How to Achieve Financial Freedom, with Eoin McGee

29:55I said, where is he going? And he walks into the middle and he fist pumps a guy. Your man fist pumps and goes to the next guy. Fist pumps, fist pumps, fist pumps. And as he gets to the last guy, he goes to fist pump him. As your man goes to fist pump him, Fionn put his hand through his own hair and went like this. And your man was left hanging, right? And the lads cracked up laughing. Fionn was right. But then the next comment from the lads was, how did he know to do it to him? How did he know to do it to him? And obviously that was the best person in the group they're really and look it could have been pure coincidence but there's so many things in Fionn's life that there's just too much coincidence there okay yeah but sorry I'm not sure how we got it but I think Fionn is content he's happy we got the idea of acceptance today was a good day let's make it a day tomorrow and you were explaining how Fionn possibly understands that in his own way better than most of us and I think Fionn Fionn just lives in the moment exactly he's living in right now and he's either happy right now or he's sad right now and that's it true And just to maybe to finish that side of it, I think gratitude is very important.

30:57You mentioned the word acceptance there. I think gratitude is very important and to understand how lucky you are to be breathing healthily, to be able to get up out of bed, to be able to walk down to the kitchen, to be able to drive or take a bus or be independent. These are all you've already achieved 95.75 % of life's possible contentment range when you compare it to other people who have so many unfortunate health problems, or you compare it, for example, as Jimmy Carr points out in a few videos he's been doing. I mean, even the idea of taking a hot shower. In 1928, 99.9 % of the world's population didn't have access to a hot shower.

31:45Now, everybody has access to a hot shower. You know what I mean? And that's a kind of a daily, twice daily thing that we have a luxury of doing. So be grateful for what you have. Yeah. And yet people are on our as unhappy as they ever were. And you could say maybe maybe more unhappy. Let me change the let me change it around a little bit. I mean, Patrick, when he was doing up his notes for me as well, when we were doing a bit of research on you, he mentioned that your father was sick when you were young. Yeah. And did that, there was certain financial insecurity there. Tell me about the financial insecurity first of all.

32:23When I was two, dad had a heart attack. He had a quadruple bypass. When I was six, he had another heart attack. He had two stents put in. When I was eight, he had another heart attack. He had a quintuple bypass, five of them, right? And he was only 48 at the time. And he turned to his cardiologist and he said, 48 years of age, the last six years I've had three major heart incidents. What am I doing wrong? And the doctor said, two things, Michael. One, you've got sticky blood. it's just hereditary you're doing all you can and he like he did he did look after himself and then second it's stress what's the biggest stress in your life dad had nothing to do with my industry my profession but dad turned around says probably work and the doctor said could you afford to give up work dad said I didn't know I don't know if I can or not and he went off to check somebody and I'm going to call it an insurance salesman sold dad in the 80s an income protection policy oh So people may or may not know what an income protection, but in simple terms, if the insurance company's doctor says you're unfit for work, they'll pay you up to 75 % of your wage until you're ready to go back to work.

33:25He was lucky to have had this. Yeah, he was lucky. He had just taken it out of his insurance policy until you're ready to go back to work or you hit retirement, whichever comes first. So at 50 years of age, it took Dad a little while to get his head around it. He had a very successful career. 50 years of age, he stopped working. And was able to get 75 % of his wage. Unreal. Yeah. And what I believe happened there was dad is dead five years now last month he died five years ago and he died at 78 years of age okay and I believe we got 28 years extra with dad wow maybe we would have got to 55 or 56 but the stress was going to get wow and I'm not saying I was 10 when he stopped working and I'm not saying I said I'm going to sell income protection for the rest of my life but when I came out of college I went working in Irish Life who happened to be the people who were paying his income protection to him I very quickly realised I want to do for other families yes what that what that insurance It resonated with you Yeah I want to do the same thing and that's where it all stems from that's why I do what I do and it's So you had a bit of a drive to do it Yeah absolutely and I have a strong believer in people are served better with good financial planning than they are without it and I'm a strong believer in give it away in truckloads like let people take what they can not everyone's going to engage and that's the purpose of this book actually the purpose of this book is there are certain people out there who will never engage with a financial planner and I want to load them up with as much information as they could possibly have to try and make the best of it for themselves.

