Speaker 1: Half of Key. We would rather talk politics than money,
Speaker 1: which surprised me too.
Speaker 2: Many of us we're embarrassed, we feel shame, but many
Speaker 2: of us are making the same sorts of mistate.
Speaker 1: Do you think tall poppy syndromes and economic.
Speaker 2: Cost Oh, for sure, that's what wealth is about.
Speaker 1: Having options. I'm lighton Roberts from Cheesy's and today on
Speaker 1: She at Large. I'm joined by Luke Kemmy's from Kick
Speaker 1: the Change.
Speaker 2: You can still hear ringing in my ears people saying, Oh,
Speaker 2: you're a try hard and I kind of think as
Speaker 2: I've gotten older, yeah, I still need to try pretty hard,
Speaker 2: but nothing really good comes of not trying very hard.
Speaker 1: We talk about money, shame, tool poppy syndrome, and why
Speaker 1: being more open about our finances might actually make us
Speaker 1: all better off.
Speaker 3: Investing involves the risk you might lose the money you
Speaker 3: start with. We recommend talking to a licensed financial advisor.
Speaker 3: We also recommend breading product disclosure documents before deciding to invest.
Speaker 3: Everything you're about to see and here is current at
Speaker 3: the time of recording.
Speaker 1: Great to have you here again, Luke.
Speaker 2: Always good to be here.
Speaker 1: Last time we caught up, we were at the FIFA
Speaker 1: World Cup, which pretty epic experience and learn event. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was lots of key over there as well. I
Speaker 1: was sort of surprised at how many actually but run
Speaker 1: into each other. And to do that, you've got to
Speaker 1: get some good savings and play for So how long
Speaker 1: had you been thinking about that? How far ahead are
Speaker 1: you thinking these sort of events?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a good couple of years of being
Speaker 2: very deliberate about going to that, and to be honest,
Speaker 2: like doing it and doing it really well. And I
Speaker 2: guess getting to a position in life where we could
Speaker 2: do it and enjoy a lot of it rather than
Speaker 2: some of the travel I've done previously, which might be skimping.
Speaker 2: And there were many people that did it with a
Speaker 2: different budget, which is good to see. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that planning out. It's amazing how much
Speaker 1: more enjoyable it can be if you like, if you
Speaker 1: have actually thought about that budget and stuff in front
Speaker 1: and have a good time. Anyway, I digress completely from
Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about, which is really just
Speaker 1: thinking about money and it's part in particular in New
Speaker 1: Zealander's lives and the mentality around it and what you
Speaker 1: see in your already and the people who speak to
Speaker 1: you regularly, and the companies you advise how they approach it,
Speaker 1: if that's changing at all, and then also how that
Speaker 1: might ultimately flow into the economy more broadly. So one
Speaker 1: of the things I've seen you described before is that
Speaker 1: you're interested in money and then you don't think it's
Speaker 1: a bad thing. So I'd just love to explore that
Speaker 1: a bit with you. Well.
Speaker 2: I think it's fascinating that we've normalized, or gone on
Speaker 2: the journey of normalizing talking about mental health and physical health.
Speaker 2: And it's pretty acceptable now to do BFT with your
Speaker 2: top off and go to your CrossFit and then post
Speaker 2: about that, or we now even have an app where
Speaker 2: you can then like someone going for a run. But
Speaker 2: if you then go online and talk about money or
Speaker 2: what your key WE saver balances or how much you
Speaker 2: are earning your shares, that might be doing well. I
Speaker 2: think it's still really uncomfortable for people, and I wonder
Speaker 2: if financial literacy and money is the next wave of
Speaker 2: US KEY. We people getting a bit more uncomfortable talking
Speaker 2: about these things. But for some reason, I still think
Speaker 2: that there is a pretty big barrier to doing that.
Speaker 1: A nice budgeting with your top off that could be
Speaker 1: the next quess you I would not be entering there.
Speaker 1: I'd probably need a few trips to BFT before I
Speaker 1: was up for that. But I think it's like a
Speaker 1: super interesting conversation, and like, how much do you think
Speaker 1: of it as driven by an economy right now? Where
Speaker 1: it's not easy you talk about some of these other trends,
Speaker 1: the health and the well being. And Brooke actually often
Speaker 1: she talks about shares his purpose which is to create
Speaker 1: wealth and get more people being wealthy, and it's not
Speaker 1: the purpose. The purpose is not just to have money.
Speaker 1: The purpose is that health is the ultimate wealth and
Speaker 1: wealth can play into that in a big way. So
Speaker 1: have you got a feel for just how much like
Speaker 1: now it could be a good time to change that
Speaker 1: psyche just because of how hard it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sort of come up with this idea of
Speaker 2: maybe we need a national Key we Save a day
Speaker 2: on the thirtieth of June we actually talk more about
Speaker 2: Key We Saver and maybe what we've got in our
Speaker 2: balances so that people have a reason to potentially talk
Speaker 2: about money in a way that they haven't been doing before.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if that's something that we could get
Speaker 2: to take off. Obviously we have sorted money month, which
Speaker 2: is great, but I do think people are slowly being
Speaker 2: more open to talking about it. However, probably in pockets.
