The Dave Crenshaw Success Show

The Graceful Wealth Advisor, Lori Van Dusen - Founder & CEO of LVW Advisors

• Dave Crenshaw • Season 4 • Episode 10

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Lori Van Dusen, a renowned financial advisor and CEO of LvW Advisors, shares her journey from aspiring opera singer to top financial advisor. Lori emphasizes the importance of pattern recognition and resilience from her musical background. She discusses the challenges of navigating a male-dominated industry, advocating for early mentorship, and the value of client-centric advice. Lori's book, Running with Grace, stemmed from personal loss and aims to inspire through storytelling. She highlights the need for succession planning in finance and the power of learning from failures. Listen to her story and choose which action will best guide you to your success.

ACTION PRINCIPLES

1. Exposure to early mentoring. Many people don't get coached or influenced about different careers as children. Yet, it can make a substantial impact on those who do. ACTION: Offer an opportunity for mentorship to a young person in your life.

2. Start a movement for change. If you see something that should change, use research and facts to create a group of supportive people to help you take action. ACTION: Create a factual presentation and share it with others you think will support your movement for change.

3. Discover your reason why. Life isn't about passing the time. Knowing the reason behind your passions can be a powerful tool. ACTION: Contemplate why you are doing what you do and write it down.

4. Embrace failure. It's only a failure if you learn nothing from it. It's always an opportunity to grow, to learn more, and to do better. ACTION: Look back at your last failure and observe what you could do differently for a better outcome.

GUEST RESOURCES

Learn more from Lori Van Dusen by following her on LinkedIn or purchasing her book, Running with Grace.

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Thanks to Dave Crenshaw's partnership with Microsoft and LinkedIn Learning, you can get free access to his full course, Time Management Fundamentals, at DaveGift.com.

Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world. DaveCrenshaw.com

lori van dusen:

So I wanted to be an opera singer, and you can't really see me, but I'm five five and 98 pounds, so I don't really fit the bill of an opera singer and but that's what I wanted to do.

Dave Crenshaw:

In this episode, you'll get to know Lori Van Dusen, the graceful wealth advisor, and you'll hear the story of how she became New York's number one financial advisor, while still maintaining a healthy work life rhythm. I'm Dave Crenshaw, and this is my success Show. Welcome back, friends, to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show. This is where I speak to some of the most successful people I've met in my life's journey, and I'm looking for universal principles of success to help you succeed and help my family succeed. In case it's your first time here and you don't know me, I'm a best selling author. I speak around the world to Fortune 500 companies, and I've taught millions of people how to be successful through my online courses, particularly on LinkedIn. Learning with this show, I wanted to create something different. It's a bit of a legacy project that I wanted to do to help my children succeed. But then I thought, hey, you enjoy learning along with them as well. I interview people who have achieved multi faceted success, so not just career or financial success as important as those are, but also balance and happiness and making time for relationships. And I'm looking for actions that anyone can take, that you can do right now to become more successful. So as you listen to today's episode, look for something you can do, an action that you can take today or this week at the latest, to make my guest success story a part of your success story. And today's guest is truly remarkable. Lori Van Dusen is the founder and CEO of LvW advisors with over 30 years of experience in the financial industry. She's been recognized in Barron's financial advisor Hall of Fame, that is a big deal, and ranked number one in New York on Forbes best in state Wealth Advisors list, a passionate philanthropist, Laurie serves on several boards and supports Urban Education and Health Initiatives. She also authored the Wall Street Journal best seller, running with grace, a Rochester native, Lori enjoys long distance running yoga and hosting large Italian meals for family and friends. Lori, it's a thrill to have you on the show today.

lori van dusen:

Dave, thank you for having me,

Dave Crenshaw:

and I'm glad it worked. We had, we had some fun little technical Gremlins before we got started, but we all got it sorted out. We're professionals, and we're ready to go here. So first of all, where are you located today?

lori van dusen:

Today, I am in upstate New York, in Rochester. It's beautiful. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw:

my family, actually, we just took a trip up there, and we loved it.

