The Standard Deviations podcast is a weekly production that looks at money, mind and meaning, all through a psychological lens. Each week, psychologist and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Daniel Crosby interviews a fascinating new guest, experts in everything from finance to literature to wellness. Each guest provides listeners with three concrete ways to apply what was learned that week, ensuring that weekly listening becomes part of a path to a richer life. Episodes are brief, resear ...
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Dr. Charles Eckhart - Family Wealth Dynamics
38:47
38:47
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38:47
Tune in to hear: What got Dr. Eckhart into Psychology in the first place, and how did he end up moving into family wealth consulting? What are some of the significant differences in family dynamics among upper middle class families and ultra high net worth families? What does Dr. Eckart mean, exactly, when he refers to family mythology and how migh…
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Clare Flynn Levy - Good Behavior, Good Returns?
34:07
34:07
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34:07
Tune in to hear: What does Clare and her team at Essentia Analytics focus on specifically? How can one score the decision making skill involved in stock picking when so much is relative to timing? How does Essentia Analytics score all 7 data points they lay out on their website? One of the trick things about behavioral investing is you can get a go…
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Tim Holland - The Election and Your Money
35:48
35:48
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35:48
Tune in to hear: How should we think about the “presidential election cycle pattern” as a forecasting tool? Does it have much merit and how is it playing out so far in 2024? How should we think about time effects in an election year? Also, what is the trend for election year market performance like as you move through the year? What would Tim tell …
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Matt Ackermann - Center Stage: What Music Can Teach Advisors About Practice Management
35:30
35:30
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35:30
Tune in to hear: What can Elton John’s stage name teach advisors about how to make and set goals? What can Weezer teach advisors about workflows? What is the DICE acronym that can help advisors create a process around their practice? How can advisors find a partner best suited for their practice and how can this power growth? Also, how should advis…
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Phil Bray - Effective Marketing in a Noisy World
47:47
47:47
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47:47
Tune in to hear: How did Phil pivot from a financial advisor position to roles focused on marketing? Why is a clearly established marketing strategy so critical as a starting point and what does this look like, practically? How important is it to have an affinity for, or direct tie with, the niche client group you may serve (e.g. first responders o…
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Andy Baxley - The Power of Financial Purpose
43:21
43:21
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43:21
Tune in to hear: Why do humans seem to have such limited access to understanding what they want, from a financial perspective? Andy believes that the ethos of financial planning is the marriage of capital and purpose. What, specifically, does he mean by this and why does he think it is so critical? Should we try to expand our clients’ notion of cap…
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Nuala Wash - Ten Steps to Better Decision Making
59:15
59:15
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59:15
Tune in to hear: What drove Nuala to write her new book, Tune In: How to Make Smarter Decisions in a Noisy World ? In her book, Nuala talks about four factors that amplify the risk of noise, obscuring our ability to arrive at the truth. What are these factors and why are they so important? How do we overcome the very entrenched obstacles we face wh…
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Shawn Sparks - The Advisor Transformation
51:14
51:14
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51:14
Tune in to hear: What was the message that Shawn felt compelled to get out there in his upcoming book, The Advisor Transformation? What distinction does Shawn draw between success and significance? How does Shawn bring vision into his work at Triad in a way that better synthesizes work and life? What is Martin Seligman’s PERMA Model and what can we…
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Robert Sofia - A Comprehensive Guide to Financial Advisor Marketing
45:13
45:13
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45:13
Tune in to hear: How should advisors go about optimizing SEO for their practice and why is it so critical? Why do advisors who offer texting as a communication option get 400% more opt-ins? Why is email so powerful and how can advisors build out a list that will serve them well? Emails with video content really outperform, but many people are hesit…
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Jason Pereira - The Future of AI in Wealth Management
37:18
37:18
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37:18
Tune in to hear: What are the 3 primary types, or thresholds, of AI and where are we headed next in this burgeoning field? What is "general purpose AI" and how does it differ from models like ChatGPT? What about "artificial super intelligence?" Why is the developing world, on average, more optimistic about AI than the developed world? Will our pess…
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Tune in to hear: Why is it that we hate uncertainty even more than bad news? How does our dread of uncertainty impact our decision making process? If a client comes in agitated vs. paralyzed, does the means by which we resolve this uncertainty look different from reaction to reaction or do they share a common solution? Is normalization part of regu…
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Dr. Randall Stutman - A Behavioral Approach to Leadership
40:12
40:12
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40:12
