71 - TRAP LIVE25!

TRAPLIVE25 RECORDING PLUS Q&A!!!

In this latest LIVE pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss

• Topical Titbits
• Meat and Potatoes: The Four Horsemen’s Origin Stories
• Culture Corner
• TRAPist question(s) from Peter Watts https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-watts-dippfs-cert-cii-mp-23047169/
• Q&A with the TRAP Pack and our beloved TRAPists

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

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Transcript

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Unknown: 0:00

Yes. Okay, so the first bit, how does everyone feel, was, did we like it? Did we like the roasting? Possibly about to be disappointed by by what's to follow, but we are going to introduce the main event. Hit it. I'm supposed to say, here we go. Turn it up. A bit louder, please welcome to the real advisor podcast. Please follow us and join in the conversation. Five Star Review on our tunes, and doing all this really, really helps us, which means we continue to help you. Now let's head over to the studio for the latest tale of trap.

Nick Lincoln: 0:55

Yes, indeed, dear TRAPPIST, welcome back to what many people are calling episode 71, of the real advisor, podcast, T, R, A, P, trap. My name is now officially Lincoln, and joining me this evening, not in the digital studio of doom, take time, fella, but in a real, physical location, are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Carl de la Bucha, the voice with you,

Unknown: 1:27

and the ultra heart,

Nick Lincoln: 1:33

and Alan the story teller Smith, now I imagine there are Trappists at home listening to this on their portable transistor radios who cannot believe that we've got a live audience here in the Seligmann theater at the fantastic Royal College of Physicians. So I want to say, firstly, thanks to all you guys and girls for coming and for your support. Over the last year, it's been brilliant. This thing keeps on growing. I do want to acknowledge that we have really sold this place out, and hopefully those people that standing are the ones that got scholarship tickets. It's great that so many of you did turn out we were expecting more dropouts. And look at the audience, we got quite a few dropouts, right? Let's just quickly go through some very quick thanks to the people that made the effort to come here. Sam from that from the USA. Fantastic. Her thing was really good. We've got Jackie from Singapore here. We've got lunch club Dirk representing the Third World. All is all is good. I'd like to say special thanks to our trap brand partners, fundment and Vanguard. We are kind of nailing it. Working on an agreement with these guys to do stuff over the next 12 months. It's gonna be really exciting content produced by real financial advisors for real financial advisors, with Vanguard and fundment helping us to do that. It's exciting times, and we're looking forward to it. There is a QR code there, if you can, and there are plenty of free loading representatives of both those brands here, if you want to catch up with them. Owners here is somewhere. There's this QR code there, if you want to scan that and have a look at that and just answer the question on there. We'll come back to that at the end of the topical tidbits, we'll address what response is or type into browser. Tiny.cc/trap live. Okay. Final thing, just to make sure that the people at home know there is a live audience here, I just wanted to shout something out. I haven't given this much thought, but on the count of three, as loud as you can, oh, I don't know, lick for prime minister, OK, 123, and it will happen one day, right? Without any further ado, because we've got show packed full of app, absolutely nothing. I shall hand over to my friend for some more high energy review. Reads the right honorable Mr. Andrew Usain Hart, thank you very much. Nicholas, welcome everybody. We've got three reviews tonight, so we're going to get a crack in. First one is from Sir Ernest lisner, entitled, makes you proud to be British and Irish. Never in the field of financial advisory conflict has so much trap been owned by so many to so few. Much congratulations to the four horsemen of the apocalypse for the fortnightly blast of continuous professional discussion and commiserations to the fifth member who left before the group became famous. Make your own minds up. Disclaimer, the value of podcasts can go down as well as up. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Next up, James Palmer, five stars, the ideal companion for someone coming back into the industry, a brilliant, quality podcast that has provided the perfect fuel as I immerse myself back into the profession. I'm returning after nine years away, and trap has been fantastic, a fantastic help in bringing back up to speed, genuinely insightful and entertaining every time. And even I got a shout out from Alan when I dropped him my CV. Along with chocolates late last year. Keep up the good work. Oh yeah. Moving on to the review of the night, the review of the year, the review of the year. This is from someone called Spanner 35 you make up

Carl Widger: 5:14

your wish if you're here before we read it out, make yourself known. Yes. Stan,

Nick Lincoln: 5:19

Spanner 35 It's entitled poor one stars. Here's the review, four blokes sucking each other off. We haven't made this up. It's on Apple tonight. Latest review. I'll start it so I'll finish. Four blokes sucking each other off, thinking they're God's gift,

Unknown: 5:46

due to a lack so far so good, due

Nick Lincoln: 5:47

to a lack of knowledge, always errors and a lack of understanding. I can see why people don't use massively overpriced financial advisors normally. This later, I say thank you for the reviews. They're a real shot in the arm. Actually, we don't mind. We quite like getting five star and one star. We never wanted to be. You want a three star milk toast. We want to be we want to be bothered. You know, we want to Marmite either love us or loath so. Thank you to that complete. All right, let's put it, let's put a timestamp on this episode, Episode 71, of the real advisor podcast trap, and we will do that with the topical tidbits. And we're going to start off with you, Andrew, and your favorite, I think, your favorite person in the world. Yes, this is Mr. Warren Buffett, who had the This is Mr. Warren Buffett, who had his annual general meeting a couple of weeks ago in Omaha, Nebraska. He announced his retirement. But you know a couple of quotes I'm going to share with you that Mr. Buffett has inspired me with. He's done a lot of good. He's been a bit of a lone voice for the miracle of only equities long term, all about temperament, Trump's intellect. So yeah, huge fan of Mr. Buffett. I'm sure a lot of people are in the room. Okay, so my top three Buffett quotes, the best investment you can make is in yourself. Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing. The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient. Anything to say, gentlemen.

Carl Widger: 7:11

So the reason there was a pause there we were all supposed to have our favorite Warren Buffet quotes, but when we spoke during the week, I said, Well, there's no point in me preparing for this one just because it's going because it's going to be live, because I haven't clearly prepared for any of the others. So they've been slagging me for the last hour, saying you're not going to remember the quote. So I'm clearly not going to remember the quote, but it goes something like somebody is sitting in the shade now, because somebody planted a tree a long time ago,

Unknown: 7:42

good enough. Good enough.

Carl Widger: 7:45

I should also say that Alan said Warren Buffett didn't say that. The Dalai Lama said that. I think it was Buffett. But there was another the advice that when Buffett was asked, What advice would you give your wife if you passed away to what advice would you give her in terms of investing your wealth? And he said, 90% in the s and p5, 110% in US Treasuries. For me, like There you go. The most successful investor in the world is saying index investing is the way forward. So maybe everybody here thinks they're better than Warren Buffett, I don't so that's the the investment philosophy that I subscribe

Unknown: 8:25

to. Sorry, the 90% was what company again, the s and p5 100, and it was the company called Vanguard. Yes,

Nick Lincoln: 8:40

you're watching someone sell his soul in real time.

Unknown: 8:44

There are other he didn't manage the name on the fund s and p5 100, not yet, not yet. Fun fact that I read recently talking about your hero, and I think a bit of a sort of mutual hero of all of us, Mr. Warren Buffett, but so he's famous for having his Berkshire Hathaway company to have outperformed the S and p5 100 for many, many, many years. The reality is the data, had he not have purchased Apple stock, he went fooling on Apple about what, four or five years ago, or five years ago, had he not have done that, he'd have under poor, underperformed the SV he bought into Apple just before it absolutely took off and went flying. I like to see that as quite interesting, considered to be the greatest living investor. Had he not have done that, you might say, well, it was genius, but you might say, also, there's a bit of luck you'd underperformed, and other people want to assume they're going to beat him that and he himself would have had a high chance of underperforming, were it not for that particular decision that he took. Thought I was interesting. Do you think that was

Nick Lincoln: 9:54

interesting? Nick, it's mobile.

Carl Widger: 9:58

Okay. Yeah, no, yeah, I know. I. No, no, what's this one? Yeah, I'm next. So this is about cybersecurity risk. So don't know if you saw in the media recently, there was a big cyber attack on M and S, and there was a particular article that I read that was saying that, you know, it was carnage in M and S and the staff were sleeping in the office overnight, and it was chaos and all that. And then I read a good bit more about that stuff, and actually M and S did have a very big plan for what they would do in the cyber attack. But I guess when it happens, it is going to create chaos. And I do think for all of us in the financial advisory world. I think the single biggest risk that we all face now, for me, anyway, 100% is, you know, a cyber attack. And I'm aware of a few firms that have suffered this, unfortunately, and you know, they're probably trying to keep it quiet, and rightly so. I get it, but I think it is, it is our duty to have as much defense as we possibly can put in place. Because when I was going down the rabbit hole and looking at looking into this stuff, M and S, albeit that the media were saying they didn't have a plan, they did. But there was a famous story for talk talk in the UK were hacked back in 2017 so this is probably very early in the in the hacking days, and they came out and they said we had to bring in the police, and we had to bring in all these expert bodies, because this attack was coming from everywhere. And a few days later, a 17 year old from Wales was arrested for this particular cyber attack. So I don't think we can all protect ourselves from every single risk that's out there, but by God, if you haven't done your your penetration tests, you haven't made sure that you've got as much defense as you can in Ireland, that would not be funny, for Christ's sake. But yeah, I genuinely do think

Unknown: 12:16

it's, it's a massive threat. Was

Carl Widger: 12:20

all getting a bit serious there. Nick, I enjoyed it.

Nick Lincoln: 12:23

Okay, and time for

Unknown: 12:26

cigarette. I'm gonna back you up on that. It's the one thing that keeps me awake at night. We've got some of our team here, and we do, I think, as much as is humanly possible, in terms of penetration tests, but, but everything, every level of check. I didn't realize this. First of all, I'm all over the dark web, apparently. Do you know that you've heard of the dark web? I've heard of the dark web. Yeah, I live there. I'm all over it, apparently. But there are, there are constant attacks on our server, constantly. 24/7 all in from Russia, China and everyone else, all the time that, thank God, we've got all these things and protections in place, but it is the one thing. We are the sort of businesses which are, by definition, most of us, relatively small businesses, but we've got data to do with bank accounts and finance and money. So we're quite a, you know, a good target for the cyber criminals. So yes, group of if people are m s, and let's face it, they've they can hack into the, you know, the White House or the US security system, M and S, big companies, all vulnerable. So we're all exposed. We are we're insured for cyber attacks. But whether it be enough, I don't know, but it's just being serious for a

Carl Widger: 13:37

moment, like, I mean, even if, like, what would happen, like M and S couldn't do trading online for three weeks? What would happen if your clients accounts were locked up for three weeks

Nick Lincoln: 13:48

and they couldn't get access? Yeah, this is, you

Unknown: 13:52

know, you've got the reputational damage would be huge.

