Interview with Adriel J. Meditz, Financial Advisor, UBS

Listen to Adriel Meditz talk about how he tries to develop a strong personal connection with everyone in his network and why that is important is a very competitive field.

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Guest - Adriel J. Meditz
Host - Carl Grant
Producer - Seth Grant

Transcript

Carl Grant: 0:00

Welcome to Rainmakers. I'm here with AJ Meditz, a financial advisor with UBS. Welcome, AJ.

AJ Meditz: 0:15

Hey, Carl. Thanks for having me.

Carl Grant: 0:17

Absolutely. So AJ, you and I were introduced by a mutual friend. And we've been spending some time getting to know each other. And tell me a little bit about your background coming out of Baylor University, and then getting into sales. And then your role with ADP and tell us how kind of your your career has progressed to what you're doing today.

AJ Meditz: 0:42

Yeah, for sure. Again, thanks for Thanks for having me. I've enjoyed listening to the the past podcasts you've hosted. And you know, lucky to be on here. So a little history about myself, I guess, on the business end, and the school ends, I did undergrad at Baylor. And graduating from there, I then started working for ATP, which is automatic data processing. That was really my first official sales job. But sales for me started in school, actually. So I worked with the southwestern company. And most people won't know that company unless you've run into by accident. But there it's a very old internship, they actually originally started selling Bibles door to door right after the Civil War, because there were no jobs in the south. And so that business iteration, then change to educational products. And you know, every summer you have, you have a couple of 1000 kids that go around the country, and you essentially run door to door sales in different states. And so my first date was Alabama, and my second year was in South Carolina, and that you be almost crazy type of experience where you're running 70 to 80 hour weeks was really a very good eye opener to the very extreme end of sales, like how do you actually make, you know, decisions possible for people you don't know, and you met 30 minutes ago and so go ahead.

Carl Grant: 2:02

No, no, I was gonna say and so to do what you do, yeah, you've got to really differentiate yourself, right? Because in what I do, leading the business development team, for a leading law firm, I meet a lot of wealthy people. But I also meet a lot of Wealth Advisors. And I always jokingly tell a new wealth advisor when I meet them. I know more Wealth Advisors than I do wealthy people.

AJ Meditz: 2:26

So right.

Carl Grant: 2:26

So you really have to differentiate yourself. And I'm just curious how you do that?

AJ Meditz: 2:33

Yeah. So to your point, I mean, everyone we everyone I talked to, I always tell them as a joke, you probably know, 10 to 15 of me. The the way I tried to do that is really approach it from a non business sense. So when you're meeting someone that has everyone has a unique story, it's a question of trying to understand what their story is. And then in that interaction, really finding something that is almost like a fascination of sorts, whether it be business related or something in their life, or even maybe something that that I've had access to in my life that is different. That creates a change. And instead of just being the Blasio were, quote, unquote, networking. It's really something that adds interest. And again, to use the word fascination, because I feel like the word value is overused. Now, networking, everybody's trying to add value. And it makes it memorable. Because whether business happens or whether it doesn't, my business cycle is very slow. So business could happen in a month or two could happen in five years. My goal is always to have if that network is if that connection is something that is is meant to last, maybe it lasts is just a professional friendship for many years. Maybe business ever happens, but maybe they know people that can do business with me, and maybe maybe I can help them with business on their end.

Carl Grant: 3:57

And I've noticed on your bio, that you are on the board or members are involved with many organizations. I'm involved with a lot of stuff, but you're really not as a lot of stuff here. Maybe overinvolved Well, yeah. So I mean, talk, talk to me about some of these organizations that you're involved with and, and how that plays into, into your job and your network and in finding, you know, like meeting people.

AJ Meditz: 4:25

Yeah, so I guess my goal coming out of school was maybe maybe this is true for many people is you don't really know what you don't know. And you don't really know how to be useful at anything because you're brand new. So my, my goal that being said, was to join as many different organizations as I could find that I thought would have people that knew what they're doing and were successful a business. And that would be, you know, boards on nonprofits, organizations that were connected to, for example, parks and wildlife and the symphony and the opera and various groups. But doing that I think I learned, really, really got out of it what I was expecting to get out of it, which was meeting people who had become very successful at whatever they were doing. But then learning from them from a post facts, then some of them were retired, some of them were you obviously at that point wealthy enough to not really have to worry about working anymore. And then seeing the back end of what a career looks like to what are you going to do after money is not a concern anymore. and so that was eye opening. For me, I think it gave me a lot of perspectives. Plus it also, it allows you to stay very involved in the community, because they feel like if you just tell me Do your work and your job, you're missing out on a living, breathing organism, which is the community that everyone has around that it doesn't matter where you live, if you don't participate, you I think I believe you just miss out on some great relationships.

