Dr. Daniel Crosby wanted to be the catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, but couldn’t throw a curveball, so had to settle with being a New York Times bestselling author.

“It’s been a rough road,” he jokes with Published Author host Josh Steimle. The disappointment was fleeting, and today Daniel is happy with his success and somewhat unusual path as a behaviour finance expert, psychologist, and leadership coach.

Danial’s career choice was influenced by his father’. “I grew up the son of a financial advisor. As far as someone can want to grow up to work in finance, I really did have a lot of respect for my dad. I saw what he did for his clients, saw the kind of life he was able to provide for us. So I really grew up talking about stocks literally around the dinner table.”

But Daniel was also curious about what made people tick. He went to major in psychology, eventually completing a PhD in clinical psychology at Brigham Young University. But he fell out of love with the thought of being a therapist while doing clinical work at Emory. Daniel was taking his work home with him and feeling heavy all the time. 

His father pointed out the many opportunities in business for a psychologist, noting the psychology behind the markets. Soon, he had a new career path.

Danial explains that behavioral finance is a specific case of behavioral economics. “Behavioral economics could deal with anything from how we make decisions about what we put in our body, like food and things like that, to exercise, public policy, politics. Behavioural finance, meanwhile is the very specific application of psychology to the stock market.

AN ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT

After a stint in a large bank doing pre-employment assessments, Daniel was drawn to entrepreneurship and stepped out on his own in his late 20s. With that, he realized he needed to market himself.

He says: “Organizations were always looking for public speakers. If you have something interesting to say then people are intrigued by human behavior and human nature. And so it was easy for me to go speak at the local Rotary club or business organization.”

From there, Daniel landed a speaking gig at TEDx. His speech was hugely popular and that’s when he realized he had a book in the making. His first book, You’re Not That Great, was based on his TEDx talk and self-published in 2012.

“My talk was these seven counterintuitive truths for living a good life, and talking about the ways in which recognizing and owning our own mediocrity can be empowering in a counterintuitive way,” explains Daniel. “So I said ‘Well, this is the framework, here's the, here's the seven concepts I'm going to write about; that will, that will be the process.”

A BOOK PERFORMS WELL WITH A STRONG COAUTHOR AND PLATFORM

Although You’re Not That Great has plenty of five-star reviews, Daniel says: “It did poorly enough that it made me want to go seek out an established publisher the second time.”

Looking back, he observes: “I have friends who've had great success with self-publishing, but they all have really robust platforms . . . they all have a direct-to-consumer pipeline that I did not have at, 29 years of age and six months of self-employment.”

When Daniel was ready to write his second book and pursue a deal with a traditional publisher, his career was more focused and his platform was much-improved, with an email list, speaking engagements, and a stronger social media presence.

In fact, he’d done so well he was actually sought after by a couple of publishers! Daniel notes: “My  specialization helped a ton. And the fact that it was an emerging field helped a ton.”

The industry-focused Personal Benchmark: Integrating Behavioral Finance and Investment Management came out in 2014 and was a New York Times bestseller. 

This book was also a bestseller, and Daniel says it had every advantage! He co-authored the work with Morgan Housel, a well-known asset manager—he was able to get the book in front of the right readers. They also had a massive PR and marketing campaign, with a lot of social media activity. 

‘INCALCULABLE’ IMPACT OF WRITING BESTSELLER

“It's incalculable the good that the book did for my career. I couldn't I couldn't overstate how much good it did for me.” says Daniel. “I’m in my early 30s at this point, and it opened every door for me.

“Nobody's hiring 32 year olds from to, come speak at their event without some sort of a calling card. And so a book becomes your calling card, it becomes the reason that the industry, newspapers, and publications begin to reach out to you for comment. ”

Daniel does point out though that he’s not making money on the back off book sales, but from the opportunities and sales that came because people read his books or heard of him via his books.

“I coasted on the success of books, just doing speaking gigs. That was a full-time job, to speak and promote those books,” he notes. “To this day, I think for a lot of people in niche fields like me . . . that’s the usefulness of writing a book . . .even those books of mine that I've done well, they're not big moneymakers, relative to other things that you can do on the back of the book.”

Next came The Laws of Wealth in 2018. Daniel wrote this book to make financial knowledge and behaviour available to people who aren’t financial professionals. 

