Tara (00:58):
Hello and welcome to episode 18 of the Art of Estate Planning podcast. This is Tara here as usual, and this is another episode from our summer series While everyone is on holidays and enjoying the festive season, but it is a really interesting episode, a little different to what we normally do. So what we've put together is a recording of the conversation that Carrie had with a financial advisor from the Art of Estate planning group, Aime Berg and Aime is talking to us all about money blocks and how they impact people's behaviour in the context of their money, and most importantly, estate planning. So Carrie and I have chatted about this before in previous episodes about why estate planning can be such a slow burn in terms of you send out your pricing and your cost agreement and it might take months, four years even for a client to actually come back to you and say, I'm ready to go ahead.
(02:10):
I'm ready to tackle these. And the insights that Aime shares into the money blocks trainee really sheds a bit of light as to why that might be the case and also thinks that we can do as professional advisors to help manage that. She also has some really great insights about the behavioural aspects of beneficiaries and how that can impact on some of the strategy that we have as well. So I just thought it's a little bit different. We usually focus a lot more on the legal side of these, but I am a huge fan of understanding some of the behavioural economics behind people's behaviour when it comes to money, and I think it's really valuable and can help bit of nuance to the way that you approach clients and from your estate planning matters. And it's a little bit different than what we might've come across in our professional training as well.
(03:10):
So as I mentioned last week, the quality of the audio might be a little bit different because it's come from a video recording with Aime and Carrie, but the quality of the insights and the content is exceptional. So we really wanted to share this with you. I hope you really enjoy it. Aime is going to do most of the speaking and Carrie is copying in with a bit of facilitation. So yeah, I really hope you enjoy this. I found this so powerful. I was actually moved to tears in some of the examples that Aime gives, I think. Yeah, it's just so powerful. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. So handing on over to Aime and Carrie, enjoy.
Aime (03:58):
I discovered behavioural money coaching maybe around 12 or 18 months ago. It was sort of at that catalyst point that I bought into the business that I actually found this amazing part of the financial planning world that's actually really focused on behaviour and psychology and financial therapy and the not so typical parts of financial planning and advice, which has really sparked a huge interest for me. I have often been told I'm incredibly empathetic in a room largely filled with men. I find that I tend to be the empathetic one that's really focused on strengthening relationships. Instead of bringing up colourful spreadsheets or trying to talk technical strategy, I tend to be the one that's got the relationship with the client. So I found that that side of my personality, it really, really bodes well when it comes to behavioural advice and the human side of advice.
(04:58):
I think that we're all sort of moving to the world where technology is advancing and is starting to get a little bit different as far as a landscape goes. So having the skills to actually really connect and build relationships with clients is something that I can only see grow. So that's why I've kind of pivoted a little bit from the technical side of things and have really become focused on the behavioural side and the human side of and advice the way that I see financial planning and conversely estate planning. Because while they are incredibly different and I certainly can't do so much of what you can all do, they're still centred around a client. And for me, a client has a past, a present and a future. So if you're meeting with them in the present, then you can't advise them in a holistic way until you understand their past and until you can picture the future that they're wanting to create.
(05:55):
So this is a bit of light bulb moment for me. A few years ago I met with a client. She was a young medical professional. She was earning incredible money. She was really doing really, really well in her career, very goal orientated, but she had a huge nest egg. It was all sitting in cash and she was incredibly adverse to investing any of that money. She also had a real challenge around spending any money on herself, which might sound a little bit unique, but it's actually quite common to see clients that just want to save and scrimp and not actually reward any of their ethics or spend anything on luxury or discretionary spending. So it didn't really matter how much I tried to encourage this client or how many fancy index charts I showed her about investing. It was really clear that she had a deeply set reason as to why she wanted to hold control over her money at all times and wanted to save as much of it as she could.
(06:58):
So we delved into a little bit of her history and together we actually worked through an experience or a memory that she had when she was a teenager. Her dad lost his job and he kept it a secret from his family for a really long time. So consequently, the savings that they had set against their home load were eaten up very quickly. He was essentially paying himself using his own money for a time to sort of mask the fact that he didn't have a job. This resulted in her and her family. So she had a family of four, so her sister, her mom and dad, they had to sell their home and they actually ended up living in their car. They couldn't find a rental property that was suitable at the time. So there was a few weeks, maybe about six or eight weeks from memory where they were living in this car.