Speaker 2: So often I'll have people tell me about something successful
Speaker 2: that they've achieved with money, and then they'll say, oh,
Speaker 2: just wanted to share that with you, because I don't
Speaker 2: really have anyone else that I can tell. And I
Speaker 2: think when times are tough, and also being Kiwis, we're
Speaker 2: quite humble and we probably don't want to be mistaken
Speaker 2: for bragging or rubbing it in someone's face when we
Speaker 2: know other people may be struggling. And someone once said
Speaker 2: to me that because New Zealand is very small, you know,
Speaker 2: we do feel inequality and things like that because we
Speaker 2: see it and we think, ah, okay, that's happening just
Speaker 2: down the road, whereas maybe in bigger places they may
Speaker 2: look at it and go, okay, that's just part of
Speaker 2: what's happening. So I do think we do have a
Speaker 2: little bit of this. You know, don't talk too much
Speaker 2: about how well you may be doing, because you don't
Speaker 2: know how hard it is for somebody else. And I
Speaker 2: think people when they do talk about their successes, they're
Speaker 2: not trying to brag about it or you know, rub
Speaker 2: it in people's faces. I think the majority of people,
Speaker 2: they're just saying, hey, I've achieved this thing and I
Speaker 2: want to share it with you, and that should be okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean it's a great quality of New Zealand
Speaker 1: as well, isn't it that we do respect that? Just
Speaker 1: talking about that trip to the States, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's a very different mentality over there, and you
Speaker 1: can see it. So I was there for a work event.
Speaker 1: We were at Stanford University, and there was just so
Speaker 1: many people doing such great things, like actually on a
Speaker 1: global scale, and so few of them were names that
Speaker 1: we would know here in New Zealand. And like so,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking a lot about the word ambition lately,
Speaker 1: and I was speaking at a conference, the Young Elected
Speaker 1: Members Conference, and one of the things we were talking
Speaker 1: about there was how New Zealanders are actually really ambitious people.
Speaker 1: Like you know, we're super competitive. We in sport, we
Speaker 1: tend to outshine and a lot of things we do
Speaker 1: to a greater things business. We're nine number eight wire
Speaker 1: mentality and all this sort of thing. But there's something
Speaker 1: that means that it's not always coming to the fore,
Speaker 1: and there is something that happens right at start and
Speaker 1: classrooms even where maybe it's not best to be the
Speaker 1: most academic in the and so there's like a really
Speaker 1: interesting line to draw there, which you know, I sort
Speaker 1: of think flows a little bit into money as well.
Speaker 1: And some of the studies, like I found that like
Speaker 1: half of key we would rather talk politics than money,
Speaker 1: which surprised me. But where do you think that comes from?
Speaker 1: Like is it shallow? Is it showy like if to
Speaker 1: talk about money, or do you think it's like more embarrassment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the I noticed an obsession at the moment with politics.
Speaker 2: I feel like that has grown. I wonder if that
Speaker 2: is just the wave of content that's been put in
Speaker 2: front of people and so then they're getting absorbed in that.
Speaker 2: But I do think sometimes if we replace some of
Speaker 2: those negative stories with some positive ones around people doing well,
Speaker 2: why do they not perform as well? And I do
Speaker 2: notice even when I study content and see what's working
Speaker 2: that that sometimes those stories don't perform as well as
Speaker 2: I think that they may, or even if they do
Speaker 2: perform well, a number of the comments will be, yeah,
Speaker 2: but this person had that, or yeah, I would prefer
Speaker 2: if the interviewer focused on the upbringing or yeah, what
Speaker 2: did their parents teach them all? So and so I
Speaker 2: think we get lost down these ruts and reasons of
Speaker 2: why we can't do something, and going back to, you know,
Speaker 2: the earlier years, I do think I think it might
Speaker 2: have died off a bit now, but you know, I
Speaker 2: can still hear ringing in my ears people saying, oh,
Speaker 2: you're a try hard and then you know, not just
Speaker 2: to me, but that was sort of a thing, and
Speaker 2: I kind of think as I've gotten older, yeah, I
Speaker 2: still need to try pretty hard to get things to happen,
Speaker 2: but nothing really good comes of not trying very hard.
Speaker 2: But I think we have a bit of that too.
Speaker 2: We want to tell someone that they are trying a
Speaker 2: little bit too hard, and then just with all of that,
Speaker 2: it just compounds on us to perhaps aim for less.