His follow-up was the more industry focused The Behavioral Investor, another New York Times bestseller. Both it and The Laws of Wealth have been published in seven languages. Daniel touches on the complexity of international publishing arrangements, which can include different pricing structures, marketing approaches, and cover designs.

Daniel is an incredibly enlightening guest, with eclectic interests. He’s even written a children’s book called Everyone You Love Will Die, and touches on that in this episode, explaining how the idea evolved, and why he wrote it.

LINKS

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Josh Steimle

Today, my guest is Dr. Daniel Crosby. Daniel is a psychologist and behavioral finance expert who helps organizations understand the intersection of mind and markets. His first book, Personal Benchmark: Integrating Behavioral Finance and Investment Management was a New York Times bestseller. His second book, The laws of wealth was named the best investment book of 2017 by the axiom business Book Awards, and has been translated into seven languages. His latest work, The behavioral investor, is a comprehensive look at the neurology, physiology and psychology of sound financial decision making, all things that I lack in that I need dearly, Daniel, welcome to the show.

Daniel Crosby

Josh. Thanks for having me.

Josh Steimle

All right. So I don't know if there are any kids who are out there who when they're, you know, 510 years old, say, When I grow up, I want to be a behavioral finance expert. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you got from where you were when a kid when you were a kid to saying, you know, this is my thing. This is what I'm going to focus on and base my life around.

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, well, I wanted to be the catcher for the Cardinals, but I couldn't hit I couldn't hit a curveball. And so this is where I landed.

Josh Steimle

So you had to settle for being a New York Times bestselling author. That's sad!

Daniel Crosby

That's correct. Yeah, it's been a rough road. I grew up the son of a financial advisor. So in so far, as someone can want to grow up to work in finance, I think I really did have a lot of respect for my dad, saw what he did for his clients saw the kind of like he was able to provide for us. And so I really grew up talking about stocks, you know, literally around the dinner table. So after my first year, in college, I had a dear, close friend had developed an eating disorder. And in an effort to help her, I started taking some classes in psychology and kind of became this armchair psychologist, just in sort of a very organic effort to try and help my friend and fell in love with psychology in the process. And so, really went through school with with the idea to pursue a career as a therapist, really thinking that I would be a clinical psychologist. I graduated from school, went to grad school three days later, and indeed, got a PhD in clinical psychology. But along that path, about three years into my clinical psychology degree, I fell out of love with it. You know, I was taking work home with me, I was like it was it was heavy all the time, I was stressed out, like I wasn't sure if you know, these clients that I loved, you know, I would leave them on Friday, and I wasn't sure I would see them next Friday kind of thing. And I said, I love thinking about why people do the things that they do. But I don't know if I want to do it in such a high-stakes setting. And I was talking to my dad who's you know, my de facto career coach at this point. And he said, Well, there's a ton of psychology and markets, you should look for business applications in psychology. And at the time, I was like, What are you talking about? Like I'd never, you know, I'd never considered sort of the behavioral undercurrents that are part of capital markets. But you know, long story short, that initial recommendation is what set me on a path to start to start looking into it.

Josh Steimle

What great advice.

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, no, it was it was great advice. It was really great advice. And I'm so grateful for where it landed me.

Josh Steimle

So you looked into it. And then which path did you . . . I mean, obviously, you went down the financial path. But how did that happen?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, so out of out of grad school, I knew I had to sort of, you know, blaze my own trail. This is like you said, not a not a job there's a lot of. And I got I got a gig at a large bank here in the southeast. I'm from Alabama originally. So we got I got a job here with a large bank in the southeast doing pre employment vetting of executives. So like before, they would hire a banker and pay them big bucks. They would bring, you know, 27-year-old me on to give them to give them an IQ test and a personality test and sort of a battery of assessments to see if they were a good fit for the organization. And I loved that work. And it was within the bank that I discovered what I now know is behavioral finance and behavioral economics, sort of the application of psychology to financial decision making. And what I found was, you know, there was no one out there doing this for people like my dad, you know, who are successful folks in mid-tier markets. There were there were people who had won Nobel prizes for their writing and thinking about behavioral finance. But there was no one who was taking it and translating it into the language of everyday financial professionals, like my dad in Middle America, who could who could benefit from these insights, and we're never going to read the academic journals where they were found. So I sort of became this intermediary, the person who would take these complicated academic ideas and translate them into Alabama speak, as it were.

