Morris Morrison is a world-class speaker, author, and entertainer who has learned the value of choosing to tell a better story and the power that comes from the stories we live. Drawing purpose and inspiration from his faith, family, and motivation to energize individuals and communities, Morris builds stronger, smarter, and kinder human beings. 

Morris has a unique brand of engagement that captivates his audience, whether live on stage or in his books. Leaders from Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and churches worldwide have partnered with him to build fearless, focused leaders that drive uncomfortable change, growth, and disruption.

 

 

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

• Morris Morrison shares how his adolescent experience influenced his profession 
• Tips for communicating, storytelling, and connecting with people 
• Fundamentals for aspiring financial industry professionals seeking success 
• How to set high standards, overcome business challenges, and give back
• Morris’s perspective on leaving a legacy for future generations
• Pointers for becoming a phenomenal public speaker 
• Morris talks about the importance of humility
• The correlation between leadership, self-care, and maturity

In this episode…

Do you have what it takes to become a fearless, focused leader who drives change, growth, and disruption in any industry? With the right mindset and approach, you can become the kind of leader that people look up to and admire. 

According to Morris Morrison, good leaders must communicate effectively, connect with their audience, and tell compelling stories that inspire action. Leaders should also have the ability to overcome business challenges, give back to their community, and create legacies for future generations. Taking care of their well-being is also fundamental, as they'll be able to lead with clarity, focus, and purpose — and inspire those around them to do the same.

On this episode of Advisor Today, Chris Gandy and Suzanne Carawan sit down with Morris Morrison, a world-class speaker and author, to discuss how leaders become exceptional leaders. Morris shares how his adolescence influenced his profession, tips for building relationships through storytelling, fundamentals for aspiring financial leaders, and the correlation between leadership, self-care, and maturity.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Chris Gandy on LinkedIn  
• Suzanne Carawan on LinkedIn 
• NAIFA
• Morris Morrison on LinkedIn 
• Morris Morrison   
• Disrupt Yourself: Choosing Courage Over Comfort, On Purpose by Morris Morrison

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 0:20

Hi, everyone, this is Chris Gandy, one of your co-hosts of Advisor Today's podcast with a wonderful co-host Suzanne Carawan. Hi, Suzanne, how are you?

Suzanne Carawan 0:29 

I'm good, Chris. Thanks.

Chris Gandy 0:31 

You know, it's so wonderful to be here. So I'm not gonna take a lot of time today. But know that we have a wonderful guest today, and we're super excited. But before we introduce our guests, Suzanne, who's our sponsor for today's program.

Suzanne Carawan 0:46 

So today's sponsor is IFAPAC this week is employee voter registration week. Tomorrow is National Voter Registration Day. So I think as we talked to Morris today, we want to also touch on the importance of voting and getting out that vote is something that NAIFA's believes strongly in and I know Morris believes in, but today is brought by IFAPAC. We're really proud to be able to be a one of the top IFAPACs in the country, top PACs in the country, and we want to keep that strong and we do that through growing NAIFA's membership. So Chris, back to you.

Chris Gandy 1:18 

Wonderful, thank you. So with no further ado, those who have not heard this young man, I say young man, but he's young and nature young in personality, but you're in for a treat today. So with no further ado, steward for the industry and just thought-provoking on the forefront of creative thought and innovation and really a motivator, but without further ado, Mr. Morris Morrison. So if there was people here, but welcome to Advisors Today podcast, we're super excited that you're here. And we're super excited to have what I would call a meaningful and purposeful conversation.

Morris Morrison 2:05 

Well, Chris, Suzanne, I'm thankful to be here, especially as a professional communicator. It's so interesting what we can do via podcast video stage nowadays. But I love that even leading up to this I just got a strong sense that all three of us, I'm a point guard by nature. And so when I talk about contribution, I tell people, I learned that early age I could drop 30 or 40 points a game if I wanted to. But nothing ever made me feel great than a behind-the-back or no look pass, that's if they got it Chris. That's if they caught it. And I actually finished, because I have to have a horrible day if they took one of my great Dom's behind the back and they didn't finish the man passing a rock and making the assist. I learned that early age, you can tell y'all can tell I'm growing a beard. Yeah, I used it. But I'm growing it out. Now. My daughter wanted me to grow it. She said down to here. I said baby girl, I got to be professional. I can't grow it that low, but I'm gonna get it a little lower so she can play with my curls. But here's what's interesting. I trimmed my beard. I've been cutting my hair since I was 10. Two things changed my life more than anything, from Ireland from New York City, lost my parents there when I was young people noted about my story. I was orphaned a second time as a youth. That's not what shaped my life. What shaped my life probably more than anything outside of my faith in God was playing basketball, I learned that I wanted to make the assist I love contributing to other people's lives. I learned that about myself early. So when I also realized that nobody could cut my hair. Because I got this head full. I always had to have full of curly hair when I was a kid. And all my black aunts and uncles, nobody knew how to cut my hair. So they would mess it up. And then my grandma said, well, I'm gonna take you to the White Barber. This guy, he'll know what to do with it. And of course, they didn't know what to do with it either. So by the time I was 10, I started cutting my own hair. And it was absolutely a Chris, it was as bad as you think it would be. It was horrible at first, Chris. It was horrible. But by the time I was 11, I started to learn how to use my tools. Or we can say equipment. And in this case, we'll say the clippers. I learned what I was doing. And by the time I was 12, I got so good cut of my hair, that not only did everyone want me to cut their hair by the time I was 14, I was just known as one of the greatest barbers in the area. And what does that have to do with how we're leading into the day? When I would have people sitting in my chair as a barber at an early age, people started sharing things with me they started asking me questions about their life. They started saying you know things like Morris I could tell you have a lot of purpose in your life. You've gone through so much. And they would ask me questions about how they should make decisions around their job, their families, and what really made me feel really awkward was one of the doctors and lawyers who I cut the hair also and here I was a young teenager, and I've got professional level highly esteemed professionals in my community who would sit in my chair and Chris they would share things with me. They would tell me about the impending divorce before their spouse knew about it and a lot of those things made me feel highly uncomfortable at an early age and I didn't understand it of course later on in life, you learn the truth about what our barbers in our beauticians mean to us, the people that we trust the most in our life, our doctors, our lawyers, our pastors, our teachers, and of course, the person who cuts our hair. Why am I opening up with this? Because I want people listening to this to understand that the three of us, we have multiple businesses between us that we're running. And there's a lot of things that we need to do to run our businesses and be successful. But right now, the most important thing that the three of us can do. I mean, Suzanne, when I look at you, like you're leading NAIFA's membership drive right now you've got a lot on your plate, you're running your own business, there are a lot of things that we could be doing right now. But the three of us are taking this time out right now, to pass the rock and to contribute to the lives of others. So just like I learned in cutting hair when I was young, I learned that no matter how rich we become, no matter how much we become blessed and successful, we got to take time out like this to help others and contribute so that's what this is all about. That's my intro right there. So whoever's listening right now they should feel a little bit of energy some curiosity they got Suzanna she looking good. Gandy, you looking sharp right now after watching this video, but you suited and booted right now so we're ready for today.

Suzanne Carawan 6:19 

See now Morris with that, can we start even right there, because I think that's an important piece. So many people that are listening to this podcast are in a position where their job the way they get paid, is to get people to tell them things, right people to unpack and to divulge and to talk about things that they're uncomfortable with to get the right let's say insurance they need or the right financial advice, and even they might be uncomfortable. So what do you attribute your kind of charisma that charm? What do you think led you to be the person that people just feel comfortable being able to spill their guts in their soul to and how do you think you can teach that to others?

Morris Morrison 7:00 

Well, you mentioned three things. You said charisma charm. But then you also said the spilling of the guts and teaching. Number one, God makes no mistakes it makes us. I mean, we're packaged the way we are. We come into this world with a personality. However, our environment and the culture around us can help refine our personality. Do we play sports? Do you become a mother? Did you lose someone in your life early on all these different experiences that we have, they bring out different aspects of our personality. But you mentioned charm, just now. Suzanne, I wish I didn't have the charm or charisma that I do. But the fact is, when you go through the foster care system like I did, and you don't have a mother and father checking your homework and cooking your food and ironing your clothes, you learned some pretty harsh realities early on in life. And one of those is you can look at any door of any room that you're in, and you know that no one's walking through that door to say to you, and I do anything to not have any charm or any charisma. If that meant I had a place to go on Mother's Day or Father's Day this year, I developed a skill set at an early age where as an entrepreneur, when I was 13, I knew that I would be wealthy one day, I knew that. And it wasn't just something that God put on my heart. I had a propensity at an early age to make money. But guess what it was 13 at age 13, when I gave money for the first time. And my charm and my charisma come from confidence and knowing that God sent me here for a reason. But you heard me earlier. I mentioned I love passing the ball when I play basketball. I love when people sat in my chair when I cut their hair. Everything that I do is based on contribution. Everything that I do is based on what can I do to make a deposit in the lives of others. So what you see as charm or charisma, when I fly out today, and I'm sitting in my seat in first class, everybody knows the stewardess, the flight attendants, they all know me by now, right? So and they look at me because they know that whoever sits beside me when I fly today, I'm going to get their whole life story by the time that flight lands. You know why? Because I genuinely care about making the assist. I care about making a deposit into someone else's life. And because that's literally where I'm coming from. I'm not trying to get anything, it comes across as bravado or confidence or charm. But really, I'm just genuinely interested and how other people got to where they are. So if people are listening to this right now, I would just tell them right now. Yeah, it's important in our line of work that you have to make people be willing to open and share their guts and share information with you. There's a reason why and all the CIA and all the movies that we watch, they don't call it intelligence. What do they call it? They call it Intel. So in our business, we have to gather intel from others. The man is sure is easy to gather intel when you really genuinely love others at the bottom of your heart, and people know that you care. And once they know that people are willing to share anything with you even the uncomfortable stuff.

