#73 Russell Ho – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of ensemble advice I forget, today is a really special episode for me because it goes back to more than two years. My very first guest, Mr. Russell Ho is back on the show, to talk about how things have evolved over the last two years, how he’s gotten a little bit more deeper, how his approach has changed. And Russell, I can’t thank you enough for being here today.

Russell Ho
Also, thank you so much, Louis, for, for having me on the podcast again. Geez, I can’t believe it’s been two years. I feel old, but I’m still young. And yeah, I think both of has like really grown over the last few years, especially during, you know, COVID, and all the things that happened last year as well. You know, I’m sure we’ve definitely grown a lot, both personally, but also more in practice and how we help clients.

Louis van der Merwe
So Russell, I mean, as we were prepping for this call, and we were touching on how you almost living life through your clients, now you’re picking up on these things that they going through to be able to give them better advice. I want to start off with the fact that I’m seeing people shift away from the money, that they’re moving more towards advising someone on the lights and app and the money just happens to be the app, what have you seen in your client base? What are the what are the themes that people are really struggling with right now?

Russell Ho
Yeah, so 100% agree with you. I mean, me and my practice, we kind of made that shift, you know, more than two years ago. And it’s also been kind of my philosophy, when I advise on our clients is that, you know, it’s so nice to say, you know, I want to for example, I want to invest become wealthy, but my notion has always been like, Okay, but what is that wealth is going to give you is it going to give you freedom? Is it going to give you security, and a lot of times, you know, we’ve seen it in our experience as well, when advising clients, there’s a deeper re, you know, reasonable meaning. My parents, especially my mom used to always say, like, you can make all the money in the world, but when you die, you can’t take it with you. You know, so that’s the thing that I’ve also, you know, advise and coach a lot of clients of like, okay, you want to do these type of goals? Or achieve these things with your money? What return on life? Or what is it add into your life? How is it going to make you better, will give you, you know, make you feel better about things that are planned here, then it’s getting deeper now, where we’ve spoken about as well have gone into more the behavior and the personality of clients, especially in my experience, it’s, it’s going more pause. Yeah, especially, you know, you’re you can set up investments or these type of, you know, financial solutions. But at the end of the day, if you don’t have an intended purpose, or deep intent behind it, eventually, as a human, you find it meaningless, you know, and purposeful, you know, so it’s, it takes longer than to stay committed to your plans, and

Louis van der Merwe
it seemed the same on my side, it’s this focus on, hey, we need to get this transaction done. And that’s almost helping that client just to zoom out a little bit. And so what, you know, what is what is this for, there’s been a shift away from a, we’re focusing on your money to more, let’s make sure that you’re healthy, and that you’re still there for your family. Assuming that, you know, you’re not going through a time limiting illness, you’ve gone through a bit of a health journey yourself, like, why are you using this as a, you know, the poster child for your clients like saying, Hey, we’re not only preaching about this, we, we are living this?

Russell Ho
Yeah, I mean, 100%, you know, and I’ve seen it with clients as well, where, you know, like, they say, money is just basically a to and it’s supposed to bring things or allow you to do things that you couldn’t do before in your life, you know, that bring you happiness and joy and a good example, like your, you mentioned, my fitness and you’re going back to like my house, you know, I’ve been in that situation, you know, probably I can finally remember it was like 2017, where, when I first took the leap, and I went independent, and I grafted my butt off a like I was grafting just on, you know, profit making profits, you know, earning money and all that and I was just like, Okay, I’m just going to do as much business as I can that year. And the downside of that, and this probably was the first wake up call that I got the first loss with Alcoa guard was that, you know, I had put on back then this was before for those who follow me those This was before the bodybuilding show, and my whole fitness reversion you know, last year but like back then because I was so focused on just like earning money and, you know, making sales and making business. My weight my I would say my house suffered a lot and not just my physical health, but my emotional and mental well being. I can still clearly remember I had a look squished up in my suits, you know, I put on like 20 kgs. So I had gone back from, you know, your late 70 kgs up until probably close to like 98 I was rich, I remember face my skin, my well being was affected, I was noticed mainly because I was so focused on the business only and, you know, doing business that I’ve been, she also became depressed because I used to take my, my spouse to take my civilian clothes or my service as they call it to work, so that I could change of towels in the bathroom, and then work a few more hours after hours. And then I would come in on the weekends. And I initially that was my link of when I realized I, you know, just constantly working and trying to chase money doesn’t bring you happiness, because at the end of that year, I was so depressed, like, I probably went into depression without realizing that I was depressed, I was burnt out, because, you know, I didn’t feel happy and hot. And aside from microwave, the emotional unwellness. And also the mental aspect of it, your eyes just wasn’t in a good space. And at the start of, you know, the following year, I was like, No, I need to get things back and check. And I’ve seen a lot of clients as well, you know, going back to like, my whole recent fitness journey as well, I started seeing that your physical, mental, emotional, well being, you know, to a degree actually is more important than your financial well being. Because if you don’t have all three, those three things, you know, money’s not really going to be an important factor in your life. You know, it’ll be worthless at as awkward or it’ll be just meaningless paper, at the end of the day, because it’s not knowable in front of ya. So number

