Maxine Cuffe 00:03 

You’re listening to Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith. A podcast by The Haverford Trust Company. On Speaking of Quality, Hank chats with authors, influencers and wealth management experts to bring a sense of clarity and calm to the complexity and stress of personal finance. And now – here’s your host, Hank Smith. 

Hank Smith 00:25 

Hello, and welcome to another episode of “Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights.” I’m your host, Hank Smith, Director and Head of Investment Strategy at The Haverford Trust Company. 

On this podcast, we explore topics ranging from quality investing, retirement resilience, stock market trends, estate planning, small business ownership, behavioral psychology and more. This season, my conversations with guests are focused on navigating change and the key decisions driving the future of the economy. Today, I’m joined by Lauren Swartz, president and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. Lauren has over 20 years of experience in international business and economic development, and she’s even the honorary consul of Sweden for Pennsylvania. Welcome to Speaking of Quality, Lauren. 

Lauren Swartz 01:17 

Hank, thanks for having me. 

Hank Smith 01:19 

Well, this is going to be a fun podcast, but let’s not assume all of our listeners are familiar or maybe you’ve never even heard of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. So, could you start and give us a little bit of a history and overview and mission of the World Affairs Council? 

Lauren Swartz 01:40 

I’d be happy to. So, the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia is this region’s largest and longest-running international nonprofit, and our mission is really quite simple. It’s to make sure that Philadelphia stays connected to the world around us. We were founded in 1949, and we have remained apolitical and nonpartisan since then – a challenge which feels ever more important and ever more difficult these days. The idea is to have public engagement in foreign affairs and world affairs because they do affect all of us today. 

Hank Smith 02:11 

And is this unique to Philadelphia or are there other World Affairs Councils in the country and globally? 

Lauren Swartz 02:20 

There are about 90 World Affairs Councils across the United States. Most of us were formed between about 70 and a hundred years ago in that World War I, World War II era in our country, for that same idea: to make sure there’s an avenue for the public to learn about, and have an opinion, on world affairs. But today our organizations have all evolved in different directions. So, most World Affairs Councils in our peer cities are quite a bit smaller than ours and are maybe more volunteer-run or community-based organizations, where we have 20 employees and four different pillars of programming and serve thousands of people every year here in Philadelphia and abroad. 

Hank Smith 02:58 

Tell us about the programs that make up your mission. 

Lauren Swartz 03:04 

We have four different pillars of programming. The first one is public programming, and the thing we’re most well-known for is a series of speaker programs. We’ve had, I don’t know, 30 U.S. presidents. We’ve had ambassadors from all over the world. We host thought leaders and sometimes some celebrities to come to Philadelphia and talk to the American people. Also under public programming is the subnational diplomacy we do in partnership with the city of Philadelphia. You can think of us almost as an extension office to our local government’s foreign affairs, and we manage our Sister Cities program. We also are very proud to work with over 100 middle schools and high schools across our region to make sure that thousands of area students have access to world affairs, learning opportunities, travel and experiences that don’t typically come with your average education regardless of what type of school you grow up in. 

On the professional side for adults, we’ve got two different pillars of programming. The first one is professional exchange delegations. We host about 30 delegations each year with people from over 100 countries that come to Philadelphia, and we pair them up with their peers. So, if we had a group of wealth managers, we would call you guys, Hank, and say, “Hey, Hank, would you like to meet? Hey, Hank, would you like to meet with these folks and talk about how you do your work?” It might be nurses, teachers, doctors, journalists, you name it. And then locally here, we teach cultural diplomacy training. And this means we empower our local community, business, public and private sector leaders with the skills that they need to feel more comfortable when they work across cultures or across countries, sort of “kiss, bow or shake hands” training. And lastly, you can imagine we’ve got a robust outbound travel program. We offer about 40 different trips around the world each year. 

Hank Smith 04:46 

That is a big agenda for a staff of 20 people, I might say. 

Lauren Swartz 04:52 

It is, thank you. 

Hank Smith 04:53 

You must be working around the clock, seven days a week. 

