Shownotes
Transcripts
Mary Bell Carlson
Hi, welcome to Financial Behavior Thought Leaders. I'm Mary, and this is where this podcast takes you behind the scenes with the top speakers in financial services. In season two, we're really focusing on financial conversations, how we trust, we communicate, and decision making is evolving. That means we are going to engage with money and figure out how it works not only for us, but in our lives. So whether you're in financial services, planning events, or simply navigating your own financial decisions, you're in the right place. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the conversation.
Mary Bell Carlson
Today we're gonna explore how AI powered marketing and a logarithm nudging are reshaping consumer financial behavior. What advisors and clients need to understand to protect themselves in an economy increasingly driven by personal digital influence. And to bring this to life, I'm joined by my friend, Dr. Michael Thomas, an accredited financial counselor, an award winning educator, author, and a relational finance expert based in Atlanta, Georgia. Michael is one of our financial behavior keynote group speakers.
He's known for making the emotional and behavioral side of money visible, practical and actionable. Let's dive into his perspective, his keynote and how it shows up in real conversations. Welcome Michael. We're so glad to have you back.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC
Thanks for having me and I appreciate that opener. That was solid.
Mary Bell Carlson
Thanks, thanks. Well, you are quite the opener and I've seen you on stage be quite the opener. But I think today I really want to start off with what you see changing right now in the way people think and talk about money and what we really need to be paying attention to.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC
we know that let's say prior:financial therapy in any significant way outside of like financial therapy association and some other key players that are in that space. We weren't having like these deep conversations about psychology of money and trauma associated with money and all these different things. And it's actually for me at least, and I know for you, because we've been here for you for a long time, even though people might not be aware of it.
it's refreshing actually to exist in a space where you bring these things up now, and it's just a natural part of the conversation and people get it. And we're no longer in a space where we have to fight for these conversations and trying to envision this world where we bring in the, technical.
and the relational and we blend it together in an elegant way that actually reflects the lived experience of the clients that we serve. And I'll be honest with you, like my social media feeds, even in the music, even in literature, even in the things that I read, we're starting to see more and more people gravitate to what's human about us and understanding that.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC
We're not dealing with bots or AI as it relates. We can't prompt a human, I like to say. We can nudge. But I can't just tell you and you just do because knowing better and doing better are separate skill sets, right?
Mary Bell Carlson
two different things. Well, and I'm smiling because, yes, you're right, we have been talking about this for a long time, but it's only recently that we've seen a shift within our industry, specifically the financial planning industry, to acknowledge that there's psychology with money and to start to talk about it and quite frankly even have it as part of our continuing education and part of the exam. But I have to chuckle and smile because I always think when we hear this is our new greatest latest thing,
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC
Absolutely.
Mary Bell Carlson
You think about all those psychologists over in the corner that have been like, we figured that out a hundred years ago and you guys are just now getting to it.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC
Yeah, we can we can like if we go back to like Kahneman and Tversky, which which we held today as being the the fathers of this movement in many regards. if you actually go back and read the literature at that time period, they were criticized significantly by the by economists at that time and were basically dismissed.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah, yeah.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:And so I think what that reminds me of is that it, we were talking about earlier, like kind of like pick your battles. I'm so glad that they trusted the research. Prospect Theory being one of my favorite papers. I revisited every year, literally, because I love it so much. And I've always wanted to have met both of them. But unfortunately, that I don't think that well, that's not going to.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah.
Yeah.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:be possible now. But the fact that they fought that battle for something that wouldn't actually if you think about it, we're talking about 1970s, 1980, 1990, 2000, it took all the way into almost 2020 for us to fully embrace this. And so it's to give you all some perspective on this is a marathon. This is not a sprint. But to your point,
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah.