(07:49):
So while she was pretty much in her bed slash seat of the car, she made herself a silent promise that she always wanted to have control over her money. She wanted to work really hard. She never wanted to be without a job. She wanted to have every single dollar saved and anything that didn't fulfil an essential need for spending she would save. When we kind of uncovered this, it all made sense. It made sense why she would only invest in cash, she needed to have control and investing was taking risk. So we spent a lot of time talking about scarcity mindset and work a holism because that was a big part of her personality by that point. She's still definitely a work in progress, but having the experience of looking at her personality from a money perspective and her history that's formed, that personality has really strengthened our relationship and she's starting to do a little bit better.
(08:45):
She's booked a family holiday. Her super fund is invested where it should be, and it's thankfully earning more than the inflation rate, which is all it would really be getting the bank account. So yeah, that's kind of what has sparked my desire to get into this side of things. So if you have a think for a moment about the most challenging client conversation you've had to have this week or this month, do you think that if you knew a bit more about them or their past experiences, would it make it a bit easier for you to work with them? Would the relationship improve? Would you feel as though you were in a bit more control instead of feeling like your hard work, your expertise, your education is just falling on deaf ears because the client's not willing to open up and take any of your advice?
(09:33):
That's essentially what I'm hoping to help you with today if you are having those conversations. So money coaching is a step-by-step coaching process. It helps people to understand, become more present about their behaviours and how they are with money essentially. Not suggesting that you need to go through the money coaching process with the client, but I'm hoping that if I can share some of the things that I've learned about clients through this process with you, then you might be able to use some of it in your day-to-day practise for the benefit of yourselves, the ease of your work and the relationships that you're going to form with your clients. So interestingly enough, our money patterns and behaviours are actually set between the ages of three and seven. So we're all a product of our experiences and the relationships that we form with money and those our parents demonstrate to us.
(10:27):
So if your parents don't talk about money, that will be what you carry through into your life. If they do talk about money but there's never enough or money's evil or bad, then that's what will actually carry through in your life. As a mom of three young kids, I try not to get myself too wrapped up in what I'm doing wrong, but certainly has come to the forefront of my mind for sure about the sorts of things that I am sharing with my children or choosing not to share with my children. The Money Coaching Institute is where I've practised quite a bit of my expertise that I'll take you through during today's session, and I'm also going through a more in depth accreditation to become a trauma of money practitioner. So I will take you through a few of the money personalities and hopefully relate these back to some examples within estate planning.
(11:22):
So a large part of the process is identifying money types for clients and how they're either actively or passively showing these in their day-to-day life. There are eight money personalities again that have been put together by the Money Coaching Institute that allow us to identify and sort of pigeonhole certain personality traits and biases for people. Once you have an understanding of what type of money personality you are, it is something that's really flexible and that you can change. But it's all about awareness, both for you as a practitioner in estate planning to have awareness for your clients, but also for the client to potentially have that awareness for themself, which is more so the work that I do in my behavioural money coaching. Again, it is a lot of what we experience in childhood that creates the type of money personality that we have, but it's not something that's fixed.
(12:18):
It doesn't have to stay that way forever. Once you're earmarked as a fool, for example, is not something that you need to state indefinitely. So the first money personality is the innocent. So the innocent tends to be an ostrich. They approach money and estate planning matters by putting their head in the sand. They don't want to see what's going on around them. They're very easily overwhelmed by financial information and decision making. So this is probably one type that you guys would see very regularly in your office. They haven't really learned to judge or discern other people's motives or behaviours and it can be quite an endearing quality, but it can also be really, really challenging to work with someone who's got this innocent facade. They're very trusting people, but they are also externally appearing as though they're okay and they're happy go lucky and nothing's an issue.
(13:17):
But internally they're quite fearful and anxious about making decisions. Something that an innocent really does crave is security and safety at all costs. So the example that I gave you of the client that I interacted with, that really opened up my eyes to the other sort of levels of financial planning. She was a classic innocent person, so her money personality was innocent. She was seeking security. She's quite indecisive when it came to decision making. A lot of innocence have a fear of abandonment. So maybe someone who walks into your office could be a recently separated female. She might be masking her situation as being fine. Things have gone for the better. I'm okay. I am feeling really good about stepping into my own self and feeling really strong. But under that iceberg, under the surface, she's got all these concerns swirling around and some of those concerns could have actually contributed to the way that she has gotten herself into the position that she's found herself in.
