How Financial Advisors Stay Human in an AI-Driven World with Paul Sydlansky

In this episode of Only Human, host Yohance Harrison sits down with Paul Sydlansky, founder of Lake Road Advisors, to explore how financial advisors can stay human and irreplaceable in an AI-driven world. They discuss the evolution of financial planning technology, the importance of relationships in advisory services, and the tools that genuinely add value to clients. Paul shares insights from his journey from Wall Street to independent advising, the challenges of technology adoption among clients, and practical ways advisors can remain competitive. Tune in to learn how to balance tech efficiency with the irreplaceable human touch in financial advising.

Chapters

• 1:56 Paul’s Journey to Independent Advising
• 5:26 How Technology Has Shaped Paul’s Practice
• 10:52 Will AI Replace Financial Advisors?
• 15:06 The Future of Tech in Financial Advice
• 27:41 Paul’s Personal Story & Advice for Advisors

Transcript

Paul Sydlansky 0:00

Played around with a lot of different tools all throughout. Whether it's a riskalyze, a tiffin, I mean, you name it, there's so much out there. And again, as an advisor, I get excited by looking at these things and then I think, well, it's going to add value to my client and most of the time it doesn't.

Seth Harrison 0:21

You are tuned into the Only Human podcast where financial advisors learn how to stay irreplaceable in a world of AI. Only Human explores strategies for advisors to leverage their unique human edge and thrive alongside technology. I'll be back later with some important announcements. Until then, here's your host, behavioral financial advisor Johannes. Enjoy the show.

Yohance Harrison 0:55

Welcome back to Only Human. It is Yohance Harrison and I am human. And I'm hoping you are too. If the bots are listening. Thank you, bots. Please bot share this show with a human so that they may listen on this podcast. We are meeting with my new good friend, Paul Sidlansky. I did it. Just gotta do it fast. He is also a financial advisor and we are going to be discussing our human characteristics as we work with clients. Our intention is to help you find ways to stay humanly connected with your clients. As technology continues to improve, as AI becomes more of a common theme in the things that we do, how do you stay human? How do you stay connected? Paul, welcome to the show.

Paul Sydlansky 1:43

Thank you, Johannes.

Yohance Harrison 1:45

So let's just start with. Give us a little bit about Lake Road Advisors. Why did you become advisor and what brought you to where you are today?

Paul Sydlansky 1:56

Sure. So really kind of try to make a long story short. Lake Road Advisors, I'm the founder. We've been around for about nine years right now I've been in industry for over 25, which I can't even believe that when I say it now, but I started out working in institutional equities on Wall Street. Really liked what I did working with hedge funds and learning how that business worked, but kind of hit a point halfway through my career where I realized that a couple things. Number one, I was a cog in a huge machine and number two, realized I had very little control over my own Destiny. Around 0809, saw 30% of my department get laid off over a weekend, which was pretty sobering.

Yohance Harrison 2:48

You were at Lehman, Is that what you said?

Paul Sydlansky 2:50

I was across the street, I was at Morgan Stanley. So we were prime brokerage and saw billions of dollars leave the firm over a weekend and almost bankrupt the firm, which was a wild time again. I was lucky enough to keep my job during that time. But it was a huge wake up call to realize that no matter how well I may have done in my job, my future was out of my control. At the time I was in my early 30s, I'm 47 now. I had my wife and I just had our third child. We had three kids under three years old. And my priorities were shifting pretty drastically. And the thought of being kind of strapped to a desk for 11 or 12 hours a day, while not a big deal in my 20s, now became a real big deal. And like I tell folks I never cared about, you know, it's not the hard work. I love working hard, I love grinding. But having no ability and having to be at an office at 6:30 in the morning till 7 at night when you have a young family. During the weeks I didn't see my kids. And so at that point I knew there had to be a change. I always had interests more in the private wealth field. And my wife and I decided in 2012 to pivot. We moved to upstate New York, Finger Lakes region. I joined a small RIA and then was there for a few years and realized that it wasn't a good fit for many reasons and thought now or never, if I'm going to start my own firm, I'm going to do it. So, launched in 2016 with zero clients, bootstrapped it and again, lucky enough, today we have about 100 families we work with. I have a colleague, she's based out in Washington state and managing roughly 80 million and couldn't be happier because I'm impacting people and also I have a lot more control over my own destiny as a business owner.

