Don’t Bury the Zinger, with Carl Richards

Some podcast conversations come along at exactly the right time.

When I originally reached out to my guest today, I had no idea we would be working from home, avoiding all social contact, and living through an unprecedented time of economic and market upheaval.

Carl Richards is well-known in the Financial Planning profession as someone who distils complex concepts into simple messages, through his behaviour gap artwork.

A Certified Financial Planner, Carl has a powerful message for the Financial Planner community, never more important than right now.

In this conversation, we talk about why this time is different, but also the same; how Financial Planners can best navigate their clients through the weeks and months ahead; and our shared passion for cold water, and what it means for our ability to deal with market-related traumas.

Here’s my conversation with Carl Richards in season two, episode six of the Financial Planner Marketing Playbook.

Transcript

This is the largely unedited transcript of our conversation, so apologies for any typos or weird spellings!

Martin: [00:00:01] So Carl, welcome to the Financial Planner Marketing Playbook podcast, our audiences, financial planners, and you’re well known in the financial planner community, particularly here in the UK now because you’re now for the wall anyway temporary UK residents. So welcome to the country. How are you finding the mood? How is life in the UK?

Carl: [00:00:27] Yeah, I mean, aside from the, you know, sort of the moment, excuse me, the moment we’re recording this with, with everything going on, um, we, I have found an amazing, like I’ve found, um, particularly given your audience, right?

[00:00:42] The planning community in the UK has always been one of my favorites. Uh, even before we moved here, I spent plenty of time working here and I, I’ve always found it very. You know, I joke about this, the secret society of real financial planners and I have found the secret society of real financial planners in the UK to be really, really like, they’re like real, you know what I mean?

[00:01:03] Like, like top notch top. I spend the same thing about Australia. There was this like small group are there, there still maybe a bunch of stuff with the traditional financial services industry that we don’t like. Right, like we in all countries, but I’ve been really impressed with the quality among real planners here.

[00:01:20] It’s been super fun. Mm Hmm.

Martin: [00:01:22] No, I think that’s also a good assessment of the community we have here in UK, and it took me awhile as a financial advisor to discover that community and become a financial planner. And it was the Institute of financial planning, I think, which sort of opened my eyes to those people who are, who are here and doing that real work.

[00:01:38] Sadly, no longer with us, but some, I think the membership is still alive and kicking in. You’ve probably discovered that. Yeah. Yeah,

Carl: [00:01:45] for sure. I remember, in fact it, I, I’ve spoken to that in Wales. Yeah,

Martin: [00:01:53] Celtic Manor, yes. Yeah, yeah.

Carl: [00:01:55] With Nick crew.

Martin: [00:01:58] Yeah. That group has never really gone away despite not knowing. Yeah, no longer been with us and falling under a different banner. Now it’s some that community still exists, which is so important that Carl, for those who don’t know you, and that’s I, I suspect relatively few of our listeners, but you’ll be known as the sketch guy, you’ll known for behavior gap, but how would you, how would you sort of describe how you’ve got to where you are today.

Carl: [00:02:22] Oh, man. Yeah, that’s, I mean, quite by accident. You know, like I, um, I w I mean, the short version of the story is I was at aye, right. In college. I, I accidentally got into the industry. I mean, I applied to be a security guard. It’s a long story, but I applied to be a security guard. It turns out the securities on the ad got a job at a big, a big call center.

[00:02:44] Fidelity investments. Actually, their big call center. And then started getting exploded. Like I thought I, I thought it was in a math and like a spreadsheet and calculator job. Um, but then right, like, then I started talking to real people, answering phone calls and people were nervous, or people were scared, or people are excited or, you know, and I started to realize like, wow, this isn’t.

[00:03:07] About spreadsheets and calculators. It’s about dreams and hopes and behavior and emotion and, and so, okay, I just started talking about that. You know, like . To everybody that would listen to me and then sort of started traffic a bit, like putting things up on a little website and Mmm. Started trying to explain things to clients.

[00:03:28] I moved on and started my own, I mean, I went to work for a big brokerage firm and it was there where I was trying to explain things to clients very much like an investment advisor at the time and trying to explain things to clients and would get blank stares despite the fact that they were super smart, successful people.

[00:03:44] So it was like, it was my problem, not theirs. And one day out of an act of desperation, I jumped up and was like, no, like this, and I don’t have any art background. This will be obvious by anybody who has my work. Um, but I, well, it’s like, no, like this. And I drew like some circles in a square and an arrow or something, and they were like, Oh, I get it now.

