From Elite Sport to Money Coaching: How I Apply Performance Psychology to Help People Win with Money

What if financial goals aren’t just about numbers—but mindset, discipline, and the ability to back yourself?

In this raw, revealing crossover with Evelyn from Evelyn Finance, Terry Condon opens up about his journey from elite athlete and coach to founder of a financial education business. He shares how the same mental tools that drive world-class performance can unlock real financial freedom—if you know how to use them.

You’ll learn:

• The four money “fixes” that never work—and what to focus on instead
• Why financial stress has nothing to do with how much you earn
• How to define “rich,” “wealthy,” and “successful” in ways that actually stick

If you’ve ever set a financial goal and not followed through—this one’s for you.

Join the live weekly workshop with Terry
Discover the proven 3 part process we use in the Money Mentorship to help our members turn bold ambitions into fully-funded, real-life outcomes.
To save your spot, click here

Join our podcast community
Get live updates, talk shop with us and meet like minded legends in our digital treehouse. Click here to get access now.
🔗 https://www.facebook.com/groups/4609737389252111

Find out your financial skill score
Do you have the money skills to fund your goals? Take the 4 minute quiz here
🔗 https://financialskill.scoreapp.com/


Success Stories 👇

Rachael Taylor | Retired early
🎧 listen here and here

Helen and Chace | Escaped cubicle nation
🎧 Listen here and ...

Transcript

0:29

Hi there. It's Terry Condon here, and today I've got a bit of a different episode for you recently I was interviewed on the, you have My Interest podcast. This is another personal finance podcast from a lady called Evelyn from Evelyn Finance. And Evelyn heard me talking on a different channel asked me to come on and just tell a little bit more about our story, our method and how we go about things. And it was pretty cool to be on the other side of things, but it was also. Quite different because obviously not really telling the story here, but more having a conversation, answering questions. And responding in that way, it kind of came out a little bit differently. So if you are relatively new to the Money Minded Podcast and you wanna get a bit more context into who we are, where we've come from, what we do, and more specifically how we do it, this is a really awesome way to be able to do that and understand our methodology at more of a higher level. If you've been listening to the Money Miner podcast for a while, this is a different take on everything you probably already know about us. But some new things here as well, some realizations that I've had relatively recently around what we've learned about the psychology of money through my own story, but also the stories of all the folks we've worked with over the last six years as well. So if you wanna know a little bit more about us, what we're doing, where we've come from, what we've done, and everything we've learned, this is a podcast that you definitely wanna listen to. I hope you enjoy.

Evelyn: 1:45

Hi Terry. Thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Tex: 1:49

Thank you so much for having me.

Evelyn: 1:50

It's an absolute pleasure and I'm really excited to get into a couple of topics, that we've been chatting about and that I've seen you talk about openly, you know, just in your business and also another podcast. And I really hope that it's gonna give, or I'm sure that we'll give listeners, a little bit of a, you know. Sentence starter and some topics to consider with their family and friends. So before we do jump into that, can you gimme a little bit of an overview on who you are in your business and maybe what sparked you to get into that?

Tex: 2:19

Yeah, so I never really saw myself working in finance ever, and there are a lot of people who know me from my past who are like, what?

Evelyn: 2:27

Yeah.

Tex: 2:28

so I spent 10 years working in elite sport, and coaching some of the best or sort of best known teams, and athletes around Australia. And I really enjoyed that career. That got a lot out of it. But there is a certain point in that career where you realize that it's, it's a little bit fickle. It's very uncertain. And there was a sort of a real specific moment where I realized I don't wanna be a sports gypsy, picking up every two or three years trying to chase another contract just to keep my career going. and. Once that sort of became really obvious to me, and it was really about the time that I got together with my wife and realized that, you know, she was gonna be my wife. And so I thought, how do, what kind of family do I wanna start? and that's when personal finance sort of really came into focus for me. I'd always been. I had a kind of an interesting upbringing with money. I grew up on a farm and I never really thought about this, but my first memory of money was a, you know, people call it like core memories, right? and I remember this, it was about 11 years old when I realized that money wasn't my friend.

Evelyn: 3:26

Okay.

Tex: 3:27

and what happened was, I was a very good swimmer and I swam at a state level, and one of my claims to fame is swimming against, Ian Thorpe. But, But, I was getting right into swimming at that stage. And, the year before when I was 10 years old, I'd swam at state level, but. When I was 10, I was just kind of making up the numbers. Like I got there and I got flogged and and so I'd been, that next year I'd been training like super hard and I've been, you know, working really hard on my stroke. I knew I was stronger, I knew I was better. I knew I was swimming on top of the water. And so when I made state that year. I was really excited to see how I was gonna stack up now, because I was like, last year, like I was just happy to be there this year. I wanna know how I'm gonna go. and I remember standing in the kitchen. Just waiting for my dad to finish his phone call to, to tell him. And so he could tell that I had some news for him.'cause he was like, it just gimme one minute. I wanna wrap up this call and we're gonna have a little chat. And so he wraps up his call and he says, what is it, mate? And and I said, I've made state again. And I remember this, he looked at me, he was like, man, that's so good. I'm so proud of you. And he had this look on his face, which was like, I knew you were gonna make it. Like, I, you know, I knew you were gonna make it. It's fine. But then I saw this other look, and it was, I guess it was like shame. and he said, we can't afford to send

Evelyn: 4:40

Oh.

Tex: 4:41

And, My dad was a farmer, right? And so we were just working through one of the worst routes, that he'd ever seen. And so he was correct, like it was probably not the right time to do it, but, I. I made the decision to blame money in that moment. I was like, it's not dad's fault. It's money's fault. Right? And so I had this interesting relationship with money growing up. Like I would they call it like a fearful avoidant versus anxious attached. There's these two different types of relationships, right? and that is how we act with money as well. Fearful, avoidant, or anxious attached. and. It's kind of how I was, I was mostly fearful, avoidant. and, but the problem was as I grew up being fearfully avoidant of money, I realized like, eh, but money's in like almost every conversation and it. Pokes it nose into every decision and it tends to have the final say. So you can't be completely ignorant when it comes to money. So I would flip between these two extremes of like fearful, avoidant, or anxious attached. And I'd be reading these books and like, and saving obsessively and that sort of thing. And then I'd just go the complete other way. and I had this kind of like love hate relationship with like really sort of interesting kind of dynamic. now I knew how to save, I had savings and those sort of thing. I wasn't like financially irresponsible. But. I just never felt like money was my friend. I felt like I was always gonna be working for money. and when this happened to me in sport, when I realized like, I'm gonna need to figure this out, I realized I'm gonna need to engage with money and actually understand it because I knew that I had savings. I. But I didn't know what those savings meant. I didn't know what choices that meant for me. And so I had to accept this job. I walked into this job and the guy that employed me, he left on day one and the guy that came in, he was gonna make all these changes and he restructured everything and basically moved the entire goalpost to me and gave me a job that I was like, I didn't sign. He. This contract to do this job. And I just moved into state, right? And basically I had that conversation with him. I said, mate, this is not what I signed on for. And you know, he basically said, I don't really give a shit.