34:43But if you are going to engage with a financial planner and you want to read this book, you're going to be better informed about engagement with a financial planner. People who have a financial planner have two and a half times the net worth of people who don't when they reach retirement. And that's a big sales pitch, but I absolutely categorically believe in it. And I just want to do it. And that's why I do what I do. Like, I just want to make things better, whether that's my Q &A on a Saturday on Instagram, whether that's actually phenomenal. I don't know if you follow me on, I definitely follow you, Mario, but I don't know if you follow me on Instagram but I'll put up a question box on Saturday morning and I'll get somewhere between 800 and 1200 questions.

35:18And what happens with them is... How many followers do you have? I have 160 odd times. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, and what will happen with it is the question goes up. Everyone gets to see the question. Everyone gets to see the answer. Yeah. But nobody gets to see who asked the question. Perfect for Ireland. Like, absolutely. When it comes to money, it's just perfect. And when you say say nothing, I'm actually going to tell you a story. I'm going to jump here for a second. so I was I was in court for a traffic offence right which I didn't get done for we can go into it all if you want I didn't they got it wrong and I was in there and I said I'm fighting for this and I got it and it was thrown out right but I was standing in the court in the hall in the court and like you're standing there and there's people who are maybe a little bit down on their luck or on the wrong side of the law and you're kind of there's a varying range of people in the hall waiting to go into the court to see the judge particularly on a traffic offence it's a mixture of lots of mixed bag so I kind of You could see him looking at me and he kind of came over and he says, you're a man off the telly, aren't you?

36:15And I said, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right. Can I just ask you something? I said, you know when you're going for a house and you're getting a mortgage? And I said, yeah, did I ask you where you got the deposit?

36:30That's great. Same. So, yeah. And you said, just say you wanted on the horses. Yeah, just say, yeah, go and find somebody who can do it for you on the horses. But yeah, sorry. It is. Brilliant. I love doing what I do. I love the Instagram. I love writing the books. There's nothing better. And it's not different. I said it to you and I could see you get a sparkle before we started here. I said, like, I love what you do with your sketches. And you get something from that. I love, like, people come up to me on the street, say, like, I read your book on and I got my house or I was in this trouble and I got the advice I needed from the stuff that you put out on Instagram.

37:08I'm like, how privileged can a person be? And how happy are you? As in me being so privileged. Yeah, you're experiencing, that's something that I experience as well. And I repeat this because, you know, like just a kernel of this, the basic thing that I do every day is I walk into an office, I sit with two or three people, Ian Dempsey, Charlie or whatever, and I pitch them ideas for things that are going on inside my head. They'll nod and then we'll all decide, let's do that one for tomorrow then I'll go away and I'll write it and while I'm writing it I'm going I'm giggling and I'm writing it and then I'll send it away to a guy called Paul Duffy and he's a brilliant engineer and he'll send it back to me later in the evening and he'll go this is it Mario and I'll go he normally knows all the sound and everything that I want so I'll go that's great Paul send it to Ian and Charlie and that'll go out at 8 10 tomorrow morning and then when you hear that somebody in their cars or whatever is laughing their head off or whatever at that sketch you couldn't that just makes your entire week to think that something that came out of your head ended up on paper first, then on audio, and then transmitted to millions of people live and that it made people happy.

38:18The idea that a person in traffic, for example, is laughing at a traffic stop and they look next door to the car and the other person is laughing at the same time. And instead of snarling at each other or waving their fists at each other, they kind of go, oh, you're obviously fair play. You're listening to the thing. And that is, for me, the closest I'll ever get to being Jesus. the idea of bringing people together and going love each other it's my little thing I feel like I'm doing something in the world that means I'm here yeah and that's so that's it's funny you say that because one of the things like I love doing TV and I love that and you get some you get some feedback off that from Instagram or on social when it's going out you get a bit of that and it's all happening at the same time I love the Instagram on a Saturday's Q &A and you get to see the questions and you get to see that interaction I've done live shows recently and I know you do live shows all the time right so I did one last That's right live shows so you do these live shows around the country like the Helix and everything and all these theatres I mean as I was saying to you outside everything now is a live show The Vet is a live show Noel Fitzpatrick Brian Cox The Space cooking live shows obviously comedians just economics remember David McWilliams and everything going economics economics exactly and now financial planning the live show so financial planning and what I it's interesting because when I was thinking about doing doing it.

