Episode 69
How to be financially free
Alexlouise is a money success coach and author of Rock Solid Money Maker. She joins Carlos and Ben to talk about financial freedom. They cover what it means for her and what she believes you need to think and do to achieve it.
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Transcript
Oh, look at that.
Carlos:Alex-Louise: da.
Ben:I've got a question.
Carlos:Yes.
Carlos:What time does it start?
Ben:No, the question is, do I have to press save my spot or just stare at it like I have?
Carlos:So, uh, I, I got to know Alex Louise through a sister community of the Happy Startup School to like, called like-hearted leaders run by Claire Perry Louise.
Carlos:Um, and through know, getting to know her, getting to know her work and also her.
Carlos:Joining us at summer camp last year, uh, it became clear that there's many gifts that she could share, particularly around some of the practical as well as the emotional aspects of money.
Carlos:we're hoping, well, we are hoping we, she is joining us at summer camp to run a workshop this year.
Carlos:And, uh, a playful title that I had in my head was this idea of, uh, retirement plans for Wizards.
Carlos:Uh, and what, why that SPR to mind was.
Carlos:There are many people in our community and I I've met who have very magical gifts, particularly around Krenn clarity, giving people a real sense of purpose and meaning, uh, all very internal stuff.
Carlos:Uh, very, some amazing healers.
Carlos:quite, I would say, woo woo in nature.
Carlos:Which is very valuable, but doesn't necessarily, isn't necessarily compatible with the capitalist system.
Carlos:and sometimes the relationship to money is of a certain sense where we're not always looking to the future and planning, you know, very meticulously about that.
Carlos:Uh, and I remember reading a blog post a few years ago, which was called Retirement Plans.
Carlos:There's No Retirement Plan for Wizards.
Carlos:And it talked about this guy who's a herbal healer and essentially he got ill in his old age and he had no money to look after himself and they were trying to do a crowdfunding campaign to support him, which made me think, oh, this dichotomy between like being present,
Carlos:accepting uncertainty, going with the flow, and then this thing of actually in the future we wanna look after ourselves somehow.
Carlos:And, and so it got me thinking around that.
Carlos:And this then.
Carlos:With your book and this idea of financial freedom, I was just curious to explore this idea.
Carlos:So what, why don't we start off first by sharing a little for you, Alex, just share a little bit more about you, uh, the work you do now, who you like to work with, and why you find it's, you know, why you're passionate about it.
Carlos:Alex-Louise: Um, I'll give you a really quick story of my journey, which then what people can, it'll make sense.
Carlos:So I left school at 15.
Carlos:I had a very turbulent relationship with my dad.
Carlos:I left home, left school at 15, started working as a career and a as a chef, um, and complete, you know, kind of went off the rails, but actually had a work addiction, which stopped me from the drug, alcohol, cigarette addiction.
Carlos:It, it transformed into work addiction as a chef.
Carlos:And so I did a lot of, you know, I worked really hard for not a lot of money, in a very, what was ultimately creative in the kitchens I was working in.
Carlos:And I was determined that I wouldn't go through what my parents went through, which was, they lost pretty much everything when I was about 10, 11.
Carlos:And we'd had a very nice childhood.
Carlos:I was born in Zimbabwe, lived in Switzerland.
Carlos:You know, we'd had international salaries, all of that world.
Carlos:So to go from that to.
Carlos:House is gonna be repossessed.
Carlos:We've got zero money.
Carlos:You know, we went from private school to moving to Wales to to uh, you know, inner city, Cardiff school.
Carlos:And I went through that early teenage years, then had a turbulent relationship with my father left home, went into catering and I swore that I would never be in that financial situation again 'cause it was horrific.
Carlos:And so I started buying houses when I was 22 on the, uh, borrowing money, but also, you know, everything I earned, I, I put into that.
Carlos:And by the time I was 32, I was financially free, which sounds really glamorous, you know, it's like, who would not want that?
Carlos:The reality was at 32 I got divorced.
Carlos:My brother died in a cycling accident.
Carlos:My life was an absolute proverbial car crash.
Carlos:Uh, and I was fucking miserable.
Carlos:And it was a really conflicting time.
Carlos:'cause everyone else is going, wow, you never have to work again.
Carlos:That's amazing.
Carlos:And I'm going, no, look at the wreckage of my life.
Carlos:It's not amazing.
Carlos:Um, so I then went, so I'm 43 in July, and so I've had another decade of a journey of, well, if the money doesn't do it right.
Carlos:So I spent all my time focusing on get the money right, what at, at the expense of everything else, my marriage, the whole lot.
Carlos:So I went on then a journey of, well, what is it that's gonna make me happy?
Carlos:So I started trying all different things.
Carlos:I carried on doing property.
Carlos:I've, I've always, you know, bought refurbed, done up properties and.
Carlos:I started to understand what would make me happy.
Carlos:That was getting a spring, a spaniel dog and going for long walks that was growing vegetables in my garden.
Carlos:That's going horse riding.
Carlos:That's actually spending meaningful time with friends and family and that makes a difference.
Carlos:And so what, what happened then was people start, I was doing supper clubs and I was teaching people to cook and because I was still passionate about catering and food and health, and I'm very, very passionate about this.
Carlos:This is the other thing.
Carlos:There's no point in getting rich if you're sick 'cause forget it.
Carlos:Like what are you gonna do?
Carlos:So I was teaching people to cook, working with Riverford, the food box company, and it still wasn't right.
Carlos:And we were sitting down to eat the meals and people were asking me about money.
Carlos:So basically what happened then was a kind of natural progression into people started asking me for help.
Carlos:So I started coaching people and just looking at what we were doing.
Carlos:I've spent a long time in.
Carlos:Personal development and having, you know, being coached.
