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In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss
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Welcome to The Real advisor podcast, T R A P trap. Please follow us and join in the conversation on Twitter at advisor podcast where you can suggest ideas and themes you'd like the track team to discuss. Also remember to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and leave a six out of five star review on iTunes. Doing all this really really helps us which means we can do more to help you. Now let's head over to the studio for the latest pile of trap.
Nick Lincoln:Yes, indeed, dear TRAPPIST, welcome back to Episode 30 of the real advice podcast T R A P trap. My name is Lincoln Lincoln and joining me as ever other three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the hearts call the voice of widger and Alan the story teller Smith now dear Trappists, we are yes, running on fumes might be too kind today. We'll talk about that in a moment. So do forgive us if we're slightly slightly contemplate discussions today. A star certainly further ado though, without any further ado, let's let's just bring up the energy bus back into the recording. By going over to my good friend Mr. Andrew Hall for any number of high energy review reads of the real advisor podcast just hop
Andy Hart:right over to me. Okay. First review is from Dara O'Connor, who's based in Ireland. It's entitled outstanding podcasts with four pioneers of the noble profession five stars. As a financial advisor based in Ireland, I followed all four members of the trap for many years. I'm currently running a product selling transactional brokerage. I've wanted to make the commitment to transform the business into proper financial planning firm for many years, but I've never made the commitment listening to the gents talk about real financial planning in such great detail has been the catalyst I've needed to make the change. Hearing the meaningful relationships I've developed with clients and the true job satisfaction that they get from providing real financial planning has been inspirational. These four gents are true pioneers of this noble profession and I'm extremely grateful for each of their contributions and willingness to share their expertise. Thanks, lads thorough, superb review some of you might want to comment on that in a second. final review is from Wigan 11 a great show packed full of nothing. Five stars a fantastic show with great honesty discussion and practical takeaways highly recommend to anyone in the in the financial visor profession, especially those just starting out. It's awesome to hear the opinions of those who have been there and done it back to your boss.
Nick Lincoln:Great stuff. Great stuff, thanks ever TRAPPIST for your reviews and that as we're starting to set up if you if you feel comfortable doing it, please do leave your real name in the review so we can call you out and then tag you and engender a sense of community because a lovely review from you. We're going to learn but no no idea who you are. If you don't want to do it, that's absolutely fine. Some people want to remain anonymous, but Darras review there is very brave saying I've run a transactional business. I'm gonna go to this and he's put his name to it. So that's, that's lovely. Thanks, Derek.
Alan Smith:A couple of times really nice guy. And you're very, very genuine in terms of I believe I remember correctly he feels taken Yeah, that he is close personal friend. He I think he's taken over his father's business. If I if I remember correctly, there's a lot of that sort of up and down the country is known in Ireland and everywhere else that kind of intergenerational sort of the way things used to be done and moving into a much more kind of Yeah, active financial planning led business and great Fedora he's you've been across the UK a couple of times and he's got what was that?
Carl Widger:Trying to get my words out here. Yeah, no fair play to number one. Yeah, someone just very proud of you. And are all I'd say is just go for it man. Just go for it. You will thank yourself. It does no doubt it'll be tough going for a couple of years but you will thank yourself in the future for sure. Go for it. Well done.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, great stuff. Great stuff. So why are we at dusty why are we a bit rusty, why are a bit crusty? Well, the Track Pack went to went to Paris to open the Rugby World Cup this weekend. And it went very well. We had a fantastic time. Paris was magnificent. It was I think we had that seemed like the weather in this neck of the world was very good. It was lovely in this country was beautiful in Paris. With a fantastic time he watched so far the game of the tournament and good luck to Samoa because they nearly beat the will be champions but they held on and it was a good weekend. We went we went we went to watch Ireland versus Scotland and we had a fantastic time. I don't really have any downsides to it. Really. I think Smith would have been To add a closer match, we all would have enjoyed a closer match but it was the atmosphere was Paris is really expensive. It's London prices then add some on so just bear that in mind. That's what I'm gonna send. I really enjoyed it. car will start with you just for quick reflection on the weekend.
Carl Widger:Yeah, look, it was amazing. We should see that we're although this is going out on Thursday we're recording this on Monday morning, whoever decided that that was a good idea. Having returned home late last night. This was not a good idea. Anyway, we get through it. But yeah, it was just amazing. We had such you know, a lot of fun. We met up on Friday afternoon. And you know, we had an island booked beautiful restaurant that his dad had been in many years ago in Paris. We had just, I would say more very memorable, most magnificent launch in mid March, before we went out to the game and it was it was the game and the atmosphere and the Irish fans just took the place over was amazing. But when I when I reflect I know I will definitely definitely remember the afternoon we spent in that restaurant. As much as I will remember remember the match garden rugby team are bloody magnificent. I really just hope that they can keep this going to have three more weekends, hopefully. But it can all come crashing down in one weekend. So that sport guys in it. You know, we were all open for coastal game. You guys definitely had to be tucked in to be nervous about Scotland. Yeah, that was causing an upset. Which after 62 seconds and James Logan across the line. It was like okay, maybe not. But yeah, it was just brilliant. I actually watched the game when I came home last night with my uncle. And it was like, yeah, it was just a stunning, stunning performance for the first 40 or 50 minutes from Ireland. But yeah, brilliant, brilliant fun, boys. And thanks for coming along and making it so memorable. Okay,
Andy Hart:Mr. Hart? Or me? Yeah, no, it was absolutely fantastic. We could have asked for more. We went over in the Eurostar Friday afternoon. Two hours and 20 minutes from basically some Pancras straight into, you know, Paris Central, the weather was amazing. The people in company they were okay, we, we we got through it. We had a laugh, the game was fantastic. Even traveling to the stad de France. We were thinking three hours. It took us maybe about an hour. The crowds are on good form. I mean, if it was a football match, and they're at each other then yeah, that atmosphere would have been very different. So I mean, the Scottish and the Irish say, Yeah, big, big fans of each other. So yeah, it was brilliant. We could have asked for more. It was easy to get beer in the stadium. The game is a bit of a letdown to be fair, we expected it to be a bit tighter but it wasn't yeah couldn't also more was a basically a Carlsberg weekend. Over to you, Alan.
Alan Smith:Yeah, no, I
Andy Hart:enjoyed it. Of
Alan Smith:course I did. It was it was a it was a fabulous weekend. You're right car there was something very for me quite poignant. Almost resume as mentioned before, my old man my dad is in his 80s Now a big rugby fan traveled the world following the Scotland team and he always said you love going him and his his pals used to go to this very same restaurant that we went to. And before I was going he sent me the details in the address and we managed to book it and we sat in the garden just the four of us just sort of chewing the fat talking about everything and anything are a thoroughly good time before we set off for the match and of course I went in there full of high spirits and the kind of well are Ireland are number one in the world. But you never know. It's 15 against 15 or whatever they say nowadays. I mean, one thing is you know, I've I've traveled I've seen Scotland football and rugby away in many places before and as usually a huge Scottish support. My God, we were outnumbered I'm gonna say 10 to one, it felt like 10 to one certainly two or three to one minimal and you know, there's me sort of singing flowers Scotland at the top of my voice. I felt pretty lonely because all around me was a sea of green but everyone was in good spirits. Everyone was positive obviously the huge Irish contingent were extremely happy and positive. Overall was It was fabulous. I nearly sort of last thing I'll check into the mix is the it's kind of become well documented what Ireland did because it wasn't long ago, Ireland were pretty much pretty mediocre as a rugby team. And within the space of a few years, they're now the the best in the world. Because there's I think there's lessons to be learned there in terms of business, other sports, how they actually had a long term plan to create this kind of model, which they now do and are now taken to to the world. That's all Nick, back to you.