39:36Sorry, and I put it up on Instagram the first day I did the first one in the lime tree in Limerick. I was at an event, Nicola Talent actually was doing an event in the lime tree and I went to see it in Limerick and I walked out and I said, I'd love to do that. And I said, that was just felt great. Like just the whole being in the same room talking about the same thing at the same time. And then of course, you know this, and I should have known this, but you stand on a live stage and you look out and you can see nothing except the bright lights in your face. And you know what? You get very attuned to the noises coming like the giggles Oh yes You get very and you would have laughs every couple of seconds I'm a financial planner I'm not funny right but you still get a couple of giggles here and there I would be worried if people were laughing their heads up So anyway all of you could be financially independent So but it's that it's still I got stripped very quickly of I thought I'd be seeing the audience in my head but you don't see the audience but you hear and you feel the audience and it's amazing It was an amazing You can't beat five nights And we've done two And there's talk about Two and two more In different parts of the country Yeah And I think we probably will I really have the bug now And I loved it Now I do corporate speaking All the time So I'm often in In seminars And doing In cantines And companies And I'm doing that A huge amount Okay And you get a lot of Immediate feedback Okay I love that Yeah But to take it onto a stage Exactly It's different isn't it With the lights and the dark Yes And people seated like that Yeah It is interesting So your dad That was fantastic I mean I'm sorry to hear that he died five years ago but he did he did live a lot longer than maybe he would have he absolutely lived longer and you know what he did as well like he got involved right so imagine this man had like a very successful career he was in the civil service he was very successful he did a really great job actually Mario I don't know what he did right back in the 80s and yeah 80s really because he gave up the end of the kind of 1990-ish is when he gave up he was got funding from the government for the benefit of inner city kids in Dublin.

41:34Right. And he would do things like there was a place called Clure. I don't know where Clure is, right. But we used to get brought down to Clure as a kid. As kids. I'm the youngest of four boys and three older brothers. And we'd be brought down because dad would write a check. I'm sure today you wouldn't be allowed to do it, right. Dad would write a check for places like Clure. And Clure was like canoeing and orienteering and archery and everything else. And every summer, the type of summer projects would take a busload of kids from the inner city of Dublin and bring them down to Clure. Brilliant, yeah.

42:01And every year we'd go down and they'd kind of go okay this is the cheque you gave us last year this is where we spent it and if you give us a cheque this year this is where we're going to spend it next year right and we were treated great we got to go canoeing we got to canoe all these things to test it all out and it was just an amazing experience because you had I remember talking to one of the lads he was my age from inner city in Dublin and he now remember this was the 80s Ireland was a very different place at the time but I remember saying to him this is deadly I love the town here and I said yeah have you been down here before and he goes no this is the first time we've been outside Dublin and I just went what a fascinating job my dad has and he's creating these kind of experiences and experiences life moments it was fabulous memorable moments yeah he did great but then when he gave up work he went into like he drove the school bus so every football match I played dad was there right he joined the board or the parents association of the school so like every time I was walking through the school corridors he was there right not every time but he was there I remember one day we used to have a bench outside the staff in the bathroom and you got in trouble, you got put on the bench.

43:03I remember sitting on the bench, hadn't been on it in a year. The next minute, dad starts walking up the corridor and the vice principal starts walking the other way and the vice principal grabs it because, I haven't seen him on the bench, don't give out to him. I haven't seen him at all. But the point is, is he was there. He was always there. Sounds like you admired him. He was fantastic. And one of the things, I got three older brothers. And one of the things that's amazing is he had a different way of engaging with the four of us. He's an amazing communicator. Really? And he would draw on different things from you.

43:27Like he knew your kind of area of expertise and that was the conversation he had with you and he made you feel very needed very important he had huge time for all of us and it's interesting because I think a lot of the business acumen side of things came from him and probably my big brother my big brother my eldest brother is 10 years older than me so he was kind of when I was coming of kind of awareness around the business world he was kind of going into college and doing different things and I would have looked up to him and I still do look at him he's my big brother and I still looked up to him so business acumen was probably dad and my eldest brother David.

