Financial Advisor Reveals: Why You're Broke (Even On A Good Salary) - Emmanuel Asuquo

0:00Iman, you've come across my feed about a million times. We've never met, which I just think is mad. Crazy, isn't it? Yeah. It's been like, when you turned up today, I was just like, oh, I've got Iman in the building. I love that, man. Because I think for you, the way that you come across on social media is just like very likable character. But you've kind of seen the entire wealth spectrum. You're advising millionaires. you've helped people you know on council estates yeah be honest is being broke about how much you earn or is it something else entirely so it's a great question first of all big up you sammy like

0:41Emmanuel Asuquo: i've loved watching your content i love the way you deliver it i love how you keep it real obviously it's the first time meeting in person but we've obviously had conversations in the dms online and so forth i love your content i love what you do and i love your authenticity and just how you deliver it and i feel like it's a joy to be on this podcast because thanks man i feel like we're like the same person like i like the way there's never i've yet to see a video that you've done and then your take on it and been like i don't agree with it like i agree like it's like we went to the same financial literacy school or whatever like do you know i mean so yeah no big you up man and thank you for having me on the show so um brokerism mentality it's not about how much money have so the reason I say that is that um I work with I get obviously doing what I do on social media I get a lot of football players that reach out to me um speak to them talk to them about their money their finances and so forth now not even from an advisor point of view because a lot of the time the club will have their own financial advisor but sometimes they just want to hear from someone that's from the community because typically the club financial advisor is you know a quiet you know 50 year old white man who's never grown up in the on a council state doesn't understand their culture and so forth so just want to run it past me and i can see although some of them making decent you know 50k a week 100k a week so they're making 250 a week but they have a mentality that's keeping it going to keep them broke because basically they have a high income but they have no assets they don't understand how to turn money into assets and so what's happening is that they're making this money, but the second they stop playing football, which again is not in their control.

2:23Emmanuel Asuquo: They could go and play a match, get an injury, ACL guys, done, contract, they get paid to the end of their contract and then that's the money that's got to last them the rest of their life. Because again, a lot of them for pride is going to stop them from going to get a normal job. They've been used to having, earning so much money and going to certain clubs and certain exclusive places and having car manufacturers call them direct when the latest cars come out and having all these companies that come direct to them because they have all this money, then they're used to that lifestyle. When that money goes, they're going to want to keep up that lifestyle, but they haven't got anything bringing that money in.

2:59Emmanuel Asuquo: And what's going to happen is the money is going to run out. And so for me, what I always try to tell them is that a lot of them are making decisions and they're doing it for people that don't really love them, don't really care about them. Because what those people care about is themselves. so if I see you making a bad financial decision but I know that you're paying I get money from you it's going to be difficult for me to tell you not to do something because I don't want to offend you because if I offend you now I might stop my cash flow so now I encourage you to do what do what do what you're doing because I want to I want to benefit from you and so the reason they come to me is that I'll tell them straight but you can't afford that car you think you're rich you're not rich like you think you've got money you ain't got money like remember a lot of these guys in a locker room imagine you might be in a locker room you're on 100k a week you're sitting next to a man that's earning half a million a week you're trying to live half a million a week lifestyle because you think we're in the same we play for the same team we're in the same locker room no your life is completely different yeah he's getting brand deals exactly getting brand deals exactly and that's another thing you live on your salary the top ones they don't live on their salary yeah and then you've got the 16 year old kid who's on like 250 quid a week sitting in the same dressing room because he's so good but obviously you know he's gonna end up being where that is but still like they're looking up at that and then aspiring to be that half a million pound guy and if they're honest like when i see a lot of them are gambling on the bus again remember you're around these guys these guys become your imagine like when we're at school you know what you used to do on the coach and you go to play games and whatever you're these are your guys but imagine you're you're all got money so you're playing cards we used to play blackjack on the coaches we didn't have no money though we just played you know i mean whoever won one yeah exactly yeah they're playing with thousands sometimes hundreds of thousands because of ego that you don't have so you get paid and now you're paying off debt you're in debt to your your teammates so what am i trying to say i'm trying to say the amount of money can't replace a broke mentality like when when when when big said more money more problems a lot of the time that the problems come from the fact that you are making decisions that you've never been able to make before.

5:13Emmanuel Asuquo: And this is why I never, I tell people don't judge because a lot of the time what we do is we say, if I had that money, like I would have made that decision. But you don't know you rich. You only know you broke. Do you understand? Like you only know you that doesn't have much. So you're going to live within your means. You don't know how you will behave. Now, all of a sudden, you know, every month you've got, like every week you've got 100k coming in net of packs you've got you think you don't know what what your mindset is going to be like you don't know the types of people that are going to come around you you don't know all of these so-called friends or how they're going to behave so you also don't know how your parents are going to act your cousins your aunties your uncles that now like all of a sudden you're feeding feeding the 5 000.

6:01Emmanuel Asuquo: Mate I'm like that now I'm like that now that's why i feel like really weird about saying how much is in my pots yeah i used to be quite open because i was building and then when i got to a number that was like started to be a little bit like my mum's like you know if i'm at dinner you kind of get the like expectation of me going to the bar or me buying the drinks or or the meal or whatever because they're like he's good yeah and that so like i see that right up from the step one to right up to the footballers i can only imagine yeah and even like content creators like i've got content creators that i work with and like yeah you're making good money you're making good money and so what you know how many of my content creators when i sit down with them they've got no pension they've got no they ain't got no isa they ain't got no investments they've bought one house which again they overstretched themselves because there's nothing wrong with buying the house that you live in but it's got to make sense yeah yeah like to me it's not about the house it's about the amount what's the mortgage payment so I always tell my clients we focus on the mortgage payment I do the same with car it doesn't matter about the car it's the monthly payment on the car so I will tell my clients this is your monthly payment that you can afford for your house this is your monthly payment for your car go and get the best car you can get within this monthly payment I don't care about the brand this is the pay because if especially when you're like footballers at least they have some sort of contract when you're a content creator you're only as hot as the trends are.