Louis van der Merwe
one zeros in the bank. I mean, Russell, like as you’re talking about this, a sense this, like, lack of energy, numerous, a, you’ve just, you’re grinding through this, and that. And I think the way the industry and outside that specifically like is set up for us to chase money at the beginning, they will almost assume that coming to this profession to sell things. Were when I speak to successful financial planners and lifestyle financial advisors, like, I’m not in it for the money, I guess the money is good, but they’re in it for helping someone like making a difference in their lives. And, and that is a massive reward by itself, is that something you have been experiencing since the shift, like a different sense of what is rewarding for you?

Russell Ho
Yeah, 100% a, I mean, I’m not gonna go deep into like that history and narrow period. But like that following year was like what I’ve mentioned before, when I had all those chronic illnesses with my family members, and that, and after going through that experience, I made the shift of like, you know, I’m going to put my client and their lives at the center of everything. And my, I’m not going to worry about making money, I’m just going to earnestly and sincerely worry about like, helping them as an individual. And the way I see it, that’s also where I would say, and capsulize My, my foot by advice, philosophy more is that I started seeing every client and I know it sounds weird, but I started seeing every client as an extension of my family, basically, you know, so every, you know, person that came in could be a father, a son, a brother, a mother, a daughter, a grandmother, and they had all these people that were dependent on them, or were involved in their lives. And our, you know, our simple, I wouldn’t say simple, but I would say, our job or our duty is more than just doing work. It’s like advising those clients and coaching them through all these changes in life. Because, yeah, we fortunate you would agree that because of our, our profession, you know, for whatever life throws at us and lifestyle events, we can plan and we more than usually ready for those type of things. But we forget that 99% of our clients don’t have that don’t have anyone that’s in that field or doesn’t have a financial planner, they don’t have that type of person in the family. So without us, you know, imagine how much more loss they would be going through those type of life events, you know, I’m talking good and bad. Yeah. And it’s not just I’ve also seen it as, it’s not just the present generation of your clients that you’re dealing with the actions and advice we give to our clients now have the, you know, the ability to actually affect future generations. My dream is always so like, the advice and coaching I give to my clients now. I want few decades down the line like the great, great, great grandkids to say, Yeah, I mean this good space and I know how to manage my money. I know how to live a purposeful life because my great great great grandfather saw came in contact with her I saw and you seem and that changes her aspect now on life and also on how to use his money to build a purpose for life.

Louis van der Merwe
For Russell, I want to point out that just because you didn’t place the focus on you, you place the focus on a that that family member, the great great great grandfather had the insight and the wisdom to actually seek out counsel and this kind of, you know, seek seek advice, not just said, Oh, I know everything and I’m getting a Get a grip go forward and just do this. And I want to talk a bit about as we progress in our profession, that you tend to deal with slightly more complex clients. See, what you’re saying is that we need to somehow help people that maybe don’t have access to professional advice. How do you find that balance between wanting to earn more deal with more complex things and things that, you know, maybe someone else doesn’t deal with? Yet? There is this mess of clients specifically in the South African context, that really, really need professional advice. How do we how do we balance those two?

