Why I shelved this podcast for 6 months (and what's next)

After six months of silence, Terry is back. and he's not just picking up where he left off. In this episode,  He pulls back the curtain on everything that's been happening behind the scenes at Cashflow Co: a surprise buyout offer from one of the country's biggest financial services firms, a pivotal conversation with his business partner Ryan about their future, and a complete rebuild of the Money Minded model from the ground up.

He shares the honest feedback that made him rethink his entire positioning, the new program he's built for homeowners in the messy middle of life, and what listeners can expect going forward: new shows, new experts, more video, and a much sharper focus.

If you've been wondering what's been happening, and where to from here, this episode is for you. 

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Transcript

Speaker 8 0:00

Hey there, it's Terry here, and welcome back to the Money Minded Podcast. Now, we've been quiet since Christmas. It's been six months since we produced an episode, and in this episode, I'm gonna reveal exactly why. I'm gonna talk you through what we've been up to, what's been happening in the business behind this podcast, Cashflow Co, and where things are heading with Money Minded and what you can expect as a listener. And to be honest, I feel a bit like Tiger Woods in 1997. In 1997, Tiger Woods won the Masters by 12 strokes, but he admitted to his coach after that win that he felt like he got away with murder. He felt like he was playing better than he knew how. And so he went back to the drawing board and rebuilt his swing completely Before coming back bigger and better than ever and ultimately reaching his potential. And that's kinda what's been happening for the last six months. I just shelved the podcast for the last six months to make the biggest upgrades that we've ever made for the business and also for this platform as well. And this actually started in late 2024 with a buyout offer, and you might have heard me talk about this in the Earn Your Worth series. At the end of that year, Ryan and I got an offer from one of the biggest financial services firms in the country. They wanted to buy our business. They wanted to subsume us into what they were doing and make us a part of them. And, you know, we took the meeting, and it was interesting, and it was super flattering, but ultimately, we weren't really interested in joining a corporate company. It's why we kinda left and built our own thing. But it did start a different conversation between Ryan and I, and it was more of a conversation of where do we wanna take things from here?" It was probably an opportunity for us to just stop for a second and realize what we had built, and then think a bit more about what we wanted to build for the actual future and how we wanted to build. Because we built this business from nothing, validated this completely new money method that was built more on how people work than how money works, and had been changing lives for folks all around the country. And as part of that process, we'd also developed our own purpose-built technology, and Ryan had taken the lead on that. And the more he learned about that, the more he wanted to learn. And it-- I'd sort of noticed that that was kind of the case, and particularly when we got the buyout offer, he was really concerned that maybe we might lose control of that tech. And so it started this different conversation about what he wanted to focus his time on. Personally, I've always been more into the education, coaching, the people-led part of the business, but I think he had found his thing. And I sort of mentioned that to him. I said, "I, I can see you kinda going back and forth, and if I ask you what you wanna spend more time on, I think the obvious answer is usually the tech." So we started a conversation about what it would look like to restructure everything to make sure that we could each focus on the things that we were most inspired by, the things that we found most purpose in. 'Cause I felt like I had that, but I could see that Ryan was a bit m-more torn now. And that conversation is not one conversation. It's a rolling conversation happening across time 'cause if you build something for this period of time, you've gotta, gotta think about what's the best way forward. And so it sort of started that conversation. And I use this as a bit of an opportunity to step back from the whole enterprise and just look at it with completely fresh eyes because we built it around our complementary strengths. So a change in involvement and activity was a good time to think about changing the model and maybe the business itself. I wanted to sort of go, "Hey, blank slate, what would you do now? Would you still do it? Would you do it differently? How would you do it?" And I just didn't want to get stuck in the sunk cost of what was. I wanted to completely wipe that slate clean and think about everything we'd learned, everything we'd take from our journey up to here. Just because you can keep going and doing the same thing doesn't mean you should. So I thought about things that I would go back and change if I could, and what lessons I could take from that. And I thought about the bright spots, how I might be able to double down on what really worked to be able to increase impact and results. Things like Doug and Kayla, that last episode that I produced in Christmas time. They're now $7,000 a month better off net after tax. And everything they've done in the last 18 months is just absolutely gonna set them up for life. And I thought about those kind of examples where we've seen people just absolutely shoot the lights out and what was different about that and what we could do to make that happen more often, in a more reliable way. And as a part of this process, I didn't want to just think about this myself. I wanted to get some outside in thought as well. And ironically, I went back to one of those directors who was part of the business that offered to buy us out and said, "Hey, I'd love your advice. Obviously, we didn't get the deal done here. You know, Ryan and I are just having this different conversation now. I haven't come back to you because it's only just really been recently where we've realized we are gonna start restructuring things." And so I said to him, "What would you do in my situation? Where was the actual value? What, what was it that you saw was valuable in our business?" 