Mary Bell Carlson (:That's roughly 50 years. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:earlier to the question that you posed, I'm incredibly encouraged by where the conversation is moving and how individuals are engaging more compassionately for themselves and with others as it relates to finances. So I'm excited about where we're going because I know where we've been. my perspective is like there's a clear road ahead.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah, there's a bright horizon.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yep.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:to do more amazing work, which is also the spirit of the financial behavioral keynote group, which is to continue to advocate for this space. And I think that now is the best time to be doing that. And Mary, you've done a phenomenal job of curating some amazing and extraordinary speakers to be champions for this space. And I'm not sure if anybody has told you this, but I just wanted to say thank you.
for fighting this fight. Thank you for enduring. Thank you for committing to this vision that you had. Like this space, I was there with you in the beginning and this has not been easy for you at all. And so I just wanted to give you your flowers because you deserve them.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Thank you.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well, thank you very much. I, you know, Michael, been asked often like, why, why, why is this important? Wouldn't you just want to start a speaker bureau and represent anyone? And to me, it's not just about the transaction really. It's all about the relationship and quite frankly, even more so.
My personal driving passion is this is I believe I have a responsibility. I have been so blessed to have so much knowledge in this space, in this area of financial planning. And to me, it's not good enough just to sit with it and do it myself. I've got to share it with the world. And my way of doing that really was through starting Financial Behavior Keynote Group, because I knew my voice added with 20, 30, 40 other voices.
It's that ripple effect that more of us talking about this makes such an impact to what you said earlier of that it's that everyday person that is saying, I don't know what to do with this, right? Or not even in a technical way, but they're feeling those feelings and needing to change. thank you, first of all. I appreciate that. And I want to move this into your, you have a keynote called Nudge 2.0.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Yes, you're welcome.
Mary Bell Carlson (:and that it really kind of addresses this shift. And I think it kind of wraps beautifully of what we were just talking about is there is this whole concept and I know that some advisors are concerned with AI, artificial intelligence and where that is going and is it gonna put us out of the job. But I think what your presentation is going to do is help us address that shift of what is going to go to AI and what is going to remain human. Will you tell us more about what this keynote addresses?
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Yeah, absolutely. Well, the to start foundationally. When I first created this keynote, it was really just trying to encourage individuals in our space to get their head out of the sand, quite honestly, because in the spaces that I navigate and I to be very candid here, I'm a techie by nature. I love technology, so I'm on Discord.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mm-hmm.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:I'm on Reddit. I'm navigating different mediums that oftentimes we don't navigate within our profession. And as a result, I get to have my finger on the pulse of things that are emanating in ways that we're not going to see in Wall Street Journal or Barron's or whatever it may be, depending on seeking alpha.
Or maybe seeking alpha. They're a little bit forward thinking as it to things. But oftentimes things don't arise until they hit mainstream news. But the issue with that is that once it's hit mainstream news, you're already behind and then oftentimes maybe two years or three years behind a curve that's been developing. So this can be artificial intelligence. This can be the actual effective use cases of blockchain technology.
that go beyond just meme culture or digital currencies, but the actual technology behind it. And in thinking about, well, this is actually fascinating. How can we incorporate this? Or let me be mindful on the ways in which others might incorporate these technologies to have an influence on the clients that I serve. And what's incredibly fascinating about AI more specifically,
is that there is no company that I'm aware of right now that is not aggressively pursuing a tech stack that incorporates AI. At some point, AI is going to become so ingrained in the way that we do things that we're not even going to realize in many instances that AI is behind everything because it's going to be a part of every tech stack.
The concern there is that when you have extraordinary, amazing technology, that there are going to be people who use the technology for good. And there are going to be individuals who utilize the technology to play the same old games that they've always played. It's almost like if you look at a yearbook, it's kind of like you see, you can see very clearly it's a different time, different car, different clothing, but the actors, the spirit of the moment is still the same.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Right? Same thing, different day just looks differently. So if we know that, generally speaking, then we should already suspect that people are going to utilize AI to nudge behavior. And generally speaking, to nudge behavior from the perspective of trying to sell something and also to play this content game, which is driving everything right now.