Russell Ho
Yeah, I would say, that’s really like the biggest challenge facing our country, you know, we have such a huge lack of financial education and literacy. And it’s been said many times, you know, over the last couple of years within this country, I mean, you know, the scary thing I’m seeing, for example, is like, you know, and not technically retirement, but people just aren’t investing enough. You know, and I’ve seen that over the last couple of months. And I would say, Alan seen that between, and I’m speaking to both financial planners out there, but also client service in general, because we also, we want to make good financial advice accessible. But I do understand from a financial planner, you know, we have to earn a fee, because whenever set number of hours and we have businesses to run, and at the same time, in order to give great service, you know, we have to we have a lot of business always we have to accommodate for. So I think to meet that blend, what we started doing as well, is that, you know, we could incorporate a lot of technology that we then use to have access, or I would say our older seniors in us to have access to many years ago. And that’s things like to kind of build more awareness, you can do admin you do it, we could do like more public talks, webinars, or put our social media content out there that is no basically like, how do you go about investing, you know, just to kind of help educate and teach a lot of clients that maybe can’t afford our services. And the idea of where we looking at it now, especially with technology, and AI and Robo advice, which I know a lot of my peers out there are like, don’t really want to talk about, we’ve explored the option where it’s possible to use robo advisor AI and technology to help maintain and get in contact with, say, the clients that have a simple financial situation, and maybe they don’t need to see you will have a full and detailed meeting as what you would do with your more complex families. But at least this contact way, they can still follow you and learn from your social content. And then it when they lifestyle does get more complicated, and I’m talking about as they progress in life. So a good example is, you know, for us is like, and I’ll even say this for like the, the client themselves with a benefit, you know, a student that says they want, they’ve got a bit of savings, and they want to learn to invest or they want to invest you want, they want assistance on how to invest that money. Now, to also save that student on fees, I would say that, you know, there’s content out there, we will put out content that they can learn from how to invest by themselves through something like easy equities or Signia, or LM re buy themselves the platform, but then have the concept of their communication of you can still follow me, you can still get into contact with me on social media, you know, just so that you have an open channel so that when you get to that phase in life, where you start working, you know, you’ve qualified from possibly you start working, you get a job or you buy a house, as your life gets more complicated, and you feel like the need to seek help of advice, then you can obviously reach out to me and we can set up a consult, you know, and then know basically you can pay for services based on whatever fee option appears to you whether it’s based on products already or a retainer basis. And then that also ensures that we mainly in contact with the younger generation or new younger clients. But also that, you know, that we still are here, we’ll just service are more complex clients that are have more complexities. And the whole point of that I think as well is that it always puts the assurance out there to the public that you can always have access to good advice, but also for their own interests. I don’t want them to be loaded with fees or things like that, that’s unnecessary that they don’t need the pin on their face of the lifestyle, you know. So I think that’s a good balance. Because I know some public, some of the consumers are public feel like about good advice is only for the rich, you know, and it’s unattainable and accessible. There’s a lot of channels, especially through the financial planning, institute that and through LinkedIn, all of us on LinkedIn, that people can go out and seek, okay, look up good planners who they can reach out to, and stay in context or that you

Louis van der Merwe
know, it does bring in a bit of a challenge around, Hey, I found all this information and now I’m going to my financial planner, you’ve taught me how to do things on my own. How do you teach them to know when their complexity exceeds them? minimum requirements, right? Like, when would the client know that a they’re ready to deal with Russell? And also, how do you think about that? When your career might evolve? Three or four or five years down the line? What do you what are you seeing in the future that you can communicate to these future potential clients to say, hey, when you ready, and when I’m ready, like let’s meet, or is it more, let’s just stay in touch? And we’ll figure out as we progress, share with me how you think about this future prospect? dilemma.