Nick Lincoln: 13:55

The biggest risk, yes, the biggest 100% right? Okay, let's bring the mood up, ultra economic crime and corporate transparency. OK, so this is a bit of a thing of mine at the moment. It sounds dreadfully dull, but this is, in effect, a lot of people in this room, everyone in this room. It's called the economic crime and corporate Transparency Act 2023 sounds very serious. It's been staged in in various sort of time frames. But the big one that's coming in that's part of this is more disclosure by a company's house. At the moment, if you're a small micro business that I am, I just have to submit abbreviated accounts. The new rules coming in. Every single limited company in the whole of the UK needs to submit full PNL, the intended consequences and unintended consequences of this, I think, are going to be huge, just to name a few. I think it's going to play into the hands of big business. It's none of this fake it till you make it big businesses. Just want to, just want to be with big businesses, startups. I think it's anti business, anti entrepreneur, anti start up. You're going to have to make it relevant to you in this room. It. You're gonna have staff members in your room say sorry, in your business, saying you made a load of money last year and you're not giving us pay rises. Yeah, seriously. You're gonna have people who are gonna potentially come and work for you, who are gonna say you made no money last year. There's no chance I'm coming here, or whatever, you know, fill in the blanks of where things have the rationale for doing this. It's all about this transfer. The other thing is, Ireland have transparency at this level, but you have to sort of go online and pay. There's a bit more friction. In the UK, there's no friction at all. Companies, house, put the company in, produce it, P and L, straight away. It'd be good if they charge us like two pound nominal. You know, if I go to my local kebab firm, my local kebab shop, I'm not bothered about, I'm going to pay two quid to look at their accounts. But I'm a bit of a nosy bugger, so I might go home and check it out. So the transparency for people that are into this stuff as an example, and by

Unknown: 15:49

the way, he does, there's very few people in this room whose accounts he hasn't already looked

Nick Lincoln: 15:54

at. Abbreviated, it's gonna be a field day for me. And then there'll be father in law's mother in law saying, You're not marrying that entrepreneur. They're making no money. Oven for their accounts, the lie. For their accounts for the last six years. Who knows? So good luck with this new

Carl Widger: 16:09

you've really thought this one through. I have thought it

Nick Lincoln: 16:12

through. I wouldn't have got married if this act was out when I was there and now I'm successfully divorced. Moving on. Yes. So it is a big change that's coming in, but we've not yet seen the full

Unknown: 16:28

necessarily. Can only play it once he knows about everything his name is.

Nick Lincoln: 16:43

And so watch out, people. Look out for it. Well done. Okay, right? I think it's me, I'm leading off on that really. So trap, we got this going on, obviously, we got our brand partnerships with Vanguard and fundment, and it's becoming almost a, what is a serious kind of thing. And so we've had to open up a bank account. And this is a, you know, that story from Andy. I think I totally agree with what you say, though. I don't think this information should be in the public domain. It's gonna cause a lot of trouble. Why don't they produce everyone's pay slips? Why don't they produce all sole trader stuff? Sorry to go on about it. Go Nick full transparency. Yeah. And I just think there is an anti business sentiment in this country that is incredibly strong. At the moment. We try to open up a bank account with NatWest. I bank with NatWest since August 1987 personally, I opened up a business account with them. My Business account with them in in October 2008 so they know me inside. Now, I've never asked for an overdraft and never gone overdrawn, never asked for a loan. Pure milk toast, pure vanilla. We're trying to set up a trap bank account with NatWest since December, and it's still going through the thing. And we're not, we're not looking for finance, and we're all, you know, we're all regulated individuals working for regulated bodies. We're all, believe it or not, on the surface, it's kind of impeccable credentials, and it's just imagine if you are. You know, the friction in this country to try and do anything for business people. It's so diabolical. The lovely pen up is up there. I went for a walk with her weekend walk with her and two of her work colleagues, two other head teachers. Great day. At the end of the day, this head teacher who's retired, we somehow got into the subject of Trump, and I didn't bring it up, and he was scathing of Trump, and he said, because he's surrounded by businessmen. And I said, Well, what's wrong with that? And he said, verbatim. And this is a guy who's worked for the state all his life. His life. He said, businessmen are all corrupt. And I said, I'm a businessman pal. And it kind of got a bit frosty. It got better, but it's just kind of endemic of the attitude of if you try and make a profit in this country, you try and be productive, you try and look after your family. You're just scorned upon at the moment. And I don't want to be a rant, but I'm just, I I'm just, I are people in the room feeling this kind of thing as well. Fingers are just a general anti commerce vibe going in. It's just, and it's not good. And we know these stories of millionaires, you know, leaving the country. Talk about that, you know. Yeah. Anyway, so there we go. It's um, yeah, NatWest, so yeah, December to now, and they might open the account next week, according to my latest 45 minute call center conversation in Bangladesh, right? Watch, oh, one of the, one of the upcoming favorites of the show, prsa. Call

Carl Widger: 19:16

prsa. So they just told me I had to put in a PSA article, because I've been talking about it, apparently, for two years, anyone from Ireland

Unknown: 19:22

here? Yes, this is for you boys, prsa over there. The rest of us have no idea what he's talking about. Did these guys come over from Norway this morning?

Carl Widger: 19:34

Anyway? Yeah. So the last episode I was saying that, you know, there was this thing about, oh, the PSA rules, and whether it's PSA or, but it doesn't really matter, but it's, it's what, what are, what our job is to try and make sure all of our clients are getting the maximum out of the rules that are in front of us. Yeah. So, you know, if you spot something that. Be advantageous to your clients to extract wealth from their businesses in a more tax efficient manner? Well, it's your duty to go and tell them about that. And that's all we were doing. Was availing of those, those peer say, rules. And, you know, there's a lot of discourse saying, Oh yeah, you know that was loopholes, and there was, you know, the mega wealthy. But this article came out and basically said, No, it was real business. People actually, who had for years and years and years trying to keep their business afloat, weren't putting money into their pension funds, and now they had this great thing that was available to them. Now, I do hear on the grapevine that they might be changing the rules that over 50s might be able to pay in a little bit more, and then over 60s a little bit more, again, that would be very, very welcome. But I just want to really, you know, quash that rumor that these were loopholes and that, you know, people, the mega wealthy, were taken advantage real business owners, who are the mega employers, whether you're talking about Ireland or the UK, they employ most people. They're the ones who are taking all the risks, and they're the ones who we should be allowing take some advantage and extract some wealth tax efficiently from their companies. Definitely, definitely.

Nick Lincoln: 21:22

Here I say. Got a clap. Very good, very good. I was looking for the clap drop on it. I've got it. So that's excellent. Thank you. Real clap, right? Smithy, more good news, yeah,

Unknown: 21:31

it's a bit doom and gloom, isn't it? We're just putting our list together the other day about this, and I just thought there's something that I've commented on publicly, but just kind of sharing it on the theme of challenging business environment. And again, for clients. Clients of ours, quite a few of our clients are business owners, entrepreneurial people, senior type people. And we've seen, I'm aware of one prospective client and one existing client who have and you know, they are high earners, ambitious people, successful people, pay literally millions of pounds in tax each year. They've gone, they've upped sticks, they've left, they've relocated, they've moved overseas. There's a lot of discussion and debate about this. There is favored territories that people go to, apparently, Italy very popular. Do you know that Nick Italy sounds quite wouldn't mind living there? It's all right. They've got a quite a favorable tax regime for wealthy people. It's chaotic. They never collect. Chaotic. Yeah. But obviously, UAE is popular in different parts of the world. But it's just, it's, it's another example of, you know, there's, this has been going on for years. This is not, by the way, a party political broadcast, Nick. Nick is a bit more political than the rest of us. This is kind of symptomatic of the last 1020 years so of but

Carl Widger: 22:55

is it because the stories I'm hearing in the UK are only in the last 12 months that all these people are leaving. So is this a new phenomenon, or has this been happening over a

Nick Lincoln: 23:03

period? I think the pressure was building up through the 14 years the Conservative government. There's a change in a non DOM thing. Just this Labor government just creates taxes a little bit more. It's the straw that breaks the camel's back. I think, not just tied in with the actual it's the general sentiment that's people are thinking,

Unknown: 23:19

feeling of it. You know, she's always a tax the Tories were they, you know, they raised the taxes the highest rate in 50 years, or something, when they were in, when they Corporation, Second World corporation tax, and everything else general does. This seems to be a kind of, as we say, and it does distill down to opening a bank account. Yeah, there's, there's a kind of, it's a bureaucratic regime. It's just, you know, I'm just saying it's challenging. It's difficult out there, whatever way you turn, there are some headwinds. Look, we all show up every day and kind of get on with it, don't we? What else? What other choice have you got? But when I begin to see people often talk about this, but I've never seen it experience that people literally, you know, emails from clients say, just to let you know we've gone, or we're going you've not left yet. Alan, so, yeah, right. Yeah. It's interesting, though. I mean, we don't have time sort of unpacking into the details of, can you still look after a client? You know, financial planning in itself, you know, cash flow modeling and stuff, I guess, is unregulated. You can do that to anyone, wherever they are, but I guess you can't give advice to someone if they're living in Dubai or something like that.

Nick Lincoln: 24:20

But no, no, because the taxation system is totally different.

Carl Widger: 24:27

If they leave their pensions in the UK, but they move, that's

Unknown: 24:30

okay. You can leave them. You just can't add to them. Or it's a bit messy. It's messy, yeah, it's very messy.