lori van dusen:

Did you really, yeah, it

Dave Crenshaw:

was a lovely place. We went there. We went to Buffalo. Got some beef on weck. It was great experience.

lori van dusen:

Did you go to the bills training camp? We

Dave Crenshaw:

did not go to the bills training map, but we did get we did get wings. I'm forgetting the place Duffs. We went to Duff

lori van dusen:

that's the place. That is the place. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw:

as I've been hearing about your story and preparing for this interview, I've just been amazed at the interesting life that you've led. So I'm going to start by asking you the same question I ask all my guests, which is kind of what we were asked when we were kids, what did you want to be when you grew up? What did you think was your career path?

lori van dusen:

Well, when I was a teenager, I went to the Eastman School of Music Every day after regular school, and I was trained by two really famous opera singers. People figured out I had a voice when I was about 13, and so I wanted to be an opera singer. And you can't really see me, but I'm five, five and 98 pounds, so I don't really fit the bill of an opera singer, but that's what I wanted to do. And sadly, I was told as I entered college that by my one professor, who was, she was a legendary opera singer, that I was just not good enough. Sopranos were dying a dozen, and I was just not good enough, which was devastating to hear. But that's, that's I thought. I didn't necessarily think it had to be, I had to be an opera singer, but I thought maybe Broadway,

Dave Crenshaw:

yeah, and we were talking about that a little bit before, because I also have a background in music. I actually was trying to be a rock star. I had a band, I played keys, I wrote the songs, all that kind of stuff. And so I want to ask you this, we don't, we don't need to spend a lot of time on it, but. But there are valuable things that you learn when you're attempting to be a musician. What's a lesson that you learn from that but you're still applying in your very successful career today?

lori van dusen:

Oh my gosh. Well, you know this being a musician, it's practice, practice, practice, discipline. You have to wall yourself off and do it over and over and over again until you get it right. And so there is this resiliency and discipline. And the other thing that's been super important in my career, which kind of struck me midway into my career, was that musicians see things differently. We recognize patterns and things that others may not, and it's been a really valuable gift, yeah,

Dave Crenshaw:

yeah, that's a great point. I hadn't thought about that. But the pattern recognition, you know, you see chord progression in a song, and you can see the financial progression in the markets, right? Yeah?

lori van dusen:

I mean, you think about math, music, all those things. It's this perfect combination that comes together. So I think music has been I think it's, it's just foundational to my own personal success. But I think it's a really important the arts are super important for kids. Just broadens your brain and helps you solve problems differently, think differently. I think,

Dave Crenshaw:

well, that that makes me feel good that we do battle with our kids on a regular basis to go practice their piano, always a little bit of a challenge. Now, your grandfather had an influence on you in your current career when you were a much younger age too. Isn't that? Isn't that correct? It?

lori van dusen:

Is he? He was my father figure. My mom was divorced. I'm a twin, and when my brother and I were six months old, she left. My father got a divorce, and like every Italian, good Italian, we moved in with my grandparents, and my grandfather was a great influence on me. He's a great man. Had an eighth grade education, but loved the stock market, and would show me annual reports when I was seven or eight years old at the kitchen table, you know, over lunch on Saturday, and asked me about, you know, what I thought about some company that he wanted to invest in. So he was, he was wonderful in many ways, but that was probably my early influence in terms of finance. I

Dave Crenshaw:

love that. I love that he didn't see anything weird about exposing someone who is that young to something that complex. And it's interesting because I created this podcast Lori originally with the idea of helping my kids succeed. So I love the message of that.

lori van dusen:

I heard you say that. I listened to several they're great, and I heard you say that, and I think that that's wonderful, because early mentoring of children, early exposure to things, teaching them that the world is beyond what they can see right here is super important. And even though I didn't really understand anything, the fact that he exposed me to annual reports and thought it was something that I could learn, I think, changed a lot of things for me. You know, when I showed up at Lehman Brothers in 1987 I had no idea that I was different than anybody else. I had no idea I was gonna walk into a room full of men, none. And I credit him for that, because he just didn't see limits or boxes or things, and just exposing kids to anything early changes their lives, really, I think. Yeah.

