In the Suite

EP 87 The Power of Perspective: How Evan Simonoff Has Shaped Financial Journalism

• Tina Powell | Intention.ly • Season 3 • Episode 87

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Evan Simonoff, a titan in financial journalism and a name synonymous with financial advisors and the industry at large. 

Evan is editor-in-chief of Financial Advisor magazine and the editorial director of Private Wealth magazine. With over three decades of experience. Evan’s career has spanned some of the most tumultuous and transformative periods in financial history, from the 1987 crash to the Coronavirus pandemic, and most recently, the rise of AI. 

As Editor-in-Chief of Financial Advisor magazine, Evan’s sharp insights and visionary leadership have been an indispensable guide for elite financial advisors, providing the clarity and foresight needed to navigate even the most complex market conditions.

In this conversation, Evan brings his unique perspective to the evolution of financial journalism. He shares captivating stories from his storied career, invaluable lessons learned from navigating market upheavals, and his predictions for the future of wealth management.

But this episode goes beyond financial reporting. Evan explores critical topics like succession planning in wealth advisory firms, the rise of mergers and acquisitions in the industry, and how multi-generational strategies are reshaping client relationships.

But that’s not all. We also highlight Invest in Women, FA Mag’s groundbreaking annual event. This isn’t just another industry conference—it’s a forward-thinking movement dedicated to addressing the unique needs of female clients and shaping the future of financial advising. I invite you to join me at the 10th Annual Invest in Women conference, happening April 21-23, 2025, in Boston.

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from one of the most influential voices in financial journalism as he shares how to stay agile in an ever-evolving landscape and why anticipating trends is crucial for success In The Suite.

Links
Evan Simonoff LinkedIn
Financial Advisor Magazine Website
Invest In Women Conference 2025
Private Wealth Magazine Website 

🤩 Thanks for listening, we appreciate your support and 5-star reviews of our show!!!

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📧 Want to get in touch? Email me at tina@growintentionally.com


Wow. Evan Simon, take a seat in the suite. Welcome to the show. This is truly, truly an honor. You are our first official guest for 2024 as we kick off another exciting episode here in the suite, another year after a couple of unexpected events. Our listeners are well aware of my health crisis in 2023. So really, truly, it's an honor. Thank you so much for being here. No, well, thank you very much for having me. I've only done a couple of these events in the past, so it's a new experience for me. Good way to start the year. I'm so thrilled. We're so honored. Evan. The whole podcasting, you know, as a medium, is, is definitely something that's, that's newer in the advisory landscape, but you've had a career now that has spanned over three decades. You are a pillar in financial journalism. You are one of the elite. Your insights have guided so many in navigating, you know, complex landscapes during a national pandemic, a global recession. One of the things that I'm deeply curious about is how you've always managed to stay at the forefront of financial reporting in such a dynamic and volatile universe. Well, I guess there are a few things involved. One thing I can tell you after three decades reminding me, but the, just when you start to think things are getting boring and there's what are we going to write about? Something always seems to come out of the blue, and you no longer have to ask yourself what the story is. That's been that way since I started covering this business in the early nineties. And I. There was, at the time, there was coming out of a recession, and people were pretty gloomy. There had been the SNL and their crisis, a housing crisis, and little did you know in that period that within five years, the biggest problem would be the Internet bubbles, which had its own series of issues that came out of that. The business really flourished, and again, there was no shortage of things to write about. You had a lot of people who were a lot of sudden wealth, some of which lasted, some of which didn't. You had the emergence of the venture capital business. Um, you had the transfer of the. I mean, people today talk about, you know, millennials and Gen Z as clients. Um, back then, we were just starting to see the emergence of baby boomers as clients. It was really, uh, the main clients were the world war two generation, which was retired in the silent generation, which was getting close to retirement. And things really sort of changed. People would say, how do you get to the baby boomers? Its really just a 401K market and their money is locked up. And until they switch jobs, theres not much you can do. Ive heard people lately say that about millennials. But there's, I think today people need financial advice more than ever. So it's not, if you look around, there's always a story out there. Sometimes, like the pandemic, it hits you smack in the face. And other times you have to look a little bit for it. But, you know, that can be what makes the profession of journalism actually challenging and interesting. And why is it that you came to financial journalism in the first place? I was in the 1980s, I was working at