Tune in to hear: Why does Dr. Stutman use a behavioral, rather than a psychological, approach to leadership? What are the differences between these two approaches? What are some of the common qualities shared by many of the world’s best leaders? Also, were any of these particularly surprising or unexpected? What role does admiration play in effecti…
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Jane Adshead Grant - Becoming a Better Listener
45:34
45:34
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45:34
Tune in to hear: What life experiences put Jane on a path to become a listening coach? What is generative listening and how does it differ from other forms of listening? In what ways did becoming familiar with generative listening transform Jane’s life? What does Jane mean when she says “listening to ignite thinking in others?” What role does empat…
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Tune in to hear: What makes women so uniquely good as behavioral investors? Why have many thought of women as particularly risk averse for so many years and what systems, on the trading floor and elsewhere, have perpetuated this misconception? Some book recommendations on women in investing and its history. Examples of how insidious the bias agains…
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Dr. Thomas Mathar - Financial Wellness vs. Financial Independence
52:10
52:10
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52:10
Tune in to hear: How might financial planning conversations need to change in light of the new longevity many will experience? How will the “100 year life” affect the 3 life stages (education, work and retirement) that used to be more clearly delineated? How might we be able to give more salience and power to our mental image of a future self? What…
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Tune in to hear: What did Philip’s research on the drivers of financial advice seeking uncover? Additionally, what might stand in the way of clients taking advice? What can the industry do to reduce economic barriers to entry for getting advice? What about reducing emotional barriers to entry for getting advice? What mistakes do advisors make when …
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Dr. Derek Griner - Compassion: Empathy in Action
52:41
52:41
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52:41
Tune in to hear: What lead Dr. Griner to focus his work and research around compassion specifically? When clinicians like Dr. Griner talk about compassion, what are they talking about exactly and how might this differ from the popular conception of compassion? How do we balance our desire to want to end someone’s suffering without falling into the …
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Dr. Daniel Crosby - Not Being Dumb Beats Being Brilliant
9:57
9:57
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9:57
Tune in to hear: What is the “Dumb Ways to Die” music video and why was it originally created? Was the above an effective behavioral intervention or did it fall short? Why is buy-in for employer sponsored retirement savings plans so low and what might be done to remedy this? Why might marketing campaigns with behavioral interventions outperform mor…
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Dr. Daniel Crosby - Not Caring What Others Think is a Valuable Asset (from The Soul of Wealth)
11:27
11:27
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11:27
Tune in to hear: What were some of Nikola Tesla’s eccentricities? What is “The Spotlight Effect” that Morgan Housel observed when working as a valet at a high-end hotel in Los Angeles? What is Morgan Housel’s “Man in the Car Paradox” and what lessons can be learned from it? What is the psychological principle “The Anchoring Effect?” Why does ego dr…
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Dr. Daniel Crosby - Money Isn’t About the Numbers (from the Soul of Wealth)
15:06
15:06
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15:06
Tune in to hear: What strategy did Alexander the Great use to overtake Tyre in 332 BC? Why did this military victory leave Alexander feeling more grief stricken than triumphant in the end? Why did Hephaestion’s death mark a turning point for the Macedonian Empire? What are “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying?” What makes up Martin Seligman’s “PERMA”…
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Dr. Daniel Crosby - Giving is the Path to Abundance (from the Soul of Wealth)
16:59
16:59
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16:59
Tune in to hear: What common ground, if any, can be found across nearly all spiritual and religious traditions on the globe? What does academic research have to say about the benefits that accrue to those who are generous? Why doesn’t spending money on ourselves bring about long-lasting joy and what role does the “hedonic treadmill” play in this? W…
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Jon Dauphine - The Case for Pro Bono Financial Planning
42:26
42:26
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42:26
Tune in to hear: - With all of the possibilities out there, why has Jon landed on his current path and why does he think that pro bono work is so vital? - Jon’s organization just completed a very comprehensive study on pro bono financial planning. Were there any results that really stood out or surprised him? - What did Jon’s research unearth about…
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Tune in to hear: - If so much of what accounts for our behavior is habitual, what hope do we have and how can we change that as we look to the New Year? - Why do such small bits of friction have an outsized influence on our behavior? - Does publicly stating your goals have any drawbacks or does it help you stay accountable? - What is the rhyme-as-r…
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Stacy Havener - The Scientist and the Storyteller Miniseries (Pt. 4)
48:35
48:35
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48:35
Tune in to hear: - Why do overly linear, or bullet-pointy, stories tend to fall short? What are the risks of making your backstory too similar to a resume? - What is the psychological principle “peak-end rule” and how can it be applied to better your backstory? - Why is knowing your audience such an important part of effective storytelling? - Why “…
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Dr. Daniel Crosby - The Future of Everything is Human-First
48:58
48:58
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48:58