Nick Lincoln:Great stuff. Okay. Fires now. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead
Andy Hart:and say final thing, just again, add some more context to it. So I think the game finished around about 11 1115 took a little bit of time to get out the stadium. There was no chance we were getting on the metro no chance we're gonna get an overnight chance we're getting a cab so we were forced to hang around. And it was a pure carnival atmosphere. The bars were absolutely going off. I mean, the music everyone outside drinking, it was nice warm weather. We couldn't have asked for more, I think I think me and Alan were the were the were the ones to leave, you know, the earliest that night and we got a taxi at half past To to go about 1515 minutes down the road, the guy charges 120 euros. The prices, as Nick mentioned are astronomical. And then Nick and Carl turned up some time later. Nick, do you want to mention anything about the service in Paris like when they when they give you your meal if you if you ask for any additional extras?
Nick Lincoln:Not really my friend. I think we've done this today.
Alan Smith:Let's go carry on Nick, what's next, Nick? Let's go. Not everyone's fans, but we had a great time. Oh, the last thing I'll say is that we tend to hang on this is relevant to this bringing full this is what you call segues. Nick lit, what little listen and learn. We bring this we at that match that day that afternoon, that we all got together and sat in the in the place and had lunch then went to the game that was the literally the day to the day of the first anniversary of when we published the first episode of the real advisor podcast October 7 2022. So it was quite nice, sort of completing the circle to be all together on the first birthday. Now Nate carry on.
Nick Lincoln:Well, that does lead to a genuine segue, which is quite nice. We have our first live event. Organized when I say organized we the four of us have managed to agree a date. That's as far as we've got done so far. But Mr. Hart do tell our dear Trappists when it is happening, yes. So
Andy Hart:he has been a lot of talk about us doing trap lives. There's a bit of an appetite for it. I think we've got about 150 people, Nick and we on the list somewhere that said they're sort of interested, which is great. Yeah, it's, it's going to be the ninth of May 2024. Got a staggering 2024. Or talking about it. Yes, so the ninth of May 2024, we're thinking it's going to be sort of like a late afternoon evening, we think it's going to be from 6pm to 8pm. And then we'll arrange somewhere to go after and then we're trying to work out the format if we're gonna do a live show, yada yada yada. But anyway, if you're interested in it, just pencil it in your diary save the day ninth of May 2024. And you can go back to your boss,
Nick Lincoln:I don't know anything else to say thank you. So I went to my accredited trade bodies annual conference, the Si Si Si Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments. I was formerly PFS, but like, like a lot of people disenchanted for various reasons. So I went to the CC conference at wooden house and leafy sorry, and it was good actually. It was nice. I enjoyed it. So I wanted to shout out to Susie for putting that on. Because it seekers the main guy I've actually forgotten his name but the Chimp Paradox Dr. Steven somebody you guys Peters, Steven Peters, thank you very very engaging and if nothing if for no other reason, his concept was excellent. But he's got a gruff Yorkshire accent and persona and it's quite refreshing we go to these and we go to these these seminars and you're sat down and Petronella and talk we will talk to you about their latest whatever x y Zed absolute return and rubbish fund before going to pick the kids from Eton and then this guy you know he was there basically in his well is you can see the whip it's dripping out of his pocket so a very very good experience wouldn't have been lovely we have an evening meal at 10 beers winery which is a very known on an English winery down the road they do they do white and sparkling and even red wine which is not that easy this far north but they did it very good. Enjoy so thank out for the people that organize that thank you for the thank you for the excellent guys who are active in CC. You know that you are listening to this I met you I met you with the show lots of and by the way loads of friends of trap. They're just overwhelmingly friendly and and lovely. So thank you for the feedback. It gives us all a real boost in the arm. So that was that was that was very good to hats off to Cece. Okay. Now you've got a tropical tip here smithy, but I'm losing I don't know where culture corner and tropical tidbits overlap. So go ahead with the Finovate a podcast.
Alan Smith:Oh, yeah. Well, it's just tropical tidbits in as much I mentioned this before, but it's covered as a podcast. Member It was ages ago was in the summer, I was injured. I did a webinar with Stuart's from Australia, Sydney, Stuart Bell. And it was like a live event. But he's now because the content was so damn good. Because he he spoke to me, but he has pushed it out as a podcast now i'll put a link to it is it's about an hour long. If I say so myself, I think it's quite good. file it under quite good. It's me speaking with Stuart from Sydney, Australia about all things you know, business growth, development, content creation and getting off the tools in terms of passing on work to other advisors within your organization within your company. So I'll put a link to it. Someone wants to jump on that podcast, they can listen to me speaking.
Nick Lincoln:Okey dokey. I saw something recently Monzo Monzo bank, one of these disruptive banks, whatever you want to call them. And they've got this new thing, this app where you can start saving so easily investing from as little as one pound. And you can do ad hoc. So you can do regular monthly, as you said up through rapid, it's like three or four clicks to get this thing going. Now you're going into, into Blackrock funds, so that's fine, low costs, there's not a great choice of range, but they're there. But the point is, there's zero friction to do it, there's absolutely nothing and, and I just compare that compare and contrast. If we want to get someone saving young couple of young people accumulating for their future selves, it's, it's like, wow, it's like, well, you know, I noticed what a man is betting on. But I think for all of us, the amount of stuff we have to go through, so credit to Monzo bank, it's easy to get your money in, I imagine it's just as easy to get your money out. And that's where these things tend to fall down. But we'll see how it goes. With all of these kinds of robo advisor schemes, but just amazingly easy to do. It's almost as easy to set up a savings account with Munzo as it is to get a credit card from them. And the moment that tipping point is reached with maybe doing something a bit better. You guys don't have to say on that. I don't think okay, Mr. Smith, you went to that lime, lime a Rick a limerick, Limerick, Krakow?
Alan Smith:I don't know you, Nick. You haven't? You haven't seen the updated notes? Because I removed that. But I'll talk about it anyway, soon. As you mentioned, they're right in front of
Nick Lincoln:you with that. I'm looking right at it on a live Google Doc as trip to Lima, Rick. Oh, is there?
Alan Smith:Okay. Well. I just did you want to back in?
Nick Lincoln:Oh, for Christ's sake.
Alan Smith:She's, you can see we do have that Monday morning, Rusty feeling after weekend in Paris.
Carl Widger:Everyone try to remember anybody's names. It's like, Yeah, I can't really remember that person's name. Let's move on. Just move on. I, I'll just introduce this. So look, we had a team day and Mattis last was last week or the week before. And we have a couple of new new people joined the team or whatever. So we all got together. And we kind of did a full team day in the afternoon, I did a bit of a talk. And then Alan did a piece as well. So look, it was it was just, it was brilliant. I would encourage everybody to, you know, bring in external speakers just get an external review. Because not only did we hear from Alan, I suppose Alan had some input, because he sat in on the meetings with us. So Alan had some input for the team just on the day. And then afterwards to me about you know, this is what we do, or whatever, you know, so always be learning. And you know, nobody is making this stuff up from the word goal does no one inventing financial planning? So it's like how can you get best in class financial planning people around you, and learn from them. And like, I make no bones about the fact that Metis Ireland was born, developed and grown up on ideas from other people, because we didn't invent it. And I just had, you know, look around all the time and see, what's what's the best in the business? What has worked for other people. And then we just filter stuff out, and we decide what what might work for us. And you know, and we just go and do it, and we're pretty good at just going to do it, but there was a great boss that day, we've kind of pretty young team. So yeah, Adam, what did you think of the of the whole setup?