Lauren Swartz 04:57 

We’ve got quite an exceptional team. That’s true. 

Hank Smith 05:00 

So, tell me, is the World Affairs Council a nonprofit, and where are your sources of funding? 

Lauren Swartz 05:11 

So, we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and our funding is rather diverse, which helps us stay strong and also stay apolitical and nonpartisan. The biggest chunk of our funding comes from about 35 corporate members who support the organization because they believe in our work, and they use our programs to help engage their clients and staff. We have a variety of earned income, which creates some liquidity and fluidity within our organization to be able to be responsive to what’s going on in the world, especially in this quick-changing environment. We have some philanthropists that support us, as well as membership and general donor dollars. And then we do have some public-sector support at the city, state and federal level. But that public-sector support combined is about 30% of our budget. Most of our money comes from individuals and private businesses that believe in the importance of connecting Philadelphia to the world, and they trust World Affairs Council to do that. 

Hank Smith 06:04 

I know The Haverford Trust Company has certainly been involved. I’ve had colleagues on the board for several decades, and I know it’s an important institution from our perspective for Philadelphia. And you certainly bring a marquee group of speakers, and that’s year-round, correct? 

Lauren Swartz 06:25 

Yes. We tend to take a little bit of a break around the winter holidays and a little bit of a break in July and August when people are away on vacation. But the speaker programs, and pretty much everything we do, runs year-round. 

Hank Smith 06:37 

And just out of curiosity, are they paid to come speak or is that voluntary from their standpoint? 

Lauren Swartz 06:46 

It’s a mix. So, some individuals will come and speak for us in a pro bono capacity. We also facilitate a lot of other activities while they’re here. So we might see something on our website that such and such individual is coming to the speaker program, come and see this person talk, but while they’re in Philadelphia, we might take them to a public school or host a business roundtable for them, or they might also have an engagement with a university class or go visit the shipyard or have meetings with public officials or the private-sector trade group that they work with. And so, we offer a suite of services that enhances their time in Philadelphia beyond just the transaction of coming to a speaker program for us. There are instances where the only way to get a speaker is to create a business deal. But luckily, because of our longstanding track record and, frankly, still being a small nonprofit, we’re very good negotiators. So, we tend to work on an advantage that helps us create value for the moment, but without overextending our finances as a small organization. 

Hank Smith 07:47 

And the list of luminaries that you’ve had as speakers is an attraction to anyone to be part of that list, I would think. 

Lauren Swartz 07:56 

Yes. We do stick in our invitations a list of, don’t you want to join your peers here? And we can list Madeline Albright and Margaret Thatcher and Henry Kissinger and Rick Steves and Bono from U2 and Wilbur Ross and all of these folks from different backgrounds, different political backgrounds in different countries. And that gives us a credibility and a diversity that makes speakers trust us when they come to a place like Philadelphia that says, wow, politically, this city really sits pretty far on the left. Should I go there and speak? But if we show them, look, we’ve got this track record of bringing folks from all different backgrounds here, selling out audiences with hundreds of people. Come and we will treat you well, and you’ll have a chance to hear from people that agree with you, who are your fans, but we also bring people who maybe have a different perspective. So, a key component of every speaker program is live, unscripted Q and A. 

Hank Smith 08:50 

That’s very important. And particularly as you mentioned at the outset, we live in such partisan times. I mean, I think you have to go back to the 19th century where it was really partisan politicians, drew pistols and what have you, but that is great. How does one get involved with the World Affairs Council? How does one get an invitation for these speakers? And I imagine most of them sell out pretty quickly. 

