Executive Summary
The introductory meeting is a high-stakes moment for both advisors and prospects, often nerve-wracking for both sides. Advisors must decide how to present themselves, respond to questions, explain complex issues in an engaging way, and propose and explain their long-term proposition. And at the same time, prospects are likely to feel vulnerable and equally nervous with their own set of concerns – how to present themselves to the advisor, what questions to ask, and how to explain their issues while still feeling competent. For many, this may be their first-ever meeting with a financial advisor, adding another layer of uncertainty (and potential anxiety) beyond simply evaluating fit.
In the 157th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss how advisors can alleviate a prospect's anxiety by setting clear expectations for the introductory meeting – both in terms of logistics and emotional preparedness. They highlight how even small details – such as providing directions, clarifying meeting logistics, or outlining the purpose of the conversation – can help prospects feel more in control, making the experience smoother and more productive for both parties.
For most prospects, showing up comfortably and feeling their very best can be challenging when they don't know what to expect – whether it's where to park, how formal the meeting will be, or whether they need to bring any financial documents. While these details might seem minor, they can create unnecessary stress in the lead-up to the meeting. Even prospects who have met with advisors before may find that every firm runs a slightly different introductory meeting. By taking a moment to provide clarity, advisors can make a meaningful difference in setting the right tone and allowing prospects to engage with confidence.
One effective way to alleviate some of the nervousness is to give prospects a clear outline of the call in advance of the meeting. This roadmap can be as simple as a brief email (or similar document) covering basic logistics and setting clear expectations. The email may discuss practical details like directions, parking, and dress code, and include a brief meeting agenda with potential next steps. It may also include a list of which documents to review, bring, or – perhaps just as crucially – not bring. These small but thoughtful details can offer reassurance to prospects, helping to reduce pre-meeting anxiety and allowing them to focus on the conversation itself.
Ultimately, the key point is that small, intentional efforts to reduce uncertainty can go a long way in helping a firm stand out. As while prospects are often bracing themselves for a high-pressure sales pitch, a well-crafted pre-meeting email immediately signals a different experience – one that prioritizes comfort, clarity, and meaningful dialogue. By eliminating distractions and providing a clear roadmap that outlines expectations in advance, advisors can help settle a prospect's nerves the day of the meeting – which, in turn, can lead to more productive conversations and stronger client relationships!
Authors:
***Editor's Note: Can't get enough of Kitces & Carl? Neither can we, which is why we've released it as a podcast as well! Check it out on all the usual podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Spotify, and YouTube Music.
Show Notes:
- Meeting With X Firm Template – Download (DOCX)
Building the Elite: The Complete Guide to Building Resilient Special Operators by by Craig Weller and Jonathan Pope- Kitces & Carl Ep 156: How Are You Getting Value Out Of ChatGPT As A Financial Advisor?
Kitces & Carl Transcript
Carl: Michael Ernest Kitces, how are you?
Michael: David Carl Richards III.
Carl: Third. That's right.
Michael: DCFD.
Carl: DCR.
Michael: DCR. See, I want to say DCF every time. I want to do this counter cash flow every time. My brain cannot let this go. It is so hard for me to say DCR and not DCF. But DCF number three. We're still on the first version. It works well.
Carl: Exactly right. Exactly right.
Michael: So, how is DCR III these days?
Carl: I'm doing great. Yeah, things are really, really great. 2025 feels like a fantastic year. And speaking of that...
Michael: So, what's on your mind?
How Setting Expectations Can Ease Prospects' Nerves [00:45]
Carl: ...I ran across this idea from a guy named Jonathan Pope. So, Jonathan Pope wrote a book called "Building the Elite." He's a trainer for Special Forces guys. And his book is like a 500-page book. It's really a systems thinking book. I would recommend anybody read it. It's really, really good. It's really a systems thinking book pretending to be a strength training book. So, it's really great.
But one of the things Jonathan introduced me to, the concepts, I was actually having a conversation with him. And he talked about this idea that really resonated with me. He talked about this idea of... Well, actually, let me tell you first. I'm not going to tell you the idea yet. So, he talked about this idea that really resonated with me. And I, of course, because I also almost don't let anything out in the world anymore unless I've taken it through my editor in chief...
Michael: Which chief?
Carl: My brainstorming friend and editor in chief, which is an AI tool.
Michael: Of course it is.
