I'd now like to get to our main event, which is our keynote speaker, Crystal Washington, who is going to be speaking to us about the future. And if the future and internet gods are with us, we will have an intro video. Please join me in welcoming Crystal Washington. As one of Forbes' 50 leading female futurists, Crystal Washington works with organizations that want to leverage technology and foresight to increase profits and productivity. She's called the technology translator because she only shares practical tools that will make you more efficient, effective, and connected. Crystal has educated and entertained audiences across the globe and regularly appears on major television networks and in business publications for her expertise. She is the resident futurist on season two of Emmy-nominated Life 2.0. Crystal is an author of the books One Tech Action and The Social Media Why. Outside of technology, Crystal is an adventurous travel fanatic. She once followed a random barefooted mountain man with a machete up an active volcano. Luckily, she lived and she's here with us right now. Please join me in welcoming Crystal Washington. So if you all want that story, you're going to have to catch me at the 80s party if you want to know about the mountain man. That's a true story. So in our time together, we have about an hour together. I think I'm going to try to shave a little bit off of that because I know we're starting a few minutes late. Because I understand that I'm the only thing standing between you and libations and food. And that's a dangerous space to be in. Okay, so I'm going to be very respectful of your time. But we're going to talk about imagining the future. Now I have to share this with you. I have such a tremendous amount of respect for those of you in this room. Because I remember in March of 2020, when I was projecting out different things because you know, futurist. One of the first calls I made was to my financial advisor. And I said, let me ask you a question. I say, can you run two scenarios for me? If my business and my husband's business photography, event photography, if we were to bring in zero dollars for six months, and then 12 months, how would we look? And the first thing she said was, you think you could go that long? I was like, just trust me on this. She got back with me. And she immediately said, you know what, Crystal, I looked at everything. And honestly, you and CJ have been so diligent about following the plan that we put into place ahead of time, over saving over investing, like really putting out extra. You all are in a good position in either place, honestly. What did she gift me with? Peace of mind. My husband and I didn't have the stress of trying to figure out what we could or couldn't afford. We were then able to support our clients in whatever ways they needed with no expectation. I was just checking to see if people were okay. They were trying to get out of hotel contracts. It was stressful. We were able to support family. We were able to help people. And so understand the level of value that you bring to people. Like that goes beyond even just the generational aspects of what you do. It's the fact that you give us peace. So I had to say that because I was so excited to be here with you. And then understanding that you're not just any group of financial advisors. You're the elite group of financial advisors. You carry a level of information and integrity that isn't everywhere in the industry. So I just wanted you to know that I have a strong appreciation for you. Let's give yourselves a round of applause to get started. Yes. Now, when we talk about imagining the future, we have to understand that humans have always been thinking about what's coming next. We oftentimes look at cave drawings, and anthropologists are trying to figure out, were they trying to document something that already happened, or was this like their vision board on the cave? I would like to catch some deer, right? Were they influencing the future by imagining it? And then we had all the sci-fi that came out a lot of times in the late 1800s and early to mid-1900s. And oftentimes, we look at sci-fi books and movies and comic strips, and we look at the technology we have now. And oftentimes, we say, oh, they predicted this. They predicted that. They did not. They influenced it. So as technology was developing, people were saying, wouldn't it be cool if we could do this based on this, if we could do this based on that? So understand, as humans, we are always impacting the future. The future is not a fixed thing that just falls on us. It is something that right now our actions are influencing. Now, the great thing about speaking to you all is you all are financial futurists. You're constantly thinking about different scenarios and helping your clients discover what they could prepare against. That's not true of most groups that I speak to. So you're in a very unique position to understand what I'm about to say on a completely different level. But when we think about how the past influences what's here later, and you're going to get a copy of these notes. I'll let you know. You don't have to be able to read this. But on the left side, you have all of these different science fiction movies and books. And on the right-hand side, you see the technology that came out years later that was first introduced through sci-fi. The actions that we do today, the things that we put in place today, the things we imagine today influence what's coming tomorrow. Speaking of which, I have a good friend, someone who's very financially savvy in their 40s right now. He's in his 40s. And he once told me this interesting story about the first time he went to his financial advisor, the first time. I think his parents had told him, you know, you have a good paying job. You're starting a little, you have a side business. You need to get professional help. So he went to his financial advisor and they asked him the normal questions about goals and she wanted to see where his money was already, as he's telling me this story. And he mentioned, you know, I have this side business and it's mostly cash and I just put the money in a shoebox. She was like, okay, you're going to, do you know how much is in there? He said, nope. I just put it in there. I don't need it. So I just put it in the box. He's like, uh oh, I need you to count how much money is in that shoebox. Now as he's telling me this story, I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So I'm thinking maybe he had about five, $6,000 in the shoebox. How much money do they get in a shoebox? Anybody just, $85,000, a hundred over $100,000 in that shoebox. And so they had to come up with a plan over the course of months to figure out how to get that money back into the banking system because while obviously he had earned it honestly and he can, you know, show proof of it, how many of us know we can't just walk up to a banking institution with a Nike shoebox. Here you go. But I say that as we're talking about things that