86 - The Big Lessons of 2025 (with special guest Pete Matthew)

In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss

• Topical Titbits
• Meat and Potatoes: The Big Lessons of 2025
• TRAPist question from Graham Compton https://x.com/GrahamCompton
• Culture Corner

Show links: http://tiny.cc/traplinks

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:03

Foreign Welcome to The Real advisor podcast. Welcome to The Real advisor podcast, T, R, A, P, T, twerp. Please follow us and join in the conversation. On Twitter at advisor podcast, where you can suggest ideas and themes you'd like the trap 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 yes, indeed,

Nick Lincoln: 0:49

dear TRAPPIST, welcome back to what many people are calling episode 86 of the real advisor podcast, T, R, A, P, trap. My name is Nick Lincoln, and joining me as ever in the digital studio of doom are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Carl, the voice the love you, widger and the ultra heart. Alan, the storyteller, Smith and and a guest fifth special member of the trap pack, the one and only, Mr. Pete Matthew from a place called Cornwall. I believe it's pronounced as a Cornwall done

Pete Matthew: 1:20

thank you. Thanks for having me, boys. It's great to be here.

Nick Lincoln: 1:27

Thank you. We everyone who doesn't know Pete, The King knows

Carl Widger: 1:34

famous word, famous Pete. I don't think the king

Pete Matthew: 1:37

knows me, but Right. Thank you very much. Very kind. Let's get

Nick Lincoln: 1:42

this bloody show on the road. Mr. Andrew Usain Hart, my right, hon, friend, would you read out some more high energy review reads, please for episode 86 Sure.

Andy Hart: 1:50

I will do that. I'm a bit all over the place with my computer has broken some of my backup computers. Here we go. The first review is from Andy Waldron. Five stars on Apple, must listen for all advisors, having been in the industry for 20 years, it offers loads of insights and wisdom often not found elsewhere, a really invaluable source of knowledge for new and experienced advisors alike. I also deliver leave a review for my own show, just to nudge us up the ratings, but I won't read that. One else today

Carl Widger: 2:22

is he actually on readout is on review.

Andy Hart: 2:25

Just always be closing boys, the final review is on podcast. Addict, no title, because, for some reason, they don't do it anyway. Been listening since episode one. I'm not in the finance game, but love the podcast. I'm an index fund investor who has an interest in the financial world. And sorry Carl, but I want to retire early brackets fire as I want to be able to change the as I want to be able to affect change in the world, and not have to rely on a pay slip or doing things I don't want to do. Andy, you're responsible for a lot of my education about buying the great companies of the world. And I found all of your knowledge from Nick. I'm assuming that's Nick Murray Alan's stories rule. Thank you.

Carl Widger: 3:10

Nicholas, just just on that. He's saying that he's all for financial independence. Retire early and because he wants to do stuff and wants to impact the world. So my problem with fire is like this whole, just retire early and do nothing. It's like, what's your purpose afterwards? Yeah, that guy is actually doing exactly, exactly what I have always proposed. The Fire movement should focus a little bit

Nick Lincoln: 3:39

excellent, stuff. Thank you for the review. Good. Interesting as well, that you can actually leave text reviews on podcast addict, not just the star review. That's interesting. Okay, let's put a timestamp on episode 86 with with guest trap packer, Matthew Pete. Pete, Matthew, it's interchangeable. Episode 86 get things underway. So obviously, the budget's been and gone in this country, and we're all looking forward to it. I think we had about three years notice. Years notice, and one of the recurring things was this thing about tax free cash, you know, being reduced and pushed down. Pushed down. I think Torsten Bell, who's the UK advisor to to Rachel Reeves, was advocating pushing down tonight. 40k was one of his plans. Anyway, I came across this article, which came out in October, from Tom McPhail. And you can spell McPhail anywhere you want, once you've heard this, Tom McPhail worked for Harper's Lansdowne for years. He's a real pensions guru down in the weeds with pensions highly respected within the sort of industrial side of of this thing of ours. And he put this article out in October, well in advance of the budget, saying he'd taken his tax free cash. And it's just like, Okay, I give up. I absolutely give up. If the experts, I mean, he is a peak knack, right? He knows everything about pensions except how to take them properly. He acted in fear, took the pension tax free cash out of his took the tax free cash out of his pension. You're just wondering again, how many people were influenced by him. And when you read his article, he makes a rationale for he says, I'm taking the money out and I can put it into ISIS over a number of years. So you. In the end it'll be tax free. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, yeah, okay, great. But now it's in your estate if you happen to die. Tom, I'm not advocating for that, but if you and your wife happen to die in the next year and a bit that money is now liable to inheritance tax, I don't know. It's just, you know, as we come on to in the meat potatoes, our lessons of the year, I shall refer back to this story. But it just, it just struck me as, you know, there they go. And thoughts

Alan Smith: 5:21

people, I think people like certainty, and at least he's taking control of his own circumstances. What I didn't read the article, but what he hasn't said, because I've certainly taken some of my tax free cash on the basis that, if you're at the maximum allowance tax, he was way over Alan. He was way over, right? Yeah, okay, so he's got some merit in it. He can't grow the tax free portion any further, and I know that the rules may change in the future, but there is some merit I believe, in taking control of your own destiny and not being at the whims of current or future governments. And I think that's an underlying theme for a lot of years, a lot of our clients as well.

Nick Lincoln: 6:00

It took a gamble that Rachel could quite easily have cut the ISO allowance, you know, and then, but therefore he couldn't have funded his eyes at the rate that he wanted to

Alan Smith: 6:09

dealt the cards which were currently being played to him. And I think what we know is this, is that this is never black and white, and a lot of personal and emotional and circumstances play into it. So, you know, I think, I think he's all right. Tommy's at Lancashire now, isn't he? Yeah, yeah, the

Nick Lincoln: 6:27

podcast, didn't he? But that's like they often do that's kind of withered on the vine. He hasn't done anything for year. Well, no, they do. You don't notice until they put you your app doesn't suddenly pop up and say, Did you realize this app hasn't this podcast is a fact. But then something, what happened to Tom McPherson landcat podcast? It was over a year ago that he does put something out via that brand, if you're still connected with Okay, all right, that storyteller,

Alan Smith: 6:52

by the way, just as I get started, for those who are not watching but are listening, I'm the only one present who's showing some Christmas cheer by wearing a festive Christmas hat. Lincoln MC Scrooge, his contribution to the festivities is wearing a cap with the word no on it, which kind of, I think, probably summarizes all you need to know about Nick Lincoln, particularly at this time of year of goodwill to all men. No. And by the way, this is my I'm shoehorning this in. This is my lucky hat because it was the very hat that I wore only a few days ago when representing the real advisor podcast, I won. I say again, I won the Christmas quiz, the mellow

Carl Widger: 7:37

Christmas you're representing the real advisor podcast. Clearly, we won.

Alan Smith: 7:41

We won. Yeah, so we are now a multi award winning podcast, not just an award winning podcast. You're welcome, boys, you're welcome anyway. This is thank you so much. I didn't wonder

Pete Matthew: 7:51

what you're gonna say when you said that was your lucky hat. That's the hat you get lucky.

Alan Smith: 7:57

Fingers crossed. Pete,

Andy Hart: 8:01

ah, time of year be at the end.

Alan Smith: 8:06

Nick nothing. All right. On we go, your hat is a joke. You had your no was missing another letter.

Nick Lincoln: 8:16

My look at any multiple levels with my

Alan Smith: 8:19

topical tip. It's again, I don't know this stuff comes up. It's a bit repetitive, but the Financial Times carried an article a few days ago which was all about UK pension funds, and emphasize the word pension funds, who are now taking a view that the US stock market is overheated and therefore selling down significant parts of their US equity portfolios. And it goes into the detail of, you know, Schroders with 200 billion, and this fund with 100 billion other ones, you know, they were talking about billion, hundreds of billions, of money involved in this. And you know this, this is a kind of this cuts across whether what you think about it or not, efficient market hypothesis suggests that the current prices are the sum total of all participants in the market. That is how prices are discovered. Everyone agrees what a price should be. So every single participant in the market arrives at Nvidia share price today and in an hour is something different, and next week, it's something different. So what effect of a UK or a significant part of the UK pension fund investment management section are saying is that we know better than the combined wisdom of all the other participants in the marketplace. And the thing that just I find this just odd. While they're taking effectively, they're taking a taking a view on this is that these are pension funds. So these are and 1000s, hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of people. So these are likely to be multi decade, at least, investment mandates. These are going to be going for 10, 2050, years hence. And they come up with all the various things about we feel the markets overheated. Time to, you know, to take risk off an interesting one from, I think it's the nest one, which we've mentioned before. They said we're going to move out and we're going to allocate more funds to private markets in order to de risk, which, again, is when we've talked about this before, because the CEO of that company has got strong views on private markets. Anyway, I just found it a bit a bit odd that all these huge institutional investors, effectively are saying we know more than everyone else combined. Interesting article. Any thoughts,

Carl Widger: 10:32

it's like an oxymoron. We're gonna we're gonna de risk by putting more money into the private markets. Yeah, that's been

Nick Lincoln: 10:41

a recurring theme of trap this year, this private markets thing, isn't it? It's just the train coming down the tracks, and we're kind of saying, Jesus Christ, stop that train. It's just getting bigger and bigger. Okay, staying with you.