Evelyn: 6:38

Yeah.

Tex: 6:39

and I remember thinking to myself, I just wanna quit.

Evelyn: 6:42

Yeah.

Tex: 6:42

just wanna quit this job right now. and the next thought was, well, can I afford to quit? and like I said, I knew I had savings, Evelyn, so this was a really interesting moment for me. I'm like, your financial ignorance. It's costing you this choice now. And I made this commitment to myself. I said, I'm never gonna be in this position again where I feel like I need the money.'cause I don't know what's going on with my money. I don't know how much I'm spending. I don't know how far to get me. I don't want choices I have. And so that sent me on this, I. Really interesting rabbit hole. I read as many books as I possibly could. I started actually engaging with money and really understanding what was going on with it. and in that process. And in that journey, I got hooked up with my co-founder now, Ryan, who's, he was my financial advisor. And so I started saving all this money'cause my money, I was like, money's never gonna be my obstacle again. Now I'm gonna use money to be my vehicle. and I did, I sat down, my partner and I sat down at the time and we reassessed everything. and we came up and we started building all this savings. And then we started having this next problem, which is like, well, we need to do something with the savings. and that's when, I sort of got hooked up with my co-founder, Ryan, and. he helped me get invested and once I did get invested, I could actually calculate and I did know what choices I had and I realized like I got a, like a three year runway. I didn't know this, but I had like three house deposits by that stage. And, so I'm sitting there going, what am I doing here? What, why am I here? So I quit. And it was one of the best feelings. Like I remember that. It was just so good because this time it was me calling the meeting and surprising them going like, I.

Evelyn: 8:14

yeah. Well, you were empowered, right?

Tex: 8:16

Yeah. Yeah. and so I had that feeling. I was like, I want to give this feeling to everyone, and I dunno why it's taken so long to really get into this and understand it, because yes, there's this kind of feeling of trepidation, but what's on the other side of that? You know, I don't ask money, permission now I tell money what to do.

Evelyn: 8:35

Yeah.

Tex: 8:36

And so this is the conversation that Ryan and I started to have. He's like, look, you understand that? He said to me, look, I've never seen anyone make that kind of transformation that quickly, and what you've sort of done here. and I kind of, he sort of had me explain it to him and I talked through it. And then I started doing a bit of coaching with him and and he said, look. In money. Most folks don't understand goals. They don't understand all the things you understand as a coach. Goals, habits, your identity, how you change your identity, how you change in this big way. And he said like, you understand how people work. I understand how money works. So what if we team up to figure out how people work with money?

Evelyn: 9:12

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Tex: 9:13

and so that's how we started the business. And we started, you know, working with people just trying to understand the problem, literally understand,'cause I was like, well, I don't know. I know how it worked for me, but I just need to understand, we need to understand why this is such a problem for people. Because what's interesting, and you've probably seen this yourself, I'll be interested in your observation. There's never been more information on personal finance,

Evelyn: 9:33

my God. Yeah.

Tex: 9:34

but financial wellbeing isn't improving. Like it measurably isn't improving. and you can say that there's macro factors involved with that. If you take all those out, though, pre COVID, pre all that sort of stuff, it's, it wasn't improving. And so we're like, what is going on? Because all these people coming to talk to us, they're saying, Hey, we read that book, we read the Barefoot Investor, we read, you know, Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, that sort of thing. And none of'em felt any better about money. And it wasn't because they didn't have enough money. They just didn't feel good about it. And they, and I was like, that's, that was how I felt. I was like, I have money, but I don't feel good about it. And so, you know, I said before, anxious attached versus fearful avoidant, right? if you wanna have a secure attachment with money, I think the big assumption in personal finance is, whatever gets me more money is gonna make me less stressed. And I can tell you now categorically, and again, tell me if you, tell me if you agree. Those two things aren't correlated. I've met 30 year olds who have a net worth of$12 million, whose property portfolio is cashflow positive, who have been more stressed about money than people who earn$60,000

Evelyn: 10:40

Yeah, I totally agree.

Tex: 10:41

next to nothing. And so we are. Barking up the wrong tree most of the time. And so the big thing that we learned, and I can only say this in retrospect now'cause we've been doing this for the better part of six years, and we've worked one-to-one with around, 1600 people now going through this. And you learn so much just actually sitting in the weeds with people and understanding this. The biggest thing that we've understood is that your sense of, Safety, your sort of attachment with money, the way you feel about it. it has nothing to do with what you have. It has everything to do with how you manage what you have, and how you manage what you have that is determined by the actual money skills that you have. Like I said before, I knew how to save, like it's not hard to keep some money, but that is very different to having money skills.

Evelyn: 11:25

Yeah.

Tex: 11:26

and because if you have money skills, then you have self-efficacy. So the best way that I usually explain this is, who would you rather be? Would you rather be the ship's captain who, you know, I've been sailing for, you know, let's say, you know, 30 odd years, right? on a rickety old ship, about to go into a storm? Or would you rather be someone who's never sailed at all on the biggest shiniest ship sailing into the same storm? Who would you rather be?

Evelyn: 11:52

probably the first one. Oh, I hope that's what you gonna say.

Tex: 11:56

Yeah, because you've accumulated, that's right, because you've accumulated all the evidence, you've got all this, confidence that comes from you going, like, I've dealt with all these challenges in the past. I know how to sail and when it comes to money, unfortunately most of the information out there, it's all based on that fundamental fallacy, which is more money, equal less stress, but it doesn't, it actually means more money, decisions with higher stakes. So if your savings far exceeds your skills, you'll actually be more stressed about money, not less. I got a phone call from a lady late last year, never heard anyone more stressed about money, and she's like, I'm gonna ruin my life and I'm gonna die alone. And I'm like, wait, what's going on? That was a reaction to inheriting$2.5 million.

Evelyn: 12:37

Oh God.

Tex: 12:37

And that's what it sounds like when your savings far exceeds your skill.

Evelyn: 12:41

Yeah. Yep.

Tex: 12:42

and so what we learned is that if you wanna have a secure attachment and feel good about money. You wanna build skills with money so that you can build the evidence that whatever happens, I can handle it. I've got the financial skills to deal with that. All right? and so that's what we do. We've figured out like what are the money skills that people need to navigate and feel comfortable navigating an uncertain future because the future doesn't get less uncertain. It just is uncertain.

Evelyn: 13:09

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's like that saying like, you still, you can have, no money and have issues, or have money and have issues. It's just a, like the problem is just gonna be greater. yeah. It doesn't go away just because you have more money. So the thing that. I'm kind of hearing, which I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on in regards to your attachment style with money specifically, is, until you sort of learn the skills to be able to have that secure attachment style with money. Do you think that the way that you were raised and the way that your family was raised and acted around money has a big impact then on your attachment style?