Speaker 2: And I'm noticed the same thing in the States. I
Speaker 2: actually bumped into some very successful Kiwi people that I'd
Speaker 2: never heard of before, was blowing away what they were
Speaker 2: doing very ironically, had already transacted with one of their
Speaker 2: businesses and gone seriously, like you, okay, I saw that
Speaker 2: on my bank statement. So I'm really intrigued and then
Speaker 2: I might have had a couple of Espresso Martinez at
Speaker 2: one of the games. Mate, let's make a quick Instagram
Speaker 2: snip of you know three things that you would love
Speaker 2: ki people to know. No, no, no no no wah
Speaker 2: war no, I'm not.
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 2: Why are you doing that on Instagram? Leave me away
Speaker 2: from that. I kind of thought, oh, to me, there's
Speaker 2: some success there. They've got some runs on the board.
Speaker 2: This is fascinating, but there's still that hesitation. I've been
Speaker 2: seen to be doing too well. And maybe it's just
Speaker 2: because we do love to bring people down when they
Speaker 2: do go a bit far, or have our opinions of
Speaker 2: how people should be making money what they should be
Speaker 2: doing along that due and maybe people have been beaten
Speaker 2: up a little bit by that, so then they get
Speaker 2: a bit shy, you know, continuing to demonstrate or talk
Speaker 2: about how they have had success.
Speaker 1: It has flown into investing markets and stuff as well.
Speaker 1: New Zealanders love cash. Like if you look at the
Speaker 1: amount of cash that sits around on balance sheets and
Speaker 1: stuff around New Zealand, and that's by no means a
Speaker 1: bad thing to have enough there to cover the tough
Speaker 1: times and stuff. But it's not productive and it's not
Speaker 1: growing the economy and stuff. But I think for people
Speaker 1: that I speak to one it can be addictive, which
Speaker 1: is you know, again, I guess quite a good thing
Speaker 1: with regards to behavior. You get a little bit and
Speaker 1: then you start to see the compounding impacts come through.
Speaker 1: It's very visible, it's re tangible. If you wanted to,
Speaker 1: you could go spend it. But I think one of
Speaker 1: the things that I've been thinking about in this economy
Speaker 1: is like there's that much cash around. There are some
Speaker 1: businesses that are starved for some custom right now, and
Speaker 1: it does worry me a little bit how many people
Speaker 1: are not spinning for the reasons you touched on right
Speaker 1: at the start, which is purely they don't want to
Speaker 1: be seen to be sort of showing off, and they
Speaker 1: may feel like others can't keep up. But actually the
Speaker 1: economy thrives by spinning, right. You need people out there
Speaker 1: doing that, Like it can become this momentum thing gets
Speaker 1: to get a bit of a roll on. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I saw in a post you made recently,
Speaker 1: which was which I just became for you to share now,
Speaker 1: was some of the early thinking you had around the
Speaker 1: survived to twenty five and you were unique and that
Speaker 1: you sort of identified that as maybe a problem statement
Speaker 1: back then. So what was it about then and what
Speaker 1: is it now that makes you think you're probably right?
Speaker 2: Well, I'd read about survived to twenty five coming out
Speaker 2: of America and commercial real estate, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden I heard our media talking about it, and
Speaker 2: then I noticed clients started saying it. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: like this is not good because people were looking at
Speaker 2: it as if it was some sort of mantra or
Speaker 2: way to live. And we were saying to clients, you've
Speaker 2: got to be really careful adopting that as your way
Speaker 2: to operate this business. If you're just going to wait
Speaker 2: till twenty twenty five, no one's going to ring you
Speaker 2: on the first of January and say, hey, you know
Speaker 2: you survived, let's go. And I think we've seen people
Speaker 2: caught out by the fact that they thought it may
Speaker 2: just get better. And maybe I've been beaten up a
Speaker 2: little bit too much in life to learn that it's
Speaker 2: not really how the world works. You know, things don't
Speaker 2: just get better on a date. You've got to go
Speaker 2: out there and try and make them better. Yes, of
Speaker 2: course there are external factors as well, but I could
Speaker 2: just see people were buying into a reason to then
Speaker 2: maybe not take action, or let's delay this decision or
Speaker 2: action taking until we get to twenty twenty five. And realistically,
Speaker 2: all that it was was that the media and other
Speaker 2: people were talking about the fact that it was kind
Speaker 2: of catchy, you know, and I even saw some economists
Speaker 2: like theming their keynotes about that. I'm going, you know,
Speaker 2: this just doesn't seem like a way for us to
Speaker 2: run our lives. That's going to see growing on the
Speaker 2: other side. And interestingly, when I posted about it on LinkedIn,
Speaker 2: you know two years ago, ninety percent of people were
Speaker 2: like great posts. Yep, completely get it. And actually there
Speaker 2: were a few people that come into being like, mate,
Speaker 2: you're so far out of touch. Oh look at his profiles.
Speaker 2: You know, he just does well off of others people's success.
Speaker 2: He's never done anything himself. And then I'm looking, I'm like,
Speaker 2: some of these people were, you know, had an order
Speaker 2: of merit, for instance, And so I'm thinking, not everyone's
Speaker 2: going to agree with those things, but I do think
Speaker 2: we've got to be really careful about what we're putting
Speaker 2: into our minds, because our inputs can often become our outputs.