Alan Smith: 10:52

Storyteller, yeah? This was just, you know, this time of year we have all the various, I think a lot of YouTube, dude, now a lot of companies, replays, yeah, yeah, replay or rap, Spotify rap, which is, you know, the it summarized, for those of you don't know if you, if you subscribe to things like Spotify, it gives you a list this time of how, how you spend your time listening and or watching. And we saw it was somebody contacted me. I'm just looking it up now about their how many minutes they had spent. You guys got this, and it was just quite extraordinary, the amount of time that people have spent listening to trap throughout the year. So I initially thought we'd found a head and shoulders above everyone else. Winner in terms of listening time. Who it was? Friends of the podcast, someone that helps us out at live events helped you this year, Andy, whose name is Rue, Rue, who's at first wealth, who had listened via her Spotify app to 5808 minutes of trap this year alone, which is almost 97 hours of listening to trap this year, which I thought was just hard to be and then, but listen, but there's more. Listen to this, if I can find it. But then guy over in your part of the world, Mr. Widger, gentleman by the name of Mark Westlake, comes in and be even that his figure is 8205 minutes of listening to trap. This year alone, he spent a lot of time catching up 8000 how many hours is that? Is a lot. 8205 minutes. I said, we give him a special prize. Give both of them a prize at trap live next year. But that is dedication to the cause, isn't it? That amount of time listening to our ramblings.

Andy Hart: 12:49

Just Just do not leave. Leave our guest out. Ruth sent me her top three podcast of the year, and meaningful money was number three. Pete, hey, I'll take that still in the mix.

Nick Lincoln: 13:00

Just about he feels a good threat, for sure. Yeah, sure.

Pete Matthew: 13:03

Everybody's doing these rap things. I had one from Monzo just as I was walking up here from one office to the other. And there's like, a little coffee shop kiosk thing just outside my studio. And apparently I'm the 14th biggest spender in Cornwall at that place,

Andy Hart: 13:21

according to Monzo

Pete Matthew: 13:24

50, that's true. Andrew, yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh no, no, no. I'm a bit of an audience.

Carl Widger: 13:31

How many episodes Have you recorded? Of meaning for money, 620

Pete Matthew: 13:37

I think we're on 620

Nick Lincoln: 13:40

episodes. Hanging by a thread.

Unknown: 13:48

Never get to 100 because your YouTube,

Pete Matthew: 13:51

YouTube this, there's nearly 800 videos on there, yeah, dog in determinations, because I

Carl Widger: 14:01

like it. Everyone tunes in if they have a dog, I appreciate that.

Nick Lincoln: 14:07

But good stuff, good stuff. Okay, so happens, happens again and again and again. And just me, think things are getting better. You realize that there's still a swamp out there. I had a prospect meeting this this week with a prospective client. You can call them prospects. You don't get shot. It's a good thing to have prospects. Otherwise. Prospects, otherwise your business is dying, as Mr. Matthew might allude to in his meat and potato section. I had this prospect. He's in a low risk cautious fund, not set up by me, set up by an advisor. And he's in this AJ Bell, cautious fund. Now, all five of us, I think, see risk as being the erosion of purchasing power by inflation. Everything we do is trying to mitigate against the three to four decade cancerous effect of inflation on the real value of our clients money. That's real risk. Real risk is running out of money in retirement. But of course, this client, this prospect with another advisor, must have gone through the mumbo jumbo question there answer questions he didn't really understand, and just getting back and was too embarrassed to ask or clarify and. Up in a five year cautious fund. So on the AJ Bell platform, and the five year annualized return of this cautious fund is 2.75% per annum. UK, over that period, it comes in at 4.9% so you have a five year locked in total long, lasting, permanent loss of purchasing power. The most risky thing that someone coming into retirement, as this prospect is, can possibly do once again, we look through the world through through one end of a telescope, and a large part of the advice community has the telescope turned around the other way, and maybe never the twain shall meet. But it's out there, folks, it's never going to go away. There. Horrendous, horrendous

Andy Hart: 15:37

APC, all perfectly compliant, horrendous, real life client outcomes, but all perfect, definitely.

Alan Smith: 15:43

I mean, it's the thing that you couldn't if they had complained, a proper complaint, ombudsman, letter, all that stuff. It would, it would not be upheld. Who say this is a fully compliant file, absolutely financially screwed.

Carl Widger: 15:57

I would say, I would say that the manager, the fund manager of the cautious fund is quite pleased with 2.75%

Andy Hart: 16:05

it's in line, remitted.

Nick Lincoln: 16:08

Yeah, you know, yeah. So there you go, probably beating some benchmark.

Alan Smith: 16:12

Honestly, I think this is the one thing that winds me up more than most on this. And I know people like to have a go at things like it's apparently easy targets like St James's place and others. This does far more damage in our industry than any other almost, almost the worst of it, these kind of direct sales outfits or big institutional firms, this sort of stuff, which is basically built into the fabric, and I call it an industry of risk profiling, tick box advice and just following the process. And, I mean, don't mention, you wouldn't mention Nick, but the firm, the firmer, you know, the probably following their what their compliance officers told them, If the clients, the

Andy Hart: 16:53

client would have got an 85 page suitability letter, that was just

Alan Smith: 17:00

the word you're a cautious investor, and they'd have quietly nodded, well, yeah, I guess I am going to retirement really. Yeah, I

Nick Lincoln: 17:06

am quite I obviously, when I saw these figures, when I was talking with the client, I was kind of inside of, I was dying. But I don't want to, I don't like I didn't, I don't know who the advice firm is yet, and I don't want to bad mouth him in front of the client. And obviously I suggest, I think this, the advice I give is far more appropriate because it doesn't. It's done, right? Yeah? And secondly, the client's gonna feel a bit foolish. Move on, but move on from the darkness, yeah. Let's move on. The Ultras first,

Andy Hart: 17:33

86 Nick let's stay on this point. So now this client has been through a full ATR, full suitability, cautious portfolio. You're going to come along now and put them in the right portfolio, but you're taking a professional risk. You're going to increase the allocation to global equities where the returns come from. But you understand the professional risk you're taking in hindsight. Five years down the line. This gets looked at. It says, why on earth have you done this when, clearly, the client was cautious. I know this is the professional risk that we're all taking, taking on these clients and re educate them about proper risk, but yeah, this is what real advisors deal with.

Carl Widger: 18:15

All right, that's, I guess that is not the power of the financial plan. So you know you're really talking to the financial plan at that point, you're trying to take it away from the whole premise of the meeting now is about the long term goals for the client, and taking it away from the investment discussion for a little Yeah, before you bring the vehicle, before you bring the investment discussion back on the table, and then you're talking about why this is much more appropriate. Because do you remember when we showed you the long term financial plan? We know, we know what money you need in the next couple of years, and we, you know clearly, we'll have accounted for all of that. But I think that's really important, because if you go to, if you go to, you're in the wrong you're in the wrong fund, and here's a better fund. Without really spending a lot of time going through your financial plan, I think then you're going to be in a little bit of trouble.

Andy Hart: 19:10

Just come back to Peter sec, sorry, Nick, I'm assuming no financial planning has been done. There's been no course, yeah,

Pete Matthew: 19:17

absolutely, you can say, you know? Yeah, absolutely, there's a professional risk. You just know, if it, you know, markets tank or whatever, it's going to get questions, but you can do the right thing, APC as well, all perfectly compliant, and then Nick, hopefully, is as protected, surely as the as the previous advisor, but at least it's a better outcome, you know. I mean, I think APC can work both ways.

Alan Smith: 19:39

Yeah, I think, I think that's right, but it definitely demands a level of extra ass covering your viewpoint. Nick, I know that you've said this, but the reason why this is not appropriate is it, we saw something the other day in another group, didn't we? Andy. Nick, about somebody, if I remember correctly, had a global equity portfolio. Kind of balanced, diversified portfolio, but there was, so there was like 8% in emerging markets. Emerging markets, yeah. And that was considered all that's high risk, therefore the all the advice is wrong. That's right, yeah. Foz said it was too high risk. It's nuts. It's part of a balanced, diversified portfolio. But you shouldn't have anything in emerging markets by the fact that it represents whatever it does as a percent of global equities. It's just a fundamental

Nick Lincoln: 20:21

misunderstanding to sort of, I lower my hand just to prove I can do and then lower again, to quick, to quickly nail this down. Come on to Pete's point. What's protocol? So when I, when I go through this client the next meeting is the presentation back of their financial plan. Okay, I'm showing that based on his current fund and where he is, he is going to run this client is going to run out of money in all likely before he runs. Before he runs out of life. Okay? And I'm going to say to him, okay, I can. We can stop this. You've got to invest this way. If at that point he still says, No, I'm low risk, and I want my low risk returns, I won't engage him as a client. You know, just don't let the loons on the bus. Is the best way to also a PC, you know, get the vetting process down and don't let them on. You know, you've only got so many seats on your bus. These people are gonna be with you. 24/7, for the next decade, two decades, however long you want to remain as an advisor, weed the weirdos out and do it early doors. So, yeah, right. Okay, now I'm gonna move on. Ultra your first point,

Andy Hart: 22:19

yeah, my first point is, I came across this the other day. I don't know if anyone else come across it on the on the call, maybe Pete Aviva save now this falls into the, let's call it cash management area, and I know we've touched upon cash management in the past, and I've always been reluctant. A lot of them are sort of new players, unknown brands, and, God forbid, someone's low risk cash element life savings get, you know, run into some serious trouble. So Aviva have got this thing called Aviva save, and they're pitching it as like, we're a very famous brand, and you log, you've got one login, and then effectively, you could set up like 10 different cash accounts with 10 different providers. In the old rules, it was 85,000 and my second point is the FSCS levies increased from 85,000 to 120,000 on the first of December. I know some people on the call would have probably missed that, but that, again, is big news for people that are shifting money across savings accounts. So yeah, I come across it, Aviva save, and it's quite good tech. You just as I say, you have one login. You click around and move all the money around, and it

Alan Smith: 23:31

saves you doing all the all the heavy admin aggregators. It's a bit like that.

