60 - TRAP WRAP 2024

TRAP LIVE25 - 14TH MAY. REGISTER INTEREST HERE.

In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss

• Topical Titbits including details about TRAP LIVE25, tax-free cash back in the toothpaste tube snafus, the need in Ireland & UK for consistent long-term pension legislation, Microstrategy joining the NASDAQ100, Goldman Sachs 10 year market prediction, touchy FIRE peeps, Vanguard raising prices on smaller pots
• Meat and Potatoes: TRAP WRAP 2024
• TRAPist question(s) from AN Other and Dean Brooks http://linkedin.com/in/dean-brooks-493730116
• Culture Corner

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

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Transcript

Nick Lincoln: 0:18

Fuck sake, okay, it's not, it's not triggering the intro. So just to stop the recording start,

Unknown: 0:36

welcome to the real advisor podcast, T, R, A P trap, please follow us and join in the conversation on Twitter at advisor podcast, where you can suggest ideas and themes you'd like the trap team to discuss. Also remember to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and leave a six out of five star review on iTunes. Doing all this really, really helps us, which means we can do more to help you. Now, let's head over to the studio for the latest pile of trap

Nick Lincoln: 1:12

yes, indeed, dear TRAPPIST, welcome back to The Real advisor podcast, T, R, A, P, Trapp. My name is Nick Lincoln. This is episode 60 that we're somehow doing in the Digital Studio doom. And joining me in it are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Carl della vocci, the voice widget, Alan, the storyteller, Smith and Andy Ultra heart now, gentlemen, we have a show packed full of app salutely, nothing. So let's start things underway with some more high energy review, or a high energy review. Read from my very good friend the right honorable Mr. Andrew Hart,

Andy Hart: 1:49

thank you very much, Nick. This is five stars entitled The honest and refreshing, unedited journey. You bring wisdom to those who are navigating their own uncertain path in the world. You bring reassurance that it's okay not to have all the answers. You bring peace of mind that it's okay to make mistakes and that you'll be wiser for it. You bring optimism and hope for your own achievements. You bring excitement to me and many others for what's possible. So thank you for taking the time to make a difference and inspire me and many others. The true impact of this you'll never know, but I, for 1am, hugely grateful. This is from Keith boys, who runs a great firm in Scotland. Back to you. Nicholas,

Alan Smith: 2:29

yes, I think I'm sure we've read that before, but worth reading again. It's so good,

Andy Hart: 2:35

I don't think we have but there's a bit, a bit of a shake up. We used to use a company called chartable that have been sunsetted, as in, the business is no longer active. So now we're, yeah, four days, scrambling around in the background, trying to find an alternative, replacement, and having somewhat of a problem. But long noticed Alan,

Unknown: 2:53

that's all set,

Alan Smith: 2:54

which was closed down advanced notice,

Nick Lincoln: 2:58

if you want to deprecated, that's

Alan Smith: 3:02

another deprecated. Just look at the Apple podcast platform. That's where they normally reside. I think

Unknown: 3:09

that's you can leave if I need help, I call you. Had we discussed

Alan Smith: 3:16

Greg store, right, right.

Unknown: 3:19

We just had this discussion off alone.

Nick Lincoln: 3:21

Where am I? Where am I? What's my name? Okay, let's put a topic of time stamp on. Thank you for the review, Keith. And thanks to all the TRAPPIST Sentinel reviews over the last year. We're coming to the end of the year, it's been a great year for trap the reviews are all part of the shot in the arm that keeps us knocking this stuff out for you. So let's put a timestamp on this episode with some topical tidbits. Mr. Haas, exciting announcement,

Andy Hart: 3:43

yes. The first thing is to reconfirm that trap live 2025 will be on the 14th of May, Wednesday, the 14th of May at the Royal College of Physicians. Actually a venue that some of you may know well, it's where I host. Hum and yep, tickets will be going on sale sometime early in 2025 if you want to register your interest and get note, interest and get notified when the tickets go on sale, please go to the real advisor podcast.com, and pop in your details. I think that's it on trap live for the moment. And I've also agreed a date for humans under management London, 2025 it's going to be on Wednesday the 12th of November. 2025 I'm asking the TRAPPIST if they know of any competing events around that time, because we don't want conference clashes. But they are the dates, key dates for next year, 14th of May, Wednesday, the 14th of May. Trap live and Wednesday the 12th of November. Hum, live. Over to you. Nicholas for some news.

Unknown: 4:39

Have you any things to promote anything

Alan Smith: 4:43

most just on No, no, I do that through the normal channels. I don't you. I don't abuse this this powerful. My own private, personal sell your wares. I know others do against rules, but okay, you're not recruiting at

Andy Hart: 4:57

the moment. At you, Carl, fully respecting

Unknown: 4:59

you. No. Yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 5:03

right. How are you herding cats? Okay, so we've been this last year has been really good for the track pack, and we we use a service called buzz buzz, buzz sprout to propagate our episodes onto all the podcast apps of choice. And Buzz sprout sent us an email the other week or last week actually saying we're in the top 5% of all of their podcasts, which is fantastic news. The most popular city, I don't quite know how this was the most popular city is Dublin, which is in the county of Leinster, apparently.

Andy Hart: 5:30

But I think why didn't you understand it? Nick? Because Birmingham, Manchester, London, Bristol, they're all separated out on their own right, Dublin,

Nick Lincoln: 5:38

slash Leinster. Then it's Birmingham, Slack, comma, Birmingham, Manchester, comma, Manchester. That's what threw me. I thought Dublin and Leinster were like two different

Alan Smith: 5:47

places. Surprised that it's

Nick Lincoln: 5:49

Ireland is geographic. The population is very densely located in Dublin, isn't it? Careful Dick

Alan Smith: 5:57

Lincoln talking about Ireland.

Unknown: 6:00

Would you like my input here?

Nick Lincoln: 6:03

This guy that could confirm all of this confusion? Okay, double downloads, Dublin. Downloads, 3669 total downloads in Ireland, 4611 Okay, are we happy with those figures? I'm just reciting the facts. Do you that's what it is. They seem to

Unknown: 6:19

be all in Dublin. Okay, well done you Well, I'm saying

Nick Lincoln: 6:23

the 4600 downloads, 3700 were from Dublin, that's all, whereas London had 2259

Unknown: 6:31

downloads. But there were 7000 that's very poor. And the three of you live there in big or London, and we need to sell

Nick Lincoln: 6:38

many 1000 downloads for the UK, 4600 for Ireland.

Unknown: 6:41

Ireland is London. That's poor, your hometown. You just your

Alan Smith: 6:47

data exactly. I'd

Carl Widger: 6:50

say it's perfectly accurate. And yeah, you must be

Alan Smith: 6:53

down to your efforts. Carl, that trap is so big in Ireland,

Carl Widger: 6:57

most people, considering, like, four people, they listened. But anyway, are you the other people? Top

Unknown: 7:03

episodes was episode

Nick Lincoln: 7:04

The episode 41 the SJP et al, big brands. That was our second guy, I think with SJP wasn't actually that was the one, obviously, from this year, where we've been discussing the travails they've been having. Yeah. What else I

Alan Smith: 7:16

think our biggest episode last year was the first SJP. It was JP, if you want

Nick Lincoln: 7:20

to get a boost your podcast, just mention SJP. Just mention SJP audience. Do it in a way that's not too negative. Okay, let's get on with the show. And it's me still, so I've got the bloody budget. You can't escape the budget. Can we still? The reverberations are rippling around financial services here, and I think towards green in in your countries, or with your budget car. So there was this thing about taking tax free to the budget, and then if your tax free cash wasn't dicked around with, you could just unwind it and do the 30 day calling notice thing. HMRC, very usefully, put out a newsletter after the budget, saying you can't do that. Why they couldn't do it before the budget? I do not know. They've got one job is to collect taxes, regular how taxes are taken. And they didn't put this newsletter out until after the event, saying you can't do that because do that because taking tax free cash is not a financial transaction. So you had all these advisers now thinking, shit, the tooth paste is out of the tube. You cannot put the tax free cash back into your pension plan. So just a really bad, I think really bad look for the UK yet again. Bad look for the UK institutions. Bad look for HMRC. Bad look for those advisors who did this anyway and kind of panic. So we don't change the plans or anything until the actual situation changes. So a bit of a shit show. We didn't get involved in any of this. I know we didn't. Some advisors obviously did, and having very interesting discussions with their pi insurers, I'm sure

Alan Smith: 8:34

some of these. So some of the pension providers told them that they could do it. That's

Nick Lincoln: 8:38

right. That's right. This is how bad our tax code is that the pension tech is we all rely on, you know, we've got to, we always lean, don't we? On the platform, tech channel, insurance company, they were saying you could do this. And these are the people that are immersed in it, day in, day out. They didn't even understand the UK tax code. This is how bad it's got. So Joe Public, like the layman out there, has not got a bloody hope in hell of complying with if you're self employed, or you're in a business, there's so much now to get you. So I just think it's indictment of our system, and it's just

Alan Smith: 9:07

on that point. Nick, there was an article in the Financial Times at the weekend which was exactly about this, the complexity pension planning quoted Yours truly, and they

Nick Lincoln: 9:17

was good. That was a really good quote. It was expensive.

Alan Smith: 9:20

No, it was free. Financial journalist, I know Moira did a great job, but she's just explained the whole thing, and she made an interesting point. I know gets political, but you know, the powers that be that make these decisions and chop and change pension rules all the time, they basically they benefit the vast majority civil servants and MPs from a gold related final salary pension scheme that is just seems to be unchanged, regardless of anything goes on. So they feel duty bound to meddle with it, and everyone else, and, you know, trying to make our job is bad enough. Imagine being, you know, an investor, a punter, someone trying to save for their retirement. As soon as you put money into something to honor, we change that rule. And what does she quote? The rules around annual allowances is, goes, runs to, I can't remember 5000 words, or some huge 50,000 words, or something, some huge document that nobody could realistically remember. Quote, and, you know, complexity just breeds this lack of trust. And, ah, it's just, it's hugely annoying. I think,

Nick Lincoln: 10:19

I think if we're done that unless you got something so that leaves now tonight not to watch this point because, because you did a Bucha. You talking about the need for consistent pension. I

Carl Widger: 10:27

just said I'd follow on kind of from your point, but just on Alan's point there. But the FT article, I loved her sub headline was, pensions is like trying to nail jelly to the wall

Unknown: 10:41

that. Yeah, yeah.