Russell Ho
Okay, so I’ll actually I’ll put myself back in that type of client shoe and it let me just think back if I was a student, probably if I had to look back, and the way I see it just based on experience as well, I would say the first point John’s your first point, if a question of like, when do I seek out a plan or when do I need advice now is the moment I start feeling anxious about managing my money, say I start investing, I start with a normal unit trust, and I’m like, Hey, okay, I’ve gotten some inheritance money, I started working now. There’s a few areas that I might need advice. First, I nine times out of 10. Most of my clients when they start working, when they saw working, they don’t know how to read a payslip. So they’re not sure what taxes, they’re not sure, why am I getting this and what I was told I was getting paid. So if I would say tax planning is a very big part of like what we do. That’s an avenue way you as a client could say, oh, as a client, I would say like, Okay, I don’t understand this. And the income tax is just full of creaking jargon. Maybe I need to reach out to a planner for like one session just to break it down for me. And then also come back to the investments as your portfolio starts getting bigger, and now you find like, Okay, I’m looking into more than just, you know, just Tax Free Savings shares all this, and you have more money there. And it’s now connected to with you, Ernie. I find, in my opinion now, especially in today’s environment, and how rocky or not rocky but I always say how volatile markets have been over the last few years. The moment you start saying to yourself, I wish I had someone to chat to you to, you know, kind of not validate, but I guess soundboard, my thoughts, if I’m on the right track. You know, we have it all the time where we talk amongst each other, we were like, you know, is my mind on the right track, you know, and you won’t believe it. Like, I think a lot of my clients, when they start going through that phase, that’s when most of them reach out. And all they told me they started reaching out to me, because now they have biases, like behavioral biases that they follow, but also in addition, that they they call and make rational decisions. And as humans, we have a lot of emotions involved. So the moment you start thinking, Okay, I need someone else to tell me, am I thinking correctly? Or, you know, is there something wrong with the way I’m thinking, then that’s when you should seek out a financial planner? Going forward, I would say to kind of accommodate those younger clients. So what we are doing on our side, I can kind of share it with you, as you know, with every planner, you’re eventually gonna get younger clients, you can’t really just turn away younger clients, especially if you’re dealing with families, and those families have kids or grandkids. So there’s two avenues that virginal weeks. Yeah, okay. So there’s two avenues we’ve, I’ve planned. And I’ve kind of seen that from quite a I’ve kind of like soda bar quite a few years back. And it’s like in my career planner. And just to disclose I’m not married, I don’t have kids. But I always thought since I was young as well. And our goal in this industry, two things we want to do is like and we also got to make it online is like have a client online portal where and learning portal in a sense. And you can even utilize like a YouTube channel is where you will put out lesson short lessons as well, nothing too complex or hectic. And that would be a way of, you know, you could even set up a course. But that would be a way of giving education and awareness to your younger clients that maybe you can’t see as much as your more complex clients, you know, because you don’t have, you have a limited amount of time. And that’s how you still aside from gaining contact. That’s also how you continue to add value. I saw that for example from Alia Abdo, that’s how he scaled his productivity businesses that he turned most of his skill sets or education into courses. So that that’s information that will always be relevant. But then he would position that to his clientele or his Mako consumers that maybe he doesn’t have time anymore to do one on one sessions now in the bar that learn that and then there’ll be a progression of like, okay, if you need further by so you want a coaching session, you can move up to another level. So that’s where we think in using social media and bullying on courses. And then secondly, another thought that I’ve been playing for a while that I’ve mentioned earlier, and this is also to kind of accommodate the whole transfer of generational walls between class because I’ve seen that in our industry where, you know, advisors deal with the parents, they lose the connection with they don’t have a connection with like that. years are the grandkids. And, you know, unfortunately, eventually your clients are going to pass away or retire most of that wealth transfers over to the younger generation, and then it’s lost. And now you, you have no connection with those kids, you know, I always thought as well I want to do is start boarding family camsell workshops for my clients, where it’ll be like a weekend getaway something really children Relax, I’m not talking like a budget speech type of weekend, but like something children in LAX, where you eat, it would be a value add to our clients where we’ll do family camps, those family camps, you know, in a very simplistic manner will teach your child will learn some form of always a financial habit, an actual habit or foundation, you know, something somebody’s compound interest or hard works. But to also add to that, and that’s another big thing of the dentist, entrepreneur. And also like in our industry, we would also bring, you say, you know, good positive influences or or businessmen, entrepreneurs to kind of open their perspective on things as well, so that they also bought a strong network. You know, that’s one thing I’ve noticed with like, you know, especially being in America where they have all these Ivy League universities, yes, a lot of those people go into the NBA, that those Ivy League universities for the education but more so what I’ve learned from some of them is it’s more about boarding their networks so that they have a strong network as soon as they go out into the world. And it’s all about our whole culture, what we’re looking at is boring a culture and I would say a zone of learning for our clients, the kids and the grandkids and also their families in years to come. Because that a lot. Firstly, a lot of people, a lot of us stop learning the moment we get pause varsity level, but also more. So. I believe that is actually what is true generation wealth is the passing down of wisdom and education, not the passing down of money. You know, like if you need your child, 5 million Rand, right, and they don’t know anything about money, that 5 million Rand is gone. Basically, they could blow that 5 million Rand in like, a month and it’s gone. No, that’s not true generational wealth. True generational wealth, to me is like education and wisdom and experiences that you pass down to your kids from early ages, so that they know how to use it in a lie.