Nick Lincoln: 24:38

Yeah. Any other good news? No, it gets worse. Sorry. This is a doom script, right? This is this idea, this. And this one really is Looney Tunes. So Rachel Reeves and she's, yeah, yes, brace, brace yourself. Sorry. I hope you got a drink inside you. Rachel Reeves and she's, this is all she's doing here. By the way, this is an idea floated by Jeremy Hunt, the previous Conservative. Can we really careful you say Jeremy Hunt conservative Chancellor, and this plan to get 50 billion. And I've read it. I try to get I've read it on the Express website, which I mean at the Express is but the bloody syntax press that your no. That was the link. The FT is going to pay one I don't pay for the ft. So anyways, wants to get 50 billion of pension funds into private equity by the end of this, end of this decade. And I just think it's just the most the moment a government tells institutional investors how to invest its money. It's the thin end of the wedge, and it's voluntary, apparently, but this is the statement. This is that this is where the you know they've got you, they've got the gun for the back in back your neck. An official at the government department said, we are confident the market is moving in the right direction, and we won't have to use mandation At this stage, but added that it's an important backstop, so they will use it if these and I know Scottish widow said, bugger off. We're not doing it, but they will be compelled to do it. So the government's compelled. Compelling pension funds where to invest, and not only that, to invest in private equity, which is incredibly illiquid, opaque. The returns actually aren't often that great. They want to put them into the bloody, you know, these green infrastructure things. And I think it's an I think it's

Unknown: 26:17

a bright I mean, open that up. So to steel man, the opposite argument, but you get huge tax breaks. So to get a huge tax break to invest in Amazon and Starbucks, who people who pay no tax in the UK, what

Nick Lincoln: 26:31

huge tax break pension funds in terms of what you don't,

Unknown: 26:35

you don't pay tax on the pension fund as it's invested, we don't. That's, that's the, well, that's the part of the argument which says, Why should we give significant tax breaks as a treasury government for these pension schemes and structures on the uplift the UK gets no benefit from it in terms of internal investment. So don't you know, I'm just playing devil.

Nick Lincoln: 26:56

That's socialist mindset. What they're doing is giving us back some of the money they've already taken in taxation. Yes, don't, don't, don't, don't. Fuck me up. Not you personally. I mean the zeitgeist. I mean wrong. The devil's in the detail. I'm not too opposed to this sort of jingoistic approach to, you know, allocating capital to the home country, but the devil's in the detail, at least it's going to add to infrastructure projects that we need help with. There's money sitting around the table anyway. We'll all go now into PE and we'll just think, right, we know this money's coming to us. We're going to bump up our terms. Everything's gonna be massively more expensive.

Unknown: 27:35

It'll be a good let's see how capitalism works. Capital flows to the areas where the best anticipated future return is. Clearly, if this is going to be the best thing since sliced bread, there already been investments in them. You wouldn't need to shoehorn they might

Nick Lincoln: 27:49

even add less. They might even add more incentives. Incentives drives behavior. So we will see.

Carl Widger: 28:23

I'm just very happy that I'm living in a very progressive

Unknown: 28:31

prsa corner. And

Carl Widger: 28:34

they'll also, they'll also see that I was deeply

Unknown: 28:37

uncomfortable,

Carl Widger: 28:40

owing to the Irish versus UK. That's quite topical,

Nick Lincoln: 28:51

isn't it, with the British and Leinster lines announced this week?

Carl Widger: 28:55

Yeah, we can go there now if you want. Let's stay with the economy. Genuinely, it's, it seems to be, you know, is there is Rachel Reeves, the Minister for Finance, I don't know. Sorry, like, you know this stuff, the bleeding needs to stop here, doesn't it? And you start, you need to start looking after yourselves, but by you need to generate entrepreneurship. And I'd say in Ireland, we've done a pretty good job at it, and yet we have some very, very attractive tax regimes for multinationals to come over. And we played by the rules, and we won. And it is a very progressive economy, and we are going reasonably well. We you mentioned earlier on about, you know, wealth tax and all that kind of stuff. We dodged a bullet. We nearly voted in a party who were talking about that. Thankfully, we didn't vote them in. And, yeah, all I'd say is, anybody thinking about moving to Ireland, we're hiring, so come and talk to us.

Nick Lincoln: 29:53

You still got a job. Don't worry. Smooth, smooth, sick. Well, we'll stick on that, because we're sticking in the Irish neck of the woods with significant news on consolidation. Yeah.

Carl Widger: 30:01

So we, you know, we'd be watching from Ireland to the UK market about, you know, the financial advisors and the consolidators, and it's PE and it's, you know, it's other firms, you know, bringing, bringing vast amounts of firms together and gathering assets under management and maybe, or maybe not, looking after the clients. But there hasn't been that much, actually, in Ireland. So there was big news in the last week or so that a firm called Gillen markets was. Bought by quilter chevius. Was that the Yeah, which is really big news, because there's a guy called Rory Gillen set this business up. He's about 600 million under under management. There's all in the newspaper, by the way. So I'm not saying anything that I shouldn't be saying, but, but, but, Rory was definitely the pioneer in Ireland to bring his business and put Gillen markets on a platform only. So you might all think that this is dinosaur stuff, but the vast majority of business in Ireland is still done via insurance companies and actually not on platforms. So it's really encouraging. It's really encouraging to see a deal like this been done, and I suppose somebody who had the foresight like, if you're putting business 15 years ago on a platform and foregoing high commissions that everyone else is going for, you deserve everything you get. Rory Gillen, I applaud you, my friend. Very good. Very good. You. Yeah,

Unknown: 31:33

okay, so Well, leading on from that, yeah, I just saw, I think you're talking about the island market, Irish market, the UK market. I just saw this. You might see this. It was a new model advisor. I think this week, last week, recently, really interesting statistic, looking at there are approximately 30,000 regulated advisors in the UK, and 10,000 of them third work for private equity backed companies, so a third of the market. I mean, Rob's probably done half the deals too. Rob Stevenson, those who don't know, I mean, I think, I mean, that's, that's interesting itself. So a third of the market, probably quite a few of you in here work for organizations that have got, you know, external ownership people have come into the like private equity is around the world, or in every industry in every sector of the world, and got a lot of appetite. It was seen for financial services, financial planning, wealth management in general, is a lot of there are a lot of attractions to it, sticky revenue, profitable firms, mostly, and most of us probably could be improved in terms of our systems, processes and operational structure. But it just leads to a few other sort of thoughts and questions. And so for third of the market, third of advisors work for P back companies. And in separate to that, about what 20% your friends, few them in here, have no doubt, St James's place, about 20% of the market. Seamless, seamless, seamless. This was not rehearsed, but right so, but SGP like 20% of the market, on the 1000 partners, yeah? Or maybe not, yeah, so 7% or something. There's no maths on stage, but so

Carl Widger: 33:23

SJP aren't done by PE or they No, no, but so,

Unknown: 33:28

but you got a big chunk of the market. Effectively, it's the choice. It's restricted advice. Another very significant part of the market are PE backed. What I've seen, in my observation, is a lot of the PE backed companies, the whole point of peace is kind of streamline operations, so you can get a little bit kind of cookie cutter advice. Everyone has to go to in house portfolios. Everything gets quite similar. Nothing wrong with that, really. They get more streamlined, Operation efficient, more profitable. But it's just an interesting dynamic that we're observing, I think, and it will, right now, to increase on the PE side, I believe, if we're following where, but from the other side.

Nick Lincoln: 34:08

Sorry, that was an accidental truth,

Carl Widger: 34:10

because I'm going to talk looking in a lot of the, a lot of the PE, consolidation happened a few years ago. So those people need to do another transaction, clearly, in the in the foreseeable future, and so, so you will see, there's, there's probably going to be a lot of firms changing hands again, number 1p. And the second thing I would say is not all PE is bad, right? So there's this, you know, there's, there's a lot of firms now owned, are partly owned by P, by P, and the experiences from some firms is that it actually made them better, you know, really? So therefore the firm got better, and the clients got better outcomes. So I think Carl just keeping his

Unknown: 34:53

options open here, just in case. Yeah, no, I just,

Carl Widger: 34:58

I'm really like, we haven't experienced it, so it's

Unknown: 35:01

great, Lucky. Yeah, bring your checkbook.

Carl Widger: 35:08

No, I just think it's an interesting space, but we meet

Unknown: 35:11

listed by the four of us are becoming increasingly rare in that, you know, thank God, yeah, independent, you know, regulatory status, independent ownership. Yes, small DA is independent. They don't want small there's probably something

Carl Widger: 35:26

to do with that. We go on a podcast every two weeks. They go, no one,

Unknown: 35:29

no one buys. Don't be near us. There's not enough

Nick Lincoln: 35:32

money in the world. Okay, good point, right? What's the next thing? Ultra Yes, this is another St James's place story. Not a very good one. The complaints data from the FOS FOS came out recently, and there's the article, surge in complaints in the second half of 24 in the first half of 2024 they had 485 claims in submission to FOS. In the second half of 2024 they had 1653 so an increase three at three and a bit, times. But I don't think this is an SJP isolated incident. Obviously, they are focusing on them, and there's a claims management company that's quite aggressive in going after them, but I think it's a wider issue in the mighty profession, they had the review of the annual planning, sort of review that went into a lot of the top firms. So this is maybe where the sort of traffic is heading. Any thoughts that review? They were generally positive. One. They were saying, most firms, I am amazed that they can't remember the number. They're things like something like something like 83% were totally fine in terms of the annual planning meeting, something like that, a 4% were a bit iffy. I thought the other way around. I thought 83% didn't happen. You know, I run a micro, tiny business, and it's very hard to keep up to doing all the annual planning meetings at the certain time and ticking all the boxes, so let alone having a load of different clients, it

Unknown: 37:41

must be totally to be the documentation. Let's face a lot of particular smaller businesses. But even SJP, according to the reports, would saying these reviews were being carried out. We just didn't, we didn't record them anywhere. And as they say, if it's not written down, didn't happen. I think, I think

Nick Lincoln: 37:56

the FCA is big. Thing is big. Thing is you've got to be seen to offer the reviews. And I think that's what they want to they want

Unknown: 38:03

to see him done review. What is a review? Just anyway, apparently the industry flew through flying colors.