Carl Widger: 10:43

So we're in the because of the budget changes. We're in the realm at the moment of maxing out prsa contributions, because that door is closing on the 31st of December. So we're here here too for financial advisors were frequenting watering holes all over the place and enjoying themselves. It is flat to the mat ALL OVER THE SHOP, because people are really afraid of, you know, missing this opportunity on behalf of their clients. So it's really, really messy. And look, I mentioned it before. It just makes us kind of feel, you know, I heard someone saying it's like shooting fish in a barrel at the moment, and I went, Oh my God. Like, this is back to that old sales kind of a thing. But look, it's just exactly what you guys have just said. I know that. You know the inheritance tax and all that stuff that you guys have as well. It's, can we just have somebody please to give us long term pensions legislation so that we can plan and let's decide that we're going to leave it as it is, and you can kind of have a 10 year strategy, because, after all, pensions are long term, so just give us the rules and stop bloody making these fundamental changes. I was going to tweaks, okay? Yeah, fundamentally

Andy Hart: 11:57

keywords there being tweaks are okay. We expect that they need to be a little bit of balancing. But these are literally 360 decisions. Yeah, it's included. It's not included. You can do that. You can't do that. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, there was, there

Alan Smith: 12:11

was a comment that other really important aspects of the economy, like setting of interest rates, was some years ago, removed from the government's remit to a theoretically independent body called the Bank of England, because they that, you know, setting interest rates is a very thing. It's very long term. And there's a strong case, I think, for putting pension legislation in the same independent cross party. No, definitely, yeah, structure or body that can think long term, and it's not a political vote catcher by or bought loser by chopping and changing this whole time. Like interest rates, as

Unknown: 12:43

I say, yeah, yeah. 100% Yeah. Okay, okay. Well, we're

Nick Lincoln: 12:47

all in agreement on that, Okey dokey. Now, I've got no idea what I tried to read the article on that. You said I sent through micro strategy some some of you talk about it quickly.

Andy Hart: 12:56

Okay, I'll give a very high level overview about this. I'm sure storytellers got some more insights to add. It's been one of the biggest stories of the year, Nicholas, so if it's passed you by, fine, there's a company called micro strategy, and they've become so huge that they're now entering the NASDAQ 100 it's run by a charismatic individual, Michael Saylor. Is it? Storyteller? Long story short, they own currently, the bulk of their balance sheet is in Bitcoin. I think they own about 45 billion of real Bitcoin. I say real Bitcoin, digital Bitcoin, of value of 45 billion. But the company is worth three to four times that. It's done 500% this year so far. And if you owned it since last year, done close to 2000 3,000% it's been absolutely shooting the lights out. And he's doing something which is financial alchemy, where he's issuing more shares, buying more Bitcoin. Bitcoin going up, issuing more shares, buying more Bitcoin. I don't quite understand it, but whenever anything has got financial alchemy attached to it, it's alarm bells to me. Something's gonna blow up at some point. Yep.

Carl Widger: 14:03

What's financial alchemy? Sorry, explain. I'll

Unknown: 14:05

Google it. Carl, Google it. Carl, over to you. Storyteller

Alan Smith: 14:12

is this is part of a bigger conversation. I genuinely think we should do an episode in the new year on this whole thing, on Bitcoin, in particular, MicroStrategy, and what they are doing. And I know that at least two of you on this podcast will just turn your nose up at it, but it's it is a it's something that's on, it's in, it's in the landscape. People talk clients talk about it to say that either I don't know or it's rubbish or I don't care, exposes you. Because every now and again, new technology comes along, new ideas come along, and I just think we all need to have a very thoughtful conversation or sort of response to clients, respective clients, about it. That says that, not that you just dismissed it with, not without a thought, but that you have investigated it, you've thoroughly reviewed it, you understand the mechanics, how

Andy Hart: 14:57

an ish thoroughly. Investigated it. I mean, we thoroughly investigate everything that's been proposed out there. You know, you wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Well,

Alan Smith: 15:06

if you, if you, if you restricted your thorough investigation to the fastest growing asset class in history, it's not an asset based on, based on your definition. Yeah. So Michael, Michael Michael said, as very interesting character, he basically has a company which is a tech business micro strategy that in 2020 he was looking at, you know, the collapse of interest rates and his how he was holding money and cash in his in his organization, realized with the debasement of currency that we all know about, and year after year, we know that the pound on your pocket, the dollar, the euro in your pocket, is actually worth less. That's stating the obvious. Correct? Is there an alternative way that you can protect the purchaser, kind of strategic reserve, or your kind of treasury within a company? So he starts dipping his toe into Bitcoin, and obviously he's done very well for him over the years, and now he has come up with a very sophisticated set of financial engineering. I think he did mention, if you understand, and it is quite a complex, thing, is issues these convertible bonds. So he is, if you know, lots of companies, lots of people need to hold bonds. Bonds are designed to be, you know, secure shouldn't be, you know, you get first take on if anything untoward happens. You're ahead of the on the pecking order, on the structure, then equity holders, yeah. And ultimately, he's using that money to buy more Bitcoin. He just bought, this is, we're recording this on Monday, just, just announced today he's bought another, can't remember, 100,000 or something, Bitcoin. So, so the point of this is, his company now is effectively a proxy for Bitcoin. There's lots of organizations that can't buy bitcoin, certainly in the UK pension funds, you're not allowed to buy bitcoin. So if you, if you hold some micro strategy, you're effectively getting a leveraged play on ownership of Bitcoin. And I wouldn't be against we, can't we, you know, it's not a regulated product, whether it's an asset class or otherwise, but I wouldn't be against clients wishing to hold 1% of MicroStrategy in a pension portfolio as part of the investment playpen. There's a whole other conversation that I'll keep for another time, but just modern way of thinking. You know, the 6040, model equity, I think, is out of date, equity bond portfolios. There's a current model which we endorse, which is 100% equity that's more the modern thing, and maybe the next generation. If you're taking on clients under a certain age, maybe it's 100% global equity with a small allocation to something like MicroStrategy and or Bitcoin as a hedge, if nothing else. But that's what he's doing, and it's interesting. He's entering the NASDAQ now, which means on december 23 everyone's gonna have to buy it. Everyone's gonna have to buy those index funds. It's an interesting story to see value which is gonna allow into, uh, issue further, their instruments which would love to buy more Bitcoin. Is it in some from the outsider, Nick will say it's a bit of a fast moving Ponzi scheme.

Nick Lincoln: 18:00

It reeks off. Yeah, quite that. But someone jumps is unique.

Alan Smith: 18:07

Well, the minute, the minute if, if, as has been suggested, as Donald Trump has already said, he will do if the US decides to use Bitcoin as a strategic, you know, reserve for, you know for their treasury, that immediately and everything you know, everything changes from that date. And Trump has already suggested that he will do so it. You might argue it's a Ponzi scheme, but so is currency, so is the dollar. So they're all schemes. The sailor

Andy Hart: 18:33

is convinced, which obviously means a lot or nothing, depends on what's on the fence. Each each individual Bitcoin will be worth a million dollars. Obviously, the supply constraints, etc, he's been banging on the bat for a few years. So far. It's going his way. His view

Alan Smith: 18:50

is, it will, he will$13 million on it, or the next 20 years. But obviously he's got, he's got a lot of skin in this particular game. And he would say, Yeah, but it has been growing at six compound a year, with a lot of volatility. Anyway. Story from the side, it is interesting. Andrew, well done in terms of topical tidbits, it is quite interesting. And clients, thank you. Clients will ask about it for sure. Thank you. What's next? Well, the next thing, we just had a sort

Nick Lincoln: 19:15

of raft of stupid predictions. We're in that kind of mode. So do you want to slide to my one with Goldman Sachs, or do you want to do yours? Because you're the bullet point after that? Smith, point after that. Smithy on predictions, and then come back to me on Goldman Sachs.

Alan Smith: 19:26

Well, all right, I mean Goldman Sachs do form part of my one I suppose, to an extent I was, you know, we are at the end of the year, and inevitably, insight, we like this, yeah, inevitably all across the media are you will see predictions, predictions from all sorts of esteemed organizations, experts, economists and what have you. And I like to keep track on these things, and I do so every year around this this time. And then you can the great thing about the internet, of course, is you just do a little Google search, and you find out what people were predicting a year ago. So. And let me just share with you what I saw, so that the obvious, the obvious area of prediction is, where will the S, p5, 100 be by the end of next year, 2024 Yeah, yeah. So this time last year, the end of 2023 the the requests were going out, and I mean loads of organizations, but I'll just, I'll just name a few of them. JP, Morgan, Morgan Stanley, UBS, wells, Fargo, Goldman, Sachs, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and it was a lot of others. You can you imagine all those companies, the sort of armies of economists and PhDs and experts and just ridiculous amounts of brain power and computing power within that. So this is where they said that the S P would end 2024, I won't name them, a few of them. So JP, Morgan said, 4200 Morgan Stanley, 4500 UBS, 4600 Goldman Sachs, 4700 Deutsche Bank being the most bullish. 5100 What is it today? It's over 6000 isn't it? S, p5, 106,100.

Unknown: 21:09

Yeah, 6000 years, 6100 something,

Alan Smith: 21:12

something of that order. So the median across all these they asked about 30 of these experts, investment banks, huge organizations, the median prediction was 4875 so not remotely close. So I mean, what is the bloody point of these? I know they put them out every year because maybe clients expect it, or people want to do it, but they weren't even close. They were out by an order of magnitude in terms of the prediction. What I think often happens, though you've got recency bias, so we've had a cracking year for markets in 2024 for the S, P in particular. So probably the predictions are gonna be quite bullish for next year, for 2025 that tends to last 12 months and then predict it before things revert to the mean.

