The Influential Advisor

072: Thriving as an Advisor in the Age of AI with Sam Sivarajan

• Paul G. McManus

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In this podcast episode, I welcome Sam Sivarajan,  an expert in behavioral finance and a leader in coaching financial advisors, to explore the transformative intersection of artificial intelligence, behavioral finance, and human connection in financial advising.

This episode provides insights into how advisors can embrace technology while deepening their human connection with clients. It also highlights Sam's practical frameworks for thriving in an AI-driven world, along with lessons from his impressive career journey.

Sam's Journey: From Corporate Lawyer to Behavioral Finance Expert

  • Career Transitions: Sam's career began as a corporate lawyer in Canada before transitioning to investment banking in London, England.
  • Wealth Management Leadership: Returning to Canada, he led three major wealth management firms, serving some of Canada’s wealthiest families.
  • Behavioral Finance Doctorate: His fascination with human behavior in financial decisions led him to earn a doctorate in behavioral finance and develop actionable frameworks for advisors.

Behavioral Finance: The Human Algorithm in Financial Advice

  • Understanding Human Behavior: Sam emphasizes that the most critical financial decisions are driven by human emotions, motivations, and behavior rather than just technical analysis.
  • The 3D Framework:
    • Discovery: Digging deeper into clients’ goals, fears, and motivations using open-ended questions and active listening.
    • Design: Collaborating with clients to create plans they feel ownership over, leveraging behavioral insights like the IKEA effect.
    • Discipline: Preparing clients to stay calm and focused during market shocks by building adaptability and resilience.

Leveraging AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement

  • Complementing Human Judgment: Sam underscores that while AI is a powerful tool for efficiency, it cannot replace the nuanced understanding and empathy of human advisors.
  • Widening Perspectives: Using AI to analyze data and provide alternative viewpoints can enhance decision-making but requires human oversight to avoid blind spots.

Key Takeaways for Advisors

  1. Human Connection is Key: Advisors who prioritize emotional intelligence, adaptability, and simplification of complex ideas will stand out in the next decade.
  2. Behavioral Coaching as a Differentiator: Helping clients overcome emotional barriers and align their actions with their goals is crucial.
  3. Embrace Technology Thoughtfully: Use AI to enhance efficiency and broaden perspectives, but rely on human judgment for nuanced decision-making.

About our guest: Sam Sivarajan, an expert in behavioral finance and a leader in coaching financial advisors

You can learn more about his work:

https://www.samsivarajan.com/

About Your Host:  Paul G. McManus is an accomplished author and expert in helping financial professionals grow their businesses. With over eight years of experience working exclusively with financial professionals, Paul has helped his clients generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions.

Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com

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Speaker 1:

As financial advisors, we're caught at a fascinating crossroads. While artificial intelligence and technology reshape our industry, the most valuable thing we offer may be more human than ever before. How do we balance the promise of AI with the irreplaceable power of human connection? Our guest today brings a uniquely qualified perspective to this question. Sam Sivarajan's journey from corporate lawyer to investment banker, to leader of three major wealth management firms, led him to a profound realization that the most important decisions in finance always come down to human behavior. With a doctorate in behavioral finance and years of experience serving some of Canada's wealthiest families, sam has not only studied how investors and advisors make decisions. He's developed practical frameworks to help advisors thrive in an AI-enabled world. He's the author of three books, including Making your Money Work and Uphill, and today he'll show us why mastering the human side of advice isn't just nice to have. It's the key to standing out in the next decade. Welcome, sam. Great to have you on the podcast today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me. Paul, Delighted to be here.

Speaker 1:

I'm excited for today's conversation. The topics that you're passionate about I'm also passionate about. You described the human algorithm and its mastering behavior technology and trust in modern financial advice and in this era, algorithm and its mastering behavior technology and trust in modern financial advice and in this era that we're in today, with AI becoming more and more prevalent, it's really fascinating to see where the advisor stands in this relation to everything. Tell us a little bit about your background. So who are you and how did you get to where you are today?

Speaker 2:

I started as a corporate lawyer of of all things in Canada and then I spent years as an investment banker in London, england, advising on telecoms and technology M&A deals. Then, when my daughter was born, we moved back to Canada and I built and led three large wealth management businesses for three big global firms. In the process, I got fascinated about the whole human behavior side that you talked about and through that journey I also did a doctorate in behavioral finance, focusing on how investors and advisors make decisions.