quite honestly, influencer culture. And the danger in that is that the technology is becoming so sophisticated where you can have a client who is literally following a digital version of whatever somebody created that could be providing financial advice under the guise of this is financial education. And they are following this
digitally created person that can endlessly create content. And then you're wondering why your client is calling you up on a phone saying, Hey, what about this thing? I heard something online the other day, right? And so I think not, not all and taking action for something that they don't even know isn't actually a real person that this, this, this
Mary Bell Carlson (:Or the opposite is not calling you anymore because they're taking the advice that the machine is putting out.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:digital avatar of a particular thing has purely just been created to generate, to get people to click, to generate, create an emotional response in your client because they're going to be making ad revenue and all the different things on the backend. And then they'll then kind of create a whole bunch of these to try to monetize them across various platforms. And it could be done infinitely and at scale.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yep. Yep.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:And that's what I don't think that people realize about the technology. And then also, and just one other thing, if individuals wanted to go further, we can then say, like Mary, if I wanted to right now, I could literally go into chat, GPT, I can go into Claude. I can say, pull up everything that you know about Dr. Mary Carlson. And I could literally automate communications to try to nudge and drive your behavior.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mm-hmm.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mm-hmm.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:And it will come off as being incredibly authentic and incredibly real because of the depth in which we can access and scrub the internet for any mention in anything about you. And so we're going to be navigating the space soon where people are not going to know what is or isn't real. And that therein is the opportunity. If we decide to seize it is to say that you are actually engaging with a real person.
And these are ways in which we're going to differentiate ourselves in a space of infinite content and content creation and actually rethink how we can potentially leverage the technology, but then also not abandon our humanity in the midst of the technology to curate and to have deep connection and relationships with the people that we serve.
And it's just understanding that there's all these different dynamics at play. How are we going to craft a vision for the next five years and not just look at where the technology is, but when we're thinking about this technology, we have to be thinking about where it is going and how quickly it's being iterated on and in actually creating strategies around what that may look like so that we can have an active voice with our clients.
at scale in the way that others will have access to our clients. Think about it this way. In a world in which we can actually use the technology to engage deeply and meaningfully in relationship, you can't tell me that your relationship-based firm, if you're not utilizing the technology to think about how can we expand upon our relational value add.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mm-hmm.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:with the use of the technology that we have. How can we curate an experience with the clients that we have that's deeper, that's richer, that's more frequent, and it would take us less time than it's ever had before. So it's understanding how others are using the technology to then consider how could we utilize the technology for good, no different than marketing. A good marketer knows that when you market a message,
it takes at least seven instances of that message before someone actually takes action. If I'm a firm, I can't say that I'm a relationship driven firm if I only communicate with my client once or twice. Because the studies show very clearly that it takes prompting or nudging, kind of like, you know, prompting that, it takes nudging at least five to seven times to get someone to take action.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:If I know that psychologically and emotionally, and I say that I'm a relationship driven firm, then my strategy is how do we communicate this message five times that looks slightly different so that an individual no longer sees it, right? Because if it's just the same message, it kind of gets muted out. Now it's like, how do we kind of frame it slightly differently, but they're getting the same thing five times. The beauty now is that we can do that almost seamlessly.
with the technology that we have. If others are doing it, why can't we? And not think about it from a lens or perspective of this is something that I should be afraid of, no. How can I utilize this technology to drive deeper, more meaningful relationships with my clients and then create more significant value add for my clients? That is the question. And if we start there,
then we work up through how we effectively use the technology. Not, I don't want to look at it, I don't want to engage with it, and therefore what will be will be, well, I'm going to be honest with you, at the rate in which I literally had a student vibe code, met with him last week, vibe coded a financial literacy program, created the website, everything, done.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Thank
Mary Bell Carlson (:Wow.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:And I thought it was incredibly elegant, honestly, in terms of what he created. But this is the world in which we're navigating. And so I think that the value add here is if someone is vibe coding something, we cannot not be utilizing the technology and then demonstrate a proficiency in such a way to say, well, I did this and you all did that. I could never do that with my vibe code. Right.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mm-hmm.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Then it's like, well, I would just rather hand it over to you because even if I spent all these hours, it would never be as good as what you did. But you don't give yourself an opportunity to do that if you're avoiding the technology, because yes, I might have access to it, but this is no different than us going to play basketball or to go play tennis or something like that. Yeah, I can do it. But when you see someone who can really do it because they invested the time, energy and effort.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah, yeah.
Mary Bell Carlson (:But next level, yeah.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:It's kind of like, step back, I concede. If we don't allow ourselves to engage and we're only able to vibe code at the level of someone who randomly just vibe code it where there is no value add. But if we leverage our resources and know how and sophistication in the way that we do things, even in the midst of everybody having access to this technology, there should still be variations in the way that that technology is used. And that then I think will set the
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:All right, I'm going to go to a planner because clearly there's stuff that I still don't know, even though I'm by coding and utilizing technology.
