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31. How to Help Clients Create Meaning and Purpose in Their Financial Lives with Dr. Daniel Crosby · Planning & Beyond® - Where financial planning meets human understanding

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just all these indignities of work, right?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Working a W 2 job for 40 or 50 years.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that people think when they're free of that, that they'll be happy.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: But people are so focused on the freedom from that they fail to work on the freedom to.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yes, you are free from the inanity of like endless Zoom meetings, but now what are you free to do?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And people don't fill the vacuum.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the show where financial planning meets human understanding.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: As an exceptional financial advisor, you know that financial planning is about more than just numbers.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's about giving clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters most.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Which is why each episode is designed with that goal in mind.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: You'll learn how to uncover the psychology behind client decisions and gain insights and behavioral strategies needed to create deeper, more meaningful client relationships.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: You'll discover techniques for navigating emotional client situations, drawn from conversations with leading industry experts in behavioral finance, psychology, communication, and more.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's mastering discovery meetings, handling sensitive client conversations, or understanding what is truly keeping your client stuck, you'll walk away with not only strategies that you can use in your next client meeting, but also the confidence to do so.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, hi.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: I should probably introduce myself.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Ashley Colemey, a therapist who somehow wandered into the world of financial behavior and kind of decided to stay.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: My mission is to help you bridge the gap between financial planning and human understanding.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because remember, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dive in.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial planning meets human understanding.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Ashley Kwame, and today I am thrilled to welcome our guest, the famous, I think famous, in my book at least famous, Dr.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Daniel Crosby.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Many of you who follow the show and are out there just in the world of behavioral finance have likely heard his name maybe a time or two.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Crosby is a psychologist, behavioral finance expert, author of the most recent book, The Soul of Welp, which my son read several chapters of and liked, which was wonderful as a mom.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he's also the podcast host of Standard Deviations.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Daniel, thank you so much for coming on.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to have you here.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Ashley, it's great to be here for the special All Georgia edition.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And your son is clearly going big places.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: He signed off on just the stories, the molasses.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: He signed off and said that you did get the facts right.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that just in case you were like wondering about that, like he said your facts, he said your facts were correct.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's good to good to know.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good to know.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was worried.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you were.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you were really worried.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm glad to have you here for a few reasons.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: One, because you and I have similar backgrounds in the world of psychology.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's always fun to bring on and have conversations with someone around, you know, just kind of that area as it relates to finances, but also selfishly because I think you're kind of cool.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a way for me to get to hang out and spend some time and yeah, do our thing together.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: So glad to have you here.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Excited for this conversation ahead.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to maybe just let's just kind of dive in and I'd like to explore kind of today just this idea around meaning and the what should we call it, maybe the mental kind of state of the world here.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: But you've made kind of a comment before around that everybody seems so sad these days.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it really kind of got me thinking in terms of some of the work that you do, some of the work that I do, how that's tied to meaning and purpose and mental health.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'd love to explore just all of that kind of intersection here today with you.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And starting out just kind of from your perspective, when we talk about the state of the mental health, I don't want to say crisis, but situation here.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Why does everybody seem sad kind of these days?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Can you share with us a little bit maybe from your perspective?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like what are your thoughts on that in terms of the why?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think the main culprits are?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think maybe from a society standpoint impacts all of that?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a great question.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's really the reason why I wrote The Soul of Wealth.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a stat that I came across that just catalyzed the whole writing of the book was that, you know, we're coming up on 250 years as a country.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: 250 years ago, 85% of the world was living in poverty.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is not that long ago on the grand human timeline, right?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: 250 years ago is fairly recent history.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And even as recently as that, 85% of people were living on$2 or less a day.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today, that's under 9%.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we have had an explosion of wealth and prosperity and a burgeoning middle class, the likes of which the world has never seen.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you would you would think that would lead to a concurrent explosion in other good things, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: In in other aspects of wellness, and it just hasn't.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Since World War II, the average size of an American home has tripled, and yet people aren't any happier and don't even feel any wealthier than they did, you know, 80 years ago.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted to explore that that seeming disconnect between prosperity and material wealth, and then the the psychological, spiritual, existential fallout.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So why is everyone so sad?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, like this is this is the million-dollar question.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I think there's a few answers to this.