We talked with Natalie about:
- How to overcome imposter syndrome while pursuing intentional growth
- How advisors can attain success by customizing best practices to fit their unique goals, team, and clients
- The importance of alignment between leaders and their teams
About Natalie Bergsma
Natalie Bergsma is a seasoned consultant and executive coach with over 20 years of experience working in the financial services industry. Her journey began unexpectedly, shifting from academia in physical chemistry to financial services, where she became a key player in helping advisory firms implement best practices. After realizing her career path was being driven by external expectations, she pivoted to focus on personal fulfillment and professional growth. Natalie has built a successful practice, BeyondFA, that combines her consulting expertise with a strong focus on mindset and personal development, guiding advisors and firms toward purposeful growth. She is passionate about helping leaders and businesses overcome mental blocks, achieve meaningful change, and align their personal and professional goals. Having relocated to Costa Rica and experienced her own personal transformation, Natalie integrates life coaching and mindset work into her practice, enabling clients to achieve success with balance and intention.
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Full Audio Transcript:
00:00:00 - 00:08:15
Lauren Hong
Natalie, thanks for joining us today. Glad to have you here.
00:08:18 - 00:12:13
Natalie Bergsma
Thanks for having me, Lauren. And I really, really appreciate the opportunity. This is going to be fun.
00:12:15 - 00:32:28
Lauren Hong
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I know you've got just so much great experience working with advisors. And you've got a great story to tell too, with just how you’ve been able to coach, manage, and then also just lead your own life. You're kind of a representation of what you do for your clients as well.
00:32:28 - 00:48:17
Lauren Hong
So, I'll let you get into it. I want to hand it over to you to share a little bit more about your background, how you got into the work you're doing, and why specifically you've happened to work with a number of advisors. So I'll hand it over to you.
00:48:20 - 01:09:03
Natalie Bergsma
Thanks. I appreciate that. It's a pretty long story actually. I started in this industry 20 years ago. lt was a better paying job to work at a consulting firm than it was to work at the college. So I sort of fell into the opportunity. Was it my intended career path?
01:09:03 - 01:40:27
Natalie Bergsma
I actually left to pursue my PhD in physical chemistry. And it was one of those moments in life where you've picked this path and you like nothing about it, and you're not finding joy and all the things that come with sort of leading your best life. And I had a therapist at the time and we had talked about why I was doing that, and it turns out it was just to fulfill someone else's desires for me.
01:40:27 - 02:11:03
Natalie Bergsma
And so I left with my master’s instead of my PhD and actually went back to working in financial services and working for one of the top consulting firms in our industry. And we got bought by AssetMark at the time. So we sort of started this work learning from the ground up, really helping firms implement best practices and execute change to running a scale group coaching program to practice management training.
02:11:05 - 02:32:06
Natalie Bergsma
Back then, we helped start some of the industry-leading research you guys see around the day. So as you know all of that, I'm a learner. I love learning and learning new things. I really never stop. But I hit another really pivotal point in my career. And my husband really wasn't happy in his firm, in his role.
02:32:06 - 03:04:03
Natalie Bergsma
And he was ready to take a break. I had two kids; I think at the time they were three and six months old, and this amazing opportunity to move to Costa Rica presented itself. And so we had one of those aha moments again where we went, all right, what direction are we going? And really wanted to give our kids an opportunity to experience a different life, a different culture, a different way of being than what we had grown up with.
03:04:03 - 03:09:07
Natalie Bergsma
And it's hard to say no to moving to Costa Rica, you know.
03:09:10 - 03:13:00
Lauren Hong
Yeah. A great opportunity to dive in and experience something completely new.
03:13:00 - 03:35:23
Natalie Bergsma
Yeah. But part of what I learned in that process when I had my first son, I actually had postpartum anxiety. For the first time, I really connected that some of my anxiety was based on being performance driven, right? Your worth and your value is how well you do or how much you succeed.
03:35:25 - 03:55:29
Natalie Bergsma
And when we moved to Costa Rica, loved the work I was doing when I loved the team. In fact, it's Limitless Advisor Coaching, actually. So coaching with them as well as running my own practice. But I brought me with me. This is what happened. And people always ask like, oh my God, didn't you love Costa Rica?