Alan Smith:I thoroughly enjoyed it. Actually, it's, it is interesting. I've already done that before, not much if I if I have not that I can remember in terms of going across as a as a guest really having a little sort of peek behind the curtains of another business. And it was interesting, and I'll tell you there is I'm not just saying this to blow smoke up your backside car, but there's a real positive energy with Metis Ireland right now you are you know, you're definitely on a growth trajectory. There's no bones about it. I mean, I joked about the you know, the The Wolf of Wallstreet, the Wolf The wolf of Limerick, in terms of I mean, it's the positive way because it was all about let's you know, what's our growth story? Let's look at our numbers qualify that way quickly. Yeah, exactly. No, it was really it was good, of course to throw in growth mode. They're helping people they're making an impact in the lives of families, why would you not want to do it for more and more more and more people which exactly what they're doing, but the good thing is everyone is in the team. And you're right, you do have a few new people there. And we're just great to you know, to make sure that they understood and you certainly got one or two so when I spoke it was not from financial services. So I always want to make it clear to people that this is not normal that if you went to a lot of other companies it might you might not have the same experience and we have one or two people who joined us from from outside. And you might think that every single financial planning company is like this and does full fat financial planning to every client every time and it's not necessarily the case. So yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it we and again, use one thing that Metis Ireland certainly know how to do is to celebrate afterwards, after the meetings is I gotta work hard play hard environment. which is fabulous, really good. I support it wholeheartedly and we should all do more of this is just have a, you know, to integrate with others who are all kind of on the same journey on the same path because we can all learn from each other. And I guess that is what trap is all about. It's kind of just sharing our knowledge and experience with others on similar journeys.
Carl Widger:I was excited. And I'm thank you for coming across out and we do appreciate it
Nick Lincoln:is my pleasure. Very good. Okay. I think that's one of the reasons we also go to these. These peer groups don't mean that we've talked about before, we know that myself and Andy and Alan, go to this one in in London. And we've had Trappists asked us about a setting and how do you go about doing it, you know, doing ones out? Local, you just just go and do it. I do think this is a very giving community. I mean, again, I can't comment for other professions or you know, accountancy or the legal professional. If they if they share ideas as openly as this I'd be very surprised that they share ideas more openly than then most open minded financial advisors do. And why reinvent the wheel, somebody out there has done what you're trying to do is done already. So just get together with like minded people, and you can just carry the load.
Carl Widger:Board. Can I just expand on one point there? Because I know we we've got, we have some experience recently of people kind of asking for advice or you know, asking for meetings and maybe not showing up or whatever. Right. So the important thing for me and Alan obviously, clearly is good friend of mine. So I could have just said, Alan, come on over and whatever, right. But I said to the guys in Medicine said right, Ireland is our guest speaker, we're going to treat Ireland with we're going to give him the red carpet treatment. And I think it's so important. If you're asking somebody for a favor that you do, you know, you give back to them and make sure that they feel special. And I know that Allen gave her his absolute 120% Because, you know, everybody and Mattis was dying to meet on and they all had their questions ready and all that kind of stuff. So it's just respect the people that you're asking to come over and that you're asking to do stuff for you. I think that's really, really important. Because we've seen some instances maybe where that hasn't been the case.
Alan Smith:Yeah, that is true. For sure. You will get the organization was superb was picked up in a beautiful pig limousine driven to the best hotel in Limerick. And you know, it's no story.
Carl Widger:And then also, they'll also see that I was deeply uncomfortable to some of today's owing to the Irish versus UK cultural differences.
Nick Lincoln:Call comes over to us and we say getting getting a cab or getting get the train around London, we go to Ireland and Carl lays on Carlos on a limo fare you go
Carl Widger:from the night when I go over, were meeting up for lunch or whatever. So I'm not necessarily going into one of your businesses. But Alan was coming into our business and he was doing us a massive favor. So I said right, we're going to do this, right. And look, I'm just saying it because there's a lot of people looking for stuff on the cheap. And you know, maybe being a little bit disrespectful of other people's time. So you know, if you're asking for a favor, you got to treat the people that you're asking for the favor for with respect.
Alan Smith:Well, that's right, because you won't get second chance, I think is the answer to this. You're somebody for a favor and you can let them down one way or another. You're unlike posts highly unlikely to see yes, another time. So there we go. So yeah, point well made call.
Nick Lincoln:And you're Andy I'll say out loud, Alan, you might have changed microphones might so you can just change look at your settings and mute yourself while you do it. And then keep one of you to others keep an eye on him while I go through the show. Thanks. Okay, I think we've done topical titbits. Let's have a look at where are well in that case, we're on to the meat and potatoes of the show. And there is a burgeoning and you'll probably shoot me down for even calling it DIY movement. But there's a burgeoning movement of people who are looking to take financial control of their lives by themselves without an advisor using the power of online communities and peer groups and so forth to exchange ideas and ways to do things to be able to save for their future selves. I think the best known group of all is this financial independence retire early movement fire again, Andy shoot me down the minimalist, I believe was US, US based initially, but it's kind of gone around the world. There's certainly a bigger fire movement in this country. So I just thought, let's just see what the four of us think about it good and bad. And perhaps what lessons we can learn, if any from the fire movement. So Mr. Hart you need off, sir.
Andy Hart:Yeah, I think that was a good intro. I think we're going to try and focus on the fire movement rather than the DIY the no help option, but obviously, the lines can be a bit the same. They can be a little bit bubbler, but DIY, there's a lot of people that are DIY investors that avoid financial advisors have got no idea what the fire is. Does that make sense? They might, over time start investing on their own thing actually, is there a better way to do this? How can I actually become a bit of a better financial advisor for myself? So yeah, the fire community started, it's been, it's been going for the decades, you know, I think there was a famous book that came out and the name escapes me at the moment, but there's some, but the person who popularized it in the US was called Mister Money Mustache. So it's worth checking out his website, he goes into quite a lot of detail around the sort of strategies around it. So the first part of it is called, FYI, financial independence. That's what we're working on with all of our clients anyway, we say to our clients, you know, work with me, and we will ensure that you sort of reach financial independence, then maintain financial independence, which, again, is a slightly slightly different strategy of creating the wealth and obviously, you know, living off it. And then the other bit is, you know, retire early that that, again, is the bit that some people sort of sort of argue about. And then it's like, well, what are you retiring to as cold calls it the third act, etc. So, yeah, that's the movement, financial independence, retire early. But the reason why I like the movement, generally, is because I believe they're, they're distilling the essence of financial success. So the first thing they want you to do is obviously work out what your personal monthly burn rate is, how much money you're spending every single month, you know, what amount do you need, if you've got no mortgage? Got no kids? You know, what does that look like? So So that's so they they confirm that number? Keep it simple. And let's say it's three grand a month, so someone's spend three grand a month for the rest of their life. In the fire community, you generally times that you you're trying to work out what the safe withdrawal rate is from from from a stash of cash, basically. So let's say it was three grand a month, you times that by 300, that's 900,000, you need 900,000 golden coins, and you're going to be financially independent. That's the back of a fag packet calculation. The next question is, well, what are you going to do in terms of trying to create this 900,000 or a million pounds, keep it simple, a million golden coins. Again, they're huge fans of global equities, they get rid of all the other financial trash, all the other marketing BS, and they just go right, all of your wealth is going to come from global equities, which again, I'm a huge fan of, and then they find the lowest charge and global equity fund as a no help DIY investor, and they go all in on that fund. Yes, they do panic, sometimes during market cycles, but some of them don't. So again, it is all around behavior. And that's basically at it essence, work out how much you're spending, work out how much you need, and then try and create that money via global equities. So that's, that's my starter. Over to you, Nick.
Nick Lincoln:Thanks, Abby. Kind of a throwback to you? What? How does the fire does the fire other fire? Is the fire movement? I'll get my words out of it. Is the fire movement agnostic about advisors? Or do they have as far as you understand any particular views Pro or Pro?
