Financial Planner Life Podcast
Welcome to The Financial Planner Life Podcast. We cover an intimate and honest account of what it’s really like to work in the financial planning profession.
Our guests share their stories of success, failures and learnings, as well as what to expect from a career in the financial planning profession! We host guests at various stages in their careers, as well as multiple roles to ensure that our audience has a variety each week.
Financial planners, business owners, paraplanners and back-office staff all have their own story to share, and The Financial Planner Life podcast is a platform for them to talk about their personal and professional journey. The podcast covers a multitude of topics, from mindset and motivation, health and wellbeing all the way to diversity and inclusion.
We approach each episode with the idea that it is going to educate and spark a conversation within the industry with topics that may not be openly discussed. So, if you are thinking of becoming a financial adviser, or you’re curious about learning more about this brilliant sector, we urge you to give the podcast a listen.
The Host: Sam Oakes is the host of The Financial Planner Life Podcast. since 2008 Sam has been supporting leading national and global financial planning firms in finding the best talent, he was the director of Recruit UK, a 7 figure turnover financial planning recruitment company that he successfully exited in 2024, Sam now works as the Head of Creative for Hoxton wealth, building out podcasts, YouTube and social content for this fast growing fee based international financial planning firm.
Sam has always had a passion for financial services, starting out as a trainer for leading product provider in the UK, he has been in the industry for over 20 years.
He sees himself as a partner to the industry and wants to contribute useful resources such as this podcast to educate those further who are seeking advice and help about how to push their careers forward in this amazing profession.
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Financial Planner Life Podcast
“Built a £60 million AUM Financial Planning Business After Surviving Cancer” A Foster Denovo Special
From Critical Illness to £60M Practice: Russell Cook’s Story of Resilience, Mindset and Career Growth at Foster Denovo
In this special partnership episode of the Financial Planner Life podcast with Foster Denovo, we speak with Russell Cook — a senior partner, self-employed financial planner, and two-time survivor of life-threatening illness.
Russell shares how he built a thriving £60 million practice advising 120 clients, despite facing a rare blood cancer diagnosis and later, a brain tumour. His story is a powerful reminder that success in financial planning is as much about mindset and support as it is about knowledge and advice.
We cover:
✅ His seven-and-a-half-month hospital stay battling cancer
✅ How a critical illness policy helped him and his family stay afloat
✅ The power of team support under the Foster Denovo partner model
✅ Running multiple marathons post-recovery and raising £28,000 for charity
✅ Preparing for retirement while ensuring continuity and client care
✅ The role of Foster Denovo in his success and succession planning.
This episode is about resilience, gratitude and the value of doing work that truly matters. If you’re a self-employed financial planner or considering a career at Foster Denovo, don’t miss it.
🎧 Plus, discover more stories from those building successful careers in the Foster Denovo ecosystem on their new podcast: Foster Denovo Talks.
Begin your financial planning career journey today
Whether you are looking to become a paraplanner, administrator, mortgage and protection adviser or financial planner, the Financial Planner Life Academy is for you.
With limited entry-level job roles, giving yourself the best financial planning career education, will not only kick start your financial planning journey with relevant qualifications and skills, but it’ll also help you achieve success much faster.&nbs
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Reach out to Sam@financialplannerlife.com in regards to sponsorship, partnerships, videography or career development.
And today's guest on the Financial Planet Life podcast is Russell Cook. He is a senior partner here at Foster Bainovo. In 20 years he has built a practice with 60 million of assets under management. In this emotional career journey we talk about a rare blood cancer diagnosis. We also talk about a second brain tumour diagnosis in his career here whilst at Foster De Novo.
Speaker 2:I got diagnosed with a life-threatening blood cancer when I was 49. My family, on the other hand, were being told I'm unlikely to survive till the following morning. I spent most of seven and a half months in hospital fighting for life, and much of my demeanour is about looking forward. So I gave myself a job whilst I was in hospital, by the way, and that was. Your job is to survive until six o'clock the following morning when they came around to date your bloods again.
Speaker 1:His own positive mental attitude towards life and pushing forward regardless of the obstacles that are put in front of him is something that everybody should listen to, and just how inspiring that is.
Speaker 2:I just came out of it determined I was going to do something and nothing was going to step in the way. So I've always looked forward. I've tried not to dwell on things going wrong.
Speaker 1:We talk about how his own personal experiences are weaved in to the private client journey. We talk about building a team and a support network. We talk about just how Foster De Novo helped him in his 20-year career during those tough times and the good times.