Carl Widger: 38:09

Did you not research this? Andrew, I'll

Nick Lincoln: 38:12

research everything. Carl, okay, right. Oh, God, this is a gripper Legal and General 2024 claims record. Yeah, I thought we were gonna put this in. I had this on the list. I said, if we're desperate, we'll go, this is a good story or not. This is a good story. I'm pro this. When the life insurance and insurance companies come out their annual claims numbers, they always astound me, how high they are. You know, in 2024 Lincoln and general, paid over 1 billion in claims. Their life insurance payout rate was 97% I want to clap at the end of this, everyone, their life insurance was 97% their critical illness was 93 their children's critical illness cover was 97% their income protection was 84% this is great news for our industry. All the life insurance companies, all the life insurance companies, numbers are generally over about 90% this is the business room. We should be proud of this. Yeah, so that's legal in general. 3% of children's critical warrants claims they turn down. That's what I heard there. Jesus, that's great. That's free. Are you a journalist? Nicklaus, wow, just pay it. Man Christ, just pay Yeah. So a lot of families that were in a lot of trouble, have you know, been sorted out during those times? So, yeah, well done. LNG, well done. LNG, okay, fine. So we are, what time do we start my

Unknown: 39:33

one? I'm just following on from that. This is, this is a super backup one. No, no, that's not. It just follows on from that with Jim. I've got, I'm under pressure to say this, but it's an interesting thing. There is, we've spoken about this in the podcast before. You know, I've been, I've been in this game a long time and and pay attention, boys, we're on time. It's good time. That's not the time that says 1959 convenience, absolute shambles. It is the time, yeah, but it's nice. It's not 20 minutes. So look back on back on track. So we it

Nick Lincoln: 40:11

is the bloody time. Sorry,

Unknown: 40:13

a few years ago, a few years ago, we used to have ifas and financial advisors, right? And they used to sell, they used to sell pensions. And before ISIS, there was peps, and you sell life insurance, and it'd be quite a common thing, and protection policies and phi policies and all that sort of stuff. But we've just, in my long career, we've just, I've witnessed a kind of a shift across we were all kind of wealth managers now, or we become, we deal with increasingly affluent clients, and I think we take the view that some of this protection stuff we don't pay as much attention to as a whole. Certainly in our firm, we, and you can argue that a lot of clients don't necessarily need it if they've accumulated some wealth, it's not quite an issue, particularly if you deal with business, business owner clients. There are a lot of intricacies and challenges around business, and if things go wrong, partnerships, key man, etc, a friend Jim, friend of the podcast, previous guest on my own, multi award winner. Podcast, go podcast, bulletproof entrepreneur mentioned this to me, and I thought it's quite worthy of mentioning. There is this thing called Business Protection Week, so an entirely, in a few weeks, we will put a link when we publish this next week, where we publish a link to the show notes and everything else but said BP, but there's just a load of resources, videos, presentations, downloads, information for those who are remotely involved in the if you got clients who are business owners, entrepreneurs, it seems to be a bit of a dark art less, you know, not particularly well understood, unless you're specialist in it. So there's a very helpful and useful resource that Jim pointed out. So do check that out if you get a chance.

Nick Lincoln: 41:55

Okay, very much. So we have 45 minutes left, because the time is 2001, and we're off at 2045, so let's move on to the next part of episode 41 which is the meat and potatoes of the show, where we sort of take a subject and thrash it about. We were supposed to do that slide thing, weren't we, but we've run out of time. We'll cover this off in the next episode, whatever the results that you put in tonight, we'll mention in Episode 72 all right, 72 all right, to nail that one down. So let's go on to the meat and potatoes. And this is our origin stories. And we're going to be quite short and punchy on this, six to seven minutes each. How did we end up where we are today in every sense the word storyteller leading

Unknown: 42:34

off? Oh my god, six to seven minutes. Yeah. So we've been, we've been asked by several people in the past, quite interested in in you know, how did you get started? How'd you get you go, how'd you get into business? How did you set up a firm? What were the issues and challenges? So in the time I've got, I we're all going to give, give our own versions of it. So, very simply, I Scottish, moved down to the bright lights Big City of London, town many years ago, and I have only ever had properly two jobs. And so I got a job at an organization called Standard Life. It's my first job. I was a broker consultant, a trainee broker consultant, first of all, and I couldn't believe my luck, because they gave me a company car and an unlimited expense account, and then and sent me out to northwest London to go knock on the doors of wheelbarrow. Wheelbarrow with props signed by the wheel. I was 21 and arrest, by the way, we might have had to shoehorn a few things. I speak to Ben yesterday, and he said, you've just got to put all the greatest hits. You don't go and see the Rolling Stones and have them play all the new stuff you want. You want it.

Nick Lincoln: 44:08

You want the Rolling Stones. All right, security,

Unknown: 44:10

hot groups, and also, I can't believe he just did so two minutes left, arm, using my best stuff up. I have to fast forward. So I was there, and I really enjoyed my time there, actually. But an opportunity came along. I used to, sort of one of the advisors that I looked after was a sole trader. He sadly departed the late Simon Emmanuel. Some of my friend Graham will have remembered him and he I used to just go for lunch with him. He was an IFA. He had a small business, and he needed to retire. Interesting thing was, these businesses weren't worth anything in those days because a commission based model, no recurring revenue, and so I mean Long story short, I felt as a very crossroads in my career, and I left Standard Life and joined this firm. He effectively retired. He went to sem retirement and full retirement, and it was a one man band in a little office down in Victoria in London. And there is one, one brief story with a with a message that I'd like to share with you about it so true. Horn grab. Yourself a drink, a very long drink. It's story time with Alan Smith, right? 30 seconds. I'll be as brief as I can. So I was six months into this. I was, as I say, a tiny sole trader, one man band business. But when I started in business, you got to come up with a name for a company, come up with something, what your hell you're going to call yourself? And I had this such an inferiority complex, but no one's going to deal with this like tiny little business. And I was quite ambitious about dealing with good clients. So I came up with this name, called Capital Asset Management, because I thought it just sounded grand and institutional and big, and we could go and tender for big ticket customers and clients, and that's what we were in the capital city and all the rest of it. So capital asset management was born, which is basically me and a PA, and I was in business about six months, and a letter was sent. Actual letter in the post from a very large charity who clearly got me mistaken someone else. And he said, Dear capital asset man, our charity portfolio is currently worth 52 million pounds. We would like, are you interested in tendering to for the management of it? Give it a go. So I literally, so I just knew I saw they've obviously got me mistaken with someone else. I picked I threw it, I threw through letter in the bin. And I happened to go out for lunch that day, because I used to do a lot of lunches. I went out for lunch with a guy who became a friend of mine called Julian, who worked for a company then called Newton, but they called BMI Mellon now or something. But he was, like a, he was a rep for the fund management company. I was out for lunch with him, and I just, I just mentioned, by the way, I got the just mentioned, by the way, got this letter, and he said, Oh, that's quite interesting. We've got a charity portfolio management division. So I literally fished out the letter from the bin that afternoon after lunch and wrote back to them and said, I'd be happy to tender for this business. Long story short, we get invited. I've never really done anything like this since before or since, but you have what they call a beauty parade. So he sends his sidekick, the charity Portfolio Manager, and me, and we pitch up to the Office of their accountants, office in London. And all these and all these guys know each other, so all the blue bloods of Investment Management at the time, so there was casanoves and rathbones, all these very sort of fancy companies, and me with a one man band, and we then pitched for the business. And he wanted to know a lot. Tell me, Alan, tell me about Capital Asset Management. Are you part of a large American banking group? And I just had, I had never, I told the truth. We're an independent niche, an independent business, but we've got access, which is true to the entire market. And so, blah, blah, blah, blah. So okay, that's that's fine. And so then we went away, and I just thought, I just wanted it to finish. I thought, God, that was, it was an experience. Anywho, I'm at home the next day, phone rings the guy, the trustee the charity, would just like to let you know that you've won the mandate. I thought 52 million pounds. Now it wasn't like three plus a half or three plus one. There was a difference. Only two. There was a investment bond. Yeah, nice. It wasn't quite it was. It was institutional pricing. But nevertheless, I based after that, I just introduced you. Have a chat with this guy, Newton, and don't ever speak to me ever again. And we got a nice recurring revenue for quite a few years. So so the the takeaway from that, if there was one was, is nearly forgot that what was the point of even telling his story? She won this into a takeaway. But the point, the point is that cannot, you know, give it a go, is the point. We also, maybe all of us, most of us, not all of us, but some of us work for, like, smaller businesses, and you might get some big opportunity, like some real big, multi million pound client or institutional client or charity or something. You think it's probably a bit too rich for us, a bit too kind of spicy for us, bloody. Give it a go. I mean, literally, I was six months into business on a 52 million pound case because I pitched it, put it together. So give it a go. Ladies and gentlemen, any chance you get try do

Nick Lincoln: 49:39

Ultra, yeah, nine minutes. It's always an honor going after Alan, because it means he stopped speaking. I'll keep it short and sweet. It's my sort of origin story when I was about 18 to 35 sounds long, but I'll get through it. So picture the scene. It was a cold March day in 2004 added a bit of color here, and I was sitting in the bank manager's office in the Lloyds TSB branch in harrow having an interview to become a mortgage advisor. The interview was going quite well. I don't interview that Well, believe it or not, OK. And then right at the end, he said final question, Andy, you're going to become a mortgage advisor. What's the Bank of England base rate? At the moment, I've never heard those words together in my life. I said, Come again. Come again. He said, what's the Bank of England base rate? I said, I did what all interviewees do. I tried to blag it. I said, it's about 10% he said, No, man, it's near a 4% so I thought my financial services career was over before it started. Now, let me take you back a few years. So when I was 18, I went to Northampton, university. Sounds like an Allen story. I went there for a few reasons. First of all, they let me in. Second of all, it was an hour door to door. And third, they had a good rugby team. I did a law degree. I got a Desmond Tutu, and then I and then I left and thought, what I'm gonna do with my life. So I got the local paper, the how observer, went through all the pages, went through the job section, circled a few things. I thought would be interesting for me. Boom, I saw it, training estate agent. I thought, that's a bit of me. So I called the guy. Went, well, he said he can start soon, training estate agent. You know, you know what that is. It's basically delivering leaflets. I was delivering leaflets. So. In rain is late North West London, my brand new polyester suit and tie before you get in there, baking hot summer, I was doing that for a few months, and I said to the guy, you know, I'm okay delivering leaflets, but is there anything more I can do? He said,

Unknown: 51:33

Yeah, the Peter Principle.