7:34Emmanuel Asuquo: Your last brand deal. Yeah. Once the deal goes, I'll give a story. So I did a brand deal with Barclays. Everyone knows I did a big brand deal with Barclays and the Barclays app. Amazing. When that brand deal ended, that was a six-figure brand deal for two years. When that brand deal ended, no financial brand wanted to touch me. That's the Barclays guy. Yeah, the Barclays dude. Yeah. People don't understand. You were Barclays for two years. I can't now put you in Santander or NatWest or on any because everyone's saying that the blog please go mate I'm that with Trading212 on this podcast like no brand will touch it because it's like you've had Trading212 for three years it's like well if I took them away I'll be really difficult to replace it it's going to be hard so again you're only as good as do you know what I mean as the brand see fit do you know what I mean and so what I'm trying to say is that especially for my content creators we've got to be thinking about so look at what's happened with Philly for example like he has he was the guy yeah the number one yeah out of all content creators in the UK he was number one he was so big on content on socials that TV was like we need to not put you on TV because we need to get people from socials to watch TV he was the guy one incident his whole life was changed whole life was changed a lot of these people and i say the difference so i i do a lot um scarlet douglas um so i do a lot of her she does big in property she does a lot with channel four yeah and i remember speaking to her about her time in the jungle and and you know someone like for example nella rose who was went into the jungle as well and the difference being scarlet's been trained she's had media training she's got she understands what is expected a lot of content creators when you're a content creator you're just getting paid to be you i know it's mad but in certain environments the way you are where you can be naturally you on online you can't necessarily be that in all all forms of media no and then all of a sudden you can get backlash all of a sudden things can go go against you now thank god someone like nella roche is so talented that she can bounce back and go again but for a smaller content creator you get backlash like that all of a sudden no brand deals no brands are working for you but now you've got the fame and this is what i talk about when i talk about with the footballers and the pride and so what happens is is that why i say it's a broke it's mindset and not money is that when i sit down with some of these football players and i i think about how much you got in your bank account they tell me okay how much how much a lot of them i mean have huge mortgages so you would think somebody earning 100k a week why would they need a mortgage could they not they had huge mortgages yeah and that's because again they have a mortgage broker that is more concerned with making money than telling them actually why don't you just say 50 and then get a mortgage for 50 and actually you don't need 12 bedrooms when there's only four of you in the house like one one yeah like if they come over from brazil like you know come on mad you just got here yeah like I always think about Michael Essien when he joined Chelsea yeah he lived in a Chelsea hotel yeah he lived in the Chelsea hotel he paid nothing yeah he got a room for free he could be he got he got food for free and he kept his costs down well you look at like Kante yeah and Tierney like turning up with the Tesco's bags because he wouldn't buy the Gucci holder or Kante turns up in a Ford Fiesta and everyone's in the Lambos and it's like they've got that mentality they've obviously clocked it and they've got that about them.

11:19Emmanuel Asuquo: And that's legacy. Someone like, you know, Kante, Sadio Mane, when he's got hospitals, schools in his village where he's come from. Yeah. That's the impact you want to have. That's a mindset that understands that actually my value, it's crazy that you could make that level of money and still feel that you need to prove your worth. People don't deep it, but what you're saying is that although I've made it to the Premier League, I'm making all this money for even championship like I've got a man in League One making serious money football is making serious money you're still 3-4k a week come on serious a lot of money a lot of money serious money and and they will still have nothing to show for it like and they'll have no legacy and like they'll finish and when you really add up the last 4-5-6 years how much how much has passed through their hands and then you say show me show me where it's gone yeah we had amelia powell on who's nick's wife yeah and she's obviously a financial advisor now we had this chat and it is nuts like trying to install that mentality into someone who's come from nothing largely exactly it's a mentality it's your you you imagine imagine getting paid that level of money getting paid millions and still feeling i need to buy cars and houses and jewellery and watch to prove my worth.

12:43Emmanuel Asuquo: You would think you'd already feel, I've made it. I've made, I've lived, I've hit my dream. But society, consumerism, capitalism tells us that we have to prove our worth. And that's how we continue to buy this stuff. And so for me, it's about getting them to forget that and say, listen, I always ask people, do you want to work forever? And everyone always says, no, I don't want to work forever. But the way you manage your money, you're going to work forever. Yeah, you have to. You're not going to have to because you literally make money and spend all of it before the end of the month. Normally you're running out of money around the 16th, 17th of the month.

13:16Emmanuel Asuquo: And those last few days of the month, you're struggling. If you continue that, how will you have money for a pension? How will you have money for your stocks and shares? How will you have money to buy a property? How will you have money to do your side hustle and start? You ain't got nothing. So you're always having to work. And the biggest thing that we forget with work is health. Because what we assume is that we're going to be healthy enough to work till 65 but anything can change at any time no stats don't lie not everyone gets that no everyone gets that so this is the mindset this is why I say it's less about the amount of money somebody with the right mindset they can they can change their life like that they can have a great idea and change their life like that and the money will come and then they'll move forward so you can be broke and get out of it but if you've got a broke mentality you will always stay broke well this is like it's really interesting because that obviously we were speaking about the Premier League footballers here but you can bring that right down to me at 25 with 24 grand's worth of debt peacocking buying the jackets taking the loan out to cover that loan i was already doing that then it's the same mentality yeah and it just goes up the wealth spectrum where the numbers just get scarier as they grow yeah but like when you look at it from a um from an angle of you know i've just got the pay rise and let's say i've gone from 60 to 80k and so that's a big jump you're going to notice the difference yeah and you upgrade the life the house the car the kids after school class maybe they're going to private school whatever that might well be and suddenly you can't go backwards and so you're stuck in this loop it is the worst the worst hell that you can i've seen it like i've seen it especially recently with you know cost of living and vat to private school tuition fees go up and i've seen it and it is i've got clients who are heartbroken.

15:08Emmanuel Asuquo: They are heartbroken because they work so hard. They've come from nothing. They work so hard to give their kids this better life. And now, because they've been made redundant, because the new job they've got wasn't paying the same level as the old job they had, because the cost of living, the interest has gone up on their mortgage. All of a sudden, they have to take the kids out of private school, take them out of private lessons, dance class. they were teaching them foreign languages all of those things had to stop just because they can't afford it anymore and now their kids are looking at them it's a serious dent to ego and pride isn't it painful yeah and actually you set the precedent I say even with Amanda when they're dating like first date you want to take her to the Shard are you well like what's wrong what's wrong with you like you can't go back from there and sometimes you want to blame the woman like oh oh, you're a gold digger.

16:04Emmanuel Asuquo: No, you started this. You want to do a little burger in Lobston first. Like, come on, chill out. Get something cool. Let's get to know each other. And then on a special, oh, our one-year anniversary or something big, then go somewhere nice. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like, but you want to set the standards so high. Why? Social media. Because the guys on social media, I'll tell you, but you ain't making their money. You're not living their life. I would argue, like, is she the right, or he the right guy or chick if they're doing that? because like for me I would want to go to the local spot that's cool that I've researched like that's a bit funky and cool and if she don't like me after that then we ain't meant to be together because that's not the right vibe because at the end of the day why are we spending why are we spending hundreds a month hundreds if not thousands on going to these posh restaurants and all of this stuff yet we own nothing and that's what people don't understand the game of life it's like Monopoly the people that win a monopoly they own because when people land on your land on where they gotta pay you but if you don't own anything every time you land somewhere you gotta pay someone else and a lot of us are living a life where every time we leave our house every time we wanna go out every time we have to pay someone else and the only person paying us is that one job and it just can't match and so to live the life that you want and the life that you deserve number one you have to have income beyond just your your work but also you've got to reduce the outgoings

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18:54yeah it's i always say it's like this kind of you've got two options yeah you can cut or you can increase yes but when you increase keep everything else the same and try and like it's really difficult to delay that forever because we all want to move up a little bit we all want a little bit of a nicer house we want to do up the kitchen whatever that might be like the cupboards are falling off i need to but if you can delay it delay the bigger decisions one, two, if you can, three, four, five years and change nothing. And in that timeframe, stack assets. Your life will look materially different.

19:30Emmanuel Asuquo: And that's the thing for me is that, for example, I'm a big guy. When I go on a plane, economy is a struggle for me. The seat is tight. I'm just not comfortable, especially when I've got long flights. So I want to upgrade my seat. But I don't think I'm going to upgrade my seat for the money that I make from work. That's not going to make sense. So I know I need to have something that's going to bring an additional income. And I know that additional income is for me being able to afford to upgrade my seat. So what the problem is, is that there's nothing wrong with wanting better in life. The problem is, is that when you want better in life, but you want to keep the same income.

