We talked with Mary about:
- Embracing the “blue ocean mentality” instead of competing
- How to elevate your voice to make an impact in the thought leadership space
- The consistent effort and ongoing learning it takes to be a thought leader
About Mary Carlson:
Mary Carlson is a financial expert with a passion for integrating financial education and human behavior. After earning a financial planning degree from Texas Tech University, she worked as a lobbyist for the Financial Planning Association, focusing on retirement, taxes, and financial education. Her career later took her to the Pentagon, where she taught military personnel about budgeting, savings, and retirement planning. While earning her doctorate in financial therapy, Mary researched the financial behaviors of soldiers, deepening her understanding of the emotional aspects of money. She also spent three years at the CIA providing financial counseling. Today, she runs her own consulting business, Financial Behavior Keynote Group, using her unique blend of financial knowledge and behavioral insights to help others.
Featured Resources
- Dr. Mary Carlson on LinkedIn
- Financial Behavior Keynote Group on LinkedIn
- Financial Behavior Keynote Group on YouTube
- Financial Behavior Keynote Group website
- Kitces.com
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Full Audio Transcript:
00:00:00 - 00:06:24
Lauren Hong
Mary, thank you for joining us today.
00:06:26 - 00:08:29
Mary Carlson
Yeah. It's so great to be here. Thanks, Lauren.
00:09:01 - 00:33:04
Lauren Hong
Oh my gosh. Yes, I had the best time checking out your website. You work with so many amazing folks. Not to mention your speaking credentials and how deeply you know the advisory community and the work that's going on there. You've done such a great job of positioning yourself, and I am really looking forward to hearing from you today, not just about how you got here in your journey and the day-to-day work you do.
00:33:07 - 00:51:04
Lauren Hong
But I know we're going to get into a little bit more about how you even get going with identifying a topic and speaking and really building a thought leadership platform. So we have a lot to cover and a short period of time. Over to you. How did you get into this world?
00:51:04 -00:54:04
Lauren Hong
And tell us a little bit more about your business.
00:54:07 - 01:12:05
Mary Carlson
Sure. I thank you so much, Lauren. And yeah, I feel lucky every day to be able to work with some of the most incredible minds in the industry, some of the most developing thought leadership I've ever experienced. So it has been really fun. But let me take you back really quick and give you a quick backstory of where I came from.
01:12:05 - 01:33:00
Mary Carlson
So I came out of Texas Tech's financial planning program. I love financial planning. It just makes me so excited to know these things I feel like everybody in the world needs to know. And so my little 25-year-old self, and I have a degree under my belt and thought, I'm going to go to Washington, D.C. and knock on the halls of Congress and teach the world financial education.
01:33:00 - 01:55:20
Mary Carlson
So that's what I did. I came out to D.C. Long story short, I ended up at FPA as a lobbyist and did that. I had a portfolio of retirement, taxes, and then financial education. We met in the Treasury's Gold Room and I had some really cool experiences with senators and representatives and in the White House a few times, some really cool, interesting things.
01:55:23 - 02:12:27
Mary Carlson
And I just kept being a fan. Well, long story short, I ended up going into wealth management for a short period and never found my footing. I just never felt like it was a total fit after I had these big dreams. I'm a big dreamer and a big idealist. And so of course, I went to the Pentagon instead.
02:12:29 - 02:42:23
Mary Carlson
That's the next logical bit of it. I had a great experience traveling all over the world teaching members of the military about financial education principles and everything from budget and savings to their specific retirement plan to how very specific military benefits and services work. And that was really fun. So that's where I got into this idea of speaking and really latched on and thought, I really like this.
02:42:26 - 03:13:16
Mary Carlson
Fast-forward, I ended up going to Fort Riley, Kansas, which is right next to Manhattan, Kansas, where Kansas State is, and worked on my Ph.D. simultaneously while also working on the military compound there. And I worked with families of the fallen. And so specifically, what they would get, almost half a million death benefit and gratuity, after their loved one died, which really came with a lot of emotion attached.
03:13:16 - 03:35:10
Mary Carlson
That felt like blood money. I'd much rather have my loved one here. But in this program and the Ph.D. program I was in, we were in financial therapy. We're talking about financial behavior. And that's where my real interest in this idea of money is not just money, right? Money is so tied to emotion and behavior and psychology.