Nick Lincoln: 51:37

You can start valuing, you know, valuing houses and becoming a proper estate agent. I thought, brilliant. I know nothing about sales, nothing about property. Andy, you will walk it. So that went on for about 12 months, and then I said to the guy once, I said, what's going on in it? I'm selling these houses, doing all this stuff, and there's a load of activity going on your room here. He said, we do mortgages here. I said, mortgages. I thought, you have to be a bank to do mortgages. He said, No, no, no, we're like, mortgage brokers. We can do with anyone. I was like, can you explain to me how this works? And he said, Yeah, take a seat. I'll explain to you about the mortgage market. The next 10 minutes changed my life. He basically explained to me how it worked. He explained the numbers. And he said, basically a typical mortgage we do here is about 200,000 pounds. We introduced into the bank, and we get paid half a percent of that amount. I'm trying to work out half a percent of 200,000 I was like, my little brain works out in the end. I said, 1000 pounds for a mortgage. I thought, like 50 quid or something. He said, Yeah, it gets better. Andy, I said, it gets better. He said, Yeah, we also sell life insurance here. And I said, How does that work? He said, basically the commission is 20 times a monthly premium. Typical monthly premium is 50 quid. I was trying to work 20 times 50 out my little brain. I thought you get paid 2000 pounds for a typical mortgage. I was earning 700 pounds, working nine till seven, six days a week, so I knew exactly what my future held. So then I immediately went home, worked how to become a mortgage advisor. I did see map in my lunchtime. Paid for it myself. I got 93% in that okay, it's the highest grade I've ever got in my entire life. And ever since then, my grades have gone down and my efforts gone down doing exams. You know, I'm proudly Uncharted. And then I did actually get the job at Lloyds TSB, and I was there for about 15 months. In the end, I was sort of the humble brag. I was the second best mortgage advisor, mortgage advisor in whole of Lloyds TSB network. Anyway, there's bad news coming. Don't worry. My old boss rang me and he said, Andy, I'm fed up of doing residential mortgages. I want to focus on commercial mortgages. You can do the residential mortgages for me. Let's set up a company. So I set up my first directly authorized company when I was 24 called true financial. Things were going well. At first, we were flying. I was earning about five grand a month. I was the sort of richest one of my mates, paying for everything that was going well. And then, boom, we got hit by the great financial crisis. And at that time, I was earning seven grand a month. And all of a sudden, I was losing 910, 11 grand a month. I needed to get rid of my office, get rid of my staff. And, you know, readjust quickly. I got rid of my car, you know, it got a pretty, pretty bad at one point. I remember it so well. I called up my mum. You know, mums are mums are amazing. I said, it's not looking good for me out here, Mum, you know, I'm losing money, and then I'm probably gonna have to move home. And I remember it so well. She said, Andy, it doesn't matter what happens. There is no way you're moving luck, luckily, about a month later, the Bank of England base rate went down by about one and a half percent. So I was had a bit of headroom, and I was okay. At the same time, I did the exams become a financial advisor. I'm wrapping up soon. My first job as a financial advisor was 100% commission, self employed. I had, there was an office in Dunstable, and I remember it well. I used to drive in my ex wife's Fiat chincoln to fucking times are tough, living your dream, living Ltd. So I used to drive up the m1 at six in the morning to get to this cold, dark, horrible office that I was working at. And next to it, there's a drug Recovery Center. No, no, be it. Andy. And when I walked in the morning, at half six in the morning, the patrons of this place were outside, and I used to walk with my suit, tie and briefcase, and they used to say, wanker, expensive bunch. Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. And then I went into the building, closed the door, hope they didn't follow me in. It was full of filing cabinets, A to Z. I started with a I read everything I could about pensions, investments, life insurance. Just immersed myself in this business. At the same time, I was trying to expose myself to the good and the great at the financial planning community. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any of the good and the great. So I went to meet Nick Lincoln in Watford. Way that was 2008 and ladies and gentlemen back then, this guy was class. He was he was class. He took me to the best restaurant in Watford. Do you remember it? Pizza Express? That is the best restaurant. More. Pizza Express, yep. And then soon after that, I met Tina week she was setting up serenity financial planning. I then immersed myself to become a full fat financial planner. With her built, built this business early on with her. At the same time, I was training financial advisors on voice software traveling salesman. And then what else? Software salesman, software sales, I'm sorry, yeah. And then in 2017 I set up Maven advisor. My. Own firm on my own terms, and that's where I am now. I also set up humans under management soon, soon after that. So three sort of key takeaways. Number one, stick at it. Number two, you're going to come across some incredibly tough times along the way. And number three, ultimately, you're hopefully going to end up where you want to be. Thank you very much.

Unknown: 56:46

Boyce,

Carl Widger: 56:47

we had lunch earlier on, and Andy was going. So have you rehearsed your origin story? And I'm like, for sure, it's my story. Why would I need to research that? And he

Unknown: 56:59

also said he'd rehearse his rehearsed his to death to make it really short, and Christmas,

Carl Widger: 57:06

you know, you have to make it seven minutes. You have to. So I'll try and do I like Alan, was a broker consultant for a period of time, and then I joined another firm, and I was sales director in that firm, and the financial crisis of it was bad here, right? I can tell you, right. Also, Irish, we love our property. The whole country literally went bust. We had the IMF in so things went a little bit pear shaped for a while. And I had, I've got triplets who are 18 and following on from the triplets who were born in 2007 my fourth child was born 2008 so in 2010 the firm I was in was was not going great, and I went, Okay, I need to make sure that I look after these four small kids. So I set up on my own and I said, Okay, I needed to make 8000 a month, and it was in the times of high commission and all that kind of stuff. And I managed to do it. And I went through from 2010 and 11 was absolute survival mode. It was, you know, talk about really dark times. And I was chatting to Amelia earlier on about, you know, things are looking good and things are okay now. But by God, you know, this is, I think everybody has the have these kind of stories where it was really, really, really, really tough, and around 2012 13, I probably realized, yeah, I can okay. I can make a go with this. But I also started going, we this is not, this is not okay to be charging these high commissions, to be pretending I know what's the best fund out there. You know, believing, like I was totally and utterly believing the insurance companies were coming in saying, This fund is great, and these are the reasons why. And then I would deliver that message to my clients. And then I, I suppose, grew up here and realized this is, this is this is absolute BS. And I started doing a little bit of research into, is there another way of doing this kind of business? And then I first brought me to, and I'm probably going over some old ground here, but went to the US, and I saw this, the whole financial planning thing. And obviously it was, it was probably starting and beginning to gain momentum here in the UK. So I was doing, you know, trying to make as much contact as I could. So 2014 right? We're going to start made as Ireland. So it was like, called with your financial planning before that. So matters Ireland was started, and it was like, we're going to do financial planning, but being honest, we were doing a little bit of the other stuff as well, right? So? And then around 2015 16, we went, Okay, we're just going all in on this. And then it was really tough again, because there was people going, you know, my, my pension guy used to come and tell me about everything he knew about funds in the markets is now asking me about my my goals, dreams and aspirations. And it was all a bit like, who this is a bit weird, but we stuck with it. And this is, you know, you I think I'm repeating what kind of has been said already. We really did stick with it. And myself and Carl Daley, who founded the business with me, back back, back in 2014 we went a number of months, a number of months without getting paid, but we had the courage of our conviction that this was the right thing to do for our clients, and that after a while, we would get to a certain stage whereby clients would start talking to each other, and that's exactly what did happen. But there are, there are kind of speed bumps along the way, and there's, there's times where you will question yourself. And I remember you did a you brought humans under management to to Dublin, and I did a talk, and it was all about at that stage, we probably got to in around 100 million, I would say. And I was very proud of it, and I was very proud of we were doing it. But through financial planning and index investing, Evidence Based Investing, and I wasn't, you know, beholden to any fund manager, and nobody was paying the bills the clients were paying. And it was all done as I would say, you know, the right way. And I remember doing the talk, and I put it all out there, and here's all the things that we do. And I. Got a lot of great feedback. And one person came up to me afterwards and went, my God, you are such a bullshitter. And it was it, I can I promise you, right? This was at a time where I was feeling good and the business was going well, and it knocked me, and I would say, you know, don't let the haters hate, I can promise you now, right? And we've, we're always laughing about, you know, when I talk about cryptocurrency, I get it online. It does not bother me in the slightest, but it took a good while for me to gain the maturity to go I don't care. I know what I believe in, and I don't mind sharing my beliefs with anybody else. I don't mind what your beliefs are. I really don't, and I will respect them, as long as you're not shouting at me with your beliefs. But I am going to remain steadfast in what I believe in, and that's why I believe meadows, Ireland is the success that it is today. So I would say, you know, that this sticking with it, there are going to be tough times. I had a chat with Alan. We met, and we went for a walk this morning, and I shared a few challenges I'm having at the moment. So this is not all plain sailing, you know, there are challenges along the way. And I would say, if you go back to even 2010 you know, when I started the business. And then, you know, there was no grand plan. So I'd love to tell you that I had this vision to build this financial planning firm. It didn't. It was like when I had a few quit in the bank, said, Oh, I'll hire someone to do that job that I don't like. And that's how it kind of evolved, until such time as it became, there's something here. And then I went, we're going to go big in this and I have big targets, I have big goals, I have big dreams. And I'm a very driven person. I'm very ambitious, and that's what drives me on now. But I know that I can go, and I can put my head in my pillow at night and go, I am doing we at meadows, Ireland are doing the right thing by our clients every single day, and I know everyone in this room is doing the same thing, and that's bloody inspiring. It really is. And the last thing I would say is, when I started off because of this drive and this ambition, and I'll, I'm just going to go, and I could never celebrate, you know, the journey, right? It was always target, don't move on. And the problem with that is twofold, right? Personally, I found it very difficult to enjoy any part of it, but I also did not treat the people who were in my teams at the time with the respect and the gratitude that they deserved. And I lost some people along the way, and I have told them that, and I'm very, very sorry that that that happened. So, you know, you know, be respectful, and, you know, try. And I'm all about the team now, and we'll all go together, and we'll all try and like, look, it's not, this is probably the kumbaya moment dick, but it's, you know, it's not the Brady Bunch. It's a business. We don't mind that. We're going to go and we're going to go and we're going to be profitable together, but we're all going to look after each other as

Unknown: 1:04:25

well. And I would say the

Nick Lincoln: 1:04:32

George Kinder is coming here, isn't he?

