John Corcoran: 08:40
And what was the experience like of being in Lebanon? I understand you were actually there on nine over 11.
Brandon Hatton: 08:46
So I got there at 19. I got there in 2000. The Israelis had just left after over a decade of occupation. Hezbollah was a bit of a dog who just caught the car. They really didn’t know what to do with themselves.
Like so I was there for relatively. It was about a year and a half of very peaceful times, unrestricted travel throughout Jordan, Syria, Lebanon. I would just get in the car and drive and see Hittite ruins or the old souk in Aleppo. It was amazing. September 11th was stressful, heartbreaking, but in a weird kind of way.
I felt safer there than I felt it. Then the people in the United States felt, remember, we didn’t know if there was going to be copycat attacks or gas attacks, or you couldn’t open your mail with anthrax. And although I was the only one, not the only, maybe there were 1 or 2 other US history teachers in the country of Lebanon at the time, I felt very safe and welcome nevertheless.
John Corcoran: 09:43
So after that, what happens next? Did you, after nine over 11, decide that you wanted to come back to the United States or, you know, at any point did you feel like you weren’t safe remaining? What was the next step for you?
Brandon Hatton: 09:58
Well, it was a bit stressful having luggage, a bag like your luggage packed underneath your bed. And I asked the ambassador I was having dinner and I said, hey, are you going to tell us when to evacuate? And she said, of course, but if you wait for my message, you probably should have left four weeks ago.
John Corcoran: 10:15
Yes.
Brandon Hatton: 10:17
That’s okay. Great. So it was stressful, I left, I knew there was going to be a war in the Middle East. I thought it was going to be Syria. I didn’t know we were going to go to Iraq and Afghanistan.
But I left more so because I was really overwhelmed with the amount of injustice and war and dictatorship and tension of the Middle East. It wasn’t so much for my safety. It was just so overwhelming. After three years of living there, I did what I set out to do, which was to see where my family’s from and to learn about my history. And so, you know, I did a 180.
I decided to go to Brazil like the happiest place on earth, and I taught there for what I taught. I taught there for four years. I did a four year contract teaching. I was teaching history with the concentration or focus on economics or politics and all of these places in US schools or American schools. So my classrooms were like the United Nations, you know, they were just kids from all over the world. It was really amazing.
John Corcoran: 11:17
And it was in Brazil that you witnessed real slums, not something you hadn’t witnessed before. What were the slums in Brazil like, and how did they affect you?
Brandon Hatton: 11:30
Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of poverty in the Middle East, particularly in the refugee camps. But in Brazil, I spent time in the favelas volunteering. And we, you know, one of the things I’m most proud of, of my days teaching in Brazil is I set up like we had this program, like a volunteer program. You know how all these high schools have a program where you just volunteer and they would put kids in buses and just ship them to places. And then they would come back and I’d be like, how was your day?
And they’re like, it was stupid, you know? Like every high school kid. And so I said, well, what if instead of just shipping these kids out, we ask the kids what difference they want to make in the world? And then we asked them to go find an organization who does that and ask them what they need from us. And then they structure a program, pitch it to the nonprofit, and it’s their like, volunteer program.
So at the time I was reading Paulo Freire, who is Brazilian. Academic, really? And he wrote a book called The Pedagogy of the oppressed. And the idea was that the wealthy people in this world are not there to save the oppressed or the or the oppressor is not there to save the oppressed in his language, but actually the oppressed will set free the oppressor. And so that our children are our students were to go into these areas and figure out what they could learn from?
What could they learn from some of the financially poorest people in their country? And that to me, that program’s ups and downs got a lot of positive and plenty of kickback push back on. It was probably my proudest achievement of teaching.
John Corcoran: 13:20
You make your way back to the United States and you get into financial management or wealth management. A few years of that, and then you have this health crisis which impacts who you are today and the work that you do. You know, this health scare. Take us back to that.
Brandon Hatton: 13:44
Sure. So in Gestalt, which you and I both know because we’re part of EO, they have this thing called the paradoxical theory of change. And the idea is that change occurs when we become more like who we are. So change occurs not by becoming somebody different, but becoming somebody who we always were and perhaps who we were even before we were born. So when I went into financial services, I lost a lot of who I was.
I lost who I was as a human, as a human being or my, my commitment to social justice, my commitment to human rights, my commitment to my own health, my own social connections. So, you know, sometimes the wealth accumulation which I achieved through this business came at the destruction. Wealth creation came at the destruction of my health. And so I got to this point where I realized, oh, I’ve kind of got everything I want financially. But boy, my connections and my sense of health and perspective are really down.
And decided either I have to quit the business, or I have to rethink about how the business is. And so that was a big turning point for me. It took a while, but I realized that I didn’t want to quit. I don’t like quitting, and I like to be in a place where I can. I like to poke the bear, John.
