Escape Plan 2.0 | The 5 Money Skills You Need to Succeed (The Money Mapping Method)

In the third episode of the series, Ryan and Terry reveal the path that led to the development of the 5 skills that make up the money mapping method. They also share new research that explains why it works. 

In this episode: 

• 📚 The One Number that Matters Most: The one input that dictates almost all results in personal finance. From the biggest best known study every done.
• 🛠️ Why Prescriptions Don’t Work: Learn why following “one-size-fits-all” advice doesn’t build the essential skills needed for long-term success. 
• 🚧 The Skill Gap Holding You Back: Discover how a lack of financial skill not discipline or effort—is the real obstacle to achieving your full potential.
• 🧩 The Anatomy of the Money Mapping Method: how the 5 skills of money mapping work to help you scale your money mountain. 
• 🎯 The Science of Motivation: The latest research into how controlled and autonomous motivation affect financial wellbeing and long term results. 

Links to resources mentioned: 

1. Book: The Millionaire next door 
2. Book: Clearer Closer Better 
3. Research: Controlled vs Autonomous Motivation in Finance 

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Transcript

Ryan: 0:29

Hello and welcome back to the Money Minded Podcast. Terry alongside me. Mate, we're about to dig into the second episode in this escape plan series. Just remind me, what are we escaping from?

Terry Condon: 0:39

The rat race.

Ryan: 0:40

Okay, the rat race is?

Terry Condon: 0:41

The rat race is a mentality, mate. It's the idea that you got to work your ass off for money because money's the boss, money's the master, and you just do your job.

Ryan: 0:47

All right, so we're the boss. Money's not the boss, we're the boss.

Terry Condon: 0:50

How do you make money you slave and start to live life on your own terms to make it really work for you? That's why.

Ryan: 0:55

Love the sound of that. So what are we going to cover this episode, mate?

Terry Condon: 0:58

This one, we're going to be sharing. the most important insight that we've uncovered in the last five years of doing this. This one insight, I reckon it changed the trajectory of our business, didn't it?

Ryan: 1:07

reckon of our business, didn't it? It does explain as well most lack

Terry Condon: 1:22

it does explain as well why most folks fall off the bandwagon when it comes to money. It's like, oh, I really wish I could get more serious about money, but it's one of those things, like fitness around New Year's, where it's like, yeah, I could really got to get on top of these things, and it becomes one of those aspirations that people never make good on. It explains Exactly. why that is the case, doesn't it?

Ryan: 1:40

yeah. Overcoming just doing things in spits and spurts and actually committing to something long enough to make it happen. And so this episode, we're going to reveal the anatomy of our money mapping method. So we're going to really unearth everything we've learned and everything that we're teaching in the mentorship. And I guess all the science and the evidence. That supports it as well. There's been a lot of our own lived experience throughout this and learning what works for ourselves, but then also learning absolutely it's worked for everybody else and then making sure they're always kind of digging into and finding what is the latest in terms of, empirical research and studies that are being done that kind of clue into exactly what we've been doing as well. So, mate, That's a lot to share.

Terry Condon: 2:19

Just quickly to just expand on that point. everything we've done over the last five years, we've had to go back, we have gone back, to understand why it works. why is this working? and why does the other thing not work. So we're going to talk you through The actual process, we went through create this. to discover this insight and the method that we just talked about there. That is the evolution or the manifestation of this. insight. Once You see this insight, you go, well, the way we're all doing it, or the way we've all been taught to do it is wrong. So let's figure out how to do it. a different way. And so that's how those two things link. Once you know this insight, you're going to understand why our method works, you're going to see why it works. And we're going to go through that whole thing for the rest of this series and do a deep dive on every single part of it. because we have the receipts. Everything we've done. We've said, this is working in the real world, but why is it working? What is the evidence we can find? What is the research that we can tap into that explains why this works? Because it doesn't matter if it just works for me and it won't work for you. It only matters if it just works.

Ryan: 3:10

You talked about the backstory. We're going to talk them through how we got here. Is that right?

Terry Condon: 3:14

there is a long winding road. It wasn't necessarily long, but it was winding. Like you don't know where you're going with this. And when you start out in business and you think it's going to work a certain way, it always ends up working a completely different, way. And it absolutely happened that way for us. Like if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you'll know that we spent nine months waiting through regulations, and red tape, to be able to get our financial services license and be able to provide advice, only to realize within the first three months that it was kind of like, The transplant just never worked. it was like the body just rejected The organ. it was like, nah, that's not gonna work. We thought we were gonna come in and we wouldn't be able to move and change things and do our things our way and we wanted to have a really specific kind of impact it's a hard realization to realize it's not gonna happen within this environment, isn't it?

Ryan: 3:53

No, we thought we could change it from the inside out and turns out it's very hard to break away from that with old traditional institutionalized rules that get developed and it's really hard to innovate, to test, to experiment which is pretty much our sole focus finds new ways, build new tools experiment with different things. To crack the code basically on how, people can operate and get what they want. So, it was tough, very tough.

Terry Condon: 4:18

Yeah, but I guess you give us a new lease on life. We're like, well, let's build something else. And we had this business on the side. Our licensee encouraged us to set it up and we could start to see that we're having a lot more impact in that business, in the coaching model. Working with people, in the weeds with people, on a month to month, day to day, week to week basis. helping them navigate these decisions they're making that will impact, you know, The next 10, 15, 20 years. And actually, understand the mental models, give them the tools, equip them with the skills to be able to do it. So, I guess for us we're excited about that because we're like, well, we can do this. Let's not tell people what to do with their money. Let's help them. it's more like the, Give a man a fish versus teach a man to fish type model. Let's do the teach a man to fish type model. And so we're pretty excited about that. And We went out and we're like, well, let's do all the study. Let's do all the research to figure out what works and what people need to know. And, of course that entails, if you've been listening to the podcast, that we've read and researched a lot to look at what's out there. And for us, we're like, well, there is a bunch of solutions out there. That a lot of people talk about, that they're excited about, and They champion really hard. So, let's really learn what these solutions are, and let's start working with people around how they can implement some of this stuff. The only problem was, the folks that were coming to us and saying to us, Yeah, we read that book, We tried that prescription. And when I say prescription, what I mean is, a really specific set of directions, instructions for what you should do with your money. Set up these buckets. Set up these arbitrary percentages. follow my steps, and then you'll be And back to the last conversation we had in this series, we talked about, Heliocentric model of the universe, geocentric model. If money is the center of the universe, you just live in fear and faith. So you put your faith in others, and you live in fear. And a lot of people get stuck. giving their power over to external authorities to tell them what to do with their life because of that. And it's got to such a state where people just don't trust themselves to make their own decisions with money. Like I was on a call, just last week, mapping out a situation with a couple, these guys are awesome people by the way, killer people, I'm like super excited to start working with these guys. And Anyway, we mapped out their situation. These guys are in a good position. Like they put themselves in a good position for their stage of life. And we go through we start talking about the mentorship and where they want to do it how they're going to do it, And we just talk about a really simple decision. You really want to do it, you trust the situation, you have the resources. And then one of them points to me he's like, you'll tell us that we've got the resources. I'm what do you mean? We just established your position. You already know whether you've got the resources. and you've just instinctively looked at me to tell you whether you could do it. That's, that is a level of distrust we have in our own selves. because. what we talked about in that last episode. We've made money the center of the universe. Everything's about just, whatever gets us more money is the best decision. And so we just trust these sort of external authorities. And we just found, when we started talking about this stuff. People come into us saying, I'm still stressed about money. I didn't implement that. I implemented that prescription. But I just still constantly worry about money. And I'll say, but hang on a second. You've implemented it, and you're actually way better off than you were six months ago when you implemented it. And they'll say, yeah, but I haven't really stuck to it. I don't really know where my money's going. and it hasn't really stopped me stressing about money. So you hear that, and then you hear, yeah, we have that going. It's going okay, but we're not, we don't have really any direction for our money. We just feel like we're just kind of like on this mouse wheel, just working harder and funnier. I've seen the numbers tick up. but we're not really jazzed by it, we're not really inspired by it. And you hear a lot of other people, they're like, well we're working really hard. but it doesn't really feel like we're getting much for it. So We're still stressed about the future as well. So, those are the three sort of symptoms that, I guess we got played back to us when we started talking about, well these are the solutions that work, let's start working with these solutions. It was pretty interesting wasn't it?