Andy Hart: 23:35

Well, a client I'm taking on is using it at the moment, and when they sent me the breakdown of their cash accounts, I thought, Jesus Christ, where is all this stuff? And then they said, Oh, by the way, it's just wrapped up in this thing called Aviva save. And then I checked it out, right? So there's

Alan Smith: 23:48

all these underlying accounts with

Andy Hart: 23:50

whatever underlying society. Hargreaves do it, transact, do a form of it. Hargreaves are quite active in this space. I can't remember what their offering is called, active cash for a Vive. Active cash, yeah. So Aviva to get involved in, I think is an interesting step. Aviva huge. There are. There are biggest insurance provider, investment manager, I know LNG, are close to them. So, yeah, it's if people are a bit more cautious using random unknown company, cash management, I think there'll be a lot more comfortable in using someone like Aviva. So I thought it would be worth mentioning. And that's that's it. And the FSCS levy has gone up from 85 to 120 on the first of December.

Pete Matthew: 24:32

The protection level, not the levy, sorry, the protection level, my Levy's not going up to 120

Unknown: 24:39

grand. Well, give it time. Pete, give it enough time.

Andy Hart: 24:41

You wish it was, mate. It means the business is, well, I suppose, Brian, anyway, give us,

Nick Lincoln: 24:47

give us the latest dose of what's going on over the RSC,

Carl Widger: 24:51

yeah, I had to put, I'm just gonna unload them all to get all the bad news out of the way. There's, there's lots of stuff happening here on a couple of funds that I've mentioned before. So all three of the articles that I've shared are all from the business post. And I do have to say to the business post in Ireland, fair play, they're doing some proper financial journalism and the reporting stuff that should be reported, because sometimes this stuff is kind of swept under the carpet. So solar 21 that we've spoken about before, facing a couple of winding up petitions. There's some questions around fundraising fees. Imagine that basically commissions loans to other group companies and unexplained project activities. And there's also a 9.2 million transaction to a connected company that one of the founders owns. So that's all seems to be coming to a head over the next trial. So look, I do hope that there's a lot of investors in these so we, you know, we do have to think about those poor. Odds, who are waiting and waiting and waiting for the outcomes. It does look like these things will be coming to a head early in 2026 arena capital liquidators have been appointed there, and the best case scenario, it seems, from reading a couple of different articles on this, is that people will get 20% back of their investment, but it could be as low as 11% but there was also in Arena capital, an inter company loan of 17 point 6 million, and the Court said that the directors, the three directors, may be on the hook for that loan. So I think shit getting real in those two scenarios, there is another fund then in Ireland, called the Green Man fund. It's a German property fund. It mainly does littles and Aldis and that kind of stuff. And it's massive. And a lot of financial advisors in Ireland have sold the Green Man funds, there's one, depending on where you read, it's either 1.2 or 1.4 billion of investor money in Ireland has gone into this fund, and there are 8000 Irish investors, right? So this is very, very significant. Now there's no suggestion that the Green Man fund is in bother in terms of the assets, however, they've run out of road in liquidity, it seems, because there's been an awful lot of redemption requests. So they're gating the fund indefinitely. And the managing director in the interview said that the best case scenario would be 12 months, but it could run to 18 months before people will get their money back. So look, whilst the first two they firms themselves, it seems are going pear shaped. The Green Man fund is, look, just another lesson that investing too much of your client's money in these property funds, even if they're open ended, and they change to an open ended type of arrangement, the small print can catch you, and if, for whatever reason, I think Aviva took the Green Man fund off their platform or something like that, we don't have any exposure to it, so I'm not really sure about the detail, but There was some news that triggered a lot of advisors going, Oh, take the money out. There was too much redemption. Obviously, they're invested in German commercial property, so they had to go, whoa, stop everybody. So you just wonder what the future holds for Green Man, and there's an awful lot of investors. It'll be very well known product via the financial advisory community here. So obviously, not good news for people who are looking or needing their money back now they have to sit and wait and hope that the values hold up for the 18 month period.

Nick Lincoln: 28:58

Interesting that Irish advisors are so well versed in the German commercial property market. Storyteller,

Alan Smith: 29:07

it does. It does strike me a little bit, the Ireland is kind of going you're a few years behind what the UK has gone through. Because, remember, this sort of thing used to be quite not uncommon, shall we say, Yeah, going back maybe five years

Pete Matthew: 29:23

longer than that, actually. But, you know, man, would

Alan Smith: 29:25

you, well, I mean, it has been going on forever, but

Pete Matthew: 29:28

because it's covered. Man, yeah,

Alan Smith: 29:32

right, maybe, maybe 778, years. I'm just trying to

Nick Lincoln: 29:37

go back to the life funds. That's the early 2000s

Alan Smith: 29:41

we had. We had all the key data the archcrew what have you. But then we had, like, the London capital mini bonds. There was, there was a spate of these things for a while. And, I mean, I'm sure they're still going on, but they're not anything like with the frequency of the occurrence that they are now. So maybe it's, it's just, unfortunately, it's a kind of process. Eventually they get washed out of the system, because I never hear anyone, any sort of reputable advisor recommending any of these things nowadays, whereas, I guess in Ireland, there's quite a lot of, I'd imagine, reputable firms who've recommended the green property fund, for example, you know, quite decent.

Carl Widger: 30:17

The Greenland one would be known as very professionally run.

Alan Smith: 30:21

Sure, it's very, very liquidity issue and gating and all this is another we've been through all that.

Carl Widger: 30:27

And look, you know, like you would, you would say, for example, if we, any of us on this call, were recommending a commercial property fund like this, we would make sure that that's okay. If there was a gating scenario that, you know, we have other liquidity there, yeah, but it does 8000 investors in there. I can tell you, not all of those people have financial plans. So I just hope that there's nobody to, you know, looking to retire. I've all my money locked up in the Green Man fund. And that's where the problems do arise, and that's where people are going to have problems. Yeah, the other two scenarios are just, you know, they were just just,

Alan Smith: 31:06

they're just scams. Yeah, it's

Andy Hart: 31:09

quite high averages. Carl, I did 1.2 5,000,008,000 it's 156,000 euros on average. It's quite high averages. Some people will have their full in full life savings in it is what I'm getting at God six,

Carl Widger: 31:25

yeah, I look at it like, I think in terms of the returns and it done, it has done exactly what it was, what it had promised to do. They only

Andy Hart: 31:33

do property.

Carl Widger: 31:38

Yields are pretty much irrelevant when now they have to go and obviously sell some assets, because it's not the net yield is driving your return now, what's right? Well, you know, by the way, so this is store outside Stuttgart, how much you're going to get.

Alan Smith: 31:51

But this goes back to Nick's earlier point and like risk management. So how liquidity risk, so massive risk, you just get a run on the bank as it's happening here. This could be, in theory, this could be gated for five years, for example, they're gonna start unwinding property portfolios and very illiquid assets when everyone else is trying to sell at the same time. It's going to impact the value. And it's a vicious circle, yeah.

Carl Widger: 32:14

And also, who's, I suppose, one of the challenges in this kind of a scenario, because, and we so the reason, I know, but this is, this is what happened in the financial crisis here, right? We were all in geared property funds, right, including me, right? So not saying that I didn't make those mistakes. Because, like, you know when you have to sell, and the market knows you have to sell, yeah, you ain't going to get the current market smell. You're going to get a lot more stuff.

Alan Smith: 32:37

I just, I just want to make a brief additional point, and if you like, if in any way, in defense, or people who invested. I was in a prospective client meeting this morning, and this is the guy who's about to sell it. And this is big it's big numbers, big ticket numbers that were involved. And he said, he says opening thing is, by the way, he said, I watched that Madoff film over the weekend. You know, the Bernie Madoff. He said, I said, Oh, why'd you? He said, Now a friend of mine, every year, my mate knows I'm about to get quite a big, you know, liquidity event. Just have a look at this. And he said, and it's not unreasonable, said, How do I know that you're not one of them and you're how do they know Madoff was a, you know, highly legitimate, authorized SF, sec, or whatever. It's called, broker advisor, and you can't blame investors for just thinking, well, correct this. This seems the guy who I met is a lovely guy, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever. And you know, point the guy made to me this morning,

Carl Widger: 34:20

this is a real point, Alan, it really is. And, you know, I would, we've just done some content that Sinead Clinton, our head of compliance, has done, just a couple of videos about the journey, or money goes on, where it goes, and all that kind of stuff. And and we did it because we were challenged exactly like that by, well, this all looks kind of okay, but what if so it's, you know, I think there's an education piece there, and getting some, you know, creating a document around the security of your assets. That's what we actually entitled it. And then she did a couple of videos behind it. So I think that, you know, you can help yourself by actually, haven't we spoken about this a lot Alan before, but the corporate, corporate governance and compliance, making it actually a USP, and actually taking it so seriously that you're giving people, you know, a little bit more security, a little bit more assurance that this is all as it should be. You know, that's all you can do, really.

Nick Lincoln: 35:16

Okay, good stuff. Bernie Madoff, Jesus, some of those stuff, yeah, just unbelievable. Well, I read the book just looking up there, no one would listen. By Harry Markopolos, who was telling the SEC for years, for years, these figures cannot be true. Markopolis is all kind of one bit on the spectrum, a number, just a number person. He could look at numbers and see patterns and just look through and he said, made off. He cannot split strike conversion strategy. He called it, he said to the SEC, and he said this, he cannot be delivering these returns of one to 2% every month, month in, month out year after. It is statistically impossible, and they wouldn't listen so young, younger advisors who maybe even Bernie made off just a name, right? Just it's and how that guy put his head in the pillow at night and slept, sociopathic behavior way out there. And the film's brilliant. It's brilliant and awful, where he's dead, his wife's dead, I think at least one of his sons committed suicide. Yeah, just a tragedy for everybody involved. Awful, awful. Okay, now I just confused you. Pete, I bumped you up the list to get your voice in the show, so you're next.

