#17 Eoin McGee - How To Get Rich In 2024

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We’re back with another episode of The Game Plan podcast and today, we’re making sure you've got your finances in order for long term success. 

In this episode, we sat down with Eoin McGee, renowned financial planner and author of “How to Be Good With Money”.

We delve into essential financial strategies for every individual out there covering effective financial planning, smart investment tactics, and practical budgeting and saving tips. Eoin reveals the secret to navigating market fluctuations and the intricacies of property investment no one is talking about. 

Eoin also shares crucial advice on retirement planning and managing debt, providing listeners with comprehensive, actionable insights for achieving financial stability and growth.

This episode is all about empowering you with strategies to manage your finances better, invest wisely, and plan for a secure future, so make sure you watch till the end!

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(00:00) Introduction and Eoin McGee's Journey to Financial Planning

(04:30) What Motivated Eoin to Become a Financial Planner?

(07:35) If Someone Needs Financial Help, Where Do They Begin?

(13:08) How Do You Approach Sudden Wealth or Financial Windfalls?

(16:36) Eoin’s Journey and Personal Life Decisions

(26:38) How Important is Having a Clear Purpose in Business?

(30:11) Financial Services Landscape in Dubai and other Foreign Countries

(32:51) Eoin’s Main Marketing Channel

(34:40) Effective Money Management and Rules for Day-to-Day Finance

(36:42) Conscious vs. Subconscious Spending

(43:35) Saving Money vs. Earning More – What's More Important?

(50:54) Eoin's Personal Investment Choices

(54:07) How and Where to Start Investing in Ireland

(59:17) Cryptocurrency and Its Future in Investing

(01:05:27) Property Investments in Ireland and EU

(01:16:43) Financial Traps You Should Avoid

(01:20:50) Is Formal Education Worth it?

(01:25:20) Pursuing Passion vs. High Paying Jobs

(01:28:56) Eoin Advocates for Open Conversations About Money

(01:31:58) Importance of Doing the Right Thing in Business

(01:33:33) Leveraging Social Media and Public Speaking To Build Your Brand

(01:34:09) Eoin Reflects on Financial Planning and His Relationship with Money

Transcript

Eoin: 0:00

Tilt towards small companies, also tilt towards value stocks. So value stocks or value shares. What we know about the stock market is the stock market overreacts. It overreacts in the positive and it overreacts in the negative. And a value play is a play on the overreaction. On the negative. If you're only investing in the S&P 500, you're ignoring 41% of the world's stock markets. The US stock market represents 59% of global market cap. In March 2020, as a nation, ireland saved €443 million. Put into savings. All the households combined, not companies, just individuals in Ireland saved a total combined €443 million.

Rob Lipsett: 0:33

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Eoin: 2:17

I think the question more like if I can change your questions slightly why does someone become a financial planner? And it's very personal for me. Yeah, very personal for me as to why I became a financial planner. Actually, you know what? I'll give you the story because, I've got a couple of times before, but we do have time. When I was two, my dad had a heart attack and he had a quadruple bypass. And when I was six, he had another heart attack and he had three stents put in. And when I was eight, he had another heart attack and he had a quintruple bypass. Oh my God. I sent records here. And he was on and actually did set records, but he was only 48 at the time. What? So? He had his first one at 42, then 46 and 48. And he turned to the doctor and he said look like we grew up in depends. If it's a job interview, I'm going to a group and cast knock. If it's a fight, I'm going into a group and blanch yourself. Yeah, it's one or the other. So we grew up on the border between cast knock and blanch and dad used to cycle every day to more Hampton Road in Donny Brook. He used to be over and back. He looked after himself, wasn't a drinker, wasn't a smoker Well, he wasn't a non-drinker, but he wasn't a big drinker and he wasn't a smoker, kept his weight down, looked after himself for 48 years of age. And he said to the doctor he said, boy, like I have a three major heart incidents in the last six years. But what am I doing wrong? And the doctor said it's two things, michael. One you've got sticky blood. It's just a red tree, you can do nothing about it, right? But he said the second thing is stress. And he said what do you think is the biggest stress in your life? And dad kind of sat back and kind of not really sure and eventually he kind of came to the conclusion it's work, and dad was nothing to do with financial services, wasn't a financial plan and nothing to do with it. And the doctor said could you afford to give up work? And dad kind of sat back and kind of not sure, did a bit of digging and I took him about two years to get his head around us. But what he did discover was somebody along the line and a financial advisor. We might go into the difference between an advisor and a planner, right, but someone somewhere along the line had sold him an income protection policy and what that meant was he. Because he had to give up work on medical grounds, he was paid 75% of his wages until he was fit to go back to work or he hit retirement, whichever happened first. So at 50 years of age dad gave up work. Yeah, and I was 10, he was 50. And I'm going to be honest, dad is dead three years now. Sorry to hear that, and if he died at, give me that again.

Rob Lipsett: 4:30

Yeah, I thought I got that?

Eoin: 4:33

I can't prove. Yeah, go on. Dad is dead three years now. He died at 78 years of age, I absolutely believe, because he got good advice, because someone sold him an income protection policy. We got an extra 28 years out of that, Wow Right, and I'm not saying at 10 years of age I said I want to sell income protection for the rest of my life. But as I came out of college I got offered a job in Irish life. People at home might be familiar with Irish life they happen to be the people who are paying him his income protection and I very quickly realized I want to do for other families what that financial advisor did for my family and that's why I became a financial planner.

Rob Lipsett: 5:09

Wow.

Eoin: 5:09

So it's like there's an emotional thing there, 100%, and you know what I don't think you can do, like when I came into this and this is just to jump on, because I've mentioned it twice now the difference between an advisor and a planner. I'm going to be really generous here, right? Really generalize it. A financial advisor will sit down with you and spend long enough with you to figure out how do they sell you the bag of products they have in their bag, how do they fit them into your life, right? A financial planner sits down with you, talks to you about you and your life and where you want to get to it, what you want to achieve, and at the end of that, they might then go off looking for products to fit into your life. It's not the other way around. Yeah, that's the difference between a planner and an advisor.

Rob Lipsett: 5:47

There's more of a holistic kind of approach to it. 100%, yeah, that's what I get for that.

Eoin: 5:51

That's the best job in the world. Yeah, like, if you think about who else and you probably get some of the work that you do, I'm sure you get a bit of it right. But literally I get to talk to people about their finances, I get to talk to them about their health, I get to talk to them about their goals, their values, their objectives, and then we build a plan around them achieving what they want to achieve, and I get to check in on it once a year to see how it went. Like it's just, it's an. Every time a client is making a big decision, they run it by me and we sit down and we say, right, what's, how's this going to impact things? What's, what's the long term impact about what you're about to do and what you're trying to do is you're? People think, oh, you must be miserable with money. I'm not miserable with money right. It's about making sure that the money you have is support the life that you want to live, and it's about the money being separate. That it's. It's a support. It's not the be all and end all Like money is like useless to you If you're not managing it properly. It can absolutely destroy your life and it can make your life very, very comfortable, but you don't get exponentially happier the more money you have.

Rob Lipsett: 6:50

I'm loving this. I'm loving this. I was like well, I'm in for a two hours of corporate talk but I'm already motivated.

Eoin: 6:58

I've got good energy.

Rob Lipsett: 6:59

And I know what you mean. So people you know I do some cool things, I've an amazing life I do. I go on cool holidays. I have a nice feeling about it. Best thing I do is when I transform someone's fitness and they tell you how much you've changed your life. That is worth more than anything. So I can you know fitness and finances these are two of the biggest partners in life, so I can understand where you're getting from.

Eoin: 7:21

But isn't that the thing, rob, isn't it like? I'm sure you love lifted weights, right, I'm sure you love doing what you're doing, but actually I would imagine, if we scratched the surface a little bit, what drives you in a work environment? The same thing that drives me. It's about helping other people.

Rob Lipsett: 7:35

Yeah, and it sounds like corny and cliche oh, of course they'll say that. But it's actually true that once you get into these occupations and jobs where you do have the opportunity to help people, it is just the ultimate feeling and so on, that right, Okay, I'm pumped right, I'm good energy. I go to you, I sign up, I say I need some help my finances. Where do we begin?

Eoin: 7:56

Yeah, and it's interesting because, like I've people who don't know me at all right, won't know that like I've presented a TV show for the last couple of years on RTE for people outside of Ireland that's the equivalent of the BBC. But I've presented a TV show called how to Be Good at Money, written a couple of books, do a lot of corporate speaking. But I have a private practice as well and private practice is about helping the individuals, right, but what I would say is that sometimes, particularly after the TV show, people often think, oh, he helps people who are really struggling, because we always had people who are really struggling. But actually in the private practice, it's about the people who are doing really well, more so than the people who are struggling from a day to day. Point, because commercially it has to be about that, right, but you can also have great impact. But what do we do when someone comes in? Well, like we have a couple of different, like we've 23 working for us in the business. Now, 23 of us working together is the way I'd prefer to put it right and what we do is we've three different offerings. I do the private client stuff. It's great, and that's who I deal with and then we've got a choice and a premiere and there's three different offerings. But if you're coming into me, what people are really surprised about is in that first meeting we'd call it a discovery meeting. In that first meeting, we don't talk about pensions or investments or any of that crap, right? We talk about you. What's important to you? Where are you trying to get to? What is it that you want to get out of life? And we have two really key questions and I should give them to you, right? So the first question we go to and actually you know what, right, maybe?

Rob Lipsett: 9:21

you don't want to share this, but I'm going to troll that right, let's go.

Eoin: 9:24

If you were 75 years of age today and you were looking back on what is now 2024, what stuff. If you don't do it between now and then, would you be disappointed? You didn't do it up.

Rob Lipsett: 9:34

Would I be disappointed? Yes, so I wish I did more off.

Eoin: 9:37

Yeah. Or I'm talking about achievements, I'm talking about experiences, I'm talking about I don't know like. Did you want to play Augusta? Yeah, did you want to go to I'm sure you've been to Six Nations or whatever, yeah, Did you want to go to? What is it that you're kind of going? I'm 75 years of age now. I thought I would have.

Rob Lipsett: 9:53

Sometimes. So this, I love what I do so much. I actually kind of asked myself that about the last 10 years, like what would I wish I because I just turned 31 and I'm like what would I, you know, wish I did more off in the last from 21 onwards, and I actually wish I uploaded more YouTube videos. I actually wish I worked more because I love what I'm doing so much, yeah, whereas other people would probably say the opposite. I say I say you know, I wish I, yeah, just uploaded more and, you know, made more content and worked harder. But I'd say most people would kind of say the opposite Okay, yeah, but I'm definitely a 1% case. You're trying to dodge it there, right? So let's put it back.

Eoin: 10:30

You're 75 right now. Think about it. You're 75 years of age, between 31 and 75. What stuff do you expect is just going to happen? That you're just going to do that? You're kind of, if you were awake up at 75, you go Jesus, I absolutely thought I would have got to do that. It just never happened. And you know what? I can see your struggle on this and I tell you why you're struggling. The reason why you're struggling is because you're probably living your best life every day.

Rob Lipsett: 10:54

Yeah, it's right for a sweet life.

Eoin: 10:56

So if you could just say, you know what, if it could just repeat today tomorrow I'll be grand from 75 and I'll achieve it and I, like you're out here in Marbella and you've made a choice to be out here and you've got engaged recently. That's all going well, I assume, and all of that stuff brings it together. We're just saying just rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat, like, keep doing this.

Rob Lipsett: 11:11

Yeah, that's all. That's my honest answer, to be honest. But maybe then maybe I should dream bigger. It's like the first thing that came out of my head. I was like, maybe, you know, buy another villa, or maybe like buy a supercar, but then that's kind of materialistic and I don't really care that much about that. I would say, maybe just grow my business more, because then I'll get more feedback from amazing people and I'll get more people into the gym, which is my ultimate goal.