Louis van der Merwe
So Russell, a lot of the benefit, you will probably never see it ever this unknown future pay off that will come when you’re not here. I find that quite interesting. Because in a world where we want instant gratification, we want things now like that your view is very much aligned with that patient investor and says they will be paid off in the future. And I think it’s wonderful. Like one thing that I did pick up that you said there’s your career plan. And you might have thought Ah, he missed that year, the ad. Want to know, what is that? Like? What what does your career plan look like? Have you plotted out the future? Or Russell home in the financial services industry?

Russell Ho
Yeah, I’ll be honest, yeah, I actually have, it’s probably what I did this last December, is I have my own career planner. And most people generally think, okay, it’s like when I get to, like, certain positions I want to answer about, my point has always been and I’ve always had this notion is like, and it’s something I took from my late mom as well. It’s like, you know, if, if I had to pass away tomorrow, like, what do I want to be remembered? And oh, and for? And for me, and I remember this funny as well. My mom was like, you’re just, you know, people won’t remember these other people, but you just want to be remembered for someone that earned a lot of money, or do you want to be remembered for, and I know, sounds cliche, but it’s something that I resonate with, this was someone that truly impacted lives of like others, even when you NACHA and are and I’ve seen it in current prison day where, you know, like, they always say, you don’t know, what’s been said in rooms, when you’re not there is that I’ve had clients or referrals or been to events, and people are like, Yeah, you know, so and so spoke very highly of you. And they said all these good things, and it’s not specifically just because of my job or some traits relating to my job as a financial planner, but it’s traits more to like me as a person. And me personally, I think that’s kind of part of my career plan, as well as with a lot of my clients, they will tell you as well, which probably is why, you know, I’ve bought a good client base, and I still need to do a lot of work. But probably the greatest compliment of current from a client is like, it feels nice for the first time that a financial planners put me first and it said like, they actually found it really touching that I saw them as an extension of my family. Because I put out this post the other day, and it was based off advice that I had given to a client was that any advice I give you, I wouldn’t give a if I wouldn’t give that advice to any of my immediate family members. I wouldn’t give it to you. You know, so it’s like I’m putting my I would rather if it’s something that we do with your finances or any form of advice, I would look at it Okay, would I offer this to my own For me, and if not, then I wouldn’t recommend to advisor to you eat up because you’re an extension of my family. And that’s part of the the family advice, philosophy. If so, going back to the career planner, you’re like, I’ve set up when I do have kids, it’s a long term thing, and probably I will see more, I won’t see most of the benefit. Yeah, you know, in my lifetime, but I would say it’s a change or shift on makeup like, and it’s more focused around the life and coaching of my clients than just saying, you know, the old traditional way, which gave on the ship, and it was like, how much? Hum? How many products or policies can I sell this client, or how many, how much commission I can make the client, it’s like, no, the way I’ve seen it, and it’s not just just say, with causa conscious, but especially with a lot of my young black professionals that come from a history of black texts, you know, and they have that circle with like, you know, the struggle to break away and have financial freedom or do the things where their lives because of the black tax and not the cultural, cultural circumstances, such as them, but I’ve seen it with other clients from other cultures where they have or they’ve, because their parents or their great grandparents don’t have access to good advice, education, they, unfortunately are brought up or raised with, you know, poor financial and lifestyle habits. And the way I’ve seen it as part of my career plan is that if I can help them break out of those habits, imagine how much value how much you know, that client would appreciate it, because you not only helped them, but you helped like the kids and future generations, instead of lead continue on, we always talk about like, oh, you know, it’s easy to go on social media, like, Oh, you shouldn’t do this, those are bad habits. But we don’t realize how hard it is for families that come from this cultural backgrounds, where they’ve been raised that way to kind of just adopt a new way of thinking and a new way to live their life. And if you can help them break out of it goes back to like, my plan is like, even with I’m not sure and hopefully I’m in this operational gates, my future kids. But if I have my kids that I would join in, like to succeed in my practice, and I want to just be like a mentor, whatever. But if I’m not Yeah, I want eventually sounds bored. But I would like my kids to be eventually coaching, doing what I do the life work I’m doing and coaching, like the clients of my, my, you know, the kids of my clients, sorry. And for that, that, to me, is my form of legacy that I want to leave, you know, not just a legacy, to me is not money, it’s the impact that you want to continuously make on people’s lives.

