what’s the possibilities here to rethink reimagine. I love the word reimagine. And when you give someone the opportunity to reimagine their narrative, their their going forward, it creates this open space that for some people can be threatening. But if you have a guide, who’s telling you it’s okay, you know, you don’t have to know everything right now, you end up with ideas that may never have surfaced. That’s so exciting to watch people move into this other version of life, their next chapter, beyond their expectations before safely with courage, but you’re there to kind of have the boundaries to keep them safe while they do that. That’s like magnificent. It’s fantastic to be able to do that. And you get paid to do that.

Louis van der Merwe
I want to talk a little bit about the protocols that we use as financial transition as then you just kind of lead into that around, you know, doing this safely and creating a safe space. Can you share with us the protocols and and specifically, giving the work back, I think that’s something as financial planners, that way at least I fall in the trap. And now with Rudolph and our practice, also going through this training, I get to revisit and kind of a refresher of what what the protocols are. And I just love to hear it from you.

Susan Bradley
Yeah, you know, as we said, this work has been evolving for over two decades. And there’s this massive body of work, if you look at our archives, a lot of it, we were doing just the same thing as in transition, we were trying to figure it out, there was just a lot there. And eventually, we figured out that what we’re we are built upon our three protocols. The first protocol is to keep a client safe. That’s not risk tolerance, although risk tolerance could be there. But it’s safe from making choices and decisions that they would live with an in regret for a long time. You want to help people back off from some of these, these things they think they have to do should do it help them explore in a way that safe you don’t want them to be in in harm’s way during this time. So safe, whatever that means for that client. And this EFT, the second protocol is to go to the balcony. And that’s a lovely idea of moving away from the deep the details, the weeds, the facts, and being able to get to a broader view of possibilities. So think of being in a garden, and you’re there and you know all the pieces and you can work that. But if you go to a high balcony, you can see the whole garden and well beyond and how things fit together. There’s a dance floor analogy as well with that. But what we do with that is as you know, the way that you you’re working with a client and they’re getting kind of stalled out, they’re getting tight on on something, they can’t quite work in a way that is meaningful, you can say, It’s okay, let’s just go to the balcony and take another view. Let’s go do this. So we train ourselves to have productive conversations on the balcony. It’s not just the view. It’s what do you do there? And how does that translate to come back to the details, both are important. The The other thing that the last of the three protocols is as you say, give the work back because you’re not really the expert as a transition. Just you may be in your CFP world. But when you’re working with your clients on their human experience, you’re their guide, you’re their thinking partner, they need to be able to inform you. The problem with that is most of us humans don’t know the answer. was to these big sort of interior questions. So you need structure to help somebody discover and articulate like that communication. Just to say, tell me what I need to know about you. That’s it’s too big of a question. You need a process. It can’t take too long. It has to be very indirect. And you let someone tell you how they’re best communicated with, that’s giving the work back.

Louis van der Merwe
I think it’s been so helpful around conversations where, you know, as you use it more you can identify and say, Okay, this piece could be really helpful now. Can we talk a little bit post certifications and how you become a transitioners? What happens then? Right? And what is your ultimate view around how this work evolves? And, you know, what can people expect post the core studies?

Susan Bradley
Well, it’s a great question. And we didn’t have a, you know, a maintenance and advance and mastery levels in the very beginning, it evolved over time. So when someone spent 12 months going through the program, and on average, they tell me, it takes four to six hours a month, which isn’t a terribly long time. But do that 12 times, and that’s a significant investment. And you have integrated these tools with your clients, you take an exam, and you maintain a high standard of fiduciary, and, and all of that. But then what is the question? And what we found is that we needed to have a way for people to stay continuously engaged at the level that works for them. So in may be just showing up once a month to our community calls or on our weekly huddles, and maybe once a quarter, you do a webinar, you do the virtual conferences, but you stay connected, we ask people to have 15 hours of CES every year. And we provide that, and our CES are acceptable in the states anyway, for CFP and CDFA. So it’s pretty high quality stuff is what we dedicate to. But then some people know that they’re wired to really go deeper. And they go on an advanced track where we meet once a month and go over cases. And there’s a whole body of advanced tools. And I don’t know that there’s ever a, an end to the tools, because they come based on needs. So I don’t know about that. And then some people want to go on further and they do a mastery track. And that starts with six months of work as a small group with Courtney pullin virtually. And he has reading there’s a book called Mastery. We don’t say Master, we say mastery, because it’s continuous. So there are six months of work with Courtney. And then every two years, we have a five day mastery or inward bound retreat, where we go to the mountains or we go to the ocean, and we spend those five years, those five years. Would that be nice? Five days long. Yeah, the Swanee is over the mountain. It’s not that it’s not that it’s but it’s looking at yourself, who am I, the giver of advice? How do I show up, and it’s profound. And so the people who have done that mastery program, inward bound, they usually come back every so we have a three day for the people who have done it. But at the end of the day, whether we call it continuous studies, advance maintenance, whatever, you are a member of the Institute, so everybody does pay a continuous membership fee. So we can be self sustaining, so we don’t have to sell out to other interests. And I knew that there, there’ll be new things when my time here is done and the next generation takes over. They’ll do it differently than I do it. But as long as there are human beings will be going through transition. As long as there’s financial planning, there’ll be that combination of money and change. So I don’t think we’re we’re becoming irrelevant. Many things lose their relevance over two decades, particularly in a fast paced world like we have. I am delighted and surprised that we’re becoming more relevant.

