Episode Transcript

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Rianka: 00:00 Daria, John, welcome to 2050 TrailBlazers.

John: 00:04 Thank you. Rianka we're so excited to be here and we're, we're so humbled and honored to be part of the podcast.

Rianka: 00:12 Yeah, thank you. Rianka I'm so excited to be part of this episode since this podcast is the whole reason that you know, John and I have got together to try and make a change in the profession.

Rianka: 00:22 Yes. Oh my goodness. And as we've talked about before, this is kind of full circle, for all of us. And so to kind of give the listeners some background here, if this is your first time tuning into, 2050 TrailBlazers, this is episode eight. So this is the last episode, I know the last episode of season four, where we're sharing everything best practice as it relates to and through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I thought it was perfect to end this season, season four with Daria and John because both of them have been active listeners and avid listeners and supporters of 2050 TrailBlazers since the beginning. And not only do they listen to the podcast, they also have been reaching out and sharing ways that they have implemented. Just different strategies from listening to different guests over the past couple of years. And so I thought it was one very encouraging to just know that people are actually listening and implementing. But then also two, you know, from a best practice perspective, both Daria and John have, you know, they've had some great implementations, and then also some bumps in the road. And, and as you know, we are a profession that, loves what we do and, why not share some of the things that have gone well, but then also some of the things that is like, ah, we had to pivot because this didn't work out the way we thought.

John: 02:11 Yeah. So, you know, Rianka I think that's a great segue. I, I, you know, they're probably, frequent listeners to the podcast. There's probably first time listeners to this podcast. So we thought, you know, we'll start with just the overview of Abacus, just so people to, to provide that context so people know the size of firm we are and you know, that that'll speak a lot to our capabilities and what we were able to do and kind of the road blocks as you mentioned that we've stumbled across. And then, you know, Daria, will share with this a little bit about how we started. So, you know, sorry, before we go there, I, I just want to be sure I say this, Rianka. I just want to acknowledge all the amazing things you're doing for industry, as it relates to diversity, equality, and inclusion. Because, you know, we know you're a firm owner, we know you do, you have a lot of things going on and this isn't something you have to do. No one said you have to do this, but you're doing it out of your own time and in making that sacrifice. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and say thank you because you've been a great inspiration for us as you'll hear soon. And, and I'm sure to many, many others in the industry.

Rianka: 03:24 Wow. Thank you so much. I felt that. Wow. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

John: 03:33 Good. Thank you. So a little bit about Abacus, where we're about 30 years old. There's 62 employees at the firm. 19 of our employees are partners. So we're about a third of the firm is employee-owned. And some of the statistics that we're very proud of is that from a gender perspective, we have about 63% of our employees are women and 58% of our advisors are women. Now compare that to, you know, the industry average of 23%. We've been doing very, very well. Right? You know, if you look at our board composition, you know, I think somewhere in the literature you'll find that, you know, women are not very well represented on the boards of public companies or financial services firms for sure. Right? 60% of our board members are women. So we've made great, great progress from the gender perspective, but, that also made us recognize there's some more work to be done when it comes to the ethnic perspective and the cultural perspective. So, you know, the, this is where, you know, we started having the conversation about, you know, addressing this area of opportunity and that's when, you know, Daria came out and, well Daria, why don't you tell the, share with us the story about, about, you know, how you were inspired by listening to 2050, and how, how, you know, we kind of sparked the conversation at Abacus.

Rianka: 05:24 Yes, thank you. So Rianka, I don't even remember when I met you, but you've been in my life, fortunately for a number of years with that Hokie bond, you know, informal mentorship. And because of that, I was listening to your podcast and just, just like it says sparked conversation. You know, I grew up out in outside DC and which is a very diverse area and I was kind of disappointed when the finance, I looked at the financial planning industry and realized it wasn't diverse. I heard the podcast and I went to one of my supervisors and I said, Hey, have you heard this podcast? I think it's really important for us to do something about this cause you know it's great that we have such great gender diversity but there's so much more work to do and fortunately, and unfortunately Abacus is the kind of place where if you raise your hand and you say you want to do something, they give you the fuel to say go ahead and do it.

Rianka: 06:14 You know it's really like as long as you're getting your work done and you want to tackle on any other projects, people really embrace that. And I, you know Neela was like, have you talked to John lately cause he has the same passion. I think you guys should connect. And you know, here we are, a year or two later, John, I can't even keep track. And we've definitely, we've definitely taken some, some steps in the direction I think. So this podcast is really interesting to be on this podcast because it's just kind of come full circle.