Eoin: 11:35

So that's what I'd probably say, and it's interesting because when you then plug it a little bit, we would have we get a lot of winners. We get a lot of people who just sold their business, obviously with the media, that's going on. You win the lot, or you've never had the money before You're going to go. Oh, or you inherit a big chunk of money, or you sell your business for the first time and you get. You become super rich very quickly. We get a lot of those people who would come to us because they've never needed this advice before and they're going where do we go? Oh, there's your man off to tell you. We get hit and we get a lot of that stuff, and particularly with a lot of winners, because it's such a kind of a spiral Whoa, all of bang, you've got a lot of money.

Rob Lipsett: 12:08

It's a money price.

Eoin: 12:09

And it can actually destroy people. If I'm honest, I actually heard it ruins more lives than makes them Absolutely 100%. And one of the things that I will always say to somebody who has come into new money is take a step back, just have a think. What made you happy last week? Because what's going to make you happy next week is exactly the same thing. You just have more time to do it now and when you've got everything you want financially, you have to really concentrate on the stuff that really makes you happy. And actually you mentioned super cars, right, yeah, you might buy one. The first one might be lovely, the second one won't make the same impact, yeah, and you just continue to chase that and chase that. I'm not saying don't buy a super car. You want to buy a super car? Go buy a super car, right. If you've got the money, it's not going to bankrupt you Go for it, right. But actually I promise you the moments that you spend here behind me sitting on the couch with your partner are much more important than the moments that you're going to have sitting next to her in the super car.

Rob Lipsett: 13:08

We actually have a friend here who owns a super car garage and he lets me take one whenever I want, literally, and I'm like he's taking it for five days, and on day three I'm like, oh jeez, we've got to crawl back into this thing again. We'll pour GT tree in an audio rate. And, linda, I can't do Mercadona in this, I can't get groceries in this.

Eoin: 13:29

So I completely know what you're saying, and what I would say is that's the important thing, and there is actually research that shows us that when you get to a certain level of income and wealth, when you're on a very, very low wage, it's miserable. If you can't make ends meet, you're really miserable, but then it depends on what country you're in. It's about 60,000 euros. The last time I checked.

Rob Lipsett: 13:50

That's what I read as well.

Eoin: 13:52

Around 60,000, 70,000. That's probably going to up now with inflation. The last time I checked it was around 60,000, 70,000. Happiness has gone up for inflation.

Rob Lipsett: 13:58

But now you're at a comfortable level.

Eoin: 14:01

But if you get to let's say the figure is 60,000, I should have really checked. Let's say the figure is 60,000. Someone on 120,000 isn't twice as happy as the person on 60. Now they might be twice as happy as the person on 30. But it doesn't get exponentially better as you go up the scale and people will often look and they're trying to attain something. Trying to attain something and that's great. We need to have goals, we need to have things we're driving towards, but don't hook your happiness on what might be in the future. Let me actually jump back a second, because we're talking about 75 looking back. That's the first question we asked.

Rob Lipsett: 14:30

Okay, brilliant. I really like that one as well. I'm going to have a go and think about that. Do you know what will happen?

Eoin: 14:35

The two of you will be sitting here later, right, You'll be talking well, what is your 75 thing? But this one. There's a friend of mine, Claire, right, and at 30 years of age, Claire got cancer. You've talked about my dad's heart and now we're talking about cancer.

Rob Lipsett: 14:44

Dad's life, that's life, this is a real podcast.

Eoin: 14:47

Claire got cancer Actually very good story, given that I was walking along the beach this morning and I was looking at the water, since I'd say it's cold in there. I remember one time. So Claire got breast cancer and she had a mastectomy, right. But the side issue now we're going to do a separate story. Remember we were down in Ross Lear and Claire and I were getting into the water. It was freezing and she was going. We're going to get in. The water was so cold, she goes Jesus. Thank God I've only one nipple.

Rob Lipsett: 15:11

That is the definition of half glass full. Guys, One nipple left, half glass full, but anyway.

Eoin: 15:18

Claire got cancer at 30. She had a mastectomy. It was stage four cancer. Three years later the cancer was treated. It was gone. She never said she'd beat cancer. She said they treat us, they got rid of us. The drugs did us, got me sorted out, I'm good, but I've had stage four cancer. I'm 33 years of age. I don't know if you've ever had anyone touched off cancer before.

Rob Lipsett: 15:35

Yeah, my mother Breast cancer is all quite badly. Yeah, and Claire says I'm 33 years of age.

Eoin: 15:39

It's going to come back, it's going to get me and I'm going to do stuff, right? And I remember I was sitting on her bed and the cancer had come back. Now Claire is dead eight years this month. Yeah, at the end of this month she'll be dead eight years, right? Remember sitting at the end of her bed and Claire said to me I'm really lucky, I'm like the cancer was back and I'm looking at her and I think we're at that point, we're at the stage. We're kind of going you're going to die, but nobody's talking about this. Yes, right, nobody's talking about you dying Right. I remember sitting with her and going Claire, explain that to me. How do you think you're really lucky she goes. She had three years of health in the middle, Right At 33, 36, she was healthy. She said I lived more of my life in the last three years than I would have in the next 30. She did last and three times she did a rave and a beach and I beat her with the girls Right. And she married her boyfriend of 16 years who was a father of her kids, Right. She and actually remember at her speech, Claire, typical at her speech was 100 of them, the kind of 90, 100 of us at the wedding. Yeah, there was no randomers here.

Rob Lipsett: 16:35

Oh my God, and I just thought that was a love.

Eoin: 16:36

That was during her speech. That was a lovely. Everyone was there with intent, everyone was there because they she wanted them there and he wanted them there. But she did loads of lovely stuff, yeah, right, and she did it. This was before mindfulness was a thing, right, but she was really mindful about what am I going to do with my three years? And she said to me oh, ask your client. So every client that comes into us will have. In our first meeting and that discovery meeting, I asked them the Claire question. And the Claire question is if you had two years to live, you've got your full health and forget about money. What are you doing for the next?

Rob Lipsett: 17:05

two years, wow. Now that's one like a deathly answer, because you know sometimes I do wake up and you know I quit my nine to five to have more free time, but now I work 24, seven three, six five. So I'm like you know, over the next two years. You know I would love to travel, me and Linda love traveling together and just do a Claire on it to be honest, but it's been. She had an ideal three years.

Eoin: 17:27

She did she had an amazing three years and she really enjoyed it and like she wasn't she, I'm not going to pretend she wasn't miserable at times. Yeah, she was but she made the absolute most of it. Yeah, actually, I tried to go to Glastonbury next year and was trying to get tickets and queued for tickets.

Rob Lipsett: 17:41

Couldn't get tickets. Yeah, no, apparently it's the most popular concert in the world.

Eoin: 17:44

It's like. It's incredibly that and Burning man. She got them three years in a row and I'm like Some God or whatever you believe in, was looking after you, Like how and God's name, it's Glaston Gods she did the first year in a tent and then she said I'm never doing a tent again. She did a camper van for two years. Then they drove over and there was a couple of them went over, but no like and that's a really good question for us to kind of check in on ourselves what are you going to do for the next two years? You're going to be dead in two years. Now forget about the misery and everything that you're leaving behind you. Finances are okay. What do you want to do for the next two years? And it's really interesting when I asked the 75 question and people say, oh, I want to achieve this my career and I want to do this, I want to do that. And then you ask the two years. Some people like you kind of struggle when they're actually they're doing what they want to do every day. So they find that question a bit harder. But oftentimes the contrast between what they say if I hit 75, looking back, what do I want to achieve? And you've only got two years, what are you going to do? And you know what's really interesting 50-50 in round, whether people are going to retire, like give up work or not give up work. Some people say, no, I'm going to keep working, I love what I do. And other people I'm out the door, I'm gone, I can't wait to get out the door. And you know, I often think if you're really keen to get out of work and you don't want to work anymore, it's not an awful place to be. Like we're lucky, we're blessed, Like we, I said very holy keep them blessed, and God that's good, I'm a holy man. But like, how lucky are we? You love what you do, I love what I do.

Rob Lipsett: 19:08

So I basically, about eight years ago, I was in a job that I hated so much. What were you doing? I'd wake up every day so depressed. So it was I don't want to name the company, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, because I quit. So it was actually something to do with nutrition. Okay, that's why I thought I would like it. And at the end of the day, it was just a desk job and it was nine to six every day and, like you know, if you'd leave the office early, everyone'd be looking at you like, oh, look at this guy, and I'd be like running out the door. And so it was the hours, the lack of freedom, and just I taught to myself. I was like 21 or 22 at the time. I was like this can't be it, like this can't be the end of the road. And then so one day it took me three weeks to build up the courage, but one day I walk into my boss's office and I go look, I want to go full time in the fitness industry. I want to start my own coaching company, personal training business, I want to be on YouTube, I want to be talking about all these topics that I want to be talking about. And he was like awesome, go for it. He was like you're actually shy to work You're doing nothing here. I saw you writing plans on your laptop the other day constantly, so he was actually super cool, like I actually thought he was a visionary and he saw something in you. He just wanted to get rid of you, yeah he was like now I don't have to write him a severance package. So he was super cool. And then he was like, all right, go on your way. And I couldn't even tell my family that I quit my job. And so for a week I was pretending to like, go into work. I was just in the gym trying to figure it all out. And then so that was, you know, eight years ago now, and things have blossomed, they've gone very well, but so I know the feeling of absolutely hating what I want to do, and I was honestly. I don't want to go into graphic detail, but I was super, super down and depressed and I thought like that this was just going to be my life for like the next couple of decades. So that's why I'm so grateful. And every day so another thing I suffer from severe imposter syndrome. I think someone's going to bust into door any minute and people are like all right, the jig's up, it's over, get back in that cubicle. So that's why every day I'm just very grateful and happy.

Eoin: 21:14

And you know what? It's funny in 2018, geez, I'm getting very deep. You know what? I flew over last night and with my buddy, johnny is here with me, and we had a few beers last night, so you're getting me very emotional. Nice A little bit hungover. You definitely had a few this morning as well. No way You're on holiday. We had one just in the corner there a few minutes ago, but just in one. No wonder you couldn't find that house. But we 2018,. Fourth of May. I wasn't locked right, but I fell out of a taxi. I don't know what happened. I think I collapsed getting out of a taxi, smacked my head, cracked my skull in three places. Fourth of May woke up in a hospital bed the next morning had brain surgery. What? Yeah, I had cracked my skull, a massive brain bleed, and I came out of that I'll never forget. Actually, that was on a Thursday night, it happened. They put me into Port Leish because I was down in Carlow at a work ting right Down in Carlow. They put me into Port Leish. They left me overnight. The MRI people came in at 9 am, right, they scanned me good they scanned me and it was a moment, quick, moment quick. They were trying to sort a chopper out. They were trying to do this and eventually it's going to be quicker in the back of an ambulance. They put me in an ambulance, set me up to the moment. I got surgery that afternoon and I like, do you know in a film right, do you ever see a film where you're looking at it from inside their eyes and they open their eyes?

Rob Lipsett: 22:29

Yeah, inside, yeah, and then the eyes Facer flash, yeah, and that's what it was like.