Carl: It's been incredible. I continue to be just blown away by how much better...how much more thoughtful my work is by just running it through. So, I introduced this idea. Seven minutes later, I had sort of fleshed it out a bit, cleaned it up. I sent it to you in the form of an email. And here's the idea. Jonathan talked about the importance of reducing fear for clients who feel intimidated when they first come into a new environment like a gym. He was talking about gyms. And that idea was really interesting to me. Think of the intimidation factor of coming in to see a financial advisor for the first time.
And I remember Amy Mullen, I believe it was Amy Mullen, saying that our very presence in the conversation changes the nature of the conversation. Like, "Oh no, now I got to talk like a financial planner would expect me to talk." So, what Jonathan was saying was, what are the things... He was thinking through what are the things he could do to lower that fear, giving them a description, a clear outline of what to expect before those sessions. And he noticed that that preparation...
Michael: Before the gym sessions. So, this is...
Carl: Yeah. Like, "You're going to show up here." And so I wanted to sort of talk with you about I came up with a bunch of ideas of things, but it would be fun to talk through them. But the...
Michael: I'm just trying to envision it in the gym context first. Just where this is going. So, what are his de-fear, reduce fear, the gym thing?
Carl: De-fearing. Yeah, I think this... First of all, where does the fear come from is interesting to me. Lack of predictability. Lack of control. Right? New environment. I don't know what's going to happen there, and I am not the one in control. So, some of the simple examples he came up to was like as simple as where to park. And the gym I go to it's a private gym that you can buy kind of a membership to and have a scan. It just recently moved. And sometimes I'm on the third floor looking out, watching people pull up. And even that idea of where to park is interesting. How the session will flow, right? "Here's what we're going to do when you first show up. We're going to meet here. We're going to talk a little bit."
And he said, even down to what the gym atmosphere is like, right? "You can expect that it will be quiet there," or "You can expect it to be loud music. There will be other people there. We won't be alone." Or "This is my own private gym, so we will be alone." Even any of those sorts of things he noticed can make the difference between somebody showing up sort of confidently and ready to get to work or somebody feeling too overwhelmed and the first 15 minutes of it are just settling them down.
Michael: I think that's part of what I was trying to visualize, and maybe that helps. Am I trying to reduce the fear because I'm afraid you're not going to come? I'm reducing your blocking point excuses about why you're not going to come. Or is the idea you're coming but new environments are flustering because human beings don't like change? So, I can cut down how long it is. I can make you more confident when you show up and more ready to engage more quickly because you're not just as flustered in getting into your new environment and surroundings and trying to figure out how all this stuff works because I demystified it for you in advance. So, I guess is this about making you show up better when you're here, or am I just trying to make sure you show up at all?
Carl: I don't know how to separate those two out necessarily. I think what it's about for me is being really thoughtful about the human being in their experience, right? And I'm surprised the level to which... Let me give you another example, which is really interesting. So, here in parts of Utah at the ski resort in the morning before they open, you can climb up to the top of the mountain and then ski down. And you do it with this special thing on your skis called skins. And people are really into it. People do it a lot. I've started taking people to do this, and there's a really prominent, incredibly well-written, really well-known venture capitalist who somebody's like, "Hey, you should go ski with Carl." He was like, "Great."
And so I sent him an email, and he's backcountry skied before back east. He knows how to go into avalanche terrain, but I asked him. I said, "Hey, I never want to make any assumptions. Would it be helpful just to know what to expect when you show up Saturday morning?" And he was like, "Yeah. So, I wrote him what to wear, where to park." You know what? And I was like, "This is really silly. I hope he's not offended." But he replied, he's like, "I can't tell you how helpful this is."
This is a really intelligent person who's done lots of things, who's been in lots of scary environments. So, I don't think we can overstate how helpful it could be to somebody to help them understand. And I think particularly with financial planners, you've been told your whole life you don't talk to anybody about money, and you certainly don't talk to those crooks and criminals that we read about in the newspaper.
Michael: Right, right, right. I'm intrigued. I'm just kind of processing this. There are pieces of this that start to click to me as I think about it. It's even down to where to park. Okay. I guess this varies a little bit about where you are, what part of the country you are. DC area, we have a wide range of parking possibilities. Right? Does that mean you don't know if you're... If you've never been to the place.
