Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
91. The Importance of Collaboration and Curiosity in Financial Planning 5 of 7
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Can collaboration be the missing key to achieving your financial goals? In this episode, we uncover the power of teamwork in financial decision-making with our insightful guests Craig Warren, Bronwyn, and financial expert Rob Mac Donald. We explore the psychological aspects of financial planning and the significance of a collaborative approach between financial planners and clients. Discover how analogies from pack animals to professional athletes demonstrate that mutual effort is essential for navigating financial challenges and achieving success. We'll also share a compelling story about a misdiagnosed illness that was correctly identified through collaborative efforts, highlighting the importance of curiosity and teamwork for better outcomes in financial planning.
Our discussion continues with an inspiring tale of two individuals in their 70s who attempted their 50th consecutive Comrades Marathon, showcasing the importance of financial longevity and strategic planning. Understand how personal factors like personality, relationships with money, and social pressures influence financial decisions. This episode is filled with expert perspectives, real-life examples, and a deep dive into the value of collaboration and curiosity in financial planning. Don’t miss out on the lessons and insights that can help you achieve your financial goals more effectively. Make sure to subscribe for more engaging content and continue on this journey with us.
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Welcome to Know your Money, where we will explore our relationship with money and how the psychology of it impacts our financial decisions, as everyone thinks about money differently. In our podcast, we'll be presenting a variety of financial topics in an easy to understand way, which we hope will assist you with managing your money. Hello everybody, welcome to Know your Money. Craig Warren, how are you today?
Speaker 2:I'm good and you Warren Very well. Craig Bronwyn also giggling again.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm very good. I just love your actions. I can't wait for people to see, and we've got Rob back today.
Speaker 3:Hello guys Hi.
Speaker 4:Hello, rob, nice to see you again.
Speaker 3:You too. Yeah, great to be back, welcome. Thank you very much, brilliant.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being here. I'm really enjoying the series. I hope everyone listening is too.
Speaker 4:I'm also enjoying it, incredible. And another C comes up.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Oh, collaboration, collaboration is our C for today. I like this one.
Speaker 1:Yes me too, Is that teamwork?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I suppose it talks to the fact that, you know, two minds are better than one. You know, and I think it might seem unusual in the context of a professional client relationship, because financial planners are professionals and clients supposedly are, let's say, lay people or you know, not as qualified when it comes to finances. So to suggest that it's a collaborative process and a collaborative decision-making process might seem unusual, but I think it talks to the fact that all your clients at the moment are human beings. I mean, we never know with.
Speaker 3:AI where it's going to get to. And the problem with human beings is that we're faced with choices every day, all the time, and the question is how do we make those choices, what are sort of optimal choices for us? And I really like what Professor Albus Dumbledore said. You all know who he is Harry Potter.
Speaker 3:Harry Potter, yes, and his advice to Harry was it is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities, and I'm sure you've got clients that probably reflect that. You know that some clients have made good choices and have got good outcomes and others not, and it's not necessarily a function of wealth, you know, or?
Speaker 4:status or anything.
Speaker 3:It's just a function of those decisions, so yeah, so I mean, I don't know how you guys feel as financial planners about the idea that potentially it's better for your clients that you collaborate with them rather than you just tell them what to do. How does that? How does that sound to you?
Speaker 4:I think that's what we do every day almost. You discuss it with your client and you both come to you because you can't say this is what you should. You know what you should do, you know they probably do know what they should do as well, but it depends on what they really want to do and how you can both unpack it together as a team and say right, this is the plan. As a team, I'm going to work together as a team to get to your ultimate end goal and to make sure that, on the way, that if any mishap does happen, that you're covered for that.
Speaker 1:And I think it's collaborating in what it is that you do want, and not necessarily having to compromise certain things, but to come to a consensus that, okay, that is truly what I want. I'm not compromising something else for it as the client.
Speaker 2:I think collaboration is fundamental to pack animals and I would call to pack animals and I would call us pack animals Because if you look back to well, pre-guns, pre-all that, pre-cities, pre-all, that when we were living as wild tribes, the reasons humans were able to survive is through collaboration. I think it would have been highly unlikely if you went out on your own amongst the, wherever you were, the grizzly bears. You weren't going to survive.