Tune in to hear: - Why will AI, automation and algorithms likely lead to an increase in human centered connection in the financial services industry and beyond? - What is one of Thomas Hobbes’ most famous remarks and how do people take it out of context? - Why loneliness has far reaching implications for longevity that exceed even obesity. - How di…
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Anthony Damtsis - Growing Your Wealth Confidence
40:23
40:23
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40:23
Tune in to hear: - Why do only 13% of American millionaires describe themselves as wealthy? Why don’t we recognize our abundance for what it is? - What is wealth confidence and what are its broader implications within portfolio management? - Wealth confidence is definitely somewhat correlated with portfolio performance, but why is net worth alone n…
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Daniel Staker - Behavioral Marketing Lessons for Financial Services
53:06
53:06
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53:06
Tune in to hear: - Why does Daniel Staker call his new book “a book from a breakdown?” - Why is behavior such a fundamental building block of marketing? - How do we get to the bottom of what our clients really want when they are often so bad at articulating it for themselves? - What does Daniel Staker mean when he says that “people often fail to re…
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Dr. Ali McCarthy - Doubling Your Business with Emotional Intelligence
38:48
38:48
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38:48
Tune in to hear: - We frequently hear the term “emotional intelligence” thrown around pretty loosely, but what is a deeper dive into its definition? - Does Dr. McCarthy see people frequently using emotional intelligence towards Machiavellian ends or is this quite uncommon in her experience? - Why is EQ so important for leaders and individuals more …
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Tune in to hear: - What is all weather investing and what are its behavioral underpinnings? - Does Eric strategically rebalance the all weather portfolios or are the allocations fairly static? If they are dynamic, what signals do they look for when making a change? - What is the trend-oriented global macro program that Eric implements? - How can on…
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Akhil Patel - The Hidden Order of Markets
48:31
48:31
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48:31
Tune in to hear: - What convinces Akhil that we can forecast markets with any level of precision when lots of highly intelligent people have tried and failed? - How often does Akhil think market cycles occur, on average, and how can we use that to our benefit? - Once novel market anomalies or truths are discovered, they tend to get arbitraged away …
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Stacy Havener - The Scientist and the Storyteller Miniseries (Pt. 3)
32:45
32:45
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32:45
Tune in to hear: - What is the backfire effect and how can you get your prospects to drop their old fund manager without crushing their ego? - Why is solving an emotional problem with a rational solution rarely effective? How can we encourage behavior change while giving our prospects a chance to save face? - What is the blemishing effect and how d…
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Saundra Davis - Balancing Candor and Compassion in Client Communications
1:00:53
1:00:53
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Tune in to hear: - Saundra really balances being warm and welcoming with a great deal of candor. How has this served her professionally over the years? - How do people find the strength of will and confidence to call their clients out on behavior that is incongruent with their goals if their designations alone don’t provide this confidence? - Saund…
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Matt Reiner - Becoming the Advisor of the Future
46:57
46:57
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46:57
Tune in to hear: - Matt interviewed hundreds of advisors and leaders in their space to gather how they envisioned the future of financial advice. What themes or common threads started to emerge in these interviews? - How, specifically, might things become "more human" moving forward in the financial services industry? - Why does Matt believe that a…
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Tune in to hear: - What is Amanda’s story about her “$19k haircut” and how did it lead her down the path she’s on today? - How did Amanda’s parents react to her financial situation when she finally decided to disclose it? Did this transform their relationship much? - Amanda thinks that all financial problems should be approached with two premises i…
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Jay Coulter - The 5 Dimensions of a Great Advisory Practice
41:06
41:06
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41:06
Tune in to hear: - What are the 5 coaching dimensions that Jay uses to help advisors and how did he arrive at these? - What is “the protocol system” and how has Jay utilized it to better his mental and physical wellbeing? - What was it that allowed Jay to put himself back together after a bout of acute depression? - What role should leadership and …
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Michael Kitces - Leveraging Social Accountability
53:07
53:07
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53:07
Tune in to hear: - How does salience work with respect to different advisory fee models? - How can we use social accountability to better help clients see through their plans? - As the “meat and potatoes” of financial planning gets automated away, what does the future look like for financial planners? Will they operate in a broader life coach type …
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Tune in to hear: - What life journey brought Kathi to a place where she focused on grief professionally? - Why did Kathi experience guilt and shame around her lack of financial literacy in a moment of crisis? - People often say very inappropriate things when they are struggling to address the grieving, even if well-intentioned. Why is this the case…
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Dr. Daniel Crosby - Seven Rules for Life and Money
36:01
36:01
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36:01