Speaker 2: So if you want to set yourself up for success,
Speaker 2: you've got to start to weed through some of the
Speaker 2: things that are coming at you and decide how you're
Speaker 2: going to play on the front foot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you put that nicely because it's not
Speaker 1: just about it's not necessarily about spending or necessarily money
Speaker 1: related with that mindset, is it. It's like this survive
Speaker 1: to twenty five was very much like a financial mantra.
Speaker 1: But the risk is then it becomes one of action
Speaker 1: as well, and the sort of you can take action
Speaker 1: without spending like that as possible, and you can make
Speaker 1: changes and you can do the analysis you need to
Speaker 1: to work out where the right investment is, whether that's
Speaker 1: time or money.
Speaker 2: And I guess the counter kind of what you were
Speaker 2: saying is I was going out to the world at
Speaker 2: the time saying there's so much money out there and
Speaker 2: backing it up with data, and people were going hah,
Speaker 2: like we're being told survives at twenty five or there's not,
Speaker 2: and the economy is contracting, and you're saying there's heaps
Speaker 2: of money out there, So great for content because people
Speaker 2: are then saying you're an idiot, you don't understand. But
Speaker 2: from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty five, or maybe twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six, there's been growth of one hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: billion dollars of amounts of money sitting in the turn deposits.
Speaker 2: Now that's more than the wealth of our entire rich list,
Speaker 2: which we get angry about. And hey, maybe rightly or wrongly,
Speaker 2: but I was educating people or encouraging them. Hey, you know,
Speaker 2: people are still transacting. A market transacts when value exceeds price.
Speaker 2: So if you've got something good that somebody wants, then
Speaker 2: don't feel like you can't do that, and you've got
Speaker 2: to wait till back end of twenty five as we're
Speaker 2: buying into all of these guesses from people. When market
Speaker 2: principles are always there. If someone wants something and you
Speaker 2: can provide it for them and they value it and
Speaker 2: they're willing to have that in their life, then they
Speaker 2: will transact with you. And we've seen actually a lot
Speaker 2: of businesses still performing really well by continually putting themselves
Speaker 2: in front of people who do want a problem solved
Speaker 2: or do want value edited their life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a cool thought as a country and just
Speaker 1: how that mentality aspect can flow through. There is something cultural.
Speaker 1: You know, there's geographic challenges, size challenges, no doubt, but
Speaker 1: there is I think there is a culture challenge in
Speaker 1: this stuff because we do we do tend to lag
Speaker 1: recovery of other markets, and part of that is our
Speaker 1: appetite to get going a bit sooner.
Speaker 2: Or do we look back at nineteen eighty seven?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well they you know, as they say most
Speaker 1: because I read people are still scared off from investing, right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, there is a generation change and that's real.
Speaker 1: So there's been some other surveys. I found that one
Speaker 1: in three This really surprised me by the way way
Speaker 1: that one in three New Zealanders aren't even sharing their
Speaker 1: finances with their families or their partners. What kind of
Speaker 1: toll do you think that that's this like level of secrecy, like,
Speaker 1: what's what sort of told do you think that takes?
Speaker 2: Well, it's massive. And I'll tell you a story that
Speaker 2: I think sums us up quite well where I had
Speaker 2: a young lad reach out to me and this is
Speaker 2: from a business side, and he was telling me about
Speaker 2: some of the things that he was facing in his
Speaker 2: business and I'm sitting there as the accountant being very transactional. Okay,
Speaker 2: you know, we've bitten off a bit more than we
Speaker 2: can choose. Some things haven't gone so well. And I said, mate,
Speaker 2: this is going to be a grind out of this.
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, please tell me you've shared
Speaker 2: this with your wife? Nah?
Speaker 1: Nah?
Speaker 2: Really? Why not? Mate? Well, I just I just don't
Speaker 2: want her to have to worry about it. Might well, mate,
Speaker 2: I'm now worried about you because it's all you're going
Speaker 2: to worry about. And he eventually broke down and wasn't.
Speaker 2: And I think you can start to see this weight
Speaker 2: that people carry. And I mean I was brought up.
Speaker 2: We are sharing something, you know, it's a problem shared
Speaker 2: as a problem. Half that things are probably a little
Speaker 2: bit more normal.
Speaker 1: But I know not.
Speaker 2: Everybody's had that upbringing. But the amount of times that
Speaker 2: I speak to a business owner and they are going
Speaker 2: through something and they are incredibly lonely about it or
Speaker 2: want to offload and just talk about it, and I
Speaker 2: think that's no different to what someone may be facing
Speaker 2: in their personal life. You know, I've got myself into
Speaker 2: credit card dept before, for instance, and I can still
Speaker 2: remember the relief of talking to my brother about it,
Speaker 2: where he's like, Okay, well you need to start paying
Speaker 2: it back. So okay, a great plan, but at least
Speaker 2: I've kind of got it off my chest to a degree.