Eoin: 22:33

The scene changes and I could open in the back of an ambulance and then my eyes would close and then I'd open again. I'm looking up at the ceiling of a hospital, right. Then you're being dragged into surgery, you're being wheeled into surgery, and I remember. But anyway, saturday morning was the first time I properly woke up. Yeah, and I woke up to there was a doctor and a whole pilot team around the end of the bed and I didn't realize at this stage that I was still in watch. They were ready to bring me back for surgery, right, because they didn't know if they got enough of the bleed out or if it was going to continue to bleed or if it had worked right. And the doctor was standing around and I said sorry, doctor, can I just ask you something when you're ready? And he was talking to them, he wasn't talking to me, right, and he goes. Yeah, just one second. He was opening up. I said when can I go back to work? Nice, and he was grinding. He goes, sorry. And I said when can I go back to work? And he said I don't know. Six, eight weeks. And I said no, sorry, doctor, can you tell me exactly when I can go back to work? Like I work for myself? And at that time we had three in the office me and three others in the office and he said I said I really need to know when I'm going back. You don't understand. And he said no, you don't understand, I have you here alive. And he walked away, damn mic drop. And I went oh right, ok. And that was the first time I realized just how serious it was. And I sat there for probably the next hour or two just thinking about stuff in my life and I said what do I want to change here? What stuff has to change? I made some massive decisions, but I made some business decisions as well, and one of the decisions was I spent more of the next three months worrying about work than I did worry about my health. I said I'm never going to get into a position again and one of the things I did was I realized I'm spending a whole pile of time and I call it my media work. So media is TVs, books, corporate speaking, whatever, all at the bone. And you're on the radio a couple of times a week, you're doing loads of stuff, and that's my media work. And then my private practice is the other thing. And I was trying to give 100% to both and I wasn't. I was giving 40% to both, yes, and I was wrecked and I would suggest that's what led me to collapse and hit my head. I said, right, first things first. I'm never being in a hospital bed again worrying about will the business still be there when I get back to it? Nice. So, I appointed a guy. He's with me, colin is with me three months sorry, three years next month and I said to him I want you to come in, I want you to run the business. I'm thinking about selling it, right? Yes, just too early to sell it. I don't want to sell it. I love what I do. I read on it Someone needs to come in and take the potential. I said I want you to come in, I want you to run the business. And he was kind of you're always going to undercut my decision and I'm telling you I'm not. I just want to be a financial planner, I just want to deal with declines. I want you to deal with HR.

Rob Lipsett: 25:06

I want you to be accounting All the BS I want you to do it all.

Eoin: 25:09

I just I love dealing with clients. I'll help you at board level, but you'll run the business, You'll make the decisions and I'll support you and I'll deal with clients you just have a chat about, you know your Claire years and what do you want to do so? vibe, the fun stuff, and I want to chase what I'm doing with the media stuff. I don't want to wake up in a couple of years time and say to myself I messed up the media opportunity it's gone and I messed up Prosperous, which is the name of the company. I messed up Prosperous because it didn't give it. So I want you to look after Prosperous. I want you to make the most out of it, and actually on Christmas Day this year I sent him a text to say thanks for the gift of letting me see Prosperous reach its potential Nice.

Rob Lipsett: 25:44

Say that was very nice to receive.

Eoin: 25:45

Yeah, and we're not there. Well maybe I was never told we're not there yet we're on such a path, like with 23 staff. Now, right, we will, we will have 31, I think is the plan. By the end of this year We'll have 40. But then we'll probably plateau off at 40 or 50 stuff the year after. Right, he is absolutely. He's all about policies, procedures. He's all about all the stuff I hate. Right, he's all about getting the structures in place. And you know what he did say to me about a year later he goes. I'm surprised how much. You just let me take the reins. Yeah, I really didn't believe it, but I didn't have the skill set he has. I recognized Prosperous needed that skill set and I just took a step back and said you'd go, do you? You go make the most of it. I'd support you whatever way I need to. But I'm just here, I'm a financial planner. That's what I want to do. Because when I was happiest in my career, I was back in 2001, 2002, I was working for Irish Life, which happened to be the same people who sold the income protection to my dad.

Rob Lipsett: 26:36

There you go, all comes around.

Eoin: 26:38

I was working for them. And I looked back when I was sitting in that hospital bed that morning, on the 5th of May, which is the day after, right, the 5th of May I said when was the happiest in my career? And it was Irish Life. And then I said why is that?

Rob Lipsett: 26:47

Because I was just dealing with clients, you're just chatting, chatting away. I always say outsource the stuff that you really don't have to. For example, no one can jump into your body and talk on TV, or they can talk on the radio or do a call, but someone can do the accounts, the writing and everything. So stuff that you just can't get other people to do, you do it. But if you can outsource it, do it as soon as possible.

Eoin: 27:12

I don't know if you've ever read the book the Emit and, if you're ever thinking of it, if anyone listened to this, who's ever thinking about going into business by themselves, right? So if you think of me, take me as an example. I was a financial planner with Irish Life and then I went off and did a couple of things with some of the banks and a couple of other things and I said do you know what? I'm a financial planner? I want to do this for myself and I set up in 2008. And very quickly you realize whoa. I just want to be a financial planner.

Rob Lipsett: 27:34

But I know I'm a financial planner. I'm marketing at every land.

Eoin: 27:37

I went into a partnership first, then did two years of that and then went out on my own on my own in 2008. But the Emit, the book, the Emit is the Emit and the tagline is why small businesses fail. And the main reason small businesses fail is because someone has a skill right. You're a PT or you're a financial planner or you're a hairdresser, right, it doesn't matter what it is and you say I'm going to do this for myself and I'm going to keep all the profits for me. And then you step out of it and you're no longer a hairdresser, you're everything. You're marketing, you're sales, you're accounts, you're HR, you're everything. And people don't naturally have that skill set because they're really good hairdressers or really good PTs or whatever it is that they are, but they doesn't naturally progress into being a really good business owner. And it's a great book for reading in terms of your thinking about. I would always say people come to me and say I'm thinking about going out on my own. What do you think? Read that book and see what you think first. Ok, nice.

Rob Lipsett: 28:27

The Emit, the Emit that one.

Eoin: 28:28

The other one I give to people who will do and we have a stack of them in the office is Start With why. I'm sure you've heard of Simon Sinek's Start.

Rob Lipsett: 28:33

With why? Yes, yeah, yeah, my shoulder's podcast, everything's brilliant.

Eoin: 28:36

And if you want to check, kind of looks like you.

Rob Lipsett: 28:39

OK, here we go. I'll tell you that one's just a handsome guy.

Eoin: 28:43

And if you want to cheat people who don't know Simon Sinek, the G code there is to look at his TED Talk.

Rob Lipsett: 28:48

Yeah, that's how I find him. He's absolutely brilliant.

Eoin: 28:51

Superb, like he's really. And there are the two books I would say anyone starting on their own, start With why changed my business completely and actually, if you think about you, I'm fairly sure you were one of the first to adopt YouTube. Yeah.

Rob Lipsett: 29:02

I was the first Irish fitness YouTuber. That's my claim to fame.

Eoin: 29:05

Yeah, what I would say is people I'm sure were looking at you going, oh here, like, what do you think? Who do you think you are, what do you do? And you've got to find a bit of backlash. Yeah, it's no different. Like in the financial planning world in Ireland, right? Or financial advice world in Ireland, whatever label you want to put on it we charge fees, right, oh yeah, and most people will just take commissions Right, and we have. I'd love if the entire industry was just fee-based. We do take commissions, but not upfront commissions. We take what's called a trail. It doesn't matter. We're getting too technical here, but we were an early adopter. We weren't the first, but we were an early adopter. After I read Start With Wires and now fees is the way it needs to go, because I want the client to sit in front of me. I'm going to charge them a fee for what I'm giving, for the advice I'm giving them. I'm going to build a financial plan for them and I want them to have confidence that I'm not doing it to sell them a product at the end of it. Yeah, my lights are going to stay on with the fee, right, and if a fee comes out, if a product comes out of the back of it, great fine, we'll look after that, we'll implement it, we'll do it. One of the things actually I was thinking about. We've been working on some. I spent a lot of time over and back in Dubai in the last two years and we I got a huge demand from Dubai for clients.

Rob Lipsett: 30:11

Right, we're going next week. Yeah, yeah, pumped.

Eoin: 30:14

It is a bit wild west out in Dubai from a financial services point of view.

Rob Lipsett: 30:18

I have some funny questions on that. We'll get to that, but go on it is.

Eoin: 30:22

It's a bit of a killer. Like you're out there and someone like I have seen things where people are taking 25% commission, right, and 25% commission, you mean that you put, you invest 100 grand and they're taking 25 grand in fees right. It's wild west. And not only that, I have seen it, I actually seen the documents. But this is another contract where there's early exit penalties, right. So you put 100 grand away and if you take it out early, there's a 40% penalty for taking it out early.

Rob Lipsett: 30:49

If you're in, like a different country or something, if you're not in.

Eoin: 30:52

Dubai. No, if you just have the product with them, you're still in Dubai and you say, oh listen, I need to take that money out. I'm taking it out earlier than I told you I was going to take it out and it hit you with a 40 or so 100 grand. They're going to take 40 grand off you. And then I looked at the teas and seeds and said what's early? What? What defined early? The first 25 years was early. That's ridiculous, it's just and it's what. But anyway, we looked at setting up out there because we're getting so many inquiries. We were over and back and over and back and actually one of the things we've decided now is it's just that because it's such wild west, you're up against it. You're up against this because they can pay stupid things for offices and staff and everything else, because they're getting 25% of your money. And I just wouldn't do it like that. It's wrong, Right? So I just wouldn't do it like that. So it's not a level playing field. So we are putting a model together at the moment where we're doing Prosperous International Nice, right. And what Prosperous International will do is it'll be the private client service, it'll be a set fee on a year to year basis, right, but we won't do tax advice, we won't do legal advice, we won't do any product implementation, which means we can deal with you wherever you are in the world. We'll just do the financial planning. We'll just do your 75,. Looking back at two, here's what your long term financial future looks like. Now, if you change this, this and this, here's what your long term financial future looks like. Right, here's all the stuff you want to do. And for you, like Rob, I don't know where you're at and I don't need to know where you're at, but one of the things that we hook everything on is financial independence. Yeah, at what point in your life have you created enough wealth that you never have to work again, you never have to worry about money? Right? What age are you going to be? Are you going to be 35? Are you worried? They are at 25. Right, where are you on that scale? And if you change this, this and this, is it going to be 33 instead of 35? Or is it going to be 37 instead? So you talk about buying another villa Right, you buy another villa and you get three grand a month off it, right? Does that make it 34 or 36? Yeah, what's the long term impact of the financial decisions you're making today and what we're doing with the, with the prosperous international, is we're saying, right, we get so many inquiries from abroad and it's because of the social media, right? The Instagram in particular, like, is that?

Rob Lipsett: 32:51

your main, like marketing, where it comes from.

Eoin: 32:53

Yeah, like I. Just I think we've hit 100, just over 130,000. I think you're up at what? 650, 700. I'm at about 130,000. But like, if you look at this, I was at 400 in December 19.

Rob Lipsett: 33:05

Yeah, your account is going crazy. It's no engagement. That's how I found you, yeah, and I DMed you and I was like, hey, let's get you on the podcast.

Eoin: 33:12

And we. But because of that you've a lot of Irish abroad who are kind of going. 11% of the world's population claim Irish heritage.

Rob Lipsett: 33:19

Yeah, it's good, joe, why? It's because of the famine. We all got out of Ireland because we ran out of potatoes. And now there was a stage in America in you know 19, whatever, whatever year that was where it's like one in 10 people were actually Irish.

Eoin: 33:34

So that's, that's where I came from Now 11% of the world's population, so one in 10 people. So if you're in a room, a bar in Bangkok and if it's a bar, it's probably more like Flaventown but if you're in a, in a, in a room in Bangkok, one in 10 of those people in that room we're going to claim.

Rob Lipsett: 33:48

Irish heritage. I'm not surprised you are Even out here in Marbella, especially like we do not feel homesick whatsoever. We're like it's too many Irish. Yeah, but it is lovely Now. We really like it. We really like it.

Eoin: 33:58

I was walking around the promenade this morning and you just clock an Irish accent. You hear it. And you just kind of go no, and you don't even say like they're being conversation, you don't even say you just kind of feel home, yeah no, we love it. Like and, and what I would say is is because of the social media following, because of the the increase in that social media, we get a lot of inquiries from abroad and we're saying how do we feed that Right? And we have regulatory issues in terms of if, if there's products to be done, we'll tell people how to invest the money. We just won't invest for an international client, we won't invest the money for them. We'll tell them this is what, the way you need to do it, and give us a fee. You know, pay the fee and we'll sit down with you however often you need, but at least once a year, and that's the way you work it. So that's in development at the moment, but I think it's hopefully takes that box for the international clients who are coming at us.

Rob Lipsett: 34:40

Nice, that's a more frustrated way to do it as well. Things get messy with presenters, yes, so back to the money talk. Yes, so you have a set of rules for money that you follow.

Eoin: 34:50

Are you talking about day to day stuff? Are you talking about long term stuff? Because of two different sets of rules?