(14:23):
So there are some certain tools and tricks that we use when we do meet a innocent. I think having those conversations and really identifying with them being really empathetic and kind of asking them what they need to feel safe. So in terms of estate planning, I think it would be important for an innocent to have an understanding that things were going to go X, Y, Z in the event of something happening to them or to their partner. They really want to have that sense of security and really feel comfortable with whatever you are proposing. The next type of personality is the victim. So again, another really common one, you've no doubt seen March into your office. The victim tends to have a bit of a passive aggressive approach, a bit of a woe is me type of vibe. They've always got a story about how hard life has been for them and how they're always missing out.
(15:27):
Sometimes these can be some of the hardest or most challenging clients to deal with in my view. You kind of end up feeling a little bit down after you've spoken to them and you just kind of feel like you can't really say anything that's going to help change their mind about their woes me mentality. So sometimes though there doesn't need to be a sex story that's happened to the victim a lot of the time they have gone through betrayal, they've suffered a great loss, and again, this could be something that's occurred to them in childhood. So some examples that I've seen in my personal practise is clients who have come from separated families where the money that was allocated to them in their bank account by their parents when they were together was separated in their financial separation between the mother and the father. So they took on this victim mentality with money because they didn't actually, they had this fear that the money that they had put aside for them would be taken away.
(16:32):
So a lot of the time victims actually spend a great deal of their wealth because they feel as though if they don't spend, it's going to be taken away from them. They do feel as though they're needing to be rescued. Sometimes they are resentful, sometimes they can be really unforgiving, and that's I think all part of what makes them a really, really challenging money personality, especially when it comes to estate planning, because if you have a victim mindset, it can be really, really hard to turn that mindset around when you're making decisions that don't actually reference the people who have caused you to be a victim. So in that example where client might feel that they would betrayed by their parents who went through a financial separation, it's not something that has happened to them personally, but they might then pass on their victim behaviours to their children and it might make a negative impact essentially in the way that they divide up their assets through a step planning.
(17:35):
So yeah, the primary fear of a victim is being betrayed. They really need someone to hear their story, but probably need someone to also challenge their accountability on that story. Some of the strategies that I do use with clients that I've identified to be a victim personality type is to talk to them about not isolating certain issues or certain circumstances to think about ways that they can practise and forgiveness. Whether that's depending on how emotionally in tune you are with the client, if it's something that they could write a letter that they never send to someone who they feel as though has really done them over just to try and move forward through that victim situation, that's something that can be quite helpful as well. So the next personality type is the warrior. So the warrior essentially sets out to conquer the wel a lot of the time.
(18:35):
You'll see a warrior in business and financial, obviously there's probably a lot of warrior lawyers in the world as well. They're very focused, they're decisive, they're in control. They know what they want. They'll listen to advisors and they'll make their own decisions based on the advice that they receive. Sometimes though, warriors have a bit of trouble deciding or differentiating between what's an opponent and what's an adversary. So sometimes they see conflict everywhere. They kind of blow things out of proportion and they use their warrior, their strength and all of the things that they have that surround them in that way. But they sort of do that on autopilot. They're forever lighting fires, so to speak, because a lot of the relationships they're seeing is opposition when in reality it's okay to kind of have disagreements between people. So warriors, yeah, they're powerful, they're driven, they're very disciplined, they're incredibly goal orientated.
(19:37):
They're quite generous because a lot of warriors have achieved financial success. The generosity piece is usually there. Essentially Warriors probably one of the better types of money personalities, they tend to be very successful. The part that becomes a bit more challenging with the warrior personality type is flexibility. So trying to get a warrior on board with a strategy that you are putting forward can sometimes be a little bit more challenging. They tend to be very overconfident and think that maybe they know better than that what the testamentary quest says or something along those lines for you guys. So it's about probably setting boundaries with warriors. They tend to people to meet them at their energy level. So if a warrior is sort of saying, well, I know X, Y, Z, then you can kind of come up to that level as well, and I find that that works quite well.
(20:37):
Meeting them at that personality type of energy. Okay, the next type is the Marta. The Mars are traditionally people that are really busy taking care of others' needs, they often completely neglect their own needs. Again, something quite common that would walk through your door would be a client who really just wants to look after everyone else. They're sort of stuck in positions where they're constantly rescuing children or spouses or kind of being the Shining night team armour coming to everyone's age, but they're doing a lot of this at their own detriment. The other thing that a mata tends to do is they can be really, they're quite a perfectionist, so they aren't very good at making decisions. So I've got a lot of martyrs and I'm sure that you would too, who I'm constantly following up, they drown my task with on the regular. They are the ones who just don't seem to move forward to a decision easily, and even though they're wanting to give everything they can possibly give to others and keep nothing for themselves, they can sometimes dictate what that gift is.