Rianka: 06:41 Yes. And not from a full circle perspective. You know, we 2050 TrailBlazers has a social media presence, so whether it's IG, Twitter, and so again, like from an active perspective, not only are you listening, you were also sharing some of the things that you two were doing in your firm. And John, like every episode there's a comment from you and I love it, I love it. And, and sharing your learnings. Right. And so, so that was, very encouraging to see. And so, and also because of that, we started to incorporate, actionable tips into episodes. So not only sharing quotes, but what are some actionable tips that you can take. And I, we kind of got that from, from you, John as inspiration. Yeah. Yeah. So still full circle there. So Darra you mentioned that you initiated the conversation, as, as a result of just listening and just like, okay, well we can do more. You know, when we hear diversity, especially in this profession, our minds typically go to gender. But as we know there is, there are many facets of diversity, whether it's gender, whether it's sexual orientation, whether it's religion, ethnicity. And so how, how did the conversation go when you approached, you know, your, your team there at Abacus and was there any roadblocks? Are there any best practices, to share with the listeners when you do approach someone, at, at the organization or firm to initiate a program like this? Internally?

Rianka: 08:38 I think with all problems, whether that's, or challenges I should say with, with diversity and inclusion, and I actually like to call it inclusion and diversity, diversity personally because you can't have diversity if you don't have an inclusive environment. And to me when I, being part of this firm and hearing this podcast, it just made so much sense to me that Abacus is a place to foster diversity because we have a very inclusive environment. So the way that we got started is, and also with all challenges, I think you can't just be like this is a problem period. You have to be like this is a problem and this is what we're doing about it or this is what I think we should do about it. So you know, I think I heard the podcast, I don't remember exactly what I said, but after we connected with John, it was like, all right, now what are we going to do? What is the next step? And we started with our why statements. So we had to start from the bottom down. You know, it would be great if the C suite and all of our executives want to do diversity. But if everyone else doesn't, doesn't want to take any actionable items, then they can't do everything right. So we had to kind of get the buy in from everyone else and see what everyone else was interested in. So we created why statements based on the book by Simon Sinek. Have you heard of it? So Let's Start with Why.

Rianka: 09:47 Yes, I love it. And for those who do not know about it, I'm going to include it in the show notes, a link to the book because it is very important to read.

Rianka: 09:57 And there's also a YouTube or a video, if you're a more visual person, which I think is really cool. He draws out the golden circle. So the golden circle is, you know, everyone knows what companies do. Some people know what, how they do it, but not everyone has a why. So for us it was really important to create that why statement, why are we interested in diversity and inclusion? Why are you here? Why do you want to make a difference if you know everyone? If John and I had different why statements compared to some other people that were on our committee, that wouldn't really be helpful because we would all be coming at it from different angles. We have to work as a team and even with our committee, you know, John and I are different ages. We're in different locations or in different, you know, we're different ethnicities and we also put a term limit on our, on ourselves of two years because we want to make sure that, you know, we're having diversity of thought with this committee. So we, so kinda to wrap that up, we, we created a why statement and we wanted to see why everyone was interested but also thinking about the committee that it's important to have diversity in the leadership.

Rianka: 11:01 Okay. You've mentioned a couple of great points. I just wanted to point out there, one, you have term limits and so it sounds like you two are maybe co-leads of this. Okay. So your co-leads, you have two year term limits. It doesn't mean that you are, you know, excommunicated from, from the committee. But more so of stepping down so that someone else can step up. I love that.

Rianka: 11:27 That's correct. So we would be, you know, still involved in the committee, but we wouldn't be the co-leaders. Exactly.

John: 11:33 Right. And that was really important for us Rianka because a, you know, we wanted to have that diversity and inclusion of thought, right? We wanted other people's ideas to come forward, but also we wanted to communicate early on that this wasn't a John and Daria thing, right. This was an Abacus thing and that, you know, we were, you know, as we're starting this initiative, we're also looking for the next people that want to lead it, right. And bring their best self out, in the area that they're very passionate about.

Rianka: 12:11 And that is key. And I'll just tell you the secret to a successful, committee leadership organization is always be looking at who is going to be your successor. And you tap them very early on, and you make sure you include them in key conversations so that when they take over the reins, it's not more so of reinventing the wheel or have to take five steps back in order for them to catch up to where you all are. So I love that idea of setting terms for yourself but also identifying someone else to be your successor once you two are done. And something else I wanted to point out too is that you two are in different locations. Sorry, you are in California. So you're in the West coast and John, you're over in Philly. Is that correct?

John: 13:02 No, I'm also in California. I'm in Southern California though.

Rianka: 13:06 Why did I think you were in Philly?

Daria: 13:13 I was, I was in Philly. I was, I think we all had a group call and I was in Philly. So I, cause I have family on the East coast. I try to, you know, go up to the Philly office for a couple of days and.

Rianka: 13:24 Got it,

Daria: 13:25 I was like confusion.

Rianka: 13:28 Okay. So you're in two different locations in the same thing as we know, California is a massive state is huge. You're in, two different locations. So location isn't a barrier for you to do this. That's one thing I wanted to kind of acknowledge and then two how, because you two are in different locations, but you know, you're in California. How did, how were you able to include, your colleagues who may be in different States?

Daria: 13:54 Hmm. John, do you want to go ahead and talk about how, how much we love technology here?

