Latest / Financial Planner Life Podcast / The client is the hero of this journey, the financial planner is the guide – Carl Richards

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The client is the hero of this journey, the financial planner is the guide – Carl Richards · Financial Planner Life Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, and welcome to the Financial Planner Life Podcast, where we talk to professionals at varying stages in their career about what it's like working in the wonderful world of financial planning and financial advice.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is proudly sponsored by Recruit UK, a recruitment consultancy specifically focused on the financial services.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: They have a niche specialism, recruiting, within the financial planning industry, so check out their website for the latest job opportunities, hints and tips, and blog articles.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Financial Planner Live podcast.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Sam Oak.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Today is a special episode because I'm joined by two guests.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: First off, I've got Paul Bradley, founder of Chiltern Hills Financial Planning.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's back on the show.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this time he's brought along Carl Richards.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Carl is from the United States of America.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's a certified financial planner and the creator of the sketch guide column, appearing weekly in the New York Times for the last 10 years.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to writing and sketching and podcasting, he is a frequent keynote speaker at financial planning conferences and visual learning events around the world.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Today, Carl shares his fascinating thoughts on the true purpose of a financial planner.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: How we can help our clients to set goals by asking the right questions, and how remaining curious can form deep and powerful connections.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: We also dive deep into positive psychology, avoiding pain and taking pleasure, and how to use imposter syndrome to your advantage.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: This was a fantastic episode that I thoroughly enjoyed talking to both of these guests, and I'm sure you will learn a lot from this episode.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: What would be really great to hear, Carl, in the first instance would be how would you describe financial planning?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if somebody was interested in becoming a financial planner, how would you describe the role of a financial planner to somebody?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's a super good question.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think the easiest way to describe that role my favorite way is just an analogy with mountain guides.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: That um real financial planning, so two, so two things.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: One, real financial planning is about the alignment of someone's use of capital, and capital always has an asterisk by it, and under the the asterisk is time, money, energy, and attention.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: Those four forms of capital we have.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: So aligning somebody's use of capital, and I think of this as a Venn diagram, like in one circle there's the use of capital, and in the other circle is what's important to me, or values or purpose.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Purpose is my favorite word.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: So if I can align use of capital with someone's purpose, that to me is real financial planning.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there's a whole bunch of work to be done there.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's like helping somebody, it's not really discover, it's rediscover their purpose.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think of that as goal clarification over time.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: It turns out people don't know what their goals are.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, like one of the huge values that one of the huge things that financial planners do that's valuable is helping people rediscover goals and at a deeper level purpose.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have, and then once you've identified, and and it's not really once, the the never-ending process of identifying goals, right?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that thing's moving, that side of the equation is moving and changing.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where we'll get to the guide in a minute.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: That piece of landscape is moving and changing.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I thought that living by the sea was gonna be really important.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: So we tried it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just, you know, role-playing here, but like I thought that living by the sea was really important.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we tried it.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we're not sure we like it as much as we thought.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we're actually mountain people.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's an interesting piece of purpose that's now changed.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's changing.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then once we've sort of got some sense of where it is, at least presently, we're gonna align our use of money, time, energy, and attention.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the never-ending alignment.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and the the reality is as humans, if that was a Venn diagram, there's often no overlap in the circles.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so us working with clients to get those circles overlapped, that's my favorite definition of real financial planning.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the way to think about this as far as it is, as far as guiding goes, is, and this is really important for your listeners to understand.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes when you think of financial planning, you just think of spreadsheets and calculators.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's maybe the nice thought you have.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: You might actually think of just some slimy person trying to sell you financial products.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And the the truth of the matter is it's not about spreadsheets and calculators, and it's not about products.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's about people's lives.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: And if we start to understand what we're really trying to do is align use of capital with what's really important to people, we start to get a sense of how beautiful this job is.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Now, then we have to start thinking about instead of thinking we can draw a 30-year line in the sand, which is sort of what a financial plan often is like carved in stone, and we're super focused on the precision of it and the calculator and the spreadsheet, we realize that all of that stuff is moving.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, really, you're not a map drawer, right?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: You're a guide in a changing landscape, and the landscape itself is changing.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that to me, just like that's why I get so fired up about this profession, is because it's so dynamic.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: It involves money is just an entry point.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a righteous trick, if you will, into the conversations that I don't care at all about money.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like I've spent the last 25 years on TV pretending to be the person who cares about money.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't care about money at all.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: I only care about it because it's an entry point to the stuff that really matters.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it happens, unfortunately, in our society, globally speaking, it happens to be the entry point into the stuff that really matters.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how I think about planning overall.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I can we go deeper on any one of those threads, but that's how I think about financial planning overall.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's super interesting, and that aligns with my thinking.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea, I love the way that you're explaining that a financial planner is like a guide, like a mentor, taking somebody on a journey.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that journey changes all the time.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: We can't control what's going to be there in front of us.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you're there to help guide them as they go through.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously aligning, ensuring that their financials also match up with the road that they're on, in line with their purpose.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But those purposes change over time.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you're there to help them discover that as well as help them financially prepare for anything that might well happen in the future.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what we're saying here?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think one thing you mentioned there, Sam, that's important to remember, is that um the client, and this will your listeners will get this, and the people who are thinking about being in the industry will think, oh, is that could that possibly be true?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's not what you often see, you know, when you think of you know, the financial advisor coming from the city.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um the client is the hero of this journey, not the advisor.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: And we've got to always keep that in mind.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: We're just the guide.