Commitment and Education With Brian Ashe

Brian Ashe

Brian Ashe is the President of Brian Ashe and Associates, Ltd. He has been a NAIFA member for 51 years and served as the President of the DuPage County Chapter. Since 1969, Brian has assisted clients with life, health, disability, annuity, and equity products in the insurance and investment business. His work concentrates on estate conservation, retirement planning, employee benefits, and business insurance strategies. Brian specializes in business continuity, transition, succession planning, executive benefits, and estate and legacy planning.

Brian is also a partner at The Business Strategies Group of Illinois, helping business owners implement strategies to protect, preserve and pursue more value from their business more tax-efficiently for 15 years. He served as the Executive Vice President at LIFE Foundation for 10 years, and was also the Chair at the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Brian Ashe talks about his start in the financial services profession
Teaching the value of life and health insurance to the public
The foundation for life insurance: health, disability, and long-term care insurance
What is the hardest part of the profession?
Brian explains the importance of giving to your community and family
Brian discusses developing the habits and discipline to define your character

In this episode…

Understanding and planning for your financial future can be disorienting. When you’re making a decision to protect your business, life, and family, you want to make the right choice. What can you do to optimize your decisions in the midst of uncertainty?

Brian Ashe follows the guideline of “no involvement, no commitment” when it comes to being a financial professional. During an important time in the life of his clients, Brian is dedicated to serving and educating individuals to make the best possible choices.

In this episode of Advisor Today, Suzanne Carawan and Chris Gandy sit down with Brian Ashe, President of Brian Ashe and Associates, Ltd., to discuss compiling the foundation of life insurance based on mutual trust and commitment. Listen as Brian talks about steps to erase the negative perception and impact that haunt the insurance industry, create a sustainable future for your clients, and enhance your commitment to your community through acts of giving.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, or NAIFA, the #1 association for producers in financial services.

At NAIFA, we enhance professional skills, promote ethical conduct, and advocate for legislative and regulatory environments.

By joining NAIFA, you gain access to a partnership that elevates your performance while providing greater purpose to your professional work. NAIFA members are happier, make more money, and stay in the business longer.

Get in touch with NAIFA and learn more about how to join NAIFA by visiting NAIFA.org.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:02

Welcome to NAIFA's Advisor Today podcast series where we focus on how financial advisors work, live and give to their local communities and our greater financial services industry. Now, let's get started with the show

Chris Gandy 0:21

Hi, everyone, this is Chris Gandy, your co host of Advisor Today's podcast, where we feature the top leaders in the insurance and financial services industry with our beautiful co host Suzanne Carawan welcome, Suzanne. We're super excited today for another episode of Advisor Today, where we interview advisors to understand what they're doing at work in life and how they're giving back to society. Previous guests include past President Tom Michael, yet yet of the year, Brian Haney and numerous others that you'll hear from and leaders in the industry. Suzanne, would you take it away for our feature our sponsor?

Suzanne Carawan 1:05

Sure. Today's sponsor is actually NAIFA's as national leadership conference that's upcoming November 13. Through 15th, we thought we'd take a pause to talk about volunteer leadership because our guest speaker today has a lot of that under his belt, and we want to tap into that. But it's also a call to action for all of you out there. If you're not a member of NAIFA, please join go to naifa.org/join. And hopefully Brian can help you convince you why that is if you if you're not already a member, if you are a member, it might be a time to really start to do a little soul searching and seeing are you giving back to your professional association. Volunteer Leadership is something that only NAIFA has at these national, state and local levels. We have over 1500 leaders nationally. And we come together every year in Washington DC to celebrate our top leaders through membership awards, gala celebration, and additional time for thought leadership. With that we hope to see you again, National Leadership Conference November 13 through 15th. You can check it out at belong.NAIFA.org/NLC back to you, Chris.

