First Friday Feedback: February 2026

In this First Friday Feedback episode, Phil and Cannon faculty member Meagan MacBean explore how to maintain momentum when work, and the industry, feel nonstop. From regulatory changes to shifting client needs, the pressure is real, but being busy alone isn’t progress.

Meagan shares how clear processes, “shrinking the target,” and focusing on client experience help cut through overwhelm. The conversation highlights why strong professionals should “run a little scared,” playing the what if game to prepare for challenges before they hit.

A practical reminder that leadership isn’t about title. It’s about mindset, preparation, and steady focus, even in the middle of chaos.

Resources:

Please send Comments, Questions, and Feedback to: mojo@cannonfinancial.com

Please send First Friday Feedback Submissions to: mojo@cannonfinancial.com

Transcript

Hi, I am Phil Buchanan with Cannon Financial Institute. We produce the podcast series Monday Morning Mojo, the Cannon Curve, and Cannon Connect. Each of these podcasts invites listeners to email or text their feedback, comments and questions. They are all answered right here on First Friday feedback. If you're new to our podcast, go ahead and subscribe to all four and get engaged by sharing your perspective. Life is about the journey, so let's go for the ride. 

Greeting News Cannon Nation. It is Phil here with First Friday Feedback for February, 2026. Over the past several weeks, a very strong theme has emerged in our Monday Morning Mojo podcast, and I've gotten lots of comments, lots of questions, uh, back from many of you on this, this concept of momentum, uh, and this concept of an ability to thrive in the midst of chaos.

I can think of no better guests to, uh, join me today than my colleague on the Cannon faculty and fiduciary entrepreneur. How often do you get to use those words, uh, in a complete sentence? Uh, Meagan MacBean. Uh, Meagan MacBean is a practicing, uh, trusted estate's attorney. She is also a, uh, member of the Cannon faculty and a, uh, longtime friend.

Meagan, welcome to first variety of feedback. Thank you so much, Meagan. Uh, again, as I, as I let in with the intro. Uh, a lot of focus recently on momentum, uh, especially where, uh, so many things are coming at us at one time. And if I think about the, the wealth management industry, as I think about, uh, specifically the trust industry, um, you know, we, we we're always dealing with regulatory changes.

We're always dealing with law changes. We've got a, a unique tax environment now we've, uh. With, with the changes in the big beautiful bill, uh, as you so eloquently put it in one of your classes, uh, earlier this week, uh, in, in many instances with a lot of clients, we're, we're shifting focus a bit from, uh, you know, a estate tax management to, uh, income and capital gain tax management for a lot of clients.

Um, you know, all of these changes. Can create a lot of angst and anxiety and, uh, you see it as a practicing attorney. Uh, again, you're a former trust administrator. Uh, you see it with our, uh, with, with our students, uh, when you know you're responding to questions in class. How do you keep your head when it seems that, uh, you know, the industry overall is, is, is creating this, this cacophony of noise?

How do you stay focused? You know, it is not easy all of the time, Phil, and I think that's what we all find and that's why this has emerged as a theme in the past couple of podcasts, right? It is easy to get distracted and. Sometimes we are so busy that that feels like momentum or progress, though that may just be busyness.

So it, it is tough. One thing that I think in dealing with clients in administering trust in. Drafting documents on my side that I have always stressed and is very important is process. So I talk about process in my classes to my student process is what wins the day. Every day. If you have a process that you follow from start to finish, whether that be in helping your clients plan and talking about what makes the most sense for them in administering a trust or a state, or a lot of the tasks that we do every day, a process and a list.

Always helps. And so that's one way that I focus. And then I think, you know, you just have to sometimes decide what the target is. And sometimes you have to shrink that target, right? And take things one step at a time, right? What is the target? How do I shrink that target? Especially when you're overwhelmed.

And that may mean I shrink the target, I do one thing at a time, but I get it done. And so those are some of the ways that, that I deal with it. All right. You know, the podcast I'm about to reference will come out later this month, but I had a great conversation with Rebecca Robinson, who I know, you know, leads, uh, leads wealth management for, for Zions.

And you know, she had great comments. She said, if you always focus on the experience that your client is to have with your organization and focus on making that. Elite, then it, it'll answer, you know, where, where you need to focus your, your energies. And uh, so to your point of, of shrinking the goal, you know, what, why are we doing what we're doing?

If we keep our eye on, you know, this is about the experience the client has and what they get out of this interaction, what they get out of the experience of working with our firm. It, it really does solve things. Something else you said is, is so important. Busyness does not necessarily equal accomplishment.

And I think that that's something that I, I, I've observed in, in a lot of people that, that wind up feeling stuck. They wind up actually losing, uh, a bit of momentum. They get, they get comfortable with the busyness, but it's, it's in that busyness that sometimes you, you do feel stuck. Actually, sometimes a crisis is that thing that gets us unstuck.

