Standard Deviations with Dr. Daniel Crosby

Tune in to hear - Why did Emily feel the need to include elements of humor in her new book ‘Stacked: Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management?’ - What is “the one magical idea to rule them all” that Emily and Joe lay out in their book? - Do we ever need to do more digging to ensure that our financial goals are personal and authentic enough that they give us the fuel to take on the tough...

Tune in to hear: - Of all times to start a boutique fund, why would James start one in the current climate where the 3 largest asset managers control  more of the market share than ever before? - What edge does a small, boutique asset manager have in a world where there are such well-resourced competitors? - How are ESG like suggestions typically met by the companies that James invests in? - What’...

Tune in to hear: - Behavioral Coaching is one of the most important things a financial professional can do for their client, yet surveys show that clients don’t put a lot of value on it. How can we bridge this gap and help our clients see how much value we can deliver here? - Brendan claims that many advisors are creating “reverse rapport” in their first client meetings. What does he mean by this...

Tune in to hear: - What are some potential arguments against a traditional 60/40 portfolio and how do they hold up? - How would Phil define alternative investments? Also, is their bad reputation deserved for any reason and where did this reputation originate from? - What are 2-3 potential criteria to help discern the which alts can act as legitimate diversifiers in your portfolio vs. those that mi...

Tune in to hear: - What exactly is Neuromarketing and what makes it so powerful? - There are more brands and advertisements vying for our attention every year. How does Nueromarketing fit into this picture and help brands really stand out? - What are the six pillars of Neuromarketing that Kristin eventually settled on and where did she source these ideas from? - Why is making marketing highly pers...

Tune in to hear: - What are some unique financial considerations for those with high-level government security clearances? - What role does financial instability often play in cases of corporate and governmental espionage? - Financial instability is often at the root of why people participate in espionage. What implications does this tendency have for the broader population? - We often have very d...

Tune in to hear: - Robert says in marketing “you must get past the mental filter.” If we are going to get past the mental filter, how can we do it in a way that doesn’t land flat on its face or go too far? - How can one evoke an emotional response in a nuanced way without seeming corny or disingenuous? Are there certain business for whom this approach may not be effective? - How can a marketing ap...

Tune in to hear: - How did Brad originally get into the finance industry and how did he get into trading cards? - What are some of the draws, or compulsions, that get people into card collecting? - What time period was referred to as “the junk wax era” in Baseball Cards and why was this such a poor time to collect? - Are there any big takeaways that we can learn about broader capital markets from...

Tune in to hear: - Is the market always crazy or does it go through long periods of predictability in many peoples’ lifetimes? Is uncertainty implicit in capital markets? - There’s always going to be a reason to fear, there’s always going to be a reason not to invest. What pragmatic steps can we take to invest thoughtfully in the face of this? - Why might concentrated, active portfolios make more...

Tune in to hear: - What might the lay person, who is enthusiastic about behavioral economics, not know about its historical origins? - What was the larger zeitgeist that gave rise to an envy of physics, and hard science, within economics? - Are there commonly used methods in the world of financial planning that may be rooted in some unexamined assumptions? - When consulting clients, how do we stri...

Tune in to hear: - The old American adage of “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” seems to be an enduring sentiment across many other cultures. Why is it such a tricky thing to sustain wealth across multiple generations and what can be done to remedy this? - Why is pointing the finger at the third generation an overly reductive approach? What could the first generation do differentl...

- As someone who works in practice management and as a trainer, how does Penny get advisors to embrace the power of practice management when there are plenty of advisors who are financially successful who are violating all the best practices? - If Penny created her own top 25 advisor list, what criteria would she choose to decide who belongs on that list? - What are some practical means of gaining...

Tune in to hear: - Morningstar recently conducted an in-depth study on the financial biases that people bring to the table. What are the real world, fiscal impacts of these biases? - In the study, were they able to quantify a percentage or a dollar amount difference between biased and unbiased folks? - 2% of people in their study showed no evidence of bias - are their really people out there that...