Speaker 2:I have an admin client manager who's utterly brilliant, and I have a paraplanner who does the same thing, who's been utterly awesome, and just those two people. Over the last five or six years, they've been largely responsible for a quadrupling of the amount of work that I do.
Speaker 1:This is a hugely inspiring episode. You're going to love it, russell, thanks so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Live podcast. This is a special partnership that we have with Foster De no de novo, where we take a deep dive into the careers of those that work for foster de novo, and you've had quite the career. It's been about 20 years here, um. But first off, right, I've got to say about that shirt because we had a lovely pre-podcast chat and I commented on how wonderful and refreshing is to see some colour in financial planning. So thank you for wearing that.
Speaker 2:Well, I like to stand out.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. You know, in a sea of pinstripe shirts and blue trousers and red ties, you know, has that ever kind of been a disadvantage? You know, dressing up that way and do you do that on a regular basis?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean this is pretty much me all the time. I mean, I've got used to standing up and doing presentations to, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 people and I sometimes felt that if you would just turn up in a blue suit and a red tie and a white shirt, you just came across as being a bit aloof. So I've always done my best to sort of stand out. I want to be remembered for what I've said and, yeah, me and bright shirts. That seems to have been the the way to go.
Speaker 2:I suppose the early take on personal brand, but in person right yeah, I guess that is a bit of a branding moment, isn't it? Without even deliberately making it so.
Speaker 1:So hey, if you feel comfortable that way, that's the way it is. At the end of the day, I like to wear a black shirt and, sorry, a black t-shirt. So you know you won't catch me in a shirt and tie in a suit or jacket or anything like that these days, unfortunately, well, that's, I think.
Speaker 2:Perhaps, uh, we're moving away from wearing suits all the time. Anyway, I think so, um.
Speaker 1:So you have had quite a long career here at Foster De Novo. How long have you been within the company?
Speaker 2:I've been here about 20 years. I've been working in financial services about 35 years and I came here mainly because I had two colleagues who I also consider quite close friends of mine who persuaded me that this was the route to go.
Speaker 1:So I ended up doing a lot of work with them in the early years, and what sort of work was that when you, when you, got into Foster De Novo, what was your sort of approach and style of advice and what was the typical type of client that you would work with, and has that changed over the years?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's definitely changed. I mean the initially I was part of a team of people that used to deal with small businesses or large businesses, so I'd go in, I'd do presentations to staff and then we'd sit down with individuals and I taught them through what their benefits were and all the rest of it, which was fine. It was very much a production line to a degree, but the financial services moved on and certain things made that more less practical. So I decided I was going to go back into making a bigger effort into my private clients. That proved to be just a tad difficult because I subsequently got quite ill, but I also learned at the same time that I'm absolutely rubbish at admin and that I can be quite technical.
Speaker 2:But at the same time I don't want to be classed as that man from the insurance company. I'm my client's closest financial friend as far as I'm concerned. You know I want them to meet me point A today and be able to talk about me 10 years down the line at point B and go. Thank God we spoke to Russell, because he's always had our best interest at heart, and that's me. I've loved doing it. I can have a two hour conversation with you and never mention the words pension, savings or investment, because it's all about planning.
Speaker 1:Tell me a little bit about that approach then, because you can imagine a lot of people that come into the financial planning profession. They probably think they have to know the ins and outs of absolutely everything when it comes to the products and services, and you're telling me, sat over there, that you've built a fantastic career of really very little conversation about that side of it and more the conversation about what the individual wants or needs Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've used, I've got a small team of people behind me and when I, like I said, when I realized my admin abilities were quite rubbish, I took somebody on to help me out with the admin side of it. I also took somebody on who had a good relationship with me that dealt with a lot of the research and background work, and the consequence of that is I don't have to go into a meeting trying to reinvent the wheel, because somebody's already done the research for me. We've prepped for those meetings and I've gone in and I've tried to answer every single question before I've gone into those meetings. I don't want ever to be in a position where I go actually I don't know about that, I'll have to come back to you that kind of messes up the flow of things. So I've done the technical stuff in the background and then you're going into that meeting and it's just a reiteration of whatever you thought was needed last. You know, if we were able to do this, that and the other, you know, are we hitting all the right notes? And if, if the individual is coming back to me and saying that's exactly what I wanted, then I can then go right. Well, we can put certain products in place that will do exactly that.
