July 14, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, we sit down with one of the most prolific voices in the financial planning space: Jason Pereira. A financial planner, fintech strategist, professor, podcaster, and tireless advocate for professional standards, Jason joins Ignacio to talk through the present and future of financial advice.
With over 750 pieces of content under his belt and multiple roles shaping the Canadian and global advisor landscape, Jason doesn’t hold back in this wide-ranging conversation on technology, regulation, and what it really means to serve clients in a world reshaped by AI.
In this episode, we talk about:
💼 Jason’s multifaceted career: financial planner, tech consultant, policy advocate
🧠 The evolution of advice from stock picking to life planning
🤖 Why AI will elevate, not replace, human advisors
📉 What breaks in advisory firms and how to rebuild better
🔥 The real problems with financial industry incentives and education
If you’re into advisor tech, financial planning evolution, and unfiltered industry truths, this one’s for you.
Oh, and if you haven't already... subscribe to The Blunt Dollar for more raw and honest finance conversations.
New episodes drop every other week! Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
And last, but not least, don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignacio-ramirez-moreno-cfa/
Enjoy the episode!
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Listeners should consult a qualified financial professional before making any financial decisions.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
AI has got greater potential.
100% Part of it's going to behow we figure out how to apply
that technology to actual, realunderlying problems.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome everyone to a new episode of the Blunt Dollar
.
Today's guest is someone whosits right at the intersection
of financial planning, fintechand advisor education Jason
Pereira.
Jason is a true multi-affinatehe's a financial planner, wealth
tech consultant, podcaster,writer, professor and a
recognized voice in both theCanadian and global wealth
(00:29):
management scenes.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
The way I define my purpose is basically very broad.
It's how do I help better yourlife and whatever I can bring to
bear to do that.
That's what I'm going to do.
Our industry is not unique.
Our industry is impacted by thesame forces as the rest of the
universe.
How many tools have beendeveloped that are Gen-AI based,
that do anything other thanmeaning notation?
I'll tell you right now thatnumber is incredibly small.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
What's the right way to think about the relationship
between advisors and technologyin the future?
In?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
general, the vast majority of technology has been.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
This is the Blonde Dollar with Ignacio Ramirez and
should not be relied upon as asubstitute for professional
advice.
Always do your own research andconsult a qualified advisor
before making any financialdecisions.
All investments involve risk,including the potential loss of
capital.
And now let's get started withthe episode.
Welcome everyone to a newepisode of the Blunt Dollar.
(01:38):
Today's guest is someone whosits right at the intersection
of financial planning, fintechand advisor education Jason
Pereira.
Jason is a true multi-affinate.
He's a financial planner,wealth tech consultant,
podcaster, writer, professor anda recognized voice in both the
Canadian and global wealthmanagement scenes.
(01:58):
He's earned over nineprofessional designations,
received over 30 industry awardsand produced more than 750
pieces of content acrossarticles, podcasts and
interviews.
He's also a fierce advocate forelevating financial planning as
a profession and for holdingbad actors accountable.
(02:18):
Jason has a front row seat tohow technology is reshaping the
advisor experience, from CRMsystems and portfolio management
tools to AI, apis and theevolving fintech stack.
So, whether you're a soloadvisor, a growing RIA or part
of a warehouse trying tomodernize, jason has thoughts
and likely some strong ones onwhat works, what's hype and
(02:41):
what's coming next.
In this conversation, we talkabout his career journey, the
evolution of the advisor techstack, how to build trust in a
digital-first world, and whathe's seeing from the front lines
of advisor technology.
Jason, welcome to the BluntDollar.
It's amazing to have you on theshow.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Thank you.
You set quite the bar now, soI'm looking forward to
disappointing all the listeners.
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
No, no, no, we're talking to a superstar today.
As you can see, jason has many,many articles out there, many
podcasts, so we're very, veryexcited about this one.
Now, before we dig into it,quick ad break here.
The reason why Jason and I aretalking today is because the CFA
Institute very kindly made theintroduction.
(03:25):
Why?
Well, because both of us aregoing to be at the CFA Institute
live in Chicago from the 4thtill the 7th of May.
It's going to be absolutelyamazing.
Over 2,000 financeprofessionals already signed up.
We're going to be talking aboutsome of the major themes shaping
the finance industry today, andJason is going to be
(03:47):
participating in a panel I'll bemoderating called the Robo
Advisory Evolution.
We're going to be talking aboutthe future of our profession in
the age of AI.
It's going to be absolutelyamazing.
Jason is going to be there, I'mgoing to be there, and many,
many other people are going tocome.
So if you want to meetinteresting folks and take part
in some of the big conversationsshaping the industry today,
(04:09):
make sure you sign up to CFAChicago Live.
It's going to be absolutely ablast.
So, jason, before anything, canyou maybe tell us what is it
that you're doing exactly today?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It's a loaded question.
Okay, so my day job is I am afinancial planner.
I basically am a partner in afirm in Toronto, a boutique firm
with three advisors, run about275 million and for about little
over 230 households.
So everything I do tends to bearound business owners and cross
borders.
So I see my two little nichesthere.
(04:45):
That's my day job.
In addition to that, I've beenvery passionate about just and
curious about the entireindustry, so a bunch of other
things that I get involved with.
I've been involved in variousother organizations around
elevating the standards aroundfinancial planning chair or the
former president of theFinancial Planning Association
(05:06):
of Canada.
Now I've just taken a step backand run the regulatory
committee.
In addition to that, I setother association committees and
boards and volunteer positionswith various regulators as well,
and then, beyond that, I alsohave become pretty much the de
facto advisor technology expertin this country and speak both
nationally and internationallyacross multiple continents.
Now four of them, four, five,maybe, uh, that base regarding
(05:30):
digital transformation in thefuture of the industry.
My god, do you, do you eversleep eight hours?
Seven to eight hours a day?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
oh my god, when I talk, when I talk to people like
you, I feel like what am Idoing with my life?
I mean, how are they managingto do all these different things
?
So, talking about all thethings you've done because, yeah
, I mean you're an advisor,you're a fintech strategist,
you're a podcaster, you're apolicy advocate I mean you
clearly have a super wide lens.
(05:59):
What has, working across somany different verticals, taught
you about the blind spots wehave within the finance industry
?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
life is and then basically help them make it
happen over time.
And having been doing this fora long time, I know what makes
me tick.
Now what makes me tick ishelping people win and seeing
that.
So when you see the fullfruition of what the potential
for this industry is, it's hardnot to be passionate about it
and it's hard not to just wantto keep getting better, and I'm
just an intellectually curiousperson altogether, so it's not
surprising that I go down therabbit hole of how did this
other thing happen to this otherperson in the industry, Like
(06:45):
when they came to a client?
That's ridiculous.
That shouldn't happen.
How do we fix that?
How do we get involved andbasically stop that from
happening to people and elevatethe standard?
What are the technologies thatI'm using to help elevate my
experience?
How do I not go down the rabbithole of how do I make the
experience better?
How do I learn more?
Just like all thosedesignations and degrees and
everything else I earned it washow do I learn more to be better
at this?
So it's a constant, you know,reinforcing cycle of whatever it
(07:09):
is that I touch in my job, Iwant it to be better.
So that's where it all comesfrom.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I can definitely see that you're an intellectually
curious person by the number ofbooks you have in your
background, and I'm pretty sureyou've read all of them.
So clearly you've been in theindustry for quite some time and
the word advice obviously meanssomething very different today
to what it meant 20 years ago.
(07:34):
Financial advice how has yourown definition of what it means
to be a financial advisorchanged over the years?
That's a good question.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I mean, when I came into the industry it's funny I
came in as a high school studentlooking for a co-op position
and I just was interested in thestock market.
So to me, advice at that point,when I first entered the market
, was solely around what to buyand sell.
That's what my understanding ofadvice was.
And then, through that position, over time, they kept me on
beyond the school period and letme come back while I was still
(08:04):
finishing my undergrad and gaveme a job afterwards.
I got to try a lot of thingsand one of the things I came
across was they started havingme do financial plans and I
really didn't have too much ofan idea of what I should be
doing there.
But what I was seeing was likelet me get this straight, I
adjust these numbers and I makethat line go like this, and that
(08:30):
tells me that they can get thething that they want in life.
I mean, to me I was just likethis is where we should be
starting, not with everythingelse.
And I would say very early inmy you know, late my early
twenties is when I when thedefinition really started to
take hold, which was it's notabout the products or the
mechanisms or tools, accounts,whatever that help us get to
where we need to be.
It's about the plan for helpingus get to where we need to be.
So my viewpoint early on verymuch shifted from financial
(08:51):
advice to financial planning.
Right now, how has that evolved?
It's continued to evolvebecause, as products have become
commoditized, the heavy liftingof our industry has been
reduced because of technologicaladvancement and making things
easier and making us able to runmore efficient practices.
The amount of time that thathas freed up industry has been
reduced because of technologicaladvancement and making things
easier and making us able to runmore efficient practices.
The amount of time that thathas freed up has expanded and
(09:12):
basically that can be consumedin one of two ways either larger
numbers of households to beserved, which, if you're doing
that, good luck keeping morethan 100 households straight.
In your head.
There's something called aDunbar number that says you
can't handle infinite number ofrelationships.
So you're either becoming acommodity yourself or you're
expanding your service offering,and as you expand your service
offering, you start to widelythink about the ways you can
(09:34):
help people, and to me, it's oneof these things where my job is
to literally make the lives ofthe people I'm serving better
and when you take that as astarting point, the areas that
goes beyond the conventionalinvestment insurance tax, estate
planning is just issubstantially greater right,
whether that be coaching them onbasically how to negotiate
(09:55):
their car lease or loan becausethat's the point of issue or
concern for them, or helpingthem talk to their kids, who are
now getting into the work,about being responsible with
money playing a role there, orbasically helping console them
when something really negativehappens in their lives to
someone in their lives and beingthere for them.
We've all, as advisors andplanners, had these moments in
(10:16):
time where people have turned tous in a moment of desperation
because of something horrible inlife and those are the moments
where those relationships areforged life and those are the
moments where thoserelationships are formed or
forged.
But it's also the moments wherewe may have a disproportionate
amount of value that we thatthey didn't even know we had,
that we can help them with.
So my definition is a loose one.
It continues to expand becausethe way I define my purpose is
basically very broad.
(10:37):
It's how do I help better yourlife and whatever I can bring to
bear to do that that's what I'mgoing to do.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It's pretty cool, and I like the idea that your work
is constantly evolving to adjustto the new world we live in,
because that's what probablymakes it so exciting.
What I find really interestingabout your profile, though, is
that you strike a balancebetween this big picture
thinking and these conceptsyou're using and alluding to and
(11:05):
actually building stuff, whichis like, I feel like a very rare
combo.
Using you know both sides ofthe brain, and I wanted to ask
you how do you stay groundedwhen you're constantly thinking
about how your job is changingand where the industry is going?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah.
So it's funny.
I think what you identified iswhat I think a lot of people end
up being frustrated with whenthey go to conferences and
whatnot, right?
They go to a conference andthey hear a panel talking about
the future of AI and how it'sgoing to transform everything,
and then you're like, okay, whatcan I do today?
And they're just like I don'tknow right, like meeting
notation, okay, great, thanks.
Thanks for that.
That's a commodity now.
That's great, but it's you know, the lofty aspirations and the
(11:45):
end goals and the long-termvision.
Those are valuable because youneed to have a vision for where
the future is and start movingtowards that.
But you have to always bringthat back down to base steps,
like what is it I can do today,right?
So I?
I love having these bigconversations about where the
future is going, knowing that itmay not happen, but it's going
to be something close to that,hopefully.
But the reality is, is that if Ican't implement that today, I'm
(12:07):
just wasting time, right, I'mjust wasting time unless there's
a takeaway for how I can setmyself up for what is coming
right.
So understanding the possiblevisions of the future, of how
things are evolving and that'salways changing helps inform the
decisions you need to maketoday, based on what's viable,
what's available and what'spossible, and be grounded in
that.