Carl Grant: 5:54

Absolutely. And so one of my observations over time, I've been at this a long time, is that the strongest connections and tell me if you if you found a different because you've obviously been involved with a lot of stuff, or right organizations where you share a common faith, or a common culture, so religious or culturally based organizations. And the second most effective organization is where you share a common mission, like you're fighting a disease or some some write something, do you find it the same? Or did you find a different?

AJ Meditz: 6:31

I always Yeah, I would have to agree with that. I would say maybe, maybe to add a little bit on the second one. So obviously, the common mission is a huge driver. Because if you're going to a lot of the organizations have a part of our nonpaying their, their nonprofit, their volunteer, and they're just interest based. So you don't get paid for giving your time. But if the mission correlates with you, how you see your the world and how you are trying to impact the world, I think that's that's huge. And then the second add to that is, if an organization is not so much you altruistically focused, that is like a nonprofit or something that's directly impacting and trying to help society, if I can be along to a group of people that are just building, it doesn't matter what they're building, if they're just trying to build where they're at in life, whether it be through their work, or just, you know, their monetary position or, or even if it doesn't relate to the things we normally talk about, they're just trying to learn. That that's a huge criteria for me. So the organization's I stay a part of for an extended period of time generally have to your point, collective mission I agree with, and then also you a growth mentality that everybody in there is trying to learn from either the people in their group or just, you know, the community as a whole.

Carl Grant: 7:48

So a while back, I noticed you're also a competitive concert pianist

AJ Meditz: 7:53

In another life.

Carl Grant: 7:55

But so what about a shared interest? Have you connected on that level with people?

AJ Meditz: 8:01

So that that, yeah, that doesn't come, I guess it doesn't come up as much asyou think it would. Because it really is very uncorrelated to almost anything I do. And so they I think the interest, it helps me connect when I meet with folks that are in either the creative arts or just music in general, because nobody really no one guesses that I had that as part of my background. And so some of my experiences I got to do with piano were crazy as a kid in high school, and then right before I went to college, but they really were the start to how I view my involvement, just as a connector is somebody who's able to take A and B and go A and B, should meet. But you know why that should happen? And then how do we make this happen to where it's actually useful for A and B.

Carl Grant: 8:50

So are you not playing anymore?

AJ Meditz: 8:52

I try. It's I muted almost thing not to make piano into an athletic sport that but there is a certain level of is going to sound weird, like arm staminas. So if you're playing a concert for 30 to 30 minutes to an hour, you actually do have to maintain the stamina in your arms and fingers. Otherwise, you will run out of energy. And so some of the chops have gone away, but I still play some pieces when I can just just not at the level that I was back then of course, that was Yeah, four to five hours of practice a day, you know.

Carl Grant: 9:23

Yeah, I can relate a little bit and then I took up acoustic guitar and played for a while. And when I moved to Texas, I actually sold my guitar.

AJ Meditz: 9:34

Yeah, I did guitar for a small amount of time. And then it's just a it was too many instruments. But I took a small dip into classical and acoustic I'm impressed by because he's got to have, I think, a strong set of fingers and I classic classical is just a little different with the nylon strings.

Carl Grant: 9:51

Yeah, so like I want to delve into the educational stuff a little bit because because I share a common interest and what kind of It kind of motivated it, kind of you're you're on in to your career, you're not just starting out, I see that you, you went and you did a, an online Harvard course. And you're currently enrolled at at Harvard. And I went back in 2019. And I did a Harvard executive education, I just. yeah, I wanted to have that under my belt. And I wanted to experience Harvard, it was it was something I hadn't done. And, and I don't regret it, it was, it was a fascinating experience. I love the network that I built there, especially at the executive Ed level, where you've got, you know, 88 people who are all thriving in their field. To go back, you're sure. And we're all connected on a whatsapp group. And, and so, you know, I had my motivation for it, I operate in the venture capital industry, and most of the venture capitalists went to Harvard. So, you know, I managed to learn under some, the same professors they did when they went to graduate school. So what did you What motivated you later in life to do this? And how did it? How do you perceive it, you know, building into your network?