Dave Crenshaw:

So, okay, so let's dig into that, because you had this early experience with financial things, but you had spent time trying to be a singer. So how did that transition take place where you're saying, I'm going to go from that into finance into wealth?

lori van dusen:

Yeah, it, you know, I think this is probably true more than it's not, at least in my life experience and talking with people, which is kind of what I do every day too, it's rarely a straight path. But when you look back, every single thing is connected to where you end up. And it's just my belief system. I think I started out thinking I was going to be music I did not want to be a music teacher. I ended up not going to the Eastman School of Music, but choosing Ithaca College still pursuing music. And ended up not doing that because Ithaca College was training teachers, and I did not want to be a music teacher. I wanted to be a performer. So I did what every, probably most mature college 18 year old people do. I just changed my major and stayed at Ithaca, and I loved it there. And then you're going to see no pattern in this. You know, before I graduated. I decided that I would get a Master of Education, so I went to Harvard University because I still didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew I loved college, and I knew I loved kind of the exposure of education, so I went there, and from there, I still didn't know what I was going to do, and my grandfather said, why don't you go to Xerox Corporation? They have a training program. So I interviewed at Xerox. And Xerox, back then, was really an amazing company. It embraced everyone. There was a great training program. I was a young woman. I ended up being there for about a year or so, and the one thing I did know early on is that I wasn't a corporate person, and I felt like I was raised by an entrepreneur, and he loved finance, and maybe I could go try that. So I ended up researching all of the Wall Street firms at the time and found that Lehman Brothers had the best training program. So I interviewed there, never thinking I was entitled to get in, not wouldn't, would I just interviewed, and I took all the tests, and I probably, to their surprise, passed them all, and they hired me. So it wasn't a straight path at all.

Dave Crenshaw:

So let's talk about that for a moment. In you saying that it didn't feel unusual, which I think is wonderful. Do you feel that at that time, and maybe even now still, women feel that is unusual when they're in that kind of industry?

lori van dusen:

Well, I think it's changed for sure. I mean, it's, it's definitely more of an industry that embraces women more. It certainly didn't embrace women when I started out, but again, I didn't know that, which was, you know, ignorance is bliss, actually, but I still think it's a numbers game that women aren't mentored early in finance, not enough women. So it's surprising to me, at this stage, having done this for so many years, that there's still so few percentage wise women at top levels of finance. And I think it's what we were talking about earlier. I think if you don't expose anyone early to something, they may think it's off limits or not for them, and it's true of all kind of male dominated fields. You know, if you're talking about construction or engineering or finance, women are still more unusual than typical. And I do think that I've tried to spend part of my career in organizations that mentor women and teach women that you can have this kind of work life balance, that that there is such a thing as flawed as it is, that you can have a family, that that actually, this part of finance was a great career for somebody who raised two boys. So I think it's still not as represented as it should be. I think women are great in this industry, especially on the advising side, but I'm still very surprised. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw:

I think you bring up a great point, which is, and this is for any gender, and it's also for our children, as you mentioned with your sons and the experience you had with your grandfather, we just need to give people an opportunity to experience something, and when you open that door for just the opportunity to experience then you go, Oh, maybe I could do this. It's not that you weren't capable. It's just you weren't even aware that it was an option prior to that. So I love that principle, yeah,

lori van dusen:

because there, there's someone that I had dinner with recently that I hadn't seen in a number of years, and he was 19 when he had an internship with me. I didn't, I didn't remember how old he was, but he said, you know, look, it changed my life. It put me on a certain path. There's another person. We had embraced college students and young adults as interns for a long time, and there's a lot of them have become successful just because, you know, you gave them an opportunity, you believed they could do it. And I think that it is daunting to do anything at a really high level, have a family and try to manage all that. And I talk a lot about that in the book I wrote. I also talk a lot about mentorship and and other things that we've touched on. But I do think, you know, trying to figure out how you balance all this stuff is really, is really hard. And I think women that have been successful dispelling some of the it is hard, but you can do it. And here's some lessons I've learned is important. So