Speaker 1:

I'm very impressed. I'm curious just to know a little bit more which of those careers or time periods were the most interesting for you or most challenging.

Speaker 2:

I think, look, they were all interesting and challenging in different ways. Investment banking the hours were crazy. I was younger so I could handle it, and London is a phenomenal town and Europe is a lot of fun but the hours were tough and it was a great learning experience and it was financially rewarding. Coming back to Canada to wealth management, being a father of a young child was good and I think what I really enjoyed about wealth management is that dealing with the clients you were dealing with personal issues as opposed to professional issues and building and managing teams and relationships. To me that was a new facet of my career. I really enjoyed that part and again, maybe that was part of what precipitated that studies in behavioral finance, because I saw human behavior firsthand.

Speaker 1:

Definitely. It's interesting as we dive into today's podcast. The next question I have for you is, with that background, what made you focus on the intersection of human behavior and financial advice?

Speaker 2:

I think throughout my career I'd seen that the most important decisions come down to human behavior. For example, my investment banking career taught me that the value of preparation and building trust in high stakes environments it's very human. The reality is that no one wants to meet you for just a cup of coffee. So I learned from that to come prepared and be ready to offer solutions to their specific pain points, instead of just pitching my products or my wares. I think those lessons carried over to wealth management, where understanding human emotions and motivations was even more critical to building relationships that lasted. At UBS, which was my first wealth management firm, we grew to serve one in four of the hundred wealthiest Canadians, john Hancock. We launched Canada's first goals-based high net worth wealth platform and in both those cases success stemmed from understanding what truly mattered to the clients. So to me, it became very clear through this evolution and journey that technology and products can only go so far. What really differentiates advisors is their ability to connect on a deeply human level.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. And how would you assess the current ability of the typical or the average advisor, whatever that may be their current ability to do that? And, if anything, what are their blind spots? And with the advent of technological change and all those great things, where do they need to go to to be able to service their clients better?

Speaker 2:

Look, it's hard to generalize to an average advisor. I would say there is a group in my experience of advisors that are phenomenal at building these deep relationships, asking good questions etc. And I think typically those advisors have learned this over time through experience, through the School of Hard Knocks. I don't know that it is as well taught or trained and I think newer advisors in many cases will get there, but it will take them time as experience, because it's not something that, at least in my view, has been emphasized. We've been taught that the technical skills are important, whether it's the investment side or the insurance side of things, but less on the importance and the skills involved in building relationships, asking good questions and deeper questions and following up I think it's less of that has a bit of focus.

Speaker 2:

Now. I think things are changing. I think people are starting to think, especially with the advent of technology, that this is a core skill set and a core differentiator and how do we develop it? I think there are people starting to focus on it as advisors. I think there are training and other things that are provided. So a lot of what I write and a lot of what I do on my podcast and I've created a course on behavioral coaching for advisors. It's an online course.

Speaker 2:

The idea is that these are skills that you can develop and that you watch any television you know. You see the interrogators or the police, detectives or psychologists, etc. Now they are trained on how to ask better questions. They're trained to give the question, make the subject uncomfortable and sit there in that discomfort. I don't think advisors typically are, and I think part of it is. It's asking these open ended questions and having the patience to let the client be quiet and think about it, because in many cases those clients may not have thought of these questions before, so it's going to take them some time to articulate what is there. And then I think the key thing for the advisors again, remember that this might be their initial reaction. So the follow up question digging deeper and really trying to surface what the deeper motivations I think is critical, not only to get a better understanding of the client, but I think it's going to build a better, deeper, more trusted relationship between advisor and client.

Speaker 1:

So, as our audience know, my company helps advisors write and publish books, and I'm seeing a growing trend, at least in one segment of the clients that we're working with, who are much more focused on behavior finance, and I don't know if these advisors come from specific companies, I don't know if there's an influence there, but just for my own limited perch here, I see that becoming more and more important versus just the technical aspects of investment. One of the things that I heard you say earlier was that I'll take a specific example of risk tolerance and how an advisor asks questions and interprets that information. Share with our audience a little bit about your experience and research when it comes to helping advisors and assess risk tolerance and ultimately what the behavior is behind that that you find.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's a great question. So, just as background, I was working with billionaires in 2006, 2007, 2008. So very sophisticated individuals with lots of money, access to exotic products. I remember 2006, 2007, the risk tolerance questionnaires and the risk attitudes that these billionaire clients had, and it all disappeared in 2008 when we had the Great Recession. So everyone that said that I can handle risk and that I can invest for the next 10 years, deal with downturns, et cetera. All of that good intentions vanished when the 2008 recession hit. So that's what sparked my interest in this whole concept of risk tolerance.