Ryan: 7:28

It's amazing to see, like, someone can be doing really well and just feel like the whole thing's going to fall apart at any moment. And then others will be, almost on the edge, might be five or ten grand in the bank, but they're just like, yeah, I'll figure it out. Things will be sweet. And it always comes down to like often how their money's constructed, how, the way it's all set up and what they see and how they're interacting with it and those routines. The other thing is just how confident they are in their own capability and their own skillset to be able to, make it work and eventually figure it out. And. If I think about the whole purpose of, being in a good place financially is to feel good, to feel free from it, feel at peace with it. Like it's not this thing that sucks life out of them. And how I think about it from that perspective, would I rather be the person with 10 grand in the bank that just knows I'll figure it out or the person with a million in the bank that's worried it's all going to fall apart at any moment. And this is some of the, Insights that we were learning by working so intimately with people is we don't want them to only have 10 grand in the bank, but we want them to be in that state In that place where they know they're good Even if right now it's not what they want it to be, know that they're going to be able to figure it out because they've got the capability to turn it into something. And I guess that's what we oriented all our efforts around. How do we get to someone to that point of sheer confidence?

Terry Condon: 8:37

Yeah, and this sort of sent us in a very different direction. too, didn't it? Because up until that point, we've been listening to people who had all these opinions about what works and what people should do with their money. And We re evaluated that and we said, let's just ignore the people with their opinions for a second. and Let's start looking for insights. Let's start reverse engineering what is working? Let's find the bright spots and then start to figure out what it is these people are doing and doing differently. And that's a very different search. It's a very, very different search. And it's not even, it's not all research. It's like look around, you talk to people, understand what's actually happening. But we did find some research that gave us, the one insight that changed everything for us this one insight actually underpins everything we do now. and it was in a book called The Millionaire Next Door, we've talked about it in the past. And, there's a lot in that book, and it's, we've said this before, but it's actually a boring book. it's not a good read. But it's a very valuable read. It doesn't make you feel good. at all because the way it's written and It's very comparative and this sort of thing. But there is some interesting information in there and if you delve into where it actually starts to look at what is the difference between folks who do achieve their financial goals, get to a place where they are self reliant and make it happen, and everybody else, it starts to become quite interesting. And we're massive fans of Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos got this idea and he says everybody's so interested in what's changing, but what I do is I always think about what's not going to change and I build around that. I might use what is changing, but I'm always focused around what's not going to change. And when it comes to all these insights, this book is full of insights, right? But there's only one insight that you can be very confident is not going to change with the passing of time. And that was time spent each month actively engaging with and managing your money. And so they looked at these two different groups. And it was what they call prodigious accumulators. The guys who achieve their financial goals became self made. And This other group they're called under accumulators. The biggest difference between those two groups, the amount of time spent each month actively managing their money. For the folks who accumulated and achieved their financial goals, became self made, they spent just over twice the amount of time as everybody else when it comes to managing their money. But here's the kicker, like it's not a lot of time. because everybody else spent next to no time managing their money. Like next to nothing, less than five minutes. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was very small amount of time. So, we were like, that's interesting. It's just that they're spending more time. And then, the other side of that is anxiety. Because it's not that if you spend no time actively managing money, you don't spend any time on money. Because what it showed was the folks that spent no time managing their money, they spent the rest of their time worrying about money. So, it's pretty cool. Like, when you think about it, you go, you've got a choice. You can spend some time thinking about it, and not worry. Or you can spend no time thinking about it, And worry. Anxiety is you know, you could be doing something that you're not doing. And you know that time is the resources you're not managing, and every day that that's passing by, it's actually compounding. But as soon as you get into action, and you start to alleviate that anxiety. and The flip side of time as well is that if you are spending more time on something, guess what's going to happen? You're going to get better at that thing. It doesn't even matter what your intellect is. You will get better at that thing. And so this was the big aha moment for us. Everybody thinks that more money equals less stress. That's what they think. So we adopt these solutions that promise to get us more money. We buy tickets in the lottery so that one day we'll have more money. We we invest in drop shipping schemes from Amazon. We listened to people that talk about multi level marketing. We're trying to look for these schemes and it's all about just getting more money So. I don't have as much stress. we're conditioned to think that more money equals less stress, but it doesn't. More money equals more money decisions. And if you lack the skill to make decisions with money, then more money just means more stress. So like, there's a lady that started with us last year. and I got a phone call from her, and she was just almost beside herself, stressed. She's I'm just freaking out. You got to help me. I'm going to stuff this up, I'm going to make a mistake, I'm going to die alone, I'm going to be a burden on my kids. And that was her reaction to a multi million dollar windfall. So everybody thinks The solution is just whatever gets me more money. It's not. it's actually, there's an inverse correlation between skill and stress when it comes to money. The more skilled you are with money, the less stress you feel. and then there's a positive correlation between skill and speed as well. The more skilled you are, the faster you'll be moving. Because you're going to get the best out of your situation. You'll be acting and learning. on your outcomes, because that's how actually how the brain learns. And then, obviously, that confidence that you talked about, that actually comes from you having a body of work where you've made decisions, some of them turned out, some of them haven't turned out, but you're making progress, you're looking back going, we're on the right track. So you draw that line in the future and you go, we're going to be okay. And guess what that does? That gives you permission to start doing bigger things now. To start doing the things that you don't feel like you could do or should do. And that's the success stories you guys hear on the podcast. That is exactly where these conversations are coming from. People are giving themselves permission to do these things, so. I think that's the big thing. These financial prescriptions, they're good If you're bleeding out, they're like financial tourniquet, right? Chuck them on, they'll stop the bleeding. Tourniquet is the thing that you put on when you are in mortal danger. Maybe you've got a gunshot wound or something. Maybe you've been bitten by a shark. Yeah. You don't want to lose your limb, so what do you do? You put a tourniquet on, stop the bleeding. Maybe you've been bitten by a snake, you don't want the poison to move. So you put a tourniquet on, and it's going to protect you. It's going to save your life in that moment. And I think a lot of these prescriptions do a great job in that sense. Actually, a fantastic job. What they don't do is get you beyond that point. And actually the longer that you hold onto these prescriptions, The more likely it is you might lose a limb. and It becomes harder for you over time. So that's the big thing, right? Like, difference between those practices and prescriptions is skill. You're either building skill with money, and the capability and the confidence that comes from that, or you're not. And unfortunately, a lot of the solutions that are out there, and sold as the one size fits all, as the the only thing you ever need to learn and do, unfortunately, they don't build skill.

