Escape Plan 2.0 | How to Rewire Your Relationship to Money

What if your financial future wasn’t just something to hope for, but something you could design with clarity and purpose? In this episode of The Money Minded Podcast, Ryan and Terry dive into the transformative concept of Future Authoring—a groundbreaking approach to making your money meaningful.

What you'll learn:

• Why traditional goal-setting methods often fall short and what to do instead.
• How to connect your finances to a life well-lived, transforming “money tasks” into purposeful action.
• The key to developing an internal compass for financial decisions, so your financial decisions maximise your return on life. 
• The secret to aligning with your partner and creating a shared vision for financial success.

Don’t just dream about financial freedom—start crafting it today. Tune in to discover the tools and mindset shifts that will help you transform your relationship with money and achieve what truly matters.

🔗 Links and Resources:
The 5 Life Windows
https://www.notion.so/cashflowco/The-5-Life-Windows-410402ca5e7b4690889451dc2ad3badd

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Transcript

Ryan: 0:29

Hello. Welcome back to the Money Minded Podcast. Terry, episode, we talked about what we're going to cover in this whole series. Time to get in the meat and bones.

Terry: 0:38

It is mate. We've gone through our method last time. We talked about the money mapping method and then gave you a bit of an overview of the five skills. Today, we're going to be jumping into the first of those five skills and doing a bit of a deep dive on the first one, mate. What is it? What's the first of these five money skills?

Ryan: 0:53

The first one is future authoring. And I just want to call out here. We're not going to hold back here. We're giving you lots. We're giving you everything. We're not going to keep anything in the dark, anything in mystery. We're trying to show you exactly how to do this. All right.

Terry: 1:06

Yeah.

Ryan: 1:06

right. Future authoring. I would Say this is probably your baby, mate. And something that was bloody excited to incorporate into the finance world. I remember when we first came together and we were talking about how can we do this different. This was one of the first things we really called out that no one in the industry really does. And so this is really, pivotal and the starting point of everything Our members.

Terry: 1:30

Yeah. I mean, I think most folks in the industry will set goals, but it's usually a very sterile framework. It's usually like, Oh, let's set some smart goals. And look, I'm not saying there's no place for setting goals, but there is a step that has to happen before that. And this is really what future authoring is. It's you seeing yourself on the other side of an accomplishment. Having a bit of a broader lens. So just jogging your mind back to what we talked about in that overview, this is you walking yourself to the top of that mountain and going, what's it look like here? What's this experience look like? Very few do this, as you say, very few do it well, because frankly, better now to do it. It's just not something that you learn in the space, is it?

Ryan: 2:09

I think as we naturally just send some, we tend to dream about things, people

Terry: 2:15

Yeah.

Ryan: 2:15

somewhat enough. But I think we really want to drill into it actually requires to do this well. Cause you do need to intensify what that imagined future state for you looks like, that future authoring. And You do have to stand on the top of the mountain and really take in that fresh air, appreciate the view and engage the senses. And so,

Terry: 2:38

Yeah.

Ryan: 2:38

Yeah, I would say lots of people do it, but don't do it well.

Terry: 2:42

One of the things I notice, you know, we have these conversations with folks as they're coming into the program. This language pattern is just, The same all the time. We just feel like we lack purpose. I don't have direction when it comes to money. If you've heard yourself say that in the past, usually it's because you haven't linked it, you haven't linked money to a life well lived. Money lacks meaning, and it feels like a job to be done. And it's so important because the frame of reference, the way that you look at money, the way that you look at this part of your life really does dictate your outcomes. And we've discussed that a little bit in terms of language, but like, If you see it as a job to be done, you're going to approach it completely differently from somebody else who sees it as something they want to do. We talked about autonomous motivation versus control motivation. This is the core difference between the And so most people say this, I lack purpose and direction with my money because I haven't linked it to that life where I lived. And that just means that. They just dabble, but don't do. They try things. they know they should do these things, but we never really get to compound our efforts if that's the case.

Ryan: 3:39

Mm.

Terry: 3:39

where this leads is you start to lack confidence because you've tried so many things, but you haven't really made things happen. And you become a little bit more anxious because you know, that time's slipping away, you know, the time's working against you now. And I think that's characterized a lot of people's relationship with money. And this is the missing piece of the puzzle, isn't it?

Ryan: 3:56

100%. And in this episode, we're just going to unpack that, look at our framework for making money meaningful to catalyze commitment. And it's really how you go from just being interested really committed go from have to, want to, really important step to take.

Terry: 4:14

Exactly right. And if you do this well, you know how to calibrate your gut instincts when it comes to money. I think we talked about external authorities and people trusting people outside of them to tell them what to do with their money. This is where you realize you don't need somebody else to tell you what to do with your money. Only you can know exactly what's best for you. And if you are knowing what's best for you, then you'll stay the course. Because you're not trying to follow somebody else's plan for you. And having that internal compass is huge for every decision, I think. This is a big part of why I think people are anxious when it comes to this. I don't know, I'm trying to weigh fine through life, but I don't have a sense of what's best for me. Huge part of this, isn't it?

Ryan: 4:51

I feel like you're working hard, but you're just like, where the fuck's it taking me? I just remembered a member told me during the week, stop swearing on the podcast. We're taking the kids in the car. I'm trying to remember who it was. Sorry guys. I didn't mean it.

Terry: 5:04

It's me too. It's I apologize. I've actually made a mental note after the last couple of episodes myself. But yeah, look, this is just about running your own race, right? We know there's a habit of external comparison. If you don't have your own measure, something to benchmark against for yourself, you look outside of yourself, you listen to other people's advice, you look at what other people are doing and you can use that to guide your decisions. And that rarely takes you to a place where you want to get to. And so a lot of couples will say this as well, we don't, we're not on the same page. This is the problem. Most of the time we've jumped straight in. We haven't really thought about really what this means for us. So if you listen to this episode and you have any of those symptoms that we talked about, this is how to get past those symptoms.