Pete Matthew: 36:18

Thank you. I need to be more proactive. Clearly. Yeah, this was so this is Martin Lewis, right? So Martin Lewis, arguably the best known financial commentator in the UK. Love him or loathe him, I feel like advisors kind of want to not like him, but he's doubtless done a lot of good over the years. However, right? We're going to qualify that because I don't watch his show. He's got a shot, I know if it's on ITV or whatever, or BBC, but he's the little snippet came across my YouTube feed while I was in the bath. On Saturday night, that's what I always do. I watch YouTube on my phone, right?

Carl Widger: 36:54

Rock and roll. I'll tell you what I'm in the box, watching personal finance,

Pete Matthew: 37:01

yes. Try not to linger on the mental image, right? You No, okay, so, yeah. So for Martin Lewis, has studiously avoided talking about investing in the true sense for pretty much his entire career, and then, for some reason, completely out of the blue, he did a segment in the show about essentially, index investing, investing, proper investing and the returns that it can deliver. Now, it wasn't perfect. One of the slides he put up showed sort of discrete year on year returns of like the s, p and 4250 or whatever. And he joined them, so it looked like a line chart, when actually he was just saying, you know, this is the position in 2015 and then 2016 17 or whatever. And if you and if you you know, if, in one year it does 10% up, and the next year it does 2% Well, if you join those two sort of points together, it looks if it's gone down from 10 to two where, of course, it hasn't, it's gone up 10% in one year and then up 2% in the following. So I thought that was really lazy and pretty rubbish producing whoever sort of signed that off. But then he put this slide up that said, had you put like 10,000 pounds in the Martin Lewis best deposit account for the last 10 years? You'd have, I think it's 10,000 you'd have something like 12, 750, or something like that. I should have written these numbers down, really. But he did say, however, inflation would have meant that you would have needed in order to be intent inflation, you would have needed sort of whatever, 14 or whatever. So he actually said, you know, the very best deposit returns would have underperformed inflation. And then he brought in footy, 250 S, P and all that. And it was just like, I can't really believe he's saying this after so long. And it was actually, I think, an overwhelmingly positive thing, despite my annoyance about the chart before fellow YouTuber, Tony new bat, did a pretty good sort of summary in response to actually, fairly quick. But I just thought it was really good thing. And I feel like it's sort of the universe will revolve around the point at which Martin Lewis started talking sense about investment. Yeah, I was glad to see it. Put it that way.

Andy Hart: 39:16

Yeah, I did watch it. I watched it on catch up. I think it's about 13 minutes long. I think it's absolutely superb. He was very nervous and apprehensive to do it, because he's an expert in saving money, not making money and investing. It is rather ironic. Obviously, people that follow him are just trying to save, you know, four pounds on their electricity bill and three pounds on the mobile bill. And had they, had they invested this money, many, many years ago, there'll be, there'll be loading. They won't have to worry too much about saving money. But it is really good for full fat financial advisors. It is going to do great work for us, proper global equity investing. He hammered it home that, you know, it will be volatile, but inflation is your big problem. I thought it was brilliant, absolutely amazing. I think it's gone down really well with the rest of the financial planning community.

Alan Smith: 40:07

Alan, I don't know, maybe I haven't seen it, but maybe it has done it sounds like it sounds like it was, it was good. Apparently he got absolutely slated for it. I saw, I saw on Martin the I saw on Twitter, by what I generally pause. I saw him on Twitter on Friday afternoon. He said, Right, I'm off all social media for the weekend. This I can't take he said it wasn't an area of expertise for me. Did my best. I can't take the abuse. See you all next week, kind of thing? Much the thought was interesting

Carl Widger: 40:38

the UK, LinkedIn community,

Alan Smith: 40:42

let's maybe probably explain so it doesn't make a difference. But the other, the other thing that strikes me is the other sort of so called famous financial commentator. Is Paul Lewis, and because you mentioned active cash early on, how does he How is he able to continually stand by this thing? All his own private money is sip and everything else is in cash. And he moves it around every six months or something, and he still goes on about it to this thing and stands by it. Well, I

Nick Lincoln: 41:12

raised my hand, actually, to mention to bring Paul Lewis into this conversation, because I mean Paul Lewis and and Martin. So we're not related. As far as I know that this obviously there's something in the gene. If your surname spelled L, E, W, i, s, they Paul Lewis, he doesn't reference the inflation. If he does, he I haven't done it in the last 1520, years. It's all about nominal return. Nominal returns, and he just ignores this, this, this, this elephant in the room, and at least Martin Lewis has tried to bring it into the conversation. I can't believe he got attacked that viciously for it, and I can't believe he's thin skinned, so maybe he did get attacked that viciously. Felt they need to come on social media, but that's really odd. But yeah, good. Good. Someone. Like someone in the in the in the Fifth Estate is talking about the real danger.

Pete Matthew: 41:55

I wish more would do it. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Nick Lincoln: 42:00

We now are going on to Alt truck. Oh, our friend, our friend who's who's pissed frequently boils, excuse me, that's

Andy Hart: 42:09

an in joke. Okay, Keith button, who runs boost, is a fellow is a Trappist, has come to trap live. So he mentioned, sent me a link to his latest financial planning master class that's happening in 2026 it's been pitched for early stages, and he's got 100 tickets, online tickets for this event. First one is starting on January the 31st there's a link in the so called show notes. I know quite a lot of people have been on it before. He gives a lot away. Yeah, to the rest of the financial planning community. He's very outspoken. I spent a week with him in South Africa, lots of fun. So yeah, check out the link to the link in on LinkedIn.

Nick Lincoln: 42:55

Good stuff. Well done. Keith. Okay, so Andy mentioned this phrase, I might be misphrasing here, and he said, ultra so just correct me, but you get this hand grenade questions from you're happy working at your desk, you're doing this and that, and then suddenly get an email from a client, and it kind of lands in your inbox, and the client just tapped it waves and think my job is so I had this email today from a client thinks about 45 words. It begins my total earnings, including just announced bonus, confirmed as 262, grand. I also received$100,000 in long term incentives. We have the option to pay some of all of our bonus into our pension on a salary sacrifice basis. I was thinking, 20 grand. Does that seem sensible to you? End of his question. And to unpack that, it's just so luckily now we do have things like AI, which which I am using. And I could put that question to it, because underneath that, you should know this client is receiving a 10% employer contribution already and 3% personal contribution. It's not a scheme that I administer. So, you know, I haven't got to hand straight away. What is our news allowances else from previous years? Because it's not a pension that I manage. So it means writing to the anyway, I put it into grok and Geminis because I check now I tend to use two AI models. They both came out with the same answer. But thank God. Thank God, thank God firstly, for AI, because it was a bloody convoluted answer, and the answer was, No, you can't put any more money into into your pension with those figures. It just it's not he's a 45% taxpayer. Now he'll get a 45% tax charge if he does so. I can't think of a good reason to do it, but thank God for AI. You know, one man band on my own. I don't have a technical team around me, and you know, just this time, two years ago, would have taken me the best part of, I don't know, God knows, how long and how many downloaded spreadsheets from providers to work out the tapered annual allowance. All that crud. But a really loaded question, and I went back to me said, much as I love salary sacrifice, as much as we want to buy now, while stocks last, because of what happened in the budget, I would advise you not to, so he's got the hand raised Ultra, I'd still

Andy Hart: 44:52

triple check that elsewhere. Nick, but it's probably good news for you that the answer is no, if the answer was maybe, and if you need to do this, that and the other, you know your your Christmas would have been ruined.

Alan Smith: 45:02

But I think this, this is the point I was going to make. I'm going to reference this to Andy Hart and call it the car park question, because remember, you remember you said, this is a client. This is a typical scenario. And we get them all the time. Clients park the car in the car part walking to get on the train. They literally walk into the train and they go, ah, send you one WhatsApp. There's think about something or the reading the news, and they send you a little like it takes them literally 30 Seconds to send it, and then a day of your life is gone.

Andy Hart: 45:31

Just that's why email should be charged at one penny. An email, just email traffic, honestly, by 98% across the world, just a penny. Is it worth a penny?

Alan Smith: 45:42

I'll leave it. I'll just I'll forget it.

Carl Widger: 45:45

I love that idea. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, for sure.

Pete Matthew: 45:54

Yeah. Who would get the money?

Alan Smith: 45:57

The tax man, obviously, as well. But Nick, what's going to happen when that client doesn't ask you and just go straight to Gemini or chat GPT and says, as you know, I don't need

Andy Hart: 46:08

Nick. You'll still come back to Nick for confirmation.

Nick Lincoln: 46:12

Yeah. Don't mind AI doing data stuff. You know, information is everywhere, wisdom sold separately. Is it all that's just, that's just

Alan Smith: 46:19

all the touchy feely stuff that you focus on, Nick,

Nick Lincoln: 46:22

embracing the class, listening to them, being empathetic, world through their eyes? Yeah, I haven't got any of that, and I can still, Okay, moving on. Oh, Christ. Make this interesting.

Andy Hart: 46:37

I can't really make this interesting is, you know, personal finance and tax. It's a combination of a disaster, really. So it's this whole movement by the revenue, making tax digital. Now this would have. Affected all of us on the call UK, individuals that run limited companies. It just means you've got to use accountancy software to submit your numbers to the revenue in a bit more of a frequent basis. Anyway, there's a change coming in April 2026 and it's impacting property investors and sole traders. And it basically requires, if they hit a certain limit, to have tax reporting software, and you've got to report your earnings on a quarterly basis. So for example, let's say someone has got rental income of 51,000 pounds at the beginning of next tax year, they need to report this quarterly to the revenue. So it's going to be big change for portfolio landlords that currently do everything at the last minute. And also, if you're a sole trader, let's say you, you know, run a beauty business and make 60,000 pounds a year, and you did everything at the end of the year. Now you're gonna have to change. And they're saying something like, I can't remember what it is. It's like two thirds of sole traders still do things on pen and paper, you know. So they're just getting along with their day, keeping receipts, putting them in a shoe box, giving it to the account at the end of the year. And now it's like no, no. You need to use accountancy software. You need to take photos of everything. So there's going to be a huge change for a lot of sole traders that are caught up by this, and also property investors. And they're starting off with quite a high limit, then bringing it down. And they think what they're going to do is start with the high limit, bring it down, and then also make them pay tax quarterly, which could be a good thing in the end. So I'm a bit on the fence of, is this a good or a bad thing, but it will be affecting a lot of our clients, that's for sure. Any questions? No, great

Pete Matthew: 48:32

call. Good. Try making that interesting.