Yohance Harrison 4:55

So you said 100 families you're working with right now?

Paul Sydlansky 4:58

Yep, about 100 families. About 80 million under management. And we do flat fee planning as well as traditional assets under management.

Yohance Harrison 5:08

Okay, awesome, awesome. So talk to us a bit about your journey as an independent advisor and how you created your the technology that you decided you would use inside your practice.

Paul Sydlansky 5:26

So what's interesting is the firm I joined when I kind of pivoted from institutional type finance to more personal finance, the firm did not embrace technology at all. And that was really difficult for me as a financial planning firm. Literally no CRM, no financial planning software. I couldn't believe it. And so I kind of motivated your.

Yohance Harrison 5:51

Legal Legal Pad, legal pad and HP12C.

Paul Sydlansky 5:55

Old school, old school. And so this was the time when XY Planning Network had started their podcast and had started listening to them and was really kind of fascinated about some of the stuff they were Talking about and obviously technology is a big bet for them. So started to kind of research on my own, hey, there's got to be an easier way to do this. There's got to be a more efficient way to do this. And so the first real dive into that was simply financial planning software, which again even then was a lot more mainstream. It was just the firm I was at was a little bit behind the times. And so financial planning software was really the first piece. But after that it quickly grew into the importance of a CRM. Right. So I use Wealthbox right now and integrating that with. Right. Capital, integrating that with other types of things like calendly, like using AI. Note taker. There's just so much that you can leverage now to create efficiencies where we can be a two person firm and handle 100 families where if you didn't leverage technology that would be impossible. So when I think about my journey, it actually started as an independent advisor really wanting to leverage those tools. And the crux of that too is because we're virtual. So although I originally started, I'm based, like I said, in upstate New York and the Finger Lakes region, our growth comes from all over the country. And you know, one of the only good things to come out of COVID was it made Zoom socially acceptable. And I think more people realize that. I'd rather talk to a planner or an advisor over Zoom midday for a half hour, 40 minutes. I don't want to come into an office. I don't have time. Especially we deal with a lot of couples, married couples who are getting two different places. And so it's really created efficiencies in that way allowed us to help a lot more people.

Yohance Harrison 7:59

So as you since, since you tenured into financial planning, into your practice, in our technology revolution that we've had over the past, we'll call it two decades, have you noticed a shift in not only could you mention your client's desire to want to meet via Zoom, but have you noticed a shift in the client's ability to utilize and understand these different technology tools? And, and what's your adoption rate been with clients using those tools that you offer to them?

Paul Sydlansky 8:33

So it's getting better, but quite frankly it's probably not as high as I would like. And so as an advisor, I could sit in these tools all day and play around and have fun. Ye. Yeah. But what I find is, and this will probably tie into the human part, a lot of our clients, and maybe this is why we have this Niche of these folks who kind of want that partner, want that person to walk them through and explain stuff on a human level. The, like, the login rates, the. The people who are checking things, it's much lower as a percentage than when I thought. To kind of give you an example, we first started out with MoneyGuide Pro way back in the day. And you know, MoneyGuide Pro was good for when we started, but they hadn't really made any changes or advancements. And then along came right Capital, who was really built, you know, by advisors for advisors and offers a much better experience. And I was really nervous at first to switch to MoneyGuide Pro because I thought my clients were used to that. Turns out they didn't really care and it was a much easier switch. I wasn't, you know, I probably worried way too much about it than I needed to. And while clients have adopted right capital and sometimes use the app, they're still not using it at any type of clip that I thought they would be. So for me, the types of clients that we're working with, they want the hand holding and they want the one on one conversation to explain to them, hey, this is why this scenario came out like X. This is what you need to be doing from why much they would much rather that than reading it on, you know, a scenario analysis.

Yohance Harrison 8:45

Can't we though?

Yohance Harrison 10:21

Notebooks. Yeah. Remember those? The notebooks.

Paul Sydlansky 10:24

Oh, yeah.