Dave Crenshaw:

going back to the book, talk to us about some of the early adversity so you began in this career, and you know, you're extremely successful now, but what were some of the obstacles that you overcame? What were some moments that you had to power through or learn from to grow in your career?

lori van dusen:

There were a lot. Of them, but it was more fighting an industry that was wrought with conflicts of interest and I didn't understand it. You know, being a musician, I kind of think you do think differently. Everything started with a clean sheet of paper. When I was in front of a potential client, I wanted to understand them. I wanted to know what problems they were having. I wanted to know where their current investments were, what their estate plans were. Nobody was really talking that talk. Back then. They were just selling products, and I was Lehman Brothers, and then Shearson Lehman Brothers, and all the firms it became, and I finally left before the Morgan Stanley merger. But I never changed companies, and I fought a lot of battles, and a lot of them were really lonely and mostly around conflicts of interest. Like, you know, the firm could be enriched, but the client didn't do very well, and I just didn't also have thought it was a dumb industry, like I thought, Why does everybody wake up every day and say, How am I going to make a living? I've got to sell a product. And that's the way it was. There was no financial planning to speak of. There was nobody encouraging that it was product sales in terms of stocks, stocks, mutual funds, insurance products, whatever it was, because these were, were big firms. So these huge conglomerates that, you know, I used to, I used to joke that they did due diligence on investment products for distribution, you know, not, not because it was a good product. They were trying to, you know, make sure that the client received the best possible advice. But if it was something that we could get a fee on and we could distribute it, then we did. And I wasn't part of the we I just never understood it. I didn't it wasn't what I believed in, and so I fought it, and I had fought a lot of battles around it, and there were a lot of times where I thought maybe I should go, maybe I should leave, maybe I should form my own company, but there were a handful of like minded advisors, and we formed a unit within this big conglomerate where we kind of did it our own way and and delivered advice, which is very common now. You know, financial planning, integrated advice, what everybody calls holistic planning, that that just did not exist.

Dave Crenshaw:

Okay? So let's say that someone is in a similar situation. They're working in a company of whatever size, and they feel like they're not being heard. They feel like they've got these ideas, they feel like there's a better way to do it, and yet, they're not being given those opportunities. They're not being heard. What would you say to someone in that setting,

lori van dusen:

I think resiliency is one of my key characteristics, so I kept going at it from different directions and trying to find a person who would listen to me. And I was fortunate enough to weather through different CEOs, so I lasted longer than the CEOs, and I just, you know, I would say, don't give up. Keep trying to find others that have the same value set that you have. In this case, around the client and objectivity, there is strength in numbers and there is strength in not whining, but teaching and showing people. So I gave a lot of my work away. I would go to conferences. I would mentor people and show them my work, so to speak. And after a while, more and more advisors started to do business the way we thought, this group of advisors thought was the right way, but it took a lot of time, and it takes patience and endurance. And I would say, don't give up. You will always get a no. No is part of life. You know, doors will slam on you. People will be unkind. It's just, if you really believe in it, keep preaching it and find other people that you can teach and share with, and pretty soon it becomes more of a

Dave Crenshaw:

movement. And as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking about in my leadership consulting, there's a fear that many people have that if they stand out, they're going to get the wrong kind of attention if they try to change how things are being done, they're going to be viewed as a complainer. But it sounds like that's not even a part of your mindset, or it wasn't a part of your mindset when you were making these changes,

lori van dusen:

no, and it was more about if I really got my values in the right place and my priorities in the right place, and they're the client. Ultimately, someone's going to understand this, because what we're trying to do is in the best interest of the constituents that we serve, and it took me a long time to figure out, and it's true in politics and. True in big educational systems, it was true in finance. There are a lot of conflicts of interest, and there are a lot of layers of corruption, and people getting paid the way they shouldn't or whatever, and so you have to figure out how to navigate that. And I would again say, I know this sounds maybe overly optimistic, but in the end, I just knew that if I kept the client at heart, and it wasn't about the money I would make or myself in the center, it was more of a servant leader type of approach that ultimately, that would save the day, win the day, whatever. And it's worked. That's all I would say. It's worked