Andy Hart:Oh, no, they're very much you don't need financial advisors, they are an extra huge cost, that will probably do a worse job for you around investing. And then probably add no other value that that's one of my concerns with the movement, they think just because they've read a book or a blog, they think they can do it themselves and a totally rational and don't need any, you know, help from Alan, pause when you're typing, and know that they're generally not fans of financial advisors, which which, which again, is what what I think is somewhat of a concern and they think everybody else can do it. So when they get into the fire movement, it's like a mini religion it's like a financial religion that's called it you know, they're very, very diehard about about fire. There'll be telling everyone at work don't either you don't need any financial advisors do it yourself. They think everyone else can do it, because they can do it. It's like somebody's really good at the gym just telling everyone I just do it yourself. Go to the gym, your own. You don't your personal trainer, you know, you don't need coaches in your life. So, so yeah, I don't know if that, if that helps, Nick.
Nick Lincoln:It does help. Thank you. And we know now that Alan's microphone is working, call the financial independence retire early concept resonates because that's what we're helping all our clients to, or certainly retire to a secure, dignified, independent retirement. We're not so driven about retiring early necessarily, but the movement is based around that. And that involves giving up a lot of the now but something later on and you've got a more nuanced thought about that.
Carl Widger:Yeah, well, let's see if we can if we can articulate it this morning guys. So the financial independence Andy's right, that's clearly I like to call that job optional right. We're all trying to get our clients to there as soon as we can. Right? But I think the bit that and I don't know everything about the fire movement Okay, so I haven't done a ton of reading on it but I've run a read a couple of case studies and that kind of stuff. But what what I seem to see when I he looked at fire case studies or interviews with people who you know are big in the fire movement is this whole move towards retire early. That's always retire early and get that financial independence with giving stuff up now for years on end, potentially decades on end to try and retire at 45 or 50. Or earlier in some cases, right? And this is the thing, and I've said this, I've been so consistent about this, right? That that that third act that Andy mentioned, right, that's, if I go back to a couple of episodes ago, I mentioned the book by Dan Sullivan. And Benjamin Hardy. And I mentioned that the definition of what's true wealth that, for me, they put in the missing link, because it was like, you know, I used to always have said, and I think I got it from island to be fair, that you know, the definition true wealth is doing what you want, with whom you want, when you want. But the missing link for me was Dan Sullivan's definition is freedom of time. So that's your time is yourself, freedom of relationships. So you're doing it with whom, whatever you want to do with whomever you want to do freedom of money, but the last bit, so freedom of money is clearly the financial independence, the last bit is freedom of purpose. And this is the missing link for me, number one, that this whole, I'm going to always live almost in the future, I'm not going to live in the now to retire early. So to get to a place or a point whereby I don't have to do anything. And that's I don't think that that's a great place for anybody to be trying to head head towards. It's like, you need a purpose. You need to, I think the old adage of retirement where you you know, play golf all the time, or do your garden or sit in the beach or whatever, right? That that's, that's evolving, we are evolving here, and people need to have some kind of a purpose. So that's one thing that I that I, that I think is really important about this. Having a goal to just retire early is not enough. It's definitely not enough. And you haven't thought that through if that's all you want to do. And then the second thing is, I did recommend a previous book, I'm not going to recommend this one because Eckhart Tolle has written a book called The Power of Now, I couldn't get it at all. In fact, I went and read his second book to make sure that it wasn't just me, right, but it's like, I just couldn't really get the book. But it's
Nick Lincoln:a moment. I thought it was just me. Thank you.
Andy Hart:Yeah, I absolutely loved that book. The power now. There you go. That book hit me in the eyes. A lot. I know a lot of people are super fans of that book. But yeah. Yeah. And
Carl Widger:to be fair, to be fair, Andy, I have as well, I know, loads of people who rave about it, right. But I do like the concept of the book about the living in the present moment right now called the
Andy Hart:person supporting you on this book recommendations. And Nick Lincoln, okay, all right.
Carl Widger:No, I'm not look, I I'm admitting I'm admitting myself here that I haven't got it. But that doesn't mean it's not a great book. So you know, go and check it out yourself, right. But the essence or the concept is to live your life now. And I'm guilty, I was guilty in the past of always living at the moment of hitting the next goal or the next target or whatever. And I'm, it's self taught for me all the time. So you got to enjoy the journey, and you got to make experiences along the journey. And they're the magical moments that you'll remember as you go on, I just feel perhaps the fire movement are gonna miss out on some of that magical journey. Because sometimes, you know, you might have to spend a few extra quid to have those experiences like going to behind me, here's Yosemite right with your kids or, or going to avoid can't match what your mates you know, so sort of that's kind of my problem. But I will say have not is it a massive problem? No, because I think the total financial independence is real and we should all be trying to get there. And do I know loads about it? I probably don't. So am I in the best position to comment? Maybe I'm not blush. I just have
Nick Lincoln:Yes, I mean, the bars of Gay Paree can certainly attest to you living in the now. So by you, you've been relatively quiet.
Carl Widger:As opposed to you like you were sitting outside. Yeah. Anyway, anyway.
Nick Lincoln:Mr. Smith, do you have anything to say?
Alan Smith:Yeah, a couple of things. i In all honesty, I haven't spent a great deal of time thinking about fire. Because I didn't I didn't really get it because it's to me it's kind of bleeding obvious, isn't it? Is that isn't that what we're all trying to do financial independence is just all those things is work optional. And maybe they've taken it to another level. But there's a couple of couple of brief reflections. Many years ago, I read the book enough by Paul Thompson, who's a you know, an influential a lot of people's a lot of advisors lives and all the work that he did and his cash flow stuff and everything. And to me that That was the that was my first time I kind of if you like, got it, it wasn't it wasn't talking about fire obviously, before we're just talking about how much is enough effectively, he runs through a few case studies, which if you read it, you can immediately relate to it. Oh yeah, I've got a client a bit like that. Or I know someone who's a bit like the other one that the and so that was what it was all about is identifying what a life well lived looked like, putting some figures numbers around it, and then doing the reverse engineering to say, well, how much do you need to save now what might you need to sell your business for or whatever. So that is the version as far as I'm concerned of before fire is a think it's got a got a reputation for being all about frugality, you know, living, you know, living on, you know, call tenza Can beans and stuff like that for 30 years in order that you could retire when you're 40 or something like that? And I don't think it necessarily isn't, I think, as Andy's mentioned before, there's all these there's fat fire, and within fire, there's various variations of it. But ultimately, it's always the same as everything else. What if I've got a relative my brother in law, he sort of got into this a few years ago. And what he said was, all of a sudden, I had a purpose for investing. I didn't before that I was just sort of saving or my company pension scheme was obviously is it was a, it was like a burden widely taking money out my salary, because I wanted, all of a sudden you realized that this was there was a purpose for him saving money, then you get into it, and he understands. And so of course, and you're right, Andy interestingly, for those and and John, shout out to John, he's gone deep into this. He's a sort of technician by trade. So he leaves no stone unturned in his desire to find the optimal way of saving for long term returns. And what does he invest in Vanguard global equities for 1520 basis points or something like that. So that is the pure distilled essence of long term savings, low cost, high X, you know, the best possible returns you can get over the long term. The last thing I'll say on it is the saving money for your retirement, whenever that may be early or late, wherever is easy bit. That's just easy. That's just you chuck as much as you can reasonably afford into global equities. And you benefit from markets over the over the decades, markets, you know, increased returns, the hardest part is coming down the other side, is all the things as Carl talked about. So there's this sort of, there's lifestyle, there's family, there's any number of other issues that are relevant. There's also a lot of technical aspects about the coming down the other side, I'm going to post a link in the show notes to a recent article from there's a website and so part of this the same fire community. It's called early, I think it's called retire early now. But this is a very detailed article, sorry. Yeah, early retirement now.com. And I'll put a post a link to a specific article, the safe withdrawal rate series, they're making the point, that the difference we've all heard about the this sort of safe withdrawal, a 4% withdrawal rate, some people believe in it, some people challenge it, it's all fine, whatever you want to believe in. But in this article, which is very well written, they say the difference between a 4% and a three and a half percent can be life changing can be so impactful for you and yet but beneath the various that in other words, the whole thing is very nuanced. And doing that without an advisor can lead to some negative returns over the long term. So as I say, growing your assets to retire early is pretty straightforward. Coming down the other side of the mountain isn't as easy as people might think it is at that point, you may wish to hire a fee only advisor to get you through some of those challenging points. Andy
Andy Hart:Yeah, good point on that island. The latest client has taken on it try to embark on this on his own and numbers just got too big and he needed a lot help and since I've worked with him I've added so much value. The first thing we did is work out the money flow where's the money flowing? Is it going to the right parts and is it doing the right thing?