Josh Steimle

Now, there's a difference . . . In fact, I think they're totally different. The difference between behavioral finance and behavioral economics, I mean, these sound like they should be related. But really, these are totally separate things, right?

Daniel Crosby

Well, behavioral finance is sort of a specific case of behavioral economics, like behavioral economics could deal with anything from how we make decisions about what we put in our body, like food and things like that to exercise to public policy to politics and behavioral finance is the very specific application of psychology to the stock market, if you will. So, yeah, it's sort of it's sort of a special case of the broader the broader discipline.

Josh Steimle

Okay, so there is a connection there. I was just thinking about Daniel Kanheman's book Thinking Fast and Slow. I love that book. And he talks about how he's a behavioral economist. And it's like, Wait, you're not an economist, but it's using economics in a different term. But in your sense, it really is the financial stuff, too. So . . .

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, it really is with me.

Josh Steimle

Now, you did your PhD. at Emory. Right?

Daniel Crosby

I did my PhD at Brigham Young University and my postdoc at Emory.

Josh Steimle

Okay, gotcha. So now, when you were doing your PhD at BYU, and then the postdoc at Emory, was this before the part where you said this is not what I want to do?

Daniel Crosby

No, it was it was it was right at the part. You know, in in completion of a PhD, you have to do 1000s of hours of client work. And I knew, you know, year three of five- year program, that this is not what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted the letters after my name, I knew that would open doors for me. And I specifically pursued Emory, because it had business applications that had a top 20 Business School, you know, it's funded by Koch money, it's in a big city with lots of Fortune 500 institutions, and I knew that it would give me opportunities to work with businesses. So my decision to go to Emory was very calculated, because I knew it would give me good non-clinical business exposure.

Josh Steimle

Okay, great. So that pivot happened during that PhD journey. So then you get your PhD, you graduate, and you're working. What was your first job out of university after your postdoc?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, so it was that job, but the bank doing these pre-employment assessments of the executive. So it was, it was really hilarious. Because I was young, I was like, 27, 28, and you're sitting down with these folks who are making seven figures a year, and you're the gatekeeper for whether or not they get a job. So it's a very strange position to be in. But it was a really, it was really rewarding work. It's work that I believe in, you know, helping ensure that people are a good cultural and a good organizational fit, I think is important work. And I haven't done it in a long time. But I do think it's important work.

Josh Steimle

Okay, so in between that job, and then writing your first book, what's kind of the work history in between.

Daniel Crosby

So, um, I lasted about 18 months in that first job. So I was, I was entrepreneurially. minded and I didn't, didn't love sort of the top-down structure of that job, and felt that there was room to run for me and this sort of like applied behavioral finance for the masses. And I broke out on my own after just 18 months, so I was just, you know, I would have been 29, at the time when I left went out on my own. And that's when I started to need to market myself, you know, and so I did things like, I know, it's still kind of big, but it was very big at the time, the TEDx events, the TEDx events were very big. And so that's where I went, and I was looking for anything to market myself. And I found that organizations were always looking for public speakers like it's something that no one likes to do. And if you if you have, you know, something interesting to say people are sort of intrigued by human behavior and human nature. And it was easy for me to go speak at whatever, at the local rotary club or, you know, whatever local business organization. And that's where I was out on my own. It was the throes of the Great Recession. And I'm like looking, looking, looking for ways to get my name out there. And I landed a speaking gig at a TEDx in my hometown. And from there, got a little . . . . that first TEDx talk blew up is too strong a word, but it did well, like it was . . . you know, it did well. And that was what led me to say, Hey, I should write a book based on the concepts from this first TEDx talk. So that's kind of the next transition, I guess, in my professional history.

Josh Steimle

Okay. Now, did you have any writing experience? What made you think, Hey, I can write a book about this?

