Forget Spotify Wrapped. Try This Instead.

Hey everyone, hope you’re doing great.

I had a fun number of interactions with various readers this week—it’s always energizing to get feedback. I just wrapped up my 144th flight of the year, touching down from time with clients and partners in Indianapolis. As I landed, my Flighty app pinged me with all the stats: delays, miles flown, the whole merit badge routine.

But when I look at the time I’ve been out this year, it doesn’t always feel meritorious. It’s a journey—one I genuinely enjoy getting to be on. And I always look forward to popping open my laptop on a Friday to create The Rising Tide.

This week, I’m talking college football (once again) as I gear up to watch the playoff games this weekend. I am looking forward to wrapping up the year with loved ones over the holidays and hope you’ve carved out some time for the people that mean the most to you.

Here’s this week’s Rising Tide. Hope you have a great weekend.

1. Forget Spotify Wrapped. Try This Instead.

2. Next Mile: How Planning Drives Better Investment Decisions 🎧

3. Elevation Point Partners With Milemarker

4. Replay: Milemarker Navigator – AI on All Your Data

5. Milemarker On the Road ✈️

This time of year is interesting. We are swimming in retrospectives. Your flight count for the year. Hotels stayed. LinkedIn interactions. Spotify Wrapped. There’s a plethora of retros telling sometimes fun, sometimes depressing stories about how your year went.

One retrospective practice that caught my attention comes from Eugene, Oregon.

I’ve really enjoyed the culture Dan Lanning has built as the head coach of Oregon. Recently, I watched him break down something interesting about how they operate—and it ties directly into this season of self-reflection.

After every game, Oregon players write essays documenting areas where they could improve. Not just verbal debriefs—written self-assessments. They evaluate what they did well, where they fell short, and where they are mentally. Then they share these with their coaches. Lanning reads each one personally.

As he puts it: “Self-awareness is something I’m really big on. If you can identify a problem within yourself before a coach tells you, then you have a better chance of solving that problem.”

This isn’t just for players. Every coach. Every staff member. Everyone has an improvement plan. One thing they must get better at.

It struck me how relevant this is to what we do.

It’s one thing to have someone else tell you facts about your reality. It’s another thing entirely to critique yourself, look for areas to improve, and then share that with your support system—the people positioned to actually help you.

Our industry sits on a foundation of coaching and supporting people. Regular people walking through life who raise their hand seeking assistance, outsourcing some function of their lives.

As the value of financial advice continues to evolve, we have more opportunities for creative dialogue around the things in our clients’ lives that could be improving.

Try this: Ask your clients an open-ended question as they look ahead to 2026. “What are the areas of your life you wish would improve?”

The direction they take that question is only limited by their imagination. It’ll speak volumes about where their minds and hearts are. And then you can figure out how to better lend advice in the framework of where they want to go.

I’m sure there will be answers that won’t have direct ties to financial planning, but the opportunity to state these things out loud? That’s where transformation starts. We need to be facilitating that.

This works internally too. In one-on-ones with your team, ask them to write down the answer to this: “Who do you want to be at work this next year? Where do you think your department could be when 2027 comes around? What process do you want to improve?”

To create a culture where this works the best, you’ll have to withhold judgement about their ideas. Use their responses as a way to gain insight into what matters most to your team members.

It’s important to not shame anyone for a bad performance during this process. If you can communicate that imperfection will always be a part of our lives in one hand and the concept that everyone’s working to improve in the other, you can build a fundamentally healthier culture.

I’m seeing this at Oregon. If you’re already doing this, I’d love to hear about how it’s going. If not, maybe it’s time to start.

Consistency over time breeds excellence. Progress is transformative when it’s built day by day.

And here’s my encouragement for you: consider doing this for your personal life. Write down your answers. Who do you want to be next year? What do you need to start doing now to become that? How do you want to grow? Then share it with someone who’s likeminded and can speak truth into your life.

We are in a process improvement business. We should always be working to get better—taking accountability for our performance on the field. Whether your field is client meetings, building technology, helping people get more out of what they’ve invested in, or navigating family, finances, and behavior.

If we become healthier versions of ourselves through increased self-awareness, think about the impact we can actually make.

This isn’t a New Year’s resolution list. It’s way more practical. It’s a real way to improve your outcomes in the year ahead.

Have a great weekend.

– Jud

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Episode 123: On this week’s episode, Kyle Van Pelt sits down with Tim Thomas, Chief Investment Officer and Wealth Manager at Badgley Phelps Wealth Managers. Tim joined Badgley Phelps in 2008 and brings more than two decades of experience in financial planning and portfolio management. He specializes in security analysis and selection, portfolio construction, asset allocation, and alternative investments.

Tim shares with Kyle about the mechanics of modern portfolio construction. He discusses why the financial plan must be the north star for investment strategy, how to navigate the noisy and rapidly democratizing world of alternative investments, and how AI is changing the backend of advisory work without replacing the human connection.

(00:00) – Intro

(01:33) – Tim’s money moment

(02:57) – Marrying financial planning with investment strategy

(03:56) – How investing has changed over time

(06:18) – The rise in alternative investments

(09:55) – Understanding alts as more than one asset class

(16:24) – How Badgley Phelps helps clients navigate the nuances of alts

(18:27) – Managing M&A and the acquisition of Marshall & Sullivan

(21:45) – How Badgley Phelps approaches holistic planning

(23:40) – Tim’s thoughts about the future of the industry

(27:25) – Tim’s Milemarker Minute

Milemarker is proud to partner with Elevation Point as the firm scales its outsourced CIO (OCIO) business and growing network of independent RIAs. Through this partnership, Milemarker is powering a unified data infrastructure that connects portfolio, performance, and operational insights across multiple custodians and technology platforms—without disrupting what makes each partner firm unique. Together, we’re enabling Elevation Point to move beyond aggregation and toward true operational leverage at scale.

Read the full article below

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the launch of Milemarker Navigator — the natural language AI built for RIAs who are ready to operate differently in 2026 and beyond.

We introduced a new standard for data access in wealth management: instant answers, secure processing inside Snowflake, no SQL, and no exposure of client records. For firms tired of waiting on reports, juggling systems, or relying on external AI tools that require sending sensitive data out of their environment — Navigator is what comes next.

If you missed the session, you can watch the full walkthrough below:

1. Phoenix, AZ —January 26-28

2. Charleston, SC — January 26-28

3. San Diego, CA — February 26-28

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

Jud Mackrill