Chris Gandy 2:07

Thank you, Suzanne. Today we're very fortunate to have one of the one of the one of the legends of the game. Mr. Brian Ashe, Brian Ashe a little bit on his bio is the president of Ashe and Ashe and Associates, hills, A CLU and LACP has been a NAIFA has been a NAIFA member for 51 years, and also an MDRT member for 51 years. He has been in the insurance and investment business since 1969, assisting clients with life, health, disability, annuity and equity products. His work is concentrated in estate conservation, retirement planning and employee benefits and business insurance strategies. Brian has been on the board of life happens Past President of MDRT, past president of the Chicago chapter of society of financial services professionals, and has 15 core to the table honors, and for top of the table honors with MDRT. With no further ado, welcome Mr. Brian Ashe, Brian, good to see you.

Brian Ashe 3:12

Good to see you too, Chris. Thanks for having me.

Chris Gandy 3:14

All right. So you know, one of the things we like to do here is just kind of, you know, ask you some questions about your journey. To learn more about about about you, the value that you you know, you bring to the to the industry and ultimately, ways in which others can can learn from your experience or your opportunity. So, you know, Brian, to get started. Tell us how did you get started in the business? I mean, you didn't start last week, but you know, you've you've got you've got some experience. So Brian, share with us. How did you get started? How did you get into business?

Brian Ashe 3:54

Well, when I graduated from college, I went to the University of Illinois in Chicago. And I had I had worked all the way through college, I'm the oldest of 10 kids. So I had to work to pay for school. And when I graduated from school, from college, I wanted to stay in the Chicago area. I wasn't really interested in relocating someplace. And I did a little bit of work with the Chicago Tribune, I wrote some advertising radio and TV, newspaper advertising for them. And then I really wanted to get into the sales area. And it seemed like the Financial Services profession offered more of a chance to be really reimbursed based upon individual effort, that your financial future your career future was not going to be based so much on the decisions that other people were making, but more of the decisions and effort that you were willing to put in yourself. My next door neighbor had happened to be in the life insurance business with the old home life insurance company. And he was working with an organization called physicians planning Service Corporation. And he said, you know, based upon your background and some of the things I was doing, then he said, I think you would do well, in our business. And I started working with the home life insurance company. And based upon the association they had with physicians planning Service Corporation, really started early in my career, Chris to concentrate on the medical marketplace. And over the years, develop probably about 600 physicians as clients along with a lot of other clients in, you know, the regular commercial pursuits, but my initial concentration was on young physicians, and I spent a lot of my early years standing in hospitals, calling the actors to see if I could get 15 or 20 minutes of their time to help them and let them know what we did.

Chris Gandy 6:02

That's interesting, Brian, you, you, you've had, you've had a quite quite quite quite a journey. Share with us a little bit about life happens, you know, for those who are new to NAIFA, and you know, your journey with life happens. Can you share with us a little bit about why that was part of your journey? And what life happens? What is it and how advisors can utilize it? Sure.

Brian Ashe 6:36

Well, from a historical standpoint, if you went back to, let's say, the mid 80s, the life insurance business was beginning to get a bad reputation, because of the universal life policies that had been sold in a very high interest environment. That began to collapse somewhat as the interest rates began to drop. And the regulators, the lay press, just about everybody was saying bad things about life insurance companies, life insurance products, and the people who sold them. And there was no, there was essentially no organization that could provide an effective response to that negativity. So a six companies had gone under including executive life and mutual benefit life, mutual benefit had been around for 120 years. So it was really, really bad. And if you were selling back then you never really got a very positive reception. And so the companies came together in 1994. And under the leadership of Dave Woods, who is now past president of NAIFA, decided that they were going to throw some money together, to try to provide some messaging and communications, that would be good for the industry to educate, buying public about the value of life insurance, and the value of professional advice. So they started something called The Life and Health Insurance foundation for education. The the acronym was life. And in 1995, they started coming out with both radio and television ads, which our industry had never, ever done before, that were very dramatic, and began to move that needle forward to a very positive reaction to the products and the people who sold them. They, they renamed the organization life happens at a point later, but they started something called real life stories. And the real life stories were very dramatic. And they were from the perspective of the individual who purchase the product to help save, protect his or her business, or protect his or her family. Disability to replace income. Later on some long term care for best people began to age. And I was I was overjoyed that Dave and the companies had put together this this program, they started off with almost $10 million worth of funding, which was a lot of money back in 1995. And when I finished my service on the executive committee of the million dollar roundtable, I was asked to serve on the Board of life happens, which I did, and later was asked The chair, life happens in 2005. And then I stayed on as treasurer. And then I became Executive Vice President, I wound up having 18 years of work with with life happens. So it was, it was very much a labor of love because I felt there was a great need for, for educating the public being kind of like the public relations arm of the of the life insurance business.