Lauren Swartz 09:25 

Yeah, luckily you don’t need an invitation or a special pass to get in. Almost everything we do is open to the public. There’s maybe 5% of our programming that is members-only. We do have hundreds of members across the region and corporate partners like Haverford, as we mentioned earlier, that we’re grateful for, but largely check out our website or sign up for our mailing list. We’re constantly announcing new speakers. That’s the easiest front door. Come to one of our events. Separately, you could attend one of the cultural diplomacy training sessions and learn, say, “gosh, I might never leave Philadelphia. But I find, in my work around me, I noticed that one in five workers in Philadelphia was born abroad, and I’m the one who maybe isn’t so confident in my ability.” So, people could do that. They could also sign up to host one of those professional groups that comes to Philadelphia. Maybe they’re hosting them for a peer meeting in their industry, but we also have dinner hosting and home-stay hosting for professionals around the world. And lastly, you can always have your kids sign up for one of our nine different youth-education programs, or sign up and go on a trip around the world with us. 

Hank Smith 10:30 

That’s a fascinating statistic you just mentioned. One out of every five workers in Philadelphia is foreign-born. 

Lauren Swartz 10:38 

Yes. 

Hank Smith 10:39 

I don’t think many people, including myself, would’ve bought that ratio as the right number. 

Lauren Swartz 10:46 

Yeah. So, we have bank tellers, right, or frontline service workers or people at the airport that participate in our cultural diplomacy training, not because they’re international salespeople or account managers and are living their lives on airplanes, but because they’re right here in Philadelphia with colleagues that are from abroad and serving our region that is very diverse and has people from all over the world. And that creates a competitive advantage for most businesses to have a staff that has this different level of nuanced training on how to make people feel comfortable and welcome when they are joining us from a different culture. 

Hank Smith 11:22 

So, Lauren, what attracted you to the role of CEO at the World Affairs Council, and where were you before you came to this position? 

Lauren Swartz 11:34 

I was attracted to this role because I believe in international connectivity for our city to grow and thrive. That’s a personal ethos. I see that the 96% of the world’s population that lives outside of the United States is our opportunity. The 74% of global economic growth that is likely to occur outside of the United States is ours to take advantage of or leave behind. Philadelphia is a powerful city with a huge economy. It has $53 billion in trade from our state each year in goods alone. This matters to us here. About 300,000 jobs in Pennsylvania are supported by businesses from abroad who have invested in our state and made their operations and headquarters here or created manufacturing here. So, for us to grow and thrive as a region and as a city, we must engage internationally. And I also believe that to do that well, it has to be a mix of public- and private-sector support. 

American governments, certainly at the municipal and state level, tend to not have a very robust infrastructure around foreign affairs. American cities don’t have an international office in their municipal governments. I did work analogous to that at the city, which I’ll share in a minute, but looking at the World Affairs Council, 75 years strong. It’s got great bones, great legacy, apolitical, nonpartisan. I thought, gosh, this is really important. And this organization is so well positioned to help drive international opportunity and keep that global mindset and ecosystem very strong to create positive impact here at home in Philadelphia. So that’s my why for joining this team about five years ago. 

Hank Smith 13:19 

And you, prior to that, spent over four years as Deputy Commerce Director of International Business and Global Strategy for the city. Tell us a little bit about that experience and some of the accomplishments that you’re most proud of during that time period. 

Lauren Swartz 13:36 

I always say it was an honor to serve in the public sector, and I think everyone should do it if they can. Is it easy? No. Is the pay the best? No. But you learn a lot about how things actually operate. And for me, blending foreign affairs, diplomacy, foreign direct investment attraction, air service and port service attraction and retention, and working with investors from all over the world, that’s complicated enough. And then I become the hinge between that complex ecosystem and the complexity of a municipal government. It was a hard job, and I still work with my colleagues there who’ve taken that mantle, but it’s really important. When countries around the world want to work with the U.S., they also look at big cities and economic centers and places that have ports and airports, and they knock on the government’s door first, and the city should respond. 

And I had the privilege of being the person to answer that call, triage and prioritize those opportunities to represent Philadelphia all over the world, and to help create market prioritization for where our region should focus to have the best opportunities to create business deals and attract investors and things like that. I also learned that city government and all governments are pretty slow, and that was frustrating at times. I think you can tell, I like to do a lot of stuff. I like to work on the frontier and grow things. But what I learned and feels poignant right now is that that bureaucracy sometimes should be fixed and sometimes serves a bit of a purpose because in the government, we’re spending your money We’re spending taxpayer dollars. And so, to be thoughtful and strategic in deploying those resources is a critical responsibility that those of us who have served or serve in the public sector have to maintain, and you have to compromise in order to get something done. So that skillset of working in the public sector for four years has also, I think, made me a better diplomat in my current role. 