'Cause obviously there's the view that we have on it, but we don't really see things in 20/20. It's the market that matters and There's really two ultimate compliments in business. It's a referral and somebody talking about what you do, and the other one is a buyout opportunity. Those both say that you've created value somewhere, and I just wanted to make sure that I understood where the value actually was, I guess, from somebody who's been in the market for a long time. And so he said to me, "Look, the platform's amazing. The podcast is great. I can see you guys have built a really good, strong brand, great audience and you've got a, a lot of commitment there. The method, all those things are amazing, but it's actually the coaching capability was what we wanted. That's where we actually saw the value." He said, "We've had people come through from your business to ours to get help to get investors start making bigger decisions with money." And he said, "We just noticed that the folks that have come through from you just have a completely different level of commitment. They're 100% aligned if they're in a couple and they're just way more engaged in the process. They don't drop away. Some folks come in and they're really flaky. Your guys are never flaky. And so we just wanted to understand that." And months before this buyout offer had came, he asked me about that. And so we just had a bit of a, bit of an in-service where we compared notes and we talked about what we're each doing. And that's where we said, I realized that it was the coaching. What we really wanted was the coaching and he said that, "The cash flow space is notoriously difficult, and you guys are the only business we've seen that's been able to make that work in a very sustainable way, but actually have real impact across time. 'Cause it's easy to throw things at people, but it's really what people are doing long term that matters." And he said, "That's what you've cracked. You've cracked the code on that." So that was really interesting for me. I kinda really thought about that and went, "Okay, so there's the value. That's what's actually important about the business." And then I said, "Well, what would you do if you were me?" And he said, "How often do you refer out to mortgage brokers as part of your process? 'Cause those two things do go pretty closely together. You're always talking about cash flow and optimizing mortgages, usually a part of that." I said, "All the time. We're always referring out to mortgage brokers." And he said, "How hard is it to have them be across what you're doing, how you're doing it, have the same language, the structures, the systems that you use?" And I said, "Oh, it's, it's a little bit clunky here and there, but it's not, not too bad." He said, "How fruitful is it? Have you found that it's actually helped you build your business?" And we said, "Not really. Not really. The podcast has built everything." Most of the time, mortgage brokers are pretty busy. They got a lot of stuff going on. It's not really a reciprocal relationship in that regard. And he said, "Have you ever thought about integrating into your pathway, into your process having that conversation happen more in-house?" And I said, "Not really. I don't really wanna become a mortgage broker." And he kinda just talked me through the different ways that you could do this, that you could actually partner up, work with folks, and build an asset together, and do it in a way where it was more a part of our program as opposed to a bolt-on or a refer out. And ultimately, this is about making it easier for folks going through the process to get help with that. And while I was reflecting on that, I realized that the mortgage actually was a catalyst for a lot of folks that have come through and wanted to get help and gotten help with us. Either implicitly or explicitly, it's been stated. It's just the thing that creates that burden at that stage of life where you've got sort of family, early family formation, settling down, you've got kids, marriage, mortgage happening, and the mortgage is the focal point of that pain. You take on that responsibility, it creates this big obligation. It's widely felt. It's acutely relevant right now because of where interest rates are at, and it's a measurable, tangible thing that you can have a real world impact on. So I was really reflecting on that, and then I thought about the Doug and Kaylas, and I thought about the power of defense, you know, doing a better job of managing the money that you make, and then building a plan for making more money to manage, bringing defense and offense together. That was magic, and it's one of the things I'm most proudest of. And then what I realized, though, is that all the comments when folks go through this, even though we are having financial outcomes, a lot of the time when folks go through this and they are working with these challenges, and one of the things they say to us is, "One of the things we didn't really expect is the impact this has had on our relationship." Most of the time people are saying, "This has just been one of the best things we've ever done for the relationship because it was just not quite working. It's not that it was broken, but it just never really quite worked, and we didn't realize how much of an impact that was having on our life." And the analogy I sort of tend to give with this is you don't know you're underslept until you have a good sleep, and it's a bit like that with money. You don't know that it's not really working and it's clunky until you actually do something that works. And that's the biggest thing when I kind of stepped out, when people are saying back to us what they value. It's the part of those processes where we actually think about and talk about the actual relationship, the relationship to money, and then build the structures and systems and skills around that. That's why we have completely different levels of, commitment and engagement at the same time, I got a few gut checks as well. There was about a week there where I was talking to two or three different people who had engaged with me personally or our content and reached out, and in conversation had said, "I mean, I love what you guys do, love what you stand for, love your content and the philosophy, but I hit the website, and I'm just not quite sure what it is that you do." And that's not a great sign if you're in business. That is a not a great sign at all. I think we have been quite clear on our positioning, what our philosophy is, the worldview and we even talk about the method, and we've shared that whole method, and that's all aligned. But the actual problem that we solve and the people that we solve it for has not been clear enough. So that's what made me start to think, "Well, maybe I need to take my own medicine here." You know, I've just finished this Earn Your Worth series. And it's all about figuring out what your superpowers are, and then mapping that back to a marketplace, uh, a group of people, an audience that really needs and wants and desires that from you. And when I thought about that, I'm like it's pretty obvious. Homeowners in that messy middle part of life, struggling without any system, no structure, no plan for how to get out from under their mortgage so they can set themselves