[00:04:04] And that moment I was like, wow, I got sort of addicted to that idea of taking really important but complex things. And making them a little bit simpler and easier to understand. And I got addicted to the process of diving into something really complicated and then trying to understand all the nuance and figure like all the different options, Indians and all the different angles.

[00:04:33] And then, and in the middle of all that complexity, I got addicted to the idea of coming out the other side and saying, after all that. This is what matters, right? And obviously you, you miss some nuance when you do that, but if you’d gone through the nuance, the goal is to capture that an elegantly simple way.

[00:04:51] So I got addicted to that, started doing that publicly, you know, just not a little website and nobody was reading it. You’re, I like it, but I just kept doing it. And, and then one day, um, just. Through a series, and I mean this honestly, like really fortunate event, like luck. Mmm. Maybe I didn’t increase my luck surface area, but it was still luck that a editor at the New York times found it and liked it and said, Hey, would you do this for us?

[00:05:18] And so I’ve been writing that column for every week for 10 years now, which is nuts. And then, and then the books. And so that, that’s kind of how it’s all happened. I left the big brokers firm, started my own firm, became a proper financial planner. You know, sold that eventually to just focus on. Now I’m totally focused on inserting sort of forcibly inserting my opinion into the world of what real financial planning looks like.

[00:05:43] Okay. So that’s kind of my, I see that as the next five to 10 years of my work is just forcibly inserting that opinion. Okay.

Martin: [00:05:51] Well, what I love about that story in particular is, as you say, no art background, but probably if we were to sort of look at a list of the most successful artists in the world now you may well rank on it and we commercially at least because you’re known for your, you know, your drawings, taking that complexity and really injecting simplicity into it.

[00:06:08] So how, how do you go? What’s your process? Distilling complexity and coming up with a simple, I’m drawing that captures that very complex.

Carl: [00:06:17] Yeah. Process that complex thinking. Yeah. Martin, thanks for asking that. Like it’s my favorite subject and I don’t ever get to talk about it. Um, yeah, I mean, I do some consulting work that allows me to talk about, which is great, but, but, um.

[00:06:29] So I, and I think, look, here’s the practical application. For those of you listening like you, you like one of the emails I get the most from the people out there that are looking for your services, are looking for a financial planner, are looking for help, making smarter decisions about money. One of the emails I get most often is, will you please tell them to make things more simple?

[00:06:50] Like stop using all these words. I don’t understand. Like doesn’t help when we’re, when we use the . Are at risk and somebody gets a slightly confused look and we say, Oh, yo, sorry. You know, standard deviation. That doesn’t, that doesn’t help. So, so here’s the, here’s the practical application of this answer to this question, right?

[00:07:09] Like, take everything. So here’s what I do, right? I think like, okay, there’s a problem. And often early on it was like, I’m getting asked this question a bunch, right? Like the phone’s ringing. I’m getting asked, and this would be really helpful. In any moment of of scariness or it’s scary markets. Also greedy markets too, but anytime people are tempted to do something crazy with their money, you’re probably getting this question a couple times, and I started noticing after twice, I didn’t realize I was doing this to looking back, but after I would hear the same question twice, I would think, okay, how am I answering that?

[00:07:41] Right? So you’ve got a problem. You want to solve the problem. So then I dive in and if I, w I’ve done a lot of drawing on the radio. So if you would imagine like a for a minute, and maybe even if you’re listening and you want to and you’re not driving, take out a piece of paper and just draw a line straight across the paper and then in the middle of the paper, let it get, like make it like a ball of yarn.

[00:08:03] Right? Like just all swirly and squiggly and like, that’s, so you’ve got this problem, you dive into it, and that’s where you start trying to understand the nuance. And what about this? What about this edge case, and what about this exception? And you read, read, read, study. Then you try to write the answer to that problem.

[00:08:21] Right? Right. Or speak the answer to that problem. Mmm. Once you’ve written the answer to that problem, I think you then go back, and this is maybe the real practical piece for the good financial planners that listen to this is take every educational piece you have right now. okay, take one. What’s the flagship, you know, brochure, educational piece or white paper that you give out the most and go through it.

[00:08:47] And this, we literally do this. We go through and take out words and sentences and see if we lost the meaning. So we literally would remove things like what if we take that out? I would start with all numbers, right? Cause as soon as you have numbers on a piece of paper, people want to argue about the data and they missed the point.