John: 14:00 Absolutely. So technology has been a really, you know, big game changer in many industries and you know, for us, to break down the geographic barriers, uh, technology has been a huge asset for us. You know, in addition to overcoming, that geography barrier using technology, you know, we also used a very systematic approach to develop our, our next steps and identify what we really wanted to accomplish, right? We, we worked at everyone to come up with these great why statements on why they are so passionate about diversity. But we realized without a strategic tie in to kind of a, a business purpose, we would quickly lose steam. Right? Yeah. So we say, well, what's something, a tool that we could use to help us really hone and focus our, our mission, right? Similar to what we do with, financial planning clients, you start with the goals, you figuring out what's important to them, and then you create the financial plan, right?

John: 15:08 You don't just, we don't just spit out numbers and say, well, this is fit for you. So we kind of took a similar approach and the tool that we used was, we read a book called Measure What Matters by John Doerr. I don't know if you've heard of that and you're going to find out Rianka that Daria and I read a lot,

Rianka: 15:28 I need new books to read, so I love it.

John: 15:29 Oh yeah. We'll have a few for you by the end of this podcast. So we, we read this book called Measure What Matters by John Doerr and what this book talks about is a framework called OKRs. And what OKR stands for is objectives and key results. So, the why really kind of gave us a vision but not direct objectives, right? So an objective for example, would be we want to build the tallest building in the world.

John: 16:04 The key results would be, okay, well how do we do it? Well, we have to find out what the tallest building in the world is. We have to find out how many floors it has, et cetera, et cetera. And so we were able to able to take this framework to create concrete steps and, being a very, very data-driven firm. If you ever come to Abacus, you can't just show up at Abacus and start talking without any data. You know, people are going to be like, they'll listen to you and there'll be like, Oh, what's the data?

Rianka: 16:34 Well, and John, this is a good point. Is this something that you found out as you were going through this process that your particular firm likes data?

John: 16:42 Just a quick aside here, you know, being a 60% firm, you know, we're, you would say a large RIA,

Rianka: 16:50 very large.

John: 16:50 But were not a huge company.

Rianka: 16:52 that's huge,

John: 16:55 right

John: 16:57 Were large in the RIA space, but we're not a huge company. Because of that there, there's pros and cons, right? One is, you know, we, we don't have a dedicated chief diversity officer. We have people that have hobby jobs, right? So, you know, Daria and I both, you know, Daria and I both serve on several committees. So like personally I serve on our firm's investment committee. I serve on our mergers and acquisitions team. Cause I have some prior background in that. And we also serve on, the diversity committee that, you know, Daria and I, I launched. And so just being involved in all these different committees, we kind of knew data was going to be important. So we had that in our back pocket coming in. And I mentioned our size. So we're, we found size being a challenge is that it was hard to fit demographic data to fit a firm, so to fit a particular office.

John: 18:07 So, for example, I work out and in the San Fernando Valley part of, Abacus, right? In a smaller office, there's four, maybe five of us out there. Well, it's hard to match us to mirror the community we serve, right? So for example, if, you know, the community is like, you know, 60%, you know, Asian, you know, and I'm, I'm one of four people in the office and I represent the only Asian people and it's hard to go from 25% to 60% when there's only four of you, right? But what we found was we were able to better mirror that if we took the whole firm together and we said, what does Abacus look like as a team, as a firm in total? And how do we compare that to the US census data, right? Because Philly looks very different than Santa Monica looks very different than San Mateo. But as a firm, we're able to focus on, you know, what are the areas of opportunity for us and how can we get better and key, you know, census data.

John: 19:22 So we use that as our starting point, as our objective that we want to mirror, the communities we serve at a broad level because it's difficult to do when you're, you know, relatively a small RIA to do it by office. Right? So that was one starting point and the, the numbers, while, you know, we talked about the gender, statistics being fantastic. The ethnics statistics weren't so great, right? So if you look at the US census data, I think this is just the most recent that we are able to find from a few years ago. And we know in 2050 this is going to change, but we know that currently the US census is around 60% white and then 40%. So we're like, as a country, we're a 60, 40 portfolio, right? 60%, 40% ethnic minority. And what we found that Abacus, we were about 86% white and about 14% other.

John: 20:31 So we knew we had, some work to be done, but we also knew that this provided us ample opportunity, right? Because there's a huge gap of areas we could improve. And so we kind of took this data to figure out what are the key results that we would need to see to improve in these other areas. So some of the key results that we came up with was, you know, reaching out to historically black colleges and make, you know, kind of making an introduction so that they can see us as a, as a partner and as a, as a firm that can be a future employer for their students coming out of financial planning programs or econ programs or otherwise. Right. One of the firms we, both Daria and I connected with was Delaware State University.

John: 21:30 Yeah. And professor Das there has been, you know, an amazing inspiration for us and an amazing source of information for us as well. So we took the data. So we started with the why, we took, we went with the data and we came up with these objectives, objectives and key results. So one of the ways we're using it right is, it's all about implementation. One of my mentors at work, always says, you know, financial planning isn't about planning, it's about implementation. And so some of the ways we're using this to implement, our key results is we started to host, lunch and learns. And so we, we've done, a couple of pretty cool lunch and learns, so far. And, we're scheduling some more.