Tex: 13:44

Absolutely. Yep. So you just default to what you saw, to what you heard, to what you felt. and, you know, coming back to the topics that you wanted to sort of discuss, like why is it hard for couples at times, to do this? It's usually because we're defaulting to our styles. and we're assuming that the way that. We saw things should be the way things are done. and so we kind of, we don't even know that we're swimming in that assumption. and we sort of act like this and we don't. We just react with money. and when you're reacting, you tend to default to what you know, not what's best.

Evelyn: 14:15

Yeah.

Tex: 14:15

and so you end up with people going like, I feel this is the key word. I feel like this is the best thing to do. I feel like this is the best thing to do. and we don't even know how to navigate that conversation. We are just like literally in our limbic system, in the base of our brain. I like to give this analogy of like, two parts of your brain, right? Like, you've got, Golum from Lord of the Rings,

Evelyn: 14:34

Yeah.

Tex: 14:35

scared, selfish, stupid. That's like the animal reptilian brain. Okay? And then you've got Yoda from Star Wars. That's the smart wise, the best version of you. when you react around money. You go down into the base level of your brain, into the golden part of you, and that's where you are scared, selfish, stupid. You don't think, you can't think'cause you're feeling. and whenever we are primed to think about money, a lot of us go to that place. It's like a level of, if you think about it, it's kind of a traumatic response.

Evelyn: 15:03

A hundred percent.

Tex: 15:04

you're in your body.

Evelyn: 15:05

Yeah. I mean, it's the same with any reaction, right? I've done a bit of work on this myself. you default to the part that sort of arose in you at the time to protect you. And if that was a way that you learned to deal with money or the way that you learn that money worked, then that will be your default. When you go into that situation that triggers that same response in you. So, yeah, it's interesting. Okay, cool. My follow up question that I also really wanted to ask on the topic of, I guess sports and that sort of elite coaching is. you mentioned that your business partner hadn't really seen someone make that transformation like you have. And do you think that, was to do with the way that, I guess you were able to, I guess some tools and strategies maybe that you brought from the sporting field where you were able to put yourself in a situation that was difficult and make changes and you had to, like almost change that identity to be that person? Is that aligned to what we need to do with money as well to make that change?

Tex: 16:01

Yeah, it is because, Fundamentally, what you do when you're coaching somebody is you help them build a new identity. We're not trying to help people save and do better with their money. We're trying to help them become savers and investors, right? And that those two are very different things. You need to see yourself on the other side of that journey first. And if you don't, and you can't do that,'cause you haven't set that up, then all you are is you're directed by your past. So you wanna be driven by your future, not directed by your past. and most of us don't even do that. We jump straight into the spreadsheet trying to solve the problems in a spreadsheet, thinking that's where it goes, and that's where the answers are gonna be. and when we are reacting in that sense, and we're operating off those two, you know. we're sort of reacting around money and we're operating, off that fallacy, which is like, whatever gets me more money is what's gonna solve this. we can solve for the stress or all right, the stress or itself. We have a lack of money. We don't have the money. We solve it, we rally, we get on top of it, and then we just go back to where we were

Evelyn: 16:53

Mm.

Tex: 16:54

until the next stressor happens, right? and what happens is we sort of gravitate towards what I would call'em like. Prescriptions, four different prescriptions. when it comes to money, they're just like short term fixes if you like. and this is what we kind of see. It's like somebody's gonna jump in and create a really complicated spreadsheet. Maybe they download it from some financial influencer or something and they get spend hours and hours in this spreadsheet. And they feel good about that process'cause it's. It's giving them a level of awareness and it actually can give you a level of awareness, which can improve, I guess, your discipline in that sense. The problem with it is that it's only ever backwards facing. Okay. It doesn't help be navigate the future in the present. and it tends to be exclusive. So particularly when it comes to couples, there's someone who's comfortable in the spreadsheet'cause they built it or they made it or they get it and then the other person's like, I don't get it.

Evelyn: 17:43

Yeah,

Tex: 17:43

I didn't go on the journey with you, so it's your thing. It's not, I thing, it actually creates like a power differential and information silo in the relationship and that doesn't help. and if you're not doing that, your next financial fix, you'll just default to. I'm gonna read The Barefoot Investor and automate everything. Never think about money ever again. Just set it up so it's simple. I never have to put it, never have to go anywhere with it. And again, in a short term sense, this is better than doing nothing. Absolutely. and it can give you a sense of organization. but I. As soon as your circumstances change, it breaks'cause it's a prescription. Right? and most people feel that, they see that happening. So it works great when you're like 22 and single on a fixed income, but get together with a partner, have a kid change a job. and what it does is it sets up all these assumptions, which is, look, if I can't, if I can't plan or predict my income, that I can't plan and predict my money.

Evelyn: 18:30

Yeah.

Tex: 18:30

And so a lot of people have this kind of like, well. If my income fluctuates, I can't be organized with money. That's just not true, and that's not true.'cause we've been taught to like siphon money and mindlessly save it. But mindless saving isn't the solution to mindless spending. it doesn't build any skill. It doesn't build any self-efficacy, so people don't feel better about money that way. Most of the folks that came to us, I'd say two thirds of them, read The Barefoot Investor and did it to a T and it worked for X period of time, and then it stopped working. And then they get this Frankenstein type system where they're like, oh, I just don't really not know what's going on with it now. and again, like none of it's directed by their future. It's all set up to like save money.

Evelyn: 19:12

Yeah.

Tex: 19:12

And that doesn't change your identity, it solves a short-term saving problem. so that's like the second one. So you go, you know, complex spreadsheets, right? Automate everything. if you don't do that right, you'll just try to live on less. Just try to live like a hermit and be as frugal as possible. And always just make sure that you spend whatever's cheapest is always best and just live like that. and again, in the moment, that feels good'cause it feels like you're being responsible. problem with it is it breeds resentment, particularly in a relationship where the other person doesn't have the same default.'cause your default is not a thinking default, it's a feeling default. I feel like this is the best thing to do and I'm gonna, I'm gonna run rough, short and'cause my feeling's really strong. I care about it more. It's gonna be my kind of way of the highway And, you know, the last one is basically, just hustle harder and work more, make more money. And again, like that can solve that short term savings problem. But we've got folks in our program, honestly earning a million dollars a year, and they live their lifestyle to the income number and they don't understand or realize that what you make isn't what you keep. I.

Evelyn: 20:16

Yeah.

Tex: 20:16

And so they get their lives, they get their lifestyle so high, and they actually create huge problems because now they've got all these dependencies, right? And it's actually more stressful. And you're like, well, how could you be so stressed about money? And you're like, because you layered on all these obligations that came and you were, you're actually just spending to the income number, not realizing that you don't get to keep a million dollars, you're gonna be taxed on that, right?

Evelyn: 20:38

Yeah.

Tex: 20:39

and because you are completely unaware of what's going on with your money. You're in real, you're in real trouble now and we have to spend six months unraveling this whole thing. and so those four financial fixes, that's where we see everybody go. And like I said in the beginning, it solves the short term stress, but it actually doesn't fix the problem. The problem is that secure attachment style. And if you wanna fix that problem. You wanna build financial skill because it's only from skill that you develop. Self-efficacy, the belief that you can handle what's coming your way. So if you wanna feel good about money, you just gotta get beyond financial fixes and start building money skills. Does that make sense?