[00:09:08] Mm. So do you, so, so here, like number one, try this exercise. If somebody read that piece that you wrote. An educational piece, your book that the talk you’re going to give and afterwards you asked, you had a survey and you said, and I do this, I’m giving a keynote. Pretend like 300 people are there. If all 300 people left, and they were asked afterwards, what’s the one thing you remember from Carl’s talk?

[00:09:35] What would you want that to be? What’s the one thing they would take away from that page that you wrote? One thing. So I think you get one. And then you take that one thing and you say, okay, everything in this, every word has to support that. We call that the zinger. Um, in, in, like, you know, in newspaper, part of that’s you would, you would call that the lead.

[00:09:56] And there’s this old saying like, don’t bury the lead. Right? So I would go through and look at what supports it. And then the other thing that’s really interesting, and I have to do this a lot because the nature of the work anything that’s a distraction. That’ll give you an example. Gender, right? The use of his money or her money or her kitchen.

[00:10:23] Mm. Right. Like I said, her kitchen one time I’m not scared of having controversial opinions, but if they distract from the point, yeah, remove them. Right. So that’s some examples, data and numbers generally. people want to argue about like, Oh, is that that big? Or that bigger, that big, they missed the point.

[00:10:48] And then other distractions, political distractions, um, religious distractions. And again, I’m not shying away from those discussions. I’m just saying it’s not serving the point. Yeah. Right. So, and my last thing I’ll say is right, follow this. I, there’s a great quote, I can’t remember. It was in, I think it’s in the little Prince where perfection is not achieved when there’s nothing left to add.

[00:11:11] When there’s nothing left to take away.

Martin: [00:11:13] Yeah. Yeah. That’s spot on. I mean, I love the point Nancy made about burying the lead, and I think in a way I look at that and think this is actually what my kids do when they come home from school. And I ask them how their day was and they’ll tell me about that day and then just casually throw in.

[00:11:27] Oh yeah. And somebody came and brought a pet crocodile to show us. And it, it’s, it’s, it’s about what’s the most important parts of the story and then everything else you say support in it. So you’re thinking, thinking of that first, putting that in

Carl: [00:11:39] front of everything. Yeah, and I even think, like we, we, we often start, I, and I get all confused about this.

[00:11:47] I’ll write things or write them, and they’re like, yeah, it’s not feeling well. And then we’ll figure out what the, what the, the zinger, we call it internally, the zinger is, and we just, we’ll go, Whoa. And move that to the first sentence. Yeah. Like start with, let me tell you the pipeline before we get started.

[00:12:01] My goal today is to convince you of this. Okay, great. Here we go. Right. So anyway, hopefully that’s helpful.

Martin: [00:12:07] No, absolutely. I think if people take one thing away from this conversation, hopefully it is the zinger and we’ll title the podcast that as well to get some attention from it. Now we live in through.

[00:12:18] fairly unprecedented times right now? Or is it, I think if we can have a conversation around that, um, we hear a lot of financial planners say, you know, this is just part of the normal market cycle. We get peaks, we got troughs. It feels different now, doesn’t it? It feels different because we’re seeing recession looming we’re seeing the market correction and we’re seeing the global pandemic and being locked in our homes.

[00:12:39] So it’s, is it rational for us to just look back at history and say, history will repeat and we’ll come on

Carl: [00:12:46] again. that’s a really, really big question. So I think there’s a co, I think there’s a couple of things that I’m I should be clear, like I’m often wrong, but never in doubt. Right? So like if you, but I don’t have a problem having an opinion about this one, cause I think a lot about it.

[00:13:02] So the first thing I think that’s really important about this, and particularly how we communicate it to the public, is I think you’ve got to start with empathy. So my, my, my process for dealing with scary markets is. Mmm ESPA so empathy, space, plan, action. And I think we often forget the empathy part. We think like, Oh, just spray them with facts and figures.

[00:13:28] Don’t, you know, have you missed the 10 best days of the market or, well, you know, the average thing or the average, they don’t want, nobody wants it. Have you ever tried telling somebody to stop smoking? Like have you ever tried giving somebody facts about lung cancer while they have a cigarette in their mouth?