Hank Smith 15:40 

So, you were a communications and business economics major in college. How did you go from that to a passion for international relations and business and studies? 

Lauren Swartz 15:58 

That is a great question and one I get quite often. I studied communications first and primarily because I think even at a young age, I understood that communications is really the foundation of everything. You might be a great statistician or technologist or doctor, but if you cannot communicate well and bring ideas together, you won’t be very successful. And I think part of that I learned at an even younger age. I lived in six different states before I was about 20. When I moved from Minneapolis to Memphis, I always say that was my first international experience. It was like moving, and this is in the nineties before you had access to social media and stereotypes about people. I was shocked and floored at how different it was: different language, different culture, different religion, different way of moving around, different dress, different customs, and communication was the way to fix that. 

And so, this was the through line through my own personal experience, having to modify my own approach to be heard and to build relationships and make friends as a third grader at Dogwood Elementary in Memphis, Tennessee. And when I had the opportunity to choose a major in college, it really spoke to me. And then it’s the number one skill that I use every single day, whether I’m hosting a group of diplomats from Korea next week and how I’ll communicate with them versus my role as Swedish honorary consul versus talking to the airport about what markets we might be looking at for our next flight. You have to code switch in each of those in order to be successful. 

Hank Smith 17:37 

It reminds me when I traveled for the first time to the UK when I was 22 years old, and I turned to my friends and I said, “I thought they spoke English over here. I can’t understand with that thick dialect.” I couldn’t understand one word. So, I know exactly what you’re saying. Coming from Minnesota to Memphis, it must have been eye-opening. And I think you would agree with me on this. Communications, public speaking is something that should be taught at an early age, should be part of the curriculum in middle and high school, and certainly more so even in college. And yet it’s really a subject that’s kind of ignored at the K-12, along with some of the programming that you’re doing with middle schools. So, so important in addition to arithmetic, reading, writing, history, and, hopefully, we’ll see more of that and civics come back into K-12 education. 

Lauren Swartz 18:52 

I often wonder if one of the outcomes of the presence of AI in education will be more extemporaneous public speaking, where it’s not recorded. You don’t have a screen between you. You can’t adjust what you look like through the lens of a filter, and you have to stand and basically do an oral report for your teacher with no technology to prove what you know and to be able to articulate it without any tools in your hands or technology at your fingertips. I have a middle-school student and a high-school student, and I watch the difference of how they prepare. It’s they have to go up in front of the class and just start talking, which is the most terrifying thing you could do as a seventh grader versus when they have a report where they can have Google and YouTube open and just sort of copy and paste and submit something in. So, I hope that you are right and that civics and public speaking come roaring back loudly into our education system. 

Hank Smith (19:48): 

And you are a hundred percent right. I do all the media for our firm, and that includes TV and radio interviews. But the hardest is getting up and speaking to my colleagues. 

Lauren Swartz 20:03 

Yes. 

Hank Smith 20:04 

That is the most nerve-wracking speaking engagement there is. And yet, what great training. 

Lauren Swartz 20:15 

And if you can do it and do it well, it becomes an unmatched superpower. I can’t tell you the number of opportunities that have come my way because I’m known to be a proficient public speaker who delivers what’s asked of me on stage. It’s a lot of work, and I have to get over my own jitters from time to time, too. I probably do three or four public speaking engagements a week during the busy seasons of the year. It keeps me fresh, it keeps me sharp, and it gives me opportunities that would not come my way to get out my message and have an opportunity to share my work and what my organization is doing because I like to do public speaking. 