Carl Widger: 48:39

Watch the latest Central Bank of Ireland report is out. Nick we're 39 point 5 billion richer than we were last quarter. Things that. And this is Irish household wealth, right? So this is actual families. So on the surface, that's like, Wow, that's amazing. But I read the report, the reports actually the center bank are doing some really good stuff in terms of really well put together reports that are really easy to read as well. So I looked at this. Well, this is magnificent, because we were already clearly loaded, and now we're even more loaded. But of the 39 point 5 billion funny, half of it is in household property assets, and we as a nation had to just revalue all of our properties for the local property tax. So it was like, all you scamps out there had undervalued your properties, so now that all the properties are properly valued. So that was one thing, but the other half was almost entirely on deposits. Wow. So like, when you look there's they set out the graphs. There's this tiny point four of a billion is gone into equities and investment funds, and then all the rest of it is gone into deposits. So the deposits, I've spoken before, it's just going up and up and up. But look, from my point of view, if you're in our world, in Ireland at the moment, the opportunity is actually endless, like we have never been in a better place to go and find all of these families to do long term financial plans and explain to them a little bit like what you were talking about earlier on, explain to him about the wealth that We can create for ourselves, and this is like multi generational wealth, then for these families that can be passed on if you actually do the right thing with your money and not just be saying, I'll just stick it on deposit. And along with that, that the Irish banks here, and hopefully there'll be new competition in 2026 coming in, but they're the deposit rates are, are pitiful. They really are. So I really, I read these reports, and I kind of go, wow, you know, we were reducing tax on investments, right? It was, stupidly, I were reducing it with a commitment to reduce it even further. You're allowed put in 2028 or 2029 you like, you'd be allowed to put 2.8 allowed for 2.8 million, which is actually really 2.9 5 million into a prsa. There I got PSA. And I haven't mentioned in a while, but we it's really everything is actually helping us here,

Nick Lincoln: 51:22

prsa corner.

Carl Widger: 51:32

But boss, in summary, we're getting wealthier, but our work is not even close to starting. I would say we have such opportunity to do really great work to then create wealth for our families ourselves without having to. Rely on the state and what might come out in finance acts or finance bills and all that kind of stuff. So look just interesting. But well done the central bank for churning this stuff out, because it's keeping us informed.

Alan Smith: 52:03

That last point you make call about the amount of money held in cash, cash deposits, low returns, what have you again, we've got, there's a similar theme coming here, the our regulator here, the FCA, put our report last week. I think it was and, you know, to their credit, I think they are beginning to open their eyes to this thing about risk and volatility and what have you, data they refer to, and it says their report, just quoting from it's 61% of adults with 10,000 pounds or more in investable assets hold all, or most of their investments in cash. So 61% of the market, they've got a bit of bit of money, pretty much all in cash. And they go through the report, and that

Andy Hart: 52:46

was before the Martin Lewis show last week before.

Alan Smith: 52:48

Yeah, that's gonna be completely different now. But there does seem to be an element of, we try to try to explain this to customers and to average people who've got a bit of savings that may be holding all in cash, because they do refer to risk as one of the risks being inflation risk. So at least it's a step in the right direction. I think

Andy Hart: 53:10

someone on X did say, if you wanted an indicator for surely, we've hit a market. Top is when Martin Lewis is talking about investments on the mass public. You know what? You've got a good point.

Unknown: 53:23

Yeah? No, yeah. Okay.

Nick Lincoln: 53:26

Good stuff. Good stuff. So who is now? Ah, Pedro,

Pete Matthew: 53:31

yeah, this was in the FT weekend before last. I think we know for sort of what, 18 months, two years, the successive chancellors have been trying to boost the economy by making us invest more of our pension funds in UK. Stops.

Carl Widger: 53:50

You. Longer than you'd imagine they do when you're

Nick Lincoln: 54:04

waiting to come back in afterwards. I am actually I'm trying to fade these out as well. I'm conscious.

Pete Matthew: 54:08

Sorry. So you know that's been happening for 18 months, two years, whatever start with Jeremy Hunt, and obviously the Mansion House accord was earlier on this year. And yeah, there was a thing in the FT report that the MPs own pension scheme, outrageous, holds only, I think, 3.3% allocation to UK, which is lower than the average pension fund in the UK at large. So, I mean, I just have a fundamental issue with career civil servants telling me how I should invest my own money in the same way as correct. I have issues with them telling me how to, you know, how to, how to run a business, having never done so themselves or whatever. And I just thought this was testament to the just nonsense of it all and how broken really the system is, and just made me go, ha, makes sense. Yeah. So do all

Nick Lincoln: 55:00

well said. Well said that, man, I could without this being a complete love, and I could complete this, of all the things that make me have a Keith button moment with my, with my you know this, this is just as you so say what? It's nothing to do with politicians where pension funds invest their money. Okay, their pension fund trustees have a duty to maximize returns for the pension fund unit holders within agreed parameters of risk and so forth. And for politicians to suddenly, you know, oh, that's a nice little pension fund. You've got over there be a shame if something happened to it. This kind of inference that we're going to, you know, take away some of the tax breaks the pension funds get if you don't. You don't rate it more than UK. That's bad enough. But for these people in Westminster, these politicians, for their own bloody pension fund itself to be less than the UK global capital, most UK based funds are generally, you know, double dip, 10% 11% 12% Yeah, they're just over 3% it's just the hypocrisy absolutely rankles with me and me, yeah. Anything else to add? Boys? No, no. Okay. Well, well, raised Pete, okay, on the final thing. Oh, yeah. So we had, we talked about LinkedIn last week and or last episode, Episode 85 of the award winning real advisor podcast on my daily trip to the orphanage in Mumbai. And that's my that's that's how I read LinkedIn. So I did change my feed. It was on recent, and you're right, sometime in the distant past, it got switched back to top stories. I changed it to recent, and the feed is still beyond awful. LinkedIn is still a place of absolute Doom and misery, and that's all I want to say on that. Right? We're at 54 minutes in. I think it's time we moved on to what many people call the meat and potatoes of episode 86 this is where we take a weighty subject and give it a damn good thrashing. And the weighty subject today is what have we learned from the last year? This is opposite time of year. To do this, Spotify are sending out their yearly summaries. YouTube's doing the same. Let's have a yearly summary of what we have learned over the last year now, given there are. Five members of the Track Pack today, or Finco, as they say in Spain. We'll keep this kind of tight and to the point and one lesson each. I don't know who's going to start off, because didn't talk about it before we hit record. We don't talk about anything before we hit record. We just go with the flow. I'm going to pick on someone at random, and I'm going to I'm going to go to a man who's been through the ring a little bit recently, but is generally a real, just a positive person. Watch, I'm going with you, mate, and Gratitude is the attitude, which

Carl Widger: 57:16

I love. Okay, are you ready? So I'm going to go a bit deep. So what have I learned this year?

Andy Hart: 57:22

Lost Nick Yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 57:24

maybe, of course, Andy, because if it got lost, it should have been first. Please continue. Carl, okay,

Carl Widger: 57:31

so I lost my dad a couple of weeks ago, and so I've had a period of reflection. It's been an emotional roller coaster, which I did share privately with you boys during the week. There's lots of things going on emotionally with me, and it's just reflecting, not because this was coming up, but in general terms, like we do all get very focused on, you know, work goals, or getting the next thing going, or I'll be happy when. And we've all said them, and we all say it, and we've all read this, and we all go, oh yeah, yeah, but actually, like, I'm unbelievably grateful for the amazing relationship I had with my dad. I was very lucky. I'm I know it's not the case for everybody, so I just keep reflecting on, you know, there's so much really that I need to take a step back and go, do you know what? I'm actually so lucky for so many things. I've four amazing kids who have been amazing to me, and they all love their granddad so much, and they were all amazing to me, even through though they're grieving and mourning, the fact that they, like my dad, had a had an he's 12 grandkids, and I guarantee you all 12 will say that they felt that they were the favorite because he was so involved with everyone. And like he his gift was the hit, the gift of time. So he gave everyone the gift of time. Clearly, I don't take after him, because I'm the most impatient person in the whole world. So that's a gift that hopefully will skip a generation, and maybe my kids will have it. But just in general terms, then it's like, you know, like where we were born, right? To just call a spade a spade, like we need to be so grateful for that, because you look around the world and it's like, holy crap. We are actually unbelievably lucky at work. I'm unbelievably we had our Christmas party last week, and I said it to them, and they're thinking, he's only saying that because he's kind of has that. But I said it to everyone at work, and I'm so grateful for for the work, for the energy, for the can do attitude of the people around me. And we also have to be so grateful for being a little bit lucky sometimes, you know, like I, you know, to say that I would have set out to get to this moment in time in my personal and professional career, what were all decisions? I decided we're all strategic decisions would be a load of old BS, because I got so lucky so many times along the way where, you know, there was almost sliding doors, moments where I could have made one call and I didn't, for whatever reason, but, but I just think, if we can all, well, look, I don't really care what anyone else does. I can just tell you my lessons and what I'm, what I've, what I'm definitely bringing forward and and my emotions are still very high. Guys, right? Probably tell that, right? It's all very recent. It's all very raw, sure. But, um, the next thing, the next target that the next physical material thing means jack shit. I just wish my dad was around. You know, so And thankfully, I don't know who was smiling down on me, but in the few weeks before my dad passed away, ice I went down and I watched three rugby matches, one Ireland and two monster matches with him. And Robbie was with me. My son was with me for one of those games. And you know that that spending that time just shooting the breeze? You know that didn't cost any money. It didn't we were watching it on TV because he couldn't go out writing stuff and just spending quality time with the people that you love, you know. And look the amount of support that I've got from people wide, wide and far, near and close, right? It's been absolutely phenomenal. And like, I'm very proud of my my mom, she's out. Absolutely heartbroken, but the way she's trying her best to, you know, just keep going and when she's so heartbroken is an inspiration to as well. My sisters have been absolutely incredible. All their kids, my partner, IFA, has been unbelievably supportive of me. So when the chips are down, you'll see you look around and you go, yeah, there's a lot of really great people in my life, and I am so, so grateful for them. And you know, whether we, I don't know, get a billion assets under management, I really, right now I couldn't give a shot. I really couldn't way more important things. And the I put in the in the show, in the culture corner, the Baz Luhrmann song, because it's been going around in my head. If you listen to it a lot, you know, everybody's free to wear sunscreen, but it's, you know, real problems are the one that blindside you on a Tuesday at 4pm there's a line in the song that says that, right? And amazingly, I wasn't strong enough to say this, but when I got the call, I was sitting in a bar in London with Alan Smith talking about how great my dad is with mental life. That happened, yeah, and then I had that total shit show trying to get home, and yeah, just wasn't good. But anyway, I my lesson for myself is I'm going to be way more grateful for everything I have, and I'm not grateful for any of the things I have. I'm grateful for the people in my life.