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And a real guide, to be honest, like a real guide knows that the client may not even need us.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like we like they could survive, maybe, right?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: But we're just there.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: If we can just make subtle tweaks, or sometimes they're huge tweaks, but often it's just subtle little tweaks around the edges.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Those subtle tweaks compounded over time are massively valuable, right?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I just think of it as like a subtle core.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: If you think about, you know, a trip from, you know, I'm just trying to think of something geographically that makes sense.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, every okay, let's just pretend a trip from Los Angeles to New York City.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's across the American continent.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if I'm off by just a teeny bit to start, just a teeny bit, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: I could end up in Florida instead of New York, which, unless you were headed to Florida, would be bad.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so these little course corrections where the client's the hero of the journey, it's their journey.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes their journey won't match with our values.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: And by values, I simply mean like maybe I want my house paid off, and that's all I really care about.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe that's really important to me, but it may not be this client may be saying, you know, I don't really care about that.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: I want to take this trip with my kids.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and I can see in the spreadsheet that this trip for the kids may not make sense financially, but it on the emotional balance sheet, it makes a ton of sense.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's not, I have to be careful not to say, no, you should really pay down the mortgage.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: And really try to help help clarify why the trip, how important is this?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: You've been talking about it for a long time, what would it look like?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: Paint a vision of it.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you know what?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Let's make the most of that investment.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's the return we're hoping for?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, lifetime memories, connection with my kids.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's the return we're hoping for.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds like a great investment.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Let's make that, right?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so we're guiding this journey, but it's their journey, it's their purpose, it's their values, not our own.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's actually quite hard to keep.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: I often say, like, keep your values off your clients' plans.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually quite hard.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's another beautiful piece of the of the of the puzzle here as we think about this job.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you sit down with clients, and you mentioned something about money being like an entry point.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So when they come to a financial planner or get to the stage where they sit down with a financial planner, and that money is that entry point, do you find they are consumed by money in the sense that it's driving their decisions and perhaps stressing them out or worrying them or making them anxious?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that from uncovering and discovering more around perhaps their belief system, it sounds like what you do at the moment, you sort of you dig a little bit deeper of the things that they are passionate about, the things outside of money, that the idea of this obsession, if you like, to have enough money, I'll be happy when I have enough money.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you find that that sort of starts to leave them and that you start to bring out the true individual of who they want to be and where they really truly want to live their life?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned there as an example somebody that really, really loves the idea of this trip, you know, this idea of going on a trip with the family.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the the return on investment on that is lifetime memories, connection with children, things that you can't buy, right?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So when somebody comes to you and they are at the point of entering a conversation with a financial advisor, my assumption and the way I look at marketing, branding, and everything in the UK, it's always geared towards the money first.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in the UK, a financial advisor doesn't particularly want to deal with somebody who doesn't have enough money.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it creates this kind of divide then between what you're trying to do, which is create a lovely future for somebody where they value their time and that money plays a part in it.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: But there's this kind of elitist approach in the UK where, and I'm speaking roughly, you might agree with me here, Paul, or not, but the average investable asset that a financial advisor is really interested in the UK is about 250k, you know?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels elitist and it feels as if there's so many people out there that would benefit from the type of financial planning that you offer, which is this well-being approach, and they're getting left behind.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know that kind of asked a few questions, all wrapped up into one there.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Did it make sense?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's a couple of threads to pull on.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: So one is it's important, and this I found this to be especially true.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's true all over the world, but it was it was definitely true in the during the time I lived in London.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody comes into a financial advisor office asking to cry on their couch.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, nobody, nobody comes in and says, help me clarify my life purpose.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Or help me with my goals.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: No, nobody does that.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm a big fan of instead of trying to redefine financial planning out there in the market, which is is a great long-term goal.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a big fan of greeting them with empathy where they are.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they come in with a presenting problem.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: And the presenting problem is often around portfolio performance, or it could be around something they're thinking about with in the UK, particularly around property.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it could be that I sold a business and I don't know what to do with this pool of money.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, any of those really tactical things that are often sort of like thought of as tactical and often, frankly, performance driven.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like I it's something to do with a product and performance.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we we get to greet them where they are.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and I think it just looks like Sam, you know, me saying that you know, Sam, that's really important part of your overall picture here.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I understand why that's important.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's important to me too.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I think I'm really good at what the question you're asking, and and we're definitely gonna get there.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: And would you mind if we back up?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: So we we're there's the righteous trick, right?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and I use the word righteous trick very carefully.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, I don't mean bait and switch.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: A bait and switch is in service of the advisor, a righteous trick is in service of the client.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just trying to help them understand that this presenting problem it is a it's a little bit like showing up at the doctor and sort of wanting to argue about which high blood pressure medicine I should take if I still smoke.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the doctor's gonna say, they're gonna engage with me on this debate about which medicine would be best.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're gonna slowly, sometimes it's a punch in the nose, sometimes it's an empathetic hug, depending on what I need.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's a chest match a little bit, right?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, but if it they're gonna slowly take me to a spot where, like, you know what, the real problem here is like we can keep treating the symptoms.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: These presenting problems are all just symptoms, right?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Or we can get down to the real problem.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a craft in that.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's a craft in leading someone from what they thought you did as a job.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: So we can run around out in the public and say, actually, financial planners are really life coaches.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's great.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm happy that people are doing that.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, well beat financial well-being is taking off in the UK, like starting to get a foothold in the UK.