a retail publication, and I got approached by a headhunter and actually in 1987 and started working on Wall street six weeks before the 1987 crash for a small Wall street magazine, which turned out it was kind of scary, but it was pretty challenging, too. And you got to see it. I remember thinking, well, I'll probably be out of work in a month or two, but in the meantime, you're going to get to see a lot of history in front of your face. And the world didn't end. It was actually, I think that was one of the lessons of the 1987 crash, was that the stock market and the economy are too very different animals. And the stock market crashed and took several years to get back, but the economy went rolling along. In fact, so much so that you saw in 1988 a big merger boom when people said, these companies arent going bankrupt. There was a huge wave of mergers and acquisitions in 1988 and early 89. And frankly, then you did see a problem because they did these leverage buyouts, the most famous of which was RJ Arnabisco. And eventually they didn't all go bust, but a lot of them certainly ran into trouble. And suddenly it was all being financed by junk bonds. And suddenly people's, the junk bond market, which was insurance companies, mutual funds and others were kind of saying, I think we've invested enough money in junk bonds for a while. Let's see what happens to these companies before we risk any more money. And sure enough, in 1989 and 90, you had the Gulf war and the SNL crisis. And there was pretty, I don't know what did someone describe that recession as? Statistically mild, psychologically awful, which I think was kind of interesting, similar to the 2000 2001 recession. But neither of those were nearly as bad as 2008, which that was almost a great depression. Oh, for sure. I was working at an industrial metals company, of all things. I was consulting consulting in finance from the years of 2006 to 2010, the wealth management firm where I became a partner and joined full time on January 4, 2010. They actually hired me at the height of the recession. And I remember people going like, how in the world were you able to even get a job? And it just happened that somebody left. The one of the communications marketing professionals had actually left during like the worst time of the year and which was something unheard of. So I remember being at the metals company, we were glued to the ISM index and my desk. All of a sudden, Evan became, I went from marketing coordinator and director to being in the build department. We would get calls all the time. The company that I work with eventually went bankrupt. And so they were calling for payment on different marketing programs. We were in, we were in global spec, we were in Alibaba. We had over$100,000 pay per click campaign. I remember the horror show of those years from that lens. I will never forget it. Jeff. No, that was a strange year. In fact, I was, you know, thinking, I remember knowing young people who were getting out of college and trying to get jobs, and you felt really awful for them. Or I had friends who were out of work and it was there people, I mean, our company was doing okay, but we weren't. We, I guess then by the end of 2010, we actually did hire a couple of people. But it was a, you know, for, it was one of those periods from early 2008 to the middle of 2010, even though we were technically out of the recession in 2009, the psychological scars lingered for a long time. And people did not want to spend a lot of money they didn't want to hire. To think you're in this market today with 3.8% unemployment is just, I do remember some people saying ten years from now, back then, in 20, 1010 years from now, theres going to be a shortage of workers. Just look at the demographics. And you did see some of that during the pandemic with the Great Recession. Now, a lot of the evidences of the great Recession was slightly overhyped. So I don't know how true that is. But it's like I say, change is the only constant. And that's what keeps you as a magazine editor, that's what keeps me motivated and alert, is that you would always have a new environment. I mean, looking at this year, it's, there's going to be, I think, more elections than almost any year in the. They say there aren't going to be this many elections in the next 20 years. Over 50% of the world or something. And part of that's India. But I mean, I often think if we have trouble counting votes, imagine what it's like in India. Oh boy. With 1.4 billion people. But. So there's going to be a lot going on this year, that's for sure. And, you know, the surprises are just likely to keep coming and, you know, I'm sure you're going to see some of that in the advisor space. I think one of the things you're likely to see in the advisor space is kind of a, a reckoning for all these, all these mergers that's going to. We just had a story this week that half of our ias who've done merger deals regret the deals. And I saw that, by the way. And you were spot on for the reasons. That is a fantastic and fabulous article. Make sure that we share it in the notes for this. And you hit the nail on the head as someone that my prior wealth management, before I came to agency life being in wealth management, we poised our firm for acquisition because primarily, Evan, because of the lack of a succession plan and the lack of partners internally. Like, we couldn't structure an ESOP, the age of the senior advisor and the junior advisor, there was too much of a delta in between. So bringing in a partner that could