Tune in to hear: - Ric Edelman started off as a reporter - does Ric think that an advisor could start “Edelman 2.0", so to speak, using the same formula with education at the forefront? - Why might it be wise to “narrowcast” rather than broadcast? - What are two or three actionable steps that American investors can take now? - Why does Ric think that Blockchain technology is one of the top four in...

Tune in to hear: - Many are very focused on the behavioral coaching elements of behavioral finance, but overlook the upside of integrating the findings of behavioral finance into actual asset management. How can we be better about balancing the two? - Toews’ portfolios attempt to anticipate declines. How specifically does he go about that and what specific signals is he looking for? - How can we t...

Tune in to hear: - What event prompted Dr. Howard to move from using a  market efficiency / rational markets framework to a framework of behavioral finance? - How can we discover market inefficiencies that are exploitable if the price is almost always wrong and not reflecting true value? - If the behavioral dislocations of market prices are so vast, and the price is always wrong, why is the indust...

Tune in to hear: - What was the process of launching Dr. Biyani’s business Udemy like? - As an entrepreneur, how do you know when you’re a visionary that may be early to an idea vs. when the market is simply telling you your idea isn’t worthwhile? - What advantages does virtual learning have over traditional learning and where might it fall short? - Does Dr. Biyani think that a lot of the all-star...

Tune in to hear: - What gap did Dr. Chase see in the market? How has investment talent been traditionally vetted and how does this compare to how it optimally should be? - What specific personality assessments do they use and how do they settle on these? - How do Drs. Chase and Pogge utilize Rorschachs to vet different personality styles? - Taking results from a test like The Big 5 at face value m...

Tune in to hear: - Why do conversations about finances often take on such a moralistic tenor? - Is the moralizing of money a uniquely American problem or does this happen all over the world? - How can we accrue the benefits of being well off without falling prey to the lack of passion that can accompany this at times? - The possession-self link states that we don’t necessarily differentiate betwee...

Tune in to hear: - In a study that Eben helped conduct, clients were three times as likely to say they are very knowledgable about markets than their advisors were likely to say about them. Men had a similarly outsized response and were three times more likely than women to say they were knowledgable. Are clients overestimating their ability to understand markets or are their advisors not giving t...

Tune in to hear: - What is “flow” in a behavioral science context? - How do you begin to measure and study something like flow, which seems very ephemeral and hard to pin down? - Is it possible to reach a flow state performing a task/job you dislike? - How to we push past the stumbling block phase, with a challenging skill like drawing or skateboarding, and eventually work to a level of expertise...

Tune in to hear: - What does Charlotte’s day to day role as a Chief Behavioral Officer look like? - Has the science of motivating employees shifted a great deal since The Great Depression or do other cultural or economic factors play into people’s loyalty to a particular company? - How accurately can people assess what motivates them to work? - What wrong assumptions do people routinely make about...

Tune in to hear: - Reese Harper has an advisory business, Dentist Advisors, that is exclusively for dentists. How did he take the first step to say no to everything else and how did choosing such a specific niche serve him well? - How did he land on dentists, in particular, as his niche? - Why do dentists, on average, retire 6 years later than their fellow Americans when they make 4x as much as th...

Tune in to hear: - How does Dr. Cherry implement “The Big 5” personality test in his practice? Does he approach clients with different personality traits in novel ways to better help them problem solve? - How were The Big 5 traits ultimately arrived upon? - How might one shift communication with their client if the client displays high levels of anxiety? Should the actual asset allocation look dif...

Tune in to hear: - How did Jeff’s professional path evolve from lawyer, to standup comedian and finally to behavioral science / economics? - What lessons could behavioral science stand to learn from the art of standup comedy? - If two different comedies tell a joke with similar content, the joke might land for one of them while feeling really caustic and tone deaf for the other. What might account...