Chris Gandy 9:59 

When you talked about connection. So let's, let's talk about the importance of that, right? So your ability to communicate, and your ability to be able to essentially tell a story or absorb a story, and the ability to be able to build that connection. Can you share with us a little bit from a perspective of how do you go about doing that? Or how can someone go about doing that? That's, quite frankly, I've never done it before.

Morris Morrison 10:30 

So I heard three words connection, I heard communication, and I heard tell a story. And then you ended up by saying, specifically for the ones who've never done it before, and specifically for our NAIFA's audience, some of the ones who need to could stand and dose and getting better at this right. First of all, connection, it is amazing what happens when you do not let your cell phone dominate your life. If you can take your smartphone, and specifically when you're in public. It's this simple stuff, Chris, that we know, when you're in public in an airport, when you go to Starbucks when you go anywhere are you looking down at your phone? Or are you looking up at the human beings around you? See, you can go back 1000s of years, the ability and the need for us to connect with each other man, we're hardwired to do that. That's why even on a zoom call, we know little things like you got to show people your hands. Why should you show someone your hands on a video or a zoom call, because for 1000s of years, if you walked up to a random person in the woods, or somewhere else that you didn't know, the first place your eyes went was to their hands. Why? Because you needed to know if they had a weapon in their hands. Because if they did that could spell out the fact that there's going to be impending doom for you. So how does that translate today? Well, we talk about connection, human connection is suffering right now, because of the thing that's in our hand all the time. So when you're in public, can you just do something simple, like not have your phone in your hand, pick your chin up, look around and just smile and make eye contact that people I mean, come on, we're all successful people, anybody listening to this podcast has done pretty well in life, right? So we're going to dress pretty nice. We stand out a little bit differently, when we go places, shame on us for standing out like we do with the gifts that we have, and not even just lift our chin up and look at people in public. That's a simple thing for connection. Next thing you mentioned is communication. I don't want to go down the communication rabbit hole as much. But I want to reconnect it to what I said earlier. It's amazing how much more clear Chris, you can communicate when you're not trying to get something from someone, like when you're genuinely interested in hearing more of the other person's story, than you are just telling a story, then that vehicle that you use to communicate, that vehicle automatically goes from being a Toyota, which is great, by the way, Toyota Camrys are great shout out to the Camry people out there. But Toyota also makes a premium brand called Lexus. So what takes our communication from a base model brands a premium brand? Is do you genuinely care about people that's going to change how you tell stories and how you connect now I'm going to end by storytelling. When I was stood on stage last year at NAIFA's Apex event, I went over a few critical things about storytelling. And storytelling doesn't have to be complicated when we packed out a little bit as we go here. But storytelling can be as simple as what am I talking to right now? What's meaningful, like, am I trying to sell this person? Or am I trying to show this person that I care about them? Or the best thing to do that is to actually not tell the story in that situation? Right? I think storytelling gets overused. We use stories, Chris, sometimes when we should be using questions. Does that make sense? The best stories that we can get other people to tell are the greatest ones. That's what causes connection. And I have to be careful with that. I had a great mentor. You know Walter Braun, Chris. He's another speaker, former NBA guy. Walter, he said something to me, Walter says him to me. My wife was pregnant with our daughter in her belly. We were sitting in SoHo in New York City. This is 10 years ago, were sent out to sell grin and wall leaned over. And he said, hey, Morris, if you want to have a great marriage, and a great relationship with this baby that's about to come into this world. He said, you have to take your professional speaker hat off whenever your flight lands at home, you have to leave that hat on the front porch. And I learned something really interesting at that moment, when I'm in my house, I don't lead any of the conversation. What that means is I don't tee up the conversation. When I'm around my family. I'm talking about whatever they want to talk about. Why? Because daddy is one of the highest paid professional communicators in our country. If I'm not careful, I can use that strength and overplay that strength in me strength overplay becomes a weakness. One of the greatest ways we can tell stories is by actually not telling the story is by asking a question to the people in our presence and letting them speak up.

Chris Gandy 14:52 

You mentioned challenges, right and overcoming those. I think for so many NAIFA members, there's two worlds, right? And so NAIFA has gone through some change. When I first started off in the business, I started off in the business where there was 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of NAIFA members. And what's happened is, the industry has shrank, right? There's less and less financial advisors than there were a year ago. And there's less and less and less and less. And so my whole point of asking you about struggle and changes, we need to be able to attract the creators, the innovators, the entrepreneurs into the business, right. If someone was coming into the business today, what would you say to them are key elements in success, or they can lead to possible success and things they would need to learn early on.

Morris Morrison 15:55 

If someone was coming into the business, and they were also a NAIFA member? Is that what you're saying?

Chris Gandy 16:00 

Well, we're now moving to the fact that we're assuming they're going to be NAIFA members, because they're going to be, right. So now they're going to be part of NAIFA. But again, they don't know what NAIFA is, they don't really they just know, hey, this the club, I need to be in. This is where I need to go play. And this is where the giants are. This is where the superstars are. This is where grassroots happen. And because my mentor told me like when I started in the business, a, this is the hall of fame. This is where you go to Laurie, right? Yeah. Getting back to that. What would you tell them if they this was the first time they had heard someone speak or say something? What would be the couple things you would say, hey, listen, early on. But you got to learn these fundamentals like in sports. You got to learn these couple of fundamentals. Because it's so critical to you being here a year from now.

Morris Morrison 16:48 

I got you watch this. So I was wanting to see how far into this conversation. I was going to tell you how much money I'm making right now, because of Deion Sanders. Here's what Deion Sanders have done. He has made us re-envision the word belief. All right. He's brought in a word that I don't like, by the way, I don't like the word motivation, because people attach that to my title motivational speaker. I've never liked that term, because it's typically doesn't come with a professional connotation. But here's what Deion's done. He's brought into word belief and motivation, but even higher than that, one of my favorite scriptures, in this great book that I read is this chapter called Malachi. And in Malachi, like I think it's like one, six. He's challenging all the people who say they believe in God. He said, you say you believe in God. But your bringing all the sacrifices that are these animals to sacrifice that are blind, and they're lame, and they can't even walk? Like, he's saying, that's what you're bringing to God, right? Here's what I would say to anybody wanting to join financial services, even before NAIFA. Deion Sanders has set a standard. And here's what I believe. I believe our country is so devoid of leadership right now, Chris, true leaders who can lead in a selfless way that inspires vision and a higher standard, what Deion has done, when this part of the reason he's going to become the next, the first six-figure multi like 100 million dollar college coach, probably Alabama or Miami for what they're saying already right now, is because when you're in this world, if you can set a vision for anybody around you, whether it's your family, or the customers that you serve, anytime you set a vision and a high standard, even the you know this as a father, you guys notice, everyone around you will be challenged to rise to that standard. So I'm gonna go back to how you teed this question of Chris, you ask this question based on challenges at first, like us who when people go through challenges, how we respond, and then you got some blank what people need to know when they first come into this business. Watch this. I've never even said this out loud. But see, this is what happens when the right people get on a call. I'm gonna say sound right. And I've never said before in my life, but you gave me this idea. We can either try to be dominated by being focused on the actual challenges and disruption that we're facing. Or our mindset can be pre-wired to subscribe to a challenge set of standards that someone set for us. So what you have on our country, we don't have as many grandfathers or Big Mama's are like, oh, like when we were young. You didn't even have to worry about your mom and dad, it was your grandma or grandpa who would look at you and say, boy, what did you just say to me? And you could tell by the way your grandfather looked at you, Chris, that he was like, let it out. I don't think you understand this Gandy last name, it means something. So I'm gonna have you walk back out that house and walk back in the front door and show me some respect. See, only grandfathers did that I think we need to grandmas and grandfathers back. Because if our leaders of our organizations aren't challenging us to a standard that scares us, then what that means is we're going to be comfortably over here only responding to the challenges in our marketplace. We're going to have to work hard to do so. don't think I'd rather put all my energy Chris to meeting a challenge or vision as somebody set for me that's so big that I'll probably never meet it. But I'll die trying, versus using all of my time and energy over here, just responding to petty little stuff that's in my inbox, or my inbox or my mail. Now I'm gonna close something, because you asked specific questions about members. If you're a new person coming into this industry and financial services, all right, shut your mouth. Find some people who look like they're successful around you, who was set a standard that you feel like you want to desire to aspire to. And just shut up and go ask them what to do, and humble yourself and do exactly what they say. And you will always be surprised if you don't reach goals. By doing that one of two things happen, you're the chose the wrong person that you're chasing. You chose the wrong mentor who doesn't have a standard that's high enough, where either you didn't do exactly what they said. But it's so amazing. In my house, my daughters know this, they know that our last day Morrison means three things. Number one, love God. Number two, we love others. And number three, we do hard things. They know that that's what our last name means love God love others, we do our things. But our mission, how do we accomplish that they know what the mission is? Our mission is really, really simple in our house. This is the mission. You ready Suzanna? You're gonna smile and you hear this? You ready? Yes, do what you're supposed to do. That's it. If my wife does everything she's supposed to do, if I do everything I suppose if the girls do everything, if I've driven and doodle puppy hardly does what she's supposed to do. It's amazing how everything just kind of takes care of itself. So if you're coming into this business right now, find someone who's bigger than you that can cause you to set a standard that scares you, and shut up and do what they say. Now, for those of you who are on this call, who are listening, who are NAIFA's members, I'm gonna tell you a little specifically show up to every NAIFA's event that you can humble yourself. And see, there's a dangerous balance point of those first four to six years when you ain't making no money. And then about six years in this business, when the checks start coming in, you actually feel guilty. You're like, Man, I'm like making real money now. And you feel like there's a little bit of impostor syndrome that comes with it, Chris. But what you got to remind yourself as you were knocking on doors for the first five years, and when it starts to come back on that back and you see it coming in the dangerous point in this industry right here is anywhere between that 10 to 15-year mark when you're making real money, and you think you figured it out. But the only problem is that you haven't figured it out, is because within 10 to 12 years, there's a whole crop of a generation of people who you have to learn to sell to. So, there's generational selling that comes up. There's habits that you have to humble yourself if you're a NAIFA's member, keep coming to every event. Keep bring in new members, and humble yourself and say you know what, I've seen Chris Gandy speak 12 times I don't need to see Chris Gandy speak again. Show up anyway. Because it's that 13th time when you hear Chris Gandy, or Suzanne, where you say, man, she said one thing that completely changed my life.