Ryan: 13:38

Coming back to my example before, if I think about, so skill equals confidence, usually, because it's like, I'm capable enough to figure it out. It also means that speed is happening at the same time, so you're going faster. And most people's sense of how they're tracking actually has almost more to do with how fast they're moving than where they're at right so quickly our current position and then quickly, like we need be able to see progress from a current state more than It's like, how do you normalize? Owning your home, quickly normalize having X amount in your portfolio. All these things you normalize within a month, within two months, within six months. And we see this, we've got clients with, net positions of a million, close to 10 mil and still it's like, Oh, I'm not, I've been here for a while. I need to go, I need to go forward. I need to go faster. And so speed matters. Because we get a sense of, a feeling of stagnation so quickly. And it all comes from having the skill to be able to make it happen, sustain speed over time. So yeah, what we're saying there is like, it's the root cause of the other things, which is confidence, speed, et cetera.

Terry Condon: 14:44

Yeah, it's, an interesting It doesn't matter the actual position that you're in. It's your rate of change. and how you're perceiving that. And that's why I think those tourniquets do a great job in the beginning. Because they do create that sense of momentum. But over time, you actually lose visibility. There's a sense of abstraction that comes with your money, because most of it's got to do with like, automate everything, sit it over here, just set it and forget it. And You actually don't know what's happening with your money, so you lose your ability to measure and be on top of that rate of change. And you don't know whether you're making the most of your money. So that question mark just Sits in the corner of your mind and it creates anxiety.

Ryan: 15:13

you know what I'm less anxious about right now though? Getting shot. So I'm just confident you've got a touray in your back pocket.

Terry Condon: 15:18

Shag a corner camera, you'll be fine,

Ryan: 15:20

good mate. All good

Terry Condon: 15:21

But like the best analogy for me is this, right? Imagine you get sat behind the cockpit of a 747. Somebody sits you down there and says, okay, cool. So you're going to fly this 747, you're going to take it off and you've got to get it across this continent. You've got to get it across to Europe and you've got to get all these people. these thousand people in this plane. you've got to get them across there safely. But you've got no training. What do you do? You stand up. you get the fuck out of that. 747, because What? do you say? I'm not qualified for this. Right? And I think that, I actually think this is the biggest blocker to people's progress. Right? If you are not, confident that you could manage a 747 financially, guess what you do? You keep your position small, so that you never have to butt up against that chaos. Make sense? So you make decisions that keep you there. You self sabotage, bring it back to a level that you feel safe to manage. And the solution isn't just get more money. The solution is build skill, So that you release the internal constraint. Because once you're confident that you could manage a 747, and have a bigger position when it comes to that, Then you won't, you won't worry about it. You'll be like, amazing. keep it going. I guess like that for us was a huge insight. This is what's stopping people at a psychological level. They don't feel like they have the skills to manage a bigger position, so those positions stay small. That rate of change never really happens. and they feel stressed because of that. We're looking in the wrong places to answer the problem, to figure this whole situation out. So for us, we're like, let's go back to the drawing board and let's think about if it's about time. time is how you build skill and engage with money in all these different ways. What would have to go into that block of time each month? What are the skills? What are the tools? What are the ways people are working with money? And this is a real period of experimentation for us, wasn't it? Mmm.

Ryan: 16:44

sure, like you start looking at your own skills, really, and going, well, what's working for me? And how can I share what I'm doing? And I know for me at that time, I was spending a lot of time in, creating financial models, helping people project out and look at the next 30, 40 years. Like that was before we started this business, that's where I spent a lot of my time. And also building my own tools, ways to make sense of different options, different investments. But then, also looking at, how the barefoot was operating. We came across a book called profit first, which businesses were adopting and getting lots of cool stories coming out. And what was the other one? YNAB, for example, having to look at how they were operating and the book he'd written around the, the four rules and just learning about all these different ways and, and like you said, going beyond those bestseller books as well and into the other, other kind of the darker caves as well to see, like, what skills do people think are relevant? And I guess the ones I was looking at was more real money. focused, the investment, the cashflow management, the way banking structures are organized and how you were tracking and measuring how your cash was moving, all those types of things, whereas Yours was very much focused around how you were thinking, what your kind of internal dialogue was how do you understand and connect your values with what you're trying to achieve and money and how you bring and mash all those things together. And so lots of just going, well, what's working for us? What do we think would work for other people? How do we expand upon that? And then how do we organize and orchestrate that into a sequence of learning that helps people build those skills as quickly as possible? And it was messy, very messy.

Terry Condon: 18:12

super messy. No manual for this. It's just the wayfinding process of going, that's working. That's not working. That's working. That's not working. And why is that working? Why does that work? And You mentioned like, Learning and trying to combine these different ideas. We have these kind of different backgrounds. But then validating why something's working is the other thing. What is the evidence that shows why that works? What is the behavior science that explains that? What is the psychology that explains that? What is the research that's out there? And that is, that's the process to be able to do this. But that's how we came up with it, isn't it?

Ryan: 18:41

isn't it? A lot of our members construct their bank accounts and the decisions they make with how they're allocating income on a routine basis originated so early there. I'm like, Oh, I feel like this could work. And then, Oh, that feels good. I'm now gonna, I'm going to move that over there. What if I, what if I changed it like this? What if I did this often? And it was feeling our way through that. How does it feel for other people? I've heard those guys say that that's really valuable. But also these people will say that That doesn't feel right. It feels dirty if I touch it. Well, yeah, emergency funds, one of those, things.