Rob Lipsett: 34:54

Day to day.

Eoin: 34:54

That's the big day stuff Like one of the things people like when I get stopped in the streets nobody ever says oh, can I just ask you this question about myself? They always say can I ask you a question for a friend?

Rob Lipsett: 35:03

Yeah, it's a private thing. They're very sensitive over it.

Eoin: 35:07

We are a country that does not talk about money no, which I think is terrible, and I'm going to come back to that now in a second right, but one of the things that I would suggest that people and people kind of oh, that's just too simple, it's too straightforward. What are you talking about? Getting to know the difference between your conscious spending and subconscious spending is the biggest game changer you can have. Right the amount of carryover with diet. Yeah, a lot of this stuff, yeah, a lot of this is crazy and I guarantee you the stuff that it's very, very serious.

Rob Lipsett: 35:36

So one of the best. There's a book on it. There's also a TV series on it and it's called Mindless Eating Right, and so I was like talking to a coach and he was saying he was having a problem with a client who was just secret eating. That's actually named TV show Secret Eaters right, and what they do is they get a group of people trying to lose weight and they put TV cameras or CCTV cameras in their house. They don't know about it, right, and they go tell us in a food diary how much you're eating and then it shows. It shows them themselves how much they're actually eating. It's mind-blowing, it's. They say they're eating 2000 calories, they're actually eating 8000. Wow, it's like honestly not not even close.

Eoin: 36:18

So it's crazy and I presume spending Spending is kind of the same and actually, when you're talking about that, I often wonder about like a chef must be the toughest job in the world because they're tasting all day Like this, yeah, and imagine the amount of calories you're getting in there. I know, yeah, it's just, and it's. That's subconscious eating. It is, it's subconscious spending, right, mindless eating. I might talk about some conscious and mindless, but subconscious and conscious, subconscious, conscious spending. Has gone into the shop to buy a diet Coke, yeah, subconscious walking out with a packet of crisps as well.

Rob Lipsett: 36:42

Yes.

Eoin: 36:43

You didn't mean to buy the packet of crisps, you just saw that. You picked them up, you grabbed them in your bottom and you know you're eating them walking down the street, right? So what I would say is, if we can get on top of your conscious versus subconscious spending, you'll be shocked. Like, if you take March 2020, right, just as we were all going into lockdown right In Ireland, we were all going into lockdown right, and in March 2020, as a nation, ireland saved 443 million euros, or put into savings. Right, all the households combined not companies, just individuals in Ireland saved a total combined 443. And we kind of averaged 443 million. Yeah, that's huge. In the first month, full month, of lockdown, which was April 2020, think about what happened. Right, we stopped driving to work, we stopped going out for dinner, we stopped grabbing the packet of crisps. We caught out our subconscious spending completely. Think about it. Even when you went to the shop I don't know if you were here, you were still over we were in London, we were in London, we were in London.

Rob Lipsett: 37:36

Okay, which was peak lockdown, it was super curtain twitchers, you know, it was really lockdown, even if you think about what happened when you went to the supermarket.

Eoin: 37:45

You queued up outside two meters apart. You went in, you got out quick, before you got COVID right Because you had a list, you stuck to the list and you got out quick as you could, right? So it was very, very conscious spending. There was very little subconscious spending. Instead of saving 443 million euros, like we did in March, in April we saved 3,000 million. We saved 3 billion euros in the month of April 2020, the first full month of lockdown, right? So don't underestimate the power of the difference between conscious and subconscious spending. And what I would say is, if anyone's listening to this and I have spoken about this loads of times, anyone who follows me this is not new, but it still doesn't make it less important. Right, for the next week, after whatever day it is, you're listening to this podcast. Right, for the next week, every, don't change your spending habits. But every time you spend money, take out your phone and put into notes Diet Coke 220, pac-a-lar Crisp 150,. Right, don't change your spending. Just list out what you spent money on and how much it cost, and whether it's 80 quid on jeans or whatever, it is right. Every time you spend. A week later, take out your phone, take out a pen and piece of paper and something happens our brain when we take out a pen and paper, right, Big on journaling. Go on, so take it right a line down the middle of it and write conscious spending, subconscious spending, or some people find it easier to get their head around it. Added value to my life, didn't add value to my life, yes, and categorize everything that you've spent money on and put them on one side or the other, and you know what your first coffee of the morning might have added value to your life. But did your seventh right Like, did it really?

Rob Lipsett: 39:15

make that much of a difference. Seventh I'm not gonna count them on, I'm like all right.

Eoin: 39:19

And what you've got then at the end of that is you've got a list of all the stuff that you spent money on last week that added no value to your life, and you can cut that stuff next week and you're still going to get the same enjoyment out of life, but you're just going to have more money. And but the trick and this is where it really changes things it's what you do with that extra money. You can spend that on producing deaths or doing something else, or you can spend it on stuff that adds value to your life. Yeah, it's, you're not. I'm not looking at decreasing your spending. I'm just looking to strip and out the crap out of your life that does nothing for you. Yeah, and that is the key to me, the first starting block, that's the key thing that you need to get your head around. And people would say to me oh, you must be miserable, like that's horrendous, right? No, I do this, it's no different. You probably calorie count from time to time.

Rob Lipsett: 40:05

I do. Oh, exactly, yes, I'll do like a week where I'm redirected and it's so funny, I didn't want to bring the flow there. But when I'm start working with someone, I say hey, you don't change your diet, just keep a food diary for the week, and now we know how much you're eating, so now we can adjust from there. It's like this so similar. It's crazy, yeah, it is crazy.

Eoin: 40:22

And then you've got little tricks that do, and actually it was the thing that you engaged in me first, because I was looking back before I came in today. There's little things, then, that you can help yourself with when you're not on a full on. I'm counting my calories or I'm counting my spending.

Rob Lipsett: 40:31

You know you've given yourself good habits and you know how long a piece of string is.

Eoin: 40:34

You learn it, you get it right. But then there's little tricks, like one of the things that I'll say is don't save your credit or debit card details to websites you use, right? Yeah, Like you have to create that barrier to spending. It's no different, I suppose. To bring it back to food, Don't have sweets in the house.

Rob Lipsett: 40:50

Yes, oh my God, if there's something like that I just absolutely love and it's in the fridge, I'm eating it. Just gonna eat it. Absolutely, yeah, and what?

Eoin: 40:56

I would say is is you need to be? There's a thing called Hick and Click, thursday evenings 9pm, and it just is proven right. Yeah, thursday evenings, 9pm, hick and Click is Hick and Click right. So you've had a glass of wine right on beer, or whatever, and you just shop online and no, we've, we've fully done that before we have came in from a date night, we're in a good mood. This is not a super car you're on, yeah, I'm sure you can do that in a transaction. But what you need to do to prevent yourself from Hick and Click or to prevent yourself is don't make it that if you're sitting on the couch and you're ready to buy something, you physically have to get off the couch. Go find the credit card or the debit card. I don't like credit cards. Yeah, go find the credit card. I don't have a credit card. You'll be happy to be here. Yeah, I don't either. Yeah, and people are shocked.

Rob Lipsett: 41:39

Irish people don't. It's the guys Americans watching this. They are shocked at that. Irish people, I know hardly anyone with a credit card.

Eoin: 41:45

But also people come to me oh, I need a credit card. So it's going on to the States. I don't get it.

Rob Lipsett: 41:49

I really don't get it. I really don't get it.

Eoin: 41:51

It's just, it's one of. I'm not a fan of credit cards. Yeah, now, in the States it's different because they really incentivize but points. Yes, these different things, right, mass consumerism.

Rob Lipsett: 41:59

It's not an Irish thing.

Eoin: 42:01

But get yourself off the couch. And then some people say I don't need to get off the couch, I know that 23 did. Oh my God, the date and the month and the tree did. That is a toxic relationship. You need to get out of it. Get rid of that credit card or debit card. You need to get rid of us, right, but create those barriers. The other barrier this is the one you engage with me online First off was 72-hour rule. 72-hour rule is a cake, right? So if you see something you want, put it back 72 hours later if you still want it. It was probably something that was going to add value to your life in the first place. Now, I'm not talking about bread and milk here, right? I'm talking about the pair of jeans or the runners or whatever it is to shoot. Whatever it is you want to buy, put it back 72 hours later If it's still on your mind and you're still going to forward it and you're still happy to buy it. Maybe it was something that was going to add value to your life in the first place. So go for it. Now, a couple of things can happen here, right? One is 96 hours later. You remember Well, toph, you need to start 72 hours later. It's 72 hours again because you would have remembered after 72 if it was really important to you. The other thing that can happen is and this is the probably thing that happens most is 12 hours or 24 hours later. You find something else that's better and you replace it and you start the 72 hours later, and I'm saying necessarily cheaper, I'm just saying suits you better, right. And then people would say what happens after 72 hours? I remember I go back and it's gone. That was destiny Toph never should have happened.

Rob Lipsett: 43:18

Let it go.

Eoin: 43:19

That's fine and it's not going to dramatically change your life. And those little things have massive impact massive, and people don't pay them enough attention. That's the kind of whistle stop tourism, the short term stuff you do Long term is different.

Rob Lipsett: 43:35

Okay, and so with the long term, right. So what's more important learning to save money or learning how to make more?

Eoin: 43:43

One of the things Warren Buffett is. I'm sure most people know who Warren Buffett is, but just to give everyone, he's in his 90s. He's worth over a hundred billion dollars. 99% of the wealth he has today he didn't have at 50 years of age. There's still hope for us guys. At 13 years of age he started investing 13. 13. Yeah, and he's probably one of the most successful. Now he has an unusual circumstance in that he's enough money behind him now. He just doesn't buy shares. He buys shares and takes place on the board, so he impacts the business, right? He has said to his wife when I die, just by the index, just by the stock market as a whole dunkle by the individual, the S&P 500 is what he's told his wife and the S&P. For people who don't know what the S&P 500 is, the 500 stands for the largest 500 companies in the US stock market, the FTSE 100, largest 100 in the UK. The Isaac Index of very shares, I think, is 26 in it. Now the Euro stocks 50, top 50 in Europe. Right, so the 50 is the 500 or whatever that's the amount of companies that are in it. Right, and he's told his wife just by the S&P 500, right?

Rob Lipsett: 44:52

Simplas, simplas just do it right. That's what I actually do myself. So and funny enough, you're actually you are reading my mind. I've like these random topics shot at Dan and we're just clocking them off. So with the S&P 500, the way I use it is Itoro, not sponsored. Wish they were right. Go hit me up guys. But a lot of Irish people are Europeans because it's like an American index, they can't. So what would you recommend Irish people to invest in?

Eoin: 45:19

The problem with the S&P 500, it's not necessarily a problem like. It's a great start, right? The thing you need to be aware of is if you're right now, today my stats be slightly off right now, today, I would suggest if you're only investing in the S&P 500, you're ignoring 41% of the world's stock markets. Okay, because the US stock market represents 59% of global market cap. Very technical, but it represents about 57, 59. It kind of changes from year to year, day to day in fact. So you're ignoring a whole pile of countries that aren't invested there. Now people, particularly US citizens, will say to you yeah, but we have like intelligence all around the world and there is an argument for that. But when I buy with the way we would invest clients money is we would buy the entire world. We wouldn't buy just the US. We'd have emerging markets and they were having, and we don't try like Warren Buffett and just to come back into it. The reason why I brought him up Warren Buffett says something he was asked by a journalist at one stage. Journalist said to him Warren, you're 90 odd years of age, one of the richest men in the world. We can literally see you have a playbook left behind you as to how you got rich. Why doesn't anyone copy the playbook? And his answer was brilliant. He said because nobody wants to get rich slow anymore. Nice, I just that, really cat like really captures the way we invest clients money. Get rich quick lose it quick. Get rich slow lose it slow, yeah, and nobody wants to get rich slow anymore. The way we invest clients money and the way I invest my own money is incredibly boring incredibly simple.

Rob Lipsett: 46:55

Also, no one wants to be bored anymore. People will happily sit down and they will. I'm not exaggerating. Eight hours been binge watch on Netflix, eight hours. But they will not put two hours into learning by finances or reading the information that Warren Buffett puts out for free. Yes, what?