Ryan: 5:44

Yep. Couldn't agree more. The final note I'd probably take on that is just the fulfillment that comes from self actualization, like your ability to say, this is what I want. And then actually make it happen is one of the most rewarding things in life. And I know we've used this reference before. It's like the snooker player that calls out the pocket. just going to hit the final black ball into it. You can see, I don't really play much snooker, but I called calls the whole, he's going to shoot it into. And when you can do that in life, you say, I'm going to make that happen. then you go out and make it happen, and especially when you've stated it to other people and to the world, but this real social contract that you're fulfilling is one of the most powerful things and that's what I call self actualization. That's ultimately what we're talking about here. So mate, let's get into it. Future authoring. What is it?

Terry: 6:36

It's a structured thinking process, and it's designed to help you maximise return on time, not money. Actually, let me say that another way as well. Return on life, not money. Because you only get one life, and you only get a finite amount of time. And the game isn't to stack money with the time that you have. The game is to maximise your time through money. Those two things are very different pursuits. Very different pursuits. One's hedonistic and you never really quite get there. You're always chasing that money mirage and another one you can arrive and actually you can be there on the way. You can be enjoying the journey on the way as you do it because time is the finite resource. Money is not finite. The reason we're paying more for everything is because there's too much money sloshing around the world's economy. There's heaps of money. It's just not enough time and you don't know when it's all going to stop. Do you?

Ryan: 7:24

I know that like it can sound abstract sometimes, so I would definitely want to bridge that with an example and. Yeah, the obvious example is you go to work for a day, right? And you trade your time, you get given money for it. then you have that money in the bank that in the future, you can take a day off work and, Sweet. And we actually, even on a more magnified version of that, we just had a member recently got a redundancy payout. And it was really jarring for a start. And for them, I remember It takes a little bit of soul searching, a little bit of dabbling and experimenting with different things. And she'd been in this career in this job for over a decade anyway. And so, and it wasn't something that really lit her up. And so what we decided to do as part of that was basically buy her time. By four months of what they needed to be earning to make sure that they were good for the next four months and sad to decide and basically made it supplementary income for that period of time. I just remember saying to me, she's like, that's the first time I've actually got that point where money. Actually buys you time because I'm now looking at the next four months going, I can do whatever I want and I can get around. I can volunteer, which is going to do. You know, I could do something part time just to dabble in a couple of different ways. And also maybe intern in a business where she can just get experience where they don't have to pay me, but she gets to find out. That's the kind of thing she wants to be doing more of.

Terry: 9:09

Yeah.

Ryan: 9:10

That's what we mean when we say is there to, it is packaged time and how we want to maximize the return on it, isn't it?

Terry: 9:19

And it's funny because the start of that conversation was what are we going to do with this money? I don't know what to do. And the first part of that conversation was let's just step back for a second and remember what the job of money is. Let's go back and redefine it. Make sure we get this right so that you can make better decisions with your money so that you can have a bit of an internal compass with what we had to go with this. So that kind of problem statement around meaningful work that fell out of that first conversation and everything we're going to discuss in this episode is how to get there. It's how to know what you're optimizing for. So it is a North star. And it's the whole purpose of money is to map your money to the life you actually want to live. That's the whole point of this money mapping method is to actually make sure that you are putting your money to work. I think a lot of people think put your money to work means investing and yes, it can, but I think there's a much better definition, which is like, Hey, I'm earning money and it's making my life better. It's actually working for me every single day. My life's getting better because of the way that I'm managing the money that I have. And I can see that the choices I have with the time they're expanding.

Ryan: 10:21

And investing is just a part of that journey, really, because you think about why we invest, we do it so we can, grow our money, expand our purchasing power to be able to buy more things in life and create income from other sources so that we don't have to go to work as much to be able to get it. So that's the upside. The role. It's all on the way to the same thing, like you mentioned, which is about getting more of a return on life. And so you called it a structured thinking process designed to help you maximize your return on time. Before we actually get into how you go about future authoring, why does it matter to do this and why does it matter to do this regularly?

Terry: 10:55

yeah. It's a good question. I called it a structured thinking process because usually our thinking is unstructured when it comes to money. And it's, Based off a whole bunch of assumptions and you might have heard us talk about in the earlier episode in this series, we talked about that geocentric model of the universe where money is the center of the universe and we just jump in and we just start trying to make it the center of everything. And then we said that money isn't wealth and it's not these other terms. It's just this technology. It's this information technology we can use to measure, move value and improve our lives and be able to collaborate with other people. You need a structured thinking process to be able to manage that really well. So there's a few reasons why you want to start this process. The first one is clarity. So Mitch Parkins gave us this analogy. And I think it's the best way to explain it. He said, before we did this conversation, I felt like we were just working really hard trying to put this thousand piece puzzle together, but we didn't have the picture and suddenly we had the picture so we knew what we had to solve for. I love that analogy because what it hits on is like an engineering principle, right? Which is, before you start trying to solve the problem, make sure you're clear on what problem it is you're trying to solve. You need a clear problem statement first. And unfortunately, when it comes to money, if you've made money, the center of the universe, you've made this huge assumption, which is. Wasn't it just to get more money? And actually, the purpose of money isn't just to get more money. It's to maximize that return on life. And so this is where I think a lot of folks get caught up in the fire thing. They just get the number. They get their fine number, basically. And then they just work really hard all the way through. And it's ironic because it's all about financial independence. But they create a huge dependency on finances in order to get there. It's almost like you become myopic on the thing that you're wanting to get free of. And so it kind of works against itself. And I love that. Goodhart's law, it says, when a measure becomes the target, it ceases to be a good measure. And I see this so much when it comes to money. If you just jump straight in and you try to start trying to solve that puzzle and you don't have the picture, it is very easy to feel confused because it is confusing. You don't know where you're going. You've made these huge assumptions that you don't even know that you've made. Does that make sense?