(21:51):
To come with a mata can be a really interesting one when you're putting together a letters of a letter of wishes. So again, in practising or identifying this smarter type where it's someone who's wanting to give everything that they have to the people around them, but they've got very clear and strong intentions with that gift, I think kind of ling up next to them and writing that letter of wishes so that it is expressed to them and to their family and everyone is getting that opportunity to. The martyrs having the opportunity to talk through what they're wanting to have done with that money and the people reading a letter of wishes of course, will also get to see what they're intending to have done with it. There's probably a little bit of martyr in a lot of people, but yeah, they can be quite challenging to work with as far as getting workflow completed because it can be a bit of a tricky one to kind of get them to move forward.
(22:51):
So the full plays by a completely different set of rules. If you think about a fool, you might think of someone who gambles, someone who invests in all sorts of things. They take a risk. And while we all do need a little bit of fool because like my client that's really inspired a lot of this work for me, you have to take some risk. The fool really uses all of the risks they can possibly lay down. They're trying to get a windfall left and centre. They like taking financial shortcuts. They go on adventures. They get caught up in enthusiasm in the moment, and they don't really care about the little intricacies of things. So if you've got a client that has a full personality type, they're probably the one who just wants to get it done but doesn't want to talk about how it's going to happen.
(23:43):
They've come to you, they just want you to sort it out. They're not really interested in the finer detail, which is obviously very important, and they just really want to make sure that yeah, it's all sorted and that they don't really have to think about it. They can go off and keep doing the things that they like to do. They're very enthusiastic. They are a little bit similar to warriors in that they're quite successful. I guess that's part of taking risk. Stereotypically they're quite interested in making money and building wealth and much more so than any sort of serious endeavour. They're very much live in the moment and they don't really care necessarily what's going to happen in the future. They're really focused on what's going on now. So they're undisciplined, they're optimistic, they can be overly generous, very happy go lucky, and some of the strategies that I've seen and used with a full personality is to really drill down on some of the impulsive decision-making that they make.
(24:46):
So for me and my client base, which won't be as relevant to you, we do kind of put some rules in place around buying new things, waiting 24 hours, 48 hours before you go out and buy the thing you saw on late night tv, that sort of stuff for you guys though, helping the client create some structure and learning. So the fool is often someone who might not actually have the educational, the understanding of what we're doing professionally, but they're quite open to learning. So I think it's good to set some realistic goals and expectations to try and put together what the fool's wanting, but really getting their participation instead of just doing everything for them is probably quite key. Okay, so next one is the creator artist. The creator artists is exactly as it sounds. They're the spiritual wuh ha kind of people. I dunno how many of them will have in this group.
(25:44):
I know there's not many in the financial planning world, but they're certainly wandering to how alpha on the regular, they love money because it gives them freedom, but they feel as though capitalism is the enemy. So they hate money for that reason. They love to travel. They're obviously very creative. Sometimes they can be the ones that are really struggling to survive because they really just tick along on the bare minimum, they want to spend their time doing what they're doing, chasing their freedom, living their truth. They don't want to go out and spend heaps of money in the economy. They just want to really coast along, which can mean that they don't have a lot at the end of the day. So something that I think is quite interesting is when you have an inheritance that goes to a creator artist's personality, and although this might not necessarily be part of the process for you at that end, it certainly might be worth knowing who you've got in your family tree.
(26:43):
So if you've got a mom and dad and they've got a creator artist child, what boundaries or what sort of things can you help them put in place to support the wealth pool that they will inherit? Because a creator artist is probably going to be one of the more challenging money types when they do actually inherit that money pool. So having that discussion with the type of person that the money is going to be going to, and that would be across all the money personalities, I think would be a really important part of discussions for your clients and sort of having at least a bit more of an understanding of the type of people who are in the family tree who are going to be receiving that wealth. So some strategies for the creative artists that I have used before is just using little step-by-step.