afford to, um, to buy into the practice was something that wasn't an option for us at this time. And the, the lead advisor wanted to maximize their, the dollar value of their practice, which you, you bring out in that article. Um, but man, what a culture. It's the culture shift and the culture shock that you talk about that's identified in your stats is very real. Yeah. And that's something that um, when we do the invest in women conference that Michael Kitchis is going to talk about. He now works for a big aggregator, Buckingham, one of the biggest. And yet I talked with him briefly last week and he said that to an advisor who's worked all their lives building a business, probably spent many years where they were basically just funding a startup, even if they were able to cover their living expenses. And finally they start making some money and they get a nice offer for the firms. And yet he thinks that theyre based on analysis hes done that youre not necessarily that much better off, but what you will get is you will be able to, whatever it is you're going to get, say, x million, you'll be able to put that aside and put it away. You'll lose control over your business, but you're just about as likely to make as much money over the next five years and still have control of your business. Now, who knows? You may be in a position where you really want to retire. You have an illness, your spouse has something. If you've been through 2000 and 2008 in the pandemic, I know there were a bunch of advisors who lived through the pandemic and sort of said, you know, I've been through three of these things in 20 years, and I'm 65 years old, and, you know, I. I'd like to be able to relax a little more. And especially when you have something like that, which is more than any, you know, it's kind of an existential health threat as opposed to, you know, a financial cycle which history is shown. You know, markets don't crash forever. They tend to display quite a bit of resilience. And so I think most advisors know that. But there is a question of how. How long you want to do this. For some people, I think some advisors want to do it forever. But, you know, you, like you're saying at your firm, really, if you're going to keep the firm going, you need a succession plan. And that's one of the attractions of a bigger firm, is that you can typically, if you have ten partners, the odds are they're not likely to all be within five years from each other. I mean, that's kind of poor planning. I do know some firms with five or six partners where they've intentionally looked for people who were staggered five years apart so that you don't have that. If suddenly lose your two key people, you'll probably have some concern among clients and some internal disruption. Yeah. If there was anything that I really gained during those years being on the front lines, it was the need not only for a succession strategy, but a multigenerational succession strategy, you know, one that reflected still all of the different age cohorts. To have a Gen X, to have a millennial, to have a baby boomer, you know, to there. All of those different generations appeal to different audiences. And a lot of times, whenever we would have a client meeting, we would match the. We would purposely map the gender, the generation, and both the sex of who the people were, you know, coming in. And now that we're talking about this, you know, intergenerational wealth transfer, I think that, you know, a lot of advisors have. Are open for M and A and open for succession to be able to show that in terms of their talented, but also, too, on the technology side. Right, Evan? Because it became harder and harder as a small lifestyle practice. Although I know that kitsis has gone into length, too, about his argument around the profitability of a lifestyle practice versus the profitability of a multi, multi billion dollar firm. But still complex technology became complex and you almost needed like a chief technology officer. And that small lifestyle lifestyle practice that has over ten, has less than ten people. You're lucky if your director of Ops can handle all of that. But just cybersecurity, technology, increased regulations, those themes, I think is going to really keep our m and a on a tear within the wealth management industry going into 2024. And now I'm curious what you think about private equity. You wrote about it in your cover story. I think that was the last your editor's note. By the way, I love, love, love your magazine. Thank you very much for still sending and believing in the power of a traditional as well as online. I love my financial advisor magazine. You keep me up to date and on my toes. Evan. Well, thank you. That's very kind of you. The thing I have noticed that, I mean, I think private equity people do understand this business to the point where, I mean, they do, but they have their own issues. They know that they can't treat this like a steel business or even a retail business, that it's really a relationship business. And if they get in the way of the relationship of the advisor and the client, they're going to really screw things up. The advisor is likely to be unhappy and if they have already paid the advisor a significant chunk of change, the advisor can leave. They may be handcuffed in terms of what they can do, but if they don't have a smooth transition, of a generational transition, they're going to have problems and they really need buy to do what they want to do, which is grow the business and earn a significant return. They are