we do at one point in time that influence another. Here is this man 20 years later whose financial situation is incredibly secure. He's extremely knowledgeable about the markets and different types of investing. He's invested in real estate and mutual funds and the stock market and a million different things and he stays up to date on it and he still has that same financial advisor. The same way that those sci-fi movies and books influenced a lot of inventions, she, his financial advisor, influenced his future as well. This is what we do for people, but we also have to understand that technology is changing things. Now, what you're going to notice in the course of this presentation is that this is not a stock presentation. Luckily, Kristen and Dave and Danielle and John and Jeff that's in here took some time to help me really understand some of the challenges you're having right now. So I wanted to share some information. We're going to start off live, but we're going to bring this in deep to you all in this room. So this gentleman named Kai-Fu Lee, who's a venture capitalist who was heavily involved in AI development at Microsoft and Google, he believes that AI will displace 40 percent of the world's workers within 15 years. I think Mr. Lee's being a little histrionic, if I can be honest with you. I don't agree. Now, there's all kinds of estimates depending on, you know, what source you're looking at. I would say the most conservative one that I've seen is 16 percent. Now, even at 16 percent, that's still not insignificant. It's still something we need to be aware of. And that's one of our goals for today. We're going to raise awareness. Now, please understand that by the time we're done today, you are going to have solutions. I'm not just here to scare you with slides on the screen, right? We're going to have solutions as well. But something to think about with this technology. Now, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to think about this. Technology creates as many, if not more, jobs than it destroys. Technology creates as many, if not more, jobs than it destroys. If you agree with that statement, raise your hand for me. Raise your hand high. Okay? The majority of the room. Okay? Hands down. Raise your hand if you do not agree with that statement. Go ahead. Raise your hand. Do we? Okay. We have a few people sprinkled in there. Okay. No problem. So, before I answer this question for you, if this is true or false, there have been times where we've had a large amount of technology shifts, and it's put people out of business in one place and in business in another. Two years ago, I was speaking to a group of car dealership owners, and they were having their meeting in Maui, which is a horrible place to have a meeting, by the way. And I met the owner of Normandon Car Dealership. And he mentioned that he is the owner of the third oldest car dealership in the United States. I was like, that's amazing. And he said, well, it's kind of cheating. The only reason we're the third oldest is because technically we got started before there were cars. I said, what? He said, we were a buggy dealership. But my great-grandfather saw cars and was like, mm, I have a feeling we need to switch over to that. And he told me the story of how most of his great-grandfather's competition was like, no one's going to buy these cars, they're expensive and stupid. Out of curiosity, did any of you drive over in your horse and buggy today? So there have been times where you could kind of switch from one thing to another, and it's not that different. We can see this shift. But there's also something that's called Engel's Pause, which is an economic concept that was conceived in the mid-1700s that basically showed that with the Industrial Revolution, while there was definitely an increase in wealth, the people that were displaced, the general public, didn't start to see an increase in wages or benefits or in additional jobs for about 50 years. What that means is most of the people who were displaced were dead or almost dead before there was any benefit to the public. And so people right now, economists, are starting to talk about all this automation that's happening. They're wondering if we're going to enter into another Engel's Pause area. So for those of you who said the technology creates more jobs than it destroys, raise your hand if you said it, raise your hand, most of you, OK, if you said that, you are correct. Go ahead, pat yourselves on the back, it's OK. Yay, you did it. But the problem is, is that most of the jobs it's creating are not going to help the people it's displacing. It's different than in times past. The person who's working in a coal mine today, what's the likelihood of them becoming a data scientist tomorrow? I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm saying it's unlikely. And so we have to understand that the landscape is changing dramatically. And so in our time together, we're going to look at how humans are shifting with all of this change, some of the disruptors you need to be aware of specifically for your industry, and then some of the opportunities you have within all of this disruption. Because whenever there's a great deal of disruption, there are opportunities in it to shape the future and to position yourself to be in a good place going forward. But as we go through this presentation, you're going to see a slide, a saying that keeps popping up that I want to be ingrained in your minds, and that is that the future does not just happen, it leaves us Easter eggs. There's little things right now we can start to see that will clue us in. So the function of humans in society is changing. Humans themselves are changing. We're becoming more attached to our technology. If you don't believe me, I'm going to ask you a question. How many of you in here believe that you're addicted to your mobile devices? Raise your hand high if you think you're addicted to your mobile devices. Okay. There are a lot of hands, and then there were even some people that were like, I don't know, Crystal, maybe, maybe not. If you don't know, I'm going to ask you a question that's going to help you determine if you're addicted once and for all. Are you ready? Raise your hand if you sleep with your mobile device. Raise your hand if you sleep with your mobile device. I want you to notice what happened when I asked that question. People all around the room looked confused, and then you started hearing things like, What does she mean? In the bed? By the bed? On the floor? So predictable. But if you have that question for me, fair, I have a question for you. If you slept with a beer in the bed, by the bed, or on the floor every night, might you have a problem? So now that we know we're all addicted, all right. We're becoming increasingly attached because so many of the devices that used to exist independently now reside within our phones. Think about it. Our phone books are in there. Our video cameras are in there. We do our banking from there. There's so many