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: One is, you know, Gandhi said, I'm paraphrasing, Gandhi said that to, you know, to a poor person, bread is God.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: When 85% of the world was living in poverty, when they're living on less than$2 a day, they're not worried about friendship or the meaning of life or God or self-transcendence or any of sort of the lofty, the lofty things that you and I might worry about on any given day.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, in in sort of the Maslow's hierarchy sense of things, increasing levels of wealth, they make some of our problems go away, right?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're not worried about having enough to eat or being warm at night when we go to bed.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But now we can worry about friendship and purpose and significance and more existential concerns.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, in a very real sense, we have graduated to a higher class set of problems.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think we are super well equipped to handle them.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And in look, in some ways, it's a nice problem to have.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is literally a first-world problem that now we have time to worry about hey, like what's my impact on the world going to be and not just where will my next meal come from?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: But that's kind of where I think we find ourselves.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: As we get the bottom two rungs of Maslow knocked out, which we, you know, for those of us in the West, that is largely the case.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: We start to get to worry.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have the privilege in a real sense of worrying about loftier things.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're just not, we're not there yet.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't think we've we've figured out how to navigate those more existential concerns.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Maslow's hierarchy came to mind too, in conjunction with, you know, everything you said, just the loneliness, like isolation, like factor too.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And to your point, I don't think that we're well equipped for how do we handle that when you're in such a state of survival as a from a human standpoint for so long as you were sharing, right?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then we transcend, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe here, you know, more in the West.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: How do we solve these problems for ourselves?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: The skills, tools, and roadmap for how to do that haven't quite been paved yet.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So continue with your second, your second point there.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, another thing, one one of the themes that comes up again and again in the book is that reference classes matter, that that benchmarks matter.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at something like financial contentment, there's two variables that that reliably predict financial contentment.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is level of wealth, right?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's a practical reality that you need some baseline level of adequate wealth to be financially contented.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing that's an even better predictor of that is how of how financially contented you are is your reference class.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like who are you benchmarking your life to?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: For again, most of human history, you were surrounded by people whose lives were deeply, deeply similar to yours, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: You lived in some European village, you knew a hundred people, you made bread for a living, your next door neighbor made carpet for a living, but you were all kind of in the same boat.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You knew about a hundred to 150 people.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: They were all pretty much in the same socioeconomic reality.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so your ability to compare your life up or down was pretty limited.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the phone that sits in all of our pockets, like we can take out.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I can follow the people with the best hair, best abs, best cars, biggest bank accounts, prettiest families, best behaved children, like whatever sort of my reference class is, right?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever I'm trying to benchmark my life to, I have ready and highly manicured, highly curated access to people posting a highlight reel of whatever it is I'm trying to compare myself to.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So our ability to connect and reference our lives to other lives is dramatically different.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And like better is the wrong word.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Better is the wrong word, but we're we're much more connected on our ability to make referential judgments about our lives is dramatically different than it was.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at the best predictor, you know, if we if we kind of take it from the other direction, the best predictor of a life well lived, a happy, fulfilled life is relationships.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there's there's just a host of factors that weaken our relationships.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the on-demand work schedule, this even the size of our homes.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, again, I talked about the size of our homes as tripled.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Here, here in my house, I got a couple of really big TVs and some very comfortable beanbags.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't need to go to the movies anymore.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just watch it here.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll stream it here, where normally I would have been mixing it up with my neighbors at the local cinema.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'll just wait and catch it on, you know, catch it on streaming and watch it in my very comfortable uh, you know, den here.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have a I have a gym at my house.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to go to the gym.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think, you know, a lot of a lot of these things that used to be communal, we've now made, we've made personal.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Shared space is falling, and there's become more of this privatization of things.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, religious activity as at an all-time low, you know, people's trust in government and politics is at an all-time low.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: The civic and religious and and other sort of pillars of community are widely mistrusted.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's easier for people to disconnect.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you see teens less socializing.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Socialization among teens has dropped 50% since 2020.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the pandemic put this incredible change in the way that we interface with people.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Teens are less interested in partying, which is good, but teens are also less interested in driving.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So so many of these things are met by our big houses and our tech-enabled lives, where we used to have to kind of go out into the world and connect with other people.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: People are increasingly just relying on their own resources and technology to get those needs met.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So a whole lot of things happening all at once.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all of that kind of there in the undercurrent, right?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: That contributes to how we show up in the world, but also how we make financial decisions too.