You know, like, if I can challenge the system that I’m in and people say, well, you can never do that. You can’t really have these deep, meaningful conversations. They don’t want to talk about that. They just want to talk about their money and say, no, I think we can do that. I think we can build a different system.
I think I can. I think I can survive in this ecosystem of wealth management. I think I can actually thrive. And so in many ways, I’m grateful for the scare that I had. And I think moving forward, it’s like, well, how can I do that without having a scare?
John Corcoran: 15:40
But you must have had pushback, though, working in these larger legacy financial institutions, which kind of have, you know, for lack of a better term, cookie cutter approaches to the way that they approach clients. Right. Did you get pushback?
Brandon Hatton: 15:56
Yeah. So you call it cookie cutter. It’s also pie charts. Everybody’s in a pie chart. These are your stocks.
These are your bonds. This is your whole model. And it’s absolutely right. In fact, many people in those institutions don’t even manage money anymore. They’re just putting it into funds that are managed in a different state by six guys who are running billions of dollars, like it’s no, it’s all very cookie cutter.
It’s not that I pushback would be one way of saying it. And it’s true. Like we just weren’t allowed to do the things we were doing today. So one of the greatest things that I enjoy most that we do today is we help families have conversations about whatever needs to be talked about, whatever’s not being talked about. Sometimes it’s how do we as a family exit a company?
Or what do we do now that we’ve exited? Or how do we talk to our children about inheritance? And this often includes working with the parents. It is sometimes three generations. I have a licensed therapist on staff who works with me.
I have other facilitators that facilitate with me, and it’s just not allowed to happen in those firms. They won’t allow for it. There’s no model that allows you to charge and charge and do that.
John Corcoran: 17:13
And so you end up starting your own firm, which is Conscious Wealth, which gives you more of the liberty to do these sorts of things. Would you say that it’s still I do you have a model now where you’re charging for this or is it really more you aren’t necessarily charging for it in the sense that a traditional therapist would like billing by the hour, but rather it’s just a different, deeper way of serving the clients. I’m assuming that’s the way that you approach it.
Brandon Hatton: 17:47
Well, so our purpose is to cultivate abundance, which means that we want to help our clients. I know and feel that they have enough, so they can go out and do good things. And so that permeates everything we do, the conversations we have, how we talk to people, how we invest. And we actually believe that the way that you invest can help people feel more secure and help them be more secure. And so that’s what you’re talking about. And that all exists.
And some of our clients say that’s not enough for us. I really need you to come into our living room, sit down with our family, and help us have conversations. And please bring another facilitator with you. Or maybe I do the facilitation on my own and that is charged on an hourly basis.
John Corcoran: 18:29
Interesting.
Brandon Hatton: 18:30
And sometimes, like some of our families, they do not invest with us at all. All they’re doing is using our facilitation services.
John Corcoran: 18:38
Oh, interesting.
Brandon Hatton: 18:38
I believe the maximum benefit is when they’re doing both, when they’re investing with us and having the conversations, because the reason there’s two of us in a room is I have a really strong understanding of investments and how money works. And my partner is a partner or partners. Other facilitators really understand how family dynamics and emotions work. And when those two are put together, a lot can be done. And when they’re in isolation, it just doesn’t. It’s not as powerful.
John Corcoran: 19:11
How do you approach the clients that are resisting having those difficult conversations?
Brandon Hatton: 19:21
Well, I think it’s important to meet them where they’re at. And so I would say persistence and persistence is very important. Sometimes we’ll find one spouse in the family does not want to have the conversation, and the other one is dying to have the conversation. I bet you if you polled. Well, families with financial means and say, what are we going to tell our matriarch and patriarch, is an example of a traditional family, or however the family breaks out in terms of gender.
What are we going to tell our kids? One’s going to feel really strongly one way and the other is going to feel strongly the other. And so what we’re trying to do is find common points between them. And almost always the common point is we want our kids to be successful. We want our kids to be thriving in the world.
Okay. So then the question isn’t, what should we tell him? Or we shouldn’t? Or should we set up the structure or should we set up that structure to understand what are the underlying beliefs they have, what makes a person successful, and how can we get the two leaders, assuming there are two leaders to get on the same page so that we can start having meaningful conversations? Because of the absence of those conversations, other narratives are formed and those narratives are usually not correct or helpful.
John Corcoran: 20:40
You developed these four pillars as a way of approaching this, these topics. You want to talk about the way that you’ve organized those pillars.
Brandon Hatton: 20:51
Yeah, sure. So we talk about Conscious Wealth. And the reason we use Conscious Wealth is because sometimes when people talk about wealth, all they’re talking about is one type of wealth. Financial wealth. And it’s just not enough.