Nick Lincoln: 21:57

You know, if you have a bullish year, really, you should be managing expectations for if you can deal with this short term rubbish, you should be managing expectations. But they're lower. Yeah, Goldman Sachs, and there's a link to it in so called show notes. So they haven't, I'm sure in that report they predict for the next year as well. But they've actually done they predict for the next 10 years. What they think the S P will deliver, 3% per annum, nominal, before inflation, 1% in real, 1% a year on the S, P for the next decade in real terms. So that's that's very conservative. And I've you know, as we all do, I chuck these things into Evernote and then set an alarm to go off in 10 years time, so it pops up. Okay, let's have a let's have a look at this

Alan Smith: 22:35

interest into what they're assuming for interest to work out their real rate. I'm sorry for inflation, exactly. Well, 2% I'm

Nick Lincoln: 22:41

guessing it was 3% nominal, 1% real, three minus,

Alan Smith: 22:44

they're assuming 2% inflation. Yeah, yeah, good. Good luck with that if they assume that's going to be the next 10 years with, well, yeah, things are going Yeah, but the US doesn't. It's always had

Nick Lincoln: 22:51

lower, slightly low inflation than us hasn't it for because it's not such a it's not so reliant on imports, so forth. So I think 2% does

Alan Smith: 22:57

make you think it doesn't make you think that doesn't it. If it's 1% real rate that's before, like for our clients, before tax and charges. Yeah, so the average client who's invested 100% if Goldman's are right and they're wrong and everything else, but they invest 100% in the s, p, which would be considered to be a very bullish, aggressive investment portfolio, net of tax and costs, they are going to lose money in real terms. Now, tell me about the 6040, portfolio clients, or even less, where they're going. They are materially going backwards in real terms, net of the aforementioned. Interesting, don't

Carl Widger: 23:35

know about that, right? Don't know if your deduction from the Goldman Sachs Prediction number one, I think the Goldman Sachs prediction is going to be absolutely incorrect, but the attacking of the 6040 portfolio, I think, is unfounded, and I think for sure, there's still a home for 6040 portfolios. I think this is probably a much bigger discussion that we should definitely revisit early in the new year,

Alan Smith: 24:03

but it's just, it's, this is just one thing follows the other. If you assume that bonds will perform less than something like S p5 100 of the next 10 years, but I think, I think by definition, it has to be less than 1%

Carl Widger: 24:15

real rare. But I think you're making, you're making assumptions there that that they're they're making a prediction that there's going to be a massive change as to what has happened in the in history, right? So that, you know stock markets aren't going to go up by their what we have seen as norm. So that the the follow on from that doesn't necessarily mean that bonds are going to produce a negative result, it might mean that more money will go towards bonds. So I would say another way of putting this point is, well, what do Goldman Sachs say that clients should invest in, because, for all the reasons you pointed out, well, then equities is not the place to be in Goldman Sachs, so where? Should your clients invest the money you are well, department

Andy Hart: 25:03

what individual you ask Goldman Sachs over structure products

Carl Widger: 25:09

and private equity and Bitcoin and all that kind of stuff. So, like, I don't know, it opens a whole different kimono of of you know what, what the new world looks like, invest in what has always worked, sure, but I mean the 1614, portfolio

Alan Smith: 25:25

markets do move into cycles. Markets move in cycles. Cycles have been elongated over the last decade or so, certainly, post financial crash, Nick hits the right point, which is that there is always, let's say, over a century, a long term reversion to mean equities do about 10% real. Oh, really, yeah, not real, nominal, 10, 11% and bonds do about 3% less than that over the time. So and we have had an extraordinary decade more 15 years, maybe for global equities, US equities in particular. So you know, it's not completely out of the question that for the next 10 years, as this prediction relates to are a bit lower than last 10 years or last 20 years. Nick, well, there's

Carl Widger: 26:13

a bit lower, sorry. Nick, just before there's a bit lower, and there's like, this is no longer makes sense, so sorry. Nick,

Nick Lincoln: 26:20

that's fine. I think we all remember. It was about 1012, years ago. We had all these papers coming out from the regulator and others say future returns are going to be lower. Absolutely wrong. And I did read a blog, and so I can't credit it, and I haven't got the link to it here. I'll try and find it in the so called Sharon, a guy who was kind of eviscerating this time of year in the predictions. He said every, every one of these predictions have the same core tenants. Future returns are going to be lower. We're experiencing higher volatility. It's a pickup market.

Alan Smith: 26:49

Yeah, yeah. The one thing, the one thing, and we do have to recognize what you kind of the broader economy, what was going on we have never had in the history of money, the level of unprecedented money printing, printing, yeah, correct, yeah, correct, which is just just dumped on the markets. And so people had to invest, and organizations and corporates had to invest. There was no other way doing it. It's just really the campaign of it through inflation right now and probably the debasement of our currencies. So equities is the only place to be, if there was ever any doubt, equities are the only place to be realistically of legit assets, with 100 year track record companies, I can't see the level of, you know, well, there will still, governments around the world will still, you know, have the printing presses cranking out, but I don't think to the same extent they hit they did from COVID. There was unprecedented. They just the just the impacts. Well, it does to an economy. It's great in the short term. We loved it. Marcus, boom. But time will tell my friends, time will tell good. I'm

Nick Lincoln: 27:49

just distracted. Penny's cat is outside being aiming to be let back in, but she's been vomiting inside the house today. She goes outside and eats grass and then uses that to clean her gut. She throws it up all right, so I've just chucked her outside and cow flaps. So Penny, if you're watching this, I'm sorry, my love, but I just cannot take it anymore, right? Okay, another fire or another fire? Thing, financial independence. What are the last two? What's the Arnie? Stand for ultra? That's right, Ultra. Leading question, a money beta. Blow it up, the money later, one of the, one of the very good, UK based aggregators of financial stories. And there's a long guest piece in there on the fire movement and how perhaps it's not for in all, in all cases, quite what it should be. It's a very long piece. The link to it in the show, let's read it. But the comments these people are very, very brittle this fire movement, my God, if you criticize them, they just jump straight in with both feet. I know Colin

Alan Smith: 28:42

doesn't. One of you infiltrated the fire Facebook group

Unknown: 28:53

or something? Yeah, I've built a bunker under my house,

Alan Smith: 29:00

because Andy loves it. He loves it. He thinks you've got it all wrong. Yeah, I know. Is it a good answer? I mean, Nick, can you, can you summarize what it said, or it's

Nick Lincoln: 29:10

been talking about, if you suddenly walk away from work at the age of 40, you've got five, six decades ahead of you, and what are you going to do? And I know, and something, it's not everyone will just retire early, but the movement is called Five. Early, but the movement is called Fire. Imagine the parents retire early, and he makes the point that, and somebody else said, This is not his quote, but someone else says, If you really that unhappy with your career, change your career. But don't just don't. I imagine a lot of these people are in cells without children. You know, how can you really, if you've got kids? There's no way you can. Don't. Anyway, we'll get Barney Rubble on. What's his name, Barney. We're too his name, Barney with you. We're gonna get it into he's a fire guy who, and he highly talks about, and we're gonna try and get him on the show, I think,

Alan Smith: 29:51

at some stage in the new year with him. Yes,

Nick Lincoln: 29:53

I'm looking forward

Carl Widger: 29:55

to it, because I think he's a very balanced guy, cool. I don't think he's. Um, you know, he's, he's got some really good points to make. And, and Andy's point is always very well made. You know, actually, the fire movement at its core is a lot of the the philosophies we will teach, yeah, yeah. So I get it. It's just this thing about, you know, exactly I read the article, Nick right? So it's exactly like the article is going, Oh, so you give up at 40, and then you have kind of no purpose. And it's that that's my challenge with it all the time. So I'm looking forward to talking to Barney. I really,

Nick Lincoln: 30:32

really am. I really am the just closing the article leads off with a story of a guy, I think his name is Luke, who won 1.6 million pounds on the lottery, worked at McDonald's and went back to work. Went back to work, not because, like, you hear these horror stories, people blowing it, you know, just goes on. He went back to work. He just missed his mates, and everything he changed was he got a taxi to work instead of walking. Okay, this is the last thing on the docket. It's the last typical tip, because we kind of raced through that to a little which is not bad. I suppose we don't need to spin these things out.

Unknown: 31:02

Are we gonna give them a Christmas present or not? Let's go. Let's

Nick Lincoln: 31:05

go. Okay, so Ultra back. Yeah, I saw this interesting Vanguard. Well, this,

Andy Hart: 31:09

weirdly, has been the story of the week, and I think it's not a huge story. But anyway, Vanguard and their DIY investor solution offering have weirdly or not, decided to implement a minimum fee, because they've got all of these people that have got tiny amounts of assets making tiny contributions every single month that you know want their investment return to do the heavy lifting when the contribution should be doing the heavy, heavy lifting. And I think they've implemented a minimum, something like four pounds a month fee. So works out to be they want to charge a minimum 48 pounds per person, which is sweet FA in the grand scheme of running a business. But all the forums have been up in arms saying, How dare Vanguard do this? And and I'm gonna move my 6000 pounds away from Vanguard. They're not gonna have my business anymore. I'm gonna join you remove my 4287 pounds away from Vanguard. Obviously, I think, I think the sweet spot number is something like 34,040 1000. Again, I haven't really looked into the details of 32,000 32,000 is the sweet spot, and also that they're shoehorning some other people inside. What do you mean by sweet spot? I don't stand where, where the money

Unknown: 32:21

up until 32,000

Andy Hart: 32:25

break even over, yeah, whatever, yeah. But they've got a they've got a managed option, which is, I think they're easier one to look after, whether, where they're not implementing the fee in such a, such an aggressive way. But again, this is how these things work. The wider sort of concept. Is something called end shitification. Is a word. I'm not swearing. It's called enterification. I've done the link to it in Wikipedia. It's basically businesses starting out that are amazing, and then over time, focusing all on the shareholder value and making the business, you know, pretty rubbish. You know, Uber first started, you get a cab for five pounds. They turn up their spine, and the car smells nice. You know, three years later, you get the same car. It's 45 quid. The car stinks. The guys, you know, super pissed off, but you still use an Uber. That's an example. All businesses over time get, you know, shitification, and gets and shitification is applied to them, and that's an example of what's happening at Vanguard. So it's been a huge story in the investing world, and we're not sure how people can react, but obviously the people small accounts are going to leave them, which is probably achieved. But it's more bad press for Vanguard, they've got a lot of bad press, you know, launching their financial advice offering, and then obviously pulled out of that market, because it's a tough market to be in. And now even in the DIY side, there, again, slightly annoying their early clients and customers. Is

Carl Widger: 33:45

their point? That is their point, right? I have no problem in them saying, okay, we can no longer do business based on this particular charging structure. So from today on, yep, here's you. You make a choice now

Unknown: 34:00

prices you cannot start changing. I

Carl Widger: 34:03

have a serious problem. We have a an issue. The Irish market on exactly this. And I just don't think it's right. I do not think it's right now, you know what? It's called COVID and shitification. I think it's sharp practice, and I don't think it's it's fair. I don't think it's correct, especially for you. Nailed it there, your early adopters, the people who did business with you, first day, right? Who supported you first day? Oh, we're gonna pick and choose now, because we've built our business now. We're absolutely flying it, and we're gonna change it. So I have a problem with this. I think it's not right, and that's there has to be at some stage where you have there are values that you will say, we're going to stick to these values. We're going to do the right thing here. It's not all about shareholder value. Easier for us as small businesses to say that, but I have a big, big problem with this.