(12:27):
So I think part of the reasonthat I do maintain that is
because I'm not just ahigh-level thinker, I'm
literally a practitioner.
I have to actually interactwith people every day.
So how do I reconcile thislong-term vision with the basic,
with the today?
And for a lot of people, theyjust shrug their shoulders and
say I'll wait for it to happen.
I'm not the kind of person towait for it to happen.
I'm the kind of person who says, okay, I learned 50 things
(12:50):
there that might happen, butthere's one or two things I can
start implementing today.
So how do I start that?
And the next thing, you know,10 years down the road, you're
well ahead.
So you like rolling up yoursleeves and getting your hands
dirty and doing stuff Well, it's.
Fantasy is nice, reality isbetter, like at the end of the
day, because we, you know well,it can be better, because it's
(13:13):
more impactful in your actuallife.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
And what do you think people most often misunderstand
about your work and yourmission in the industry?
About your work and yourmission in the industry?
Is it that, yeah, some peoplethink that you're a high-level
thinker when you're actually apractitioner, or vice versa, or
something completely different?
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I think I get two pieces of different, distinct
pushback.
One there's the, you know,especially because of the cohort
of clients I deal with, youknow, a lot of times I get
dismissive like well, you dealwith high net worth people, so
this doesn't apply to thegrassroots, ground level of
individuals, and it's like whydo you think I've never served
those people?
Why do you think I don't thinkabout those people?
(13:52):
Why do you think I don't thinkabout the general problem?
And why do you think that theprinciples that I espoused, that
I live up to, like fiduciaryduty and basically always doing
what's right for the client,don't apply down there?
They absolutely do.
So maybe the delivery mechanismthat I demonstrate for my
clients is different, but thecore principles, when you go
back down to base principles,those apply everywhere in my
opinion.
(14:12):
And the second piece is is that, frankly, I think people will
find me antagonistic orargumentative or basically think
I can, I'll be called a jerk bymany people, but that's simply
because I will make statementsabout what I think is wrong in
the industry.
And, as Leighton Sinclair said,it's impossible for a man to
understand something when hisincome is dependent upon not
understanding it Right.
(14:33):
So I get a lot of pushback fromentrenched interests, right,
but I simply you know, for lackof a better term often simply
throw back a Socratic approachto them which is like oh really,
you think that?
Well, here's why do you thinkthat?
Well, here's evidence to thecontrary.
And you know, oftentimes peoplewill just go back and forth.
They'll either call me a jerkand dismiss me, or they'll try
to debate me and then they'llgive up on the debate because
(14:56):
it's hard to argue with actualnumbers or evidence or legal
cases that show that myviewpoint is informed.
Right, I'm not just spoutingoff, I'm basically.
I'm starting.
Typically, if I'm going to makea statement like that, I usually
start from a very informedviewpoint and if I don't, and
I'm proven wrong, I'veabsolutely said you know what
you got me on this one.
I didn't contemplate that and Ithink my learning process
(15:19):
happens in public a lot.
It happens in social media, ithappens in various places and I
think that, you know, not a lotof people are comfortable with
that.
But they'll start off like thatand then, you know, they'll
challenge me enough and ifthey're open-minded enough,
eventually it'll flip around.
They'll start just coming to mefor advice and guidance because
I've disrupted their thinkingand I've become that little kind
of grain, the little rock intheir, their sole of their shoe
that makes them rethink thingsand then eventually comes back.
(15:40):
And the number of people who hadvery negative things to say
about me years ago who come backand are friends and basically
have come to me for advice orcollaborate with me is immense.
So I think people think thatbecause I'm argumentative, I'm
mean or cruel or unapproachable.
If you want to get better, youwant to discuss things in
selection, you want to have anhonest debate.
I'm open to anyone.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Oh man, I'm looking forward for our panel in Chicago
after that.
I'm sure it's going to beabsolutely fantastic.
So let's talk a little bitabout the role of advisors now,
which obviously, as you weresaying before, have expanded
beyond just investments.
Now there's planning involved,there's even behavioral coaching
(16:23):
.
It looks like clients todayexpect a more of a holistic
approach.
So how do you define like realfinancial advice today, and what
do you think clients value themost in that relationship?
Hey there, quick favor to askIf you enjoy the blunt dollar,
the unfiltered takes, thestories and the laughs.
The easiest way to support theshow is by tapping that
(16:44):
subscribe button right now whileyou're listening.
And here's my promise.
So let's just start at thestart with the evolution of the
(17:06):
industry.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Right, and I'll credit Michael Kitsis with
having put this framework upthere first, and he's right, and
I think it's.
When you sit back, it's veryobvious.
You know, the marketsoriginally started with just
investing or advice, startedwith just access to markets
right.
Then it became commoditized.
And then it became okay, well,I can run your portfolio.
So it was a laddering up ofvalue, right, okay, great.
So then portfolio managementbecame commoditized.
(17:29):
Then it became okay, well, Ican actually do a financial plan
that gives direction andpurpose to your investment Okay,
great.
And then financial planningexpanded to encompass insurance
and tax and everything else thatit should.
Because, again, as everythingon the lower end started getting
more and more commoditized ormore and more competition
emerged, what happened is wekept on moving up our value
propositions.
(17:49):
Now, that's not to say thatthose value propositions that
existed before don't.
There are some people who willopt to exist or to interact with
only a transactional advisor.
They should have that right.
That market works, if that'swhat you want.
But they should also be awareof what exists beyond that and
(18:10):
they can opt in basically withfull I'd say with informed
consent.
But what we continue to see is acontinued evolution of the
expansion of value propositionright.
So we've gotten away from justthe product-based or simple
financial planning to moreholistic financial planning and
the final frontier on this right, because the reality is that
artificial intelligence isalready working towards making
everything that is taking ourtime, the heavy lifting, all
right, the heavy lifting work,whether it's data entry or
(18:35):
basically a foreign population,you name it everything that
involves repetitive processes isripe for disruption.
With artificial intelligenceand the automation we you have
to date, that is going to reducethe amount of time we spend on
those types of actions more andmore and more.
And what's going to happen isthe same thing that's been
(18:56):
happening the entire time isthat it's basically going to
commoditize things because it'slowering costs, it's going to
lower the price of entry andit's going to lower the
headcount and everything else.
All those efficiencies aregoing to happen.
And then, in pursuit ofmaintaining margins or pricing,
we will continue to expandoffering but once you've
expanded offering to all of thefinancial products that exist in
(19:16):
the marketplace, whether it beinsurance, investment, whatever
else it is to ancillary familyoffice style services like
basically uh, you know, that guyall gives the example
negotiating the car lease orsome high or or even some real
high-end concierge stuff.
I've seen around very largefamily offices where they'll
organize your, your gardenersfor you, whatever else.
Once you've basically gone tothe realm of like helping them
(19:38):
with the stuff in their life tothe greatest degree you possibly
can, what's the final frontier?
The final frontier is the onething that the artificial
intelligence cannot fix, andthat's what's between your ears,
right?
That is, understanding thehuman being on a deeper level,
on a behavioral level,understanding why they are not
succeeding to the way theyshould be or could be, and
(20:02):
helping to modify yourrecommendations such to help
elevate them.
Because here's the reality.
Okay, anyone can go on theirphone right now, type in workout
app and download any number ofhundreds of workout apps.
So in theory, we should all havesix packs, right?
It's that easy, right?
Everything the technology tellsus how to get in shape, tells
us how to do this, right.
(20:23):
So the same thing is going toapply to all the stuff that
happens with financial advice.
It's going to basically be veryeasy over time, easier and
easier over time, to basicallyfind out how to invest your
portfolio, how to basically savefor retirement, all this other
stuff.
But we're not all rocking aroundwith six packs.
Why?
Because, at the end of the day,whether it be our financial
traumas, our past histories, ourmisconceptions, whatever else
(20:44):
it is, the behavioral aspects ofour lives are preventing us or
will prevent us from just takingthe machine to gospel.
So the final frontier foradvice, in my mind, is the
advisor that bridges the, theimplementable or the
understandable behavioralaspects of humanity.
To have a deep knowledge andactual knowledge of behavioral
finance and be able to bridgethat with the machine, with the
(21:04):
output, with the actualquantitative aspects of this, to
create something that may notbe quantitatively the optimal
thing but fits the Venn diagramof behavioral and quantitatively
optimal.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So I want to spend a little bit more time on this.
Obviously, it's a topic veryclose to my heart, so I want to
spend a little bit more time onthis.
Obviously, it's a topic veryclose to my heart.
Technology and your stancewhether it's an amplifier or not
Because, yeah, there's been alot of noise about AI and
robo-advisors replacing ushumans, but your work and I
(21:41):
believe that you've talked aboutthis in the past you believe
that it would enhance what we do, but not replace us.
So what's the right way tothink about the relationship
between advisors and technologyin the future?
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So, in general, the vast majority of technology has
been complementary to ourservices and efficiency gains.
That's largely it right.
So that's large and which hasled to lower, which basically
then, in turn, has led to lowerentry points for underserviced
markets.
Okay, so let's talk about robos, and I remember we, I like,
(22:08):
keeps on going out, but we'llleave that alone.
So the reality is is that noteverybody wants an advisor,
right, like that's the first.
So we have to accept that themarket is diverse.
No-transcript with Robos wasthat they created a new
(22:53):
marketplace, a marketplace foroutsource investment portfolio
management at a low entry point.
That was easy, right To amarket that would otherwise
don't get me wrong, you can goin there with $10 million if you
want to, but you couldn't go inwith a dollar previously and
now you can't, right.
So expanded and created a newmarket and it turned people who
were on the edges of and I won'tsay it's a spectrum, it's kind
(23:16):
of like three.
It's basically a pie chart,right, because you know, diyers
can become one and thenbasically advice can become the
other same thing.
So it changed the margins.
People who were on that marginsaw a value proposition and went
to that Do.
I think that that impactedadvisors negatively.
No, I mean, robo-advisor assetshave increased at the same time
as advisor assets haveincreased, so I'm not seeing
(23:36):
where this friction has happened.
Do I think that it's disruptive?
Well, from the commoditizedvalue proposition, if you're
just an advisor pointing to afund or pointing to a portfolio
and you're adding no additionaladvice over top of it, do I
think that you have a threatthere?
Absolutely you do, because yourvalue proposition shouldn't
just be well, you can pick up aphone and call me.
(23:56):
That's not a value proposition.
You can call anyone.
You can call anyone in theseback offices.
So the reality is that this hasagain turned the heat up on
people with lower valuepropositions to basically
increase their valuepropositions.
So that's largely what happenedthere.
Now let's talk about the rest oftechnology and AI.
So again, ai is really reallygood.
All these technologies havelargely gone after what
(24:18):
Efficiency gains.
Everything's about efficiency,right which again has done what
it's going to open up moremarkets.
You know again I'm going toquote Michael a third time
because he does so much researchin our field but they had
benchmarked the average time tocreate a financial plan at 10
hours Okay, 10 hours.
So that's an incrediblelimiting factor.
(24:39):
So I happen to be friends withand work with a company called
Conquest Planning which is nowmoving into the US and is in
various other countries,including Canada, and they
started applying artificialintelligence before GNI was a
thing to financial planning andthey've architected a system to
be very modern has largely beentowards taking that 10-hour
(25:00):
benchmark and shrinking thatdown as much as possible,
because they realize that, timebeing a constraint, the only way
to get more plans in morepeople's hands is to eliminate
or minimize the constraint.
So they've done everything theycan with different forms of
artificial intelligence anddifferent forms of math whatever
else it is and architecture ofthe systems to shrink that
number.
So if they can get that numberdown to 2.5 hours, that's 4x the
(25:21):
number of people that can beserved.
Now if your value propositionis just mass market pumping out
financial plans, great, you canjust 4x your marketplace.
But if you're basically anadvisor who deals with a small
number at a high value, theamount of time that it takes to
do that now is reduced and theamount of service offering that
you can go beyond that you cancontinue to add, that you can
(25:42):
add to your clients justincreased again.