You got any observations on that? Yeah. Uh, other than to say that I agree, but I would add that I think sometimes what a crisis does is it bubbles up some of those issues we need to deal with and that we have been pushing aside as we are busy, right? If you're going from one task to the next and not thinking big picture and not thinking strategically about what does the big picture look like, and you are just rolling from meeting to meeting or zoom to zoom or dealing with the busyness.

We might not be thinking about process and big picture, and so often a crisis does bubble up those things that need fixed, and as long as we can get through that crisis, then sometimes that's not a bad thing. You know, another thing that I have, I have noticed, I don't know that you and I have ever really talked about this, but you being an entrepreneur, running your own legal firm, et cetera, I, I, I think you may have some, some perspective on this financial success and I'm, I'm, I'm thinking financial success of the business or the firm, you know, you've got, you, you post strong revenue numbers quarter over quarter and things are, uh, things are arguably headed in the right direction.

And one of the things that we'll sometimes do is we'll. Project out that growth that this is going to continue for infinity. And that's when sometimes those surprises come up and uh, all of a sudden, you know, our processes weren't as strong as we thought. You know, we were riding a market wave. We had some, some extraordinary.

New clients come into the firm, et cetera, and that, that too can, can catch us unaware. How do you think about managing when things are, are leading, when things are, are arguably going well? You mentioned to me in a, in another conversation that you often feel best when you're, you're running a little scared Andy Grove when he was running Intel.

He said that he, he, he led with a healthy sense of paranoia as a, uh, as leaders. Is, is that, is that truly healthy? Is that a good way to, to, to be looking at the business? To, to always be, uh, you know, asking the question what could derail and, uh, how do we need to be fixing things that aren't apparent right now?

Absolutely. I think that's part of the, the long-term strategic thinking. Right. And I, I like the, a little bit of paranoia. I, I call it running a little scared and, and it's probably the attorney in me as well, right? I am always thinking about what is the worst case scenario in any given situation, and I just can't turn my brain off from thinking that way.

And so I, I do think that if we, if everything is sunny in the garden and we're not thinking of. What happens when this goes wrong or if it goes wrong and how can it go wrong? Then we're not prepared to meet those challenges when they come. So I do think that whatever your business is, if you are an advisory firm or a fiduciary or like me.

Running a law firm and, and being on Canon faculty, I've got to look at what's the worst case scenario and how do I prepare for that on the front end? And I think part of that is not just necessarily looking in terms of deliverables at financials, it's looking at client outcomes, right? And so making sure that you are taking the time with each individual client or file and that you are getting feedback.

From those clients and that you understand whether or not they're happy with that outcome. If they're not, things will slow down real quick, right? Because big part of this business is also clients talking to each other and referrals, and so I think it's a big picture. Look at the whole picture and you've got to run a little scared, in my opinion.

Yeah. And, and I, I, I, I like that, uh, turn of phrase, running a little scared. Healthy paranoia can mean a thousand different things, but running a little scared that kind of focuses all, uh, all of us in. So I like that, you know, I'm thinking about your counseling that you're offering right there due to weather and, and, and travels and things like that.

I've actually, uh, I've actually spent 10 hours this week, uh, in automobiles with a colleague and, uh, just today in, in one of our extended drives. I, I said to her, I said, let's play the what if game. And she said, what's the What if game? And I said, well, I'm going to throw you a series of scenarios and what do we do if this happens?

And we were on our third or fourth scenario and she's like, why are you dreaming up all of these things? And I said, I hope none of them happen. But if they do, we need to have. You know, at least a little mental preparation. Maybe it doesn't happen to the degree that I'm talking about, but, but, but we've gotta be prepared for it.

And, you know, she, she makes the comment, she's like, this is exhausting. And, you know, I think that's, that's one of the things that, that sometimes we, we fall in a trap of. Is is things are going well, we don't want to rock the boat. And so sometimes as leaders, we almost during, during these great times, it's not that we disengage, but we don't wanna, we don't wanna rock the positive momentum, but it's in those moments that we, we do need to run a little scared.

We do need to play these, these what if games, because that keeps our, uh, our muscle memory strong. Thoughts on that? Yeah, absolutely agree. I actually think that's part of, uh. What makes a leader a good leader, right? Even if things are going well and we're busy, if you're not playing the what if game, you're not doing the whole job, you, you've got to be thinking about what if X, Y, or Z, and planning for those eventualities and hope they never happen.

But if you don't plan for them and they happen, then. Guess what, you don't have a plan. It's just like estate planning. You know, I have to play the, I get clients in and, and because I draft a estate planning documents, I think about death all of the time. And I have to get clients in and ask them, you know, what happens if everybody goes down on the plane together?