Daria: 22:21 When we started the diversity inclusion committee, we didn't ask for money from our company. So we really had to get creative about how are we going to connect with people? How are we going to make sure that people are learning? You know, John came up with a model of, you know, we have to entertain people, we have to educate people and we have to empower them. And you know, everyone's got to eat. And so we just started with the idea of lunch and learns so that way we could, you know, we were having lunch and learns already for different topics at Abacus. And we wanted to kind of just pivot instead of learning about estate planning or tax planning, maybe what we're learning about a different culture and because of budget constraints and you know, it's also hard to kind of find topics for specific cultural, I guess topics I would say is that we went into look at our own, our own pretty diverse, some regards. We all come from a different background and we all have different experiences and we ask people to start speaking at our own company. So, you know, last month in September we used, we asked George who's our controller, so not in an advisor that people are used to interacting with all the time, except making sure our expense reports are done on time. You know, he's from Brazil, so we asked him to speak on, on his experience in Brazil and a little bit about the differences between Hispanic and Latino heritage,

Rianka: 23:40 which is pretty cool because as we know, and for people who are not aware, you know, September starting September 15th through October 15th, I believe it is. It's the Hispanic heritage month. And while that is great, it's like, Oh great, this Hispanic heritage month, someone like George, it may not resonate with him because he's not Hispanic. He's actually Latino from Brazil.

John: 24:08 I have a funny story there. Rianka I mean, you, you hit it right on the dot. When you, you know, Daria and I review like a diversity calendar to come up with topics are, and our editorial calendar, right? For the next few months, we noticed it was Hispanic heritage month and I was like, awesome. I'm going to go ask George if he wants to do a lunch and learn and teach us about Brazil, you know, right here. So here's the guy who's like, Hey, let's awaken our cultural consciousness, right? So I go to, I go to George and I say is down here in Southern California with me. And, we were in the same office one day and I said, Hey, George, you know, it's, it's going to be Hispanic heritage month. And he's like, yeah. And I go, you know, would you mind sharing with us a little bit about your culture? And teaching us about Brazil and he's like, sure, but by the way, Brazilians don't really consider themselves Hispanic. And I was like, Oh my God. Yeah.

Rianka: 25:12 I, I mean, and you bring up a really good point though, John, is that if we're going to approach this and, and like truly be vulnerable and learn, we're gonna make some mistakes like that. Right? And it's not coming from a place of malice. You know, it's coming from a place of just wanting to learn and sometimes we make mistakes. And so if you are in a company and this is something that you want to try to incorporate as well, I think again, John, you're making some great analogies, with clients. So I'll bring this back to a client perspective is like, before we begin any relationship, what do we do? We set very clear expectations so that we can make sure that we're on the same page. And that's something I tell my clients all the time, listen, I don't have the answers to everything.

Rianka: 26:07 And sometimes when you ask me questions, I'm going to be like, you know what? I don't know, but I will go and find out for you and I'll circle back with you. And so, that's the same way for us to approach these conversations is that, you know, set clear expectations. Like, Hey, we're not going to get it right the first time, but we're all coming from a place in our heart where we really want to learn. And so I appreciate George taking that moment and that opportunity to help share with you John. Like, Hey, yeah, this is great. I would love to share about my culture. However, you know, Brazil, you know, we're not, we're not Hispanic, so that's great. Right? And so, again from, and so that's why it's great to have everyone from a buy in perspective and, and not get upset at something.

John: 27:03 Right.

Daria: 27:04 And it's one more thing I wanted to say about that is, you know, I brought up the food example. So, you know, every Tuesday we're very fortunate to get free lunch at Abacus. You know, Abacus pays for our lunch. It's, you know, a way to bond over food and, and during the lunch and learn we have food and we always try to encourage people to whatever it's, you know, so Brazilian food might be a little bit difficult. It's not as readily available as say a, you know, tacos for example. It's, and also for vegetarians can be a little bit more difficult except delicious plantains of course. So we always try to encourage people to have, you know, order food about the topic but also make it optional. It's not a requirement cause we want people to embrace the culture but not like force it, it's, you know, it's about education. It's not a mandatory requirement.

Rianka: 27:45 And you called it something else too. Before it was the, the diversity and inclusion committee. It was something culture, cultural awakening or

Daria: 27:54 Oh, our tags, our tags. John says it much more beautifully than I do.

Rianka: 27:57 Oh, the tagline, the tagline. Yes. John, please, please share with the listeners.

John: 28:03 Yes. So our tagline was awakening our cultural consciousness.

Rianka: 28:09 I love that. Can we just, let's sit with that for a second. Awakening our culture consciousness. Yes. And that's what you all are doing there.

John: 28:21 And the George example is so perfect because, you know, I, I'm Asian, I had no idea there is a real distinction between Hispanic and Latin. Right? And, and something we learned so that that model, if I could speak on the three factor model for a second, entertain, educate, and empower. And I don't know where I got that from. So I'm, I'm definitely not giving someone credit here, but you know, if you know who you are, the credit goes to you and please let me know so I could give you credit in the future. But really, you know, we came up with that model because we said, look, we're, we're giving up an hour of our day. Let's make it fun. Right? Which is the entertaining part. Teach us about their culture and for, you know, with George, it was really interesting because he grew up in Brazil and came here as an adult, right?

