00:00:01: So. So back again.

00:00:03: We start every episode like this

00:00:06: Of all the words in God's greatest language.

00:00:10: Okay, we start with So,

00:00:12: here we are.

00:00:14: It could be our trademark, right? I guess it could be, actually.

00:00:17: Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

00:00:18: Also, what have you got for me today?

00:00:22: Dinero. Roonies. Moolah. Dosh. Wonga.

00:00:25: Wonga!

00:00:29: Let's talk money.

00:00:30: Let's talk money, shall we? Yeah.

00:00:32: Tell me a little bit about your feelings on money.

00:00:35: My initial feeling was, I love it. But that's wrong.

00:00:39: I don't love money.

00:00:40: I love making money and having money and all the things that it enables me to do.

00:00:47: Tell me. Oh, this is brilliant.

00:00:48: I get to be, like, a therapist for a second.

00:00:50: Do you need a little notepad? Do you need a notepad?

00:00:52: Clicky pen, and one of those shitty jacket.

00:00:55: Yeah, but with, like, leather patches on the arms like that.

00:00:58: That's how I imagine a psychologist.

00:01:00: It‘s NOT a role play.

00:01:04: I can't take you anywhere, honestly.

00:01:05: No, It‘s never done it for me, actually, the therapist setting.

00:01:09: No, me neither. No.

00:01:11: Anyway, anyhow, back on track.

00:01:13: Honestly. Yeah.

00:01:15: Yes. You were saying?

00:01:16: Holy shit, I've lost my thread already.

00:01:18: I do that to people.

00:01:19: I do that to people, she says.

00:01:21: Just, like, wafting her leg around in her womanly ways.

00:01:25: Yeah, I do that to people. I don't know what is.

00:01:27: Oh, look, I dropped something.

00:01:30: Anyway, your question, talking about money.

00:01:33: Yeah. Tell me a little bit about what it was

00:01:35: like growing up and attitudes to money within your family that you overheard

00:01:42: and that were sort of grafted onto you and that you took with into adult life

00:01:46: that you then perhaps discarded later on or still have today.

00:01:52: And we'll compare notes because then I'll talk about mine.

00:01:55: So this is deep stuff.

00:01:56: Deep, unscripted,

00:01:58: never talked about before kind of stuff, obviously, you know, because we talk about

00:02:03: these things, but we didn't know this was actually going to come up today.

00:02:08: Growing up?

00:02:09: Well, I come from a family of, well, it's not working class.

00:02:14: It's sort of lower middle class, hardworking, stoic Protestants.

00:02:21: Stoic is the right word.

00:02:22: Who‚be come from nothing on both sides

00:02:26: of my parents‘ tree, ancestry, come from nothing but worked so incredibly hard to

00:02:34: well, to be in a position where they were able to leave something behind.

00:02:38: So wealth has only ever been on the up for them in their lifetimes.

00:02:44: Both my grandfathers, one went down the business owner route,

00:02:48: so he had a successful company, which he then bequeathed one of his sons.

00:02:54: And the other one started as an apprentice and worked himself up in the same company.

00:03:00: Like, I don't know how long, 40, I want to say 60 years.

00:03:08: It was that generation.

00:03:10: You started in your finest suit as a 14

00:03:13: year old and finished just before you retired.

00:03:17: Right. So I come from industrious people.

00:03:21: Yes.

00:03:22: However, I come from people so

00:03:30: coined or traumatised by wartime that they had this incredible frugality about them

00:03:38: to a point where we were artificially poor.

00:03:41: Yes.

00:03:42: So we had money.

00:03:46: The money was okay, father did well, and there was money available around,

00:03:52: but we didn't at the same time because they were so incredibly frugal.

00:03:57: So we went to charity shops instead, and we went shopping at Aldi's.

00:04:04: There's nothing wrong with that, but that sort of shaped my narrative around money.

00:04:08: So you must look after it and it won't come back.

00:04:11: So you need to look after the penny, and the pounds will look after themselves.

00:04:15: Really!

00:04:15: Like, if they saw a penny in the street, they'd pick it up.

00:04:19: Or a eurocent.

00:04:20: Oh, absolutely, yeah. Really?

00:04:23: Of course, yeah.