Evelyn: 21:14

Totally. Yeah, a hundred percent. And as you were going through each of those examples, I can literally pinpoint times in my life where I have defaulted to every one of those four. And I'm sure some people do have a combination or they've tried the

Tex: 21:26

you go everywhere you go, whatever it is. Like you could be any of them at any time, but you're just bouncing around

Evelyn: 21:32

Exactly. Yeah. So no, I can relate to that and I'm sure a lot of people can. You mentioned two things, that I'd love to explore more. Number one is that balance between couples. So what if one couple now has kind of had that aha moment, they're like, oh, I've realized that none of these things have worked. I need to actually start to learn those financial skills and work out how we're going to, like, how am I gonna change my financial identity? so how does that work from. A perspective of couples, because I would presume both have to be somewhat on board. Both have to be willing to want to change and learn. Otherwise, you're again gonna have that resentment where one's doing something and the other isn't. So how do we even start that conversation?

Tex: 22:12

Yeah. Put the spreadsheet down. Now. so stop talking about money. just stop talking about money. Okay. Have a different conversation. The conversation needs to be about wealth.

Evelyn: 22:26

Yeah.

Tex: 22:26

money isn't wealth and wealth isn't money. Wealth is having more of what you value. And money is just a mechanism for measuring and moving value. That's all it is. It's an information technology. And so I think we need to create a common cause. We need to create something that. It gives us a sense of like a higher purpose beyond our defaults. We need to get, we need to actually just sidestep that whole conversation and nobody knows the answer about what to do if we don't actually have something directing us. Like I said before, if you don't actually have a vision you are working towards, then you're, you are directed by your past. And so we need to have a conversation about what that means. and we think. There's a lot of confusion about money in the world. and we talk about money and, you know, money skills and being able to navigate. If you conflate wealth with money, if you think that having more money equals being more wealthy, you'll find it really hard. If you think that having more money equals being rich, you'll find it really hard. And if you think that having a lot of money equals being successful, you'll find it really hard because the answer to every question's always gonna be more, and that's just mirage. It's actually just a mirage. And so we have a conversation where we wanna separate those words out, decouple them, okay? And we wanna define them for ourselves. So like I said, wealth is having more of what you value, not me, not you, not someone else. What do you value? rich, for us, the way that I define it, it's living with less obligation, not more things. Less obligation. Who would you rather be? Would you rather be the person with heaps of money, flying business class who's basically deciding what they do every day? making it up, you know, living, you know, having the time of their life because they don't need to be anywhere or do anything. Or would you rather be the person with the same amount of money who's gonna land, go straight into a board meeting, have all these people answer to like all these different obligations, right? So I think instead of thinking Rich is having more things, I think it's less obligations. All right. And then the last one for us is success. Success is dying with zero regrets. So the whole insight underneath this is the game is not to maximize money with the time we have. The game is to maximize time through money. Money is just a tool to maximize our time. If you don't sit down and define wealth rich and success for yourself, then you'll always be chasing that money Mirage. Just assuming that whatever gets us more money is the right answer, and that's why we waste all our time in the spreadsheets thinking that the answer's there and it's not. This is more of a conversation about who are you, what do you actually value, because the limited thing that you have the most precious resource of your life isn't money. It's time.

Evelyn: 25:05

Yep.

Tex: 25:06

time. Like my parents, I probably got maybe five to six, maybe five to eight Christmases left with them. If I'm lucky. and so you really gotta think about that. By the way, I'm not saying having more money's bad. I'm saying the way that we use money is all wrong.

Evelyn: 25:27

And not being attached to the word, like not placing a meaning on the word, as you said, it's just a tool.

Tex: 25:31

yeah. So, so why is it so important? Why am, why do I spend so much time on it? I said before. We need money skills, and we need to be able to navigate our uncertain future with it. And if we don't actually haven't defined those things as priorities, then we don't know what to say yes to and equally what to say no to. And so whenever I know that somebody's struggling with this is where I say, I don't know what the best thing is to do for me, I've been trying to find the best way. I'm like, there is no best way. There's only your way. And if you've never sat down to have that conversation. It's no wonder why we struggle in the moment when that bill hits or we want to take this trip or whatever. We don't have anything guiding that conversation. There's no sense of hierarchy or priorities or anything. So we just sit there and default to our, you know, how I feel about it in the moment, like I said before. Are you anxious Hatch or are you fearful Avoidant. And where does that send you? Does it send you towards like hoarding money and trying to just spend less or does it send you back into the spreadsheet like. We just bounce around and spend all our time, waste all that time there, when we actually would be having a conversation, which is like, what do you wanna do with this thing that we've got here? We've decided we're gonna spend our life together. How do you want to build it together? We've only got three resources. We've got time, talent, and money, and to think that we can avoid the money conversation and build the life we want, like it's just naive.

Evelyn: 26:47

Yep.

Tex: 26:48

It doesn't work.

Evelyn: 26:49

It is so interesting because I liken this concept to when you start a business, and this is something that I've always done in my business and we do very regularly. The planning of the business and looking at the vision and the future of the business. So we start with vision. We go to what that actually means and is defined as a mission. Then we look at the values of everyone in the team, and then we look at a plan, and we break that plan down into, from our mission, which might be a 3, 5, 10 year mission, whatever it is. We break down an annual, quarterly, and then monthly plans, and we track and measure that towards our North star, if you wanna call it for a better word. But why don't we do that with our lives? Like, why don't we do that with our money?

Tex: 27:31

that is the great question. And it, you know, you know how many times people have gotten out of this first session and asked me that same question, well, have you never done it before?

Evelyn: 27:38

yeah. Why haven't we?

Tex: 27:40

I don't actually have an answer. I dunno, Evelyn, I just know from a coaching point of view, that's always the way, because if you have that vision, and you'll know this as a business owner, right? You've been in business now four years. I look at all these awards behind you, by the way. right. Who you are now, you are unrecognizable from who you were five, six years ago. Correct.

Evelyn: 27:58

percent. Yep.

Tex: 28:00

And it's because you've been directed by a vision and the pursuit of that vision. That's caused you to get outside of your comfort zone that's caused you to take different actions. And every time you take one of those actions, you start creating new evidence as to who you think you are. And so I think a lot of people don't do this. If I am trying to answer your question now, why I think a lot of people don't do this is we project our current selves into the future.

Evelyn: 28:21

Yep.

Tex: 28:23

we refuse to actually create that vision.'cause we either think it's fluffy or we think it's a waste of time. But I think underneath that's a real fear.

Evelyn: 28:31

Yeah.