Yohance Harrison 10:26

So really quickly, Paul, I want to say you're a pro. So Paul noticed that my camera had frozen because it did that before the show. I was frozen. I switched cameras and came back here. Paul did not skip a beat, didn't blink, just kept with his answer. Paul, for those of you that are just listening, get it and see the chaos. Oh, technology has not been my friend lately. Friends.

Paul Sydlansky 10:48

It's okay. It's okay.

Yohance Harrison 10:52

Paul, you're a champ. I love that. So, you know, I find that I'm like you, actually. We actually use a lot of the same programs and we'll get to that a little bit later. But I agree. I find that clients are. They're more likely to engage with the technology than they were when we were giving them paper financial plans. They're more likely to engage with the technology when I'm saying, hey, just upload your statements versus bring me a stack of statements into the office. I remember sitting in the office with clients and I just give them my computer and I'll just go hang out in my office while they log in and, you know, hit print for all their statements that they didn't print at home because they didn't have a printer or whatever it would have been.

Yohance Harrison 11:41

But I do still find though, like as you were saying, that we have a desire for the engagement to be a little bit higher than what our clients are doing. And so if we're experiencing that, how in the world is this thought exists that some AI or tool is going to replace us as the humans? Because we have a hard enough time getting our clients to engage with the technology that we're providing to them. So I feel like it's really far fetched to even imagine that a role of a financial advisor can be replaced by technology that clients won't engage with unless they have a financial advisor. Am I speaking any truth here?

Paul Sydlansky 12:25

Yeah. And what I like to think about and maybe a comparison. So let's rewind maybe 10 or 15 years ago and it was. Everybody was scared of what Robo Advisors. Robo advisors are going to take all of the financial planning and financial advisory jobs. And it was something to be worried about. And quite frankly that hasn't happened. And what has it done? It's really enhanced the experience and allowed advisors to spend more time on the stuff that matters and to simplify the investing platform. So I really believe that this is completely overblown in terms of if you have fears. I think the only fear you should have as an advisor is not leveraging the technology to increase your efficiency and falling behind other advisors who know how to use it, but replacing the human element. That's not going anywhere. Right? There's, there's no replacement for that relationship. And I had a manager who I worked with when I first started my career and he would always say to me, relationships, relationships, relationships, right. That's what it's all about. And there are so many folks out there, there's so much technology, there's so many financial planners and advisors, but people are going to work with you because they know like and trust you. And you can't replace that because you're using MoneyGuide Pro versus Right Capital or using an AI tool or you're not. Doesn't matter. Right. That that's not a differentiator. And so I think if you're fearful the technology, the only thing you should be worried about is falling behind from an efficiency standpoint.

Yohance Harrison 12:37

Robo advisors.

Yohance Harrison 14:08

Speaking of the fears that are out there, there's. This has been societal for years. We have the older generations that are scared or fearful. Well, those are synonymous. But we'll say they're more, I'll say they're more careful with the adoption of new technology. Simultaneously for the financial advice industry, there was a, there's actually a presentation I signed up to go listen to where it's estimated that nearly a third of of financial advisors are subject to retire and or sell their practice over the next decade. And that's due to the age of a lot of these individuals. We are a baby boomer run industry for the most part. So do you think that it's going to, that the adoption of technology will improve as younger advisors come into the community?

Paul Sydlansky 15:06

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, average client age, like you said, it's a baby boomer type business and world we're in and everybody talks about wealth transfer and that happening. I do think as the wealth transfer, the great wealth transfer happens, there's just going to be this normal. It's. You're going to have to adopt different techniques and different ways to communicate and one of those main ways is going to be technology. And I think you alluded something even as simple as uploading statements on a portal like in Right Capital where a younger client is completely fine with that. But I have some older clients who would mail me a hard copy still. Right. They're just not comfortable. Those folks are getting few and far between. I have a few clients who still have a trouble logging on, but it's not like it was 10 years ago. Right. So I think it's just normal adaptation and we'll get there. You're going to have your stragglers but there's no way to avoid it. Right. Things like two factor authentication. That's here. Right. And if you're not comfortable being able to access your money online and leveraging your phone at the same time to be able to do that, it's going to be really hard for you to see. Right. Some I, I have a client who still wanted paper statements like we don't have that ability anymore. That's not, you don't get that quarterly statement. So I think they'll be stragglers. But for the most part we're moving in the right direction.