So it's this constant.
The reality is, everybody saysthese things are going to put
advisors out of business.
I have heard advisors out ofbusiness my entire career, even
before I was in my career, withthe advent of discount brokers,
with the advent of robo-advisors.
Now, with the advent ofartificial intelligence, every
last thing is basically said andyou know what the people saying
(26:04):
that don't get, that they don'tactually understand what
advisors actually do.
They think it's just about thecommodity.
The reality is commodities andservices are two separate things
.
I can go to the cheapest hotelin the world or I can go to the
Four Seasons.
Those are two very differentexperiences and I derive utility
differently.
The utility, the base levelutility, is basically a place to
(26:25):
sleep.
But the utility I derive fromthe four seasons is a completely
different utility.
And if I choose to opt intothat because I want that
experience and I gain value outof that experience, which some
of it may just be the experiencein itself, so be it.
But the differences infinancial services is that the
experience also comes withpotential material financial
gain.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I tend to agree with everything you said, but just
with a caveat, which is youranswer is take into
consideration the state of AItoday, but what about AI 10, 20,
30 years down the road?
I think we're not evenimagining how good it's going to
be.
Could it be possible that in 30years down the road, AI
(27:13):
understands the human psyche youwere alluding to even better
than us, has more empathy thanus humans, and things that we
believe are irreplaceable ornative to human nature today are
going to be part of whatmachines are able to do down the
road.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Entirely possible.
I mean, like you're basicallytalking about the point where
artificial intelligence becomesindistinguishable from humanity
and actually you're talkingabout artificial super
intelligence, effectively, right?
So if that's the case, thenguess what.
Our industry is not unique.
Our industry is impacted by thesame forces as the rest of the
universe, and guess what?
Every industry will beabsolutely disrupted by what
(27:54):
that looks like.
So what does the future worldlook like?
Is it this utopian version ofnobody working and just pursuing
arts and passions and whatever,and artificial intelligence
takes care of everything for us?
Or is it this dystopian worldwhere we're used as batteries?
Whatever else it is?
The reality is none of us know,but we do know it's going to be
different.
Do we think for one second thatif we pulled someone out of
(28:16):
1950, that they'd be able topredict anything that we live
with today smartphones, theinternet, all that stuff?
Do you think that they wouldhave envisioned that necessarily
, or understood the nature ofwork the way it was?
I'll go back a hundred yearsago, to people which was a
largely agrarian 150 years ago,a largely agrarian society.
Do you think we could have seenthat?
No, so you're right, there's apotential for massive disruption
(28:37):
and maybe this job doesn't evenexist anymore.
I don't know.
I don't know.
But what I do know is that thenear-term future and the
mid-term future is closer to thepresent than people think it is
, and I wrote an article on this.
About artificial intelligence isthat don't expect your business
to change in the next two yearsvery much, but it will change a
lot in the next 10 years, andpart of the reason is again,
(28:58):
humanity in a different way, andthat's friction.
Think about we already havelots of technologies that can do
lots of things, but the realityis okay.
I'll give you a simple example.
There existed pre-gen AI, thetechnology and ability to
automate every back office in abank to the nth degree, so that
no one needed to push paper ordo dual entry.
Did those people still existdoing pushing paper and doing
(29:21):
dual entry?
Yep, because, at the end of theday, institutional friction,
whether that be individual,whether that be incentivized or
not, or the individual's abilityto change, cannot keep up with
the innovative pace oftechnology.
So part of the problem is isthat we as human beings are not
going to implement it at thesame speed that it's developed,
so therefore there's alwaysgoing to be a lag right.
(29:43):
So in 10 years time, is yourpractice going to look very,
completely different and are yougoing to basically be doing
higher order things?
Probably, in two years time.
Is that going to be the case?
Probably not, but you will havegained small incremental gains,
and I will always say, too,that look, we're at the
beginning of the hype cycle onthis.
Do we really know where theboundary on this is?
I've heard people in the AIspace that say that Gen AI is
not the ultimate solution tocreating artificial super
(30:06):
intelligence, for varioustechnical reasons they want to
geek out over.
Okay, so let's assume that fora second, that that's true.
Okay, if that's true, then wedon't make that discovery for
another 20, 30 years, 30 yearsright then now.
That pushes the time out evenfurther.
So the reality is we don't knowwhere the boundary of this
technology is at this point orwhat it's fully going to be
(30:27):
capable of.
But also, let's also rememberthat the technology is just a
tool.
The use case is what matters,right?
So look at already how manyit's we're over two years into
the gen ai world.
Okay, the hype cycle we'vereached the Gardner hype cycle,
peak of all this stuff that'shappening.
How many practicalimplementations of Gen AI have
(30:48):
you seen in an advisory practiceto date?
Let's take meeting notation andput it aside, because that's
the one that seems everybody'sjumped onto, because it's a
painful point.
How much Gen AI do you think iscurrently being used in
advisory practices today?
How many tools have beendeveloped that are Gen AI based,
that do anything other thanmeaning notation?
And I'll tell you right nowthat number is incredibly small
(31:10):
because, just like whenblockchain came out and
everybody said, oh, this isgreat, this is the future, this
is going to replace allclearance and everything else,
and we're sitting over 10 yearsinto the well, is it 10 years?
Yeah, no, we're sitting over 10.
Wow, so 2008,?
Wow, do the math on that.
We're sitting over 15 yearsinto the blockchain revolution.
And what's been the revolution?
I haven't seen a revolution.
(31:31):
Ai has got greater potential100%.
Part of it's going to be how wefigure out how to apply that
technology to actual, real,underlying problems, and so far
that's been slow.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
So let's say there's an advisor that buys into what
you just said and he's like okay, I mean I want to be part of
the change, I want toincorporate all this AI into my
day-to-day.
What's the most importantmindset shift that he or she
should have when evaluating andbuilding the tech stack?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I think part of the problem is that people come in
with their defined sense ofworkflow and how things work and
then they try to apply thatworkflow or how they do things,
which is the, which is an oldparadigm over top of new
technology, and that breaksevery time.
And you can see that in in noteven AI, but all over the place.
(32:28):
So, for example, I know plentyof people, friends, in
consulting and they've donelarge SAP implementations and
the SAP implementations, whichis a large enterprise
procurement system, the, the SAPimplementations, when the
company changes their workflowsto match those of the technology
, go beautifully.
When the company wants to doall kinds of customization,
things break left, right andcenter right.
(32:50):
So the reality is, I think,first and foremost, is that you
need to approach your technologyall technology, artificial
intelligence, whatever else itis with an open mind.
You look at it and determine isthere a value proposition to me
using something like this, asis my practice potentially
better off because I am going touse this technology?
Okay, now I did things adifferent way before.
(33:13):
How does this thing work andshould I modify my workflow
processes around that?
And the answer is if you canget a utility, a benefit, an
improvement beyond that of whatyou were doing before and you're
only getting 98% of what youwanted in the first place.
But there's a massiveproductivity gain here.
You need to make that trade-off,but all too often people get
(33:35):
stuck in old templates and oldworkflows and whatever else,
because it's the Lindy principlethe longer technology is in use
, the more likely it's going tocontinue to be in use, because
we are just not well wired forchange.
But the reality is is that youhave to be.
So I think the best piece ofadvice is be open to changing
everything.
Realize that every evolvingbusiness needs to be and I will
(33:57):
say my business practice hasbeen broken and restarted over
and over again.
You can always tell when it'sbreaking, because it's like
things aren't working asefficiently as they are.
You're not evolving.
Your scale is causing youproblems and friction, and
oftentimes people just throw newbodies at the old solution.
Be open to forgetting what youthought you knew about, how
things worked, and learn howthey could work how things
(34:20):
worked and learn how they couldwork.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Obviously, I'm assuming you've been using
plenty of tools, ai tools.
Which areas do you feel aremost ripe for disruption?
Is it like creating thosepersonalized financial plans in
less time?
Is it like creating avatars ofourselves that allow us to talk
to multiple clients at the sametime?
(34:42):
What are you most excited aboutfrom the things you're seeing
coming up to the adviceprofession when it comes to AI
tools?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
So, let's talk about that.
So, keep in mind, like AI isbeing talked a lot about right
now because of generative AI,but AI tools have been around
for a while and they've beenslowly implemented into the
industry in different ways,shapes and forms.
So it's not just gen AI when Italk here, but when you look at
the AI that exists to date,let's talk about the actual
definitive use cases that doexist, right?
So we have basically dataparsing and better versions of
(35:14):
optical character recognition.
So being able to extractinformation, being able to well,
data extraction in general,whether that be voice or video
or images or PDFs, whatever elsedata extraction and compiling.
We have the ability to processthat faster and have analytics
run on it.
We have the ability to createcontent like we've never been,
like that is new and novel, in away that we haven't had before.
(35:35):
Would that be written or soonto be, video avatars, like you
said?
And we have the ability tobasically throw you know, to
solve for large.
So it's basically process,extraction, process and creation
.
Right, those are the threethings and everything falls into
that category.
It's one of those threecategories, so, but the thing is
, too, is that a lot of what wedo already, may be automated to
(35:55):
a point where the AI justdoesn't necessarily make sense.
Right, like I just went througha rebalancing exercise or,
sorry, a tax loss harvestingexercise, big surprise because
of the markets in the lastlittle while, and I did it for
my entire client book and I didit in a matter of like 15 to 20
minutes, like, could I?
Could AI make that a buttonpush?
Sure, but is the incrementalgain of 10 to 15 minutes once a
year sufficient to basicallyadopt or implement the new
(36:19):
technology?
Is it an order of magnitudeimprovement?
No, I think where the mostexciting things are are in order
of magnitude improvements iswhen you have this massive pain
and that pain is taken away in away that you couldn't before.
So a very simple example acompany I deal with that I
advise out of the UK calledAdvisory AI.
In the UK, when you make arecommendation, you have to
create what's known as asuitability report and these
(36:41):
things take like two, two and ahalf hours to do.
Companies were outsourcing themfor over 200 pounds a shot.
We got this down to link to theCRM, link to the portfolio
management system.
Throw any PDFs you want in,select a template you want.
Hit a button and pop.
It's done within a couple ofminutes.
It was so fast that peopleactually doubted it was real.
But we took an incrediblypainful process that was
(37:02):
repetitive and that was timeconsuming and it took
information from differentsources and actually produced
not just the report that wascompliant but also identified
areas of concern or need thatthe human need to identify.
That was something thatcouldn't have been done before.
That is an order.
To go from two hours, twominutes that is an order of
magnitude shift.
Right To go from 10 hours ofplanning down to two or less to
(37:24):
get a plan done, fingers crossedthat is an order of magnitude
shift.
That's where I'm excited.
I'm excited when I see I don'tsee a 15 minute improvement.
I'm excited when I see amulti-hour improvement and that
is, I think, the most excitingthing.
The most exciting thing to meis that it's still early.
There's still a higher thanaverage rate of error in a lot
(37:45):
of this stuff.
But when I think about themonotonous stuff that we have to
do in order to get to the thingwe're doing, to be able to just
focus on knowledge work, to getaway from the administrative
work, to basically have all thestuff we need put in front of us
, but not just put in front ofus to analyze.
What excites me is the prospectof live intervention.
(38:05):
We're having this conversationright now.
An AI agent that wouldbasically come up and if you
were a client, an AI agent thatwould come up and coach me and
say you're not being empatheticenough.
This client mentioned thisthing five minutes ago and you
haven't come back to it.
We really should.
Client mentioned they'reconcerned about this.
Here's a marketing piece on howto deal with anxiety.
Maybe you want to follow upwith that when you start
thinking about how, just in time, real interactions can happen
(38:27):
with this.
And actually what I'm reallyexcited about is not just a
productivity thing.