Tex: 28:31

and the fear is. Who I am is incapable of that. and fundamentally that's flawed as a perspective because it's not who you are that accomplishes that vision. It's who you become in its pursuit. and so I see a lot of like very logical people sort of sit there and go, you know what you just said? That sounds real fluffy. I remember having this conversation with a guy, he's like a, concreter. And, he had a very successful concrete in business. I remember taking him through this conversation and saying, we need to set a vision for you guys. We need to really start with the end in mind here. And he starts crossing his body language starts getting real defensive and I just sort of said, you reckon this is bullshit? And he goes, oh yeah. and I said, well, just humor me. Just humor me. just tell me what you think. Right? And here's what's really interesting about their story. So they were caught up in the day to day because unfortunately, you know, they had very sick girls, and the girls are chronically ill. And basically they knew they were gonna outlive their girls. Okay? And I just said, we just need to get outta this for a second. I want you to tell me how you wanna live. How do you wanna live with the time that you have with your girls? And we had this conversation about, every time they go to Queensland, they're just like, we need to be here. This is where we need to be. But they live in Victoria, he's got a concreting business. It's successful, it's keeping things going. And he just thinks that's a complete, you know, I can't do that. Yeah, That'd be nice. That'd be nice. Here's what happens when you actually do sit down and actually have this conversation in earnest. You stop asking, when could I make that happen? And you start thinking, how do I make it happen?

Evelyn: 29:58

Yeah.

Tex: 29:59

And the difference between those two things is astronomical, because if you keep asking, when you never do anything,

Evelyn: 30:06

Exactly.

Tex: 30:07

if you start asking how. You actually do things and it's like I said, it's the you that you become in this pursuit that changes things. So for these guys, we had that conversation and about six months later, as they go through the process and they actually start learning the rest of the money skills, I would consider that first part like a soft skill of money that nobody talks about. But then there's like hard skills, which is like, how do you actually navigate these decisions and look at the trade offs and understand things. About six months into them learning that and going through the practice and learning the method that we teach. we start getting emails and they're like, we reckon we could do this.

Evelyn: 30:41

Aw.

Tex: 30:42

And we're like, yeah, we know.

Evelyn: 30:44

Yeah.

Tex: 30:45

And they're like, what do you tell us? I go, it's not my job to tell you. It's for you to figure it out. Right. I'm not here to tell you. I'm here to help you unlock this stuff. and so they start saying, but if we reconfigured things and we sold this property over here, we made this change, we made this, we can actually do that. And we're like, yep, yeah, you can. And they go, okay. And then like a month later, they're like, house is on the market.

Evelyn: 31:08

Yeah.

Tex: 31:09

got rid of the business. They made all these moves. They live in Queensland now. And the life that we talked about in that first meeting, every weekend that we talk, we mapped out every single weekend. How do you wanna live each weekend with the girls? That's what they do every weekend. And so you look at that and you go, is that fluffy? No, it's not. it's not manifestation, it's materialization. Right?

Evelyn: 31:29

Yeah.

Tex: 31:29

'cause not unless and until you take your idea from the world of the ether and you trap it on a page. It's not until that second that it exists in the world of atoms and bits. But as soon as in the world of atoms and bits, now we can start reverse engineering. What happens? Like if you look around the room that you are in right now, Evelyn, the chair that you're sitting on, the desk that you are sitting behind, the rewards behind, they're all ideas in somebody's mind first, and then it became a sketch. What would it look like? That sketch got a little bit more detailed and then once it got a little bit more detailed, it started to move into like a plan, like a work plan, and then it started to move into like day-to-day actions, materials, and then there we have it. It's not magic, it's not manifestation, it's materialization and that's how it works every single time. So whenever like an engineer type person starts to sort of think like that, I'm like, man, you do this all the time. This is actually the process that you do in your work. You just gotta do it for your life.

Evelyn: 32:23

Yeah, that's right. And I think sometimes as well, people can't, if they haven't ever sort of gone through that process of maybe future planning something in that much depth and to that magnitude before, it can be quite overwhelming and scary. But if you actually look back at, and you sort of use this as a bit of a reflection tool and you look back at everything that you've done in your life that's gotten you to where you are. You've actually just done that. You've made those conscious or unconscious decisions to create the life that you're currently living. So now what we're doing and what you are doing, Terry, is actually putting that in practice going forward, and we're writing it in advance, or we're pulling where we wanna go, and we're chunking it down to where we are now. So we've done that all along, but now we're doing it consciously.

Tex: 33:04

Exactly right. you're a hundred percent on. I'm so glad you said that because the first part of that process is actually I get people to look back.

Evelyn: 33:10

Cool.

Tex: 33:11

And I get them to go, where are you now from where you've come from? And I get them to tell me all of the achievements of their life, right? And I say, okay, now talk me through, like what did you have to tap into? what are the resources that you tapped into, the character traits that helped you achieve all those things? All right. And they'll say, grit, persistence, resilience, and all that sort of stuff. And I'm like, fantastic. That is the resource you have. To build this life that we're about to talk about. So just understand you've already done this and the version of you that you are right now is inconceivable to the version of you that you talked about back then. So don't act like you can't do this.

Evelyn: 33:45

Yeah.

Tex: 33:46

It's actually just a decision. And if you want to do it, you'll do it.

Evelyn: 33:49

Yeah. Amazing. I love that.

Tex: 33:52

Yeah. Yeah.

Evelyn: 33:53

So looking at some of those then financial skills we've spoken about, creating that future vision, how we break that down and how you then put that into, I guess, an actionable plan. Actionable plan in a sense. What are some of the other financial skills that you are teaching or maybe some of the financial skills that you feel like are lacking, the most common ones that you're helping people to overcome?

Tex: 34:19

Yeah. So I think the best way to probably give a high level of this, and then we can go into which, whichever of these you like, is, you know, you think about climbing a mountain, like orienteering skills, like mountaineering skills. Okay. so if we just talked about the first one, that first skill, I call it future authoring. I. All right. And that's you seeing yourself and acting from a place of the future in the now.'cause if you do that, then you are directed, you are driven by what's going what you actually want, not what you don't want. And so that's the first one. That's you seeing yourself at the top of the mountain that you wanna climb, whatever that mountain is for you, that's you walking around the top of that mountain, breathing in the air and going, man, this would be sick. That's exactly what I wanna do. And then asking yourself a really important question. Are you prepared to do what's required to climb that mountain? Because you don't get a payoff without any price.

Evelyn: 35:06

Yeah.

Tex: 35:07

and so that's really the first part of it. you choosing your own mountain, whatever that is for you. but once you've done that, the next thing you need to do is you need to look down. I. And you need to assess your health in what shape am I in to climb that mountain? Right? And we call this monitoring your economic vitals. You want to actually know where you're at right now, how that's changed over time, where the money's going, and how aligned is the way you are spending to the goals that we just talked about. Because it doesn't matter what you save, it matters how you spend.

Evelyn: 35:36

Yeah.

Tex: 35:38

So focusing on what you save, that's a recipe for misery.

Evelyn: 35:41

Okay.