Louis van der Merwe
What are you spending most of your time on now? Like, what are those topics that interest you within the transitions space?

Susan Bradley
Well, really defining transition literacy has come up For me, the two things in the last 12 months have been that and this idea of having a structured conversation model that’s infinitely flexible. So we, we draw a square, and we put four quadrants inside the square. And so we divide up, what would be usually a pretty important, maybe difficult conversation with the client into four topics. So it could be, what is changing what needs to be protected? What are the decisions you’re thinking about? And what are consequences or what are the next step priority sets a basic one. And it’s a really big conversation, and it’s important, but to structure it one section at a time, at the end, you get a fairly complete picture of what’s happening and what needs to happen. And the fact that it is a visual is important, because that changes the way the brain works and helps people remember it, it is using a visual can increase recall by hundreds of times. So having that and then applying it in all kinds of areas has been fascinating. That just started in September. And now in last month, I was thinking about transition literacy as really a definable protocol. Because if you look up financial literacy, you’ll see it has three components, six components, people say different ways. But there’s some basic stuff. I need to really define transition literacy as tightly as we have had financial and I can do it enough in me, you know, and speaking topics, and that I just presented that to the NFL PA, as that was the main topic, transition literacy. But I think we have a good ways to go to really tighten that up.

Louis van der Merwe
Absolutely. I mean, it strikes me how a lot of this work could be seen as coaching. Is there similarity? Do you draw inspiration from it? Or is it maybe just my lens that I’m viewing this work?

Susan Bradley
You know, that’s interesting. I, over the years, people have come to us and said, You know, I am coaching in this space, and they come to do the training. The training so far has not really fit people for doing coaching. There, there are some tools that certainly are helpful, and there’s some modifications we could make to a shorter version of training for coaches. We just haven’t had the time for that. But I have found that that coaches are not doing the same work as the CFT. I didn’t know that in the beginning, nor did they. And we were trying, we had best effort on both sides. And it just, you know, it’s like having a great pair of shoes, but it’s not quite the right size.

Louis van der Merwe
For me, it’s been that the coach training, I think helps you to listen to help. Yes, some of the work back yet the transition is Insitute. Was that tie back to the CFP work? Because otherwise, if you’re just coaching, you’re hoping that that client would come up with some of the financial solutions by themselves, which, you know, that won’t happen. You do need to tie it back.

Susan Bradley
Yeah, I think you’re right in that. Coach coaching training would be helpful. There, but yeah, what I was talking more about is someone who is in the business of coaching. So that’s their business model. It doesn’t seem to translate even. I used to do this faculty work for this group of estate planners that worked with high net worth people. And we spoke the same language, but when they came in for this training, they don’t spend that kind of time with their clients. And they would use some of the tools as a quick problem solver. But it it wouldn’t integrate in. So I’m happy to let anybody come in and try it out. But so far, it’s people that really work in the financial advisory and financial planning space that get the most out of it, because it’s really who it was designed for. I

Louis van der Merwe
wonder if part of that is just the amount of time we spend with our clients like building a relationship not necessarily charging every minute or then getting an invoice for this session. Because what I’ve seen with the clients going through transition that I’m working, it definitely takes more time than clients, don’t you it, the outcome is multiples of clients that are not going through transitions.

Susan Bradley
Yes, yes, it’s it is true, someone said to me, I don’t want to work with clients in transition, they’re just high overhead. And I think that that would be true for someone who doesn’t have training and tools for the efficiency and the real connectivity. And someone who doesn’t have a model for being compensated for that unique work. And that’s been a struggle. Over the last four or five years, we’ve been moving into a tighter understanding of how to charge for a transition of life transition engagement as a separate offering. So not everybody is able to do it depends upon their business platform. But the ones who have tried it out, there’s a few of them that I think of when I’m talking about this. They’re doing magnificent work. And they’re paid well, so that they’re not losing money there. So they can really be all in and bring part of their team in. And they’re used the complex situations, you don’t need all of that for the everyday transition. But sometimes transitions throw a whole family unit into chaos. And to step into that the attorneys don’t want to do that work, because they charge by the hour. And the CPAs are not wired to do that. So it it’s the financial advisor, people that may or may not pay. We just in our last conference, we were talking about how do you structure and agreement with scope and timelines and achievement objectives? It’s, it’s different. It’s different, gets challenging, very rewarding,

Louis van der Merwe
something that’s so fluid, and expect to have a very simple charging structure linked to that. Can we talk a little bit about the transition as training outside of the US like how does these other countries fit in? Because most of the transitions are based in North America, yet, the EU not exclusive to North America. So maybe just touch on that for us a bit?

