0:05

So I'm delighted to welcome for shows day Dustin

0:08

. Dustin is the founder

0:10

of Service Wealth . Dustin

0:12

manages over 200 million in client net

0:14

worth . Welcome , dustin .

0:16

James , thanks for having me on the show . I'm

0:19

equally as excited as you .

0:22

Well , things are going really well today , but the

0:24

whole idea of the show is jumping to my coaching time

0:26

machine . When are we going back to ?

0:30

We're going to go back to what would

0:32

be 2000 , probably 14

0:35

, 13 .

0:37

What's happening for you then ?

0:40

So in this sort of era of

0:42

time it was not an overly

0:44

fun time , it was . I've

0:47

been married for a little while . I was working hard

0:49

, always thought , in whatever sort

0:51

of experience or family

0:54

history I'd had , that you could either

0:56

be a successful entrepreneur

0:58

or be a great husband and dad

1:01

. So you could either be the rock star he's

1:03

always there for me type husband

1:05

and we live a great life but we don't

1:07

have a big income or you could be

1:09

successful business person and

1:11

just sort of be okay at

1:14

the other stuff . And that

1:16

was how I'd always entrenched in my brain . And so

1:18

I was working a lot and

1:21

at that particular time we

1:23

were a number of years into

1:25

a fertility journey . It

1:28

was a struggle to get pregnant and

1:31

at that point I was really just working

1:33

to avoid the reality

1:35

of when I went home and using

1:38

that as sort of the excuse that hey , well , if

1:40

I don't work , our family won't have means

1:43

to do the things we want and

1:45

so this is super important , that I work

1:48

really hard . So that's kind of sets a stage

1:50

and what

1:52

it's .

1:53

It sounds like a

1:55

traditional thought pattern that's kind of either

1:57

or setting . Was

1:59

there a moment when it came to a head then ?

