13 - AUM: Advisers Under Management

of English language. Joining me as ever in the studio doing what the three of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse the so called trap pack call the watch Meister widger along on the storyteller Smith and Andy Hart gentlemen We have a show packed full of absolutely nothing so let's start packing it straightaway Andy mangle some reviews for us my friend.

reviews very insightful. And the slightly longer review is from Scooby Dee 10 five stars, a trap worth falling into I expected nothing less from these advisors with an E. But loving the relaxed format and chatting through shared thoughts and ideas could only be better if I was in a pub with them with a beer or three. And I was there to join in. But for now this does nicely. Appreciate you all giving up your time to give back. That's it over to you Nick.

money. And I just can't see this being resolved in any way. Whether where there's there's gonna be trust or satisfaction on either side. That's an awful lot of money.

pounds. It reminds me you know when you hear of that the regulator, getting a new logo and it costs at 4.5 million US Hyung you must get the ideal job is to be a lawyer who gets appointed or sort of does a brand logo designer for a big corporate and just charge millions because those figures are just off the scale. Nuts.

drain. In other news firm in the southwest of England, called Nexus has run into problems. It looks like there's been some nefarious activities going on, we can't say the person's name. However, there's one director at this firm. And in the news reporting. So far, the FCA are after this one director, suffice to say that this one person appear to be one of these award junkies and won awards left, right and center. And I think awards probably have a place but I also think it's a little bit

it's projection. And people that enter awards for their own sake and routinely enter awards. It's like, okay, what are you trying to prove? And anyway, the thing about the one upside of the story is that it happens so infrequently, that when it does, it's big news, but nevertheless it does tarnish all of us and that includes UCAR. All of us advisors who are trusted with client monies. It's definitely

doing what we're doing. And I suppose our big focus here is to, you know, make sure that the corporate governance is spoken about it. I've spoken about it so much, make sure it's, you know, absolutely as rock solid as it possibly can be.

trust. And again, Carl, forgive me, I'm not sure if you have an equivalent in in Ireland, but VCT is aware that the British government is dead keen on on startup British companies, micro companies getting investment funds to help them live off the ground. And if you invest in these companies, you get these tax reliefs upfront. And a VCT is where a fund manager God helped me invest in a range of these small micro businesses aimed listed businesses. So you

have to pick the VCTs. And it's like going back to being active fund manager, but on selector but on steroids, because you really don't know anything about any of these startups just like throwing, but I put a bit of money into a couple of VCTs. And you get 30% knocked off your tax bill as a result. And I mentioned this to him, or these IFA friends that I was with. And you know, and one of them said to me quite aggressively, like I see why he was being they said,

Well, okay, that's great. And you recommend this for your clients? Do you Nick as as likewise? And I said, No, I don't actually I don't recommend VC to that. I know, it's part of my retail package products. VCTs are in that category. And we're duty bound to raise them with clients when it's appropriate. And I do raise VCTs with clients. But I will never go as far as to actually researching and recommending one because there's just too many moving

parts. So I flagged the fact that VCTs are out there for clients that have got substantial tax bills, do your own research if you want to. Because it's just it's I mean, the clients are going to forget about the 30% tax relief, they're going to forget that you're locked in for five years, they're going to forget that these things are highly illiquid, and your your loss of permanent capital be wiped out. There's they're very illiquid, clients will forget all this.

And also I've got I haven't got the skills to to research the underlying VCT to any great proficiency. But I think this this one is I suppose I was talking to, he was saying he's got on his pi, the access for standard stuff is about 2k. For pension switching, it's about 5k. For VCTs, the excess is 15,000 quid, and that's I'm charging 15,000 quid for each bit of advice. I give one a VCT. There's no There's no way I can

touch them as a businessman. So although the FCA might say you need to address these, and I do generically, there's no way I'm ever getting into a product recommendation, or VCTs. It's just there's just no upside for anybody. So it's just interesting to see how other people are then if you guys have ever used VCTs through the advised side of your lives.

this stuff. But there is some published information EIS, forget about it as sort of one company at a time, but VCTs there is some published

information on it. And the report which we had commissioned, the upshot of it was that if it wasn't for the tax break, you're losing money on these things with a tax break you're just about breaking even but the other thing to recognize is because it is very it's very kind of labor intensive go to the individual research and individual micro companies all that is you know, super expensive so your your fees and costs are enormous you still it's sort of like going back to