things that exist within that device. That is why we're so attached to it. But let's talk about some of the newer devices. Are you all familiar with ChatGPT? Yes? So right now, how many of you have played around with it at all? So right now, this is just a prompt I put in. You're an elite financial advisor. One of your clients has expressed interest in investing in NFTs. Write a 300-word article outlining three benefits and three drawbacks or dangers to investing in NFTs. Whoa. All right. Let's try something a little different. Explain principles of investing on a sixth-grade level in 200 words or less. Let's do one more. Are there six resources for a sixth-grader to start learning about principles of investing? Yes, I was one of the last generations to take typing in school. Whoever said that? Yes. That fast. All right. And are the resources above real? Please cite your sources. How many of you all know ChatGPT will lie to you? Now maybe you have a client where you're trying to help them imagine themselves, say, you know, if you invest this way in the future, you could have this luxury yacht vacation with your mate. Just envision the future. Now this is MidJourney. Has anyone seen MidJourney before? This is a AI, generative AI program that creates images. I typed it in, a realistic photo of a young couple enjoying a luxury cruise. Now mind you, you can actually upload a picture of them if you wanted. I'm not saying you shouldn't do this or you can't legally, but you can upload a picture of people and have it create them. Look how fast this is being created. Give it just a moment. It's getting there. It's getting there. It's designing them. Can any of you all sketch or draw this fast? Do we have any artists in the room out of curiosity? Any artists in the room? Okay. There's three of you. Fabulous. I'm not one of them. Let's be clear. So even if you wanted to send them something to vision what you're going towards. Now let me say something about generative AI. Is it changing the landscape? Yes. But I do want you to understand something. One, I don't suggest that you use it to generate content on its own. One, we can tell if something's generated by AI. Do we know that? There's ways to check and you can tell immediately. But it can give you ideas. But if you're going to use it to give you ideas, make sure you have it cite its sources. But again, you might have a client that's saying, you know, I'm trying to get my children involved in investing. I want them to understand a little bit more. Do you have any resources? Do you have any suggestions? Do you see the power of this in helping you identify information? Do you see the power of this in helping you outline maybe things that you're writing up for your marketing? So it's not about using this to replace you or any of your marketing or anything that you're doing in your communications, but we can see how it can save us time and help us imagine how we'll move forward. All right. Fastest growing and fastest declining jobs. If we're to look on the left-hand side, the fastest growing jobs are things like AI and machine learning specialists, sustainability specialists, business intelligence analysts, information security analysts, the fastest declining, bank tellers, postal service clerks, cashiers, and ticket clerks. Those are all jobs that can be automated. So let's be fair. How likely are financial advisors to be replaced by technology? I'm going to give you 20 seconds to talk to somebody next to you and just come up with a percentage. What do you think the percentage chance is? Whatever you think it is. Only 20 seconds. Five, four, three, two, one. There we go. Did anyone in here say 0%? I'm curious. Anyone say 0%? There is no chance. You're like, I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. Did anyone say 100% chance? Okay, good. We have hope. That's important. So let me say this. I realize, and even considering this, this is really uncomfortable. How many of us feel really uncomfortable right now? Some of you are probably angry at me. You want to kick me. You're like, how dare you? I want you to understand that this is a question I ask people I care about. I've done this with my own teams, my peers. I had a really uncomfortable conversation with my dad last weekend about the probable automation of his business. But this is how we get a hold of things ahead of time. This is how we plan ahead by looking at different things we have to watch out for. Now, interestingly enough, I'm not saying that this is 100% accurate. That's not what I'm saying. But just to consider, there is a website called Will Robots Take My Job? And they use a mathematical equation. You can go on the website if you want and actually see how they calculate it based on the chances of automation, people that are surveyed, what their opinions are, how the market is growing for those particular jobs, looking at census data. So they take all this information together and they kick out a number. The number for financial advisors was 42%. Let's add some context, okay? Now, they're saying it's a 42% chance. They're not saying 42% chances of advisors. Now, the benefit that you all have in this room is that you are not your standard financial advisor. Would we agree with that? And I'm not saying that to make you feel good. I'm saying that because it's truth. You have a level of expertise that many other people in the market don't have. You have a deeper level of understanding and much more education. What that means is you would likely be the last ones to be replaced of financial advisors. Does that make sense? Someone's like, whoo, damn. But don't get too comfortable yet, but just throwing it out there, 42%. Now, what's interesting is on this website, people can also leave comments. Ah, ha, ha, ha, I just, whoa. Let's dig in there, okay? We're not gonna go through all of them, but I did find some of the comments to be kind of interesting. If you went through the website, there's quite a few comments where people were like, this is poppycock, this is silly. No, no one can ever replace financial advisors. We can, and some people even said we, so you're like, oh, it's a bunch of angry financial advisors, okay. And so David came along and said, honestly, this job feels like people coping in disbelief mode like Librarian was in, say, 2004. People still want us and need us, don't worry. We have personal care robots or tech won't replace us. In reality, future people will simply skip the step of using advisors because there are too many free sources of data and the market is so easy a chimp could invest. Yikes, David, that was cold. I'm not saying I agree with David, I'm just throwing out different comments that came up there, okay? How many of you think that David is your target market? He isn't, he has an investing ape somewhere. All right, so, now we have Daniel. Now, Daniel's an interesting one because I want you to look at the dates. He came in on September 23rd and said, a financial plan creates a roadmap for your money and helps you