[00:13:43] Right. It doesn’t work. Like try it. Try having, try reasoning or lecturing a teenager when they’re in the middle of making an irrational choice. That’s the work. What they want first is an air hug now, like an air hug, like a meter away hug. But so let’s start there. Is this time different? Absolutely. It’s different.

[00:14:01] So I’m going to, I’m going to, but hang with me here. Here’s what, they’re all different. I think the thing we forget, there’s one we’re saying this time is no dude, like the last four words of any great investors this time it’s different. That’s saying is referring to the end. They all end is what that’s saying is referring to like they all end.

[00:14:18] So far they’ve all ended, right? It’s not the beginning. So we need to recognize this time is abs. So was 2008 mm. It was unprecedented. Right? Like, and so it’s just different enough that you feel like it’s . Completely different and it’s rational and normal and reasonable, and a human to say, this is so different than it may end different.

[00:14:44] So we’ve gotta be empathetic for that conversation. Like, yeah, I understand. It’s scary, right? But then we have to shift into, okay, we’ve given space. We’ve had our hugs, we, we’ve cried together whenever we needed to do there. I realize it’s scary. We’ve had empathy. We’ve created a little bit of space for a conversation.

[00:15:01] Now we’ve gotten out of fight or flight mode, and now we get to go back to the plan, the P and the ESPN . That’s the plan. Right? And at that point we just have to decide like, are we going to rely on the way, the evidence of history or not. Okay. I don’t know that it’s right, but I just know that I don’t have anything better to do right now.

[00:15:27] You know, like Churchill’s old quote, that democracy is the worst form of government ever created by the mind of man, except for all the others. Yes. I think this is the worst way to behave with our financial plans ever created, except for all the others. And the reason it’s the worst way is it can’t deliver certainty.

[00:15:46] None of us can look anybody in the eyes right now and say, I, this absolutely will end. Mm. We can be rationally over-confident is what I am calling it rationally overconfident in the sense that the job of a real financial planner is to help people make incredibly important decisions in the face of the irreducible uncertainty.

[00:16:11] If there’s no way to get rid of that uncertainty and the uncertainty is. This might, this time might be, I don’t think it will be like, okay, this time might be different, but the question would be, what percentage of the time has that statement been true? 95 years of equity market history. Zero. So do I want to bet against those odds?

[00:16:43] And of course, a plan, a financial plan should, and there’s so much good work being done on this kind of stuff here in the UK. I mean, I think, right. Good work. Abraham’s doing and don’t like should, uh, the financial plan that you built included all the way to in history. Right? It included. Markets going up and down.

[00:17:09] It included 87 included 73 74 and included the great depression and included 2008 those things are in the plan. We’ve projected those going forward. We’ve included those in the plant. We, to a large degree, we planned for markets like this. Hmm. Well, we didn’t plan for the reason it happened. We’d read for markets like this.

[00:17:33] So

Martin: [00:17:34] yeah, I was, cause I’m, I’m starting to hear some financial planners already talking about because this is so different in terms of the economic response to it. You know, the central bank monetary policy and ease in government intervention. So some financial planners that are already talking about how investment models will need to change in the future.

[00:17:51] Oh, dramatically. Is it too soon? You know, we’re still, we’re still in the middle of this. Surely.

[00:17:56] Carl: [00:17:56] Yeah. That my thinking is that may actually be true, that about some bottles may need to change that even based on like what we did, I feel like we’re doing something like we did in 2008 which is sort of like, instead of taking really hard medicine that might be too hard for all of us to handle.

[00:18:11] Hmm. And I, I’m not arguing that that would be a good idea. I’m just saying instead of doing that, we’re, we’re, we’re adding more life support to a system and is that system sustainable longterm? Look, I don’t know. I mean, it worries me that it’s, that it’s unsustainable, longterm, and that if we fix this, but, but the powers that be are going to keep the system going right now.

[00:18:36] And so what do you, I dunno. So yeah, I think it is unprecedented, but I do think your point is it too soon to make that decision. Like, what do you do? Do you pull out of the whole system and move to the the Hills? And maybe you do, maybe you do, but what’s your alternative? The alternative is always historically that guns and butter portfolio, right?

[00:18:59] Yes.

[00:19:00] Martin: [00:19:00] Yeah.

[00:19:00] Carl: [00:19:00] And what percentage of the time has the guns and better portfolio than the right one?

[00:19:06] Martin: [00:19:06] Hmm.