10 or 20 years you got five or 6% initial spreads when you set the thing up you've got ongoing fees the best part of 3% If you've got all the added costs, you've got a huge hurdle rate and other tax relief helps but the conclusion we came to and it was you know pretty much evidence based and research based was you better off just for going to tax rate tech tax break and just investing in the public markets in a more

traditional way. Your your easy access liquidity super low costs, alright, you're not getting the same degree of tax breaks but overall all things considered not couldn't come up with a very compulsive reason to recommend these in any sort of scale as a pot as opposed to the the occasional the very rare set of circumstances that will happen, you know, once every few years. What are your thoughts, Andrew?

clients. I know some advisors that dead keen on them and there are companies that do a lot of research for you but yeah, I still avoid advising on them high end vanilla firm but on anything blowing up on a sleep well at night and you're right Alan, we spoke about this before some of these sorts of tax led investments maintaining the capital value but saving tax on the back end you're better off just investing in standard investments and getting the market returns which over time

you know, a fabulous So yeah, that's my thoughts

plan is owned by an ex Hargreaves Lansdown director. So he's taken that approach of let's make this really clear, friendly, easy to use, and seamless kind of end to end things. So anyway. And Carl, just to close on the mission, do you have a similar similar kind of structures in Ireland?

what we're good at. And that's definitely not something that that we will be looking at anytime soon. Or ever

assessment. So they've got a look at they've all got a you know, the appointed board and that there's this they effectively are told to mark their own homework, you know, is this fund is this range of funds is it value for money? And yeah, happens to be Hargreaves Lansdown one that I saw you I could have chosen any one frankly, but the one that came out last week, but no sorry,

sector average 26%. So the generally underperforming by about two thirds, the sector is doing sort of two to three times over the exactly the same period and the same sector, the return. So they all sit around and say, right, boys and girls, is this value for money to our consumers, our customers. Yep,

of course, tick the box. No, I know, there's more than one thing and performance, but really, to an investor, what counts for more than the actual returns are my assets and investments that you're giving me. So the whole thing, and it just concerns me when you think about and without dragging back consumer duty in all the regulations that we've got me go back a few years to treating customers fairly and not providing any barriers to exit, someone wants to change their mind. And big providers are

still got exit penalties. I just honestly, I scratch my head, I get frustrated to see these things. And you can imagine the amount of millions of pounds spent on introducing this legislation, and that they all sit around and tick the boxes. So yeah, we're fine, great value for money. We're underperforming our sector by 60%.

see, this is good value. There's no consequences, it would seem to me anyway, I don't know unless I've there's other things yet to happen in the works that have yet to come to fruition.

now. And also, we were joined by a very fresh faced young man by the name of Tom Sims. So I'm here with Tom Sims from first wealth. One of the one of the best practices in the London probably the best practice in London, some would say, maybe not Alan Smith. Tom is new to our profession. Tom, you're listening to the real advisor podcast. Be honest about it. What do you think

just abysmal. Ben Cordner is as you say, it's so you can find both those guys on on Twitter and they were we were there were so many Trappists there we run a very highly organized competition and it was Ben and Tom and all the hundreds that were there that one a couple of symptom traps swag, they were event

business on or whatever. And a couple of times, despite our best efforts along the way, you know, when you ask what are the plans, the client doesn't know. You know, and I think it's, it's so, so important. If we want to do real financial planning, which of course all of us do, to be addressing these issues with our clients, well, in advance of that selling the business moment

or retirement moment. And I think, you know, the broadly speaking, I think we need to be talking about a number of different pillars, you know, mental fitness, so making sure that you know, you're in a really good place, because a lot of people have kind of their their sense of identity is linked to their role, their profession, their job, their business, whatever that might be. And when it's gone, it's gone. And you might have a big

bank balance afterwards. But a big balance bank balance afterwards isn't much use to you if you don't know what your purpose is going to be. Once you've gotten through that transaction, shall we say, and I think work around. And I think it's really important that couples do this together, work around what your values are, what's important to you. And, you know, we can all talk about bucket list items and goals and

dreams and aspirations. And we do of course, but we really need to start drilling in I think as real financial planners into those things well in advance of

