Money Matters Radio

09/27/2025

🚨 Can AI actually make financial advisors feel more human—not less?
That’s the bold idea Robert J. Sofia, CEO of Snappy Kraken, shares in this week’s episode of Money Matters.

We break down what “human connection at scale” really looks like in today’s digital-first world—and why it might be the future of financial advising.
Here’s what we cover:

✅ Real AI implementation vs. ChatGPT tinkering
✅ Using data to personalize at scale (without losing your voice)
✅ How one firm doubled AUM from $20B → $40B with smarter marketing
✅ Why compliance + data strategy must come first
✅ How segmentation and timing can turn cold leads into real clients

💡 Key takeaway: AI isn’t here to replace financial advisors—it’s here to help you deliver trust, relevance, and authenticity consistently.

If you’ve ever wondered how to scale trust without losing your edge, this episode is your blueprint.

🎧 Listen now: Click Below

🔁 Tag a fellow advisor who’s “AI-curious”

🚨 Can AI actually make financial advisors feel more human—not less? That’s the bold idea , CEO of , shares in this week’s episode of Money Matters. We break down what “human connection at scale” really looks like in today’s digital-first world—and why it might be the future of finan...

09/22/2025

AI won’t make us less human—unless we hand over the parts that make us human.

I don’t worry that AI will replace advisors. I worry it might replace the small moments of judgment that make us good at the job—if we let it.

Back in May, an MIT study made the rounds about “over-reliance” on AI and declining critical thinking. I get why it resonated. It’s easier to outsource thinking than to sit with ambiguity. But courage isn’t a tech stack; it’s a practice. And in money, the best decisions rarely hinge on IQ—they hinge on behavior repeated over time.

That’s the heartbeat of Digital Kaizen: small, durable habits that keep you human-first while using AI as a force multiplier.

Pause before paste.

Cross-check the source, then explain it in your own words.

Keep a human sentence that says what you actually believe.

Leave an audit trail you’d be proud to show a client.

These aren’t rules to police you; they’re scaffolding for better conversations, better decisions, and better outcomes—one micro-improvement at a time.

🎙️ Grateful to Charles Verhey and The Digital Impact Podcast for the thoughtful conversation and space to unpack this.

👉 Full episode: link in the comments
📬 Join the Digital Kaizen email list for early chapters + launch updates

09/05/2025

🎙️ Episode #334 – The Man Behind the 4% Rule: Bill Bengen on Inflation, Flexibility, and a Richer Retirement

What if the greatest risk to your retirement portfolio isn't a market crash—but inflation?

In this episode of Money Matters, Christopher Hensley, RICP®, sits down with Bill Bengen, the creator of the legendary 4% Rule for safe withdrawal rates. Now, 30 years later, Bengen reflects on what still holds up, what’s changed, and how retirees and advisors can adapt withdrawal strategies in a world of sticky inflation, volatile markets, and longer life expectancies.

Whether you're planning your own retirement or advising clients on income strategies, this conversation delivers clarity, context, and practical insights from one of the most influential figures in modern financial planning.

💡 Topics Covered:

Why inflation is the true enemy of retirement

How Bengen’s thinking on the 4% Rule has evolved in 2025

The importance of flexibility in withdrawal rates

Guardrails, gifting, and building a more human retirement

Why diversification now includes 7 asset classes

A behind-the-scenes look at how the 4% Rule research went viral

📘 Get the Book:
A Richer Retirement by Bill Bengen — available now on Amazon and major booksellers.

🎧 Host: Christopher Hensley, RICP®, CES®

🎙️ Episode #334 – The Man Behind the 4% Rule: Bill Bengen on Inflation, Flexibility, and a Richer Retirement What if the greatest risk to your retirement portfolio isn't a market crash—but inflation? In this episode of Money Matters, Christopher Hensley, RICP®, sits down with Bill Bengen, ...

08/15/2025

Thirteen people have been charged in a $5M elder fraud scheme targeting 400+ seniors through fake “grandparent” calls from the Dominican Republic, officials ...

08/05/2025

Your best prospects aren’t ghosting you—
They’re just talking to ChatGPT first.

That’s the reality I unpacked with Brian Thorp, founder of Wealthtender, on the latest Money Matters podcast.

Today’s client journey starts in an AI chat window—before a referral is called, before a website is visited, before your name is ever Googled.