03:55:29 - 04:32:27
Natalie Bergsma
And I think, no, because I wasn't living that life there; I hadn't yet made that shift from my worth and my value being performance driven to really being internal and shifting my mindset. And you know, limitless straight mindset is a big portion of their program. But also I worked with a life coach at that time and she really helped me see how my way of thinking and being was really impacting those things. When I was 26 and we were bought by AssetMark, I had the opportunity to start a business.
04:32:29 - 04:55:12
Natalie Bergsma
Then the clients were willing to come with me at the time but I was too afraid. I didn't want to take those risks. And that really stopped me from, I think, doing some amazing things. And I did that work in my 40s and started my own business at the very beginning of COVID when my husband was a stay-at-home dad.
04:55:12 - 05:28:15
Natalie Bergsma
No other support structure in place. It enabled me to take a risk that I could take when I didn't have any responsibilities, and there was really no concern. So that was a big shift for me. So I actually dove into that mindset, an executive coaching component, and got the credentials around that to be able to bring that into the work I do with advisors because I love helping businesses reach their potential and teams and leaders reach their potential.
05:28:15 - 05:55:26
Natalie Bergsma
But in all the work I did in consulting, people would just get stuck, right? We would have conversations around changing your fee schedules or hiring or letting go of team members who wouldn't get a good fit, and I just couldn't get them past something. And what that really boiled down to was they weren't in the right mindset or the frame of mind to make those kinds of decisions.
05:55:26 - 06:21:05
Natalie Bergsma
So I decided to bring that into the work I do and merge those two practices together. And that's really what we do today. We've been doing that for a while now, really helping lifestyle solo advisors and the coaching side, leading and running their businesses and making shifts and implementing all the changes but doing the work that goes with being able to make those changes on the personal side.
06:21:05 - 06:47:22
Natalie Bergsma
And then for the ensemble, larger firms, we come in and do that hands-on work with you. But I'm also still working with leaders around change management and people and how they're showing up as a leader. To do that. And we really focus on working with a different kind of firm, for a purpose-based firm, we kind of help firms grow with purpose and intention.
06:47:22 - 07:16:21
Natalie Bergsma
So a lot of the work we do, you're already successful. I was already successful. But I was overwhelmed and I was stressed and I had to make changes to have the success and feel really good about it and have all the other things I wanted in my life. And so that's kind of what brought me into it, to your point, I had to go through that experience, and I want to be able to bring that to other people.
07:16:24 - 07:41:29
Lauren Hong
And I love that. Your story also just has these very raw and real moments of transparency that allowed you to be able to have clarity around those shifts, and that you're comfortable being able to share that because I think sometimes that's not always the case, right? Of it's the reality, right? Everyone here, the sort of peaks of what you see on social media or the success stories but so much of the real is not what you see above the water.
07:41:29 - 08:05:18
Lauren Hong
So I appreciate that insight in the narrative to where you are. So how did you go about building up your advisor base? Did you tap into those relationships you had? And then, I guess I sort of question A, how did you build that up? And then question B, you talked about merging this kind of mindset model meets consulting.
08:05:18 - 08:14:10
Lauren Hong
And I’d love to hear how you came up with that. So maybe advisor and then kind of what was that offering that brought them in that was different.
08:14:13 - 08:37:22
Natalie Bergsma
It was different. Yeah. You really just tapped into existing networks, as I mentioned. Limitless and I are still very connected. So we kind of made the decision that I really wanted to work one-on-one with clients, have that individual impact and shift people's lives in a very direct way. And so we sort of split ways.
08:37:22 - 09:01:28
Natalie Bergsma
And I had some clients coming with me who are still part of the Limitless program. So I was really lucky because I think all throughout my career I've been really supported. I've had a really great support network. I've had really great leaders. So it's probably why I'm one of the things that I'm maybe a little pushy about when it comes to this industry is you have to be a great leader because it makes such a huge difference, right?
09:01:28 - 09:22:24
Natalie Bergsma
I've seen other women in this industry just struggle because of the types of firms they were in and the kinds of leaders they were under and the limiting factors that go with that. And I was like, I didn't really get that experience, maybe a little ageism along the way. I started really young. I finally look like a grown up now.