[00:19:10] You’ll, you’ll, you’ll do plenty of of zoom calls with financial planners at the moment. I know. And almost like a group therapy type session in some cases. So what are some of the concerns that they’re putting forward? What are their clients saying to them right now? Yeah. What are they worried about?

[00:19:25] Carl: [00:19:25] Yeah.

[00:19:25] So I think, I think too, too big sort of veins, if you will. One is the tradition that we always face when markets get scary, and that is like one is when your job is to help people stay the course. Right. And of course, core course, like stick to the plan. That’s what I governance. Okay. That’s what we all know how to do that it’s, it’s hard and it might be harder.

[00:19:53] Alan has ever been, but that’s the traditional thing. We we give them empathy, we create some space. We, we reconnect them with the plan, their goals, their values. We show them the data and we’d say, that’s hard, but way harder. And we’re seeing way more in this this time. Indeed time before. It’s, when the plans blow it up.

[00:20:13] And, and what I mean by that is like where like you built a really, and suddenly that longterm money is you’re going to be needed for short term emergencies and you think all the business owner just couldn’t have even thought of like the idea that this was just going to turn off. You think about all the restaurant she’s out.

[00:20:34] So how do you got, that’s, that’s the biggest concern right now is how do w the way I think about this as one. Yeah. Kind of a defender of a map, right? I mean, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve gotten relative, I don’t know that, I mean, the real planners have gotten relatively good at that, right. Then there’s a lot of them, but the other is your, your sudden job and the new job is, you’ve always had this job.

[00:21:00] I’ve been claiming this is your job getting, but we were getting, now you’re suddenly a guide in a changing landscape. And when you’re a guide in a changing landscape, you know, I, I’ve done some, you know, I’ve spent plenty of time on rivers and in mountains and, and, and guiding and being guided and you’re trying to change the landscape.

[00:21:23] You, I have to acknowledge the uncertainty and realize like, I don’t know what’s going to be over the next mountain pass. The last 11 mountain passes we’ve gone over. There has been a Lake there, but I don’t know if there will be one over the 12th. But we’ve got these tools in the backpack, like we’ll sort it out.

[00:21:40] So now we’re looking clients in the eyes and saying, I don’t know. And there’s a sense sometimes there’s a sense, this is what I’m hearing from a lot of planners right now. It’s like there’s a sense that you failed them because the plans blew up and that’s where the defender thing comes in and I think we need to let go of that defense and go, look, that wasn’t, that wasn’t your, your job is not to defend an outdated map.

[00:22:00] Your job now is to look somebody that’s, listen brother. I don’t know if there’ll be like over this mountain pass, but Lee, you and I are going to sort this out together, right? Like here’s how you do it, right? You assess the situation, assess where you are now, and this is all from both military science and complexity research.

[00:22:21] You assess the situation you’re on now. You may can guess at the next best step. And make it a micro step. Like we do this in micro-actions, you make a guess and I’m using that word in instantly. You make it and you should be a really good guesser, but you guess that the next best step and then you reset and reassess and you repeat that and you may be doing that.

[00:22:45] With some clients, you may be having that every day, like, let’s have a daily briefing, man, I’m going to help you through this. Like, let’s call the bank, let’s, let’s see what we can do. Like, you know, whatever, like, and that is a new, the urgency around that. And the volume of that is a new place to be. And it’s demanding when you have to be kind of the release valve for everybody else’s uncertainty.

[00:23:09] it’s demanding something of people that we’re not okay. We might not be up to if some of us aren’t up to the task. Right.

[00:23:17] Martin: [00:23:17] And it’s demand in something with financial planners at a time when they’re worried about their own businesses, their own families. You know, they’re often working from home instead of from offices.

[00:23:26] So their whole life has been gone through this upheaval. So it’s a lot to ask,

[00:23:30] Carl: [00:23:30] isn’t it? That’s a crazy, it’s crazy. It’s the job though. And, and, and I just, I look, I just think like, I’m, I’m sort of just begging. people that listen to this cause they’re all real planners. Like, please, like you can do this, right?

[00:23:49] Like you, you, you, you can do this and yeah, you may and you’re, you’re totally entitled to like have those moments like, get in the bed, throw the sheets over your head. Right? I like, I like to go outside and throw things like the groks or whatever, like kid in some cold water. If you can find that cry. You know, go in the garage and do your pushups.