Dave Crenshaw:

well, I think a lot of it has to do with also how you're it sounds like you you're winning people to your side. You're creating, like you said, a movement. That's a pretty strong word for it. But a movement requires lots of people, not just one, and I think that's also part of the problem, right? When someone sees something wrong, they're like, I'm going to tell everyone, I'm going to make this better. Doesn't work. No, it

lori van dusen:

doesn't I mean, we created organizations around teaching financial advisors, financial planning and sophisticated investment strategies and how to bring it all together. We studied the case study method, so we would do case studies for these broad groups of advisors across the country. At one point, we were called a union, and we were baffled by it. We're like, No, we're trying to do the right thing. But the more and more traction we got, it was a movement, and it got people's attention. And I think if you really believe in something, and you don't just try to jam it down someone's throat, but you do try to understand their side, and you do try to understand where they're coming from. You agree to disagree a lot. So with management and top management in some of these firms, we would a lot of times, you know, just agree to disagree, or would come meet in the middle. And my middle might be different than your middle, but we, we made baby steps in getting people to understand, and pretty soon, the Baby Steps did become a movement. So that's what I would say, is that too many people get stuck in their side, whether it's this, is it? This is the way it should be done, and coming across that way, or having that, you know, approach doesn't work, and it's really how do you understand? Or I have said to people that work here at our company a lot, just invert it, you know, try to sit in a seat of the other person and see why you're getting pushed back or why they don't understand. And if, if you can do that and just at least attempt it, things change. People do move, even if they're incremental steps. So

Dave Crenshaw:

yeah, that's so important. Of what you just said about sitting in the seat of the other person, often we're thinking about what's in it for me, but what we need to think about is what's in it for them. How does this help the other person, not just me? That's a great point. So talk to us about the transition that you made from working for a large company to more striking out on your own. What was that like?

lori van dusen:

Do you really want to know this? It's really not. Oh, absolutely

Unknown:

not.

lori van dusen:

This is where you know, one of my lessons in life is that I've learned the most from failing ethically. And you know, I did really believe that there was a movement going on, ultimately, to financial independence, meaning, at the time, you know, these were bank wire houses, that there would be this independent financial model, which there now is. And most of the growth has been in this independent space. But back in, you know, 2008 when I laughed, what was then? Smith Barney, there was no movement. I just thought there was going to be, you know, there I would it was pretty lonely road. Pattern Recognition, yeah, pattern recognition. But, you know, another thing that I've learned is being early in a movement is the same as being wrong, at least it feels that way. So I was early. I decided, because we had very sophisticated clients at the time, I had a practice that I'd grown with a desk and a phone and a great team that was that was mentored, but it was five and a half billion dollars in assets, and I decided that I couldn't really hang up the shingle, but that I could really research and join the largest or one of the largest independent firms as a leader in the industry. And that's what I did. Turned out I made a lot of mistakes, and one was giving into deal fatigue, because I wanted to leave so badly at that time was so you know, to your earlier question, I was really exhausted with fighting the battle, and I found that I gotten people to understand to a degree, but I still wasn't where I wanted to be in terms of the delivery of advice to clients, that the quality. Quality that I felt they needed and that I where I wanted to be. So I was just tired of fighting battle and so at the time, there weren't many large firms doing what I wanted to do, and I gave into deal fatigue. I was out lawyered. I did not recognize some significant cultural differences between the team I had built and the business I was joining, just to name a few. And so I would just say, you know, when people say culture, it's this amorphous thing a lot of times, but it's really your value set. What do you really believe? What's important to you? If you are using example of financial services and delivery of advice to clients, what are the most important things to you? There was a mismatch, and I made it. My biggest mistake was not recognizing how big of a deal that was. Were