up and just get back to living life on their own terms instead of the bank's terms. That's really what we've been solving without really, without really knowing it. Yes, investing's part of the conversation. Yes, cash flow is part of the conversation. But the actual problem, the thing that we're actually trying to solve is that. How do we work together on this big challenge that we've set for ourselves? So that's kinda what sent me back to the drawing board, and the plan was I'm gonna sit down the podcast, build out a completely new delivery model focused on helping homeowners use the existing skills, the existing tools, the existing methodology, but focusing it and pointing it towards wiping 10 years off the mortgage without living on less. So part of this is about integrating offense, the income part of the equation, into the offer to accelerate results. And so for the last four, five months, I've been working really intensively every single week with a small group of folks just to really understand, dig into that problem, and figure out how I can best do that within the actual program itself. And that's been really unreal learning. Results have been amazing, and impact's been amazing. But just really wanted to understand how we could integrate that part as well, so just you could do defense and offense together. The other part of it is just speaking to the challenges facing couples during this time as well. Unprecedented economic uncertainty right now, unbelievable technological disruption coming with AI and just societal upheaval is happening. So there's a lot of pressures. There's a lot of things happening for the folks who are in this kinda messy middle part of life, the same part of life that we're in, same part of life that I'm in. And so I thought, "How do we help, better help these people? How do we do it in a, a way that's easier, faster, faster time to result, easier to do and a much bigger impact much sooner?" So that's involved, you know, going back to the drawing board, training new staff going back to the messaging, rebuilding that model, and it does take time and focus. So that's why I sat the podcast down because I thought, "I'm gonna re-skill. I'm gonna retool. I'm gonna rebuild my swing, basically and build a brand-new business to be able to solve for this particular problem." And it needs new expertise, so I've had to learn some of that expertise, and the other part of it is bringing that in, training people up, but also building out new relationships, new partnerships. And so over that period of time, that's really what's been happening. I built a brand-new program, new mentorship new delivery models. At the same time, built a brand-new content studio here for YouTube, which allows for more video content and we've got new podcasts coming as well. So obviously, "Money Minded"'s gonna be coming back. This is the first episode. Expect to hear more from me, but also you're gonna be able to find me on "Money Minded with Tex" on YouTube as well. So find me there. but there's gonna be another podcast too. There's gonna be two podcasts. The other one is gonna be called "The Price of Love," and that one is gonna be with my partner, Elise. So she's been on the podcast before, And she spends her time working with couples and really understanding, the interactions, the interrelationships, the challenges couples face. And we have learnt so much from each other going through this. I find it really interesting. We talk about how I've become a lot more on the side of the female as I go through and w- learn about how the po- power dynamics work with money, and she's become a lot more on the side of the male when it comes to the same dynamic at home. And just, I guess, the old mental models, the old assumptions, the old conventions that we grow up and sort of swim in, we don't really question. So we've been doing so much learning together privately on this, and it's helped us so much as a couple that we wanted to start really learning in public. So we've been mapping out that platform, and that podcast, and that's just gonna be another way in, another way to have the conversation, think about how you can address these challenges, but just with a completely different lens. So you're still gonna have Money Minded on audio, absolutely, but you'll also have it on video, Money Minded with Tex. You can find and subscribe to that, but also look out for The Price of Love, which will be coming up really shortly as well. So as a listener, you can expect the same substance, but some new faces and some new topics, and we're gonna be able to get deeper into some of these subject matters because we have subject matter experts coming in and being resident experts on the podcast. So we're gonna talk about property in a bit more detail. We're gonna p- talk about investing in more detail. We've got some tax accountants coming in as well. Tax is the biggest expense you're ever gonna pay in your life, so we wanna get on top of that. More series, more deep dives, timeless and topical, and there's gonna be more content on the earn your worth side of things as well, as well as the relationship side with the price of love too. So yeah, more channels, more ways to connect and learn, and a lot more video stuff coming up soon. If you wanna find out more about the new program and everything that we've rebuilt in the last six months, just go to the link in the description. It'll take you through to that page. There's a video on that page that kinda talks you through the model. There's a bunch of stuff on the actual page itself, and then you can actually click through and see all of the pricing, all of the details, and absolutely everything you wanna know about how that all works. So if you wanna find out more about that, you can absolutely do so. But next up, this is not just an update, it's a bit of a segue into our next episode, and I wanna introduce you to two of our new resident experts with a deep dive on the considerations for young investors after the 2026 budget. Obviously, last week, Jim Chalmers handed this down, and there's some massive changes in it. It's incredibly ambitious. It's not for the faint-hearted. It's very courageous from Jim Chalmers as well. So we've been sort of thinking through what are the implications for, for young folks who are in this stage? What are the big changes? What are they going to mean, and what are the implications? How do we kinda set ourselves up and position ourselves to make sure that we are playing it smart? So we're gonna walk through that in depth and you can stream that episode right now off the back of this one. Hope you enjoyed this. I'm sorry it's taken six months, but I promise we're coming back bigger and better than ever. Okay, that's enough for this update. If you wanna listen to that episode on the 2026 budget and what it all means queue up that next episode, and I'll see you in there