Terry Condon: 19:15

about now, mate? What are you discounting

Ryan: 19:16

got very intimate with these alias members, all right? Yikes But I'm talking about emergency fund there. Sometimes people feel really uneasy about touching this emergency fund. They feel

Terry Condon: 19:26

You learn about things like mental accounting, when you hear about those conversations like what is that that's something called mental accounting, what is mental accounting that is how people apportion money in their mind and how does the way we structure people's accounts change the way they think about money in their mind. and the decisions they do and don't make when it comes to this Like it really is like taking these things down to the studs to be able to figure it out and you can hear this, you can hear a start to talk about this on the podcast, if you go back Episodes 18 and 19, we start drawing this line in the sand and saying there's a real difference here between what we're calling as a prescription versus what we're developing here which is more of a practice. This is a practice. because if you're doing a practice, then you are building skills. that's like some of the earliest manifestations of this over time. So if you want to know what it was like at that point for us, when we started to talk about it, go back and list those episodes, I reckon. But it starts to work at this point, at some point it starts to work, things start to click and we start to see the results we want. We've had 1200 people go through this now. And You can hear success stories on the podcast. If you've been listening for a while, you we've got people come on from time to time and talk about what they've done. I've had people save for deposits, buy their first home, fund their marriages, do maternity leave, trips around Australia, trips around the world. I saw one the other day trip traveling around the world right now, without an itinerary and investing at the same time. It's just like, I don't even know how this is working. This is crazy to me. It's not how I used to feel about money, that's the kind of thing that I love.

Ryan: 20:42

I actually haven't told you about this. I went out for a coffee with Dave, another member actually on Saturday and went into a cafe just near home here, and I was standing there getting a coffee, and I was like, fuck, this place is amazing, like, it turned into this epic space, and the guy serving me was like, geez, I know you. Tyson and his partner Loz have set up this cafe and I hadn't seen them for probably 12 months since they did the mentorship. And I remember at the time that I was making lots of comments around, we're not really happy with where we're at. He was traveling two hours every day, concreting. Still doing some of that now, but was traveling a long way. Now he's not. She was working now the hospitality business, not loving, that whole experience and wanted to spend more time in the kitchen, experimenting with recipes. And I realized like, Guys, what the hell? And they've set up this cafe and a part of it was also like using their skills to create a really cool intimate experience for people locally and and a real kind of health conscious part of that as well. And what they've done is set up this really awesome cafe that a couple of other friends had told me about. They're like, go here. Coffee's best we've had. Ra ra ra. But also they've set up this health like sauna and ice baths out the back

Terry Condon: 21:46

Oh, I think I've seen

Ryan: 21:47

container. Yeah, you've probably driven past it. Shipping container that's like incredible and like half the shipping can is cut out with glass. So you're like sitting in the sauna looking out over the garden and Just an awesome setup, and like 12 months ago, for them that was just like a wild, loose idea that they said, felt funny saying out loud. But then seeing it, and me not realising too, and then realising halfway like while having the conversation, ordering a coffee is wild. Some of these people,

Terry Condon: 22:15

Some of these people, I feel like this at times as well, because some of these people you don't meet in real life and you see them in real life and you don't always twig. You're like, hang on, what? We've never actually met each other. in the real world, so I haven't got a physical representation of you. That's a pretty cool full circle moment. though. That's epic. You're right, I'm actually, that has got me pumped. I was talking to one of our other guys, Scotty, last week actually. It's a Different scenario for Scotty, he was someone who was like, look, I'm 40 and I feel like I've fucked it up. I feel like I've completely fucked this up. I don't have a house. I watch my peers, building their lives. I am completely hopeless when it comes to money. I was watching his review and he said, I'm someone that's liable to just like, Snort cocaine and get strippers. And he said it with a tongue in cheek, but he's just like, that's how frivolous I am when it comes to money. And he goes, I'm not uneducated dude, I've got several degrees. I'm in a management position. I know what I'm doing. I can navigate life, but this part of my life is just a mystery to me. And yes, I've tried YNAB, and yes, I've tried the barefoot and yes, I've tried all these things. None of these things has stuck. And then he said, how do you know what you're doing is sticking? How do you measure success? And I was like, geez, I'm glad you asked that, Scotty. because, we have been measuring success from day one. We only do what work. And to be able to have that conversation with him a couple of years later, he talked about, he actually gave me a low point. He said, It got to a point where I had to go to my parents bakery and get free food because I couldn't feed myself and my kid. That's how I was getting by, because I just wasn't on top of it. And anyway, so I rang him and I was like, dude, I was just watching your review from a couple of years ago. like, how are you? What's happening? He said, I'm good, man. I've got a new partner now. and we're on the hunt for our first home. We've Got the built the deposits, built a nice share portfolio that's given me some different choices and we've moved, I moved up to the Snowy Mountains and I'm feeling great. So he's a real outdoors guy, he loves four driving, he likes being in those kinds of environments It's an honest life. Man, that's amazing. But he actually, hadn't twigged himself. I was like, I just watched your review, I'm going to send it to you, watch yourself. He was like, well, so I love that one because it's just like from a sense of helplessness to actually I'm making this happen. That's bloody cool.

Ryan: 24:09

that's a classic observation thing that we learned throughout this process is that, that you do normalize that new state so quickly and you have to be able to look back, see yourself at a snapshot in time a year or two years, or three years ago to see how much has changed. That's one of the skills, isn't it?

Terry Condon: 24:25

It's good. Yeah. And just giving yourself permission. That's what I love to see. Like those guys striking out and starting that. business And turning that vision into a reality. We've had a bunch of people on more recently just talking about them starting or buying their own businesses and obviously we've had rach who's about to come back on actually and talk about what it's like to be retired and be able to do whatever the hell you want and then what she's doing with her time now, which is actually pretty cool little full circle moment as well. So I just think the key point here is that these guys have now the confidence because they have the skills. and they're also. They're feeling good about their future, which means they're enjoying their present now, and they're giving themselves permission to do the things that they wouldn't have otherwise done. That's the unlock, isn't it?

Ryan: 25:01

have otherwise done. That's

Terry Condon: 25:03

You don't, you're not without challenges.

Ryan: 25:05

In a direction of action, like they're actually out of a place of inaction and making stuff happen and, and that rate of progress makes the stresses they do take on in making, building things worthwhile but they do spend less time in that stress state of, what do you call it? What's stress, but so stressed you can't do anything?

Terry Condon: 25:24

Distress.

Ryan: 25:25

Distress. Yeah.

Terry Condon: 25:27

You've got like eustress, I think that's the difference, right? You got eustress and destress. Eustress is, a healthy stress. You can deal with it and you move your way through it. You can grow from it. And It's actually about how you view the stress. that matters. And So the challenges don't stop because you somehow just now know money skills. Challenges keep coming at you. The difference is how you perceive and how you relate to and how you act on the challenges. You either go into your shell. Or you move through them with grace, You figure things out as you go. And I think that's an important call out. It's not like you learn these skills and your life just suddenly always gets easier and you it just means that you're more well equipped to deal with life's

Ryan: 25:58

you're well equipped deal with life's challenges. And so on. I know you love sharing this. I see you get this smirk on your face whenever you hear that a financial plan of someone in the finance space has said something positive about what we're doing. Why is that?