achieve your goals. Without financial planning, future success cannot be expected. Then he came back in November. This man was bothered by what he saw. Personal finance isn't interesting to everyone and it doesn't have to be, but if you're neglecting your finance, it's likely worth it to hire. Financial advisor is not just someone who helps with investments, their job is to help you with every aspect of your financial life. Now, I'm not saying I don't agree with him, but how many of us know it is nuts for him to keep coming back to this website screaming into the void? Like, shouldn't he be talking to a client right now? What is he doing? Now, what's funny is I blocked out his name because, you know, I research, I find people. And so, I actually located him. I was curious to know who he was. You'll be interested to know that he does not carry your certification. He is not the type of financial advisor you are and he recently lost his broker license for doing something really desperate with client investments. All right, next up. Will says, sounds like you guys are financial advisors, LOL. Mr. Planner, notice he came in May and again in October. He's stressed out too. But he says, sounds like you're in need of genuine planning to Will, so Will obviously rubbed him the wrong way because apparently he thinks Will is his target market, which he isn't. But then Mr. Planner said something else interesting. Genuine financial planning has so much overlap with therapy. Helping people make the most of their lives with the money they have is the job. The site needs to seriously reevaluate this ranking. It seems like he's implying that because it's like therapy, a therapist can't be replaced, right? So when I read that, I was like, huh. I'm glad you mentioned that, Mr. Planner. Meet Wobot, your therapist in an app. Now I am someone who deeply believes in therapy. I have gone to therapy for over 10 years. I've never missed a therapy session. Even in the pandemic, we are doing it virtual because I got to wash off my crazy. That's me, okay? That's my honest. Now I test out a lot of different technologies because that's my job. I have to know how different things work. I downloaded Wobot. This was one of the best things I've ever seen in my life along therapy in an app. So please understand, I say this and I give this example to say, none of us are irreplaceable. Not me, not you. Now the beauty is, is that we can work on making ourselves as close to irreplaceable as possible. Does that make sense to everybody in here? But we have to sit with the realization that there's a little bit of danger out there because that's what's gonna cause us to make strategic decisions. Now, when we think about those of you in this room and you're a very handsome and beautiful group as you can see, look at you. So you all don't know this, but I mentioned that this is especially for you. I have been lovingly stalking you all now for a couple months. And when I say lovingly, I don't mean in the like, I'm gonna kill your bunny kind of way. I mean it, I just wanted to see what you cared about and what type of nonprofits you're a part of and learning about the foundation even before today. I will share that some of you have really strange Pinterest boards, but we won't get into that. But again, keep in mind, the future doesn't just happen, it leaves us Easter eggs. Now, if you take nothing away from this presentation, but this one statement, understand that we are either disrupting or waiting to be disrupted. That is the world we live in right now. We are either disrupting or waiting to be disrupted. That does not mean technology necessarily. You can disrupt in the midst of technology by offering really high level boutique service. When everyone else is going more digital, you doing more handholding or giving more personal relationships, that's what makes you stand out. Does that make sense to everybody in here? So I wanna be very clear that I'm not trying to shove all the new technology down your throat. I just want you to think about what are you doing in this changing market to stay ahead of the game. Now, when we think about disruption and what's happening around us, have any of you heard of law geeks before, law geeks AI? Yes? Law geeks artificial intelligence, I saw that you raised your hand, ma'am. I'm very impressed, I see. Is a type of AI that was basically created to replace attorneys. That's not what they said, but that's what they're doing, y'all. And so they ran a test. Did someone clap? I don't even know what that means. Oh no. Cold blooded. All right. So they ran a test where they had their AI model go against a group of attorneys in spot checking five NDAs, okay? And over a two month period, they gathered all this data together. What they found that was on average, the law geeks AI was over 9% more accurate than the average of those attorneys. So at 94% accuracy. Now that's interesting, but what's more interesting is the average time it took the attorneys to spot check those five NDAs was 92 minutes. The average time it took that AI, 26 seconds. Oh no. So when all of this technology was first being touted, whether we're talking about AI, robotics, machine learning, all those things years ago, remember everybody was like, it's coming for those blue collar jobs. Do y'all remember that? If you're a cashier, you better upskill. It's coming for you, blue collar. It's coming for everybody. I mentioned my husband and he's a photographer. I told you that photography company. Couple of weeks ago, he was at one of his client sites. He does a lot with hospitals as well as other things. And he was shooting one thing and they said, hey, while you're at it, we need you to go to floor 13, scrub up. He's used to having to scrub up and basically sanitize everything. They didn't give him any details, but that's normal. He does it. He has his little camera. They disinfect everything. He walks into a room. They lead him into a room. The client leads him into a room. A person is cut wide open and there's a robot arm going in that person and there's no one next to the robot. And so my husband is like, click, click. No one is irreplaceable unless we make ourselves irreplaceable. So your two biggest interrupters in your industry, we're gonna talk about them, but here's something I want you to understand. Now, any of you in here, do any of you in here love taking notes? Does anyone love taking notes? Raise your hand if you love taking notes. There's usually a couple people I see. If you love taking notes, feel free to take notes on your iPad, yellow pad, take picture of the screen, whatever works for you. But again, I mentioned at the end, I'll give you an opportunity to download a PDF. Because of our time, and I do not want to run into your libation time, we're gonna move through this fast, understanding that you can come and read the details later. Is that okay with everybody in here? Is that okay? Okay. So your two biggest disruptors or interrupters that I want you to be aware of are blockchain and