Suzanne Carawan 10:27

So one thing I want to know, Brian is because you have sat at the executive level of life as well as MDRT, for for such a incredible span when technologies come in and really disrupted everything and change the whole business. And of course, we just had that pandemic and whatnot. But overall, the course of what you've seen, can you give us some thoughts there on what you've what what's changed that you've seen in the industry? And what what really you see is coming right, what hasn't changed? What stayed the same? And then we nice to get some thoughts there on on both the adviser side, the consumer side? What's your take on that?

Brian Ashe 11:02

Well, certainly Suzanne, from the adviser side, I think NAIFA And to a certain extent, the million dollar roundtable to at least domestically has experienced a lessened interest in participating in volunteerism from financial service professionals. I'm not exactly sure what the genesis of that decrease in participation was. But million dollar roundtable, membership in the United States has remained relatively flat over the past 15 years or so. Back in 1999, just before the millennial change, you know, there are about 144,000 Members of NAIFA. The society has experienced that gamma i think is all of the associations have experienced a downturn in membership. And I'm not exactly sure what what the cause is. But I think that it has had long term negative effects. Because associations give you as an individual power that you don't have as an individual because you are with like minded people who can help move the needle on things like life happens, the perception of our business and education. And certainly in the areas that NAIFA is so strong in legislatively both the state and the national level. I served as the Legislative Chair for Illinois, back in the mid 90s, as well. And I can tell you that when we had the opportunity to meet with legislators, which we did every year and kind of bullet point, the issues of Illinois got like 5000 bills that went through the legislature every year, there's no way that those folks did have a good understanding of what they were passing until we were there. So there was there's been a drop off. I don't know exactly why. Sometimes there's been, I think, a little bit of a moving off of messaging from the planning standpoint where life insurance has been kind of secondary. And of course, that's one of the lead products for people like NAIFA and the million dollar Roundtable, the investment scene has become much more exciting. People know more about beta and Sharpe ratios than they do about what's the average age that a widow dies. And consequently, I think we've we've struggled over the past several years going forward. You know, they're predicting that in the next 10 years or so we'll probably have 30 to 40% fewer advisors than we have now. People like me who used to have dark hair are now you know, looking like they could be the centerfold for cute tip magazine. And and we need to have young advisors in the future, who are not only skilled at dealing with the investment side of the ledger, but also the foundational things for life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance and long term care insurance. And I frankly, from my perspective of doing this for as long as I have find it difficult to believe that any financial plan can really do the job that it's supposed to do. If the foundational products of life health disability, long term care are not taken care of first, I don't know how you could consider yourself a financial professional without addressing some of those issues. So that will be a challenge in the future. And of course, one of the reasons that I think our association should be so strong is, I think demonstrated just by looking at the compliance issues that we have to deal with on a daily basis, we have to be able to talk to legislators and regulators about what can work and what can't work in servicing the public, in 40% of the adults in this country own no life insurance, that we have problems with people putting enough money away into their 401 K's in their IRAs, if we are tremendously burdened by regulations that will continue. And the only way that that can be modified, is by having strong association participation, you know, that the old Stephen Covey line still works today. And that is a you know, no involvement, no commitment. And I think that should be kind of the guideline for everybody on there. voluntarism, no involvement, no committed, if you're truly committed to your business, if you want to make a difference to yourself to your company, and to the people that you're serving, you need, you need to be involved. And that means taking some time, showing up at meetings, agreeing to serve on committees, and so forth.