03:35:17 - 04:02:02
Mary Carlson
And I was seeing it firsthand play out in a life and death scenario. The quickest we ever saw half a million spent was three months. And there's so much guilt and shame and anger and all those intangible feelings that came along with that. And so I ended up writing my dissertation on the financial behaviors of soldiers before and after deployment and really fleshed out what that looked like.
04:02:04 - 04:35:14
Mary Carlson
And we were actually right there. And so we were able to get over 800 soldiers before and after deployment. And mind you, this was a time when they were going to war zones four or five, six times, back to back to back. It was putting a lot of stress and strain on these families. So that really kind of was my entrance into this whole idea of money's not just about learning what to do and what not to do but it's that whole integration of the human side of money and what makes us us. I went back to Washington, D.C. and worked for the accounting associations.
04:35:14 - 05:22
Mary Carlson
I've worked for federal. I've been on the Hill, worked at the federal and local level as well and then I got married, started having kids and decided — You know what I wanted? I've always wanted to own my own business. So I started a consulting business and ended up at the CIA and spent three years at the Central Intelligence Agency doing financial counseling for members of the CIA.
05:22 - 05:27:04
Mary Carlson
And so it was really, really interesting to learn. They are very different from my military experience. Yeah, a population but also some different experiences and the coolest part of that experience was I was embedded in an EAP or employee assistance program. So they work with therapists. So I was working right next to marriage and family therapists, counselors, psychologists, and social workers who could help with addiction.
05:27:07 - 06:04:07
Mary Carlson
And it was a really cool experience for those three years to be able to say we can come at issues with a holistic approach, right? So if you have a gambler addicted to alcohol, you're not just sending him to me to fix the financial side of it but you're working with the social worker who works with the marriage and family therapist who works with me, and there was a lot of back and forth and integrated work, and that's where I saw the beauty of all these different service providers come together and solidify. So fast-forward, what came along after that experience was over.
06:04:07 - 06:23:24
Mary Carlson
I still teach at a couple of universities and have taught for University of Georgia for several years now but really wanted to do even more. And that was when three years ago, I came together and said, hey, there were three other academics with me; why don't we do more speaking, consulting together?
06:24:01 - 06:43:04
Mary Carlson
And so hence the idea of Financial Behavior Keynote was born. We have these backgrounds and experiences in this group but really honing in on behavior. And I would say that's what sets us apart from any other group out there. It's a very niche group. It's especially niche in the speaking arena, right?
06:43:06 - 06:44:04
Lauren Hong
It is.
06:44:09 - 07:21:07
Mary Carlson
We really want financial behavior but we also have this component. Our tagline is “Where education meets experiential learning.” And so part of learning that you have to have is the research side, right? You want that research side, that empirical research to back up what we're doing in practice. And so that's a lot of what we're trying to do is bring practice and academia together and facilitate more conversations and have more conversations and make the research we do know about more understandable to be able to be practically implemented.
07:21:07 - 07:29:06
Mary Carlson
And so that's what I get up for every day now. That's what excites me. But that's kind of the background and how I got into it and where I came from.
07:29:06 - 07:48:26
Lauren Hong
So, oh my gosh, it personally speaks to me so much. I spent time in D.C. — my husband's navy. So it's just hearing you talk about your journey and of course, I work in the financial services space. There's so many connections, connecting the dots in so many ways.
07:48:26 - 08:08:24
Lauren Hong
So let's dig a little bit deeper. I feel like we need to have a whole conversation about these things that impact more or unpack them more. But let's dig specifically a little bit deeper for you're working with people and correct me if I'm wrong, who have really established their focus, right?
08:08:24 - 08:19:19
Lauren Hong
And in this work you're then helping them, placing them for various speaking opportunities. Tell us a little bit more about that component of the business.
08:19:21 - 08:47:24
Mary Carlson
Sure. So really when it came together, the four of us were like, hey, we want to do more of this. The whole idea behind it is to leverage each other's social networking ability, right? Because I'm a big believer in a blue ocean mentality. I think too often we sit in what I call lobsters in a bucket where we kind of tear each other down or little circles and fight over some little piddly thing and sort of look out and say, there is enough.
08:48:01 - 09:19:12
Mary Carlson
There is enough work. There are enough people, there's enough space. And your voice needs to be heard, who you are. And so regardless of someone else speaking on your topic or doing what you do instead of fighting about it, let's garner together. Yeah, harness those assets to move forward. And so that's where that idea came from. And as we started to band together, what we started to find is some incredible speakers, Paul Richards, Sarah Newcomb, some really incredible people came and said we want to be a part of this.