Nick Lincoln: 34:57

I know you do COVID. We. What you're talking about, and the example that you've experienced this week is, I think is egregious. I don't think you have to accept that firms will encounter costs they weren't expecting when they set a business up. And sometimes things do change. Agreed, if the sick, if the 4207 pound pot on Vanguard, who's walking, can find it somewhere cheaper, then they walk. Otherwise, what you're saying is, Thank God it's still the cheapest, right? My implication, if you're staying

Andy Hart: 35:24

put on the most convenient, the most convenient. So I stay with them and pay the 48 quid. But what they're saying is, the 48 quid as a percentage works out to be 9% if you get 9% you don't get any return. You know, the value of everything, the price enough. There's a middle

Carl Widger: 35:37

ground. There's a middle ground here whereby you say, yeah, we've done it. We've done an analysis here. We really appreciate your business. Here's what's going to happen in 2026 and so we're just giving you a significant period of time, too long, to sort this out. And you know, just that's for the existing the existing business, sure, and for the business going forward, it's on the new model. So you make the choice. I don't mind if you want to do your business with us, it's going to be four pounds a month, or whatever it's going to be, but you guys know what I'm talking about in terms of now. But I mean, there has been examples over the last year or 18 months whereby we're just increasing the prices, and that's going to apply to everybody.

Alan Smith: 36:23

Yeah, do you know? Do you know what I mean? I think financial services companies do are seem to be much more in the spotlight. And I just noticed these things, various apps and things Nick you. And I spoke about this was last year with Evernote, for example. I noticed my Sky TV subscription, and you get this email comes through, and you don't normally just press Delete, but it's because it's page after page. We're changing the terms of our blah, blah, blah. Scroll down and it's, they've just done like, a 28% increase in the monthly sub monthly fee. And you think, hang on a minute. But it's not, there's no, there's no big they said, you know, it's the usual with fully disclosed. And as I say, you know, Dropbox, this thing is doubled in price. Well, the same thing Evernote certainly has. And a bunch of all these things have hugely increased that in some ways, those things are even are harder to move away from. You've got all Jesus, that'd be an absolute nightmare to try to relocate that somewhere else. I think it's only a couple of 100 pounds, but it is, you know, 100% increases. A lot of that goes on, ultimately, in a free market economy, you've got the right to walk at any point, but it depends. I guess none of these other organizations set the stall out as being super low cost, super cheap, whereas Vanguard have made a big

Nick Lincoln: 37:32

that's, I think Vanguard is just renowned for watching the pennies on this. That's probably where the story resonates a bit more, because of who's doing it. It was, you know, it was

Andy Hart: 37:41

AJ, I'm pretty sure they did focus on the fees being an integral part. And they had big marketing budget, you know, TV, radio, everything. So, yeah, they've thrown everything at this, and now they're pulling back on it again. It's what they did with the device offering. So

Alan Smith: 37:56

we've talked about this before, by the way, on that, I don't know if you saw that also sort of slightly flew under the radar talking to Vanguard last week. Vanguard have kind of the relaunching their what they call their wealth management division department out of the US article in the FT, I can share it, but get this. This is a big business. Vanguard is carving out this 900 billion wealth and advice business into a separate unit to speed investment, rising demand, etc, etc. Now there's a trillion dollar wealth management business which make must make it one of the biggest in the world. Which are they keeping

Andy Hart: 38:29

it under the sort of Vanguard cooperative? Are they setting up as a more

Alan Smith: 38:34

they're carving out. They've hired some lady, let me see. They've hired some lady from McKinsey, former McKinsey consultant who led Wealth Management at Toronto based BMO, headed up Fidelity's personal investment. They are going to turn on this like a global wealth management business for their high net worth segment of clients. Obviously, we talked about this before they had to go in the UK at the Financial Planning thing, which, for whatever reason, didn't get off the ground. So

Nick Lincoln: 38:58

Germany as well. They had it. They tried it, then it didn't work. Yeah, so Well,

Alan Smith: 39:03

the trying again, it seems like, so,

Andy Hart: 39:05

okay, financial advice is a luxury product.

Nick Lincoln: 39:08

You said all that we do love Vanguard, yes, and we think then they're good friends of the show. We do great. What are you two? Shortly over,

Alan Smith: 39:17

just checking the private group. Move on quick.

Nick Lincoln: 39:23

All right? 39 minutes in. So let's go on episode 60. Let's go on to the meat and potatoes of today's show. So, yes, we're going to do a cliche. Now all the fund managers and all the DFMS do their predictions. It's a cliche this time of year, we're going to do a cliche. We're going to talk about our successes and wins of the last year, our top three, each of us succinctly and in a round robin style fashion. And I'm going to start I'm reading from the sheet here. So I'll go with the with you. Mr. Smith, your first win of 2024

Alan Smith: 39:59

i. Sorry, I thought you said you were going to start. You

Nick Lincoln: 40:02

are going to start. Mr. Smith. My name is Mr. Lincoln. You are Mr. Smith. Okay, so one,

Alan Smith: 40:07

one at a time, okay, I'm going with the straightforward and obvious one, which was a reflect back on the year in my business capital. And we had, you know, in simple terms, we had an outstanding year. We had our record year in terms of new clients, assets, revenue, profitability, which is always good news you want, you hope to be, and expect to be doing those things, particularly in a rising market. Matt Nicholas, but I think not only that, we there's, there's a sense of we've slowly but surely, kind of, after 20 years, getting our act together in that we've kind of, I don't know, we seem to be much more structured. We're organized. We moved offices. You know, I reported it during the week, and it's we're in a, like, a great new environment as a platform for growth. And we've hired not one, but two new financial planners to the team for a team they only had fours. If you say, if we increase our planning headcount by 50% that sort of all goes well for the future. So another long story short, we had a solid good year at the main, you know, the main business. That's one.

Nick Lincoln: 41:14

Okay, lovely. That's your first win of 2024. Ultra. Uh, Ultra. What's your first one? Okay,

Andy Hart: 41:21

I'm going to start off briefly mentioning humans under management. I had two conferences this year, and in Cape Town, South Africa, in September, we had our highest ever score for a conference at 9.04 out of 10. And London then followed in November, 8.88 but the real success for humans under management this year was us building out humans under management premium. We added an additional net new subscribers of about 150 so we're up to 360 members from 15 different countries. So thank you, everybody who's a member of that. Thank you very much. Nicholas, so next year it's sort of, it

Nick Lincoln: 42:06

goes up for 36 seconds,

Andy Hart: 42:09

right? So, so next year, as much of the same, really, conference in Cape Town, conference in London, and trying to build out humans under management, Premium members to 500 that's the next North Star. Over to you. Carl,

Nick Lincoln: 42:23

yes indeed, yes.

Carl Widger: 42:24

As usual, I didn't read the document correctly, so I kind of took it as what were the kind of lessons from the year? So I would say that's fine, both personally and business wise. There were a number of milestones that I crossed. Is that the am I mixing my metaphors here? But yeah, it was. It was a very significant year me, and I would say the one thing that I I have struggled with in the past, and I think I nailed it this year, much better than I have done beforehand, but it's still work in progress. Is, for me, consistency was the intensity. Okay? So my great friend, Joe O'Connor, has given me this phrase, and he just keeps on pinging it to me, right? And it's, it's, you know, I would have had an awful habit of doing something really intensely for a short period of time and then actually not making it part of a business strategy change or a personal lifestyle change. So for me, the consistency was the intensity and yeah, hitting milestones is lovely, but not to actually make them the be all and end all. It's like, okay, that's going to just help me drive on and just be better, as opposed to having this kind of North Star moment over there. It's like, yeah, it's just life. Life's at this big, long, brilliant, hard, messy journey. And to understand that much, much better, and to have this consistency is the intensity. That's my phrase of the year anyway.

Nick Lincoln: 44:09

That's lovely. That's excellent. That's excellent. Thank you, Carl, for me. What my first win, my first thing that I'm gonna look back on 2024 and think, yeah, that was really good. Was just the evolution of trap. Carmel actually really in trap live at Lola's and now defunct podcast for a new coincidence. Who knows? Really loved it. I just had such a great time. It was a great event. My wife was there, my boy was there. It was lovely. And just through the year that the respect and support and feedback we've had from the TRAPPIST has just been absolutely amazing. Think us, for dunderheads, can have such an influence. And it's not boastful to say we are having influence, because we bloody well are which is, which is great. But people are so kind and so generous in their time. We're generous in our time. But I just, I think we've really got something good going here, and it's a two way. Conversation. You've got these mad, you know, ultra fans just, just really, really, so that's my, that's my top one for the Okay, doing the round robin. We're going to go back to storyteller.

Alan Smith: 45:13

Yeah, what Carl just said? Oh,

Nick Lincoln: 45:16

by the way, just, sorry, Alan, just, I've just got the chat. Vanguard are great friends of trap and work. Trap live and we love you. Vanguard, sorry. Back to you. Smithy,

Alan Smith: 45:25

yeah, that's right, but we like we expect, we hold everyone accountable. We just we share, we share the love, share the good, share the bad. Vanguard, our next outstanding business. Relating back to what Carl just said, I think we ought to, rather than just say, you know, pat ourselves the bat. Didn't we do good? There is an opportunity to say, what was the what was the lesson? What was the take away?