Chris Gandy 23:10 

So I understand that you said something. Absolutely. Sorry, Suzanne, you said something really interesting. So I'm going to relate it Morris to back in the day when we were playing basketball, okay. It's like you made it to college. And you go back and play the kid that's in high school who didn't make it and you say, you know what, I've learned all these skills along the way. Right? So those senior NAIFA's Remember, so I'm learning all these skills along the way. This is easy what they call chump change, right? This is easy cash, right? Because I'm going to go and I'm going to use the skills I've developed. But then they get complacent. One of the words that I didn't hear right is complacency. So what we have in our organization, our association is we have the climbers, the people that want to be those people and then we have what I call a gap a chasm. The people that are what I would call them by age from the age of 50, down to about 30 I say 550 down about 35 that group of people did not get the same message. That group of people, the older ones, they're thrown behind-the-back passes, dunking the ball pretty easy, right? They played in the league for a couple of years. So they've gotten to a point where they're like you know, I'm good. And then the younger ones are like we want this information but we need to be inspired to do so. So there's that gap right so the call that movable middle becomes the gap. So I relate that back to sports, of when I played in the post, you know, I could do a little bit right? When I played in the Polos anybody that was under six foot five, we would say Moulson a house where right, and we will say mouse in the house, because at the end of the day, you had no chance of stopping me unless to file. That was it right. And so our ability to be able to understand as you said, our ability to be able to understand and see where we are. But you did say something pretty interesting is we have to have the ability to humble ourselves and to give back regardless of the stage of where we are, we have to have the capability and ability to understand and really feel that through.

Morris Morrison 25:32 

Before I forget, I got to say this. I'm a part of the National Speakers Association. All right. And I have chills right now, as I'm saying this, because the conversation I have with my wife, and I am emotional right now. And I'm gonna be real clear about this. This is hard for me to even say, because it's so simple. You mentioned the older NBA players who get the skill set, and they play at the highest level, you know what you didn't say? You didn't mention how short that window is for older players. See, if older, if we're talking basketball, then you know, once you figure stuff out, and you're 28, you got to look down at your risk bra. I know that today is different, because we know how to change our diet. We know how to reduce inflammation, we know how to train differently. We have therapies that can extend our plane years. And since I was 38 39 40, we can do that today. But let me tell you something. If someone's listening to this podcast right now, they have to understand something. If you think you're in that group, and you figured stuff out, and you're successful, then you're the person that I was supposed to be talking to today, right now, because you should be very, very scared that our world is going to pass you by really, really soon. This past year, two months ago, I'm sorry, NSA National Speakers Association, we had our huge global conference. Now, Chris, you're talking about 2000 of the top speakers not United States around the world from every country that you can name. When I started going to NSA 12 years ago, I walked away from my full time job. I wasn't making a lot of money with Pfizer. But I knew that I had a gift to speak. And many people would NAIFA's have already seen me on stages. But I don't get a chance on NAIFA's stages to tell that backstory of how when I was with Pfizer, I started to get paid serious money on the side to speak in other large events. And it was a transition program. So when I work with NBA athletes when I work with NCAA athletes, I'm talking about transition Chris, we've had conversations about transition. Kobe Bryant, retired, and then Kobe Bryant won an Oscar once after his retirement. I don't know if y'all understand this, but the Oscar is the highest level in Hollywood, okay. outie Kobe, get an Oscar within months of retirement. This because he didn't transition to film industry. He started working on his transition years before he left the NBA. I started working on my speaking transition years before I left corporate America. But once I became a professional speaker, everyone said just like NAIFA new financial professionals, new advisors, they say you got to join NAIFA because you got to join it. But for me, they said Morris, you got to join NSA, National Speakers Association, you got Les Brown, you got Willie jolly, you guys Zig Ziglar to greatest who've ever done it. You get to walk the halls and hear them talk about how they made it. And I'll tell you some, I've been one of the fastest-growing speakers in the world during this time period. And over the past three years, I haven't been able to make my NSA conference because it's in the summertime. I'm probably in Australia, China somewhere else during that time. I just haven't made it. So here's what I did this year, way back at the beginning of 2023, in January, I went in, I think I paid two three or $4,000. I pre-registered, I did everything. And then so everyone who wanted to book me to pay me 30 or $40,000 to speak during that same week. Guess what? I told them no. And my wife said Morris, are you sure you want to walk away from these bookings? I said, Babe, I said I have to be at our industry conference this year. She said Morris, you could teach everything that every teacher in all those breakout sessions and every keynote, she goes, you could teach you preach everything you're gonna say why are you so insistent upon going? I said, I know I can't. That's exactly why I got to go. I said, I'm going to do what I did at the beginning. I'm going to take my notepad out. No iPad, no computer. I'm going to have a pen and paper and I'm going to sit in the front row of every session. And Chris, can I tell you something? This summer I left. And just when I thought I had everything figured out as a professional speaker at 44 you know what I learned? I may be at the top of this industry. But I met some 24-year-olds who were hungry. I met some 21-year-olds who are ready. I met some 31-year-olds who inspired me and we were at our block NSA session. This dinner we have one night, I looked around a room we had more black and more female speakers for the first time ever. And God just put it on my heart. I went up and I told the people I said, I'm giving scholarships out. I said, I want to give scholarships to a certain amount of people in this room who are first-time, contributors, people who paid three or $4,000, because I'll remember, were three or $4,000 that go to a conference. And you know what Chris, we gave several scholarships out that day, because not only did I humble myself to show up, I said, Morris, you're going to show up every year. And when you get there, you're going to keep this scholarship going. And next year, I'm probably going to do it in the name of my grandmother, and other people. And my grandma raised me at one time in Westland Street, Chris, after I lost my parents in New York City, the lady adopted me I caught her grandma, she raised me at once in Westland street. So after our black NSA session, a bunch of people hooked her up around me in a hallway was about 40 or 50 people. And I made them all choose a number between one and 200. And I knew the number was going to be 110, because she raised me at once and Westland Street. And I just told her the first time because I said, hey, and honor the lady who raised me, I said, I got a number in my mind. And I'm going to choose so many of you for the scholarship, I reimburse in your hotel, your flight, your registration, everything. And in my mind, I had already made a decision that if 12 people say 110 That's what it is. If 30 people say one thing, and I just got a call back in the mail yesterday, from Tracy Rulez, who's in Michigan. And here's what she said. She said, thank you for your generosity, she said, is very clear that you were raised the right way. And you haven't forgotten your roots. Here's my message NAIFA's, if you're listening to me, if this industry in this association has helped you become successful, you can't forget your roots. You have to give back. So showing up, no matter how successful you are showing up is giving back. Then after you show up, fasten people, you can put your arm around and just say, hey, I've got you how can I serve?

Chris Gandy 32:08 

Super powerful. You're always a someone that I think I take away mentioned pen and paper. So I came prepared. I came prepared today, Vince Lombardi said champions, take copious notes, right, he used to give the notepad to his players before they went in the film session. Because not only there was they see here and do, they would write it down. And he would hand it back to them and say, Here's your study guide. So they would write down and the brain is an interesting thing that they would see here and then write it down. And he would retain that information. So, really good. So I heard you mention, I'm going to spend a different direction. I heard you mentioned that you have a puppy or you have a dog named Parvati. Harley? Yeah. So question for you is, how did that happen in that way? How did you your family come up with that name? You know, that's an interesting name. I know a lot of people out there have pets and things like that. But how did you come up with that name?