Dave Crenshaw:

there signs? Were there gut feelings that you had? Were there little warnings that you just missed. Yeah,

lori van dusen:

I won't get crazily spiritual on you, but I will say that I do think your intuition is super important. I think it's the window into your soul. And when your intuition, when your heart and your head are at odds, you know it, and I was at odds the evening that I signed all the deal documents, and I still did it. And what I would say to people is, if you are feeling that way about anything, whether it's a business transaction, it's a marriage, it's part whatever it is, hiring someone hit the pause button, the world is not going to come to an end because you hit the pause button, it doesn't mean don't make a decision. I'm a decisive person, but if you feel that way, there's a reason, and it may not be something that you can really process right at the moment, and that's why you need to kind of step away. And I was being pressured, and I fell for it, you know? I just said, okay, you know, it'll all be okay once I once I get in there, once I saw these documents, was, yeah,

Dave Crenshaw:

every week, Laurie, I send myself an email that reminds me of some key lessons that I've learned in life, and one of those is, do I feel knotted up inside? Don't do it because I've it sounds exactly what you're saying. Like. I've had those moments where I'm like, This doesn't feel good. I'm gonna do it anyway, and then I always regret it. I always like, Why did I do that? It's not who I am. You always

lori van dusen:

do you go, why did I do that? But hopefully we go through life and we do less of that, and that's kind of my whole purpose for putting stuff on a page and publishing a book is that I want to take my lessons that I've learned, including some of these epic failures, and get people to understand they're part of life, and when you have that kind of conflict, it's probably not the right time to make that decision.

Dave Crenshaw:

Yeah, talk to us about your decision to write, running with grace. What led to that?

lori van dusen:

I don't know. It didn't start out as a book. It started out as a journaling exercise to cope and heal, or attempt to heal, after my husband died. So I lost my husband a little over four years ago in a very out of pocket way, very suddenly, and was advised by a therapist to journal, to just start journaling and kind of, you know, writing down thoughts. And I'm a long distance runner, I'd be out on a run. I'd have something come to me. I'd do a voice memo on it. I did a lot of voice to text stuff. I wrote a lot. I had a journal by my bedside, and at one point, I kind of brought all this stuff together and realized it was a lot of things that I learned, life, lessons, stories, and I'm a storyteller, and I think that we can learn a lot through that method, and you can also get people to understand things through the method of storytelling. So I looked at all this stuff, and I'm like, I had notes and journals and just thought I heard this thought, like, this is a book. And so I co opted my younger son, who's a creative kind of genius. I sound like a mother, but he is. And I said, Could you help me with this? I just think this is a book, and I'm going to get it to a point where we can edit it. And so I did, and we edited it together, and then we got to the end of that, and I had my other son read it, my older son, who I'll also say is brilliant and creative, sounds like a mother. I'm

Dave Crenshaw:

sure he is. He

lori van dusen:

is. They had helped me through so much, and they were going through their own healing process over the loss of their dad. And my older son said, Mom, I think you should publish this so. Then I hired, I got serious, and I hired a Content Editor, and I still wasn't sure I was going to publish it, self publish it. And then I heard how you published your first book. I i then hired a legal team, because I felt that, you know, there were some stories in there. It wasn't the book is called running with grace. It wasn't about anybody else. It wasn't about naming names. It was about it was about teaching and life lessons and how to take this stuff that had happened in my life. I just had this thought, like, I'm not here to mark time. There must be a reason for all this. So it shaped itself into a book, after editing and legal reviews and everything else. And as you know, it's not the hardest thing to get it out there on Amazon. So I got it out there and then I did my own audio because of, I think our music background, this would resonate with you. I'm like, Well, I'm a singer, you know, I've been publicly speaking my entire life. How hard could it be to read my own book? And people have told me that that resonates with them a lot when the author reads their own book. So I did that, and at one point I also heard like, this is a book, and then this isn't for you.