09:19:12 - 09:39:18
Mary Carlson
We said, well by all means, come, let's make it happen. Why not? So it quickly grew. We started last year with four. We ended last year with 32. And it grew so quickly that at one point last fall I was like, time out, I don't know what I'm doing.
09:39:18 - 10:05:16
Mary Carlson
We've got to slow down because typically what happens in a speaker's arrangement or a setting is a speaker's bureau is really not interested in you until you're charging a minimum $10, $20,000 or more. And so if you think of a lot of speakers' bureaus, you're looking at the creme de la creme. You're looking at people who have studied this, who have done it, and who have spoken a lot like in houses of the world, right?
10:05:16 - 10:25:21
Mary Carlson
Or if you go to the Washington Speaker's Bureau, that's like the who's who of every political act, president, or director or some sort. But the problem with those is what about those who have been charging nothing and they just want to improve, or those who are maybe charging a thousand bucks? No speaker bureau is interested in taking on someone charging 1,000 bucks.
10:25:21 - 10:50:24
Mary Carlson
So I just felt like I was sitting in a speaker course in January, and I looked around and there were 60 people in this room, and I thought, all of them are great. There was an FBI hostage negotiator. There was a cartoonist. There was one other financial services person. I thought, oh, yeah, I can go to this FBI hostage negotiator and get help with my speech but he's not going to know the ins and outs of this topic.
10:50:24 - 11:11:06
Mary Carlson
I'm going to have to spend more time explaining the topic than I am the stuff. And so the idea hit me of we need community. And that kind of added to that blue ocean mentality. Instead of being an elitist group that's like, well, unless you charge X amount, right, it becomes, hey, are you interested in this topic?
11:11:06 - 11:30:19
Mary Carlson
Do you want to learn more? And are you willing to put forth the work it requires to go? And so that was born this year. The idea of a thought leadership community. And so that's what we have and that's what we grow. And really we have a lot of really different individuals. Some want to be speakers, some don't.
11:30:21 - 11:54:22
Mary Carlson
Some want to just come and learn, some want to be better communicating with their clients. Some want to teach, create online courses, or teach in an online type format. We even have writers in the group of people who want to be better bloggers or podcasters. We do have a few of those. So at one point we had called it content creators, and I wanted to get away from that.
11:54:22 - 12:14:19
Mary Carlson
And here's why I think it's in the DNA trend. Experts are everywhere, right? You just get a YouTube channel and call yourself an expert and suddenly you're an expert. The other thing is, there's so many influencers out there it's hard to tell an influencer to create content, right? And that's not what we're in the business of.
12:14:21 - 12:51:04
Mary Carlson
We're in the business of thought leadership. And I think the important takeaway from this is it's not just blowing smoke up and saying, hey, this is something I read about one time but this is rich, developed, evidence based content we can implement. And so that's what this group has become, a really rich, diverse group that has various forms of communication — written, verbal, etc. — that is coming together and saying, hey, we created content before, how did that work?
12:51:04 - 13:13:04
Mary Carlson
How did you have the lifespan of it? What did this look like? And what I find to be the most beneficial, and those in the group do as well, is it's not learning. There's no teacher, right? I'm not the Amy Dani that has all the answers but instead it's us learning from each other. It's that blue ocean of everyone has something to give and everyone has something to learn.
13:13:04 - 13:23:18
Mary Carlson
And as we learn and grow together, we become stronger together than we are separate. And that's what that really is, that community and thought leadership.
13:23:20 - 13:45:05
Lauren Hong
Oh my goodness. So I'm sure there's folks who are listening and thinking, I want to be in that thought leadership space or I'm being told I should be in that thought leadership space or they’re sort of pulled toward it. They feel a tug for that, right? To be able to better educate prospects and clients and just to really position themselves, especially if they really defined a target.
13:45:11 - 13:56:20
Lauren Hong
Where do you recommend people even start with this? If, like you said, you can be a YouTuber, you could do a blog, you could do so many things, speaking, where should folks start?
13:56:22 - 14:17:13
Mary Carlson
Yeah, that's a great question. I would say first off, start with where you feel most comfortable. There's so many who are teaching great things on video or how-to bloggers will take a course on it. I don't care if you take a public speaking 101 from your local university, get a little interest and get your feet wet, try something new out.