Speaker 2:

So that was my doctoral research looking at whether risk tolerance questionnaires actually predict risk taking behavior by investors. And it won't surprise your audience to learn that in fact, it didn't. So the biggest factors were demographics. There's a lot of research been written on that. Gender determines a little bit. Again, no surprise. Men are more risk-taking. They're also more overconfident. Women their investment portfolio.

Speaker 2:

One of the key factors that I found made a difference was that did predict risk taking is return expectations. So if, as an investor or even as an advisor, you believe that next year market returns were going to be higher, then you are more inclined to take risk with your portfolio than if the expectation was that it was going to be lower. And one of the other key interesting factors that I found from an advisor perspective is that often advisors were giving advice or making portfolio recommendations based on their own assessments of the market. So they took into account the client's demographics, the client's risk tolerance, but only a limited amount. What really drove advisor recommendations was their own perception of return expectations and what would be the right portfolio. So it wasn't a conflict of interest. It wasn't anything nefarious like that. It was more the idea that this is how me, as an advisor, this is how I would invest my portfolio and therefore I'm going to make a recommendation to all my clients to invest in the same way, irrespective of what their demographics or their risk tolerance might have indicated.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like it's a much more subjective advice that the advisor is giving, based on what you're saying, versus a truly objective analysis. It's so much driven Again, as you said, it's the advisor wanting to do what they think is in the client's best interest, but a lot of it's still filtered through their own personal experience and expertise, and that amplifies what they recommend to their clientele.

Speaker 2:

A hundred percent and I think you hit a great point there. It's experience. I would say it's advisors' experience, it's investors' experience. It drives a lot of our behaviors, what we've experienced in the past. So investors that have lived through an economic shock or a market downturn, it influences their future behavior. Advisors who would have invested or advised clients through this period and then had clients leave, etc. It would influence their behavior. It would influence their behavior.

Speaker 2:

But I think, to your point, trying to get to an objective answer that is static in what is really a dynamic world, because people's preferences, their interests, their observations, their views of the world are changing, and that comes from both advisor and client.

Speaker 2:

I think that becomes dangerous because it becomes a one-dimensional approach to the world, and I think part of what I always talk about is that we need to becomes a one-dimensional approach to the world and I think part of what I always talk about is that we need to have a multi-dimensional view of risk, the way that we're encouraged in the industry and by regulators, et cetera.

Speaker 2:

Risk is viewed as volatility, prices moving up and down, and of course, nobody objects to the upside volatility, where your stock goes up or your portfolio goes up. We only care about downside volatility, what is starting to get into people's thinking. What is missing in the conversation is that there is a different risk that a lot of clients are mostly worried about, which is shortfall the idea of running out of money, you know, in a long retirement and the reality is those two risks need to be balanced, because the way that you're going to reduce volatility risk is you're going to put it into a bank account that you have no volatility risk If it's in a safe bank. You need to balance the two. I found what I'm passionate about clients or investors and advisors taking is this multidimensional approach to risk in their conversations. It's different concepts of risk, but also the idea that there is an emotional and a behavioral component involved as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I want to segue a little bit to AI. I think we'll both agree it's prevalent. I think ChatsPT took the world by storm, I want to say almost two years ago. I use it a lot in my business and there's different tools out there. So ChatsPT is probably just the one that the name that most people recognize.

Speaker 1:

But there's a variety of tools out there and it's getting smarter and they have different metrics and that they put out. But because I use it in my work, I can see the development of it over time and it's gone from, I want to say, a grade schooler a couple of years ago to now it's getting into that more graduate level reasoning. And just in my own business, an innovative way that I've started using it and it gets back to that internal bias is that in the books that we help advisors then publish, one of the things that we've developed to assess the quality of the product is that we'll take the draft at the time that it's getting to say a second draft and we'll put it into an AI tool and we'll say, okay, analyze this on a scale of one through 50 and tell us what works, why it works and what needs improvement.

