Speaking Engagements

Retirement, reduced to its economic essence, really only has two possible financial outcomes: either the money outlives the people, or the people outlive the money. The former can make possible a retired life of dignity and independence, and legacies to those we love and must leave behind in the world. The latter describes a retired life of scarcity, worry and even ultimate penury. A key to which outcome a client couple gets is a formal, written, date-specific, dollar-specific retirement accumulation plan. This talk empowers the advisor to see himself/herself as the creator of that simple but invaluable plan, and suggests a very specific script for starting the conversation.

From long experience, advisors know that all lastingly successful investing is goal-focused and planning driven; all failed investing is market-focused and performance-driven. Similarly, successful investors are those who act continuously on a plan; failed investors continually react to market shocks. The question for the advisor becomes: are you running your practice, or might it be running you? This talk focuses on moving your practice away from selection and timing – in essence, a market focus – and toward high-value planning, and the management of client emotions as a value proposition in and of itself.

Advisors are constantly besieged by their clients’ worries about government deficits and debt, central bank policies, terrorism, sectarian violence – in short, the irrational world we live in. Yet all around them, the publicly owned companies which they themselves patronize – sometimes daily – continue to prosper, growing their earnings and increasing their dividends. This talk develops the theme of rational, profit-seeking businesses in a globalizing middle-class world as a haven for the long-term investor’s serious capital.

The whole panoply of mainstream media – and financial journalism most pointedly – actively foster a culture of clickbait catastrophism: the illusion that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, that the U.S. economy is inherently fragile and unstable, and that the equity market may at any moment be subject to savage, long-lasting decline. Yet we know that it is impossible for our clients to succeed as long-term equity investors without some fundamental level of faith in the future. Thus we advisors become essentially the only voice of rational long-term optimism our clients may hear all day – particularly during market declines. This keynote focuses on the great value we can bring to our clients’ investing careers (and lives) in this regard, and offers a number of specific scripts and responses to clients’ fears.