going to need to grow the business and that means keeping the founding generation on board while you develop a younger generation that can go out and get business. And that's somewhat of a challenge because first of all, they're in a lot of major markets. Among traditional advisor client audiences like physicians and business owners and corporate executives, you know, they're probably, there are a lot more advisors than there were 2025 years ago. So you're the person who you would be. Your natural audience's likely a lot more likely to have an advisor than they were. And there are more advisors looking for business. So organic growth is tougher to achieve then if you believe the financial markets have been up about 13% a year since the great Recession, so you've been some advisors tell, say their biggest client is the stock market because thats really been powering a lot of their growth in revenues and profits. Thats a challenge. And you are going to get, there are more and more people retiring, I think, where the peak of the baby boom just turned 65. And youre going to have more people who are no longer accumulating assets but are taking money out of their accounts. So that's going to make it tougher to grow your business. But on the other hand, from all I hear and read what advisors tell me about subsequent generations, there is a lot of wealth being created there. And contrary to popular perception, you have a lot of folks who, who are open to advice. I see. Remember seven, eight years ago, everybody was talking about how robo advisors were going to take over the business, and that really has not happened. I mean, the big robo advisors are Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard, which, which now all have their own human advisors and pretty substantial networks of them, but they don't have enough and the whole business does not have enough people to service the demand for financial advice. I mean, that's one of the things we were talking about. The start of the conversation was that you had folks who were, well, back in 2009, you wouldn't have imagined that all these businesses, there's now a shortage of a million nurses in the country. There is a shortage of six or 700,000 cybersecurity professionals. And in this business a year ago, the Schwab conference in Denver is Bernie Clark, who said Rias are going to need 85,000 new people just to continue the growth rate there. On factoring in that, there are quite a few people in their sixties and seventies who will retire. I saw there was a record number of cfps last year, 7000. But 7000 for five years gets you to 35,000, not to 85,000. So they're going to need other people and I suspect they're going to be, well, I don't know, maybe they'll find a pocket of young people who really decide this is a good business to be in and they'll get to 85,000. But that's a big hurdle. Yeah, it was interesting because I was in the first row as Bernie Clark that year in Denver for Schwab impact. And the weather outside was crazy cold. And it was the first in person Schwab since the pandemic. And it was right at the announcement of the TD merger. And yeah, what's great to see, and I'm part of a Finserv mentorship at Jamie Hopkins and, uh, Kellen Brown both run that program what I can tell you from working with some of the. The next gen, they are so excited and so passionate about the space, and so many advisors are giving these young professionals unique opportunities. Um, it's so exciting to see, and so I think, like, mentorship is going to continue to be a point of attraction for next gen talent. Um, and it's wonderful to see how, you know, the schools, how curriculum has evolved. We just even produced a series of marketing content for their knowledge learning LMS platform. So I think we're seeing, with the advent of Internet and mass communications, being able to reach certain audiences, that because of the virtue of the environment that we live in, so, hopefully, that brings more people to the profession. And one of the things that I want to segue here, because you brought up a really interesting event that I'm thrilled to be a part of, and one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on the podcast, Evan, and that is the 9th annual invest in women conference that's taking place March 12 to March 14 in West Palm Beach. Michael Kitsis, who you mentioned, is going to be there. Mary Beth Franklin, Christina Hopper, Carolyn McClanahan, Tracy Longo from your team on just a whole host of others. Cheryl Hickerson. It's this your 9th year, so, you know, like I was saying at the beginning of the show, clearly this had to be an ideation ten years ago. You know, can you kind of dive take us back? Because I'm fascinated again, this whole concept of Evan Simonov being always ahead of the curve, knowing where the puck is going, exploring current trends, and just the story kind of running into you. Well, I mean, a couple of people had approached us with the idea, and we'd done a couple of conferences that we'd done a retirement conference and a couple of investment conferences, and we thought of doing something different that was more planning oriented. And then we thought that people had mentioned a women's conference, and it just suddenly struck us that all the major life events that people go through that involve financial planning, typically, um, I'm not gonna say they. They exclude men, but they're things like, you know, putting kids through nursery school, all the way up through college, you know, to deciding where you're gonna