Speaker 2:But it's not just about products. You know I go on about it. I've been using cash flow modeling for absolutely ages now. I don't know if I'm amongst that small group of the, you know, the first people at fd that started to use it, but to me it's become my main tool. It's what I, it's what runs the meeting, everything is visual and I'm you know, I I'm.
Speaker 2:What I'm trying to do is to say, look, this is where you are at the moment. Now we, we don't want you just bumbling along, we want you to have a plan of action, a set of train tracks for you to run on. Now it could be that you turn around to me today after we've put that plan in place and we never speak again, which would be sad because I'd enjoy working with everybody. But if I've got the train tracks in place and that person is prepared to follow that largely through, then I've done my job. And you know the feedback I've had from people over the years. That's been pretty good. I have a pretty good retention rate. I don't lose very many clients and well, I do. I'll be honest, I do take it a bit personally because I've worked really hard for them in the background, although they might think it's all fairly simple when Russell turns up in the room. But actually I've had to. You know I've done a lot of background work and I've looked every possible angle.
Speaker 1:What do you do to focus on that relationship part then, because you're super duper prepared by the sounds of it and of course, you're using the cash flow forecast to create a plan, but a little bit in between, then how do you build that trust with them? What conversations are you having? Is it lifestyle financial planning, and how do you approach it?
Speaker 2:yeah, it is a. It is around about lifestyle. Like you know, we talk about what they want to achieve, what they don't want to achieve, and I also bring in my own um situation because you know, I, I, I got diagnosed with a life-threatening blood cancer when I was 49. And a lot of the people, a lot of the clients I dealt with were in that age group and if you'd ever spoken to them about life insurance or critical illness cover, chances are it had been very, very much on the back burner. But I was able to talk about circumstances where you know, when I was in hospital in intensive care, my laptop still went with me and I'm feeling like death, warmed up and I'm looking at my laptop and I've decided well, I've had some money come in, tiny little critical illness policy. I'm using that to pay the bills going out on the Friday. My family, on the other hand, are being told I'm unlikely to survive till the following morning. So when I'm talking to clients, I'm relaying those own, my own experiences and things where you never thought that they were ever going to happen. But you need to be prepared and I still go that. You know you've got a one in six chance of being off work for more than a year before you retire, and yet the number of people I speak to have done something about it is relatively minimal. So again, it's finding out what needs to be protected without it being an expensive issue issue. It's really talking about family, talking about what their hobbies and pastimes are, what, whether or not they they've really really thought about, uh, retirement, and that that's another area. I mean, most of my clients are in that five-year pre-retirement phase or just post-retirement, and I talk about the psychology of stopping work and I say, look, you know, you've spoken to me today because you're a little concerned about whether or not you can stop work. So we're going to go through it.
Speaker 2:So their anxiety goes through a bit of a wave. Initially it's going right up. I then put something in place and everybody's a little bit more comfortable. They understand where that money is going to come from, when it's going to come, whether or not they're going to pay too much or not enough tax or whatever it might be, and their anxiety comes down. They then get to the point where I'm now involved. They've got to speak to their manager at work and their exact anxiety goes up again. It goes through the roof.
Speaker 2:And then, um, they eventually come to the day where they're actually stopping work and their mates at work, a big party and everything, anxiety's gone down. They're feeling pretty good about it and the day after they have this dawning realization oh my gosh, I'm no longer earning 100 150 000 a year. I've got to rely on my savings and my pension. And that's when they come back to me again and you can tell the anxiety has gone through the roof. So my job is to try and give them that certainty, give them that security and and basically put them at their ease, without necessarily telling them off, because you do have clients that will overspend. You know, one minute you're on 150 grand a year and next minute you're on nothing, but you're still spending at the same rate. So we have a long chat about trying to, you know, get things slightly more under control.
Speaker 1:It's just talking your own personal experience and of in 2010, when you got blood cancer cancer essentially, and that took you out of work. You had a small critical illness policy in place. So that whole experience of going through what we often think won't happen to us is weaved into the actual journey with your clients as well. When it comes to the fundamental foundations of financial planning, which is life protection, critically on his cover and all of those things that we think we don't ever well, we hope we never have to cash in on, but are there, didn't talk to me about that. Then talk to me about the power of going through something quite traumatic and how you do position that within. First off, how is it? You know that was dramatic for you, right?