Dave Crenshaw:

Someone actually said that to you. This isn't for you, like they gave you negative feedback about the book like that. No, it

lori van dusen:

wasn't really bad. It was more like the voices in my head. No, the I just heard it. I just heard I heard this, this, you know, talk about, you know, when you have dissonance, right, and you shouldn't, when you're peaceful in the center, you should make the decision. I was super peaceful about it, and then I just heard this thought, This isn't really for you anymore. You're done with it like now you should pay it forward. And it was a pretty vulnerable thing to do in some ways, but on the other hand, once I got it out there, it was just felt wonderful to get it out there and get the feedback that I got on it. You know that it's really helped people, that it's had the impact that it's had and and I just think about it like I do any philanthropic endeavor. I think of it as a big philanthropic endeavor, because I don't know about you, but for me, I will never replace my day job with being an author, but I think it's a pretty it was a pretty great experience to do it and get it out there.

Dave Crenshaw:

Yeah, well, and I love too, how it sounds like it was very helpful and healing for your sons as well, to experience that, talk about it, edit that with you. I love how you involve them in that. And if you don't mind, I want to ask you a question, because one thing I love about your story, Lori, is that you are your goal is to help other people. You want them to learn. I can sense that from you. And many people have a marriage right now, and they don't have the perspective of losing that spouse yet. What is something that you learned from it that you would want others to know? Whether they're in a marriage, they have a partner, whatever it is that key relationship in their life, what do you want to tell them, having gone through the loss of your husband like that?

lori van dusen:

Well, you know, hindsight is great, right? But it's also really valuable teacher to look back and, you know, in everything in life, a marriage would be one very important example. But there are a lot of examples of going back and saying, If I could have changed something or done something differently, what would it have been? And I think in my case, and I think this is true of a lot of marriages, is men are not as emotive as women. They don't put words around things as well. I'm making a general statement. I apologize to all the men who are really good at this, but I think sometimes, you know, in marriages, getting a third party involved and pushing through things and getting the other person to really put words around how they're feeling is super important and strengthening the relationship. And I feel like if I would have known my husband was a quiet sufferer. He was somebody who was a wonderful father, he was an adoring husband, but he suffered from a lot of depression and anxiety, and he didn't have the ability it was, to put words around it. And I think if I had known that, I would have tried to get him to counseling earlier or something. So I do believe in marriage counseling. I do believe in therapy. I never had done anything until after he died. The other thing I would say is that we all have our own way of looking at things, and it kind of gets back to what we were talking about earlier, trying really hard to invert it and understand the other side. And if you can't do it between you and your spouse. US than involving a third party is super important, because communication is the real cornerstone of all intimacy in life. So that's what I guess. I would say,

Dave Crenshaw:

that's wonderful, and I agree 100% I'm a huge advocate for therapy, for counseling. As someone who's dealt with mental health issues myself, I count that as one of the reasons why I've been successful, not just in my career, but with my family. So I would strongly encourage anyone listening to avail themselves of that. And unfortunately, Laura, I have to start wrapping up. I just want to briefly ask you, what do you see ahead for the next five years of your career. You said you might have another book in you. What else are you thinking here?

lori van dusen:

Well, I think we have a in terms of my career. I think, you know, I have embraced, I hope that our company is a testament to that, mentoring people and next generations of people who can carry on. So I'm going to continue to do that, I'm gonna stick around as long as they think I am not useless overhead, and as long as I can make an impact in the industry, I'd like to, you know, really kind of focus on the higher level things right now. I I do that most of the time, and this business runs really beautifully without my day to day. So if I can get the word out there and be more of the face of the firm and a face in the industry, and cross over some of the things you know that that are discussed in the book, I'd like to get out there to a broader audience. So that was why, is why we're talking today. So that's what I kind of see. But I do think there's kind of this crisis. May be too strong of a word, but in our industry, there's a lot of older males without a succession plan, and I think that, you know, that needs to get fixed. So I hope that that's not the case here. And the last thing I'll say is the reason I don't think it is, is when Ron, my husband, died, so suddenly, I was literally out, out. I was out of everything, and I was out of this business for over two years, and it ran just as well without me, I would say. So I think the more you know, we can teach people how to take their life's work and pass it on, I think it's an important thing. So I

