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Eric Hehman: To my wife, JayLeen, who has been the biggest blessing in my life and truly is my better half. Her confidence in me is unwavering and propelled me to take my initial job at Austin Asset as an unpaid intern. To my four young children: my hope is that someday, when they read this book, they will gain a deeper insight into their dad and know that even one person can make a difference in this world. To my parents, Curtis and Kathy, who modeled persistence and loyalty and inspired me to understand that slow and steady does win the race.

This story would not be possible without John Henry McDonald. His mentorship and partnership fueled my courage to be the leader I am today. To my partners at Austin Asset, Greg Van Wyk and Jonathan Davison, and our colleagues at Austin Asset, for joining me on this journey of building a business that we are all very proud of.

I am grateful to be surrounded by many wise mentors who challenge me to step beyond my limits: Larry Fehd, Tony Budet, Mark McClain, Jim Craver, Chris Hurta, Dave Helms, Rick Rhodes, Matt Burns, Trey Halbert, Matt Livingston, Jonathan Huffman, Mike Tipps, and Jeff Brown, when I needed your counsel, you were always there. Bits and pieces of each of you are in this book. To the members of my study group, Xcelsior, for their incredibly helpful constructive feedback over the last 10 years.

The beauty of a project like this is learning from your coauthors and being affirmed by their shared insights. Tim has been a mentor from afar for many years. Whether he knew it or not, his sharing of his experience with a young kid from Texas was a real help to me. And to Jay, that infectious spirit of enthusiasm whom I met four years ago. Our minds raced to the adventures we might share one day. One day has come, my friend.

And, finally, I am deeply grateful to the clients I have learned from and served along the way. Your trust has been an enormous honor, and I hope that I can repay that gift by helping to build even a better way to exceed your expectations.

Jay Hummel: My wife and I like to call our family “Team Hummel.” I could not have been blessed with better teammates than my wife, Valerie, and our two sons. Valerie's a rock star. She took care of a newborn and a two-year-old while I spent the weeks out of town doing my day job and most weekends at the neighborhood Starbucks trying to write. Her support never wavered, and if this book makes an impact, she's a big reason why.

I'm thankful for my friends Woody Taft, Jim Stengel, James Zimmerman, and Jim Bechtold, who inspired me to write this book when most people thought it was crazy. Thanks to Rob Densen, who challenged us on the original name of the book and graciously provided us with our final title. Chris Tankersley stepped up every time we asked him to help on draft formats even with unreasonable deadlines.

Tim agreed to write a book with two guys he barely knew. Thanks for taking a chance on us, Tim. We had a blast doing this together.

Last, thanks to my colleagues and friends at Envestnet, an amazing company with special people. Thanks to Jud, Bill, Jim, Zachary, and Lincoln, whose support of this effort has and will make a lasting difference.

Tim Kochis: Let me begin as close to the beginning as I can and thank my wife, Penelope Wong, not only for her patience and key advice throughout the effort to write this book but even more for her being at my side, every day, for the past 35 years of my professional career. I am also eager to acknowledge my colleagues at the old Kochis Fitz and the new Aspiriant for giving me the opportunity to experience these transitions of management and ownership, in very real terms, firsthand. With a few struggles here and there, the outcomes have been very good for me, and, I hope, even better for them.

Finally, I am eager to acknowledge Jay and Eric for the genuine pleasure of collaborating on this book. We weren't sure how a three-way responsibility for telling this story would play out, but we all quickly fell into comfortable patterns of contributing ideas, initiating drafts, negotiating differences, and editing to a final result, unified by a common purpose. We sincerely thank the many friends and industry colleagues for their wisdom and guidance in refining the views we present here. We owe them a huge debt for their gracious counsel, but take full responsibility for the miscues and inelegancies that may remain.

Most important, we thank and acknowledge the thousands of clients we have served and are serving, and the many more to come. Without them, there would be no reason to write this book. Fundamentally, this book is about them – and for them.