Carlos:My, my area of weakness was intimate relationships.
Carlos:I've had 20 years of car crashes of relationships.
Carlos:I'm now happily married with two children, and finally it's all come together.
Carlos:But there was 20 years of, you know, pain.
Carlos:So people look at me and go, oh yeah, you've got your money sorted.
Carlos:And I'm like, yeah, my pain area was in the other, you know, I'd say difficult one.
Carlos:And I think the thing for me is that people chase money, but they forget everything else.
Carlos:And the thing that I'm really passionate about, and it's why I wrote the book, and it's why I work with people, is that you can get rich, but if you've got nothing else, your life's gonna be pretty empty and meaningless.
Carlos:And we all know the proverbial, you know, rich, wealthy, miserable person, like they exist in, in, in a, in a lot of forms.
Carlos:so my passion now is yes, I help people with the mechanics of money and there are things to put in place, but actually what we really need to do is we know we need to understand who we are and what we want.
Carlos:If we understand that and then we link the money in, then it's gold, literal gold.
Carlos:But if we don't do both pieces of work, it's, it's broken either way.
Carlos:So the, you started off the podcast saying the guy who was a healer, who was amazing, but when he got sick and he hadn't sorted himself out, financially came over, it's the same thing.
Carlos:You can't just follow your passion and ignore finance.
Carlos:You just can't in this world unless you are prepared to class.
Carlos:If you are in the uk, our government as the safety net, and us as you know, us being the government, there's no us and them.
Carlos:If you are happy with the safety net that is, you know, the system that we have, and you are okay to live on that as your safety net, that's fine.
Carlos:But if you're not, you have to put something in place because otherwise you can't, you can't serve people and they can't serve you.
Carlos:And the other thing that I think that I wanna say that's really important for anyone who's underearning is that if we do not have fair exchange in value in business, especially coaches, healers, artists creative, if we don't get paid fair value for what we give out, that actually makes us sick.
Carlos:So it's a recipe for actually creating the very disaster that we started off talking.
Carlos:So it's one of these stories where you can't, you've gotta do both.
Carlos:And if you ignore one, it's at your peril either way.
Ben:There's loads in what you were saying there, which obviously is, is kind of really, really resonant.
Ben:Have, have you, um, you familiar with, is it, uh, Peter, Peter Kerig, the 30 Lies About Money?
Ben:Are you familiar with that book?
Ben:Alex-Louise: No, I'm not.
Ben:But it, so I was kind of reminded in the stories that you were telling there.
Ben:I was reminded of that, of, of kind of his writing in there.
Ben:'cause he, he starts that book with a sort of bit of a provocation, which is, you know, sort of write on a postcard what money sort of means for you.
Ben:Yeah.
Ben:And uh, it's, you know, the invitation is, oh, it means security, it means freedom, it means all of these sorts of things.
Ben:And sort of takes through a whole, uh, a whole kind of, sort of sequence of kind of writing, which is sort of explaining a, what money is and all of these things.
Ben:But the kind of punchline, if it was a, if it was a joke, is the idea of course, that essentially all we're really doing is we're projecting all of these things onto money.
Ben:Money, yeah.
Ben:Uh, and so the idea that the money is the security or the money is the freedom, of course it's not, it's just the thing that we're kind of projecting on.
Ben:And a lot of what you were talking about there, uh, kind of feels like it's, it's kind of born of a similar spirit.
Ben:Alex-Louise: Yeah, yeah.
Ben:Absolutely.
Ben:And I think the other thing is that.
Ben:Anyone that's got any, any visceral reaction to money, that's where the work is.
Ben:It's not like the money's in earth doesn't do anything.
Ben:The money just magnifies who we already are.
Ben:And I think that's what we also miss, is we think that money's this thing that does stuff.
Ben:It's like just a measure.
Ben:Mm-Hmm.
Ben:Who is that?
Carlos:there's so many different ways we can go on this.
Carlos:Uh, and from my reading of your book, I got the impression of this kind of journey from the inside out, and I think you were alluding to it.
Carlos:There is like this, your own stuff and there's the money stuff.
Carlos:So whether that is inside out, there's the approach of like, let's do the money stuff and then I'll sort myself out and then that doesn't necessarily work.
Carlos:And then this is another thing here, like how can you do it in parallel?
Carlos:Um, so on one hand, my guess is many people here 'cause they wanna know about the mechanics, is like, how do I do this?
Carlos:How do I get, you know, financially free?
Carlos:What are the things I need to think about?
Carlos:Mm.
Carlos:and then there's the, what I would say the more foundational, important stuff is like why and what does that mean?
Ben:Yeah.
Carlos:So what I thought we could do, just to keep people um, hooked is let's start off with, some simple principles, let's say around just making sure that you have enough in the future.
Carlos:And then we can talk about how you do that.
Carlos:From a motivational perspective.
Carlos:'cause there's this section on your book about savings and different ways to save and how one way of saving isn't really gonna help as much as another way.
Carlos:So maybe, I dunno if, if there's a, some kind of overview about the mechanics that you could help.
Carlos:'cause you could share.
Carlos:Alex-Louise: Absolutely.
Carlos:And I will caveat it before saying that we all know we need to drink water, exercise, eat well, and it makes no difference until we have something to link it to.
Carlos:So I will say that everything I'm about to say will make about as much difference as you knowing you need to eat salad and you're not eating salad.
Carlos:Right?
Carlos:It's the same with money.
Carlos:So, um, for me the big one, I, I'd say the hands down biggest one is delayed gratification.
Carlos:If you cannot delay gratification for a period of time, it's gonna be really tough.
Carlos:'cause what most of us do.
Carlos:Is spend, everything that we have, and any of you listening to this who have ever had a pay rise and then gone, I still don't have any money left at the end of the month.