Mary Bell Carlson (:You're on a whole new level, my friend. So there's something I think that is really important here that you said at the very beginning, and that is the speed. What you intended for this speech to be has already changed, given how quickly technology has changed and keeping up with it. And there's a nuance here. So I do want you to talk about speed and how quickly and rapidly this place goes, but I don't want to spend a ton of time because I think what I'm hearing you say in this speech,
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:you
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:it has.
Mary Bell Carlson (:you're not going to walk away with the latest iteration of chat, whatever, 5.0, whatever we're on. It's more from a high level of how do you integrate this over time and why does it matter? And how do you keep up? Maybe you don't have to keep up with vibe coding, still don't know what that is, but how do you keep up with all these changes? And do you need to?
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:No. No.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Yeah.
Mary Bell Carlson (:or what really matters at the end of the day. answer that in a kind of, what are they getting as you walk out of this speech? What is someone gonna walk out with understanding?
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Yeah, so what I think that the best way to put this is that.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:I want individuals to walk out with the confidence of knowing that they don't have to be perfect with the technology because the technology actually provides the simplicity in terms of just being able to do, right? We can just go on and just do. So for instance, for SAT prep things, I created an SAT prep for my oldest that he utilized Chat GPT for. And we did this two years ago.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mm.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Interesting.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:quite honestly. So if you just have the confidence of knowing that you don't have to know all of the updates and things of that nature, you just have to be intellectually curious and be willing to play that therein, I think, will guide individuals down a pathway to say that, you know what? I'm just going to go play with this and see what it can do. Not just a it can.
document a meeting for us and give us a snapshot of what we said during the meeting. That is like, that's a bare minimum utilization. That's just very base level. This is, there's a unique thing that the client wants. How can I create this for them? So case in point, vibe coding. I was working with a student the other day and he had asked me, hey, are there any good resources in terms of how to compare a job opportunity?
Mary Bell Carlson (:Base level.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:I like, you know what, there's not one that's as comprehensive as I would like to see based on the literature in terms of job satisfaction and all these other different things. So I was like, give me a few hours. And I literally through Claude created a, a document that he would walk through and answer various questions. All the questions are rooted in academic research.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mm-hmm.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:They were all scaled questions. They were all weighted based on the impact of someone's job satisfaction. It looked at cost of living in particular areas. It looked at overall compensation package, health care, and all the different things to get a student to think about the entire compensation that you're receiving. Also, commute times to and from work. We know that there's a lot of data on that, like individuals who are within 15 miles to 20 miles of their job.
experience more satisfaction with the work that they do. And then it created this very elegant product that I shared with the client, not the client, I'm saying client with my student. And then my student said, huh, I never thought about all these things as it relates to the benefit that I get through my employer, through my commute times from work, and all this stuff is based on research. So it's not just me coming up with any of this information. I did this within two hours.
And then based on that information, he compared three jobs and then was incredibly confident in choosing the option that he chose for the work that he was going to do. Also had a line in there about mentorship as well in terms of opportunities for mentorship within the firm and what that was actually communicate and look like. And he made a decision. so that's what I'm getting at. So like if you have a client who's doing something,
Mary Bell Carlson (:So replace job essentially with financial thing, whatever that question is, same process. And so you're setting that framework, helping advisors get around the framework that is needed to be able to answer those ongoing questions.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Yeah, same process.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:You can play if a client brings something to you that's very unique to their situation. And this is what I mean by we're in a space to where we can play and curate and create value add in such a way that is uniquely our client. In the past, we didn't have the capacity to scale because if we're serving 125 clients and it's gonna take me, or 150 clients, and it's gonna take me five hours to work on this product,
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:or this project for a particular client, I'm not going to do that because if I do that for every client, I'm not going to have a whole lot of space to grow my business if I'm a small RIA, right? But now that very thing that I was reluctant to do years ago for my client potentially could take me 20 or 30 minutes if, and probably even faster once I've gotten used to how to utilize the technology and create my own agents to work on my behalf.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Hmm?