someone coming to that date. And you know, a lot of our clients are coming in they're talking they're very focused on the finances and, and yeah, loosely, you might be saying, Yeah, you know, real wealth is gonna allow me do the things that I want to do with the people that I want to do it with and when I wanted to do this, but it's to actually talk about that's a lovely statement to make. But give us details, what does it look like and start to talk about that and may Maybe it's you know,

upskilling or rescaling. So, you know, are you going to maybe I have a couple of clients who have gone through this process, and they've become kind of coaches, so life coaches, mentors, whatever, and absolutely loving it, and they're not doing it because they have to do it, they're doing it because they want to do it. And it's just something that I thought, you know, it was worth kind of bringing up. We are the real advisor podcast. So it's real financial planning.

And it's so so important. And, you know, even when we were talking about the stuff earlier on about different tax write offs, or products, or what you know, did, that's not what we're about. And so maybe Alan, I know, your podcast is the bulletproof entrepreneur, and I've listened to all of the episodes, and I find them really, really good. And I know you've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs who've kind of been through the process and out the other side. So what's your

take on this? Have you kind of insights from the interviews that you've done, in terms of, you know, what people should be looking at? Or what the experience was for entrepreneurs?

transition. And so I was really on a personal basis, I was fascinated by the human journey, that people would go on the the financials or the other financials, aren't they, you know, you do your modeling, you make sure you're tax efficient and reliable and you know, assets allocated there in the correct ways and you get organized. But there's human

beings in the story. There's often there's people and couples and partners and children, sometimes grandchildren, and is it there's a really complex, dynamic and set of circumstances and yet I for one, just find it just really, really interesting, hence launching this podcast last year. And it reflecting back on it, you know, it's I've done what 2021 22 episodes now. And some really stand out for me, particularly on this subject called there's, there's one common episode five or six guy

called Mike Ames. And Mike was a very successful he was in the recruitment industry, built a business kind of from scratch, scaled it up significantly, and sold it for, you know, a very significant amount of money, life changing amount of money, such that he never needed to work again, he was in his 40s at

the time, sold his business. And as he says, he and what's fascinating about this, these podcasts interviews as people are very, to my experience, kind of surprisingly candid, they really sort of bare their soul. And Mike did particularly because Mike talked about going into a you know, a very dark place. You said so, so my business had all the money I would ever need the rest of my life, and yet, almost kind of couldn't get out of bed in the morning. And a lot of it was

about identity. It was about purpose. He again openly shares on the on the conversation, he had to get a therapy yet or people sort of coaching him and working with him. And of course, everyone else would think, Oh, you know, wish I had your problems. You know, you're a multimillionaire you no big deal, you know, bring out the smallest violin in the world to play for you. But you know, as

they say, this shit is real. And he really really struggled when he talks about you know, the things that are you talk about identity was also activity if you've literally got nothing to do every day. It's almost kind of comical in a way because he's, he said, I had to spread out my activities across the

week so much to do. A friend of phoned me up and say, you want to play golf on Friday, you said and I'm getting my hair cut on Friday Harburg about golf and Tuesday because I didn't want to do two things in the same day.

success of it. And she now she she's Got a book called a seller's journey, and she really unpacks this whole thing and loads, loads of experience, she coaches business owners, particularly in those going through life transitions. And it's just so interesting, you know, she's made an entire career out of this very complex, difficult set of circumstances.

And as you says, it's not just about selling a business, there's life transitions aren't there could be a retirement, it could be a divorce, it could be someone passing away, there's a number of just life experiences going on, we are very much at the forefront of we're doing our jobs properly, we are the, you know, in the for call inside the families in a circle of trust, you know, what things are being shared with us aren't being shared with the accountant, with the lawyer with a lot of other

people. And I sometimes say, you know, if there's a bereavement in the family, sadly, whether we're the first phone call, after the family after the, you know, the, the children, or anyone else has been contacted, who should we call next, we'll call our financial planner, because they know, they know the kind of the financial parts in the legal parts, but they also know the family sort of circumstances. So it's, it's an

interesting place to be. What about you guys, any thoughts on this kind of this third act, the life transitions, where you thought,

figuratively. And as Alan said, clients share stuff with us, they would never share with their accountants they would never share with their solicitors, but they'll share them with us. And these significant life events. You know, this this the theme today of what do you do when you've sold and you got this great big lump sum of money? Firstly, you've got a human being who now is thinking I want to play golf on a Friday because when I get my hair cut, that's I