Unknown:And the the Hilldrup a Darien Andy knows about everything Andy can be told anything. His name is Andrew Hart.
Andy Hart:So I suppose it again boils down to we help people answer expensive questions seamless, seamless. Yeah, so it got to a point where he had expensive questions. He didn't want to make a mistake. So pensee So our financial advisor, Alan mentioned it is this Lean versus fat fire. So lean is yes, I want to retire at 37 sell my car eat very fruit frugally, conveniently that they don't have children, you know, and they only want to have a burn rate of, I don't know, 2200 pounds a month and you know, and they can get there relatively easily. Where it's fat fire is you know, I want to spend 10 grand a month I still crunch all the numbers are still being global equities. I still want to retire earlier, let's say 46 and do something that I'm more passionate about. So it's not as if I'm gonna retire at 46 You know, and sit there and do nothing, you know, I'm going to be driven and you know, help more and more people for what I can do. So you can there's various ways ways to skin it slice and dice it. If you're a financial advisor, listen to this one of the greatest books I think on fire up, you know, successful investing. hammering home a very simple point in multiple different ways is a book by JL Collins. It's called Simple Path to Wealth, I recommend you listen to it on Audible books is read by the author is basically a book from him to his daughter telling her what he thinks she should invest in throughout her life. So it's got a sort of narrative running through it. And I think it's a an awesome book. So I do recommend that financial advisors check that out anyway. Anyone else?
Nick Lincoln:So it's a couple of points there. And we agree that Anna's point is very good, but it really it really is relatively painless to sock money away though it if you've got a significant amount of money stashed in various tax privileged pots in the UK and in Ireland. And then you need to start turning those taps on you make one mistake that I I'm not, I'm not beating myself up for the sake of it. But it's I'm just saying unadvised you can accrue money if you've got that mentality. If you don't have money outgoings, if you'd happen not to have children, that makes it obviously easier, that's fine in the accumulation stage, you can probably get knowledge, you know, information from the internet to get you there. And you can work out your own budget, and you're probably a lot of engineers are probably fire people, they're probably are just very analytical, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, you get the other side, we need to go start turning on those tabs. So you've got to be dealing with taxes you've got to be doing, knowing the legislation, one false move on pensions or what have you. It does get more tricky them. And again, I'm sure there are many in the fire movement, who who can do that? I think, for us as financial planners. And so this is becoming more and more of a thing with the work of Mitch Antony and his cohorts in the US and also people in this in this in this country. It's not what are you retiring from is what are you retiring to? So we as advisors are building these fantastic financial plans for clients getting them to that. So that point of independence. But there's a lot more to it than that. And we're starting to involve in our conversations with people coming into that retirement sweet spot. Questions about okay, what it How are you going to fill your time and these are people who aren't retiring at 43 or 44. These are people who are CEOs you know, they're successful people, they've they built their own businesses, maybe retiring what we consider a normal age of late 50s, early 60s, and for them is a dramatic move, because all of their social worth are a lot of their social work comes from work, they don't realize it till it's gone. And we're coaching these people through that transition, as well as dealing with the money stuff. But these five people, they're talking, you know, we want to go early 40s, early 40s. Okay, what are you retiring to? All your mates more than likely assuming you have them are going to be working? What what are you doing, you know, you and you've got, you spent 20 years scrimping and scraping to build up these pots. So you've built up very little social credit because you won't have been on you want to belong to clubs, I wouldn't have thought you won't go on holidays or lavish holidays. You won't have that network around you. Now you've got in quotes enough. Six decades ahead. I mean, that's the only thing I would say. Now I'm coming to this again like because I'm not part of it. I did try to become part of it as a lurker Don't worry, Andy, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say anything particularly egregious here. So I'm the UK fire movement has a Facebook page. And I'm a look on Facebook. Facebook is where hope goes to die. So I have no presence on there. But it's it has one use, it's quite good for groups. If you've got a niche. It's quite good for groups. So I joined the UK fire page and then within a day I was chucked off it and normally that happens because I start typing stuff. I've been chucked off so many groups No, I I've got a Google sheet of groups I've been banned from disabling trying to reapply to join. This is the first group we've ever joined. I've been kicked off for not posting anything without posting anything, which is even by my standards is a work of art. And I just I don't know, the moderators were very passive aggressive, and I got the impression these people are very, very heavy on Excel skills are very light on social skills. So that might be a defining characteristic or the moderators on this group and that they were very rude to some of their own members. But maybe you've got to be that way doing it on your own. You just got to be dogmatic. You don't acquire many social skills that's fine when you got six decades on your own. We did put some money behind you. Good luck turning on the social skills tap. That's why we're in the round. I'm loving it. I've totally for him. You know, we want people to be financially independent. That that's that's our raison d'etre. Right but we want them to retire to something with a purpose if we can and if you want to do that on your own, a accrue enough and then be work out how you're going to spend that in a way that satisfies your values and gives you meaning. I think that's a big ask but crack on and all power to them for trying to do it. And for those that don't well for doing it, well, that's my thought. Fair summary.