I don't know if I'm in office buildings, a complex out in the suburbs where there's just going to be lots of parking because they take down giant lots of land. I don't know if there's going to be a parking garage. I don't know if you're actually closer and in one of the little downtown areas that they love building around here these days, which means there's no parking garage nearby and the street parking isn't viable. Right?
So I'm like, "Okay, well, if I'm not really sure, then I probably got to go plan to be there 10 minutes early just in case I don't know where to park." And then it turns out that it was a straightforward office building to park in, and now I'm just 10 minutes early. And now I'm sitting around in the waiting room going, "Why did I drive here 10 minutes early? I could have gotten something else done before I left." Right? Or worse, I don't plan for the extra time, and it turns out that your parking is a garage around the corner, and now I'm three minutes late coming in. And if I'm one of those people that really likes being on time, now I'm really stressed.
So, yeah, just I can immediately start playing out these scenarios in my head like, "Sure, there's a whole bunch of clients who, by the time they show up in the office, they're already a little bit flustered because they did or did not sufficiently prepare for the nuances around how to park for our office. And they could be annoyed either because they underprepared and got it wrong or they overprepared and got it wrong. Either of which might throw them off a little bit."
Oh, and then I don't even know what's going to happen in this meeting. I'm coming in with one set of expectations about what I think a financial planner is going to ask me, even though I've never seen a financial planner, and I really have no idea. So, I come in with one expectation, and then you start asking me different things than what I expected. And now I'm flustered again. Just...
Carl: Totally.
Michael: ...the more I start processing through that, look, I don't know that I was going to lose a prospect because they were anxious about how to park at my office, but I can see just people in a better mental state when we just start reducing just all these little bits of uncertainty that otherwise is just like a cognitive load. Like I'm not just going to their office. I'm going to their office. I got to make sure I get there far enough in advance. I got to make sure I figure out how to park. Did I bring the right information? Am I dressed appropriately? I was coming from work. I'm overdressed. I was coming from the gym. Do I need to bring a set of clothes with me to change at the gym because I don't want to show up at my financial advisor's office wearing gym clothes because that seems like inappropriate because they're money people? I think I'm supposed to be more formal. Right?
Just I'm now riffing of all the different things that I can pretty easily envision or just the wide range of clients who showed up at the office over the years that there's just this cognitive load, particularly when you're going into an environment for the first time, and it's just easier when you get rid of all that load. Here's where to park. Here's what to expect. Here's what we're going to cover. Here's the appropriate dress code or not.
Information To Include In A Pre-Meeting Email To Advisory Firm Clients [11:04]
Carl: Totally. I honestly believe, like, look, you don't need to make this into a really big deal, but the amount of effort it would take to prepare a small paragraph or two that outlined this that got sent pre-meeting... Because anything you can do to lower the temperature, right? The fight-or-flight feeling of, "I'm going to talk about money. This is already stressful." Anything you can do.
And the second thing I think it does is it immediately paints you as different. And I think a lot of the K-State work around what your office should look like was kind of pointing almost at the same thing. We want this to feel like a place where you can relax, where we can have a conversation about things that matter. We don't want you to feel tense and worried. And so I think that, just how you arrive... Let's go through a couple more. Let me just give you a list, and then we can decide which ones to talk about.
Michael: Yeah, I was going to say, so what else? Because someone I hope is listening to this and actually envisioning or starting to craft their literal expectations document. I don't know. You can tell me at the end what you would call it. So, what else? So, where to park? Even if you think it's simple, they don't know it's simple. You know it's simple because you park there every day. They have no idea what it's like in your office.
Carl: Some basic, like I have seen some people who have done this, which I'm always just like, "Wow, that was such a smart touch." Literally just directions like, "If you're coming from here, turn here, turn here." How the meeting will begin and flow. So, the structure of the meeting. It could be as simple as, "The goal of this first meeting is just for me to ask a lot of questions so I can clearly understand where you are today and where you want to go. I'll be asking..."
Michael: I was going to say, how deep are you going? How deep do you feel like you need to go in this, like how the meeting will begin and flow? So, just at that level, "The purpose of this meeting is just for me to ask a lot of questions and better understand you and your spouse and what's going on in your financial lives."
Carl: Yeah. And get really clear about the questions that brought you in today using some of your language. It could be that simple: "The goal of this first meeting is just for me to understand what brought you in today and if what we do is a good fit." It could be that simple. Now one of the things I want to get to in a minute is clear expectations of any commitments that will be asked for. And let's talk about that in a minute.