44:01But then there's a compassion thing. My mother was a therapist, so a family therapist. And there's a compassion thing on that side. And then one of my brothers is a mental health nurse and he's a manager. I can never get... So he kind of had that diversity. And because I was... My next brother to me was five years older than me. And therefore, I was kind of... I adulted quite quickly, but I was absorbing a lot of adult stuff as a very young child and getting to pull the best of all of them into it all at the same time. so it was great upbringing brilliant upbringing and it was really enjoyable but I really did get to witness some of the great stuff Yeah and also there was a lot of caring around as well you know whether it's your mum or whether it's your brother or whether it's the interest that your dad showed in all of you what a great dad he sounds And then my other brother who I haven't mentioned about it better just in case you listen to it he lives in Australia now and he was the closest in age to me and we just had the best crack we were best mates and it was just he was an all rounder What is the One of the things we mentioned outside and that it is peculiar to Ireland is that it seems, I don't know how much you could say about this, but it seems as though we in Ireland aren't great at all at talking about money.

45:11Are other countries better? And I would say, even off my own knowledge, yes, they are. I mean, look at the United States. I mean, typical conversation between two strangers would be, look, I pulled down$130 ,000 last year. What did you do? 95 ,000 I mean you know but I'm in this industry what I need to do to make 200 they're all talking numbers the whole time how much did you make is not a ignorant question in America absolutely not it is in Ireland it absolutely is and I think even if you take that that even further in the States if you succeed it's well done you get a pat on the back if you fail you get a pat on the back and say you're going to learn from that get up off your ass you're going to do better get drunk at the weekend and get up on Monday and start a new company and go again and there's no there's no shame in failure whereas here there is like I've seen people go through really difficult business times and the business fails and they feel like hiding and they do hide sometimes and they just go I can't do this or like something goes wrong in the business world and it's like and then the opposite is something goes really right and they all who do they know how did they get there so you've got that whole thing about success and failure and then who do you think you are yeah who do you think you are remember the old story about Bono Bono is this is maybe apocryphal that Bono tells this story but it's his understanding of the difference between Americans and Irish and he looks up at the house on the hill.

46:29He talks about the man, men who look up at the house on the hill, the big house on the hill and he says, the American looks up at the big house on the hill and the big rich man on the house on the hill and he goes, someday I'm going to be that guy. That's America. In Ireland they go, someday I'm going to get that guy. But it's true. It's very true and that's the problem that we do have. So therefore, when you've got those kind of outside things, why are you going to turn around and say, yeah, I made X amount last year. Also, I think this is a slightly different area, but generally when it comes to, generally my own feeling when it comes to financial matters and money is that when I'm with people who are within my own sort of sphere, I would have no issue chatting to them at all, especially in my own business.

47:17And the reason for that is I think it's healthy a lot of the time to discuss certain financial things so that we are, in effect, helping each other. Absolutely. Right? So when we're all ignorant and let's say everybody in the company has no clue what the other person is getting, you are at a disadvantage. Yeah. Because by, in a sense, people sharing that kind of information, you are, in a sense, informally unionizing yourself. Yes. You are basically getting at the boss going, hang on, I know that Mary makes 100 grand. Yeah. I should be yeah because she told me yeah right but if nobody knows then you can't fight your corner and even to think about that in a more granular level or even in a slightly different angle to that right one in three people really struggle with their finances right so there's actually three of us in the room if people aren't luckily there's three of us in the room statistically one of us is really struggling right now right if you're not struggling Mario then there's a 50 % chance it's me or Leap right so it's one of the two of us is going to be struggling and what I would ask people to do her listening to this.

48:20And the chances that it's you is very, very low. Which means, Leanne, where did it all go wrong? Not in a George Best way, but Leanne, how are you even here? Did I pass you earlier on shaking that cup in the street?

48:37So, Well, it's you, Leanne. It's you! The thing is, what I've been asking people to do for a couple of years, right, and I started this about four or five years ago. every time I get a chance, every time I get an opportunity, the only way we're breaking the taboo about finances is to talk about it, right? So in the last 15 years, we've done an amazing job. I could turn around and we could turn this conversation on its head right now and I could turn around to you, Mario, and say, Mario, woke up this morning. I wasn't feeling great. And me and you could openly speak for the next 20 minutes about my mental health and that would be okay.

49:09You know what? Even your listeners would be totally accepting of it. That's just the world we live in. But we won't talk to our mates about money, right? And my ask is, the only way we're breaking the taboo is one conversation at a time. And my ask is, go and talk to someone. When you hear me say this on Mario's podcast, make it your business in the next week to talk to one person about money that you've never spoken to about money before. Say to them, what's the best thing you ever did with your money? What's your relationship with your money? You don't have to share your payslip or your bank statement.

