The Behavioral Divide with Hal Hershfield

On the surface, many financial decisions may appear as simple math problems, but the numbers alone don’t always provide the “right” answer for everyone. One domain this applies is an investor’s decumulation phase—the period where our focus is no longer on accumulating savings for the future and becomes about how to draw on the nest egg we’ve built and fund our income in retirement. Social security claiming decisions are a prime example. How much you ultimately receive from social security is not only affected by when you claim but also how long you live. This leads to decisions that can be fraught with psychological factors. On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, presented by Avantis Investors®, Professor Hal Hershfield discusses these psychological considerations that arise with decumulation and social security claiming decisions. To uncover the latest from the academic research and real-world advice, he speaks with an expert in decumulation decisions, Professor Suzanne Shu of Cornell University, and the CEO of financial advisory firm Define Financial, Taylor Schulte, CFP®. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe or let us know by giving our series a five-star rating. We’d also love to hear from you. To join in on the discussion, send us a note at BehavioralDivide@AvantisInvestors.com. Important Disclosures The views expressed in this presentation are the speaker’s own and not necessarily those of American Century Investments. This presentation is for general information only and is not intended to provide investment, tax or legal advice or recommendations for any particular situation or type of retirement plan. Please consult with a financial, tax or legal advisor on your own particular circumstances. Hal Hershfield is not affiliated with American Century Investments. Follow us on social media: LinkedIn: https://a.vant.is/4ppUSVI X: https://a.vant.is/4psIwMw Subscribe to The Behavioral Divide podcast: Spotify: https://a.vant.is/3IlDEIy Apple: https://a.vant.is/3IgEhDe

Much of the popular personal financial advice that reaches the average person doesn’t come from economists or professors. It often comes from writers and radio hosts that in some cases have amassed millions of followers and risen to prominence through widely available, low-cost financial guidance. On the next episode of The Behavioral Divide, Professor Hal Hershfield discusses this reality with James Choi, Professor of Finance at the Yale School of Management. Professor Choi has done extensive research examining the 50 most popular personal finance books to identify where their central themes match, and where they fail to align, with the academic literature. They discuss this work, as well as the most significant findings from academia that Professor Choi believes have failed to make it into the common practices of financial advisors and could potentially make a big difference for your clients. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe or let us know by giving our series a five-star rating. We’d also love to hear from you. To join in on the discussion, send us a note at BehavioralDivide@AvantisInvestors.com. Important Disclosures The views expressed in this presentation are the speaker’s own and not necessarily those of American Century Investments. This presentation is for general information only and is not intended to provide investment, tax or legal advice or recommendations for any particular situation or type of retirement plan. Please consult with a financial, tax or legal advisor on your own particular circumstances. Hal Hershfield is not affiliated with American Century Investments. Follow us on social media: LinkedIn: https://a.vant.is/4ppUSVIX: https://a.vant.is/4psIwMw Subscribe to The Behavioral Divide podcast: Spotify: https://a.vant.is/3IlDEIyApple: https://a.vant.is/3IgEhDe

Not all bad outcomes result from bad decisions just like not all good outcomes come from good decisions. This simple thought speaks to the importance of the process of making decisions and not just their results, particularly when any amount of luck is involved. We probably don’t want to repeat bad decisions just because last time we got lucky and things worked out great! On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, presented by Avantis Investors®, Professor Hal Hershfield speaks with two guests about the science of decision making and tips they’ve found effective for improving our approach to big decisions. Joining Hal for this discussion are former poker pro, best-selling author, and decision strategist Annie Duke along with Ben Felix, CIO of PWL Capital and one of the hosts of the popular Rational Reminder podcast. They cover how to implement better processes for decision making, how to reduce the risk of behavioral bias in your decisions, how to judge the quality of your decisions, and more. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe or let us know by giving our series a five-star rating. We’d also love to hear from you. To join in on the discussion, send us a note at BehavioralDivide@AvantisInvestors.com. Important Disclosures The views expressed in this presentation are the speaker’s own and not necessarily those of American Century Investments. This presentation is for general information only and is not intended to provide investment, tax or legal advice or recommendations for any particular situation or type of retirement plan. Please consult with a financial, tax or legal advisor on your own particular circumstances. Hal Hershfield is not affiliated with American Century Investments. Follow us on social media: LinkedIn: https://a.vant.is/4ppUSVIX: https://a.vant.is/4psIwMw Subscribe to The Behavioral Divide podcast: Spotify: https://a.vant.is/3IlDEIy Apple: https://a.vant.is/3IgEhDe

Quantifying risk with hard numbers and statistics is a logical first step to improving others’ understanding of potential outcomes, but there are ways we might do even better. There’s a science to risk communication born from years of research that identifies effective strategies for bringing meaning to risk conversations with people of varying backgrounds and numerical abilities. On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, presented by Avantis Investors®, UCLA Professor Hal Hershfield speaks with Professor Ellen Peters from the University of Oregon and Mark Meredith, a certified financial planner and founder of Meredith Wealth Planning. Together, they dive into findings from the research and practical application to uncover methods for better risk communications. If you enjoy the show, please let us know by giving our series a five-star rating. We’d also love to hear from you. To join in on the discussion, send us a note at BehavioralDivide@AvantisInvestors.com.Hal Hershfield is not affiliated with American Century Investments. Important Disclosures The views expressed in this presentation are the speaker’s own and not necessarily those of American Century Investments. This presentation is for general information only and is not intended to provide investment, tax or legal advice or recommendations for any particular situation or type of retirement plan. Please consult with a financial, tax or legal advisor on your own particular circumstances. Follow us on social media: LinkedIn: https://a.vant.is/4ppUSVI X: https://a.vant.is/4psIwMw Subscribe to The Behavioral Divide podcast: Spotify: https://a.vant.is/3IlDEIy Apple: https://a.vant.is/3IgEhDe YouTube: https://a.vant.is/3InJedi

On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, host Hal Hershfield dives into this topic with Professor Gladstone and Brandon Ratzlaff, Ph.D., CFP®, Director at Cypress Point Wealth Management, examining both the research and financial advisor perspective.