20:10Emmanuel Asuquo: No, your income has to increase. You have to look at how do I increase my income to match the lifestyle that I want to live? what am I prepared to because again right now I'm in a position where I could make even more money if I worked more hours but I've got four kids I'm like actually I'll take less they're very cute by the way I see you outside Arsenal with the parade I was like oh man love that yeah that's my dream one day two kids take them to Arsenal yeah and to me it's like I would I'd rather the value in spending time with them doing their helping their homework I'd take them to school and have those conversations, pick them up.

20:50Emmanuel Asuquo: I'd rather do that and make less. So that's my sacrifice. But that then means I'm going to cut back on other things. So I'm not going to have the most expensive this or the most expensive that. I don't really wear designer clothes. I don't have a, like even my car, for example, everyone's saying E-man, like I've got a Mercedes but it's like a C-class. They're like, oh E-man, you should be having a, you know, four by four something or a coupe or I mean like a bigger, you understand? I'm like, for who? For you. I know you ain't paying my bills. You're not living my, because again, I know that I'm self-employed.

21:30Emmanuel Asuquo: I know that yes, money's going really well and we're doing well, excellent. I know at any given time, there could be two or three months where I'm waiting for invoices to get paid. Business is slow, especially in this economy that we're in. And all of a sudden, I'm not going to I'm not going to have outgoings that I can't like all of a sudden I can't afford to pay if I don't make X amount of money no I need to make sure that my outgoings are low in all seasons so a car that I hardly drive that is just sitting out there it depends if I was someone that drove all the time maybe I want to put some more money in that because I'm in the car all the time no I don't drive that often so I'm not going to go and get a fancy car like my car I put down a deposit and it cost me £150 a month remember I said it's about the amount when people see my car I said, I want to get the best car I can get for this amount.

22:20Emmanuel Asuquo: That's all I wanted to spend on the car. And we agree on that so much. Like car finance isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world if it's not over 10 % of your income. If it's above 10 % of what you can net incomes coming in, then it's a problem. Even that's high. High. Yeah, exactly. And when I say this to my clients, especially me telling a footballer that, you know what? I don't think you should get a Lambo. Yeah. angry at me they're angry I can pay that next week they're like what and I'm saying no that's not this is not where we're trying to get to think about the long term because at the end of the day because I was with Lambo I went to the car show I was at Lambo oh Goodwood yeah Goodwood I went to Goodwood and my cousin he's got a Lambo so Lambo invited him down so he went down there the average age that people keep a Lambo for nine months what really nine months they spend 200 over 200k on a car and the average time that they keep this car is nine months yeah i see bugsy talk about this when he was like i went i was so gassed about going getting the lambo and then he turned up drove it off the forecourt and 10 minutes down the road he was i didn't feel a thing and he was like i've just spent 200 000 pounds and i don't feel anything I thought I was going to feel like a king.

23:41And then he was like, I just don't feel a thing. And I can imagine that's the exact same feeling.

23:47Emmanuel Asuquo: And now I've got clients that, okay, three, four years down the line, they're like, thank you. Thank you. Because actually I had to, you know, the honest truth is, all of a sudden you get a manager that doesn't like you anymore. All of a sudden you're now in Europe. You know what I mean? And the salaries are not as high as they are maybe in the Premier League or on Division I. so or championships so all of a sudden now you're getting less so thank God like a Reece Nelson or someone like that you know he's being farmed out and then they ain't gonna get that Arsenal salary once yet exactly this is probably his last year here so he's either gonna this is his last year on the contract so he's either gonna get sold but where he's going ain't gonna give him the same as what he's done before he's on a decline and he's only young so if he hasn't invested well those the last two or three contracts that he's had if I haven't invested that well you've got to struggle so let's bring this to like someone who's making that step now let's say they're going from I don't know 30, 40k and they've just had a salary bump up if you were sitting down with that person what are you doing with them then and how would you like stop them from quickly going off the scales the biggest thing is the plan and I think the reason people spend the money they spend is because they don't have a plan so what I do when I sit down with my clients is we forget the numbers we forget talk to me about the life you want to live talk to me about what ideal looks like for you and so we work out that and then say okay what is that what do you think you need a month to have that that lifestyle and it might be for some it might be 10k a month 5k a month like if you're on it might be 5k a month okay 5k a month net in retirement that's what I want because for me I focus mainly with my clients on retirement I don't focus on work.

25:39Emmanuel Asuquo: Like we can all work hard. But my job is to get you to stop working as soon as possible. My job is to build wealth, build assets that can replace your income as soon as possible. And so I sit down with them and I'm like, okay, cool. You're on 30. Let's say now you're on 45. Let's say after everything, you got an extra thousand pounds a month, let's say. Okay, cool. now what's the goal because again naturally what everyone says put my money into pension but then I have to turn around and say well when do you want to retire nine times out of ten when I ask people what age do you want to retire at they'll tell me 50 yes nine times out of ten I don't know why that number I don't know why it's that number but 50 is the number that was the number that was looked in my when I was in my early 20s I was like 50 I'm done 50 is the number yeah it's never the case man surely unless you've smashed it yeah exactly yeah exactly so then i have to say well if if it is 50 that you're you're aiming for yeah number one you're probably 28 29 30 so we ain't got long so that's number one um number two is that well you can't get your pension till 57 and probably that'll go to 58 if not 60 so if you're putting all your money into pension pension doesn't match your goal so is it 50 is it really 50 or and so then we start to have these discussions and so for me it's then about looking at okay what's going to get you that now when i have clients that may be a bit older unlike most financial advisors i will look at before again the government did this we used to look a lot at property because property can generate that income that you need quickly and it can be more reliable but with all the taxes and everything property is not as desirable and with the new laws that are coming in now buying a property rent it out is not what it used to be so now i don't think i don't think i've ever sat down with clients so much and they want stocks they just want that flexibility of stocks and then it's about the side hustle so even with like with my client i'm looking at what are you doing so okay you you are now earning 45 000 the average salary is around 30 something thousand so that means you've got a good skill that means you're doing something well so how are you going to leverage the skills that you have is it mentorship can you do a coaching program because there'll be people who are on 22k that would be them would love to learn how to get to you yeah so you could create a program where you bring on people show them the steps you take mentor them they'll pay you a set amount to do that that set amount that you get is a little income that you get and that income you can put aside for other stuff it doesn't have to be much doesn't have to be huge when i first started doing freelancing i think i was charging like 30 pound an hour come on and so it was like real small amounts obviously i knew i was massively undercharging but i was trying to build a portfolio i was trying to get clients i was trying to like do all these little things so you start there but that 30 pound would then become 60 would then become 90 and you start growing in that space and you can either turn that into a business or not you can keep it as a little side hustle if you have kids you cut back on time if you don't you move up like there's so many choices to you at that point yeah and it's about the lifestyle you want because the conversation I really love to have with my clients is when do you want to retire because you can buy that car you can buy that house that extra expensive house that you don't really need you can get all of that stuff but the compromise is that now you might need to carry on working till 65 so would you in order to have that car and have that house and go on holiday three times a year, is all of that worth working an extra five to 10 years?