14:17:13 - 14:45:28
Mary Carlson
It's expanding those horizons. I'm a lifelong learner, and I find many of those in the group are just constantly learning. Some are far in their career and almost ready to retire but they want to continue teaching. And so that's what's cool about it. Now what we do inside the community is help people take them from where they're at and add a little more value. Bring everything you have is essentially what I say and see if we can't add to it because of that collective wisdom together.
14:46:03 - 15:02:25
Mary Carlson
And so by all means, we want you. If you're a financial planner and just want better communication skills and how to communicate maybe better through your newsletter or better on video, we've got that community now. We don't teach video one-on-one like some others do, but we will refer you to those groups.
15:02:25 - 15:29:19
Mary Carlson
We also offer discounts because we have that ability to offer the services we need. So we're not speaker coaches, we don't do speaker training ourselves but we have the ability to collectively come together and say, yeah, there's three individuals to take your pick, and here's a discounted rate for that. So we have some cool opportunities inside the community just because we've come and banded together and said, let's see what we can build together.
15:29:22 - 15:45:18
Lauren Hong
Yeah, I know whenever we're talking with folks, sometimes I think it's just like, what's the most natural? If you don't like writing and you feel like you're like, where do we even start? Then maybe you explore something else. But if you've got that tug and that pull to be able to lean into it, you’ve got to listen to that, right?
15:45:18 - 16:03:05
Lauren Hong
When we talk about thought leaders, you can't just do one blog post and then all of a sudden you're a thought leader or something like that. How do you define thought leadership? When it comes to either frequency or it’s around a subject matter expert, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your thinking.
16:03:07 - 16:05:23
Lauren Hong
And the group's thinking around thought leadership.
16:05:25 - 16:31:00
Mary Carlson
Absolutely. So we purposely call it a thought leadership group because we know what we thought. Leaders are created over time. It's a lot of work to get there. And that's not everyone's bailiwick. But I think it's really important to recognize thought leadership as it goes in. And so one of the things we've started to recognize over time and realize is one, let's go back to experts.
16:31:00 - 16:55:14
Mary Carlson
Experts really since the rise of YouTube. It used to look on it like, hey, you've got great certifications, you must be an expert in that field. And we're just seeing it watered down between the influencer world and the ability to get degrees and certifications. And I mean fly by night stuff. So this idea of just being an expert really isn't enough, right?
16:55:14 - 17:11:20
Mary Carlson
And so experts teach you what you should do versus a thought leader is someone who sees the future and breaks it down to envision how you can get to that area.
17:11:22 - 17:14:01
Lauren Hong
Yeah to frame it, but keep going. Yes.
17:14:04 - 17:34:00
Mary Carlson
Well, whether you think that or not, right? Let's use Bob Veres. Bob Veres has been a thought leader in this business for decades. And so we're not pretending to make everyone a Bob Veres after this. But what we are saying is what gives you particular insight, and how can you maybe be a visionary for your own clients?
17:34:02 - 17:54:18
Mary Carlson
But it can be at a very large level, like a Michael Kitces or a Bob Veres where you're helping tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. But it could also be how do you better serve those you help every day and that takes skill because it requires good communication skills.
17:54:21 - 18:19:23
Mary Carlson
Like you, I use those two examples. Bob and Michael are incredible writers. They're incredibly able minds. And so how can maybe you take one skill that's a weak skill for you and strengthen it just little by little? And by adding this component of a helpful community, that helps strengthen that thought leadership. So we're there to create thought leadership in a space we want to see thrive.
18:19:23 - 18:46:26
Mary Carlson
We want to see variation. We want to see not just variety in how financial advisors look and who they serve but also in how we think and how we do financial planning, right? And we think that comes from a broad scope, from with a lot of different voices and a lot of different input, and yet it will look different in every single person's practice.
18:46:26 - 18:54:25
Mary Carlson
And that's the coolest part, is how you implement it. It's going to be different. And that's okay. That's good. We want that.
18:54:28 - 19:14:08
Lauren Hong
Love it. I also really appreciate the learning model you have created, and that it's collaborative and you've got that push and pull versus kind of the preaching to. So hats off to you. I'm sure there's pull just from your numerous amounts of speaking and being in the classroom and years of experience there.
19:14:11 - 19:21:06
Lauren Hong
I appreciate that too. Do you guys have a forum? Are you just meeting in person or Zoom or how does that work?
19:21:09 - 19:43:04
Mary Carlson
No. Great question. So we use a circle community. So it's an online platform. It's a community. We do a lot of virtual opportunities as well. And they just have a lot of communication ability. We haven't had an in-person yet. Occasionally, several of us will meet up at a conference. But what we really like is this new age ability to connect people.