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I love all that.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: And on the ground, a real financial planner may be better off reading somebody at the presenting problem.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then slowly leading them down this path where they understand that presenting problem was just a symptom of the fact that we don't have clarity.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, one last analogy, right?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: And and and I in the UK particularly, I got this question all the time.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: Advisors would be, you know, with their arms folded, sort of like, we don't do that here.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we don't talk about our feelings.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: We don't, and I was like, I didn't, I just I understood it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said, I got the question often enough, and I started getting that question 10 years ago.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I got the question often enough, and I've got enough friends in the UK that are in this industry that I re like, I don't buy it.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: I don't buy it.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Now, it may be where that we're not quite used to doing it, like maybe a little bit more, but we're still talking about humans.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: And if we can unravel that onion just a little bit, we can we can get to what really matters.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where the real value is.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's where what what you end up seeing client, what happens to clients is they, as I used to call it the financial pornography detox program.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I would tell clients that they'd entered, like on the way out of the first meeting, I'd be like, hey, by the way, you've entered the financial pornography detox program.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'd sort of chuckle about it.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And say, you know what, what that means is there's gonna come a time, six to eighteen months from now, where you're gonna be watching the news like you used to, and you're gonna sort of think to yourself, huh, this doesn't really matter to me anymore.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: And and you may even get to the point where you see it as entertainment.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: And once you get there, you'll you'll get a whole chunk of your life back.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you'll realize, and then you've you've exited the program.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: So the last little analogy I'll use is you know, uh, most of the industry, the financial services industry, is really busy, and we've trained clients to think this is our job, debating on whether we should take a plane, a train, or a car on a trip.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we think that's the job.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just debate the value of the plane, train, or the car.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: And what a real planner understands is like that's an interesting debate.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for coming today.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: I understand that debate, it's really important.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Decision.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Would it be okay if we decide where we're going first?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: And because if we decide where we're going first, the decision will become much easier about whether to take a plane, a train, or a car.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: It turns out, you know, if you're going to France, you're probably going to want to take a train or a plane.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: The car may be a little harder.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: I know you can, but it may be, you know, but that decision is much easier if we decide that you're going to France versus if you're going to Cornwall, right?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like different decision.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that to me is that to me is the the trick there is understanding that interplay between the presenting problem, the plane, the train, the car, and the fact that clients have been trained by us to think that that's what actually matters.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's all they do on TV, right?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Is debate the plane, the train, or the car.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then slowly teaching them that like what really matters is like, can we get clear about where we, at least where we think we're going?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then that will become easier.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I like that.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it's such a great point.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think in an earlier podcast, Sam and I talked about goals and the fact that I think there's a there's a phrase that you use, Carl, which is if you ask someone what the what their goals are, it just makes the the hair on your neck stand up.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like no one you know on the spot, what are your goals?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's just such a unnatural conversation point.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: But that is the destination.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're trying to define.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: What's what's most important to you?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: What's important to you in these in these different areas of your life?
• 18:45
  unknown: Yeah.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that people have got on on the fingertips.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, we we've never been, nobody's ever, I mean, we don't talk about money, period.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Let alone the purpose of it.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and all the I mean, you're unraveling a whole bunch of family history.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, I I think goals, but you're right.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, nobody likes being asked, I think we should banish the question, like, what are your goals?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think we should teach people what their goals are by asking them about purpose.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Something like, you know, hey, could we back up, Paul, for a minute?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I understand this performance and the the your guy down the street, you're upset with him.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I totally get it, and we'll get there.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: But can we back up a little bit?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this may sound like an odd question, Paul, maybe even slightly uncomfortable because you may have never thought of it, but just curious, what does money mean to you?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then we can have a now that will lead to things like, gosh, I don't, that's you know, and it'll be very uncomfortable at first, it always is.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that that uncomfort, I used to think of that as a sign that I was doing something wrong.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: And now I've realized it's a sign I'm doing something right.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like a good question by definition is something that people have never been asked before.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I I would lean into that discomfort where I said, Paul, what's you know, what does money mean to you?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: And and you may like fidget around a little bit and say, I don't know.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I just want to buy some more property.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, yeah, totally get it.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Buying more property, that's that's really important.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Let me write that down.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: And we may put some framework around that in a little bit, Paul, and maybe we'll call that a goal.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: But why would buying more property be important?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and I just keep, I'm not gonna let you off the hook, but I'm gonna do it gently.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it will be a bunch of the nose.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, just like, Paul, listen to me.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not talking to you about, but most of the time it's gonna be a gentle, empathetic dance, really.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, why is money?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then you may something say something to me like flexibility.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I just money equals flexibility.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you ask me that, I I would tell you freedom.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I would tell you a specific type of freedom, time and location freedom, or why money's what money means to me is time and location freedom.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: But I've been doing this a long time, so I may just say freedom, and you would say, Oh, that's interesting, Paul.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me a little bit more about that.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what does freedom mean?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I asked 10 people what freedom meant, they'd all say something different.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: What does it mean to you?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: We're slowly defining it.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: They may say something like, you know, I just I never want to be a burden to the kids.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're at a really interesting spot where we could say, Hey, Paul, would it be okay in a minute?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna write down never want to be a burden to the kids.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: In a minute, I'd like to put some framework around that.