Yohance Harrison 16:40

So if you were giving advice Paul, to newer advisors coming into the industry now that again are coming into an industry where a lot of the technology that they use is going to be embracing AI or have some sort of AI component that's going to with the CRM tools and the auto mailers and all the different fun things that we have, what would be some of the advice you would give to them on how they can stay human and focus on those three Rs you mentioned? Relationship, relationship, relationship.

Paul Sydlansky 17:13

So for Me. And I think thinking back to starting a business from scratch, I probably spent way too much time thinking about, hey, am I using the right software? Am I using the right marketing tools? Am I using the right crr? Should I be using mailchimp? You know what, what does this page look like on my website? I probably spent way too much time. And my advice would be again, build relationships, be out there, let people know what your story is, tell people your story, build that trust. Because that's, that's priceless and that is always going to win out versus any type of flashy website, marketing promo, anything like that. People again, know, like and trust that that's how it works. And for a new advisor, quite honestly, they don't really have much experience, so they can't even point to, hey, I've been doing this for 10 or 20 years and look at my lack of hair or gray hair. They need to focus on who they are, right? What they're about, what their story is. And ultimately, you know, those are the things that are going to get people endeared to them and build that trust. And then that the business part can come later. But in the, in the short term, I would get out there, tell people why you're doing what you do, what drives you, what motivates you and why you want to help people. Those are the things that are going to resonate and ultimately, I think, make you successful in the long run.

Yohance Harrison 18:48

You're absolutely correct. I agree 100%. And those same things are true for the client as well. It's their values, it's their goals that resonate within them, that make them attracted to, want to work with the financial advisors because they're seeking help. But there's also the ignorant people that don't know they need help. But once you're able to get in front of them, like, whoa, I had no idea. I recalling a meeting I had with a client recently about putting a trailing stop loss on a large position of stock and she was like, how do people know how to do this? I was like, they don't. I mean, yeah, maybe you stumble across it on a YouTube video or something. So. But no, people don't. They just, well, how do you manage all this? I was like, I don't. I just plug it in, I said it and forget it, set it for six months and I really don't have to worry about it. I gotta, you know, I might look if I see the markets moving really heavily. I don't want to blow through anything. But no, we're Good. Or doing a straddle strategy. We talked about that too. And she was like, do you have to monitor this? No, not really. Just set it, walk away. That's the beauty of technology. I was like, there was a time where we had to.

Paul Sydlansky 19:46

Yeah.

Paul Sydlansky 19:55

When you have your notebook out and you'd be looking at it and crossing things off. But yeah, not anymore.

Yohance Harrison 20:01

Not anymore. Not anymore. Which is a beautiful thing. So I wanted have a little fun. I know you, you said you listened to the first episode of Only Human, which I appreciate. So I want to have a little fun. You probably heard it on the first episode. So I'm have some fun with you. And we are, yes, we're doing it right here on Only Human. We are going to call out some of our industry peers, the technology peers that there are, that there are. We're going to call you out a little bit and you're going to hear straight from, straight from us how we feel about your, your products. So for some of you it'll be good news. For others it might be some areas of improvement. So the name of the game is Mary Date and council. So you have to think of three of your technology tools. One that you will always stay married to, one that you know if you weren't married, you'd still want to date. And then one you just need to give a little counsel to because, yeah, it's not working out

Yohance Harrison 20:57

okay.

Paul Sydlansky 20:58

Marry, date and counsel. So I probably would start out with Mary. I would start with my CRM and Wealthbox. Hey, hey.

Yohance Harrison 21:10

Box married to a lot of people out here. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Sydlansky 21:14

So I've, I've seen a couple of CRMs in my day, but I, I have to say, the way Wealthbox is geared toward advisors,

