Estate planning is deeply personal work, often requiring professionals to guide clients through conversations involving death, incapacity, grief, family dynamics, and significant life transitions. Yet most professional training focuses on technical competency rather than the human skills needed to navigate these moments effectively.
In this seminar, estate planning attorney, business owner, and trained end-of-life doula Rachel Schromen explores how grief- and trauma-informed client counseling can strengthen the advisor-client relationship, improve communication and decision-making, and create a more meaningful client experience. Drawing from her experience integrating these principles into a successful estate planning practice, Rachel provides practical strategies professionals can use to approach difficult conversations with greater confidence, compassion, and effectiveness - without stepping outside the boundaries of their professional role.
Financial planning is a high-consequence profession performed in high-stimulation environments. Market volatility, client urgency, regulatory demands, and constant communication volume place sustained pressure on cognitive performance. Research in behavioral finance and cognitive psychology shows that stress and fatigue amplify bias, narrow risk perception, and increase the likelihood of reactive decision-making.
This session explores how advisor overload impacts decision quality and client communication, and how structured frameworks can protect judgment in high-stakes moments. Participants will examine the effects of cognitive fatigue on financial advice, the amplification of bias under stress, and practical strategies to preserve clarity, discipline, and professional standards during volatile periods. Advisors will leave with tools to protect client outcomes by strengthening decision integrity under pressure.
The global dynamics of valuations & earnings tell a unique story of investment opportunity, especially when "risk" is brought into focus. Equity & bond markets are giving them appearance of a low risk environment. Geopolitical & Sovereign fundamentals are forecasting a different view. If risk is defined as an impairment of capital, the importance of "Scarcity Value" should stand at the forefront. Scarcity Value is best represented by the durability of an asset or a business model and should be understood and invested in as a diversifier from the passive approach of SPY.
Social capital, the relationships people have with formal and informal networks, plays a significant role in how people navigate their lives from day to day. Often overlooked, within these social constructs exist invisible systems that set a precedent for how people behave, feel, and interact with one another. These systems, if not explored, can be the very things that are preventing your clients from achieving their financial goals. In this presentation, Dr. Michael Thomas will unpack systems and social capital theories to help you address your clients' systems to encourage sustainable behavioral change.
How to take advantage of three game-changing trends shaping our economy and rewriting the rules of wealth building – deglobalization, artificial intelligence, and fiscal dominance.
This course equips Investment Adviser Representatives to recognize financial
exploitation, understand emerging tactics and warning signs, apply the
Minnesota Safe Seniors Financial Protection Act, engage appropriately with the
Minnesota Department of Commerce, and connect clients with relevant
reporting and support resources.
This presentation equips financial advisors to recognize, respond to, and add value when a business-owner client signals interest in selling. For most owners, the sale of their company is the single largest liquidity event of their lives, often representing 70–90% of their net worth. The advisor is frequently the first professional the owner confides in — which makes the advisor the natural quarterback for the earliest stage of the process, even though the heavy lifting of the transaction itself will be handled by M&A specialists.
The presentation’s throughline: the advisor’s role is not to run the deal, but to prepare the client, assemble the right team, and stay engaged at the moments where wealth planning and deal execution intersect.
NASAA, FINRA, the SEC, industry groups, and courts have all made significant changes to the rules related to investment advisers and their investment adviser representatives ("IAR's")during 2024 and 2025. IAR's should know and understand how these recent developments affect the following areas, among others:Prior to the FinCEN Final Rule, there were no Federal or State regulations requiring IAs to maintain AML/CFT programs, including a CIP program or records under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA);The amendments to Regulation S-P enhance the protection of consumer financial information by broadening the scope of information covered by Regulation S-P's requirements for covered institutions, inter alia broker-dealers,and investment advisers;Amendments to Regulation S-P will likely require modifications to cybersecurity programs; andUpdated Security Policy Templates are available on The Web - In partnership, the Cybersecurity Risk Foundation (CRF) and SANS have created a library of free cybersecurity policy templates to help organizations quickly define, document, and deploy key cybersecurity policies. The templates were updated April 15, 2025.
Roth planning has become a cornerstone of retirement advice, yet misconceptions about conversions, backdoor contributions, and withdrawal rules remain widespread. This session provides a practical roadmap for evaluating Roth opportunities, including the three factors that drive successful Roth conversions, what a backdoor contribution really is and how to make it work, and the real-world tax consequences of Roth distributions.
This program examines the portfolio-construction case for moving commodities from a token position toward a meaningful strategic sleeve. Dan Cole will review why the traditional stock-bond diversifier has become less reliable in inflationary and supply-shock regimes, and how five structural forces - de-dollarization, diversification needs, deficits, deglobalization, and electrification - can increase the portfolio utility of real assets.
The discussion emphasizes that the objective is not to forecast commodity prices, but to define a durable portfolio role, size the sleeve by expected risk contribution, and establish funding and rebalancing rules before the next shock. Attendees will also evaluate how the Quantix Commodity Index (QCI) and Harbor Commodity All-Weather Strategy ETF (HGER) implement this portfolio role through inflation sensitivity, roll-aware construction, diversification controls, and dynamic gold tilts.