Daniel Crosby

Well, hubris, like arrogance being young, I don't know, like . . . No, I mean, I had written a dissertation, right. So but that's a very different animal. So I mean, you get but it is a lot of writing. It is a lot of writing. So you develop the discipline of writing, but it's, it's very heady. It's very cerebral, and it's not very readable. In fact, when I get you know, I get quarterly updates about how many people have read my dissertation is just like, the saddest thing, man, I think it's like been read by 25 people or something. But you know, it's a very different enterprise. So in some respects, I had the discipline. But it but in other respects, I had no business writing a book I had no, you know, certainly had no formal training in it and no expertise there.

Josh Steimle

Are you knew you're onto a hot idea or an idea that had piqued some people's attention, and you wanted to get that out there in that form?

Daniel Crosby

That's right. That's right.

Josh Steimle

So what did it look like writing the first book? What was your process? How did you get started and . . . take us through that journey?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah. I was lucky to have built somewhat of sort of an intellectual scaffolding based on this TEDx talk. The name of the TEDx talk was You’re Not That Great. And it was sort of these seven counterintuitive truths for living a good life. And talking about the ways in which sort of recognizing and owning our own mediocrity could be empowering in a counterintuitive way. And I said, Well, this is the framework then like, here's the, here's the seven concepts I'm going to write about, I'll have a little intro, a little outro have these seven concepts. And so that will, that will be the process. So, um, that was really, I mean, that was really it was like, here's my seven pillars. Now, let me work backwards from there and begin to research them out. You know, TED talks are like 15 minutes long, there's not a lot of meat on that bone. So it was really just me working backwards from those seven pillars to try and fill in more anecdotes, more research more stories around those seven those seven counterintuitive truths.

Josh Steimle

And now, this is the book that became the New York Times bestseller, right?

Daniel Crosby

This is not. This one was self-published. So I don't know . . . I have sort of a funny history. I had one self-published book, I had three books published by major publishers. And then I had one children's book, which is quite odd that got picked up and did well on Kickstarter. And we just got that one published after sort of a successful Kickstarter campaign. So in my professional bio, when I say my first book, it's really my second book, but my first kind of like, big boy publisher book.

Josh Steimle

Yeah. Okay, so this first book that you self-published, did you try to go after a traditional publisher? Or did you just figure Hey, it's going to be easier to self-publish, I'll just do that?

Daniel Crosby

I did, but not very hard. So I, you know, I did but in a very, like, ham-handed way, in not a very methodical way, you know, sort of spraying and praying submissions to whoever, didn't really give it a whole lot of thought, was impatient. And sort of wanted to capitalize on the, you know, the sort of the current of the of the talk itself in the accompanying video. And so, I tried a bit but not very hard and not . . . it's certainly not in a very smart or methodical way looking back now.

Josh Steimle

So what were the results from that book, once you published it? Did people gobble it up? Did people know about it? How did you promote it? What happened?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, I mean, I promoted it at speaking engagements. You know, I promoted it speaking engagements, on social media. I've been active on Twitter and LinkedIn for quite a while. And so I mean, it did okay. Like, I mean, it did probably better than most self-published books. Which is a low a low bar, right? But it wasn't . . . it did poorly enough that it made me want to go seek out an established publisher the second time. I have friends who've had great success with self-publishing, but they all have really robust platforms, they all have sort of a direct-to-consumer pipeline that I did not have at, you know, at 29 years of age and six months of self-employment.

Josh Steimle

So then, where did the idea for the second/first published book come from? What was it that made you say, Okay, I'm going to do this book, and I'm going to go after a traditional publisher.

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, so at this point, it's a few years down the line, my career has gained some focus, I've gone from sort of the broader field of, of business psychology and organizational behavior into the very specific field of behavioral finance. So that was one sort of precipitating event was that I had really narrowed my career focus. And I think that helped a whole lot. The second thing that had helped is I had done . . . my platform had improved, you know, I had, I had a stronger social media presence, I had a better email list, I was speaking at the time, probably 50 to 60 times a year at industry functions. And so at this point, I had a little bit of a name for myself in this tiny little, you know, a big fish in the very small pond of behavioral finance. And so I was actually sought out at that point, by publishers, by publishers who said, Look, we, there's enthusiasm for books in this space, would you write one? And so I was sought out by a couple of publishers who asked to work with me. And . . .

Josh Steimle

That's pretty sweet.

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, it was sweet. That's why I'm kind of a useless guest. I mean, it's like I stumbled onto some of this stuff. But . . .