Nick Lincoln: 1:03:28

Wow, okay, that was just lovely car, obviously, yeah, comes from a sad place, but someone, someone to follow that. It's not going to be me who wants to go. I'll go brilliant. I was

Andy Hart: 1:03:42

gonna say, let our guests go. But you crack

Pete Matthew: 1:03:45

on it. You carry on.

Alan Smith: 1:03:47

Give you more time to think, no, and you're right. You know what it's it's kind of it's almost a cliche to say, oh, have an attitude of gratitude and what have you, but it is so true, and even to the extent it just reminded me, I used to write down little lists of things I'm grateful for, but it's not a habit that I gave up a while ago, but something that I should go back and do again. And you're right. Carl, I was with you sitting in that bar, and we were that's absolutely true. That was it was an awful moment, but we were speaking about your dad. It was bizarre. It was bizarre kind of continuing, maybe on your slightly deeper theme. So the question came across, and of course, we are always very well prepared for these sessions. Every time we do them, there's a flurry of WhatsApp, massive WhatsApp messages about 10 o'clock yesterday. Which will we talk about? What should we talk about? But obviously having a reflection of the year just gone past, and, you know, things we've thought about or reflected on, or lessons learned. So my one is, I mean, I'll just give the cut to the chase. The headline is, get a coach. Get a coach. Because for the first time in my life, properly, I mean, properly, I've dabbled with coaches and what have you in the past, but I've been working with a personal, personal slash business coach for the last three months, pretty solid, pretty pretty deep. Actually, you know, we've done, we've had some very gritty conversations, and I reflect back on why I suddenly felt this was going to be valuable for me. And one of the answers is, I don't know, but it just feels about right. I think one of the things was, and this happened. This can happen to it might have happened to some of you on the call now. It might be something that we'll face in the future. But Nick, remember we had a conversation on this podcast a few episodes ago about you were showing up for client meetings in Canada, and same old, same old every year. And you were considering, am I really adding value and all that. And I think this is part of my my story. As you know, I'm kind of, I'm off the tools in terms of day to day, face to face client advice. I'm still, you know, actively involved with the business. I'm still helping win new prospects and business. But I wouldn't quite say I had a crisis of identity, but there was a certain amount of what was supposed to be doing here. Another thing is interesting is, once you've been and we've all been in business for a while now, but we are a mature but we've been business 21 years, and it's kind of it's a mature business, and it largely runs itself. I got an outstanding team of people that do all the hard work, and I think just various thoughts swirling around in my mind about what is the next 135, years plus look like for me. And of course, I've got my own family and my kids who are growing up fast. My son will probably off to uni next year, and all those various things. And I just think this is quite intriguing, because we give a lot to our clients, and sometimes, you know, the. Conversations are often unusually way, way, way beyond the monetary side of things. We do our best to give wise counsel and kind of, you know, loosely, life advice to clients, but we don't have, well, I haven't had anyone in my life giving me that. I can speak to you boys down the pub about stuff, but it's not the same. I can speak to my other half, but it's not the same. I can speak to my accountant, but it's not the same, but to have somebody who's kind of ruthlessly candid ask me the tough questions that I don't really want to answer but I'm prepared to, because I'm paying money for it, and really and you know the bit, as they say, the best coaches, all they do is ask you good questions and coax out the answer, because you kind of know the answer deep inside you, but I've been working with this guy, Graham Godfrey, as I say, for the last three months, and it's been numerous two to three hour sessions, face to face, number of zoom calls to back that up. He's given me sort of homework, books to read things, to listen to various sort of practices, to go through. And I must say, I found it super helpful. I really have in terms of just giving me clarity, I suppose, like it is a bit of a first world problem that what's my issue? My issue is maybe lacking a real, crystal clear direction. 10 years ago in the business, I was crystal clear what I was doing. I was all about growing a business, hiring people, finding new clients, finding the latest technology, all that stuff, and now we're mature, not saying we've given up, and we're still very ambitious as a business. But my I guess my role, how I show up in life. And I think this is something for those of you who run businesses for for a number of years, you might come across this. You might experience this in your life. So you look to the world of elite sport, you look to like the top CEOs of FTSE, 100 companies. I don't know anyone who's really successful that hasn't hired a coach or numerous coaches, either in the past or usually on an ongoing basis, because, as they say, you can't see the, you know, the inside of the jar. They can't see the label of the jar that you're inside of me. You can't see yourself objectively. You think you can, but you can't see what's inside. You need an objective view from someone who knows you, understands you, cares about you, and is able to give you an objective view or opinion to allow you to do the work yourself, to come to the conclusions that you need to come to. So in conclusion, the takeaway I take that I have looking back on the year is get a coach, invest in a coach, hire somebody good, and you might need to meet, as I have done, two or three, to find someone that you resonate with, that you could be ruthlessly candid with. And as I say, I found it immensely helpful to me. In the last last few months, since I've been working with Graham, that's my reflection of the year.

Nick Lincoln: 1:09:37

Very good, Pete, or ultra first.

Pete Matthew: 1:09:44

Okay, thanks, chaps. I feel your pain. Carl, I lost my mom in September. It's a freaking weird thing. It's just the bizarrest thing I think I've ever gone through. And for me, the overwhelming No thanks, man, no no reason, no reason why you should. But the overwhelming thing for me in the weeks afterwards was complete and utter apathy. I couldn't put my mind to anything. It was just like, even though we had kind of three years notice, in my case, because she was poorly for a very long time, you know, yeah, but, but anyway, actually, I also found that focusing on the things I was most grateful for, particularly about her, and then all the stuff that, you know, she's put into me and all that was super helpful in sort of bringing me around as well. My lesson for the year. Agonized over this a little bit. To put it in a simple sentence. It's obviously not, not mine is there's a quote, something along the lines of, if you're not growing, you're dying, right? So if you're not moving forward in some way, then it's not just a case of you're staying where you are, you know, but in the same way that inflation erodes the buying power of money over time, if you don't actually make it grow, same goes with our own sort of humanity, right? So obviously this applies from a business standpoint. We've had a bonkers year in Jackson's. It's basically the coming together of a whole lot of work we've done over the last two or three years, as well as meaningful money, gaining a kind of momentum, even in that I haven't actually produced that many videos. Relatively this year, the podcast has gone out as normal. It's been a crazy year. We're 26% up in revenue in Jackson's. We are 45% up in profit. And when you're growing at that pace, which I don't think will continue quite at that pace, but you feel like you're clinging on to it, right? You feel like you're sort of grabbing on grabbing on by your fingernails. And it's just like, I hope it doesn't sort of get away from me. And it's, you know, if you're able to kind of grow a business at that pace, the problem, such as it is, is that you have to grow in other areas in order to keep up with it. So you. Have to change the way you think about people. You have to change the way you think about culture and standards. And continuously saying to the team that, as we grow, the two things that are most at risk are the culture, what makes us us, and then the standards, the quality of what we do, right. And so these are the things that we need to guard. And I think you know, you can improve all that sort of stuff. And that's that's sort of fairly straightforward from a business point of view. If you're growing as a business, if the numbers are going up, you got to grow in other areas too. And I think from a personal basis, my sort of reflection is that it the same kind of holds true of our personal growth. The problem, I think the thing that winds me up most about modern society is that nobody thinks anymore, right? They get spoon fed their opinions in social media or the religion of choice or whatever, and they'd never question it, or far too few people do. And it's like, it's like we stopped growing up in our early 20s. Many of us, we feel like we're growing up and we might change a little bit, but we never I don't think it's it's common to actively pursue personal growth, particularly when it comes to our thoughts and beliefs and our understanding of things. And I just think we can, if we cling on to stuff that we've always known, but without ever challenging them, even if we challenge them and end up with the same beliefs as a result, they will be stronger as a result, you know. So I mean, I still read stuff about active investing, and I've yet to read anything that changes my mind, but far Better that than to just kind of parrot the same old line and never having read anything for 10 years because it was true 10 years ago, maybe it's still true now. You know, I grew up in an evangelical Christian tradition, which, in many ways its belief system was ridiculously backward, and yet my dad, who was a pastor in that whole system, actively chose he's a scholar. He's one of the brightest men I've ever met. And he could have just kind of parroted the party line, and he didn't. He challenged it. And he's my sort of inspiration in that, that even at 85 he's reading stuff that he thinks he might not agree with in order to challenge his own position. I just think we don't do that. And so, you know, I think it's important to have opinions. I think it's really important to hold them with an open hand, hold them lightly prepared to be challenged. I just think it's a mark of a rounded human. I can't remember who it was that said. You know, a mark of a keen intellect. Intellect is the ability to hold two points opposing views in your mind at the same time and not feel threatened by them. So for me, it's about growth, actively pursuing growth, both in beliefs, in understanding, in habits, in business and all that sort of stuff, because otherwise I'm standing still, Worse still, if anything, I'm slowly dying. So if you're not growing, you're dying. That's my lesson for the year.