Speaker 2:You had to collaborate to survive, and there are animals that do that as well to thrive. You look at wild dogs when they hunt they collaborate. So I think collaboration is fundamental, and so, if we bring it now back to what we're here for, which is financial planning, yeah, the more eyes you have looking at something working together towards a goal can only better it. Hi everyone, if you would like to get a copy of Rob's book the Seven Pillars of Financial Health, we have shared a link in the bio with the web address as well as a discount code you can use. The book retails for 375 Rand, excluding delivery, and with this promo code, you will pay 370, which includes delivery. Alternatively, you can find the book at exclusive books or other bookstores. We would like to thank you for listening and please remember to like, subscribe and share the podcast so that we can bring on more exciting guests like Rob to help you with knowing yourself and knowing your money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like the tennis analogy of doing it on their own.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely yeah. So we spoke about the fact that you know, novak Djokovic is, you know, the leading Grand Slam winner amongst men's professional tennis players and he's always worked with a coach. And in fact, you know, wimbledon finished a little while back and I was struck by how many people were in his box who were part of his team that were helping him, and I actually write about it in the book to say that he's a very good tennis player, but he's not as talented as Nick Kyrgios, who's an Australian tennis player. He's incredibly talented but just refuses to have a coach and so is continually. He's never going to win a Grand Slam. He played Djokovic in the final of the Wimbledon last year and lost, but he'll never win a Grand Slam.
Speaker 3:I don't think just because of that, because he's not acknowledging, as you say, that we're pack animals and we can't do everything on our own, and so he doesn't have a coach. Who's helping him find his blind spots? Who's being curious about you know what's going on for you? What happened in that point? How did that work? What you know? How come you? You know, your backhand seems to be not as effective as it was in the previous match. He doesn't have that sort of sounding board person holding up the mirror and he's just not going to be as good as Djokovic is, and I think that's true to all aspects, as you say.
Speaker 2:I think the collaboration ties into last week's episode with Curiosity, because only through collaboration will maybe somebody question something that you haven't questioned Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I've actually got a great story on that. A friend of mine who lives in the States lives in Chicago. They went on holiday to Jamaica for a warm holiday, came back because Chicago in the winter can get-.
Speaker 2:I've been there. It's very cold, it's very cold.
Speaker 3:And so they came back from holiday and then after a few days, sort of started feeling ill and got sicker and sicker and the doctors just weren't able to diagnose him and they still couldn't work out what was wrong. They were trying to give him antibiotics and went into intensive care and they thought that he had dengue fever or bilharzia or whatever and they were treating him for all the usual suspects you know of and he and his organs were starting to collapse and his you know, as you can imagine, his family were at their wit's end. And one day his wife bumped into a family friend in the corridor in the hospital who was a doctor and he was working in another section of the hospital. He said what are you doing here? And she said well, andrew's, you know, he's basically on sort of his last legs.
Speaker 3:And this guy started asking her some questions and said you know, did you guys go swimming in Jamaica? He said yeah, yeah, I did. And you know said you know, we swam a lot, but it wasn't stagnant water. And then he said what was the weather like when you were there? And she said no, well, it was actually quite rainy, it rained quite a lot. And then he said you know what? Do you think the chances were that the rain might've washed water into areas where you swam? And she said, yeah, definitely, definitely it did.
Speaker 3:And he said well, gee, that's interesting as a matter of interest, did Andrew have any skin that was broken? She said yeah, he actually had a cut in his back. He said, without hesitation I think he's got leptospirosis. Excuse my, it's a rare infection caused by rodent feces or urine. Sure, that is, when it's washed into the water and humans drink it or swim in it, they run the risk of getting this, so it can either go in via your mouth or through broken skin and so sort of literally rushed to intensive care. Treatment protocol got changed completely to treat phleptiaspray and he survived Incredible. But the point of the story is to your point, warren, you know that it required collaboration, it required curiosity. Yeah, you know so. He was curious.
Speaker 3:He was asking questions that the other doctors hadn't asked, nobody asked what the weather was like, whether it had rained, and so he was using his expertise. So his questions were being informed by his expertise, but he was being curious, you know. So his questions were being informed by his expertise, but he was being curious, you know. And I think that sort of talks to the power of collaboration and of curiosity. You know, incredible Because, as you say, we yeah, and so, yeah, it is a remarkable story because he would have died if that hadn't happened.
Speaker 3:And I think that the same is true of your world as financial planners, bronwyn and Craig, that you are in the privileged position to be able to ask questions with expertise. But the challenge here is to be willing to collaborate with clients. And I think that's because, as you say, craig, you know what's probably needed here. You need income protection. Craig, you know what's probably needed here. You need income protection, yeah, but you know, if I get told that I need it, then I might not. I've got to realize it myself. How can you help me realize it? Well, you can collaborate in conversation with me. You can prompt me, be curious about me.