Eoin: 47:10

are into it.

Rob Lipsett: 47:11

People don't want to be bored. They're not willing to be bored. I think it's because we're actually overstimulated into his day and age. I call TikTok brain, yet they can't concentrate on anything more than 10 seconds, when they could change their life.

Eoin: 47:23

Yeah, it's crazy and, to me, investing should be simple, it should be boring, because your life is not about investing years. Life is about living. The investment is just a vehicle to help you support the life you want to have. Right, so make it simple, make it boring, let it take away. Sometimes we'd have a client who'll come in and say you know what I want to buy this stock, this stock, this stock. And typically, right, I'm going to be very generalist here you have a husband and wife sitting in front of you and he wants to go mad and he wants to do all the crazy stuff. Right, and she's brought him in to see me because she wants me to stop him doing that stuff. Okay, and I've been very generalist there and I'm sorry.

Rob Lipsett: 47:59

It's a 90 percent male audience. What?

Eoin: 48:01

we would say there is right. I'd say you know what, you can take 15 percent of it and we'll call that your bingo bucket. You do whatever you want to do with that. And I'm going to take 85 percent of it. I'm going to invest in simple and boring and straightforward and a couple of years time my 85 percent will be at 100 percent and it doesn't matter what you've done. It'll be bonus or it'll be gone and it doesn't matter. And that's what we would let. And there's a general rule of thumb never invest more than 15 percent of your money in any one single thing, because and I'm not talking to people say, oh, so don't put more than 15 percent in the S&P 500. No, s&p 500 is top 500 companies right and therefore it doesn't matter. But we would be very we have a little bit of a twist. We buy the market, we buy it and we do a little bit of a twist on it because it's been proven by academics or years that if you tilt it in certain directions it can get you better returns. But we're never picking a fund manager. We're never trying to beat the market. The fund managers are an interesting thing. So we have these guys from Harvard or Yale or whoever they've come out of right, and they've teams of them. There's a 20, 30 on a team and they're looking at the S&P 500. Instead of buying all 500, what they're doing is is they're buying the best 470 and they're avoiding the 30 losers right, 60 percent of fund managers fail to beat the stock market in any given year.

Rob Lipsett: 49:13

I'm not surprised. It's astrology for dudes.

Eoin: 49:17

And actually if you stretch that over 30 years, less than 1 percent of fund managers will beat their own benchmark, their own stock market, over a 30 year period. It's completely like it is possible to pick a good fund manager. It's just not probable yeah.

Rob Lipsett: 49:30

So you just go as well.

Eoin: 49:32

That's exactly it. And when you buy the MSCI World Index or you buy the entire stock market across the entire world, you are the house. Yeah, I remember there was a buddy of mine and this is actually. He lives in New York now, but he was sitting with a CFO of a global company, right, and he's in the States sitting in front of the CFO. They're talking about investing money and the CFO says you know what? I think the stock market's a little bit funny at the moment and not sure I want to put my money into the market right now. No, I'm not about timing, I'm on this time.

Rob Lipsett: 50:04

Yeah, I can tell you're not. Yeah, exactly Time in the market not timing the market right.

Eoin: 50:08

And he turned around and my buddy said to this guy he said how are you fair? Like you've got the worst kind of scenario. You think the stock market's going to have a tough. You're the CFO of this global international company. If those kind of doomsday events happen, how will your company be? Although, we'll be fine because we've got this, this, this in this place. And he goes right, you're one of the 500. You're the CFO of the 500, right? Do you not think the other 499 CFOs and CEOs have exactly the same plan?

Rob Lipsett: 50:36

as you. Yeah, do you not think?

Eoin: 50:37

they're all talking about this as well and he goes okay, right, and put the money into the market. And what I would say is, if you try and time the market, you're, it's a losers game. Right, you're, you're, absolutely. You put the money in when you have it, you take it out when you need it and you try and put a long time between the two. And if you do, you will be okay, okay, nice.

Rob Lipsett: 50:54

And so now, as a financial planner, what do you invest in?

Eoin: 50:58

So I am incredibly simple, incredibly boring. I buy the market but I tilt it ever so slightly. So what we have, what's been proven over very long periods of time right and very long periods of time is very important is that you, if you tilt towards small stocks, this makes sense, right, and smaller company and I'm not talking about corner shop small, I'm talking small relative to Alphabet or Google or whatever you want to call it today right, small relative to them. Smaller company at higher risk. Therefore, you expect a bit more return because you're taking a little bit more risk. So, tilt towards small companies. Also, tilt towards value stocks. So, value stocks or value shares. What we know about the stock market is the stock market overreacts. It overreacts in the positive and it overreacts in the negative. Right, and a value play is a play on the overreaction, on the negative. So, if you think let's go back to the Irish audience here right, ryanair, everyone know Ryanair, most international people will know Ryanair, but they might know Erlingas as well. Right, so it's now owned by British Airways. Right to that group. Right, but Ryanair, about 12 years ago, tried to buy Erlingas. Right, and at that time, the share price had been driven down so much, that you could buy Erlingas on the stock market for 650 million euro, right. But if you sold off the heat row slots, the airplanes, the buildings at Dublin and Cork and Shannon the actual assets that Erlingas owned you could buy it on the stock market for 650 million, but you could sell the assets for 750 million euro.

Rob Lipsett: 52:17

Guys, if we all just give me a million, we can pitch in together and buy Erlingas.

Eoin: 52:24

Come on, but what that is is a value play, right? So I know, over long periods of time, value will give me a little bit more right. I'm not picking, it's pure maths. It's simply is that a value stock Is the value of that shares, of their total shares, worth less than the total value of all their assets. That's a value play. Some of them will fall against the wayside, they'll actually fall apart, but if you have enough of them you're buying loads of them it doesn't matter, right? And the reason why I keep going back to long term from 2010 to 2020, value was underperforming and dramatically underperforming compared to the rest of the market and around 17, 18 in particular, lots of my peers were saying, oh, value investing is dead. And if you Google is value investing dead? You'll get loads of articles that will say, yeah, value investing is dead. But we stuck with it because the long term data said this is the right thing to do and the current data is just noise and unless the current data changes the long term data, we're going to stick with it. 2020 to 2023, value investing has dramatically outperformed Nice and it just shows you if you stick to what's boring and simple and don't try and change. The other thing we do tilt towards is profitability. So if we have two companies that are identical, if one's more profitable than the other one, we're going to go with the more profitable. There's a couple of other little things that go on in the background, but it's simple, it's boring, straightforward and it works. And I'd be well known when people who don't have an advisor they say where should I put my money? No brainer, 60, 40. So certified financial analysts worldwide are asked if you don't have someone telling you what to do with your money, what should you do with your money? And they said no brainer, 60, 40. Portfolio 60% goes into the world stock market, 40% goes into the bond market. Bond market is just where you give a loan of your money to companies and the government.

Rob Lipsett: 54:07

And so let's say you know you're in Ireland, where do you go to do this? Is it on an app? Is it in the bank? Is on a website? Prosper study, please, please.

Eoin: 54:18

One of our offerings actually is, and it's something that we had me, you see, when I was just me and three others, right.

Rob Lipsett: 54:23

Yeah.

Eoin: 54:23

I only dealt with high net worth individuals and now I still deal with high net worth individuals Because we've a team there. We now have an offering for kind of good earners, or what we sometimes might call them a Henry's high earners not rich, yet Right, okay. And there's a couple of different acrims and stuff that you can come up with and different things. But we have, we have my service, then you have another one in the middle and then we have a thing called choice, and choice is booked out. At the moment, I think three or four months Premier is booked out, which is the one in the middle, about two months or so in advance. You can't get into the diary. And those two offerings have been a game changer because now for 300 quid, you can say I have 200 a month I want to put aside, or I have five grand sitting on the bank account. I'm not going to use it for the next five years. What should I do with it? And you come in and we do a choice, we implement it, we'll get it done and we'll get it sorted Right and that has worked incredibly well, like it's. The demand for it out there has been huge and it was an area that before Colin came in and started running the business, we weren't servicing at all. Yeah, and now I would imagine that does really well you know, it does. It does really really well and it's great to be able to service that element of the market the no brainer 60, 40 percent shares, 40 percent bonds. You put your money into that, right. Let's say you gave me 100 grand today, right, and I put it away in a 60, 40 no brainer portfolio and we tilted to port small and value and profitability and we did all that right. One year from today doesn't matter. You take any 12 month period from the last 100 plus years right. One year from today, there's a 25 percent chance you're down. 25 percent, 25 percent. If we didn't talk for three years, there's a 15 percent chance you're down, okay. If we didn't talk for keep going yeah, we didn't talk for five years there's a 0.4 percent chance you're down. Take any five year period over the last 100 years only 0.4, the more negative five years later. So there's a 99.6 percent chance. Over a five year period, money invested in a 60, 40 portfolio will have made you money. How?

Rob Lipsett: 56:09

much roughly like. I give you 100k six years onwards, and this is where people go right.

Eoin: 56:16

So one of the things is, when we're building a financial plan, when I'm sitting down with you and Linda and we're going, right, what does your life want to look like? When are you going to reach financial independence? If I put that portfolio in front of you and you brought it off to nine other financial advisors, wealth managers, financial planners whatever you want to call them and you tell me what this is going to do in the next 10 years, right, you're going to get 10 different me and nine other different guesses. Right, they're all guesses. Yeah, of course, of course. Like I can tell you, over the last 20 years, a portfolio tech that would have done 7.3 percent. Right, when we're building a financial plan, we guess four and a half percent. Okay, okay, the reason we be guess four and a half? Because if I guess four and a half percent for you, we get six. It's nice.

Rob Lipsett: 56:54

Your plan works?

Eoin: 56:55

Yeah, exactly, if I guess eight and we get six. Your plan blows up and you and Linda are back at work.

Rob Lipsett: 56:59

Yeah, so always kind of low ball, always low ball.

Eoin: 57:01

We know our guess is going to be wrong, but always be on the right side of wrong Okay nice. And that's the way we build it out. There has never been seven or more years where you would have lost money in a 60, 40 portfolio.

Rob Lipsett: 57:13

So even like, if you go like, let's just round off to 10 years, yes, and that's, you're looking good.

Eoin: 57:18

Pretty much foolproof. Seven years, seven years in a week, eight years, 15 years. Now, if you look at I don't have the stats off the top of my head for the S&P 500, which is what you've brought into the table today, right? If you look at the MSCI World Index, where you invested in the entire world stock market, all right, there has been a 21 year period where you'd still be down 21 years later. Which period was that? It actually was fairly recent. It was kind of I think it finished kind of 17-ish. It's a very recent period of time, right, and you're looking at going well, 21 years. Most clients will pull the plug yeah, they won't hold out. They will not hold out and people say, oh, investing, that's really risky, isn't it? The biggest risk to any investment going wrong is you. It's not the investment, it's paper hands. It's you doing the wrong thing at the wrong time for the wrong reasons and that's what's going to kill us. And people don't get that. Like if you think about 2008,. If you give me 100 grand in 2008 and you put 100% into shares right, World stock market 18 months later it was down 54%. So you were down at 46 grand Most people would freak out, Freak out. It's going to hit 30. It's going to hit 20. I'm going to lose all my money you own. Like, typically, when we're putting them together, you're probably going to end up exposed to 14, 15,000 different companies, 15,000 different CFOs, boards of management, everything right. These are the best companies in the world. And you're looking at 46 grand and you're going to hit zero. All of them are going to be wiped out. I'm never coming back from this. This time is different. That's what always happens, right, and people get stuck in there and the media really drives that. Right. People pull the plug. At 46 grand, I said I'm out of here. I just stuck it into a bank account and never ventured into the stock market again. You left that alone On the 10th anniversary of the global financial crisis in 2018, it didn't go from 46 back to 100. It actually went up to 200 and per day. Yeah, I was surprised Just left the thing alone. And that's what we need to. You set it up right at the start, you put it in when you have it, you take it out when you need it, you put a long time in between and you invest and forget.