Speaker 2: And I think too many of us we're embarrassed, we
Speaker 2: feel shame, but many of us are making the same
Speaker 2: sorts of mistakes. And actually, what I've learned is that
Speaker 2: people actually want to see people improve or better their situation,
Speaker 2: or there are more solutions available to people than what
Speaker 2: they realize. But it comes back to Okay, we've learned
Speaker 2: that with physical health, we've learned that with mental health
Speaker 2: to start putting our hand up. But with financial health,
Speaker 2: I think we've still got a little bit to go.
Speaker 2: And so you know, I know some people will message
Speaker 2: me and they've accessed financial education through the EAP systems
Speaker 2: and things, and I think, again, go back to the top,
Speaker 2: like maybe that's our next wave of encouraging more people
Speaker 2: to say, hey, I have got into this financial situation.
Speaker 2: Let's not look at it as embarrassed, mentioned and emotional.
Speaker 2: It's just transactional and what does it tell us, Okay,
Speaker 2: what are my next steps from here?
Speaker 1: One of the things I see a lot is people
Speaker 1: looking for like the immediate outcome or the immediate resolution,
Speaker 1: and most problems don't come from a like it le
Speaker 1: doesn't just happen, you know, it normally took some time
Speaker 1: to dig yourself a whole. So it's a fair expectation.
Speaker 1: I think that you're going to take some time to
Speaker 1: dig yourself out of it. And I love this idea
Speaker 1: of sharing more on that because it's something I think
Speaker 1: businesses do pretty well. Like a couple of examples for
Speaker 1: shares is, So we came up through startup. You know,
Speaker 1: we started the business without any money, sort of grow
Speaker 1: that over time you raise capital. We got a bit
Speaker 1: in our world they call it getting a bit of
Speaker 1: hidierr skis, which is that your sort of spend gets
Speaker 1: a bit ahead of the size of the business and
Speaker 1: its revenues, and particularly if things start to go poorly.
Speaker 1: So for us, that was when inflation started to come in,
Speaker 1: interest rates started to go up, and interestingly, like those
Speaker 1: are very lonely times as business people, but as soon
Speaker 1: as you're brave enough to speak to anyone about it,
Speaker 1: you find just how many people have been through that,
Speaker 1: And like, like you, I've had some personal finance decisions
Speaker 1: that were not ideal, and probably you know, in hindsight,
Speaker 1: should have chosen to have those conversations because I know
Speaker 1: other people have had that experience, and you can always
Speaker 1: think that they haven't, and it's always better to learn
Speaker 1: from someone else's mistakes or the tips and tricks of
Speaker 1: getting out of it. But yeah, and then I think
Speaker 1: right through to really big business, begging will literally hire
Speaker 1: directors and executives who have really good war stories, you know,
Speaker 1: really good stories about how things were tough and where
Speaker 1: things wrong, because to have experience that means you have
Speaker 1: interesting ways of getting out it out of it. The
Speaker 1: final thing I was thinking while you're talking there is
Speaker 1: we often get asked what it's like having co CEOs
Speaker 1: itches because actually Brooks on your and I share that
Speaker 1: role and if there's like there's lots of reasons they
Speaker 1: say that would be challenging, of which you know, I
Speaker 1: sort of don't necessarily agree with. That might be more
Speaker 1: personality based. But why it's really good is that there's
Speaker 1: always someone else to share that problem with, and just
Speaker 1: by having that conversation with one person, you're way more
Speaker 1: confident to bring it to the third or the fourth
Speaker 1: or wherever you have to go in that advisory circle,
Speaker 1: you know. On that.
Speaker 2: I think as well with relationships, maybe we need to
Speaker 2: make the unseen scenes. So if we are doing things
Speaker 2: around money, it might be investing regularly, let's tell our
Speaker 2: partner about that. Maybe let's budget physically in person. What
Speaker 2: are you doing, Oh, I'm doing my budget for the month.
Speaker 2: What are you doing? Oh, I'm doing my net worth calculation,
Speaker 2: figuring out what my asset values are. Hey, what are
Speaker 2: you up to over the eyem just checking my key
Speaker 2: we save balance. I think all of these micro things
Speaker 2: then start to allow us to have introductions to some
Speaker 2: of these conversations where it gets really hard as someone's
Speaker 2: really on the path and the other person isn't. This
Speaker 2: is my opinion, but I would suggest that often that
Speaker 2: is because one person may have something going on that
Speaker 2: they don't want to talk about. So then it does
Speaker 2: start to become, you know, quite uncomfortable, because then we
Speaker 2: do feel that we're in a mismatch in a relationship financially.