Speaker 4:But that story's incredible because it takes away the blind spots. You know you're going down a path, you think that's the right path and you don't think of all the other permutations that could have sorted that out. And I think all of us do that as well. You go down one pathway and you think that's the only pathway. It's not. Yeah, absolutely. If you chat with your clients and collaborate with your friends anyway anything in life like that you can find a solution to anything. Incredible how that.
Speaker 1:And often I think people think that they can do financial planning on their own, and it's not to say that you can't, but having collaboration just makes it that much better, makes you think about things differently.
Speaker 2:We only improve it. More sets of eyes on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I suppose the reality is. I mean, as Elvis Dumbledore says, we are a product of our choices, and the problem with our choices is that we've got sort of multiple influences on our choices, yeah, and I sort of like to say I mean, the obvious ones are our personality. So you know, we each have a different approach to decision-making depending on our personality. And so to what extent is that helping me or sabotaging me? Yeah, you know, I'm a procrastinator. I need my financial planner to kick my butt, you know. But somebody else might be very action-oriented and they actually need their financial planner to say hold your horses there, you know. So that's one.
Speaker 3:The second one which we've spoken about before is we all have a unique relationship with money. So I might be behaving in a certain way, making choices because I'm compensating for something in my early life or whatever. And then the third one which I like to talk about is what I call the Bermuda Triangle of financial behavior, which is basically that because we're human and because we're pack animals, we're very prone to social pressure, you know, as in terms of making decisions. So the classic standing around the braai. You know, I bought this share. It's gone up 20%, or I bought crypto probably more like it.
Speaker 3:And so, therefore, you're influenced by that. The second thing we're influenced by is the fact that as human beings, because we are flawed, we've got cognitive biases. I mean, we haven't really talked much about how the brain works, but, very simply, our brain works fast and slow, and you might have heard of that book by Daniel Kahneman called Thinking Fast and Slow, which talks about the fact that we are wired to think quickly. It's important. So when the saber-toothed tiger came along and chased us, we jumped up the tree to get away. That was quick.
Speaker 3:You don't want to think about it, but we do have a rational brain that actually, ideally, would be better for making financial decisions, where you think things through and slow down. But the problem is, many of us make quick decisions based on our sort of intuitive sense and don't think things through. So, craig, you used the example in the previous episode of 2008 markets for clients want to go to cash. That's their sort of intuitive brain, quick thinking brain, saying I want to be safe, put me into cash, whereas actually the rational brain, if you think it through, you're safer. But that requires a collaborative process because you don't want to just respond to that knee jerk reaction. And then the other one, obviously, is the emotional responses. We're all getting very emotional. How can you help me? So I like to say that we have this Bermuda Triangle of financial behavior, where money goes to money heaven, as an ex-colleague of mine used to say because we give in to one of those forces and I think that how do we overcome that?
Speaker 3:Well, a collaborative process where, as a client, I need my financial planner to help me slow down my thinking, not make these knee-jerk reactions. That's a collaborative process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and understand your relationship with your money.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, and understand my personality. Yeah, yeah, because sometimes we don't realize what we're doing or what impact it's having.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get why you put our career up there with medical right now.
Speaker 3:Absolutely no, there's a huge amount. Yeah, I know, and yeah, absolutely I mean. I put it up there for a couple of reasons. One is the complexity of what you're dealing with. You can either treat a human being as just superficial see the behavior, treat the behavior. It's a bit like with kids See the behavior, treat it. Or there's a whole lot of depth below that that, if you engage, it can shift that behavior, and that's, you know. That's the challenge. And then the other part obviously is, as we all know, that because medical is helping us live longer, our money needs to last longer, and so therefore, it's critical how we treat our financial planning.
Speaker 2:Awesome, that's very true. It's not just living longer, it's being able-bodied longer.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I remember when my grandparents were like 65, they weren't that able-bodied anymore and they weren't unhealthy. They ate good food. I don't know what it was, but now my dad's that age and he's running the Oxpec. He's doing all sorts.
Speaker 3:There's no problems. No, there was somebody in their 70s. There were two guys, I think, running their 50th comrades this year. Wow, In a row, 50th consecutive comrades. How are their?
Speaker 2:knees still there? I don't know.
Speaker 3:But apparently neither of them did it Well, they didn't finish, they sort of got to 60 of them. But they want to do it next year, as I understand it, yeah extraordinary, but just definitely you need your money to last longer now yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think this was a good collaboration of conversation, so thank you everybody thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you, rob, thanks. Rob bye thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed this podcast and would like to subscribe, please visit our website wwwgrowthfpcoza. The information we have provided in this podcast is our personal opinion. For more detailed information, please discuss your financial situation with a financial planner.