Terry Condon: 26:19

I wouldn't call it a smirk. I'd call it a gleam in the eye. That's what I'd call it. But no, I love it because I think there's this huge assumption, which is. I'm a money person or I'm not a money person. and it's way oversimplified, right? These people are, money people. Some of these people, one of our guys Wayne, shout out to Wayne, he's one of our best advocates. Wayne's a finance manager for a multinational business that turns over tens of millions of dollars. He's the guy that manages the money in that business. And he says, I can unreservedly say this has changed my financial life. Nothing has resonated with me the way this does. Anytime we're talking about it, he's like, just go and do this. This is the best thing I've ever done when it comes to money. So I think there's this huge assumption that like, hey, if you're good with numbers, you're good with money? Not necessarily. Actually, sometimes not at all. Because it's not just about numbers, is it?

Ryan: 27:02

numbers, is exactly. It rounds up rounds down.

Terry Condon: 27:14

Yeah. But I mean, look, I, I think it's that, right? So for me to get good at money, I have to get good at numbers. So therefore, I'll never be good at money. Just incorrect. It's incorrect completely because it's not you having to be good with numbers. It's you making decisions, with your money that matters. it's the decisions that you make with money, the tools. You don't have to be a mechanic to learn how to drive a car. right? You just need to know how to use the car. And it's the same here with this. You've got the tools to do the work for you. The main thing is, are you making decisions that improve your life? That is not correlated with being good at numbers. At all. Actually, I always refer to this. I always refer to the same Letter. And if you haven't read it, go back and read it. Go to Reddit and Google. I lost the love of my life because of my obsession with fire. Don't be me. I'll put it in the show notes for you again if you haven't read it. Go back and read it now. Because That is somebody who is absolutely all over and can optimise absolutely everything. So I think what I love about the pros here is like, yes, we've got financial planners, they say, I do this all my way now. Katie, she's an accountant, she said, the only reason I agreed to do this is so I could tell my partner I told you so at the end, now let's do it my way. And now she's like, I'm just here because I've got egg all over my face. So I just think, I like emphasizing that. because I think there's this huge assumption around money, person numbers, therefore either good at this or not good at this. can't do it. That's why.

Ryan: 28:28

You don't need to be a math person. I always think about a guy that founded Virgin, what's his name?

Terry Condon: 28:33

Richard Branson.

Ryan: 28:34

Branson. Richard Branson's dyslexic, yet he's written multiple books and built an empire. He's dyslexic. What excuse do we have?

Terry Condon: 28:41

I think I've told this story before, but I won't tell it again. Richard Branson's in one of these boardroom meetings and he starts talking about, the profit of the company, that sort of thing, and the people in the management position look at each other like, and in the break, one of them comes up and goes, Richard, do you understand? What net profit means? And he's like, Yeah, yeah, it's a profit. And he's like, no, no, you don't understand what net profit means. So like, you could be running a billion dollar company. And you can still make decisions with money to allocate. capital. You don't have to know. And it's not, I'm not saying that you shouldn't. But I'm just saying, like, they're just not always correlated the way you think they are. The folks who you know how to manage the money in the spreadsheet. and know how to do the pivot tables and that sort of thing. don't necessarily make great life decisions with money. And that's why it's so important to be able to have This combination of self awareness, emotional intelligence, and financial intelligence. My sort of conviction now is it's 80 20. 80 20 emotional intelligence slash self awareness. What do you say to that? What's your view?

Ryan: 29:32

would only challenge it from the perspective of, it what information, what intel you have when you're making decisions. I think most people just guess. Okay. And someone like him, he recognizes what's important, what to pay attention to when calibrating his judgment and he can ignore the fluff, which is exactly the same as true for money. Like so much of it is actually just you getting the right signals coming back from where you're at, how you're moving, and then feeding off those signals to use good judgment, make good decisions. And so. Depends where you fit configuring your money in a way that gives you those signals in that percentile. Because I think that's probably half of it, what The other half being how you actually interpret it, how you reason it, how you feel about it. So I'm going to say it's 50 50.

Terry Condon: 30:15

Let's get into this method, mate. So just a signpost. we've been around the bush here for way too long. We've talked about, this insight, realizing that skill is the number one thing we need to build. Skill is the thing that sets the stage for stress, speed, and success. No stress, more speed, higher chance of success. So, They're just five skills that we teach. Five skills of the money mapping method. And, what we want to do here is just give you a high level conceptual understanding. And over the next five episodes, we're going to do a deep dive into each one of these. So that you have absolutely all the information you need to be able to do it. Cause as always, if you're a dIY person, we'll power to you, figure it out. You can actually build the tools around this if you'd like. And we want to give you all the information to do that if that's the case. But if you do want help, five skills of money mapping, mate. There's an analogy, I love an analogy. there's a mountain analogy. How these skills fit together. Cause they are a set of skills. and I'd like you to think about like a tool belt. These are just skills that you pick up. You go, I'm going to use this now. And so, if you think about climbing a mountain. The first thing you need to do is you need to see yourself at the top of the mountain. You need to envisage yourself there, walking around on the top, and ask yourself, is this a mountain that I want to climb? Why is this mountain so important to me? And you've got to connect to the idea that it would be good enough, it would be cool enough for you to do what's required, to go and actually climb that mountain. You've got to have that sense of like, is the juice worth the squeeze? You have to think, like, what is the end in mind first? So look, that's the first skill future authoring see yourself at the top of that mountain and the second thing you do when you want to climb the mountain is you look down and check your health. How am I going? Am I in good enough shape to be able to scale this mountain? Could I make this work? How fast am I moving? What's my trajectory? You need to know all that information at all times. So you're going to be monitoring your vitals, that's the second skill. Do you have the information on hand to be able to monitor your economic vitals at all times? Because as we've talked about in the past, when you have a clear vision for success, you need to have very tight feedback loops so that you can keep course correcting and wayfinding towards your goals. It's never a linear process. And if you don't have those tight feedback loops, you don't have systems and structures that make those things very obvious, very visible to you at the moments that matter, then you are guessing all the way through. And that comes with a bit of anxiety itself as well. So that's The second skill, monitoring vitals. The third one if you think about that mountain analogy is, you've checked your health, now what you've got to do is you've just got to scan up ahead. Look at the next couple of little peaks, just to look at how best to start moving. And you want to be able to do this so that you can predict a couple of things. When are we going to be able to get to that milestone on the mountain? And how are we going to be able to get there? And what do we need to be able to do to do it in the meantime? And this is what we call cashflow forecasting. Cashflow forecasting is your ability to look forward on a 12 month timeline plan out and predict progress when it comes to your goals. but also find this dynamic balance between spending in line with the things that you value whilst you save towards that bigger vision for the future. And I think this is a big one. If you had listened to this podcast before, we've done a whole episode on this I'm going to do another deep dive on it because it's such an important skill. When. Opportunities come up, when things happen, and when you're planning ahead, you want to know. Is this coming at the cost of our goals? Is this going to cost us or is this a part of my plan? Can I make this work? And if you can't answer that question, you always wonder whether you're doing the right thing. quote unquote right thing. So I think this removes that question a lot, doesn't it?