John: 29:13 So kind of learning about that part about Brazil that we didn't know. And then he also shared with us what it's like to be an immigrant right in America and still be Brazilian and how Brazilian and American, you know, Brazilian Americans adjust to kind of that culture shift, and then empower. It's like, okay, great. Now that we know about Brazilian and Brazilian Americans, what do we do with that information? And I often feel like that's where like these great diversity training, trainings get lost, right? How many times have you left the conference or a training or, or something where you're like, wow, that was awesome and you're all pumped up and you'd go back and you're like, what do I do with it?

John: 29:57 What do we, where do we go next? And here it really, the empower piece was George gave us some really specific takeaways about working with Brazilian people. And it was very simple things, right? Like you said in Brazil, the concept of time is very different than how we look at it in America. In Brazil, people are late and they just expect it. But even though they show up late, they want you to be generous with your time. So if you think about that from a cultural perspective, can you imagine someone that grew up in America, if you're 15 minutes late, you know, for a meeting, they're going to be incredibly perturbed, right? Yet this Brazilian person shows up and you know, they're, they're happy as can be and now they want all your time.

Rianka: 30:55 Well, that's, I mean, that's interesting to know and learn. And, if again, if you're a first time listener, I highly encourage you to go back to season three where we talked about the intersection of money and culture, and just the different types of culture. And we talked about first generation, immigrants and how they view money and, their experience and all of that. But this is a really great point, right? Because what I'm hearing you say, John, is if I have a client who grew up in Brazil or has Brazilian background, then I know to put a buffer of time in that and having the expectation that they're probably going to be between 10 to 15 minutes late and when they come in, right? And so an hour and a half meeting, I'll probably need to block off maybe two hours. Just for that buffer of time to know that they'll probably going to be late and this is something that we expect. So or, or what you can do is actually schedule the meeting 30 minutes prior to when you actually want to start. So you really want it to start at two. So tell them 1:30.

John: 32:07 Right. Exactly, exactly. And if we take this concept of the lunch and learn and what we learned from George, and my faux pas, right, and we extrapolate it, in addition to doing the lunch and learns, we started doing chatter posts. So I recently posted one about lunar new year

John: 32:29 and speaking about how, you know, the history of the lunar new year and things you might be able to do. If you grew up here, you might not necessarily know that Lunar New Year is a major holiday in all of Asia. Like, you know, we think Times Square on New Year's day is big, think about that times a hundred and all across the country. And then for a week long, right? Yeah.

Rianka: 33:01 So tell us more about the lunar new year

John: 33:01 So lunar new year, it goes by the lunar calendar. So it's not a fixed date on our, on our, you know, Roman calendar, like January 1st per se, the changes every year, and it's usually associated with a, I'll call it like a mythological animal, right? So I was born in the year of the dragon, right. So, you know, in the year of a particular animal or astrology sign, they'll celebrate that particular, Zodiac's symbol, right? Asian, Zodiac symbol. And it goes, the celebration goes for like a week long. And the big thing that people do in Asia is they give each other red envelopes, red as a sign of good fortune and good luck in the in the Asian culture. And they usually put money in that and give it to each other.

John: 33:54 Interesting thing about red, while it's a sign of good fortune and good luck, you never write a person's name in red. That's a big no, no, because that is typically reserved for people that are recently deceased. And so, you know, how do you apply this? So imagine you have a, you know, Chinese couple, maybe they immigrated to the US a couple of years ago, maybe they're second generation, right. And they come to the meeting and you're wanting to schedule it in that first week of February or last week of January. Typically when the Lunar New Year is, they might have family over. They, you know, they, they, they might be celebrating that, lunar new year for a week. And you're like, Oh, we gotta get you in cause we got to do this, you know, the you know, IRA contribution. Oh, it's not that important for them at that time.

John: 34:52 The second thing is let's say they show up and you know, you have an agenda prepared and their names are, you know, cause you want it to, you wanted it to stick out. It'd be prominent and you put, you put their names all in red and 42 font bold. They're going to show up and not be too happy.

Daria: 35:09 Especially when your company color is red. So important to know.

John: 35:14 Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, those are some of the things we shared and I'm happy to share it with you to include in the show a show notes as well. But we also used it as a platform, to have, to provide more exposure to others in the firm that aren't in an advisory role. And Daria, do you want to talk about the recent chatter posts we had? That we did?

Daria: 35:43 Yeah. Thanks. Thanks John. So chatter is, is kind of imagine your Facebook wall. We use Salesforce. So who I knew anyone else who use Salesforce, you can implement something similar and we have a diversity inclusion group, but we also make sure it's posted to all all users. So recently we focus, as John talked about, we have a diversity inclusion calendar. So we think about both lunch and learns and the diversity chatter posts. And we did one recently for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah and we were sure to think about just like how we did with George and thinking about, okay, he's a controller, he's someone maybe people don't interact with as often. So we had a group of our client service associates who we all knew are of Jewish heritage and write about kind of the practical takeaways for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah and you know, just kind of like things to note like, you know, if you're meeting with a client who is, maybe a rabbi, they're not gonna shake a woman's hand.