It's about making me betterwith people.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
It's about making me a better advisor and a more
attentive and empathetic onehappy to announce you that
you've been talking to an AIavatar this whole time and you
didn't notice.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
No, I know enough to know you're not an avatar.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But we'll get there, we'll get there.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
We're not that good yet.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
We're not that good yet.
So, yeah, we talked about thethings that are coming, that are
likely to happen, what isreplaceable, and so on, but you
touched upon this a little bitbefore, but I want to come back
to it.
What do you think, what do youbelieve within the world of
advice that will always requirea human touch then?
(39:14):
Is it just the physical clientinteractions or something else?
Hey there, quick ad break.
Do you work in the financeindustry and have a genuinely
interesting story to share?
I'm always on the hunt forgreat guests who bring raw,
unfiltered insights to the table.
Or maybe you know someone witha story worth telling.
(39:35):
Please put us in touch.
You can reach out to medirectly via LinkedIn.
I'd love to hear from you.
And now back to the show.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I'm not a big believer in absolutes, in
anything right, the world is notfilled with absolutes, the
world's filled with uncertainty,right it's?
You know, we can debate now.
We can debate, you know,quantum physics versus uh versus
uh with the whatever.
I mean, I'm not getting thescience now, but the point is,
is that?
So what will always, I don'tknow, what will not be replaced
for quite a long time is theinterpersonal human interaction.
(40:11):
Now, that is good and bad,because there are plenty of bad
advisors, who, who basicallyadvise, who basically rely on
just whining and dining theirclients in order to basically
get by and don't bring any realskills to the table.
I think we've all seen that.
But there are plenty of goodadvisors that basically do a
very, very, very empathetic,very, very supportive service or
provide a very supportiveservice to their clients and
(40:33):
meet them where they are,psychologically, life stage,
financially, all of that.
I think that, again, all ofthis stuff is going to continue.
If you look at everything we'vedone in this evolution from
commodities to, you know, fromjust access to markets, to
portfolios, whatever it's movingup the value chain and closer
and closer to helping the humanbeing self-actualize the best
version of their lives.
That last stage of the humaninteraction is the last thing
(40:58):
that will ever fall.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Go ahead.
Yeah, I think I agree with that, um, but again, uh, I I also
feel we're biased by the stateof ai today and we cannot even
imagine how it's gonna look likedown the road but I mean we
wouldn't be having the sameconversation three years ago?
Speaker 1 (41:19):
right, like exactly a more hypothetical conversation
100 it's like anything else.
The further you travel down theroad, the more the distance
comes into view, but the furtherdistance still stays blurry.
The reality is we can again,can I see what's going to happen
30, 40, 50 years out, like wetalked about before?
I have no clue.
I can just tell you right nowthat whatever guess I make is
(41:39):
going to be, the probability ofbeing right is near zero.
The probability of me beingright in 10 years is a higher
probability.
The probability of me beingright in two years is
substantially higher.
Right, so it's basically youknow, we don't know, we don't
know.
But the thing is is that if wedon't have a mindset of
curiosity and constantimprovement and everything else,
then you're right to be worried, because if you're not evolving
(42:02):
, we know what happened todinosaurs.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
So now let's leave this AI topic aside as we're
getting into the final block ofthis conversation.
I wanted to ask you about yourpassion for acting as a force
for change in the industry.
So you've been very vocal aboutimproving the financial advice
profession, elevating standards,calling out bad practices and
(42:28):
so on.
What drives your mission topush the industry forward, and
where do you think the biggestgaps still are?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I think it's twofold and I'm going to say it's the
people delivering it and thepeople we're serving.
So the people we're serving,being there and having these
deep experiences with people andseeing how I've been able to
help, that that and experiencingthe best side of what we can do
that inspires me to want otherpeople to do similar for people.
Okay, so that's the first thing.
The second thing is forget thepublic notices that come out
(42:57):
about you know things goingwrong.
I do, because of my profile inthe industry.
People will often come to me.
Advisors and other clients willcome to me saying I got screwed
.
This is what happened.
Who do I report this to?
What do I do?
So I get to see some horrificsituations right, and more
recently I've gotten involved indoing expert witness work for
court cases and some of thesecases I'm getting are just
horrific, just completely.
(43:18):
You know a profession.
You know you can't.
The reality is, is that youknow the guy?
There's these people operatingwith the guise of being
professionals with no skills toactually live up to their
promise, and that is just.
That's one of the problems.
I mean.
I can go on into many reasonswhy it's a problem, but when I
see both the good and the bad.
It's hard not to be passionateabout the good and wanting to
(43:39):
minimize the bad.
Right, because people, this isnot about selling someone.
You know a bunch of a bushel ofspoiled apples and you know
they got away with a spoiledapple.
We're talking about people'slives, right?
I think there's a realabstraction that people suffer
from when they see numbers on ascreen and think you know
numbers going up and down.
You know the number going upand down is a return number, but
(44:01):
it's also their margin ofsafety in their retirement.
It's their kid's ability to goto school.
It's their ability to buy thefirst house or the cottage or
leave that estate that they want, like these are all.
Really, these numbers haveincredible human tolls to them.
So when we appreciate that, youknow there's a certain level of
responsibility you wanteverybody to appreciate with
that.
Now the other side of it is onthe regulatory side, so I mean
(44:27):
the advisor side.
So what I will say is that I'vealso become a conduit for a lot
of young advisors and mainlyyoung advisors who come to me.
They get sold on the idea thatthis industry you know when they
get recruited oh, we can do allthis wonderful things for
people, blah, blah, blah.
And then they get into it.
It's like, well, they told me Iwas gonna do all this wonderful
stuff and now they want me tosell insurance and mutual funds
and just tell me to focus onthat because I and they're not
giving me any time to actuallydo the things that they said
(44:47):
they were going to do orsupporting me in all this.
So we get this like we getclients, get people, get sold on
the potential, but then theyget and they get brought into
the industry only to find thatit's a sink or swim scenario and
you know, what they're beingasked to do may be unethical to
them in many cases right, notalways been been in many cases,
right, not always been in manycases so.
But they still see thepotential.
So they want to know how do Iget past this right?
So I get so many of thoseconversations.
(45:09):
One of the most heartbreakingthings in my business to me is
finding all these young,enthusiastic advisors who I know
are going to be just incredibleadvisors, and not having an
opportunity to basically bringthem.
I don't have a large, you knowfortune 500 enterprise that can
bring them in tomorrow and trainthem up.
I wish I could, right, butthere's more and more options
out there.
I'll point them in the rightdirection, do what I can to help
them, but this is anever-ending torrent of people
(45:32):
who come to me with this stuff.
So I see that right.
So, basically, mind you again, Ihave my detractors.
My detractors tend to be olderand more established and more
threatened by change right anddon't want to be told that what
they did previously isconsidered wrong currently or
now banned by regulation.
But it is true.
So the reality is is that I seethe potential and desire.
(45:55):
I see, you know, we have anentire population of millennials
and younger who we told tobasically find purpose in their
lives, and then they find anindustry where they can
literally just do nothing butsit across from people and say
how do I make your life better?
This is a wonderful matching ofwhat we told them they should
be looking for and what theyshould be doing.
But meanwhile the underlyinginfrastructure for how the
system works is just not gearedtowards that, especially in
(46:17):
early years.
You have to.
Basically, I'll tell you, evenin my career, when I left the
previous practice and startedfrom zero, I made very little
for several years, but did it.
I could have made a lot moredoing what I considered the
quote unquote wrong thing, but Idid it with the mind toward
that.
I was building a long-termbusiness that was going to do
the right thing, and that's whatwe did.
Now, of course, when we see allof this, you see where the gaps
(46:40):
in regulation are.
You see where the gaps inpractice are.
So, of course, in practice,part of it is just educating
people on.
Hey guys, this is what'spossible, this is what you could
be doing, this is how youshould be doing it, this is how
you should be thinking about it,this is how you should get
beyond.
I tweeted out the other day thatone of the biggest problems is
most of the education in thisindustry, especially in Canada,
comes from it's often sponsoredby it comes from product
(47:01):
providers.
What do you think they're goingto tell you about?
They're going to tell you aboutwhy the latest thing they did
is the greatest thing ever, andthen you have all this knowledge
that doesn't actuallycorrespond to reality.
Right, there are some goodplayers out there who lead with
academic evidence and we all owethem a great debt of gratitude
for basically putting up thetruth, but the reality is, for
the most part, it's allsales-based marketing.
So how do we get people toactually focus on planning and
(47:31):
actually doing and thinkingthrough the decisions that they
got to help people with?
So there's that and then it'sokay.
Where are these people gettinghurt?
Right, so that's where, when theopportunities come to volunteer
on committees or withregulators, to raise the bar is
to say no, we are not anindustry that is about ensuring
people can sell whatever theywant to whomever they want.
We're an industry that isholding out as a profession.
As such, we need to act likeprofessionals.
We have to actually be able toprovide a professional service,
(47:51):
not just an implementationservice.
So, frankly, we need to raisethe bar to the level where one
should be expected to actuallybe able to even have the
knowledge and capacity andability to do the things that
the industry is saying it willdo.
So I am tired, unfortunately, ofseeing institutions promise the
world and deliver on their ownself-interested products and
(48:12):
whatever.
I don't want that for the world, I don't want that for my
family, I don't want that forseniors, who basically go out
there and get fleeced.
I don't want that for anyone,and nor should any of us.
Anyone who actually holdsthemselves up to a standard
should be disgusted by this, andI hear it all the time.
People are like, oh, regulatorsneed to do more, whatever.
Well, you know what Regulatorsare.
Only here's what I discoveredabout regulators Most of them
are well-intentioned.
They don't necessarily have afull idea of what's going on the
(48:32):
ground floor, but theydefinitely most of the ones I've
encountered have definitivelywanted to make things better.
But when it comes time to makechanges, who do you think shows
up at the table to comment?
The ones who want to keepthings the same right, who fight
for that.
So, short of being the unlessyou have the parties on the
other side saying no, this isthe reality of how it works,
dispelling the nonsense they'rebeing told, and saying this is
(48:55):
how we can do it and this is howit's being done elsewhere in
the world, and this is what weshould consider.
Unless we can basically givethem a voice of support to be
able to simply say well, it'snice that you said that, but
look, here's the big picture.
We have a license from part ofthe industry to move forward on
this.
Don't tell us that all youradvisors don't want this.
All these advisors want this.
Unless we create thatgroundswell support for that
(49:17):
positive change to happen, theonly people who you know.
There's an old saying decisionsget made by those who show up.
We need to show up if we care.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Wow, that was a lot of information, but thanks for
that.
We clearly see that you're very, very passionate, so thanks for
sharing those gold nuggets.
We're getting to the end of theconversation In one minute or
two.
You were talking about the nextgen of financial advisors In
one night or two.
What would your advice be forsomeone entering the field today
then?
Speaker 1 (49:50):
One line or two.
Figure out what specific groupof people you can be of immense
value to Develop that niche andrun hard with it.
Why?
Because most of the industry isout there selling to everybody.
You cannot be all things to allpeople.
You can be a lot of things tofew people.
So figure out what commonchallenges a group of people
(50:12):
have and figure out how to solvethose problems and speak
directly to them.
You do that.
Your marketing, your branding,your service offering, your
everything will naturally,organically come from that one
vision of what that clientavatar is and that will enable
you to not only deliver a superhigh value and focus on the
(50:34):
values and the needs of thosepeople and deliver true value,
but will also believe it or not,people doubt this lead to
faster growth rates than otheradvisors.
Starting out, that is thesmartest thing Deep knowledge
for one group of people, noteverybody and the rest will take
(51:02):
care of itself.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Love it, jason.
This has been absolutelyamazing.
Thank you so much.
I didn't see the time pass.
I'm very excited to keep thisconversation going in Chicago
For listeners who want to learnmore from you, follow your work
and so on.
Where should they go?
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I think the first stopping point is
jasonperreiraca.
That's where I aggregate all mycontent on there.