Tune in to hear: - What the landscape of financial planning looks like broadly in the United States. - How working with a financial advisor plays a prophylactic role that extends just beyond mere performance and into mental health and one’s interpersonal relationships. - Why money is an emotional hair trigger for so many people. - Whether or not yo…
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Dr. LaKeitha Poole - Sports Psychology for Everyday
47:09
47:09
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47:09
Tune in to hear: - What’s the number one misconception about sports psychology? What are the Monday morning quarterbacks missing when they comment on a game? - Has Dr. Poole noticed any common thread shared by the championship teams she has worked with over the years? - How do teams really individualize their overarching goal above and beyond simpl…
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Sterling Johnson - Working Toward Economic Equity
55:56
55:56
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55:56
Tune in to hear: - What does the Partnership for Southern Equity really focus on and what is Sterling’s role there? - What is the difference between equity and equality and why is this an important distinction to make when talking about the kind of work the PSE does? - What things, governmentally or institutionally, are still in place structurally …
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Stacy Havener - The Scientist and the Storyteller Miniseries (Pt. 2)
44:28
44:28
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44:28
Tune in to hear: - Why does Stacy believe that every company should have a well crafted origin story? Why does this speak to the authenticity of a brand? - What’s the importance of a hook or conflict within a corporate brand story? - How can we present a hook that helps with brand buy-in without the story relying on the classic narrative tools of d…
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Neil Bage - The Importance of Financial Advisor Self-Care
48:36
48:36
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48:36
Tune in to hear: - Some people think that “we can only take our clients as far as we have gone ourselves and that we must do our own work.” Does Neil believe this and, if so, what does “doing the work” look like in the context of a financial professional? - What is Carl Jung’s idea of “a wounded healer?” Also, in terms of our own story, how can we …
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Tune in to hear: - Can Nicole speak to the power of podcasts, newsletters and new media and the role these play as she tries to fulfill her personal mission? - Can brands do anything to really humanize and authenticate themselves or do we just favor individual influencers and have a general distrust of institutions now? - What do we need to do as a…
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Stacy Havener - The Scientist and the Storyteller Miniseries (Pt. 1)
42:49
42:49
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42:49
Tune in to hear: Learn how to adapt cognitive biases to your benefit within a sales funnel. What is the mere exposure effect and why is it so powerful? Considering the mere exposure effect, what chance do boutique asset managers have going against giants like BlackRock and how can they set themselves apart? Is there such a thing as too much exposur…
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Derek Hagen - Working with Change-Resistant Clients
36:16
36:16
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36:16
Tune in to hear: - In studies, non-compliance with financial advice generally hangs around the 50% range. However, many advisors say that their clients are very compliant and that these stats don’t hold true for them. Has Derek noticed this and what does he think accounts for this difference? - What is the “stages of change” model and how might it …
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Dr. Michael Finke - The Science of Happy Retirement
42:49
42:49
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42:49
Tune in to hear: - Do certain people have a natural proclivity for deferring gratification for a greater reward at a later date (e.g. exercise and saving) or can this also be learned? - Is whether or not you are more forward-thinking or present-oriented hardwired in you from a young age? - What are some of the things that those who “get retirement …
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Amy Mullen - 5 Steps for Values-Based Financial Planning
50:12
50:12
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Tune in to hear: - What role did Amy’s mom play in her professional journey and what drives her to do what she does? - What are the 5 steps of Amy’s process for providing effective guidance to advisors while leaving a bit of wiggle room for client personalization? - Her 1st step, “to establish and define a client, planner relationship,” aligns with…
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Brendan Frazier - 10 Rules for Human-First Financial Advice
52:15
52:15
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Tune in to hear: - What makes up Brendan’s list of the 10 guiding principles of financial psychology? - Brendan says that “goals shift, but values persist.” What does he mean by this and how do we move from illuminating values to tying those back to specific goals? - Brendan recently interviewed a “question expert” on his own podcast. What was the …
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Kelsey Willock - Gamifying Financial Education
26:38
26:38
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Tune in to hear: - What was the spark or impetus that led Kelsey down the path to found Aura Finance? - Why is it so crucial to help people get in the right mindset to invest and how can we begin to do so? - What are some of the specific features of the Aura app that help promote financial mindfulness? - How has Kelsey tried to hone the gamified el…
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Heather Fortner - Building the Human-First RIA
46:36
46:36
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Tune in to hear: - How has Heather’s background in mental health shifted the way she leads and the way she goes to market? - What advice, skills or resources does she try to imbue her advisors with to inoculate them against taking on too much of the stresses they help their clients work through? - As practically as possible, what does “net worthwhi…
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