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: And when we put some framework around it, we're gonna call it a goal.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Is that okay?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like never being a burden to the kids.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna define what that means.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how much does it mean a month?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what does it mean?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: And when we do, we'll call that a goal.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Would that be okay?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that's much different than sitting in your foyer with an intake form that says, what are your financial goals?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a completely different experience.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's the but it's the backarite ladder up and down to define the goals.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: And let's just give a call out too.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like Bill's a master at that, and and you can learn a lot from that process.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: And George Kinder and Dan Sullivan and John Bowen, like they've all done great work around that.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome question, question askers.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's one thing that you said in there and I just want to share something I picked up on LinkedIn um recently because like I I've I've used a I've used a discovery tool that prompts people and and one of the one of the kind of prompts was around um not being a burden to children.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know it's something that that that is quite important to people.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I saw a post on LinkedIn recently that literally blew my mind and it was a guy who who said that um he'd actually cared for his dying mother for the last like X number of years.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know so that's that's the burden that you're trying to avoid your children having but he reflected on it and he was saying that um as a result of having done that having looked after his mother and and you know she'd passed so you know so so he'd you know been relieved you know quote unquote but he was saying as a result of that chapter in his life he he's now a better father a better husband yeah a better man you know so so even even I guess thinking you know what what what struck me as as a really perfectly sensible and and and noble goal there's this kind of layers beneath it.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Totally makes perfect sense to me like that that would match experiences I've heard people having and and it is interesting that sometimes the goals that we set like I don't want to be a burden to my kids.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know in some some is the men are particularly bad at this right like oh I'll never let on that I have any emotional weakness and we're very literally denying our friends the opportunities to be of service and to a deeper connection.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so yeah I think that's true but that's just an example of of a goal that might change over time.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's why I this false sense of precision that we have in the in the like we have a like a sense of physics envy like we want to find the law of gravity so it will all make sense as financial planners I think this idea that's why I say goals are guesses because it suggests to the mind that it's okay when they change like we're we're gonna put a stake in the ground and and and adults have to be like I'm super committed to that goal and it's gonna change.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like adults have to be okay with two competing truths that are true at the same time that goal is really important and I'm okay to changing it.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's those are both those can both be true at the same time my financial plan is the best plan ever written ever, ever and it's wrong those can both be true at the same time.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's where that's where we need to mature a little bit as as as planners is understanding that what we do is it it demands that we accept two competing truths at the same time.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think within that it's such an interesting point Carl but I think you can you can almost unpack and rephrase the goal I guess I guess an example of that that I really like is around kids you know I think I think all three of us are are fathers and um you know so one one of the things that I might you know if I saw a financial planner might get on on the piece of paper like I want I want to help my children with with education like they're in they're in private education at the moment great thing to plan we can put X on it we can build up we can build a plan around it but in in in all actuality like is that the goal like private education you can dig deeper in it's similar way that you use the the backright ladder you know so why do I want to provide private education well because you know I want to want to give my kids a good start in life or why do you want to give a good start in life or you you want them to be happy and fulfilled so and where you get to is is a is a different articulation of the goal you know what you actually want is for your children to achieve the potential and lead happy lives so the way that you achieve that it's it's like you were saying earlier that's that's your choice of of of vehicle so so do you choose the plane do you choose the the private education do you choose life experiences do you choose philanthropic endeavors do you choose what what how how do you how do you accomplish that now you've got a different definition of what it is that you're trying to do.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Completely yeah we get so caught up in the the tactic or the product or like the analogy we used earlier the vehicle that we forget to get clear about why we're doing this in the first place.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody on my team my my COO is always asking always taking a minute when we get deep tactically like strategically we're gonna do this, this, and this she's always taking a minute to say wait, wait, wait, could you back up and remind me what's the problem we're solving for here?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that question's always super helpful like, oh wait, wait it turns out the problem we're solving for here is not that like we went down this huge rabbit hole and I we do the same thing with our money all the time.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's super smart.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: A lot when I sit back and listen to you guys right and break it down even simpler is this avoidance pain, isn't it in this seeking of pleasure pleasure being like a life without pain, a life without problems and avoiding pain like that you say now but we send our children to private I want to send my child to private school to give them the better life.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well what is the like you said define what the better life actually looks like.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is a tougher harder life better than one which is for the privilege?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So when you actually start to dig a bit deeper, it is quite simply just our human innate ability to want to avoid pain and to try and seek an easier route an easier path.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean we get I think we get confused about that that it turns out that the easier path is not the more rewarding path.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: No I've learned that I've spent a lot of time thinking about like I mean I I remember going around I I I try to write I mean look Twitter may be the vehicle but the the goal underneath is this sort of like how close can I get to business poetry right how close can I get to Zen Cohen and this idea that hard is the point right there are plenty of things in my life that the very reason I'm doing them is because they're hard.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like making them easy defeats the purpose.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't I don't want the mountain I do a lot of work like a lot of I spend a lot of time in the mountains and I'm training for a big objective that's really really hard.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's so hard that there's no way in my current state I can do it.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: There's no way and so in a very real sense that objective actually the objective almost doesn't even matter except as the it's a forcing function to force me to become a different person because the current state has to die and the new state has to be born well I get tremendous like if you tried to make that easier I don't get the value that I'm after.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I think Michael Easter wrote this great book called The Comfort Crisis.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: He's going to be a a guest on my on my show next on Thursday and the entire point of his book is that we have a crisis of comfort and I think the only way to you know it's a very interesting point just like in a client conversation I want my kids to go to private school.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: I want them to have all this opportunity and often that person you're talking to I mean it's a little different in the UK because it's such a rich tradition of those sorts of things but often in the in the States the person that you're talking to is the first generation of people that would have enough money to think about private school because it wasn't a thing for us.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so you back up and like well did you go?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and the biggest concern we see here is am I like am I ruining my kids with this easy path?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know and and because they're at a high likelihood of becoming I heard somebody say the other day this is farm language I hope it's okay but I heard somebody say the other day like my kids are at a my kids have a very high probability of becoming assholes.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and he was like I gotta figure that out because I would have been one if I was growing up like them.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I think again to me the point of this conversation is like what's underneath it what's really the value we're trying to see in the world is there a different way so I love the idea one game I would play with clients all the time would be oh that's a really interesting goal.