Chris Gandy 16:20

So Brian, you mentioned you mentioned something as an advisor. I'm not quite, you know, as long as you know, as long as a tooth is you are currently but we hope we can be in the business as long as you've been able to be in the business. But I think you said something very interesting that I think people need to hear is that you mentioned commitment, right? There's a difference between a commitment and an interest. And the difference is convenience. As I think that for a long period of time. Let's say you've been in the business, you're in the business when I think I was in high school. I know for sure we I mean, based on the background, right? I mean, you've been in the business twice as literally twice as long as me. And so when we stopped to think about it, when I came into the business, we just kind of compare the the generations. When I came into the business when you came into the business, it was the debit business, right? It was a completely different different business than it is I came into this

Brian Ashe 17:16

coming out of the debit business, but that was certainly a vestige that was

Chris Gandy 17:21

absolutely there was more companies, there was more opportunity. When I came into the business, it was more around. This is the cool club to be in. Right because all the major opportunities that existed for the barrier to entry into the financial space went through the insurance industry, the northwestern Mutual's of the world, the New York Lifes of the world. You know, the large career companies were the ones that had were putting time, energy and effort into kind of that mentor and development phase really, been very much so right. So I believe what's happened in my observation, just during my timeline of being in the business, and a committed committed person is, is that I feel like from my perspective, we've seen a change in the industry that has, has gone super fast. However, our industry itself has not yet changed the way we we bring people into the business, right. So you know, Brian, we came into the business when I started to say do the project 200. Remember that? Your 200 closest friends, but we live in a world now, where you're right, the world of Financial Services and Financial Planning is more attractive, quote, unquote, in the market space as a marketing tool than the necessary principles of what it takes to build a successful portfolio. I'll give you an example. I played sports. Everybody wants to see somebody dunk a basketball. Everybody is like the crowd goes crazy, right? No one wants to see someone make free throws. Shoot,

Brian Ashe 19:09

Chris, that was always a challenge for me.

Chris Gandy 19:14

But that's what it was right, everybody, but it's the same two points, right? If I score score free throws, it's the same two points. If I dunk a basketball, why did we get different? Why do we get completely different responses? So So I think you hit on something, the commitment and the interest and I think evolving and being apart and committed volunteering into the interest. I think as the industry grows, you're right. We've got to figure out collectively, if we put down the barriers between the societies and the organizations and the companies, we've got to figure out how to get more people in the business. Doing it. They're building it the right way. Right, committed to the risk side as much as they're committed to the investment side because that's holistic approach. And I think you've obviously through your work, you've done that. And I think you hit an amazing point. Tell me what's been your biggest challenge. So MDRT obviously, you've done that. And then you've done top of the table, you've done core to the table. You know, we don't need to go to meet you. Do you know that your accolades are fantastic during your career? What's been the hardest part about accomplishing those those things? What's been the hardest part about doing it and doing it consistently?

Brian Ashe 20:35

prospecting? It sounds like that was overly simple. But honestly, Chris, you know, what, if you listen to Joe Jordan, Joe says, our business is based upon two columns, prospecting, and everything else. And it's so true. You and I could be the smartest advisors in our agency, we could be the smartest advisors in our country in the country, we could have a company that has the absolute pinnacle of reputation. But if we got nobody to talk to, nothing's gonna happen. And there's an old saying that, you know, nothing happens until somebody sells something. Right. And so getting activity to me, to me, that was always a focus. For years, the roundtable would give out a special ribbon, if you did 150 lives. I concentrated on doing 150 lies, sometimes it was life insurance, sometimes it was disability, you know, in a combination. I mean, I know companies right now that you could have, you could have two thirds of their advisors who don't do 10 Life Insurance applications in a year. 50. So, I, it sounds a little bit simplistic to say prospecting. But that was always the challenge for me. And my answer was to try to get out in front of as many people as possible, that gave me the opportunity to talk not only about the life insurance, but the IRA, the 401 K, the estate planning, and so forth. So having, having some concentration on the importance of those foundational issues and going out and having people talk about it, and I think you know, as well as I do, that if you can be successful talking about the foundational issues, which aren't quite as exciting as dunking the basketball, a heck of a lot easier to talk to them about their investment planning, or whether or not they're exposed to the federal or the state inheritance taxes, because you've overcome that barrier. So, so finding good questions involving people having a concentration on seeing lots of people to tell the story was always a challenge for me, and I think it's a challenge for most advisors today. Talk to me about,