Louis van der Merwe
And Russel, that impact is massive, you might not always know it, but the stories that we hear from our clients, and you know how, how one small thing that you’ve helped them to overcome or to change as had this ripple effect, this kind of dominoes falling and having a bigger impact. As we talk about this, you know, there’s this idea around if you have the knowledge doesn’t necessarily mean that you can implement it. Otherwise, if knowledge was all it took, everyone would have six packs, and we’d be millionaires. So we’re dealing with an element of change with our clients, we like your IP sets, the emotional changes, it’s that insight to say, hey, I need a sounding board, I need someone to talk to what are the things that are coming up in your client conversations that are maybe surprised you’re like, Hey, why is this person talking to me? What are the challenges that you’re seeing with your clients?

Russell Ho
So the challenges I’m seeing with my clients, as you know, planners, like ourselves will probably, you know, share that over should we probably all experiencing the same thing with the clients, but people forget or don’t realize how personal Our job is actually with clients because after you bought that level of trust and rapport, you’d be amazed by how much your clients open up to you. I think over the last year or two years, especially, there’s been a lot I’ve had a lot of clients that have opened up to me a big thing amongst my professional younger clients is imposter syndrome and touts you know, especially from my burnout impression, so you find that I find a lot of my rows in the lives of clients is a very support journal. It’s like an it’s kind of giving them assurance of it’s okay if you feel bad or you feel that way or you feel down like to communicate that another thing I’ve learned just in general, when like advising or coaching clients is we sometimes forget to do this but like just be human with your clients. You know, you might not realize it but a lot of clients see us as planners as like we live a perfect lifestyle like they think like your finances are perfect you will be wealthy like literally you you’ve got no you’ve got no rainy days in your life like your dude like your life is like perfect and like I’ve come to you it’s so much problems, God your job places and to kind of like further break down that wall with a lot of clients. I would say like, I’ve opened up a lot to my clients and not just like my whole life, probably like selective experiences that are relatable to what they they are going through to a form a deeper human connection because that’s what clients come to us for, you know, they don’t get that out of AI robot does that they want that human connection with you as a planner. And be you know, they have that trust in you have like I’ve seen with clients aside from impostor syndrome, there’s been incidences where, you know, a lot of them go through big lifestyle changes. And a big thing I’ve seen was like, a lot of our clients is, you know, young couples that get married and they have kids, they don’t know how to handle it, or how to prepare for it. So like we were saying, before we went on live, yeah, I’m co parenting probably, like 1010 couples at the moment, clients, because when they come to me where they have that first one, and they’ll be like, okay, wrestle, we had a child now, what would you do in our situation, and first, I’ll be like, I’m not, I’m not a parent, I don’t have kids. But if I was in your shoes, and what I know now, and if I had a son, this is what like I would do. And this is not just like, the whole point, know, the whole aspect of like investing early for your kids, but it’s like, you know, a whole point of also like my two cents of that what I would do in your shoes, when it comes to the crazy mature things to be aware of like, exhibit PE. And obviously, I tell them like, Look, I’m not a parent. I’m not, I’m not a qualified parent, but I’m just sharing my opinion or my insight that hopefully it can help you. So I’ve dealt with,

Louis van der Merwe
yeah, what you’ve picked up from other clients, like what they say have worked for the kids. So where’s this? Where’s this wisdom coming from?