(27:35):
So if you are on the other side where the creative artist is receiving an inheritance, I think having a referral to a financial planner or someone who can really break down a process and put some things in place on their behalf would be very, very helpful for this type of client. So having something that's not overwhelming, that's just a little by little sort of approach to stepping through what they need to do to really support the pool of wealth that their parents have left to them to make sure that it's going to provide longevity. Okay, two more to go The tired. Again, something that we all probably seen and you can feel the energy in the room when a tyrant comes into your office. They ask someone who holds money, they can manipulate, they can try and control others. They might have everything that they need or everything they've ever desired, but they'll never feel comfortable tyrant here to have a real mentality of not being enough, not having enough.
(28:38):
And sometimes again, that can be from an experience in childhood. So if a child goes through an experience where there's a lot of shame around money or earning, then it's never going to be enough, is the type of mentality that they start to develop. So a tyrant is the type of client that can manipulate people and money. They might have a very successful financial position, but the human side of the advice piece is probably when you get a tyrant and another type of personality sitting with one another. So having some understanding or oversight around what a tyrant would look like is good to have just so you can kind of have any red flags ready to wave in the event that you need to. Some of the strategies when it comes to tyrants, it's a bit of an interesting one, but having really good communication skills, the need to be direct and honest, and having those sort of more in depth conversations about experience is something that I've helped with tyrant clients.
(29:47):
So I completely understand that not every one of you will want to sit and ask a tyrant what their childhood looked like, but it does help to understand how they've gotten to the position that they are today and maybe help move through some of those personality behaviours and biases that they've got. They can be quite aggressive when it comes to decision making. So just putting in some boundaries, getting them to slow down, getting them to see how things play out is also something that's quite helpful. Finally, the last money personality is the magician. So the magician is actually the way that the Money Preaching Institute describes it. It's the best money type. It's what we all want to be. We want to be able to be magic with our money essentially. So it's where someone's really conscious of their behaviours, they kind of understand their patterns and their beliefs.
(30:44):
They know where they come from, they know where they're going. They're very wise and conscious, they're quite fluid, quite agile. They're open to a advice, they're very balanced. So this is sort of the ideal client. They come into your office, they know what they want, they're clear, they take action, they listen to you and they move forward with you. So there's not a whole heap of strategies with magicians. They of course have money issues and I'm sure would still have estate planning issues, but they tend to be quite in tune with themselves and with their past as well.
Carrie (31:18):
In terms of the money personalities, I actually found that very interesting and I think that this is something that we come across really frequently. And of course I was initially thinking about it more so from a client perspective, but you're absolutely right about from the other perspective where it's the client's children, so the people that they want to inherit as well. I've got a creator artist in our family, and so I think that that's something we have to think about is how do we provide for this person in the way that makes sense for them? And then I think you've got other people in that list as well that might create issues when you are putting them together to make decisions. So what I wanted to see is, yeah, I mean, what I wanted to ask is that what do you do when you identify that you've got two people with two conflicting money personalities?
Aime (32:10):
So something I've found really beneficial is having the opportunity to meet with them separately. So identifying and giving them the space to have that conversation with you about who they are, a little bit where they've come from, just to try and identify a little bit more about them. So if you've got someone who isn't innocent and we are in a family arrangement that has a tyrant as an example, sitting down with each of individually to sort of get a more in depth in tune understanding of who they are and what they're trying to achieve is really helpful. And the other reason it's helpful to have those individual meetings is that once you do get those everyone around the table so to speak, is you can kind of anchor it back to the conversations you've had individually without throwing anyone under the bus. So you can kind of be advocating for the innocence whilst also trying to make sure that the tyrant is heard and understood. I think in the example with your family, Carrie, of having a creative artist sort of person, that's when a lot of conflict can arise when you kind of have that next generation and you're a different smelting pot of personalities and things are needing to be divided up, especially if it's not being done in the right way, as in structured properly. Yeah, I think it is helpful to have those individual meetings just to try and see where everyone is at.
Carrie (33:42):
Thanks, Aime. I think that's really important. As you said, we do tend to have to be almost mediators and play a bit of a guessing game about what children are going to be later down the track, and so being able to classify them is probably going to be helpful in our minds to know how to deal with it.
Aime (33:59):
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, we'll keep going. Alright, so just to really tie back to why you're all here. So what does all this have to do with estate planning? And I've kind of identified a couple of examples. I'm sure that there's many others that you can think of and more than happy to connect after today's meeting if you've got anything in particular that you're wanting to discuss. But some of the examples that I could come up with off the top of my head were, have you got a client who's feeling really overwhelmed when establishing beneficiaries? This type of thing I assume would be pretty common. It's something that I commonly get in my office even when establishing beneficiaries for superannuation monies. So it's quite likely that person's an innocent type. So something that I do is identify the fear and the anxiety that they are experiencing, kind of naming it and being really empathetic to their situation and anchoring it back to a time where I've actually seen them make a decision and stick by it.