Chris Gandy 23:22

you know, you you've, you've held the flag for NAIFA. You you've you've held the flag, you know, you volunteered your time, you're committed to the work that you do, what's your proudest moment? I mean, could you could you put Could you put up, could you put a star on that and say, okay, you know, this is a pretty proud moment for me. Well, what would you what would you what would you say has been your proudest moment along along the journey?

Brian Ashe 23:46

Well, I guess, if I were to pick out one thing, I had a lot of involve I served on 34 committees with the million dollar roundtable. I, I tried to speak probably almost twice a month, for NAIFA for about 20 years, as served with with the society and the only reason I'm going through these things that said, Oh, look, all the stuff that he did, but it was kind of like a coming together of all of those things. And 2012 When, when my peers elected to give me the John Newton Russell award, if I were to say that that was the proudest moment in the business, it was given being given the John Newton Russell award in 2012. Because of the the company that I was in the prior leaders, who had done so much given so much of themselves, that that, that my peers thought that I could be considered in the same circle with them. And you know, it It touched upon for, for people to even suggest your name, this society, the round table, gamma NAIFA. So it was the aggregation of all of the organizations that I had tried to offer some assistance to from a volunteer standpoint, that kind of culminated in that. And I would say that, you know, there, there have not been too many people since 1945, that have received that award. And so I would say, it was a very proud moment had nothing to do about how much money I made, or, you know, being fitted for something, it was more saying, hey, you know, what, we appreciate you We appreciate your commitment. You know, hopefully it serves as an example for other people to give back to an organization that gave so much to me, I listened to the podcast that you had with Brian Haney. And you know, he was talking about paying back and, and certainly, I started my 54th year in the business, August 1, I got a lot of payback to offer. And the successes I've had, have generally been because I'm a really good thief. I steal ideas from everybody that I can talk to, and I met, I wish I could have some really, really interesting, original ideas. But most of it has come from listening and paying attention to and rubbing elbows with people who felt as committed as I did, and really wanted to make a difference. So it kind of culminated with the John Newton Russell award.

Chris Gandy 26:40

What about mentors? I'm going to put you up there on the Mount Rushmore of of life insurance. I'm gonna put you up there. Who would you say is your mentor? And then what is it that you learned from them? That just was so powerful? What What would you say that would do for someone to pick one?

Brian Ashe 27:03

Yeah, let me see if I can answer that from two perspectives, because I was involved in putting together the mentoring program for the million dollar round table in the 1990s. There had been a couple of attempts before that by other people. So that wasn't, again, wasn't all my idea. But we kind of finally got it all together and launched it in the mid 90s. And, you know, got some of the big companies to go along with, with putting people through that program. And I think to date, I know a couple years ago, there were like 8000 people who had been through that mentoring program, and it's, it's still continuing to this day. Certainly, I would, if I had to pick one person, one person, I think it probably would have been Dave Hilton. Dave Hilton was the Northwestern Mutual agent. He was a president of the million dollar round table. He was a CPA by training. He was just, he was kind of like the renaissance man. He, he knew art, he knew music. He knew numbers. He was a tremendous family person, absolutely committed to the business. And, unfortunately, died early. He was a diabetic at the end of his life. But he was so disciplined. I mean, you know, if it was one minute past the time that he was supposed to eat something, you'd you'd find him, you know, buried in the refrigerator, grabbing something to eat, but he was he was just an absolutely wonderful person. And if you could emulate his qualities of you know, kind of being a renaissance person, give to your the things that we've talked about, give to your family, give to your community, give to your business, help others lift them up, then I think that that day would certainly be an example that other people could aspire to. And, and certainly there are things in the the MDRT logs that they can probably find on Dave Hilton. He was just a wonderful, wonderful, man.