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you mentioned kind of a few ways there, but I'd like to, you know, for the advisors listening right now and hearing all of this, you know, I wonder from your perspective, what are maybe some of the ways, or how do you think all of this, you know, shows up that affects the way that people approach their money and financial decisions?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's there's a number of ways.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting now.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: You see that people are going to school longer, they're marrying later, people are less likely to ever get married.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you're just seeing greater individualization, which again, a lot of these things are sort of a mixed bag.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like in in some ways, that greater ability to be an army of one is empowering, and and yet we we need other people.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you're seeing a trend toward greater autonomy, but but also greater, greater loneliness.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're asking about like sort of happiness and happiness dynamics with money and how people spend money, we're seeing that people sort of spend money in ways that don't lead to very much fulfillment.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of money being spent on keeping up with the Joneses.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: In the book, I cite 349 different studies that show that people who spend money to flex on their neighbors or to show off for Instagram or TikTok or to be sort of conspicuous consumption, this really makes us sad.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think again, the social media driven nature of our current reality leads people to kind of want to flex online and be conspicuous with their consumption.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But again, 349 different studies show that that spending that enhances relationships and experiences and community is going to lead to a lot more happiness.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that people are in in some ways trying to solve this loneliness crisis and this mental health crisis with more, more.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is more community, more charitable giving, more connection, and and not necessarily more stuff.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I see this show up a lot for retirees.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: And for retirees, you know, now it's different than from their parents' generation, you know, for for retirement.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And at least from, you know, the work that I do and the retirees, you know, that I that I have the privilege of sitting with and working with, there is this struggle around kind of how to do retirement.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the mindset is like, well, we just buy the things and we, you know, maybe we now just like travel and kind of just go everywhere.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's great, but maybe that's also not really what brings them purpose or derives, you know, meaning necessarily for them.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so for this particular group, I see a lot of kind of what you're saying, like there's that struggle with like, I don't have a roadmap.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really know how to do this.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know how my parents previously, you know, retired, or maybe they didn't, but I don't know how to do this kind of, I don't know if you want to say new age, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Type of retirement, but they almost seem to be kind of lost within that and then filling it with the stuff, as you were saying, or the comparison piece there.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't know if you know, you've seen that even just from a research standpoint around just different generations, like in their struggles, in particular, if one struggles kind of more than the other.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: I see you kind of nodding, kind of shaking your head.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love your thoughts on that.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: One of the saddest things that I found that I talk about in chapter one of the book is that recent retirees are some of the saddest people on earth.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that is such a disappointing reality when you think that, you know, someone has worked so long and so hard to arrive at this moment that's supposed to be this joyous moment of freedom.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not being realized in that way for a lot of people.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: If we're seeing so much sadness among recent retirees, and it all begs the question, you know, why is that the case?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it comes from a misapprehension of what brings joy in retirement.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think in our working years, there's a lot to hate about work.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like straight up, there's a lot, I mean, there's a lot to dislike, zoom calls and dumb beatings and a million emails about whatever sandwiches in the break room.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just all these indignities of work, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Working a W-2 job for 40 or 50 years.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that people think when they're they're free of that, that they'll be happy.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: But people are so focused on the freedom from that they fail to work on the freedom to.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yes, you are free from the inanity of like endless Zoom meetings, but now what are you free to do?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And people don't fill the vacuum.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been doing some research this year that I'm super excited about.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't even released it, but we'll talk about it here.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it's here we go.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Breaking news, right?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Breaking news.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's really like what are the ingredients of a meaningful life?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I dug into all this research and I found there's really like three things, and it's believing, belonging, and becoming.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's think about these three things in the context of a retirement.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Believing is people who live lives of flourishing, have a rule book.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: They have a religion or a spirituality or personal values or a life philosophy that guides how they move through the world.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: They know what's important to them, and that is well articulated in a coherent system, right?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So in retirement, you whatever you want the world to look like, whatever you know, think is your vision of a good life, you have time to work on that.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: But but are you?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, are retired people filling their days with charitable giving and and like working to make the world more just and fair and whatever?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like the research says no.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like mostly we fill our time with more screen time.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, believing whatever your vision of a just, beautiful, you know, righteous world is in retirement, you should be doing something to bring that about and invest in that every day.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Belonging is back to the relational piece.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Men in particular tend to have weak social ties outside of work.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Women tend to have more balanced social ties inside and outside of work and do a better job of keeping up with their friends.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Men just kind of don't have a lot of friends outside of work.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so they underestimate the degree to which when they retire, they're going to be lonely.