Paul Sydlansky 21:28

really a game changer for me. I, I live in that I, I start every day checking out my tasks, checking my workflow steps, checking out my opportunities. And for me, it's my bible. Right. It's where everything is. So I would say definitely Wealthbox starting out in terms of dating, probably income lab. And so we just introduced that about a year ago and that's super exciting in terms of what we can deliver to clients. So our niche is really mid career professionals who are at the point where they're getting closer to retirement than they are to the start of their career and they're trying to figure out where's that end line. Can they downshift? How much longer do they have to work to be financially independent? And while the right capitals of the world do a great job of getting us to the point where I feel comfortable with a 75 or 80% rate of success to be able to be financially independent. The next level to us as Income Lab to say, all right, now I put the brakes on now I need some safe distribution rates. And by the way, I need these to be tax efficient. And so for us, we just started to incorporate those folks who are maybe, you know, a year or two away saying, I'm really thinking about this. Let's look at what are these guardrails that I need to live between in order to, you know, achieve my goals and lead the life I want in retirement. Being financially independent

Paul Sydlansky 23:06

now to council. Oh, I, this is, this is a tough one. I'll probably go back

Paul Sydlansky 23:14

to. Well, I don't use it anymore, so maybe this doesn't count. But like I said, I use MoneyGuide Pro at the start and I feel like they need a lot of help. After using right capital and seeing how fast they've innovated and the user interface and the ability they just added Tax Analyzer, which I saw a presentation on today, which is really cool. They're really moving forward and adding value in a lot of different ways. And I thought, you know, from a money guy pros perspective, you know, they were probably the industry leader 15 years ago. They've just really kind of fallen by the wayside, it seems a little bit, and for me not as useful. So I think they need some counseling.

Yohance Harrison 23:59

I love it. I love it. Well, they just got some counseling right here from you. So hopefully they listen and, and hear your, your cries. Well, I mean, they heard you. Well, maybe, right? There's a lot of them. I mean, they heard you when you hit the cancel button. There's that. Right, right. I will agree with you. I, I had a similar experience with MoneyGuide Pro and quickly went back to E Money, which is where I still am. And as I hear you talk about Income Lab, it makes me understand why I'm dating E Money right now. Because I've come across more client. Well, I've been an advisor for 25 years, so I have clients that are now closer to the retirement than they were to the start of their career. And those questions are coming up and I know I can see that in E Money and it gives. Does a good job of telling me the end number, but it doesn't do a great visual visual visualization of the income streams. And I'm told that is something that Income Lab does really well. I went to one of their due diligence due diligences at some conference And I was wild. But at times, like, I don't need any new toys. This is cool, but I'm gonna stick to what I'm doing. But as you bring it up and then to hear you speak of it, you might want to get a little referral code, because I might have to go try them out.

Paul Sydlansky 25:23

Yeah. And I gotta say, I'll continue to give them kudos. It was. We're in the same situation with you. Right. So we've been doing this for a bit. Our clients are aging like we are, and they're at a different stage in their career. And so this is really. I always want to be mindful of not putting too much technology. Right. We played around with a lot of different tools all throughout. Whether it's a riskalize a tiffin, I mean, you name it, there's so much out there. And again, as an advisor, I get excited by looking at these things. And then I think, well, this is going to add value to my client. And most of the time it doesn't. But with Income Lab, this was a real gap in our offering because now we do have a few people who are very close and a few people who are in that retirement financially independent stage. And now I have a tangible item that we go through once a year minimum with them to say, hey, this is where you are. This is where your guardrails move. This is what you can spend and comfortably know we're going to achieve all your goals. And that. That's really powerful. And that gives the client so much confidence going forward in retirement.

Yohance Harrison 26:30

Indeed. Well, hey, I appreciate it. I'm gonna. I'm have to take another look at it. That's something like I said, it's on my list of things I gotta figure this out. Like you said. I see that, well, in some of my. The clients I'm thinking of, their e money is. Their Monte Carlo is showing 90% plus. I'm like, oh, they're good. But then they asked me, well, how much can I take out of this account? Or how much more can I do? Or what if I want to do this or do this? And these big numbers, I can throw them in and I still see the percentage, but then I have to do the back of the napkin work for. Okay, where do I pull this from to make it the most tax efficient? It sounds like Income Lab might be a technology tool/AI

Yohance Harrison 27:11

that can do that for me. So.

Paul Sydlansky 27:13

Absolutely. Yeah. Highly recommend.

Yohance Harrison 27:16

Because we have to admit, all technology is artificial intelligence.

Yohance Harrison 27:23

It's just a buzzword, people. That's all. Yes. In case no one told you it's a buzzword, so. Or a phrase, rather. All right, so a little bit about you personally. So tell us. I have a fun one for you. The last time you were on a roller coaster, what roller coaster was it?