Chris Gandy 29:19

So you got a chance to know know, Mr. Hilton, senior correct because there's David Hillman Jr. When I was coming up, he was kind of the guy there was like, Yeah, but there were senior who if you go if we go back and look at time, I believe grant part of Graham's book actually was part of the study of that agency and he was a part of that study. So you know, it's kind of all comes full circle right is that the proof is in the pudding. First things first, Stephen Covey right and we look forward to to hearing your quotes when you put them out there and in your in your your your your knowledge. Before we get to kind of wrapping You know, if you were to give advice to individuals out there today listening to, let's say anything to you, what advice would you give advisors? That will help them get through the next 1520 years? What advice would you give them? If you were, if you're looking back saying, hey, you know, here's what, here's what I would do, because this is what you heard this was what's ahead of you?

Brian Ashe 30:27

Well, actually, Chris, I think I could share a quote with you, that maybe kind of sums it up. And it actually came from a presentation. But I heard David Hilton give us and the quote was this. You saw a thought. And it reaps an act. You saw an act. And it reaps a habit. You saw a habit. And it reaps a character. And you saw a character. And it reaps a destiny. And I think that in all of our lives, and over the next 10, or 15 years for all of the things that we can face from changing products, compliance, regulation, taxation, and my God, we've had lots of changes in taxation, from 1913. Till now when the income tax was generated. If we believe that, whatever we think about that, we turn into an action that becomes a habit to have the discipline to to develop the character, then our destiny is shaped by that, that the future is not something that just kind of happens to us, the next 15 or 20 years, the future is something we can create. That's not my original thought that comes from other people to the future is not something that just arrives, the future is something that we can create. And it's created by doing the thinking, the acting, the habit formation, the character development. And then you have both personally and business wise, a destiny that I think you can be proud of, you know, destiny comes from the same word as destination, what where are we going? That's your destiny. It's not fate. It's not something that's out of our control. It's very much in our control, because we can create the future. But we have to have that, that discipline. And I think a lot of that discipline comes from being committed and participating, with your colleagues to make sure that good things happen. Because in the absence of good people doing good things, bad things happen. And the only way we can get away from those is by people being involved and committed.

Chris Gandy 32:50

Last thing before we get to the speed round, can you just give two seconds on what's NAIFA meant in your life and in your career?

Brian Ashe 33:01

What NAIFA has has meant a tremendous amount to me, because it was back then when I when I first started, you actually had to be a member of NAIFA to be a member of MDRT. That's right. So so when when I was so wet behind the years in the business, my first contact with industry participation was NAIFA. I was a member of the DuPage County, Illinois National Association of life underwriters, and and I liked being there. I liked hearing things that I hadn't heard before, whether it was a speech that was meant to be inspiring, or it was an educational presentation on a product or how to handle a marketplace. So that that kind of motivated me, I wouldn't miss one of those meetings. Then I volunteered for that board. And then I was president of the of the DuPage. County Association in 1985. After serving there, yeah, I always had an interest in in legislation. So when people asked for help with the, with the Illinois assembly, I volunteered to do that. And it taught me all sorts of things about the legislative process and and how the committees worked and how a bill is moves through the assembly. And then, you know, rubbing shoulders with people like Dave Woods, who was the president of NAIFA, who wound up finally find founding, life happens The Life and Health Insurance foundation for education. All throughout my career, there have been touches with NAIFA Even when I was doing work with the society, or the million dollar roundtable. We were we were in inextricably inter woven, we had different perspectives on the business because that's why the association's were developed, you know, productivity and ethics, advanced underwriting was, you know, the the political representation nationally and at state level. And I had an opportunity to see the power of NAIFA. And, to this day, I think it's probably true that there's no other organization who has a member of financial professional, and a, and a citizen. In every district in the United States, from a grassroots standpoint, we're powerful, powerful people. So that had great attraction for me, and it taught me a lot. So NAIFA has been, like I say, inextricably interwoven in just about all I have done, probably from, you know, like the, the early 70s 1971 72, over 51 years.