Tex: 35:42

But if you wanna focus on how you spend. That's the lead metric though. If you focus on how you spend that dictates what you save. And if you are spending in line with your values towards that vision, you'll always feel good. But if you're just trying to save, that feels restrictive

Evelyn: 35:58

Yeah.

Tex: 35:58

and you're on this kind of pendulum again, like repression and expression to save or tighten everything up, just save. So save. no, you need to go. We wanna spend, because if you think about it, even spending like investing, that's a form of spending. It's spending into the future. For a certain goal that you want to have in the future. So I care more about how are you spending, would you say that it's aligned to you climbing that mountain and achieving that goal? Or if it's not aligned, then I don't need to tell you to change it. I just need you to see it and you'll change it. Because if it ma, if that mountain matters to you, then you'll see that's waste.

Evelyn: 36:31

Yeah, a hundred

Tex: 36:31

So there's the family that came in, right? and they were trying to get pregnant for the second time. and they wanted to get in good shape to get pregnant. And going through this process, monitoring, economic vitals, and actually understanding what was going on with their money, as part of that process, they realized I was spending$800 a month on alcohol. and they're like, that's diametrically opposed to what we're trying to accomplish.

Evelyn: 36:50

yeah.

Tex: 36:51

And that doesn't make any sense. So did I tell'em to cut out the spending? I didn't tell anybody anything. I don't even look at people's spending. We just build an environment where that becomes really obvious. You're trying to achieve this. Is there any waste? What's in the. Way people are, people spending aligns to the goal if it matters to them. and I think that's a huge misconception as well. Like everybody thinks, you know, it's all about restriction. It's not, it's about choice. What do you wanna actually do with your time here?

Evelyn: 37:15

Yeah, there's, there's a lot of, I guess, information in regards to values and you can link it to money as you just have. where if you are living in alignment with your values, whether it be what you are spending, where you are spending your time, all of those sorts of things, if it feels congruent, it will. It will actually fulfill you. Whereas if it's not congruent, if you're spending as you've just given that example money on things that are not aligned with your values, then there's going to be resistance there and it's going to feel uncomfortable and it's not gonna be a nice feeling. So just by going through that exercise then of looking at the values that you have. Set for yourself and what you actually do value or you say you value, and then going through the exercise of, doing like a bit of a checklist on, or a stock take on where your money flow is going. you'll know how that feels. And if it's not aligned, then as you said, you got that opportunity to make that change. Yeah.

Tex: 38:05

And if you think about this, just on a, almost like a relational level, right? You're in a, you're in a relationship with money. It's not how money works that determines your goals. It's how you work with money, how you interact with it. And if the way that you interact with money comes from this place of restriction and constriction, and you're always on this pendulum of repression and expression. You trying to create this schizophrenic relationship with money. And if you thought about money as a person, if you were acting erratically around a person, you're not gonna have a good relationship, are you?

Evelyn: 38:35

no.

Tex: 38:37

So you want to actually have a relationship where you always feel good. I. When you're in each other's company, and that's why values based spending really matters. But you have to start with the vision to get to the values and then get to the spending after that. And I think the big problem we have is people jumping straight into the spreadsheet, straight into the bank statement, straight into all that sort of stuff. We're missing. Missing, you know, the first trick

Evelyn: 38:56

yeah, absolutely. So we've got vision. We've got values. Where do we go from there?

Tex: 39:01

Yeah. So once you've done that, monitoring those economic vitals and you know what shape you're in, you start to tighten things up and get in shape just naturally. Now you want actually skills that are gonna help you climb that mountain as well. All right. so the first one we call cashflow forecasting. Now you do this all the time. As a mortgage broker, I. The value of being able to simulate and project forward what's going to happen, is really important.'cause if you have actually understood your spending, you know what you are spending. So you can make some reasonable assumptions about what is possible for you in a 12 month timeframe. Now, why this matters is because it breaks the bigger goal down into more manageable milestones, and it allows you to predict when you can start to accomplish. Certain goals within that 12 month timeframe. Why that matters is because it helps you pull forward the feeling of progress. If you knew that based on the way that we're spending now, we can fund that trip to Hawaii in six months, you now have an expectation and as soon as you have an expectation that changes all of your behavior, it's like, do you ever play a video game where you've, you race against a ghost, somebody else's ghost, somebody else did this track before you or whatever, and you have

Evelyn: 40:07

I haven't done that.

Tex: 40:09

But like, it creates an expect, it's a standard, right? and if you don't have an expectation or a standard for what you can accomplish in a year, then guess what? You default to just whatever feels good. And so you are drifting, being directed by what's happening on the day, how you feel in the moment, instead of having this direction going like, oh. We know that we can save 50 grand this year, put that deposit together for a house. And we know that by that stage next year we'll be actually in that house. But if that's all a complete mystery to you and you don't know what is possible, all you do is go, well, this isn't working, this is too hard. and it takes way longer'cause you just don't have a plan for making progress. So cashflow forecasting, you know, in the analogy of going up that mountain, that's your ability to like scan the terrain up ahead and look at like. Where you're gonna be at certain points and make a bit of a plan for like, how you're actually gonna get there. and that's, you just kind of looking up, scanning up ahead and making a bit of a plan. And that's, you always up the mountain that way, but it's not just, it's not just navigating up this way, it's also getting back on track. so your ability to understand, you know, when something happens, like if a big thing happens to you, maybe the car breaks down. We had a family that their kid got cr chronically, critically ill and. they talk about, forecasting as a really important, conversation that they had because, Mon and Ryan, they're on our podcast and, she said that, you know, before sort of having these skills, they would've defaulted to someone has to go to work and someone has to be at our kids' side, where they jumped into the forecast and said, what would it look like if we just were both here? Could we make that work? Are we happy with those trade offs? What would it mean for us? That is actually a choice that we do have. So we're gonna take that choice and they're able to spend the better part of a month with their little fella at the most important time of their life.'cause they didn't know like. They were told at one point he might not make it. right. And so, so forecasting, yes, it helps you sort of predict and plan for progress, but it helps you get back on the horse too. Put things into perspective.'cause it essentially allows you to zoom out of the moment a little bit, look down the road and go, Ooh, is this as big a deal as I think. Like maybe you got a, maybe you got a little car accident. You gotta have a bingle that's gonna cost you three grand. If you zoom out for a second look across the rest of the year, what you start to notice is, okay, the end result isn't that big. But also if we change A, B, C, D, and E, we can get back on track with that within the next three months.

Evelyn: 42:29

Yeah.

Tex: 42:29

So we can know what levers we can pull. To stay on track, and it's shocking to me how many people simply accomplish what they set out to accomplish because they have an expectation and they start to reshape, reconfigure reality to make that thing happen. But if you don't have the expectation and you don't know how to change things and what to change, then all you do is you just govern by your feelings in the moment. And what people,

Evelyn: 42:51

through it on a day-to-day basis without any direction.

Tex: 42:53

yeah. Like have you've heard of learned helplessness?

Evelyn: 42:56

Yes. I.