[00:24:10] Maybe on the other end, if it’s sun salutations in yoga for you, like do those things, be weak. Feel all of that. Maybe everyday, maybe a couple times a day. Feel all those feelings cause you can’t suppress them. Like feel all that and then show up again. For those people that need you, for yourself, for your own family, and be the leader that says, look, you, you’re coming with me.

[00:24:38] We’re going this way. I don’t know that it’s the right way, but it’s the only thing we got. Let’s like, let’s make a step and move forward. It’s about being less wrong right now each day. Then being right .

[00:24:50] Martin: [00:24:50] I’ve got to say about it’s a cold water cause that’s the passion that you and I both chair, although I do it with a wet suit on.

[00:24:55] I know you just jump in and straighten your trunks, don’t you? For some, what makes cold water such a good, a good sort of solution? Good therapy in this time?

[00:25:03] Carl: [00:25:03] Yeah. I think, um, so I think we have to be careful here, um, to pay attention to, cause the way I got through 2008 and 2009 was to exercise really hard.

[00:25:19] I’m, for some people that’s a good idea, but what I found was it was just making the, like I will only was feeling, I was only feeling better when I was on my bike, like trying to crush my buddies. Right. Like it was Tuesday morning, world cup every day. Yeah. And, and what was happening was the peaks would get lower and the valleys were getting lower.

[00:25:39] So the way I like to think it was taking it was stress. I mean, that’s stress. Yeah. The personal stress. And I was just digging myself a hole. So in 2010, 11, I was a broken human, like to a large degree. That’s why we moved to New Zealand was my wife was smart enough to see it and pull the plug in and um, so water, cold water.

[00:26:04] so I would just, I would suggest maybe finding some things that allow you to release address that or down-regulating instead of upregulating so they allow you to relieve stress by removing stress instead of allow you to relieve stress by adding stress. And. You know, that may be age-related and it may also be like just the physical shape.

[00:26:28] You’re interrelated. I don’t know, but just pay attention to yourself. But for me, I used to use cold water to upregulate. Right, right. It was a, it was like a substitute for caffeine. Yeah. Now I use upregulated water to downregulate so when I get in and I’m not swimming, I just getting an in for three minutes.

[00:26:46] Right. So, or in the shower for three minutes, like full cold. Yup. And the goal is, and there’s plenty of research around this, like just type, I think it’s cold thermogenesis, like if you want to understand some of the research around it, um, or just benefits of cold showers. For me, what I do is I have a breath pattern before and then I get in the cold water and try and maintain that breath pattern and the breath pattern is down.

[00:27:14] It’s calm. It’s not like I used to do that, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I’m doing. Calm, and then when I get in the cold water, if I can keep that pattern when I’m training my body to do is say even with a massive external shock, I can stay calm. Yup. That’s why I’m doing it. And it’s like, it’s finally starting to work.

[00:27:35] Like the other day I noticed, like my daughter said something to me that that could have been hijacking, right? Like could have been an in the past would have generated a response like. Yeah. All right. I don’t think she was wrong cause I don’t even know what it was. But she said something and I noticed like, Oh, that’s just cold water.

[00:27:53] Right. You can just, you can respond calmly. So that’s why I’m using cold water. And I think there’s a lot of confusion around that cause people think like, Oh, I feel great. Yeah. And that’s, that’s great. I’m using it for the opposite effect right now.

[00:28:07] Martin: [00:28:07] That’s fascinating. And of course you can draw a parallel between the approach and when markets give us a shock, when any event gives us a shock externally, if we’re, if we’ve trained our bodies and our minds to cope with that.

[00:28:18] And as you say, to maintain our response and maintain our reaction, we’re in such a better position.

[00:28:23] Carl: [00:28:23] Yeah. I mean, that’s the entire, like if you want to do something other than cold water, like just try 10 minutes of meditation a day. Right? So you just like meditation. Mmm. Okay. Uh, a walk, like anything where you are aware of the state you’re in and you’re aware of the changes to that state.

[00:28:43] Cause I think what happens to most of us is we, we aren’t even aware that we’re reacting. The space between stimulus and response is non-existent. Yeah. Stimulus response. Scary markets. Ah, and it’s like a low grade. Right now it’s a high grade, but it’s sort of like a low grade headache. And if you stop and go, wait, I have a headache.

[00:29:05] Like maybe I need to, whatever you do to get rid of that and drink some water. Like if we stop and notice, I think it’s the looping. It’s hurting us right now. We’re looping for clients. We’re looping for our own businesses, so we can get some of that out of our head and go, wait, wait. I’m looping. I’ve already made that decision.