29:27Emmanuel Asuquo: And if the answer is no, then let's not have the extreme, have a nice house, doesn't have to be that big. Doesn't have to be in London. I don't know why we're trapped in this thing of, I've got to buy in London. London is like New York, one of the most overpriced places ever. I don't understand why we're so fixated on getting to the office quickly. you're getting like it's it doesn't especially now that a lot more workplaces are giving you maybe two days a week like three days a week in the office two days at home like you don't necessarily have to be in the office every single day so to me you don't have to live right near your workplace and pay that premium this chat before i came in it was a one-bedroom flat or a four-bedroom house where i live for an hour journey think about it and then if i live in if i live in let's say i live in richmond and my office is in north london it's taking me an hour

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31:51Emmanuel Asuquo: So then... Same hour. Same hour. But you're paying a premium. It's crazy. And so for me, I just thought these are the conversations that I want to have because again, sometimes we are making, we're making decisions that we think are good but they're actually for our bad. 100%. I've got a client why is your mortgage £6 ,000 a month? You earn£10 ,000 a month. Why is your mortgage £6 ,000 a month? That is unnecessary. But because the person at work that you work with or people that you talk to because their mortgages it just becomes normal to you. So this is where I say as a financial advisor my job is not to just pick funds and tell you to invest in this or that.

32:31Emmanuel Asuquo: My job is to actually give you advice on the financial decisions that you're making in your life. because I don't think we always understand the repercussions of them. And a lot of the time we are making decisions out of emotion. Oh, they just bought a house over there. Oh, I've gone to my friend's house for a housewarming. This house is beautiful. This area is lovely. Now I want to move there. There was nothing wrong with your house before you went and saw somebody else's house. That's just human nature. That's that greed that we naturally have. That's that competitive nature. Especially as men, we are very competitive.

33:06Emmanuel Asuquo: And because of that, We naturally say, oh, I see this guy doing this. Now I want to do this. I see this guy driving that. Now I want to. That is going to keep you in the mud. We have to come to a place of understanding, knowing your worth, knowing your value, and knowing that you are already valuable and not allow ourselves to make decisions based on jealousy, based on competition, based on trying to get our value from other people. And I think that's the type of conversation I'll be having. Like, what do you actually want to achieve? Because actually you're on 45. to live the life that you want you've got to get to 60.

33:39Emmanuel Asuquo: So now it's like what course can we take? Do we even use that additional money? We might need to put it in a course. We might need to put that in a program. We might actually need you to start networking and meeting other people. That's going to cost you to go to these events. That's what you need to do because actually to live the life you want you've got to increase your income. These are the types of conversations. The problem is we make more money and we almost assume oh yeah buy a house. This is not the 1960s. It doesn't just work like that. Some of my clients Some of my smartest clients that I've got now, they've bought houses, but they still live at home.

34:12Emmanuel Asuquo: They bought houses, bought them in a company, rent them out. They still live at home because it's cheaper to live at home than to go and buy a house and start having to pay. Actually, we can stay together, reduce all our costs by living together, and then we can build wealth and use that money to build wealth and invest. So a lot of people do that to get on the ladder, don't they? Yeah, exactly. They just strip back, let's go and stay with mum for six months and then we can finally make that decision because of the amount of money you save. But some people, the pride, that's the problem. It's pride, isn't it?

34:42Emmanuel Asuquo: It's pride. I don't want to go, oh, I'm 30, you can't be going back to my mum's house. Ah, it's your mum. If your mum can't support you, who can support you in life? If your parents, your family, your closest friends, if they cannot support you, who is allowed to support you? The mindset is, and that's what I say about, that is a poverty mindset because I will see clients that I've got in, like more the Indian community where I got one's a doctor one's a dentist these are very high professional jobs they get married and they move into one of their parents' house yeah or they live very close very close yeah why?

35:18Emmanuel Asuquo: because they understand that community power of community put our money together reduces our costs and it means that we can buy together we have babysitting if we need it we can build a family we can grow together and we can make all of our costs one of the biggest problems you have in the black community is black tax where you start making money and all of a sudden your parents who had low paying jobs or struggling jobs or didn't have the financial education to to know about pensions really well or investments and so forth they get to retirement age and they don't have enough to live in retirement so now you are having to pay for your parents as well as having kids and nothing to pay for your kids right so how can you then build wealth the same with somebody else that only has to worry about themselves.

36:02Emmanuel Asuquo: So what I'm saying is, is that in those communities, they live together. So I know mum and dad, we all live together. We all live. So we are making it cheaper for all of us. So I don't need to pay for my house and then send money to pay for your house. We're all living in the same house. So we're all keeping our costs down. It's giving me anxiety because I couldn't manage and live with my mum and my dad. I think I'd go insane. I think I'd actually go insane. But I think it definitely depends on your parents so yeah exactly you have to have that kind of ability to do that ability relationship culture it all depends on on all of that and again some people's parents you like you said it'd be it'd be not a nightmare and obviously your mental health is important and not everyone had it's all up for you she'd drive me mad but at the same time it's like if it was a difference between can i do this or not even if it meant for 12 months 18 months having to get by mate i did it I did it so I lost my job and I was 26 I lost my job and it was quite a big shock to me because like a whole marketing HR department just got completely cut and I was like what the hell but I had a flat in London and immediately it was one of those ones you could pay every month back then when it was a little bit more like the Wild West than renting market in London so I just stopped immediately I moved back in my mum I did it I did it for nine months and I managed to build myself up like a big old pot she had like this little weird like flat annex thing and i stayed in there and it was the best thing i've ever done like and i regret to this day coming back to london as fast as i did because like if i'd have stayed there 18 18 more months i'd have been in a much better position but you know pride no exactly but the point is it's it's if it's possible i know some people their parents are struggling so they don't have the space to do it but if and again it's like now that i'm having kids these are the things that i want to have a house that no matter what they're they can come back they know that they've got a space they know that they can live with us and if they need to and my job is to get them on their feet and help them and support them as much as possible so for me to be able to do that maybe i can't go on as many holidays as i like for me to be able to do that maybe i only got apple watch instead of a rolex but i'm okay because guess what i still know the time but that's my mindset like i know what the time is i'm good do you know i mean i love this one because it's like well you got the rolex but how many hours did that cost you how many hours were you working for that like you have to ask yourself these questions and what i loved about you said what you said before was when we moved to we've moved to ramsgate and kent they offered us they said you've got 700k and that's what they say as well of course and i'm like and we start going looking around these houses and i'm it's me and the missus like we're at a dog like why do i need seven bedrooms and annex bathroom massive garden like they were ridiculously huge and i was like me and we went around a few and we were like it's kind of kind of cool you get sucked into it of course you get sucked in big time and then i was like babe how many hours do you think we're going to spend in each one of those rooms please like how many hours It's like, let's actually figure it out.

39:13Let's watch us now because we were living in a two up, two down in Hampshire. Like, let's watch where we spend most of our time. The answer was bedroom, kitchen, bedroom, kitchen, bedroom, kitchen, bedroom, kitchen.

39:23Emmanuel Asuquo: Like, that was it. So we were like, well, actually, we barely go in the living room. So we don't really care if we like, you know, it's nice to have a living room when people come around. But then why do we need six other bedrooms? When are we going to go in them? And how often do people stay with us? Like, once or twice a year. So maybe that'll increase a bit. but so let's have a couple of spare bedrooms but we don't need seven yeah like so you ask yourself these questions and then you then you backtrack and go well actually 700k is about 45 percent of our net income come on then we're going to be in big trouble because if that increases you don't stress test this thing then you're in big trouble and that's the problem loads of people borrowed at 0.5 % above base and all this and then the base rate skyrocketed and or their their mortgage product finished and and they just couldn't afford it yeah I went from 900 to like 1 ,600 in literally a day yeah I had someone that had their mortgage payment went from 600 pounds a month to 2 ,000 pounds oh because they were on a variable they went to the variable rate and then they actually didn't have the income so you know a mortgage at the beginning, but then you're on a certain income.