Speaker 2:I think, um, I I'm rather like a plumber with a leaky tap. You've got the tools, you just haven't got around to fixing the the problem. And I'll be honest and say that, as a financial planner, there's probably a lot more, personally, that I should have done before I got ill, but I did put put certain things in place. I made sure that my family were not worried about any mortgage outstanding and things like that. But I think what it has done is it's meant that when I'm talking to people, I'm not talking to them as, like a statistician, you know, I'm not quoting a load of useless facts and figures. I'm actually saying, look, this has happened to me and this is what we had to do next. I mean I, you know that my dealings with mds were pretty horrid, to put it mildly. I spent most of seven and a half months in hospital fighting for life, and much of my demeanor is about looking forward. So I gave myself a job whilst I was in hospital, by the way, and that was your job is to survive until six o'clock the following morning when they came around to date your bloods again. So I I've always looked forward. I've tried not to dwell on things going wrong, and I ask clients to do the same thing. You've got to look forward. Don't look at what's got, what's gone wrong. Don't really highlight that you've had a half million pound pension pot that's done nothing for 10 years. That's irrelevant at this point.
Speaker 2:From this point on, we now need to put strategies in place that will put you in a better position in the future. Now we have to understand what you're not going to like. You know what sorts of things upset you. Are you going to be worried because there's something simple like a change of government? Well, it's not simple, but it's it's, you know, in your personal financial planning. Is that going to upset it in some way? So you've got to ask all these questions what is it that's going to really upset the apple cart before we can then put a plan of action in place to to make sure all of that certainty and security is there?
Speaker 1:do you feel like your lived experience puts the client into a situation where they can open up and be honest about maybe some of their fears and worries and things about the future that maybe they wouldn't tell another financial planner?
Speaker 2:I think so. I mean I've had some wonderful conversations with people over the years. I've got clients that have been diagnosed with lung cancer, cancer, you name it. There's been all sorts of variants on a theme and, um, I think they do understand that I know where they're coming from. But rather rather more interestingly, um, because of my own family's background, I've learned what they went through. So I have a client at this moment that's dealing with a family um, fairly horrible health issue, um, and I know what they're thinking now because I've seen what my own family were going through, and it just gives me that little edge. It means I understand straight away what you can recommend, what you can push along and what you really need to step back away from, and it's just understanding what's going on in that person's mind.
Speaker 2:Again, it's talking, and again I can have a chat for hours with somebody and never talk about financial planning. It's just one of those I don't know. I couldn't put an exact figure on what it is. I do, I just happen to do the right thing and I think that's borne out in the number of people I deal with and the fact that I thinkne out in the in the number of people I deal with and the fact that, um, I think all of them have I have one of these net mps scores yeah apparently looks quite good yeah well, foster de novo as a whole has a fantastic it's up in the 80s, something, yeah it's phenomenal what a great what a great way to measure the client experience.
Speaker 1:I think you know it's such a positive way to do it I think, anyone coming to work with with fd?
Speaker 2:um, you've got a great group of people around you. When I got ill, I had six advisors stepped in. They did stuff for me. Um, I was too ill to worry about it, to be honest, but they just, you know, stepped up to the mark. Um, I can. I can always remember one of them came to see me in hospital. It was the day after I'd come out of intensive care. I weighed about 10 stone. I looked like a bag of bones and not very good, but I felt actually pretty good. And he appeared at the, the entrance to my room all smiles and then his jaw just dropped and the consequence of that is, everybody in this company saw a picture of me in intensive care because he was pretty taken aback.
Speaker 2:So I think we've got a really lovely group of people here, and I would say to anybody coming to to join us here try and start. You know, get those relationships working. You know some of them will be better at certain areas of your business than others, and that, and you can we do a lot of splitting of business. You know, we get someone else to come in and do stuff for us. You know, I've got a colleague of mine up north who has looked at all of my final salary type questions. Um, you know, and I've got clients that will deal with small business as well. Uh, you know, and we, we get them in touch with the consultants that can best help them there as well. So I think we've got the right ethos.