Paul Sydlansky 27:41

Okay, so the last roller coaster I went on was probably in November down at Disney World in Florida and it was probably the. The Seven Dwarfs Mine train. So not one of the scariest. Sounds very fun.

Yohance Harrison 27:59

One very roller. Sounds very coast, not very rolling.

Paul Sydlansky 28:02

Yeah, more coast. I'm more of a coaster. Okay. But yeah, that, that was probably the most. That was the most recent one and I guess Space Mountain, right, that, that kind of counts.

Yohance Harrison 28:16

Yeah, yeah, that's a. Okay, that's. That's a good one. That's a good. And what is on your reading list for 2025?

Paul Sydlansky 28:17

All right.

Paul Sydlansky 28:27

Reading list for 2025.

Paul Sydlansky 28:31

So I think there's two books that. Well, one I want to reread Essentialism and kind of refocus as I start out the year. And then the other book, which I've already started, but I haven't finished, it's the Anxious Generation. So I have 15 year old teenagers, twins, boy, girl and a 13 year old. And I'm very, very interested in the negative effects of social media, phones, all that and attention spans. And so this is a book written by Jonathan Hyatt that really is one of the first deep dive explorations of some of the negative effects of that. And so that's been super interesting. Like I said, I started that. But those are probably the two main books I want to focus on to start the year.

Yohance Harrison 29:19

Those are good, we appreciate those. We'll put links to those in our show notes. And finally an oldie, but a goodie. What is your first memory of money?

Paul Sydlansky 29:30

So my first memory of money is probably having a paper route like those. I don't think those exist anymore because nobody reads physical newspapers. But it was my first real job riding around on a bike with a bucket with a whole thing of newspapers, delivering those and then walking around and collecting on Fridays and going up to people and have them pay and getting tips. And so that was my first real opportunity to manage money on a very small scale. But it was cool because I got to do it on my own and I was probably only 11 years old. 12 years old. So.

Yohance Harrison 30:12

Nice. Nice. Yeah, no, those, those don't exist anymore.

Paul Sydlansky 30:17

Again, dating myself?

Yohance Harrison 30:19

Not that I know of. Not that I know. All right, Paul, if someone wants to reach out and know, learn more about you, Practice, I mean. Well, let me ask this. Are you taking on new clients? You mentioned it's a smaller niche practice.

Paul Sydlansky 30:31

Yeah, we are. We are. We're taking on new clients. But of course, you know, the fit is always important and that's kind of. You had mentioned to working with people who you want to work with and excite you and, and who are driven. But yes, we are. The best way to find us Lake Road advisors.com We are on LinkedIn and most of the social media platforms so you can check out some of our videos and blog posts, but we try to put out some new content every month. But the best way, the website, Lake Road Advisors, all1word.com.

Yohance Harrison 31:06

Wonderful. All right. Well, Paul, we appreciate that. And for advisors out there listening, I do encourage you make a list of all the technology that you're paying for or that you get for free. It doesn't matter if you're. That you're giving your time and energy to make a list of all of them. Determine whether those technologies are actually adding value to your clients. As Paul said, we as advisors, especially those of us that are nerds and geeks and dorks, we'll get all geeked out, nerded out about something cool that something can do and realize that we only use it once or twice a year and we're spending hundreds of dollars on it. Maybe you should let it go. Or it's that tool that your clients don't even. They don't use. You know, you want them to use it, but they're not using it at all. Maybe it's time to let it go. So until next time, we appreciate you joining us on Only Human. We'll see you soon.

Seth Harrison 32:06

Hi, I'm back. Did you enjoy being a fly on the wall for that conversation? I know I did. Now remember, don't try everything you learned today. Pick one or two things you can implement and implement them well. And don't just try something for a week and give up when it's not working. Successful implementation takes time, energy and repetition. Take a moment to follow today's guests and seek out some of the resources. And remember to consult your compliance professionals. We don't want you to get into trouble. Do you have a group of advisors who want to improve their human connection and the AI world? Contact our team to have Johan speak at your conference or event before you go. Please like comment and subscribe. If you're on YouTube, click the bell for notifications.