Josh Steimle

This, this is a great path for people to follow, you just get a PhD. And then you give a viral TEDx talk, and then you happen to focus in something that's going to be hot a few years from now. I mean, we can all follow that path.

Daniel Crosby

Well, but I'll tell you, though, I mean, the specialization helped a ton. And the fact that it was an emerging field helped a ton. I mean, you know, because my first book would have probably been categorized as, you know, broadly, like a leadership book. And, you know, I mean, if you're writing a leadership book, like, you know, get in line, you know, I mean, it's like you're behind every other, you know, every other person who thinks they've cracked the code of how to lead an organization. And so when I specialized, it was a very, very different, it was a very, very different experience. And so I actually had my pick of a couple of publishers to write that, that second book first, first with it with a major publisher.

Josh Steimle

So how did you decide which one you wanted to go with?

Daniel Crosby

Money. So money, I mean, really, the deals were very similar. Money was the big differentiator. You know, I learned a lot about how little even a big publisher will do to promote a book to really help you. I mean, you know, I'm not writing vampire romance novels, right. So it's not gonna be like the best selling book in in their catalogue. And so, you know, they kind of give you the minimum, minimum viable assistance. And they really set the expectation, even with a large publisher that that you're going to have to do a lot of this yourself. So as seeing that the offers were otherwise fairly identical, I went with the with the money.

Josh Steimle

So that book comes out now, was this a deal for just the one book or did they do what some publishers do and say, Hey, we want rights to the next three books you

Daniel Crosby

right? So they wanted first right of refusal. So they had first right of refusal for for a second for a second book, but it wasn't like a three book deal.

Josh Steimle

Got it. So that book comes out and then tell us the New York Times bestseller story like How did this happen?

Daniel Crosby

Well, it happened with by having a co-author who was extremely popular and well resourced. I co-authored the book with my boss, who was the head of a large asset manager. And we had PR, we had every advantage. We had an entire marketing squad, we had a social media squad. We had people doing trailers for the books, we had, you know, people lining up media tours in New York and Boston. I'm the worst guest of all time through no genius of mine, you know, t was just a good setup, because I co-authored the book with someone who was in a place to, you know, to make sure that it got in front of in front of readers.

Josh Steimle

This is great information, because people need to know what the reality is, I was just talking with a potential coaching client, and she was asking some can my book become a New York Times bestseller, and I was just straight with her, I just said, it's really hard. It's really tough. Like, it's just, it's not realistic for the vast majority of people out there. And you have to put so much into it. It's not like you just write a great book. And if it's a great book, it becomes a New York Times bestseller. I'm glad to get this perspective from you on what it took to push your book up to that level.

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, I mean, it, it took an enormous amount of coordination and effort and money, frankly, too, you know, to get it to get it out there. And even then we just barely scraped by. And you know, not for long, right. But I mean, we had things like we were going to conferences, with 1000s of people in attendance, and they would pre buy the book for all the attendees. I mean, it's really those it's really those bulk purchases, and that that sort of coordinated effort that makes it possible. It's enormously hard to do on kind of a one or two book sale basis, especially I think, in certain disciplines, like behavioral findings.

Josh Steimle

Yeah. Yeah. That makes it all the more impressive. So you have that first book? And what does this do for your career when it hits this level? Because you said, you're the co-author on it, but still, you're the co-author on it. So What impact did you see on your career and opportunities coming to you as a result of this book that was getting a lot of press and attention?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's incalculable, the good, the good that it did for my career, you know, and again, I'm in my early 30s, at this point, and it opened, I mean, it opened every door for me, you know, because nobody's, you know, hiring 32-year-olds from the deep south to come, you know, come speak at their event without, you know, without some sort of a calling card. And so it becomes, it becomes your calling card, it becomes the legitimize or it becomes the reason that, you know, industry, newspapers and publications begin to reach out to you for comment. And I mean, really, for years after that for many years after that, I mean, I coasted on the success of that and other books, just doing speaking gigs. I mean, that was a full time, it was a full-time job, to speak and promote those books. And it was, you know, sort of a wonderful, wonderful whirlwind, but I couldn't I couldn't overstate how much good it did for my career. It absolutely put me on the map. To this day, I think for a lot of people in niche fields like me, that's sort of the usefulness of writing a book because you're not . . . even those books of mine that I've done . . . Well, they're not big moneymakers, relative to other things that you can do on the back of a book.