Rob Lipsett: 59:17

That's what's important. Yeah, invest and forget. I love that one. And so where does crypto come into this? Come on, where am I putting my Bitcoin?

Eoin: 59:24

Okay, crypto's an interesting one, because when you look at crypto, in 10 years from now we'll all be sitting around going. Do you remember that crypto thing? Do you remember how they all lost on this? They lost, or will all be sitting around going. Do you remember? We didn't think crypto was gonna take off and I haven't got a clue where we're going to take off.

Rob Lipsett: 59:41

Yeah, I think that's what's your personal take on it, because it's really just a down to the individual of what they think.

Eoin: 59:46

And to me right. I keep talking about buying the world's stock market. We talked about the S&P 500, the FTSE 100. Just to explain very briefly what market cap means for anyone who doesn't know what market cap means, if you could imagine a share let's say Google shares imagine the shares in Google are worth one euros each. Okay, so you can buy a share in. Google for a euro. And imagine, in total there's a thousand shares in Google available in the world.

Rob Lipsett: 1:00:09

Yeah, everybody's fighting over it.

Eoin: 1:00:10

So if you own the thousands. You own Google outright, right? So a thousand by one, that means the market cap of Google is 1000 euro. Now, if the share price goes to 150, right Now, the market cap of Google is 1500 euros, 1000 by 150 is 1500, so you can buy Google for 1500 euros for that example. Right, the way I invest money for clients and for myself is on a market cap weighted basis. Okay, so the S&P 500 is the top 500 companies in the US based on their market cap. Yes, so they're listed and actually we have a problem with the moment. Well, a problem, it's not a problem. The big seven in the US at the moment has taken up about 25, 30% of the market, depending on what you do. So the S&P 500, seven of the stocks in that are making up 25 to 30% of the entire stock market. Right, so you're kind of like whoa. So that's a big concentration on one company or seven companies, right? That's the way I buy it on a market cap weighted basis. When you look at Bitcoin and crypto and everything else, if you look at it on a market cap weighted basis, how much of the financial world do they represent? Interesting enough, a couple of years ago they were down at about 0.5. Then they rocketed up to kind of four or 5% of the world and now they've dropped back down again a bit. I'm not sure where they are right now today. So if I were to invest in crypto because my rules are I invest in a market cap weighted basis I'll only buy them as a percentage of what they represent in the world. Okay, but for me I just don't know where it's gonna end up. And if you go back to like olden days and I mean old, old times, if you think about it it used to be a thing I had a sheep and you had bread, and we swapped X amount of bread for my sheep, and that's how it worked, right. And then we wanted to bring Linda into us, right, and Linda wanted the sheep, you wanted the bread. And then there was something you were selling wool or something, right. And now there's a three way deal and they go oh, this is starting to get complicated and I don't want any wool, I just want bread today and I want some. And then what happened was the emperors came in and said you know what I'll do. There's a coin in the middle, right, and it's worth let's call it a euro, just for the simplest. That's a euro and I promise you, if you've give that to Linda and Linda gives it to me, it'll still keep its value at one euro. Okay, and that's what. So what happened was this piece of metal became a thing that everybody trusted. The problem with crypto is there's no central bank involved. Yes, and it's not enough for 10% of the world to accept that they trust it and they can pass it around.

Rob Lipsett: 1:02:39

Yeah, because money is kind of like money's like just, it's just kind of a thought up idea based on trust.

Eoin: 1:02:44

Like, if everyone stopped.

Rob Lipsett: 1:02:45

Have you seen that Venezuela? You know the dollars in the street. If everyone just stops believing in it, then that's it.

Eoin: 1:02:51

And the problem is you need everybody to believe in crypto, and what really damaged the crypto boys, if you want to call it, is some of the problems that they've created, some of the fraud that's gone on, but also when you're coming out with banana coin.

Rob Lipsett: 1:03:03

Oh, I know that's. I hate that and all of a sudden, you're just going like this.

Eoin: 1:03:06

Like the underlying technology of crypto is fantastic. It is fantastic, right, but how do you know which one you can trust Exactly? How do I know, if you come up to me with one type of crypto and I come up to you with another, that yours is worth and you know what? That currency should only go up and down in line with inflation, whereas this goes up and down based on where people think it's going to be in 10 years time or guessing where it's going to be. And until all that settles down, I just kind of go. That's just too much. I'm not going near it. It's not for me. And you know what People will often. Who's mad because you've mentioned crypto. Now, right, you will see the crypto boys coming at us online. Yeah, he has the clue what he's talking about. Yeah, you know what guys, I have a clue what I'm talking about.

Rob Lipsett: 1:03:45

I don't know where it's going to go, but it's not for me.

Eoin: 1:03:47

Happy to get rich slow.

Rob Lipsett: 1:03:49

I've actually invested a good bit in crypto over the years and I've made profit off it and I pulled it out and I bought this house. So I just did it on my app on Bylands and bought like it was. Like you know, it's super volatile and luckily, I think I like just my friends tell me to do it I started putting in like 2000 a month out of my account, like $1 cost average, and I pulled it out when it hit 60. And I was like, oh, I want to buy a home, I'm just going to use all this money I have in crypto. Then it went up to like 69, and then it went back down, but I still believe like if you look at the last couple of years, it's trending upwards but extremely volatile and again, I don't know.

Eoin: 1:04:27

But you see, that's absolute and I'm not denying people have made serious money, but most haven't. But most, most, lots of people have. I'm not saying it's not for me, I'm happy to do it. It's no different. Like you mentioned before, we hit record. Linda lives in Caldera. You could have went to the cura. You could have bought the house on the winnings you made in the cura, right, I'm just saying it's a similar game. Ok, you did really well. There's lots of people have been completely cleaned out by it and there's a really I think I've pitched it once or twice and if anyone wants to come back at me, pitch it once or twice to some of the TV channels where I'd love to do a proper, proper crypto.

Rob Lipsett: 1:05:01

Yeah, I think that would go off Like all the Netflix series coming out. They're like the most viewed series. I think that would go.

Eoin: 1:05:07

The angle I would take on it is I'm not convinced, convince me, right, I do have people's money all day, every day. I'm not convinced, and it's not that I, just I don't know where it's going to end up and no different than bringing clients money to the cura. I'm not going to bring cura as a race course, by the way, for anyone who doesn't know, yeah, bringing clients money to the cura. I'm not going to bring it to the crypto market, because why?

Rob Lipsett: 1:05:25

You're just not sure.

Eoin: 1:05:26

Let's just get rich slow that.

Rob Lipsett: 1:05:27

And so on. Touching on property there, what are your piece of advice for someone who, especially in Ireland or any country that wants to get on the property ladder? Do you advise it Like is it rent versus buy? Like I want to know, yeah, what age do you even recommend someone buys a house at? Should they so a?

Eoin: 1:05:45

home and a house are two different things. Ok, so I think the average age now in Ireland for buying a home is 32 years of age, and that's if you've even get it. And it's going to just go up and up and up and then we hit a point where you're now 42 and 52, right, and the mortgage term is too short. You're never getting on the property ladder.

Rob Lipsett: 1:06:02

That's what I was saying to some family members Like it's crazy. So it's like you're in this position where if you're not perfectly primed to get a mortgage at like 32, then you've missed your chance.

Eoin: 1:06:12

Crazy, because most mortgages have to be done by 65. Sometimes 70, but 65 would be standard enough. And just to give people a comment, what difference does that make if you're 45 or you're 35? The difference between a 30-year mortgage and a 20-year mortgage is massive in terms of the repayments. You might not qualify for it if it goes down. What I would say is buying a home is a very emotional purchase, right, and I'm sure you went through the emotion of buying this place oh, fake time, yeah. And it's a very emotional purchase and I would always say people will often come to me. I do a thing on Saturday on Instagram where I stick up a question box, right, and they'll get thousands of people. Literally, I'll get somewhere between 800 and 1200 questions every Saturday, definitely. And as I go through my day. I will answer as many as I can. I kind of jump in and out as I go through my day and one of the questions that comes back time and time again is I think the property market's going to fall next year. Should I wait? When you're buying a home, there's three things you need to get right. First is can you afford it, do you love it and are you happy to stay in it for 15 years or more? And if they answer those three questions is yes, buy it. Ok, nice, because they're three good rules. Yeah, in three years time, next door has gone down by 50% or 10%, or it's gone up by 50% or 10%, or whatever it is, it doesn't matter. You love it, You're staying in it long term and you can afford it, so what difference does it make? It's a home. Now, when it comes to buying investment properties, whether it's an apartment to rent out or a house to rent out or whatever it is let's just go along that line for a minute. Another fan, ok, and the reason why I'm not a fan is because I think you can get the same, if not better, returns doing other things with your money. Really simple, really boring things with your money, right, but my problem with it is you can't bring a brick into Brown Thomas, yeah, and what I mean by that is you've got to work. 400 grand, it's a four bedroom house. It's worth 400,000. You need 100,000 euros. You can't sell a bedroom. You have to sell it all or you have it. And actually the amount of clients who come to us in their late 50s, early 60s, kind of looking down the road of giving up work and they're kind of going on, it's not. Should I keep this property? Does it make financial sense to keep it. I just want rid of it. Will it be OK if I get rid of it? Wow? Because they just don't want to do it and you know what. You're 31 years of age. If you have a couple of rental properties, you'll be happy to go and pull the washing machine out and replace it on a Saturday afternoon. But when you're 62 and 72 and 82, it becomes different, right, and lots of people just want to offload them. So we would have what we call a negative property bias. If you already have a property, we're really slow to tell you to sell it, but if you're thinking about buying one, we're really slow to encourage you to do it. And what I would say there is you can take your money, you can invest it. Remember, the investment is a vehicle to provide you with the life that you want to live, right. And if the life that you want to live is to go and replace the washing machine every Saturday, every once a year, whatever, it is great. That's the life you want to live and some people do like that and they enjoy it. But we have I think it's in our 70% somewhere between 70% and 80% of people in Ireland are accidental landlords.

Rob Lipsett: 1:09:04

Yeah, I feel like Irish people. It's like a cultural thing. We think that owning a home is the be all, end all, and it's like we're kind of socially conditioned into being like. This is what I must do, even though it's not the case, and let's not like let's not get too political on this. But let's face it right, so a couple of things going on.

Eoin: 1:09:22

First of all, government over the last couple of years have encouraged big corporates to come in because you know what they can build houses. We need houses. Right, we are built this year. We're partner selves in the back, because in 2023 we're going to have built 30,000 houses. Right, we need about 60,000 houses. There's a vacancy there of around 320,000 units, so we're behind in supply of around 320,000 units. There's all these big plans that we're going to get to, like, start building 60,000 houses in 2007, 2006 and 2005. We were in 90,000 houses 90,000 units houses, apartments, whatever it is right, 90,000. And we're partner selves in the back of 30,000. And there's a shortfall there right now already of 320,000. Like, we are nowhere near where we're getting to, where we need to get to, and that's why, whether we like it or not, government has to encourage the big corporates to come in who could throw out a thousand units and do it from their own finances and not rely on the local banks. And one of the big problems with the local banks has been because of 2008,. They're much more prudent and you go OK, I'm going to build 100 houses in this field. They say here's the money for the first 10, see how you get on. Here's the money for the next 10, see how you get on right. And that just really hampered the kind of local developer that was building in the local town. Yeah, it really made them, made it much more difficult for them to actually just go at us and employ people and know that they're going to be OK and go for it Right. They didn't have the same confidence that they would have had in years gone by. We have ended up in a situation where there's serious lack of supply.

Rob Lipsett: 1:10:46

Oh, so, so for anyone listening who isn't from Ireland, I've lived in London, south Kensington, nice area, it's Marbe. Dublin is the most expensive place I've ever rented in and even day to day living cost of living it's crazy, you know. And buying a home like I was, you know, went to go buy a house. I looked at Ireland first because that's where I'm from and I was like I can either get you know detached villa with a swimming pool or I can get like an apartment that I hated in. Dublin area. I didn't like it's crazy for anyone listening, but it is.