00:04:26: But also because this is really dark stuff.

00:04:31: This is like going into Katie. Not too dark?

00:04:34: No, I'm happy to share because it's turned me into the person I am today.

00:04:39: So our pocket money was always linked to our performance.

00:04:42: So when I was growing up, so my sister and I,

00:04:45: we went to the same Grammar school together, and that was a tough one.

00:04:50: And so our pocket money was always linked to how many A's and B's we got.

00:04:55: So we had a system, a table.

00:04:57: So the pocket money was determined by your final report.

00:05:02: And yes, I can see why they did it, but it was also incredibly damaging,

00:05:07: because for the longest time, I thought I was only worth something if I

00:05:10: performed, which is a dangerous equation, especially when you're self-employed.

00:05:15: But in life in general, it's never a great idea.

00:05:17: Never link your worth to your outcome, performance.

00:05:22: Right.

00:05:22: You're lovable and you're a full and complete human being

00:05:26: how you are. However.

00:05:27: Okay, so these were sort of some markers that shaped me.

00:05:32: And then I always had this limiting belief that I was shit with money.

00:05:38: Interesting, because when I got my pocket

00:05:40: money, once a month or every Sunday, however we did it, I got my pocket money

00:05:46: and I saved, and I went out to buy myself this really lovely pen.

00:05:50: And it was quite pricey, but I'd saved up for it.

00:05:53: And I went home and my dad said, Are you stupid?

00:05:56: I could have got you one from work for free.

00:06:00: You must be really shit with money.

00:06:03: And I know they were dealing with the tools they got given.

00:06:08: I know they did their best,

00:06:09: and there's no hard feelings, but those are all the moments

00:06:13: and the sentences and the fragments that shape your own narrative around money.

00:06:18: And also coupled with the fact that we come,

00:06:21: I come from a region in Germany,

00:06:24: Northwest Germany, which is quite modest, and there's no showing off.

00:06:31: You don't have the big Bentleys,

00:06:34: and even if you do well for yourself, you don't talk about money, you don't.

00:06:38: I don't know what my parents made.

00:06:43: I don't know what my sister or any of my family members make.

00:06:49: Not that it matters, but there's no conversation around it other than shit.

00:06:54: If you don't look after it, you run out.

00:06:56: Yes, that was me.

00:06:59: And then we met and we went into self employment together.

00:07:05: How about you? Tell me about you.

00:07:06: Well, first of all, thank you for sharing,

00:07:08: because that's a couple of things that came out from that are new to me.

00:07:12: It's always a good start.

00:07:14: It's great because I knew the general narrative.

00:07:18: There are some parallels, to keep it brief.

00:07:22: So I grew up in a single parent family where we didn't have a pot to piss in.

00:07:30: You were absolutely flat broke.

00:07:32: One of the clearest memories I have

00:07:33: of my childhood, and I don't actually have that many memories of my childhood,

00:07:36: was my mother, who, bless her, I mean, she did an incredible job.

00:07:42: And as much as she winds me up,

00:07:45: or the memory of her still winds me up on an occasion, I have nothing but respect

00:07:49: for what she did, because she would balance the books and feed us every night.

00:07:55: And we had everything we needed.

00:07:57: We had essentially nothing we wanted, but we had everything we needed.

00:08:00: And so that shaped everything every single day.

00:08:05: And then coming back to the memory,

00:08:07: the clear memory I have is going to the supermarket after she'd got her

00:08:10: Social Security cheque every week, because they issued it every week.

00:08:12: I remember going to the post office

00:08:14: with her and they'd give her the Social Security cheque.

00:08:16: There was like 30 pounds or something like that.

00:08:19: This was late 80s, late 1980s.

00:08:21: And I remember going to the supermarket and she'd say, you can have this or this

00:08:24: for dinner tonight and this or this for dinner tomorrow.

00:08:27: You have to choose one.

00:08:28: There was no dessert, there was no crisps or Coca Cola or anything like that.

00:08:33: And that was my story growing up.

00:08:37: And so, similar to your story, you were only ever away,

00:08:44: like one or two paychecks or Social Security cheques,

00:08:47: away from destitution, and that you had to look after every single penny.

00:08:51: And so that was what I grew up with.

