Happy Saturday.

I hope you had as great of a week as I did. I got to spend the week on the road with my oldest son, out supporting our customers and meeting with advisors across the Midwest.

Along the way, we got to celebrate the buildup for the Indy 500. If you haven't been to Indianapolis during race month — go. Walking through pit row at the Motor Speedway was something else. Really cool time. Really impressive city.

All along the way, this spirit of commencement kept showing up. Kids are moving up into high school. Kids are preparing for their final year. Kids walking on stages to cross into a new phase of life.

Between all of that and the beautiful springtime weather, the flowers in bloom and the air that is not yet oppressively hot, I had a great time thinking about the process of moving up, memorializing, and looking forward.

This week's article is about the idea of commencement — and why I think we aren't practicing it enough.

It's commencement season.

Students are walking across stages at high schools and universities. They’re shaking hands, tossing caps, and taking photos with their moms in front of football stadiums.

If you have kids — especially if you have multiple kids at different stages — you know how layered with feeling May can be. It might just hit you all at once. It’s hard to imagine that a perfectly worded speech in a colosseum will bring you to tears or feel like your stomach is dropping out until you’re there, dressed up, holding flowers, and wondering why you didn’t stuff a pocket with tissues.

Commencement speeches aren’t always great. Maybe that’s why a few people get to speak at the ceremony. Many are forgettable, but the ones that stick? They find a way to get talk about the universal truths while still being deeply personal. They're unique. The best ones come from deep, lived experience that teach you lessons you might not have thought about from that angle.

On Tuesday morning, my oldest son and I hopped on a plane and flew to Columbus, Ohio. We had an hour to kill before our first meeting, so we did one of my favorite things to do when I travel — find the most hole-in-the-wall place with great ratings to grab food.

We found a dive breakfast spot on the campus of Ohio State. It was an absolutely beautiful morning. Could not have been more perfect.

Ohio State — as much as I wish you'd never win another football game — your campus is beautiful. Really impressive.

The football stadium had just been set up for graduation. There were still young people with their moms taking photos around different parts of the campus. This spirit of optimism and hope for the future was palpable, but you could also feel the nostalgia already setting in.

That spirit stuck with me for the rest of the week.

Here's the thing. I don't think we practice commencement enough once we move beyond school settings. Not just personally, but in our work lives.

To reflect and take in what’s happened and dream about what’s to come. To share those thoughts collectively or to maybe have somebody help us codify what we've learned in a meaningful way doesn’t have a universal framework outside of academia.

Commencement can feel a little heavy when you think about all the things you know coming to an end, but the word itself tells you that it isn't an ending. It's the beginning. Someone says that in every address ever given, but it's true. Commencement, ultimately, is a mile marker to a fresh beginning in your life’s journey.

No one's destination is the same. But you have to take the time to say: This is where we're at. This is where we're going. This is what we learned. And this is what we're going to do because of it.

So how do leaders embrace the spirit of commencement — in how they run their business, lead others, and serve their clients?

A few things I think matter:

1. Observe the facts and let them shape you.

Don't be a wrecking ball through reality, creating your own version of it. Lean into what's true. Let it form you. Let it shape where you go next.

2. Acknowledge what you can't control — and own what you can.

You can't control who starts a war. You can't control how markets perform. You can't control how clients respond to every scenario.

But you can control your attitude. Your desire to deliver. How you lead others. How you show up each day. The life you bring to everything you do. The moments you share with others.

That's all in you, and it's a tremendous opportunity.

3. Choose how far, how fast, and who you do it with.

Most of us get to make that choice. Sometimes you're just starting out and you need an opportunity — any opportunity. That's a great season too.

But here's something worth thinking about: entry-level job postings in the U.S. have declined roughly 35% since 2023, driven largely by AI and economic uncertainty. Nearly 43% of recent college graduates are now underemployed. The traditional first rung of the career ladder is getting harder to reach.

And yet — we live in an industry facing the opposite problem. McKinsey projects a shortage of more than 100,000 financial advisors by 2034, with 38% of the current workforce approaching retirement. J.D. Power calls it a "collision course with a talent crisis."

Maybe that's your opportunity. Go recruit some new blood into your firm. Let it shape you. Invest in the future.

I watched Eric Church's commencement address at UNC this past weekend. I'm not a country music fan. I could definitely not pick Eric Church out of a crowd.

Still, it was great.

He brought his guitar to the podium and used its six strings as a metaphor for the six pillars of a well-lived life — faith, family, spouse, ambition, community, and you. Simple. Personal. Deeply human.

The line that stuck with me: the difference between a life that sounds like music and a life that sounds like noise is whether you stop and listen — whether you're honest enough to hear which string has drifted out of tune, and humble enough to make the adjustment instead of just turning up the volume.

He didn’t focus on generic principles. He talked about real experiences, shared with conviction.

A lot of leaders have those same kinds of lessons in their minds and in their experiences. They're just not sharing them the way they ought to.

So find an opportunity to do a commencement with your team. Share. Invest. Grow your perspective and pass it on.

Make this world a little better.

Have a great weekend.

— Jud

Episode 144: On this week’s episode, Kyle Van Pelt talks with Tim Gavin, Chief Strategy Officer & Chief Compliance Officer at MCF. Tim helps lead the firm’s long-term strategic direction across operations, compliance, advisor support, technology, and growth initiatives.

Kyle and Tim discuss what sustainable growth actually looks like inside a modern advisory firm. Tim explains why organic growth creates stronger long-term enterprise value, how firms should think about operational capacity before scaling, and why successful change management starts with team buy-in—not software purchases. They also explore AI adoption, technology fatigue, client experience design, and the growing divide between firms that strategically invest in technology and firms that fall behind.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Intro

(01:26) - Tim’s money moment

(02:51) - Why compliance can become a strategic advantage

(03:56) - MCF’s acquisition of Wealth Planning Corporation

(05:37) - Defining intentional growth

(07:31) - Measuring operational efficiency and capacity

(09:53) - Organic growth vs. inorganic growth

(12:41) - The hidden operational risks of scaling too quickly

(14:41) - Why change management is harder than buying technology

(17:30) - Building a tech stack that actually supports growth

(21:38) - AI adoption, due diligence, and compliance concerns

(23:33) - Responsible AI use and protecting client trust

(26:34) - Tim’s outlook on the future of financial services

(28:31) - Why client experience is the real product

(29:42) - Tim’s Milemarker Minute

CHARLESTON, S.C., May 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Milemarker, the wealth technology company unifying the industry’s data layer, today announced the Milemarker MCP Server — a new way for firms to operate their entire Milemarker platform through natural conversation with the AI assistant of their choice. MCP is now rolling out to Milemarker partner firms.

Read more here: https://www.milemarker.co/articles/globenewswire-milemarker-launches-mcp

Five tools. A ticketing system. Half your ops team's week.

That's what it costs most firms to get an answer from their own data.

We just deleted all of it.

Milemarker MCP is live — and in this webinar, Kailash Duraiswami and I will show you what it looks like when querying data, deploying dashboards, managing users, and running platform projects all happen in a single conversation.

No boring slides. No theory. A live demo of the future of wealth platform operations.

If you would like to arrange a meeting time, please reply to this email, and we’ll schedule something on the calendar.

Jud Mackrill