Josh Steimle

Yeah, you're not making the money from the book sales themselves. You're making money from the sales that come because people read the book, right?

Daniel Crosby

That's exactly right.

Josh Steimle

So what was it that then inspired you to say, Okay, I need to write another book. What was the motivation or inspiration for that?

Daniel Crosby

Well, it was really, two things. One was wanting to prove that I could do it on my own. Right, you know, so I had had a very well read, co-author on the first one. In the second one, I wanted to sort of prove to myself that that it wasn't a fluke, like I wanted to prove to myself that that I could write this and I wanted to write it for people like my wife, you know, I wanted to write a book for people like my wife, who are not financial professionals, but still need good insights into like, how to make great financial decisions. So my second, my second, you know, big publisher book was called the laws of wealth. And it was just sort of a distillation of it was sort of a this I believe, right? If you ever listen to that, that series on NPR and like this, I believe, about financial markets for everyman and everywoman and I wanted to do it on my own.

Josh Steimle

Yeah, and the loss of wealth, I have to say that's a little bit more approachable title than Personal benchmark: Integrating Behavioral Finance and Investment Management.

Daniel Crosby

Well, you said it, right. I mean, the first one was very industry focused. And my latest book, candidly, was very industry focused. And that that has its place. But you know, I wanted my wife and kids and friends to have a book that they could that they could read. And that that could influence the their financial decisions in a very, in a very everyday sort of way.

Josh Steimle

So having written that industry focused book, and then this more general audience focused book, what kind of difference did you see in the type of attention you got, or the results that you got between those books?

Daniel Crosby

Well, the it's interesting, so The Laws of Wealth has had a much broader international reach. My two most recent books have been translated into seven languages a piece and that's been, that's been the most fun of the whole process to me, is, is getting a letter from someone in Germany who read my book in German and saying they appreciated it. And it helps that every time my land every time a land a foreign rights deal, my family goes out to eat at the type of cuisine that we when we go get German food when we land, the German book deal. And that's a lot of fun. But it's really, really rewarding to me to know that my books being read in Vietnam, and Germany and India and you know, wherever else. So that's, that's super rewarding to me. And that's been some of the positive fallout from writing a more, you know, a more sort of consumer focus book

Josh Steimle

that tell us how do these international deals come about? I think a lot of people would assume, oh, the publisher that published your book, they just go in they printed in these other languages and ship it

Daniel Crosby

over there. Yeah, it's, it's interesting, right. With, with the last two books, where I have gotten a number of international deals, my publisher coordinates with publishers and distributors, in foreign markets, for those foreign rights deals. And each one of those contracts looks different, right? Because it's, it gets priced differently, the structure is different, the advances different, the rev share is different. And in some places, candidly, it's very, it's terrible, right? Like, you know, because I mean, in certain in certain developing markets, a book is going to sell for, you know, 252 50 us, and so then your cut of it is, you know, whatever, 50 cents. And so, the deals aren't always lucrative, but that they were in every case, they were negotiated through my original publisher, who took the book to markets and conferences, and use their contacts and their list to try and score those foreign rights deals.

Josh Steimle

And this is where I think there's a big difference between self-publishing and traditional publishing, because a lot of people ask, like, what do I get from a traditional publisher, if they don't do the marketing? And I can go get it printed through Amazon or Ingram spark or anything? Well, why am I going with a traditional publisher? And this is one of those examples that people are not going to translate this on their own and get it distributed in other countries on their own. That's something traditional publishers have some expertise in that. I mean, where would we get started doing that on our own? Right,

Daniel Crosby

Right? I mean, where are you and I going to go negotiate with India and South Africa and Vietnam, and you know, all these places where I've gotten book deals, that's one thing. And you know, they're just set up for it to like the paperback edition of The laws of wealth, just the second edition paperback edition just dropped yesterday, actually. And, you know, the sales have been great, because they have a distribution list of, of, you know, 10s and 10s of 1000s of people who are interested in reading behavioral finance books, and I don't have that. So again, like if you have if you have the right platform, I think you can make self-publishing work better, but I still think it's tricky when it comes to stuff like international deals.