Morris Morrison 33:12 

Well, I got to say to the audience, you know, I have to tell them something about my African American background and how I was raised because in a hood, where I'm from every black person that I knew if we had a doll, his name was butcher, Cujo, or killer or something like that. And it was a Rottweiler, Doberman Pinscher, and it was in your backyard. It was tied to a really big thick chain, and you were scared of the dog. But the dog kind of cared about you because you fed it right. And we had dogs as a source of protection where I'm fun. When I was young, there was no animals in the house. I remember, I was on a basketball trips, and well, one of my buddies and I had to stay at his house. And it was a white family. And it was the first time that I had seen like a dog in someone's house. Now, y'all may think this is a small deal. But when I walked in a house and this dog came in behind us, like I stopped because I felt bad that I thought I let it in. I said, Andy, do, there's a dog in your house, and he goes, that's just a puppy. He's okay. And then later on that day, the dog jumped up on his couch. And I went, I was like, at your dogs on your couch, like my grandmother would kill me. If the dog was in a house. It was on his house. He goes on now he's a member of the family. And I was just like, I'm two for two like my mind was blown. Well, later on that night, it's asleep over the dog jumps up at the foot of his bed and lays down and my mind I couldn't sleep. Because I was thinking like, is he gonna die? Or the fleas gonna get them? Like is my grandma gonna welcome me back into the house? Like, I feel like I'm in trouble for even sleeping in a house where the dog was, that's how foreign it was to us. So all puppies, the COVID Puppy. I've had a strict no dogs in the House policy myself. Our neighbor happened to get this puppy during COVID and my daughter would walk past the door every day because we're all locked down and the dog would just look at us through the front door and kind of just turn and just give us a puppy face and we felt bad the door was basically all day by itself. So we convinced our neighbor to leave the door open so we could grab Harley Walk her. And about three months into it, like one of us made the joke like we might as well adopt this dog. Well, let me tell you something, a minute ago, you said Vince Lombardi said, take copious notes, what you were talking about is the neurochemistry and anatomy of the brain, how the brain works. When you take notes, while you're listening at the same time, it reinforces what we call schemas and neural pathways in our brain, and it causes you to retain information differently, right? That's why the opposite is true. You have to watch what you say out loud. When you say things out loud, like you tell people what your hopes and your dreams and your vision are. You got to be careful because your brain heard you say, and then it reinforces it in your subconscious with alpha and beta levels that you don't even understand it's driving you. I think the moment I said we might just want to adopt the dog, we're taking care of it as soon as said it out loud, because within a week, Harley was ours, and I wouldn't be honest with you. This dog is the centerpiece of the family. And whenever my flight gets home, and I get home at night, I now have to ask for permission to get into my own bed, because there's normally not space. So I had to remove the dog just to get into the bed. And she's the princess that a family man. So thanks for asking.

Chris Gandy 36:19 

I like to talk about personal things, we'll talk about the job man behind you. Because I know you grew up, you probably couldn't afford those shoes. Yeah, exactly. We're gonna we're gonna talk a little bit about that. But, so let's talk a little bit about legacy is super important the impact you make with the people in lives, you touch, right. And so let's talk about your future books, things like that. So tell us a little bit about your future, the path where you're going, kind of some of the things you would like to do and the knowledge in which you're going to submit in some sort of illustration so that we can continue to pick those things up along the way. Talk a little bit about that.

Morris Morrison 37:12 

Well, first of all, as a speaker, I'm always cognizant of who our audience is. So we have a variety of different people. Because so many people from NAIFA know me, I can imagine, we have to be sensitive to the fact that there's going to be some people listen to this from NAIFA's, who already know a lot about my brand. They're going to make their 16-year-old listen to this on the way to school and to basketball and everything else. So as I say this, let me give you a simple reaction to legacy. You can't take it with you. It's real simple. We have all these legacy conversations and I'm not downplaying legacy. It's amazing how when you start to, wwhen you get to a point where you can afford whatever you want. It's amazing. Most people who take a more conservative approach to refinances and they actually look at their finances, and they say, I can't take it with me. So what can I do for my kids, my grandkids who I've not even met yet? So like when we talked to Dorian Illya, they're not in 10 years old. We're very clear with him that more than likely, their husbands have already been born. And so I talk about them. We talk about their husbands all the time, they asked me questions about their husband, and every now and then, like, I'll give them name, I'll be like, when I meet Dylan, here's what Dylan's gonna say to me, and here's how I'm gonna say it. And we're having those conversations now. Because Dorie understands trusts, she understands. When we went to Wyoming a couple of weeks ago, we went there to check on our business establishments, because we own six companies, our holding company was she understands that is not what a holding company structure is. It's located in Wyoming. She understands why our car rental company that we own that owns a fleet of vehicles that we own, it's based in Montana, okay, that's owned by the Wyoming company, then we have to North Carolina companies we have to South Carolina companies and Dorie. She already gets this keenly. It's all hers and Ilias to manage one day, and they are to be stewards of it. And we're even structured on paper in a way that a future fit no habit, God forbid, or a drug habit on behalf of maybe it's not my daughter's maybe it is their future husband named Dylan and I'm just using that number, maybe he's an NBA star. And maybe he's on the wrong trip one day with the wrong player who has something in his food or in it's in an edible and they don't know it's there. And one bite one drink one sample I mean, the stuff we're seeing with fentanyl right now, we're seeing kids die, one hit of a marijuana joint and they don't even know what's in it, right. Legacy for those of us who are listening, we have to understand on one hand, we can't predict everything that's coming in the future and we'll talk about AI I in some work that I'm doing with the world's largest companies through supply chain and trying to develop executives who need to be forward-thinking, to plan for some of these things. But when it comes to legacy, Chris, we can't plan for everything. But we can have the right conversations about the right things. And that's something that we're doing in our family already at an early age. Simple example is this. I get home from a flight last month, and you're excited. We don't do gadgets in our house. So the kids don't have phones and all this other crazy stuff. We come home and Dory runs in my bathroom. She goes, Look, when I found daddy. She goes, here's mommy's old Apple Watch. And she goes, here's mommy's new Apple Watch. And she looked at me, she goes, Mommy's got two watches. I knew what she was doing right away. She goes, look what else I found. She goes up into my drawer, which I don't know where y'all from the kids and allowed to look at a daddy's top drawer. Everyone knows it shouldn't be looking in the top drawer in the bedroom. So I want to scold her for being in a time drawer, but I'm not going she's not in trouble. Because daddy's just came home from the flight. And she goes, Look what I found in your top drawer. She pulls out my brand new Apple Watch that's been sitting here for years. So I don't use anything. I don't wear watches and all this stuff. She goes mommy's new watch. Mommy's old watch. Daddy's new and she goes, which one? Are you going to let me wear? And I laughed it off. And I said Dora, you know you're not getting a phone or watch anything probably until you're grown. So you know that's not happening. And the next day we go to church, and she said, well, can I wear it to church? I said, sure bag, you can wear whatever one you want. She tells all of her friends that Sunday school, guess what mama, Daddy's going to give me one of these watches. My daddy is going to give me one of these watches. And she tells all of her friends and all her friends are at the house after church. We're sitting here and Dory comes up she goes dad, which one you're going to give me and I loved her. And I said Dory, I hate to disappoint you I said but I never committed to giving you anything. Now for any of y'all have heard me speak, you know my three things, you know, my top three things that the doctor told me number one, don't be a victim. Number two, take ownership of your life. And number three, don't expect anyone to give you anything. So I looked at and I said Dori, you cannot have any of these watches. And she didn't throw a temper tantrum she was she was genuinely upset because she thought one of them was going to be hers. So I went out and I grabbed all three watches, and I set them on the island in the kitchen, and I had to reinforce our legacy message, I'm gonna make you make a decision right now. You can have one of these watches right now. Or you can know what our family means, which is, all three of these watches belong to you Dorry, all of them, and you have access to them whenever you want. Are you going to choose one watch? Are you going to realize that these are all yours to manage and consume and enjoy? And she knew what I wanted the answer to be. So she goes, she walked away. And I said, Whoa, gummybear? What are you choosing? And she goes, I want to choose one watch. But I know my dad, he wants me to choose all three. And she stopped up when she got the message. That's a legacy. So we sprinkle legacy. And here's the word continuity of what it means to manage what you've been blessed with. We do that in every conversation that we have. So that's just a quick little answer. That's a short story about how for those of us who are listening to this, you have to understand that. And by the way, I think your worldview is important here also, Chris, I don't know if you believe in God, Suzanne, I don't know if you believe in God. I don't know what your beliefs are. But I know that our beliefs motivate everything. Suzanne was just kind of saying that about how Deion Sanders has caused us to really look at the word belief. Well, I believe that God sent me here for a reason. And I believe that I'm being judged on how I manage everything from my little curly hair that I have to my white smile, to my energy, my charisma. I believe we're going to be judged for everything that we have, from our resources to our gifts. And it's never too early to start looking through life through that lens. So for someone out here who's listening, who may say, well, Morris, I don't believe in God, or I don't have the same beliefs. I challenged people when I say you may not believe in God, but you do believe in something. And you need to figure out what that is and write that down and go figure out how you want to story played out 200 years from now. That's how far down the road you have to be thinking about this. That's why trusts are important. Holding Company structures are important. You have to make sure that even in the worst-case scenarios are can you keep a legacy intact for your family, for your customers, but also for the future people come in who are going to bury your last name and your family that you're not even thinking of yet?