artificial intelligence. How many of you feel like you really understand blockchain? Raise your hand if you feel like you have a solid understanding of it. Okay, awesome. Four of you, awesome. Please know that this is actually very standard when I speak to anyone. Well, I was about to say financial services, that's not true, that's anyone anywhere. You probably have the largest percentage of people that are familiar. But I do want you to be aware of what it is, okay? So if you think about, how many of you have heard of like cryptocurrencies and NFTs? Who's heard of that? Okay. We won't even get into if it's good or bad, that's not where we're going today. Or you can catch me at the 80s party, and I'll tell you my opinion. It'll probably shock you, because I'm probably not as big a fan as you would think that I would be. Because I actually understand what they are and how they work. Anywho, cryptocurrencies and NFTs, think of them as various types of trains. You know how there's passenger trains, there's different type of trains that might transport maybe gasoline. So there are different types of trains. We're not concerned with the trains right now. We're looking at the track, which is blockchain. This is the technology that enables all of these things to run. So we're ignoring the trains, we're looking at the track. Now I'm not gonna go into all of this, because this is the one I said you can read later. But what I want you to understand about blockchain is all it is is a digital ledger. We all know what ledgers are in this room. We've all worked with Excel files and things like that. Now if you have an Excel file on your computer, and someone breaks into your computer and changes the figures, what happens? It's just changed. Uh-oh. But imagine that same ledger is on thousands of computers across the world. And if someone breaks it and changes one, all the other computers say, nope, that's not accurate, and changes it back. That is what blockchain is. And it allows a certain level of transparency so that you can watch these transactions as they happen. Now what's interesting about it, and I'll let you get into all the other pieces about how they say it's more secure, how it's decentralized, how it's efficient. I'll let you look at that and make your own decisions. I'm not trying to sell you on anything. I just want you to be informed and comfortable with the idea. But here's what's interesting about blockchain, because people are trying to figure out where's it gonna go? Are we going to have more government oversight? Will it be more accepted? Blockchain was really created in a very libertarian fashion. The whole purpose of it was so that government couldn't track transactions. That is literally the only reason it was created. Now some of you, how many of you are like, ah, so that those criminals can do stuff? How many of you are like that? So it wasn't originally, I don't think, for criminals. It was just people, like I said, with a little bit more of a libertarian mindset that were like, hey, I shouldn't have to, if I write a check to someone, I wanna give you money, a bank shouldn't have to track this. I shouldn't have to go through the government to get you something. I shouldn't even have to use their legal tender. We should just be able to exchange. Now, again, I'm not saying I agree or disagree. I'm sharing with you where this started. And so the whole purpose of it is to be untraceable. So for it to be stable, it needs to be traceable. So it's literally going against what it was created for. Does that make sense to everyone in here? So I'll let you read up on all these other points when you get the notes yourself. You get to make your own decision. But I do want you to understand the technology behind it. Understand that it is a faster way of transferring information or having transactions than anything else that's in the market right now. So again, we're looking at the track, not the trains. One thing I do want you to be aware of, though, as you look through the notes, the two things, if you see number six, I want you to pay special attention to Ethereum and smart contracts. You can read the notes to see what that is, but I think of all the things dealing with blockchain, that is actually what those of you in this room need to be aware of. All that you need to understand about smart contracts is let's look at that track, okay? So we're running a transaction across that track. Right now, does anyone in here invest in real estate or help their clients invest in real estate? Anybody do anything like that? And I don't mean necessarily in REITs, but I mean in individual buildings. Anyone manage stuff like that, where they're buying buildings, investment homes, things like that? Right now, it's quite the process. You have to identify it, you purchase, you might have to find a management company to manage it, right? Then you have to put out the people to put in applications so that they can live there. There's all these processes. A smart contract works on an if, then, this, that type of technology. So instead of it going through all these different people, like after you get the deed, then you hire a management firm, then they have to put something out on a website so that people can apply. Imagine all of these things happen automatically as soon as the deed is received. Then automatically, a management firm is awarded the contract. Then automatically, it goes to post online. Basically, smart contracts eliminate humans. I want you to look into that deeper. And I'm just showing you, this is an example. You can look at some of these companies. Again, this is your homework in your own time to see the different types of smart contracts and DeFi programs. I want you to see how they work. So this is a little homework for you or a team member, but I want you to be knowledgeable of this. Now, artificial intelligence is when computers and machines are designed to do things that normally require human intelligence, like learning, problem solving, and decision making. It's like teaching a robot how to think and learn like a person. When I said that AI is another thing I want you to be aware of, there are many types of AI. The generative AI that people are talking about now, that's one teeny weeny piece of it. So you might want to look at some of these different types of applications. And then I want you to ask yourself, which investments will likely be disrupted by this artificial intelligence? Will be disrupted by smart contracts? Do you see where I'm going with this here? So we're not even just looking at just our businesses or our clients' lives, but the things we're having them invest in. How might these technologies impact those things? That's what we want to start thinking about. Now, the other question that I want you to ask other people at your table, I'm going to give you 20 seconds for this one, maybe 30. Actually, I'll give you a minute. What can you provide that adds value that AI and robots cannot? One minute, go. Thank you. Five, four, three, two, one, zero. Thank