Unknown: 1:04:35

He's already here. He's already here. Stop there. Hi George. Welcome George. But yeah,

Carl Widger: 1:04:41

the very last thing he would say, you know the destination and the journey, that's that's a point well made all the time, but I read something very recently, the last few weeks. It's about who's on the journey with you. For me, that changes the mindset entirely, so professionally and personally, who's on that journey with me, and that makes all the difference. And I you know, if you take a step back and we'll get to the culture corners, you'll, you'll, you'll see there's a kind of theme happening with me at the moment, but I do feel like I'm mentoring this new phase in my life, and it's very exciting, but it's not going to be plain sailing, and there's been a lot of hard yards to get to where I am Now.

Nick Lincoln: 1:05:35

Follow that. Follow those three fantastic little stories there that was really good. So I guess I come from a different perspective, more with Ultra really storyteller and della Bucha, multi ri firms, big, big number of staff, serious operations Andy myself are much more solo IFA firms. So we come to it from a different perspective, my story very quickly. Again, recurring theme. I was a broker rep, broker consultant in the late 1990s for what was allied Dunbar IFA division became Zurich, and I was calling on these ifas in in northwest London. And these were sort of low grade people.

Unknown: 1:06:15

It. I speak highly of, you know, Nick, to be fair,

Nick Lincoln: 1:06:20

I saw kin. These weren't great people, and they didn't really have great interpersonal skills, but they're making a good living. And I was calling on them, thinking, by the way, I wasn't really cut out for corporate life, you know. So, you know, working for little shit, working for big life, co endless, you know, KPIs and just everything. Was metrics, and it wasn't office politics. And I was kind of losing my will to live in there. Then I was calling on the Dire face, thinking, well, they're making a good living. I'll jump ship. So in 2001 I joined a local firm in borehamwood, and they were three plus a half group personal pensions. They would do anything for anybody. Oh, yeah, seven grand pet for your grandson. Yeah, we'll do that. Give it a go. No, they weren't, they weren't unethical, but it was just old school, and it was at fund managers with profit bonds, the normal crud. And after a few years there, and they, but they were very good to me, I've got to say they were, you know, decent people most the time. And I had this epiphany moment, the thing for me. And I talked about this before, but I can't, I cannot add some epiphany in this epiphany in 2008 and I went to this seminar, which I had to pay for to go to. So back in 2008 and I, here's me an IFA shelling out to come to something, whereas now, I mean, well, your evidence of this and probably regretting every minute of it. I paid to go to this seminar. And there's with a guy who is very much a bother or Marmite character, but I think he's been an enormous force for good. He has rough edges. The seminar was run by Paul Armisen. He talked about financial planning, lifestyle financial planning, about making the people the center of everything. He demonstrated quickly truth, because really, these seminars are away from to sell truth, okay? And that's fine. It's it's a it's a commercial world we live in. And I was absolutely blown away by this. And just as a show of hands, who in the room thinks Paul Armisen has been a force in the round? Who thinks that Paul Armisen has been a force for good? Yeah, and I think he gets a lot of shit in the neck because he puts his neck on the line. But that man has changed so many lives. Anyway, I came back from this seminar, and I thought I went back to my other directors who have just pulled out the trough, and I said, lifestyle, financial planning, ongoing fees, back to it. I've got to deal with this guy's grandson's pet, get out the way. So I was butting heads with them. I said, we got to pay for truth. They're going pay for what pay for. Pay for what pay for truth. So it just basically wasn't happening. So at the end of 2008 I left them on good terms, took some clients with me. I was a director by the state. I had a shareholder, and I said to the other shareholders, I'm going to waive my shareholding, because I'm going to say goodbye to my clients, because that's what I would want my advisor to say to me. And I think a lot of them going to say, Nick, can we come with you? So can we be grown up about this and just do that? So I weighed my shareholding. They said, Fine. I took some clients with me to my new firm, which gave me an ongoing, recurring income from day one. And I built a business with the end in mind. And again, I smashed this into ground like a tent peg. I begin with the end in mind. So I worked out, what do I need to earn from my business after corporation tax so I can build a lifestyle for me? Okay? If I need to earn this amount, how much turnover do I need, minus business costs to get me there? And that's all I've ever focused on, is just beginning with the end in mind, knowing, knowing that, knowing that figure is so crucial to me, and all I do is offer full fat financial planning to everybody that comes into my auspices, and some people don't want it from me, and some people are rejected by me, and I reject people as well. And that's perfectly fine. Carl said about having your belief I have a very for right or wrong, a very strong internal belief system, and I will impose it on my clients. We're not here to give clients what they want. We're here to give clients what they need, and if they don't want to hear what you're going to tell them, then on to the next one. Bring the next one into the room. Please. Have an abundance mentality. There are more than enough people out there willing, willing to pay for your services, and there'll be a significant number of people who won't like you and won't pay that's fine. Disregard them and find those people that you can help. I think doing full fat financial planning, you're probably limited to a maximum of 150 150 families you can handle at the at the out there, at the very most, 150 families out of a population in this country, whatever it's 68 million. Just focus on that. Be true to yourself. If you're thinking about going out on your own and you think you can handle it, because it comes with different pressures from the pressures that you two have, but it has its own pressures. I'm lucky. I've got voices in my head to talk to, but some people, some people, struggle with the solitude, and it can be and I am really on my own. I don't I don't employ anybody, but I love it, and I wouldn't change it for the world, if you think you can hack it. And if you're with a firm that we are doing something that you think is wrong, where they aren't doing full fat financial planning, where they are giving clients mumbo jumbo questionnaires. And the mumbo jumbo questionnaires are determining the portfolio which is wrong, which is evil. It will eat you inside morally, and it'll break. Cute, leave go out on your own. The worst that can happen is you do it and you screw up. I wish I'd gone out on my own earlier. I love it. I love it. I've got a lifestyle business. I'm earning what I need to earn for fund my lifestyle now and our future lifestyles. Best thing I ever did. This is a fantastic profession. If you're thinking about going on your own, all I would say is, do it right.

Unknown: 1:11:44

That's my time. I know this. There's quite a lot of the audience of trap, and quite a few people in here are younger advisors and people early on in their career. We've got many episodes. We've done 1717, my God, 71 but I have no idea which one it was, but there's a couple of things that Nick did, but we had an entire episode once, which is along the lines of, if you got started, the biggest challenge we've all got is winning clients, finding, as you say, there's 68 million people, but engaging with clients. You did a brilliant episode of literally, step by step, what you would do. We're talking about Companies House and download stuff Nicholas, just find a niche, find this focus, and literally reach out to people. And if you, if you are, particularly if you're earlier in your career, and you are thinking about doing that, go back and look at some of the back episodes. There are some in amongst all the junk there are pretty good, insightful. There's some gold out there. Happens there is, you got to look very hard, but great

Nick Lincoln: 1:12:42

stuff. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, so I can see, well, I can't say I can see our front door, TRAPPIST, the post. Post lady's bringing the bulging sack of TRAPPIST questions, because I haven't got a front door here. She must be outside there. Anyway. This is the part of the show where we answer questions from our beloved Trappist. If you want to send a question in look at the pinned tweet on X or the pinned X on tweet. Whatever, submit your question, we will get to it. We're still asking questions from last year, and today's question is, well, it's more actually of a nice review, because we thought we'd have a nice review, because this is a lovely thing, and we love you guys and girls, and what you give back to us is great, and it just keeps us going. So oh my god, it's another warm piece. Here we go, right. This is from Peter watts, who's on LinkedIn. Peter says Nick Lincoln, thank you, all of you. In fact, thank you. I follow you all on LinkedIn. I sign up to hum premium, etc, and each and every one of you have had a positive impact on me and then my clients. I just want to reach out to Nick. This is embarrassing. I just want to reach out to Nick and say a separate Thank you for his post a week ago, you are not alone. Peter was struggling a little bit. He got out in his own was funny, bit of a burden. I needed to hear that I'm a solo advisor. And although I'm around clients every day, you can get a bit lonely. Sometimes. I really needed to read that post that day. So the takeaway for all of you is, keep posting good and bad, because someone out there you've never met gets your little bit of a boost, your little bit of a boost. Jesus Christ, you're a little bit of a boost that is needed. I am sure I'll pop a couple of ideas about areas I'd love to hear your thoughts on. But right now, I just want you all to hear Thank you. So there we go. That's a bit, a little bit. We have got one other question, but we just haven't got the time to answer. So we're doing episode 72 about how the mistakes we've made. We have done an episode on before we can finish early, right? So I think we need to go on to culture corner. I don't even know what I'm doing on my hands. Let's go on to culture corner seamlessly.

Carl Widger: 1:14:40

Yeah, it's me first, because I'm prepared. So I spoke about the book ikigai the last time, and they all slag me about it, and continue to slag me about it. And it's, it's like your meaning or your purpose in life. And so I read the quintessential book on this, which is, I know what it's called, Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. Now you could also call this man's inhumanity to man, it is the most it's a disturbing book, right? Viktor Frankl is an Auschwitz survivor, and the first part of the book is, is about that experience, and, oh, my God, it's just ridiculous. But the second part of the book, the guy is, is a psychotherapist, and he talks about logotherapy, and I suppose, about the, you know, what humans can overcome, and you know, if you have a certain meaning in your life that will help you overcome suffering. Now, obviously there's suffering that we all think we're encountering on a daily basis, nothing compared to Auschwitz, clearly, but there are really deep lessons in this. And yeah, as I said, maybe this is a turn 50 last year. As Andrew told me, Well, you're 51 now, next month. Carl, so can't say you're 50 anymore. So I think you do come to a stage in your life where you, well, I don't know. Maybe it's just me, where you start thinking about these things, and it's like, I'm like, going, oh my god, you know. So it's. What, what does the next for? I call it the third act. What does the third act look like? And I suppose I'm searching for it, searching for my own meaning in these kind of books. So I'd encourage everybody, though I think, I think everybody needs to read this book, because what happened was just horrific. And are we? Is there stuff like that happening now again? I don't know quite if it's the same, but there's certainly awful stuff happening. So it might help us all be better humans.

