Hello. My name is Matt Bros of Lockton. In my role, I consult with employers all around the country related to their employee benefits strategy. We're in conversations all the time about how to attract the best talent and get the best out of their people. Work ethic integrity? Those are all traits of people that pursue excellence and it doesn't even stop there. From the boardroom to the storeroom, we're gonna find out what drives those people? Welcome to the Excellence culture. This is gonna be an excellent adventure. Alright. Welcome to the Excellence Culture, everybody. I've got a good friend of mine here named Zach Fiering, and Zach has been a friend for a long time but from a professional standpoint has has really been super helpful for me and my family. So wanna go ahead and introduce Zach first, Zach. Thank you so much for coming. Great to hear. Yeah. And so Zach works with Morrison Financial and I have to first just kinda introduce this whole thing about Zach by sharing how meaningful a role you've had in my life and my family's life. So back in two thousand twenty, my dad passed away, and it left my mom in a situation where she had no idea what her financial world looked like and all that kind of stuff. And and and I told her you need to talk to a human being more than a company, and so she reached out to you, and you just stepped in and didn't only start taking care of her finances, but you brought her so much peace of mind by connecting her to this whole professional network of people that got her in a place where, I mean, unfortunate she's not here anymore, but she lived the last year of her life. With a lot of peace because of you, and because of what you did for her, and you did so much more than what a financial planner should do. And so first of all, thank you so much. Even to the point that when we had the year anniversary of my mom's passing. There was a handwritten letter that came to us from Zach saying I still think about your mom all the time. And she's a special lady. So so thank you. Thank you so much. And I mean, that really introduces the type of person that Zack is. And so from an excellent standpoint, obviously there's a lot of technical things to a job to be able to be and that kind of stuff, but you are just excellent at being a friend. You're excellent at caring for people, and so I wanna dig into that. Are you cool with that? Yeah. Okay. I'd love to kinda backtrack a little bit and hear about Little Zach. And what was Little Zach like? Maybe who are some people that were in your life that you think shaped who you are now? Would love to hear you just to share a little bit about that. Yeah. I'd love to do that. I guess going back to Little Zach is kind of interesting segue, because I think of myself as the oldest of two other brothers. And kinda being a leader in the family led to some instigation. I felt like little Zach liked to push the buttons of my brothers. But through that, I think it comes back down to my parents. My parents set us up in the right way. We had to go to church on Sunday. It didn't matter if you wanted to go or not. And I think that routine and that world that we lived in just kinda set the standard for what was expected. It wasn't like military family or anything crazy, but you know, we had certain standards that we live by. And, you know, how that translates in from Little Zach to, you know, growing up Zach is that I I really, really, really love sports. And I played soccer until I was about sixteen, You know, at sixteen, I broke my leg, really bad, and my whole dream was to be a professional soccer player. Like, I was all in on that. And breaking my leg as a sixteen year old was kind of this moment in my life right beside. Is this gonna continue or not? And I had all the support to do that, to continue to focus on soccer and let that happen. But I had the autonomy to decide whatever. And at that point, I decided for some reason that I wanted to play golf in college I'd never played in the golf tournament in my life. And I just looked back at that decision. So how old were you at this time? I was sixteen. Okay. I'd never played in the golf tournament. I'd played golf. Hit some balls. Yeah. That kinda stuff. Practice with friends, you know, done that kinda thing. And I just got super focused on that, and I had, you know, some families that lived around us that were entrepreneurs that I kinda looked up to looked up to my parents, And just as a young kid, I never really felt like there was something I couldn't do. I've just always had that feeling. So I think from Little Zach to Big Zach, just like this constant you know, ebb and flow and some changes along the way, but it was really, probably, the family structure, my parents doing a really good job. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people can say that. Tell me a little bit about your career path to this point. Played college golf. Let's go from there. What's your career path been like to this point? Yeah. So after I graduated from U and T with a degree in entrepreneurship, I started working in the oil and gas business. And when the Barnett Shell was, you know, the hottest thing and what the newspaper was talking about every single day, I remember seeing an article that said Chesapeake Energy was paying twenty thousand dollars per acre to lease someone's mineral rights, and I thought, How in the world can they pay? Twenty thousand dollars per acre. Like, in my mind, that was, like, infinite amount of money. And at about that time, one of my neighbors started oil and gas company and said, hey, you should come work for me. And so I did that for about ten years, And we had a couple of kids, my wife and I, and in two thousand fifteen, we were about to have our third child, and my wife asked me if I could stay find something closer to home, because I was traveling all over the country at that point. And in my mind, I didn't really like that idea, It, like, was