you so much. If anybody's still talking, point to them. They'll dance with me on stage. Anybody want to raise your hand and give me one of the answers you came up with at your table? Anybody want to raise your hand, share something? Come on, don't be shy. Human element, yes. Empathy, yes. Empathy, yes. What else you got? Compassion, yes. Situational awareness. That's a good one. What else do you have? Handshake. Judgment, yes. So I think what we've determined is there are a lot of things that we can provide that this technology cannot. And technology can also only do what it's programmed to do. Even in machine learning, there's limits. Whereas humans, we're able to respond to challenges and surprise situations much better than machines. So there's a lot of things you have to offer. And keep in mind, once again, as we think about the things we have to offer, we're shaping the future. Now, one of the things that came up repeatedly when I was doing research and reading some of the great feedback that was given to me to help me understand what would be of value to you is one of the questions that kept coming up was what technology should we be investing in right now? There's a two-part answer to that. Number one, when you think about what you can provide that AI cannot, invest in technology that helps you do that better. So it's not always about automating. Sometimes it's about making you more human. How can you accentuate the fact that you have situational awareness? How can you accentuate that handshake? Maybe it's creating some type of handwritten note or customized note or something interesting that reminds the client of your relationship. So think about technology that makes you, you better. The things that you know your clients come to you for. Now, understand also, we can manipulate the future. I've said that over and over and over again. And so we're going to demonstrate this by playing a little game. Look around at your table. I want you to make sure that you're seated with smart people. Are we all comfortable with our tables? You want to hear something crazy? I did this recently with a group of oil and gas engineers. Not this activity, but I did have them getting tables and I asked them to make sure they were smart people. Do you know these people actually started getting up and moving around the room? And I'm on stage like, oh no. Yeah, she's like, we have engineers. They're different. They're special people recording, but they're different. All right, so we're going to play a little game. It's going to be very short and very easy. Three rounds. And each round, you're going to choose between two things. I want you to choose the thing that is good. I want you to choose the thing that is harmless. Easy enough? But here's the catch. You have to decide as a table. I'm only going to give you 20 seconds each round and you have to decide as a table. Out of curiosity, do we have any recovering attorneys in the room? Raise your hand if we have any recovering attorneys. Awesome, so I don't have to go into greater detail about the rules, all right? So you do have to go with your team. So are we all ready? Yes? You sure you're ready? Good, because these are life or death choices. All right, so you're hungry, which ironically enough, might actually be accurate at this moment. Which do you eat? Do you eat A or do you eat B? 20 seconds, go. Five, four, three, two, one. Two, one, zero, decision is made. Okay, If your table selected A, please raise your hand. Raise your hand if your table selected A. Raise it high. All right. OK. About 10 of you. Awesome. If your table selected B, please raise your hand high. Hands down. Now, A, when the few hands went up, did you notice how all the B people were like, ha, ha, ha? They were feeling real cocky. A people, if you are able and willing, would you mind standing up to learn your fate? If you don't mind? You don't mind if you chose A? If you don't mind just standing up to learn your fate? OK. If you selected A, you chose grapes. Congratulations. All right. You can be seated. You can be seated. B people, you want to raise your hands? Go ahead. It's OK. Own it. It's OK. Own it. If you selected B, you chose moon seed. Congratulations. You're dead. And just like that, we lost over 90% of the most elite financial advisors in the United States of America. We are in trouble, y'all. All right. No worries. We have a chance for redemption. Chance for redemption. Are y'all ready for round two? Yes? It's going to get better. OK. Round two. You are no longer hungry, even if you are in real life. You want a pet. Your pet's name is Fluffy. Which pet is your Fluffy? And you must choose one as your Fluffy. Is your Fluffy A? Or is your Fluffy B? 20 seconds, go. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. Decision is made. Decision is made. If your table selected A, please raise your hand. OK. If your table selected B, please raise your hand. Whoa, it's like half and half. A people, raise your hand. If you selected A, you chose a coral snake. Congratulations, you're dead. B people, raise your hand. Raise your hand high. If you chose B, you chose a scarlet king snake, which is a popular type of pet snake. Congratulations. OK, now, are there any tables that were alive both rounds? Who stayed alive two rounds? OK. Yes, look at the support. All right, now, did anyone die both rounds? It's OK, it's OK. One more chance for redemption. You ready? Last chance, yes? All right, last one, here we go. You're bringing one of these home. I want you to bring home the item that is harmless. Do you bring home A, or do you bring home B? 20 seconds, go. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. Decision is made. Decision is made. If anyone's still talking, point to them, and I'll get Evil Fluffy to bite them. OK. If your table selected A as the harmless one, raise your hand. Raise your hand. OK. If your table selected B as the harmless one, raise your hand. Half of the, do you even, never mind, it's OK. If you selected A, please raise your hand. If you selected A, you chose a baby. Surprise. Where are my B people? Where are my B people? If you selected B, you chose an axolotl. Now, looking around the room, many of you look confused. You're like, I don't know what to do with this crystal. Help me out. What does this mean? Don't worry. I got you. I might be able to explain what an axolotl is to you pretty well, because I may have been trying to convince my husband to let me have one. Here's what I know. Axolotls are very small amphibians that's found in only a very small select area of Mexico. They're cute as a button, and if you look at them, they kind of have a face like a baby. Now, here's what I know about an axolotl. If you encounter an axolotl in the wild and it scratches you, it cannot hurt you. If it bites you, it cannot hurt you. Now, I don't know why you do this, but if you decided to bite the axolotl, it cannot hurt you. But let's talk about this baby. I don't know if you've ever owned one of these, but just