Tex: 42:57

Yeah, so what happens is you just get sucked into the mo the feelings of the moment, and then you tell yourself three lies. This is personal, it's permanent, and it's pervasive. So it's something about me. It's always gonna be this way and it's this way across all areas of my money life. And I think a lot of us just live there because we don't have these navigational skills. And so we just tell ourselves these stories and they're all lies. These skills aren't hard. Like this isn't. You don't need to be a mathematics genius to know this stuff. You just need to know what you care about.

Evelyn: 43:24

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. how far in advance do you actually recommend that people do plan and set those visions? Are you doing, you know, for people that are younger, are we forecasting so far in the future? Perhaps people are single when they come to you as well, so, but they eventually want a family. Like how do you actually help them navigate? Where do we start with this vision and what are the milestones that we work towards?

Tex: 43:46

Yeah, it's a good question. Really good question.'cause we distinguish between the forecasting and the, that future authoring. So future authoring, we actually think about the life window that you're in right now and the one that you're gonna be in next. and so for example, you know, there's, we call, there's five different life windows. There's Freedom, responsibility Council, Exploration and legacy. So freedom is everything before kids, marriage, mortgage, all the responsibilities pile up responsibilities. Obviously that time, the time I've got 6-year-old twins and my wife and I run a business and we work really hard and we spend a lot too, because it costs a lot to have kids. but then as the kids get a little bit older, they start to look after themselves a little bit more and your job's less to make sure they don't kill themselves and more just to help. Guide them as they become an adult. And that's more sort of, council and then exploration is where your time frees back up.'cause the kids are less dependent on you. You don't have to pay for'em or anything like that. And you are kind of got this window before you start to move towards the last part of your life. and when you start to notice that you don't have the rest of your life, you have these windows. And in each of these windows you have choices, opportunities and experiences that are available and possible to you that are gonna go away or either get a lot harder. So that version of me that wanted to backpack Europe and bum around and just see the world, that version of me is dead. That's not happening unless I've had some sort of midlife crisis that's, you won't see me with a backpack in Europe by yourself. so you have to know like, how do we optimize my, I said before, maximize time through money. You have to know how short and scarce time is in each of these windows. And so what we want to do. When we're doing the future authoring is we wanna define wealth rich in success in the window. So I'm in freedom right now. Okay. What is wealth to you right now? What is rich to you right now? What is success to you right now? What's the things you want more of? What do you want less of? what's the one or two big things you wanna get done in this window so you don't have the regret? and then you wanna go into the next one. When you have kids and when you have, when you're married, how do you wanna be living? Then what do you want more of? What do you want less of? What's the one or two big things? And so we do those things, and that could be, for some people, it could be like a five, three to five year period that we sort of spend there. For most people it's somewhere between five and 10 year period across the two windows.

Evelyn: 45:53

Yep.

Tex: 45:54

so we do that first. But when I talk about cashflow forecasting, we're coming way back down to the 12 months in front of us and saying, what do we wanna accomplish in this 12 months? like I said, we wanna break it down so it's more manageable. Milestones and chunk. Chunk. The big vision down to like, cool, how do we, what do we do now? What can we act on?

Evelyn: 46:11

Because I can imagine without that, it would be a bit overwhelming for people to be like, oh, that's where I wanna go in 10 years time. But that's so far fetched to where I am now.

Tex: 46:19

yeah. you need to be able to. See where you're going in the moment. And, it can't just be the kind of vision, you gotta actually gotta be like, all right, cool. Now the next, it's like shorter kind of, concrete targets that you can just, reach.

Evelyn: 46:32

Yeah. Beautiful. And you take people through that in your program, in the mentoring, those different stages

Tex: 46:38

yeah. So we just, we actually coach people through this, so, because nobody ever, nobody taught me this stuff. Did anyone teach you? and look, we. We spent, like I said, two years understanding the problem and then trying to fix it and actually figure out, well, how do we solve for it? you know, most pe a lot of people have read this book called the Aire Next Door.

Evelyn: 46:57

Oh, okay. Oh, I've seen it. I haven't read it.

Terry: 46:59

it's a very boring book. Don't read but in the book, there's a one stat in this book that we based our whole methodology off, so they looked at two different groups. and this was an academic study commissioned by a luxury brand, and they looked at two different groups. They called one of them prodigious accumulators. These people felt good about money and achieved all their goals, became self-made millionaires, okay? And then the other group was called Under Accumulators. Only difference between these two groups, the amount of time each month spent managing your money. Now you would think, well, is it a lot of time? It wasn't actually. it's somewhere between 15 to 30 minutes a month.

Evelyn: 47:37

Oh wow.

Tex: 47:37

and here's what's really interesting. The folks who are more engaged with their money that way, they didn't stress about money, but the folks who didn't engage with their money, they spent all their time stressing about money. So you either think about money and engage with it and don't stress, or you don't think and stress.

Evelyn: 47:54

Any stress? Yeah.

Tex: 47:55

and so we were like, what would have to go into those 30 minutes? And that's what we spent a couple of years going. Like, what are the navi navigational skills that help people deal with the uncertainty? That they face. And you wanna help people accumulate the evidence that they can manage whatever comes at them. So what I'm talking you through is essentially just us just spending years going, like, what works? Because I'm a coach, right? I don't care if it sounds good. I don't care if it looks good, I care if it works, and you get the result.

Evelyn: 48:21

Yeah.

Tex: 48:21

so yeah, so we take people through a process and actually just train them through this and get them to actually do the thing. Because like, yes, you can write a book and that sort of thing, but most people will read a buno. That's a good idea. Should do that.

Evelyn: 48:35

Yeah, exactly. what I really like about everything that you've spoken about today, it really speaks to the fact that everything that you are helping people to do is things that they're consciously making a decision to do and change themselves, and then they're embodying it and they're the ones that are. Basically saying, this is how we wanna live. This is how we need to do it. You are guiding them and coaching them, but they're the ones that are actually physically doing it and changing throughout the process. And they're not just adopting, as you say, a spreadsheet or a strategy and putting it into practice and not changing anything about themselves.

Tex: 49:08

Yeah, that's right. There was a study, done by, Australian Catholic University. Two years ago. and they did it with, the Positive Psychology Lab in attached to one of the unis in Canada. and it was specifically about financial wellbeing and different types of motivation and, one's called control motivation. I should, I have to, and the other one's called autonomous Motivation. I want to, and the difference is what you just said is the difference between the two, right? Like, if I'm telling you what to do, you'll comply, but you won't commit.

Evelyn: 49:39

Yeah.

Tex: 49:39

If you have something you are working towards that's meaningful for you, it's not a, it's not a willpower thing. It's, this makes sense to me. It's aligned to what I want. It's how I get there. I don't need willpower to do it. It's all meaningful by itself. So everything we do is all evidence-based. If it didn't work, we didn't do it. And if we couldn't explain why it worked, we didn't do it. Because it doesn't matter if it only works for one or two people, it just has to work.

Evelyn: 50:06

Yeah. Yeah. No,

Tex: 50:07

So yeah. And then. Basically there's one more skill. So the last one is, income mapping.