But the meeting begin and flow. What kind of questions they'll be asked or not asked. And one thing I used to say, and this goes along with the next one, what they need to bring or what not to worry about. So, remember this whole phase of bring everything. "Bring your statements, your tax returns. You have to come. You have to. It's a requirement."
Michael: Yes. I need my data, Carl.
Carl: Yeah, I know. And I remember people would bring it. Right? And I would be like, "Wow, I can't believe that worked."
Michael: In a box. In a disorganized box. Yep.
Carl: Yeah. Or they always look like they had their hands on their wallets. Right? Like it was in a briefcase down here and, "You are not going to get this from me." Like there was always sort of this, "Oh."
Michael: "If I decide at the end of this meeting that you're credible, I will lift the box on the table and slide it across to you. But if not, we're just going to keep the box on my side of the table with all the documents until you've proven yourself."
Carl: Yeah, that's exactly right. I'm glad you've had that same experience. So, what I finally decided was to switch that and just say... And always in the service of the client, not in the service of me, always in the service of the client. All right? So, just say, "I know how busy you are, or I know how important your time is. So, to make the most of our meeting, you may want to review these documents before you come in, in case it comes up." Right? And then just give them a list like, "Review your last brokerage account. Review your mortgage." Just give them a list. Don't ask them to bring it.
So, if you ask them, "What's your interest rate?" "Oh, 6%." And then I would always use the phrase, "In case it comes up," right? "To make the best use of our time. It would be helpful if you reviewed these things in case it comes up." Right? So, that's under the what to bring and what not to worry about. How long the meeting will last. How the meeting will end, including a very clear expectation of any commitments. Right?
So, kind of, for example, letting clients know that the goal of the meeting is simply to explore whether it's a good fit and no decisions will need to be made on the spot. That's an example. Or, "Hey, by the end of this first meeting, I expect you to know whether you want to work with me. I'm going to ask you to sign a document that you're ready to move on." Whatever your meeting looks like, I would suggest the former, right? But those are some ideas of what could be in this document. What sticks out to you?
Michael: And this is... What sticks out to me? I'm overthinking my answers to all these questions, and it's going to be a four-page document...
Carl: Shocker. It's a shocker.
Michael: ...no one wants to read. Right? I'll admit, you put a lot of things, and those all sound awesome, and I could write a paragraph or two about each, and now this is like a two- or three-page document.
Carl: Then what you do, write that.
Michael: Is that too long?
Carl: No, it's way too long. Write that. Give that to ChatGPT to turn this into...
Michael: There you go.
Carl: ...a half a sentence a piece. Right? "This document needs to be 100 words, 250 words, or less." You could do this, and you could get really clean and tight and...
Michael: I really like the suggestion and then give it to ChatGPT and tell it to make this shorter.
Carl: Yeah. And you tell it the reason, "Hey, you're our head of hospitality. Your goal is to make sure everybody feels comfortable coming in. We honestly want this in service of the clients. We just want them to feel good. People come here a little stressed. We want to alleviate that stress. Here's seven areas that we think need to be addressed. Here's what I wrote. There's a paragraph. It's way too long. I need this to be literally like a third of a page that we can send out in an email. Please make it that."
Michael: So, should've crossed about through. So, directions and where to park. How the meeting will begin and flow. And I thought you framed it well, just down to, "Okay, we can make this..." Because again, I can write paragraphs about all this. So, how the meeting will begin to flow. "The goal of this first meeting is just to understand what brought you to the meeting today and whether what we do might be a good fit for you."
Carl: Yeah. Let me introduce one more thing there. I also think your meeting process is helpful. Sorry, this would probably something you'd show them in the meeting. So, I think them showing up. You sent them that, what you just said, but in the meeting, we always had a map, a little road map, and it was almost the first thing we showed people. We were like, "Hey, before we get started, let me just show you..."
Michael: "This is our pre-meeting process..."
Carl: And we're here.
Michael: "...our six-step financial planning process." Okay.
Carl: Yeah. "And we're here, and I've already told you about the purpose of today's meeting, but to reinforce it, I just want to clearly understand what brought you in today and see if what we do would be valuable to you. But if we decide at the end of this meeting, as I mentioned in that letter I sent you, there will be no commitment asked for and no commitment accepted except to go home and think about it. We'll both go and think about it. If we decide to meet again, that's this meeting here, and then it would be this meeting here." That's what it looks like. And it was just a simple diagram of literally four boxes built in Keynote or PowerPoint.