[00:29:21] Yeah. I’ve already decided that this is my investment process. I’ve even decided how I’m going to explain it to people. I don’t, and I’ve even decided what information would, would warrant me rethinking about it. Like that’s what I do on a piece of paper. Here’s the decision, here’s how I made the decision, and here’s what would warrant me reassessing the decision.

[00:29:40] And then when I, when I start to loop on that again, I can pull out that paper. And go, Oh wait, wait, wait. I’ve already done that, and I would, if I was a planet right now, I would do that for every client. Mm. I would just pull out a piece of paper with every client and write down, here’s where we are. Here’s the decision.

[00:29:56] Okay. Stay the course or call the bank or whatever. Here’s new information that may become available that would warrant a reassessment. Then when that client pops into your head, you can just grab it and go, Oh yeah. Right? Yup.

[00:30:08] Martin: [00:30:08] Swell. It’s spot on. Swollen. Carl, it’s always a pleasure to chat to you. Before I let you go, you’ve got to tell us about the fellowship.

[00:30:14] So it has a slightly mysterious aura to it. It’s invitation only. I know. So what’s it all

[00:30:20] Carl: [00:30:20] about?

[00:30:23] Am I allowed to tell you?

[00:30:27] Martin: [00:30:27] No, no,

[00:30:29] Carl: [00:30:29] I’m just kidding. It’s really fun. We built it that way. On purpose. That’s the, hence the dragons. The dragons have done really well in Wales. I figured out lately. Um, but, but, uh, the fellowship was really, the fellowship is all about mindset. Confidence. And your value. I just noticed we built all these really tactical workshops for advisors for planners, and they loved them, right?

[00:30:53] And they’d pay a lot of money for them. And then I noticed they would, they would tell us how valuable they were, but I would notice they weren’t doing them. And, and I realized the biggest problem for all of us, and this isn’t just a financial planner problem, by the way, it’s just a human problem. The bit tactics are easy.

[00:31:10] Like to find out how to do something. You’re a Google search away. Hmm. Tactics are easy. Confidence is hard. And so, and it’s funny, I didn’t build it. So it’s a 23 day. Program all delivered online. I show up every day, 23 days in your inbox, basically waving a big flag, reminding you of the value, bring it to the world.

[00:31:34] Around very specific topics. It’s a, there’s 21 declarations of a real financial planner and each day there’s an intro day and then 21 declarations and then a conclusions. That’s why it’s 23 days and I show up every morning to wave a big flag, but it’s not tactical. It’s about confidence. And I didn’t build it with this time in mind, but it’s perfectly suited for right now because.

[00:31:59] What you need more than anything right now is the planners are reminded every day of the value you’re offering because it’s so easy to get crushed. So that’s what it is. And yet to get an invitation, you know it’s not hard to get an invitation and go to the society of advice.com the study of advice.com you can get an invite there and then the rest is a mystery, which you have to, you have to, you have to enter your email to find out the rest.

[00:32:20] Yeah.

[00:32:20] Martin: [00:32:20] Well and we’ll put a link in the show notes so our listeners can find that nice and easily. Carl, it’s been a pleasure to chat as always, stay safe. Um, you know, keep, keep yourself, keep doing the great work you’re doing. Cause I, you add so much value to the community and yeah, we’re just delighted to have you here in the UK for the time you’re here now.

[00:32:36] It’s a, it’s already making a big difference.

[00:32:39] Carl: [00:32:39] Martin. Thank you. And let me just mention to you, like, you don’t have to be. Doing this right now. You know, like, so thanks for the work you were doing. It’s generous beyond, you know, beyond anybody’s expectations. So I really appreciate it. We need more people doing this kind of work so people can go, Oh, that’s what, that’s what financial planning is all that, because it’s a little bit like the Supreme court’s definition of pornography, you know, they said, we don’t know, but we know it when we see it.

[00:33:09] That’s a little bit how financial planning works. Like we can’t really describe it. I mean, sorry, we can’t really use words like you can trust me or, or I’m real, or because they’ve all been co-opted. So the work you’re doing by allowing people to see it, right. Hear it, feel it a bit. It’s super generous. So thank you.

[00:33:30] Martin: [00:33:30] Thank you. All right, take care. I’ll, we’ll speak again soon.