40:37Emmanuel Asuquo: They went on that income, but because they're not making a change to the mortgage provider, they just kept getting new mortgages. But this time, they couldn't get a new product. So they had to stay at the variable rate. Because obviously to get the mortgage company that they were at was closing down. So they would have to go to a new mortgage company and they don't have the income to get a new mortgage somewhere else. And that was that went from like 600 pounds to almost to two that it was almost their their their monthly income that's so savage man because you just stress test this based on like it's five percent today but what happens if it goes to eight or it's 1.2 percent today what happens if it goes to five because that's what happened to me i went 1.2 percent to five so it's just yeah and there's nothing i could do exactly and especially um you know i have clients who buy to lets and again the interest rate went up they were paying people to live in their house basically because they were the mortgage went up so much but they couldn't tell their tenant to cover it so they were covering they were paying an extra four or five hundred pounds a month on this house that is meant to be making their money they're losing money and again because it's in their own name they still have to pay tax on it imagine paying tax on a losing house and a house is losing you money and still paying tax on it so my sister who actually works around the corner from where we are now her fella has just gone through this so he was paying someone to live in his house I think it was like two three hundred pound a month for nearly a year because he couldn't sell it he was trying to sell it and mate so that's like two three K that would break my heart come on break my heart it's supposed to be an asset that's it exactly and that's what people don't think about it get at any time you have a time where there's no tenant there's no one in the house you still got to pay that mortgage.

42:27Emmanuel Asuquo: There could be times where things are broken and now all of a sudden you've got to go and fix it. Like, I have nothing against property. I think property is a great asset, especially here in the UK. But I think you also have to understand that it's not just plain sailing. It's not just, I get a tenant and they're just going to pay me this amount and I want to get that exact amount and make that amount of profit until the end of time. It doesn't, that's not how it works. Do you know what I mean? And there are ups and downs and a lot of, I've got, for example, I've got clients with 30, 40 properties I said okay that's great how much are you making on them income wise peanuts less than a thousand pounds they're just washing their face now again obviously from a cap of asset ashes going up over time but from a cash flow point of view it's tight some of them they're even losing money on do you know what I mean so the point I'm saying is that this is why we want to have a diverse portfolio You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket.

43:26Emmanuel Asuquo: You want to have some money in property, some money in stocks, some money in business, and then build over time. So you were kind of the first person in your family to really understand this stuff. Yes, kind of. Yeah. Kind of? Kind of. Who else? My dad's an accountant. Okay, okay. So my dad's an accountant, so he understands, he's a qualified accountant, so he understands accounts. So he had financial background. And in fact, he's the one that told me to go and do accounting finance degree. So he's an accountant. But in regards to where I took it, yeah, in regards to being a financial advisor, understanding mortgages, inside out, understanding property, stocks, all that type of stuff, yeah, I was the first.

44:10Emmanuel Asuquo: But my dad understood it from an accountancy. So that was the journey, like dad then put you into an accounting finance? Yeah, I wanted to do marketing. I wanted to do marketing. And he was just like, no, but don't do marketing. You get marketing, though. You've marketed yourself very well. I get that. So I've always had that kind of marketing brain. But my dad is just like, nah, you know, you're always going to, you know, finance. It's always needed. It's what I do. And yeah, so go and do finance. So I just said, all right, no problem. I'll do accounting and finance.

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45:52And now, back to the episode.

45:57And that journey for you wasn't like plain sailing either, to what you do now, right? You were working in a city, you've been made redundant.

46:04Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, it's never been, my whole life has never been plain sailing. Like, obviously grew up on a council estate then um in east london tower hamlets um went to a school bow boys have the pass rate before my year was five percent that got five a to c is five percent five percent my year my year it was like i think it was 12 or 15 percent they put us in a you know there used to be a free newspaper like a local newspaper i used to they put us in a newspaper for like because we overachieved like what compared to what previous years no way it's much better now i go back to the school and it's an academy now and they're doing amazing um but yeah it was that was that was poor but i still only got i got four gc's so my head of year my head of year he wrote a letter so so i wanted to go monarchs um george monarchs in wolverestowe yeah um but but they rejected me um so because i didn't have it so i went to layton layton layton wanted me to do um btech because I only had four GCSEs, my head of year wrote a letter for me.

47:11Emmanuel Asuquo: I went back and they let me do, I basically did a B-tech, but they let me do an A-level as well so that I could have three A-levels that way. And that was your path up? That's how I got to uni. So I did a B-tech in business and then I did A-level in sociology. So that was my, and that's how I got them. So then I did that. But even then I got a CBE. But because I played basketball, Greenwich University gave me unconditional Ah okay So I played basketball at quite a high level So they gave me unconditional So I just, it didn't matter about my results I got unconditional to Greenwich Student athlete?

47:50Emmanuel Asuquo: Student athlete so yeah So I got in there, played basketball for Greenwich Was captain of the basketball team at Greenwich And then still ended up with a third class Being Nigerian and getting a third class is never a good thing It's not a good thing? no no no why yeah because it's like third class is like a past okay okay okay so it's like did you even go uni yeah yeah like what was the point of all this but then like the reason I ask that is because I knew some of that you know obviously I was talking about this for the audience but look at what you're doing now it's crazy like it doesn't matter it doesn't it doesn't it actually doesn't so although I got a third class I was still I was working part time I was working in Marks and Spencer's when I first got to uni I used a job at Marks and Spencer's to get a job as a cashier at Barclays I was a cashier at Barclays and then I did really well they used to have something called like a mystery shop where so I got 100 % on the mystery shop you know I get on the people I'm a people's person so I got 100 % they did another mystery shop I got 100 % again so I won an award for won an award so when I finished my degree they were like what job do you want I said financial advisor and so they were like okay no problem then they made me a financial advisor 22 youngest find i went from cashier to financial advisor after i did that barclays changed you can't jump that many bands so basically cash is a band one and a financial advisor is a band four right so they change it so you can only go up two bands so i can only go up to a band three you're going to go from one to a band three so band three would be like a personal banker okay so you have to become a personal banker and then you could then apply for a financial advisor mortgage broker whatever maybe so yeah so became a financial advisor at 22 you can imagine i'm still living on a council estate and i'm looking at these buildings in canary wolf that i used to look at and dream about being in and i'm now in them i'm now working in these buildings working canary wolf living a dream but then realizing that i can't be myself so i'd have to start changing the way i talk changing the way I dress changing the way like to fit in over here and then once I finish work I don't have to go I can be myself again right and it's just exhausting corporate corporate yeah so then I did really well but I just realised corporate's not for me like and I'm just tired of helping just helping rich people get richer while I know coming from a poor background that people are struggling I'd go to work and have conversations with clients we're talking about how do I turn this 3 million into 5 million and I go home and someone that I know from school be asked me can I give him a fiver and it's like what is going on how can we how can these things be happening in the same day like so close to each other yeah so then I was just like in this life you gotta meet people where they're at the people I want to work with are not in canary wolf they're not there the people I want to work with are on social media so I need to I need to go on social media so that's what made me start a page my wife helped me I didn't know how to use I never use the stuff I had Facebook but my day Facebook weren't cool so you weren't really like you had it but you weren't really posting like it wasn't really masculine you know what I mean yeah yeah so it was like okay cool I have it but I'm not using it so my wife showed me how to set up an Instagram showed me how to post I had to pay a social media company to really teach me how to edit content and stuff like that so I learned there and then just started doing content that I liked and funny enough Channel 4 saw the content and they were like we'd never seen a financial advisor taught like this and then I did a show for Channel 4 that came out in that came out in the in the December end of Ember finished in the December when was that?