09:22:26 - 09:46:16
Natalie Bergsma
But then, like advisory firms, one client begets another client. And you just try to impact people's lives and help them with their businesses. And that creates the momentum you need to continue to grow and develop. And then consistency in marketing is super key as you obviously know.
09:46:16 - 09:49:28
Natalie Bergsma
So it's really about getting up every day and doing the work.
09:50:00 - 10:08:27
Lauren Hong
Doing good work. I hear you. So what kind of got you at the fork in the road to see this consulting meets mindset opportunity? And how have you positioned that to really help people do good work and help to be able to make those shifts, as you alluded to earlier?
10:08:29 - 10:37:27
Natalie Bergsma
Part of it was introduced me through the work I did at other firms and through having honestly, over the years, my own therapists, my own coaches, really seeing how that impacted my own life and my ability to get past these stops I had for years in terms of executing and a couple of clients along the way early in my career.
10:38:00 - 11:13
Natalie Bergsma
We had some really tough decision points for them. I had a client who was going through a divorce and I was coaching them. And that conversation was, well, I have to work on the business. And I’m like, no, you don't have to work; it's good. Let it run. You have to take care of yourself. And so I see it so much in our industry.
11:13 - 11:04:18
Natalie Bergsma
It's so driven by numbers and by AUM. And how big you are.
11:04:20 - 11:07:21
Lauren Hong
How many employees do you have? And yeah, all the milestones.
11:07:22 - 11:33:15
Natalie Bergsma
You know, drive, drive, drive, drive, go, go, go. Show performance oriented. But you see so many successful people sort of struggling and under water. They look great on the outside but they're struggling on the inside with their teams, with their systems, with how they feel. You know, for almost 80% of the advisors I talk to, imposter syndrome is a huge deal for them.
11:33:15 - 12:02:14
Natalie Bergsma
So really being able to make the shifts in the business. The way I talk about it, it's really growth with intention. Growth for the sake of growth just creates more stress and creates more overwhelm. But if you look at your business, your vision and where you're going and getting your team on board and what you should focus on and why should focus on your energy.
12:02:16 - 12:19:01
Natalie Bergsma
If you can bring all of that together, then you can do it and you can enjoy the ride along the way. And I think that's what so many business owners are looking for right now. I want to have that success but I don't want it at the cost of everything else in my life.
12:19:04 - 12:43:13
Lauren Hong
Some of my favorite conversations with firms are just getting to know them or things like we've grown into a very intentional club. And this is why we, our business, is healthy and we feel good about it or what have you. It's the firms that say we're at this size, maybe they've got a dozen employees and we want to grow because fill in the blank, right?
12:43:13 - 13:08:07
Lauren Hong
There's that intentionality behind it. And that goes back to serving clients and just having that clarity. That in itself is a gift. So I appreciate what you're saying. So tell me more. You talked with a lot of leaders, right? And I feel like sometimes we're always looking for these hacks, like, okay, if I'm going to grow, do I need to put together this whole plan? Is there a blueprint for a strategic plan or what things should I be thinking about?
13:08:07 - 13:26:02
Lauren Hong
Or what books should I be reading or systems to tap into? And I'd love to hear from you about how you approach working with leaders. And if there's more of a, I'll call it a blueprint or a playbook, or if it's more kind of uncovering things through a mindset perspective.
13:26:04 - 13:50:12
Natalie Bergsma
So yeah, we call them best practices, right? That's what you're saying. Just give me the best practices, tell me what to do and what order to do it. In some ways that does work. But I think in working with a lot of firms, what I've noticed is you have to adapt it, sort of like in the work we do, we always customize best practices.
13:50:12 - 14:10:03
Natalie Bergsma
You are not the same person as this leader or this firm over here. You don't have the same team. You rarely have the same kind of client base. So you're just trying to take someone's models and fit it onto your practice. And then for some reason, it's not working and you can't quite figure out why it's not working.
14:10:03 - 14:34:12
Natalie Bergsma
And it's hey, we actually need to to adapt that. So best practices are great. They're a really good guideline to work with. But quick fixes don't really work, right? That miracle solution solvable isn't there. You have to do the work. And so you know in the work we do with firms, we customize it.