Other other than that I'mactive on just about every
social media channel.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
So you guys make sure to go and and check jason's
website, follow him on socialsand uh check out his yeah, as,
as he was saying, uh all thecontent that he's been putting
out there, including, uh, thefantastic podcast he regularly
intervenes in.
Jason, thank you so much.
It's been absolutely a pleasureand I look forward to meeting
(51:51):
you very, very soon.
The Blunt Dollar is written,produced, hosted and edited by
me, ignacio Ramirez.
Everything you hear concept,script, sound, design and
production comes straight frommy desk and, occasionally, my
kitchen table.
Thank you so much for listeningand join me in the next episode
of the Blunt Dollar for moreraw, honest finance
(52:12):
conversations.
AI has got greater potential.
100% Part of it's going to behow we figure out how to apply
that technology to actual, realunderlying problems.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome everyone to a new episode of the Blunt Dollar
.
Today's guest is someone whosits right at the intersection
of financial planning, fintechand advisor education Jason
Pereira.
Jason is a true multi-affinatehe's a financial planner, wealth
tech consultant, podcaster,writer, professor and a
recognized voice in both theCanadian and global wealth
(00:29):
management scenes.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
The way I define my purpose is basically very broad.
It's how do I help better yourlife and whatever I can bring to
bear to do that.
That's what I'm going to do.
Our industry is not unique.
Our industry is impacted by thesame forces as the rest of the
universe.
How many tools have beendeveloped that are Gen-AI based,
that do anything other thanmeaning notation?
I'll tell you right now thatnumber is incredibly small.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
What's the right way to think about the relationship
between advisors and technologyin the future?
In?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
general, the vast majority of technology has been.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
This is the Blonde Dollar with Ignacio Ramirez and
should not be relied upon as asubstitute for professional
advice.
Always do your own research andconsult a qualified advisor
before making any financialdecisions.
All investments involve risk,including the potential loss of
capital.
And now let's get started withthe episode.
Welcome everyone to a newepisode of the Blunt Dollar.
(01:38):
Today's guest is someone whosits right at the intersection
of financial planning, fintechand advisor education Jason
Pereira.
Jason is a true multi-affinate.
He's a financial planner,wealth tech consultant,
podcaster, writer, professor anda recognized voice in both the
Canadian and global wealthmanagement scenes.
(01:58):
He's earned over nineprofessional designations,
received over 30 industry awardsand produced more than 750
pieces of content acrossarticles, podcasts and
interviews.
He's also a fierce advocate forelevating financial planning as
a profession and for holdingbad actors accountable.
(02:18):
Jason has a front row seat tohow technology is reshaping the
advisor experience, from CRMsystems and portfolio management
tools to AI, apis and theevolving fintech stack.
So, whether you're a soloadvisor, a growing RIA or part
of a warehouse trying tomodernize, jason has thoughts
and likely some strong ones onwhat works, what's hype and
(02:41):
what's coming next.
In this conversation, we talkabout his career journey, the
evolution of the advisor techstack, how to build trust in a
digital-first world, and whathe's seeing from the front lines
of advisor technology.
Jason, welcome to the BluntDollar.
It's amazing to have you on theshow.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Thank you.
You set quite the bar now, soI'm looking forward to
disappointing all the listeners.
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
No, no, no, we're talking to a superstar today.
As you can see, jason has many,many articles out there, many
podcasts, so we're very, veryexcited about this one.
Now, before we dig into it,quick ad break here.
The reason why Jason and I aretalking today is because the CFA
Institute very kindly made theintroduction.
(03:25):
Why?
Well, because both of us aregoing to be at the CFA Institute
live in Chicago from the 4thtill the 7th of May.
It's going to be absolutelyamazing.
Over 2,000 financeprofessionals already signed up.
We're going to be talking aboutsome of the major themes shaping
the finance industry today, andJason is going to be
(03:47):
participating in a panel I'll bemoderating called the Robo
Advisory Evolution.
We're going to be talking aboutthe future of our profession in
the age of AI.
It's going to be absolutelyamazing.
Jason is going to be there, I'mgoing to be there, and many,
many other people are going tocome.
So if you want to meetinteresting folks and take part
in some of the big conversationsshaping the industry today,
(04:09):
make sure you sign up to CFAChicago Live.
It's going to be absolutely ablast.
So, jason, before anything, canyou maybe tell us what is it
that you're doing exactly today?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It's a loaded question.
Okay, so my day job is I am afinancial planner.
I basically am a partner in afirm in Toronto, a boutique firm
with three advisors, run about275 million and for about little
over 230 households.
So everything I do tends to bearound business owners and cross
borders.
So I see my two little nichesthere.
(04:45):
That's my day job.
In addition to that, I've beenvery passionate about just and
curious about the entireindustry, so a bunch of other
things that I get involved with.
I've been involved in variousother organizations around
elevating the standards aroundfinancial planning chair or the
former president of theFinancial Planning Association
(05:06):
of Canada.
Now I've just taken a step backand run the regulatory
committee.
In addition to that, I setother association committees and
boards and volunteer positionswith various regulators as well,
and then, beyond that, I alsohave become pretty much the de
facto advisor technology expertin this country and speak both
nationally and internationallyacross multiple continents.
Now four of them, four, five,maybe, uh, that base regarding
(05:30):
digital transformation in thefuture of the industry.
My god, do you, do you eversleep eight hours?
Seven to eight hours a day?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
oh my god, when I talk, when I talk to people like
you, I feel like what am Idoing with my life?
I mean, how are they managingto do all these different things
?
So, talking about all thethings you've done because, yeah
, I mean you're an advisor,you're a fintech strategist,
you're a podcaster, you're apolicy advocate I mean you
clearly have a super wide lens.
(05:59):
What has, working across somany different verticals, taught
you about the blind spots wehave within the finance industry
?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
life is and then basically help them make it
happen over time.
And having been doing this fora long time, I know what makes
me tick.
Now what makes me tick ishelping people win and seeing
that.
So when you see the fullfruition of what the potential
for this industry is, it's hardnot to be passionate about it
and it's hard not to just wantto keep getting better, and I'm
just an intellectually curiousperson altogether, so it's not
surprising that I go down therabbit hole of how did this
other thing happen to this otherperson in the industry, Like
(06:45):
when they came to a client?
That's ridiculous.
That shouldn't happen.
How do we fix that?
How do we get involved andbasically stop that from
happening to people and elevatethe standard?
What are the technologies thatI'm using to help elevate my
experience?
How do I not go down the rabbithole of how do I make the
experience better?
How do I learn more?
Just like all thosedesignations and degrees and
everything else I earned it washow do I learn more to be better
at this?
So it's a constant, you know,reinforcing cycle of whatever it
(07:09):
is that I touch in my job, Iwant it to be better.
So that's where it all comesfrom.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I can definitely see that you're an intellectually
curious person by the number ofbooks you have in your
background, and I'm pretty sureyou've read all of them.
So clearly you've been in theindustry for quite some time and
the word advice obviously meanssomething very different today
to what it meant 20 years ago.
(07:34):
Financial advice how has yourown definition of what it means
to be a financial advisorchanged over the years?
That's a good question.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I mean, when I came into the industry it's funny I
came in as a high school studentlooking for a co-op position
and I just was interested in thestock market.
So to me, advice at that point,when I first entered the market
, was solely around what to buyand sell.
That's what my understanding ofadvice was.
And then, through that position, over time, they kept me on
beyond the school period and letme come back while I was still
(08:04):
finishing my undergrad and gaveme a job afterwards.
I got to try a lot of thingsand one of the things I came
across was they started havingme do financial plans and I
really didn't have too much ofan idea of what I should be
doing there.
But what I was seeing was likelet me get this straight, I
adjust these numbers and I makethat line go like this, and that
(08:30):
tells me that they can get thething that they want in life.
I mean, to me I was just likethis is where we should be
starting, not with everythingelse.
And I would say very early inmy you know, late my early
twenties is when I when thedefinition really started to
take hold, which was it's notabout the products or the
mechanisms or tools, accounts,whatever that help us get to
where we need to be.
It's about the plan for helpingus get to where we need to be.
So my viewpoint early on verymuch shifted from financial
(08:51):
advice to financial planning.
Right now, how has that evolved?
It's continued to evolvebecause, as products have become
commoditized, the heavy liftingof our industry has been
reduced because of technologicaladvancement and making things
easier and making us able to runmore efficient practices.
The amount of time that thathas freed up industry has been
reduced because of technologicaladvancement and making things
easier and making us able to runmore efficient practices.
The amount of time that thathas freed up has expanded and
(09:12):
basically that can be consumedin one of two ways either larger
numbers of households to beserved, which, if you're doing
that, good luck keeping morethan 100 households straight.
In your head.
There's something called aDunbar number that says you
can't handle infinite number ofrelationships.
So you're either becoming acommodity yourself or you're
expanding your service offering,and as you expand your service
offering, you start to widelythink about the ways you can
(09:34):
help people, and to me, it's oneof these things where my job is
to literally make the lives ofthe people I'm serving better
and when you take that as astarting point, the areas that
goes beyond the conventionalinvestment insurance tax, estate
planning is just issubstantially greater right,
whether that be coaching them onbasically how to negotiate
(09:55):
their car lease or loan becausethat's the point of issue or
concern for them, or helpingthem talk to their kids, who are
now getting into the work,about being responsible with
money playing a role there, orbasically helping console them
when something really negativehappens in their lives to
someone in their lives and beingthere for them.
We've all, as advisors andplanners, had these moments in
(10:16):
time where people have turned tous in a moment of desperation
because of something horrible inlife and those are the moments
where those relationships areforged life and those are the
moments where thoserelationships are formed or
forged.
But it's also the moments wherewe may have a disproportionate
amount of value that we thatthey didn't even know we had,
that we can help them with.
So my definition is a loose one.
It continues to expand becausethe way I define my purpose is
basically very broad.
(10:37):
It's how do I help better yourlife and whatever I can bring to
bear to do that that's what I'mgoing to do.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It's pretty cool, and I like the idea that your work
is constantly evolving to adjustto the new world we live in,
because that's what probablymakes it so exciting.
What I find really interestingabout your profile, though, is
that you strike a balancebetween this big picture
thinking and these conceptsyou're using and alluding to and
(11:05):
actually building stuff, whichis like, I feel like a very rare
combo.
Using you know both sides ofthe brain, and I wanted to ask
you how do you stay groundedwhen you're constantly thinking
about how your job is changingand where the industry is going?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah.
So it's funny.
I think what you identified iswhat I think a lot of people end
up being frustrated with whenthey go to conferences and
whatnot, right?
They go to a conference andthey hear a panel talking about
the future of AI and how it'sgoing to transform everything,
and then you're like, okay, whatcan I do today?
And they're just like I don'tknow right, like meeting
notation, okay, great, thanks.
Thanks for that.
That's a commodity now.
That's great, but it's you know, the lofty aspirations and the
(11:45):
end goals and the long-termvision.
Those are valuable because youneed to have a vision for where
the future is and start movingtowards that.
But you have to always bringthat back down to base steps,
like what is it I can do today,right?
So I?
I love having these bigconversations about where the
future is going, knowing that itmay not happen, but it's going
to be something close to that,hopefully.
But the reality is, is that if Ican't implement that today, I'm
(12:07):
just wasting time, right, I'mjust wasting time unless there's
a takeaway for how I can setmyself up for what is coming
right.
So understanding the possiblevisions of the future, of how
things are evolving and that'salways changing helps inform the
decisions you need to maketoday, based on what's viable,
what's available and what'spossible, and be grounded in
that.
(12:27):
So I think part of the reasonthat I do maintain that is
because I'm not just ahigh-level thinker, I'm
literally a practitioner.
I have to actually interactwith people every day.
So how do I reconcile thislong-term vision with the basic,
with the today?
And for a lot of people, theyjust shrug their shoulders and
say I'll wait for it to happen.
I'm not the kind of person towait for it to happen.
I'm the kind of person who says, okay, I learned 50 things
(12:50):
there that might happen, butthere's one or two things I can
start implementing today.
So how do I start that?