(35:01):
So if you can kind of picture a client that has made some really good choices in their life, they've built a business, they've taken some risk and it's paid off, and you can kind of reiterate the bravery essentially that they've showed through that time and kind of say, you've built all this wealth, you've created this. We're at the point where you need to make a really conscious and considered decision as to where this money is going to, and you owe to yourself to do that because of everything you've done up until this point in time. So I found that that's helped when clients are a bit hesitant or feeling a bit overwhelmed with the thought of nominating a beneficiary or establishing something really critical within their will. Something else I have done as well is to kind of create a list of pros and cons.
(35:49):
So play out some of the options or if X, Y, Z occurs and this goes to this person, then what does that actually look like and how does that feel for them? If that's their worst nightmare pretty quickly, that one can be striked off the list. If it's something they're actually feeling okay about and going, oh, that is probably what would happen, then that might give you a bit more confidence that they're making a really informed decision and it's just helping to step them into that process so they can actually get some traction. So how about a client who wants to give away everything that they have even to their own detriment? So this is a classic master. So the individual really, really needs to be brought back into focus. So talking about what they've done over their working career, how much they've sacrificed for their family already to that date, whether it be monetary care, physical, any of those sorts of things, and kind of bring them as the individual back into that focus seat, challenging them about where that leaves them if they give all of their money away now, what does that actually mean for them and their goals, their livelihood.
(37:00):
And yes, I'm a big advocate for seeing early inheritance occur. I'm not too sure how a group of lawyers feel about that. So sorry if that makes anyone's job harder or it's a big no-no, I don't know. But I love seeing that. I love seeing gifting from a client's perspective, having them see what that can do for their family members can be really empowering. So it's probably just that balance, trying to advocate for what they're wanting to see unfold for their family, but also wanting to really focus on making sure that doesn't interrupt their plans for their nest egg that they've workeded really hard to build. Sometimes I also ask some of those underlying questions, so asking why they're sort of wanting to gift all of this and why they're not necessarily thinking of themselves. Again, that could be something that's really helpful for a letter of wishes, just to try and understand if there's a specific reason why they're trying to help x, Y, Z client to achieve or X, Y, Z child or spouse to achieve what they're trying to do.
(38:07):
It's probably quite common that you guys would see maybe the spouse getting a lot of the wealth and the children not getting very much or vice versa. So getting I guess a bit of an understanding as to why that's what they want would be a really interesting question to ask. So then we've got the client who leaves for today and doesn't care for tomorrow, so they might not have even walked in your door given that they don't have a lot of care about the future. They don't want to think about death, they don't want to about anything. So this is a classic full mentality. It could be a client that's got huge wealth, they've got young children. A testamentary trust could be absolutely perfect for them, but they just can't see the benefits. They don't believe there'll be any major implications with their blended family.
(38:52):
It's all very rosy and they just don't really have any care for the finer details or the benefits that they might have. Asking 'em to slow down their thought process and listen and learn about the consequences of being careless often can help them see the bigger picture. They can be quite detached from their money a fool. So sometimes that detachment can lead to them not making a really informed decision or not seeing the really good strategy you're putting in front of them for what it actually is. So just taking the time to really explain it and try and slow down their thought process so they're not just making those decisions really quickly. And the final example I came up with was the one who exerts control and manipulates others for their own outcome. So as we said before at Tyrant is something that you'll feel the feeling amongst a room of people, you'll sort of know it pretty quickly.
(39:48):
So I'm sure you've all got a lot of experience and education around choice, control and any interference from others when working with a specific client. I think it's good to try and understand where the need for control comes from. So finding out where their history lies, why they maybe have a feeling that they do need to have that, and just trying to be really empathetic and unwinding those tendencies. It's a really tricky one, the tyrants, but I feel as though once you break down the walls with someone who's got a really tyrant personality, the interactions are a lot more positive. So it's not that dreaded client that comes into your office that's always upset and trying to control the situation. You kind of know how to handle them. You've got that relationship with them, which is just a lot more pleasant going forward. So you definitely don't need to go into any of the doldrums of psychology that I've kind of touched on today.