Carlos:That's how, you know you can't delay gratification.
Carlos:Okay.
Carlos:So there's a level to which, if you get a pay rise, if you don't put that amount of money somewhere else, I mean, unless you're dealing with like, you literally aren't paying your bills and that pay rise is gonna, you know, just like call you, call you quits.
Carlos:but there are very few people who have come on my Money Mastermind course who have got past this.
Carlos:No, I, I've cut everything out.
Carlos:My expenses are really clean and I go, great.
Carlos:Show me your, show me what you spend your money on.
Carlos:And there's always, without exception, I don't think, I don't think there's an exception to this rule of there will be things there that classed as necessities and they're just not.
Carlos:And we are in a world, and in the UK and in the west, we are in a world where.
Carlos:I think television and internet connection is now glassed as a necessity.
Carlos:And you could argue that's true, but there's a level to which as well, actually, I mean, I have the benefit of being born in Zimbabwe and I have the benefit of being gone back to Zimbabwe when I was 20 and being very confronted by the levels of poverty.
Carlos:I think if you don't see that in person, you don't really understand what it feels like actually seeing it in person.
Carlos:So I have a benefit of a perspective, which a lot of people would say, oh yeah, but that's relative poverty.
Carlos:As if it doesn't matter.
Carlos:It's like, yeah, but you know, in the UK we have relative poverty.
Carlos:You know, if you are living in a house and you are only just making your bills, that's classed as poor here.
Carlos:And I go, well, that's fine.
Carlos:But I'd rather compare myself to how in Zimbabwe people survive and then realize how much I've got, which means it's much easier to give up some of the things that I would class as a necessity and I don't really need.
Carlos:I think the minute we can look at people who really haven't got a lot and understand really what the basics are and when, you know, we walk around the supermarket putting things in our trolleys that we would call basics that just aren't, they're just not, they're absolute luxuries, but we think of them as they're just every day.
Carlos:And I think getting our, getting the mindset around that and really having a look and you know, anyone listening to this going, well, where do I start?
Carlos:Start with measuring your expenses.
Carlos:And I don't mean looking through your bank statement going, oh yeah, I know I've spent that.
Carlos:Take the information off the bank statement and put it into a spreadsheet and put food and everything you spend on food and entertainment and eating out.
Carlos:And I love speaking in London.
Carlos:'cause I just go, how much have you spent on Uber this month?
Carlos:How much have you spent in Pret this month?
Carlos:How much have you spent in Starbucks this month?
Carlos:Right.
Carlos:We've all got our versions.
Carlos:How much is, how much have you spent on Amazon this month?
Carlos:My one still is Audible and Amazon books.
Carlos:I spend a fortune.
Carlos:and actually really take stock of how much we spend and even the act of measuring it.
Carlos:So I started measuring my sleep.
Carlos:I already sleep better because I measure it.
Carlos:So even if you do nothing else than measure and actually be aware of what your spending, and take a little look back and go, well, how much did I used to live on?
Carlos:How much did I live on?
Carlos:You know, depending on how old we all are, one year, five year, 10 year, 15 years ago, and how much creep have I had because I earn more.
Carlos:So now I buy more organic food, or now I shop in Waitroses instead of little or now I go out instead of getting a takeaway like that creep is where the money goes.
Carlos:And when you take that money and spend it on things that is, it's gone.
Carlos:It's gone.
Carlos:When you take that money and you start putting it into things that work and that compound and that leverage, it's just a world away of what happens.
Carlos:So I think that's.
Carlos:That's where we all need to not only start, but even like me now, I've been doing this for a long time.
Carlos:I still need to bring myself back to that.
Carlos:'cause the creep happens to me now and getting that it's a practice just like healthy eating is.
Carlos:You don't get to eat healthy and go to the gym for a year look great and then never bother again.
Carlos:You've gotta do it for the rest of your life.
Carlos:And money's the same.
Carlos:It doesn't matter how much any of us have got, if we're not taking care of it, it's gonna go.
Carlos:Um, so kind of a practical question here.
Carlos:I, I have the spreadsheet and I could probably tell you on general terms the kinds of stuff, know the whole eating out.
Carlos:I'm just, that's sort like, ooh, that's look like a fuzzy bubble of like stuff I spent, like a black hole of like extra spend.
Carlos:But, but it's a bit of a bull.
Carlos:Like, and also to keep track of, do you recommend or, or do you suggest any apps?
Carlos:Because I know of an app that I use, but I'm just wondering whether that's.
Carlos:There's a thing about data security and privacy, but at the same time there's is real convenience.
Carlos:Like you just connect this app to all of your bank accounts and it gives you like a idea of your expense.
Carlos:Is that something you'd recommend or is that something you've done?
Carlos:Alex-Louise: It's really interesting.
Carlos:So I re I recommend that to people after they've done it the hard way.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:And the reason is, it's a bit like when you spend money on a debit card or a credit card versus have cash in your wallet, you don't feel it the same when an app tells you that this, this, and this has happened, you haven't kind of gone, oh God, there's another Starbucks.
Carlos:Oh Jesus, there's another Starbucks.
Carlos:Oh, I went to wait, you know, Waitroses or whatever shop three times this week when it's just given to you in a figure, it doesn't have the same effect.
Carlos:it's the same on a, we play a cashflow game.
Carlos:I love this game.
Carlos:So there's another top tip wants this game is just, it's brilliant.
Carlos:Okay, so for those that aren't, can't see it's, uh, cashflow, it's the Robert Kiyosaki Rich Dad pulled up, and it's the same, there's an app that will do the math for that while you are playing the game.
Carlos:And I don't let people use it because it makes them lazy and then disconnected to what's actually happening.