And the next thing, you know,10 years down the road, you're
well ahead.
So you like rolling up yoursleeves and getting your hands
dirty and doing stuff Well, it's.
Fantasy is nice, reality isbetter, like at the end of the
day, because we, you know well,it can be better, because it's
(13:13):
more impactful in your actuallife.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
And what do you think people most often misunderstand
about your work and yourmission in the industry?
About your work and yourmission in the industry?
Is it that, yeah, some peoplethink that you're a high-level
thinker when you're actually apractitioner, or vice versa, or
something completely different?
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I think I get two pieces of different, distinct
pushback.
One there's the, you know,especially because of the cohort
of clients I deal with, youknow, a lot of times I get
dismissive like well, you dealwith high net worth people, so
this doesn't apply to thegrassroots, ground level of
individuals, and it's like whydo you think I've never served
those people?
Why do you think I don't thinkabout those people?
(13:52):
Why do you think I don't thinkabout the general problem?
And why do you think that theprinciples that I espoused, that
I live up to, like fiduciaryduty and basically always doing
what's right for the client,don't apply down there?
They absolutely do.
So maybe the delivery mechanismthat I demonstrate for my
clients is different, but thecore principles, when you go
back down to base principles,those apply everywhere in my
opinion.
(14:12):
And the second piece is is that, frankly, I think people will
find me antagonistic orargumentative or basically think
I can, I'll be called a jerk bymany people, but that's simply
because I will make statementsabout what I think is wrong in
the industry.
And, as Leighton Sinclair said,it's impossible for a man to
understand something when hisincome is dependent upon not
understanding it Right.
(14:33):
So I get a lot of pushback fromentrenched interests, right,
but I simply you know, for lackof a better term often simply
throw back a Socratic approachto them which is like oh really,
you think that?
Well, here's why do you thinkthat?
Well, here's evidence to thecontrary.
And you know, oftentimes peoplewill just go back and forth.
They'll either call me a jerkand dismiss me, or they'll try
to debate me and then they'llgive up on the debate because
(14:56):
it's hard to argue with actualnumbers or evidence or legal
cases that show that myviewpoint is informed.
Right, I'm not just spoutingoff, I'm basically.
I'm starting.
Typically, if I'm going to makea statement like that, I usually
start from a very informedviewpoint and if I don't, and
I'm proven wrong, I'veabsolutely said you know what
you got me on this one.
I didn't contemplate that and Ithink my learning process
(15:19):
happens in public a lot.
It happens in social media, ithappens in various places and I
think that, you know, not a lotof people are comfortable with
that.
But they'll start off like thatand then, you know, they'll
challenge me enough and ifthey're open-minded enough,
eventually it'll flip around.
They'll start just coming to mefor advice and guidance because
I've disrupted their thinkingand I've become that little kind
of grain, the little rock intheir, their sole of their shoe
that makes them rethink thingsand then eventually comes back.
(15:40):
And the number of people who hadvery negative things to say
about me years ago who come backand are friends and basically
have come to me for advice orcollaborate with me is immense.
So I think people think thatbecause I'm argumentative, I'm
mean or cruel or unapproachable.
If you want to get better, youwant to discuss things in
selection, you want to have anhonest debate.
I'm open to anyone.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Oh man, I'm looking forward for our panel in Chicago
after that.
I'm sure it's going to beabsolutely fantastic.
So let's talk a little bitabout the role of advisors now,
which obviously, as you weresaying before, have expanded
beyond just investments.
Now there's planning involved,there's even behavioral coaching
(16:23):
.
It looks like clients todayexpect a more of a holistic
approach.
So how do you define like realfinancial advice today, and what
do you think clients value themost in that relationship?
Hey there, quick favor to askIf you enjoy the blunt dollar,
the unfiltered takes, thestories and the laughs.
The easiest way to support theshow is by tapping that
(16:44):
subscribe button right now whileyou're listening.
And here's my promise.
So let's just start at thestart with the evolution of the
(17:06):
industry.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Right, and I'll credit Michael Kitsis with
having put this framework upthere first, and he's right, and
I think it's.
When you sit back, it's veryobvious.
You know, the marketsoriginally started with just
investing or advice, startedwith just access to markets
right.
Then it became commoditized.
And then it became okay, well,I can run your portfolio.
So it was a laddering up ofvalue, right, okay, great.
So then portfolio managementbecame commoditized.
(17:29):
Then it became okay, well, Ican actually do a financial plan
that gives direction andpurpose to your investment Okay,
great.
And then financial planningexpanded to encompass insurance
and tax and everything else thatit should.
Because, again, as everythingon the lower end started getting
more and more commoditized ormore and more competition
emerged, what happened is wekept on moving up our value
propositions.
(17:49):
Now, that's not to say thatthose value propositions that
existed before don't.
There are some people who willopt to exist or to interact with
only a transactional advisor.
They should have that right.
That market works, if that'swhat you want.
But they should also be awareof what exists beyond that and
(18:10):
they can opt in basically withfull I'd say with informed
consent.
But what we continue to see is acontinued evolution of the
expansion of value propositionright.
So we've gotten away from justthe product-based or simple
financial planning to moreholistic financial planning and
the final frontier on this right, because the reality is that
artificial intelligence isalready working towards making
everything that is taking ourtime, the heavy lifting, all
right, the heavy lifting work,whether it's data entry or
(18:35):
basically a foreign population,you name it everything that
involves repetitive processes isripe for disruption.
With artificial intelligenceand the automation we you have
to date, that is going to reducethe amount of time we spend on
those types of actions more andmore and more.
And what's going to happen isthe same thing that's been
(18:56):
happening the entire time isthat it's basically going to
commoditize things because it'slowering costs, it's going to
lower the price of entry andit's going to lower the
headcount and everything else.
All those efficiencies aregoing to happen.
And then, in pursuit ofmaintaining margins or pricing,
we will continue to expandoffering but once you've
expanded offering to all of thefinancial products that exist in
(19:16):
the marketplace, whether it beinsurance, investment, whatever
else it is to ancillary familyoffice style services like
basically uh, you know, that guyall gives the example
negotiating the car lease orsome high or or even some real
high-end concierge stuff.
I've seen around very largefamily offices where they'll
organize your, your gardenersfor you, whatever else.
Once you've basically gone tothe realm of like helping them
(19:38):
with the stuff in their life tothe greatest degree you possibly
can, what's the final frontier?
The final frontier is the onething that the artificial
intelligence cannot fix, andthat's what's between your ears,
right?
That is, understanding thehuman being on a deeper level,
on a behavioral level,understanding why they are not
succeeding to the way theyshould be or could be, and
(20:02):
helping to modify yourrecommendations such to help
elevate them.
Because here's the reality.
Okay, anyone can go on theirphone right now, type in workout
app and download any number ofhundreds of workout apps.
So in theory, we should all havesix packs, right?
It's that easy, right?
Everything the technology tellsus how to get in shape, tells
us how to do this, right.
(20:23):
So the same thing is going toapply to all the stuff that
happens with financial advice.
It's going to basically be veryeasy over time, easier and
easier over time, to basicallyfind out how to invest your
portfolio, how to basically savefor retirement, all this other
stuff.
But we're not all rocking aroundwith six packs.
Why?
Because, at the end of the day,whether it be our financial
traumas, our past histories, ourmisconceptions, whatever else
(20:44):
it is, the behavioral aspects ofour lives are preventing us or
will prevent us from just takingthe machine to gospel.
So the final frontier foradvice, in my mind, is the
advisor that bridges the, theimplementable or the
understandable behavioralaspects of humanity.
To have a deep knowledge andactual knowledge of behavioral
finance and be able to bridgethat with the machine, with the
(21:04):
output, with the actualquantitative aspects of this, to
create something that may notbe quantitatively the optimal
thing but fits the Venn diagramof behavioral and quantitatively
optimal.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So I want to spend a little bit more time on this.
Obviously, it's a topic veryclose to my heart, so I want to
spend a little bit more time onthis.
Obviously, it's a topic veryclose to my heart.
Technology and your stancewhether it's an amplifier or not
Because, yeah, there's been alot of noise about AI and
robo-advisors replacing ushumans, but your work and I
(21:41):
believe that you've talked aboutthis in the past you believe
that it would enhance what we do, but not replace us.
So what's the right way tothink about the relationship
between advisors and technologyin the future?
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So, in general, the vast majority of technology has
been complementary to ourservices and efficiency gains.
That's largely it right.
So that's large and which hasled to lower, which basically
then, in turn, has led to lowerentry points for underserviced
markets.
Okay, so let's talk about robos, and I remember we, I like,
(22:08):
keeps on going out, but we'llleave that alone.
So the reality is is that noteverybody wants an advisor,
right, like that's the first.
So we have to accept that themarket is diverse.
No-transcript with Robos wasthat they created a new
(22:53):
marketplace, a marketplace foroutsource investment portfolio
management at a low entry point.
That was easy, right To amarket that would otherwise
don't get me wrong, you can goin there with $10 million if you
want to, but you couldn't go inwith a dollar previously and
now you can't, right.
So expanded and created a newmarket and it turned people who
were on the edges of and I won'tsay it's a spectrum, it's kind
(23:16):
of like three.
It's basically a pie chart,right, because you know, diyers
can become one and thenbasically advice can become the
other same thing.
So it changed the margins.
People who were on that marginsaw a value proposition and went
to that Do.
I think that that impactedadvisors negatively.
No, I mean, robo-advisor assetshave increased at the same time
as advisor assets haveincreased, so I'm not seeing
(23:36):
where this friction has happened.
Do I think that it's disruptive?
Well, from the commoditizedvalue proposition, if you're
just an advisor pointing to afund or pointing to a portfolio
and you're adding no additionaladvice over top of it, do I
think that you have a threatthere?
Absolutely you do, because yourvalue proposition shouldn't
just be well, you can pick up aphone and call me.
(23:56):
That's not a value proposition.
You can call anyone.
You can call anyone in theseback offices.
So the reality is that this hasagain turned the heat up on
people with lower valuepropositions to basically
increase their valuepropositions.
So that's largely what happenedthere.
Now let's talk about the rest oftechnology and AI.
So again, ai is really reallygood.
All these technologies havelargely gone after what
(24:18):
Efficiency gains.
Everything's about efficiency,right which again has done what
it's going to open up moremarkets.
You know again I'm going toquote Michael a third time
because he does so much researchin our field but they had
benchmarked the average time tocreate a financial plan at 10
hours Okay, 10 hours.
So that's an incrediblelimiting factor.
(24:39):
So I happen to be friends withand work with a company called
Conquest Planning which is nowmoving into the US and is in
various other countries,including Canada, and they
started applying artificialintelligence before GNI was a
thing to financial planning andthey've architected a system to
be very modern has largely beentowards taking that 10-hour
(25:00):
benchmark and shrinking thatdown as much as possible,
because they realize that, timebeing a constraint, the only way
to get more plans in morepeople's hands is to eliminate
or minimize the constraint.
So they've done everything theycan with different forms of
artificial intelligence anddifferent forms of math whatever
else it is and architecture ofthe systems to shrink that
number.
So if they can get that numberdown to 2.5 hours, that's 4x the
(25:21):
number of people that can beserved.
Now if your value propositionis just mass market pumping out
financial plans, great, you canjust 4x your marketplace.
But if you're basically anadvisor who deals with a small
number at a high value, theamount of time that it takes to
do that now is reduced and theamount of service offering that
you can go beyond that you cancontinue to add, that you can
(25:42):
add to your clients justincreased again.
So it's this constant.
The reality is, everybody saysthese things are going to put
advisors out of business.
I have heard advisors out ofbusiness my entire career, even
before I was in my career, withthe advent of discount brokers,
with the advent of robo-advisors.
Now, with the advent ofartificial intelligence, every
last thing is basically said andyou know what the people saying
(26:04):
that don't get, that they don'tactually understand what
advisors actually do.
They think it's just about thecommodity.
The reality is commodities andservices are two separate things
.