Speaker 2:Um, also, as I've harped on about this before, my admin is awful. Um, I know that foster de novo are always desperately trying to take the consultants away from the the box ticking humdrum stuff in the background and get them into doing the bits that they really enjoy most, which is up front and personal with clients. And that's where I am. I'm lucky in that I have a admin client manager who's utterly brilliant. You know, we, these people, they're worth their weight in gold because they take over your diary and they take over all the little niggly bits and they completely resurrect. You get you out of trouble in terms of dealing with paperwork and I have a power planner who does the same thing, who's been utterly awesome, and just those two people. Over the last five or six years they've been largely responsible for a quadrupling of the amount of work that I do.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, so quadrupling the amount of time that you spend with clients and generating business. Now, um, let's give the listeners some context. There's the, the. When you join, when you're in, foster de novo the ecosystem. You, you run a partner practice, essentially, and foster de novo have an ecosystem where they train and develop staff to be able to support partner practices. Um, which is amazing for you, because that takes away a lot of the pressure of having to recruit people, find people, train people, develop people and frees you up to go out and speak to um more private clients and do the bit you love doing, which is the highly emotional, intelligent side of um, the.
Speaker 1:The business of being a financial planner, sitting down with clients and hopefully putting a plan together, is going to make them feel secure and happy, and what I like to say is financial well-being. I look at financial planning as financial well-being. You know it's um, it's about making somebody feel calm about their future and there's someone's essentially there with them along the way. Like if you went and wanted to get good at running or you wanted to, uh, build, build your muscles up or lose some weight, you go and see a coach, wouldn't you? With um, your um practice and again some context. Like you know, it's helped you to go out and smash through and get new clients right. But how? How much have you got in the management? How many clients have you actually got?
Speaker 2:uh, it's around about 120 at the moment. The last time I did a stock take, so to speak, it's around about 60 million, under advice. If I go back to six or seven years ago, it was a fraction of that and I had to make a decision about paying for somebody to come in and do some of the donkey work for me. Yeah, at a time when I was struggling a wee bit to to justify the expense and it was typical man, typical financial advice you think you can do everything. Well, I realized that I couldn't. So I got somebody on board and within about 12 months I was double on what I used to do. And that's carried on and on and on. I mean I late the latest figures.
Speaker 2:Well, if we get to the end of july, when my buyout effectively finishes, I'll be disappointed if we've done less than 450. And when you think this is really just me as a one-man band with a support staff, um, it may not be stellar like some of the guys here at fd um, but for me that's all happened in the last five or six years. So I've gone from, you know, just about keeping my head above water to making a conscious decision to say actually I've got to subcontract some of this work to other people who are better at it than I am and, as if it's ever a top tip, always employ somebody who's better at it than you are, because otherwise you'll never get the time. Do you wish you did that sooner? Oh, absolutely I. To be honest, I had countless colleagues here. This is what you need to do, russ, and I go.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah yeah, but I think there were a few other little changes in the way that we worked. We had RDR come into play and things like that, which suddenly put some different pressures on me and I did eventually have to say to say, actually I can't carry on like this, I need that support and I need that help. And you know, we went back to foster de novo to say, well, okay, who can I use?
Speaker 1:and and went from there you're honest, you're honest would have taken it out of you. As you said, you, you, you came out of the hospital 10 stone. That resilience, then, to get to this level is is impressive. Um, can I just ask, like, like, from like, I find it so admirable, like it's some like your, your journey is inspiring to to be in sat in a bed, worrying that you're going to die the next day, to recovering and thrive, thriving, basically. I just find it massively inspiring. Um, what do you put that? I just got to ask you, like, what do you put that down to?
Speaker 2:I'm a little well, I'm quite focused, but at the same time I don't like giving up. I have a bit of a history of um, uh, athletic, so to speak. Um, although I was only a junior at the time, I was a national junior silver medalist in rowing many years ago. I rowed with the likes of Steve Reggrave. We were at the same rowing club together and I'm one of four people that's set up, one of the founders of Oxford Brookes University Boat Club, which is now acknowledged as not just the best rowing club in the UK but probably the best one on the planet, and my name is in a book. So, peter Smith, thank you very much. I you know what can I say. I mean, I I just want to go out and do something.
Speaker 2:And when I, when I got really ill, I realized what everybody around me was doing to help me in terms of the medical profession and the charities, and that they get involved with blood cancers, and I just decided I wanted to give something back. So I forced myself to walk to the end of the driveway, walk to the end of the road, walk into the village, and then that turned into a bit more of a jog over a period of a year or two and I did the London Marathon in 2013 and in the six weeks leading up to the London Marathon I had bronchitis. So furthest I'd ever run in my life up to that point was seven and a half miles, and my wife had absolutely no doubt in her mind that I was going to do this. So I ran the London Marathon. I absolutely loved it, although I did burst out into tears when I crossed the finishing line and thought I've got to do that again. So I thought what can I do? That will raise more money.