19:43:04 - 20:03:24
Mary Carlson
Literally. We have people in this thought leadership who are all over the world. And that's the other cool part about financial behavior is whether you're in England or South Africa or Australia. Yes, behavior is about people. We're going to tax law, right? Tax law is going to be dead in the water, totally different.
20:03:25 - 20:31:27
Mary Carlson
But yet when you really get into the cycle of money and how people interact, we're human at the base level, whether you're in Asia or whether you're in South America. It's about how people work regardless of language or lack of money or more money, right? So we also don't differentiate on ultra-high-net worth versus emerging, middle market, or low income or whatever, everyone.
20:31:27 - 20:52:04
Mary Carlson
And that's why I think the power of this group is there are so many different speakers who speak to all and we need more of that. But whoever your target market is is going to look different. And that's good. Because these are important messages that need to get out to the world to change the world.
20:52:04 - 21:03:27
Mary Carlson
That and we believe through a speech or through the written word or through video — that's how you change the world little by little by little. By helping yourself and inspiring people around you.
21:03:29 - 21:19:19
Lauren Hong
I love that in the force of bringing it together. Oh my goodness, I feel like we could talk for such a long time. This is a fascinating topic. Not to mention, I know you can speak on a number of topics. You have quite an impressive portfolio for a variety of topics you speak on and the group and what have you.
21:19:19 - 21:28:04
Lauren Hong
So where can folks learn more? Where should we go if we want to learn more about everything we've been chatting about today?
21:28:07 - 21:47:12
Mary Carlson
I love it. Yeah. Go to keynote Dot financial. So k-e-y-n-o-t-e dot financial. So if you are hosting an event and let me pause right there on this part, this is primarily what we do with clients is help you get a client or get a speaker at your event. So that could be a chapter.
21:47:14 - 22:12:10
Mary Carlson
That could be a large conference. It could be a small conference. It can even be client events. And so think about wanting to add value to your clients, what do speakers love? Doing these intimate events where clients are touched. Because our speakers can speak not only to B2B but also that B2C side. And so we'd love to work with you on any of those realms.
22:12:12 - 22:29:23
Mary Carlson
So you can go there, you can see our list of speakers. We constantly are updating topics and ideas. And if you're like, hey, Mary, I don't have a clue, reach out to me, let's have a call and I'll help you find the right fit for your speakers because the ones you're seeing on the website are really the tip of the iceberg.
22:29:23 - 22:53:11
Mary Carlson
We've got a lot more great minds behind the scene. If you're interested in learning more about this but don't really have an event, go to our education page. And on that education page we offer monthly webinars, and I'm really excited to announce next year we'll be offering longer term workshops. So right now we do webinars and book studies, which are very popular.
22:53:13 - 23:12:11
Mary Carlson
And we're going to start offering workshops that will be smaller broken down chunks. I'm showing you exactly how to do something and how to implement it rather than just a one-hour webinar takeaway. So be on the lookout for that. And if you're like me, I'm still wanting more, then join our community. We would love to have you.
23:12:11 - 23:38:18
Mary Carlson
And so that would be our community tab and just jump in there. If you're like, I have no idea where to start, just get on my calendar. And we'd love to talk to you, and see where you're at in your journey. But we're really excited about talking about what we know. It really started out where I began, if I came to Washington, D.C. to change the world, because I feel the information we know inside is so important, it's so valuable, and so many people need this.
23:38:20 - 24:03:09
Mary Carlson
And so now it's fun to look back 20 years later and say, wow, this is how I believe we are going to change the world, and it's not going to be me by myself. It's going to be a whole ocean of us together saying these are really important and we want to change your life. Whether it's B2B, B2C, or you're helping hundreds or thousands at a time.
24:03:09 - 24:10:12
Mary Carlson
And so that's the exciting part behind it. So go to our website, check it out, or just jump on my calendar. And I'd love to have a conversation with you.
24:10:14 - 24:25:26
Lauren Hong
Oh my goodness, Mary, thank you so much. This was such a fun conversation and so many good insights, right? For folks who are looking to get involved, there are a number of ways, or looking to bring a speaker and also just tips. So thank you for sharing your knowledge and also just your passion for the work and what you do for this community.
24:25:28 - 24:31:24
Mary Carlson
Thanks for having me on, Lauren. It's been great.