Ryan: 12:59

Yeah. And so to be super clear, what's a better measure.

Terry: 13:05

The better measure is your own definition of a life well lived. And we're going to get into the, I guess, the characteristics of that and all the different components of what that is, but you need to know what you're managing it for. You can't optimize your money until you know what you're optimizing it for.

Ryan: 13:20

Mm hmm.

Terry: 13:20

And that, I know that's going to whack a lot of people in the face because we just, we've just grown up with this assumption, which is like the purpose of money is to have more money. Well it's not? It's not at all. I'm not saying you shouldn't have more money. By the way, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying you can have more money, but less life and you'll give all your money up and frequently people do. It's called self sabotage. So you really want to get clear first on what you're optimising for before you start to try to optimise so that you don't get there and end up in therapy. Like a lot of these folks do, because they haven't, they've got the number, they hit the number and then they go, shit, I didn't think about what was on the other side of this. Now I've created this huge vacuum and void in my life and I don't know who I am or what I'm going to do with the time that I've created. So better to start there with a clear problem statement first.

Ryan: 14:10

Yeah, and it's worth calling out, like, the first time you do this, you're not always right about what you want. There's things that you think you want, and then you get there and you go, shit, that wasn't it. There's choices, freedoms, maybe you've picked them up just from, through observing people around you. They're clues that you look at and go, I think I want that. And then you get there and you go, maybe it's not. And so it's actually. Search and discover and then either throw away or keep process and you put that off, if you put it off and say, well, I'm just going to focus on my savings around. I'm just going to save as much as I can. I'm going to invest as much as I can. I'm willing to give up and sacrifice life on the way. you actually just delay this process of search and destroy the ones that you have. You have to go through, you have to filter. And so you definitely see that like these guys you've mentioned where what was the, there was a Reddit article, wasn't there? The

Terry: 15:05

Yeah. Yeah. I lost the love of my life because of fire. Don't be me.

Ryan: 15:11

Oh, yeah, that's it.

Terry: 15:13

Yeah. And

Ryan: 15:17

thing, but then get there and go, shit, now I don't know. I've, you know, I didn't actually, learn more about myself and what I value. In fact, I've lost a lot of that along the way. And so when you optimize for money, you don't necessarily get after the things in life that you want. And that might be choices around how you're living how you're working, the experiences, the adventures, and the travels and things that you're doing. If you push all that back, it just takes longer to find out what you actually, Truly value for yourself. And so there's this real delay which means that if you delay it for so long, you sacrifice heaps of life along the way, you get there and go, I've got lots of money, but I don't know what to do with it. do I find my purpose?

Terry: 15:58

I don't know who I am

Ryan: 16:00

I don't

Terry: 16:00

or what I care about. Yeah.

Ryan: 16:02

Yeah.

Terry: 16:02

So what do I do with it? And by the way, everyone else is at work. What's going to happen? I always encourage people. I go, why don't you just try early retirement and see how it feels? Cause when I left sport, that's what happened. I was like actually. Not all that cracked up too. I was like, this is gonna be epic. I'm just gonna surf every day. And I'm like, with who? Doing what? It's meaningless. You need to have some sort of community contribution, sense of connection to people and be doing something that you know is uniquely possible for you to do. You need to be giving your gifts away to find a source of meaning. And so much of what you want from financial freedom is available far before you hit the number. If you actually just take the time to think about it. I love that Stephen Covey quote. He's like, once a man got caught up in the activity trap of life, only to find that he was climbing a ladder that was leaning against the wrong wall. And that is the story of a lot of folks lives, unfortunately. So we want to avoid that as much as possible. So it's so important to get clear. That's the first reason why this future authoring conversation matters. The second reason is. That autonomous motivation, we talked about it in the previous episode, the difference between autonomous motivation, controlled motivation. Controlled motivation is doing something because you feel like you should, or you don't want to feel guilty, or you don't want to feel irresponsible, or it's the right thing to do. Autonomous motivation is, I want to do this thing, because I believe it's really important for me, I can see how it's aligned to the things I care about, I see how it's on the way to what I'm doing, and intrinsically, I enjoy the process. If you want to have autonomous motivation, when it comes to money, you need to align your goals to a vision that reflects your values. So I said before that a lot of folks in the finance space, a lot of financial professionals miss this and they go straight to goal setting and goal setting. Like I said, it's quite sterile. If you haven't actually created a vision first, you need to actually see what it's like to be living a life where those goals have been accomplished. And if you jump straight to the goal setting, forget even just managing the money. If you just jump straight into that, it doesn't necessarily connect you to any emotion. And you need to connect to your emotion because emotion is energy in motion. It's what gets you into action and it's only action that produces the outcomes that you want. So if you skip this step, number one, you're not going to have any action. It's not going to be compelling enough for you to do anything. But number two, even if you do something, you won't do it for long enough to have your efforts compound because it's not the right form of motivation. It's not a clean, sustainable form of energy that you can keep tapping into over time. So that is the second reason why future authoring matters before we start doing anything else.

Ryan: 18:31

I think that the feeling that tends to come with, like I said, that control motivation is like, you feel like you're kind of trapped on a path versus laying pavers that autonomous is like you're laying your own pavers out in front and the direction as it comes. Yeah,

Terry: 18:46

Have you heard of that parable of like, the bricklayer versus the temple builder?