2:03

Yeah , it actually what

2:05

it came to a head after we'd actually naturally

2:08

gotten pregnant . So after seven and vitro's

2:10

and a lot of money , we naturally got pregnant

2:12

and ironically

2:14

it was I'd send an email to all of our close

2:16

friends and family and said don't ask when

2:19

we're having kids . Like we've had

2:21

this journey . It's not been very fun , but

2:23

you know people do it and if listener

2:25

, you're listening and you're going through a journey where people

2:27

are asking and totally empathize with you because

2:29

at the end of the day it's freaking annoying and

2:32

people go , oh , five years you've been together . Like , why aren't

2:34

you having a kid ? It's like , hey , we're

2:36

going through something and it's not very fun

2:38

, but then you ask me about it . Pisses me off even more so

2:40

not you know , being

2:42

aware of that and being able to say and have the courage

2:45

to say , hey , don't ask . I

2:47

think for us that in our journey it was like a huge

2:49

relief and it's

2:51

I think it . You know I'm stereotyping , maybe , and this

2:53

is just my own sort of observation

2:55

. As a guy , it might be easier to sort of say

2:57

well , and an optimist life

3:00

. Let's lay out what life would look like if we

3:02

didn't have kids . We'd have a great life . It

3:04

. You know we have money and time

3:06

and travel , and you know it will be great . And

3:08

to a woman , that can be , and

3:11

maybe it's the same . For some guys it's like that , that isn't

3:13

an option , and for my wife that was

3:15

. It was not an option . It was like we're having

3:17

kids and we're going to figure out how , and this is , you

3:19

know , part of my . My purpose here is to

3:21

have kids , and so setting that

3:24

email was huge relief . And then , near after

3:26

that , we we did find out we were pregnant

3:28

. So you know , fast forward

3:30

to my oldest

3:33

son now . So he would have been like eight months

3:35

old maybe . Hence this is 2016

3:38

, because he was born in 2015

3:40

. My wife and I were kind of just not

3:42

not seeing eye to eye and I was still

3:45

working lots , coming home a little bit late

3:47

, saying I'd be home at five , come home at 545

3:49

oops , sorry , you know I had one

3:51

more email and , just

3:54

oblivious to the fact that you know , she

3:57

had , you know , expectations and I wasn't

3:59

really being aware of that and we

4:02

used to work out together or we had worked out

4:04

previous to kids together . That was like our at

4:06

the end of the day , me at the gym at four , and

4:09

we'd have a great workout and kind of connect

4:11

, and we were definitely not connected and

4:13

so one day I thought I gotta like

4:15

really start taking action . I

4:17

need to be better . I'm extremely

4:20

good at , you know

4:22

, investing in courses to , for sales

4:25

and for financial planning and I

4:27

hadn't really invested anything into being

4:29

better . And it was actually a psychologist

4:32

that I'd seen after having a kid and it being

4:34

sort of like well , this is crazy . For the first few months

4:36

seeing her , obviously

4:38

everything settles , except her . Four or five months the kids

4:41

start sleeping . And then I started asking her about

4:43

would you meet me and talk about business as

4:46

a form of like investing in my

4:49

brain or my own psyche ? And

4:52

for a lot of entrepreneurs , we're quick to

4:54

spend on business things that could make the

4:56

business better . And how much spending have we spent

4:58

on ourselves , when the bulk

5:00

of our life is spent outside the business ? So

5:03

, that led to this action

5:06

I was going to take and I was driving to work

5:08

, you know , seven , 45 . And I thought , you know I'm I'm

5:10

going to phone the gym , I'm going to get babysitting

5:13

lined up and because you had

5:15

to pay and you had to organize it all on , and so I

5:17

did that , I got babysitter lined up for 430

5:19

at the gym and I phoned my

5:22

wife right after . I was excited . I said , hey , listen

5:24

, like I phoned the gym , I got organized

5:26

, we're good to go . Um

5:28

, I'll meet you there at 430 . It's going to be awesome . And she

5:30

was like I can't believe you did this , Like this is great

5:32

, like I'm excited , you know love , you See , ya . And

5:35

so at about 445 , I

5:37

was in the office and the phone

5:39

rang and all my staff . I got home and I could see the call

5:41

display and it was my wife's number and I answered the

5:43

phone , all kind of like sexy , and it

5:45

was like service wealth management and

5:48

she goes all right , you're

5:50

still at the office . And

5:52

it was like immediately , like , just like this

5:54

dread . And I was like , oh my God , yeah

5:56

, I just , I totally forgot I'll be there , I'll , she goes , don't

5:59

bother . And just hung up . And

6:02

so , anyways , that I

6:04

I'm not a big crier , but at the same time I drove home and was like almost

6:06

in tears driving home and when

6:08

I got home she was already home and

6:12

by that time , you know , she was just like arms

6:14

up like this , this is not going to work . And

6:17

I did start to have a little bit of a tear and I cry out

6:19

of a couple of things . You

6:22

know disappointment in myself that I had lined that up . Uh

6:26

, a bit of a scared cause . I thought I was getting

6:28

fricking dementia or something like dementia or Alzheimer's

6:31

cause . I had forgotten like it . It did not

6:33

cross my mind one bit at

6:35

work . I was so into emails

6:37

, phone calls , people talking , organize this

6:39

staff it didn't even like 430

6:42

roll by it . I was nowhere near remembering

6:44

that . I just lined it up in the

6:46

morning and so that

6:49

next day was

6:51

when serious action had

6:53

to , had to be , and I I laid

6:55

out a spreadsheet and I thought , okay , I

6:57

do all this work for high net worth clients is great

6:59

. And I organized their thing and I

7:01

wouldn't say that we were the the plumber with the leaky

7:04

pipes we had . You know , I was pretty

7:06

good with my own situation but

7:08

at the same time , I was missing how

7:11

I could be both how could I be a successful

7:13

entrepreneur and be

7:15

great at home and something that

7:17

that we now call the spending accelerator

7:19

was something that I built and it was basically

7:22

a way to say , if

7:24

we're doing all these responsible things and maybe we'll

7:26

get into the the finite things , but it's like if we're doing

7:28

all these responsible things throughout a

7:30

month , a year with our finances

7:32

and with my business , then

7:35

what would happen if I spent more than

7:37

I currently spend now , and

7:39

not in a sense of what you can

7:41

spend more on ? Well , I'm doing

7:43

all these responsible things , I'm going to buy

7:45

a new iPhone for myself , I'm going to buy

7:48

a Harley , I'm going to buy you know that that those

7:50

things for most successful , successful

7:52

entrepreneurs could happen anyway

7:54

. But the piece that I was missing was

7:56

what if I spent more

7:59

on a staff member , so I saved

8:01

less , but that freed up time ? What

8:04

if I spent more in the form of like , I'm

8:06

not going to work Fridays , so likely

8:08

my revenue of my business is is

8:10

could go down , but

8:13

then that Friday would be

8:15

a way that I could have an extra day for half

8:17

day with the family half day . Go do whatever

8:20

I want , maybe spend the whole day with the family

8:22

every week , and so again

8:24

, the spending accelerator philosophy is something that

8:26

we train everyone on , because

8:28

it is a way to give yourself

8:30

permission to do things that you might

8:33

not think are available to you right now .