Nick Lincoln: 1:16:51

It is an awesome book. Follow that. Andy, I just want to mention close personal friend in the room, Pete Matthews hotel bill, who is blade the trail for financial services podcast. It's the whole reason why I launched mine. You inspired by him. Lots of people in this room are inspired by him for doing his great contact so Pete, thank you

Carl Widger: 1:17:18

very much. Can I just say about, you know, we read out the review, the one star review earlier on, and then we read out the question, which wasn't really a question about someone saying, you know, it was great. So we got both ends of it. But Pete sent me a message on LinkedIn yesterday. I've never met Pete, and it was just such a lovely message to say that he appreciates what I'm doing now for me, right? This is Pete, is my hero in financial planning, and I would have absolutely consumed so much of his stuff. So, you know, the keyboard warriors just go away, right? And just, please, just send somebody a nice message, because it would make everybody feel a little bit better. So Pete, I just wanted to say that, and thank

Unknown: 1:18:07

you. By the way, if anyone doesn't know Pete's got a new book out,

Nick Lincoln: 1:18:13

go buy it again. I think it's another Pete point. Did you interview JL Collins on your podcast? Okay, twice. So my culture corner is the book Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins, which I think is the best personal finance book out there. If you haven't read it, we both agree this is a good level if you haven't read it, read it. Simple Path to Wealth. JL Collins, I recommend listening to on Audible. Everyone's getting the phone out like this. I recommend listening to Audible because it's read it's read by the author. It's a superb, amazing book. Check it out. Nick me. Okay, so on the theme, on the theme of what is happening in this world and what is happening to the productive, and are we being squeezed by the non productive? The book I've just read, I think, for the fourth time. Hold your hand up if you've heard of Ayn Rand's Atlas. Shrugged. Okay, keep your hand. Anyone's actually read it? Yeah, okay, good man. It is. Keeps going on about it. It is, well, it's an important book. It's a pot boiler. It's 11 170 pages of very dense print, and it was written by this lady, Ayn Rand, who was she fled, a Jewish lady who fled with her family, fled the red Russia of the 1920s and the pogroms, and came to the USA. So she'd experienced collectivization, the very worst of it, at first hand. And in the late 40s, she started writing this book called Atlas Shrugged, and it was published in 1957 why Atlas Shrugged is so amazing. It is so prescient. It is the story of how an enveloping, encroaching government just takes over more and more of the lives of this It's America, because it's set in New York and also Colorado, and how the productive just turn their back and flee, and they go into hiding, and everything starts to break down, and the government goes from being what we would just understand as a democracy to being this thuggish thing where they're suddenly wearing military uniforms. And she wrote this in Eisenhower's Truman and Eisenhower's USA, which on the surface was a buoyant, booming economy, but she could see the signs then of what Roosevelt had brought in, and it's a book that still resonates. It's very lead and prose. I mean, all the heroes are amazingly heroic and good looking with no flaws, and all the villains are incredibly villainless and physically repellent with no upside. But it's a parable she is saying that to be productive is a good thing. To be selfish, to look after yourself and those around you is the first duty of man and woman, and then you can look after everybody else. The profit motive is good, and without it, we are screwed. And I think we're kind of living in those times today where people who make the profit and pay the taxes are looked down upon by the people who've never done that kind of thing, not a criticism of Rachel Reeve's government, per se, because the previous lot weren't any better, and they had 14 years. I think it's true that no one in the cabinet has worked in the real world. This is absolutely unbelievable. It's beyond comprehension that these people then tell us the rules. And the taxes and set the tone for how we are supposed to work. So Atlas Shrugged by iron Rand. It is a pot boiler. Penny's, I've given it to Penny, and she's, she's not opened it. She just looked at it and walked away. So that's my that's my culture. Cheers for that corn uplifter. Well, it's now listen, you know,

Carl Widger: 1:21:36

if he does, he go together? Well, you can stick we can stick up. We can

Nick Lincoln: 1:21:39

stick our heads in the ground and pretend these things aren't happening. And sometimes you read a work of fiction that's a parable about what could happen, you think, holy shit, this is happening. I

Carl Widger: 1:21:47

was joking, right? Look, we've

Unknown: 1:21:52

because it's this live show. I think all these culture corners have been kind of classics, one one way or another, right? They're not just heavy getting, yeah, it's kind of quite serious stuff, but they are, yeah, it's not the latest whatever podcast listen to last night sort of thing. So we've probably given a bit more thought to it. So what my my culture corner is not, well, a book is part of it. And I was just reflecting on the audience and a lot of the messages that I get from from advisors and where they are on their journey. I just want to share something. I'm going to guess probably half of you already be very familiar with this. Another half probably are not and haven't heard of it. For those that haven't heard about it, there is a model, a series of books, templates, structures, for anyone who's in business, particularly small business, if you're in a position of leadership, if you are thinking of starting a business, if you are in a business and growing it, and you've got a some sort of leadership role, there is a system called the Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS. Some of you very familiar. Some of you won't have heard of it. The kick start to this was a book called Traction. I see Steven up there, who's one of the early people who told me about it through our mutual friend Brett Davidson, and I was just thinking, so in our firm, I don't know, 810, years ago, we came across this thing, and it was just a game changer in our business, because I have read a ton of business books over the years, but they were never very practical. They're all very high level, as if you were some sort of global institution. This is very practical, you know, tools, templates, systems and processes, and if so that, as I say, in summary, if you're on business and you're thinking of taking it seriously and you're not quite sure, because none of us, and we're demonstrating through this session and every other session, we are all making up as we go along. So I just think it's a brilliant operating system. For those who haven't come across it, go and check out EOS and the book traction. Thank you.

Nick Lincoln: 1:23:43

Okay, I think that is the end of episode 71, of the real advisor podcast, and there's another episode slides down the U bend of Father Time. Can I please ask that you do leave a six out of five star review on iTunes? It really does help us. It gets us up in the ratings. We are going to have a short recess now, a break whatever I think recess of Americanism Sam has influenced me. We're gonna have a short break, and we're gonna come back in 15 minutes for Q and A so please, if you get the time to go out there and have a libation due on behalf of the Track Pack. We love you guys and girls. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here today. We're going to keep going. It's going to get better and better, and we'll see you in 15 minutes or so.

Unknown: 1:24:39

This guy's first Mr. Paul clew Earth, there's a mic. There's a mic. He told me he's got seven prepared questions. We'll go with one with those next. Okay, okay, right. I've got a question in an age where AI Robo advice and automated platforms are growing fast. How do you see real financial planners standing out and demonstrating their true value over the next decade?

Nick Lincoln: 1:25:10

Alan, I didn't understand it. What'd he say? Say again, it's got flattened vows. It's not that difficult. Hey, he is from Bolton. We might need to translate this

Unknown: 1:25:22

in an age where AI Robo advice and automated platforms are growing fast, real financial planners standing out demonstrating cliched answer. But it's true, it's just about raising the human experience. So what we're all for? I'm the biggest fan and believer in technology, AI automation. There is so much crap in all our lives and business lives that we've got some of our colleagues here who we know that, don't we that that are time consuming, monotonous and what have you. So I do believe, since time began, humans engage with other human beings. They sit around camp fires, they share stories, they have conversations, they ask great questions, and they learn from each other. And it means, in my opinion, you just got to be better and better at that. And thank God, and let them. Machines and the technology and the AI and everything else and things like your specialist subject, Sam marketing thing, were overwhelmed with boring AI content. So, but the value of being a unique human being with a personality and a story to share, I think that's what it's all about. Thoughts.

Nick Lincoln: 1:26:35

Yeah, I think AI is going to do lots of really good stuff in terms of just streamlining workflow and everything else. But then are they people by people, and never more. So has the human connection been important? This whole thing of ours is about trust, all right? And you're not going to get that from a bot or AI. You're going to get data. You're going to get nice prose. Maybe that sounds authentically your voice, but people want to look at you and they want to hear your voice, and that's what it's always been about. And it'll be more so going forward, and after a while, people don't even care what you say. They just don't understand half of what we talk about. But they'll act on it because it's Nick Lincoln saying it, and they go, yeah, and that's the human thing. And that'll never go, i think AI is going to be very good for our profession. But don't worry about losing the human side of it. Admin and power planning, you know, have a look around. But I would say that, because that's their help. But, yeah, I think from the advice, but

Unknown: 1:27:34

that's the point, that role. Let's face it, it's not the most exciting thing. No one other things I say. No one committed financial planning to sit in a darkened room with spreadsheets and writing reports. It's dull, right? So those very people who can elevate their own experience, engagement with with others, it's better for everyone. It's better for clients, better for team, staff, everyone else. So I think the future is very, very bright, regardless of where you are in our profession, ultra

Nick Lincoln: 1:28:04

I believe the number one thing our clients are paying us for is behavioral coaching. The recent wobble in the markets at the end of March just confirms that we are needed more than ever. Obviously, there was an extreme decline and there's an extreme advance, but the people that don't have the human advisor have probably made insane mistakes that they maybe never recover from. So AI, software technology is amazing, but as I say, the human connection is is number one, irreplaceably human, I think is the key words I've heard today. So yeah. Carl thoughts,

Carl Widger: 1:28:32

why are you all here? Good question. Genuinely, you're all here to talk to each other, to to have that human connection. We crave it. AI can do its thing. I would say that like aI can't in a financial planning team can't create what if scenarios around goals, dreams and aspirations, it just can't. So I don't think para planners can be replaced there, but I think we all I'm sure of it. We know it. This is proof of it, that we all crave human connection, so therefore I wouldn't give all my money to a robot online. So you can assume most of your clients are not going to do it, so therefore we will endure.