Andy Hart:Yep, let's, let's move on here. stony
Nick Lincoln:silence to me is the Tumbleweed going by so I think we can now go on to the TRAPPIST questions I see. There she is calling calling the sack up the Dr. Post. He has come with some more TRAPPIST questions, beloved audience and if you want to post one to the group, there's that link in the pinned tweet at the top of the of our Twitter feed, obviously because it's pinned Why do I need to tell you what that means? I don't know. I'm rambling. I'm running on fumes Give me a break in the so called shownotes. There's also a link where you can click on there and submit your questions. We are getting through them. I think we're now what are we now we're in October. We're now around kind of March time in the practice questions Hopper we're up we're answering them sequentially, we will get to you. And we've got two more questions that are done and these are from because these are actually they get delivered in envelopes is bizarre they submit electronically but it comes to be an envelope then ask them just open this one up. The first one is from this guy sounds like he's you've been inside center for the All Blacks Jonno, Randall Nash. Jonathan says, I'm interested in how you approach conversations with clients or prospective clients that want to invest in commercial property or buy to let Jesus John and give us a break with dying, either personally or through sips. I believe in the power of equity exposure over property in the long term, in whatever form and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of all sides with a graph. With a graph over 10 years looking at their respective returns, however, I stopped short of saying investing global equities over property, do you go further, I kick this off. And we we've mentioned before, and I know we should be agnostic, and we should not go into client meetings, and dump our perceptions on to people but at the end of the day, we're liquidity managers when we make sure people have enough at various stages of their life, to fund those crucial events that all the planning and all the saving is for and I am now getting extremely careful with taking on prospects who have a buy to let portfolio not because I'm particularly against property per se, as an asset class is certainly better than sticking, sticking cash under the bed. It's just a monumental pain in the ass to manage it. For me as an advisor, let alone for the clients. You know, if you want the if you want the cash to buy a new car, you can't just re mortgage the porch on the bicycle let you know it's in the tax the tax breaks now. Now interest rates have gone back to somewhere that is actually normal. Yes, people younger people, this is normality. Okay, the math just doesn't seem to work. In the vast, vast majority of cases, you've got the capital gains regime is being really really pinched. Again, you can't sell a third of a property the same way you can sell a third of an investment property portfolio and manage the CGT it's all or nothing. So I would Yeah, I would I do believe the easiest cost, the most economical way for most clients to achieve financial independence in their own terms is just to invest in those companies, they spend their payslips on every month and just own a fraction of all those great brands and walk away and come back in 30 years. Guys,
Carl Widger:I jump in, obviously, been in Ireland are the Irish love their property. So this is something that kind of comes across our desk summarise every single week, I would say, I looked at there's a couple of things. And I'm just probably gonna reiterate a lot of the stuff you said there, Nick, but like you did, the liquidity is massive. And I've come across so many cases where people you know, you can't sell a window out of a house. So you can't sell part of of property. So that's a big deal when you're coming to that financial independence stage, because you're going to need to have liquidity at some stage. The other thing, of course, that people sometimes forget is the the entry and the exit costs, right in terms of fees and stamp duty and all of that kind of stuff. People have an awful habit of just forgetting about that. But it's like, you know, oh, Jesus Christ, those it's 1.2% to invest in a fund on a platform or whatever, you know, and it's like it pales into insignificance when you compare it to big upfront fees, in terms of buying properties. But again, it's a it's a big topic. It's it's it's a difficult one, I think you got to really kind of work through it with somebody I would say if you're if you have a client who has got tons of buy to let like a bad idea will be to start off that conversation saying you're wrong. I would say maybe work through it over a period of time. And I'll Andy has done through Home Premium, he has done a chart showing kind of property returns versus long term equity returns. That can be handy if you like your charts. But yeah, it's a big topic. Yep. Go ahead Nick.
Nick Lincoln:Just provide bonds bounce around the two ways. I would say Jonno Randall Nash inside center for the All Blacks. I will refine your prospecting process perhaps so you don't even have these conversations that you say at the outset I get people to financial Nirvana by investing in the great companies of the world that's our process and then people would bite lip put you won't because you're never convinced them man and certainly not with graphs and people when they fall in love with property as an investment. It's they fall in love heavier than they do with their first crush at school is like this is love. And you can wait you can weed out the best graphs and the best numbers. You know a man can vent and or a woman or something in between a man convinced against his will Well is of the same opinion still. So I would, I would go back to your onboarding process and say, This is how I do it. This is the system we use, this is what you're going to put your money into. And then you're going to weed out the buy to let people who want that because there'll be other advisors who can handle that. That's, that's again, and that's me being dogmatic. I hear some people screaming, we're not independent. If you don't agree with the options, all rubbish, give me a break. Right, Alan? Andy?
Andy Hart:Do you still think about your first crush, Nick.
Nick Lincoln:I live with her. They're lovely. Good. The inside centers, comments around them, property.
Andy Hart:Allah, Allah go first, I'm going to be quite pro properties, just chop it up.
Alan Smith:I mean, just creating a link in the last two subjects quite interesting. If you've got a whole bunch of people who are actively engineers, financial engineers, and various people who just want to optimize for retirement or just for financial independence, I don't see anyone in the fire movement recommended by property, for example. So they're just all about distilling everything down to the raw essence of what we're trying to do. So that is, if they were buying property that they thought that was a better thing, then that would be that would sort of open up the conversation more. So that's just an observation. Just thinking about last two subjects that I come from my, my family, historically, our property people, my dad, that's how he made his money back in the day, real estate property development, and my dad couldn't see past and all of his community, people I used to know, growing up, couldn't see past property. And what I eventually came to realize it's not about property is the asset class, it's about this magic thing called leverage, you can take 10,000 pounds and go and buy an asset for 100,000 pounds, right, for example. And then if that asset goes up by 10% a year, you're getting a compound return at the much higher level, obviously, you've got high levels of risk, you're exposed, exposed to interest rate risk, and any number of other factors, but on the face of it, that is what property is, it's a play on leverage, you can't really do that in this country. Not really with equities, unless you sort of open up margin accounts, then you're into a whole other world of hurt, and complexity and significant risk. I don't think Andy has done this as well, the comment, if he's still still doing it, I'm sure he let us know, I've been a buy to let investor I've currently got buy to let property. So happens, my tenant is my mother in law. So she's okay, as a tenant, I can't kick her out anytime I want. But so therefore, it's a relatively low hassle experience for me, although it's not without still relatively high degree of hassle relative to my other investments, other things that I've got, there's just always something to be going going on, as always something about add another car park outside or something about the heating. And you should and it's just as I say, this is kind of light touch. My view of property is if you want to get into it, you're doing it as a business, you're probably doing it for a limited company, you're buying five or 10 or 15, you're going to the bank, and you've got you've got highly optimized for tax, etc, you've got an account, and it's kind of like a business. If you want to do as a business then fine. But buying one or to buy to let properties that just that's just everything bad about it is sub optimal for investment returns. It's terrible nowadays in the UK, at least from a tax viewpoint, and just amount of grief and hassle as people say, you know, your vanguard portfolio doesn't wake you up at three in the morning because of the burst pipe in the winter, for example. And then other people can say, oh, no, I've got an agent that deals with that Well, fine. And again, your yield is getting lower and lower paying them 10 or 20% a year to manage the other hassles that go on. So in summary, yeah, you meet clients or prospective clients have got property, don't try and tell them it's terrible. You say it's okay, but diversification is your friend, you can own property. Anyone that we meet nowadays are pretty much trying to sell their property as well. So it's the hassle factor. To me, it's the biggest thing. And people haven't people don't recognize anyone's own buy to let properties for a bit of time will completely relate to a hassle factor. Back to you, Andy.
Andy Hart:Yeah, got loads of points to talk about here. So I'll just go through a couple of them. Yeah, trying to tell someone who's made hundreds of 1000s of pounds and millions of pounds personally, the property is crap and doesn't work and here's all the reasons why. You know, pick your battles you know, it's insane so yeah, I Yeah, you've got to be very careful in relation to that. You're right Alan, if they are buying selling trade in developing it's a business you know, we know loads of businesses that make a lot of money so so again, yeah, the property business works in that essence. But yeah, if you're just buying one or two, then yeah, that's where a lot of the of the trouble starts. The fire community. You're right. They never promote buying property, but I'm pretty sure a load of them have ended up with a load of high hassle properties in random areas because they've listened to a random podcast. That's I'm promoting a new area where hospitals being built and some other odd things about transport bought links or something. So a lot of people I've come across in the fire community have bought high household properties and random places. I mean, over the last, you know, few decades, property has done quite well. But I think we're exiting the golden age of the golden age of making money via property through capital growth through rents through low interest rates. And also, I think, so I've got a lot of clients that have property, they're not like property people. And that's all they do, because their worst clients ever for financial advisors, they build up money in ISIS, they build up money elsewhere, they want to take tax free cash out of the pension as soon as they can to buy another product, you know, so yeah, they're not good clients for proper financial planners as such. But then you get ones in the middle that have sort of hit their property goal target, and now they want to, you know, divest elsewhere. Diversify. And also I think clients that are in an ideal position that retire, let's say 65, keep it simple or 60. Something they got to state pensions, which which are great. They've got a slice of rental income coming in with low borrowing. So it is cleared money. And then they have X 100 1000s. In pensions, x 100 1000s. Is ISIS. They've got a sort of a nice mix. Yeah, so there's a couple of points there. Yeah, I've actually just sold a property in London and fly and in London, I paid my first CDT bill the other day, which is quite a quite a milestone in my little brain. Yeah, so I'm pleased I've got rid of it. The mortgage is gonna go up to, you know, a crazy number. Again, yeah, we're meeting a lot of clients now that have property that saying, oh, when the rate goes up, I'll just sell it. Like as in it's 2%. At the moment, next, easy, no, yeah. Next May when everyone's running for the door, and my rates are gonna go from two to six. I'll just sell it and I bought it for 200. I definitely don't wanna sell it for less than 200. No, no, no, no, no. Next year in May, when that goes from two to six, you, nobody would even buy it for 140 130, who gives the monkeys what you paid for it? We have not even yet seen the carnage that's going to develop or the carnage that's going to erupt in the biotech world when all of these rates are, you know, tripling quadrupling. My rate was going to go up to nine and a half percent if I stayed out, if I stayed on my Mendes. standard rate, so yeah, my mortgage, my rent would have been 1400. And the mortgage would have been like two and a half grand. Luckily, I could sell it. It's one of my success stories in relation to property. I got a few other horror stories anyway. So there's a load of points in there. Anyone want to want to chip in?