8:35

So it really costs out

8:37

these things that we might want

8:40

to do but feel reluctant to

8:42

do because they're investing in ourselves or

8:44

then a business expense , but

8:46

it's just really like almost adding it to the PNL .

8:50

If you've grown up knowing

8:52

that to be successful you need to work hard

8:54

, how hard do

8:57

you need to work and how

8:59

long do you need to work like that

9:01

? And if you

9:03

go back to when you're say 1819

9:05

or I was eight and a half nine when I had a paper route

9:07

and it was like gotta get one more person on my route

9:09

and you know , like if that's how you've been

9:11

wired , you develop goals really

9:13

early in life and at 1819

9:16

you become , you know , you get into the workforce

9:18

, you get into business , it becomes you're

9:20

an adult and you create goals and beliefs

9:22

. If those beliefs are still

9:25

the same and you're 40 or 50

9:27

likely , you need to , you need a

9:29

James , you need somebody to kind of

9:31

connect with and revisit that

9:33

old , what we call belief gristle hmm

9:36

, and so for you , these changes

9:38

.

9:38

That sounds like you're kind of on this path , where

9:40

it was kind of the self-justification

9:43

was I'm working hard to provide a life for

9:45

my family and just really

9:47

lays a focus on what that

9:49

looked like , to the extent that

9:51

you had this kind of crisis

9:54

moment with your wife where you serve by she's in the gym

9:56

and you weren't . What changes

9:59

did you then Make

10:01

and how's that played out for you ?

10:04

Yeah , there's . There's a hundred

10:06

and sixty eight hours in a week . So

10:08

, if you break that up , a perfectly balanced life

10:10

, but 56 hours for sleep

10:12

, 56 hours for work and 56

10:15

hours for you . So the

10:17

you bucket , though , also includes your family . So

10:20

if you're single , you got 56 hours

10:22

a week to golf , snowmobile and West

10:24

Canada snowmobile , or in the UK like Windsurf

10:27

, whatever you know out there guys probably

10:29

in UK .

10:29

So I go to pub 56 hours a week .

10:31

Okay . So if there's 56 hours

10:33

for the work and 56 hours for

10:36

the sleep and 56 , you know that's seven

10:38

hours a night of sleep and 56 hours for

10:40

you , and that includes a family Then when you

10:42

actually like break that down , you

10:44

say like wow , like that's eight hours a day

10:46

, so two hours in the morning when you get up with

10:48

the family , so that's

10:50

you know , 14 hours in a week

10:52

, you know , and it's like you start working

10:55

back . You go , holy crap , like if I'm gonna work

10:57

56 hours and

10:59

I want more time for myself . Because what weekends

11:01

as a you know , when I was a single guy always

11:04

had motorsports , toys hanging

11:06

out with the buds . That that was my

11:08

upbringing and and it's still is

11:10

. But it's taken a significant

11:12

amount of design and work with my wife to say

11:14

, okay , I , I want to be with my family

11:17

. That's important . I think it's important

11:19

, so it's gonna come out of work . I can't

11:21

work 56 hours , so can

11:23

I get it down to 40 ? So

11:26

, you know , a few years ago I went to a four-day

11:28

work week . So , yeah , thursdays are pretty friggin

11:30

, hair straight back and getting

11:32

stuff done . But remarkably I Haven't

11:35

seen production go down because

11:37

I'm taking Fridays off . But now , all sudden , in

11:40

a week I've bought , you know , seven hours of no

11:42

more work . So now I can do three with the family

11:44

. Or one of my favorite Friday things is actually

11:47

going to a coffee shop . Again

11:49

, I've been to a million coffee shops for

11:51

a million meetings with clients

11:53

, potential clients , and never taking

11:55

my kids out for coffee Friday

11:57

morning . Go work out in the morning I

12:00

get that's a me bucket . Come back to

12:02

the house that like 10 , 10 , 30

12:04

. Go for coffee with my two sons and

12:06

sit there and like , talk , and like talk you know they're already six

12:09

and eight talk to them like I talked to

12:11

adults and it's like what's up , what's

12:13

going on ? You know that is some of my most favorite

12:15

time in the week and so again

12:17

it's . Everyone has a different journey

12:19

, but it is Something

12:21

that's like where could you find that time

12:23

? Maybe it's an hour of sleep . Start setting your alarm

12:25

earlier . Get six hours of sleep .