Carlos:And I think once you've got it, it's fine.
Carlos:Use the apps because then you're just, you're making it time effective.
Carlos:But to actually really, you know, even if you just did one month of the pain of like, you know, writing it all into a spreadsheet or writing it on a, you know, writing it down, there's a, there's a lot of benefit in that.
Carlos:And then I think as far as apps go after that, people have gotta find the thing that works for them.
Carlos:So I don't particularly say do this one or that one.
Carlos:There's so many out there.
Carlos:I like, well I like the, what you said in terms of like hand it over to the app, but you don't necessarily feel, you know, yeah, the, the pain for want of a better term.
Carlos:Because this links to essentially to my next kind of question here is like makes all great sense but people and they'll have heard you, everyone's heard you say that makes sense.
Carlos:Gotta do that.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:Still I wanna do it.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:I still feel like I'm not sure I wanna do it.
Carlos:Would have, have you, in your experience, is there a pattern as to why people still don't go there?
Carlos:Or do you, are you able to, or they somehow it's a light bulb and say, oh yes, I'm gonna do it.
Carlos:Alex-Louise: It's the same as people don't wanna step on the scales to carry on using that analogy.
Carlos:We don't wanna look 'cause we don't wanna deal with stuff.
Carlos:And the thing to say is that actually when we do look, it's never as bad as we think it is.
Carlos:You know, the number of people who are, who have come to me and gone, oh, I'm in so much debt and in my head.
Carlos:Being in so much debt, like it has to be hundreds of thousands to start becoming a real problem.
Carlos:And they're like, it's 7,000 pounds.
Carlos:I'm like, oh my God, we can solve this So simply.
Carlos:so there's a, there's a psychological element of we think stuff's really bad because we are in it and it's our stuff, so we think it's much worse than it actually is.
Carlos:So actually doing that and also doing it with other people.
Carlos:So in the book, I advocate doing the book with other people so that you will, that, that people hold each other accountable and make sure the exercises get done.
Carlos:It's not a, for anyone who just likes reading and just wants to read the book, like it's not that kind of book.
Carlos:You need to do the exercises, otherwise it's just not gonna work.
Carlos:Like, save yourself a 30 qui, here's a money saving tip.
Carlos:You're not gonna do the exercise in the book.
Carlos:Don't buy the book.
Carlos:I've just saved you 30 pounds.
Carlos:it's like, it's not easy.
Carlos:It's not supposed to be easy, but it's worth it.
Carlos:And I think often, sadly, most people that come and work with me, it's because they're in pain.
Carlos:And I think there's a level to which humans, for some reason, we need to get a level of pain before we deal with stuff.
Carlos:You know, it's like, I, I did my journey because I had pain.
Carlos:I watched my parents go through what they went through and it was really hard.
Carlos:And I was like, I'm not doing that.
Carlos:So if people can give themselves fake pain, like actually looking into the future and going, well, if I do nothing, what's that gonna look like?
Carlos:And one way of doing that is if you don't have a pension, you are listening to this.
Carlos:You just Google what the state pension is.
Carlos:And it, it's in my book from the last figures.
Carlos:I can't, it's not very much.
Carlos:It's not even a thousand pounds a month.
Carlos:And especially now with the cost of living, just go, can you live on that?
Carlos:And what's your life?
Carlos:And like, just spend five minutes going, what's your life gonna look like when you can't work?
Carlos:'cause that comes to us all at some point, probably in some way, shape or form.
Carlos:You can't work or people won't employ you.
Carlos:And you've gotta live on 12 grand a year.
Carlos:And you've rented your whole life, and you don't own a house that's mortgage free.
Carlos:So you've reduced your costs.
Carlos:And I think it's like we can force that pain, if you like, in that reality, but it takes something to do that, because most people don't wanna do it.
Ben:Uh, I was thinking about delayed classification, which is sort of not helpful because there's that experiment around eating donuts, isn't there?
Ben:Uh, and whether if you leave the children in the room with the donut, uh, whether they kind of naturally eat the donut or not, I definitely, one of my kids would eat the donut and the other kid would not eat the donut.
Ben:Uh, and so clearly they're going their own route there.
Ben:But that's not really what we're about, but is what I was kind of wondering.
Ben:Alex-Louise: It, it's, so here's the thing with, you can do that with kids.
Ben:So like, with my children, I will.
Ben:Yeah.
Ben:'cause you can do that and you can keep doing that exercise and you can actually train your children to delay gratification as you start with 10 seconds, then 30 seconds, then a minute, then five minutes.
Ben:And actually doing that with children has been shown that later on in life they will absolutely be able to do this.
Ben:Mm-Hmm.
Ben:So there is also, there's an inherent genetic, yes.
Ben:We've all got our types and some of us find it harder to do that.
Ben:So you absolutely have to have a big enough link and a big enough
Ben:so, uh, you were talking about people come at a point of pain, which of course, of course make makes sense.
Ben:So is is it typically people are coming because they feel and overwhelm around debt or they have got themselves into a scenario where they did momentarily project forward and think, fuck, how am I gonna, how hold all of this sort of together i, is there a sort of a, a kind of common pain which brings people to the table?
Ben:Alex-Louise: It varies.
Ben:I think the common denominator is age and starting to understand that retirement, you know, we're not gonna live forever.
Ben:So people in their twenties generally just including myself, kind of in other areas, but not in the money area.
Ben:We just go, it doesn't matter.
Ben:We're gonna live forever.
Ben:We're, you know, it's just our, what are all these old folks chatting on about saving it's nonsense.
Ben:Then at 30 things happen, like having children, that's a really great one to suddenly make people go, oh, huh, I haven't got enough money.
Ben:How am I gonna do this?
Ben:What about university fees before retirement?