(40:44):
You can connect them with a money coach, you can connect them with a good financial planner that's into your stuff if it's not your bag, and it can really help them move beyond that limiting money, belief and behaviour. And nine times out of 10, it'll probably make your life easier because you'll understand who they are a lot better. You'll have a great relationship with them, and I think that the outcome that you achieve will be a lot more in line with what they're expecting because you've got that kind of oversight of who they are, who they have in their family, what life is going to look like, because taken that extra bit of time for a bit of extra connection.
Carrie (41:20):
I think what I wanted to talk a little bit about, if you've got some time, is I think as practitioners we can find it really hard to talk to our clients about some of those emotional elements, and it's quite challenging. What are your tips for people when trying to engage with clients about some of those difficult or sometimes awkward conversations? Sometimes it's the first or second time we've ever met this person and we're having these very intimate discussions about things that are very sensitive to them. Do you have any tips from your perspective about how practitioners can help move past that point?
Aime (41:58):
Yeah, absolutely. I think I've been there as well. So obviously money coaching's not something that just clicks one day and you've got this really great relationship and skillset with all of your clients. We can ask them everything out of the sun. So I completely resonate with that feeling of not knowing how to approach all of this, not knowing if you're going to be offending them or if you'll say the wrong thing. So something that I started to do when I first delved into this kind of area, I started listening to a podcast and it kind of got me hooked, and one of the things that they encouraged was to just question. So ask a lot more open-end questions, ask why. Ask for more details, asking what that looks like. So if someone gives you a fairly short answer to a situation, asking them what that looks like for them sometimes can make them think and delve into the next level, which will just give you hints and tips of who they are or what they're trying to achieve.
(42:59):
I think as well that having that sort of family tree history conversation, I'm guessing would be reasonably typical for estate planning lawyers. So understanding who's in the family, where everyone sits, what everyone's relationships are like, I think would be something that you would be talking about with every client or with the vast majority of clients. So using that as an opportunity to ask about those individuals. So carrie's brother or sister, what are they like? Are they working? Are they not working? Are they just asking those surface led questions? What kind of person they are? How do you feel about them receiving X, Y, Z? In that instance, sort of starting off with that really base level family tree and then just kind of creating extra layers, diving a little bit deeper into the personality of everyone in that family tree and then maybe even using that as the starting point before going straight for the client, I think works quite well. People tend to be a little bit more comfortable talking about other people than themselves or reflecting on who they are and what they do themselves. So I think that could be a really good strategy as well for people in the room to have that conversation.
Carrie (44:19):
Yeah, it's something that I often say at the start of meetings, Aime, that I do a bit of a deep dive into the asset holdings and I explain mechanically why that's important. People are okay to understand that the family thing is often something I spend a lot more time on than I used to. And what I sort of say to people, and this probably ties in with your personality types, is I'm looking at if they question why I'm asking all the questions, and I try and preempt them at the start that there's a method to the madness here, but really that blunt personality, they say, why do you want to know these things? I tell them, I'm looking for the three R's. I'm looking for risk. I'm looking for who's reliable and I'm looking for who's a responsibility,
(44:58):
So who you're actually responsible for. So I think that's really important to go into those. And one of the things I always ask is what are they like with money? Most times it won't be a good or bad. There'll be an explanation that a parent or a will create will make, they'll give you a bit of, my favourite ones are when they say, still got the first dollar they earn or spend the dollar they, that sort of thing. So I think that's really important for us as a state practitioners to be very detailed in the understanding of the family tree because we've got to make sure that we're sticking these people into structures and into relationships in the estate that are actually going to work.
Aime (45:40):
Yeah, absolutely. The three Rs sound like a very, very diligent approach, and in that you're going to almost forgiven a permission to ask these type of questions. I feel, because once a client hears that that's the reasoning, then they're going to be a bit more open. I really do. I'm here to mitigate my risk. I'm here to make sure that I'm going to be taken care of. So I think that would open it up a lot as well.
Carrie (46:06):
Yeah, I do also find a little bit of humour doesn't go Australia when you're talking about some of the hard stuff. And so I usually say to them, rest assured that everything that you tell me is entirely confidential and I live alone with my cats and they don't really care about your family structure. Yeah, because it is an awkward question. It is this awkward series of questions. It's a very uncomfortable conversation for a lot of people. So I think it's really important. So Aime, thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge here. We really appreciate it.