retire, to, taking care of a sick relative or an elderly parent. All those issues, typically, you know, they'll involve both the female and the male. But a lot of them, it is the women among a couple who a lot of the responsibility will often fall upon. Who's going to take care of grandma? You know, who's going to pick the kids up from school when there's some event or, you know, if somebody in the family is in the hospital, it's. I mean, it, it's becoming more and more of a team effort. I. But certainly, but the burden often falls on the female. That's one of the things that occurred to us. There's the other issue that now everybody's talking about longevity. And women do typically outlive their spouses. So that a lot of these things that you plan for, you know, I've heard if you go to one of these communities where people are, most people say are 95 to 100 years old, it's, the number of women is pretty dominant, so that it's like two or three to one. So that those are some of the reasons we thought of doing it. And one of the things you noticed in the, we started doing it was that there, even though there are not enough women in the business and the profession is making some progress among those in the business, there is a sense of, of community or camaraderie that we didn't really see at that. It's certainly not there to the same degree that among male advisors. I mean, just if you go to a session, ten minutes before the session starts, if there were men, they would go in there and go and sit down, go on their iPad or iPhone or whatever and check in with the office. Whereas if there were two women in the room, they'd probably walk to this table and sit down, just start talking with each other. So that just gave us a sense of reward, just feeling good that you put on an event, and people just seem to naturally click with each other. And it's, it does seem to resonate. I mean, the, you know, some of the panels we're doing, the one that you're on with Antoinette Rodriguez and Carolyn McClanahan on surviving a serious illness, we have another one on the female breadwinner, which is, you know, I can remember when I was, you know, I knew people back in the eighties and nineties, and there'd be a couple, and if she got a really big raise and was suddenly making 30% more, there were some guys who couldn't handle it. In retrospect, it looks pretty ridiculous because most of the people I was hanging out with are in their twenties or thirties. And what you're making in your twenties or thirties should not determine your sense of self worth or anything likely to experience lots of changes. But I do know that for some men, that was very difficult. I think we've moved past that. And some of the speakers on that panel are going to be. I think there's one advisor who's been very successful so much that her husband is, basically runs the family. I think he does some work, but he's basically. She's the one who pays the bills. And that's no longer an issue that is taboo, fortunately, in most families today. But everybody has to work. That is one of the challenges. Back in the fifties and sixties, when the male did, was likely to be the breadwinner and probably 90% of family units, the wife was often able, at least for some period of time, to stop working and raise a family. That's one of the biggest changes, I think, in the last 50 years. Yeah, I see that with my own kids, Evan, and that they're both, both my son and my daughter, who are both married, work full time. My daughter and son in law have a five month old. My son and daughter in law are expecting. And again, I mean, it's a given that everybody's going back to work. And I think that both of the husbands would. Would be elated if, you know, the wife came home and said, okay, I got a hundred thousand dollar raise, I think they will welcome that with open arms. Where to your point? In my generation, it might have caused marital strife. Now it's just the opposite. So I think you're totally spot on there. Yeah, so those are some of the things. As I mentioned, we're going to have Mary Beth Franklin. She'll be going over Medicare and Social Security. She's one of the country's leading experts on that. And Michael Kitches is going to look at the business and I think he's going to challenge some conventional wisdom on the idea of you're going to be that much better off selling your business. In the short term you may be, but that's no guarantee that you are, you know, going to be five or ten years from now. And I think for a lot of folks, that's, that's not what they expected. Now, if you're at a bigger firm, maybe you will be, but you're also giving up a, you know, a lot. And it's, I think advisors have dealt with those issues via their clients for a long time. They've often had clients who've been approached to sell their firms. And like any small business owner who started a business, it's really their baby. And so it's tough to let go of. But there are other considerations. And he, I think a lot of advisors are going to be surprised and intrigued by what he has to say. And I think they're going to be surprised and intrigued by our panel as well, too. And thank you very much for, you know, mentioning doctor Carolyn McClanahan and Antoinette Rodriguez, aka Arod, who now just posted that she's been cancer free for five years. It's interesting, although the topic is, you know, surviving major illness, one of the many goals of that session is to help advisors actually not only bridge a conversation with their clients, but to see this as an opportunity for better