49:36You can be discreet about it. Yeah, and just open the door because two things happen there. First of all, the person you've just spoken to now knows if ever they're in trouble or they're in trouble right now the door is open. but you also know what reaction you got from them that if ever you're in trouble you can go to them and you'd be shocked at the conversation I've been asking people to do this for years and people have come to me afterwards and say you know what happened I spoke to them and they were in a really difficult place and nobody had asked them and people who they thought were noticing were refusing to notice it and were moving on and brushing it to one side and just opening that door made a difference and the only way we're getting to where we are and sorry I'm delighted where we are with mental health and it's only right but the only way we're getting to the same place with finances is one conversation at a time correct it's very un-Irish yes it's very un-Irish yeah and I think you're right one of the things I was preaching about a couple of years ago was we we're excellent at talking about mental health and in fact even something like miscarriage yeah you know I remember miscarriage was a taboo years ago but no longer yeah you know I mean you can freely now people openly talk about miscarriage and the pain it brings and the sadness of the loss, you know.

50:48But people do talk about that now, you know. One of the things I think people don't talk about as well as money is estrangement. Yes. Estrangement from family members. It's endemic in Ireland. Absolutely. And it's a taboo. Yes. It's a taboo. And it's almost regarded as kind of a shame or embarrassing to say, for example, that, you know, I haven't spoken to my mom or dad in 10 years or whatever. Oh, they're dead, are they? No, they're not dead. They're fully alive, actually. but we were estranged. And I think that taboo comes from to be estranged from somebody is as a result of years and years of events, circumstances or maybe some one big event, right?

51:28No, you're right actually. But it's not, you're right. It's an accrual. Yes. And for you to open, for somebody who's estranged from somebody to open that door, you're very vulnerable. The person is very vulnerable because they end up in a position where I can't explain six years of the lead up to this. And therefore, how can that person totally or even begin to understand how it's not my fault or it's not their fault or whatever the case is. So it's such a complex thing that it's a very difficult thing just to have out in the open and talk to you. And the word fault is a bit like that word happy.

52:03It's a big word, which means it's hard to know if it means anything. Yes. You know, I mean, if you, for example, explain marriage breakup The word fault is an enormous word to use Sometimes it isn't anybody's fault And blame shouldn't be apportioned always And shame of the fault Of the failure shouldn't be apportioned Again using that word failure Of a relationship breaking down Why is it called a failure? It's not necessarily a failure To have a relationship breakdown It is what it is But anyway that moves it on to a different thing John and Mary Sean and Moira Two Two Mom and dad And Boy and girl Yeah What's The biggest Single mistake Or Thing If you could only give them One thing To Do with their financial lives A practical tip like Yeah a practical tip I think the biggest mistake We We see is And this is on lots of different levels The biggest mistake we see is People work hard for their money But their money doesn't work hard for them Right We have 160 billion sitting in bank accounts right now.

53:13Everything called the five. In savings. In savings, deposits, yeah. And investments. People? No. Deposits, yeah. Sitting in the bank. Sitting in the bank. People have that much money. 160 billion. And that's 160 billion which isn't working. Not working at all. That's a 2%. It's our crappy interest rates. Like awful interest rates. It's 160 billion at 2 % or 1%. Yeah, absolutely. And that's not even including on post, which I think is another 20. It's not including the credit unions. So we are awash with cash or a certain portion of society are awash with cash, right? And I have a thing called the five-year rule.

53:43The five-year rule says, my five-year rule says, if you need the money in the next five years, stick it to the bank account credit union on post. Interest rates are crap. Don't beat yourself up about what you're getting because they're all crap, right? So that's where it belongs. If you don't need the money in the next five years, get it out of there and get it invested. Yeah. And people go, oh, invest in shares, I'm scared, right? You're not scared. Just nobody's ever explained it to you in a way that you understand, so therefore you're scared of it. You're just not informed. If you invested in a pension, it is investing in shares.