desperately barren my diary. But also they've given you, they've given you their hard work in the form of this lump sum of money. They're there three decades worth of hard work is now yours. Don't screw this up. Alan Carr, Addy, Nick, don't screw this up. And so if you imagine like a Venn diagram, one circle is the solicitor one circle is the accountant. The one circle is the advisor. But we are the only

one who overlaps in it. We know the clients finances, the counselor knows that great, we know the client's legal situation and their estate planning. The solicitor has done that. But it's just about no anything else. We know their finances, their estate planning. And then we also know their their, their cash flow, their money, fears, their family situation around money, all the other kinds of stuff. So we are,

we carry a lot. And I think sometimes we just underestimate how much we carry because we have jobs that we enjoy on the upside. But there's definitely a subconscious toll that takes our energy levels. I don't know if Andy want to talk about that for handing back to car.

got expensive questions. Am I going to be okay, am I saving enough? You know, is the money going to last? I'm a big fan of the three questions that Mitch Anthony talks to with clients. I'll just very quickly go through now. So the first question is, have you had enough? And it's generally just a question around their work and business? Have you had enough of going into the office or doing whatever it is? You do? So have you had enough? That's the first question. People usually answer

that. You know, pretty pretty, definitively. The next question is, have you got enough? And that's a financial question. You know, have you got enough? Will the money outlast you? That's the key. Next question. They obviously then say, that's what I hoped you're going to help me out with. And then the third question is, do you have enough to do, which again, we've touched upon today, and that's usually the one that sort of

hits them the hardest? And I think, yeah, my identity is going to be last, you know, Friday, I've got sort of responsibility when I'm looking after teams and you know, I've got an important role or whatever and on Monday, I can't get a plumber to turn up you know, you know, their identities gone. So that's the thing that they fear the most, I think, overdue call.

feel like a burden. Albeit it is really important. But if I can, if I can, maybe am I elaborate on that point or are kind of pull that thread a small bit. It's incumbent on us, therefore, to make sure that we are looking after ourselves and the people around us right in terms of the teams that are working with us. And you can only do your best work. And you can only have a deep impact on your clients and your families that you look after, if you're actually in a

good place yourself. And I think I'm kind of this spring into mind that I think it was the first time I met all of you boys actually, it was a humans under management under 2018. And Alan Smith's talk was, I think, advisors under management saw a play on the Aum ladder. So the reason I'm saying this is all well and good, you know, talking about all these things, but you need to look after yourself. I wrote a blog actually earlier this year. And it was, it was a pointed blog because I wrote a

blog to myself. And it was like I published this blog as a promise to myself and the blog, which I think we put in the show notes, and was called put on your own oxygen mask first. And that's something I've been really really poor at even though I know these things. I'm just about to renew my passport 2023 You boys have seen the picture of my passport from 2013, which are the few years

after I set up my business. I look at that person grossly overweight and just stood there is nothing good about Yeah. There is nothing good about that picture.

that, right. And it was only for a couple of weeks. But my team here and Mattis were absolutely phenomenal. And I do think and it's this is really important. And anybody who saw the text messages that flew between us late last night would not believe this for a second, right. But I also had you guys to lean on and to say guys struggling a little bit. And we

talked it through. And, you know, part of us talking it through as well was that each one of you, I think basically said, yeah, there was a time when I was struggling and you know, blah, blah, and this is what I did and, and making sure that Andy used to send me texts at ridiculous hours of the day's day and evening say remember, do this, remember do that, you know and, and you know, sometimes they're really gonna Jesus Christ, but Genoa, brilliant, brilliant reminders, you know,

and the words were so well meant. And I knew, I've got a bunch of people in my corner here who are saying you are doing the right thing and drive on. So look one year on from having to take two weeks out. And here we go back to the smallest violin in the world, right and firstworldproblems and all that. But so important, because you can only do your best work with your clients, if you are in a good place. And like I'm in at the moment, it's really, really busy, but I'm

just loving it. And I'm feeling like I'm having an impact. And, you know, that's where I want to remain. But I can only do that, if I remind myself to look after myself. So Alan, I pass over to you, because I think the advisor under management is such a great phrase and, you know, remind ourselves to look after ourselves.