Hank Smith 20:54 

If you don’t get those butterflies, if you don’t have that anxiety, at least for myself, that’s when I fall flat on my face and I don’t do a good job in public speaking. So, I almost welcome that nervous energy, the butterflies, because your adrenaline is firing and you’re just sharper. And there’ve been meetings where I just took for granted, I thought it’d be a layup, and the next thing I know, I did a horrible performance. So, I totally understand that. And you just have to learn that that’s part of – you obviously don’t want anxiety to the point that you’re in a fetal position underneath your desk. 

Lauren Swartz 21:45 

No. 

Hank Smith 21:45 

But a little bit of anxiety is good. 

Lauren Swartz 21:48 

It reminds me of a program here, LEADERSHIP Philadelphia, which I imagine many of your listeners are familiar with. The first day, when I did that core class in 2015, Don Smolenski of the Eagles gave a speech, and his theme was “be where your feet are, be where your feet are.” And I pull back on that mentorship and that guidance all the time because everything else fades to black. And you are so present, and I can tell you, there’s no better place where you can only be where your feet are than perhaps on the football field at the Linc or on a stage full of a hundred eyes staring back at you. So, the noise starts to get quiet, you get really focused on your message, you get a little bit excited, a little bit nervous, and then you finish and you think, I am not that clear in the rest of almost any of my day where I’ve got two or three screens in front of me and I’m multitasking too much. 

Hank Smith 22:43 

So, let me ask you this: Is most of your speaking engagements extemporaneous, or do you write out your speeches? 

Lauren Swartz 22:57 

That’s a good question. It’s my secret sauce. It depends on what I’m doing and who it’s with. Most often these days, I find myself in a fireside chat situation, and so there’s maybe three or four questions that we will have agreed on ahead of time or three or four themes. And then as we go, I start to craft and develop responsive commentary and questions so that it’s a conversation and it doesn’t feel too stilted. If it’s just me on the stage by myself, I like to have notions and headlines and sort of a keyword flow chart in my mind. And using the TED-Talk-slides approach, where you just have pictures behind you that keep you on track but no one knows what you’re going to say, helps me seem really authentic and be more conversational. I find that if I try and script myself and memorize it too much, I sound like a robot and people get bored and start looking at their phones. 

Hank Smith 23:54 

All of my speaking is extemporaneous because I’m a horrible note taker. I can’t stand creating outlines, but I do rehearse in my mind an outline. And I remember once having to speak to an accounting organization and they were getting, and it was up my wheelhouse, a conversation on the economy and the markets, but I had to speak for a minimum of 50 minutes for them to get continuing-ed credits. I’d never spoken uninterrupted for – that didn’t include Q and A. And it was interesting, but I did it. And I’ve been asked back annually to speak to the same organization. 

Lauren Swartz 24:43 

Well, that’s how you know you’re doing a good job when they invite back. I have an inbox invitation to do a 90-minute presentation late on a Friday afternoon right in the middle of the holiday season. And I’m thinking about it because I don’t want to prepare. I think we have a lot in common, Hank, but you’re giving me the courage to say yes and create some notions of an outline and recognize the honor of being asked and rising to the moment to share your experience with people who’ve asked for it. 

Hank Smith 25:13 

Plus, it’s the holiday season. Everyone’s in a good mood. 

Lauren Swartz 25:16 

I hope so. 

Hank Smith 25:18 

So, moving on, you’re Consul of Sweden for Pennsylvania. Before we get into your role and duties, what is the difference between a consulate and an embassy? 

Lauren Swartz 25:37 

So, when we think of the different types of representation, diplomatic representation, that one country can have in another, it typically starts with the embassy. You can think of that as the mothership. And that comes out of, in the U.S., the U.S. State Department. We have embassies abroad. In most other countries that’s called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And so, for the example of Sweden, with whom I have the privilege of working, Sweden has an embassy in Washington, DC, like most other countries in the world. That’s who’s in charge, with the ambassador that’s appointed by their prime minister or president. That’s the guy or the woman in charge. And they’ve got a staff below that. In countries that are as large as ours and diverse as ours, here in the United States, most foreign ministries support that embassy with sub-offices. You could think of them like subsidiaries that are called consulates. 