00:08:52: But we were genuinely poor.

00:08:55: We had absolutely nothing my parents divorced when I was five and

00:09:01: it sounds not great when you put it like that, but I was raised with love and I had

00:09:06: a warm meal every day and a roof over my head, so I'm very grateful

00:09:08: for that and I have but respect for that.

00:09:11: But in terms of how it shaped my attitude

00:09:15: to money later on and all this ties in with attitude to money and self

00:09:18: employment or being an entrepreneur and that's what I want to share with everyone.

00:09:21: In fact, this is what I've been really looking forward to sharing with everybody

00:09:24: who does listen, who's thinking about going into self

00:09:26: employment or who has maybe just started that childhood perception of money

00:09:34: and what it is and what it does shaped my teens, 20s, very early 30s.

00:09:43: And it was very much a case of: Money is finite.

00:09:48: You get given x and then you have to eke

00:09:51: out x and you have to prioritise above all else, saving money over making money.

00:10:00: If you get given 100 pounds, well that's it, and you've got to save it

00:10:05: or as much as you can of it and you've got to cling onto it.

00:10:07: And I remember as a kid, again, this is something that was a pivotal

00:10:14: moment in my life, but I didn't realise it at the time.

00:10:17: When I turned 18 I got, what do we call them, premium bonds.

00:10:22: You get like a savings plan, don't you?

00:10:24: So it's not like in Germany where you have

00:10:26: like the “Bausparvertrag”,

00:10:28: where you save for a house and here

00:10:30: you get a savings account with premium bonds.

00:10:33: And I got 1000 pounds on my 18th birthday

00:10:36: and it wasn't handed to me per se, but I was given access to it on my 18th

00:10:40: birthday and there wasn't much fanfare but it was like slightly ceremonious.

00:10:44: Right, you're a man now, Daniel. Here's a thousand pounds.

00:10:48: And I remember thinking,

00:10:51: fuck my days, 1000 pounds, that's so much money, right, take me to the

00:10:58: I was going to say take me to the strip club.

00:10:59: I've never done that before.

00:11:01: Hand on heart, I've never done that.

00:11:02: But I was thinking, right, that's it.

00:11:03: Boats and hoes all the way.

00:11:05: It's a thousand pounds.

00:11:07: But here's the thing, a thousand pounds does not last very long.

00:11:11: No, not in the UK.

00:11:13: I think in most of the developed world there's not a lot you can do.

00:11:17: So I deferred my university place by year

00:11:20: so I could live in Germany, went to university, paid for by the state

00:11:24: because we were still a single parent family.

00:11:26: I still came out with 6000 pounds in student debt, which is a snip compared

00:11:32: to what the average student debt is in this country.

00:11:34: At the minute it's about 40,000 pounds.

00:11:36: Teachers come out with 60,000 pounds of debt.

00:11:37: So I came out very lightly, paid it off.

00:11:42: But the reason I wanted to talk about money today was that shaped about 80%

00:11:46: of my life, maybe 90% of my years on this planet.

00:11:49: And here's the crux of it.

00:11:51: The message for anybody who is starting in self employment,

00:11:54: for anybody who is struggling in self employment, the single greatest thing you

00:12:00: can do for yourself as an entrepreneur is two things

00:12:04: actually, sorry to contradict myself, there are two things.

00:12:06: Number one,

00:12:07: remove any emotional attachment you have to money, because one of the greatest

00:12:12: things I realised in this life was that you never HAVE money.

00:12:15: My father once said to me, he said,

00:12:17: he's a businessman, he's just in the process of retiring now.

00:12:20: He's done very well for himself, he's risked his nuts for 30 years and I

00:12:24: know he's been on the limit for most of that time.

00:12:27: It's been very hard and it's been very successful.

00:12:30: And he said to me, quoting somebody else, money is as money does.

00:12:34: And he said, if you think about that long

00:12:36: enough, money is as money does, you will begin to understand.

00:12:41: And it dawned on me that you never have

00:12:44: money, you only have an obligation to spend it.

00:12:47: And so if you remove any emotional

00:12:50: attachment for money and accept that you never have it, you will relax,

00:12:54: you will relax and you will have a fundamentally different outlook on life.