what it does to someone's financial situation should have let all of you in here know that that wasn't the option. So this round goes to B, axolotl. Okay, who stayed alive all three rounds? Raise your hand high. Oh. Oh, no. Oh, who died all three rounds? Keep your hands up. It's okay. Own it. Now, everyone else, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, while we don't have any people we should follow, the people whose hands are up are the ones we definitely should not follow. The people whose hands are up are the ones we definitely should not. Okay? So, when it came to the game, how did you do? Not great. It's okay. But there was a purpose to illustrate two things. Number one, I want you to notice how the smallest change in a thing, the smallest little difference in detail, meant the difference between something being harmless and being deadly. Understand that the only reason that we're all standing here or sitting here right now is because our ancestors' brains learned to recognize difference as danger. It kept them alive. Now, also understand that in this moment in time where we're undergoing more rapid change than any humans ever in history, continuous rapid change, our brains are still operating to see change as danger. That is why sometimes we automatically poo-poo something before we look to see what it is. That's why you can present something to your clients that you know is sound, but because it's different, they automatically reject it or just cannot conceive it. Do not be discouraged. Understand that what's happening is biological. They think you're trying to give them moon seed. So, as we're trying to adapt and we find ourselves having all of this angst, which is very natural, understand what's happening in our biology and do your best to be open. That doesn't mean that a type of technology isn't actually stupid. Some of it is. I test out technologies all the time, sometimes very popular ones. And people are like, this is great. It's going to be the next best thing. And I'm like, this is dumb. Not because of my opinion, but because it has no practical application. It doesn't serve people. It has no utility. Does that make sense? Even entertainment, there has to be a purpose. So, that was purpose number one in us doing that activity. Purpose number two is to illustrate that most of us in this room have no business picking out our own produce. All right, so, when I talked about locating the Easter eggs of the future, understand that the future doesn't just land on us. It didn't land on Blockbuster. It didn't land on Yellow Cab. Blockbuster had the opportunity to buy Netflix. They backed out of the deal. Why? They had no competitor anywhere near them in revenue in the world. And in the end, they backed out of the deal because they're like, you know what? This whole streaming thing you're saying will exist eventually, we don't see that as happening. And this mailing videos to people so it can just come to them, that's not what people want. We're Blockbuster. We know what people want. People want to have to get up off their couch and put on clothes and get in a car and drive to a store and go in, hopefully find their video if it's not already taken out, take it home, watch it, forget to return it and pay a late fee. That's what people want because we're Blockbuster and we know. The future didn't just happen at Blockbuster. All Blockbuster had to do was get out of their C-suite, which is where most of us live with our highest level people, us as owners of businesses, we're stuck in what we want. All they had to do was ask their cashiers, hey, what are you seeing customers having a problem with every day? And they would have said, oh my gosh, all day long I'm chewed out by people that come all the way here and their videos aren't available or they're forgetting to return videos and paying late fees. That would have told them buying Netflix would have been the best option. Same thing with taxi companies. All they had to do was ask their dispatchers what are the problems they're seeing over and over and over again and they would have told them people are saying they can't get taxis in certain neighborhoods all over the world or people keep calling trying to figure out where their car is. But as a result of them not asking their line, people are really paying attention to their customers and thinking their customers will just deal with it because what they're doing is normal. Now they're getting their lunches taken and eaten, their cookies are being owned by companies that don't even own vehicles. That is insane. But the Easter eggs were there for them. So then the last question as we get ready to start bringing this closer to a close, I tried to shave a couple minutes off. I know we started 10 minutes later. How should you evolve and what technology should you adopt? You specifically in this room as elite financial advisors. Now, how many of you were taught that when you come to somebody's house you bring like a little gift or something, right? I'm in your house. I wanted to bring you a gift. This is something extra that I did for you all. So we did what I call a bite-sized study for NAPFA where we looked at people. We got 103 responses, not 100 because we want to do a little bit better than family feud. We did 103 for you. All around the United States, these are random people, not my friends. Gender, 53% were women, 50 or 53 were women, 50 were men. Age is 25 to 40, so your next generation of client for many of you. And household income of 150,000 plus, okay? So we did a bite-sized study just to kind of see their attitudes around financial advisors. First question, do you currently use a financial advisor? 40% said yes. 34% said no, but I plan to in the next five years. And 26% said no, they are unnecessary. Is that last group your target audience? No. No, all right, next up. Do you currently manage your own investments using an online or app broker like Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade? 61% said yes. 20% said no, but I plan to in the next five years. And 19% said no, they are unnecessary. How are we feeling right now? Now, it's very important. I wanted to put some data together. 29% of respondents use both a financial planner and an app web broker. So I wanted to show you that overlap. Does that make sense? So for instance, I'm one of them. I have a very strong plan with my planner, and we actually overcompensate for what she asks us to do, but I still manage some of my own things. And this is actually my extra money. This is my play money that I'm not just completely wasting, right, but it's still a significant amount of money. I know I have a lot of friends in my friend group that do the same thing. We have FAs, but we also manage ourselves. So I want to make sure that we're clear that it's not an either or proposition. Does that make sense? All right, next up. Preference for managing their portfolios. Would you prefer a financial advisor or artificial intelligence, or are you neutral? 74% of them prefer a financial advisor. 