Michael Kitces - Leveraging Social Accountability

This week on Standard Deviations with Dr. Daniel Crosby, Dr. Crosby is joined by Michael Kitces. Michael Kitces has been in the financial space for more than two decades, serving as a financial advisor and educator who helps clients improve their financial situation at all stages of life. He has been at the top of the Investopedia 100 list since 2019.

After completing an undergraduate degree with a major in psychology and a minor in theater, along with a pre-med concentration, Michael Kitces started his career as a life insurance agent. In the early 2000s, he made the switch to financial planning.

With a broad range of financial planning topics to learn, he dove quickly into the educational process full steam, ultimately racking up two Master's degrees (one in Financial Services and one in Taxation), along with Certified Financial Planner (CFP) marks and a slew of other designations.

Eventually, his desire to continue learning—beyond what the available designation programs could teach—and reach a wider audience led him to professional speaking, the launch of an advanced educational newsletter for financial planners called "The Kitces Report," and the curation of the blog, The Nerd’s Eye View. The latter contains publicly accessible retirement research that has been referenced and featured in numerous consumer-oriented podcasts to help further promote retirement literacy.

Michael speaks at 50 to 70 conferences every year to share his knowledge with other advisors. His website, Kitces.com, serves nearly 3,000 advisors, and his Nerd's Eye View blog reaches more than 200,000 unique visitors each month.