00:12:59: That is the greatest single act of deburdening.

00:13:05: That's just not a very good way of putting it.

00:13:07: But it's the single greatest removal

00:13:09: of weight off my shoulders in entrepreneurship is removing all

00:13:13: emotion from money and accepting that you never have it.

00:13:16: Yes, because that way you are free to go

00:13:21: and be an entrepreneur and you accept with that moment

00:13:25: that there are only ever going to be two states in self employment.

00:13:30: And again, quoting my father,

00:13:32: he says there are only ever two states when you work for yourself.

00:13:35: Number one is, what the fuck are we going to do for money?

00:13:39: I've got no money, there's nothing coming in,

00:13:42: customers aren't working, everything's gone quiet,

00:13:44: it's the holidays, what fuck am I going to do for money?

00:13:46: Or what the fuck are we going to do with all this money?

00:13:49: I've just been paid and the next six months are clear.

00:13:52: What am I going to do with all this money?

00:13:54: Right?

00:13:55: I'm going to do something really sensible, I'm going to go crazy with it.

00:13:58: But there are only ever those two states.

00:14:00: There is no in between.

00:14:02: And I know that from my personal experience.

00:14:04: I know that from talking to people

00:14:05: who have a staff of ten people, talking to people who have a staff of 1000 people.

00:14:10: There are only ever those two states.

00:14:12: So that's the big learn and the big thing I would share.

00:14:14: That's number one. Number two is always prioritise making

00:14:19: money over saving money and that's the next greatest thing.

00:14:22: And you can do that.

00:14:23: And again, this is much to your irritation.

00:14:26: You can do it.

00:14:27: And this is not advice, this is a fucking prescription, okay?

00:14:32: This is a doctor's prescription to everybody out there.

00:14:35: The first thing you must do when you start

00:14:38: working for yourself is throw away your fucking store cards, your saver coupons.

00:14:45: You know those little things you can get, loyalty cards, bonus premium cards,

00:14:50: your fucking tap this and you get 50 points.

00:14:55: Well, then you get money off next week.

00:14:58: I'm like,

00:14:59: honestly, it never ceases to amaze me how people unwittingly choose to live

00:15:05: in poverty because they prioritise saving money in those forms over making money.

00:15:09: Whereas if you said next week, as a self employed person,

00:15:12: I'm going to make it my mission, I am going to make this amount of money

00:15:16: and I'm going to do it more than I did last month or last week.

00:15:19: And you constantly aim to grow.

00:15:21: It's no guarantee of success.

00:15:23: There are times it will not work, but it is, as I've come to experience,

00:15:28: the only way to be self employed, to have no emotional attachment to money.

00:15:33: Yes, I agree.

00:15:34: Prioritise making over saving every day of the week.

00:15:36: And it's scary at first, but it is the most liberating paradigm

00:15:41: shift, change in mindset I've ever experienced.

00:15:43: Anyway, long story,

00:15:45: but it's from the heart and it's something I would advise anybody.

00:15:49: Don't sweat the details.

00:15:51: Obviously you've got to pay your bills, okay, that's important.

00:15:54: But unless HSBC is phoning you up

00:15:57: and saying if you don't balance your account by close of play today,

00:15:59: I'm going to come down your house and I'm going to castrate you personally myself.

00:16:02: Mr. Caiger, don't worry about it.

00:16:05: If you're a little bit over on your credit card, don't worry about it.

00:16:08: Prioritise making more money.

00:16:10: If you have to dip into your savings

00:16:12: to cover your bills this month, you've got to do it.

00:16:15: It's just how it is. Don't sweat it.

00:16:17: Prioritise making more money.

00:16:19: And I guarantee you that anybody listening to this who has a bigger nut to cover than

00:16:23: I do or we do in a month, I know they know I'm right.

00:16:27: And it's as a final thought on money,

00:16:31: when you work for yourself, you are always on the limit.

00:16:36: Always. You see somebody driving a shiny Tesla,

00:16:39: it's a lease, it's a tax write off, but it's a lease.

00:16:42: And I don't care how successful they are, they've only got a few months worth

00:16:46: of money in the bank to cover that Tesla payment.

00:16:48: The money has to keep rolling in.