Chris Gandy 36:06

Awesome. Well, you know, we can continue to talk to you probably for the next two hours, we understand you're super busy, thank you so much for all you do, giving back being a part of the organization, any association, the the path in which you've paved, so that younger professionals can can can go down that path and mimic some of the commitments and the behaviors that you guys have put forth. Like yourself, you know, we're honored to be in your presence. And we can learn so much from you going forward. I'm going to move to the speed round if you're good with that, which I know we didn't give you the questions but I'm gonna give them to you and and what is Brian, right off the top of your head, you know, just tell me what comes to mind. This is always fun, because it gives people kind of a an opportunity to kind of see kind of your fun character, kind of that type of thing. And so we'll have some fun with this because I know you you're a Chicago guy. So we'll have we'll have a little bit of fun with this. You ready? Okay. Cubs are White Sox,

Brian Ashe 37:15

White Sox, White Sox. I used to be not sure at Comiskey Park, so

Chris Gandy 37:21

Oh, wow. Favorite Chicago athlete of all time. Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan. Okay. Got it. Favorite public speaker?

Brian Ashe 37:33

Favorite public speaker? Ronald Reagan probably.

Chris Gandy 37:37

Oh, wow. Okay. Ronald Reagan. All right. And, and and finally, but not least, favorite type of pizza.

Brian Ashe 37:47

Sausage.

Chris Gandy 37:49

So he's got a spin on a deep dish or Chicago style. I think crust,

Brian Ashe 37:56

thin crust. The deep the deep dish is just a little bit too much for me. I I tell people I've entered the furniture stage of my life because my chest is slipping into my drawers.

Chris Gandy 38:14

Thank you, Brian. You know, it's a joy to spend time with you. Hopefully we see at NLC if we don't see you NLC. See, we will go and we will represent on the on the stairs of Washington, all the work that you guys have done, that have paved the way for us to continue to do advocacy, and bring the industry together for the for the better of serving people. So thank you so much. Any parting words? Mr. Brian?

Brian Ashe 38:42

Well, I would just Thank you for all of the effort to put these programs together. Because I think it's important that in the in this day and age of digital presence, and we're certainly over the last couple of years with the pandemic, to be able to have continuing contact. We have a lonely business many times and kind of nice to be able to see what other people are doing what they have on their minds, and in some cases, what the solutions are. So kudos to you guys for for doing this and, and forgiving of all of your time and effort to help the rest of us. Of course.

Chris Gandy 39:21

Thanks for being here. Suzanne are wonderful co-host anything, anything you want to leave any final thoughts before I

Suzanne Carawan 39:28

will say if you love what you heard today, Brian Ashe has been agreed to be a new feature contributor to the Advisor Today blog. So we'll get more of his insights and wisdom. And just a few, probably short weeks. Thanks, Brian.

Brian Ashe 39:41

Thank you Suzanne.

Chris Gandy 39:43

All right. So as we wrap up today, we heard so much from Brian Ashe, you know, as you heard, you know, you can develop habits, behaviors, but he said something so interesting that I hope it sticks with you is that this this path that we're going down is An absolute commitment versus just an interest. So all of you volunteer, get involved. And again, thank you for listening to the advisor today podcast where we come together collectively to uplift each other, to grow our business, to advise each other and also to pave the way for the future of those who are behind us. And that allows for us to be better by doing better by booth by doing good. So thanks all of you. Thanks for being here. And look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks Brian.

Outro 40:35

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