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: We've defined it really well what would be the opposite of that goal like just to open up the mind to like huh what's the purpose of that goal?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Let's remind ourselves why we're doing that like is is there a different way if we can get to the value the value is I want the kids to be you know I want the kids to be awesome humans.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: I want them to have a successful life is there a different way of reaching that same value right now you think private school is the way is there a different way just opening ourselves up to like well geez it turns out that you know maybe instead of taking that vacation every year we're gonna go do something hard.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know so anyway I love that discussion thank you.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah that's awesome I guess on that I I think one of the areas that can really inform great financial planning is is is positive psychology.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know so the work from from Martin Seligman and others.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And when you were talking Carl about about the mountain and the and the challenge it just reminded me of of the difference between seeking pleasures and seeking gratifications or that experience of flow which is where you lose sense of self you lose sense of time and and that that is absolutely about applying yourself to challenges and and ideally helping others according to the positive psychology research.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah for sure just matched matched challenges that are nicely matched to your current state a little bit harder than you think are possible but not too hard so it doesn't discourage you.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Not too easy so it doesn't isn't a challenge like finding those states we all know where they are like they're magic.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: They can be they can be playing the piano it can be I find it particularly in in sports on water where the where the medium itself is in flow.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: It can be writing you know so whatever those things are finding I I think there's an element to me there's an element of of at least on a professional level I love doing things that may not work.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: In fact if I'm sure that it will work I'm actually not interested.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now I'm convinced that it will work or else I'm not gonna engage like I'm like I think I can pull this off but there's always this I think and in these moments sometimes there's like I don't know like I'll get home at night and something will trigger and I'll just be like this is not going to work.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I that stuff has to be around for me.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like I I want to strip away because new and novel work doing something that's never been done before there's no way as humans we're always trying to put ground beneath our feet like we're always trying to find the seven hacks to writing a bestseller.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: And the reality is the only real hack is groundlessness.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know no ground beneath your feet because if you do truly new and novel work there's no path to follow.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the only thing I'm actually interested in is I don't want to follow a path.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: Now I say that and then there's these moments where I'm like dude can I just please could please for once I could just follow a path but all I need is a good night's sleep and the next morning I want to get back on the pathless path.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's as it relates to clients like helping them understand that rules of thumb are great my experience is going to be valuable to you but largely this is your plan and we don't have to think about what we saw on Instagram.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have to worry about how you know Harvard manages their endowment like we don't have to worry about what the silly guy said on the financial pornography network.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: All of that is interesting but we got to get to this spot where we take a deep breath and we say like what do I want to do?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: What's the thing I want to see in the world how do I want my kids to grow up do I like driving my old beat up car and I the only reason I feel tempted to replace is because everybody else cares?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like how can I get clear about me?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's the only place and that's a never ending journey which is back to the people who are listening to this that are thinking about getting in this industry that's why this journey is so beautiful and so rewarding is it's never ending.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so you look back with clients on their lives and I now have this experience where I have clients that you know I had 20 years ago and they have pictures for me.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Remember when we built the pottery studio remember when I retired and I learned to paraglide at age 58?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: I know who that is it's Dan.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: I know Denise built a pottery studio as part of her plan.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: I know Dave and Diane took a cross country trip sabbatical when their kids were young instead of waiting until their kids were old like I have those I have those postcards that's actually what planning's about it's about that.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sure there were spreadsheets behind that but it's about the pottery studio of Denise's right that's what it's about like empowering the purpose yeah for sure yeah you strike me as quite a like a quite a deep spiritual man.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: You strike me as somebody who knows himself really well you come across with kindness with compassion and you act with a service you know the position of financial planning to you is a service to others through kindness and compassion to help people discover who they truly are and using that vehicle to help them achieve more.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where did that come from?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: When did it start?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Were you always like that?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Did you change in your career was there a point where all of a sudden you changed sometimes that change often comes out of discovery like hitting a rock bottom or a bit of pain or something like that.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really interested to hear were you born like this?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well I mean first of all thank you that's super kind of you I it's really gratifying to hear that kind of thing more often the last couple of years I don't look I'm uncomfortable talking about but there's a a big financial advisor in the US Josh Brown who, you know, the only financial advisor I know that has more than a million followers on Twitter.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: And he recently referred to me as St.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: Carl which I I I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back but like hearing that kind of stuff is super gratifying.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know I think I've always been really curious I've always been really into people doing their thing and I've had a low tolerance for walking around like a zombie like I you know like sitting in the cubicle and looking at my phone all day like I don't have I I just want to like grab people and say don't you know like look there's this big world out here and I have this real firm belief that everybody has a everybody has a purpose and that we just forget it.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: It gets beat out of us in elementary school um and then if elementary school doesn't take care of it like society finishes it off like oh go back when when are you gonna get a real job?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like go back to being responsible and the people I've always loved and I didn't really realize this until the last couple of years I didn't realize I have a collection of them like I have pictures and little articles I've snipped like when I went back and looked through them they were always these wild-eyed crazy people you know like out doing stuff that Matt now that could be I I realized I didn't care I call it the thing like they all had a thing and I'm thing agnostic.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really care what the thing is I just care that you have one.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean I remember running in we lived in New Zealand for four years and I remember running into the I don't even know what it was the Olympic or the national badminton team.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't know if there's an Olympic badminton team but these were like the New Zealand best badminton players in the world New Zealand and they were so excited about it.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't care at all about badminton right but I could spend all night listening to them talk about badminton.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: So there's that and then I guess the other piece would be like we had a really tough when you say rec bottom like I I hadn't connected these dots but we had a really tough time in the financial crisis personally.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I learned a lot about empathy and judgment and just extending like it's so easy to look at somebody's financial choices and think oh how stupid and then you realize you have no clue what's going on behind the scenes.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have a friend like a quick story of a dentist friend his name's Todd and Todd um was always spending a lot of money on ski trips I remember and just I was always like gosh that seems so irresponsible because I knew Todd should quote unquote should be saving more and one night late at night we were having a conversation around a fire and I asked him I'm like Todd what's up with it like don't you feel irresponsible he's like he just was like mate if you had any clue like I'd be dead if it weren't for these ski trips you know like like it's the only right now with my marriage and my things that are going on like it's the only thing I've got and so then suddenly your heart opens and you're like oh oh I get it now.