Ryan: 18:50

I have remind me.

Terry: 18:52

Yeah. This is a guy's like walking past and he sees people laying bricks and he asked one guy and he's like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm laying bricks. He's like, okay. And then he asked another guy, he's like, what are you doing? He goes, I'm building a temple. And it's the difference between the two. One of them is an intrinsic form of motivation. You're seeing a bigger picture. You can see a pathway and a journey. And the other one is you're just doing a job that you need to do.

Ryan: 19:13

Yeah,

Terry: 19:13

That is the difference.

Ryan: 19:16

it's amazing how an analogy mate can just wrap it all up in one. Where do we go from here?

Terry: 19:21

There's one more reason why this matters. There's so many folks that we talk to and we go, have you ever sat down and mapped out exactly how you want to be living your life? And they'll say, yeah, we've had the conversation. We have this conversation all the time. Yeah. I've talked about this. This is something that we're really clear on. And then I asked this next question and almost nobody says yes. I say, cool, have you documented it? Is it written down somewhere? And to a fault, almost everyone says no, we just talk about it. We just talk about it. We've never really sat down and actually documented it. And I don't really understand why that's the case, but I know that there is a resistance to do it. It's probably a fear of like, the more we just leave it as a dream, the more we can keep it as a dream. And it's a comforting thought, but we don't have to do anything about it. But. I want to explain why it's so important to do that documentation process. It's actually pivotal. You might remember Emily Belchettis has come on this podcast in the past. So Emily Belchettis is a New York University motivation scientist. And she wrote this book called clear a closer better. And so much of what she wrote in that book just sung to me because I was like, this is what I've observed. Coaching and working with folks who are achieving really big things. It is the way that you're manipulating the aperture of your focus, what you're focusing on and how you're focusing on it at different stages of goal pursuit. That's what this whole book is about. And she talks about this concept of materialisation And I think a lot of people think that it's fluffy to write down your goals and dreams. It's like, this is just the secret type thing, but it's so important. to actually take it from a conversation and capture it and trap it and put it on a page because the very second that you do that you take it out of the ether and you bring it into the world of the real it's now in ones and zeros let's say you're putting it on a page on the computer it's now in the world of atoms and bits and that is the first step to materialising something because now from there we've trapped it we've captured it we can start reverse engineering what would have to be in order for you to be able to accomplish that thing Not unless or until you have actually done that and documented it and done in a way that you connect to emotionally, will you start being able to reverse engineer what has to happen in order to make it happen? So that's the third reason, right?

Ryan: 21:28

Yeah. The other parts of that is you mentioned before about our thoughts are unstructured.

Terry: 21:33

Yeah.

Ryan: 21:34

It's incredible how much you clean out your thoughts once you actually write it down as well, because you then have to form sentences in an orderly fashion. Maybe you create dot points but you turned into a list and then you look at that list and you start to go, well, how do I feel about it? Is there anything I would change? Is there something I would take off? You start to filter. And I think that organization. In it of itself helps you think better like there's no doubt in my mind anyone that I've met the rights. They are clearer communicators. You can see that in their minds, the way that they talk and communicate just clearer, cleaner, and no doubt up the way that they think as well. And so just that process, even of itself in general, but then applied to organizing your vision about what you want for the future and organizing your thoughts and then being able to prioritize them is a massive step forward. Cause you might

Terry: 22:31

and and you're in the next

Ryan: 22:45

Know, it's, it's clarity, like you mentioned before.

Terry: 22:48

Yeah, and I'm glad you kind of brought that up because once you have it all on a page, you're going to be able to notice, so some of the things you're going to pursue, and you'll just see yourself getting pulled in that direction. Those are things that are intrinsic and unique to you. Other things you won't be pursuing, or you will achieve those things and it will be empty or it won't be really what you thought. That's great. That's a learning process and you keep using that to update your assumptions going forward about what really does matter to you. But if you do nothing and you just make it a talk that we have every now and then, and I talk to something that I've talked about, then you don't get to learn anything and you don't get to move anywhere and you don't get to make any progress. So yes, you can have the fantasy, but you don't get the reality. And I know what I'd choose the reality every time.

Ryan: 23:31

100%. And I think like what you, what you're aiming to avoid there is looping.

Terry: 23:36

Yeah.

Ryan: 23:42

the same train of thought, takes me to the same places. And I'm not actually breaking that loop and building upon it. And this is often true with couples as well. If you feel like you've had the same conversation about the future a hundred times. But you've never written it down and then gone, well, that's what it was. And now this is how we're evolving it. This is how it's changing. This is how we're updating it. Then you just stay in that loop it doesn't become a reality You don't necessarily look back and go, shit, two years ago, three years ago, that's something that I said that I wanted at the time that felt like. This kind of big thing that was, you know, really far out. But then with time, everything feels slower and now it's happened. And then you're kind of moving on to the next thing already. And so such an important step to actually like the snooker player, just call out, that's what I want. But then having a bit of a timestamp. To say, that's when I said, I wanted it

Terry: 24:32

yeah.

Ryan: 24:32

in time, because you have to transport yourself back to be able to

Terry: 24:36

Hello, everyone.

Ryan: 25:06

clarity. And instead of having a thousand pieces with no picture, got a clear picture and maybe you only need a hundred pieces. How does it actually work? How do we do this?

Terry: 25:18

Alright, so there's two parts to this framework and this is interesting. So you might be listening to this and you might have done this with us at a period of time if you're an existing member and this has continued to evolve. So some of this may be new for you if you're listening. Where it's got to is there's two stages to this process. Step one, you need to create direction for your money decisions. a sense of direction. And that's all about a vision, something that's guiding you where you're like, that's where I'm going. That's where we're going. That's what it is. That's the end in mind. And then step two is you want to be tapping into the deeper drivers. You've heard us talk about that toward and away from energy before you need to be able to activate that. After you figured out what this vision is, so at the highest level, there's these 2 steps.