Daria: 36:36 They mentioned, they said that, you know, they only hug or touch women that are their wife. And so if it's, you know, you, you come in to shake their hand, it might be a little awkward when they decide not to shake your hand. Right. So that's kind of it. I, for me, it really interesting personal takeaway cause you're always wanting to give people a hug, let alone shake their hand. You know, it's really, so we learned a little, you know, I have a lot of, you know, kind of John talked about lunar new year. I have friends who are both Jewish who are, of Asian. And I always learned something, you know, Rosh Hashanah. I had friends that celebrated. I didn't really know what it meant to be honest. For awhile. I knew it was a big religious holiday, but I didn't realize it was like also kind of like their version of the new year.

Daria: 37:15 So we have, for our chatter posts, we kind of have a structure that talks about, you know, what is the holiday, you know, talked a little bit about the star of David and what Judaism, Judaism is. We talked about, again, the practical takeaways. We want to make sure people are applying these items, you know, whether it's food related, whether it's business related, whether it's, you know, an email or written communication. So we're always making sure that people are learning and have takeaways. So, and also again, trying to focus on some who are advisors and people who are not in, including everyone in the firm.

Rianka: 37:47 That's a really great way to make sure everyone feel included and inclusive. You know, and Daria you sent me the email that was sent out to your team and wow, this is amazing. How often do you send emails like this? And if it's okay, I would love to include, you know, this in the show notes as, as a great example.

Daria: 38:13 Sure. We were, yeah, we already got the writers' permission, so to speak. We asked them and they, and they were happy to do that. And the cool thing about, so we had three CSAs do that and they all work in different offices. Some are in California, some in the Philly office. So I like the diversity of thought there as well. You know, we try to do this once a month. That's our goal, both for chatter posts and the lunch and learns. And we try to again, think about people have done it recently. Make sure, you know, if people, it's a busy time of year, be sure to kind of think about them, about that. If you know what's going on in people's lives or work-wise. So again, once a month is, you know, try to, we we, you know, sometimes just Google the diversity calendar and see what holidays pop up cause sometimes it's not as as evident and also helps you realize things that maybe you didn't think about before. It's like I knew Rosh Hashanah was in the fall. I don't always remember when, you know, it's not just about Hanukkah in that religion. So once a month is really kind of our target and sometimes it falls, you know, not exactly every 30 days. Cause for example, Rosh Hashanah we wanted to do for, or Yom Kippur for September, but you know, they were out of the office celebrating. So we posted, you know, right when they got back.

Rianka: 39:19 Something that I want to acknowledge that both of you all are doing very exceptionally is, is incorporating both diversity and inclusion, diversity with understanding that there, there are differences and it is being celebrated. And, there is either a difference of ethnicity, religion, background, where you come from, whether you are immigrant, gender. And also the inclusion part is making sure everyone feels welcomed. And so for those out there who do have a diversity initiative, that's amazing. Right? And, and just like what you two mentioned, trying to increase the overall demographics at your firm and organization. So it's one thing to make sure you bring in diverse from a, from an ethnicity standpoint, but then when they're there, how do you make sure they feel included? And that is the key for inclusion. So I just wanted to acknowledge what you guys are doing is, is two steps, right? It's, is not only acknowledging that the diversity piece, but also the inclusion piece as well.

John: 40:32 Yes. And that's so important. Rianka that, as we're doing, this type of an initiative, we want to be very cognizant of the actions we're taking, right? So if we only have like our CEO and our president writing chatter posts, you know, that's great, but it's not very inclusive, right? People just see it as one of these like top down initiatives versus something they're all part of. So we're very cognizant about like, who we're reaching out to and you know, who we're asking to present. Then trying to make sure we make it a very inclusive approach. And, you know, at the end of the day, Daria and I are doing this because we, we also wanted to just have some fun and, it's just been really fun learning about all our coworkers. So one of the things that, you know, a story that reminds that this reminds me of is.

John: 41:31 Are you familiar with the story Dr Cromwell told when he was trying to start Temple University? It's called acres of diamonds. And I'm going to butcher it. But, in the interest of time, I'll give a very short version, with just this, there, there was a farmer who, who went out searching for his riches, right? And, you know, he sold his farm land, took the money, and he's like, you know, I'm going to go and, you know, strike it rich. Long story short, the farmer miserably fails, comes back to his land, only to find out the person he sold the land to was sitting on the largest diamond mine in the world. So, you know, sometimes when you're trying to do such a big initiative like diversity and inclusion where, you know, it has so many branches you could go off to.