Unknown: 45:46

It's, well, not good, but fine. And just going

Alan Smith: 45:49

back to that. So we did have a good year in business, one I mentioned a moments ago. And I think one of the things that we did was this magic word simplify. We've simplified the business. We were kind of all over the place, as everyone knows, I'm I've got an eye for shiny new objects. The amount of technology we had in the company, just layer upon layer of all sorts of stuff and and what we did was just kind of really streamline things and just almost kind of that back to basics if we're starting a business. We did that in the beginning of the year, January last year. Sorry, January this year. So simplify, I think, is one thing to take away from that that really helped us get super clear on what our goals and objectives were. And removing things can often be far, far better than adding more things in terms of systems, processes and technology, so that that's just, sort of just to cap off my previous one, my the second one of success and Nick, yeah, absolutely, trap has been an outstanding success. I don't think I've mentioned it before on this podcast, but I've got another podcast as well that goes under the title bulletproof entrepreneur, and it's designed for business owners, anyone, not necessarily financial services, anyone across the board, and it's and during it, I interview and I talk with predominantly successful business owners, or people who advise business owners and and they all tell a story. They tell various stories. And what I'm proud of this year is between trap and the bulletproof entrepreneur. I put out, I think must have done about 50 podcasts, because they go out every week. This bulletproof alternates with trap, because every other Thursday, as as trap does so in 52 weeks. And we haven't missed one of trap. I haven't missed one good bulletproof. That's 5050, odd episodes going out every week. And consistency, again, consistent. And that's and that's the point of that, and it means same as traps. Some of my episodes haven't been amazing, and they've all been at least decent, but some are some have been fabulous. And I I've often said for that particular book, because I am a small business owner myself, if I was the only person listening, I still get something from it. I get an hour, an hour, an hour and a half of speaking to someone who's a successful business owner, who's always got a story to tell. And I've really enjoyed it. And we do have, fortunately, more than one person as an audience. It's not quite as big as trap, but it does have a niche and growing audience. And I've really, really enjoyed doing it. So pushing out 50 episodes. I mean, I'm no spring chicken, and that is, again, that we advise other people and younger advisors and what have you, because show up every day, week after week. It doesn't have to be the best work ever in the history of the world, but it's just some work. Push it out. Week after week, month after month, you'll get you will make progress. It is inevitable. It's impossible not to make progress. So I was proud of 2024 in terms of podcast creation.

Andy Hart: 48:36

Have you got some big, heavy hitter guests playing for 25 Alan,

Alan Smith: 48:41

I do. I've got a number of people. I mean, don't want to sort of dominate this podcast, of course, pushing I've done, I've always done them in a, like a, like a zoom call, like, Would you call this thing Riverside that we use? You got a studio, into a studio, so I can have in person, face to face. So with that, it's interesting. Actually, I never, I was never bothered about having, you know, YouTube style podcast. But it seems the YouTube algorithm really does help. Don't poke the bear, I say. So to have a bit of a studio or something. So with that in mind, there's a few people can't keep it, but I can, yeah, I can move on. I won't say any names, but some very some quite high profile people in North Watford, whereas Nick's spare room, but his cat's using it, I think, at the moment, throwing

Nick Lincoln: 49:27

up in the spare room, yeah, which when she's allowed back in. It's getting dark outside. What time do the foxes come out?

Unknown: 49:33

I could be in trouble here in North Watford anytime.

Nick Lincoln: 49:38

Okay. Thank you. Smithy Ultra, your second win of the year.

Andy Hart: 49:42

I'd also echo track live was something none of us have tried before, and I think it's really, really been done in our profession. This thing of ours live podcasts are becoming bigger and bigger. So yeah, looking forward to 2025. My next win. It was major advisor, really client families that we look after, and it's a win. That, you know, they were handsomely rewarded from an investment point of view. Obviously, it's not all about returns. We know that planning is more important than all the other stuff that we do, but every, every, you know, we'll take it when the when the years come along that handsomely reward our clients for being patient and disciplined, and then we usually have then a sort of a different floor going forward. So yeah, I've got no problem with creating wealth for our clients, because wealth is freedom. Freedom is opportunity. So yeah, 2024 was a great year. The average of the one I look after is an 880, 5% global equities, and that's obviously done stomping returns this year. So that's another win for me. Over to you, Carl,

Carl Widger: 50:40

so this one is a bit fluffy, too. Sorry with that so I so we've got 25 people, oops. George my

Unknown: 51:01

Oh George,

Carl Widger: 51:05

yeah, it's probably a perfect fitting with my mindset right now. I'm very, very, very excited for life in general at the moment, boys, so I would say we've added a lot of people to our team at Metis and the other way they say, you know about talking about culture, and you got to create this culture. I actually believe we've got it all wrong. I think actually what you do, if you get really great people who are ambitious and want to fulfill their own potential, that's actually how you create a great culture. You just gotta as the leader or the manager or whatever. You gotta just facilitate it and allow people to just do great things and just talk to them and ask them. And I'm inspired by the people around me, and I really am, and I know, like, look, this is really fluffy stuff. I'm sure I know, because they tell me that I drive them mad. Sometimes, do some of them drive me mad? Sometimes, yes, they do. But together, we're all, we're all going in the same direction. And you know, the it's just all about people. Everything is just all about people. Even, you know, Andy and Nick as the as the solos, right? It's all about the people that you've got around you and your support structures as well. And you can bring this into the personal space as well. You know, the people who I spend the vast majority of my time with, I like being around them. Yeah, you know, I and they inspire me. And do I drive them mad? Sometimes, yes, do they drive E mad? Sometimes? Yes, yes, but, but you know what it's about. You know, having your circle who you know, having people who match or align with the values that your dreams, goals, aspirations, where you want to go, and this crazy thing called life. Yeah. So for me, I've never been as sure as I am right now that matters. Ireland is successful because of the people in the business. And it is not about one or two or three people, it is about every single person. And I keep telling them that, and I don't think they they sometimes believe it, but I really, really, really do believe it. Great people make great cultures. It's not the other way around.

Nick Lincoln: 53:25

Great stuff, lovely stuff. Okay, my second one, very quick one, yes, a rising market, raises all raises all boats. And if we, if advisors, that charge on the per diem basis, the percentage basis, you should have had a very good year. And I've had a very good year, my best year in terms of turnover. It's a lifestyle business, but it'll still be my best year in terms of turnover. Terms of turnover. I've I've had a quite a good run the last few months of picking up five family units who I'm helping to save from the financial darkness, perhaps one today, I was talking with Carl before we hit the record button the ladies day saying, yes, she wants to come on board. This is a lady who, for years has been advised in quotes by a firm in up the road in berkham, said a sort of market town up the a 41 and she said to me at our initial meeting, I sit down with my advisor, and he just talks about these funds and gives me fact sheets, and I don't have a bloody clue where I am. I don't know if I'm on if I've got enough. Haven't got a enough. I don't understand half what he talks about. And they've never done any financial planning. And the more people we can take away from those kind of I don't know why. I'm gonna be careful to say I just think they're wrong. These people are wrong. They're charging. They're not delivering a service that this lady is 45 she knows her time too. She's a good earner. It's running out, and she just wants someone to just give her, like a plan, just an outline, plan and and the more people we can help in that way, the better. That's what my business does, is what you guys do. And it's, it's, it's great that we can help these people. It's still such a shame there's a large swathe of our profession that aren't really professionals. They're just, they're just asset gatherers and charging their money and the rent, rent rent seekers. Okay, right? I. Arctic trip for you, Smith, what did you go back to your hometown?

Unknown: 55:09

Just joined us,

Alan Smith: 55:12

by the way. Thanks for ripping and piss at me. But what you said? It can't be said often, and you know, too many times, because that's the thing on the surface. Financial Advisors all look the same, but we so so different scrapes. Just scrape it sort of a little surface level, and you find that a huge number do exactly that. Get a pie chart out, get a graph out. That's what the annual review looks like. You're up eight this fund. We're going to move from fund a to fund B, because I met the fund manager. I went to a webinar. Blah, blah, blah, net, net, net. You know, worse off the client is just because they're just not doing it. So what we do is great work. And anyone listening to this, if you're not doing it, you should do and if you are doing it, keep on doing it, because real financial planning, which is what this podcast is named after, is what it's all about. Thank you, Nick, yes, I visited the most northerly McDonald's in the world and most northly Burger King in the world in one trip. This is the year end, last episode of the year, Nick queue up. I've got a very brief story to tell, car more.

Unknown: 56:24

Grab yourself a drink. A very long drink. It's story. Time with Alan Smith,

Alan Smith: 56:34

this time last year, I was thinking about going on a trip, on an adventure. I went out in our Christmas office due which was we did the same again a couple of days ago, but 2023, capital Christmas do. And I was telling my friend and colleague, Charles about this, and he said, I'm up for that. Let's do it. And I kind of poo pooed it. I said, I'm not sure if I'm if I really, really want to do it. Anyway, Charles over the Christmas break, he just WhatsApp me pretty much every day. He said, Come on. Come on. Come on. Let's do it. Sometimes you need to push. Sometimes you need a nudge to do something anyway. And classic sales tactics, the price was going to go up by December 31 so I thought it was either now or never, otherwise the price goes up. So I bit the bullet and I signed up for it, even though I done no training or anything else. So I signed up to do what's called the Arctic Circle rat race, which is 85 kilometers across the snow in Northern Norway, Finland and Sweden. You're across three countries, deep, deep snow, freezing your knackers off, living in a tent, which, during the night, gets to minus 25 but pleased to report, I did it. I achieved it. It was hard as hell. I didn't win. I wasn't the first across the finishing line, but I certainly finished, and I certainly wasn't last, and I and I completed it. And so you know, what are the lessons? What are the lessons from that? One is, don't sign up tell your mates about certain things, because they force you into doing things overall. Here's, here's the thing that I reflect on, you know, the kind of classic Maslow's hierarchy all of us have got, you know, we've been at the game a while. You know, you've got reasonable expectation that you've got a roof over your head, you've got, you've got, you can pay your food, you can go on a holiday and all that sort of thing. And I think, I think getting comfortable is risky, and it's dangerous, and I think whether it's in personal life, business, health, fitness, any number of things, I think all of us should Well, I think I should anyway, force myself to do things classically, using an age old cliche, but outside the comfort zone. Because doing that trip, when I signed up for it was definitely outside my comfort zone. I thought at a fair push I could do it, but I thought it wasn't, it wasn't going to be easy. And what it did do was It compelled me just to improve my fitness in the first part of the year. So I was doing things which never done before, which is like running, sprinting, Hill sprints, all that stuff, because I knew I couldn't just pitch up there on the day and expect just to go through this trip. So the moral of the story here is, all of us just think of something that's hard but not impossible, that is going to push you and set yourself a target. I mean, ideally share it, push it out publicly, say I'm going to aim to do this. I know we've all done various things and varying types in the past, certainly a couple of years ago, Nick, I went on you in a famous Majorca marathon, which was a night a night trip, wasn't