Suzanne Carawan 44:29 

And I think I love that. I mean it's also you think big, right? You really think big? And I think so many people think small because of comfort, because they get down into the minutiae of the situation. They get into the problems today. They're not thinking like okay, it's stewardship, all these words are saying like, the back your daughter can think that way. I think just taking it back to I do a lot with branding and talking to these agencies. managers and people that are just like individuals single shingle, ages, they need to think of them as they are that enterprise already right from day one, they got to say, here's who I am. This is our legacy. These are the things we think about. I think for a lot of people, I'll say a couple of things that you touched on, that resonated with me, one of the key things I was pretty young mother, Jerome Bettis was going into the Hall of Fame. And he said in his speech, he said, you know what, the only thing I had was my last name, right? And like my grandpa, and my father sat me down, and they said, you know what's up? We don't have much, but you have a last name, baddest, don't mess it up. And I don't come from anything. Right. And I have not the story that you have more, Sir Chris. But I don't come from much. And so I had to make a decision during that time, right, as a young mother to say, I could sit there and bemoan all of this stuff, I lost my mom really young, we had no money, the whole thing. But I made that decision listening. I said, you know what, Dan? That's a good thing, Jerome, because I love drums. And I was like, You know what, I'm gonna build on that. And I think more agents and advisors need to build on that fact. Like, we got to start something, right. So I just broke friends that I'm the origin, I'm the origin, and I don't, it doesn't matter the past, I can start it here. Right. And we can have big dreams. And we got to think about what we are. And so in our house, so just resonate, whatever you're saying, last and Carawan to me, means you're not going to think us and you're definitely not gonna outwork us, right. And we know that and everybody knows, that's how we operate. And then to put it into another thing, we also say, when things get hard, light on the hill cannot be hid. That's right. It's what you're meant to do. Just get out of your own way. You're supposed to do this, you're the biggest obstacle. And I think the more you can get people to get because people catch up with their own cells, right? That part they get in their own way we see it all the time with our with people that get to a point of growth they have blocked to get in their own way so it's a how do you constantly free yourself to think big, and I love the variety set for your daughter's a way to think big and that thing about already talking to their husbands love that. That is huge.

Morris Morrison 45:06 

Let me tell you what, it's real. Susanna, are they going to get married one day? More than likely? I hope that happens, right? You just put something in my head. So I'm asking myself as I'm listening.

Suzanne Carawan 47:25 

It's wishful thinking at that point, right? They know it's not. It's amazing.

Morris Morrison 47:30 

Once again, when Chris brought up Lombardi taking notes, and I said what that does to the brain, just like when you speak something out loud what that does to the brain. If you by the way, now I'm going to talk about the importance of fathers. Right. Watch this. My wife and I were talking about this last night, how my favorite joke I like to say about mom and dads is like once God made like man and woman, he looked at both of them. He was like now which one am I gonna trust to bring kids into the world? Trust me, he didn't choose gods for a reason. Because he knows how we think. He knows how selfish we can be. But he knows that we hear noise in the middle of the night. We're going to run towards that Robert downstairs also, he wired his wall like Liam Neeson when the movie Taken when he picked up that phone after they kidnapped his girl when he said listen, I have a particular set of skills, I will find you and I will kill you see, that's the heart of a man. But with this isn't about females or men, because what I saw you knew just now and this is why I was impressed with what you just described with your heart. Would you say we want to outwork you and what?

Suzanne Carawan 48:30 

Now thank you knock it out.