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like is there a better way to solve that problem?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, whatever, but who am I to decide that?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that really came out of having some really tough financial experiences myself and realizing like and seeing the judgment and the stories that would be written because I was a relatively public figure at the time and was writing a column for the New York Times.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so there was lots like 9,000 comments on the story that I wrote about it.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: And there was lots of stories that and then you just read them and be like that's not anything close to what happened.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: So then you suddenly realize like it's never my place.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: So that may be a piece of it hopefully that helps.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: No I like it.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I love that I loved what you said there about curiosity and that you've always been a naturally curious person.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think I don't know whether or not it's the same in America but in the UK it's always kind of keep your nose out of other people's business.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Curiosity kills a cat.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we aren't really encouraged to be curious and to ask questions and to delve deep.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing that I've found is that when I'm curious it it's it's an innate deeper connection with another human being because when I go deeper and I become curious I become interested in them therefore it's no longer about me.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's about them.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned so much from them.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm doing that and I'm listening I feel great.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know oxytocin is released in the body you know I feel fantastic.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: They feel fantastic because I'm listening to them oxytocin's released in their body and therefore there's a deeper connection.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever I listen and I'm curious and you mentioned it there that heart chakra opens up you know my heart opens and if someone's ever experienced what it feels like to have your heart open it's a powerful thing.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like something's rushing out of your body and either leaving you or rushing into your body and filling up your cup.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I can really relate if that's what you feel when your heart opens and the connection that you have with another human being is so like amazing and powerful.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah can I say would it be okay if I just tell a quick story.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: Of course you can so just related to that because I think it's really important.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the UK thing's always so funny to me like oh we don't curiosity and and we don't talk that way and we only invest in real estate and like all these things that people say about people and the truth is I have found I had some of the like if I we'd move back to London in a heartbeat because we had some of the deepest conversations and it found felt like you'd go there quickly and because people were interested in the human condition.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so I let me just tell you a quick story about and especially for your audience financial planners and then anybody who's thinking about getting into it.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I've got this friend Aaron who I would help occasionally he would have financial questions.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: So he wasn't he wasn't a client but close and Aaron came to me and I could tell you I don't know if hundreds is an exaggeration but I could tell you a hundred stories like this.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron came to me and said gosh Carl I don't get it um we'll just call his wife Sally his wife has a really unique name so we'll just replace it with Sally Aaron came to me and said I just don't get it.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: Sally's always going on about a new car and I don't I don't understand she wants this new fancy car.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: He's like she doesn't really care about any of this stuff anywhere else.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know like our house is great but she doesn't care about living in the best neighborhood she doesn't really clothes are great and she always dresses awesome but she doesn't really care about brand name I don't I just don't get it.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: What is it with this car?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: He's like it's getting so bad it's like the number one thing we fight about every time it comes up he's like in fact the other day it was like it blew up into this huge thing and it was like gosh that's so interesting you know Aaron I just wonder if if like what's behind that?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know like what's And it it dawned on Aaron to ask, you know, just be a little bit more curious and ask a couple more questions.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so one time he's having a qu you know, he has the opportunity to ask more questions to Sally, and he said, Hey, Sally, I don't get it.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: The car, like, it doesn't really match everything else.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I and and we can't afford it.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's putting a lot of pressure on me.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I like it's really causing problem.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's he's in his long-winded introduction way to ask a question, and Sally's finally like, Aaron, you don't understand.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and I apologize that you've misunderstood this or I've miscommunicated this.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: But when I was younger, my it's funny, I get emotional thinking about this.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: My dad, um, and the reason I get emotional is because of the experience of suddenly the empathy that opens up.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: My dad always drove old beat-up cars.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember pulling in front of, and if you can imagine in the states, we call it's junior high.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, just think of your school when you were 12, 13, 14.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I remember my dad dropping me off when I was 13 years old in front of the school, all the other kids getting out of their cars, the bus was unloading, kids everywhere, and the car wouldn't start when he went to leave.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember how embarrassed I was.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I didn't expect to be emotional.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: I remember breaking down on a country road and having to walk for a couple of miles to the nearest payphone back then.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I didn't mean new Aaron.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not reliable.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: And suddenly you can feel it now.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like Aaron, my friend, is like, oh my gosh, of course.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do we figure that out?
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I didn't know.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that experience where suddenly you have understanding and you took the time to say, gosh, it's so interesting.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me more, Sally, about that.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't, I don't understand.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: Could you help me clarify that I must be missing something?
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and that that job, I could tell you another story about a vacation home that was very similar.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that, but the conversation was facilitated by the financial advisor because the husband was saying, I don't get it.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: My wife's going on about building a second home.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, it'll take 10 seconds, not 10, but 30, like, my wife's going on about building a second home.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: CEO of a major publicly traded company that you would all actually recognize.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: Wife's going on about a second home.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: Finally, the advisor is like, well, let's just have a conversation about it.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: Says to the wife, like, hey, we, you know, building a second, they had a beautiful second home in Hawaii.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: And building a third, so it'd be like a second, second home.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: And the advisor is like, you know, that would put a real strain on the financial plan here.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: And she was like, seriously, you guys don't think I don't know that.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and she turns to her husband in the financial advisor's office and says, I'm trying to give you another chance.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: The kids and I, when we, the first couple of years of going to that home in Hawaii, you were always so stressed that all we think about when we think about going to Hawaii is you yelling.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm trying to give you another chance.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, we're going to sell the Hawaii house.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're building a new one to give you another chance.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: And suddenly, and that was facilitated by the advisor.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: Suddenly, the husband, of course, is like, oh, oh, of course.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how, you know, turns to the advisor.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Could we please make that happen?