Ben:Actually, losing a job, being in debt is, is a classic one of like, actually going into a debt cycle, paying it off, and then being in debt again, and that getting bigger.
Ben:So there, there's, there's very uncommon denominators, but it's something that happens to individuals where they realize they can't sustain this.
Ben:It's like, it's almost like probably a mortality check in a way of like, oh, actually I am gonna get older and I am gonna have to deal with this, so I need to do something.
Ben:Whether that's having children or, or physically getting older or losing a job or being in debt.
Ben:It's, it's a combination.
Ben:I would say it's different for everybody.
Carlos:I was gonna rewind.
Carlos:You know, you were talking about the why as I heard it anyway, because I felt like.
Carlos:where we started was like, all right, where are you right now?
Carlos:What is it you're spending your money on?
Carlos:Getting a handle hold of where the money is going?
Carlos:And then I, as I understand that step is like, if you can then say, okay, I won't spend it on that.
Carlos:I can delay my gratification or I won't just unconsciously spend stuff on things I don't really need.
Carlos:I now have this wedge of money on my pie chart that I can put somewhere else.
Carlos:I'd be curious to hear your thoughts around then giving, giving people that real motivation to then put that money somewhere helpful.
Carlos:And on part of it is what you just said here, for me, kind of it comes across as kind of fear based.
Carlos:Like what, what's gonna be like next, you know, in 20, 30 years time when you need that money.
Carlos:So, all right, put that away.
Carlos:Are there other ways that you've seen that has have motivated people to just always just stick it somewhere else rather than spend it right now?
Carlos:Alex-Louise: So yes, but it still comes back to having a why.
Carlos:And actually, um, Becky's put a comment about doesn't this stop us living in the moment?
Carlos:And I think that's a lie that we tell ourselves.
Carlos:Uh, 'cause then we don't have to kind of deal with it, you know, that like, oh, but I might die tomorrow.
Carlos:Like I used to smoke and go, I've gotta die somehow.
Carlos:What does it matter?
Carlos:It's kind of a bit of a, it's a bit of a smoke screen and it's something that we can tell ourselves to kind of go, I don't have to deal with this.
Carlos:I like to plan for the worst and hope for the best.
Carlos:And, you know, I intend to live till I'm 140 in the book and I wanna die in a snowboarding accident.
Carlos:So I need to live my life accordingly.
Carlos:And if I wanna be 140 dying in a snowboarding accent, there's things I need to do in the now to facilitate that.
Carlos:So there's definitely like a future that pulls me forward and I get all of my clients do that.
Carlos:It's like, where are you going and what would, so I ask myself, what would future 140 year old Alex Louise.
Carlos:Do in this situation.
Carlos:And it's a very different answer to what do I want to do right now?
Carlos:But it's more powerful when I stick with the where am I actually going?
Carlos:And it gives me, to give an example of living in the moment, I bought my first house when I was 22 and I bought it up in the Welsh Valleys, in Tom Lin.
Carlos:It was about 50,000 pounds.
Carlos:So this is 20 years ago.
Carlos:And everyone else was renting flats in Cardiff Bay, which is, you know, it's all like waterfront and apartment and all of this.
Carlos:And everyone's looking at me like I'm mad going, oh my God, why do you wanna live up there?
Carlos:Because back then it was like the Welsh Valley's, you know, high deprivation, low property prices, high unemployment, all of that world.
Carlos:And I was like, I don't wanna spend over a hundred thousand on a house in Cardiff that still needs a full refurb and I just can't afford it and I don't wanna spend all this money on rent.
Carlos:And that would be a good example of like people wanting to live in the now.
Carlos:But the difference 10 years on, 20 years on is, is polar opposites because the people that were renting back then spending a lot of money on rent are still renting now.
Carlos:Whereas I've got to a place where I never have to work again.
Carlos:We live in a, we live in a unbelievably beautiful house that we, yes, we're refurbing and we rent the air, the top floor on Airbnb, and it will make us, you know, we need to make money to, to make this house work.
Carlos:But it's, I'd rather drink tea in the Ritz once a year than have a Greg's cup of tea every morning.
Carlos:It's that, it's like, spend the money on something that's actually special and we remember rather than, you know, the cup of tea on the way to work that we don't even think about when we're spending it.
Carlos:so there's, it's, it's really hooking into like what actually matters and being conscious about it.
Carlos:Because the, you know, the cups of tea at Greg's in a paper cup that mean nothing that are all one pound 20.
Carlos:We just think they're nothing.
Carlos:But if you don't save the one pounds and the five pounds and the 10 pounds, you can never get to the 5,000 and the 10,000 and the 20,000.
Carlos:'cause it just, we never get there.
Carlos:And I do an exercise, there's an exercise in the book, and most people don't start thinking about investment until they've got 20 grand.
Carlos:Plus if you, if you ask them, problem with that is you never get to that amount while spending the small amount.
Carlos:So I think there's a, there's a just really getting that on a, on a level that's adding it up.
Carlos:So I like to add things up.
Carlos:So if someone goes, oh, it's only a fiver, I go, well, how many times a year do you do that?
Carlos:And how many years are you gonna do that for?
Carlos:And how much does that actually cost you?
Carlos:So all of a sudden that five pound Starbucks every day, some people over a year, I mean everyone can do the math, right?
Carlos:It's literally thousands of pounds.
Carlos:So, and again, so going back to the people who looked at me funny, when I moved up to the valleys 10 years old, they really wanted to know what I'd been doing when I went work anymore.
Carlos:And they went, wait, what?
Carlos:What?
Carlos:How did you do that?
Carlos:Well, you remember 10 years ago when I lived somewhere where none of you wanted to live.
Carlos:That's what I did.