Some of those are called consul generals. These are very old terms that date back to Ben Franklin, when we sent the first ambassador abroad from Philadelphia to France. And consulates tend to be more technically oriented. They’ll do things like handle visas and passports and registering births and death and handle cases. So, they have foreign ministry staff at a consul general’s office, and they handle the more “service of their citizens” who are living in that country abroad. And then there are other offices that could be trade offices that might be offshoots of these different things or business and investment offices. And in the case of an honorary consul, we exist as another tier below that. So, in the case of Sweden, there’s about 40 of us. They’ve got one embassy in Washington DC, one consul general in New York, which is staffed by the foreign ministry, one consul general in San Francisco, staffed by the foreign ministry and career diplomats. 

And then there’s 40 of us who’ve been appointed to represent Sweden and provide limited consular technical services, like passports, in different jurisdictions where they know there’s an aggregation of Swedes. So, in Philadelphia, there’s a lot of Swedish heritage and Swedish companies here. So that’s why we have one here. So, I’m technically a volunteer, but I’m vetted through the Foreign Ministry of Sweden and the U.S. State Department. I have a U.S. State Department ID, and I have to follow certain guidelines, but I’m not technically a diplomat. I call myself a junior diplomat or a baby diplomat. 

Hank Smith 28:04 

And why Sweden? How has Sweden attracted to you and you attracted to Sweden? 

Lauren Swartz 28:11 

My attraction to Sweden goes back to my heritage. I’m Swedish American. Almost all my family comes from Sweden at my grandparents and great grandparents age and different generations in my family. I also had the privilege of studying and working abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark – certainly not Sweden, but neighbors. You can see Sweden from Copenhagen like you can see New Jersey from Philadelphia. That’s what I tell people. And so, I have a lifelong affinity for these places, and in my past work, doing a lot of different trade and investment attraction work, Sweden’s a powerful economy – ninth biggest foreign direct investor in the U.S., 8.4 million jobs are created by Swedish firms in the U.S. And so, I was familiar with that side of the equation as well, and I think Sweden selected me because I have this mix of diplomatic experience, international affairs experience, connectivity into the public and private sector here in Philadelphia, and having that Swedish heritage and Scandinavian experience as icing on the cake. 

Hank Smith 29:11 

And they get you for free. You’re a volunteer. 

Lauren Swartz 29:14 

Yeah, I know. Sometimes you get people who call frequently, and I do gently remind them, I’m a volunteer, I have a different job full time, and then they tend to be a little bit more patient. 

Hank Smith 29:26 

So, let’s conclude and give our listeners a little tease as to the next several speakers for the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. 

Lauren Swartz 29:37 

So, on the foreign government or international countries side, next week we’re hosting the government of South Korea for a program around the economy and trade and our cultural ties on the 16th. I swear we’ve had this planned for many months, but, of course, the government and the president of South Korea was here last week announcing a $5 billion – billion with a “B” – investment down at Hanwha Shipyard at the Navy Yard here in Philly. And then we’ve seen a lot of news about South Korea over the weekend and immigration. So that’s on the 16th, and on the 21st of October, we’ll host the consul general, an ambassador, ranking diplomat from China, who will come and give an unscripted talk. We call this series our “Diplochat” Program, where we invite a diplomat to come, but instead of giving sort of a structured program, it’s a fireside chat followed by audience Q and A. And we’ll follow that up with a program with Türkiye as well. 

Hank Smith 30:35 

These sound so interesting. Now, where are these events held? 

Lauren Swartz 30:40 

We rotate them around. We do have an event space in Philadelphia right above Suburban Station to create access. Later in October, we’ll host the CNN correspondent Jake Tapper, who’s released a new book about Al Qaeda and a riveting story about capturing Spin Ghul – an amazing, amazing act of diplomacy, working together – that will be held at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre. But we also move our programs around. We like to do a lot of programs at universities, so we’ll host Mark Zandi out at a university in January, the chief economist of Moody’s, of course. And so typically in the greater Philadelphia region, mostly downtown because that’s easier to get to, but we do love to come visit our western suburbs and bring programming out there as well. 