Ryan: 33:26

Yeah, and I wouldn't say this is necessarily easy to get right, that dynamic balance. I think it's probably threefold in terms of, you need to know that you can cover the bills, you need to know that you can enjoy your money at the same time, so yeah, not giving up life for the sake of future but also that you can make meaningful progress on the goals that you have. And being able to tick all three of those boxes, requires iteration. It requires being able to zoom out and look at it on a year or over years and see how is that actually possible. Because meaningful progress on goals doesn't necessarily happen overnight. If it's saving for a home, building a portfolio, planning for a big trip, they're not happening in a month or three months or six months. They're happening in a year, two years, three years. And then you have to orient the way that you enjoy your money. Going to cafes, buying coffees, shopping going out with friends, all those things, you have to like, find a balance now in tune with the progress you're making on those goals over time. And so, this is where tools are really critical to be able to make that easy to do,

Terry Condon: 34:26

yeah.

Ryan: 34:26

easier to do, I should say.

Terry Condon: 34:28

Because you can enjoy your coffee, right, if you go, I already accounted for this, but if you, if you've got an expense that you're spending on that's not necessarily, you don't care for it too much, but it is adding up. when you start to see, hang on, I'm adding another six months to that goal for this thing that I don't necessarily care that much about. it's really easy to cut it out. It's really easy to get rid of it, change the spend. But if you don't have visibility on that sort of thing, you can just keep using money, just keep paying the bills, just keep spending it here and there. And then you turn around and you go, I've met couples that are netting 300K, saving nothing. And I'm like, what's the really important stuff you've done? And they're like, oh, I've taken a few trips. I'm like, yeah, but let's add up all those trips. It's like 50 grand. What about the rest of it? What do you got to show for it? And they're like, fucking nothing. And I'm like, you really want this? this is the thing. And that becomes stressful in and of itself. I think when you know that that's happening, but you don't know what to do about it.

Ryan: 35:16

it. does, and everyone usually has a feeling. It's like, Ugh, don't feel like, we're getting banged for our buck here. Like, what's up? And you very quickly see, this is what's up. This is the thing that needs to change. And it's not always spending, sometimes it is income. And you very quickly see that, an extra thousand bucks a month, or an extra two thousand dollars a month, completely changes how we feel about all of this. We feel better about spending, and we're making meaningful progress on the goals that we have. And two thousand dollars isn't that much. far away. Like it's, it's relatively, it's proximal. We could make that happen. And I often sit in a session like that with a client and sometimes it's not a great feeling. It's like, Oh shit. Like it's jarring. Like we can't, we can't screw down our spending any more, it's, it's not pretty, but I smirk in those ones because I know, and it's happened so many times that Maybe it's not in the next month or in the next six months, but in the next 12 months, two years, three years, things change. That uncomfortable feeling and knowing what needs to change come together. And, They turn into deliberate action. All of a sudden you notice that opportunity that helps you learn, earn that little bit more. You take on that side hustle. They, have that hard conversation at work about what pay looks like, or start investing in themselves, or make a little bit of a pivot but things that you wouldn't usually do unless you had that uncomfortable feeling and could see that extra thousand or that extra two thousand makes all the difference. It makes it possible to pay the bills, enjoy your money, and make meaningful progress at the same time. But without it, you just keep feeling shit

Terry Condon: 36:45

yeah, the assumption is what is is what will be.

Ryan: 36:48

yeah, this sucks, but it's not navigational.

Terry Condon: 36:51

Yeah, I think that's a really important pickup. It's not about just spending. It is also about the balance between spending and earning. And both those things have to work together and I think that's a huge misconception about cash flow. is that it's all about budgeting and trying to screw down your money at all times. It's not. Budgeting is a very small part of cash flow. These are these five skills. These are cash flow skills. And it just, it's a very oversimplified sort of version of, of reality. I think this part of it is. it's so cool to see where people go. Now I see what the problem is, I can solve the problem. I didn't know what the problem was before, but now I do. So that's a huge one, I reckon, cashflow forecasting. I'm really excited to jump into doing more of a deep dive, doing that whole thing again, because I just think when you do see this, and you do see the impact of this over time, it's pretty crazy. So that's cashflow forecasting, right? That's you scanning ahead, planning, predicting for progress, to be able to figure out how to find this balance to make it happen. The fourth one here is more about how you provision the resource that you have as you climb the mountain, right? As you climb the mountain, you've got to make sure that you're looking after yourself now, and you've got to make sure you're looking after yourself at different stages along the climb. So you don't want to be consuming everything at the start, and you've got nothing left. When you get to the halfway point, and the weather turns bad, and you're on an empty stomach, and you're just like, this sucks. You're going to give up. And so, you need to have a mechanism that helps you allocate your money in a way that provides for you now and also sends. The resources forward to the future as well. So that you can go the distance and that's what we call income mapping. and this is what I'd say is probably one of the most pivotal parts of this whole thing is been able to separate the incoming from the outgoing and then make deliberate decisions with every single dollar to find that dynamic balance on a month to month basis. I think it's one of the biggest shifts and changes, like Nicola, who's one of the mortgage brokers we talked about earlier, Nicola says, this was profound. She said, I knew how to manage money, but I just had no idea the impact this one thing would have on my life and our life, and how much it would mean for us in terms of our, the way we think about, feel about, and work with money together. It's become a lot more fun now. She says.

Ryan: 38:46

Yeah, this income thing was something we actually learned from Profit First model. But we realized that it wasn't enough. You needed more layers and you actually needed to be very deliberate and a bit more scientific, like more active in deciding what you want your income to do for you. But you absolutely need to make sure that money's not coming into the same place money's coming out of. It just always feels like trying to catch dry sand, it's falling through your fingers. And it is the way that you make sure you don't eat all the gummy bears on the first day. You get a bellyache and then have a sugar high instead you split it out over time and make sure that with that forecasting you're doing, you're looking ahead, seeing what's possible the next 6, 12, 24 months. It's how you actually stay on that track, stay on that path, have that clarity on what you need to do each day to take you closer. So crucial, crucial step.

Terry Condon: 39:29

Yeah.

Ryan: 39:30

Yeah.

Terry Condon: 39:30

Crucial skill, yeah. And then we got the last one here which is following a proven path. So if you are, you've seen yourself at the top, you've checked your health, you've scanned ahead, and now you're provisioning really well, you just want to make sure that as you are scaling that mountain, you're following a pathway that has been trodden before. Because there are a lot of people that have gone before you and there's a lot you can learn. from their experience and there's a lot that you can use on that as well. So rather than you having to carve your own path up, the mountain, learn a little bit from the folks that have been doing this, and plot that path in a way that makes sure that you can make the most of the experience, you'd have the experience that you want, but also, learn from the best as well along the way. Anything you'd add

Ryan: 40:09

You could picture Google Maps imagine if Google Maps, you know how sometimes it shows you the other route?

Terry Condon: 40:14

Yeah.

Ryan: 40:14

Imagine if it showed you 135 routes from one side of the city to the other. And when it comes to finance, we can't necessarily see where the roadworks are, where the mudslide took out a road, where there was dangers all these different things that can get in the way of going fast or even getting there in the first place. And this is basically around just being able to zoom out use the other hikers that have already climbed it before you, who was able to get there with the least amount of bruises but be able to get there the fastest as well. And so it's trying to carve off the 150 pathways that you shouldn't take to find the one that you should,

Terry Condon: 40:52

Yeah.