I can go to the cheapest hotelin the world or I can go to the
Four Seasons.
Those are two very differentexperiences and I derive utility
differently.
The utility, the base levelutility, is basically a place to
(26:25):
sleep.
But the utility I derive fromthe four seasons is a completely
different utility.
And if I choose to opt intothat because I want that
experience and I gain value outof that experience, which some
of it may just be the experiencein itself, so be it.
But the differences infinancial services is that the
experience also comes withpotential material financial
gain.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I tend to agree with everything you said, but just
with a caveat, which is youranswer is take into
consideration the state of AItoday, but what about AI 10, 20,
30 years down the road?
I think we're not evenimagining how good it's going to
be.
Could it be possible that in 30years down the road, AI
(27:13):
understands the human psyche youwere alluding to even better
than us, has more empathy thanus humans, and things that we
believe are irreplaceable ornative to human nature today are
going to be part of whatmachines are able to do down the
road.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Entirely possible.
I mean, like you're basicallytalking about the point where
artificial intelligence becomesindistinguishable from humanity
and actually you're talkingabout artificial super
intelligence, effectively, right?
So if that's the case, thenguess what.
Our industry is not unique.
Our industry is impacted by thesame forces as the rest of the
universe, and guess what?
Every industry will beabsolutely disrupted by what
(27:54):
that looks like.
So what does the future worldlook like?
Is it this utopian version ofnobody working and just pursuing
arts and passions and whatever,and artificial intelligence
takes care of everything for us?
Or is it this dystopian worldwhere we're used as batteries?
Whatever else it is?
The reality is none of us know,but we do know it's going to be
different.
Do we think for one second thatif we pulled someone out of
(28:16):
1950, that they'd be able topredict anything that we live
with today smartphones, theinternet, all that stuff?
Do you think that they wouldhave envisioned that necessarily
, or understood the nature ofwork the way it was?
I'll go back a hundred yearsago, to people which was a
largely agrarian 150 years ago,a largely agrarian society.
Do you think we could have seenthat?
No, so you're right, there's apotential for massive disruption
(28:37):
and maybe this job doesn't evenexist anymore.
I don't know.
I don't know.
But what I do know is that thenear-term future and the
mid-term future is closer to thepresent than people think it is
, and I wrote an article on this.
About artificial intelligence isthat don't expect your business
to change in the next two yearsvery much, but it will change a
lot in the next 10 years, andpart of the reason is again,
(28:58):
humanity in a different way, andthat's friction.
Think about we already havelots of technologies that can do
lots of things, but the realityis okay.
I'll give you a simple example.
There existed pre-gen AI, thetechnology and ability to
automate every back office in abank to the nth degree, so that
no one needed to push paper ordo dual entry.
Did those people still existdoing pushing paper and doing
(29:21):
dual entry?
Yep, because, at the end of theday, institutional friction,
whether that be individual,whether that be incentivized or
not, or the individual's abilityto change, cannot keep up with
the innovative pace oftechnology.
So part of the problem is isthat we as human beings are not
going to implement it at thesame speed that it's developed,
so therefore there's alwaysgoing to be a lag right.
(29:43):
So in 10 years time, is yourpractice going to look very,
completely different and are yougoing to basically be doing
higher order things?
Probably, in two years time.
Is that going to be the case?
Probably not, but you will havegained small incremental gains,
and I will always say, too,that look, we're at the
beginning of the hype cycle onthis.
Do we really know where theboundary on this is?
I've heard people in the AIspace that say that Gen AI is
not the ultimate solution tocreating artificial super
(30:06):
intelligence, for varioustechnical reasons they want to
geek out over.
Okay, so let's assume that fora second, that that's true.
Okay, if that's true, then wedon't make that discovery for
another 20, 30 years, 30 yearsright then now.
That pushes the time out evenfurther.
So the reality is we don't knowwhere the boundary of this
technology is at this point orwhat it's fully going to be
(30:27):
capable of.
But also, let's also rememberthat the technology is just a
tool.
The use case is what matters,right?
So look at already how manyit's we're over two years into
the gen ai world.
Okay, the hype cycle we'vereached the Gardner hype cycle,
peak of all this stuff that'shappening.
How many practicalimplementations of Gen AI have
(30:48):
you seen in an advisory practiceto date?
Let's take meeting notation andput it aside, because that's
the one that seems everybody'sjumped onto, because it's a
painful point.
How much Gen AI do you think iscurrently being used in
advisory practices today?
How many tools have beendeveloped that are Gen AI based,
that do anything other thanmeaning notation?
And I'll tell you right nowthat number is incredibly small
(31:10):
because, just like whenblockchain came out and
everybody said, oh, this isgreat, this is the future, this
is going to replace allclearance and everything else,
and we're sitting over 10 yearsinto the well, is it 10 years?
Yeah, no, we're sitting over 10.
Wow, so 2008,?
Wow, do the math on that.
We're sitting over 15 yearsinto the blockchain revolution.
And what's been the revolution?
I haven't seen a revolution.
(31:31):
Ai has got greater potential100%.
Part of it's going to be how wefigure out how to apply that
technology to actual, real,underlying problems, and so far
that's been slow.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
So let's say there's an advisor that buys into what
you just said and he's like okay, I mean I want to be part of
the change, I want toincorporate all this AI into my
day-to-day.
What's the most importantmindset shift that he or she
should have when evaluating andbuilding the tech stack?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I think part of the problem is that people come in
with their defined sense ofworkflow and how things work and
then they try to apply thatworkflow or how they do things,
which is the, which is an oldparadigm over top of new
technology, and that breaksevery time.
And you can see that in in noteven AI, but all over the place.
(32:28):
So, for example, I know plentyof people, friends, in
consulting and they've donelarge SAP implementations and
the SAP implementations, whichis a large enterprise
procurement system, the, the SAPimplementations, when the
company changes their workflowsto match those of the technology
, go beautifully.
When the company wants to doall kinds of customization,
things break left, right andcenter right.
(32:50):
So the reality is, I think,first and foremost, is that you
need to approach your technologyall technology, artificial
intelligence, whatever else itis with an open mind.
You look at it and determine isthere a value proposition to me
using something like this, asis my practice potentially
better off because I am going touse this technology?
Okay, now I did things adifferent way before.
(33:13):
How does this thing work andshould I modify my workflow
processes around that?
And the answer is if you canget a utility, a benefit, an
improvement beyond that of whatyou were doing before and you're
only getting 98% of what youwanted in the first place.
But there's a massiveproductivity gain here.
You need to make that trade-off,but all too often people get
(33:35):
stuck in old templates and oldworkflows and whatever else,
because it's the Lindy principlethe longer technology is in use
, the more likely it's going tocontinue to be in use, because
we are just not well wired forchange.
But the reality is is that youhave to be.
So I think the best piece ofadvice is be open to changing
everything.
Realize that every evolvingbusiness needs to be and I will
(33:57):
say my business practice hasbeen broken and restarted over
and over again.
You can always tell when it'sbreaking, because it's like
things aren't working asefficiently as they are.
You're not evolving.
Your scale is causing youproblems and friction, and
oftentimes people just throw newbodies at the old solution.
Be open to forgetting what youthought you knew about, how
things worked, and learn howthey could work how things
(34:20):
worked and learn how they couldwork.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Obviously, I'm assuming you've been using
plenty of tools, ai tools.
Which areas do you feel aremost ripe for disruption?
Is it like creating thosepersonalized financial plans in
less time?
Is it like creating avatars ofourselves that allow us to talk
to multiple clients at the sametime?
(34:42):
What are you most excited aboutfrom the things you're seeing
coming up to the adviceprofession when it comes to AI
tools?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
So, let's talk about that.
So, keep in mind, like AI isbeing talked a lot about right
now because of generative AI,but AI tools have been around
for a while and they've beenslowly implemented into the
industry in different ways,shapes and forms.
So it's not just gen AI when Italk here, but when you look at
the AI that exists to date,let's talk about the actual
definitive use cases that doexist, right?
So we have basically dataparsing and better versions of
(35:14):
optical character recognition.
So being able to extractinformation, being able to well,
data extraction in general,whether that be voice or video
or images or PDFs, whatever elsedata extraction and compiling.
We have the ability to processthat faster and have analytics
run on it.
We have the ability to createcontent like we've never been,
like that is new and novel, in away that we haven't had before.
(35:35):
Would that be written or soonto be, video avatars, like you
said?
And we have the ability tobasically throw you know, to
solve for large.
So it's basically process,extraction, process and creation
.
Right, those are the threethings and everything falls into
that category.
It's one of those threecategories, so, but the thing is
, too, is that a lot of what wedo already, may be automated to
(35:55):
a point where the AI justdoesn't necessarily make sense.
Right, like I just went througha rebalancing exercise or,
sorry, a tax loss harvestingexercise, big surprise because
of the markets in the lastlittle while, and I did it for
my entire client book and I didit in a matter of like 15 to 20
minutes, like, could I?
Could AI make that a buttonpush?
Sure, but is the incrementalgain of 10 to 15 minutes once a
year sufficient to basicallyadopt or implement the new
(36:19):
technology?
Is it an order of magnitudeimprovement?
No, I think where the mostexciting things are are in order
of magnitude improvements iswhen you have this massive pain
and that pain is taken away in away that you couldn't before.
So a very simple example acompany I deal with that I
advise out of the UK calledAdvisory AI.
In the UK, when you make arecommendation, you have to
create what's known as asuitability report and these
(36:41):
things take like two, two and ahalf hours to do.
Companies were outsourcing themfor over 200 pounds a shot.
We got this down to link to theCRM, link to the portfolio
management system.
Throw any PDFs you want in,select a template you want.
Hit a button and pop.
It's done within a couple ofminutes.
It was so fast that peopleactually doubted it was real.
But we took an incrediblypainful process that was
(37:02):
repetitive and that was timeconsuming and it took
information from differentsources and actually produced
not just the report that wascompliant but also identified
areas of concern or need thatthe human need to identify.
That was something thatcouldn't have been done before.
That is an order.
To go from two hours, twominutes that is an order of
magnitude shift.
Right To go from 10 hours ofplanning down to two or less to
(37:24):
get a plan done, fingers crossedthat is an order of magnitude
shift.
That's where I'm excited.
I'm excited when I see I don'tsee a 15 minute improvement.
I'm excited when I see amulti-hour improvement and that
is, I think, the most excitingthing.
The most exciting thing to meis that it's still early.
There's still a higher thanaverage rate of error in a lot
(37:45):
of this stuff.
But when I think about themonotonous stuff that we have to
do in order to get to the thingwe're doing, to be able to just
focus on knowledge work, to getaway from the administrative
work, to basically have all thestuff we need put in front of us
, but not just put in front ofus to analyze.
What excites me is the prospectof live intervention.
(38:05):
We're having this conversationright now.
An AI agent that wouldbasically come up and if you
were a client, an AI agent thatwould come up and coach me and
say you're not being empatheticenough.
This client mentioned thisthing five minutes ago and you
haven't come back to it.
We really should.
Client mentioned they'reconcerned about this.
Here's a marketing piece on howto deal with anxiety.
Maybe you want to follow upwith that when you start
thinking about how, just in time, real interactions can happen
(38:27):
with this.
And actually what I'm reallyexcited about is not just a
productivity thing.
It's about making me betterwith people.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
It's about making me a better advisor and a more
attentive and empathetic onehappy to announce you that
you've been talking to an AIavatar this whole time and you
didn't notice.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
No, I know enough to know you're not an avatar.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But we'll get there, we'll get there.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
We're not that good yet.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
We're not that good yet.
So, yeah, we talked about thethings that are coming, that are
likely to happen, what isreplaceable, and so on, but you
touched upon this a little bitbefore, but I want to come back
to it.
What do you think, what do youbelieve within the world of
advice that will always requirea human touch then?
(39:14):
Is it just the physical clientinteractions or something else?
Hey there, quick ad break.
Do you work in the financeindustry and have a genuinely
interesting story to share?