The first impression happens without us in the room.
So the question is: Do these tools even know you exist?

We break down:

✅ The rise of “AI Overviews” and how they’re reshaping advisor discovery
✅ Why schema markup and off-site SEO may matter more than your homepage
✅ What smart advisors are doing right now to stay visible in an AI-first world

🎧 Listen to the episode

📬 P.S. Want more behind-the-scenes thinking like this?
I share tools, stories, and early access to the Digital Kaizen for Financial Advisors book in the comments 👇

🔍 Why Your Next Best Client May Never Call You First — And What To Do About It In this episode of Money Matters, I sit down with Brian Thorp, founder and CEO of Wealthtender, to unpack a radical shift in how clients find financial advisors. AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews are ...

08/05/2025

🔍 Why Your Next Best Client May Never Call You First — And What To Do About ItIn this episode of Money Matters, I sit down with Brian Thorp, founder and CEO...

07/28/2025

Most advisors I know don’t hate prospecting.
They hate how prospecting makes them feel.

Like they’re chasing instead of connecting.
Like they’re guessing instead of guiding.
Like they’re becoming someone they never wanted to be just to grow the business they love.

When I sat down with Eden Ovadia and Victoria Toli, the founders of FINNY, something clicked.

They didn’t build another spray-and-pray marketing engine.
They built a relationship matcher.

An AI tool that learns who you actually connect with—and quietly helps you find more of those people.
Not louder. Not faster. Just… more you.

And it works, because it was built with deep respect for what we do as advisors:
👂 Listening well
🧠 Thinking clearly
💬 Communicating honestly
🤝 Building trust, one human at a time

If you’ve ever felt like your lead gen tools were costing you the very thing your clients value most—your presence—this conversation might speak to you.

🎧 Money Matters Episode 332 is now live
📖 Part of my Digital Kaizen for Financial Advisors series—a living project about growing with grace in a fast-changing world

→ I dropped the full link and early-access invite in the comments.

Because scaling your practice shouldn't mean shrinking your humanity.

What if the real problem isn't that advisors hate prospecting—it's that the system we gave them to do it is broken? Most tools treat advisors like marketers. Spray-and-pray. Mass messaging. Cold lists. But the best advisors? They don’t want to scale spam. They want to scale presence. That’s wh...

07/25/2025

What if the AI you feared... actually gave you more time to be human?

In this week’s Money Matters Podcast, I sat down with Arnulf Hsu, founder of GReminders, to talk about an AI tool that quietly returns 500 hours a year back to financial advisors.

This isn’t about replacing advisors—it’s about removing the cognitive overload that gets in the way of showing up fully for your clients.

We talk about:
✅ Voice-aware AI that handles admin, follow-ups, and note-taking
✅ Real-world compliance safeguards advisors can trust
✅ The path from automation to presence, not just productivity

For anyone curious about how invisible tech is quietly reshaping our work lives—and what that means for the future of client relationships—this one’s worth your time.

🎧 Listen to Episode 331 here:
📥 Want tools like this in your inbox? Check the comments to join the Digital Kaizen email list.

500 hours. That’s how much time some advisors are getting back—every single year. Not from working harder. From removing the invisible work that's slowly draining them. In this week’s Money Matters Podcast, I sat down with Arnulf Hsu, founder of GReminders, to talk about what happens when AI b...

07/24/2025

The audio sounded perfect. Too perfect.

That’s what Whitney Joy Smith—one of Canada’s top private investigators—told me when we sat down to talk about AI, trust, and the future of voice.

In this special edition of the Money Matters podcast, we go deep into one of the most uncomfortable truths in today’s tech landscape:

You can no longer assume a voice recording is real.

Whitney shares real-world cases where AI-generated voices nearly destroyed lives, and how investigators are adjusting—not just their tools, but their intuition.

And here’s where it connects to financial advising:
In a profession built on trust, how do we navigate a world where even authenticity can be faked?

We talked about:

The rise of deepfake scams and how to spot what’s missing

The emotional cost of over-automation in human relationships

Why the future isn’t about out-teching fraud—but out-humaning it

This episode is part of the research series for my upcoming book, Digital Kaizen for Financial Advisors—where we explore small, sustainable shifts that keep relationships at the heart of everything, even in an AI-driven world.

🎧 Give it a listen. It’s only 13 minutes, and it might change the way you think about your own voice, your own presence, and how you show up.