00:16:49: You see a shiny watch on somebody's wrist, it's on the limit.

00:16:53: You see a nice house with nice WMF crockery and utensils, it's on the limit.

00:17:01: It's on the limit. We are only ever a few paydays away

00:17:04: from utter disaster and so embrace that freedom.

00:17:08: So I've talked a lot.

00:17:09: No, but it's

00:17:10: so great, because it's so true.

00:17:13: And it's taken us well over a decade

00:17:15: to figure out, so might as well save somebody a bit of heartache.

00:17:21: You sleep better, especially with a young family as well.

00:17:25: Yes, because I know a lot of people listening to this podcast who are just

00:17:30: starting out and they have a young family, they have a responsibility.

00:17:34: It's not like, oh, I'm going to be finding myself in Bali.

00:17:38: All Eat, fucking, what is it?

00:17:41: Eat, pray, love, shag. No, what is it again?

00:17:44: I don't remember.

00:17:45: Just going to find myself and work on the beach because it works so well

00:17:49: working in bright sunlight on your laptop because there's no glare at all.

00:17:54: And let's not kid ourselves here.

00:17:57: We're grown ups,

00:17:58: we're serious entrepreneurs, not just dabbling in a bit of freelancing.

00:18:03: This is it.

00:18:05: This is what we've chosen.

00:18:07: This is our path, and we want to make it the best possible outcome, right?

00:18:13: And to build it bigger than ourselves,

00:18:16: build a legacy, touch upon people's lives and have a positive impact.

00:18:21: And if you take your work seriously,

00:18:22: which I do believe you are, because you're still listening to this, remember this!

00:18:31: No emotional attachment.

00:18:33: My economics professor in Madrid, when I did my bachelor's, what was it?

00:18:40: European Business Studies.

00:18:42: I studied in Madrid for a bit and he said, you don't have money, you have debt.

00:18:46: You have debt.

00:18:48: And if you think about it that way, it's so liberating, like you said.

00:18:51: And don't sweat it, don't sweat the small stuff.

00:18:54: We're all in our credit cards.

00:18:55: We're all over the limit. After the bill is before the bill.

00:18:58: Exactly.

00:18:59: However,

00:19:01: if this step and this expense and this investment leads to the next scale up

00:19:08: and more visibility and feeds into your goals and your mission, do it.

00:19:13: Yes. It’s no good sat on your bank account.

00:19:16: In your bank account.

00:19:17: And you just got to do it.

00:19:19: You've just got to do it. Fantastic.

00:19:21: Wow. Okay.

00:19:22: So hopefully there was a lot of good stuff in there.

00:19:27: It's crazy because money is a topic

00:19:30: that the vast majority of people don't want to talk about.

00:19:33: But they do. Well, yes, they do.

00:19:35: It's like enemas or herpes or like, you don't, but you do.

00:19:40: Right.

00:19:42: It's like when you drive past a car crash,

00:19:43: you want to have a look and see if there's any blood.

00:19:45: So you drive past like, yeah, and I'm focused on the road.

00:19:47: But, you know, you shouldn't.

00:19:48: Shit, I shouldn't be looking.

00:19:50: Yes, it's true. It is true.

00:19:54: People do want to talk about it.

00:19:56: I don't believe in talking brashly about

00:20:00: how much money you make in a month or in a year.

00:20:02: For me, that's bad form.

00:20:03: But in terms of money management attitudes to money, I think one of the greatest

00:20:08: things you can do as a parent is talk to children about money.

00:20:12: Yes.

00:20:12: Because nobody talked to me about it growing up.

00:20:14: It was one of those things.

00:20:16: Like I said, it wasn't.

00:20:17: Well, it was all the things I described, but, yes, deep stuff from the heart.

00:20:24: Yeah, good stuff.

00:20:25: Anyway, if you found today's episode useful

00:20:31: do us a favour.

00:20:32: Subscribe or send it to somebody who might benefit.

00:20:36: Somebody, you know, who's starting out or who's running a business or who's thinking

00:20:40: about self employment or a little side hustle, send it to them.

00:20:43: Brilliant. It'll mean the world.

00:20:45: Yeah. Love it.

00:20:46: Amazing. All right, see you next time.

00:20:47: See you next time. Bye.