Do you find that your emails to clients and prospects at times seem to go unread? You reach out. No response. What gives?

When we’re dealing with busy people, how we approach and construct our communications matters. In fact, there are proven methods for increasing the chances that busy people respond or take the actions we need them to take.

On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, presented by Avantis Investors®, UCLA Professor Hal Hershfield speaks with Professor Todd Rogers from the Harvard Kennedy School and co-author of Writing for Busy Readers: Communicate More Effectively in the Real World. They explore his research on how best to reach busy people and how that can be put into practice. To focus the discussion on tips relevant to advisors, the interview is informed by questions submitted in advance by the team at Wealth Architects.

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 [email protected].

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.

The book Writing for Busy Readers: Communicate More Effectively in the Real World is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Avantis Investors or American Century Investments.

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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.

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Uncertainty is a constant in life—and especially in our financial lives. But not all uncertainty is created equal. Some arises from missing information we could know. Other times, the outcome is simply unknowable—or truly random.

In this episode of The Behavioral Divide, UCLA Professor Hal Hershfield talks with decision science expert Professor Craig Fox to unpack the psychology of uncertainty. They explore why our brains struggle to deal with it, how different types of uncertainty influence our choices, and what the research says about interventions that actually help.

Joining them is Dagny Maidman, Executive Managing Director and Wealth Advisor at Cresset, who brings the practitioner’s lens—sharing how she guides clients through unpredictable markets, imperfect information, and the emotions that come with both.

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Did you know our financial decisions may be affected by our personality? It turns out being more agreeable, more conscientious, or more extroverted, for example, may play a role in how likely we are to choose to save our money for the future or spend it today instead.

Research from Joe Gladstone, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business, has found that not only can personality traits be linked to our decisions with money, but we also may be able to use our understanding of one’s personality to prompt them towards better decisions.

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.

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

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Hal Hershfield is not affiliated with American Century Investments.

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Parents know well the high costs of raising children. Certainly, this affects our ability to save for retirement or meet other financial goals, but what about when our kids leave home? How do empty nesters tend to respond financially, and psychologically?

Work from Andrew Biggs, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of The Real Retirement Crisis: Why (Almost) Everything You Know About the US Retirement System is Wrong, finds that the period after our children become financially independent can have a big impact on retirement readiness. On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, host Hal Hershfield, discusses the research with Dr. Biggs along with real-world perspective from Certified Financial Planner Robin Sherwood, who serves as a Principal at HTG Investment Advisors.

We look at how the empty-nester phase—and life transitions in general—can shape financial choices and personal fulfillment, and what can be done to make both better.

The book The Real Retirement Crisis: Why (Almost) Everything You Know About the US Retirement System is Wrong is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Avantis Investors or American Century Investments. 

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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.

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: [email protected].

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There are obvious negative effects of financial stress—or financial constraints, in general. But how do financial constraints actually affect our decisions with money or in other areas of our lives?

And while we may associate financial stress with those that have little money, anyone can feel constrained financially. For some, those constraints will be “real”, like truly struggling to make ends meet, and for others it may be more subjective, such as when one has ample income to meet necessities but may feel it’s a challenge to maintain a desired higher standard of living.

On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, host Hal Hershfield examines this topic with Princeton University Professor Anuj Shah and Sam Swift, CEO of TCI Wealth Advisors to better understand how financial stress manifests in individuals across the income spectrum and how we might better manage it.

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Financial literacy has been found to be a strong predictor of future financial outcomes. A better understanding of fundamental financial concepts tends to lead to better decision making. Yet, the grim reality is that financial literacy among the global population is quite low. Past studies estimated that only about a third of the world are considered financially literate.

But what can we learn from the latest academic research on this topic? What has the academic community found that might help to drive progress? And how do the observations and findings from real-world financial advice compare?

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.

If you enjoy the show, please let us know by subscribing and rating our series. We’d also love to hear from you on this topic. To join in on the discussion, send us a note at [email protected].

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.

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There are plenty of logical reasons to devote some of our current wealth to future generations, such as supporting a better future for your family or society, the potential for estate tax benefits, and simply a common desire to build a legacy that endures beyond our lives. But tradeoffs abound when it comes to making such legacy decisions—not the least of which is how much do I want or need for myself today versus how much am I willing to give others for the future.

Our choices may also be influenced by tendencies of human behavior or even our experience and feelings about legacy decisions of past generations. Do I feel like they were generous towards me, or selfish? Might that drive how I think about my own choices?

On this episode of The Behavioral Divide, presented by Avantis Investors®, host Hal Hershfield speaks with Duke University Professor Kimberly Wade-Benzoni, an expert in intergenerational decision making, and Matt Hall, Co-Founder and CEO of Hill Investment Group, to examine what we can learn from both the academic research and real-world advisor-to-client experience to help us make better financial legacy decisions.

If you enjoy the show, please let us know by subscribing and rating our series. We’d also love to hear from you on this topic. To join in on the discussion, send us a note at [email protected].

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.

Visit our website: https://a.vant.is/4id5Auj

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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 [email protected].

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.