Ryan: 40:53

which is a personal thing.

Terry Condon: 40:54

That's right. and just to be clear this last one's called master planning. So the five skills are future authoring, monitoring vitals, cash flow forecasting, income mapping, and master planning. And they all have to work together to be able to help you navigate the big financial decisions and the little ones that all add up to the big outcomes as well. And they're all based on you building skill along the way as well. So we've given you a bit of a high level view here. But as I said, we're going to dive into exactly how to do that. what each one of these is, what it means, how it works, the actual steps that are taken, and then the evidence that supports that. And so we'll go through each of those things for the next part of the series. What is the science that shows why this part's so. important? Because It doesn't matter what we think, it only matters if it works, and we can prove that it works over time. Now, before we wrap this up, we did say that we were going to talk about the science that supports this and these skills and why these skills work. to be able to help you make those big financial decisions, make progress and have things stick over time. There's two bits of research and two bits of expertise that I really want to call attention to. One of these, we've talked about before in the podcast, there's a lady called Emily Balcedas. she's a motivation scientist at New York University. and her whole body of work is based on attention, And how attention affects perception when you're pursuing goals. So, if you think about it, you're always manipulating your attention. You're seeing yourself at the top of the mountain. You're looking up to make that happen. You're scanning forward, you're seeing yourself in the future. Then you're looking down to check your health, monitor those vitals. Then you're scanning ahead, just up ahead of you. And then you're looking down again into the month in front of you, to be able to provision to make sure that you've got enough for now and later. And you're also making sure that you're following this proven path on a longer timeline as well. Attention and perception are massive when it comes to this because if you're focusing on the right things, then you're going to go the distance. Stay the course and you'll get the best out of yourself. But if you're focusing on the wrong things, then you'll feel bad. You'll feel like you're making no progress and you'll quit. And I think this is why it's so important, right? In the absence of these skills, guess where you look to? The most concrete things that you can find. What's my income? How much I have in savings? What do other people have? And so that's a real good way to get blown off course.

Ryan: 43:03

An interesting question to ask yourself here is, what do you pay attention to most as a signal of progress or regression? Like what shows you whether or not you're getting ahead or, or not. Often that's a single point of reference, like a single bank account or portfolio number or something like that. And we have this really narrow myopic view on that. Whereas what we're highlighting there, the skill is actually changing your vantage point where you're viewing it all from. And there's five different vantage points that help you feel confident, stress, less go fast.

Terry Condon: 43:32

Yeah. So look, if you're the kind of person who likes to learn, then Just read the book, Clearer, Closer, Better, to understand what we mean when it comes to that. It's all about manipulating your attention and perception when you're pursuing a goal, to be able to make that happen and tap into that persistence over time. so that's the first part with attention and perception and how it affects your persistence when it comes to goal pursuit. But another part of this equation is motivation. And there's this growing body of work it's been around for a while now called self determination theory. And just recently, it started to I guess, encroach into the area of personal finance. And just last year there's this new research paper that came out, from this field. And I think it's very important, Nobody's talking about it, and it has huge implications for what works and what doesn't work. And I think it explains exactly why our method works so well. If you pick this up, and you get across the learning phase, you don't put it down. You don't want to put it down, because it feels weird, and you don't want the other feeling. and You want the feeling of feeling good. And so this research paper, it's called Motivations for Personal Financial Management, a Self Determination Theory Perspective. And it was done by academics from the Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Scarborough, in canada. And also the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education at the australian Catholic University in Sydney, New South Wales. Very important research So It talked about two types of motivation, right? Control motivation, autonomous motivation. And it talks about the efficacy, or how well these different types of motivation work when it comes to long term financial wellbeing and long term financial outcomes. And it validates what we were saying before, perfectly around prescriptions versus a practice, and whether it's owned by you, or whether it's owned by somebody else. And so, control motivation. So what I want to do is just go through, I guess, what each of these are, and just talk about what we've seen, because it does bear out exactly what we've seen with our method. So self determination theory describes control motivation as any motivation in which a person feels compelled or pressured to act. So anytime you're using the word should or must, that is. what they call an introjected motivation. It's often focused on, obtaining approval from oneself or other external authorities, and it's often driven by shame and guilt. guilt and anxiety. So when I say prescriptions and I say rules and those sort of things, that is you adopting an external authorities approach. And so it is externalized in that way. It is more of a form of control motivation than something that you necessarily want to do. Which is a little bit different when it comes to autonomous motivation. So control motivation is that. it's anything that's like introjected, it's like I should do it. And it's driven by that. shame, guilt, or anxiety. Autonomous motivation is different. That is people's engagement with activities that are driven by an interest or by the satisfaction that people experience during the enactment of the activity in and of itself. So if you like the process, because the process by itself is enjoyable for you, And it's meaningful for you because you know it's improving your life. That is going to be governed by autonomous motivation. So those two things are completely different. They're both governed by feelings, some of these feelings are constructive and the other ones are destructive. Anything you'd add to that mate, between the difference between controlled versus autonomous motivation?

Ryan: 46:30

I think just in terms of diagnosing whether or not you're stepping into something that's about controlled motivation versus autonomous would be if it's to follow these steps. Like, just do this step one, step two, step three, step four. Dave Ramsey baby steps is a classic example of this in the States. Then that tends to be controlled motivation. And you often hear guys talking about like, they feel guilty if they don't do these steps Versus Autonomous being, You feel like you're building skills. And there's, that's not always clear and exactly between the two because sometimes you're building skills by following steps but the key thing is, do you feel like you're building confidence by doing so or is their feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety that kind of come alongside of it. They're pretty good signals to show whether or not you're in that controlled or in that autonomous state. Which like you just said, autonomous is, self determined theory clearly shows that if you want to do it for long enough, do it for a long time to make the big things happen, you have to go down an autonomous route. And this is a problem with, So much of what we do with finance, we're trained to do with finance is either follow a steps approach or offload that responsibility to someone else, to an advisor, for example. And it's not to say you shouldn't do those things necessarily, but if you are ambitious and you want to make big things happen, then you have to be self determined. You have to be a self starter and you have to be willing to build the skills. Otherwise you're probably not going to get there.