Nick Lincoln: 59:24

it? We had lots of training for that. We were broken lots of training, but we

Andy Hart: 59:28

walked for about 26 miles through the night, which was a great special operation, 14 points. Yeah, that was

Alan Smith: 59:34

a different endurance test. But that's the point of the story, and it's been building

Unknown: 59:39

there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, when we get there, see that building? What that one all the way there? Yeah,

Alan Smith: 59:46

just on the horizon, almost halfway. Yeah. That was a long, old, long, old trip. But back to the the Arctic, it was good. The thing about that particular trip is you can't even move fast if you try. It's deep snow. Sometimes up to you, certainly your knees. Sometimes up to your waist. So you just cry. And it really was a matter of grinding it out. And Jesus Christ, you're walking so slowly. And then you look at your map, you look at your watch, you think, I'll be walking for three hours. They're going like two miles or something, not even. And it's, do you think, when will this ever end? But it was the again, the long story short, the moral of the story is, keep putting one food in front of the other. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. That's all you need to do. So that was definitely a highlight for me of 2024 Thank you. Excellent.

Nick Lincoln: 1:00:30

Now, Andrew, I'm not sure if you've got one left, have you? Yeah,

Andy Hart: 1:00:32

no, I've got one left. The highlight for me, by an absolute mile, was Carl's 50th birthday in Norway. What a weekend. Oh, the Norway, the Norway the Norway trip. What a weekend. Yeah, wow, yeah. Big surprise

Alan Smith: 1:00:45

for you boys coming over. Surprise him. He knew he could just a general thing in life. Carl can rely on me. Surprised that you guys showed up. I'm sure Carl

Andy Hart: 1:00:55

might mention it. It's been a big year for him, obviously, birthday wise. A few other things happening. I'll leave it to him. No joking aside, the biggest thing happened for me is my little babies, Poppy and Milo, start in school. So they're four and a bit they started school. 489, weeks ago. Very cute. They are twins, and they split them up two different classes. So that's also quite interesting. So I've got two sets of WhatsApp groups, two sets of parents evening, two sets of everything. But anyway, very interesting. And they had the Nativity last week. They're settling in amazing. They're great little humans. I couldn't be prouder. So that's my big personal win of the year. Over to you, Carl,

Nick Lincoln: 1:01:35

you're muted, fella.

Unknown: 1:01:37

He was doing so well.

Alan Smith: 1:01:40

He's still muted. Carl, hero. Carl, Carl, Carl, Carl, come on. How can I fly like the Eagles

Carl Widger: 1:01:48

pigeons cherish the twins at that age, Andrew, I've got triplets, as you know, and they're about to finish school this year, and they'll be flying the nest, and it'll be only myself and Emma left. But anyway, yeah, look, I had a big birthday this year and big party and celebrated, I think appropriately, it was all great. So yeah, for me, I think that the big, a big win this year was we had kind of good momentum in terms of business coming into 2024 and we built on that momentum, and we kept the momentum going, albeit, there were kind of speed bumps along the way and and maybe beforehand, sometimes speed bumps might have thrown us off course, or thrown me off course. Um, I think we were really, really good at keeping the main thing, the main thing, keeping the focus and and, you know, just keep it really, I think Alan, you mentioned keeping it really, really simple, and saying, Okay, this isn't hard, but if we're, if we actually just keep going, keep going, keep going, and accept that they're going to be these speed bumps along the way. They're not roadblocks, except they're speed bumps. They're inevitable in business and in life, and you just keep going, keep keep pushing through it. And for me, and I only I was chatting to some of my guys earlier on today, and it was going, that's our thing, guys. We just make sure that, you know, we start the new year as we finished 2024 we just keep going. We're building great momentum, and we're having success, but we're having fun too. And I think that's really, really important. So for me, that's the

Alan Smith: 1:03:26

whole Yeah, can I, can I ask you something? If it's not Yeah, it was not too personal, which was, you've you openly talked about on this show maybe a year ago, that the previous year to that you'd had some challenges. You just, you burn out, I think was the phrase yeah used and you just, you had to take some time out and really kind of recharge your own batteries. What? Yeah, listening to you and just through our day to day conversations that we have, sounds to me that you have haven't experienced that this year or not to the same degree. Shall we say, is there any sort of tools or tactics that you have embraced that

Carl Widger: 1:03:59

I can tell you, it's, it's one single thing, right? It's to create space for myself, to just have space for myself. So it's, it's, so you guys have seen this. I was talking to Nick earlier on. I said, Nick, you've sent me two emails, and I haven't replied. I know they're there, but I haven't replied. There's lots of people suffering the same faith. With regard to the emails they send me, I'm not replying to everything. I don't need to reply to every text message. I say no to loads and loads of things. I was due to go out last weekend and went show up. I'm just I'm not up for I'm not gonna go out. I'm just gonna look after myself, and there are people going here that's not okay, or whatever. You know now, look, if I've committed to something and it's important, I will be there. It's not that I'm not turning up to loads and loads of different things, but I'm creating lots of space for myself, and you have a habit of filling the space, and I'm trying my. Damnedest not to fill the space and, and I can't tell you how much that phrase consistency is the intensity I had an awful it's in my personality to, you know, really go and do something and right? And to say that's actually not life is much longer, you know, and it's, it's, it's a journey, and you gotta, you know, instead of that target. And then I get it, and then I move on to the next thing. It's like, you know, I'm going into the new year now. I'm going into Christmas, going, can't wait for Christmas. I can't wait for the new year. I'm planning lots of stuff for myself for in the new year. So I'd say, to summarize, very long winded answer to your question, Alan, say no to loads and loads and loads of things. And you guys know I'm actually doing

Nick Lincoln: 1:05:50

it. Well done. Well done.

Andy Hart: 1:05:52

It's great. Well done, mate. For a moment, then I'll probably gonna ask him where he got his jumper from. Thank God you didn't.

Alan Smith: 1:05:57

No, no. It's quite obvious where he got it from.

Nick Lincoln: 1:06:00

Very good saying no, is a single power without shoulder. Okay, I think I'm the last one to go. And then we'll wrap up the meat of potatoes section. My joy, my thing that's brought me happiness this year is, I won't make this overly political, but I think over the last 1015, years, there's been a real pressure on what people say there's freedom of language, freedom of expression has taken a real battering, and there seems to be a real pushback against it around the world. People like Javi MLA in Argentina is doing amazing things, rolling back the state. If you could just discount Trump and ignore him, the team he's putting around him, because I know some people have Trump arrangement syndrome, the team he's put around him is going to be so interesting. Musk vibe, Ramaswamy, JD, Vance, Tulsi gabble, Robert Kennedy, these are all Democrats who say to a man and a woman, I haven't left the Democrats, they left me. It's a really interesting movement. We're saying because I think people start to wake up, the state is just too big in the Western world. This country, we're unusual. Western Europe is also going the way of Argentina and the US terrorist politics. We're an outlier here. We voted for a party that believes in a bigger state and a bigger state. I do think the tide is turning. I think people have had enough of this, of this, or this thought police nonsense, and I think it's going to be good for us all. There'll be some pain involved. And whatever America does, we eventually do, okay, we're just, we're just a cold in America, really, as many countries in the world, because of its enormous cultural influence and economic size. It just drives so much. That's I think I feel really positive for the future. I'm going to quickly wrap up mine. I'll say thank you to my son, Luke and my wife, the lovely Penelope. TLP, I'm just blessed to have these two people into my life. I'm very lucky. They mean the world to me, and they are my rocks. And that is me really with my wins. And I think all of our wins for 2024

Unknown: 1:07:40

Can we play kumbaya to finish that one off? Nick, I've already done it, and you only

Nick Lincoln: 1:07:43

know once from the side. As you know. Andrew, you can't pay it twice. What's the one you like? Let's do this one you like something.

Unknown: 1:07:53

There we go. When you played that first for Alan, that is the short out

Nick Lincoln: 1:07:58

there. Check it out. We are seven minutes into this, which can only mean that we're getting very close to the end of this show, the very end of the last show, actually not maybe the last show. We'll talk about that guys as well before we stop the recording. But we need to move on. Because I can see post is dragging the bulging sack up my drive. She's about to ring the front door, but there she goes. It's amazing. It's almost spontaneous. This is the bulging sack of TRAPPIST questions sent in by you, our beloved TRAPPIST, and we get through them. If you want to send us a question, there's a link in the pinned tweet on x, or the pinned X on Twitter, or whatever so and also the so called show notes. We are getting through the questions. We're now to June of this year, and we've got two questions today, guys. We'll see if we can do both of them, depending on on time and so forth. This one is an anonymous it's from someone called a n advisor that can't be his real name, one of these multiple questions where I run out of breath halfway through. Hello, trap hosts, I've recently discovered your podcast, and I'm finding the content extremely helpful in my journey as a financial advisor. I am a newly qualified advisor, and I'm currently under one of the large AR networks, a firm of around 12, most of whom are mortgage advisors. I have been planning ahead, and I would very much like to leave the AR sphere in the next 18 to 24 months, once my current firm is in a position to cope well enough without me. Do you have any advice on planning this move in terms of discussing it with my current firm and my clients to make the transition as smooth as possible? Apologies for the anonymity. It's always a tongue twister. I don't wish to show my hands my current firm just yet, right? I'm out of breath, so I can't answer that. One of you three count. Oh,