I'm always on the hunt forgreat guests who bring raw,
unfiltered insights to the table.
Or maybe you know someone witha story worth telling.
(39:35):
Please put us in touch.
You can reach out to medirectly via LinkedIn.
I'd love to hear from you.
And now back to the show.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I'm not a big believer in absolutes, in
anything right, the world is notfilled with absolutes, the
world's filled with uncertainty,right it's?
You know, we can debate now.
We can debate, you know,quantum physics versus uh versus
uh with the whatever.
I mean, I'm not getting thescience now, but the point is,
is that?
So what will always, I don'tknow, what will not be replaced
for quite a long time is theinterpersonal human interaction.
(40:11):
Now, that is good and bad,because there are plenty of bad
advisors, who, who basicallyadvise, who basically rely on
just whining and dining theirclients in order to basically
get by and don't bring any realskills to the table.
I think we've all seen that.
But there are plenty of goodadvisors that basically do a
very, very, very empathetic,very, very supportive service or
provide a very supportiveservice to their clients and
(40:33):
meet them where they are,psychologically, life stage,
financially, all of that.
I think that, again, all ofthis stuff is going to continue.
If you look at everything we'vedone in this evolution from
commodities to, you know, fromjust access to markets, to
portfolios, whatever it's movingup the value chain and closer
and closer to helping the humanbeing self-actualize the best
version of their lives.
That last stage of the humaninteraction is the last thing
(40:58):
that will ever fall.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Go ahead.
Yeah, I think I agree with that, um, but again, uh, I I also
feel we're biased by the stateof ai today and we cannot even
imagine how it's gonna look likedown the road but I mean we
wouldn't be having the sameconversation three years ago?
Speaker 1 (41:19):
right, like exactly a more hypothetical conversation
100 it's like anything else.
The further you travel down theroad, the more the distance
comes into view, but the furtherdistance still stays blurry.
The reality is we can again,can I see what's going to happen
30, 40, 50 years out, like wetalked about before?
I have no clue.
I can just tell you right nowthat whatever guess I make is
(41:39):
going to be, the probability ofbeing right is near zero.
The probability of me beingright in 10 years is a higher
probability.
The probability of me beingright in two years is
substantially higher.
Right, so it's basically youknow, we don't know, we don't
know.
But the thing is is that if wedon't have a mindset of
curiosity and constantimprovement and everything else,
then you're right to be worried, because if you're not evolving
(42:02):
, we know what happened todinosaurs.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
So now let's leave this AI topic aside as we're
getting into the final block ofthis conversation.
I wanted to ask you about yourpassion for acting as a force
for change in the industry.
So you've been very vocal aboutimproving the financial advice
profession, elevating standards,calling out bad practices and
(42:28):
so on.
What drives your mission topush the industry forward, and
where do you think the biggestgaps still are?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I think it's twofold and I'm going to say it's the
people delivering it and thepeople we're serving.
So the people we're serving,being there and having these
deep experiences with people andseeing how I've been able to
help, that that and experiencingthe best side of what we can do
that inspires me to want otherpeople to do similar for people.
Okay, so that's the first thing.
The second thing is forget thepublic notices that come out
(42:57):
about you know things goingwrong.
I do, because of my profile inthe industry.
People will often come to me.
Advisors and other clients willcome to me saying I got screwed
.
This is what happened.
Who do I report this to?
What do I do?
So I get to see some horrificsituations right, and more
recently I've gotten involved indoing expert witness work for
court cases and some of thesecases I'm getting are just
horrific, just completely.
(43:18):
You know a profession.
You know you can't.
The reality is, is that youknow the guy?
There's these people operatingwith the guise of being
professionals with no skills toactually live up to their
promise, and that is just.
That's one of the problems.
I mean.
I can go on into many reasonswhy it's a problem, but when I
see both the good and the bad.
It's hard not to be passionateabout the good and wanting to
(43:39):
minimize the bad.
Right, because people, this isnot about selling someone.
You know a bunch of a bushel ofspoiled apples and you know
they got away with a spoiledapple.
We're talking about people'slives, right?
I think there's a realabstraction that people suffer
from when they see numbers on ascreen and think you know
numbers going up and down.
You know the number going upand down is a return number, but
(44:01):
it's also their margin ofsafety in their retirement.
It's their kid's ability to goto school.
It's their ability to buy thefirst house or the cottage or
leave that estate that they want, like these are all.
Really, these numbers haveincredible human tolls to them.
So when we appreciate that, youknow there's a certain level of
responsibility you wanteverybody to appreciate with
that.
Now the other side of it is onthe regulatory side, so I mean
(44:27):
the advisor side.
So what I will say is that I'vealso become a conduit for a lot
of young advisors and mainlyyoung advisors who come to me.
They get sold on the idea thatthis industry you know when they
get recruited oh, we can do allthis wonderful things for
people, blah, blah, blah.
And then they get into it.
It's like, well, they told me Iwas gonna do all this wonderful
stuff and now they want me tosell insurance and mutual funds
and just tell me to focus onthat because I and they're not
giving me any time to actuallydo the things that they said
(44:47):
they were going to do orsupporting me in all this.
So we get this like we getclients, get people, get sold on
the potential, but then theyget and they get brought into
the industry only to find thatit's a sink or swim scenario and
you know, what they're beingasked to do may be unethical to
them in many cases right, notalways been been in many cases,
right, not always been in manycases so.
But they still see thepotential.
So they want to know how do Iget past this right?
So I get so many of thoseconversations.
(45:09):
One of the most heartbreakingthings in my business to me is
finding all these young,enthusiastic advisors who I know
are going to be just incredibleadvisors, and not having an
opportunity to basically bringthem.
I don't have a large, you knowfortune 500 enterprise that can
bring them in tomorrow and trainthem up.
I wish I could, right, butthere's more and more options
out there.
I'll point them in the rightdirection, do what I can to help
them, but this is anever-ending torrent of people
(45:32):
who come to me with this stuff.
So I see that right.
So, basically, mind you again, Ihave my detractors.
My detractors tend to be olderand more established and more
threatened by change right anddon't want to be told that what
they did previously isconsidered wrong currently or
now banned by regulation.
But it is true.
So the reality is is that I seethe potential and desire.
(45:55):
I see, you know, we have anentire population of millennials
and younger who we told tobasically find purpose in their
lives, and then they find anindustry where they can
literally just do nothing butsit across from people and say
how do I make your life better?
This is a wonderful matching ofwhat we told them they should
be looking for and what theyshould be doing.
But meanwhile the underlyinginfrastructure for how the
system works is just not gearedtowards that, especially in
(46:17):
early years.
You have to.
Basically, I'll tell you, evenin my career, when I left the
previous practice and startedfrom zero, I made very little
for several years, but did it.
I could have made a lot moredoing what I considered the
quote unquote wrong thing, but Idid it with the mind toward
that.
I was building a long-termbusiness that was going to do
the right thing, and that's whatwe did.
Now, of course, when we see allof this, you see where the gaps
(46:40):
in regulation are.
You see where the gaps inpractice are.
So, of course, in practice,part of it is just educating
people on.
Hey guys, this is what'spossible, this is what you could
be doing, this is how youshould be doing it, this is how
you should be thinking about it,this is how you should get
beyond.
I tweeted out the other day thatone of the biggest problems is
most of the education in thisindustry, especially in Canada,
comes from it's often sponsoredby it comes from product
(47:01):
providers.
What do you think they're goingto tell you about?
They're going to tell you aboutwhy the latest thing they did
is the greatest thing ever, andthen you have all this knowledge
that doesn't actuallycorrespond to reality.
Right, there are some goodplayers out there who lead with
academic evidence and we all owethem a great debt of gratitude
for basically putting up thetruth, but the reality is, for
the most part, it's allsales-based marketing.
So how do we get people toactually focus on planning and
(47:31):
actually doing and thinkingthrough the decisions that they
got to help people with?
So there's that and then it'sokay.
Where are these people gettinghurt?
Right, so that's where, when theopportunities come to volunteer
on committees or withregulators, to raise the bar is
to say no, we are not anindustry that is about ensuring
people can sell whatever theywant to whomever they want.
We're an industry that isholding out as a profession.
As such, we need to act likeprofessionals.
We have to actually be able toprovide a professional service,
(47:51):
not just an implementationservice.
So, frankly, we need to raisethe bar to the level where one
should be expected to actuallybe able to even have the
knowledge and capacity andability to do the things that
the industry is saying it willdo.
So I am tired, unfortunately, ofseeing institutions promise the
world and deliver on their ownself-interested products and
(48:12):
whatever.
I don't want that for the world, I don't want that for my
family, I don't want that forseniors, who basically go out
there and get fleeced.
I don't want that for anyone,and nor should any of us.
Anyone who actually holdsthemselves up to a standard
should be disgusted by this, andI hear it all the time.
People are like, oh, regulatorsneed to do more, whatever.
Well, you know what Regulatorsare.
Only here's what I discoveredabout regulators Most of them
are well-intentioned.
They don't necessarily have afull idea of what's going on the
(48:32):
ground floor, but theydefinitely most of the ones I've
encountered have definitivelywanted to make things better.
But when it comes time to makechanges, who do you think shows
up at the table to comment?
The ones who want to keepthings the same right, who fight
for that.
So, short of being the unlessyou have the parties on the
other side saying no, this isthe reality of how it works,
dispelling the nonsense they'rebeing told, and saying this is
(48:55):
how we can do it and this is howit's being done elsewhere in
the world, and this is what weshould consider.
Unless we can basically givethem a voice of support to be
able to simply say well, it'snice that you said that, but
look, here's the big picture.
We have a license from part ofthe industry to move forward on
this.
Don't tell us that all youradvisors don't want this.
All these advisors want this.
Unless we create thatgroundswell support for that
(49:17):
positive change to happen, theonly people who you know.
There's an old saying decisionsget made by those who show up.
We need to show up if we care.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Wow, that was a lot of information, but thanks for
that.
We clearly see that you're very, very passionate, so thanks for
sharing those gold nuggets.
We're getting to the end of theconversation In one minute or
two.
You were talking about the nextgen of financial advisors In
one night or two.
What would your advice be forsomeone entering the field today
then?
Speaker 1 (49:50):
One line or two.
Figure out what specific groupof people you can be of immense
value to Develop that niche andrun hard with it.
Why?
Because most of the industry isout there selling to everybody.
You cannot be all things to allpeople.
You can be a lot of things tofew people.
So figure out what commonchallenges a group of people
(50:12):
have and figure out how to solvethose problems and speak
directly to them.
You do that.
Your marketing, your branding,your service offering, your
everything will naturally,organically come from that one
vision of what that clientavatar is and that will enable
you to not only deliver a superhigh value and focus on the
(50:34):
values and the needs of thosepeople and deliver true value,
but will also believe it or not,people doubt this lead to
faster growth rates than otheradvisors.
Starting out, that is thesmartest thing Deep knowledge
for one group of people, noteverybody and the rest will take
(51:02):
care of itself.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Love it, jason.
This has been absolutelyamazing.
Thank you so much.
I didn't see the time pass.
I'm very excited to keep thisconversation going in Chicago
For listeners who want to learnmore from you, follow your work
and so on.
Where should they go?
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I think the first stopping point is
jasonperreiraca.
That's where I aggregate all mycontent on there.
Other other than that I'mactive on just about every
social media channel.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
So you guys make sure to go and and check jason's
website, follow him on socialsand uh check out his yeah, as,
as he was saying, uh all thecontent that he's been putting
out there, including, uh, thefantastic podcast he regularly
intervenes in.
Jason, thank you so much.
It's been absolutely a pleasureand I look forward to meeting
(51:51):
you very, very soon.
The Blunt Dollar is written,produced, hosted and edited by
me, ignacio Ramirez.
Everything you hear concept,script, sound, design and
production comes straight frommy desk and, occasionally, my
kitchen table.
Thank you so much for listeningand join me in the next episode
of the Blunt Dollar for moreraw, honest finance
(52:12):
conversations.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!