Josh Steimle

Yeah, for sure. All right. So that's The laws of wealth and then behavioral investor, you were saying that was a bit more industry focused, right?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah. Behavioral investor I wrote, you know, I wish I had a better reason. Um, it's, I was just, I'm too nerdy. Like I couldn't like I had more that I wanted to say that wasn't retail focus that wasn't consumer focused. And I was like, Look, I can't help it. I want to, I want to cite all these crazy esoteric studies, and I want to talk to people who can speak the language and if it hurts, sales, it hurts sales. But it turned out fine. But yeah, I had to go back-to-back to my Industry Focus, and that one was a lot of fun. It was kind of looking at I saw a gap in the literature, right. I saw a gap in the literature about Folks not considering sort of the environmental and sociological and other considerations that go into financial decision making, and I wanted to write a wonky. I wanted to write a wonky, esoteric book about that. And I did.

Josh Steimle

Congratulations. So now I want to, I mean, children's books are not the focus of this podcast so much. But I want to hear about this, like, What's the story behind the children's book,

Daniel Crosby

I really am going to be your worst guest. I wrote a poem . . .I have three young kids. And when it comes to talking to them about certain topics, I have taken to writing poetry about them. And this sounds weird. So I write these poems that makes it just a little bit easier for them to understand it. And so we had a f a distant friend of the family die. And the kids had questions. They were very young at the time. And I wrote a poem sort of in the style of Shel Silverstein, and it was called Everyone We Love Will Die.

Josh Steimle

Yeah, that's a pleasant message. Yes, it goes along with a lot of like those 18th century Nursery Rhymes though, right?

Daniel Crosby

Oh, it's kind of has that vibe. But you know, but the gist of it was, was basically was the gist of it was kind of memento mori. Right. Like, you know, the closing stands, as you know, yes, Everyone you love will die. But you're here today. And so am I; it was just kind of this message to my kids, like, Look, we don't know how long we're going to get. Let's make the most of every day, let's love each other like crazy and love the people around us. And I wrote this book. I was on Facebook at the time, I have since quit, thank goodness. But, you know, I was on Facebook at the time. I posted it on Facebook and was just like, Hey, I wrote this funny poem. Ha ha. And my friend who's a talented artist says I was really touched by your poem. And I illustrated it. And she had done all of these illustrations to go along with it. And they were beautiful. And they were really kind of these simple pen in ink. Sort of like Shel Silverstein art drawings. And I said, this is crazy, these are beautiful. And I said, you know what, let's make this a book. Let's just give it a shot. And so I said, let's just like make this a PDF. We're going to put it on Kickstarter. And we're going to see what happens. Well, Kickstarter made it their top pick of the day, made it their, like, editor's pick of the day. And we met our funding goal, which was admittedly very small. I mean, it was just to get a few 100 copies printed for, for, you know, friends and family and people who had pre ordered it. But Kickstarter, you know, made it their pick of the day, and it got funded in like, 12 hours. And then the local newspaper did a story on it and all this stuff. And so then it was like, that was enough. We were like, ha ha, this is never going to do anything. No one's ever going to buy a book called Everyone you love will die. We, you know, do anything with it. But the publisher of my other books contacted me about a year and a half ago and was like, hey, it's a good book. Let us bring it to life.

Josh Steimle

They did children's books, too? They don't do children's books.

Daniel Crosby

They just did me a favor. They do investing. They do. They do investment books. They said, Hey, like what the heck, we'll help you. We'll help you get it where it belongs. And you know, it's not like they've done any massive promotion of it or anything, but they've said hey, like, let us help you get it on Amazon and let us help you get it set up. So yeah, so that's how I came to write a self-published book. Three business books and a book called Everyone You Love Will Die.

Josh Steimle

All right. I'll be looking forward to the behavioral investor children's book edition!

Daniel Crosby

I should, that's a great idea actually

Josh Steimle

By the way, what did the Kickstarter get to?

Daniel Crosby

Oh, not much six or $7,000 and it was just like it was just it was it was truly just to print a couple 100 copies and give them to sort of interested folks but it yeah, it you know it for a Facebook poem to turn into something was a pretty fun series of events.

