Happy Labor Day weekend.

I hope you're doing something fun with it. Changing things up. Looking back on a summer that had a lot in it.

I'm in Greenville, South Carolina, this morning, headed over to Clemson later today.

My team absolutely crushed this week. We dropped new collateral, a new website, and messaging that finally says the thing we've been trying to say. We rolled out a stack of new features on our MCP server and a long list of improvements across the full technology suite.

This is by far the most important technology I've ever been a part of. Watching it come to life for firms all over the country is the best part of my job.

This week I'm writing about trees.

It started as something I noticed walking our neighborhood in Charleston — the choices people make out of respect for what was already growing there. The more I looked at it, the more it said about how we ought to serve one another.

Here's this week's Rising Tide. Have an awesome Labor Day weekend.

Years ago, my wife and I were at dinner when we got a call from a babysitter telling us that a storm had brought the tree in our front yard down onto our house.

We got home and found that the tree that had been a fixture in our yard had to come out entirely.

It was a real bummer. The vibe of that house never felt the same.

We moved not long after.

Today we're in Charleston, and here trees are a really big deal.

You know construction is about to begin somewhere when the orange fences go up around certain trees. Then, as the project progresses, you watch the building take shape around them.

Even when the tree has been standing for one hundred years, a storm could take it out next season. Building a structure around something organic and out of your control seems a little impractical.

But the fact is, everything is always changing - people, places, trees. Nothing stays exactly the same.

In many ways, clients are the trees.

We build our businesses around them.

The fence goes up before the first shovel.

That's the part people miss. The protection isn't a response to damage. It's a condition of starting.

In our business, the build is the custodian conversion. The repricing. The merger integration. The new planning software. The advisor who left and took a book of relationships with them.

And the first thing that can get trampled in a build is the client.

Not on purpose. Nobody sets out to hurt clients during a conversion. They just weren't fenced.

Root damage doesn't show up on the schedule.

Ask an arborist. Most trees killed by construction don't die during construction. They die two or three years later, from roots crushed under equipment that nobody thought twice about at the time.

The project came in on time. The tree looked fine at the ribbon cutting.

Clients work the same way.

They don't leave the month you send the fee letter. They leave fourteen months later, when their daughter asks who they should call about the inheritance and they realize they don't have a good answer anymore.

You lost that household during the build. You just didn't get told for a year.

The floor plan bends. The tree doesn't.

That's the actual Charleston rule. The oak is the fixed point. The house moves.

Most of us run it the other way. We design the onboarding around our ops team's capacity. The reporting around our compliance calendar. The review cadence around how many meetings an advisor can physically hold.

Then we ask the client to fit.

So here's a question worth sitting with: if the client were the fixed point, what in your firm would have to bend?

Yes, they're temporary. Clients move. Clients die. Kids inherit and take it somewhere else. The storm comes for every tree eventually, and no fence stops that.

Charleston builds around them anyway.

Not because the oak is permanent. Because a street without them is a street nobody wants to live on.

Put the fence up before you break ground.

Have a great week.

Jud

Episode 160: This week on Next Mile, Kyle Van Pelt is joined by Joe Schmitz Jr, Founder and CEO at Peak Retirement Planning. Joe built the firm around a tax-focused, 5 Pillar Approach that helps Midwestern millionaires nationwide grow and protect their wealth. A Certified Kingdom Advisor (CKA®), Joe also helps clients approach retirement with purpose and steward their wealth in alignment with their values.

Joe talks with Kyle about the marketing and talent engine of fast-growing RIAs. He shares why Peak focuses on developing talent internally, how its intensive training programs prepare advisors for real client conversations, and why coaching is such an important part of the firm's culture. Joe also explains how a strong marketing engine has helped Peak expand its reach, define a specific niche, and build trust with prospective clients through YouTube, books, and other content.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Intro

(00:54) - Joe's money moment

(02:09) - Building technical depth and soft skills in young financial advisors

(04:28) - Why Peak focuses on developing talent internally 

(06:10) - Inside Peak's training programs: Peak University and Peak Bootcamp 

(09:40) - How Peak structures its training programs

(14:44) - Why Peak sees itself as a media and marketing company first

(17:10) - How Joe turns marketing knowledge into action 

(19:00) - What YouTube has done for Peak Retirement Planning

(20:38) - What motivated Joe to build a YouTube presence 

(23:12) - How Joe builds Peak's long-term enterprise value

(25:54) - Balancing marketing-driven growth with service capacity

(28:34) - Peak's 'no creativity' policy and 'no shiny objects' marketing strategy

(29:51) - The marketing checklist behind every piece of Peak content 

(30:58) - How Peak's core messaging came together 

(34:13) - Why Joe writes books instead of chasing other content formats 

(36:11) - How Peak leverages technology for growth

(38:45) - What Peak's purpose-driven conversation is all about

(40:11) - Joe's Milemarker Minute

We’re excited to share that Milemarker has been nominated for three 2026 Luminaries Awards, recognizing innovation across some of the most important areas of wealth management technology:

These nominations reflect what we’ve been focused on building at Milemarker: using better data infrastructure, AI, and technology to make wealth management more connected, efficient, and actionable.

We’re grateful to be recognized alongside companies pushing the industry forward—and even more excited about what’s ahead.

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

Jud Mackrill