51:35Emmanuel Asuquo: that was in 2019 okay so yeah that was in 2019 seven years wow yeah that's mad crazy crazy was that you like did that take you to the next level? that took me that took me to the that took me to a level where people could know who I am yeah and then what took me to the next level was the pandemic and then George Floyd. George Floyd. George Floyd changed my life. I always have to mention, God rest his soul, George Floyd, because what George Floyd did was make these corporations say, actually, we're being very unfair in regards to, we need more representation. Right. And so at that point, they were like, oh, we need, we need, we need, everyone's talking about finance because of the pandemic and everyone's on furlough.

52:22Emmanuel Asuquo: so money becomes a big conversation but we don't have anyone black basically to to have this conversation they were like who was that black guy that was in that that TV show that Channel 4 did my life changed it's like a stepping stone for you so I did that show came out in the November I finished in the December in the January I got my agent my agent messaged everybody like all the all the TV companies nothing I think George Floyd died in May by the by two weeks after George Floyd died I was on This Morning That's mad I was on This Morning with Eamon Holmes and his wife like I was on This Morning like from my house because it was still pandemic so we couldn't so we couldn't go in the studio from my house on This Morning I then started doing Morning Live on BBC obviously Channel 4 then we did another show with Channel 4 like it was just non-stop brands oh I used to have a brand deal every email two two or three brand deals a week emailed every week without fail and it was just like which ones are we going to do and it was just like I can't do that one because I'm doing this and I can't and it was just non-stop and that was that was for about that was for about three years and then did the Barclay stuff and then after the Barclay stuff silence and that's why I say it's so important that you don't put all your eggs in one basket because if I just only said I'm going to live on brand deals I wouldn't be here today no no no no you had the business I had a business I had to create a business okay while I'm getting all this attention how do I turn this attention into money into income it's not about how many followers you have it's how are those followers how are you adding value to those followers that they want to pay you for that, for the value that you bring?

54:22Emmanuel Asuquo: Or how do brands, what brands want to speak to the followers that you have and will pay you to get access to your followers or the influence that you have? That's what we're trying to sell here. And so I did the brand stuff, but I was like, actually, I need the business stuff as well. And so that's what really sustained me throughout this time. So doing events, doing talks, I get paid to do talks. Like I never thought someone would pay me to talk. Like literally, like I haven't paid thousands of pounds to give an hour talk. Yeah, sit on a stage. I talk for free. Keynote, speaker. Yeah, keynote, speaker, on a panel.

54:56It's nuts. It's that.

54:58Emmanuel Asuquo: Are you okay? But that's value. And so to me, that's what social media should be used for. You've done it for so long that there's no one that can touch you on that side of stuff. And it's the value that you bring, right? Totally. It's the same thing as you pay someone a thousand pounds to do the job for 10 minutes but they've done it for 30 years so they can justify that. Exactly. And so like, I will have people like, Emmanuel, you're a bit expensive. After I give my talk, the way they're thanking me, it's like I paid them to be there. Do you know what I mean? Because I know my stuff. I've been doing this for years.

55:36Emmanuel Asuquo: You're not paying me, Emmanuel Succo, just to come and talk for an hour. You're paying for the 19 years, the thousands of clients that I've helped, the qualifications that I've done. all of that is what comes into me being able to deliver and make make your event when when people walk away and they say wow that event was amazing that's because you've got the right people in the room receipts like it's there so yeah so that's what the biggest change and that's one thing i again i try and show my content creators is it's beyond just living off brand deals that's not that's not your that's not in your power just like just living off a nine to five isn't you're not in your it's not in your power that's in your employer's power and you know the employer can switch that tap off at any time and some of us are living this kind of naive way of life saying oh yeah but i get paid xyz they don't owe you nothing they'll sack you tomorrow and tell you it was a business decision it's not personal go tell your wife and kids if it's personal all the time i mean it's happened to me all the time so for me it's like some brands just don't perform exactly some brands do stuff it doesn't work some brands even i've had brands done the bit done the content done everything they've taken like almost 12 months to pay me oh yeah yeah yeah i'm going through that now i'm going through that now nine months content in january think about that madness think about it and it's like i i had a brand i had one even that i did everything the agency took the money the agency took the money i've had it twice what just disappeared as in they said oh we've run out of money.

57:10Emmanuel Asuquo: Can't pay. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. They've gone into liquidation. So they've, their brand has paid their money to pay me. They're just meant to take their cut and give me mine. They've used my money to pay their staff or do whatever. Then they've run out of money and they were unable to pay me. So I've had to now start chasing them out. I had to wait for one. He had to wait till they got investors. They came back. They paid my money in the end. It was mad late. Remember, this is your bread and butter. This is what I used to... So if you're solely relying on brand deals, there's so much problems with it that you're not going to be able to pay.

57:50Emmanuel Asuquo: So this is why I say it's so important. What's in your control? I can't control brands to book me and I can't control brands to pay me on time. I liken this exact thing to when that... I remember it to this day. It's mad because their restaurants are literally right outside. I walked past it to get in a studio. But it's the same with a job. It's exactly the same. Because you have no idea what's happening in that boardroom. Come on. You have no idea. You don't know where the company... You can probably tell where the company's doing all right or not. Whether it's stressful or down. But you have no idea if they're going to revamp the whole department.

58:26Farm out this, farm out that. And then what? And then your eggs are in that basket and you have nothing to show for it. Especially... That's why I think like an emergency fund in that part is that possibly the most important thing. Because if that does happen to you, you've got six months, you don't have to make a crap money decision that you really don't want to make. You can wait, pick the jobs, go to the interviews with stress off. So I think like that, it's just, it's everything. It's eggs in one, if you've got eggs in one basket, how do I get them out of it?

58:57Emmanuel Asuquo: And people don't want to have an emergency fund because it's not sexy. I don't want to put my money in a savings account. I don't want to put my money in a cash ISA. well what's interest no trust me if you ever need that emergency fund you're gonna thank god that you got it because if not if you put it in the market and you lose your job at a time when Trump decides to put out a tariff or Russia decides to bomb Ukraine or we got the oil in the Middle East all of a sudden your portfolio is down 50 % and this is when you want to cash it in cash it in a loss so now you're making things even worse because you're you're taking this money at a loss so now you're crystallizing a loss because there's only a loss when you decide to take the money out as long as in there there's an opportunity for it to go back to where it was or even past it so that's the mindset and that's what I say for a lot of us we go into investing with a savers mindset we put our money in and then in two months time we're like oh my goodness why hasn't it gone up that's not investing that's saving mate you're used to saving you put your money in you know at the end of the year they'll put their little interest on top and it never goes down below what you put in that's saving if you're an investor we know that investments go up and down and that's how you got to do your research you can't just invest based on oh i saw somebody say this on the internet or everybody's got everybody's putting their money in crypto so let me go and put my money like we've got we've got to have a plan and the way you're doing it in regards to just doing it then that's why i love your content so much and i get why you don't show no more because i get it gets to a certain point where you're making a certain level where it's just like people start treating you different, speaking to you different, acting different, moving different, expectation of difference.