client retention, better client engagement, better client communications, and even, I would say, even lettering and strategies with the next gen, because the worst thing in the world you want to do when it comes to major illness, and I'm speaking as a lung cancer survivor, is to ignore it. There is an incredible opportunity to actually, as my friend Maxine would say, is to look the dragon in the eye and go right in. And so we'll be talking about how to parlay those conversations as well as other strategies that advisors could use to be very helpful, aka helping to negotiate medical expenses, looking at medical coverage, looking at healthcare proxies, making sure that beneficiary designations are already there on the account, just like, you know, just basic, you know, basic good business practices for dealing with these types of issues. Right. Yeah, no, I think that's going to be, you know, one of the highlights of the conference. And I think what you say is, you know, the opportunity to use this as a way to build multi generational relationships because it's, you know, it can be pretty devastating for the children. And they sometimes don't, you know, they want to help and do things, but they, you know, if you're 15 or even, you know, 23 years old, it's, you probably, you know, maybe you went through something with your 80 year old grandmother or grandfather, but that's, I mean, it still is very emotional with anybody. And usually, you know, your grandparents are the. If your parents are the people who see all your flaws, your grandparents are the people who see none of your flaws. You're a perfect little angel. So that's, you know, it's something, but, you know, when, when something happens to one of your parents, that's really a ride. They may not be your biggest cheerleader, but they are your rock of Gibraltar in lots of ways. So it's a different, and probably I shouldn't use the word they probably are your biggest cheerleader, but they, you know, they look at you with a little more critical eye than your grandparents seen. Most cases I've seen over the years, that's just one of the realities I was once at a conference since they're talking about the bond between grandchildren and grandparents, and someone said they are both united by a common enemy. But it's one of the realities of life. And I guess it's with longevity, it's one of the areas where we're a lot luckier today, where people really get to know their grandparents into adulthood and possibly even great grandparents. That's, yeah, my mother's a great grandmother, and then she's fourth generation. We have actually a picture of that, of my granddaughter, my daughter, myself, and my mother. That fourth generation, it gives me. Yeah, it's incredible. I never had the luxury of that. You're a free mother. Yeah. Thank God. Yeah, thank God. It happened to me young. Yeah, that is, I mean, yeah, you'll be able to, you know, run around and do a lot of stuff. I mean, I think it used to be, you know, your grandfather, you know, sort of limped into the place and sat down in a chair and didn't really move. And those are, fortunately there's, you know, I mean, it is, you know, longevity has, there are a lot of things that have made life a whole lot better today than 100 years ago. Even though you turn on the news and it's pretty depressing, very often you think about it. I was once at a conference and someone knows the biggest difference in the last hundred years is when someone, back in 1900 when someone lived to 55 or 60, oh, they lived a good life. And today it's like, this is tragic. You know, this exactly. They, uh, I mean, that really, it does tell you there's, you know, that, uh, humans do move. You know, the, the life we live is moving forward, and I think it's likely to continue. But sometimes it seems like we are really bungling it. But just like I thought people's reaction during the pandemic was, and I can understand why everybody was stressed out and Washington was pretty unhappy and it was very psychologically taxing. But I just thought, I did find it a little depressing how it became so politicized so quickly of how people, I mean, you can understand how if you're locked in your house for three months, you do become a little testy. And the, what was, you know, the, you know, hopefully. And we lost the ability to go to restaurants. I think, like, that was the demise of our, of our mental health state. You know, we didn't have the communities and the watering holes and the rituals of, you know, getting together as people, you know, being totally stripped of that social, the social aspects of their lives really revealed, I think, a fundamental need in all of our psychology and mental health, and that is the ability to convene together. No, I can remember. When was it? Was that June, I guess, when the buildings first started saying, you can have visitors. And friends of mine I see almost now every other Saturday. We all came over and just sat around my living room for, you know, a whole Saturday afternoon. And we were just saying, you know, the whole thing was pretty weird. What was the joke I heard? What was during that period was, you probably want to edit this out, but who. Oh, maybe not, Evan. The. What was it? Osama bin Laden lived in one house for seven years. For seven years with five wives, or five wives for seven years and never left the home once. And they said, it is now believed that Osama bin Laden personally called the United States Navy seals and asked them, gave him his location, and they begged them to pay him