Eoin: 1:11:19

And it is, and it's a unique situation. It's super unique. We really, really want to own property. I know we just have this thing and it doesn't matter. We're not happy, but we're not set up for long term. Rent, like 82 percent of people who live in Berlin, rent Really 82 percent. My figures are slightly out of date, but it's 80 percent. Whatever it is Right, huge why? Because they know they have what we call security of tenure. You paint the wall, you're still going to be in it when the wall needs to be painted again.

Rob Lipsett: 1:11:45

Yeah, they do longer term things, you have secured it.

Eoin: 1:11:48

You do a 20 year lease. Why? Because, if you look at the day, the wall came down in 1988, the Berlin wall came down in 1988, goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley fairly sure Someone could correct me if they want to, they're not sure it was Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Went in and bought a million units of property. Nice, quick, quick mail In, done, gone, right. And now your landlord is not the bloke who has his grandchild's communion next Saturday when you need the washing machine replaced. It's a corpus and they want a 20 year lease and they want to leave you sitting in there.

Rob Lipsett: 1:12:19

Yeah, I remember when I was living in Dublin one of the most annoying things was every year I'd have to move house. Like it was such a nightmare. You're packing up everything going. It actually made me become such a minimalist. It was just a bully.

Eoin: 1:12:33

They've had the landlords who had kids coming back from Australia and moving into the gaff Like no.

Rob Lipsett: 1:12:37

I swear to God, that happened to me One place. I was in Fox Rock actually I was actually in it for like two years or something and first of all, on the second year, my rent went up like 500, quater, even a thousand, and the second year, like my landlord he was a good lad, you know, but he was like I am sell up. He's like got to be out in two weeks. I was like what? Like crazy.

Eoin: 1:12:59

Super weird. Sorry, forget for people who aren't aware of the rules from Ireland or people outside of Ireland. There are rules around when you control a tenant out and one of the reasons if you're putting a family member into it. So that's what I mean by people coming back from Australia. Yeah, childs coming back from Australia my nieces or nephew I saw that during that meme. Actually, it was a great one. Starting a new job next week. Gently, I have all my grannies and grandad's back again. It's the same with the landlord. Yeah, that fella's greatly. Your granddad's going to die again, right yeah?

Rob Lipsett: 1:13:26

But it's the same with the landlord. It's like someone else in the family coming back from Australia. They're going to move into the property.

Eoin: 1:13:31

But it's a nightmare. It's a tough one, and what I would say is homes is one thing, investing properties is another thing. There is a place for it and sometimes the maths works really well, but what I would say is I'm just investing is boring.

Rob Lipsett: 1:13:43

Yeah, that would be boring. What age were you when you bought your first home?

Eoin: 1:13:46

I was 19. What?

Rob Lipsett: 1:13:48

We have got it. Tom, I am slacking.

Eoin: 1:13:51

My.

Rob Lipsett: 1:13:51

God, I was 29. So 10 years, yeah, I was 19.

Eoin: 1:13:55

And I, yeah, where was it? I bought a leucon. Ah, nice yeah.

Rob Lipsett: 1:14:00

I bought a leucon. There's a good gym there.

Eoin: 1:14:01

Yeah, I bought a leucon and lived there for a couple of years and then moved down to Caldera and lived there. My ex-wife and my kids still lived there. I don't live with them anymore, obviously, because they're my ex.

Rob Lipsett: 1:14:13

But yeah, it's a property, is not something that really ever floated my boat, yeah, and so if someone right there in Ireland they want to go get a mortgage, what are some things that they kind of have to show to do it, I like. So I was actually going through the mortgage process myself and I was just jumping through so many loops and again I didn't want a place that I just wasn't excited about. I had to get a mortgage in Spain, right, Easiest thing ever. They didn't. They were like yeah, whatever, just give us this amount, Show us your last year. Yeah, take it, Take it.

Eoin: 1:14:45

But it was crazy. Yeah, and it's interesting because we're all supposed to be in Europe and should be the same. That's it.

Rob Lipsett: 1:14:50

I didn't even need a Spanish bank account. They're like euros, they're like that's fine yeah and it's really.

Eoin: 1:14:55

They do put us through the mill to do it. I know it is the cheapest money you'll ever get Right. You will, and that's because they have the property in the background and rates are going up, but it's still the cheapest money you're going to get Right, and my general rule at home when it comes to borrowing money is the more hoops you have to jump through, the cheaper it's going to be Right. So, if you think about some of the online Like, if you mortgage us at the moment to probably four or five percent, car loans are probably eight, 10 percent, right. Then you go up to overdrafts around 15 to 17 percent-ish Credit cards 20, 20. You see how it's getting easier at the moment yes, Then the ones that people really get caught out on are you know these kind of online shops, right and like. They used to be the I won't mention the name right, they used to be the catalog that came through the door, right. And now it's an online shop and you buy everything from a TV to a pair of shoes on it, right? What people don't realize about that is that is not. They are not selling you a pair of shoes, they're selling you alone. And they're charging you somewhere between 42 and 44 percent interest in that If you leave a thousand euros on your account with them for a year, it's going to cost you probably 420 quid in interest. They're not selling you shoes, they're selling you a vehicle to give you a loan right, and that's really simple. I remember talking to a woman on an event one day and a woman said to me oh no, but I love that company. Like, my uncle has TV broken his bedroom and I was looking at one in the local shop and I really wanted to buy that one and it was like 1600 quid. It was 1600 quid for the uncle's TV in his bedroom but there was one there. It wasn't the one I really wanted, it was 1200 quid. I only had a thousand available to me on the thing and I ran them. They just put up to me to put 1200. No problem, they increased my limit to 1200. I bought it and we did the mats. I did the mats that were there and then we did some rough math. I don't know how long did it take to pay the back to 1200. She ended up spending 1700 quid on that TV when you included the interest. She should have just bought the one locally for 1600 quid, which was the better one. Yeah, I'm like they're all the same.

Rob Lipsett: 1:16:43

Anyway, we bought the cheapest one. It's big. I'm like I'm looking at the same shit.

Eoin: 1:16:48

The whole thing was she was being sold alone. She wasn't being sold on TV, yeah, and the easier it is to get the loan, the more expensive it's going to be. What do people need to start? To come back to your original question, what do people need to do to get a mortgage? Ideally now, it doesn't mean if you decide today that you want to buy a house tomorrow and you've got a bit of savings together, you might just walk in and get the loan. But ideally, right two years before you should start thinking about what should I be doing? What does it look like Going into a mortgage broker? We've actually, just this month, have gone back into mortgages and in prosperous. So I was doing mortgages up until we started in 2008 and 2018. I said you know what? It's not our bag. It's a real relationship killer Trying to get a mortgage across the line for someone, particularly when, like you, come to me, I'm doing your mortgage, me and you are sitting here. We're shaking hands, but then I'm relying on a department in one of the big banks who doesn't care about you, doesn't care about me, and you're going. Am I useless? And I'm going. They're not telling me I can't get the answers from it. It's sitting on someone's desk up there and you just can't. So it was a real relationship killer and I just said you know what, if we're not going to do it perfectly, we're not doing it at all and I pulled back out of it. Now Colin has put the process as the procedures. We've just put someone new in who's got great experience in the mortgage, so he loves doing mortgages, and we are going back into the mortgage market again and we're back in it right now. But what I would say is get sitting down with a mortgage broker. People say why go to a broker? They're going to charge me a fee. Let them charge you a fee. You walk into a bank, you walk into a bank, you walk into a broker, you walk into all the banks and that's the difference, right. And people say, oh yeah, but I can see online that that's the cheapest rate. I'm good for the loan, I'm going to get the cheapest rate. I can see online that that's the cheapest. Yeah, but what happened? Six weeks in and the rates change? The mortgage broker will switch it to the other one. The bank will say nothing. They're not going to tell you that the rates have changed. You haven't drawn down the mortgage yet, right? So you need to. If you can get someone to look at your finance and say look, how much do you think I'm going to be getting? Have a look through my bank statements. Is there anything there that's kind of standing out that I need to sort out? Do I need to clear that loan or will you just leave the loan there? What they do and they would be able to look at it and say, yeah, these are the things, because typically the banks will only look six months.

Rob Lipsett: 1:18:41

Yeah, we were just six months.

Eoin: 1:18:41

That's what they're doing to look at the last six months, but if you're two years out, one of the ones that catches people out a lot actually is better.

Rob Lipsett: 1:18:47

You know I was going to bring that up. I'm like so I've never bet. My dad was a terrible gambler. He's had an early ruin his life and so that's instilled in me. I just never bet a place about once lost it. I was like that sucks, I've never done it. Why, like? Why is it like betting? I'm like they'd probably look at my transaction be like five Emmys buying a round of drinks. Like that's not worse.

Eoin: 1:19:09

You know the thing about this. The way the bank looks at it is they're looking at it going. He's willing to bet with his own money. Is he going to bet with ours? And what I mean by that is is he going to take the mortgage payment next month and use that in the bet? Right, if you're doing it for yourself, what is he going to do with our money? And that's the way they're looking at it Now. What I will say is people say I bet and I got my mortgage.

Rob Lipsett: 1:19:29

No problem, Right, I'm not saying Still, I know I'm very anti betting, yeah, I'd say, obviously for the reason I just mentioned, but I think, like house always wins and it just doesn't visually look good.

Eoin: 1:19:40

It doesn't look great, yeah, but you know what it is. It's an absolute easy excuse If they wanted to say no to it. Yeah, it's a really easy. Just if you want to bet, walk into the thing, use your cash. It's a little bit like the 72 hour rule. It's a little bit like he can click physically, walking in with the cash. Yeah, you'll have a different relationship with the bookies than just clicking a button on your phone.

Rob Lipsett: 1:20:00

Yes.

Eoin: 1:20:01

So don't do it. If you want to bet best, that's your call. I would be on your Do it all School guys.

Rob Lipsett: 1:20:05

Go in with the paper.

Eoin: 1:20:06

It's more fun like that On your page. When it comes to betting, I'm not a gambler at all, but what I would say is that just don't give them the excuse. Yeah, don't let it be on your bank statement, just leave it off.

Rob Lipsett: 1:20:16

OK, nice. I remember when I was also talking like A or B or whoever. So I was there like what do you do for a living? And I was a YouTuber, I'm a fitness coach, so I have a pancake company. Yeah, fitness app. They were like are you making this up? Like they're like, so that I nearly got laughed at the place as well. So they were probably like looking for a betting slip to get rid of me as well.

Eoin: 1:20:39

Yeah, this is, it's not to do with your occupation. Yeah, do your best, yeah, and that's, and you will have people who will have lots of betting going on in their account. They get their mortgage, no problem, but yeah, it's a really easy excuse for them if they want to use it.

Rob Lipsett: 1:20:50

And now I want to go over to education, which is a big one in Ireland as well. I'm sure that's something that you're very well educated. I presume Did you go to college. What do you think of today's college and today's day and age? Think it's as useful as it was? And what's your experience with tert-land literature?

Eoin: 1:21:04

The most appropriate education I had while I did QFA Qualified Financial Advice. That's the thing that lots of people do I think there's about 14, 15,000 of us in the country, in Ireland but then I did a postgrad and I did a true UCD at the time and it was in financial planning and that allowed me to see what's called the CFP exam, the Certified Financial Planner exam. I don't know how many there is now, I'd imagine there's about 1,000 of us, but at that time there was about 400 of us. I got through the CFP and the CFP would be globally recognized. Wow, that's impressive. Yeah, but you have to do the postgrad to be allowed to sit the CFP and you have to have three years client-facing experience before you're allowed to sit. And that, for me, was what it did. For me was, interestingly enough, it kind of confirmed to me that I'm doing things right, and I know that sounds very oh, I was great.

Rob Lipsett: 1:21:48

Yeah, you know, it gave me the confidence that you know what.

Eoin: 1:21:51

you're on the right path here and I really got a huge amount out of that CFP Program and postgrad. I could and just give you an idea where my head sits with education right, that was a means to an end. I sat the postgrad, got to do the CFP course, got my stamp. Now I'm a CFP to do a certain amount of hours every year to keep it up and that's fine. I could do another I think it's seven months or eight months and get a full-on masters right. I could be arsed.