Andy Hart: 1:09:27

go quickly, and then I'm sure the guys that run larger firms will have an opinion on it. I tread very carefully. I don't quite know the detail, but I certainly wouldn't be mentioning it to your current firm unless things were very much firmed up. The relationship will change immediately once you tell your boss that you're thinking about setting up on your own and moving elsewhere. The client situation, again, is quite an interesting one. Again, I don't know who owns the client. Nobody owns clients. Is it the firm? Is it the person? What's the contract set up? So again, you're going to be on slightly unusual grounds there. So just. Very carefully, is what I would say. I've left a couple of firms over the years, and then my third firm I worked for was my was my own. The path then was a little bit different to what it is now. So if you think about setting up directly authorized again, it's not that easy. I think about 11% of firms get get the sign off, and it's a painful journey. Just tread very carefully with what your next move may be. Over to the lads that run larger firms. Come

Alan Smith: 1:10:31

I'll go information there, and I get I fully understand why it needs to be anonymous not there's not enough. He says, It's not nothing. I'm going to leave, just with my firm. Can, was it? Can? Can manage me leaving or something. What are the down his income or something? The entire company can watch that well enough without me. What does that mean? Was the firm with loads of advisors, so

Unknown: 1:10:54

I'm not sure. Yeah, they say they're mortgage advisors, yeah,

Alan Smith: 1:10:58

mainly advisors. So, yeah, I don't really get that and what I mean, and AR, that's what the firm is an AR. The firm's an AR of another bigger firm. Or don't worry about the detail, just focus, because it does No, it does, it does tell your bosses No, but it matters. So, so here's my tape, which might be different to yours. Yes, if you've got your path carved out, and you know what you're doing and where you're doing and where you're going, and you've really explored it, because you make a point you're going to set up directly authorized is difficult. The Network option, which is also an AR, by the way, that's another name for it, becomes the more popular option. But here's the thing, I think you should be candid, open, straightforward, and speak to your boss, speak to people who run the company and tell them the truth. Explain your reasons why you're planning to go work it all out. Have a grown up conversation about the client relationships. It does not need to be adversarial. I've had people who've chosen to move on from my going

Andy Hart: 1:11:54

into that conversation, you have to assume it could be curtains. If it's not great, you got to go to all got well,

Alan Smith: 1:12:03

one of which is you talk to clear your desk immediately, immediately. Assume it might be game over. Yeah, assume that might be, but hope that it won't be. Now only he can, he or she can judge in terms of because they will know the relationships and know the company, know the senior people involved in the organization, and I have heard some negative stories that you told us to piss off. Told us to piss off, and the dynamic changes immediately. Yes, exactly, but you should go in with the best of intentions. So when I part a company with people, the ones that have done it with honesty and integrity clarity, I'm still good friends with now, and I fully understand the reason, and I've actually supported them. I've helped them find other opportunities later on, those that choose not to choose to be a bit more devious and good behind the scenes. It's just, I was saying it's a small village, our sector, our professional industry, people know

Andy Hart: 1:12:52

each other, quite unique as a boss, firm owner, though, in many ways, the stories you tell me are different to what I hear in the in the scarier, wider world. What do you mean? But I mean people. I do know. I think you are a good person to speak to about that, and you will manage them out in the best way possible. A lot of other firms I hear about, it's a completely not a, you

Alan Smith: 1:13:12

know, yeah, I do. I hear it the other way. Of people who are joining us. You're unusual, is what I'm because I'm fair and open. No one should. No one should have the divine right to have somebody work with them for the rest of their career. I got it. But if somebody, if you're open, tell your boss and allow the boss time to prepare. Just say, look, give us a couple of months, because you might need to get a replacement. And what's the situation about client relationships? So you'd have to maybe, I am unusual, but I hope more people would would have a kind of dignified, grown up approach. Now, as I said at the beginning, only this anonymous advisor knows the facts. If he thinks that the culture is is negative, and they'll just close him down and kick him out the minute he says that, then he's got to prepare himself. He's got to get going. That might happen in a row, if you're assuming that, then do exactly but I would start off with taking the positive, more open, friendly, communicative, candid approach. Any last words?

Nick Lincoln: 1:14:08

No, I agree. Okay, I think, I think in that question, that that very, that long, that long question, the key word for me is discussing it with my current firm and my client. It's the my clients bit that's, that's who, who, who owns the I mean, that sounds terrible, but you know what I mean, who owns the clients? Typically, the clients belong to the firm. It depends on the contract. Depends on the contract likely to see their clients,

Carl Widger: 1:14:31

guys, I go back to what Alan said, right, never mind the contract. Right, just be open and honest. Right? People who have where we have definite net inflows in terms of employees to our team, right? But, of course, there have been times when people have left, and the people I still get on with are the people who I have had open and honest discussions with. And I was way back. You know, the guy who went in said, Oh, I'm gonna leave, and I was treated terribly. So way back, yeah. It was way back, and it was, it was his poor and I don't ever want anyone to feel like that. Sure, having said that, you know, are there a couple of cases where, you know, there have been kind of semi Fallens out yet there have, but I would say it was due to lack of honesty. So there you go. Okay, the

Alan Smith: 1:15:22

truth will set you free. The truth will

Unknown: 1:15:24

set you for exactly. Business out there for us all, we are 75

Nick Lincoln: 1:15:29

minutes in. So do we want to do another question? So we hold it over to the next Yeah, do one more. Okay? Christine Dean Brooks, who's given us his LinkedIn profile as well, so that will be in the so called show notes. Great show guys, can you read out as LinkedIn?

Unknown: 1:15:42

To handle? Nick,

Nick Lincoln: 1:15:44

yes, http, colon, slash, slash, linkedin.com/i, N, slash, D, E, A, N, hyphen, b, r, O, OK. S, hash, sorry. Hyphen, 49373011, 3730116,

Alan Smith: 1:16:03

do you want that again? That question? Okay, good question. Dean,

Nick Lincoln: 1:16:06

thank you, and thank you for postman, right? Let's move on to the next. Dean, write your question. Great show, guys. I'm three and a bit years into this industry, profession, Dean, profession, and after a number of years in the motor trade, Oh, you made a real switch. Okay, I've started listening from episode one a couple of weeks ago, and just listened to Episode Four. Episode 14. You talk about the 4% rule for safe withdrawal rate. And Andy, you mentioned multiplying the desired monthly income by 300 as a rule of thumb. Just keen to dig a little further into things like assumed growth rates, are you preserving capital during withdrawal, or is it a plan for the client to run out of money age 100 interested to hear a little more on this, and look forward to getting the answer to my question in a few weeks time when I'm all caught up. That was what do you Yeah, okay, that's 46 episodes ago. Keep up the great work, and thanks in advance. Andrew,

Andy Hart: 1:16:55

okay. Abraham. Abraham akinson, yo. Good friend of the show, good friend of us. Has written a book about this called Beyond 4% of our hours. Good friend of ours, sorry, he's written a book called beyond the 4% rule. But just to give you a very high level over this, this is just you back calculate the 4% rule. So if you sit down with a client and they say, I want to spend 1000 pounds a month for the rest of my life and never run out of money back of a fag packet. You times the amount that I want to spend per month by 300 it's back calculating the 4% rule. So 1000 pounds a month, time 300 300,000 that's their number. If you were to be a little bit more cautious and you wanted to withdraw only three and a half percent from your portfolio, you times it by 350 pounds a month. It's very broad brush. You know, if you just sit, sit down with someone and they say, I want to spend five grand a month the rest of my life, your times are by 301 point 5 million. If they've got 3 million quid already invested, you say you're sort of going to be okay. Obviously, we still need to crunch the numbers. If you sit down with someone in that situation that wants to spend five grand a month the rest of their life, they need 1.5 million, and they got 300 grand saved. There's a big gap. So it's very broad brush. The 4% rule can be argued all day. It is a rule of thumb. It's a starting point. That's it. So just times it by 300 to get their number, work out what their gap is or not. It's a general financial planning concept. Over to you. Nicholas, yes,

Nick Lincoln: 1:18:16

the second podcast was very good as well and interesting. Are you keen on preserving capital during the withdrawal, or is it planned for the client to run out of money? Run out of money? Age 100 well, it already depends on the client circumstances that I mean, they're the base thing is, okay, we want to make sure you've got enough, whatever that means, based on the whole range of assumptions. And if that means you're running having, you know, one pound F in your pension part, age 100 Well, that's still done the job. But most clients want to leave a legacy of significance as well to those they leave behind. So it's always a case by case basis, but, but the baseline, the bottom baseline, is, have you do we think you're doing the things now so that your later self will reasonably have enough to live three to four decade retirement, where the cost of your living is going to quadruple at trendline, UK Irish inflation. If we're building these pots up and it's clear you're gonna have loads more, then we can start talking about legacy and giving away and giving away and so forth. But the base plan is, yeah, let's get you there first of all, and then we can look at what you want to leave behind. And if I had

Alan Smith: 1:19:08

two quick things, the that's another thing repeated time time again. It's an art more than a science, actually, as at least as well as and therefore it is, as nature said, is determined by the client now to assume that people will spend the same amount of money in real terms or otherwise every year. Every assumption could be argued. We know that every assumption now, the only that, so that's that's it. So start with asking incredibly good, detailed questions of your client terms of what they want, lifestyle, just, you know, design your ideal life, and then we can put some numbers on it. We're making the guess for how long you live. But is legacy important? Is it not is philanthropy, all those other things? So it starts by really knowing the client and not it sounds. The danger in this is making it templated. I'm going to run it such that the client runs out of money age, 100 Right, and that is just wrong. One other thing, and I think maybe we'll come back to this in the new year, just reminded me of a conversation I had with a colleague the other day. Now, like you guys, we use effectively linear cash flow forecast. You use voyant we use truth. And this particular client circumstances. There it was the classic. You've got way more than enough money you need. You're never going to run out of money. Happy days. Go, go fill your books. Go on holidays, spend your money, enjoy yourself. And then we cross referenced it with timeline cash flow model, which uses Monte Carlo scenario planning, which is all the various multiples of numerous things that could happen in terms of sequence, risk and everything else, using 120 years of data, all of a sudden, wasn't quite so rosy. There was now a 78% chance of you achieving all these and not running out of money. Now you can get all that does is it throws up. There's a big difference between just spend your money and never worry about it, too. You might just need to pay a bit more attention to this, because if we have any repeat of any repeat of any some circumstances that happened the last 100 years. And I get, I get the point. You can be overly analytical, because who the hell knows. But just be clear that these long term linear cash flow models are just a starting point as well. Do not rely on them as a be all and end all for spending money, saving more money. It's this stuff is suit is really, really important, and maybe using more than one type of methodology, in terms of straightforward, linear cash flow, assuming 2% real rate of return. Thank you. Okay,

Nick Lincoln: 1:21:32

brilliant. Just real quickly. For those listening to this not watching, Andrew held up his Bible, which he cleaves to and is part of his life hack. It's called die with zero friends, and it's a Bible that he's been pleading to very, very strongly. Once

Andy Hart: 1:21:44

I've read the book, once I've read the book, I'll provide a full and detailed review on a future trap episode. Have any boys read

Unknown: 1:21:50

this book? By the way? No, no. Okay, okay, right, living with 00.