👇 Join the Digital Kaizen email list in the comments for early access to interviews, tools, and insights from the book.

The audio sounded perfect. Too perfect. That’s what Whitney Joy Smith—one of Canada’s top private investigators—told me when we sat down to talk about AI, trust, and the future of voice. In this special edition of the Money Matters podcast, we go deep into one of the most uncomfortable truth...

05/14/2025

🎙️ NEW EPISODE: How Data Became the New Currency of Influence — with Justin Evans

In this episode of Money Matters, host Chris Hensley sits down with Justin Evans, author of the soon-to-be-released The Little Book of Data, to uncover how data has quietly become the most powerful asset of the 21st century—even more influential than money itself.

💡 Key takeaways from this episode:

Data is everywhere—even in everyday moments like getting an Uber or visiting the doctor. Justin shares his personal story of how a simple day revealed dozens of invisible data collection points.

Data tells a story. Learn how data science helped New York City identify COVID-19 hotspots and saved an estimated 300,000 lives—thanks to the same military strategy used at the Battle of Thermopylae.

Good data vs. bad data. Justin breaks down why data bullies—people who use data to intimidate—are one of the biggest obstacles to data literacy.

The emotional side of data ethics. Hear the powerful story of “Priya,” a data analyst using her skills to fight human trafficking and save lives—proving that data, when used ethically, can be a force for good.

Unlocking hidden business opportunities. From Amazon’s advertising empire to local nonprofits, Justin shows how organizations can tap into the “latent gold” already sitting in their data.

📚 The Little Book of Data launches this June—making data approachable, actionable, and even entertaining for everyone, from business leaders to everyday consumers.

🔥 Don’t forget to:
👍 Like
💬 Comment
🔔 Subscribe for more insights on how to make smarter money moves in the digital economy.

🎥 NEW EPISODE: The Hidden Currency of Data — with Justin Evans Is data the new oil… or is it something even more valuable? In this episode of Money Matters, I sit down with Justin Evans, author of the upcoming Little Book of Data (dropping this June), to unpack how data is reshaping money, bu...

04/26/2025

I had an amazing experience at this year’s T3 Conference in Dallas, and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be featured by WealthManagement.com!

A huge thank you to the Wealth Management team for shining a spotlight on important changes happening in our industry — including the repeal of WEP/GPO and its impact on retirement planning.

I'm especially grateful to Syntax for inviting me to the conference. Having access to cutting-edge solutions like custom indexing is a game-changer, particularly for independent advisors like myself who serve specialized markets, including state employees, medical professionals, and higher education faculty approaching retirement.

I'm also excited about where technology is headed — platforms like Holistiplan and TaxStatus are bringing sophisticated tax optimization tools to the forefront, helping advisors deliver even better outcomes for our clients.

The future of retirement planning is bright, and it's being built by innovators who aren't afraid to rethink how we serve our clients.
Feeling energized, optimistic, and ready to help my clients navigate these new opportunities with confidence!

If you missed the clip, you can catch it here:

🎥 What WEP/GPO Repeal Means for Retirement Planning


https://youtu.be/hjm2WYWpa7U?si=8Zv8EYPYbO8wxOLt

The repeal of the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) is creating major ripple effects for state employees and public se...

04/12/2025

💥 "Money isn’t bad. Wanting more of it doesn’t make you selfish."

That’s the message from bestselling author Derrick Kinney, and he just dropped MAJOR truth on the latest episode of the Money Matters Podcast.

🎧 In this powerful conversation, we talk about:
✅ Why so many of us carry guilt around money
✅ The 3 Levers of Money to build real wealth
✅ How to ask for a raise (and actually get it)
✅ And how aligning your income with a cause can lead to more impact AND more income

If you’ve ever felt underpaid, stuck in debt, or unsure how to move forward financially—this is the mindset shift you’ve been waiting for.

🔥 Derrick’s insights are real, practical, and rooted in experience—and this episode might just change how you think about money forever.

🎙️ Listen now on your favorite podcast platform:

👇 Know someone who needs to hear this? Tag them in the comments.

What if more money wasn’t the end goal—but the beginning of your bigger purpose? In this episode of the Money Matters Podcast, host Christopher Hensley sits down with Derrick Kinney, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of Good Money Revolution and host of the Good Money Podcast....