Carlos:And then it's, so, it's, it's getting that, it's like, well, what do you want?
Carlos:Do you want the, like, glamor in the now or do you want like long-term sustainable wealth That actually is really special?
Carlos:I don't know.
Carlos:Let's say a, a nice car, right?
Carlos:So that's one of my favorite cars to Range Rover Sport.
Carlos:Now my husband calls me a complete cha for liking these cars.
Carlos:He absolutely disgusted at me for wanting a drug dealer's car is the other thing he calls it.
Carlos:And, and what's good for him is that I don't care what car I drive until it's one of those.
Carlos:Now what's interesting is I'm 43 this year.
Carlos:I still haven't got one because actually I've got priorities that are higher than that.
Carlos:Like we've got our kids in private school and we wanted to live in this house and all the rest of it.
Carlos:If I'd have bought a Range Rover Sport 10 years ago, that would've cost me, I don't know what, what that is on finance.
Carlos:Let's say 6, 7, 800 pounds a month, times a year, times 10 years.
Carlos:Let's do it.
Carlos:I mean, it's, it's just, I'm just gonna walk out
Carlos:live maths here on pricing,
Carlos:Alex-Louise: right?
Carlos:So let, let's be, let's say it's, let's say it's six 50 pounds a month.
Carlos:Okay?
Carlos:That's 7,800 pounds a year, times 10 years.
Carlos:That's 78 grand.
Carlos:And I still have to keep spending that money because.
Carlos:Range Rovers for those that don't know are notorious for breaking down and are fricking terrible cars.
Carlos:So you basically just have to keep having new ones and, and all that.
Carlos:Well, with 78,000 pounds, I could go and buy holiday, let, and I have a holiday, let in fourth call, which the deposit, I mean the deposit is actually nil 'cause of the way I did the deal.
Carlos:But just for argument's sake, let's say I bought it as it is done now, it's worth 185,000 pounds.
Carlos:Now 25% of that is 46,000 pounds, 46,250 pounds.
Carlos:So I could have delayed that Range Rover for five years, saved up that 50 grand, put that into a holiday, let got a holiday, let mortgage that holiday, let live actual figures like today that, you know, goes to the tax man.
Carlos:It makes me 12 grand a year for the rest of my life.
Carlos:So that pays for my Range Rover and something else.
Carlos:I put it off for five years and the difference, like the flip, is just unbelievable.
Carlos:So wait five years, put that 50 grand into a holiday, let but you know, drive an old banger in the meantime, put that into a holiday, let and then have a thousand pounds for the rest of my life every month for the rest of my life to have Range Rovers, whatever.
Carlos:The irony being then, you know, once we have money for things, we often don't want them.
Carlos:So I'm like, well, do I wanna spank that much money on a Ranger road?
Carlos:But no, I don't.
Carlos:but you get the idea once people actually start to look at what they spend and multiply it out over a lifetime.
Carlos:For me it's like, how do you spend that money when you look at it like that, but it's getting, it's getting people, you know, and everyone listening.
Carlos:It's like, well do it for yourselves.
Carlos:Like have a look at that coffee or that whatever your do dad is to use a Robert Kiyosaki term, find out what it is in terms of over five and 10 years and go, well, if I gave that up for five years.
Carlos:That will give this.
Carlos:And then how do I leverage that?
Carlos:My gains property, you know, I've used property to, to leverage and do it faster.
Carlos:But you can do it with stocks and shares and all sorts of, so what I'd like
Carlos:to do is, uh, flip that bit.
Carlos:'cause I, there's a, we've, on one hand, we, we've talked about reducing spending to the essentials.
Carlos:And so this whole delay gratification Using that money to then potentially invest in order to then bring that back.
Carlos:And so there's a level of patience that's required there.
Carlos:And another thing is, and try to relate it to this podcast, how we earn money.
Carlos:And how we price.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:And, and one of the exercises that, that Ben and I take people through is like, what will more money buy me?
Carlos:Which I think is relating to your, why am I saving, what is it I'm trying to get towards?
Carlos:And so.
Carlos:There's one aspect that I'm hearing around this is just like, what kind of lifestyle do I wanna lead when I'm older?
Carlos:How, you know, I wanna die 140 snowboarding, that thing.
Carlos:But there's also, think what I'm trying to get to as a way to help motivate us, not only to save more, but also to earn more, particularly for those of us here who are purpose driven, who don't think money is something I need to accumulate.
Carlos:Can you share any thoughts or inspiration as to how to create this picture of like, oh, what great would look like with more money that isn't just being greedy and just keeping things to myself?
Carlos:Alex-Louise: Yeah, absolutely.
Carlos:Um, so the thing about any belief around money and it being greedy is it's, it's misplaced projection.
Carlos:Ben was saying that the way I like to look at money is it's just an exchange in energy and it's also a measure, like if you wanna be really cold and hard about it, it's just a measure about how good you are at what you're doing and how good you are at charging for that.
Carlos:And just because people have a lot of wealth, it doesn't mean it's bad.
Carlos:Like those two are completely distinct.
Carlos:Like, like having money doesn't mean anything other than you have a load of money in your bank account.
Carlos:What we choose to do with it, everyone's different.
Carlos:And the, the reality is that people that choose to do good with money, they'll do good with money whether they've got loads or none of it, and vice versa.
Carlos:People who don't wanna give back to community and, and build better structures and you know, have more workability in the world, they're not gonna do that.
Carlos:Whether they're poor or rich, either.
Carlos:They're gonna do what they wanna do.
Carlos:so the thing about having wealth is we've got more power to change things.
Carlos:So when I became financially free, I then freed up my time.
Carlos:And I think this is the other thing that people don't talk enough about in financial freedom, it's not about the money, it's about time.