Morris Morrison 48:31 

Thank you not working. I was thinking something just now I was thinking two things. The first is I hate when people call it dreaming big. Around here we call it normal thinking. You see, that's the problem. We think that in order to have a vision that's bigger than what you've seen in your culture or in your neighborhood, which is what I had to do. By the way, you know, I came from the type of black community where by the time I was young, especially once I started cutting hair, I had my own brand. I have my own brand before I knew what a brand was. So I could cut designs in my hair. By the time I was 11 or 12. So what that mean, I didn't have to pay $30 to go to the barber shop, I didn't have to go to the barber shop. And every four or five days, I could change my lookup. I can tell you the power that came with knowing that I can take ownership of something so simple, which is controlling how I look. But guess what else I learned how to iron my clothes when I was in second grade. So watch this. I could iron my clothes. And by the time I was in fifth sixth grade, I'm cutting my own hair. I look back now and the evidence was there. I was cognizant of something real simple to say. I didn't have a father and a grandpa like Jerome Bettis and I was raised in foster care. So nobody had the last name Morrison. And when you have a name like Morris Morrison, I've had to answer the question so much my whole life like what were your parents thinking? Your name is Morris Morrison, is that your real name? What were they thinking? So from an early age, I think I subconsciously downloaded a mindset that said I have to make our last name me something. And I'm that's not fair. And that's not optimal like no pitch it after thing that way. And it breaks my heart to say that. But men now that it's only now seeing my daughters during a Lea and seeing how much love they have and seeing how amazing my wife Lisa is seeing a mother that they have. And knowing go back to the beginning of this podcast I told you when I'm around my girls, I don't lead the conversation. If during our working on a project in a garage, and I'm selling some wood or she's doing something we talk about whatever she introduces now get ready for this. We're building a slow treehouse in the backyard a couple months ago. And I said Dori hand me another nail, she hands me a nail and that she hands it to me. She goes, Daddy, now listen, her mother's white. So that's important. So I got this little biracial child who asked me this question, daddy, what color do you think my husband is going to be? Because we talked about Dylan, right? Yeah. Now as a Christian family, what's not to love everybody, but let me tell y'all so now here this is gonna be the most racist thing I say every day. Any man listen to this podcast. I don't care if you're white or black. If you got a little girl, you know what you want your little girl to marry someone who's I looked at Dory. And I said, Dory I know exactly what your husband is gonna look like? She leaned and she said, you do? And she was like, she's like, daddy, I knew you know a lot of stuff. But dad like you even know this. I see at this moment. Like My Daddy is all-knowing. See, Lena. She said Daddy told me What's he look like? I said a baby. He's about six foot tall. Hand me another nail. And I pause. She said, okay, six words. She said what else? What else? I said, I say he's got a gorgeous smile. She said, what else? You got a smile. He's six foot tall. I said, yeah. I said, he's such a good communicator. You're gonna know the moment you meet him. He's gonna communicate well, he's got great energy. She said, hello. I love him. I love him. Tell me what else what else? What's his hair look, like? I said, Girl, I said, I can see he's got dark, curly hair. And all of a sudden, she said, daddy, you're talking about you? And I said, That's right. That's what I'm talking about. Right? Every day, I wants to picture a little girl marry someone who looks exactly like them. Right. But my daughter wanted to know what color he was. So I tried to change the subject, because I don't know the answer to that, right. And all of a sudden, she said, daddy, you didn't answer me. She said, what color is my husband won't be. And finally I looked at it. And I said, I said, what color do you think he's going to be? And without even batting an eyelash? Okay, let me just give you context. We live on Daniel Island area right here in South Carolina. This is one of the most fluid zip codes in the entire east coast. Right? We got some diversity here. But it's not like North Charleston, where the hood is and all these other things are linked in my daughter set what color you think your husband is going to be? She asked me to hammer that down. She goes, obviously, he's going to be white. I mean, look around. That's all that's around us. And she says it and she asked me unopened mail. Like it was nothing. Now meanwhile, my whole entire heart just dropped. Not because I'm racist. All right, my heart dropped because I'm a black man who probably wants my daughter to marry a black man. And if you ain't white, and they're listening to this, and you got a daughter, you probably want your daughter to marry a white man. Wow, that's not about selfishness or racism. That's about a father's heart. This is the heart of a father. That's the heart of a father. Let me go back to something. You started this. Suzanne. You said it I obviously think big. And we've passed on that thinking to our kids. It's sad that we have to call big dreams thinking big. These things should be normal conversations. One of the things that I learned that early age and I think it helped me in booking business as a professional speaker, especially at the beginning, because I was unproven. Right, I had no track record. And I had zero credibility. So when we talk to the people out there who are wondering, how do I get people to handle millions of dollars to me when I'm unproven, and I have no track record. And I have zero credibility. See this part right here? The video is something that we can cut up and make a three-minute clip that you put on YouTube all by itself. The biggest thing I thought about earlier, when you were talking about dreaming big Suzanne, I was thinking What's the key differentiator specially at the beginning? What makes a customer decide to trust us? And here's what it is. When I see you speak with passion, and clarity, about your product or your service. That's something that at that moment, especially at the beginning of any business, people don't really care about your product. Let's talk financial services. We can get your products or services from a million other people. You're looking at your lipstick Suzanne didn't look at your tie Chris They're looking at how you walk in the room. They're looking at everything for Physical about you. And then they're looking at the metaphysical things, which we will call energy. They're looking at that vibe that you get off. They're looking at how you smile. They're listening to the tone of voice. So when they say something like, so Suzanne was to go to college, tell me something about you. What they're really saying is, make me excited about you right now. Tell me what you've gone through. Tell me what excites you. Tell me what you had to overcome. Really, those are three simple things. Listen to what I just said in storytelling. Tell me where you've been what you've gone through. Tell me what you've overcome. But what I said for NAIFA's Apex last year on stage, if you want to be a great storyteller, you've got to look towards the future and tell people what you're excited about in the future. Most people don't know that that is a key difference between master storytellers and average storytellers. Anyone can do this, if you're new in business, if you're old in business, and you need to get respond, and you need to refreshing your grandson. The biggest thing you could do that will make people die for you and buy any product and service you have is tell them what you're excited about for tomorrow. It was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, she said average people talk about yesterday. Good people talk about today when great people talk about tomorrow. And I believe that and I can tell you I know it works. Why? Because when I was 17 years old, that was when I made a decision to become a professional speaker. That my senior year in high school. And Chris, you understand this more than anybody right now. We want to stay championship my junior year. And I didn't see the floor. Because I went to a very basketball rich School in West Virginia. We competed against Randy Moss, Jason Williams, white chocolate, it was a big deal. And we were the top team in the state. You don't see the floor until your senior year. So watch this. My senior year, I'm getting ready to become starting playing guard. We're about to be back-to-back state championship. It's a lot. I'm gonna go play college ball. December 4 is my birthday. A couple of weeks before that, as I was approaching my birthday, I felt my gut. And those of y'all who see me speak, oh my god, I gave him a name. His name is Craig. And Craig just whispered something to me. Just in the stillness of one evening, I was sitting here and I felt my gut tells me, Morris, are you show you're supposed to play basketball your senior year, you should consider not playing. They have to understand something. I was an athlete. Not a great athlete. I was I now know at 44 I can look back with honesty, because I was never a great athlete. What I always had, there was your kids, you always had a great mindset. And I was always really mature, much more mature than everybody else. I mean, I actually thought I was a good athlete. Looking back, by the time I was about 35, like I think I sit through a door I flew with tears one day, I was never as good as I thought I was physically I was never a great athlete. But I was the first one I practice the last one to leave. If we had to run gassers or laughs I never let anybody beat me see, that doesn't have anything with skill or ability that has to do with a decision that I made. So my senior year when I decided not to play basketball. My coach, he read me about it. My players were asking me about it. They all said Morris, you're a basketball player. You've played longer than any of us been playing since second grade? Why are you going to walk away your senior year? So imagine me, I didn't know why I wasn't supposed to play. I just know this. The greatest asset that I have is when my gut tells me something. I don't ignore it. When I was able to develop that muscle, that skill of trusting my gut at an early age because I didn't have a mom and dad doing everything for me. So parents, if you got kids, and you're listening to this right now, don't put your kids off at the kneecap. Don't limit your kids by doing everything for them. You think you're blessing them? You think you're being helpful. Now what you're destroying is a natural innate ability for your kids to go out in the wild and hunt and kill and capture their own food and become producers. If you want your kids to be producers. You can't produce everything for them now. See, I know for a fact I didn't have elk when I was young. So I became Liam Neeson at early age, I developed a particular set of skills right, I will find you and I will kill you. So by the time I became a senior in high school, well my gut told me not to play. I knew not to question my gut. So guess what my coach told me he said you'll never play college basketball. Well, guess what? I didn't play my senior year. I did play college basketball. But you want to know what happened a week after I made that decision. My senior year, a week after I made the decision not to play basketball. I got a call from one of the biggest student leadership conferences in a state. And he said Morris Morrison, you've been chosen to come and represent 50 of the top students in a state that are going to come to this huge conference. Hundreds of students. You've been chosen to come three days before the actual conference to get training to serve with the other 50 as a peer mentors, we're going to lead this whole event, and he asked me a question, he said, are you available? Am I available? Am I available? The answer to that would have been a definite no, if I was still fooling around with a basketball in my hand. By the way, I was certain that I wasn't playing basketball, all my best friends were playing robot, the pursuit is back to back state championship. And I can't even tell them why I'm not playing. Am I available, of course, I'm available, I get to the conference. And the last day of our training, the last night before the conference kicked off the next day, they made a stand in a circle, our advisor took his hat off, and he passed it around to everyone in the circle. And he said, everyone needs to write down on a piece of paper, one name of the 50 people in his circle, who you want to see on stage for the next three days, all day emceeing and leading and hosting a whole event. Now, I've always known that public speaking is the number one fear. By the way, you got people listening to this right now, who are supposed to be professional communicators, you may think you're in financial services, you may think you're selling insurance, no, you are a professional communicator, you have no idea how many professional communicators are still fearful of public speaking. And that day when they pass the hat around, I was just as fearful as anybody, by the fact when a hat came around me and I had to vote for someone. I looked at the girl beside me. And I said, what's your name again? She was like, Jennifer, I was like, Jennifer, and I wrote it down, and I put it in the hat. And I advisor, his name was Greg Knight. I'll never forget this man. He changed my life. He emptied all the names out in the floor, and he picked the first name. And he picked up the first piece of paper, and he said, and the first name is Jeniffer. I was like, yeah, yeah. And I thought Darren said he was like, the second name is Morris Morrison. I was like, wait, stop, stop playing, stop playing. He's like in the third name is Morris Morrison. And he kept calling my name kept calling my name. He never said anybody else's name. And the more you call my name, my fist start the ball up, because my fight or flight was kicking in. I was just like, I'm gonna beat everybody up. Like, I'm not going on stage. I'm gonna fight my way out of this. I will beat up everybody in this room. I can and I looked around the room like, yeah, I can take everybody. I'm gonna beat up everybody. That was my thought, right? They're playing a cool joke on me. They're trying to force me on stage for three days. Hell no. my boss Greg, he saw that I was getting angry when he came over to him. And he said, son what's wrong with you? Sometimes you need a man to just talk to you like a man. Right? He said, What's wrong with you? And I said, with all these people choosing my knee, like, they just tried to play jokes or something like that. And he's he looked at me, and he said, never forget this. He said, you just had 49 out of 50 people of your peers. We vote that they want to see you on stage tomorrow. He said, Do you know how much of an honor that is. And then still, I wasn't really receiving what he was saying I was still angry. He said, Morris, the only one person who didn't vote for you was you when you wrote Jennifer. And he said, you're going on that stage tomorrow. And I did. And I was throwing up, I was sick, they had to get a washcloth to put on my head. By the second day, I was still nervous, but my legs weren't shaking as much. And by the third day, they couldn't get the microphone out of my hand. And I had my peers, I had hundreds of people coming up to me, they were like, hey, we've never seen anything like that before. You have a gift. Now watch this. I want this story to God, I'm gonna be very direct. I hope this story causes some of your listeners to leave NAIFA and elite financial services and insurance as why. Because if you don't have the gift to be here, and to serve your customers, if you don't have the heart to do this, please stop now. Because we got a lot of people who want to be in this industry, so you got to want to be here. But that day 17 moving forward when I made a decision to become a professional speaker and a writer, I didn't know whose executive was, I didn't know who Brian Tracy was. I didn't know Keith Harrell, I didn't know that I can make millions of dollars talking and running my mouth for a living. But I think you people listening right now you see that I obviously have a gift as a communicator. So what you have to do you have to be willing to trust your gut at some point and say, do I need to contribute more? Do I need to give more is this industry for me? And if I stay can I double down on my efforts. So when you say dream big, this is bigger than a dream. That little seven-minute soliloquy that I just said just now Suzanne, this is bigger than a dream. I was set up to do what I'm doing now. But I could have easily sold drugs and everything else that my uncles and my family members are still doing to this day. I had God in my life. I set a standard for myself. That was so big that I knew I could never reach it. And I still wake up dreaming about how to get close to that standard. So listen to anybody listening to this. Don't be horrible storytellers. The reason why most people don't have charisma, and they can't share their story with people is because they don't believe in themselves. Number one thing that believe I have a men's group, a Bible study group that we deal with, we're in the process of making everybody write down their testimony. See in a church we call storytelling your testimony. What are you going to say when someone says, what did God do for you? Well, I asked people from NAIFA's. What are you going to say when people say why are you a financial advisor? Are you going to give some boring vanilla answer? Or are you going to take the time to actually write down something that in 30 seconds, you can give those three points that I made? Yesterday, today and tomorrow, here's why I've been. Here's what I had to go through. Here's where I'm at. But here's what I'm excited about. If you can write two or three sentences about where you've been. So for Chris, it could be like this. I'm Christopher Gandy. I was blessed enough. I went through some things when I was young. But basketball was a gift. I met an amazing woman, I was able to get married, I was able to have this career in the NBA, but I realized I wanted to do more to help people, I became a financial adviser. So I can help people. Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy, because I know in history, the word legacy would kind of be there, right? Everybody needs to take the time to write that down. When you do that, just by having the discipline of writing it down. It's amazing how much your message can be downloaded from anyone, whether you're at Starbucks, whether you are at church, whether you are at a rotary meeting, a chamber of commerce meeting, everyone's just begging you to send Suzanne, please tell me why you're different than everybody else who does your job. And it could start with writing your story down in a way where you actually believe your story because if you don't believe it, then nobody else will neither.

Chris Gandy 1:06:37

Well that's a lot to unpack. Right Suzanne. I think if we get a chance to now Morris, the gauntlet has been set. So you know, there is the NAIFA's Advisor Today podcast and there's one episode has been downloaded more than any other episode. So we're gonna see if your episode transcends that. Do you know this episode that is.

Morris Morrison 1:07:00 

Would I happen to know. Give me three choices and I can choose to give me multiple choice.

Chris Gandy 1:07:08 

Me and Chris Gandy. What do you think?

Morris Morrison 1:07:14 

Oh, man, you know what I love about you? You reminded me why earlier in this podcast, I mentioned the importance of humility. This was a laugh when I say that. Now of course, man. Why? Why? Because Chris, people aren't obsessed with you. Because you went to the NBA. If anything, when I hear about players in the NBA or NFL, my heart breaks a little bit because all of the people that I know, I know that the higher you go up that mountain, an NBA and NFL is row high. At some point, you got to jump off that bad boy. And if you were waiting for the athletic trainer, or the team doc to save sorry, you've had three MCL and ACL surgeries. This is it. The team's not signing you to another contract. When you have to jump off that mountain and you haven't been working on your wings yet. That's a sad story. So we use one of the fortunate ones. Bro, let me tell you something else. Chris, I've been dying to say this the whole time. Can I be direct? Chris, can I say something this about you but it's about all our listeners. And Suzanne reminded me earlier, because she was talking about something about the word no one of y'all were talking about the word comfort and this and that. Chris, he's still look like you could lace them up in front. Barbara. You look like you could either you right now.