John: 42:25 And so, you know, you're thinking, I need to go to this conference and I need a big budget. I need to reach out to these people and do all this. You know, sometimes it's helpful to, to just look in your own backyard, right? And in our case to just look within our firm to realize there's a richness and diversity just within our own firm that there's so much learning we could do from each other. By the way, the three women that the CSA is client service associates who are, who are kind of the paraplanners that are at our firm, right? They help put together paperwork and you know, they do to move money and things like that. You know, they're, you would say they're white and you might say from a diversity perspective, Oh they, they don't have anything to share. Well there are Jewish by heritage, right? Their religion is Jewish and they observe certain things and there's so much learning that came out of that. And I hope that, and I know you mentioned you're going to put the, put the chatter post into the show notes and I hope people find that valuable cause there's so much that we could just learn from each other and, and it's a lot of fun.

Rianka: 43:37 I, I know that I learned a lot from this conversation and also reading the chatter posts. And again, just like Daria mentioned, you know, I have quite a few friends who are Jewish and observe the various Jewish holidays and, but I didn't know really what they meant. And so now understanding and reading it, I'm just like, Oh, okay. And now I feel like I can now be a better friend to my friends, a better friend, or a better colleague to my peers and also a better advisor to my clients.

Daria: 44:15 And I think that's a great point Rianka. It's like first I used to say happy Rosh Hashanah, like kind of like, I was like, Oh, it must be like Hanukkah, you know, just say happy, whatever. And you'd have to learn that that's not the case. And I think that's a really good point about clients. It's like, all right, we can learn from each other and we can all benefit from that learning and apply it to our clients. One thing I hope I can pivot the conversation a little bit. I wanted to talk about some of the challenges that we've had. And I think we talked about this earlier about how John and I have diversity of, you know, leadership for the committee. And I wanted to highlight an example of why that's so important.

Rianka: 44:52 Absolutely.

Daria: 44:54 Okay. As so, you know, we have our, you know, we're a large RIA, we get together every two years, as a company and John and I, you know, we had an opportunity to speak in front of the company about what we're doing for diversity and inclusion.

Daria: 45:08 And right after our presentation someone came up to me and they were like, and one of the few minorities we have in our company and they said, I really enjoyed your presentation. And you know, that was really refreshing to hear because you know, during the presentation they didn't ask questions, they didn't say anything. And then I was at a conference later this year and you know, someone asks, well, what do we think about how the future of our profession is going to change? And I said, the face of our profession is going to be changing. We're all going to be looking a lot different. And later in the evening, you know, as, as conferences, do you have receptions at dinner or whatever and a couple of the minorities had come to me, they were like, thank you for saying that. You know why? You know, I'm really, I'm really glad you said that.

Daria: 45:51 And I kind of challenged them. I was like, well why didn't you step up? Why didn't you say anything after I said that? Because after I said it, there was crickets in the room. It was really, it was really heartbreaking to be honest that like I was like, I think the profession can look different. No one had anything to say. Someone literally pretty much changed the conversation to something else. And so that's why I challenged them. I was like, why didn't you carry on a conversation? Why didn't you say anything? They didn't really have an answer. And I brought this story back to John cause I was just like, what? What is going on? And John's response was, you know, they're just trying to fit in. They're not trying to stand out. You know, I'm a very loud, outspoken person. So for me to stand in front of a group of 80 people and say that I can, but you know, I'm not a minority even though I might be a woman that's in a firm of very few women, of profession.

Rianka: 46:35 I think it's really important to recognize that having that diversity of leadership and you know, John just made it so clear to me to see that. Because you know, earlier we talked a lot about the numbers and why that data driven, but sometimes it's really hard to communicate this to people at our firm or, or outside. Like why diversity and inclusion is important. Cause sometimes it's not just about the numbers, it's about connecting with people and connecting with our clients and understanding. It's so, so beyond that. And I think if people have not been exposed to a lot of diversity in their past. It's just like, well, why do we need to change? What's, what's the challenge? So I just kind of wanted to highlight that. I know that was, that was a lot, but I think that example is really powerful.

Rianka: 47:19 I agree. And from a diversity perspective, I think I mentioned this example maybe in season one, it's, and I, and I take it back to food because everybody eats whether you are a vegetarian, whether, whether you're a vegan, whether the whatever everyone eats. And so it's, and I bring up my husband and until I met my husband back in high school, I only had American food and it's like, Oh, you know, so it's just the hot dogs, hamburgers, fish sticks for dinner. And when I met him and you know, start going over to his house meeting, you know, the family, he's Haitian, although, you know, just looking at him, he looks black but he's Haitian. And so his mom cooked every single night. And I my, my palette expanded and changed for the better. Now if I went through my entire life, only eating American food, would I be okay?

Rianka: 48:21 Probably. But now that I had the exposure to different types of food, it's like, Oh, I want more. Like this is amazing. That is the same with diversity, equity and inclusion is like, of course, if you've never had an opportunity to experience a different type of culture or learn or experience a different type of upbringing or experience a different type of lens, then yes you are, you'll probably be okay. But will you have a thriving life and, and, and fun fulfilling life that you're probably missing out on a lot of things? Absolutely. You are missing out. You are missing out. And I'm so happy I met Reggie.