Speaker 2:So the following year I did the Reading Half Marathon in February, the Rome Marathon in March, the reading half marathon in the february, the rome marathon in the march, the london marathon in the april, the edinburgh marathon in the may. I did um, the assault course, um down, you know where the soldiers do all of their stuff. That was over 14 miles. And then I did finished it off with birmingham half marathon and raised 28 000 pounds in the process. Yeah, um, and it also inspired me to want to get more involved.
Speaker 2:So I'm now a trustee of the mds uk patient support group and that is a um, the only blood cancer charity in the uk that supports um, mds patients and um I. I hope I'm not going to be stepping out of line when I say you don't want mds, because nine out of ten people don't get a cure. I was just very lucky. I went through a bone marrow transplant three times because I had two failures and, uh, the third one, actually the you know the nicest thing that came out of it. It wasn't me coming out of it, all right, it gave a career to my son.
Speaker 1:Did it.
Speaker 2:Because he was a 15-year-old. He donated a bow and arrow to me and yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not, it's okay, just take a breath.
Speaker 2:My son is now um a doctor at um a and e in bristol, southmead beautiful so we sort of changed his outlook.
Speaker 2:My daughter it didn't really change hers dramatically, but she still works on the side of business, where you are looking at charitable work, and she lives and works in sydney, australia. Um, but yeah, I just came out of it determined I was going to do something and nothing was going to step in the way. So, yeah, my wife probably would tell you more stories about me and going out running. You know, in the middle of january it's hailstones and snow and god knows what else outside. I'm still going out running in the dark and, um, she just thought, thought I was nuts.
Speaker 1:Different story, but I can relate to it. I went through a massive amount of depression, very, very dark place, very, very suicidal thoughts for a long long time and running was one of those disciplines that got me out of the shit that I was in and I can relate to that massively.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:There is just something about running you're going to make me cry now. There is something about running that just going to make me cry now. There is something about running that just genuinely sets you free, like massively. It genuinely sets you free. And when you apply yourself to something like that, which is just you and the tarmac, or you and the grass, especially out in the countryside, when I used to go out running, I used to love my trail running and you're in control and it was an amazing place to meditate, and when you run, you just your mind clears and it becomes very, very, very euphoric.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a funny sort of way. I found it quite useful in the in the world of business, because I you know, I can go out for a three, four, five mile run, 10 mile run, 15 mile run, and I come back and you'd normally think, well, if you push yourself really hard, all you want to really do is sit down and have a snooze. Um, but I used to find I'd come back and I'd go back to work because my head was clear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know I, it hasn't stopped there, because even in my world of charity I've stepped in and mentored people that have gone through a similar thing to me. Not all of it has been a success, I hasten to add, you know, because quite a few people I've spoken to unfortunately didn't make it, but a few of them have, and we're still in touch, we still talk. You know, I've got a gentleman, even now that I, I I got my wife to drive me down to red hill because I can't drive, and we met up with a gentleman that's having a to go through a second transplant. Um, and I was involved in a campaign because they stopped second transplants and, bearing in mind, I've had three to me this was, you know, live or die. So I, I've, I've always enjoyed giving back and I enjoy giving back more than I enjoy asking for the fees when I go to a client meeting.
Speaker 1:I just don't like talking about it at all there is something in giving back altruism when you aren't exchanging money for support or help.
Speaker 1:I've always struggled with the counseling when you have to pay for counseling. Yeah, one of the best things that I ever did, like you, is I lent into charities, so I became a um on the board of trustees for a men's mental fitness charity called talk club um, and the ability to help others without looking for something in return is probably one of the most um healing things I've ever done, because it also shows you, doesn't it just, how far you've come in life when you go through a struggle and a problem and a challenge and the person who's then living within that in that moment you can help, coach and guide them and give them some faith and belief that they can come out the other side and that you're living proof that that can be done, and often the power of that positive thinking can often be enough to get somebody over the toughest and darkest times right, I mean as you know, I mean more recently, um, something.