Russell Ho
I would say, yeah, it’s 5050. A lot of the wisdom is coming from a lot of my older clients. And you know, some of them have done okay, oh, God, whoa, in their lives, but also they they’ve had, I wouldn’t say regrets, but things they wish they did better when they were younger. And the other 50% of that was Musa so just coming from a sound hold when I say this, but I don’t know if it’s, because I would like for you to doubt but the growing up are so young at heart, but like, I would say my perspective of life has changed a lot, in a sense of, you know, I’ve seen like what my parents did for me when I was small. And, you know, obviously a big, you know, component of that was like, a lot of our parents didn’t have access to good advice and financial education. So when it comes to like, when I look at, like the situation, and even like other older relatives, there’s so much regret, they all, I would say wishes they had if they met someone that could have taught that taught them how to manage the money earlier, according to what they wanted to live. So it comes back to what I know, financially smart, but also from my own experiences of like, what I would do if I had a child, basically poor son. Yeah. And like, not just to give him a no financially, like said life was terrible life. But most of like, what type of life I want my child to like, love, like a life of purpose and I content and not do have like, feel pressured by societal measures and things like that, you know? So yeah, I would say that’s probably where that wisdom is coming. It’s still probably growing or molding because I am learning like, every day. But yeah, it’s probably events like that, like, that. I’m doing a lot with clients, you know, and obviously, like your typical as well, like, clients are retiring, those they have family complexities. We do. People don’t believe this, but we do more therapy than financial, financial grinchy though number graduate, we do more financial life therapy than financial crunch, you know. And it’s, I deal with a lot of clients as well, lastly is like, clients that are, you know, day to day things, trying to appease their parents, you know, family relations, sometimes it’s conflicts between in, you know, between the clients, family, and the in laws and things like that. And it’s kind of just being that soundboard of like, okay, calm down. I know how you feel in this atheroma How are you feeling? But what can you learn from this? And what good thing can we try and you know, better your situation practically.

Louis van der Merwe
And love how you’ve become this conduit for not the knowledge that you’ve acquired from a technical perspective or through your studies, but the knowledge and the insight that you’ve acquired from clients that have lived life, and that we can now say, Hey, this is what I’m seeing from our clients, purely because you showing up that way. And you’ve done the work internally to be able to do that. But it brings a whole different level of value, something that you can’t probably put on a business card and say, Hey, we have we bring wisdom and insight so that you can live a better life. But it’s something that I’m seeing from really successful financial planners and just people that have lived a great life is where they can take away from other people and share they’re not being prescriptive and say you need to do this, this and this. But these are the things you saw the themes that really make someone live a purposeful and intent life, which is wonderful, like What do you what are you working on to further own the skill? Like you said that you’re you’re constantly working on it like what’s, what is it that you’re doing on on a daily basis at the moment?