It’s not reflective of the complexities of life or the meaning of what we’re doing here. And so we talk about the other three pillars besides financial wealth. We talk about health. As I mentioned before, if you don’t, the expression that I love the most is the wealthy person or sorry, the healthy person has a million wishes and the unhealthy person has only one wish, right? And so you take away health from somebody, doesn’t matter how much money they have.
It’s a real form of well-being. We also talk about connections, right? And so you can have all the money in the world. But if you don’t have connections, you don’t have strong friends and family. Not only do you have no one to share it with, you’re going to share it with people for less time.
Like statistically, you will not live as long and you will have less of a lifespan. And the final perspective. This idea of mindset, like a growth mindset and a mindset of gratitude, which you and I have spoken of, which is so important because you can have all the money in the world, but if you’re not grateful for it, what good is it? And so gratitude, perspective, financial health, wealth and health are the four pillars we speak of. And all of them need to be addressed, and I believe all of them need to be addressed and can be addressed through wealth management to some degree or another.
John Corcoran: 22:27
One of the challenges that successful families experience is how to, you know, a lot of times the you have a generation that was, you know, raised in, in poverty or didn’t have means and it was the drive to to get away from that that made them who they are that allowed them to build their their business, that allowed them to be successful. And then their kids are raised at a much higher standard of living. And so they wonder, how can I impart on my kids, the next generation, the same spirit, the same drive that I had. And I see that over and over again with a lot of different successful founders and entrepreneurs and things like that. So what are your thoughts on that subject? How to inspire the next generation to not just take what they’ve given and kind of live a fat, lazy, happy life, but to, you know, to achieve things with their life?
Brandon Hatton: 23:28
Yeah. So you said a lot there.
John Corcoran: 23:30
And sorry I packed a little too much in. No, it’s a great question.
Brandon Hatton: 23:34
It’s a great question. So what you’re talking about is a phenomenon. Known immigrants or natives to wealth, the immigrant to wealth is the one who maybe didn’t have, was born into a sense of scarcity or poverty, had a ton of drive, made lots of money. And their heirs, their children may be natives to wealth. That’s all they’ve known is money.
So the first thing I would say is, it is unfair for an immigrant of wealth to expect a native of wealth to act and think the same way as them. It’s just they haven’t lived the same life experiences. And so accepting your heirs for who they are based on the experience they have is very important. Beyond that, you’ll say a lot of people will say, well, I don’t want my kids to be spoiled. And I think that’s a very fair point.
Nobody likes spoiled kids. But what does spoiled mean? How do you define spoiled? How do you define not spoiled? Name of a great book.
And that’s a really important point. And a measuring stick that, if we have that, then we can start having conversations. What does entitlement mean? Right. Like and so a lot of times the lack of conversation that occurs around money is the fear of children being spoiled or lazy or entitled if they find out.
And I would argue that the risk of them becoming any of those things are greater without dialogue or dialogue. So summarizing, defining what is spoiled and expected and knowing that if your children had a different life than you, they’re going to have a different outlook on life.
John Corcoran: 25:14
Yeah. I also want to ask you about, I imagine you’ve experienced this, where you have clients that have achieved an outcome. Maybe they’ve exited their business, maybe they sold their business, whatever. And then it’s kind of like, what’s next? And they don’t know what’s next.
They don’t know what they want to do next because they’ve kind of achieved what they wanted to achieve. Talk us through that. How do you approach that dilemma?
Brandon Hatton: 25:40
That’s so big? Yeah, yeah, I get it. And I’m part of me all the time. Like it’s part of my reality all the time is like, who am I without my work? I love my work so much, but who am I without it?
John Corcoran: 25:55
Yeah.
Brandon Hatton: 25:59
And I think that the important thing that I try to remind myself of as I’m going through it, is to have other identities outside of work. So the one day when I can no longer do what I’m doing, for whatever reason, or I decide no longer to do it, that I have other things to lean upon. The big thing though, I would say the most common advice I give to you to answer your question is you just exited a company for a year. Just take a victory lap for a year. Don’t make any major purchases for a year.
Don’t start a new business. Just allow the 5 or 50 years of work to just kind of settle down and help you ground and let the dust settle a bit and, and figure out, you know, be comfortable with that silence. Be comfortable with that lull. That’s an activity we can do when we retire. And it’s an activity I can do every day. At the end of the day, you know. Yeah. So yeah.
John Corcoran: 27:05
I also want to ask you about you. This is a difficult conversation to have with people. Sometimes when you create a business as you have, which kind of breaks the mold. There can be a tension between clients coming to you for, like, the traditional thing that they think of when they think of a wealth management firm and what you know, they need or, or what you want to provide. And it’s interesting because you have a book, you speak, you’ve got a card game on your website, you’ve got a course on your website.