Nick Lincoln: 1:14:58

Love it. Love it. Jesus. This is about as profound as we ever got. There's so much profundity

Alan Smith: 1:15:02

on episode 80. Don't worry, we've still got you to come, Nick to bring us.

Nick Lincoln: 1:15:10

That was love and you said, so thank you. It's so true, and it's you never stop learning.

Alan Smith: 1:15:14

Critical thinking is in short supply.

Pete Matthew: 1:15:17

For sure, we don't teach at school, do we? No, we just spoon feed our feed our kids to be employed. Yeah, it drives me absolutely mad, but I shall just step off the soapbox and move it to the side,

Carl Widger: 1:15:31

like those two, like Alan, Alan, you know, wildly successful. Let's be fair here, guys, right?

Unknown: 1:15:43

He's just just just made it Sure. Andy, Will

Carl Widger: 1:15:46

you shut up? Right? To say that, that getting a coach has a has a profound change, right? Is unbelievable. And then for peaks, who's hugely successful in your own right, also to say that, you know, we need to be we need to have this ability to change. Because one of the things I'm finding in this world of social media and all that is that I'm right, I'm not changing. That's the end of it, you know, it's very difficult to have proper discussions with people who are like that. Anyway, I applaud both those contributions. Well done, boys. Yeah, thank you.

Andy Hart: 1:16:21

Alfred, yeah, yeah, I'll go next. That was absolutely superb. Yep, Carl's point is, hit home for me, yeah, spending quality time with people you love the most. That's certainly something I've been trying to practice as much as I as much as I can. So, yeah, this year has been, I suppose, a busy, tough year, like all years, really, but it's been a it's been a good year. Kids are all good. Life's good. Business is good. You know, I've had a laugh along the way and spent time with, yeah, people that I love. My lesson for the year, just to have a point to make. In this, in this race, is progress beats perfection. Basically every single time progress, progress beats progress beats perfection. You know, I've noticed the things that have moved the needle with me aren't the things that I've over thought or tried to, you know, endlessly Polish now, they're just things that I just, you know, started showed up, you know, improved along the way. This perfection thing that we all sort of struggle with sometimes is quite seductive as such, you know, having high standards, but usually it's just, you know, fear dressed up, really. Whereas progress, on the other hand, is a bit messy, bit uncomfortable. You know, it's a lot more, lot more effective. And I'm also going to talk briefly about just showing up, you know, showing up and doing what you said you're going to do. You know, it might sound insanely obvious, but it's surprisingly rare. You know, the world is quite average at the moment. Yeah. So turning up, delivering following through, I think, builds momentum over time. Yeah, and I've learned that consistency beats intensity, so just Yeah, keep keep showing up, keep doing what you said you're going to be doing. Yeah, the world is quite, quite average at the moment. Yeah, that's it. Over to you, Nicholas, to finish us up.

Alan Smith: 1:18:05

Yeah, great. I just want to add a little bit to that. You said something which really struck a chord with me, just because I got recency bias, things that have happened, you said, and it's true, just continually show up, be consistent, and you know, the world will reward you, but it's my but you have to be patient. This thing about do what you say you're going to do is drive me freaking crackers right now, I've had three incidents, three situations in the last you guys know, some of them at least. So people say, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. I'll send that across to you now, or whatever, any number of different things, and they don't deliver anything. And you're right. You're the bar to being successful is that he's never been so low, because most people, and let's face it, most services that we experience or I experience, and whether it's restaurants, hotels, most things, dealing with suppliers, dealing with utilities, and actually just dealing with some other people. People say, Yeah, I'll sort that out. Now, leave it with me and it doesn't get done. It's just all you need. You know those things to say, please say, thank you show up on time, and do you say you're going to do you do those four things consistently, you'll be ahead of 90% of your competitors agree.

Pete Matthew: 1:19:17

Used to be called the referability Habits those, didn't they? Yeah, back in the sales culture like in the day, yeah. Timeless truths.

Alan Smith: 1:19:26

Now over to Nick for something deep, profoundly meaningful.

Nick Lincoln: 1:19:31

I've set myself up here for an epic, epic MacPhail, just to, just to echo some of the things said. Andy, I love it. Yeah, Perfection is the enemy of good. Carl, your thing about, you know, speaking about your dad the moment you found out, as you've got the call saying he passed, you know, my, my my younger brother had a health scare recently, and it's brought us close together. Not that we were ever apart, but we were just typical boys, right? We never phoned each other or what's up, unless there was sport on or we had something, you know, some properly indecent photographs to exchange with each other, and that was it. But we've had more contact in the last few months because of his illness, and he seems to be okay. Thank God for that. Yeah, yeah. And it's just speak to the mother, speak to them when they're here, man, because you can't when they're gone. You know, you really can't. Yeah, question, yeah, everything, everything you guys have said, getting a coach. I'm not doing that. I saw a therapist once, and she retired the next day. So my thing is a bit shallow. It is. So it's coming back to the reason we do this podcast, really, and that's our work is never done. That's the lesson I've learned. I shouldn't forget it every year. I think, I think we all think, to a degree, that the world out there is moving to financial planning, and it's putting the plan before the portfolio, and it's talking to clients about their dreams and goals and aspirations. And maybe that change is happening, but my God, is it happening at glacial pace? You know that the prospect I spoke with this week, you know, in a cautious fund, because mumbo jumbo questionnaire said, so no planning done whatsoever. That's 90% of what's going on out there. Maybe, maybe the amount of real financial planning, full fat financial planning, has gone up three, four fold in the last decade or so. There's still an enormous lot of it is not done by people charging fees, ripping people off, putting people into ship products, and then somehow putting their pillow on the bed at night, like Bernie Madoff and going to sleep and thinking the jobs done. So for younger advisors, Fear not. You'll be doing this for decades to come, because our work is never done. Keep on doing the good stuff, people, and we will get there, but it's going to be bloody slow getting there, and that's my lesson from the last year. Okay, we are at one minute 20 more or less. So I think it's time, without further ado, to move on to TRAPPIST questions. This is where we answer questions. There she goes. There's post it. She's hauled the bulging suck up my drive. And this is where TRAPPIST we answer a Trappist question. The you can leave a question with us in the pinned tweet on X or the pinned X on tweet at. You want to do it in the so called show notes as well. The question this week, I haven't got a letter to open this week, because this actually was sent to us in a Twitter conversation, as opposed to a letter going to the hopper. And I thought I'd bring it forward and answer it today, because it's kind of relevant to the budget and so forth. And this is, this is a question on, I think, with somebody who's not, yeah, he's not in this thing of ours. Graham Compton, who's a systems engineer by trade, which means nothing to me, but I'll take your word now, he's now retired from the day job as a part time property investor. Well, our thoughts go out to you on that is on Twitter. I'll put his Twitter link in the so called show notes. Here's his Graham's question, the drop of BCT tax relief and latest budget 30 to 20% will have a disproportionate effect on the incentive for people to small growth companies, which I thought was the prime objective of the last two budgets. These are high risk investments, and it is quite common to pay up to 5% fees on both purchase and disposal of these illiquid investments. So is it now worth taking the risk on VCTs for an effective 10% tax relief for high risk, illiquid investment that you need to hold a minimum of five years? I'll go quickly on this. I think the answer is no. I think it is dead now. I think it was. I think it was dying on its knees when it's 30% tax relief. If the incentive is now down to 20% which it is going to be, I think it's dead and buried. I'm sure the VCT and the is people will tell me otherwise, but yeah, we've talked about these things before. This is a real example of the tax tail wagging the investment dog. It could almost make sense at 30% tax relief, if you got lucky, 20% tax relief. Yeah.

Pete Matthew: 1:23:16

Pete, I love it. We get this on the podcast all the time, people answering their own questions in the question, so is it now worth taking the risk for an effective 10% tax relief for a high risk, illiquid investment? Yeah? I don't know you. Tell me, does it sound like it? I agree with you. Stuck enough at your end? Yeah, yeah, you've answered the question. No, I agree with you. I think not just I've never really seen a workout well enough to justify the hassle or the risk or the grief and oh, it's the great I'm with you.

Andy Hart: 1:23:49

Just out of interest, a question for you boys, what? How many millions Do you think this relief swallows up, as in lost revenue for the government? Tiny lost revenue. How many?

Alan Smith: 1:24:06

I don't know. It's tiny, tiny. You're gonna give us the answer before the other Oh, yeah, I've

Andy Hart: 1:24:10

got, I've got the answer here. Yeah. Googling any idea?

Pete Matthew: 1:24:15

Million, 100 million, that's what

Andy Hart: 1:24:17

I would say. Yeah, good, guess, lads, it's about three, 30 million

Nick Lincoln: 1:24:28

by Yeah, runways, 100 feet. You said 330 feet.

Andy Hart: 1:24:35

Enough. So you boys thought it was a real low number. What I'm saying is will, will that? Will the companies produce more than that in the future? So they're giving up three 30 million? Will these companies build into enormous companies that will pay loads of income tax, National Insurance, VAT, corporation tax, etc, etc, like, that's the trade off. We're going to give you 330 on the tax relief, but we're going to make, you know, a few billion in the future.