19% are neutral, and 7% prefer artificial intelligence. Crypto and NFT investment attitudes. 35% of them said they invest in cryptocurrencies. 20% say they invest in NFTs. 40% said I expect FAs to handle NFT and crypto investing. And 38% say they don't fall into any of those three categories above. Does this make sense so they could check off all that apply? So that was actually surprising to me to find that almost 40% of people in that particular younger age group are not investing in NFTs, cryptos, and don't even care if their FAs are involved in it. Is that surprising to anybody else in here? Because oftentimes we think of younger people wanting all this technology, but that's not necessarily the case. Couple other things I wanted to leave you with. One of the questions that was asked in the next three years, artificial intelligence will be more reliable than human financial advisors when it comes to managing portfolios. Where do you stand on a scale of zero, strongly disagree, to 100, strongly agree? They're in the middle. They're trying to figure this out like we are, y'all. I don't know if that's good or bad news for you, but it's news straight from them, okay? Additional insights, as we only have a couple more slides to go that I just want you to know from this study. Nearly a third of respondents weren't familiar with generative AI like chat, GPT, or mid-journey. So a full third of them really didn't know what was going on with that at all. They were like, they'd never even heard of any of these things. Chat, GPT, what? Which I thought was interesting. The next thing is just because someone was familiar with AI in those terms, it didn't show them having any preference for that over financial advisor. So knowledge of these things doesn't automatically equal preference. Respondents believe that some FAs will be replaced by technology in the next five years. When asked what percentage of financial advisors do they think, they said 45%, which is actually in alignment with that will the robots take my job, ironically enough. That's pretty close. The majority of respondents found their FAs through referrals and family and friends. When I say majority, I mean about 60% of those that responded, that's how they found them. What that means is your next client is connected to your current client. We already know that referrals are the best type of business, but if we're trying to grow our book of business or really penetrate deeper into those client accounts, understanding that oftentimes when our clients pass away, if we haven't built a relationship with that mate and their children, where does that portfolio go? So we have to focus even more on that. And then there's no one favored method of communication. It varies based on the client. And you can go in and read the notes yourself to see all the details to that, but what you are probably interested in knowing is they really aren't interested in connecting with you via apps or social media. Now, we know legally you can't do too much via social media, but it's just interesting to see what their expectations are, whether they know it or not. They're not interested. They want to be able to call you. They want to be able to email you. They do want to be able to text you. They want to be able to see you in person. Those are the top four methods, all right? So I want to leave you with this idea that the future just doesn't happen. It leaves us Easter eggs. But we have to look at, I gave you data here. We talked about what's happening in these markets. We talked about how none of us are irreplaceable. We talked about how we should invest in technology that shows our clients the value of the things that we can do that the technology can't do. Isn't that kind of a weird twist if you think about it? Invest in technology that makes you more human. Invest in technology that gives you more insights, yes, on the back end, but in terms of that client-facing technology, making the relationship stronger, that is the most important technology right now. They're not all dazzled by the newest technology that's out. So I mentioned that you would have the opportunity to get a PDF of these notes. Go ahead and take out that phone that you sleep with and that you're addicted to, and you can take a picture of this slide, use NAPFA as the code, and once you go through a couple questions, you're going to be able to download a PDF of this presentation, okay? Don't worry, it's going to be on the next screen, too. I'm going to give you your three big takeaways. Number one, I want you to survey your team and clients to uncover pain points. So are there any blockbuster-like points of friction that you can remove? So asking open-ended questions, not just a survey, are you happy with our service, but has there been a time where we've disappointed you? Have you ever found it hard to connect with us? What are some things you wish that we would offer? What are some of the challenges you have in understanding our plan for your future, right? So those open-ended questions, and you'll start to see patterns, and when you see patterns of problems, the second place where you want to invest in technology is technology that addresses those problems. Don't just invest in things because they're new and shiny. Invest in them because they serve your clients and their needs. Reimagine your role as a financial advisor. How do you create an experience? Most of the stuff we talked about, what makes you different than the technology is that you provide human connection experience. Do you have family education meetings so that you're building those relationships with the mate and the rest of the children, extended families, and get those people in as referrals? Do you provide any type of additional value or community events? You know, I know we talked about the award for people that are out there giving advice pro bono. How are you out there adding additional value? And then lastly, scan the QR code so you receive a copy of those notes and spend a little bit of time looking at the blockchain section that we went over. So, I want to leave you with this idea that the future for you is bright because you are really at the top of your industry. There are still a very large amount of people, 74%, that see your value over any technology that's coming out right now. What that means is the future is yours to shape, to position yourself so that you remain in that space as long as you're accentuating what you can do that that technology can not do. So, I look forward to seeing you all shortly. I wasn't aware if the 80s theme party meant that I dress like the 80s or if I dress like I did in the 80s. If I dress like I did in the 80s, I'm going to have to go pick up a pamper. So, it's been wonderful spending time with you. Enjoy your networking event. Thank you so much.

Crystal Washington

technology expert

future of technology

finance

leveraging technology

financial advisors

artificial intelligence

personalized services

blockchain

client experience