years ago. With this. We took on a new client, and you will all have clients like this. Just lovely couple that, you know, that came to us that were just getting into retirement. And, you know, not every one of your clients are your best friends. But these are ones that I thought I would know them socially. You know, I could hang out with them. I could go for a drink or go for dinner with them. They were kind of my sort of people bit bit cheeky a bit irreverent but you know, the

family focus. They had grown up children just had their first grandchild, lived in London, sold his business, retired down to Devon and we're just planning you know, the next day we're just early 60s planning that next several decades of their lives, and we, as I say, we hit it off like the proverbial house on fire. We did all the modeling all the planning worked out how much they needed. And you know, just we're just mapping out the next several decades of their

life that loves skiing. We're gonna go to Canada that we have this sort of bucket list things that we're going to do. And you kind of know where this is headed, because everything was wonderful. And I got a phone call out of the blue. This is a, you know, a year later, after we did all the work, everything was implemented, everything was up and running. And I got a phone call from this guy. Let's call him Stephen. And he just goes, Alan, I'm going to cut straight

to the chase. He said, I've been diagnosed with cancer, I'd be given less than less than a year to live. And I just honestly, it just hit me, you know, these are things that happen. But I just, I was really shocked by it. I was taken aback by it. And particularly because I was deeply involved in the initial planning work, and really in a quite a granular level, working out what they were going to do this year, five years now 10 years from now. And he says, Yeah, less than a year to live.

So look, can we meet up we got some stuff to do. And Paul, so my colleague, Charles and I, we traveled down to, to Devon. And we spent, we spent a couple of days we booked a hotel, we spent the whole day with them. And honestly their house, they're sort of they're bought this home, their forever home to retire to. And if any of you guys know solchen, beautiful, beautiful part of the world, and it was just overlooking the

beach. And it was just amazing, an amazing home, you can imagine sitting in that room, we've all done versions of this, going through just working out what life is going to be like after he passed. You know, it was brutal. Really, really, you know, the tears were never far from your eyes. On the one hand, I'm thinking I'm just a financial planner, just trying to do the right the right work here. But it was intensely human. And we stayed the night, we'd all went out for dinner

that evening. And it was you know it, there's some it's ridiculous, really, because we had a laugh, we were laughing, we almost forgot what was going on. At the time, you know, a few bottles of wine was shared good, you know, and he used to do take the mick out of me all sorts of little sort of jokes. And he would, he would have at my

expense, Charles's expense. And if any, we just had a good, good fun evening, next day, drivers back to the train station gives me a hug, which I don't do with every client, certainly every meal on it, and looks me in the eye. And he said you have thank god, you're here looking after us for this difficult time, go home, life goes on, keep in touch with them. Then I get a call from his wife to say, you know, only a few months later, that he's gone. He's passed. I was just And that's so that

particular example. And we've as I say, we've all got versions of him. There's other situations I've been involved as well. But that one really hit me hard. I took it kind of I couldn't stop thinking about it. Honestly, for weeks and weeks, I still think about it. Now this was a couple of years ago, this all happened. I still think about it now. And we do take on sometimes we've got this kind of mental gymnastics to go through. And again, this is more sort of

small violins. But this was this can hit you very profoundly when you know the the other side of the coin when you get in the positive is you get close to a family you understand what they're doing what you're trying to achieve with their life. And the downside is when things don't go according to plan, you really feel it. You feel it in in a hard way. So again, these are this is a sort of the ups and downs of the work that we do. I wouldn't have it any other

way. I love it. But it can impact you and it can you know it, as I say sort of knocked me sideways for quite a while. That was you wake up in the morning thinking about thinking about the all the unfulfilled ambition that family will never now have because of you know, a cruel twist of fate in life.