Alan Smith: 1:25:05

Well, it's another one of these, the one that Pete alluded to earlier on, where it's contradictory. The government has said, We're all about growth. They came, they came into office on the back of a growth agenda, and they're trying to encourage investment in British companies and what have you. So there was this modest tax break, and you say, highly illiquid, complex investments, and what have you now, they've, kind of, they basically have, in my opinion, I don't think any of us have ever been fans of these, but they have just wiped it out. Because I think the point that he's making as well, it's not just the tax rates going down, the tax reliefs, it's these are just naturally very expensive products to buy at the best of times. So like, you know, 5% spread going in, 5% going out, and I've seen about 3% a year in management costs once you sort of lift the lid and dig it. So as far as I'm concerned, they are dead in the water. Now, I still think there's a place for EIS investments for that's a whole other story. If you wanted to invest in a company, as we know, Ultra and I are serious serial angel investors. But if you had a if you had a particular company that you wanted to invest in, and you go, invest in, and you got a nice tax break going in and tax free dividends and inheritance tax free. But I think VCTs have gone now as a product, that'd be, my opinion. Okay, all agree, yeah. Okay.

Nick Lincoln: 1:26:23

Thank you, Greg. Thank you for the question. Keep them coming. We still got some questions to answer in the hopper, but do keep them in and we will get around to your questions, even if sometimes a little bit contentious or pointed, as they have been recently at us, but we're big enough and open up. Okay, let's move on. We're now what 184 minutes. Shoot me culture corner.

Pete Matthew: 1:26:49

Chat. My favorite of all the jingles that one,

Carl Widger: 1:26:56

tallest of the Seven Dwarfs, they're

Pete Matthew: 1:27:01

doing this in the order in the Yeah. I should know that really. So this, I watched this in the bath as well. This was this was sailed. So I keep putting weight on to kind of fill out the wrinkles. Thank you. So this was 11 minutes on youtube video by the legend that is Daniel Priestley. He was just a rock star at humans under management. He is one of my absolute favorite business minds. Is he a close personal friend of yours? I wish he was, but no, he's not. I do use his product. I don't think that counts.

Andy Hart: 1:27:47

You score out. I'll speak to you about that? Yeah. Okay,

Pete Matthew: 1:27:51

so basically, this video is a complete 2026, social media blueprint, right? I don't really like the phrase social media. I don't think it applies anymore, but basically a content marketing strategy. And it is in 11 minutes. It is perfection. It's everything that I'm sort of doing and trying to do more of a meaningful money how to move people from awareness into becoming an initial, sort of making a step towards you and then becoming a client. It's absolutely, probably the most what Alex hormozi, who's another I'm also fan of his, he would do in two and a half hours. Daniel Priestley does in 11 minutes flat. It's absolute genius. Highly recommend. It.

Nick Lincoln: 1:28:29

Brilliant. Excellent stuff. Okay, me next nothing to do this thing of ours, but it was a really good podcast. I know you guys like rugby and you like Kiki boy, yeah, yeah. This is the rugby pod, which is Andy goo, the ex England fly half, and Jim Harrison, the ex Scottish lock. And they were guests, were they kind of intermingle, because Ben Foster, I think, played for Hamilton Gold Play for Watford and various teams. He has his own podcast. They were interviewing each other really good, frank, open discussion about just the differences between soccer and rugby, and the salaries, the cold culture and everything else, but done in a really nice way. And even if you're not a massive fan of either sport, it was just an interesting looking at the business and looking under the bonnet of the business side of of rugby and football, how it's similar, how it differs, how this concept of the agent in rugby has never really taken off, whereas, course, in football, if you want to go to the play, you have to now go through an agent, really the top level, well worth listening.

Pete Matthew: 1:29:21

Yeah. People take a look at me, right? And they say, Oh, you must be into rugby, which I get a little bit offended, right? It's because, it's because, well, I did half a term of rugby league when I was like 12 at school and went on the sick ever since I could not stand it.

Nick Lincoln: 1:29:38

So again, is that yes or no,

Pete Matthew: 1:29:42

I don't understand it. I just I don't get it, but I realize I'm in serious danger of being kicked out for saying that the backs and

Nick Lincoln: 1:29:50

the fours, they're all interchangeable. I don't get that, but that's that's more of an arcane thing, okay?

Carl Widger: 1:29:57

The Renato podcast. Greg Dilger is the host, and he interviews Steve Tennant is a Scottish guy who is the managing partner of Grant Thornton in Ireland. I it's just a kind of the backstory of his career. He was a tried to be a professional footballer in Aberdeen at his in his younger days, and the story about his career, I just love hearing people who are successful in their fields now, where they came from, all the kind of the nuances along the way. Grant Thornton story is a little bit different in that they've sold in the states and now in Ireland to private equity, and what that means for a professional services firm at that level. It's good story, good podcast. And the second thing I put in there was the aforementioned Baz Luhrmann, everybody's free to wear sunscreen. There's some great advice in that song, and I've been, I've been going back to it, and my poor kids are going to have to sit and watch it on YouTube over Christmas. So kids, they are trying to listen to this. So now you're prepared.

Andy Hart: 1:31:04

Wasn't a one hit one? Does anyone

Alan Smith: 1:31:06

know about it? Yeah, it was a one hit. Wonder. He's a film director. He just came up with this, and which I used for a couple of years ago, a viral post on LinkedIn. It was to all that stuff, they'll need little advice, and transferred it to advice to a young financial planner. Anyone listen to this? I know Nick has saved it on his nick you go to probably printed it off

Andy Hart: 1:31:30

every day dishwasher instructions.

Alan Smith: 1:31:35

But yeah, he's good, solid advice, and I think particularly Carl, when he says that it's the thing, there's something that comes at you at two o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon. It's not the big thing you've been worried going to worry about? Yeah, never. And that's the whole point of a exact something coming out. So I'm the only one to give you a Christmas theme this year. This is this, will you be quiet? Mr. Ultra. I'll give you credit where it's due. It's a bit late this year, but something that I recommend that people look into is buying an advent calendar for your other half. There's a number of these around the one which is the best out there is

Nick Lincoln: 1:32:18

75 quid for a calendar they can whistle.

Andy Hart: 1:32:22

It's the Liberty. 1100 pounds worth of stuff in it.

Alan Smith: 1:32:25

Niggas the bargain of the year, and it makes for a harmonious household, chaotic days leading up to Christmas. So you buy the Liberty. There's a bunch of other ones out there. Liberty is the best, is that, right? Andrew, and you buy, give it to your other half. And there is ones for the ladies, tuning in the female advisors, or there's one for men as well. And you give it. And then they have, they open it up every day like you do an advent calendar, and they get an interesting little gift every day. And an interesting little gift every day, and it's fabulous, and it makes for

Unknown: 1:33:01

a positive run

Alan Smith: 1:33:06

in 24 or 24 perfume they would never thought about getting. And I do have to begrudgingly credit Andrew Hart. He was the one who put me onto it three years ago. And by the way, you do have to order it by about October.

Andy Hart: 1:33:22

Yeah, in October, yeah, that sounds dodgy

Carl Widger: 1:33:26

when you're when you're ordering next year. Just remind me of that, please. Yeah, it is

Alan Smith: 1:33:33

honestly, get it, order it. It is brilliant. Okay, your last Mr.

Andy Hart: 1:33:39

Hart, yeah, to keep the Daniel priestly loving going, this is his latest book, lifestyle business playbook. I think it's brilliant. He is amazing. He is a practitioner, a business owner, doing exactly what he's telling other people to do. It's a brilliant book, lifestyle, business Play Books, quite an easy read. Tells you the back story about the, you know, the industrial age, the education era, all the different stuff that's happening and where we're heading. And the good news is you can run a he says the perfect business size is between sort of eight and 12 people. That's a sweet spot. And this modern age, with all the stuff that we can leverage, you can get some crazy revenue numbers and profits, yeah. And the lot of stuff we spoke about in the past is all about enterprise businesses, the growing new business as big as it, because you can get it was this one is a bit of a bit of a reversion. Saying now, with awesome technology, with the global team, you can build enormous businesses, you know, quite lean. And the AI people are all saying at the moment, you know, when is there going to be a business that's worth a billion dollars? We just have one employee? I think there's a few businesses worth a few 100 million with one employee. Is it a sole person that's doing everything? Yeah, so quite is

Carl Widger: 1:34:57

that you an interesting time?

Nick Lincoln: 1:34:58

Well, let's say much as I like Daniel Priestley, he's wrong on this one, the perfect business size is between one and one, zero and

Andy Hart: 1:35:05

one values the billion, right? Okay,

Unknown: 1:35:08

1 billion,

Nick Lincoln: 1:35:09

we are at 93 minutes, giving this a damn good thrashing. Episode, 86 of the award winning, real advisor. Podcast, this is the last award winning before Christmas. So wishing all of you, all of our beloved Trappists, a fantastic festive season and so forth. Want to thank Pete Matthew, the legend that's Pete Matthew, for being an honorary member of the trap thanks for contribution, dear TRAPPIST, father. Episode, I knew you'd have to get it in. You couldn't help yourself, Could you? Episode 86 comes to a close. Another pile of traps slides down the U bend of Father Time. TRAPPIST, be careful out there. Have a good session. Have a good season. Have a good seasonal period, whatever you want to call it. Don't kill the mother in law. Just eat the bald sprouts. Okay, yes, they should murder them yet again. Yes, the turkey's overcooked. Live with it. Get the spoon. Those lumps in the gravy, flatten them out and just suck it up. Okay, you can have brandy off with loads of it. Goodbye, goodbye, people. Take care. We'll see you on the other side. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Alan Smith: 1:36:04

Are you bossed up? No, it's just nagging. You.

Andy Hart: 1:36:12

Well done. First, made it step in. Guess

Alan Smith: 1:36:16

for guests, yeah, thanks, Pete, you.