Speaker 2: But that's not to say that we can't then get
Speaker 2: on the same page and work that out. And business
Speaker 2: owners who into partnerships and different shareholdings have to do
Speaker 2: those things as well, So I think it becomes a
Speaker 2: bit more normalized to have those conbos. But I think
Speaker 2: you know what you often see as well, that people
Speaker 2: have conversations around their key we saver. They'll have them
Speaker 2: in front of their children, you know, and then the
Speaker 2: kids are interested, oh what's this about? And they of them.
Speaker 2: And so when you start to study wealthier families or
Speaker 2: people that are trying to teach their children about money,
Speaker 2: they are just introducing very simple ways to do that.
Speaker 2: And it's not as sort of flashy or as amazing
Speaker 2: as we may think that it is, but we just
Speaker 2: need something to start the conversation.
Speaker 1: You sound like a like a behavior as coach in someway.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like that in business advisory physical pts
Speaker 1: they work on behaviors with you, same with wellness coaches
Speaker 1: and things like that, Like, is that what you consider
Speaker 1: part of.
Speaker 2: Your job to be well to become better at accounting?
Speaker 2: What I learned that I didn't learn at UNI is that, ye,
Speaker 2: it's all good and well to say to someone, hey,
Speaker 2: you need to bring your day to days down and okay,
Speaker 2: how do we do that? Or we bring up the
Speaker 2: person who hasn't paid us the invoice? Cool accounting advice?
Speaker 2: Why aren't they doing it? And I had to start
Speaker 2: to learn, Sorry, mat, why are you not ringing Barry
Speaker 2: who owes you ten thousand dollars? And we're sitting here
Speaker 2: talking about how we've got a cash for a problem, Like, No,
Speaker 2: what's the actual problem? Oh, I'm really scared of confrontation?
Speaker 2: Ah okay, how else is that playing out in the business?
Speaker 2: And so I've gotten better at maybe I can point
Speaker 2: you to somebody else who may be able to help
Speaker 2: you on that side. But if you can't sort out
Speaker 2: the behavioral piece of it, then business is going to
Speaker 2: get harder. So I had to drop my ego a
Speaker 2: little bit in my space if not needing to have
Speaker 2: all the answers, but realize it can be very easy
Speaker 2: and transactional to spot the issues going on in a business.
Speaker 2: But unless the business owner can step into a different
Speaker 2: version of themselves, those business owners can still face those
Speaker 2: same problems. And a lot of it does come back
Speaker 2: to behavior.
Speaker 1: Do you tell people what you are? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I try to talk about it online. But what I
Speaker 2: have learned through doing this, and also there's probably a
Speaker 2: good PCA two I noticed that content would perform really
Speaker 2: well if I started with as a millionaire in New Zealand,
Speaker 2: and my content team are like, oh, let's include anything
Speaker 2: that we do. Here's what a millionaire think. So I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's great for engagement. And then I start getting feedback. Man,
Speaker 2: you're always talking about how you're a millionaire. Oh, man
Speaker 2: like it's a but just in your face. I'm like, oh, shesh.
Speaker 2: We're just trying to get some engagement. But you know,
Speaker 2: you can see that people don't necessarily like it, but
Speaker 2: people do want to hear from somebody who may have
Speaker 2: gone on a journey or a stacked a level of money.
Speaker 2: And what I noticed too is that if you ever
Speaker 2: post outlier content of someone performing really well, so it
Speaker 2: might be a large shares his balance, it might be
Speaker 2: a large key we save a balance, it might be
Speaker 2: my income statement earning a lot of money. Everybody's obsessed
Speaker 2: with that, you know, and deep down we do want
Speaker 2: to know who are they, what do they do? How
Speaker 2: long has it taken them? And you know, we still are,
Speaker 2: I think, obsessed to a degree with how other people
Speaker 2: are performing. But I do to a degree still see
Speaker 2: myself sort of self censoring even when building a community,
Speaker 2: because I think I don't want people to think, oh,
Speaker 2: well that's how much he earns or what he has.
Speaker 2: Therefore he doesn't understand, you know, where I may be at. So,
Speaker 2: you know, even I am conscious of it and will
Speaker 2: deliberately sometimes dial my content back and remind people well
Speaker 2: because when I was in credit card debt, for instance,
Speaker 2: to then take them back to almost the start of
Speaker 2: my own financial journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nice. There are a lot of New Zealanders. You know.