Look after yourself first and dozens that you love

sack. questions as you can hear the TRAPPIST had been stirring and they've been knocking them out for us as well that goes to the link in the pinned tweet at applies a podcast or even easier. Go to the exact same link in the show notes. You click on there you put your name your question, you hit submit, you do it that way. We will get round to your question. We'll go through them chronologically. So many to get through the please consider doing that. That'd be

absolutely great. And the three questions were shut because he three questions perched on.

group. Is there a defined path for second career is to join the professional whilst using their extends their existing skill set relevant experience without going back to square one from an earnings perspective? Yeah. Okay. If so, we'd love to hear more about it. And if not, what advice would a trap pack give to someone in that situation?

the qualifications. And then you need a number of years experience before you can actually give the financial advice now where he may well have tons of experiences giving all of the life advice and the life experience and all that other stuff that we maybe spoke about earlier on. So I don't know that, how you do the qualifications over there. But the very basic qualifications here, the qualified financial adviser, probably take you a year to get those and then you're kind of getting settled

in. But at 60, you know, he's kind of I want just want to hit the ground running. So he was saying what about if I just kind of grabbed a lot of people and brought them into you. And maybe there's something in that I don't know. But um, because it will be his own peers, who he really, really, really values the work that we have done for him. And he's like, you know, most of them now are with private banks and stockbrokers

and all that kind of stuff. And it's, you know, what you guys do is totally different than, and he's always telling me that we're useless at telling people exactly what we do. So we have a we have a marketing dilemma there. But um, yeah, I there's probably no clear cut answer, and probably not the answer that the guy who posed the question once, okay, it'd be my take on it. I do like it, though. I do. Okay. And

It just then depends on how quickly you're going to build it up, you know, there the facts at the end of the day, I mean, obviously, you could get a job somewhere that would give you a some level of, you know, financial income coming in. So yeah, the apprenticeship stage, I think it's about about a decade long, you can short circuit it, and do it a little

bit quicker. But I think from zero to knowing what you're doing in the client meeting, I think probably the fastest you could do that is probably five years, and that's really, really going for it. So that's the reality of it. Like all great things. Why should it be easy? You know, if you want to become black belt in karate grade eight piano, you know, there's no short short, short cuts over to Elon.

contract. If you can flog stuffings something if you can sell products for fees, commissions, and you've got a ready made network of people But you could sell to, you know, off you go. The challenge is for the better firms, they have become far more professional. And there is a much more of a kind of, as you say, Andy an apprenticeship and it does take time, it's a bit like saying, you know, at the age of 60, I think I'll be a

lawyer. Well, you can, but you got to qualify as a lawyer start right back from the day one, and ain't gonna happen overnight. But you can do it if you're absolutely passionate and dedicated about it. But you will have to, absolutely will be a period of if these people have been used to, you know, having some reasonable earnings, there's no way they're gonna be maintaining the same level of earnings for a period of time. I think there are, there's sort of two or three component parts.

One is the technical bit, which I think is relatively straightforward, you got to get qualified to, you know, basic level, which, as you say, might be probably but similar in this country, but 12 months. The other is that is the human aspect of it. And I think, you know, mature people, mature professionals are likely to be pretty good at that. Yeah, he's got life skills. They've been, you know, they've had the, they've had kids have done all the things that people can

relate to. But the other part of them sort of three prong triangle, is the opportunity to sit in front of people, where are they? Where are your clients coming from. And if you can satisfy two out of three of those, you got a chance, three out of three, even better, but it will take it will take time. Although I can see this becoming more, more popular, as the profession evolves and becomes quite an aspirational profession to get into, I think it'd be more people asking the same

question as time goes on. So there'll be more opportunities, I think, in future but Yeah, good question.

30 years ago, you could join one of the old sales forces, the Allied Dunbar's the Imperial life, and I imagine, once you've been through their internal training program, which is probably three Pints of Lager down the pub, and have to write the back of an envelope, you'd be out flogging your MIPS and everything else. Well, those days are thankfully behind us now. It is far more structured. And there is a an Andy said 10 years. And I mentioned the human side of it. It's the human side.

That's what we're, that's why we're on this planet. And that's the bit it'll take you 10 years to learn the nuances of Okay, let's open up the next letter. Who's this one from Matthew Tama Bridge on Twitter, as at Matt underscore tambours plumbing question you don't like bonds? Got it? And he said in a recent pod that his tilts are value funds, what are the tilts the rest of you use for portfolio performance? And what if anything? Do you use to dampen

volatility when you have to? And you start with that, and then I'll follow it unless you guys can chip in if they want to?

large US developed markets. But yeah, so I have in my 100%, Maven invest 100 portfolio, there's a there's a leaning towards emerging markets, smaller value companies.