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:What happens is that we are now in a space to, again, we say that we are relationship-based. We're now navigating a space where we can almost be infinite more, almost infinite possibility at scale to be so uniquely ingrained in the lives of our clients and to provide solutions for them relatively quickly with the technology that it only provides greater value add.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Right.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:and greater and stronger relationships with the people that we serve. And so that's really the point of this. It's let's play and let's figure out how the technology aligns with our firm's values and our culture and maybe even kind of re-envision what does it mean to be human at our firm. To re-envision what does value add even look like for us anymore? And can we take this further?
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mmm.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:than we've ever considered even possible. And that's the beauty of the technology. What we once considered impossible is now very possible. And we're not going back. And so I think that it's important for individuals to see imaginatively what can be created with the technology to expand their own perceptions about, didn't even think that was possible.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yep.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:And as soon as someone who has the financial sophistication starts to believe that something's possible, guess what? You can't compete because what they don't realize is that even though people have access to the technology, they don't have access to the sophistication. that a firm owner or financial planners or advisors at a firm, once they start utilizing technology, are going to be able to utilize it in a far more sophisticated way.
Mary Bell Carlson (:whole world opens up. Yeah.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:than any random person that just pulls up ChatGBT. So it doesn't level the playing ground necessarily because an individual who doesn't understand mean variance optimization, standard deviation, Sharpe ratio, alpha ratio, we can go all the way down the line. They're not gonna prompt for anything like that. They're not gonna incorporate that in their design of a plan or think about tax efficiency strategies and estate planning at any time. let's get, no, they're not.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yep.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:So we still have considerable value add even in a space where everybody has access because access does not equate to success. And I just need planners to understand that this is a huge opportunity to re-envision value add as we move forward in this technological world that's becoming more and more so. so that's the whole point.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Amen. Yes.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Michael, one of my favorite things about you and the way that you deliver on your speeches is the fact that you leave more curious than you even came in. Like you're teaching not just how to do X, Y, Z with a nice little bullet checkpoint. You really open up a new side of your mind and walk away of, I've never thought of that before. What would it look like if I can just say every time I've sat and heard one of your speeches, that's what I always walk away with is just that expansion.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:That's the point.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:If yes.
Mary Bell Carlson (:of what is possible. And I think it goes back to what you started in the beginning of there's so much opportunity here. And if you're listening right now and want to bring Michael to your audience, go to visit financialbehaviorkeynote.com forward slash speakers and you'll find everything you need. Michael, as we wrap up, there's one question I want to leave with you. If there's one thing you can leave with our audience, something they can carry into their next financial conversation.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Can I say one thing?
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Yes.
Mary Bell Carlson (:What would that one thing be?
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Yeah, it would be more unique to me specifically is that throughout my professional experiences, I've never been given a playbook.
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:I haven't everything that I've done for the most part. I've had to figure it out. So the way that I present is rooted in my unique experiences, having to play and having to be intellectually curious and to actually piece things together where they are to kind of figure out, what's going to be the best solution where we are here. And I think that sometimes people are fearful if they can't rely on things that they've always done or that they've always known.
So in a speech that I give, I'm going to take you out into the deep end of the water a little bit, and you're going to be a little uncomfortable because I don't think that we can continue to navigate this technological world with a playbook that we've always used. We have to be open-minded. We have to be infinitely curious. And we have to trust that our expertise still matters and the technology just allows us the platform to expand upon.
what we already know and how we can continue to provide better quality services to the people that we care about.
Mary Bell Carlson (:I love that. Thank you so much. And I feel like that's just a amen right there. If you want to learn how to be more curious to like push yourself on the edge, you are looking at the right guy to bring to your event. So we're so grateful for you. We're grateful for your time and whether you're applying this in your work, your events or your own financial life, these are the conversations that move things forward. And that's exactly why this podcast exists. So if you're looking for a speaker, we'd love for you to check out Financial Behavior Q
Michael Thomas, Ph.D., AFC (:Praise them.
Mary Bell Carlson (:keynote.com. And if this episode resonated with you, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every conversation we have on the show is designed to move the needle on how we think and talk about money. And we're so glad you're here for it. Please join us next time on Financial Behavior Thought Leaders for Keynote Ideas Meet Real World Applications. Thanks, everyone.