Chris Gandy 1:08:26 

I'll be 50 this year, was it? When was your birthday? 12/20/73. We were both Sagittarius.

Morris Morrison 1:08:35 

The similar 20 of 73. Color man says, no, I'm just gonna be competitive. You brought the competitive juices out. We're gonna see whose podcast becomes the most downloaded, right? Yeah. But listen, Chris, listen, you look like you could still play ball. Me at 44. I am in better shape than when I play ball at 22. Why? Because of the word maturity. Okay. I can tell you a million ways why our leaders need to understand why we need mature leaders. Here's what maturity sounds like, right? People ask me questions in Q&A all at a time was my son's transgender, or my daughter's going to change their pronouns? What do you think about that? And they want to box me in a corner, right? And I'll look at him and I say, what do I think about it? I'm on this stage and you're asking me my thoughts on your cheek kid being transgender or being confused about their gender? What do I think about it? Let's say this is a very personal question. What do you think about it? What do you think about it? Right? And then right away, they'll say, they'll tell me their rural intent for asking a question, which is, Morris it's just tough. Well, I love them and I'll defend my son as much as day and I'll say great, I'll say because if my daughter's coming to me with that, it's gonna be opposite response because I don't believe in anything you just said. But guess what? I love you. I love you so much. Do you know that if I were there, I'd know your son or daughter not? I will die for them right now. Outside of this arena, I won't die for them and not think twice. Do you understand that every time I leave for a flight, or I turn door Alia and they say they get the same thing I say, hey, in case you don't see me again, tomorrow, I'll see you in heaven. That's how I leave. That's my sign off. Why? Because life is real. We need maturity. We need mature leaders who can say whether you are Democrat or Republican, whether you believe in Black Lives Matter or you don't whether you believe in transgender or you don't, I love you so much more than my love for you and my desire to want to serve you and walk with you and be family to you. That's so much bigger than this thanksgiving dinnertime conversation. You know, I mean, families were in arguments over these past four years about Vax versus own facts. Who's going to kill mom who's not? There are people struggling right now? Whose relationships haven't been repaired? Because of maturity? Why do I bring up maturity because we know what a mature business owner looks like, and what they don't maturity says, I'm going to be offended the moment you say something I don't agree with. That's immaturity. But maturity says I don't care what you believe in. Matter of fact, I'm so strong in my beliefs. My vision and my standard for myself is so high that I'm so busy trying to reach my own standard for myself that just because you like peanut butter and jelly with sardines on it, and just because I don't eat peanut butter jelly with sardines. I don't You don't need to be in a team sardines camp and not we hate each other. But literally, that's how immature Our leaders have become. I'm gonna throw in something for the PACs and the legislative action committees that NAIFA's has been so great. Haven't I'm sitting in church yesterday, who's sitting beside me, Tim Scott, sitting beside me at church yesterday. Do you know how powerful it is that NAIFA I look Asami Tim Scott sitting right there. And I get a chance to say and think to myself, we got oh, by the way, Jim Scott goes to my church, Nikki Haley goes to my church. Nikki Haley, who else who was who's the other one. I'm on the other one young. I told our pastor I said, I said, Pastor, you got five people in his church right now who could be president in this country? One day, by the way, Chris Gandy, you know who number five was when I said it, right? Come on, y'all know who number five was when I said it was gonna say, right, Suzanne who was the fifth person I was talking about. I can't hear you. I'm not sure. You don't know, this is my Nan. I am not operating with humility right now. So I'm not being humble right now. So let's try this again. Who's that potential fifth presidential candidate, I was talking about Suzanne, Morris off course, of course, why. And it's not that I'm presidential. But here's what I believe. As a leader when I stand on stages, my job has been to bring organizations and teams together to unify people. But it does no good as a leader if all you want to do is sing Kumbaya and have happy-go-lucky picnics and everything. Because life is not always a picnic. You have to be able to challenge people, and being direct with people and setting vision and standards. Whether people care, or whether people agree or not, you have to know that that is your job as a leader to do. That's what a mature leader does your job is to set the standard. I brought up Chris's wait for a moment, one of the most mature things that a leader can do is lose weight. And be really direct. If somebody's listening to this. Even with my and I got my book right here, even with my book, Disrupt Yourself, one of my favorite lines that I love saying on stage is when it comes to disruption yourself, we are all adults, nobody needs to tell you what they need to do if you drink too much. He know you drink too much. If you need to lose weight, you know you need to lose weight. See, maturity means I'm going to do what I have to do so I can be a better prime more optimized version of myself. Why? Because I believe that's why leaders are suffering in our country. I call it overflow. This Yeti cup that I'm using to drink my coffee and most people have typically they look at their cup. Like we've heard things like my cup runneth over, right, those things are great to say. But if you're a leader, here's my rule. Everything that's in that cup belongs to you. Everything. Everything, you don't give it to your spouse, you don't give it to your kids. See, when you're getting the right amount of sleep, Suzanne and you're exercising, and you're doing all the things for self-love, your cup will remain full. And then that cup will overflow. And it is when your cup starts to overflow. That's what you give to your customers. That's what you give to your spouse. That's what you give to your family. So I talk a lot about mental health these days. When I'm talking about mental health and maturity right now, there's a crisis going on to our country where our leaders just aren't doing a good job taking care of themselves. They want to make millions of dollars. They want to make a lot of money or look at the cup. I see the cup right there. I couldn't see out a cup that says she's the queen right? Listen Suzanne, I love the cup and I love that you just held up a cup that says Queen for the listeners listening but most importantly, I want to see you exercise and everyday Suzanne, I want to see you say all right, I've had two glasses of wine. That's enough. I want to see you in bed early and rosin at 4am at the latest for 30. Why? Because all I can tell you is the greatest leaders in the world for 1000s of years have always said, the most magical time of the day is from 3:30am to 6:30am. Now I know that because that's a part of my process, but the only people who don't know that that time is magical are the people who are sleeping in what am I saying, Chris Gandy, you still look like you could sue them up and play right now. I tend to think, Chris, that when you look good, it's not just about Deion saying you look good and feel good. But I think that when you look down at your belly, if you can grab a ton of fat on your belly, you know what that's telling me? That's telling me that your discipline is off somewhere, right? And I had to work on I've lost about 30 pounds over the past five years. And I did it slow. Like, I was a football and basketball player. So I got to that point in my 30s, where I'm working out my arms are like twice the size in the gym. And one of the I just had to say, well, I don't need to be 200 pounds of muscle, like I'm barely six foot like, my range is normally like 165 to 175. And my doctor have been saying for years, he said more, she looked good, but you're not healthy. And I didn't want to believe what he was saying. So once I was mature enough to change my diet, and start looking at food differently, and I started losing weight left and right, even though I wasn't starting to start trying to lose weight. And alcohol has never been a part of my story. You always have never been a part of my story. So I've always had those things in check. All of a sudden, I change. And so people say when they see me on stage, man, I love your energy. And you got such good energy. We'll come on. That's great. But you want to see where it comes from? Come on with me. Come work out with me tomorrow morning. Right? Say no to these 12 meeting requests next week? What do you mean, say no wars? Yeah, your energy is going to be attacked by how many times you say yes, get discipline. You don't have to say yes to every meeting request. You wonder why people's cups are empty. Start saying no more say yes to yourself, have more self-care, be mature. Maturity means you know what you got to do? Just go do it.

Chris Gandy 1:17:08 

I love it. You guys are, Morris, one of the things that I know that you have the capability of doing is being able to pivot, right and having the ability to take the conversation where it needs to go for impact. You are a blessing to all of us. You have the capability of being able to communicate a message. And hopefully this is one of the I said that because I know you're competitive. And the reason why I said that is because I want you to win. I know one of the things I did see the Deion Sanders said, which was probably the most I will call prolific thing that he said. He said he was talking about the other coach, he just played a coach where it was another black coach versus another coach. And one of the things he said he said, I don't know him personally. But I'm happy for them. I want him to win. And that really is I want you to win and everything you got going on in your life because when that happens, yes, all we all are better for it. Because now you can tell that story and hopefully that inspires other people. So with that being said, I think we have some amazing content here. Suzanne, I want to take him to the lightning round because got some questions for.

Morris Morrison 1:18:27 

And when you do the lightning round, I'm gonna give short like 10, 15 Second answers. So give me as quick as many questions that you can go in. I'm gonna give I'm gonna give somebody give some quick answers. Yeah, the lightning round.

Chris Gandy 1:18:37 

They're quick. So Suzanne, do you have anything else before we take him to the lightning round?

Suzanne Carawan 1:18:42 

Let's do it. I'm excited.

Chris Gandy 1:18:43 

 All right. All right, Morris. Here we go. So we're gonna do the first one is pretty easy. You Ready? First thing is your favorite food your mother used to cook that you just would love to have every day if you could?

Morris Morrison 1:18:57 

Well, I lost my mom early in New York City. But I'll tell you something, my grandmother who raised me, you write you want to know my favorite food that I would want today anything she felt like cooking. It doesn't matter what it is. She was prolific. She was the best. If she had financial backing and a capital backing, she would have the greatest restaurant in West Virginia.

Chris Gandy 1:19:20 

So here we go. So those were easy. So what position did you play in high school?

Morris Morrison 1:19:26 

Point guard?