Nick Lincoln: 1:29:23

Okay, really good. Next question, please. John

Unknown: 1:29:27

fellow Scott, thank you. Hello. Good evening. John Douglas from finicol wealth in Glasgow, the sub city north, I heard of it. I

Nick Lincoln: 1:29:41

believe it exists. Have you been Nick,

Unknown: 1:29:43

before I ask my question, can I just say on behalf of all the Trappists in the room, excluding those who have gone home early to thank you very much indeed for all that you do. It's always very informative, educational and entertaining, and we have a deep debt of gratitude to you for that. So thank you continue for many, many years to come. So the question but about the significant changes coming up in the UK next year, around business relief, the following year, learned around pensions becoming back into the inheritance tax net, and you alluded to the terminology wealth managers have all become a little bit sophisticated over the years. Should we kind of reboot a little bit, get back to vanilla basics and have life assurance at the top of our agendas? So my, my, my take on that is quite simple. We're in the we're in the business of problem solving, right? That's what we should be. So, so I'm, I happen to be, this applies regardless of what sort of client bank you look for. I'm a believer in being sort of a niche focus and looking after specifics. So if you've got business owner clients, or dentist clients, or whatever it is, but it applies across the piece. What Who do you Who do you serve? Who do you look after, who do you work with, and what are the unique challenges and problems that they've got? It shouldn't come from us. Should we sell more insurance? Well, is that an issue for your target audience? I think we have become just diverted by some of these things. Because let's, let's face it. Of some of the aspects you talk about. And as you said, business relief, etc, throws up a whole lot of set of challenges, which involves tax, maybe trusts insurance, complexity, so it's harder, but there, but at the same time, there's absolutely now and in the future, there's a whole, if you look after business owner clients specifically, or farmers, Nick performance, there is a set of there's a new set. There is a new set of challenges. Just on that point back in my don't play the drop in my early days, was an IFA long since retired, who very, very very successful guy who talked told me a lot about it. He said, he said, when these things come in, generally, generally, generally, generally socialist governments, that even should talk about, how do I deal with these amateurs, when you have a government where there's higher taxes and everything else as an advisor. So it affects you. You pay more tax yourself, but there are so many and more opportunities for advisors. So in summary, find who do you work with? What are the problems? And yes, if some of the problems demand you learn more about if it's insurance or anything else, then you absolutely should.

Nick Lincoln: 1:32:33

Yeah, very brief comment. We've not yet seen these changes come into play. The Business One is huge. The pension one is ginormous. We don't know exactly how it's going to going to play out, but when the facts change, we change our mind. So yes, the insurance option might become a lot more front of mind to us in the room, but as I say, we haven't yet seen what this these huge changes are going to be. But yeah, it's going to be interesting. Watch this space. I kind of got out of the habit of writing life assurance, John. I think many of us might have done that. And now, when I, if I take on board a prospect couple in their sort of 30s or 40s with a mortgage already, I kind of pray they got the life assurance in place. Okay, so we all will, yeah, right, because it's such a ball Lake, isn't it, and the Commission, the Commission and the Commission. So the joint life second death kind of thing might come back into vogue, but it's you got too healthy, too healthy. A couple in their 30s, and you get a quote for term assurance. Then you try and put place setting, you know, one of them cut their toe now, and it's a rating comes in. I just think Jordan of second death. It should be, it should be a much more used thing going forward. And it's covered, yeah, but just getting this stuff on the books is so bloody painful. I'm not sure. I'm not sure it will be, yeah. So the way that markets

Unknown: 1:33:50

work, what we might see increasingly, if this is an absolute need to get them all believed, think capitalism creates solutions to problems that are apparent. And what I'm seeing, and this exists because I spent a bit more attention on it recently, is you have specialist companies who just do this that you can build partnerships, relationships with. Say, we come across this. It's very complex business only situation with different ownership structures. We're going to refer these companies going to work as a partnership like, you know, like a good doctor or lawyer says they could deal with a specialist, but we'll manage the overall piece. I think that'll become increasingly popular.

Carl Widger: 1:34:22

John, thanks for the first comment, by the way. Yeah, thank you. If you're doing real financial planning and things change in terms of legislation or tax regimes, that determines where you go in term you know, for products or solutions. So I know I answer this. This is the same answer all the time. It's like the financial plan will dictate, because the financial This is why AI is never going to supersede us, because we will do it for each family individually, do the financial plan, and then we will decide, and only then, on what financial products, investment funds, etc, they need. So stick to your guns. Everyone. Stick to your guns. No matter what happens in terms of regimes, everybody you know, the families you serve, still need real financial planning.

Unknown: 1:35:16

Okay, next question, hi guys. So yeah, it's just a quick one. So you're big advocates for full financial planning. What I want to know is, how have you actually incorporated that into your own lives? So you talk about it with clients, what you actually do in your own lives where it kind of resonate, resonates the giggling, yeah. Can

Nick Lincoln: 1:35:37

we have different question? I quickly go, but yeah, I do it. We Penny and I Well, Penny sits in but not every I have my own financial plan. I use the same software I use with clients I don't Alan Andy might add a little twist on this. I absolutely embrace, and I do have my annual planning meeting with myself. I go through the same process as I did with my clients. I totally but I believe, I believe, if you get the inputs right, the outputs of the software are so great, so intuitive. So I do and I invest in the same funds my clients are invested in. I think financial advisors who invest in something different to the portfolios they put their clients into are. Are the spawn of Satan. So I'm in the same funds of my clients. I take the same medicine as them. I'm on the same platform as them. I use the same financial planning software as them, and I totally buy into financial planning built around a meaningful cash flow forecast. And I cannot imagine giving any advice to anybody without the context of a financial plan in the background. So I totally imbibe it. That's That's my approach to that

Unknown: 1:36:44

when I answer, because I do, but I guess what I'm trying to ask to a different question, personally, lifestyle wise, what are you doing differently from that? Finance? What's your name?

Nick Lincoln: 1:36:57

Sir, Sam. Sam, Sam, I'll tell you how many hours I work when Penny's not in the room. I have a lifestyle financial planning business. I mean, if you ask me seriously, how many hours client facing work I do a week, probably eight hours. Client face. No serious client face. That's a busy week. There's prep work and there's other stuff as well, but you never switch off. As a business owner, I've got 80 odd client families, annual planning meetings. They come in batches, two a week, three a week. In the busy period, holidays are off because I'm married to a lovely, lovely lady who's a head teacher, so I don't work in the holiday. I embrace lifestyle, financial planning, and I talk about to my clients. So you people sensing again, companies, this human thing and AI and why humans are important. People can sense if there's incongruence in your statements and how you actually act in your life. If you say you're a lifestyle financial planner, and you really may need your class at 3am in the morning about the Japanese market having a yen rebound, currency drop story. So I am totally sorry. Anyway. Okay. I mean, I'm just chipping very briefly. I'm similar to Nick, you know, I'm my own financial planner, which obviously would be pushed back against. My financial plan is very abstract. Lots of random stuff happened over over the years, but I'm similar to Nick, same platform, same portfolio. I tell that. I tell myself the exact same thing. I tell my clients, obviously you could push back and say you need to have an independent person, but yeah, I'm also quite like Nick in a focused I believe we call it over to these,

Unknown: 1:38:21

I'm going to respond to that this make this might make you smart, so I hire a financial planner, but it's him and and this kind of alludes to Paul's question earlier on, because not yet

Nick Lincoln: 1:38:35

an update for a while, We had up, we had our big it'll be a happy. We

Unknown: 1:38:41

had our we had our big refund, annual planning meeting, everything about what we did afterward, for a few beers afterwards, but, but we met, and this, this was the point, seriously, maybe you can imagine him and I was kind of bearing my soul and as all my personal finances, never been because, you know, I wanted to, I wanted to show and I wanted to identify, and because the whole point is, we can do it ourselves, but we can't hold our own feet to the fire. Is the key thing. And Jesus Christ is this guy, hold your feet to the fire. He was just hardcore. You remember that? Yeah, absolute heart can win. You do what you did. You spend how much so we did an update. We didn't meet

Carl Widger: 1:39:29

again. He's much

Unknown: 1:39:34

more gentle. But anyway, so so that I think that that all makes sense. And I think this is the point. This is what we do. We hold our clients accountable to their own dreams and ambitions. Mr. Cleveland, you have your own financial planner. What's it called? Yeah, I was gonna ask him, and I did it to him.

Carl Widger: 1:40:05

Actually, I take could be waiting, that's just a guess. Sorry, sorry, can I just ask Sam? I think Am I right in the question is more around, like

Unknown: 1:40:17

the lifestyle, it's such a care about the financial Yeah, cash flow, I get you're gonna do that. It's more like, what are you doing with your lives to get that fulfillment?

Carl Widger: 1:40:30

And it's a really great question, because sometimes when you ask people who come in to do a financial plan, they think they're coming in to talk about their pensions and investments, and can we put the kids through college, or can we buy a house to them or whatever? And you're there going, Yeah, but what are the real what are the real goals? And you're like, but, but if money was no object, like, what would you do? And and you're trying to push them along, right? And I felt like a little bit of a fraud, because I was like, I don't know myself. And there's, there's, there's, there's context around that. But I would say it's a great question, and it's something that I'm trying to figure out for all the reasons I alluded to earlier on. So I think it's a really good

Unknown: 1:41:07

question. Took me to answer that in it's a bit like when Nick says, begin, begin, with the end in mind. So you know, I've been in business for 21 years. This year, and to quote my friend Mr. Stevenson, I'm off the tools. I haven't been advising clients like being a regulated advisor for quite a few years now. So my role, and intentionally, I think, as you grow a company, and we, you and I are talking about this now, Carl, aren't we, as you kind of grow a business, you've either got to be deep in the weeds and doing client work, or you've got to hire someone to run a business. Need an MD or a CEO or something. And so I personally took that the latter role to be much more sort of strategic and less in the weeds dealing with clients. So therefore I can kind of shape my my lifestyle so and I think it's really important. And every year, I mean, I'm we're in my family, we're pretty dull. We got the same places every year, but every January, my holidays are booked in the, you know, year ahead, my various trips and things like that. And so I've kind of got to a stage, but I've been at it a long time. I was, you know, early days. I, you know, I didn't have the time to do anything because you're trying to build a business. You're trying to put all, you know, you swap your time for for money. But I'm now much more thoughtful about it, and I created a what I, you know, I'm really enjoying it. It's like a nice lifestyle for me, but it takes, it takes years and years to do

Nick Lincoln: 1:42:22

it, right? Okay? Thank you. Thank you. It's a great question. They all been great questions. That is it. I think because we are respective of the I'm sorry, we're respectful of the time of the Royal College of Physicians, I want to say thank you to the Trappists. I'm going to miss some people out here. I want to thank Amelia, our amazing our amazing MC, Samantha Russell, who gave a fantastic presentation earlier on. I want to thank the AV team here, who are great, who thought it was a good idea to put a glass table with glasses on and glass jugs he's shooting. But thank you for you and I, and I want to thank you guys. You've seen four guys suck themselves up on stage. We'll see you next year. Thank you trappers. Love you. Loads. You