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that to me is that empathy, the listening, the asking the good questions, the oxytocin you're talking about.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is not woo-woo California stuff.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually chemical, like this happens.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: So asking good questions, I don't care if curiosity kills the cat in the UK.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: What I care about is how good I know you feel as a human when somebody asks you a question.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now, maybe we have to be a little bit more crafty, like a little bit more skilled.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things I loved about being in the UK is people were skilled at conflict.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like I would listen to arguments and I would be like, whoa, in the United States, this would be a fight now.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody would be throwing punches and you're giving each other high fives afterwards.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: Skilled, so maybe we have to be a little bit more skilled at our ability to ask interesting questions, maybe.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: And but you are.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: You're skilled at dialogue.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, I sorry for taking a long tangent, but that to me is what real planning is really all about.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's spot on to me.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's exactly how you know I am.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: I three and a half years ago, I did a 12-step process.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I was I was drinking a lot of alcohol and taking drugs to deal with my problems, running a business.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was stressed.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was it was, you know, I was stuck in self.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: I felt awful, you know, suicidal, not a nice place, terrible relationships, all sorts.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: Business wasn't wasn't great.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: People in my business would didn't like me very much.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to take a good hard look at myself.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I got mentored by a 12-step person, you know, who took me through the 12-step process.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: And one of that part of the process is taking a good hard look at yourself.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he asks me fact-finding questions.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: He asks me questions with compassion, kindness, to help bring it out of me.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: So going through that process myself, understanding the power of somebody listening, identifying with some of the issues that I have, offering solutions and showing empathy was huge.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the step process is then to give back to others and to do exactly that way.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what I've learned over the three and a half years is the work comes when I give back to others, not when somebody did the work with me, that the true work, the true change within me was when I could sit, forget me, and listen to that person, give my time up, empathy, understanding, start from the beginning again and really kind of be leading with a question that's kind and compassionate to uncover and discover what somebody's internal trauma or past problems might well be that are leading them to use substances in a way to mask the reality of life.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and that was such a powerful process for me to go through.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that you talk about what you do and the passion you have for good financial planning, it's it's so similar.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like empathy is everything.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the chemical reaction that you talk about, I felt it's why they say it's like a spiritual experience going through like a 12-step process, because the internal feeling you get, that feeling of something humbling out of your chest when you feel fantastic, when you feel your self-worth fill up, you know, you identify what self-worth actually feels like, not fake because you've chucked a load of booze down your throat or something like that.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredibly powerful.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then the connection I've had with other men since doing it, and also leading into this talk club charity that I'm now a part of, which is a men's mental fitness charity, the power of communication, opening up and being the word I love at the moment, or two, I love compassion, the word compassion, showing compassion is a man.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: But one of my favorite words is vulnerability, being vulnerable, being allowed to be vulnerable in a safe space where you're not going to be judged.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: One of the worst low frequency things that we can do to anybody else is to judge them.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: And once you've got that in place and the trust comes, people open up and out it all flows.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when the true change happens and those things we hold on to, those fears and those resentments leave us.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's powerful stuff.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt it firsthand.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that you talk, and that's why I connected with you.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love you're coming across exactly like the type of guy I I love.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I love your whole approach to and and the beautiful thing about what it is that you do, it's so interchangeable.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just financial planning, you're just being a good human being.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: And being a good human being in any walk of life, in any business, whether or not you're dedicated to philanthropy, charity, whether or not you're a multi-million pound business owner, or you work in the coffee shop, it doesn't matter.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: What you're displaying is good characteristics of what a good person actually is that lives their life with purpose from within.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of beginning of change, isn't it?
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the beginning of being happy and being content, and everything else is a byproduct of feeling good, happy, and content within.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is my take on what that is.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about a bit of a tangent there, but no, yeah, thank you.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we come across a lot, what do you know about and your thoughts are on imposter syndrome?
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: So lots of people will be listening to this podcast who might well be at the very beginning of their journey of becoming a financial planner and they feel like they are an imposter.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's your experience around that or the thoughts around that?
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm super familiar and I've spent a lot of time with my I call him because I've embodied uh impostor syndrome.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: I have a little bobblehead actually that is my embodiment of imposter syndrome.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: Spent a lot of time with um my friend impostor syndrome, and I I have a slightly different take, and I've got to be clear that there are versions of impostor syndrome that are real syndromes that need to be treated professionally, and I'm not talking about that.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about like a kind of a strain of fear that shows up.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the way I the the reason to anybody who's feeling it, the reason you feel it is because you are an imposter, right?
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: You're doing new and novel work.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I actually don't think of it as, and I see this a lot online, like I'm gonna kill imposter syndrome, or kick fear in the teeth, or you know, I don't know fear, or I think I kind of feel the opposite.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: And the opposite is I we talked a little bit about this earlier, I've structured my life now that the feeling that I call imposter syndrome or fear.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: So imposter syndrome to me is a just a unique strain of fear.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: I want to expose myself to that feeling as often as possible.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, if I go a couple of days without feeling um imposter syndrome, I something's up.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: And and so here's here's here's how I got to that conclusion.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: I so I wrote this column for the New York Times every week for 10 years.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: And every week on Thursdays, when the deadline was, I'd have this experience in my door and my old office, and it's actually the same here, my door was over my left shoulder.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'd be sitting at the so I'm in Park City, Utah.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not in New York City, I live in Park City.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a kid from the hills in Utah, divorced parents, never could focus, right?
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like I had all that stuff in my head.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you just my grades were terrible.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_02: I barely made it into the public, you know, university that everybody got into.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like all of that stuff's in my head.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm somehow I'm doing something for the New York Times that involves Sharpie and cardstock.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like for in the hills in Utah.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd come in Thursday mornings and I would write the thing, I'd write the column, and then I'd have to illustrate it with a sketch.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's the column was called the sketch guy.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd illustrate it with a sketch, and the sketch involved in the early days, it was just Sharpie and cardstock.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then I had this Fujitsu snap scanner.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't even have like a proper flatbed scanner.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: I had this Fujitsu$99 snap scanner.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I would, I would work on the sketch and I would throw paper over my shoulders, and I would finally get one where I was like, oh, the deadline, oh geez, I got to do this.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I would put it in the Fujitsu snap scanner.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: I would hit, there's no music playing, there was no light coming through the windows, there was no inspiration, there was no feeling it.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I would scan it and I would send it off.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: And right when I would go to hit send on the email to my editor, I would feel this like over my left shoulder at the door.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_02: And my door was frosted glass.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: So you could make out that there was a person out there, but you couldn't tell anything about the person, male, female, who it was, anything.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the feeling I would have is that there was a person out there and that they were going to open the door, and they would.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: They would open the door in my mind.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: They would open the door and they would look in the door and they would be like, what is going on in here?
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is that do they know that you're a kid from the hills?
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you that that's cardstock?
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: Are you using a snap scanner?