Carlos:At which point I can spend the rest of my life going, what do I want to change in the world?
Carlos:What matters to me?
Carlos:What do I really care about?
Carlos:Which piece of the planet am I gonna leave in a better state than I found it?
Carlos:And the more resources and money I have, the more impact I can have.
Carlos:And, and we've just gotta deal with that.
Carlos:Like that's the reality of the way our system works.
Carlos:If you have finance, you can buy stuff that can make a difference.
Carlos:Now if you just throw money at people, that's giving people fish, not teaching them how to fish.
Carlos:And teaching people how to fish costs money.
Carlos:So teach more people to fish.
Carlos:It's like, it's like how do you spend that money?
Carlos:So it's effective, but that again, is a completely distinct conversation.
Carlos:There are charities that are effective at what they do, and there are charities that are ineffective.
Carlos:It's nothing to do with the amount of money they have.
Carlos:It's about effectiveness.
Carlos:and I think to, to link it all the way back to charging, there's a fair exchange that needs to happen.
Carlos:Most coaches, therapists, artists, creatives, people, helpers.
Carlos:I've just noticed Francis here, hi Francis, and saying patience.
Carlos:It's like that.
Carlos:That's the other thing is patience is the biggest word ever in this journey.
Carlos:If we don't charge enough, we end up burnt out.
Carlos:So when I don't charge enough for what I do, I get resentful.
Carlos:That's it, like a hundred percent.
Carlos:I get resentful about what I do.
Carlos:I start getting annoyed.
Carlos:And one of the ways I know I need to put my prices up when I'm reviewing it is if I'm showing up to my coaching calls and I'm starting to feel a bit begrudging about showing up for that.
Carlos:It's usually because there's a mismatch in value, So I'm showing up, I'm not charging enough, or I haven't changed things up.
Carlos:So I changed things up recently in my business where I started coaching groups of groups instead of coaching individual groups.
Carlos:Prior to that, I would only coach individuals.
Carlos:So I haven't ever really put my prices up in the per hour sense, but I coach more people in that same hour in a group.
Carlos:So that's how I do it.
Carlos:But each time that I find myself getting bored, resentful, a bit flippant, not preparing for what I'm gonna do, I'm like, oh, hang on, there's a flag here.
Carlos:I need to put my prices up.
Carlos:And most people aren't connected to that in themselves.
Carlos:Or they're feeling that, but they're not understanding what it is.
Carlos:So anyone who's listening to this going, oh God, is that why I, I'm getting angry or I'm feeling annoyed with my clients, or I'm not showing up properly.
Carlos:It's like, yeah, you're not charging enough.
Carlos:More often than not, that will solve, that will solve an issue.
Carlos:Thank you.
Carlos:And then
Carlos:Alex-Louise: it's like, do what you want with the money.
Carlos:Give it to charity.
Carlos:If you really don't want it, like give it to charity, but have the wealth and then do good stuff with it.
Carlos:Don't avoid the wealth 'cause you think it's bad.
Ben:I think one of my sort of first sort of roots into properly thinking about money as opposed to just sort of ignoring it, um, was a, uh, course thing that I've been on with a Buddhist meditation teacher.
Ben:And, and basically one of the kind of topics was on money and he started that with this kind of provocation, which is, you know, if I say to you, money, money, money, money, what comes up for you?
Ben:And it was this kind of so realized that actually just how kind of emotionally charged.
Ben:It is in all the different ways, kind of good and bad.
Ben:And a lot of the conversation that we were sort of having, uh, earlier in the chat around purchases and consumption and what we're buying, it's all kind of wrapped up to the same thing.
Ben:And, you know, the, the response, which is some people will say, oh, you know, money's not important to me and therefore I'm pushing it away.
Ben:And other people will say, no, I need more money.
Ben:I need more money.
Ben:And it's just, it's the same energy essentially just kind of matter of, you know, expressing itself kind of different ways around.
Ben:And it kind of feels to me that actually kind of understanding some of that, those.
Ben:Sort of emotional drivers, understanding some of that pull will kind of will create some space for people a little bit.
Ben:So you can go into like some of the exercises you are talking about there, about imagining what you might do with kind of more money.
Ben:Whether it's kind of projecting forward, you know, 10, 20, 30 years, whatever kind of retirement might be for you.
Ben:Or it's just about kind of understanding some of the kind of complexity around this and you know, being a bit more kind of intentional about how we're living, what we're choosing to spend, where we're choosing to invest our kind of time, our energy, and all of these things.
Ben:This all just comes back to the immediate too, actually and in, you know, in how I'm kind of living each day.
Carlos:I'm glad you did that 'cause that's exactly where I wanted to take us.
Carlos:' cause I feel we started from the outside and now I feel we wanna work inside.
Carlos:And what I heard from your story, Alex Louise.
Carlos:Was, there's a, there was a lot of experiences in your early life that have motivated you to do certain, have certain behaviors with money and I assume certain beliefs so I'd love to hear, yeah.
Carlos:Talk more of to that in your experience as your own personal beliefs and how you worked through them and integrated them and they also, the kinds of beliefs you see people, come to you with and how they've had to come to terms with that in order for them to then do the work that you tell them to do.
Carlos:Alex-Louise: to me, this what I say is now obvious and I'm amazed how not obvious it is to a lot of people and.
Carlos:I go away with a couple of girlfriends a couple of times a year for a weekend and I find myself over that weekend joking going, childhood trauma.
Carlos:It's really fucking real, man.
Carlos:'cause we, of what we're talking about and if you think you don't have childhood trauma you haven't found it yet.
Carlos:That's it.
Carlos:And I'm not saying trauma with a big tea.
Carlos:It could be a little tea.
Carlos:You know, mine was, my mom would not like it when my brother said he didn't like what was for dinner.