Susan Bradley
Well, the, the lovely AHA that we got was that our work is transferable. It transcends I think the way to say it transcends culture, transcends that timezone on. And business platforms. We’re really working on the human side. And I think the first person who really opened me up to this was Lavon Devaki, in India, and he was in the US at FPA conference. And we started talking that was well over 10 years ago, and Claire Stenstrom and Peter budge in Australia. So in both cases, that goes back a long time. We do have timezone challenges. So we try and accommodate as, as best we can. It really is the same process, the same tools, when they need to be adjusted, we can work with people on the adjustments, that’s easy to do. The hardest part, working internationally is gathering in person, because that’s such a joy. Even last year, when we had a hurricane hit our conference, we we did great work, we we loved it 12 People stayed towards the end, and hurricane was very bad. But we all have this hurricane conference experience that we share. And you don’t get that virtually. That’s our that’s our tough part.

Louis van der Merwe
I know Marriott from South Africa also joined us. Fortunately, I could now see the virtual ones is one of these. There’s just so much knowledge for me. almost an equal amount of that came from cool training is just listening how people use this within their business.

Susan Bradley
Yes, yes. That’s always that that conference, almost all of except for three of the sessions, where CFT is talking in detail on how they do what they do the challenges and and that sort of, and you’re right. We did package that up. We were transitioning us we have to deal with what life gives us So before the conference was over, we had a hurricane virtual do over conference. We recorded 15 hours and now it’s available. You don’t have to be a member of the Institute. If you want to check out what we do, that’s probably the best way to see it. And you have you have it, you own it, you have time to watch it, and that kind of thing. But yeah, the, the brainstorming the connectivity in person is amazing. Although, I mean, Lily, you know, you know, yourself the, the relationships that can build without ever having met anyone. I remember Chris Dale showed up at our conference, I’d known him for a couple of years. And all of a sudden, this really tall guy came and I said, Oh, my gosh, you’re so tall. You know? Or you’re so sure, or you’re so this, he you just don’t see that. And it’s fun. But the connection. I mean, you’re connected to so many people around the world. I know. I can’t imagine how many people we know in common. But if I mentioned your name, frequently, someone say, oh, yeah, I know him because of so you’re a master at doing that God

Louis van der Merwe
the end of Africa.

Susan Bradley
But you’re there you’re present.

Louis van der Merwe
It definitely there was a time during the peak of COVID, where it was easier to connect with someone in New York, than to connect with my neighbor. I’m grateful for that time, because it also led to this work. But yet, there’s still a piece missing. That, you know, like you said, you can only get in these in person, there’s a little bit more for people that are listening and saying, Oh, they really want to explore this a little bit more like what would be the best next step.

Susan Bradley
There’s a couple of things once a month now at 4pm. Eastern, which would not be convenient for you, that would work for other time zones. But we’re going to record it. So it’ll be available, there’ll be a 2025 minute intro that just is basic. So this is our why and this is the how and this is your next step. So that won’t be available after I hope after this week, we give the first one in two days, the hurricane conference would certainly give you a deep look. But the real thing is if if people really are interested, it’s good to just ask for a chat or ask for a zoom call, talk, I can help you figure out if it really is a good fit for you. And then sign up to one of our core training. That’s our advanced certification. That’s a 12 month thing we talked about. We have them in June. We have them in November, and we have them in March. So three times a year. If we have enough people, in certain circumstances, if we have 15 or more, we can create an individual cohort and work more on your terms. Or if there’s a specialized area like football, people who advise football players, we could do one just for them because they have some specialized needs. But right now, it’s three times a year in core training.

Louis van der Merwe
Susan, I wanted to say thank you so much for sharing this. Today, a lot of it was a refresher. And it’s just always wonderful to hear how you think about the future and where this is heading. I look forward to creating the first transitions based practice in South Africa once we’d have get his designations and I’d be very proud of that. But we’re just getting started.

Susan Bradley
Yes, in a way, Louis, we all are. I think the future is unfolding every minute of every day. And we’re learning how to just stay in the flow of it. And as a transition is that something that we train ourselves to be willing to do and and good at and I love meeting you this way and knowing I feel like I’ve known you forever and I’m gonna get off this call and be with Katie Braden, who is someone else who knows you so it’s, it’s a small and wonderful world. Thank you for being interested in and being the great planner that you are.

Louis van der Merwe
Thank you Susan.