John: 49:13 That's an amazing story. What do they say? Variety is the spice of life. I would say that diversity is the spice of life. That is amazing. Yeah, you know, that's so interesting. You know, we had, the event that Daria talked about where the whole firm gets together, it's called convergence. We, we had a speaker named Moulaye at our event in may. Moulaye is, from Senegal and he was one of these stories where he, he's, by the way, is a little bit taller than me, actually. A lot of it tall. Moulaye is six foot 10. And, he was scouted in Senegal as a basketball player and he came to the US and he went to Kansas State University, went to the final four. You know, I hadn't had this amazing experience. And so from the surface, right from the outside looking in, you're like, Oh yeah, he's six 10 athletic of course.

John: 50:20 But wow, the story he shared about how, like he didn't come out of his room for the first week he was in America, you know, it was the first time he had left his country. And you know, on top of that, he's a practicing Muslim, right? So he shared with us about Islamic finance. They don't charge interest as, I'll leave it there. You could Google it, but, you know, he shared with us this really amazing experience. But, one of the things he shared with us that we really learned from is that he said, you know, when he, he works with Dimensional Fund Advisors, and his story is actually on their website. So if you, if you're interested in listening to his full story, it's there, on the website. He said the thing that really helped him kind of feel, a sense of belonging at the firm was the activities they did outside of the office.

John: 51:18 Right? So they did happy hours to get people together and you know, just to get to know people outside of the office in a non, you know, professional, more casual environment is huge. So in many cultures, that's where people really get to know each other, right. And bond. It's not in the office working on a project together. It's really meeting outside of the office and getting to know each other as people. And after all financial planning, you know, we're, we're all in the people business. Right. And so that's something that you, you know, I'll say without going into too much detail, I feel like we kind of missed, dropped the ball a little bit with, some recent new hires. But I'm happy to say that we are having happy hours, and get togethers outside of the office for, our recent new hires. So, that's been a fantastic implementation of something we learned, you know, just, just recently. And it's been great to see that, that we're, we're actually taking action on this stuff. It wasn't just something we heard Moulaye tell us and, you know, it just fell on deaf ears.

Rianka: 52:23 Well, I, I wouldn't expect anything less from you two. I mean, you, you listen, you learn and you figure out how to, how to implement. So as you know, you, you listeners hear me say this all the time, it's like, okay, it's great that you talk to talk, but how are you walking the walk? And you two have been walking the walk a very courageous path and, and both trailblazers in your own right at your own farm. And so I just want to say thank you for the work that you're doing and thank you for coming on to 2050 TrailBlazers to share with us some of the successes, but also challenges and understanding anything worth having is worth working for. And so before I let you go and, and we close out a very dynamic season of 2050 TrailBlazers ending season four. Is there anything else that you want to share with us before I let you go?

Daria: 53:16 I'll just say, yeah, I kind of talked, talked about this earlier, is that it's also, I think we touched on this throughout the time, is that there are a lot of challenges. This is not something where it's like, okay, I'm gonna create a committee and then all of a sudden our demographics of our, of our new hires is going to change. It takes a lot of work. It's something that's gonna take years. You know, at Abacus, we didn't always have the diversity of female advisors and employees that we did. It took many, many years to do that. And I hope that, you know, it doesn't take as long with the different diversity we're focusing on now. But even though, you know, I'm, you know, co-lead this committee, I feel really awkward sometimes talking about it feels very uncomfortable and you just have to power through and know that it's important and that the awkwardness is worth it, I guess. You know, going and just, it's really great to be able to be at a company where we're allowed to do that. And some, I hope that other companies and people want to do this, they, they're applauded and kind of given the, the freedom to do such. So I guess in what I'm really trying to say is don't be afraid of the unknown and the uncomfortableness and really embrace it to make the change that you want to see.

John: 54:22 That's a great point, Daria. And you know, just to add to that, I just want to share with, the listeners, you know, what we started to do and we had to be very creative in the way we implemented the things, you know, the OKRs and, the lunch and learns and things like that that we share. There's many more structural changes that you know, we know are around like hiring and vendor selection that we know we still have to tackle. But we knew we had to start somewhere and it reminds me of something, someone shared with me, they said, Hey, you know, when Martin Luther King made his, I have a dream speech that you notice it wasn't a, I have a plan speech. You know, you almost have to dream big and keep that dream close to your heart to keep you motivated to keep moving forward. Right? So I would say please don't get discouraged. Change takes a long time, especially structural changes, but go for those small and easy wins because that's what's gonna keep you going and keep you motivated to, to really make a big change, when that time comes.

Rianka: 55:35 Wow. Thank you. Wow. Yeah. Thank you both for again, just being present and, and being active listeners and sharing with me personally your learnings, throughout the past couple of years and now bringing this conversation to 2050 TrailBlazers community for the listeners to learn as well. So thank you for allowing us to have an awesome dynamic ending to season four. Thank you two, so much for joining us.

Daria: 56:07 Thank you.

John: 56:07 Thank you.