Speaker 2:You know, you go through life and a near like, near death experience most people won't have. They'll just live their normal lives. And I ended up with a second one last october, right, and I didn't realize for months that I had a problem. And my team, my crm, my paraplanner, everybody around me realized there was something not quite right. You know, I was starting to talk really slowly, um slurring my speech, occasionally forgetting stuff in lorry loads, but they were still there, they're still supporting me and I think part of the issue there is I wasn't looking for problems. I'm always looking forward. My glass is always half full and I was refusing to acknowledge that there was something going on. I just couldn't put my finger on it and it was only when, I think, I had a client meeting and I remember thinking that I was really struggling to talk and I couldn't understand why. I mentioned it to my wife. She said for God's sake, russell, go and see the doctor. So I went to see my doctor on a Friday and in the last 10 seconds of that meeting I happened to mention oh, and, by the way, my memory is absolutely pants. So she went oh, that's interesting. We'll get you checked out, russell.
Speaker 2:So, much to my surprise, the Monday at the Sunday morning I had an MRI scan. And on the Monday morning I had a phone call from a neurologist and she said we need to get you in to have a chat about your scan. And I said well, you know I'm a big boy, why would you want to come in? Why would you want to come in? Tell me what the problem is? She said well, I'd rather wait till you came in. I said I would rather know right now. I'm not going to get freaked out by this. I've been through all of this, you know near-death stuff before. And she said well, we found what we feel is a tumor, so I need to explain. So I went into the hospital the following morning.
Speaker 2:I took my son with me, because my wife by this time realized that it was going to be too emotional for her to easily deal with. But my son son being a doctor he sat in there, he asked all the right questions, he understood the answers and I wasn't completely freaked out by it at the time although you know, give me another few days and I was starting to really question whether or not I was going to live. But, um, again, the team of people I had behind me what can I say? They've stepped in. You know, I feel quite sorry in to some degree for my um protege consultant ermita. She was literally thrown in at the deep end and then she had an accident herself and broke her hand. Um, but all of them, they haven't moaned about me not being there. They haven't sort of said things would have been better had you been there. They've just got on and done it and they've been brilliant.
Speaker 2:Do I ever want to go through brain surgery? Ever again? Absolutely not. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
Speaker 2:It was absolutely horrible and I could tell you some, some funny stories even then because, um, on the day that I had all the, I had 46 metal staples in my head and I thought I was just going in to have those taken out. When I get to the hospital, I have the two most senior nurses in the hospital. I've got my surgeon, three other surgeons and the senior house officer just for me and they took all these staples out my head and I didn't really notice them coming out, despite the fact they were enormous, and the surgeons looking at the tv screen. There's a picture of my face full on MRI scan and he's pointing at this gray area around my orbit, over my left orbit, and he goes that's your tumor. And my wife looks at it. She goes that looks quite large. And he just went yes, massive. So I kind of realized at that second that I'd been taken into hospital almost as an emergency and that my longevity was probably measured in days or weeks had I not had that surgery. So I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to tell you this story as well.
Speaker 2:I got in the car leaving the hospital, I was absolutely elated because I found out it was a benign grade one tumour. If you're going to have a tumour, it's the right one to have. And I looked at my phone as we're driving down the M40 and on it there's an advert. It says Simple Minds concert in Sicily. Well, I've seen their video of them doing one of their songs in Sicily, in Taormina. So I said I'm going there. I bought the the tickets before we, halfway before we got home. So we're going there in July of this year and I'm going there. I bought the tickets halfway before we got home. So we're going there in July of this year and I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:And there's a funny kind of offshoot to this, because there's a song called First you Jump, and so somebody asked me what's the first thing you did when you came out of hospital? I went well, first you jump. So that was me saying you've got to look forward, you've got to look on the positive of everything that's gone on. Yes, it was difficult to deal with and you know, october, november, december I you know me being me I was probably spinning it a lot more positively than it really was, because you're still dealing with the fact that you can't feel the side of your head and I still can't, it's all numb. You're still dealing with the fact that you were struggling to get simple things done Much, much, much better now.
Speaker 2:By the way, in case anyone from management is wondering what I'm up to, you know I'm in a great place. Um, I'm looking forward now to retirement because I've been forced to kind of look at my lifestyle in a way that I've always asked my clients to do. And, yes, I'm a bit anxious about it, although that possibly was brought about mainly by being ill, but I'm OK about it. I'm looking forward to going and visiting my daughter and son-in-law in Australia. That won't be a short trip either. I'm planning on going for a while. I'm looking forward to my son moving into his first home, which is later on this month. So much I've got to look forward to, and I also I'm looking forward to helping out MDS UK. I want to rekindle my trusteeship, if you like, and I want to get involved on the brain tumor side of things as well, because it's pretty horrible. I now know what it's like. If you have to go through it, I think I can paint a positive picture for anybody that has to go through this.