So talk a bit about, you know, adapting to the new way of communicating. You know, we have social media, we have YouTube, we have all these kinds of different ways that people communicate and also learn and educate themselves. And I get the sense that you are at least trying different sorts of things in order to get your message out there and to communicate with the market about some of these principles.
Brandon Hatton: 28:05
Yeah. So carrying this message is very important to me, and expanding the message and telling people or allowing people to think about wealth in a different way is very important to me. It’s part of what I think is a way, I believe, to be a way that we can make our society more loving, kind and just. And there’s so much tension around money and allowing that to just be lightened up a bit, making a fun card game to talk about money, doing talks, spending time with you here is all very valuable for my personal mission as it is defined now, right? When a client comes to us and they say, look, I just want wealth management, that’s fine.
It’s fine as long as we can see we work. We like to say that we work with light-hearted clients. They don’t have to be like-minded. They can think politically differently than us. They can think differently about everything.
But as long as we feel that their heart is in the right place and that they want to take care of themselves and their family and do good in the world, however they define that, and that can be defined in a million different ways. We’ll work with them in the capacity that they need. And sometimes over time they’ll say, hey, I hear you’re doing this other stuff. We’d like to work with you. They’re great.
Or they want to stick to a lane. That’s okay too. And I tell the team this all the time, we’re here to serve, and we’re here to serve people where they are and what they need. And preferably, we want to serve people who will accept our help. Right. And they want to work with us.
John Corcoran: 29:39
Yeah. Actually, you mentioned the team. I want to ask you about that because I know that you started the company in Atlanta. You moved to South Florida as one does during a pandemic. A lot of people were doing that.
And now you’re on the way moving back there. And it’s interesting to me because there’s the issue of like the way you branded yourself and Conscious Wealth and everything that attracts a certain type of clientele. It also attracts a certain type of worker who wants to join a company, like working for a company like that. Yeah. So talk about building up this company by deliberately designing it in a different way from the JPMorgans of the world.
Brandon Hatton: 30:15
I’m so happy you asked that. Thank you. That’s something I’m really, really proud of. So one of the things that we do that Mirren that you spoke of before encourages us to do is we do a year compass every year. And we it’s this activity in December where every individual looks back at their own personal year and all the highlights and lowlights, and then they look forward to what they want, and they fill out this old, this entire document in confidentiality.
And then we go out and get pizza and beer and we share whatever we feel like sharing. One of the questions is, if 2024 was a movie, what would it be called? You know, and so everybody’s sharing these things. We also have meetings. We also just go out for pizza and beer every month or two, and we might have a book club talking about the purpose of life or what does it mean?
What does Conscious Wealth mean to you? It can start really digging into the brand so that all of them feel like they can be part of this brand. It is, you know, I believe I’m part of the conscious capitalist movement. I believe business is a force for good. And so I’m not just serving clients, I’m really serving.
I tell my teammates all the time, I’m here to serve you, and you all are here to serve me. Like that’s what we’re doing. And helping them become better human beings and vice versa. And they could go somewhere else, probably, and get a bigger paycheck tomorrow. But they might not find a place where they belong. They might not see the scalability or the opportunity to grow in other places. And they choose to stay. And I’m glad because I really care for him and vice versa. Yeah.
John Corcoran: 31:53
Brandon, this has been great. I want to wrap up with my gratitude question. So I’m a big fan of practicing gratitude and also giving our guests a little bit of a space here at the end to acknowledge any peers, contemporaries, mentors who’ve helped them in their journey, maybe during the health crisis or some other time. Anyone in particular you’d want to acknowledge?
Brandon Hatton: 32:16
Well, I would probably acknowledge the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and the whole faculty I worked with there. I started a course just right before Covid, and it was all throughout Covid. And by doing a two year facilitation training program with them, I learned so much. I gained so much wisdom from all of them. Or it was at least it got to experience their wisdom and incorporate it in ways that I wanted to.
And it’s transformed my career, but it’s also transformed just the way I feel as a human being, how I interact with the world, how I interact with other people, how I show up a more present. And all of that was, you know, for me, accomplished through the lens of Gestalt and the faculty, which certainly don’t do it for the money. They’re just really there to help people become better humans. So it was a big turning point in my career. Very grateful for all of them.
John Corcoran: 33:17
I’ve never heard of it before, so thank you for bringing it to our attention. We’ll certainly put it in the show notes. And Brandon, thank you so much. Where can people go to learn more about you and Conscious Wealth and connect with you if they have any questions?
Brandon Hatton: 33:30
That’s it. consciouswealth.com.
John Corcoran: 33:32
Awesome. Brandon, thanks so much.
Brandon Hatton: 33:34
Thank you, John.
Outro: 33:38
Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.