1:00:35Emmanuel Asuquo: So I totally understand that. But the transparency was so powerful because it was like, actually, right, this guy, this guy's got what? Over 200K and he's, and it's just, it's just, just normal investing. It's normal funds that I have. I have the same access to those exact same funds. You can start tomorrow. Exactly. Yeah. And when you look to your portfolio, the funds, it weren't like your funds were like these like emerging market ETFs. These are just normal, bread and butter funds that build over time you just put in it when you even said the amounts you're putting in on the month it weren't like huge amounts you're putting in but the consistency of doing it over time and when you got a pay rise you put the bonus in there I saw it and I was just like this is so powerful because I can say this but what you're doing is showing it and that's the power of social media is actually you believe what you see we are in a seeing generation a generation I've got to see it I don't want to I don't want to hear about it I want to see it And what you were doing was showing people that actually I've been able to build this so you can do the exact same thing.

1:01:37Emmanuel Asuquo: And I think that is so powerful and so needed. Yeah. The only reason I don't go into massive detail around the investments now is because it gets a bit dicey. Also, 245 ,000 people see it. Obviously, they don't all see it. But at the same point, it's like more power comes more responsibility. kind of thing and I just felt uncomfortable I was like what if I say I've bought this company and then next month it's 30 % you know something goes wrong and it's down and John's just gone in and stuck 5k in like I would feel awful and it happened a couple of times like you know because I don't get everything right I'm not like Warren Buffett out here like exactly so you don't want to be in that position so I just stop talking about what i have i'm okay to say the amounts that i've got i think that's okay like but i don't say what anymore as much um so yeah it's it's it's strange because it's just like from if you're an average person you can end up here yeah and it all it takes is just patience yeah exactly and a plan a plan and that's what a lot of people don't have it's common saying if you fail to plan you plan to fail and i think a lot of people that that's what's happening you have no plan and and And me as a financial advisor, people will say, oh, you man, how do you, how have you been successful?

1:03:03Emmanuel Asuquo: How do you get your clients? Why do clients? Because I focus on a plan. You focus, yeah. And the people with you. Yeah. I know you love talking about this. And I think it's really like, it's nice that you, you speak about the actual person. Where do you want to be? And then let's look at the money. Because like, if you don't understand the person, you're never going to get them to that point in the first place. Exactly. Exactly that. And I think that's, that's, that's the thing. And I think people at home are watching this thinking, how do I start? Start of a plan. And again, especially now with the technology, like tell your plan to Claude.

1:03:35Emmanuel Asuquo: Tell Claude, this is my plan. This is what I want to do. What's your thoughts? These are the things I'm thinking. They talked about this. They talked about that. What does this mean? Like there's so much stuff. Follow people like yourself. You've got blogs. You've got newsletters. You've got YouTube channels. There are so much content that you can consume for free that it's almost there's no excuse. And the one thing I'd say about AI, Don't use AI from a point of view of asking AI without the knowledge. You need to have the knowledge first, then ask AI, and then it will enhance what you understand.

1:04:06Emmanuel Asuquo: So I always say to people, first you've got to be good, and then AI will help you get great. But if you're just trying to use AI to get great, it's not going to work. I call it the 20 % on your 100%. Exactly. Gives you the 120. Exactly. That's what you've got. You've got to do the work. So you've got to go watch the videos, understand the terminology, I understand what you're talking about. And then go to there and say, look, this is what I ask. What's your thoughts on that? And then when they reply, you understand what it's saying because you've done the work. If you haven't done the work, it can tell you whatever and you're going to agree with it.

1:04:37Emmanuel Asuquo: We've got people who are signing contracts based by AI and they've lost millions. Really? Yeah, they've lost millions because the contract couldn't hold up in a court of law because certain clauses are missing. We've got people replacing financial advisors with AI, replacing lawyers with AI, replacing doctors with AI. It's not that. is not that. That's not what it's for. Do you know what I mean? Whereas a doctor could use AI to be more specific because they've got the knowledge. Me as a financial advisor, I can, because I actually know it. Sometimes it will say stuff and I'll be like, but didn't that rule change XYZ?

1:05:08Yeah. Oh, yes, it did.

1:05:09Emmanuel Asuquo: You're right. Well, you didn't tell me that at the beginning, did you? No. So if I didn't know that. I've done it. I've got Brian Burns coming on as well and he was talking about the lifetime ISO. Yeah. It was like, yeah, the lifetime ISO is XYZ. I was like, it's changing. And he was like, you can't you can't make financial life big life decisions based on AI it's not there yet I don't think it will be for a little while and remember AI is going to agree with you if you tell AI your business idea I think about this business idea AI is a fantastic idea it's going to make you millions like and people are out here taking loans for this idea that only ChatGPT thinks is great you and ChatGPT are the only people that think this is going to work like it doesn't work like that do you know what I mean there's no shortcuts to this to this success thing you've got to put in the work you can only reap where you sow and I think a lot of people want to reap but they don't want to do the sowing they don't want to do the farming part like think about a farmer like you're out there planting the seeds looking after the cattle doing the work when you see the ground there's nothing there but you know in 12 months time there's going to be a harvest like you know it over time so you continue to look after it pesticides get rid of all that any animals like you're doing the work and people are not doing that for their finances they're not doing the work But yet they hope that I'm going to become a millionaire all of a sudden.

1:06:27Emmanuel Asuquo: And this is why we're seeing so much people doing the lottery. But if you understand how the lottery works, if everybody was winning, it wouldn't be working. People now go into gambling. If you understand how gambling works, the house wins. Otherwise, they wouldn't have a profitable business. So we get desperate. We see payday loans, all of these things that now come in and it just takes over because we're trying to find the shortcut to get the thing that we want instead of doing the work and then getting it when we deserve it. Because the problem is we live in an instant gratification generation where we think we deserve everything now.

1:07:04Emmanuel Asuquo: And actually, that's not how it was. I remember growing up, we had the Argos catalogue. You know? It was so good. It was so good. You flip the Argos catalogue. And yellow pages. All of the stuff. You look at it, pick what you want, rip that page up, tell you, this is what I want. And then you wait. You have to wait all the way till Christmas. that's it it's the waiting you have to wait yeah and guess what that first Christmas you might not even get it so you might have to wait till next Christmas and you're thankful because you know how hard your parents had worked to give you this thing that's taken them two years to buy now they're whacking it on Klarna and it's going out of control I know this is this is what I did I've done this like deep expose type video on like the digitisation of money and like how e-commerce and like the internet essentially just exploded this like now yeah thing because it's like it's gone from basically it was literally i talked about like you'd have the catalog you'd want it you'd save up for like six months you'd be putting two pound 50 away on paper round and then you could afford the game or whatever you wanted now it's like i want it can i get it credit access boom it's and i've got it next day it's at my house yeah something in amazon is on the same day so it's like that that that that kind of like barrier to friction yeah it's gone and they've just spent billions of pounds removing these layers so now we just whack it on our phone you don't feel anything yeah exactly you just how much have i spent i don't know come on you know what i always tell people when when you used to pay by cash and then they didn't have a fiver and they give you back coins yeah it hurt the worst feeling ever yeah and now your wallet's heavy and it's just like but you can feel it I remember you giving someone a£20 note and then getting like £7 back you feel the pain like okay have you really thought about it yeah does this provide me value I have to hand it over I have to actually I actually look at my wallet remember them if you're doing a big purchase you have to actually count the money like you said there's friction while you're counting the money there's time for you to say no actually no I'm not going to do this yeah or take those two off I don't need them yeah exactly I don't need that actually you know what I don't want my wallet to be too empty.