Terry Condon: 47:50

You just won't do it for long enough to see your actions compound. And Yeah, so the way you know is like, do you feel better when you do the thing or do you feel worse if you don't do the thing? And keep that in mind. Like, you should be feeling like, the thing I'm doing is actually, the feeling is better. Like, I'm becoming more, confident. I'm seeing a bigger, brighter future for myself. And most importantly, I want to do the thing. I enjoy the actual process of doing it. It's like the best diet's the one you don't know you're on. Because as soon as control becomes into the equation, it introduces the idea of out of control. So if control is a central part of what you're doing, you can guarantee that pendulum is going to swing the other way at some point. It's just human nature. It's very different. if you say, I really wanted to do this, and I am going to put in the time, I'm going to figure these things out, and I'm going to see this as a project, and I'm going to see this as me improving myself. building. Mastering one of life's most important skills. One that's going to pay off for the rest of my life. One that once I learn it once, I never have to learn it again. And one that's going to give me more of everything else I want. Like I've said it before, I reckon personal finance is like wishing for more wishes. It's the ultimate hack. You learn the one thing, So that so many other things become a lot more possible. So, if you see it like that, and you can get into a process where you're like, I just intrinsically enjoyed the process in and of itself, you've already won, you're going to win. But the big thing that I want to emphasize with this research is that autonomous motivation is positively associated with positive financial behaviors, positive financial well being, and better outcomes over time. Control motivation, negatively associated with financial well being. So, and this is the thing that I think is really important to be in it. You can have a better financial position, but you can have worse financial well being. So yeah, you followed the solution to its letter. You gave up everything, you, you followed what the high priest of personal finance told you to do. And you went the whole distance, you got your million dollar portfolio now, you turn around just like the guy who said, I lost the love of my life because I got obsessed with fire. Your financial wellbeing is in the toilet. So what's the point? You've got your million dollar portfolio, but you feel worse about yourself. You feel worse about money. wasn't the whole thing to feel better so if you can feel better right now with your money guess what you'll feel better in the future as well so I think I just I don't know. I think that's such important research that needs to be pushed out more widely in the personal finance space because I just I see a lot of people suffering because of The only thing that's promoted out there and it's easy to sell the seductive just follow this thing It's the only guide you'll ever need it's easy to sell that. It's just it's harder to I know that what we're talking about is harder because we're saying build skill. That's not sexy I'll tell you what is sexy all the results we talked about before

Ryan: 50:17

easy to fall into that trap though, like we're already we're all busy. We're all tired Shit's hard. It's easier to take the easy route. But, like they say, easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.

Terry Condon: 50:29

Yeah, but it doesn't have to be hard. It's just a perception of like, I'll take responsibility. I'll build the skill, and I will do some thinking through the process. But then you get to rest on your results and take responsibility for them. There are a lot of folks, right, that say, They feel like dave ramsey is the person who's responsible for their success or whatever they did. They get to the top of the mountain and it's Dave Ramsey. It's not you saying look what I did. So, I don't know. I know what I'd choose it's just an interesting kind of contrast and the other one I just want to draw attention to is financial literacy versus motivation as well Australians consume so much personal finance content so much like we've said it before but barefoot investors sold more books than any other company. history in australia in any category at any time he sold more books So we froth personal finance and we love learning about personal finance on a global stage, right? But if it comes to financial literacy, you can have high financial literacy, but if you're in a controlled motivation state, you're still going to struggle with consistency, and you'll still feel bad about money. Give me the person who has low financial literacy, but autonomous motivation, where they go, I want to do it, I see the value in this, I want to make this kind of happen. Give me that person any day, I will tell you they're going to win. And when I say win, it's not like they're in a race, but they're going to win. They're going to achieve what they want to achieve. I see it all the time. and people come in and they say, I'm just not a money person, but I really see how this is going to be important, I go, sweet. Like the people that have gone through our free program, that Build Your Cash Cushion course, when they come through, and they come into the mentorship, I'm like, I can't wait to see you in a couple of years. This is going to be cool. Because if you took yourself through that, and you're a self starter, and you made that happen, this is just going to speed everything up. What do you reckon about that, The contrast between literacy versus motivation?

Ryan: 52:02

I couldn't agree more, like, we see this too, we see this in terms of people that come to us, they're looking almost expecting a controlled motivation, like just do this, don't think, and it can be quite jarring for them. But the guys that come in open minded ready from that perspective, they're self determined and people often ask us who's the best fit for what we do, the mentorship specifically. That's probably the only, nearly the only prerequisite. Be self determined, to be autonomous, and want to get to a point where you have financial confidence through the skill set that you have. Do you want to take action? You don't want to sit in a stress state? If you feel stressed, yes, that's okay. But you're wanting to use that to shift things for you.

Terry Condon: 52:44

Exactly right. Yeah. So mate, this is, I know we've covered a lot in this episode. So, But let's just summarize this quickly, right? So, the key point we're trying to make with this episode, is that after five years of doing this, and after a couple of years of really trying to understand that personal finance problem, we've realized that. If you follow a controlled motivation approach, and you look for prescriptions, you won't build skill. And if you don't build skill, you'll never have that capability. And it's the confidence that comes after capability. And that is the biggest constraint on your growth, your speed, and your confidence in long term success as

Ryan: 53:13

well. And well being in any state, knowing that you can figure it out.

Terry Condon: 53:17

Yep, exactly right. So, that's the key point we want you to get. The money mapping method is five skills. Future authoring, monitoring your vitals, cash flow forecasting, income mapping, master planning. These are a suite of skills that you can use to navigate and way fine with your financial decisions. And it's how we've got results for everybody that you've heard from on the podcast, and a lot more folks who you haven't heard from as well. So for the rest of this series, what we're going to be doing is, we're going to go deep dive into each one of those practices, and give you the answers to all the questions that you might have around that, talk you through the actual steps that are involved in each part of the process. And again, talk you through the evidence that supports why each of these practices is so important to be able to help you build that skill, to decrease that stress, increase the speed, and increase the odds you'll succeed as well. So, next up mate, future authoring. And it's our secret sauce for transforming people's relationship with money from a controlled motivation when it comes to money, I should do this, to, I want to do this, I see the value in this, I know that this is important, let's get after it. We're going to go through exactly what that is. We've talked about it in bits and parts on the podcast, but we're going to try to do it really in relation to this particular exercise. I'm going to be going back to those three other words we talked about last episode, wealth, rich, and success. We're going to show you how to use that as a framework for building a financial vision that guides and directs every decision you make to improve the quality of your life. So we'll talk through that. So you know how to build commitment so you'll be consistent.

Ryan: 54:35

Hell yeah, and, what I love about what we're about to do here is usually with podcasts, it's like abstractions of what we're doing or it's, it's in an unorganized format. You hear about part of it over here, but now we're actually sequencing it. So you can follow it step by step for the first time. So looking forward to share that. And if you're wondering how you actually stack up against each of those skills, so you want to, I guess just surface where opportunities for you lie right now in terms of what you can do and where you can build your own skills, build that confidence and, and go faster. We're built a tool that helps you do that. And we call that the financial skill score. And so if you're keen to find out where you're at, this will actually show you which skill you should pay attention to, which skill you really need to build to help elevate all of that, where you have the greatest, point of leverage. All right. So if you go into the show notes and scroll down, you'll see a link says, find out my financial skill score. And it'll take you through a series of questions, help you basically, yeah, do that diagnostic and see where you're at. And so if you want to see where you're at right now and maybe at the end of this or, over the next six months, how are you going against building those skills? So you can measure it now and measure it later. That's a great place to start. Mate, we've covered a lot. Let's get into the next one.

Terry Condon: 55:45

Let's do it.