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, just as surely as you need a financial plan in retirement, you need a plan for connection and belonging.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third piece is becoming.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: We need a bright vision of who we want to be.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be better tomorrow than we are today, and we need a plan for getting there.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: People are progress-oriented, they're growth-oriented.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, work for all its indignities and for all its ills provides lots of opportunities for that.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: You get raises, you get promotions, you get a better office, you get an SVP title, whatever.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like work has really done a good job of gamifying climbing the ladder.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so when the ladder is removed from your life and you're now on your own, you still want ladders.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so it may be improving your skills as a guitarist, it may be writing a kid's book, it may be a thousand things.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But how are you going to meet those needs for becoming?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: So believing, belonging, and becoming.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like, yes, you need enough money?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's critical.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: But once you have those things, do you have a plan for living your values, loving and being close to people and sort of leveling up, getting better every day?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I love that because it's simple, right?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Just from the simplicity of it.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes a lot of sense.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about just kind of the essence of being a human and how listening to you talk about just those three like pillars there, it just makes a lot of sense.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious though, for a financial advisor, what do you think their role is?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe just kind of in this, or how can they help clients within these three particular pillars?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you call them pillars.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm calling them pillars, but these three like kind of areas.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you think their role is for helping clients develop, talk about, lean into these three areas?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's very direct.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think they have a very direct and specific responsibility based on what we know from the science to help people prepare for these things.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that financial advisors who help their clients prepare financially, and then that's it with the absence of these other things.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're first of all not doing right by their clients, but second of all, not doing right by their practice or building a business.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we know in 2016, there was this awesome meta-analysis that was done on all the ways that advisors add value.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the good news is that everything an advisor does is additive to her client's life, right?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's asset management or product selection or tax alpha or whatever, all that stuff adds value.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: But what we know is that the behavioral and relational elements add the most value by a wide margin, like 7x.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the value of behavioral coaching is 7x the value of something like.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Tax alpha or product selection.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So in the age of AI, a lot of that technical blocking and tackling is going to go away.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just computers are better at this than we are, whether it is creating a Monte Carlo simulation, formulating a basic plan, allocating assets, all that technical stuff.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: AI is good and getting better at.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just the value of that is going to go away.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: It just is.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: The value of that is going to come so deeply commoditized.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's headed in that direction for a decade and a half that I've been doing this and it's going to continue apace.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think what's left where we're going to add the most value is the human side of things.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think not only are you money touches every part of our lives.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're helping your clients prepare for retirement and plan for retirement, but not helping them plan for connection and significance in retirement, you haven't fully helped them plan, right?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And oh yes, I think that's how you get your clients to love you.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's how you get your clients to refer you, to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's hundreds of thousands of advisors in the country.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: They all, most of them, do a pretty good job of the technical stuff.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so what's going to differentiate you from the next person?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think understanding these sort of soulful, soulful realities and helping people prepare for them is a good answer to that question.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I like the believing, belonging, and becoming, not just for retirees, pre-retirees, but really for any client, any client, no matter what stage or phase of life they're in.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking about just a few clients in particular that are early 40s dual career, you know, professionals and just the relevancy of those three areas just within their lives as well, right?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it isn't just the technical right side.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: There is the quote unquote, maybe enough money.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's enough there, but these, you know, other soulful type of areas that matter where money shows up.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with you, obviously, shockingly, that an advisor's role is really leaning into doing and being a part of those conversations and being more direct.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we've been talking a lot about just the client end of things with respect to, you know, meaning, purpose, what is a happy, kind of fulfilling life there.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's maybe shift for just a moment and talk about the advisor end and how advisors can be, I say good models, but how can they practice essentially maybe what they preach, if they are preaching some of this?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: You and I both coming from psychology and mental health backgrounds.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: We both know and were, I don't know about your program.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I know mine was very much into what we call self of the therapist, understanding, you know, ourselves, the way in which we do and show up in the world and taking care of ourselves.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see that so much in the financial planner side of things.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: But with what we're talking about right here, all of this shows up for financial advisors as well, financial planners.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, how maybe can advisors tap into their own sense of connection and purpose so that they can model all of this for their clients?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: So our programs have have that in common.