Standard Deviations with Dr. Daniel Crosby

Tune in to hear: Why did Derick Kinney leave behind his career as a financial advisor to become an author and public speaker? What does Derick think money reveals about people that we may be slow to admit? How does Derick suggest people get started with philanthropy if they’ve been hesitant for whatever reason? As people try to reorient their relationship with money, what are some rain clouds or o...

Tune in to hear: What gives money such immense emotional power over us? Does Neil think that some of the problems people have with money come from them trying to treat it as this utilitarian thing rather than tapping into the deeper subtext of it? What does Neil think is the biggest mismatch between the brain we’ve inherited from our ancestral predecessors and the world we find ourselves navigatin...

Tune in to hear: How can we make the lessons of market history feel salient to present day investors? Is the South Sea Bubble Ben’s favorite historical anecdote around investing and money? What is the “now show Japan” mindset and how does it steer people awry? Both from the advisor perspective, and also the end-investor perspective, how do we get people to realize the value of doing nothing and pa...

This week on Standard Deviations with Dr. Daniel Crosby, Dr. Crosby is joined by Clare Flynn Levy, CEO and Founder of Essentia Analytics. Prior to founding Essentia, Clare spent 10 years as a fund manager, both active equity (running over $1B of pension funds for Deutsche Asset Management) and hedge (as founder and CIO of Avocet Capital Management, a specialist tech fund manager). She ultimately “...

Tune in to hear: Was there anything that Doug and Heather learned about each other, in the process of writing their book, that surprised them? What are some common disagreements among couples that are ostensibly about money, but in actuality are about something much deeper? How do Heather and Doug suggest that people begin to examine their money stories to begin to understand their beliefs about m...

Tune in to hear: Why is spending our own money so psychologically difficult and have we as an industry scared people into thinking that they can’t spend their money and enjoy their lives? How can we, as advisors, help spending stop feeling like a loss for people in retirement? What are some practical tips for advisors and individuals to help them make the switch to spending thoughtfully in retirem...

Tune in to hear: After studying 300 years of history, what is Dr. Moore’s current view with respect to the American Dream? Is it maybe simultaneously true that it’s easier to get ahead than ever for the average American, but that there is also rampant corruption and nepotism at a high level? How does the current U.S. housing crisis compare in severity to those in our past? What are some common mis...

Tune in to hear: Where do people consistently misperceive their own behaviors and their own financial tendencies? Also, what are the forces that drive those blindspots? Why do so many financial planning tools optimize for all the wrong things and how can we make client services better center the client and their goals? What are Marla’s hopes for the world of tech when it comes to minimizing the “k...

Tune in to hear: What does Swiss-born British author Alain de Botton have to say about Macbeth’s cynical soliloquy on the brevity and meaningless of life? Why does he state that despair and hope are two sides of the same coin? How does storytelling make a truth durable in our minds by linking an idea to an ego? Why is our internal dialogue one of the most important stories that we tell? How can we...

Tune in to hear: What mindset differences does Brad notice between advisors who are barely getting by and the ones who are 2-4xing their business? Why is focusing on talent acquisition and having a convincing growth story such an important part of growing your business? What is the baseline mindset that Brad often has to move advisors away from to encourage their growth? What distinguishes high-gr...

Tune in to hear: What is Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If –” about and what can it teach us about remaining poised in the face of chaos? What are some qualities of the investors who fare best in turbulent markets? What roles does EQ (Emotional Intelligence) play in investment decision making? What are some practical steps for remaining calm in a churning world? Why is “sleeping on it” such powerful advi...

Tune in to hear: What insight did Joe have that prompted him to start applying Behavioral Finance in practical ways while much of the industry was focused elsewhere? Why are so many firms relying on the old-fashioned educational approach when building client-centric tools and technology seems to be the way forward? What is an example of a compelling promise a wealth management firm could make to t...

Tune in to hear: What does Dimensional see about the future of the industry that encouraged them to launch something like ‘Life Invested.’ Why does a “human first” investment model have the power to endure in a way that other investment models, such as those centered around sales, have not? How can we give the “human first” approach more definitional clarity for those who are new to the concept? W...

Tune in to hear: Examples of when emotional connection can play a decisive role in sales. How, practically, can advisors shift their focus a bit from the technical to fostering deep, emotional connections with their clients? What is motivational interviewing, what is based on and what does it look like in practice? Where does the discovery process often go wrong and what can we do to make it go ri...

Tune in to hear: Get a better sense of the size and scope of the racial wealth gap problem in the US. Should financial advisors play a role in addressing these inequalities? Also, do historical factors, such as systemic discrimination and redlining, largely to blame for the genesis of this disparity? What sort of systemic inequities and injustices are we up against today and what can we do to comb...

Tune in to hear: What elements do “tulip mania,” the roaring twenties and the .com bubble share and what should be our biggest takeaway from these historic market events? What is the "affect heuristic" and how should we be thinking about it in relation to our investment decision making? How do the emotional states of euphoria and despair effect our risk tolerance? Do these emotions also effect how...

Tune in to hear: From Michael’s vantage point, what did he observe during this recent market downturn? How can those nearing retirement overcome the tendency to have knee jerk responses to major negative market events? How can we better inoculate people against volatility before it happens? During a significant financial downturn is it more effective for advisors to be proactively counseling their...

Tune in to hear: Relative to all the other behavioral experts out there, what stands out about Greg and his work? How did he arrive at this unique point of emphasis? How has Behavioral Finance come full circle in recent years? What have been the biggest shifts in Behavioral Finance in the past decade? Also, how does he anticipate it might change in the decade to come? What can Behavioral Finance t...

Tune in to hear: What was Megan’s favorite finding in the deep research she did for this book? Learn about Truman’s financial anxiety and how this impacted him. Why is it harder to pivot and recover from financial pitfalls than it used to be? What advice did Calvin Coolidge get from his stock broker? How did George Washington make his money and what differentiated him from his peers? Why does Mega...

Tune in to hear: Did Cady’s recent book, The Art of the Sabbatical , come from a place that was very personal and meaningful to Cady? If so, what was it that made this project so personal for her? In Cady’s experience, are many of those hoping to take a sabbatical doing so to just take a break from work or are they in search of a deeper, transformative end goal? How should one start to think about...

Tune in to hear: What is the disconnect between selling an advisory business, as it is popularly conceived, and as it usually goes down in the real world? What should people know about the process that they may not currently understand? What are the big things that are missing from the “highlight reel” version of selling a business and how can people become more aware of this? If Emily could give...

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 might future generations struggle to perpetuate these...

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 good result for a bad reason and vice versa. How doe...

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 clients who want to invest based on their politica...

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 advisors approach due diligence when selecting a partne...