AJ Meditz: 11:03

Yeah. So obviously, after undergrad, I was just working. The grad school question, I think, really came up about three years ago. And it was not so much like, well, what can this do for my career, because I didn't know what it could do for my career at that point. But I did know that I wanted to have it as part of my education and just, you know, additional learning experience going forward. So that was where it started. And then so I applied a number of schools and for me, they pay in, when am I going after something new is like, why not? That's always my question. Why not? And so I was like, Well, I'm going to try for the, you know, the top of the top in my opinion, and if there's a way to, to work, and gain access through applying to the school, then, you know, I was like Harvard has to be on that list. And, you know, my family to get in similar to yourself. It's, it's, it's kind of a game changing experience. And sometimes, I think it could take a couple years to really get the full impact. But similar. Yep. Like, like you said, I have three different WhatsApp channels that every class I take, there's always a new group of students that we stay in touch with each other, you don't stay in touch with all 40 or 50 of them. But two or three, like, those are new people that I would not have gotten to me. And now we have a shared interest of we're working through this relatively difficult degree. And it's, it's a commonality that we wouldn't have otherwise. So that That, to me is just added value outside of the being lucky enough to get access to the degree, you know.

Carl Grant: 12:34

Yeah. And I think a lot of a lot of what Harvard's all about is the network, right? I mean, I yes, that's Yeah. So so you're, you're part of that club. But I'm sure your Baylor relationships are probably just as meaningful or even more so than any that you would develop at Harvard. So I think we both kind of agreed that it's, it's, it's nice to have, but it's maybe somewhat overrated. Right?

AJ Meditz: 13:00

Yeah. I mean, it's, maybe maybe it's also just testament to, to looking at it through the right lens, too, because I feel like I've also run into some folks that, you know, maybe take it too serious, I'm like, well, you still have to be a competent, you know, individualize your practice or whatever your your role is in life. And then this is just a, it's a bonus. It's a, it's an add on that that augments and adds value to to what you're doing. But I think if you use it to define yourself, to your point, maybe it's maybe it's the wrong way to approach it. I think it's just that it's a plus.

Carl Grant: 13:32

Yeah, I completely agree. So I've got like, like you said, a couple, a couple friends that I took away from there, that will be lifelong friends.

AJ Meditz: 13:39

And that that's, that's invaluable. You know, a couple good contacts doesn't matter where you get them from, make a very healthy network.

Carl Grant: 13:48

So AJ as people call you, you seem like a grounded guy grew up in a, you know, faith background, and you're getting married this year, and you're doing well in your career. If if we have a young person listening today, and they say, look, I like this guy, like, I like what I'm hearing, I'd like to do what he does, what recommendations do you have for that person to prepare themselves to get ready to do the type of stuff you're doing?

AJ Meditz: 14:18

Yeah, man, I'll try. So I feel like this generation, I think, with many past generations, is always taught to, you know, follow your dream, follow your passion. And well, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you have to find ways let's say you're passionate your dream is not doesn't involve making money or or being able to pay them to pay the bills, I think you will, you're not told nowadays is you don't have to give up on that. But you may have to shelve it or do it in the background for a little bit of time. And I think that's not talked about as much at least in my opinion, because I've seen many folks that have built you know, successful practices or a success. Ways to Make considerable amounts of money that actually go back and return to what they consider that was their initial interest or passion. But they weren't sure how to actually monetize it, or do it to where they could you live and pay the bills. So my advice would be if you have something like if you would look, you want to be an engineer or a doctor, or one of the classical degrees, that here really gives you a ton of value walking out of school, that's great. Or even if you don't want to do school, if you have something that that makes a ton of money if you're you. I don't know one of the industrial degrees or industrial services that makes a lot of money, do that. But if you have something that is a passion, that is not able to be monetized yet. I feel like you're told now to do one or the other, do it or forget it. And I would say, don't forget it, just shelve it and keep it in the background until you can turn it on. And I mean, that would be just the one piece of advice that I've discovered through watching many different people do that in a sense.

Carl Grant: 16:01

Well, I think that's great advice. AJ Meditz. Thank you for joining us on rainmakers. And I want to encourage all the listeners today if you like what you're hearing, please subscribe, and share it with your friends. Thank you for joining us.

AJ Meditz: 16:15

Thanks, Carl. Really appreciate it.