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, wait till they find out.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like, wait till they find out.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you close the door.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: And the other version of it is that he would come in and I ended up embodying this person.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_02: It looked like Mr.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_02: Burns, which is Homer Simpson's boss.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I have a bobblehead somewhere.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's in this box that the computer's on, of that somebody who heard me tell this story sent me this bobblehead of Mr.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_02: Burns.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_02: So if Mr.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: Burns doesn't show up in my life, so the other version would be Mr.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: Burns would come all the way in and there was a big switch on the wall, like the big electric, like train switches, and it said Carl's career and the switches in the on position.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: And Mr.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: Burns would reach up, look at me, and cackle, and then just flip it to the off position.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was what went on every Thursday.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so then I would travel.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_02: I remember one of the first experiences in South Africa, speaking at some big event.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was a 3,000-seat theater stadium.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I'd walk, I walked in to do the sound check and was just like, what is going on?
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: Do they know?
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's no way.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: I felt that in the UK.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: I felt that in the work that I did every I today.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh my gosh, there's seven podcast interviews scheduled today.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: What am I going to possibly add that's value?
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: I feel that all the time.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, that's so interesting.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: Why is that?
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: Then one day I was out, I was kayaking, whitewater kayaking in New Zealand.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just about to push off the shore into this pretty scary river.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I had the same feeling.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was like, wait, where else have I had that feeling?
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh my gosh, at my marriage.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, at the birth of every one of my kids.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: So then I was like, wait a second.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: Mr.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: Burns was at every cool event in my life.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I looked at the picture of the people that were at every event, Mr.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: Burns was in that picture.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was like, well, why do I want him to go away?
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't I instead like welcome in, Mr.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: Burns?
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm glad you're here.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_02: Let's get to work.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: So now when I look over my shoulder and I see that door, I'm like, I go open it and say, hey, brother, like I'm glad you're back.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, let's get to work.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the key, of course, is Mr.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_02: Burns, uh Elizabeth Gilbert says this.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't say Mr.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: Burns, but fear can come on the trip.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_02: They just can't drive.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: Fear has saved my life before.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to kick that person in the teeth.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how I've transformed my experience with imposter syndrome.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, some days I'm just too tired.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: And Mr.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: Burns shows up and I'm like, not today, brother.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm gonna go take a nap.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: But most days I'm like, let's get to work.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm so glad you're here.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that to me, I wouldn't think of imposter syndrome as bad.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: I would think of it as, hey, you're about to do something cool.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: It may not work.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that's okay, because guess what?
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: If it doesn't work, you won't die.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's the part we have to change about Mr.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_02: Burns.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: Or imposter syndrome is Mr.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_02: Burns is coming from a genetic, like hereditary place where Mr.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: Burns is saying, if you leave the tribe, you're going to get eaten by a lion.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that was true.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: But it's no longer true.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I love to look over at Mr.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: Burns and go, hey, bro, I'm just writing an email.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_02: Everything's fine.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, even if this goes bad, like nobody's gonna die.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm just giving a talk.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's the worst that can happen?
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody's gonna shoot me.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm not gonna die.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I think if we can just transform a little bit of the edges of Mr.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_02: Burns, then we can say, gosh, brother, welcome back.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: Let's get to work.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like cognitive distortion, isn't it?
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it's important to remember it.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_02: It served a purpose.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: It kept us alive as a species.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: And in some cases, it still does.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_02: Fear has saved my life.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_02: I know I can point to specific instances where that feeling has been like, don't ski that slope.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then we've seen avalanches.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: Don't do that.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like I know fear is it.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: Don't, you know, don't get in that car as a teenager.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm just writing an email.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_02: Different relationship.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: Fear can be a fantastic motivator, eh?
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_02: I I just love turning fear into fuel.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that takes, like, we didn't have time to talk about it, but I know some of the work you're doing is around like mental health.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: That fear into fuel takes the you can only take so much of that without rest.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_02: Proper food, exercise outside, time in cold water, good sleep, like some of those basic things that you know you can find on the internets.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it if you're gonna play that game, you've got to rest.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to be well resourced.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and when you feel yourself being what not well resourced, it's time to say, it's part of my job.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have to convince my wife, I'm like, this nap is work.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_02: This is part of my job.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: My time in the mountains, I know everybody thinks that's cute that you spent 17 hours in the mountains last week.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's so irresponsible you could have been working.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: I hear you.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, that's that's that's all I've got to say on that subject.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely relatable.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can totally fully understand that.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we've come to the end.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: We've run out of time with you.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it's been an absolute pleasure bringing you on the Financial Planner Life podcast.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's my first experience of talking to you and listening to you, and I love what you're about.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's so refreshing to talk to you.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: So cool.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: Any questions?
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: Anything else to sign off on?
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that's been fantastic, Carl.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was I think as Sam said, it's it's been an absolute privilege.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for your time.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_02: Cheers, my friends.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: That was really, really fun.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's uh I do a lot of these, and it's obvious that you're a pro.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks for thanks for taking the time to do that because it makes the experience so great.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_02: So cheers.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: Next time you're in London, I'll buy I'll buy you a beer in the hollybush.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_02: I would love that.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_02: I we want to get back so bad.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: We we left pretty, you know, abruptly.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: We came home for a a two-week trip.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: We left food in the fridge in the flat there in Hampstead, you know, and didn't come back right in the middle of the pandemic.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: We were like, why are we like we're here with family and you know, all the things that we we were so far away from our kids.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_02: So um we haven't been back and are we need we we're it's in the plans next summer.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: So awesome.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: Firm believer that the universe puts people in contact with me for a reason.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I a hundred percent believe there's something else that you and I can do together.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to put that out into the universe and to let you know that.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm hugely grateful for your time today.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just want you to know that um, you know, I hope you're having a fantastic rest of the week, fantastic rest of the day, and a fantastic life.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you so much for joining me.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_02: Real pleasure.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_02: Cheers, Sam.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Paul.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: See you later.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: Bye.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: Bye.