What happens when trust in the financial system collapses inside your own family?

In this episode, Measured Risk Portfolios Chairman and Chief Compliance Officer Larry Kriesmer shares the story that shaped his lifelong commitment to transparency, risk management, and investor education. After witnessing his father lose nearly everything due to financial fraud following early retirement, Larry saw firsthand how devastating broken trust can be.

He reflects on how that experience guided his approach through the tech bubble, the 2008 financial crisis, and ultimately into building structured, math-based investment strategies designed to limit catastrophic loss. This conversation explores how trust falls, how it can be rebuilt, and why better often requires being different.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why catastrophic financial loss can permanently change how people relate to risk and trust.
• How the tech bubble and 2008 financial crisis exposed the limits of traditional diversification.
• The real role options play in modern risk management.
• Why education is one of the strongest trust builders in financial advising.
• How mathematical structure can reduce emotional panic during market downturns.
• What synthetic equity is and why it was created.
• The difference between trusting people vs. trusting systems and transparency.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “Different isn’t always better, but better is always different.” - Larry Kriesmer
• “Math is not going to let us down. And that's what this story's really about.” - Larry Kriesmer
• “If it does well, we'll do well. If it does poorly, we'll do kind of poorly. If it does really bad, we won't be really bad.” - Larry Kriesmer

Resources:

• Measured Risk Portfolios
• MRP SynthEquity ETF

About Larry Kriesmer:

Larry Kriesmer, CLU, ChFC, is the Chairman and Chief Compliance Officer at Measured Risk Portfolios, a registered investment advisory firm he co-founded in 2007. After growing frustrated with traditional portfolio diversification and exposure to large losses, Larry set out to build a more controlled, risk-managed investment approach rooted in structure and transparency.

Born and raised in Saudi Arabia, Larry now lives in Rancho Santa Fe with his wife, Carol, where they enjoy travel, outdoor sports, fine wine, and international cuisine.

Connect with Larry:

LinkedIn: Larry Kriesmer

Connect with Anne:

LinkedIn: Anne Claessen

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If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Rise and Fall of Trust wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re thinking about launching a podcast that builds trust and drives results, that’s our jam. Schedule a free call at Cashflow Podcasting to learn more.

Trust in wealth management isn’t built on returns. It comes from how you show up when things get messy.

When markets rise and fall, strategies shift, and emotions run high, that’s when trust is really put to the test.

In this episode, Tom Kelly, Chief Investment Officer and Senior Advisor at SJS Investment Services, shares how transparency, patience, and emotional intelligence shape real confidence between advisors, clients, and investment partners.

Through two contrasting stories of rising and falling trust with third-party asset managers, Tom reveals what he has learned about strengthening long-term relationships, as well as what can quickly unravel them.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why wealth management is ultimately a trust-based business.
• How transparency around both wins and losses strengthens long-term confidence.
• What red flags appear when investment managers avoid discussing risk.
• Why proactive communication matters most when things go wrong.
• How emotional intelligence shapes trust during market volatility.
• The role diversification plays in balancing excitement and long-term stability.
• Why knowing the person behind the portfolio matters more than just performance.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “I always say I'm an investment advisor or work in the wealth management industry, but truly… it's a trust business at the end of the day.” - Tom Kelly
• “Everyone loves to talk about everything that’s good and the potential good that can come, but people are oftentimes very short on the risks.” - Tom Kelly
• "Trust oftentimes takes a long time to build and can be destroyed instantaneously with one wrongdoing.” - Tom Kelly

Resources:

• SJS Investment Services

About Tom Kelly:

Tom Kelly is the Chief Investment Officer and Senior Advisor at SJS Investment Services, an independent registered investment advisory firm with nearly 30 years of history. He leads with a long-term investment philosophy focused on diversification, discipline, and client-first decision making. Tom is known for pairing institutional-level investment rigor with relationship-driven service rooted in transparency and trust.

Connect with Tom:

LinkedIn: Tom Kelly, CFA

Connect with Anne:

LinkedIn: Anne Claessen

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If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Rise and Fall of Trust wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re thinking about launching a podcast that builds trust and drives results, that’s our jam. Schedule a free call at Cashflow Podcasting to learn more.

What separates leaders who earn trust effortlessly from those who struggle, even with all the right qualifications?

In this episode, Stars & Stripes Financial Advisors founder Phillip Hulme reflects on why understanding someone’s language, background, and lived experience isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s often the difference between trust that grows easily and trust that never forms at all.

Phillip grew up in a military family, enlisted at 17, and spent over 7 years in service before transitioning into corporate America—and later financial planning. In our conversation, he shares how competence and compassion work together to build trust, why reliability is a superpower anyone can develop, and how one painful leadership experience taught him what not to replicate.