and ultra value. And take Make of that what you will make your point about dampening volatility, we don't want to dampen volatility, whether that's the last thing we want to do is dampen volatility, because volatility works both ways and most, three quarters of the time the volatility is up. So why would you want to dampen that if

you dampen the downside? If you mitigate against the temporary declines, you are giving up some of the permanent advance and that is a big no, no, we have to embrace volatility ourselves as advisors internalize that and then find ways of communicating this arcane, countercultural message to our clients. That's our role. Savers want

volatility. Even people entering a typical three decade retirement want volatility, because if you can ride it out, that's where you're going to get the superior returns to ward off the pernicious evil, that is inflation and or car and things are

Okay. And you can run with this. But we have asked this a few times before, so just give us your bang answer.

good at financial planning. But that's by the by over to Alan chartered, chartered Alan Smith.

badges. So that isn't, but I'm going to assume that if I was going, if I was hiring a surgeon for an operation, I'd rather he was qualified to the highest level of qualifications. And he had, you know, human, the human touch and all the rest of it, I just I'd rather that than somebody who had base level, you know, an O level of biology, that was really good sort of

bedside manner. So to me, it is a hygiene factor the so you should be everyone in this profession should be qualified to level six which is chartered. I've like kind of lost track of it because we gave up all our my colleagues were CFP as well certified but you have to keep out your would you call it you know, your ongoing CPD nothing else for more than one organization and we just chopped it after a bit, but I think

that's all changing soon. And with the all this sort of shenanigans going on with the CIA, I'm not sure how that's going to play out. The the certified one, that's obviously that's the US so niche initially came out of the US Certified Financial Planner CFP, which is all about can you know, can you

do real financial planning. And so the and they're all kind of merging together, not only one is better than than the other, or the two qualifications, I think, if you're really going after it, especially if you're young, if I was, if I was in my 20s, I try to get both these qualifications. 20s and 30s. Get them both, get them out the way get them done, and get on with delivering, you know, world class real financial planning to your clients. There's no one is not better than the other.

They're just different.

financial planner. And he does a lot of advising coaching and consulting actually interesting coaches linking a few of these things together for those you who deals with financial planners and will do a lot of kind of quite personal work in terms of the, you know, the personal coaching for advisors, who in turn are giving advice to their clients. So it's written a quite a good book worth reading

as well. But John Ashfield, he's relatively recently, and I know you guys have gotten them if you've seen these, Carl, but he's created a set of what he calls financial planning power questions. So they're like playing cards. And so there's however many of them there is.

But within this pack of cards, there are some fabulous questions if you want to sort of learn how to really get in and become better at, you know, being a real financial planner, when we're obviously asking great questions, and then going deeper and listening to the answer. And then responding to that. That's how you get that's one of the ways you're going to become a better financial planner. So those are available client centered advisors.com. Yeah, client centered

advisors.com. I'll put a link in the show notes. worth checking out a lot of John's work is writing his blogs his book and these cards. That's my contribution.

knows what he's about. And that's like, the total opposite to the player that we see screaming and roaring in the second row for England. He's also a wonderful player, like he really is absolutely top top quality. But it was interesting because I was listening to it with with my young friend like Mario Toji was playing was brought into the senior training squad and Saracens when he was

16 years of age. So this boy was you know, they had him marked out from the very, very early on, but that high performance podcast in general, I've mentioned it before, just absolutely fantastic, but I really loved that. That episode, and you know, it's just the public perception of someone and the actual individual can be so different. So yeah, I really enjoyed that.

listening to. If you've got an audible subscription, it's free to download. I'm sort of three chapters into it. It's pretty decent. That's my recommendation for this fortnight. Over to you.

question. And then 70 minutes later, you just stop recording button. And it's just awful. extemporize all kinds of stuffs but he's got to see like Japanese toilets, which is definitely a thing. But that's that's that's, that's good fun and that stairlift stair lifts. And Roy has been at humans on the management. I think he came in as the second rank speaker after. Yeah, it was, of course,

you for 45 minutes. He's like, okay, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. And it just goes up there and just rocks it. So yeah, very much.

helps us. It's going to help you this is a this is one of those circles that goes round and round and round and just gets better and better. I don't know where I'm going. Next. I think it's time to wrap up and we will see each other in two weeks time in the studio of doom. Until then. Take care out there guys.