12:28

Because I think there's this , this conceptual

12:30

idea of like work life balance , which

12:33

I think is a flawed concept anyway

12:35

, because I think it applies . It's kind of like it's an either either

12:37

or , and so you

12:39

you are . You are the same persons

12:42

sitting behind the work and the personal

12:44

, and it's interesting that you say that you've

12:46

had that , you bought this day back , you

12:49

spent this time with your family , but

12:51

you're also still as productive , if not

12:53

more so . Do you think

12:55

that's because you feel more , more centered

12:59

and and happy ?

13:00

potentially , what I am

13:02

finding now , especially

13:05

as my kids are in school now for six

13:07

, seven hours . I do

13:10

have , as Pang , as an entrepreneur of

13:13

like am I feeling purposeful

13:16

in the success of my business ? So I've

13:18

gone through this sort of journey to

13:20

keep my revenue . My revenue has basically marginally

13:22

gone up for the last three , four years but I've had

13:24

four day work weeks , lots

13:26

of time with the family , time off , still

13:29

working tight with the clients , not

13:32

adding as many clients , which feels weird .

13:34

I do find being quite disciplined about this . Time

13:36

split really forces you to

13:39

focus on stuff that is important at work

13:41

, because you could . You could fill your diary up with

13:44

100 times over if you

13:46

as a founder , quite easily . But

13:49

it's almost feels so ingrained , this idea that if you're

13:51

not straining and struggling and

13:53

not competing for this big

13:56

goal , is there something wrong

13:58

. Are you , are you trying hard enough

14:00

? It is hard to know , like , is that ? Is

14:02

that an echo of an unhealthy old

14:05

mindset ? Or is that

14:07

a time of life where actually there is a time

14:09

as a parent where you really want to be

14:11

there for your kids and really be there and

14:13

as they get older , actually maybe you get some of your time back

14:15

and maybe that is the opportunity to to

14:18

push harder again . Did

14:21

Tiffany that you had before , when you had this , my own

14:23

to go ? Okay , we need to look at this of wealth accelerated

14:25

differently , which is how do I

14:28

buy things that are going to make my life better

14:30

? Maybe now , rather than wait ? It

14:32

feels . It feels quite simple in terms of , like

14:34

this is a personal epiphany again

14:37

around . I'm feeling this tension

14:39

. How

14:42

can I share this journey with my clients

14:44

as well in quite a structured way . So it

14:48

feels like deepening a path that

14:50

you've already , that you've already started to

14:52

walk . It feels unusual

14:54

for financial advisors to be sort of advising like spend

14:58

on taking day off . But if you're taking the long term

15:00

view , which is clear , your approach is kind of like if I

15:02

can build long term relationships with my clients and they're going

15:04

to enjoy the journey and they're going to be happy

15:06

.

