FP AE2 Tristan Scifo 26T3 – Transcript

00:08>> Hello, today we have Tristan about financial planning skills. Welcome Tristan. >> Thanks for inviting me and it's nice to be here. >> Yes, so tell us a bit about what you do at your work.

00:24>> So we're financial advisors, but we probably do a a slightly different version of advice. We since the beginning of our business in February 2018 intended to be 50% financial advisors and 50% life coaches. So we bring those two similar but different skill sets together and we've created a hybrid form of consultation which doesn't just focus on someone's financial life. It takes a first look at their whole life and I

00:49mean relationships, career, health, finances, all the bits in between and then build a life plan which then is followed by a wealth plan in order to execute the the strategy and to achieve the goals.

01:04>> That's very interesting. That's what I how I usually start my students to think a bit broader, not just about money. So that's exactly what you do and that's very good. And what inspires you to do it this way?

01:19>> Yeah, it's a great question. It always starts with a story. I'm a big believer that anyone that gets into this industry and succeeds and stays with it is only because they have their own personal story of what they were looking for, what they received and then what they're wanting to give. So I grew up in a a loving family with not much financial acumen. I wasn't given much guidance at all. What I was given was a generous example, especially from my mom. She's one of those people who just

01:46give and give and give financially, with her time, with everything that she has and I was a great recipient of that. I've been very generously given to. And then seeing that example, I was also quite generous. So I gave a large portion of my money to to I felt passionate about. But then, in my university studies, I went abroad and came back. It was a great year of study uh in my third year. And when I came back, I came back with a a thousand dollars of debt. And for the first time in my life, I went from positive to negative. And then, three and a half

02:13years later, I still was carrying debt. Only two and a half thousand on my credit card, but it just never left. I never had been sat down by someone to be talked to about how to manage debt. I thought I was smart enough to manage it myself, but obviously I wasn't.

02:26Um and without the right foundation, the education, the support, and accountability, I was flailing. I wasn't building wealth. I was still giving a lot of my money, but not in a wise way. I wasn't mindful of growing wealth for the purposes and passions I only had myself. And um and then I met my wife.

02:42And obviously, I got challenged with new possibilities and new responsibilities. And that's when uh I actually changed careers to becoming a financial advisor. To be honest, I didn't really know what it was when I shifted. Um but I knew it was a chance to work with individuals and to help them live their best lives, which I knew already I wanted to do.

03:02The financial acumen, the skill sets, um they came in my training year. And I realized what I was learning was not how to help people, it was actually how to help myself. Um and it took me a while to catch that, but um I was very privileged to have a whole year training experience, not like at uni. It was actually very much on the job.

03:19There was a three-month academy experience where we pretty much got grilled and challenged on financial details, but also on what's our life purpose, our passion, our 10-year life plan, our business plan, all the soft things that you rarely get challenged to create, but it's so useful if you can.

03:33And then the next 9 months, I was responsible for starting my own business from scratch, from beginning to end, from prospecting right through to creating an advice document, right through to implementing it for the client. We had to do everything. Um it was very overwhelming. It drained a lot of my time. My wife was very upset with me for that year cuz she rarely saw me. Wish I I did that a little bit better, but what I learned from that was firstly, this has changed my life. It's really made me a better person, more capable of caring for my

04:01family, but it's also given me a taste of a skill set I can offer to people. And that was the I guess the entry into realizing I've got something to offer. And if I can help solve even just simple problems for people around their budgeting, around, you know, wanting to get a home that they don't feel they can possibly get.

04:19Such a a big daunting task for a lot of people is the idea of getting a home. Um or even as simple as not being able to talk properly in their marriage or in their relationship about finances, you know, it's often topic of a lot of contention. Um if I can help people in those areas, then what it does is it opens up a whole new layer of trust, where they're ready and willing to receive more than just some practical tips. They're ready for In my belief, they're ready for seeing an example of a different way to live, which helps take

04:46them to the next level. And they're ultimately ready to be coached and guided to living their best life, which is what we're really all about. >> Excellent. So, what does success means to you in this in financial as an advisor?

05:04>> Yeah, that's a challenging question. Success isn't a term I think about too much, to be honest. I think a lot about what fulfillment would look like. >> Mhm. >> Um which is a slightly different term. But, if I had to answer what does success look like to me, um it would be a business which achieves what I want it to achieve for my family, for my community, and for the world.