Speaker 1:

And it does a fantastic job of giving an objective analysis of the quality, the strains and the shortcomings, and I share that, just to give as an example. I'm just curious to know, from your perspective, when it comes to AI, just the ways that can be used, including providing possibly more objectivity or a wider view of the world and not just the singular person's background. How do you see AI playing out when it comes to the topics that we're talking about?

Speaker 2:

Maybe I can start with a quote. Recently is a former chairman of GE said that no amount of sophistication is going to change the fact that all our knowledge is about the past and all our decisions are about the future. Okay, so I think, look, I'm a fan of AI, I use it, I'm not dismissing it, but AI is based on past data. Okay, and even in your example that you give that the recommendations, the objective analysis, it is basing it on what's worked in the past. It can't really opine in a changing world whether that will continue to work in the future. So I think, to me, I will share an analogy that I use with a lot of people.

Speaker 2:

I'm a big believer in GPS as a tool. Okay, I think it's very valuable, and I think today there's most people that can't drive without one. But the problem, yes, is that every year you still hear about stories that people blindly follow GPS into a dry river, etc. And so to me, ai is the same. It's not the tool. There's nothing wrong with tools. Does it substitute for human judgment? I think human judgment is always required to say does this make sense or does it not make sense when a GPS gives you a route you know the driver needs to sit there and say does this actually make sense or am I going to be going into? I'm sure you have it where you live. Where I live, the traffic is horrendous and you know my GPS always tells me to go and I correct and I ignore the GPS because I know that road is going to be disastrous. That's human judgment and I think it's the same with AI. I think is a great tool. What I worry about is that too many people are going to use it and shut their brain off and it's going to create answers or items that don't make sense. So I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2:

This was in the press a little while ago. One of the big banks was testing credit scoring algorithms for credit cards, et cetera. Again, ai, and you say it's objective. And look, in theory it's objective, but don't forget that the algorithms that are entered are programmed by a human being, with whatever biases and views that they have. So the story on this one is that Steve Wozniak's wife and Steve Wozniak, for those of your listeners who don't know was the co-founder of Apple along with Steve Jobs, so Wozniak is. I don't know how much he's worth, but I assume it's quite a lot, but apparently his wife was turned down by the credit scoring algorithm for a credit card. I'm sure that the financial institution like if there's a human that looks at that score and then says that doesn't make sense they would have reacted the way that you or I do.

Speaker 2:

So it's not that the tool itself was wrong. I think it can get you the wrong result if you blindly follow it without putting a sense of human common sense, if you will, into it.

Speaker 1:

I'll jump in there because, going back to the example that I shared, I would agree we don't just blindly take the recommendations, because it'll make some recommendations that are not always great, and that's a given. So it really does take the human to then judge the results. But what I do find it does is that it widens my perspective and so things that, again, just using my own example, I might read a draft and say, wow, this is great, I would score this. I'm just making this up, but I'll give this a 48 out of 50. And then I put it through the AI and it says it's a 40 out of 50. So it's eight points less and it'll give me the reasons why. And because of that quote unquote, more objective analysis, I'll say, okay, you know what I agree with this and that don't necessarily agree with that, but it helps to balance my limited personal experience, I think, with a wider perspective and personally finding that helpful.

Speaker 2:

And I agree with that. I think that's a great way of putting it. In any decision making that we're making, I think if we can widen our perspective, both in terms of the stakeholders that are involved, but also from a time perspective short term versus long term I think you get the better decisions. So using AI for that purpose, I think, is a brilliant use.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about the quote unquote. Advisor of the future. Change is always happening. I was just saying the other day that people say that we live in interesting times, but I probably said that at each stage of my life, and so I think all times are interesting for their own separate reasons. Based on your amazing background in these different areas and what you're doing today, based on your amazing background in these different areas and what you're doing today, what core skills do you help teach advisors, train them, coach them, consult with companies on? I heard you say before you have a behavioral coaching course what?

Speaker 2:

are the core skills that you're putting a focus on and helping advisors get better at doing so. Again, agreeing with you that AI's capabilities is only going to grow and that there is a role for it in every advisor's toolbox, I think the advisor's role will shift even further towards the human side of things, towards being a behavioral coach and strategic partner. I think that advisors need to focus not just on the what of financial goals, because in my view, an AI can help you get the right portfolio, because it looks at the historical risk, return parameters and asset class correlations and says this is the right one. So that's the what. But I think what is important, or perhaps even more important than the what, is the why and the how, because the why and the how determine from the client's perspective. It determines what trade-offs that they're willing to make, and I think that's the critical thing.