Nick Lincoln:I think that's, I think, I think in the downward threat, genre ran out, yes, something might have been you and you only if you've got a client who's got a limited company full of properties that's slightly different, you know, a big bite lip or phone because then you've got a training concern, then you're in control of salary, dividends, all the other kinds of stuff that that can help liquidity. But if you're one of these, if you're dealing with clients who have like three or four vital hits, you know, they haven't got quite enough to work may stick into a limited company. It's just like, Oh, it's from a data gathering point of view each year just doubles that the time it takes to get all the updated figures for the for the annual planning meeting. What do you want to call it? Okay, let's open up the the next letter and see who this is from. This is from a good guy, John Doyle, John Doe, who spoke at the ci si conference. Unfortunately, I missed his slot due to a scheduling problem with his with his presentation on my pillow. But I imagined knowing John is a very good very good sloth John is another one of the posts on his belt. You know, these parents, John Jr. When all through his life he said there's no age Okay, for the love of Christ has no age. So John, his question is speed of onboarding from an initial planning meeting. Two money invested, it feels like I've gone from a one hit wonder in 2009 to six week Marathon Man. Amen. Further, the delays appear to be us waiting on information from providers. Yes, they are. But working with doctors and dentists, we can often be stuck waiting for weeks for the NHS pension before finalizing a proper financial plan. What are your realistic timescales, timeframes for your onboarding process? And where do you find your cases stuck in the process? Well, I guess that does depend on your client market. If you're working with doctors and dentists, primarily, you got the behemoth that is the NHS. Guys, we want to do three lead off on that because I know you've read that question. I've given it a lot of thought prior to us recording this episode.
Andy Hart:I'll just quickly chip in. It's just small steps forward of onboarding clients. In I say to them, there's a load of stuff that we need to get done sorted out probably about 40 Different things we need to do we're just going to just keep moving forward getting stuff done. Even if I've got someone with an NHS pension scheme, and it's gonna get a rough number to sketch it into the financial planner then just continue to sort of build into it but yeah, thanks take absolute months at the moment, but hey, oh, it's it's all was a hassle with the onboarding process.
Alan Smith:When George John saying is going from a one hit wonder, we don't quite know what that means. But just what signing up a client when you meet. So just six week Marathon Man, I mean, six weeks, in my opinion is not bad. For the first time you meet a client to their sort of bully?
Nick Lincoln:Sadly that's true. Yeah.
Alan Smith:Yeah. I mean, I would, I could see three months would be you know, yeah, obviously, it depends on the client. Yeah, this long, we've talked, we've had, we've had a year in certain circumstances, oh, my God, that I talked about this. And I want to have the energy to explain this drama we had a while ago. With this particular organization. I'll save that for another time. But it was it was literally a year. It was just beyond belief. I remember some years ago, I went out to America on a fact finding tour, and I was meeting all these American advisors. And they were there and that this was the question that came out. How long does it take you guys to move your youth to take on a client. And because they were seeing it live from the moment the client signs that whatever it is form, they got one form to sign they said, it's like 48 hours, maximum, this is a form to sign. And I was saying, I was probably, you know, probably actually shortening it. I was saying, Yeah, four weeks, six weeks can be a couple of months. And they were absolutely horrified. I couldn't work out. Why I mean, not only we can't, as you know, we have to gather the data from historical legacy product providers, etc. And you got to write up advice, and you issue it in a particular format. And the whole thing is just brutal. And painful is the worst part of our job was part of the whole sector. So it takes it can take months. So John, your six weeks is actually pretty, pretty punchy, pretty good. Other parts of the world, I'm really interested to hear what God has to say in it. Because other parts of the world seem to be saying the US at least seems to be able to move much, much faster, little tip or give to people and this is again, perhaps stating the bleeding obvious, but we may well be chasing up providers making phone calls, you know, dealing with information comes back wrong or half is missing and going back to them, et cetera. Keep your client informed, keep your client informed, just you know, a weekly email or something there just to let you know, nothing has happened, that we haven't done anything, we're still not gonna happen. But we'll chase them again before we wait for a phone call back. Because from the clients perspective, obviously things go they've had a great meeting, hopefully a great sort of discovery meeting or whatever it might be. And if we don't hear from us for three, four or five weeks, they're wondering what the hell's going on. So we try to be as proactive as we possibly can on that call What's life like in Ireland for bringing on new clients,
Carl Widger:it's the same out and it's I would say three months is pretty much our standard turnaround time. From you know, getting the first plan to getting the client across the board. I was the only point I was gonna make I don't you just nailed it. I'm always saying to the team here that first of all, you got to position it at the at the outset tell the client during that that the good moments and the WoW financial plan, make sure you position it right then this is gonna be a little bit of torture. You have a little bit of homework to do, but most of it that is back on us, but it is going to take ages we're going to keep telling you what's happening. But we're expecting a three to four month turnaround time here before you're actually a client of ours. So yeah, that's all I have to really add on that.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, interesting. Interesting. It's just an it's an ongoing thing. I'm on boarding a couple now and between them they've got six pension pots, he's got five two of them are with the administered by Mercer's you know you say that word out loud and already you can sort of feel the breakfast coming back up. So it is what it is the end I can't really talk about the NHS pension scheme getting information I haven't I've never done it, but I am currently married to a head teacher and I have another teacher as a client as well. And they're they're pretty good. I mean, the teachers can log in and get current statements at any time they get an annual statement anywhere on their pension benefits in March, but you can log in and get an updated one pretty easily. So so the for those clients that's not a problem for me, but a really couple of good questions. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks to your Trapeze. Thanks, John. And John Doe, John, I was on LinkedIn I won't read that out but John's on on Twitter as at Juniper underscore John no h John no he has not published Twitter This is why it's a problem if you don't know he got some explaining people think was apart but get it Jr. When Christ on a bike Alright, let's move on culture corner killed the scope. Okay, culture corner. Oh, goodness, me first. Okay. All right. I'll get mine out of the way. So Doom Slayer and of course is the link to this in the so called Show Notes Aaron. The Doom Slayer is from the people behind the human progress website which basically just just archives all the good things that humanity has done since it's been around and doomed slider is a weekly email where they just pick out one area one subject of the current verified data that comes into your inbox about the state of the world. It's just something a you can either use in content you might want to send forward to your clients, you might want to forward the email on to your clients. Just a reminder, despite everything that's going on, this always sounds like it's horrendous. And there is a lot of horrendous stuff going on actually, now has never been have been a place to be alive. And my second thing, this is rocket book. So I bought one of those e tablet writing devices couple of years ago. And I just didn't use it enough. And I just don't want any more cables in my life. I don't want anything else that has to be recharged, I want something that's quite tactile feels a bit like paper. So rocket book is a is a hybrid. So it's about 20 pages in this it's a physical book, a4, you can get a five as well spiral bound, and you write on this stuff. And then it comes with an app and you can scan whenever you've written and it's very good and neat and tidy look go to whatever you want Dropbox into your email, and then you wipe the pages clean. So it's just it's like you haven't got a great big thick paper thing on you. You've got this very light book, you have the special pens, but you can get pilot do these are holding the camera for this pilot in this pen is the cheapest chips. Just neat and tidy bit feels way better for me than writing on a tablet. I haven't got to worry about charging it up. I haven't got another cable in my life. So if you're if you're always looking at these kinds of things, never quite finding a solution to paper. But you want something as light and tech enabled because the app is very good and you just scan it beautiful resident you know, results perfectly. Rocket book is my my physical thing of the episode now who's next on the hit list of doom still without a link in it, but I forgive you for the moment. The Missing billionaires by Viktor Garni.