Speaker 1:No well, listen, thank you so much for sharing that journey. It's ridiculously inspiring. Your positive mental attitude around it all is just like I say it's it's just hugely inspiring. If I was to bring this also back to running a business, right, if you were to be running that business on your own, directly authorized, let's say, without the ecosystem that you're used to and support that you've had, especially leading up to you now having to retire, probably before you would want to okay, being part of that ecosystem where they understand you, they understand your business and they've built a partner practice around it and they can start to introduce advisors, to take over client relationships, etc. How important and how grateful are you to the ecosystem and the practice buyout option to be able to allow you to step out, and has that been like a backbone, if you like, to the troubling times that you've had?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, certainly foster de novo stepped in and they've helped me out on that. I think if I've been on my own, probably I would have been struggling not, you know, not to sell a business, because I've done that before, um. But I think the problem is I, I have a particular ethos about the way I deal with people, and whoever stepped into my shoes, I'd like to have a say in what what they're like. So foster, foster De Novo gave me that opportunity. So we've had somebody with very, very similar ethics to myself. They want to achieve the same ends, they want to do it in a similar fashion, and FD were in there to help me do that.
Speaker 2:I think if I was a one-man band, oh crikey, even if I had to organize it you're looking at something like five years plus before anything much would happen, and even then you'd have to find a way of transitioning stuff across.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think it would have been hard work. I think what we've got here you've got the option, um, to be able to step away from your business in a time frame that suits you, knowing that the people who are going to be stepping into your shoes are going to be talking and thinking and saying the same things and they're going to look after the people that you have. You know you've built that rapport up with over years. I mean I've absolutely loved working with with, with my clients I mean there's a lot of them. I'd be really disappointed if we can't somehow stay friendly. You know, not business, but just it'd be nice to meet up and have a drink and just talk about life. I think that would be wonderful and that you know. Again, there's another part of my plan going forward is just to make sure I keep in touch with people.
Speaker 1:Keep those relationships in place that you've built for so long On a sort of ending note here and you've been on an incredibly challenging journey, of which your positive mental attitude has and your physical fitness by the sounds of it as well has pushed you through right fitness by the sounds of it as well as push you through right. For anybody listening right now, that's um, in a situation perhaps where they're working on their own and maybe they are feeling that pinch right, regardless of whether or not you're going through any health conditions that might come up you might not. How important do you think it is to really kind of align yourself to a model, as you get older, for example, that does support you?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think a lot of companies like foster de novo especially.
Speaker 2:You know we have people within the business who are specialists in certain areas.
Speaker 2:So we have mortgage specialists, we have life, we have people who specialize in estate planning, and then you have people like me, mainly to do with that retirement, so it's pensions and the associated investments, um I.
Speaker 2:I think it gives you an opportunity to work with other consultants, to spread your wings, make yourself that much more effective, but, rather more importantly, it makes you a little bit more essential to the people that you're dealing with, because you can always turn around and say do you know what? I'm not the best estate planner on the planet, but I know one or two people who would be absolutely ideal and we can get them involved. So I think you know, towards the end of your career, you need to be able to know there are other people that you can rely on, and you certainly don't want to put yourself in a position I found myself found myself in 15 odd years ago where all of a sudden, you were, you didn't know who you had to rely on. You had to rely on friends within the business who suddenly realised what was going on in your life who, out of the goodness of their own heart, stepped in and, dare I say it, in my case, wouldn't even let me pay them.
Speaker 1:Well, you've got some very good people around you, which is a direct indication that the ecosystem and the environment that you're in is a healthy, positive and kind and considerate and caring environment.
Speaker 1:So only echoes what I hear about Foster De Novo, if I'm completely honest with you. So, russell, thank you so much today for sharing your journey. And if anyone's listening right now and wants to learn more about Foster De Novo and all the different stages of a career at this business, foster De Novo Talks. The podcast is now in production and that's what we're here today to be filming as well, so you can hear about other stories, other career opportunities and what it's like working at Foster De Novo by following Foster De Novo Talks the podcast. So, russell, again thank you so much for being so open, so honest, and all of us here at the financial plan of life know that you're going to be kicking ass in retirement. So get out there, get running and get fit and healthy, because you're an absolute trooper and a winner yeah, it's been a pleasure cheers.