Ryan: 26:03

Now let's actually break it down. Let's talk through how do this. Let's open the kimono. How does it work?

Terry: 26:11

Step one, that direction part, there's two sort of thinking tools that we use for this. The first one is all about, we talked about it before, but we were trying to get a return on time, a return on life is the thing we're looking at. Now, if you understand how short life is, it makes it very obvious what you want to be doing. And that makes it a lot easier to figure out what to do with your money. And so what we want to do is we want to show you how short life is by breaking it down into what we call the five life windows. And so we've talked about this on the podcast before. There's five life windows, freedom, responsibility, counsel, exploration, and legacy. And in each of these five life windows, your time, your health, and your money, changes. And it's really important that you can sort of see that there's opportunities and choices in each of these windows that are a lot easier. And they become a lot harder once you walk from one window into the next. And so you see that and you realize that there are actually these finite periods of time within which you can do things after which it's very difficult. So I always give the example of the trip that you took to Europe last year. If I want to do that trip and I want to do it the same amount of freedom and the same amount of exploration that you did. I've probably got to have to break up with my wife, lose my kids, and my life's probably going to be in the shit, if that's the case. It's a lot harder for me to do that now. Now I can do it with the kids, but it's a lot harder to do it with the kids. It's a lot more expensive than it would have been if I had done that sooner. And so once you realize that these opportunities are passing you by every day,

Ryan: 27:39

Mm.

Terry: 27:44

I don't have the time. This isn't fine. This isn't infinite and what's weird is like it's almost like we're conditioned to act like time is abundant and money is scarce, but it's the complete opposite. Money is abundant and time is scarce and once you realize that you know exactly how to use your money because there are some things that you should not wait for and there are some things that it's really fine to wait for.

Ryan: 28:05

Yeah.

Terry: 28:06

once you see this, you look at these five life windows, it's really obvious.

Ryan: 28:11

So to make that really concrete. So looking at those Firefly windows, pretty happy that I'm still in this first window by the sense of freedom.

Terry: 28:17

Yeah.

Ryan: 28:18

when does that end for me?

Terry: 28:20

It's pretty soon, mate. You're about to get married. You're about to move into the house. And then I'm pretty sure kid will come not long after. So you're on the precipice.

Ryan: 28:30

So would probably say then that that's maybe 2 to 3 years away for me. And so I'm looking at going, there's a window that I'm in right now. That's 2 to 3 years away. And there's choices and adventures that we absolutely want to go on in that time and it's how we kind of time box and go, all right, in this time frame, we want to, to make sure we make the most of it, that makes us kind of look at more proximal goals within this window to focus our time and attention on. What life window are you in?

Terry: 28:58

I'm in responsibility. Yeah. So I'm the next one along from you. So that means kids, marriage, mortgage, job. Different sort of responsibilities. What happens between your window and mine is that right now you've pretty much got as much time as you want. Like you could do almost anything you wanted to do. No one's really kind of got a claim on your time yet. But as soon as you do move into that next part, marriage is the first part of it. And then kids is the next part of it. And then the mortgage, all that sort of stuff comes into it. It becomes more claims on your time. So your time goes from. Almost unfettered, depending on what stage, what age you are to like very limited because you got a lot of other people who have claims on that time and then health is great in freedom. And then when it comes into responsibility, health starts to decline a little bit because you're a little bit further along in life generally. So and that's happening. The dad podcast up. You fight it a lot. You fight it much harder. But it's really important to understand because health and vitality is a massive constraint on your money. You could have the most money in the world, live in hospital. What good is your money? It's not good at all. So you've got to think about how health and vitality, I'm investing a lot more time and money in health than I ever have. Because this is the decade now where you set yourself up for later in life and you can tell the difference between the people that did invest and the people that didn't. They get to do a lot more with their money later on because the last factor of this is that money is compounding all the way through. So you want to have enough health to enjoy your money as it compounds. So I know there's probably some moving pictures here. What I will do is I'll put a, I'll put a graphic of the five life windows in the show notes so you can see it. I have done this before in the past and a little explanation. So the main thing that we want you to get Is that time isn't infinite time is very finite and you need to break your life down into these different windows to see how finite it is. The purpose of this is to give you that sense of urgency and clarity because the next part is where you start to define. All right. What does this vision need to look like? If you think about anyone who's had a near death experience. Usually what happens is, coming out of those experiences, they make some big decisions. Because they go, What the fuck? I don't have enough time. I don't have the time to waste on this. I don't have the time to waste doing this. I want to do this, and this. And so the whole job of this Five Life Windows is to give you that moment of clarity where you're like, Wow, I'm wasting time here. I'm wasting money.

Ryan: 31:19

yourself.