Listen in to hear stories about showing up fully, even when your time in an organization is coming to an end, and why listening without defensiveness is one of the most underrated trust-building habits a leader can have.

What You’ll Learn:

• How cultural competence creates immediate trust with military clients.
• Why reliability is one of the strongest signals of character.
• How compassion and competence work together in trust-building.
• What Phillip learned from a leader who lacked emotional intelligence.
• Simple habits he uses to invite feedback and strengthen relationships.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “One of the biggest components of trust is competence. And if I'm coming from a similar background—if I know your language, I know your culture—it allows me to be competent.” - Phillip Hulme
• “Competency is a part of trust, but competency is not all-encompassing… It is necessary, but insufficient.” - Phillip Hulme
• “Allowing people to speak their truth, to be honest, to operate with integrity requires that you have enough compassion to hear somebody out.” - Phillip Hulme
  
  

Resources:

• Stars & Stripes Financial Advisors: Blog | Services
  
  

About Phillip Hulme:

Phillip Hulme is the founder and Chief Financial Advisor at Stars & Stripes Financial Advisors, where he serves military members and veterans through culturally competent, accessible financial planning. A U.S. Army veteran himself, Phillip spent over 7 years in active service before moving into corporate America and ultimately discovering that financial advising was the perfect intersection of his love for personal finance and his desire to serve the military community. Phillip built his firm with a model that works for real military households — focusing on pensions, disability, healthcare, and GI Bill benefits rather than traditional asset-based requirements. Today, he helps clients navigate life transitions, build financial clarity, and make confident decisions rooted in trust and shared understanding.

Connect with Phillip: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube

Connect with Anne: LinkedIn

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If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Rise and Fall of Trust wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re thinking about launching a podcast that builds trust and drives results, that’s our jam. Schedule a free call at Cashflow Podcasting to learn more.

In a world full of constant distractions, the people who choose to make time for us stand out — and for Charlie Horonzy, founder of Focused Up Financial, that simple act has become one of the clearest measures of trust. Across his career, Charlie has experienced both the steady confidence that comes from a generous mentor who always shows up, and the frustration that emerges when communication breaks down and leadership disappears. Those two contrasts shaped his entire understanding of trust, not just in financial planning, but in parenting, teamwork, and everyday relationships.

In this episode, Charlie reflects on why mentorship mattered so deeply early in his career, how availability builds confidence for clients and colleagues, and what he learned from an experience where shifting expectations and unclear communication caused trust to fall apart.

What You’ll Learn:

• How simple availability can become a powerful trust-building habit.
• Why presence matters more than ever in a distraction-heavy world.
• How inconsistent communication erodes trust even without malicious intent.
• What leaders often overlook when hiring, mentoring, or promising career progression.
• How Charlie uses early lessons (good and bad) to shape the way he serves clients and raises his kids.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “What's really neat about this in this day and age is people who can make the time for you. I view it as it's even more important because there's so many other distractions—whether it's work, family, whatever it is—away from time.” - Charlie Horonzy
• "You can't really trust someone if they're telling you one thing and then they're doing another. You gotta be true to your word.” - harlie HoronzyC
• “Every day, children are watching and they're looking for us to be leaders. And through that, they're gonna have the biggest trust in us, especially when they're young. And we can either develop that trust… or we can start to break that trust.” - Charlie Horonzy

Resources:

• Focused Up Financial, LLC
• Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

About Charlie Horonzy:

Charlie Horonzy is a fee-only financial advisor, CPA, and Certified Financial Planner™ who founded Focused Up Financial to help individuals and families align smart planning with meaningful life goals. With a background in public accounting and a passion for integrating tax strategy into long-term financial decisions, Charlie now supports clients in building clarity and confidence around their finances. Outside of work, he enjoys exploring Chicagoland with his wife and three children, biking the Salt Creek trail, and volunteering in his community.

Connect with Charlie:

Website: Focused Up Financial

LinkedIn: Charlie Horonzy, CFP®, CPA

Facebook: Focused Up Financial

YouTube: Focused Up Financial

Connect with Anne:

LinkedIn: Anne Claessen

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If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Rise and Fall of Trust wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re thinking about launching a podcast that builds trust and drives results, that’s our jam. Schedule a free call at Cashflow Podcasting to learn more.

Trust in financial planning isn’t built in the big moments — it’s revealed there. Most people think of trust as something you prepare for like a final exam, with a clear date and time on the calendar. But what if the real tests come without warning? What if trust works more like a pop quiz, where the only thing that matters is whether you’ve been doing the work all along?

For Levi Anderson, a financial planning manager at EP Wealth Advisors, this idea became clear through two very different experiences: guiding clients through major life decisions and attempting a 51-mile Grand Canyon run he thought he was prepared for. Both moments taught him the same thing: trust is shaped by the work you do long before anyone is watching.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why trust is less like a scheduled exam and more like a surprise test.
• How proactive communication reduces “blind trust” moments for clients.
• Why small actions (taking notes, creating templates, doing the basics well) create disproportionate trust dividends.
• How unrealistic “business as usual” messaging erodes trust during organizational change.
• What personal failure can teach us about rebuilding trust through ownership and integrity.
• The crucial role of preparedness in high-stakes financial conversations.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “I think building trust is a lot more like a pop quiz where you don't find out when the big test of your knowledge is until it's too late to go back and do the studying that you should have done.” - Levi Anderson
• “You kind of have to honor what somebody is worried about by communicating well and being transparent.” - Levi Anderson
• “It makes it so much easier to trust somebody when they’ve given you every bit of information that they can.” - Levi Anderson

Resources:

• EP Wealth Advisors
• Levi Anderson, Senior Financial Planner in San Diego | EP Wealth Advisors

About Levi Anderson:

Levi Anderson is a fee-only financial planner and Financial Planning Manager at EP Wealth Advisors, based in San Diego and serving clients nationwide. He holds the CFP®, CPWA®, and Enrolled Agent designations, specializing in retirement planning, tax strategy, and real estate financial planning. Outside of work, Levi is an avid trail runner, a passion that has shaped some of his most impactful lessons on trust, preparation, and personal integrity.

Connect with Levi:

LinkedIn: Levi Anderson, CFP®, CPWA®, EA - EP Wealth Advisors

Connect with Anne:

LinkedIn: Anne Claessen

Connect With Us

If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Rise and Fall of Trust wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re thinking about launching a podcast that builds trust and drives results, that’s our jam. Schedule a free call at Cashflow Podcasting to learn more.

Trust in financial services isn't built through credentials or polished sales pitches. It’s earned through transparency, consistent communication, and a genuine willingness to help—even when there's nothing in it for you. But what happens when those elements are missing? The contrast can be stark, stressful, and leave you wondering if you got a fair deal.

Ian Bloom, a financial life planner, knows this better than most. Through two vastly different mortgage experiences (one that exemplified trust-building at its finest, and another that left him scrambling in the dark), Ian reveals what separates professionals who inspire confidence from those who create chaos.

What You’ll Learn:

• How transparency during complex processes builds lasting trust.
• Why starting from a place of trust doesn't mean blind faith.
• The danger of being "salesy" versus providing genuine value first.
• How trust transfers (and weakens) when passed between people.
• The power of the "preview-review" method for guiding clients through complicated work.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “People want to be heard. So if you ask them about themselves — if you have a real back-and-forth conversation — that builds trust really quickly.” - Ian Bloom
• “The mark of a good professional is someone who can take a very difficult process and make it seem simple.” - Ian Bloom
• “I think actually one of the errors that early career professionals make is you meet with a client for the first time and you just talk the whole time about what you do... instead of just asking the client, so what are you hoping to get from this meeting? People want to be heard.” - Ian Bloom

Resources:

• Achieving Accumulation: A Gamer's Guide to Money: Level 2 by Ian Bloom
• A Gamer’s Guide to Money: Level 1 by Ian Bloom
• Ep. 04: Earning vs. Building Trust: What Really Creates Psychological Safety — Cashflow Podcasting

About Ian Bloom:

Ian Bloom is a financial life planner and founder of Open World Financial Life Planning, where he helps clients achieve financial literacy through long-term planning. Combining his certifications as a CFP® (Certified Financial Planner) and RLP® (Registered Life Planner), Ian specializes in making complex financial processes simple and approachable. He's the author of the "Gamer's Guide to Money" series, with his latest book, Achieving Accumulation, recently released.

Connect with Ian:

Website: Open World Financial Life Planning

LinkedIn: Open World Financial Life Planning | LinkedIn

Personal LinkedIn: Ian Bloom, CFP®, RLP®

YouTube: Open World Financial Life Planning - YouTube

Facebook: Open World Financial Life Planning | Raleigh NC

X: Open World Financial Life Planning (@openworldfp) / X

Connect with Anne:

LinkedIn: Anne Claessen

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If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Rise and Fall of Trust wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re thinking about launching a podcast that builds trust and drives result

Trust isn't built on promises… it's built on follow-through. In this episode, Anne speaks with Gloria Garcia Cisneros, Certified Financial Planner and financial educator, about what it means to build and rebuild trust in an industry that often struggles with authenticity.

Gloria shares how genuine connection, shared identity, and vulnerability helped her form a lasting mentorship with a fellow Latina advisor. From a chance meeting at a conference dance floor to years of mutual support, Gloria’s story shows how real trust starts when people show up as themselves.

She also opens up about moments when trust broke down in her corporate journey, when promises weren’t fulfilled, values didn’t align, and good intentions fell short. Through those experiences, Gloria learned that maintaining open communication and defining your own non-negotiables are crucial to protecting your integrity and joy at work.

What You’ll Learn:

• How vulnerability and authenticity strengthen professional relationships.
• Why shared experiences and cultural identity can deepen trust.
• How broken promises in the workplace can quietly erode motivation.
• The importance of open communication when expectations change.
• Why defining your own version of success helps prevent disillusionment.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “It doesn't matter how much you know, how good it seems, whatever it looks like on the outside when the trust is broken—you stop showing up genuinely, you stop enjoying.” - Gloria Garcia Cisneros
• “People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.” - Gloria Garcia Cisneros
• “The key to any relationship—work relationship, friendship, partnership—is an open line of communication because that's when trust falls, when you can't be honest." - Gloria Garcia Cisneros

Resources:

• SER Summit
• Financial Planning Association

About Our Guest:

Gloria Garcia Cisneros is a Certified Financial Planner and passionate advocate for financial literacy, empowerment, and representation. As a proud Latina and first-generation professional, she helps women and Latino communities build wealth with confidence through personalized financial planning and education. Gloria’s mission is to humanize finance and destigmatize wealth: breaking down barriers, making financial literacy accessible, and helping others take up space in a system not built for them. Her bicultural perspective and holistic approach allow her to create deeply personal, values-based strategies that go beyond numbers to focus on purpose, empowerment, and independence.

Connect with Gloria:

Personal Website: https://www.migloria.co/

Company Website: https://lourdmurray.com/index.html

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloria-s-garcia

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/migloriaco/

Connect with Anne:

LinkedIn: Anne Claessen

Connect With Us

If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Rise and Fall of Trust wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re thinking about launching a podcast that builds trust and drives results, that’s our jam. Schedule a free call at Cashflow Podcasting to learn more.

Managing someone’s wealth isn’t just about numbers, strategies, and returns—it’s about trust. In this episode, Anne sits down with Nicole Meihofer, founder of Pearlvest Capital, to explore the deeply personal side of wealth management.

Nicole shares her journey from Merrill Lynch to launching her own independent firm, revealing how personal loss and professional challenges shaped her empathetic, client-centered approach. Through stories (like guiding a client through trauma spending after loss and helping a family manage a sudden inheritance), Nicole shows why trust and radical candor are at the heart of sustainable financial relationships.

She also opens up about the painful lessons learned from a failed business partnership, and how rebuilding trust in herself became just as critical as regaining her clients’ confidence.

What You’ll Learn:

• How personal empathy can transform financial advising into a trust-driven relationship.
• Why radical candor is essential for building authentic client connections.
• The impact of trauma spending—and how advisors can compassionately help clients recover.
• Why slow, intentional implementation builds lasting trust.
• How transparency and proactivity prevent broken trust in client relationships.

Ideas Worth Sharing:

• “A lot of times… trust isn't ‘What are you doing behind the scenes?” It’s making sure the clients feel seen and heard.” - Nicole Meihofer
• “Behind the scenes, the things that people don't see are just as important as the things that people see. When I am doing work for my client, I'm doing the work behind the scenes. That is what builds trust. It's not seen, but it builds trust and confidence in yourself.” - Nicole Meihofer
• "Don't make it about you... You have to understand what they want and they need, and also give them their space." - Nicole Meihofer

Resources:

• Amy Porterfield
• Radical Candor by Kim Scott

About Our Guest:

Nicole Meihofer is the founder of Pearlvest Capital, an independent wealth management firm dedicated to helping clients align their investments with both long-term security and their current quality of life. With a career shaped by experience at Merrill Lynch and personal loss, Nicole brings a modern, compassionate approach to financial planning. She specializes in guiding entrepreneurs, families, and professionals through complex financial decisions with empathy and transparency.

Connect with Nicole:

Website: https://www.pearlvest.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolemeihoferweigel

Connect with Anne:

LinkedIn: Anne Claessen

Connect With Us

If you enjoyed this episode, follow The Rise and Fall of Trust wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re thinking about launching a podcast that builds trust and drives results, that’s our jam. Schedule a free call at Cashflow Podcasting to learn more.