Michael: And you say what kinds of questions will be asked or not asked? What does that mean?
Carl: Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I think you could say, "The goal of this first meeting..." What I always said was, "The goal of this first meeting was to understand really clearly where you are and where you want to go. So, that if we decide to work together, we could put together a plan to get you there. At the end of this meeting, we'll know whether it's a good fit and whether we should move on or not, but we can reserve judgment." But I love the idea of just being like, "The goal of this first meeting is simply to understand really clearly what brought you in. What precipitated the call, your inquiry, and whether what we do would be a good fit." So, I'll be asking questions to get clarity around that. Right? Simple.
Michael: Okay.
Carl: Well, and that could lead to...
Michael: That's definitely short. So, "I'll be asking questions to get clarity around that" is definitely shorter than what I had in mind as you framed this up. So, that was very helpful.
Carl: You haven't even caught your breath by that point.
Michael: That's like eight words. I can't even key up the question in less than eight words.
Carl: That's what I've heard. I heard David White once say, the poet David White said... "I want to have a five-minute conversation with you." I said I want to. And he said, "Carl, a five-minute conversation isn't even time for an Irishman to catch his breath." That was great. But that could lead into the next one, right? So, we can make that conversation the most effective use of your time, you may want to review these documents before you come in case it comes up. So, you've already hinted at, "We'll go as deep or as not deep as we feel comfortable together, but if you're prepared, that would be great."
Michael: True. And then just mechanics: how long will this meeting last?
Carl: Yeah, I think to me, it's got to be the outside edge. But I know I've been in financial planning a lot longer than that. But I think plan on 60 minutes, plan on 90 minutes, whatever that is.
Michael: How the meeting will end. Expectations. Right?
Why It's Worth Clarifying Intent To 'Sell' (Or Not) In Advance [21:01]
Michael: "At the end of this meeting, I'm just going to give you some information and ask you to go home and think about it." Or, "At the end of this meeting, I'm hoping that you'll have a clear decision about whether you'd like to move forward or not. And if you wish, we'll be ready to begin the paperwork." Whatever it is...
Carl: Whatever it is. Yeah.
Michael: ...at least we're all clear about what's supposed to happen here. Or you just find out they weren't ready to sign, so you saved yourself a meeting.
Carl: Yeah. And for the sake of just being helpful, the way I wrote that was, "At the end of this meeting, there will be no commitments asked for or accepted." Right? "And I just want you to go home. My hope is at the end of this meeting, we'll both have enough information to mutually decide whether it's a good fit and you'll go home and think about it." That's what I said in the first five minutes of the first meeting. I said, "Look, at the end of this meeting, I want you to go home and think about it. Show your mother-in-law. Show your father-in-law. If you have other financial advisors you want to see, go see them. Go do all that, and then we'll check in with you, and if we feel like it's a good fit, we'll schedule the next meeting."
But you can put whatever you think. Just be clear about the expectations. How will the meeting end? Because you know they're waiting, right? This is used car sales.
Michael: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carl: That's the experience they're expecting is, "Okay, when's the manager going to get pulled in, and then I'm going to have to do the thing, and..." You know they're waiting. So, just clarify right up front that this is a different experience than what they're expecting.
Michael: "Give me a dollar to seal your commitment while I bring this back to my manager and get it approved."
Carl: "What would it take for you to commit today?"
Michael: You're just giving me painful flashbacks of my first car-buying experience.
Carl: Yeah, for sure. For sure.
Michael: And you said what to bring and what not to worry about. So, I get what to bring. Some of us are, "Please bring your financial information." Others might say, "We don't need you to bring any information the first meeting. If we decide to move forward, we'll send you a list later of some additional documents that we may need." You also know what not to worry about. Is there something...
Carl: That's interesting.
Michael: Was that your effort like, "And don't worry about bringing the documents. I'll ask them for you later if we decide to work together," or were you going somewhere else with that?
Carl: Yeah, that's interesting. What could you... That may have been maybe I wrote that down because I know I wrote that to you in prep for this call. I may have been thinking about I actually used to say, literally say to people, "Relax, right? Don't worry. There's not going to be a commitment asked for at the end of this meeting. We're just here to have a conversation about money to see if it's a good fit." If it's not a good fit, I used to say, "This is not a good fit. If it's okay, I'll be the first to tell you, and I'll probably even have a suggestion as to where you could go." So, that may be what I was referencing. And what else could you not worry about? I have no agenda.