Terry: 31:20

Yeah. Yeah. So that's the first part, mate. The second part of this, once you've done the Firefly of Windows, is you've got to define three core concepts. And I'm going to call you back to what we discussed earlier on in this series, where we talked about how money isn't the answer. These other ideas like rich, wealthy, and successful. I said that we're going to come back to it. This is the moment where we're coming back to it. We are going to define those three things now and decouple them from money so that you can do a better job making decisions about money. So once we've figured out what life window you're in, where you're going to be going and what's up next, then we have to figure out what is your definition of wealth, rich and success. And so we have like a higher level. Sort of a view on this or a belief around what each is, and then what that allows you to do is define for yourself what it means. And so for us, wealth, isn't money, rich, isn't money, success, isn't money. Wealth. Is having more of what you value, operative word you, what you value, not anyone else. Rich, is living with less obligations, less things you have to do. And then success is dying with zero regrets. Now the great thing about those three different ideas is that you get to define it. Only you can say what you value. Only you know what you want off your plate. And only you know the one or two things that you'd regret. And we think about that regret in each of the life windows. We think about rich and the obligations in each of the life windows. And we think about the things you want to get done, experience, accomplish, pursue in each of these life windows. And we break it down so it's almost like, all right, let's zero in, let's zoom in on this life window. What is wealth in this life window? What is rich in this life window? What is success in this life window? And we do that as we go through the next period of life. And we go, zoom in on this one. Let's pretend you're sitting at the end of this life window. How would you know you squeezed absolutely everything out of it? Wealth, rich, success. Now let's look at the next life window. How would you know that you set yourself up to really enjoy that? What are the things that are going to be possible, available for you in this next life window? And that is how we create wealth. And that gives you direction for your decisions. I talked about having an internal compass before, knowing what to do with your money. If you do this, you take the time to do it. You know exactly what to do with your money. You don't need to listen to what someone else is telling you what to do. You know what to do.

Ryan: 33:33

Let's throw in a couple of examples for each of these. You said wealth is having more of what you value. What's an example of something that you value in this life window?

Terry: 33:42

Yeah, so for us, adventures with the kids is a big one. And I learned this from my dad. He said, I didn't do enough of this. And it's one of the biggest things I regret. And you know, I realized that when you look at life windows, you go, it's actually relatively cheap for me to have these experiences with the kids now, and it's very expensive later on. But right now, if my dad wants to have experiences with his kids, he's got to sync up eight different calendars,

Ryan: 34:06

Mm.

Terry: 34:07

calendar, Elisa's calendar, my older brother's calendar, his wife's calendar, my second, there's four brothers, four boys, they each have a partner. So that's eight calendars that have to sync up in order to have everyone in the room at one time. And. Everybody's got kids. So it's very complex. It's very expensive to be able to make one experience happen with the family now. Whereas he had us captive when we were young and he said, I just spent too much time. You know, working, doing this stuff. And so one of the reasons why I've set up my life and my career to be able to work wherever and whenever I want is that it opens up those choices. So middle of the year this year, we went up the East coast and I just kind of worked on the road, just went up. We had a, we had about a week and a half where I didn't do too much work. It just took time. And then another week or so where I was just working on the road and there's a few pieces to this puzzle. It's the time, it's the way you've set up your life and your career, but it's also the investment that we made to be able to have, you know, the caravan and those sorts of things that allow us to have those experiences. And so that is how I've sort of set up, like, what does wealth look like in this window? We've got a vehicle for that now,

Ryan: 35:11

Yep.

Terry: 35:12

we have the opportunity to have those experiences.

Ryan: 35:14

Perfect. Love it. And I reckon those boys that eat like horses too, so it'd be an expensive outing for your old fella to get them together. You mentioned rich next, which was living with less or no obligations. What's an obligation that you look at in this life window where you go, I'd love to not have to do that.

Terry: 35:32

I'm just going to get my little canvas up here so I can tell you.

Ryan: 35:35

Oh, you've got a bunch. You've done this well. Practice what you preach.

Terry: 35:39

I'm looking at my canvas right now. So, it's very basic stuff. What I love about this definition of rich is, it makes you a lot more grateful for your money. And it shows you that actually in global standards, you're already rich. The fact that I own my house and I don't have to rent is an obligation that I don't have. The fact that we have a car, which means I don't have to take public transport. That's cool. Is another obligation I don't have and like you can see through your life, you can actually go back and look at all the things that show you that you're already rich, but now you actually just want to get really deliberate about the obligations that you want to get off your plate. So for us, it's actually some pretty simple ones here in this window. We don't want to have to go grocery shopping anymore. Like we want someone to do that for us. We want it delivered or something like that. So that tells us, okay, if you want to get your groceries delivered, how much extra does that cost? This kind of determines the level of lifestyle you're living at and the level or the skill level with money that you need to play at as well. Another one I don't want to have to do, I don't want to have to mow the lawns and clear the gutters. I want to be able to pay somebody else to do that.

Ryan: 36:41

Who

Terry: 36:42

So I know this is, I don't mind it every now and then, but like when it's super sunny and you're doing it every bloody third, fourth day, it's annoying.

Ryan: 36:50

Echo.

Terry: 36:52

but like you can see these are really basic things. They're small things, but they actually all add up. They all create. a bit of mental load. They create a bit of decision fatigue and the more that you can sloth off these things and get rid of them as obligations, the more you are freeing up the time to be able to have more adventures and do the things that you really care about. So it is worth it to sit down and go, what are all the obligations we have now? And which of these would you want to get off your plate? I think when I take people through this, I just see their shoulders relax. Where they're just like, man, that would be amazing because it is these things that just these obligations just pile up. And now you can see how money is starting to become more meaningful, right? Because you're thinking, if we manage our money really well, we don't have to do any of that. That means all of these other things that we just talked about, like the adventures and all that sort of stuff. We've got more time and space and energy and bandwidth for all these things. So I love this part where you start looking at the obligations. It's not easy if you just think about it first, but once you get the hang of it, you start to become very grateful.

Ryan: 37:46

Especially when a lot of the things that we do. We would actually enjoy doing a whole lot more if we just weren't as pressured or as loaded up on to do them like our work or like something, even some of those tools like a mowing of the lawns, right? Like, if you didn't have the load of everything else But it's actually just the. Volume of tasks that we find ourselves with in this day and age. I'm sure it's always been the case, but and so it is just the freeing up of some manage your own mental and time loads as well. What about success? So success, you said dying with no regrets. What's an example for you in terms of something you want to make sure you'd never look back and go, damn, I wish I did that.