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the very first thing I was instructed to do as a young therapist was to go get my own therapist and to sort of figure out my own baggage.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that we in the advice profession, whether it's psychotherapeutic advice or financial advice, have a duty to understand where we're coming from because each of us have values around life and money that are often unarticulated and unexamined.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're not careful, we end up giving advice through a very particular lens that's unvetted and may have nothing to do with person sitting across from us and may have everything to do with, you know, how we were raised or the culture or you know, how we grew up.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't stress enough that this should be a part of every young advisor's growing up and becoming part of the industry, and it's just not.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so we sort of have to take that, you know, I think good advisors have to take that upon themselves to do their own work.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jason Zweig has this great piece on behavioral finance where he says, you know, very often we use it as a window onto others' behavior, but the highest and best use of it is as a mirror for our own behavior.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And my my fear is, and I mean, I've seen this actualized, plenty of people have said this to me, you know, they'll they'll read books like mine.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And The Soul of Wealth doesn't have a whole lot of this, but my previous books do, where we're talking about some of the idiosyncrasies and the quirks of human behavior, and they go, Oh, wow, that's you know, that's totally my wife, or that's totally my neighbor, or my son, or you know, whoever.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, maybe, but you kind of miss the point.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like you, you need to see this in yourself first.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is where it gets a little woo-woo.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So apologies, but it is, you know, it is what it is.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't have to apologize to me for anything woo-woo.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: People who have quote unquote done the work, right?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: People who have taken a hard look at themselves and examined their values around life and money, et cetera, show up in a qualitatively different way than people who have not.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's no blood test for that.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I don't have anything empirical to prove that to you.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I have seen it time and again that that people who have been thoughtful and introspective about their own money scripts and their own money values show up as advisors in a very, very different way than people who just sort of assume that their way is right and are sort of writing roughshod over their clients.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if you want deep connection with your clients and and the sort of humility that's appropriate for someone who's giving advice, which is, by the way, sort of an inherently egotistical thing to do, to be to be giving advice, whether it's life advice from a psychotherapist or financial advice from a financial advisor, you really need to have done your own work and vetted your own process and your own values before you do that, if you want to show up in the right way.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen that, not again, not uh empirically.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have the evidence to like prove it, but I will say that in my own experience, one, as supervising other therapists sitting in rooms now with financial advisors or coaching them, two, they do show up, they do show up different.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the ways, I don't know if this is consistent with what you've seen, but some of the ways I've kind of seen that difference is advisors, practitioners who have done some of that work that have a good level, I'll say, of self-awareness, they're not as rigid with their thinking.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: They're a lot more flexible, open to other perspectives, other ideas, or even just the idea that they may not have all the answers.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Humility, I guess, maybe if you want to call it that.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so from just a relationship standpoint, you know, compare and contrast someone who's really rigid with their thinking, maybe even from like a power dynamic place, right?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thinking their way, like is the right way.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like all of these things you can imagine, just how that might impact that client relationship.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if that's consistent with maybe what you know, when you talk about showing up different, if that's consistent like with what you've seen.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's just been my my observation.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I don't have empirical data research to say or support that.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that we do know empirically is that the biggest thing that drives people away from the doorstep of a financial professional is the, you know, the the two J's, jargon and judgment.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're fearful that they're going to be spoken down to and that and that their decisions will be judged.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I have observed the same thing that you have that that people who have vetted their own beliefs and their own life story around money are more accepting, more flexible, and and and more empathetic of the different people who come through their door.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's material.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's how you connect with clients in a way where you get the follow-through that we need.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's good.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad that I'm not glad that I'm not the only one that's you know into all the woo-woo stuff and sees it the way that I do.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: No way.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate the validation.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate the validation.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Always.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's always nice.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Always nice.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Daniel.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we've talked high level, even in kind of some detail depth here around you know, meaning, purpose, sadness, right?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Why is everyone so sad?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: How to live kind of a fulfilling life, how advisors can support clients through this, and also for themselves too?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: What are some ways that they can, you know, make sure they're connecting to just their own sense of purpose and the impact of that there?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything that from your perspective that at least for today's conversation has maybe not been mentioned that you feel like is important or relevant for advisors listening to know?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: So just an added point of emphasis.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: When we think about all the things that we've talked about today, the things I write about in the soul of wealth, when you talk about, you know, what whatever we call the human first advice movement, the thing that is so cool about it to me is that I think it is it is a win-win-win.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the first win is it's gonna make the advisor's life better.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Learning about human behavior, learning about all this stuff that we talk about on your podcast and the other folks in this little movement that we've got going, it's gonna make you a better wife, a better husband, a better parent, a better person, a better neighbor in a way that learning about bond yields is not, right?