Hank Smith 31:23 

Typically, how big are the audiences? Or does it really vary depending on the speaker and time of the year and what have you? 

Lauren Swartz 31:32 

It’s a mix. I would say our smallest programs are about 75 or 80 people, and then our largest programs are in the five-to-six-hundred audience member range. 

Hank Smith 31:41 

Well, Lauren, this has been a fascinating and educational 35 minutes. Thank you for joining us on Speaking of Quality. It was great to hear about your experiences in international business and your perspectives on the global economy. Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights. Our next episode will be released shortly. In the meantime, please send suggestions or questions for me or the Haverford Trust team to marketing@haverfordquality.com. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review and share this podcast. Until next time, I’m Hank Smith. Stay bullish. 

Bryan Tracy 32:28

It’s time for Planning in Practice. I’m Bryan Tracy, Vice President and Director of Wealth Planning at Haverford Trust. In this segment, we’ll touch on the incredible conversations between Hank and his guests to uncover key insights and tangible advice for your own wealth planning journey. Listening to Lauren Swartz and Hank Smith’s conversation around public speaking really resonated with me. Public speaking has been an area that has at times been a struggle for me, and it’s been a skill that I’ve really worked on. And it made me think: Lauren mentioned the comment from Eagles President Don Smolenski around being where your feet are when you’re public speaking, and that really touched on a topic of discussion with clients around focusing on what you can control and blocking out the noise. We here at Haverford and within the wealth planning team like to encourage our clients and families to focus on what they can control and block out the noise of, say, politics, the markets, the economy, or social media influencers, and focusing on those items.

And really, we break it in a lot of cases down to five controllable items within a client’s financial plan, with the first one being the timing of major life events. So that would be timing of retirement, selling a business. Those are all items that you typically will have the opportunity to control and choose when you would like to retire or sell a business, et cetera. Those are great opportunities to focus and build a plan to make sure the timing is right within those major life events. The second item is how much do we save? And that could be for short-term goals. That can be for long-term goals like retirement planning. That is a controllable item that, over time, we can focus on and encourage and help clients to save an appropriate amount to meet those long-term objectives. The third item is around spending. So, very similar to savings. So, the opposite: money going out, looking at that, looking at how much an individual is spending and controlling that as it relates to your overall plan to ensure that you’re successful over time. The fourth item really revolves around investments. So, that would be asset allocation and investment risk. How much are you investing in stocks versus bonds, cash, and then what is the risk that you’re taking with your investments? Are you investing in a very risky stock or a more conservative stock, et cetera? Those are the decisions. That’s a controllable aspect of one’s plan within the investment space that we can focus on over time. The last controllable item is really around legacy. How much are we planning or, from an objective goal standpoint, wanting to leave to the next generation, as well as potential charitable giving or philanthropic interests that one may have. We find that focusing on these five items and building out a financial plan really allows clients to have the confidence that they’re prepared to weather uncertain times in the future.

We always like to talk about, we can’t predict the future, but as long as we have a plan, whatever plays out into the future, we are prepared to have the resources to be able to overcome any obstacles or challenges that we may have. So, I’d like to leave you with a quote from the ancient philosopher Epictetus: “Some things are in our control and others are not.” So, if you’re listening to this and you’re feeling uncertain about the future, we’re happy to have a conversation to provide clarity and build that confidence and focus on those things that individuals can control. Thank you.

Maxine Cuffe 36:03 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith. To hear future episodes of Speaking of Quality, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about The Haverford Trust Company, please visit https://haverfordquality.com/. This podcast is provided as general commentary and market overview, and should not be relied upon as research, a forecast or investment advice, and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt an investment strategy. Any opinions expressed are as of the date this podcast was recorded and may change at any time and are the opinions of that commentator, not Haverford. Any opinion or information provided are believed by Haverford to be reliable at the time of this podcast’s recording, but are not necessarily all-inclusive or guaranteed for accuracy. Before making any financial decisions, please consult with an investment professional.