The Advisor Library
with Matt Cosgriff
The podcast traces how the books RIA leaders read at different inflection points in their careers have shaped them, the firms they've built, and the way they serve clients.
What's the Money For? Listening for What Clients Want, with Derek Hagen [Ep. 06]
Why do clients agree with a recommendation and then never act on it? Derek Hagen, a financial therapist and advisor at Root Financial, explains how motivational interviewing helps clients talk themselves into change, and why the better planning question is what the money is for.
The Odyssey: A Decades-Long Search for the Book That Shaped a Career, with Jerry Cobb [Ep. 05]
Jerry Cobb read The Odyssey in ninth grade, the same year he lost his father—and it quietly shaped both the rest of his life and the wandering career that followed. Decades later, prompted by the new film, he tracked down the exact edition he read as a teenager, and found the book had come home to him the way Odysseus finally comes home. For RIA leaders, it's also a conversation about Grant, the loneliness of hard decisions, and the change-management framework Jerry uses to help next-generation firm leaders make it stick.
The AI-Enabled Future of Wealth Management, with Spenser Segal (Author Chats)
Spenser Segal has been asking the same question since he founded Actifi in 2003: how do you get financial institutions and their advisors to deliver world-class integrated advice, more effectively and more profitably? For twenty years, the honest answer was that he mostly couldn't. Spenser calls closing that gap his moonshot, and he now believes AI is the first genuine answer he's had to his own question.
The E-Myth: The Paper Plate That Started It All, with Chip Munn [Ep. 03]
Chip Munn sketched his first org chart on the back of a paper plate at two in the morning on a 2001 vacation that would lay the foundation for the business he would build. He joins me to talk about Michael Gerber's The E-Myth, the accountability chart it eventually gave him, and the hundred-year-firm filter that now shapes every decision at Signature Wealth.
Strong Ground: Pocket Presence and a Lifelong Reading Habit, with Dan Wanous [Ep. 02]
Dan Wanous got his start in wealth management at a New Year's Eve party--and spent the years since learning what it actually takes to stay composed under pressure. He joins me to talk about Brené Brown's Strong Ground, the idea of "pocket presence," and the books that shaped how he leads, hires, and reads.
Four Thousand Weeks: Advising in a Finite Life, with Thomas Pargett [Ep. 01]
Advisor Thomas Pargett on the book that reshaped how he counsels clients: Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks. A conversation about finite time, presence, and why the best advisors are really teachers.
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Be a Guest on The Advisor Library
I'm always looking for RIA leaders and advisors who read constantly—shaped less by any single book than by the habit itself—and want to talk about how it's changed the way they run their firm. If that sounds like you, I'd love to hear from you.