Right? Who do you want to take to have your estate? Who do you wanna take your assets? And that's. Quite a unpleasant conversation sometimes, but you gotta have it, and God forbid it happens, right? We, we hope that everyone lives to a ripe old age and everybody doesn't go down on a plane together, but you've got to think through the worst case scenario and have a plan for it.

Nine times out of 10, the worst case scenario doesn't happen. But if it doesn't, you haven't planned for it. It's even worse. You know, you, you, you, you hit on a theme right there that, uh, is emerging in, in some of the drafting that I'm doing for, for future podcasts. The majority of the conversations that we as humans have, we have with ourselves.

I it's not with other people, and it's, it, it, it's our self-talk. It's the things that we think about and. You know, I think very often we tend to get engaged in, in certain stories in our head, and we start thinking about these contingencies and, you know, it can, it can really kind of, kind of bring us down.

But when you bring those types of conversations, the what if, uh, scenarios, you get them out in, in, in the public conversation and people can think through how they would proact, and I don't, I don't mean react, I mean. Pro act because there's, there's proactive activity that needs to take place to, uh, you know, to, to mitigate some of those things from rather really reaching, uh, you know, their, their, their, their fruitfulness.

That too keeps that positive momentum going. So it's not just the conversations we have with ourselves, but it's when we, we, we bring them out. You know, your story about talking with families about the, the various scenarios, it, it creates those contingency plans in place, and I, I really, really do love that.

Let me ask you this though. We've got a lot of listeners, uh, on this podcast right now who are saying, well, I'm not in the chair as the leader right now. I'm not the CEO of the firm. I'm not the head of wealth. I'm, I, I I'm in a, uh, I'm in a client facing role and, you know, I'm, I'm part of a team. I'm, they may not even fancy themselves as a leader, but, uh, John Maxwell in his book, 360 Degrees of Leadership, talked about the fact that, that you can be a leader.

Anywhere in the organization, and you always have struck me as that type of individual. Even before you went out and ran your own businesses and set up your own practice law and things like that, you, you were always, and always have shown that that temerity, if you will, to to be a leader wherever you were in the organization.

Is that just innate into the character of who Meagan MacBean is or did you have coaches and mentors that, that helped develop that in you? You know, I think probably a little bit of both, Phil. I mean, but I think everyone can be a leader, right? And, and I did have coaches who developed and mentored me. I mean, the reason that I'm in this industry at all is because very early on in my career, at my first law firm.

There was a, an attorney there who did, he was an ACT tech fellow, he did estate planning and he needed some help and asked if, basically I wanted to learn. And so that's how I really got into doing, um, estate planning, uh, trust and estate work. So I do think that. Having a mentor is excellent, but we can all be leaders and we can, we can find a way to do that in our professional and our personal life, right?

If you're teaching Sunday school, you're a leader, right? And that that's in your personal life, but in your professional life as well. Lots of people who aren't sitting in the big chair have direct reports. They have trust assistance. If they're trust officers, they have a team around them. And so you can step up and be a leader.

You can be a leader for your clients, right? I mean, your clients are looking to you for advice and for you to kind of be the expert on whatever it is their situation is. So I think that some of it is just that, that I am someone who. Insert myself into certain situations and says, I'm here. I volunteer.

But I also think that anybody can do it. Right? There's, there's a way to be a leader no matter if you're sitting in that big chair. Well, as, as a good friend of ours is, is want to say on, on numerous different occasions. Uh, you know, when you show up as a leader, that's a multiplier across. You know, the entire team and the entire scope of relationships that you've got, because it, it can be inspirational at times, but you know, it, it, it really does focus the, the, the, the broader team on what's really important.

Yeah. I think our, our summary of this conversation is, you know, number one, what do you want the client to see, feel, and experience when they deal with you and your organization? Keep that as a focus. And, you know, momentum working towards that goal and evaluating those things that could derail that and that, that, that constant healthy paranoia, the constant what ifs, the constants of running, uh, a tad bit scared, keep us focused on those things that we need to do to always be excellent in the eyes of our clients.

And so really appreciate your perspective and insight on that. To all of you who listen to Monday Morning Mojo, the Cannon Curve, cannon Connects. We thank you First Friday. Feedback exists because of you and your willingness to share your insights, uh, your questions, your comments. Uh, you can always reach us at mojo. That's mojo@cannonfinancial.com. We love hearing from you and please reach out accordingly. 

First Friday feedback is the production of Cannon Financial Institute, the executive producer of First Friday. Feedback is Sarah Jones. Editing and mixing is done by Danny Brunner. On behalf of my great colleague, Meagan MacBean, I'm Phil Buchanan.

Have a great month and we'll talk to you in March.