Terry: 38:30

Yeah. So we've got like a bit of a, we're looking into this window. Well, by the way, when I say this, so there's other windows, but looking in the current window, the one of the one that we really want to make happen in this window, and you can see how this links into wealth and you can see how it links into rich for us is we want to get to a place where we can take more sort of longer trips during the holidays. So right now we're still a little bit dependent on Elisa's income. And if we weren't dependent on her income, then we'd be completely location independent. Which means when school holidays came, we could actually be anywhere in Australia. And so that is the next little thing that we're zeroing in on right now. How do we get that to the point where we're not as reliant on hers. And we could be like, yep, during these school holidays, Caesar's not working or she's working in a different way. So how are we actually accomplishing that? Obviously, our business my personal income, trying to really increase that as much as possible, but also on her side, changing her business model to unlock her so that she's not always face to face at all times. And so, I think that's a really good example because you can see how, like, these things pull through. They're all kind of working together to make the one thing happen. And because we both know exactly what it is, that is the definition of us being on the same page. We have a priority for our time, talent, money, and we can see we're managing all those things around these priorities.

Ryan: 39:44

And you can see it's not always just a money thing as well. We go, is it the income? Is it also just the way we've structured up our work, how we're actually doing and carrying out our work to make that thing possible? So location independent. That's the main one there.

Terry: 39:58

Yeah, that's right. We don't have to, we'd regret not getting to a place where We can both work wherever, whenever we want, basically. Yeah.

Ryan: 40:07

to travel with the kids, lots of adventures with them, as well as the rich one, which was not having to mow the lawns. Very good. That makes sense. Nice. Okay. So we've got the five life windows and we've dug into those three definitions. So wealth, rich, success. What's the next step with this? You mentioned before it's

Terry: 40:27

So step one was direction. The second one is drivers tapping into those deeper drivers. So there's two parts to this. We need to step into the experience. And so what we're doing is we map all this out on the canvas. And we look at these five life windows. We define wealth, rich, and success in the life. We know that we're in right now, the life we know that we're going to step into next, that becomes our sort of vision, the direction for us. The next thing we have to do is actually. Live it, like mentally live it, step into that experience. And so the, what we do is we actually play it back and we tell it like a story, like it's the story of our life. So when I'm doing this with a couple or somebody else who's doing this by themselves, we get the whole thing mapped out. And then what I do is I say, now, imagine this, imagine you're living a life. Imagine you're living a life where this is happening, where this is happening, where you're traveling on the weekends and where you've, you know, you've been taking these trips where you're able to sort of take this four months off and take that trip, you know, or like Mitch and Brooke go around Australia, imagine this, you're doing that because your brain doesn't know the difference. It doesn't know the difference between what you're imagining and reality. And when you can make that as clear as possible, you can connect to it on an emotional level. And once you do connect to it on an emotional level, that's when it matters for you. That's when that end state really becomes tangible, becomes real. That's when you go, that's the moment where you go from interested to committed because now you know what the cost of doing nothing is. It's that life. You either have that life and you're moving towards it or you're drifting, doing nothing, talking about it, thinking about it. Collecting information, not taking action. And so you're saying to yourself, I'm done with that. And I'll see this P I'll see people's physiology change in this moment where they're just, they start leaning in and sometimes people get pissed. I've had people say to me, what the hell are we doing? What have we been doing? We're going to start making decisions here. We're going to start making some big decisions because our time is finite and that's, what's at stake. So let's get after it. I love this moment. It's one of the coolest moments where it's sort of up until this point, it's yeah, this is this is all nice in theory. This is all great in theory. And there's like, no, we're doing this. This is the moment where Mitch said it was always, when can we make this happen? But he said, after this part, this moment here, he goes, I start asking a very different question, which is how do we make this happen? How can we make this happen? And now, this is the moment when you're ready to start managing money. Now money means something. Now you're engaged.

Ryan: 42:52

Now you're committed. Yeah. And look, this is something that I've seen time and time again, now working with members is the fact that it doesn't happen overnight, within 12 months, two years, three years, people start to shapeshift life in big ways in very big ways. And those decisions that were just sitting on ice for a long time. Now they just go, do you know what done with that? Let's shed that. Let's get into this next part and make it happen. I was actually talking to a member on the yesterday who they've just done their life by design session. I think it was with you actually. And they'd been really focused on just being mortgage free the

Terry: 43:27

This

Ryan: 43:31

The mortgage on the house that they're living in isn't actually the house they want to be in. And it was all about like, how's this lifestyle change? You want to be close to the beach, rara. And basically spent the weekend driving around suburbs, scouting. Where specifically they want to be living just like, well, I hadn't done that. I hadn't really gone out and looked. It was just a feeling. and kind of a thing we talked about a bit, but we hadn't actually done any work on that front. And so they did that session on Friday or maybe even Thursday and Scouting for it and That then take us from then? Is that something where we want to do? so it's just the fact that all of a sudden it becomes, like you said, a problem that's clear that you start to solve for. But you actually start solving it. You unpack the riddle and actualize it.