a visit. But, yeah, that was just a strange period that we will, hopefully we don't ever go through again. Maybe it's once every hundred years. I hope not, too. I hope that Peter Diamandis actually writes in the foreword of his book abundance, about pandemics. And I was like, wow, I remember when he was at a TD Ameritrade conference, and so like to see that theme actually, you know, kind of come true. He had good tea leaves. He himself is an investor in longevity. It's interesting that you bring that up as, like, a topic, because I myself am seeing a lot of content on YouTube around longevity. We see Peter Attia's book outlive. We see the true north center for water fasting, all these kind of, like, alternative technologies which, you know, have taught my attention. But what about for advisors that are listening again, we've got a great audience, a great listenership here. What about advisors that have a particular, like, point of view or story angle or something that they see as a modern theme happening in their practice? Is that something that an advisor should reach out to you or a member of your team directly? Yeah, you reach out to me or Ray Fozzie or Eric Rasmussen, Chris Robbins, we're all on the masthead, and we're always looking for interesting stories that, you know, are out of the box, you know, as well as the technical stories. I mean, I think one of the big stories we're going to see going forward is just in some of the. I mean, we're talking about longevity. Some of the. It seems like some of the medical breakthroughs may be accelerated during the pandemic. You know, with RM rMNA technology and RNA technology and also like these obesity drugs. Exactly. Wow. That's been right. A lot of advisors have taken a bullish position in a lot of those stocks. Maybe we're going to see an obesity ETF. What do you think, Evan? I think there is one. Oh, wow. Of course there would be one already. Yeah, yeah, there already is. Is one. And, you know, I think of, you know, the other thing is what's likely to happen with Alzheimer's. I mean, that I can remember ten years ago talking with and an actuary and about long term care policies and some of these. And there are longevity insurance policies where they're basically an annuity that doesn't start paying until you're 80 or 85, depending on how you structure it, and you buy it in your late fifties or sixties, and. And if you don't make it to 80 or 85, the insurance company wins. But he was saying to me that if there are some breakthroughs in cancer and cancer and Alzheimer's, this could be a disaster for insurance companies, much like long term care policies. I mean, its pretty amazing that long term care policies were really one of the big things that compromised General Electric, which you would think a company, a behemoth like General Electric, could withstand that. And, well, its very positive for 99% of the. The world. If your biggest asset is an insurance company or one of these vehicles, that could be something to watch out for. I don't know. You would think that they would factor this in, but those are issues that are a little beyond my pay grade. I'm not an actuary, but I can. You can just sort of look at the numbers and saying, if everybody is suddenly sitting around at 100 years old, there are going to be a bunch of problems. Like I mentioned, if there's a shortage of nurses, a million. If we're a million nurses short now, what's it going to be like in 20 years? Maybe we'll start encouraging people to. The insurance companies will be giving away cheeseburgers all day or something. I don't know. It's just a. It's a challenge for. For a lot of folks out there. So then again, insurance companies can also balance things. If you have the right balance of annuities and life insurance policies, you can. One will offset the other. So that's, I guess, how they'll try to do it in things with reinsurance. But in general, these trends are all very positive. I think it's figuring out how to make the last 2030, 40% of your life. I mean, make them good years, valuable years, productive years. That's the big challenge, is to just retire and spend ten years on a golf course anymore. Read about all these book clubs and other things retirement communities have. And there are ways to keep yourself, you know, alive and vital, you know, even if you're not going to be running around like a 20 year old anymore, which for a lot of us is probably a good thing, but we try. Yeah. So I want to make sure that our listeners, again, I'm so grateful getting a copy of having access to both the digital magazine as well as the print magazine. I want to make sure everybody listening right now knows to go to fa dot dash mag.com. fa dash mag.com. you've got frontline news, re market Central, CE central calendar, webcast, white papers lists. There's so many sections to the Fa mag website that are beneficial. And so I just want to make sure that our listeners head over there and the subscription is complimentary. Right, Evan? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Again, if you're a financial professional, get the magazine. It's well produced and look forward to other articles. And again, knowing where modern themes are, so the best way to get in contact with you, you'd mentioned that your information is on the masthead of the magazine and encouraging financial advisors and financial professionals to reach out with stories, with ideas, with points of view, with trends and things that they're seeing, that the editorial team is very much open to those types of stories. Yeah, no, thank you very much. We're always looking for new ideas. You know, you just gave us a good story that'll be published soon, and there's, you know, one of the things I found about this community that makes it very rewarding is just that there are so many advisors out there who've lived through so many different experiences that there's always something new and different and exciting. It is. Is there a specific. Do you have any recommendations or tips? Before I ask you the last question, do you have any recommendations or tips or their best practices? When an advisor or somebody reaches out for those types of stories, information, that they should include a particular subject line so that they're not wasting your time. I would say to cut to the chase pretty quickly as to why this is compelling, why your idea will resonate with a lot of different people in the advisor community, and why it's important. And, you know, particularly if you think it's going to be. If you're, you know, headed to where. If you're presenting a story that'll help advisors know or see where the puck is headed, to use your phrase or I. Everybody's favorite phrase. That's really a. That really captures the attention of editors. Okay. And you can. Is it okay, Evan, if I give out your email right now on this broadcast? Evan, at. Or. Or Esimonoff, either one at Fah. That's dashed f a hyphen m a g.com. And we'll make sure that there's a link. Again, you can just go to the notes, whatever podcast player that you're listening to, and we'll make sure that. That we have a link to Evan's. Evan's email as well as Fa mag. So, as I mentioned at the top of the broadcast, Evan, you are our first guest for 2024 season. Every season, I have a different question. I think this question is going to stick for all seasons. It's about health and wellness. Hence the panel that we have at the 9th annual invest in women conference, March 12 to 14th, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. But to wrap up the conversation, we're asking this of our guests if you could share a personal health or wellness tip that has particularly benefited you. I guess the tip I would provide is this is just a trait that I had. I was. Is that I do a lot of walking. I was born with a dislocated hip and turned out to be, in many ways, a big advantage. From the age of six months to 18 months, I was in a leg brace. And my parents always said when they took the leg brace off, it was a nightmare. They could never find me. I was always just running off. I was a fast little kid, and one of the. I probably had the way it wasn't diagnosed in those days, which is probably also a good thing. But I probably also, if I didn't have add, I certainly didn't have the world's longest attention span. And so I was always going off and taking long walks to when class was over, I would bolt. And, yeah, when I first started working in an office, I would have, after about an hour and a half, I would have to get up and go for a 15 minutes walk. And so I wasn't doing this, as you know, because I thought it was healthy, just because I was kind of high energy and restless. And I still try to walk two, 3 miles a day and probably end up doing more than that. And so I would say, think of both my father and grandfather lived to their mid nineties, and they both did, you know, a lot of walking. So that's what I would say is back to when we get off this call I'm going to go because I walk for my, probably my third or fourth mile today, and I hear this is what sort of bothers me this time of year, because if you're in the northeast and it's 20 degrees, I don't go for 4 miles of walking. You know, I try to do other things in the house, but that is what I would highly recommend to anybody is it's probably the simplest thing, but it, you know, it has all sorts of ancillary benefits, but the primary one, well, keeps your legs fit, but it's also your cardio. So that's it. It's not very imaginative or creative, but it's one thing that I think is quite useful. And I try to. I mean, the challenges are the days in January and the days in July and August, wherever I. If you go for a two mile walk in August, the next place you go is the shower. But. And I guess in the winter, it can be challenging. But, yeah, people. I don't go to a gym and get on one of those treadmills. That's Cory. But that would be my. My piece of advice. It's not. It's. I'm sure you could get a better advice from a health professional. Oh, no, this is great. This is the kind of organic, homegrown advice that we need. It's wonderful to hear the health strategies of everyone that I know. And I think you've inspired me to take a quick walk in my little cul de sac here before I get on the peloton to do a low impact ride with Cody Rigsby, followed by an infrared sauna. So always walking has been. I agree. I think it's the oxygen, and even I don't mind the outside air, although it makes it harder to walk a little distance. So you've inspired me. Evan Simonoff. I want to thank you so much for the graciousness and generosity of today's conversation, making yourself available. And again, I'm thrilled and honored to be a part of the 9th annual invest in women and cannot wait to participate, as well as hear from other speakers and meet everyone there. So thank you again. Yeah, we're delighted to have you, and I'm really looking forward to your session. Thank you. Okay. Okay, great. I'm going to stop the recording right now. And that was great. Dear, do you edit.

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