Alan Smith:Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Nick. That's me. This is a new book just came out Victor Garni. Very interesting character. I met him years ago at a dimensional geikie Was he was speaking there. And he did a TED also CPR to CP F CPF. close personal friend. So he did I did a TED Talk some years ago noticed her the TED Talk into a book. The book is called The Missing billionaires. In fact, he's coming on as a guest on my award winning podcast bulletproof entrepreneur this week. But he's it's quite an interesting story. He obviously goes into a lot of other things. Victor Gan, his background is he was some people listen to this and watch this are old enough to remember a company called Long Term Capital Management. A hedge fund the huge hedge fund about maybe 20 years ago will say, the old tea they come out there's kind of there's a book written about them called the smartest guys in the room think it is all either super, super smart, you know, PhDs, rocket scientists, financial engineers, who get together to create this hedge fund and they're just doing extraordinary rates of return year after year. So people are piling more and more money into them. They've got however many billions of assets under management. And the whole thing just blows up, they took a bet against the thinker's the Russian bond market and all things blew up. And it all went to kind of zero, I think it had to get bailed out by the Fed. And Victor was part of that team. So he's super, super smart guy. But it's the realize, again, back to the essence of investing. And what is interesting here, he talks about the missing billionaires, he looks back at these super wealthy families, you know, I want to say the What the what they call the you know, the it is that don't fit Yeah, they're very fit these various super wealthy families of 100 years ago, 200 years ago, that if they had just if you look at the data, their terms, and you sort of view your inflation adjusted it to Presently, there should be, you know, 1000s and 1000s of billionaires, their heirs who would have inherited millions and millions of pounds, hundreds of billions of pounds. If you just look at the statistics around, had they invested in, you know, the global stock market in the USA X
Andy Hart:event, Van Vandevelde, those sort of people, yeah, Vanderbilt, so they didn't know the self withdrawal rate, the safe withdrawal rate. They just agreed, though, that would take him 1314 28% A year 4%. But it should have been three and a half and they'd be saved. If it had been 3.497. They'd be flying now.
Alan Smith:And they but they were investing all sorts of crazy stuff. They were buying hotels or buying stuff that they there was sort of investing outside their sphere of knowledge, circle of competence. And so therefore, there was a there are a fraction. In fact, if you look at the actual numbers of billionaires that exist in the US around the world, nowadays, very, very few of them in a handful came from that previous generation. Most of them are, you know, they've created their wealth in the last 3040 years in this country. So he talks about that and so therefore, he obviously talks about how to optimize for long term investment as it's it gets a little bit in the weeds quite detailed, but nevertheless, it's an interesting book. And actually also links to the conversation we had last time about you know, investing for so called high net worth, which is, you know, since someone gets wealthy, we got to find something else where they're getting, there's no one more wealthy than these people, the Vanderbilts and the Gettys. And all these other sort of billionaires, they are super wealthy. And they started investing in sort of weird and wonderful esoteric type investments and not withdrawing the appropriate amount, etcetera. And they've all kind of lost their money. They've gone from billionaire status to, you know, just just mildly rich, in some cases, nothing at all. So, good book and it but if you don't have the time to read the book, do check out his talk. His TED talk is 20 minutes long. When he explains all this. It's worth having a look at and I'll post, I'll post a link in the show notes. That's my one for this sweet voice.
Nick Lincoln:Great stuff. Thank you very much, Mr. Hart. Michael Lewis going infinite.
Andy Hart:Well, it's a book on the similar sort of vein but almost sort of the sort of creation end of it. Yeah, huge fan of the author, Michael Lewis. And he also runs a podcast I've mentioned on here before his new book only came out last week, I believe called going infinite. The Rise and Fall of a new tycoon, the tycoon being SBF Sam Backman fried who set up FTX. And another hedge fund investing in crypto, it is staggering this book. I've already been through it once and I'm going through again, is absolutely mind blown. The numbers that this guy this organization, people around him things that were being quoted, you know, he was buying all the real estate you could in the Bahamas and still owns it. He invested in 300 individual companies invested billions in any one that would basically email him and say we need money. Apparently, all he was doing was sign in DocuSign just to basically send money to people all the time. Just crazy numbers that's going on. Obviously, there's a court case on at the moment, there's the missing 9 billion, I think, you know, he had customers and clients in every different country breaking all the rules or the financial rules or the regulator rules. It's just pure Wild West. But again, it's the sort of lead up story around how most of the investment banks now in the US have become quite boring. And there's these these new sort of flash flash boys as is original book. You know, just algorithmic super fast trading. Anyway, so history of all that sort of stuff. I can't write the book enough. So yeah, it's called going infinite, the rise and fall of a new tycoon by Michael Lewis.
Nick Lincoln:And Michael Lewis was interviewed on the most recent BARRY RITHOLTZ podcast episode, so that gives you a flavor of the book and the theme. Okay, brilliant. Thanks, Andy. So, voice done abaci. The ride of a lifetime by Bob Iger, the man who helped ruin Star Wars crack on
Carl Widger:starts Kasia anyway, thought those two books are brilliant, by the way, boys. Thank you. Yeah, so this is I can only describe this I it was for me again, as always audible. Great listen. Not quite as good as the Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the Nike story, which was amazing, but kind of in the same theme as in terms of his career, where he came from, it's more obviously Shoe Dog, as you know, building a global business from nothing. This one is kind of the corporate journey, but really enjoyed a really good and easy listening as well. So yeah, recommend that one, Bob Iger and how they've transitioned, you know, and pivoted the business over time. Been really, really good and some really good stuff about his business relationship. He was very close to Steve Jobs. So intriguing stuff there. So yeah, highly recommend that one.
Nick Lincoln:Okay, fantastic. Hey, we made it guys. Well done. Good effort. One minutes, one hour, 13 minutes, and I think we've given that a damn good thrashing for episode 30. So we'll we'll we'll do that a wrap up. We'll tie it up. Thank you dear Trappist. For for listening. Thank you for taking part. Thank you for making it your show as much as it is ours. please do send in the questions. Do subscribe to us on your podcast catching app of choice Do leave a review they give us an immense shot in the arm and we've all got thin skins and massive egos, the more shots the army can get the better please six out of five stars is the bare minimum. Like and subscribe to our YouTube channel when there's only 600 people away from getting to that number where we can flog you with with endless adverts, which would be fantastic. If you do leave a review and you want to please do leave your proper name so we can just engender some community that'd be lovely. Otherwise, aside from that until the next time, it's an EOS from the trap pack and take care out there folks. Goodbye. Bye bye. See you next time.