54:07Yes, absolutely. Yeah, 100%. My anecdotal kind of evidence experience would be 104 billion of that 160 shouldn't be in bank accounts. It will not be spent in the next five years. And let me give you a really practical example because you mentioned Sean and Maura, right, the two kids. Let's imagine Maura is born this morning and the mummy and daddy decide, you know what, we can afford not to use the child benefit, right? We can afford to put it away from Maura's college. And they put the 140 euros a month aside. And if you don't have kids and you're listening to this, 140 you won't, the calculation is still the same.

54:39It's just maths, 140 quid a month. They put the 140 euros a month aside for the next 18 years. If they get 1 % in a bank account, they manage to get 1 % over that 18 years in a bank account, they're going to come out with 33 grand. Let's ignore tax, 33 ,000 euro. If they invested it and got a standard kind of four, four and a half percent growth on it, right, they're going to come out with 44 ,000 euros. As opposed to? 33. Yeah. In a bank account. Now, what I did was, I was going on stage last week and I went and looked at a fund that was available and I didn't cherry pick it I just said that fund has been around for years pick that one there let's run the maths on it and see if it was maturing last Tuesday and you put 140 quid a month into it how much would you have today again ignoring tax 68 ,000 euros that fund is still available today it was available 18 years ago to everyone in the country and you know what makes that fund so beautiful it's this this this alchemy this magic that we have in the world called compound interest.

55:35Compound interest is just completely magic. Yeah. It's like Keith Barry just conjuring money out of nothing. Look at Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett is in his 90s, one of the richest men in the world. He's investing from the age of 13 years of age. Yeah, was he? Yeah, and he's worth over 100 billion. Let's just round it to 100 billion, right? Let's just say he's worth 100 billion today. How much of that 100 billion did you think he had when he was 50? Now, he started when he was 13. How much of the 100 billion that he has today do you think he had when he was 50? One. Exactly. 1 % of his current wealth he had at the age of 50 and he's in his mid-90s now.

56:06That's compound interest. That 140 euros a month that we're talking about in the child benefit, that's the same money being used in a different way getting a very different result. And that's the biggest mistake we see. There's a big push coming from Europe at the moment, right? Where there's so much money sitting in cash across Europe in deposit accounts not being used. That could be freed up and invested into European companies. And there must be a way of freeing it up. In other words, imagine, this is bullshit now, right? So you've probably been through this in your mind, but imagine I'm Pascal Dunno not Pascal the new Pascal whatever Simon Harris actually and I say I have a meeting at the banks and I go guys there's 160 billion in your accounts what about we encourage there's 104 20 billion at that you talked about what about we encourage our customers we contact them encourage them to take it out yeah but they what if they have the right to say no and to leave it there they do have the right to say no what about we offer them a kind of insurance against some of any potential losses knowing that we probably won't lose because we're going to invest this in just a 4.5 % mutual decent fund that could and then we share and almost like we share it well almost to share it but you increase the wealth yes and one of the interesting SSIA was a little bit like that people might remember SSIA you put in 4 euro the government put in 1 that's right that's the way it worked it was kind of there was a little bit of an insurance but you went off and chose whether you wanted to put in a deposit account or invest in the markets that was the choice you made at the time There was an encouragement there.

57:30What I think, there's lower hanging fruit than restructuring the whole thing. Like we've seen for the first time, investments in Ireland, this is going to get a bit kind of technical here. Investments in Ireland, typically, there's a couple of different regimes, but typically, you used to pay 41 % tax on the growth. In the most recent budget, they've reduced it to 38 % tax. I'm hoping that it's going down to 33%. When I started, 27 years ago, I'm realising, when I started advising clients and started in this profession, it was 20%, right? So that's the first thing that needs to make it more attractive.