Russell Ho
Yeah. So I would say, well, also, just to your point, like 100% agree, and I think I just want to put it out there. I know. And I was like this in my first year of like, being in the field. And this is like my ninth year being in the industry. But someone was a veteran, but like, I know, there will be planners out there who say, Oh, but you’re not life coaches, Russell, we’re not therapists, we financial planners, true, and myself nine years ago, would have agreed with you. But then in today’s times, if you think about it, and all that we’ve gone through, you can say you don’t add a personal or human touch to it. Because at the end of it, like it’s without, you know, looking into like the person or the individual and their lives, you you’re not act and you’re trying to focus on like the money or the product, then you actually not focusing on the person at all. And then eventually, what I find I own expressive, but I’ve seen it in practice with other practices, a lot of those type of, you know, practices, or planners, they eventually lose clients. And now we’ve had a few clients that have come to us where they say, I came to you because you’re not focused on my manual my net worth you focus on me. Right? And there’s no does there’s no discrimination against me out the beyond I call my gyla and, and so forth, you know, you focusing on like, my life and what I want to do with the pail, Sam earning the money that I have to live a purposeful life. So you have to look into that person, because I’m in the summary. And the simplicity of it is like, if you don’t focus on the individual, the client, like, Ah, I don’t do that mushy, mushy stuff, like life coaches of learning, or speak to live emotions, you know, I number crunching all that with today’s technology, eventually, like the client will be like, so what am I paying you for? If I can just do that through AI or robot to an app? I don’t need you then basically. But also, in addition, that your client won’t stay, you know, stick to their financial plans and goals, would you spend hours showing up for them? Because there’s no intent or deeper purpose to that, and they eventually might even see it as like, it’s a grudge plant, because I’m forced to Russell’s club with ya, it’s Russell’s plan, I think that’s a big thing I was like notice is that and what we’ve adapted over the years is that instead of trying to do plans with your approach, the mistake there is that you’re making financial plans based on like what appeals to you as a financial advisor or planner, when in fact, we should be collaborating with our clients and saying, Yes, I’m here to be your conduit and you’re your soundboard. But let’s build your life plan together. Because I’m building this plan for your life. I’m not buying it for my life. And there’s no point it’s if it benefits mutes was to benefit you, I was eventually you not gonna stick to that, you know, because you’ll get bored and be like, doesn’t interest me. So that I think just to that point, I want to add on there. And then coming back to your question about what am I doing on a day to day basis to kind of pull this, you know, we’ve kind of shed a lot. So we’re doing a lot of I’m doing a lot of like studies and reading and listening to podcasts and upskilling, I would say my behavioral coaching skills and behavioral finance, I think it’s almost going into a bit of psychology. And that used to be, I wouldn’t say frowned upon, but like overlooked many, many years ago, because, you know, financial plan was seen as just number crunching on numbers and products and policies. But over the last couple of years, we find out that our job is focusing more on the person, the emotions and the behaviors. And to understand that you actually need to understand the human at the forefront. So yeah, I would say currently now I’m looking into a lot of like behavior coaching courses. I’m listening to you know, Brendan Fraser spoke us quite a bit, Mr. Michael Kitsis of the things around the behavior of a client because what I also realized you can get all the top financial qualifications out in the world, you know, but if you can’t connect with your clients on a human level, and you don’t have the social and human skills to do that, then it’s it’s wasteful being a financial planner, then you must not go into like asset management. You know, we just work with stats and figures, though day. So yeah, I would say currently, yeah, I’m my we busy like upskilling on looking at programs. And this is all stuff that’s done behind the scenes that people don’t see. But it’s continuous courses learning. I’ve been sharing and networking with a lot of lost off financial planners, Arosa Africa to kind of get an idea of like, what is the approach? Where are they learning from how they deal with things, too. So I think that’s a big pool of like knowledge or wisdom, because you can see, you can get an idea of like, how they see things versus you perceive things. And then also, I would say, on a day to day basis in practice, like just dealing and consulting with clients and putting myself in, like, their shoes and what they’re going through in their life situations. And being able of like, oh, you know, again, as a son, what what do you think if we had to do this, how do you feel about this? And so that,

Louis van der Merwe
Russell, I want to say thank you for sharing this new approach that you’re taking. It’s evident that you really care about your clients. And then if you care about your clients, you do what It was necessary to help them if that may be means wearing a life planner hat wearing a psychologist that not that we playing doctor on child psychologist, but that we acquiring the skills to really help them and I want to applaud that. And I want to challenge everyone listening to this to say, what can we learn from other professions where if we bring it into our practice, it makes everything easier would make everything a little bit better. Russell, I look forward to having you again on the show. And with that, I’m gonna give you a virtual iPhone to say thank you.

Russell Ho
Awesome. Thanks for the thanks for having me on the show. And I hope everyone can take something away from this podcast.