Speaker 2:

I've always believed that every decision and choice that we make in all walks of life involves trade-offs, and I've always used to say to clients my job is to flesh out the trade-offs for you, okay, for instance, whether you want to buy a second home in Florida, for example, or send your kids off to college. I always used to joke. My job I'm not making a value judgment. My job is not to tell you send your kids off to college rather than buy that home, et cetera. My job is simply to make it clear that these are the trade-offs that you have to think about and decide on. I'll give you the tools and the information to make those trade-offs, but you need to make them, and I think that's what the advisor needs to focus on is those trade-offs articulate them, positioning it to them and then understanding the client's why and the how, so that they can tailor the what.

Speaker 2:

Part of what I focus on this behavioral coaching is the framework that I developed over through my doctoral research, but also building goals based wealth management businesses. I call it a three-step framework, a 3D framework, a discovery, design and discipline, and so, for me, discovery is about digging deeper to uncover a client's goals, fears and motivations. We talked about a little bit about this at the beginning, but it's about using open-ended questions, actively listening, being comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses, following up with follow-up questions. I think it can reveal insights that standard fact-finding doesn't. The second step, design, involves creating a collaborative plan aligned with those deeper insights. It ensures that clients feel that they're active participants in their financial journey, that they own the solution. I think many of your listeners will be familiar with the IKEA effect from behavioral science, and what that is is that when people put together IKEA piece of furniture, believe it or not, they value it more than what they paid for it, simply because of their effort.

Speaker 1:

Interesting. I haven't heard that analogy before. I can see the logic there.

Speaker 2:

So if you take that insight, the point is that you're still offering the same advice and insights to the clients, but if you make them involved in the process of coming to the conclusion, so maybe you give them two different or three different options, work through the pros and cons and let them pick it. They feel more involved in constructing that solution, so they own it, which means that they're going to stick with it longer through market changes, et cetera.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll just jump in for a second. I can relate to that because I like to, just so I can fully appreciate the points. Just related back to my world and what I found before I used to just simply ghostwrite books for people and simple, efficient and people can afford it Great but what I found is that they didn't own the book and they didn't appreciate the book as much as our current approach, which is to get them more heavily involved in the process and we still do a lot of the heavy lifting for them and all that's good stuff.

Speaker 1:

But now, because they're actively involved in it, they completely own it. It's a completely different outcome.

Speaker 2:

No, that makes total sense and that's a great example. And the third element that I cover in my 3D framework is what I call discipline, and that's about preparation and adaptability, and I often use a sports analogy here. Look, successful teams practice relentlessly, not because they expect their next game to go exactly as how they practiced, but to build muscle memory. This way, they can adapt seamlessly to whatever challenges their opponents throw at them. And I think it's the same with clients, because by teaching them to be prepared and to be disciplined, you help your clients stay calm and focused during the inevitable market shocks, so that they're prepared to adapt rather than reacting emotionally. And I think this kind of approach to me, I think this is where the advisor of the future can leverage the AI tools to make their practice more seamless, to free up time, et cetera, so that time can then be used on the human element, build the trust, design tailored strategies and ensure that their clients are ready to weather any financial storm 100%.

Speaker 1:

I want to shift gears slightly and, as our audience knows, definitely a big believer in advisors writing books and you have written three books which I'm very impressed with. Can you share with our audience what the books are that you wrote and why you wrote them? Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

The first book I wrote. I initially wrote it about 10 years ago and then rewrote it about three, four years ago. It's called Making your Money Work and it's told as a story, but it's a book that I would say I wrote for my daughter and for my parents and for all of those other people that need to make financial decisions but are mystified by the jargon and the seeming complexity of the investment world. The book is really meant to cover the foundations, so things like risk and return, things like compound interest, things like financial planning I try to explain it in everyday language not volatility and standard deviation and everything else.

Speaker 1:

Those are two different languages, right.

Speaker 2:

Two different languages and part of what I say in the book is that investing is simple but it's not easy.

Speaker 2:

The point that I'm trying to make there is that the concepts itself are not hard, they're not rocket science, but they're not easy because it's the behavioral component of it and so where I think the book, what I tried to do with it, and investors use it or clients use it.