Terry: 44:17

This moment right here is where people's identity starts to shift and change because now she's doing something different. She's actually building a new identity in pursuit of that vision. And I always say to folks, when you do this vision, try not to limit yourself to your current reality, to who you think you are, what you think you're capable of, because it won't be you that's sitting here across from me that achieves it. It'll be that you, that you become. In pursuit of it. And so even that small example there, right, doing all the things that she wasn't doing, gathering all the information she wasn't gathering, making the decisions she wasn't making, it's who you become on the other side of every decision that builds a new identity. If you've been listening to this podcast for a long time and you've been listening to us from the start, you'll remember my story in season one, episode one. I talked about stepping into that room and having people make decisions on my behalf and me just having jack of it. That moment there is where I shed, I just created a new vision for my life. I'm like, I want to live the life, literally the life I'm living now. I can work wherever, whenever I want, with whoever I want. And I want to use my coaching skills in a way that's meaningful for me. I had no idea how I was going to do that. The how doesn't matter. You have to figure out what it is first and why it matters to you. And if you've got that right, Then you cannot help but be pulled in a new direction. And as you move and pursue that vision, you build a new identity. And when you look backwards, you go, I'm just not even the same. I'm just not even the same person. And so it's hard for people, I think, because I look at it and I project their current state out into the future and their current version of themselves into the future. And they, I can't do that. You're like, yeah, I know you can't, but it won't be you. It'll be the you that you become. And you know, when that's happened, because those people start making those decisions, they start literally doing the things they weren't doing before.

Ryan: 46:01

And if you stand at the top of that mountain and you look around and go, well, this is worth figuring out how to climb a mountain, then. going to get fitter, you're going to get stronger, you're going to become a whole lot more equipped to climb a mountain than what you would do if you didn't. And so you want to make sure it's large, it's exciting, you look at it and go, this is compelling, you'll then start to seek out the skills that you need to make that possible. One of the biggest skills being, how do I use money in a way that makes those choices available to me? Or how do I get the money that makes those choices available to me? And so. This is a crucial step to then having the commitment to learning how money works to make it work that hard for you. And so massive step. So that sums up how it works, right? So step one direction, figure out the life window. What you want to have in that life we know to find wealth for yourself, which is having more of what you value to find rich for yourself, what obligations you have that you want to take off your plate and no longer have to deload a little bit and then also success, what would you regret not doing in this life? We know that gives you direction on what you really need to optimize for. Then in step two, you said drivers. So step into the experience, play it back to yourself or have it facilitated. If you want obviously something that we do, having someone play it back to you really helps you step into it, see it, feel it a lot more strongly and calibrate your internal compass. And as virtue of that, then start to shed your unwanted identity as well, call out That you've done with the things you no longer want, the things you want to leave behind. Anything else you add to that framework?

Terry: 47:33

That's it, mate. It's direction drivers. It does take, it takes about 90 minutes, sometimes two hours to do this well. It's a very good use of your time before you jump into the money. Because once you do this, like I said before, you just look at money completely differently. It's not a job to be done. You're not a bricklayer anymore. You're a temple builder. And you really want to know The best way to build a temple basically. You get so much more out of the rest of your process. If you just begin with the end in mind, slow down to speed up.

Ryan: 48:01

Yep. One final thing I'd probably ask you is, so future authoring is a skill, right? It's a, it's a thinking process, but it's also a skill that you need to, that you develop and you maintain over time. How often should you do something like this?

Terry: 48:15

Yeah, we definitely recommend once a year coming back to revise we, at least I just revised ours and it was just over 12 months and it was quite a good amount of time to kind of go, all right, what sticks, what's changed cause you're always, your life is changing your values all the time. And your vision should always reflect your values. So the vision that you and Britt will have right now will change completely after your first kid. You'll just be like, it looks completely different. These are things that really matter. These are things that we used to care about. We don't really care about anymore. And that's just how life is. It just keeps you keep moving. Your life keeps coming towards you and you respond to those things. So once a year I think is the best timeframe or time period between which you should do this and keep refining it. And if you're doing it well, I think 80 percent of it is pretty constant and 20 percent of it is changing.

Ryan: 49:03

Yeah. So being able to do it at least once a year, essentially, but realistically, you're probably checking in more often, aren't you, to see, Are we actually getting close? Are we taking some of these things off? Are we making them happen? And we're going to actually talk about that in the next episode, aren't we? How we can actually measure progress towards those things in the second skill. But mate, just to quickly recap on this episode. So we've drilled into that first skill of the money mapping method, which is future authoring. And like you mentioned, it's a thinking process that just helps you stand at the top of the mountain, see what it looks like, see what it feels like, see what it smells like, and really just. embody that experience to an extent at which it really guides a lot of your decisions and you start to filter other decisions I'm making, taking me closer, or are they making it harder for me to get there? And it's all about making sure you do that in a way of defining it for yourself and making sure it's autonomous motivation that is guiding you, you looking at it as a temple builder, not just as a job you have to do, laying bricks but really taking it out of the mind, putting it onto paper, starting that materialization process of Of actualization and importantly calling it out saying this is what I'm going to make happen and then making it happen and having a timestamp of when you said you would as that's a real confidence builder when you look back and go, I said, I'll do it and I did shit. If I could do that. What else could I do? What can I out for the future? And importantly, that all just gives you lots of clarity. You now have a picture in which you're solving for, you know, what you're optimizing for and what money needs to do for you. And then lastly, there, we looked into how it actually works, how we define those life windows and then the drivers that take it from just interested into being truly committed to it Anything you'd add to that in that, in that summary? Yeah.

Terry: 50:57

you said, how we start to measure progress along the way and how we start to get our hands dirty and figure out how do we start course correcting. Towards these goals because it is a wayfinding process and we need the systems and structures to support us to do that. So we're going to be jumping into a bit of a deep dive on that second money skill in the next episode. In a bit of a reminder to if you're listening to this, there is that financial skill score. If you want to know if you've got a clear enough vision and take that financial skill score, it'll help you assess yourself against the five skills in this method so that you can see where the opportunities are. To improve, to get to a point where you've got the skills to be able to make those big things happen. The link to that is in the show notes. The link to that is in the show notes. Just click on that link that says, take the financial skill score and you can have a look for yourself. How you going against this, the first of those five money skills.

Ryan: 51:42

Alright mate, let's get into the next one.

Terry: 51:44

Thanks mate. Talk soon.