Evelyn: 50:12

Yep.

Tex: 50:13

so, you know, if I quickly zoom out again, you've got future authoring, which is that first one, top of the mountain. Then you've got monitoring your vitals, which is you checking your health, knowing where the money's going. Then cashflow forecasting is what we just described. income mapping is a little bit different. Income mapping zooms you even closer in to the month ahead. so you don't wanna just go 12 months, we do a forecast and we expect that our year's gonna play out exactly as planned. No, you actually wanna realize that we need to map our money to the actual month ahead of us, not the average month.

Evelyn: 50:41

Yeah. Yep.

Tex: 50:42

so yes, we made assumptions in our forecast, but now we want to actually look into the month ahead, use money that we actually have, not what we expect to have, not what we expect to get money that we actually have. Give every single dollar a job for that month. How much are we gonna send towards the future? How much are we gonna send towards the lifestyle that we wanna live? And how do much are we gonna send towards paying the bills? as well, why this matters is because I said it before, like most of us have been taught to siphon money. So like money comes in and like X percent goes over there and X percent goes over there and it's all automated and that sort of thing. We don't do that. We get people to pull their money through the month. So let's say you make$10,000. That$10,000 drops and it sits in there for a month. And then at the end of that month and the start of the next, you take the 10,000 and you say, how much towards our goals, how much towards, you know, living the good life now and how much towards paying the bills. Why that matters is because you're having proactive conversations about money. You're not reacting, you're actually looking ahead going that wedding's coming up, it's on the 20th. the gift. How much do you wanna spend on that gift? oh, I needed a new pair of jeans. cool. Put that in there as well. what else? there's, some bills coming up for the kids from the school. Yeah. Cool. Why does this matter? It matters because if you do that thinking and you front load that thinking, you don't spend the rest of the month worrying and reacting to money. and there's something really interesting as well that happens around agency and autonomy. I didn't understand this when we first did it.'cause I was like, let's get this, let's make it as quick as possible so that people don't spend too much time here. And then most of our guys are saying, whoa, no, we actually love this. Like, we love this process. And I'm like, well, why? And they go, we just feel good doing it. because what's happening is you're slowing down that financial pulse. You are dec you are separating the deciding from the doing. and the further the gap between the decision. The actual action, the less the stress. So someone like me, right? If I default to my default, the anxious attached, right? I don't wanna spend money, okay? But I do need a new pair of jeans, right? and if I try to buy them in the moment, I'm like, oh, I don't, that doesn't feel good. But if we sit down and we say, I need a new pair of jeans and it hits the 20th of the month, and I go buy the jeans. I don't stress about is this the right decision? Am I being financially responsible?'cause I can't see what's going on for money. I actually can, I know that I've planned it within this month. I know that buying these jeans isn't gonna derail our goals. I know that we're still gonna make progress. So what am I stressing about? Why am I stressing about that spend?

Evelyn: 53:08

Yeah.

Tex: 53:09

so you can actually feel good about your money. you can enjoy your money. And that's the big secret, right? You do this, you start engaging with your money. You start enjoying your money. And that's independent of what you have. And what tends to happen over time is we see people get into this rhythm, they start learning these skills, and they get into this rhythm, and they do this for 3, 4, 5. Around that. Somewhere between three to six months, we start seeing people make bigger decisions with money because now they're more comfortable making small ones. and remember what I said before about more money doesn't equal less stress. It means more money, decisions, and higher stakes.

Evelyn: 53:43

Yeah.

Tex: 53:44

So if you start exposing yourself and you start building capability on a small level like this, over time you start making, taking on more risk, start making bigger moves. So that's when you buy your investment property. That's when you shift careers, you know, that's when you start buying shares. All the things that you were procrastinating and hesitating on'cause you didn't feel equipped. You weren't equipped. that's the reason. and that's where we start to see people do some really cool stuff. Like we've seen people retire. We've helped so many people start their own businesses. what else do I see? People change careers. People retrain, people move overseas. People travel overseas. People travel. a the whole of Australia, like there's one couple, Mitch and Brooke, they love camping, right? And they've always wanted to do the Australian trip. and you know what I said before about asking when versus how. That's what he said to me. He said, I came outta that conversation. I was always asking when. And then after that we started asking how, and he goes, that made all the difference. and you know, they did that trip last year. So they got two little kids and they took the whole year off. Traveled around Australia and his memories, his stories and the experiences they gave their kids, they're gonna dine out on those for the rest of their life.

Evelyn: 54:51

Yeah, absolutely.

Tex: 54:52

so yeah, I just love seeing that, right? Like I'm still a coach and I'm still helping people achieve things, but in a much different domain now. and it's just so cool to see

Evelyn: 55:01

That's awesome.

Tex: 55:02

what people can accomplish once they unlock.'cause what I loved about coaching was not, here I am with the tracksuit on, and, here I am. And, I'm in this kind of elite environment. What I love was helping people do things they didn't think they could do.

Evelyn: 55:14

Yeah.

Tex: 55:15

and. You know, you've heard that saying, what's the biggest regret of the dying? I didn't live a life truer to myself. Well, what's the biggest excuse of the living? I don't have the money. Can't afford it. Can't do it. Yeah. and so that's why we kinda, we've set it up the way we do.

Evelyn: 55:33

Yeah. I love that. I love that so much, Terry. I've absolutely loved our conversation today, and I'm sure that everyone will have gotten so much value from it, or at least helped them to sort of think about money in a different way. And if they have questions, if they wanna explore more, if they wanna reach out to you directly, how can they do that?

Tex: 55:52

Yeah. So thank you so much for having me on. It's been, it's been cool to be interviewed. I usually do all the interviewing. but yeah, so if you wanna find out more about us, just go to, cashflow co.com au. That's, our website. we do do socials. They're not great at it. I don't love it. but, so you can find us on Instagram, I'm pretty sure. and then we have a podcast as well. if you wanna understand. In more depth, like we just kind of gave you a bit of a high level here. We did a full series called Escape Plan 2.0, and we walked through in depth exactly every single one of those skills. So if you're the kind of person who always wants to DIY or you just want to understand better what I'm talking about, just go to the Money Minded podcast and listen to that Escape plan series. there's also a financial skill score, so if you wanna assess yourself. Against the skills that I just talked about and understand where you're at right now. I can give you a link, Evelyn, that, people can assess themselves against to see, oh, how am I at with that one? Where am I at with this one? and then what it'll do is it'll tell you what to do and how to develop that

Evelyn: 56:46

Beautiful. That's fantastic. Yeah, we'll pop it in the show notes. That'd be awesome.

Tex: 56:50

Yeah.

Evelyn: 56:51

Great. Well, thank you so much and yeah, I really look forward to, continuing this conversation. I think it was a fantastic overview, as you said, and I'm gonna do a bit of a deep dive, I think, into some of your content myself.

Tex: 57:03

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Evelyn: 57:05

Thanks, Terry. Speak to you soon.