Rob Lipsett: 1:22:17

Oh, so I was having that conversation yesterday. I go, the amount of people I know who are avoiding real life, they just want to live at home for another year and they're like I'll do my masters, I'll do this. And they keep adding things on and it's like just go ahead and get the experience.

Eoin: 1:22:32

Now what I would say is if I was back when I was 20 and 22, and I was thinking seven months for a masters and I hadn't started my career yet, there is research that shows us that. You see, it's difficult for you. You have roast into glasses on here, right, so I don't know how far you've gone up.

Rob Lipsett: 1:22:48

I dropped out of college did first year in DIT business management, failed all my exams and said I'm going to go do bicep curls instead.

Eoin: 1:22:56

Oh right, so would you see, you have the roast into glasses in terms of you've managed to create this role for yourself, you've created that and therefore you're looking back. There is research that shows you get your masters at an early age and over your career you will make significantly more money. Ok, so the research backs that up and I wouldn't deny that right For me. Would I go back and do the masters now, like the post-grad was, because I wanted to do the CFP, I wanted to get the CFP designation, I wanted to be the best he could be in terms of education for what I do in the country, right and, in fact, globally recognized. To do the masters would just be an ego rub. Yes, and honestly, I might go back just out of the interest and do it, but I don't really have any grar to go and do it. I don't know how to have any love to do it.

Rob Lipsett: 1:23:39

I like that. You know Melinda was trying Irish words, saying like my for the lab. Yeah, I feel like what?

Eoin: 1:23:46

So education, I think, is incredibly important. I'm not sure that anything teaches better in the School of Lifetime.

Rob Lipsett: 1:23:52

Yeah, that's. That's exactly what I think as well, and I learned more about business in my first year. So my belief is if there's something like a role that you want to go into, you got to do it. You got to get get the stamp medicine. You want to be a doctor, obviously a accountant and lawyer, but there's some courses that are just a whole lot of nothingness. Yeah, and I think they're their way. I do also.

Eoin: 1:24:13

I think and I think some of the some of the younger adults coming out of college now were completely robbed of what I think is probably 60 percent, 70 percent of the importance of college, which is the social element. Yeah, completely Like, if you think about it like secondary school, you make a whole pile of mates and they're probably still lifelong mates. Now, right College does the same for people as well and I think they've been robbed Like I was talking to a client's son recently and I think he'd done a total, like he was in third year, I think, in college. I think it's in a total of 12 in class classes 12 in the year?

Rob Lipsett: 1:24:48

Yeah, I can. The number is going to be wrong.

Eoin: 1:24:51

That was me, but it was different reasons, but it was like wow you are just like you're. You're just not getting a whole element of what college was all about.

Rob Lipsett: 1:25:01

Yeah, and so another question that I get a lot is I get this concierge. When I put up a story box, it's in it every single time. And someone asked me Rob, should I quit my high paying job to go pursue my passion, chase my dreams, even though it's probably going to make me less money? What advice would you give that person?

Eoin: 1:25:20

It goes back to the question we ask in first meetings all the time what would you do over the next two years? The Claire question right, what would you do over the next two years? And the people who say I would give up my job immediately. Now, sometimes I give up my job. I enjoy my job, I like it. I'm giving it up because I just want to spend more time at family or do this or whatever, and that's fine. If you're miserable in your job, you spend far too much time at work to stay in it Like you spend. Like. Look at you, you were in a job that you didn't like with that nutrition company. Yeah, you were miserable. It didn't matter what other things you tried to plug into your life outside of the eight or 10 hours in work that you were doing, the nine to six that you were doing. It doesn't matter how good the rest of your life was. You weren't happy and you were never going to be happy in that job. And I would always say life is for living. Get yourself out, do what you want to do, because life is far too short and it can change very, very quickly. And I like I'm a financial planner at the end of the day, right, but ultimately I do believe the money follows you if you're doing the right thing.

Rob Lipsett: 1:26:17

Me too I mean, I truly do believe that, and especially if you're doing something like this, people can actually tell straight away if you're into what you are doing, like there's an energy transference and people can detect it so quickly. So if you actually go out and do something that you're passionate about, you want to do, you don't mind waking up and doing it every single day. People will feel that and they will more likely be to hire you.

Eoin: 1:26:42

So it's like you know what my Q&A on a Saturday on Instagram right, you stick it up there. What I love about that is there's no benefit to that for me. Well, you might say, oh, you get your followers, it does, but actually, why am I doing it? I'm doing it because you're getting to answer someone's question that's in their head that day. Right, you're getting to take something away from them that's bugging them or they want answers for right. But ultimately and I said I'd come back to this earlier on Over the last 10 or 15 years, ireland and the world right has got good at talking about mental health. Okay, it's all right, me and you could turn off the mic and you could say you know, I'm feeling a bit shit today and we could have a chat about it. And there would be no, I would walk out the door and I wouldn't think any better or worse. Maybe I'd think a bit better of you. He was open about it and he wasn't feeling great, right, and we talked about it and we're two blokes and it's become okay to not be okay and that's a brilliant thing. Ireland, in particular, is a country that still has a to-do around money. Oh, completely, and what I've been on this mission over the last, particularly over the last 18 months, to try and get a country that doesn't talk about money talking about money, because one of the things that COVID-19 was doing it together makes it easier for us all yeah, okay. And what I would always say, and anybody who's listening to this now do me a favor and I'm asking you you're listeners, right Do me a favor. Talk to somebody in the next week about money that you've never spoken to, about money before. You don't have to say show me your bank statements.

Rob Lipsett: 1:28:07

Yeah, that's what I was about to ask. I'm like how do you open that conversation?

Eoin: 1:28:10

I was listening to Robin Owen having a chat. We don't talk about money. How are you with money? What's your relationship with money like? Does it keep you awake at night? Or just ask any questions around money, and let's get a country or a globally whatever talk about money that we don't talk about Because what we know statistically, every three to five years we have a recession type event, right, big stock market crash, recession type event. There's always one coming and if we've had a chat and we've got those networks created where we know we have people to turn to when times are harder to talk to about money, if you set them up in the good times, they're there in the bad times and I just think that it's something that we can really and you'll be surprised when you start having the conversation. That's why people come up on the street, yeah it's not that I was feeling the world.

Rob Lipsett: 1:28:55

I bet you it's the best feeling in the world.

Eoin: 1:28:56

Brilliant and it's lovely, and what we have as a country that's not talking about money, talking about money, and that's ultimately what you're trying to achieve, and you're trying to get people not to have money control their life, but that they control their money.

Rob Lipsett: 1:29:09

I love what you said about relationships and money, like how do you improve your relationship with money? So the biggest thing for me this now this might sound a little bit woo-woo, I'll show it out there is, I think, you have two mindsets. You can have abundance and scarcity. Okay, and when I was just starting out, afraid to hire people, afraid to give a percentage, you know, afraid to spend, I actually earned a lot less. And then once I started getting an abundant mindset started getting kind of you know, hey, I'll put some here, I'll put some there. Then I ended up earning a lot more. So for me, having an abundant and a scarcity mindset with money was a big one for me. How do you kind of look at your relationship with money?

Eoin: 1:29:51

From a relationship perspective, what I would suggest is back to our exponential thing 60 grand, 120 grand, 120 grand you're not twice as happy. It's when you get that relationship with money where you really feel like you're using it and going back to where we started adding value to your life. Yeah, like that's when you've really conquered that relationship between you and money, where it's not keeping you awake at night, where you're saying I have enough of it there to be able to do the things that I want to do. There's nothing really holding me back financially right, which is a great place to be and many people aren't there but there's nothing holding me back financially. And you know what, if you could really imagine a situation that if I won the lot it would be nice, but it wouldn't make a massive difference to my life and trying to get your life to that level where you're saying, yeah, you know what, I'm in a good place here financially. I can do whatever I want to do. Nothing's holding me back. I know the long-term futures looked after and I'm enjoying today. That's where you've got that perfect relationship with money that is not controlling you at all. And you know what. I do believe what you've talked about there where I know it's very kind of airy, kind of like the secret.

Rob Lipsett: 1:31:03

Definitely.

Eoin: 1:31:05

If you actually just imagine it and get there I do believe there's something to that law of attraction thing and get it right and just be careful, because sometimes that law of attraction suggests to us that if you do it this way, you're going to get there quicker. Just be careful about the quick fixes. They won't last and be boring. Be simple, be straightforward, live what in your means today. And if you just keep doing what you love doing, you will get to where you want to be, and I'm a strong believer in that. But you need and the core of all of this is you need to be happy what you're doing. You need to love what you're doing, but you need to be doing it for the right reasons. We have 23 people working in Prosperous because Colin has put the procedures and policies in place, but because at the core of everything we do, one of our core values is always do the right thing for the client, even if it's not the right thing for Prosperous Nice.

Rob Lipsett: 1:31:58

You've got to. You're not morally bankrupt over Prosperous.

Eoin: 1:32:01

Yes, and we have a written up on the wall Like it's there. Everybody, every one of those 23 people know we always do the right thing for the client, always right. And once you start from that, it makes everything else so simple in terms of if you've got one of those 23 people has to make a decision. They know if they make the decision and it's in favor of the client, it was the right thing for the client to do. We're not going to give them shit for doing it.

Rob Lipsett: 1:32:24

We might tell them not to do it that way again.

Eoin: 1:32:26

But this is why I made that decision, and I was empowered to do it, and you need to think about that for yourself as well. If you're doing something that you really think is adding value to other people's lives, it'll just exponentially grow for you.

Rob Lipsett: 1:32:37

Boom Owen. Where do the people find you? I've, we need more of this, yeah so Instagram is probably.

Eoin: 1:32:45

Instagram is an interesting one because years ago I was talking to someone and they said Anna, instagram wouldn't be for you. I said to you, I had 400 followers in December 19. Lockdown hit. They started putting up content then and we're up to 131,000 as of today. Getting about 1,000 a week is what we're growing up.

Rob Lipsett: 1:33:02

Let's see what happens after this one. Yeah, there we go.

Eoin: 1:33:04

That's probably the central hope for everything else that goes out from there. Do a lot of public speaking. I've spoken in Dubai, spoken in the States, spoken in London, Ireland, the UK a little bit Pretty enough. The UK is a funny one.

Rob Lipsett: 1:33:14

It's not as much right, yeah, but I love that corporate speaking stuff, oh you know what. So I actually I put on last summer. It was probably Marbella's biggest business event. I'm going to do it again. It was on June 3rd last summer. I'm probably going to do the same again. I'd love to have you speak at it.

Eoin: 1:33:27

I would absolutely be delighted to do that, so that's where they're going to find me there you go here, guys, I'll be back out again.

Rob Lipsett: 1:33:33

Yeah.

Eoin: 1:33:33

And you know what we talked about education. One of the things is we have so much abundance of education. Make sure you get it from the right people. Yeah, Instagram's a strange place. You can get lots of people who will tell you here buy six properties all at the same time right and let's be careful about that stuff. And we have my two books there and actually that first book, how to Be Good With Money, is what it's called. That is the best-selling personal finance book of all time in Ireland, damn no way. And then the second one is more about our relationship with money and where we go with that. But there's loads of information out there. Get out there. But Instagram is probably the point of contact to go to everything else. But look, I'm feeling really positive after that, like it was very uplifting.

Rob Lipsett: 1:34:09

I'm feeling very motivated going into 2024. Thank you so much for being my first guest of the year. Thank you, Rob. Oh, in real, Put it there Boom. Ai might be the most important new computer technology ever. It's storming every industry and literally billions of dollars are being invested. So buckle up. The problem is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power. So how do you compete without costs spiraling out of control? So I'm going to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. Oci is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs. Oci has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds, offers one consistent price instead of variable regional pricing. And, of course, nobody does data better than Oracle. So now you can train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half the cost of other clouds. If you do want to do more and spend less, like Uber 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic, take a free test drive of OCI at oraclecom slash game plan. That's oraclecom slash game plan. Go check it out. You won't be disappointed.