14:34:12 - 14:58:14
Natalie Bergsma
So where is it you want to go and what are your goals? Or if you want to be a lifestyle solo advisor that looks different than if you're a solo advisor or trying to grow into an ensemble business. And if you're a lifestyle ensemble that wants to stay at a certain size, let's say 10 people or under, the strategic decisions you make are different than if you want to become an enterprise.
14:58:16 - 15:27:00
Natalie Bergsma
So you always have to look at those things. And I think we're always looking for the right answer. And there isn't a right answer. You know most of the successful firms I've seen have just made decisions and leaned into those decisions and committed to doing that. And so I think looking for the quick fix, you end up doing a lot of research and not a lot of execution, right?
15:27:00 - 15:45:00
Natalie Bergsma
You spend a lot of time in theory and not a lot of time in doing. We talked about podcasting and your time management is a really good example of that. When you think of the thing we want the quick fix for, it's so I need to be able to better manage my time.
15:45:03 - 15:56:21
Natalie Bergsma
And this is a universal challenge of leaders, of business owners. So of everyone. And there are a hundred time management tools. I could give you just a stack of books this big.
15:56:24 - 15:59:08
Lauren Hong
I know; it's so true.
15:59:11 - 16:03:20
Natalie Bergsma
But Lauren, how many time management techniques have you used?
16:03:22 - 16:11:04
Lauren Hong
Oh, I don't even know. I honestly test them and then I kind of throw them out or I just adjust them. And there's a few that stuck.
16:11:06 - 16:34:16
Natalie Bergsma
Yeah. So you know that's part of that. You have to get it to work for you. But what we're talking about is these are the tools and techniques we need. But if we don't have the right thinking in place, they just don't work really well. And here’s a really good example. I have a client — we're working on her time management — and we had a conversation.
16:34:16 - 17:05:10
Natalie Bergsma
She was just beating herself up. She said to me, Natalie, I don't understand why I can't do something so simple. Why can't I just follow the model? And that was creating so much stress and anxiety and overwhelm that it made it even harder to follow the model. And sometimes we think, why can't we just do these simple things, whether it's time management or if you change, it's because it's more complicated than that.
17:05:13 - 17:28:09
Natalie Bergsma
If you think of time management, you've got our culture of distraction. Do you have the right team in place to be able to delegate? Do you have the right systems and tools to create efficiency? And then how do you think about time? How do you relate to time? And for most of us, we're a victim to time.
17:28:11 - 17:52:07
Natalie Bergsma
We don't have any control over it. We have time scarcity. So our mindset around being able to have enough time to even make changes in the business, is nine times out of 10, what's going to get in our way for improving our time management techniques, which then improve our ability to work on the business and do these other things.
17:52:07 - 18:11:02
Natalie Bergsma
So you can kind of take that concept and really apply it to any change or pattern or behavior you're trying to shift as a business or as a leader. And that takes time. And I had a quick conversation — I just want a two-day bootcamp; just fix me in two days.
18:11:05 - 18:14:18
Natalie Bergsma
No, time management takes three to six months for you to see some patterns, right?.
18:14:18 - 18:38:12
Lauren Hong
Those patterns of behavior. I hear you. So speaking of time, to be mindful of time, I want to make sure I get to one other question I've got for you. I know you've worked with leaders and teams. I know you've gone a little bit into the data of what makes great leaders maybe taps into what makes great teams.
18:38:12 - 18:52:21
Lauren Hong
I’d love to hear a little bit about that kind of data you've been able to pull together and then also if you just have first-hand experiences and working with leaders, any insights folks would have as far as best practices go.
18:52:21 - 19:21:26
Natalie Bergsma
So yeah, we did a study last year and instead of asking advisors how they felt about things, we actually asked their teams, right? We asked the boots on the ground people about how they felt about leadership. And two kinds of really interesting things came out of it. One was what the teams thought leaders most valued in terms of their leadership was very different from what teams valued.
19:21:26 - 19:37:25
Natalie Bergsma
So the top three traits in leaders for teams were communication, adaptability, and honesty and transparency. And when describing from their leader’s perspective the number one thing was expertise.
19:37:27 - 19:40:21
Lauren Hong
Interesting.
19:43:09 - 19:45:08
Lauren Hong
There was no match, no direct match.