Speaker 2:

I know a lot of advisors were giving it to clients to get them to feel independently that they've gotten some call it education or background. That makes the conversations easier for the advisor to provide advice. The idea is the foundational concepts are important and everything that you build around it is secondary. I believe the behavioral coaching is the secret sauce for the future, because I don't think there's an issue that clients don't know, for the most part, what the right things to do from a financial point of view, whether it's saving, whether it's paying off debt, whether it's investing, et cetera. They know it because there's enough out there about it. The problem is doing it, and I think being the behavioral coach is where I think an advisor is going to differentiate themselves is helping the client get over those motivation or those temptations that are going to distract the client away from doing what they know that they should do.

Speaker 1:

I'll add this to the conversation is that I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but at the present level of AI it certainly is agreeable. It will agree with whatever I say. I'll say give me some feedback on this. It'll say that was fantastic, this is great. I'll say oh wow, I feel so good. I think the advisor, just from the perspective of having the tougher conversations and saying was this really in your best interest? Does this align with your goals and values, et cetera, that you articulated, definitely there's still a role for that.

Speaker 2:

Look, I totally agree with that. I would say, some of the best long-lasting, billionaire client relationships I had would be. I would have told the client look, my job is not to be your friend I'd like it that we're friendly and that we can socialize but my job is to be your advisor, and that means I'm going to tell you things that you don't like. I'll say it in a nice way, but I'll tell you things that you don't like because I think that's what you pay me for.

Speaker 1:

Tell me about the other two books.

Speaker 2:

So the second book is called Uphill and I was inspired during the COVID era about it because I think, look, things happen that we're not ready for, whether it's in our personal life or a professional life.

Speaker 2:

You get let go of a job or your business. Your personal life isn't going the way you want to. At that time I was reading a lot of Stoic philosophy Marcus Aurelius, seneca, epictetus, etc. It suddenly struck me that there was an overlap between what the Stoics were talking about and writing about 2,500 years ago and what modern behavioral science that I studied is, you know, finding right now in the research. They're saying like pretty well the same things, and so just with tools and frameworks that are modern and have evidence to back it. So that inspired me to write in a story format, you know, a framework for how people can approach the tough choices in their life and do it in a way that is allows them to do it so that their behavior is in line with what they know and what they want to do and that they're not just acting out of raw emotion. Awesome.

Speaker 1:

And then the third book.

Speaker 2:

The third book is Am I Okay and it's actually an anthology. I also write personal finance articles for the national newspaper in Canada and over the years I've collected a number of those articles, updated it and put it into the third book. It's 22 questions that advisors and investors should ask for their financial health, etc. I do think these are important questions to ask. To me it's also a vehicle for advisors and investors to get to know my writing style and my other books.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. A couple more questions while I have you here. First one is simply is there any question that I haven't asked you that you think would be important for our conversation today?

Speaker 2:

Maybe one thing I will say and I think we touched on, is the skills that I think that are going to be critical for advisors in the next decade.

Speaker 2:

I think we've evolved from over the last 20 years and technical skills are very important, and I would say the majority of advisors excel on their technical skills.

Speaker 2:

The way that I think advisors compete in a world of AI is to lean in and embrace more of the human side and so to deal with the client as the human being across the table and not just a portfolio or as a policy or a planning client. So there, the emotional intelligence, the adaptability, the ability to simplify complex ideas I think these are going to be key to set top advisors apart in the next decade, and I think some of what you're doing, paul, in terms of getting that authority or thought leadership in the books that you're encouraging advisors to write, this is another vehicle to showcase that ability to simplify complex ideas, your emotional intelligence, etc. I think technology will handle many of the technical aspects of advisory and the administrative side of things, but I think it's the advisors who can empathize with their clients, demonstrate that they can empathize, understand their motivations and guide them through their life's uncertainties, they're the ones that are going to thrive and be successful.

Speaker 1:

I would definitely agree. Final question what's the best place for people to reach out, learn more about you and all those good things?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the best place is my website, so it's wwwsamciarajancom, where people can find my books and my podcast, my newsletters and some of my speaking engagements. I'm also very active on LinkedIn and, yeah, love for people to reach out and connect.

Speaker 1:

I've enjoyed today's conversation, so I appreciate your time today.

Speaker 2:

Appreciate talking on something that's near and dear to my heart. Paul, Thank you for having me on the show.