Speaker 1: One thing we have a shares is is a lot
Speaker 1: of data right on what people are doing. And there
Speaker 1: are a lot of New Zealanders at all stages of
Speaker 1: the wealth journey. But I am constantly surprised by the
Speaker 1: number of million dollar plus portfolios, Like there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people out there who have that, and so
Speaker 1: it's almost counter to what we would tell ourselves as
Speaker 1: a country. Sometimes I read the news and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that really reflects the data that I see,
Speaker 1: which makes me feel really good actually, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the more people getting into that. So in your accounting
Speaker 1: and consulting practice, would you say that there's more people
Speaker 1: that are coming to you as a starting point because
Speaker 1: they're in a tight spot or more because they're looking
Speaker 1: for that level up opportunity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's getting a bit trickier to figure out because
Speaker 2: I think our journey has been going longer, so our
Speaker 2: brand's got and stronger, our results have improved, our Google
Speaker 2: reviews are there, so it's getting we're attracting kind of
Speaker 2: some of the type of client. There's two types. Like
Speaker 2: you say, it'll be I'm stuck with what I need
Speaker 2: to do next, but I know that there's something more
Speaker 2: here and will help them unlock that, and then that's
Speaker 2: probably more like sixty seventy percent. And then the other
Speaker 2: percentage will be I think I've got myself into some
Speaker 2: trouble here. I can kind of see that, how do
Speaker 2: I fix this? I try and point those people in
Speaker 2: the right direction that you know, you go a couple
Speaker 2: of small tweaks here and things can really be improved.
Speaker 1: Some studies have shown that seventy five percent of business
Speaker 1: owners in New Zealand believe that tool Poppy exists. Do
Speaker 1: you think we're too hesn't? I mean you've already said
Speaker 1: that we're too. He hasn't to talk about success and
Speaker 1: money in business, But how much of it is that
Speaker 1: just because it's fear of being seen as both full
Speaker 1: and do your clients that you see like on average,
Speaker 1: would you say that they're afraid or the hesident to
Speaker 1: share their successes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as i've sort of unpacked tool poppy a little
Speaker 2: bit more, and especially with clients, there is a deep
Speaker 2: inter fear for a lot of my clients and business.
Speaker 2: But I think individually as key with people as well
Speaker 2: to put ourselves out there and that that's actually the thing.
Speaker 2: And so then we might call it tool poppy, but
Speaker 2: we are so scared of what someone might think of
Speaker 2: our video, think of our content, think of our thoughts,
Speaker 2: and so I think we hold ourselves back there. But
Speaker 2: part of what I've tried to roll on a little
Speaker 2: bit of this a lot my juniy of hitting some
Speaker 2: milestones and then talking about it and doing podcasts on
Speaker 2: other things is Okay, there's always a percentage of people
Speaker 2: that are going to take it really positively and they're
Speaker 2: going to then go, Okay, well, if they can do it,
Speaker 2: then you know, maybe I can too. And I think
Speaker 2: maybe we're just early in that journey of doing that.
Speaker 2: So whether it's getting to one hundred thousand ye, key,
Speaker 2: we save it, for instance, or having well over the average.
Speaker 2: You know, often people will tell me I've got a
Speaker 2: lot more than the average, and key, we save it.
Speaker 2: And they really stoked about that, you know, so they
Speaker 2: want to see these sorts of things and then other
Speaker 2: people asking how, you know, how has that happened? And
Speaker 2: I think that's the bit we've got to hone in
Speaker 2: on for some of those people that are maybe a
Speaker 2: bit more willing to share about the things that they
Speaker 2: are achieving. It's not about you sharing it to then
Speaker 2: get a few claps on the back maybe think about
Speaker 2: it or pats on the back, so in claps, but
Speaker 2: it's more think about who might be inspired by that
Speaker 2: and go ah, there's another ki Wei person doing that,
Speaker 2: but maybe I can too, And I think then we
Speaker 2: can actually get a bit more growth into the economy
Speaker 2: as well, and people talking about these things and actually think.
Speaker 2: You know, if you think about the podcast landscape, it's
Speaker 2: still relatively new in New Zealand, but it is now
Speaker 2: quite common to go and find a podcast of someone
Speaker 2: telling a story of them achieving something that not that
Speaker 2: long ago it would have been well I can't find
Speaker 2: any content on that, But now you can, you know,
Speaker 2: and also you know you can you can ring a
Speaker 2: business owner in the South Island if you're in the
Speaker 2: North Island for instance, and go, you've been in this
Speaker 2: game for twenty years longer than I. I don't to
Speaker 2: drop my ego. I want to know what system do
Speaker 2: you use? What software do you use? Have you tried
Speaker 2: this one? And you start to find that people are
Speaker 2: actually really collaborative, but a lot of that happens offline
Speaker 2: and not showy in in your face. And I think
Speaker 2: if more people get a bit bolder and a bit
Speaker 2: braver about telling their story of the things that they
Speaker 2: are doing and doing well, including getting a pay rise
Speaker 2: for instance, then we can learn from them. And then
Speaker 2: you know, the old rising tide lifts all boats.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah. I always find that, like this feedback always
Speaker 1: tends to live in the exceptions, you know, the outliers.
Speaker 1: Coming back to my point earlier that I think Kiwis
Speaker 1: are really ambitious people like just by and large, when
Speaker 1: you get to interact with one on one or in
Speaker 1: small groups of people, like, people are really enthusiastic to
Speaker 1: know and like and have their own goals. And I
Speaker 1: love that. I just concerns me how much time we
Speaker 1: spend worrying about the fact that we might be tool
Speaker 1: poppied and stuff like that when we could get going.