19:45:08 - 20:05:24
Natalie Bergsma
Well, communication was up on the list. So I think we all know to be a good leader you have to be a good communicator. But what I see with a lot of leaders who are trying to grow their businesses is they have trouble getting out of their own way, right? They struggle to delegate or build teams.
20:05:27 - 20:30:00
Natalie Bergsma
They become the bottleneck in the business. And so that becomes a really big challenge when you're trying to grow an organization. And it's interesting, about 15 years ago when we asked team members in our client relationships, hey, what's the struggle? They said we don't know what the vision is. We don't know where we're going or that's shifted.
20:30:02 - 20:43:20
Natalie Bergsma
Now they know where they're going. They just don't know how it applies to them. So leaders are still missing that gap. You can point the firm in a direction but you've got to get everyone on board and bring them with you.
20:43:22 - 21:09:05
Lauren Hong
I hear you. I've been fortunate, much like you, to be plugged into the C-suite and see behind the scenes of a lot of different companies. And one company we worked with for a number of years, one of my favorite transparency components they've added to their business is they have what they call their monthly State of the Union, and it's just literally updating teams about where they're going, where the business is headed.
21:09:08 - 21:25:00
Lauren Hong
Major project initiatives that are going on and opportunities to celebrate others and good work. And so I love that component. We've applied it to us as well. And it's funny. We do it. I'm sure a lot of firms are familiar with Net Promoter Score, as I'm sure you're familiar as well. There's a Net Promoter Score for employees.
21:25:00 - 21:40:05
Lauren Hong
And that's one of the things that at least on our team, a lot of people talk about; they love that transparency and I think really appreciate being a part of that business journey along the way. So that's interesting to hear that. I guess from my personal experiences, it kind of aligns with some of the data and research you did.
21:42:06 - 21:50:03
Natalie Bergsma
Yeah, we definitely see it in firms, right? Teams don't want to come to work just to do a job anymore, right? They want to be a part of something bigger.
21:50:06 - 22:05
Lauren Hong
Yep. That's right. And I hear you, well, this was so fun. Any other final thoughts or things you want to make sure to share?
22:07 - 22:33:01
Natalie Bergsma
I think one of the key components of — you just mentioned it — doing that State of the Union address and what comes next, we talked a little bit about the leader bottleneck but it's also the business bottleneck. So having a clear plan in place for what we're working on and who's responsible and really having a strategic planning process to make sure you're working on the things that are going to create the growth you want in the order you want it.
22:33:01 - 22:57:04
Natalie Bergsma
And that's part of the work we do is really helping firms identify what those things are and then put them in the right order and then help them champion their teams to execute and move forward on them. So it's a big component of getting all the pieces to line up, right? The strategy, the teams, the mindset, the systems, really driving everything in one direction.
22:57:04 - 23:06:00
Natalie Bergsma
That’s the way firms are seeing that intentional and purpose-oriented growth and creating meaning in their businesses and their lives.
23:06:03 - 23:24:03
Lauren Hong
That's great. And then it sounds like you also support the change management component as well. So not just the strategy of putting together the big picture. And then supporting those teams as they actually implement that action. Are you kind of more or less tapping back into the consulting as the project moves forward?
23:24:06 - 24:03
Natalie Bergsma
Yeah, depending on how you engage with us. We have done engagements where we lead and coach and we have done engagements where we become a strategic member of the team, sort of a fractional COO, helping design that strategy and then helping implement and build it out, whether that's a service model or a fee schedule or advisor career paths and milestones — really helping execute that and then implement it. So our engagements are a little bit longer term because we don't really believe in, hey, let me build you something and then hand it to you.
24:09 - 24:17:01
Lauren Hong
Yeah I hear you. It's getting past that stuck point. Kind of like you were sharing earlier, being able to help actually get some traction as well. Great. Thank you so much for your time. Where can folks learn more? What's a good website or email?
24:17:06 - 24:24:06
Natalie Bergsma
You can visit us at beyondfa.com or email connect at beyondfa.com. And we're happy to chat.
24:24:09 - 24:27:20
Lauren Hong
Wonderful. Thank you again for your time exploring.
24:27:23 - 24:29:01
Natalie Bergsma
Appreciate it.