15:07

Yeah , 100% , and

15:09

from from experience . You have

15:12

two founders you

15:14

know , and I call them Harvard , maria , and

15:16

again their names have been changed . But you

15:18

know , harvard builds his business you

15:21

know age 60 , builds it up , invests

15:23

everything back into the business , successful

15:25

work , weekends , work , nights

15:27

, sacrifice everything . At age

15:29

60 sells his business for 3 million . And

15:32

Maria , on the other hand , is you know

15:34

, age 60 , built a successful

15:36

business , successful mindset , but very intentional

15:38

, with time off and spending money

15:41

on learning . She builds

15:43

her business up and sells at age 60 for

15:45

1.5 million and

15:47

at age 63 , they both pass away

15:49

with money in the bank . So it didn't

15:52

matter if you were a Harvard and had three or Maria with

15:54

1.5 , you're still gone . And

15:56

so when I ask wealthy clients

15:58

about that and say , hey , like , could

16:01

you have worked a little less harm , like

16:03

and only had , you know

16:05

, 2 million . And so you take that

16:07

step further to like the kids of these parents

16:10

and say , hey , guys , let's lay out a plan

16:12

now where I still

16:14

want you to be uber successful , but let's

16:16

get optics on , like how successful you

16:19

need to be to actually to live a life

16:21

. And what I find with wealthy people is they don't spend

16:23

nearly en masse . They don't spend

16:25

nearly as much as they think or what

16:27

they spent in their . You know , from 40 to

16:29

60 , you're buying stuff

16:32

you don't need your . You're buying stuff for your kids

16:34

because they're at a crucial age . All that stuff , and that's like

16:36

the kids are age 30 or

16:38

older , they're fine . And so

16:40

, yeah , you , you know you bought the million dollar

16:43

boat and you bought this , and it's like

16:45

you get to 60 , you go . I've

16:47

already kind of proven myself . They go . Yeah

16:50

, we did a Renault on our house . It was 250,000

16:52

. It's just perfect for us . You know , we're going to stay in this house

16:54

for as long as they're not upgrading , they're

16:56

not changing . And so you

16:58

know , if you only spend 150 to

17:01

20 a year and you have 4 million , you

17:04

can run the numbers and go . Well , if you had no risk in

17:06

a portfolio , you're going to still

17:08

have 25 years of spending . And

17:10

so then you go okay , well , how much do I really

17:12

need ? And I guess we got two kinds of conversations

17:15

running . You have the extreme

17:17

go-getters where you

17:19

know , I'll hear a guy say it for you know , 28

17:21

, my number's , 44 million . I

17:24

believe that that's my number to

17:26

do these certain things , and they've laid it all out

17:28

and they want to give to charity and they want to have their own building

17:30

at the university and all this stuff , and say , okay , that's

17:33

an , you know , that's a one 1%

17:35

or less than a 1%er , then you have

17:37

successful , above

17:41

average sort of achiever . And

17:43

in those , that's the zone where , if

17:45

not regulated or if not made aware

17:48

of it for yourself , you can burn yourself

17:50

out . You can get to age 60 with lots of

17:52

money , have a shitty relationship with your kids

17:54

, have a bad relationship with yourself , be

17:56

on your second divorce and your mental health is

17:58

questionable . And that , to me

18:00

, isn't wealth and I think this is what's

18:02

really come down to that .

18:03

What is wealth ? But it's not just money . I

18:06

need to use money . Being wealthy

18:08

yourself on that journey is

18:10

gonna pay dividends , Like there's a dividend . There's

18:12

much like sort of the power of accumulated

18:15

interest just from in a bank . I

18:17

really think there's a power of accumulated interest on just investing

18:19

in self .

18:21

Think about the five richest people you know in

18:23

your circle and then

18:26

think about the five wealthiest people you know

18:28

, and is it the same list

18:30

? If it's not the same

18:32

list , then what qualities do the wealthiest

18:34

people have and are

18:37

you living by those values

18:39

now , or what

18:41

values do you wanna use from

18:43

that list of people going forward

18:45

?

18:48

I think it's been fascinating . I'm gonna leave the last word to your

18:50

wife . Do you think she

18:52

would go through that gym experience again in

18:55

order to have triggered this change , to

18:57

get to the life you have now ?

19:01

Tough to say . I'm not her , but

19:03

I definitely know that I'm

19:06

a little more aware now . Not perfect

19:08

, definitely need a lot more improvement . But

19:10

yeah , if you would ask me what

19:12

my priorities were 70

19:14

years ago , they would be very different than

19:16

they are now .

19:18

It sounds a bit like breaking bad . I mean sure I hope

19:20

everyone has seen breaking bad by this stage , but it's kind

19:22

of like the whole way through . He's kind of like doing this for

19:24

you , I'm doing this for you , I'm doing this for you . And then

19:26

that amazing scene he goes okay

19:29

, I was doing it for myself . Yeah

19:32

amazing what does , and that has

19:34

been very interesting

19:36

and I really like this , this redefining

19:39

what wealth really means

19:41

and then actually providing practically the tools to

19:43

capture it and improve

19:45

it . So thank you for sharing . As

19:52

you heard today , coaching opens up a

19:54

whole range of insights and areas to

19:56

explore . If you have a potential

19:58

moment to revisit on the podcast or

20:01

just want to learn more about coaching , book

20:03

in for a 30 minute chat with me at

20:05

peer-effectcom .