Michael: Don't worry about bringing... Yeah, "I have no agenda. Don't worry about bringing all of your documents and information." I can even see an aspect of, "I'm just trying to understand what's going on in your life today. We're not going to get into your whole financial history." I don't want to say that because maybe we will.
So here's what I like processing in my head. I know we've had both prospects that were tough to get in and one I can think of in particular that basically ended up ghosting us that we never managed to work with. And what I found out afterwards, it basically came down to they had credit card problems. He had credit card problems that was giving them spending problems. They made a lot of money, but they spent a lot of money. So, nominally, "a good prospect." They made a lot of money. They could save if only he would stop spending so much.
And the meeting fell through for what I eventually sort of, after the fact, pieced together and inferred down to they were not ready to have that conversation as a couple, and accepting a meeting with me as their financial planner meant they were going to have to deal with that as a couple, and they were not ready to deal with that as a couple. So, it was easier to say no to the meeting than say yes and implicitly commit to the fact that apparently we're going to have to have it out about this credit card thing. And the reality is, okay, if they're going to do an ongoing financial plan, we're going to have to uncover that eventually, but I'm not getting into, "How much did you spend on wine?" in the first meeting.
Carl: Yeah, yeah. I think maybe that could be I was like, "Man, there's no magic sentence for that one." But I think maybe that could just be generally, "We find these meetings to be pretty high level. Right? And we're just, all we really need is enough information to decide if what we do is a good fit for you." So, I think the idea of maybe it's don't worry by stating it the other way, which is, "We find these conversations..."
Michael: I like that.
Carl: What are we going to talk about? "It's a high-level discussion about what's on your mind and precipitated the meeting request."
How And When To Send A Pre-Introductory Email [26:41]
Michael: Okay. And so you email this in advance. You send it as a pre-meeting explanation. I guess I'm envisioning for so many of us that use scheduling tools these days, this could just be in your Calendly confirmation sequence or even in your confirmation email. Like, "Hey, here's a few notes about the meeting you confirmed." Put it in the calendar invite, the little iCalendar attachment they get if you're using one of those tools.
Carl: Yeah, what I literally did was this was just an email that went out about three days before the meeting. And again, I don't think... Look, what you don't want to do is overwhelm somebody. Right? So, I just think you'd be... We've talked about a lot. I'm not sure I would put everything we just talked about in there, but just think through...
Michael: Oh, Carl, I was using what you said like a checklist. Everything you said is going in there, my friend.
Carl: Shocking. We know nobody does that, do they?
Michael: Oh, someone else out there does it that way. I can't be the only one.
Carl: Yeah, the 17-point wealth management, and they still want...
Michael: Yeah, look at how many people still email you about the 17-point checklist.
Carl: ..."What? No, this is only 16." So, I think you just... Look, what could you do in a couple of sentences to lower the temperature? Pretend like you're the human coming to the meeting for the first time.
Michael: I'll pretend.
Carl: What would be really helpful? Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I think...
Michael: I like it. It feels very action-abiding. It's like, I don't know, who's listening to this? And when you get to your office or back from your office or to your office, wherever you're going as you're commuting, listening to this, who's doing this next week or tomorrow or later this afternoon?
Carl: Yeah. Let me just emphasize. This feels like a small thing, but I think what we're pointing to is the client to be and their locus of control. Right? The ability to feel like the environment is going to be predictable and they have some control. And if we can give people that feeling, it's the beginning of everything we're trying to give them. We can help you feel a little bit more in control. And if we do that, the level to which we can do that around the edges... And there are certain things we can't do it on, so why not do it on parking? Because certain things we can't.
So we may be back to that sketch, the focus sketch, things that matter and things that I can control. There's so much about our work that we have no control over. And there are a few things that we have no control over that matter a lot. So, we may as well put a little bit of focus. And I think what that does is just reduce... I don't think we can overestimate the level, just like my venture capitalist friend going to ski up the mountain. He was like, "My gosh, this is so helpful because I don't have to wonder whether I need to bring all that stuff I take other places." I don't think we can overestimate how valuable that is for people.
Michael: I love it. I love it. Well, thank you for the suggestion, Carl.
Carl: Yeah. Cheers, Michael. Super fun.
Michael: Thank you.