Josh Steimle

That is cool. So the actual published version of that book, though, is now available for sale. Or it's their Amazon everything. Yeah, I'm going to go buy a copy. I love that title. That's great. My dad is always talking about how everybody needs to prepare to die. He's really big into Preparing, like helping people prepare for death and like taking that seriously, so I'll have to send him a copy of that as well. Sounds like yeah,

Daniel Crosby

I've got I've got my whole funeral planned out, man. I got the hymns picked out I got everything my wife knows. I want it to be good. Fancy coffin lots of jewels. No like old so Southern coffin like you, just a pine box, just like a simple pine box. But very dramatic weeping and wailing. We need big, big demonstrative weeping and wailing simple coffin, though.

Josh Steimle

I love it. Alright, so you can't have written this many books without thinking there might be another one in store. I mean, do you have other ideas for other books that you're going to do in the future?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, so I am kind of taking notes on a book. I don't know how else to put it on. Like the meaning of life. Like I'm big into French existentialism and philosophy and just like helping people find their why. So it will be a book on helping people find their why. And just, that's one of those things that I think everyone's interested in. And we talk about it in sort of big, grandiose, abstract terms, but we, we don't always concretize it in a way that people can take it and run with it. So I want to write a sort of a practical book for a very impractical endeavor. And I'm not rushing it though. I feel like it's gone be kind of be my magnum opus. And I'm trying to, like, let it every other book I've written, or at least the three main ones have been written for a very specific professional purpose, like it was very calculated. Like this is going to raise my speaking fees, you know. I’m going to write this, and it's going to get me a job or whatever. And this is kind of my life's work. And so I'm taking my time with this one.

Josh Steimle

Got it. So as far as work goes, What are you actually doing these days for work? I mean, are you making money off the books in the speaking circuit? or what have you got going on?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, I'm actually I'm actually an executive at a at a financial technology firm. So I'm the chief behavioral officer at Orion Advisor Solutions. And we build financial technology, primarily for financial advisors, who then use it with clients. But basically, what I do is helping them build technology in a way that helps folks make great decisions and is user friendly. And in addition to that, still do a lot of writing and speaking and PR and things like that. It’s about half kind of baking good decision making processes into in to tech flow, and about half being a public spokesperson for the organization. And, and still doing speaking and thought leadership and things like that.

Josh Steimle

So were you a co-founder or a founder there? Or was it more of a traditional hiring situation?

Daniel Crosby

So I was acquired, actually, so we I worked for a $25bn asset manager in Philly doing more or less the same thing. And we were acquired. The answer is, it was a traditional hire originally, though.

Josh Steimle

Got it. So were they pretty happy to acquire somebody that's got all this writing experience and books and personal brand out there?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, you know, they actually were because they are this absolute juggernaut of a company, you know, you know, multibillion dollar financial technology juggernaut, doing great things, reputation second to none, but they really didn't have you know, sort of face to face of the brand, if you will, I mean, there were a lot of great people doing great work. But there was no one there outside of the very top leadership that had sort of a writing speaking thought leadership. pedigree. Maybe I'm patting my own back, but I do think they were excited about that, I think is a lesson to your listeners, right? I mean, this can turn into a job, you know. I'll never have to submit a resume ever again. Because my books are my resume now, right? Like, that's sort of the calling card, that that's your reputation is what you've written, what you've written down.

Josh Steimle

Yeah, I think that is a valuable lesson because you can take that with you. I mean, you can get all sorts of work experience and knowledge. But then you have to convince somebody that you have it and you have to Have that resume or your LinkedIn profile, but when you have the book, it's just assumed. Well, hey, he wrote the book on this topic. He must be the expert on this topic, right?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Josh Steimle

This has been great, Daniel, to get all these details from you. I far from being the worst guest ever on this show. I think this has been one of the best episodes. It's been super interesting and unique. And there are lots of great lessons here that I think any entrepreneur can take away as they're working on their book. If somebody wants to connect with you, where's the best place for them to find you?

Daniel Crosby

Yeah, I have my own podcast called Standard Deviations. I'm on Twitter at Daniel Crosby and Daniel Crosby, PhD on LinkedIn.

Josh Steimle

Perfect. Thanks so much for being with us here today.

Daniel Crosby

Thank you, Josh, it was fun.