Dave Crenshaw:

love it. It's interesting. I don't know if you've thought of it this way, but you began thinking that you were going to use a singing voice to inspire and touch people. You are still using your voice. You're just using it in a different way to reach lots of people. Yeah, that's

lori van dusen:

a beautiful way to put it. Yeah. Thank you. Okay,

Dave Crenshaw:

so at the end of every episode, Lori, what I do is I summarize some action steps, because what I want someone listening to this to get out of it is not just to learn and be inspired, which I'm sure they were by your story, but to do something today or this week. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to summarize three specific actions that someone can take today or this week. And then I'd like you to wrap up by adding one thing that you would suggest for someone, sound good. Sounds good. So based on the interview that we had, one thing from the beginning was that concept of early mentoring of children, or early mentoring of people who are having a different experience where they have not been exposed to something like financial planning or whatever. Think about someone in your life that you know who might benefit from just having the opportunity to learn what it is that you do. That doesn't mean that you're trying to make them whatever your career is. It's just that you're encouraging them to consider different options. And I think it's really important that we do not limit others, that we let others have an opportunity to be exposed to a variety of different opportunities that might lie before them in their life. So consider if there's someone like that that you can help. The next one is if there's something that you want to change. We talked about Laurie creating a movement, and how she was able to influence the company, not by being one voice who was just complaining about things, but instead showing data and giving evidence and getting other people involved and creating this group of people who had a real positive influence, don't be a crusader. Instead, get other people to help you to make positive change that will help others. And the last one, you just said a phrase that kind of flew by for just a second, but I wrote it down because I loved it. You're not here to just mark time. There must be a reason for what you're doing. And I would just invite someone who's listening to this to consider what is the reason why I'm doing this, what is the influence that I can have on other people? And write it down and think about it and evolve that over time so that you move. Way from just feeling that I'm just marking time, I'm just punching the clock, to instead, I'm making a difference in people's lives. So those are my three. Lori, what's one that you would add to this?

lori van dusen:

Oh, that is impressive. I guess I would add that failure and loss are part of everyone's life, and it's what we do with it that can be super powerful. So going back and looking at why you failed and attempting not to do that again can be super powerful in life. And I think that's another lesson. Maybe, yeah, absolutely,

Dave Crenshaw:

it's always an opportunity to grow to learn more, do better. Fantastic. So the book is running with grace. You can get that anywhere that you would get books, Amazon, that sort of thing. And if someone wants to follow you, Lori and continue to learn from you, where should they go for that? Yeah,

lori van dusen:

I mean, you can go just google me. I'm on LinkedIn. I do have a presence on LinkedIn. There is a Van Dusen book. They can go to that Van Dusen book.com yes, that van doosenbook.com So, yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn though. Okay, yeah, I

Dave Crenshaw:

always encourage people to connect on LinkedIn. Well, Lori, it's been a pleasure to get to know you and to hear your story. I'm so glad that we were able to have you on the show

lori van dusen:

today. Yeah, me too, Dave, it's great to meet you. Yeah, and

Dave Crenshaw:

thank you everyone for listening. Remember, it's not just about the knowledge that you received today, but it's about the action that you take. So do something about what you learned from Lori today, and you'll make her success story, a part of your success story. Thank you for listening.

Darci Crenshaw:

You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show, hosted by my dad, Dave Crenshaw, and produced by invaluable incorporated research and assistant production by Victoria Bidez, Sound Editing by Nikic Wright, voiceover by me Darci Crenshaw, and the music is by Ryan Brady via Pon five licensing, please subscribe to the Dave Crenshaw success show on Apple podcasts Spotify, wherever you like to get your podcasts. If you have a suggestion for someone my dad might like to interview, please send it to guests at Dave crenshaw.com and please don't forget to leave us a pleasure view. See you next time. Bye.

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