very scary, because I had kinda found my niche, but I knew that I needed to pray about it. So that's why I started praying that I would see, you know, either have an idea or get let go or just like have a very clean break, so I could start the next adventure. And in January twenty sixteen, I was let go from the company that I worked at, and I thought, this is the greatest thing ever. I got let go, and now I have this opportunity to find something else. And that's at that same time, I -- Interesting. -- yeah, I got connected with Morrison Financial at that point. And it's it's been a great decision, but, you know, it was peripheral. Risk. Yeah. It was risky and peripheral. So when I think of Zach Fering, I just think of one of the most caring people I know. And so was that something that's just come natural to you? Was there a moment in time where all of a sudden you just said, I've got a passion for caring for people because it's you're you're not just natural at it, but you're also intentional about it. And so tell me, was there kind of a moment in time or anything like that where all of a sudden like you just realized I wanna have a career in caring for people. I love people, and I think Caring for someone I mean, obviously, you can't care for everyone the same way, but the people that are closest to you or your clients, you can really be intentional. And I think early in my career, I figured that some of the things that most people don't do, that you can do, are just so simple. And I think early on, I just started doing these things and they it's like, when you wanna get good at golf, you go out there and if you're not chipping real well, you go and hit thousands of chips. It's the same thing in business. If you wanna, you know, go the extra mile and remember someone's birthday, or the anniversary, you know, of them getting married or the anniversary of their spouse passing away. I mean, all you have to do is put that on your calendar. And then when it comes up, you're like, oh my gosh, or, you know, a week from that point, you put it on the calendar and say, hey, it's coming up. And it is intentional that you put it on the calendar because what you wanted to do was to have an actionable item and do something for them at that point. And anyone can do that. It's not impossible. But it does bring back all these old memories. Like, when I saw was alerted about your mom's anniversary coming up, I was just like, oh my gosh, like, it feels like it was yesterday. I know you probably had lots of different feelings about it too, but I mean, when I was writing that note, I was crying. Like, But that those are the real world things that that, you know, can help anyone in any business is to make someone feel the moment. Alright, Zach. So, you know, with the Excellence culture, there's kind of like a main question that I like to ask people. And it might be, you know, you can ask in a lot of different ways, but really what gets you fired up when you wake up in the morning to do your job well? You know, to kinda pursue excellence. Right? What's that motivating drive for you? I think at this stage of life, it's it comes down to, you know, my family, my kids, and our business. And whether I'm doing you know, going taking the kids of soccer practice or my daughter to dance, or helping clients solve problems or plan better, I love all that stuff. And so I It kinda irritates me when people say, oh, my gosh, it's Friday. Like, I want everyone to feel like every day's Friday. Like When I'm around you, feels like That's how I feel. I I don't you know, there might be things in my life that I don't wanna do or get a little bit, you know, I have hesitation toward. But at the end of the day, I'm pretty good at saying, no, you don't wanna do this, and it's because you should do it. But most of the things in my life, I really enjoy what I do. I'm I'm very blessed and thankful for that. Yeah. Well, I've got a passion about helping employers just kind of create these cultures of excellence. And You know, I'd like to hear from you related to Morrison Financial. Is there anything unique that you feel like is inside that place at Morrison Financial that really allows you to be that person that we're talking about? Yeah. I think our culture there is that we're a family. Yeah. And and we really feel that way. And we also feel like all of our employees have flexibility, especially for, like, vacation. We don't have, like, a specific amount of vacation. It just needs to be put on the calendar make sure that someone else can cover for you. And I think our team understands that's almost that's invaluable, that they can you know, do really good work, but then have tons of freedom to kind of do other things too. So I think that's probably what sets us apart, is because once you get the team right and we feel like we have a very good team, then we're gonna treat the clients right, and that flows through, because a lot of people say, we gotta treat the clients right, treat the clients right, And then they forget about the people that are helping you do that. Yeah. So we focus on the team first, knowing that that's gonna pass through to a good experience. I love that. I love that. And I feel it when I'm there, it really does feel like family. It like feels like you're sitting in a living room when you're there. So that's really cool. Is there Is there anything else that you would like to tell the audience before we call it a day? I think when it comes to, like, financial planning, a lot of people just wait. They're like, oh, we'll wait until I get this amount of money or this job or this thing, and there's so much planning that can be done at any age, and it's always better to start sooner than later. Let's see advice again. I agree, man. I agree. I wish I started sooner for sure. Well, thank you so much. Welcome to the Excellence culture. This is exciting, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yeah.