Chris Gandy 1:19:27 

What position did you want to play? Point guard? See, that's unique. That's unique. I heard you mentioned something that I'll just I was going to say it before. Thank you for taking the time to say that athletes go through one of the most challenging things in life. And that is losing their identity. Because so many times people perceive what you do is who you are. But we're not. Because basketball is nothing more than a dream but a deadline. So we understand it's a deadline from beginning at some point is going to end notice 60-year-old basketball players Is that how it works at some point to dreams when you just don't know when it's going to come. So with that being said, your favorite pair of shoes.

Morris Morrison 1:20:13 

Got a couple man I got this pair of Pumas that I got in South Beach Miami, is just Pumas day making all these different colors. But there's a old store, right by the Loews hotel in South Beach. And the old man has a story, and he's had it for like 60 years. And it's a single independent store in South Beach, many people listening, they're going to know exactly what store I am. And he has one of wands. So when you walk in, and you see a pair that you like, you know that no one else has them anywhere. And I just noticed, I dropped that I was traveling last a couple weeks ago, and I dropped some coffee on my Pumas. And I'm looking at it last night, like, how am I gonna get this coffee stain out, but they're amazing.

Chris Gandy 1:20:49 

Yeah. So here's a couple of things for you. You ready to go. So your favorite saying, or quote?

Morris Morrison 1:21:02 

Well, one that I'm running right now, that's a Morris Morrison original, is you can't grow something that you don't own. And what that means is, a farmer can go next door on his friend's property, all he wants to try to grow corn on his neighbor's lot. But eventually, his neighbor is gonna say, no, no, this is my property. And the farmer is gonna say no, but I want to grow something for you over here. Well, that's dangerous. You can't grow anything that you don't own. So I want people to understand something right now. I've got multiple people and friends going through divorces with me right now. And my wife and I are walking both the wife and a husband through him in several cases, and it's tough to see. But what we're seeing best contributing to this divorce, it's just the lack of ownership. Now, what I'm seeing over and over again, even at the corporate level for entrepreneurs who can't be successful, Chris, they just can't get out of their own way. You have to be able to get out of your own way. To do that, you got to get direct feedback from someone who's not gonna be your friend, they're gonna kind of talk to you like a daddy, or like a coach, and say, I love you so much that you got to notice. And once you get any information about what you're doing to contribute to getting in your season, what you're doing to contribute to getting in your own way, when that's identified, you got to own it, because you can't grow something that you don't own.

Chris Gandy 1:22:21 

The one word if they were going to describe you some of the going to describe you what would be the one word they would use.

Morris Morrison 1:22:26 

That's the word everyone's used since I was a kid. Intentional.

Chris Gandy 1:22:30 

Intentional. Yeah, the one book, everyone must read.

Morris Morrison 1:22:34 

The Bible, I don't care if you're a believer or not. And if you're not a believer, go start in Proverbs, and it'll blow your mind Proverbs is divided into three sections. The first 10 chapters are for young people. The second 10 chapters are kind of for adults, but the last 10 chapters are for leaders specifically, see, somebody had to teach me that in Proverbs a few years ago, when someone taught me that I saw proverbs completely different. If you're a leader out there, go read the last third of Proverbs and tell me it won't change your business. I don't care if you believe in God or not. I happen to also believe if you read it, and you apply the wisdom, it's going to change your life, your relationships and your business. And then all of a sudden, you'll be more curious about this thing called God up there.

Chris Gandy 1:23:14 

Wonderful. The one message you would tell yourself at the age of seven, what was seven years old? Yes. You can look back and give yourself a message at the age of seven, what would it be?

Morris Morrison 1:23:38 

I know you're alone, but one day, you're going to have a wife who loves you so much. And she's going to make you feel like your mother would have made you feel and like a father could have made you feel but when you have Dori and Alia and even though golden doodle orally, and they run to the door when you come home, if you just hold on at age seven, one day, you're gonna have something that's gonna erase all of that pain, and just bring so much joy into your life.

Chris Gandy 1:24:10 

Last thing, you ready? If you could go back in history, either today or in history and have a conversation or have dinner was one individual, whether dead or alive? Who would it be and why?

Morris Morrison 1:24:24 

Me at age 20. Why? Because I will tell him that the only reason you're having sex is because you think you want intimacy and the only reason you want intimacy is because you've been alone your whole entire life. So sleeping with different girls is not going to do it for you. I would go back and say hey, I'm you in a future, all right, so be yourself but better. I'm you in the future, everything that you have. God equips you with the story, the background, the pain that gifts, the charisma as Suzanne I appreciate she said that earlier. I will go back to meetings. wanting to say you've got everything, you've got the essentials, but also, you're far more gifted than anybody around you. So be yourself. But better. The BE YOURSELF part is applies to me. But the but be better applies to the moment you step out the house, what I would call your ministry, every time you interact with somebody else, whether it's your spouse, your kids, your customers anyway, that's when you have to continue to put on replay, I had Morris Morris and Tommy, that to be yourself means to just use my character to be me at all times. But the moment I get in front of people, I must be better. I must be better. Be yourself. But better.

Chris Gandy 1:25:45 

Love it. Thank you, Mr. Morris Morrison, we appreciate your time. We appreciate you. We look forward to seeing you at another event. We love coming and supporting you in many ways. Do you have anything else you would like to share with the NAIFA's Universe today before we close shop?

Morris Morrison 1:26:06 

Yeah, I'm really passionate about NAIFA. I've served on several boards. I've been chairman of several boards. And I'm going to tell you something I what I'm about to say is about nonprofits. It's not about NAIFA in general, but it relates to NAIFA. Nonprofits are extremely dangerous places for mediocrity. Let me say it again. Nonprofits, non-competitive environments, where if you don't win, you'll still be around next week. See, I like competitive environments, where when you don't when you don't show up, and you don't do what you're supposed to do. Then you get erased from the history of the timeline of history, but nonprofit environments, they're spending someone else's money. That's why we joke about the government. That's why we joke about, cities and towns and states because you're always spending someone else's money. I've noticed that when you're spending someone else's money. It's easy to be comfortable and casual. And we run around like nothing's urgent. Well, listen to me NAIFA membership has been decreasing NAIFA. Almost for the past 40 years in a row, you would think we would have got a clue about that many, many years ago. How do you solve that NAIFA you all need to relook at your board structure. You need to look at your nomination process. You need to relook at your bylaws, you need to shake up everything that you can to make sure that you're bringing blood to see even when a woman gets breast cancer. I saw this MRI last week, lady, she showed it to me, she said Morris, do you know what those white things are that's coming towards the tumor as a tiny little tumor. And because I was pre-med, I was almost a doctor, I knew exactly what it was. I said, Oh Connie, I said that's blood flow. She said, how did you know that? I said, Well, I was pre-med initially. Every time we get a cancerous tumor and you look at it, there's blood that starts to flow to it. Why? Because with blood flow, blood brings nutrients, blood brings oxygen. Same thing is the case for organizations. NAIFA, there's no guarantee you're going to be relevant or even around seven years from now. This is mission-critical. It's not no guarantee that that any nonprofit is going to be around because our world is changing dramatically. This organization needs blood flow. So wherever you can energize the processes of membership of engagement, see, we put so much focus on membership. And I'm glad that we got Suzanne Lena. But what about once we bring those members in, we got to have some snacks, some appetizers, some main courses, we have to engage them differently. And whatever that means y'all have to have the courageous conversations, even if it means scrapping everything from your national leadership. And listen, nothing is off the table. I'm not saying NAIFA needs to scrap his name's national leadership has whole board structure, I'm saying you should leave no stone unturned. Because if you don't, you won't bring them blood flow to the organization that you need. And it can be very dangerous in the future. That's my message for NAIFA. Take it run with it. I'm proud of NAIFA. I'm glad to be an advocate for you. I'm glad to serve. And next time I come I like this so much. I think what we need to do, I think this was great. By the way, we need to do a big national conference, whether it's the legislative conference where there's p plus p whether it's APEC, we need to take the three of us and do a Q&A live on stage. I don't need to do another keynote for a couple of years I've done every event you got I think the three of us doing a Q&A could serve an audience in a major way. Why? Because we're seeing a lot of conferences that are going to actual Q&A during the keynote session. So where I really would have gotten 60 minutes for keynote before people are wanting 30-minute keynote 30 minute Q&A because people get a chance to interact. And that's a result of the Zoom environment. Because doing COVID people got a chance to put questions in during the chat during COVID. And audiences never got a chance to do that before. Now they've carried that over to their live environment. You guys are doing a great job with this podcast. And I think you all should consider not limiting this podcast, just with what you're doing even with other guests. Y'all need to take this show on the road because y'all are awesome. I appreciate you.

Chris Gandy 1:29:54 

Thank you so much. Suzanne. Thank you Mr. Morris Morrison. And Suzanne, do you have anything else?

Morris Morrison 1:30:00 

We got to end with a question or something from Suzanne, because nobody needs the end with two guys talking like she's got a class of some glass who's up the solid.

Suzanne Carawan 1:30:08 

Hey, I love you both. I love you both. Yeah, it's been my pleasure. It's been great. Really appreciate it.

Morris Morrison 1:30:13 

Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate you.

Chris Gandy 1:30:15 

Thanks. Thank you, everyone. I'm gonna wrap this up. Thank you, everyone for tuning into Advisors Today podcast. The podcasts are the voice of the advisor where we get an opportunity to uplift, promote, and create clear visions for the future of what NAIFA looks like. So thank you so much. We'll see you next week. Same time, Morris. Thank you so much, brother. Yeah, we're seeing you soon. All right.

Morris Morrison 1:30:40 

Be blessed. See you guys later. Thank you.

Outro 1:30:45 

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