05:29Um and for my family, I really want to build a business that enables me to be integrated and involved and well connected with my wife and my kids. We've only got one little one at the moment. She's 12 months old, and she's adorable. Um but we plan to have more.

05:42And I I would love to be uh a teacher at a home schooler for my kids. >> Right. >> At least in primary school. And uh I would like to build the business such that it enables me and powers me to do that financially and time wise. I'd also like to know that I'm impacting my community directly. And that is both through the one-to-one interactions with our clients, helping them live better lives, helping them have more flexible fulfilling lives. But also being an active part in employing members of our

06:08community and overall increasing the education of finance around our community. And then finally, I do hope to leave a legacy. So success would look like creating a system and a whole bunch of tools which more user-friendly, more accessible, really empowering so that anyone around the world, whether they've met me or not, whether they pay us or not, can utilize these tools to do better with their finances and to live a better life.

06:35>> That's awesome. Um That's why you're here, I suppose. >> Yeah, that's right. >> And tell us what do you see in clients? What are the common mistakes or misconceptions that they have?

06:48>> Yeah, there's so many mistakes, but it's not the right way to think about it, I think. Most people don't know what they want. >> Right. >> And a mistake requires a benchmark. You know, if you've done something the wrong way, you need to know what the right way is.

07:02And without knowing what we really want and being clear on that, it's hard to know what's a mistake. You might take a course of action, you might even lose money, but it might not be the wrong thing if you're aiming for a certain goal. So I would say the greatest misconception is that it's black and white, that there's a clear this is the right thing and this is the wrong thing.

07:23We all know that our lives are different and complex, but I think deep down in our hearts both men and women feel a lot of pressure to meet certain expectations from family, community, meet their own personal expectations, to feel significant, to feel like they're doing something or providing. And these internal expectations tend to become the yardstick by which we measure our activity.

07:46But sadly we're not aware of what those expectations are. They're very subconscious and so many people, many of the clients that we see when they come in, they they tell us what they feel is not working or what they're frustrated about, but they're not really sure exactly what they actually want or how to get there.

08:03So the how to get there part we often say is easy. If we can get crystal clear on who you are, what makes you tick, what your beliefs are and what you really want, then we can build a strategy. You know, if you're not interested to learn the technical side of finance, we can do a lot of it for you. We will educate you.

08:19We're going to We're going to put the pressure on you to have to come up with some of the answers cuz they're not as hard as you think. But what we're going to focus on up front and where I think the biggest misconception is is that people think they already know what they need. And you can dig layer upon layer. It's like that idea of how many times do you need to ask why before you get to the bottom of something. If you ask why another time, there's always going to be more that comes out and um we definitely front end our interactions with clients with that process of asking why and discovering who they are and what really

08:46makes them tick to an extent that most clients wouldn't be comfortable with in in most environments and wouldn't be expecting. So they come to us thinking they're going to get a solution. They're open-minded to probably getting guided on a a path that doesn't feel comfortable for them, but most of them after a few sessions are really surprised like, "Whoa, I was not expecting to go on that road and I'm glad that I did because you know what? I can see things way clearer and as as a result I feel so much more confident. Um

09:13and I still haven't got my goal, but at least I know what I'm going for and I've got a sense of belief that I can do it. Me and my my spouse as a team." >> That's very interesting. And you know, when you had a chat, we talked about personality differences or models that you use in your uh framework to discuss with clients.

09:34Can you talk a little bit more about that? >> Yeah. So this is quite cutting edge stuff, as far as we're aware. Um we don't know of any other practices that integrate personality the way that we do, um which is frustrating cuz I I want to I want to connect with and collaborate with as many people as possible on this, but my business partner and I are very passionate about the topic of personality. Um it's uh another frustration point for our spouses who have to put up with the conversation all the time. Um but we've both found it to be so useful for

10:01understanding our own preferences and biases. In the last 6 months in particular, we've moved from personality being a passion on the side that we'll sort of chat about behind the scenes, comparing our view of certain clients, and just getting a better understanding of how personality works, to now a point where we've begun integrating it into the process. So, we're actually at a point where I think quite soon we're going to have all of our clients who want to work with us, uh will have to go through a personality