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think it can qualitatively better your life.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of the first win.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: The second win is it's better for your clients, right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna bring about better outcomes in their lives, it's gonna make them happier, it's gonna help them hold on to more of their money and make better decisions.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third win is I think it is the only remaining point of differentiation.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it is the only enduring point of practical differentiation in our space.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think the world of the advisor is going anywhere.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm, you know, we a couple 10, 15 years ago, we were all worried about robo advisors.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, the degree to which the advice profession has survived is is a testament to the good that they do.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not predicting the downfall of advisors by any stretch of quite the opposite.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think the most successful advisors of the future are going to be the ones that are going to embrace tech.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to embrace AI and use it for all the wonderful things that it does and allow it to free themselves up to be more human and to connect and to be more of that life quarterback where you can attend to stuff like, hey, let's get you across the financial finish line to retirement, but let's also spend a moment and talk about what you're gonna do for personal growth and friendship and connection and community involvement.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can be that person for you.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's this virtuous circle.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna make the advisor's life better, it's gonna make them more competitive, and it's gonna bless the lives of their clients.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's not many things you can say that of where, you know, putting a little bit of effort or a little bit of focus on one thing is gonna lift boats in so many parts of your life and business.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I just think that, you know, conversations like this, podcasts like yours are very worth advisors' time and attention.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate you saying that.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I agree.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: I love the win-win-win and also love just the work that you do and feel a great sense of gratitude for that.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to share maybe a vulnerable, funny story that I don't think I've ever shared with you.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you and I met a few years ago and um was really interested in just the work that you do.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: I did not think at that time that there were a lot of other mental health, say mental health, but psychologists in the world of finance was naive and you were one of the few.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, we connected right on Twitter and I came on your podcast.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Shamefully, I had no idea who you really like were.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, I kind of did, but like kind of also didn't.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember coming on your podcast and I told Clayton afterwards, like, yeah, I just recorded with Dr.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: Daniel Crosby.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's like with Orion.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And Clayton was like, babe, do you really know who that is?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and I was like, no, like he's super cool though.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, psychologist who's interested in like a lot of the things that I am in.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: And like it's just nice to connect with somebody that has like maybe a shared interest, like in this.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he then went and on proceeded to tell me more about who you were.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so glad that I didn't know because I probably would have thrown up like right before going on your podcast, being so nervous and anxious.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: You were you were awesome.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: You were awesome on my podcast.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever it took for you to be awesome, I'm grateful for.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I I appreciate just being in the circle, you know, with you uh there and the work that you do and the work that you put out.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, certainly your most recent book, The Soul of Wealth, I'm a fan of probably the most beautiful cover I've ever seen.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, certainly your podcast is one that I regularly listen to.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that you have a host of other things as we're sadly just kind of wrapping up the conversation here today.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: What other works are you doing, putting out there into the world?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Where can people find you, connect with you?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want them to know about the working world, I'll say, of Dr.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Daniel Crosby?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the kindness and for having me on.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: The book is the soul of wealth.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'll love it.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Go check it out.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Podcast is standard deviations.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then a last thing, OrionAdvisorAcademy.com.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: We have some great free CE around behavioral finance.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: So go get some free credits from Orion.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: We'll make sure that we put all of those links in the show notes for you.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Daniel, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your thoughts and all of your wisdom here today with us.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you found value in today's episode, then I encourage you to go on wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow the show so that you never miss an episode like this one.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: You can also follow me on LinkedIn, which is where I hang out.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: And more recently now on YouTube, Planning and Beyond has launched a YouTube channel.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can go and check it out there.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: You can also find Dr.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Daniel Crosby, all of his work.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think his podcast is also on YouTube.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's got his own channel.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: We'll make sure that we include some of that there.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as you go out into the world to help your clients find, create meaning, or even for yourself, I encourage you to take some of the tips today that were shared.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: And if nothing else, I hope that you continue to grow, continue to plan, and continue to go beyond.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Cheers, my friends.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth.
• 37:44
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• 37:49
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• 37:55
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• 38:03
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• 38:10
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• 38:13
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• 38:16
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• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond.