Tom Ruggie on why failure fuels innovation in wealth management

James Burton  00:00:09 

Everyone and thanks for joining us here at Investment News. My name is James Burton, Managing Editor for the publication, and today I'm delighted to be joined by Tom Ruggie, CEO of Destiny Wealth Partners. Tom, thanks for joining us. 

Tom Ruggie  00:00:22 

It is a pleasure to see you again, James. 

James Burton  00:00:24 

Now the exciting reason we have Tom back on the show is that he was originally named to the investment news 2024, hot list. So first of all, congrats Tom on theachievement.  

Tom Ruggie  00:00:33 

Thank you, James. It is quite an honor to be on the list.  

James Burton  00:00:37 

Yeah. Well, it's not every year you get on a hot list, I'm sure. But what is therecognition?  

Tom Ruggie  00:00:41 

Hopefully, it is. 

James Burton  00:00:45 

 So what does this recognition mean for you and your team, and how does it reflect the work that you're doing at Destiny?  

Tom Ruggie  00:00:51 

Well, for me, it almost seems like a lifetime achievement award, because, you know, one of the things I talk to young people about is sometimes, sometimes doing what I do. Looks easy, but, you know, it's that old saying that, you know, took 30 years to become an overnight success, and that's really what I think this is, again, just a culmination of what we've really been working so hard for so many years for and to, you know, to get recognized by, you know, an outside source such as investment news is just, you know, amazing for us from a team standpoint. I think it's, it really just helps to solidify that all the hard work and effort that they put in is is really making a difference. You know, again, when you're getting this outside recognition for the small things that you do to constantly try to make the business better and try to make the experience for our clients better again, to receive that outside recognition, I think, is very encouraging for the rest of our team.  

James Burton  00:01:52 

Thanks Tom, now we've spoken before, and you're a renowned leader, innovator, fee based planning, reas and alternatives, which, especially you featured on investment news about your your collectibles. How do you stay ahead of the curve to ensure that you're offering something unique to your clients?  

Tom Ruggie  00:02:15 

I think the first answer is, you make a lot of mistakes. You know, because to stay ahead of the curve. You You have to be willing to try things that are ahead of the curve. And I always tell people, if I put a list together of all the things that I've done well and all the mistakes that I've made, the mistakes probably outnumber what I've done well. But my philosophy is a mistake is only a mistake if you don't learn from it. And so, you know, we're just constantly trying to learn, trying to get better. There's, there's a culture of, you know, not being complacent. And you know that certainly is reflected in in all the adjustments that we have made up to this point and what we continue to do. And, you know, constantly try to evaluate other things out there, talk to other people about what they're doing. You know, we don't have the the corner on great ideas, so always looking for other people and other companies great ideas to make us better. 

James Burton  00:03:15 

Now, as we look back on 2224 as a whole, markets were good, generally speaking, but there was a lot of noise, a lot of headlines, lot of anxiety for clients. How did you navigate that? 

Tom Ruggie  00:03:29 

Well, first of all, there's, there's always a lot of noise, you know, regardless of what's going on in the market, no matter you know if Trump was going to win or or Kamala was going to win. I mean, there's going to be noise and rhetoric regardless. But, you know, I think one of the underlying things that we do from a client standpoint, you know, obviously we do a lot more for clients than just manage investment assets. But you know, at the core of it is our investment management process, and we use a process that really focuses on the long term and purposely tries to take away, you know, the day to day things that are happening in the in the things that create anxiety for people with investing. So we effectively use a bucketing approach. So in our scenario, we keep 10 years of clients income needs in a much more conservative portfolio, which allows the remainder of the portfolio time to absorb the the ups and downs of the market, and the ups and downs of, again, the rhetoric that's going on. And as I already mentioned, James, there's always something. There's, you know, we've had war going on, and Russia, Ukraine, for what, over two years now, there just is always going to be something. There's always going to be a reason to be concerned, and our focus is much more on the long term strategy than the day to day.  

James Burton  00:04:51 

Just one last thing on 2024 because it'll soon be over. As I mentioned, do you have a highlight from the year when you look back on what you've achieved?  

Tom Ruggie  00:05:00 

Indeed, well, we're talking about it. I mean, we're extremely honored, and also, I'd even say humbled to, you know, for myself, to make the list that we're talking about, the hot list. But you know, we are also recognized by investment news as as the RIA Team of the Year earlier this year. And, you know, as I think I mentioned in that interview with you, if not, I certainly have mentioned it elsewhere, you know, again, again, kind of, that's kind of the culmination. I mean, where do you go from receiving that award? So although I consider myself a young 56 and want to be around doing what I'm doing for many, many years to come. You know, this, this entire year due to these awards has just been that, that, that highlight reel, that, like I mentioned earlier, that Lifetime Achievement Award. So it's been fantastic and just super excited, and again, super honored and super humbled.  

James Burton  00:05:59 

Thanks Tom now looking to the future. A little bit you talked there about the culture of your firm and pushing boundaries, making mistakes. I'm curious to know how you how you go about mentoring, you know, the next generation of advisors at your firm, you know. And bit about succession planning and what that looks like to you.  

Tom Ruggie  00:06:19 

Yeah, mentoring is extremely important. We've got a pretty low average age in our firm. We have a lot of 20 somethings and 30 somethings within the firm. We, this year, started putting in place what I call a next generation format for younger investors. Because, you know, the reality is, our firm is is made up of people, as far as clients go, made up of clients that are my age, give or take a little bit. And you know, the way, you know, somebody in their early 30s wants to do their Financial Planning and Investment Management is much different than what I do and what I'm accustomed to. So it's been a very important initiative for us this year to address what does our firm look like for next generation, and we've been in process of doing that. And then, you know, I personally, I don't take a lot of calls, you know, a lot of cold calls and things like that, but there's been multiple occasions that I've had, you know, somebody young that has had the wherewithal just to cold call me and say, Hey, Tom, I'd love to sit down and learn more about your success and what you're doing. And I'm, I'm like, an open door for that. I love talking to young people that that have this drive to be successful again. It's a different generation. They've been raised a lot different than, certainly than I was, but I love the opportunity to give back. I do speaking at my high school. I've done speaking at my colleges, and anything that I can do to help younger people and mentor younger people is is one of the most gratifying things that I do. 

James Burton  00:08:05 

Again, focusing on 2025 Have you set yourself any goals, personally or professionally?  

Tom Ruggie  00:08:11 

Well, we always have goals. That's a big part of what we do. We use the EOS system or traction, and so we're, we're constantly looking at our 10 year goals and breaking it down to five years and three years and one year and in quarterly. So, yeah, we always have goals. We always have pretty big goals. But, you know, for for me, I guess the things that we're really looking at is, you know, we've had our multi family office now for seven years, and I put a lot of personal focus on that, and we are constantly trying to evolve and build out what we want the family office to look like on a go forward basis. So that's, that's, you know, one of our big goals, a second big goal that we have is, as you know, we do a lot of direct investments, things like SpaceX and Xai, and we were fortunate to get into Reddit, you know, last November, and we've had a very good exit out of that. So there's a lot of focus on continuing to build that out and to build out the the qualified prospects that that we work with on those types of investments. And then, you know, as you alluded to earlier, obviously, I do a lot in the collectibles world, and have gotten to the point where it we were trying to find outlets of writers and conferences interested and having me and and now we find that that we're pretty Well sought after to have me, you know, develop content for various writings and also to speak at various conferences. So for me, having the ability to to cross the paths of my two passions, which is, you know, the wealth management, family office space, what I do for a living. But also. Have my sports collectibles, and we're crossing those passions and working with people that are very similar, that have large collections and really have a need for what we've unearthed as some of the problems that happen when you have high net worth individuals that have large collections.  

James Burton  00:10:18 

Fantastic. That's a great way to end on thanks so much for joining us on Investment News. 

Tom Ruggie  00:10:22 

James, thank you so much for having me great seeing you again.