Nick Lincoln: 1:22:00

Bless you. Bless you. Okay, let's, let's move on. Then we must do culture corner. We're getting towards the end one minute 81, minutes in, let's do culture corner. Okay, I'll go first kind of tease on from what I said about maybe the rolling back, the rolling back of the last 1520, years of sort of a just oppressive states and sense of, I don't know, the government getting too big. My book of the year is, sorry, coach, call it for this episode Trappist. We're looking at our favorite cultural things that we've consumed in the last year. Mine's the white pill, a tale of Good and Evil by Michael malice. Now, on the basis of this book, is a history of communism, which is grim, right? It's not taught at schools, and if you don't know about it, you want to get this book and you want to get this book and you want to read it, but he writes it in a very engaging way. He says how communism was set out, what it was supposed to do, how it transformed in Russia, in China and Cambodia, in Korea, everywhere it's been. It's been, it's just a bit. It's just killed millions and millions and millions of human beings. It's really, really bad. It's a really, really good book, and we should be giving it to our kids to read, because they ain't taught about it in school. And I would highly recommend the white pill. It's, it's, it's more of a cracking read, if you can, have a cracking read about the death of hundreds of millions of human beings. This is the book that's my one for 2024

Andy Hart: 1:23:15

jolly the Christmas present you're going to give to your son. Those who

Nick Lincoln: 1:23:20

don't know history are doomed to repeat it, right? We don't know. You know, we have this, these morons in the West who supported Stalin, these idiots, useful idiots, and they're back now in our in the back now in our governments, supporting appalling regimes.

Alan Smith: 1:23:36

I know you read a lot of books, or listen to or read them, that that's genuinely your best book of the year. Yeah,

Nick Lincoln: 1:23:41

just chuckles. Yeah,

Alan Smith: 1:23:45

interesting. Sounds good as well. That was

Nick Lincoln: 1:23:48

excellent as well. But I just have to pick one. And I thought, sorry, so go on. Okay,

Alan Smith: 1:23:53

yeah. I was given this as a Christmas present this time last year, and I read it beginning of the year, and even though it was the beginning of the beginning of the year, it remains the best book that I have read, which I think we've all read it, actually, or we've all listened to it, which is the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk. So interesting. Elon Musk, I mention him sometimes, and there's a lot of hate towards Elon Musk, which is quite mad. It's insane. I mean, whatever you think of him as a human being, Jesus Christ, the stuff that he has accomplished and achieved and seems capable of. So it's, I think, just an incredible I like biographies anyway. I think you learn a lot from people you know. Isaacson is a really good writer. He's written Steve Jobs one. He's written a bunch of other sort of high profile people and characters. I just like his writing. So Elon Musk story, his personal story, growing up in South Africa, all the stuff is quite I was very interesting and stuff, but the business lessons that you learn from it, and he's just like a no nonsense. He's just talk about just cut, getting simplifying things, cutting things to the chase, the story, but and how he's built SpaceX and the stuff and everyone, all the things he does are impossible until he does them. And there are lessons just this. Feeling the problem down to his core users, first principles, thinking, what is the issue? What's the problem? We're trying to fix? How can we just achieve that? There's too much just bullshit and layers of management conversations and discussions, whether you like it or not, him coming into x and, you know, getting rid of 80% of the staff, and then making it even more successful than it was in the past. You know, that's incredible, the stuff he's achieved through Tesla, etc. Anyway, I think it's just a great book. So it's a bunch, there's a lot of interesting and important lessons, both life lessons and lessons for business as well. My favorite of the year, Elon Musk, per Walter Isaacson,

Nick Lincoln: 1:25:34

next off watch

Carl Widger: 1:25:36

at Tuesdays with Mari, which is actually a culture corner from Nick Lincoln. It had a actually significant impact on me, I would say, and made me really kind of take a step back and think about actually, what's important here. I think it's an amazing book. I think it'd be a brilliant, brilliant read for anybody over the Christmas period, as you kind of are relaxing with your family, but ready to kind of launch into another year. I think it'd be really, really, really good one. If you haven't read it already, go and read it. I think it's just brilliantly written. It's a beautiful book, really, is,

Nick Lincoln: 1:26:15

yeah, I really enjoyed it as well. Connie, awesome, yeah, very good book. Yeah, an

Carl Widger: 1:26:19

honorable mention for me to the psychology of money, which I have only read in the last couple of months, which I know is bananas, right? For someone involved in the financial planning, investment, Wealth Management, behavioral finance, whatever you want to call it, right? It's a must read, and it's really easy read and really enjoyable as well. So they'd be my two that I would recommend highly. But if you're only going to go at one Tuesdays of Maury, I think everybody should read it brilliant.

Andy Hart: 1:26:50

Just don't book just on that car. I'm assuming you haven't read the second book, same as ever. Morgan Housel,

Carl Widger: 1:26:55

no, but I, actually, I bought it on Audible only the last week or so. Andy, so it's on my it's coming up soon.

Andy Hart: 1:27:03

I think it's better, which is a reality statement, yeah, it's really, really good. Yeah, like the second one more than the first. Okay, it's for me to close up the culture corner again. The book on Elon Musk by walls at Walter Isaacson is insanely good. That was definitely up there. But my book, if I had to pick one, is Scott Galloway, the algebra of wealth. Think it's amazing. I don't think you should read this. The beginning of your wealth journey. Let's call it. You have to have made a few mistakes of this book to hit you between the eyes. But it's it's amazing. So that's my recommendation. My final thing. It's the Elon Musk sort of connection, but it's a podcast that came out very recently, Mark Andreessen, who a lot of you have known on the modern wisdom podcast, they talk in length about uh Elon. So if you like Elon, you're going to learn a lot of insights from a from a close friend of his. I don't say any wealth, but I think Elon's net worth at night was about four 50 billion. I know he's doing a lot more, you know, better stuff, beyond the wealth, but is she just insane numbers? And the guy's just getting started. I mean, the good he's going to do inside the US government is going to be something we're not seeing seen before. So, yeah, so massive loving for Elon Musk. And there's a couple of two recommendations, but Alan nick or Elon Musk, fans, listen to that modern wisdom mark. And

Nick Lincoln: 1:28:19

I did. I did. I did listen to I couldn't go into YouTube. Yeah, I watched. I couldn't get all the way through it. But I did. I just noticed the most he's

Alan Smith: 1:28:25

an acquired taste is Andreessen quite Yes, all the comments, no one was loving him on from the traditional Chris Williams phrases.

Nick Lincoln: 1:28:35

I went for a run for the last couple of all in podcasts without David Sacks, because he's got not quite same easy.

Alan Smith: 1:28:44

It's like, if it's like if one of us was missing. I mean, imagine this podcast without you. Nick,

Unknown: 1:28:52

that's true. Oh God, I don't care.

Alan Smith: 1:29:00

I'm pleased, I'm pleased that two of the authors mentioned in the book of the

Nick Lincoln: 1:29:04

year are close, personal,

Alan Smith: 1:29:07

Morgan. Well, Morgan's a friend of yours. I introduced, I

Andy Hart: 1:29:13

introduced Morgan to you for a photo.

Alan Smith: 1:29:17

His latest person is his own podcast. You know, Prof G podcast. He has a whole big intro about living in quite interesting where he lives. He's a neighbor of mine, so, yeah, great to have some close personal friends do so well. Well done.

Andy Hart: 1:29:32

Alan, what did you say about discussing something before the end? Have you forgotten because man of your age or

Unknown: 1:29:37

Yeah? Forgotten.

Nick Lincoln: 1:29:40

Trap pack. We are, we are 90 minutes, well, nearly. And this isn't our final episode of the year, is it? Oh, that's

Alan Smith: 1:29:48

something. Shorts. Just do the YouTube shorts get make AI, do it. Come on. No, I'm

Nick Lincoln: 1:29:56

not doing I'm not doing anything. I'm not doing anything. Are you closing shot for

Alan Smith: 1:29:59

the year? Now, well, I'm not doing

Unknown: 1:30:01

that two weeks ago. This is giving everybody a good insight as to how

Andy Hart: 1:30:11

demonetized again. Nick, monetized again. Sorry for

Nick Lincoln: 1:30:13

that lady drives in the car with the children. Sorry,

Alan Smith: 1:30:18

school holidays now she must

Andy Hart: 1:30:19

so you're saying the show that we're going to put on the second of January is going to be the best of great. Okay, get some chop up. The best of that's hopefully going to be the case. Yeah, why

Unknown: 1:30:29

don't we just talk about this once we've recorded everybody?

Nick Lincoln: 1:30:34

Okay, right? So there you go, dear TRAPPIST, episode one, Episode Episode 60 comes to a close. Another pile of traps storage down the U bend of Father Time. Thank you, TRAPPIST for your support. In 2020 24 I think I could speak for the trap pack. It's been a great ride. We've got more things planned. In 2025 we're going to get even bigger and even better and even more unbearable until the next time get through the festive period. Chew down the mother in laws brussels sprouts. They are as bad as you remember them to be, but just smile, grimace, get through it. Cane the booze, and we'll see you on the other side. Adios,

Alan Smith: 1:31:05

goodbye. Merry Christmas. Merry

Unknown: 1:31:07

Christmas. Everybody by the Christmas jingle. Nick, he hasn't

Alan Smith: 1:31:12

done one. Come

Unknown: 1:31:13

on, amateur, nicely, absolute shambles. That's a real.