1:09:13Emmanuel Asuquo: So I want to keep it. So what's this? Okay. Yeah, I'll spend this amount. Like you've got time to think about it. When you're tapping, it's just tap. It's gone. And then when you've got overdrafts, when you've got Kalana, when you've got all of these buy now, pay later, all of a sudden, it's like you are so distant. Now we're buying pizza. Amazon spent like 4.6 billion pounds defending the one click purchase button pattern, which I found out. And that blew my mind. Crazy. because now that's in every single purchase cycle where your card's like connected. So you just click. And it just goes, oh, it's you.

1:09:49And it arrives the next day. It's mad. And so like, I'm trying to figure out ways that how can we put friction back in? If we don't, then you've got to have visibility. Visibility is a key. If you can be visible, then you kind of know what you're spending. Yeah, I mean,

1:10:07Emmanuel Asuquo: all my clients are on a 48-hour rule. yeah so they can put it in a basket but you can't you can't go you gotta wait four hours before you buy it yeah do you know that because of that rule most of them it's about 70 80 percent of the time they don't they don't buy it yeah they realize they don't need it we have to understand that as humans we think we're so individual but actually the way our brains work has been programmed already and people of scientists have studied it so a lot of the stuff the reason you you just want to buy something it's not by accident remember I always say you haven't got a system to protect your money but every day there's a system trying to take your money from you you wake up you've got emails remember they're sending look at your emails you'll see why did I receive an email at 6 o 'clock 5 o 'clock in the morning because they know when you wake up that'll be the first email you're going to see why do I receive an email the last day of the month or the first day of the month because they know that it's payday and so they know you've got money it's like Martin Lewis sends us at 9pm which always really messes in my head.

1:11:06I'm like, why is it 9pm? It must be because it's the last email before you check it. Exactly. The deals, then your guards down.

1:11:14Emmanuel Asuquo: Exactly. Come on. So they know everything is planned. So someone's planned to take your money from you. Someone's planning every single day. You watch TV, you watch YouTube, you watch, you go outside on a bus. There's adverts. Wherever you go, somebody's advertising at you, trying to take your money from you. but you have no system to keep your money guess what you're losing the game like so the biggest thing i tell my clients is before we talk about investment we need a system you need a system to protect your money i always say it's like when you start a job you have an induction they'll tell you this is your desk this is the kitchen this is this is the fire exit in emergency this is where you go you have an induction why have you never given your money an induction download gains app it was so bit yeah exactly like visibility visibility like have a have a have a have a process so that when your money comes and you say oh you this portion of my money you're going to pay my bills this one you're going you're going to save you're going to invest oh you're my spending money like give it give have a plan for it if not it will flow in and it will flow out yeah so there's a study done on that where it was like you save 78 % more over a lifetime if the money is split into pots yes 78 % that's a lot and if you leave it all in one then you're way more likely just to tap into it so systemization or automation and it will just run like clockwork this is the thing people think this stuff takes ages to set up it doesn't you can be done in half an hour and you've set up the right banks you've set up all the cross promotions to each one what am I sending x y and z and then it's done and then it's about mini check-ins here and there like am I on track am I did I go a bit nuts last weekend but okay I messed up like now I've got to move some things around.

1:12:59That's what you should be doing because it's much more easier to do that rather than sitting down and going, I've got to do a whole budget. Every single month, it's going to take me an hour. No one wants to do it. No one does it. So it's just like, set a system up that you know is going to run and do mini check-ins here and there.

1:13:14Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, and I said that, especially with the AI now. Put your last three months bank statements into AI. Tell it to create a spreadsheet and tell it to create a document explaining what you do good, what you do bad, what you can improve on. and then analyse it. Do it another three months. Oh yeah, you've improved from the previous. You spent less on this. You spent less on that. You've done better. You don't need to go and start filling out the spreadsheet yourself. Do you know what I mean? The computer can do that for you. So that's great. But do something. So much people moan and complain and I can't do this and the system's against me and this.

1:13:50Emmanuel Asuquo: You are against yourself. I've got so many people like, you know, Christians that we say, oh, you know, the devil. the devil don't even know you like you are your own devil like you are the one putting yourself in this situation do you know what I mean like the poor guy is minding his own business and you're just blaming him for stuff that he ain't even he ain't even doing nothing to you you are the one making these decisions you are the one not being responsible with your money I see people I want to buy a house but I just don't have enough money I did a show we did a show with Channel 4 and this person's like I can't have enough money we went to their wardrobe by the time we added up their clothes their shoes their bags they had over 80 ,000 pounds.

1:14:30Yeah, I can see that too. I can see that. That's mad, isn't it? It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It hurts. I like that. You reminded me of that video and he's like, this is all money. Yes. And he's just like looking at his wardrobe and he's like, I don't bet and I barely wear it. I wear that t-shirt all the time. It's just ridiculous.

1:14:50Emmanuel Asuquo: Because by the time I had bag shoes, that then we added Uber Eats for the last four or five years. Do you know what I mean? Then we added what they spent. You've got the money's coming in. Mate, do you know how much money this t-shirt saved me? Come on. Just because it's like a Gaines t-shirt which I've got free of and I just rotate them. I don't buy any more clothes because I don't need to because I just wear this. Yeah, but there's nothing to prove. But also you've got to a point where you've created a brand that you're proud of that means something outside so you don't need to prove anything to anyone.

1:15:19Yeah, but before that it was Uniqlo playing to

1:15:22Emmanuel Asuquo: even then exactly you didn't have nothing to prove do you know i mean so i think it's so important like there's nothing for me i'll buy a t-shirt in pratt market i'll buy a t-shirt in like wherever like it's not to me it's not about brands as such for me it's just about being comfortable and making sure that you know i present myself well yeah i don't i don't need a certain brand to do that yeah man i'll absolutely love this you've flown through i know i'd enjoy chatting to you i think i could probably do a little three hour special and we'd still be here right in a way man it was great but where you want to send people today yeah so the email effects um the email effect is the social media so that's on instagram um tiktok um and then manuel suko on linkedin so yeah we've got the website emmanuel suko.com is the website as well um yeah i'll drop all that in there in the show obviously if anyone needs a financial advisor anyone's looking for to invest anyone's looking to grow their money anyone's got pensions that they need to put together an amalgamate and then get invested properly for the future just hit us a line.

1:16:22Emmanuel Asuquo: I'm here to help. Yeah, thanks, man. You've absolutely smashed it. Thanks for having me, man. It's been a pleasure. So I've been working on something super exciting for the last 12 months and I am very, very proud to finally bring it to you. And it is called Gains App. My whole thing with this was we've been speaking to many of you guys about the rising costs of living and how hard it is to actually manage your money. So I thought, why not actually solve this and build something for you guys that you can use every single day. So GainsApp is literally that. You can connect all of your banks in one single place and see exactly what's going on with your spending.

1:17:00We even pre-categorize all of your spending super visually so you can see what's going on and make plans for your big goals ahead. Plus, we've layered in something called Instant Cashback and we've calculated that the average UK salary could save£1 ,091 a year just by using GainsApp for your spending. And it's super simple to use, easy to connect we are fca agent status as well so your money is super safe and you can get started right now by following the link in the description or visiting gainsapp.com and now back to the episode