You may have heard the saying “everything in life is a negotiation.” It highlights the prevalence of negotiations across many facets of our everyday lives—sometimes with lower stakes like agreeing to an allowance with your children and in other cases much more impactful decisions that pertain to your career or that might affect long-term financial goals. If we can negotiate more effectively, it could make a big difference. But, how? On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, host Hal Hershfield discusses this question with Yale University’s Daylian Cain, Ph.D., a Senior Lecturer in Negotiations, Leadership, and Ethics, and Scott Colangelo, Chairman and Managing Partner at Prime Capital. Our goal is to understand the types of negotiations we may face during our financial journey and identify well-researched and practically applied tips for potentially better outcomes.

On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, host Hal Hershfield speaks with renowned financial literacy expert and Stanford University Professor Annamaria Lusardi along with Tom Cock, Partner and Regional Director at financial advisory firm Apella Wealth, to shed light on the current state of financial literacy, why it bears our attention today more than you may realize, and what these two perspectives can offer as a guide to better outcomes for ourselves, our clients, and society at large.

Fear of missing out, or FOMO, is something we can face in many different aspects of our lives. Whether it’s our investment portfolio, our social lives, our career status, and so on, we often compare ourselves against others and feel regret or fear when it seems like they are doing better than we are. On this episode, our focus is on why we face FOMO as investors and what we might be able to do about it. First, we speak with Professor Shai Davidai of Columbia Business School on his work into different forms of regret that may arise when we feel we are missing out and how this can ultimately affect what we learn and the decisions we make in the future. Our second discussion is with Blaine Lourd, a veteran of the financial advisory business and founder and CEO of LourdMurray. Blaine takes us through how he’s witnessed FOMO in his clients and how he goes about helping them through it. If you enjoy the show, please let us know by giving our series a five-star rating. We’d also love to hear from you on the topic of FOMO in investing. To join in on the discussion, send us a note at BehavioralDivide@AvantisInvestors.com. Important Disclosures The views expressed in this presentation are the speaker’s own and not necessarily those of American Century Investments. This presentation is for general information only and is not intended to provide investment, tax or legal advice or recommendations for any particular situation or type of retirement plan. Please consult with a financial, tax or legal advisor on your own particular circumstances. Hal Hershfield is not affiliated with American Century Investments.

Age is a topic many prefer to avoid. But, when it comes to financial decisions, age may be something we should be thinking about. Age can certainly play a role at different stages of our financial journey. On this episode, we look to the literature as well as speak with a long-tenured financial advisor to gain a firmer grasp on how exactly the choices we make are affected by age and understand what types of mistakes we are prone to both earlier and later in life. Our first discussion is with Duke University Professor Greg Samanez-Larkin—one of the world’s experts on how financial decisions change as we age. Greg speaks to his own research along with other breakthrough studies on this topic of aging. Greg highlights where younger and older adults tend to face the greatest challenges and what we might be able to do to overcome them. We also speak with financial advisor and founder of Constitution Wealth, Christopher Van Slyke, CFP. Christopher speaks to what he’s observed among his client base along, in particular speaking to the value of experience and the difficulties that come with addressing cognitive decline. If you enjoy the show, please let us know by giving our series a five-star rating. We’d also love to hear from you on this topic of age and financial decision making. To join in on the discussion, send us a note at BehavioralDivide@AvantisInvestors.com. Important Disclosures The views expressed in this presentation are the speaker’s own and not necessarily those of American Century Investments. This presentation is for general information only and is not intended to provide investment, tax or legal advice or recommendations for any particular situation or type of retirement plan. Please consult with a financial, tax or legal advisor on your own particular circumstances. Hal Hershfield is not affiliated with American Century Investments.

We’ve all likely dealt with budgeting in one form or another, but is there any well-tested advice on how best to budget? And how does it fit into making progress toward longer-term goals like saving for retirement? In this episode of The Behavioral Divide, we get two perspectives. First, we interview wealth advisor Lowell Parker, CFP of Merriman Wealth Management, to discuss the role of budgeting within the financial plans he establishes with his clients. What we uncover on the importance of the details of those budgets may surprise you. In our second discussion, we speak with Abby Sussman, Ph.D.—a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business—who has done a great deal of research into how individuals budget and why. Abby speaks to her findings on where people often go wrong with budgeting and what they can do about it. If you enjoy the show, please let us know by giving our series a five-star rating. We’d also love to hear from you on this topic of budgeting. To join in on the discussion, send us a note at BehavioralDivide@AvantisInvestors.com. Important Disclosures The views expressed in this presentation are the speaker’s own and not necessarily those of American Century Investments. This presentation is for general information only and is not intended to provide investment, tax or legal advice or recommendations for any particular situation or type of retirement plan. Please consult with a financial, tax or legal advisor on your own particular circumstances. Hal Hershfield is not affiliated with American Century Investments.