Speaker 1: But do you I mean, do you think tool poppy
Speaker 1: syndromes and economic cost Oh?
Speaker 2: For sure, I mean just on that too. I had
Speaker 2: a client who messaged me yesterday and they started doing
Speaker 2: some more social content and they're just talking. Let's say
Speaker 2: it's in the trade space, right, and they're like, mate,
Speaker 2: I've got two hundred thousand views. But I got like
Speaker 2: all these people telling me I'm an idiot, and then
Speaker 2: I'm doing it wrong and this.
Speaker 1: Is good, It's time to do that.
Speaker 2: And he's like, oh shesh. Then the personal attacks are coming,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, mate, it hurts. It won't stop hurting,
Speaker 2: but it also hurts not getting close to your goals.
Speaker 2: So pick which one. It's like, pep talk done, thanks mate,
Speaker 2: I'll keep posting. I'm like, good man, I go pull
Speaker 2: up our Facebook. I talk about the changes that are
Speaker 2: potentially coming in as part of the election to small business.
Speaker 2: Have a shave. I can't, you know, I can't take
Speaker 2: anyone seriously that's got their jersey draped over their shoulders
Speaker 2: or something. And I'm just like, what's that got to
Speaker 2: do with any of this? But you won't escape it.
Speaker 2: And I think if you let those people be the
Speaker 2: reason that, you know, don't try and help other people
Speaker 2: or aim for more, then you know, are we really
Speaker 2: playing big enough? You know, our goals should be probably
Speaker 2: so much bigger that we're gonna cop a little bit
Speaker 2: of flack along the way as well. And if you
Speaker 2: do want to play at that scale, all get closer
Speaker 2: to your goals then Yet, like, some people aren't going
Speaker 2: to like the fact that you were doing that, and
Speaker 2: you will hear it. And it's not like they can't
Speaker 2: name an all blacks team anymore without the first comment
Speaker 2: being oh, hey, you shouldn't be in there, you know,
Speaker 2: So how do they deal with that? But if we
Speaker 2: could unlock even just a tiny bit more of that,
Speaker 2: where people are willing to put themselves out there, then
Speaker 2: I do think it would unlock some potential in Kiwi people.
Speaker 2: And actually, one thing I'm noticing is that some of
Speaker 2: the younger people coming through, especially in entrepreneurship and business,
Speaker 2: they are out there, you know, creating content, finding that too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, wow, man, they're gonna they're gonna kick
Speaker 2: a bit of ass.
Speaker 1: Yet that's what I mean. This generational change stuff is real.
Speaker 1: You know, you see that it's super cool. So I'm
Speaker 1: proud that Cheesy's has helped bring investing to the mainstream.
Speaker 1: And you we were lifting the financial literacy of over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand ki We There's so much more good
Speaker 1: work happening to bring this conversation to light. If we
Speaker 1: succeed in removing the stigma around money discussions, where could
Speaker 1: New Zealand be in ten years time.
Speaker 2: Well, it's going to be hard to quantify, but I
Speaker 2: think we're going to have a lot wealthier country where
Speaker 2: people have more options. They have learned more about investing.
Speaker 2: They might then choose different routes to what perhaps their
Speaker 2: parents have talked about or encouraged. And it's going to
Speaker 2: be more normalized to talk about money and to see
Speaker 2: someone using their shares his debit card for instance, and go, okay,
Speaker 2: I recognize that all of these little things that I
Speaker 2: think we wish we're further down the path. In time,
Speaker 2: we're going to look back and go, wow, look how
Speaker 2: much all of this snowballed. And that I think, just
Speaker 2: like investing, is the importance of continuing to educate people
Speaker 2: so that they can choose their path, you know, and
Speaker 2: go down that whatever it is, whether it's building out
Speaker 2: a business, starting as hustle, whether it is becoming really
Speaker 2: really good at their career or receiving shares in the
Speaker 2: business that they're working for because they learn about doing
Speaker 2: that and then they stay there for longer and compound
Speaker 2: their wealth that way, whether it's sticking it out during
Speaker 2: a tough economic period with their key we saver. The
Speaker 2: better the education is, I think at the foundation of
Speaker 2: all of this, then we've got a really really exciting
Speaker 2: timing is yelling, especially with such a massive wealth transfer
Speaker 2: coming over the next two decades. Where does that money
Speaker 2: end up? And what choices do those people make? And
Speaker 2: that's what wealth is about, having options.
Speaker 1: How good's that? And what an attractive place to do
Speaker 1: it in New Zealand?
Speaker 2: Exactly where else do you want to do it?
Speaker 1: Get on the train. Thanks Lou, and that's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Shared Lunch. Thanks for joining us. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed the conversation, make sure you subscribe or follow
Speaker 1: Shared Lunch on YouTube or wherever you keep your podcasts.