Carlos:And then I went, oh look, it's not okay to say what we feel 'cause mommy will get angry.
Carlos:Right?
Carlos:All of that world and money is so wrapped up in all of that, it's unbelievable.
Carlos:So the other thing to say on this, just to what you're saying, this is just a total journey of dealing with what happened to us in our childhood.
Carlos:Being free from that, which ironically frees us up for money.
Carlos:So any time in our adult lives that we are banging up against something and we're upset or we're triggered or what, however you would word it for yourselves.
Carlos:But there is like, we have not got freedom and we're, it's like we're watching ourselves react in a way.
Carlos:It's all just an invitation for healing.
Carlos:And money is money and intimate relationships.
Carlos:I'd say hands down are the two biggest ones.
Carlos:And then there's, you know, all of the rest come into that, but most of them actually come under that love and money, those two subjects.
Carlos:As a child, how were your parents around money?
Carlos:What did they do?
Carlos:What did they say?
Carlos:What did people you respected say?
Carlos:What did your teachers say?
Carlos:I mean.
Carlos:God bless our teachers and they don't help us with money because they're not doing money, right?
Carlos:So we, we grow up with all, you know, I mean, God, how many people have money?
Carlos:Doesn't grow, grow on trees, we're so brainwashed as children into whatever happened around us.
Carlos:If we don't unpick that as adults, like it is, I believe it's our job from when we hit 18 or younger.
Carlos:If you leave home earlier, it is our job to self parent.
Carlos:And anything that didn't work that was in insufficient from our childhood, we gotta deal with it.
Carlos:you know, one of my clients, she says, oh, you hood wink us all with money and financial freedom, and then you make a deal with our shit.
Carlos:And it's like, yeah, because that's the only way you can deal with your money.
Carlos:the money's the trigger, you know, the unworkability around money or getting into debt or spending, like why are people spending, you know, they're spending to feel good, or why don't you feel good?
Carlos:Why do you have to spend that money?
Carlos:You don't need to spend that money.
Carlos:You're spending it to feel good in the moment.
Carlos:In the same way that I used to smoke and I used to put sugar in my coffee and I used to drink a lot of espressos to get me through the day.
Carlos:And I used to drink alcohol at night.
Carlos:You know, after a long day shift.
Carlos:Spending money's just in that bracket too.
Carlos:It's like we do it to feel good and we go to the shops and it's all set up to actually make us feel bad.
Carlos:Shops are set up to make us feel bad and inadequate.
Carlos:And if you buy these things, you'll look like the model in the poster.
Carlos:You know, I don't actually go to shops most of the time 'cause it's just, it's like, why would I wanna put myself through that?
Carlos:We've turned human beings, I can't remember who said this recently, that I've listened to a podcast.
Carlos:We've turned human beings into consumers.
Carlos:We are not consumers.
Carlos:That's not what we're on this planet for.
Carlos:And every time we buy something and we consume, you know, even just buying the kids.
Carlos:Plastic.
Carlos:Fantastic.
Carlos:As I call it, just shit.
Carlos:It's like, why?
Carlos:Well, like what if the west being wealthy is ends in consumerism, like it's just empty.
Carlos:and for anyone who's like, I don't wanna deal with my childhood, or I don't wanna open that can of worms, or I don't want to go there, sorry.
Carlos:No pass you, if you want to deal with whatever it is on the surface level, you have to go there.
Carlos:And what there is to say is it's never as bad as you think, that black hole that you think is gonna swallow you, that you'll never come out of.
Carlos:It's never as bad as you think you'll always survive and get through it.
Carlos:And actually coming out of that black hole at the end of it, if that's what it feels like to you, is so freeing.
Carlos:Like, I look younger now than I did 10 years ago.
Carlos:it's just, it's unbelievable for health as well, you know, doing this work.
Carlos:I, I'm drinking from the Kool-Aid.
Carlos:'cause I, I kind of think of that in terms of entrepreneurship as well.
Carlos:You know, the things that we, as it, our reactions to some of these, or the places where we struggle in our work are like, I hate you say an invitation to heal, whether that's marketing, selling, creation, product building, managing, it's all, all, um, an invitation.
Carlos:It feels, and, and that feels empowering.
Carlos:I like that.
Carlos:Rather than, oh, I just can't do this 'cause I'm, I'm not good enough.
Carlos:It's like, actually you can, you just need to heal.
Ben:I think I was sort of struck by actually something you said right at the beginning, which, uh, sort of brings us all the back that, uh, how sort of popular a topic this is.
Ben:And I could, the kind of reason to reflect on that, not just kinda reflecting on that, it's a popular topic, but you know, it, these, you know, money, our relationship to money, all of this is just, it's everywhere, you know, and it's such an emotionally charged thing and it means so many different things for different people.
Ben:Uh, but no, I really kind of appreciate everything that you've shared.
Ben:Uh, Alex, I think it's really, really inspiring story and, um, some really good practical teachings for people to ignore in terms of I'm not gonna do that hard work of actually just working outspending.
Ben:Alex-Louise: Yeah.
Ben:But no.
Ben:Yeah.
Ben:Drink water, eat salad, save money.
Ben:Exactly.
Ben:Exactly.
Ben:No, but I really appreciate everything that you've shared, uh, really, really insightful.
Ben:Thank you.
Carlos:Thank you very much everyone for joining us.
Carlos:Um, we hope to, well hope to hear you come back to us with all your wonderful savings advances in terms of knowing what to dump.
Carlos:And I have 60 quids worth of subscriptions I need to really have a look at
Ben:and we all
Carlos:Okay.
Carlos:You take care everyone.
Carlos:Bye.
Carlos:Thanks, Alex.
Carlos:Cheers.