58:00Now I always say if you're paying tax you're making money. But I need to make it more attractive to people not to have it. But the other thing is there's a thing called deemed disposal. That if you invest money and you don't take it out in the first eight years after eight years they tax you as if you did. And that's killing people's compound interest like you were talking about. Can I ask you a sticky question? Of course you can. This is Ireland. A small country. And I don't mean that in any I don't mean that in a pejorative way. I mean because we're small we're a little parochial and everybody knows everybody if I go to not even if I go to Financial Prosperous Prosperous my company Prosperous is it what's it called Prosperous.ie Prosperous Financial Prosperous Financial if I go to Prosperous Financial or Financial or Financial Prosperous another one how sure can I be that there's discretion that you keep your mouth shut that I keep my mouth shut there's a couple of things everybody at the end of the day we're just human absolutely I totally my business I can't talk for anyone else but let's talk I can't talk about financial prosperous but I can talk about prosperous financial my business is built on confidentiality I have siblings that are both clients they don't know each other clients and what we would do is we would take the clients you know what happy with us but if you take on an employee right a high level employee with a degree in finance and economics and everything and his name is James I don't know any of your employees so if there's a James there it's not you and let's say his name is James and James impresses the hell out of you and you're going I'm hiring James and I'll even pay above because he's going to do well with my company but it turns out James is an awful blabbermouth right like he could do a lot of damage he could do a lot of absolutely and then he'd be fired yeah absolutely he would get fired and you can tie people up in a whole pile of legals before they join and confidentiality agreements and you can do all of that but ultimately you have to make sure that James is the right fit for the company and ultimately we walk into the office and we have our core values written my company Prosperous my company that's unfair because I have a shareholder as well Colin now but I used to Prosperous in 2008 and I brought Colin in four years ago, coming up on five years ago and I said, Colin, I just want to deal with my clients.

1:00:03I'm really happy dealing with my clients. I don't want to deal with all the staff and the central bank and the accounts. I just want to go into my client meetings. I want to help you at board level and I want to do this stuff. It's my media stuff, my corporate speaking, my podcast with Mario, whatever else. So Colin has taken us from four staff to 40 staff in four years and we've grown at 40 % growth on average in 22, 23 and 24 and we hit nearly 100 % growth last year. right and one of the things you do when you're going from 40 staff to 40 staff is you hire a lot of people and sometimes you get that wrong and sometimes you kind of go oh what are we going to do here and you what one thing is i think it's fair on the employee if it's wrong to get to let them go as soon as possible and it's fairer on us but one of the things the big fears i had when the business was going to be scaled up there was going to be more people in it is would they adhere would they do it the way i do it am i going to be okay that people are going to be looked after when they come in because i know when the customer's in front of me i'm going to do my best to look out.

1:00:52But that's where the core values come in. Like our core values are transparency. We will make sure that you, that everything is transparent. We will always do the right thing by the client, even if it's not the right thing by us. And sorry, I could keep, I'm not going to, it's not a party political broadcast, but my point is, is what we find and when we do meetings and company briefings where we spend the whole day together, everyone lives, breathes and sleeps the core values. And when they don't, they very quickly feel like they don't feel. I know what you mean. And therefore it's about, yeah, you can tie people down with contracts and you can type people there's an expectation of them the other thing is is the industry is very small the profession is very small It's true but no but it's just like you know I'm talking to my banker on the phone right so I'm in AIB right and I'm talking to my banker on the phone and he's there yeah I'll just bring up the account now Mario and it's everything in front of him he then knows everything to do with my financial thing now to be honest with you that's not a big deal to me I know it should be a bigger deal probably isn't a big deal to me but it is a big deal for most people They go, I don't want Jimmy to be going blabbering it out in the local.

1:01:53I was just seeing Mario's account there. The only thing is, it's a different level for you because you're in the public eye, right? That's one thing. But the other thing is, I believe I do an incredibly diligent job with my clients. But I'll be honest, I had a meeting this morning at 10 o 'clock. I haven't a clue what was in that now. Like, if you ask me, what does Mario's accounts look like? I know it there and then when I need to know it, but I'm seeing them all day, every day. So you're like a doctor. They become just a number in a way. yeah well yeah Owen thank you so much this is the book I'm going to hold it up Owen McGee How to Achieve Financial Freedom and it's great Owen as well to be able to talk to you about the other areas associated with it because money is a thing that it just there's so much areas off it isn't there about you know even to do with this word happiness and everything like that Tony Atul and good luck at the live shows thanks anyone coming up or yeah so I have well by the time this goes out it will be done the helix will be done but we're talking about doing two more maybe down the kind of southwest somewhere but we haven't confirmed anything yet let's see how it goes alright brilliant lovely talking to you thank you Mario congratulations on the book well done and my thanks to Owen McGee great to see him again it's funny because sitting opposite him he was so genuine in everything he was saying about why he wanted to become a financial advisor in the first place and there was something vocational about it all and I really enjoyed chatting to Owen and I hope his book goes great see you same time same place next week bye folks

1:03:20We'll be right back.