Dare To Be Different With Sandro Forte (#74) — Transcript
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 74
Dustin Serviss speaks with Sandro Forte about challenging assumptions, financial planning and defining a successful life. They discuss personal experience, professional advice and how Sandro approaches work, health and ageing.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Chapters
[00:00:00] The cost of assumptions about success
[00:04:08] Goals and the life that happens between
[00:09:31] Work, identity and the thought of retirement
[00:14:59] Why Dare to Be Different?
[00:20:41] Helping experienced people change
[00:26:01] Different approaches to coaching
[00:31:16] Stress and a morning routine
[00:37:00] Understanding the reasons behind a habit
[00:42:22] When an estate faces a fire sale
[00:47:27] Giving time and gaining perspective
Guest & resources
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Sandro Forte: There was this attitude. We call it paradigm, a belief system that has no basis for reality. And that paradigm in my hometown was that my father being successful living in a big house and running a successful business must have insurance, must have a financial plan, must have people advising him. And, actually, none of those things were true because everyone had this preconceived idea that he checked all the boxes, and in fact, he didn't check any of them because he was too busy working.
[00:00:28] Show announcer: Welcome to the Picture of Wealth, a podcast all about living more of your life now, yet being responsible for your future. Lifestyle experimenter, wealth scientist, and financial coach, Dustin Service, shares life hacks, wealth tips, and interviews successful entrepreneurs on how they're thriving in happiness, purpose, and prosperity.
[00:00:52] Dustin Serviss: That is the voice of Sandro Forte, who is the principal partner of Forte Financial in the UK. They are servicing high net worth families and ultra high net worth families. He's also a professional speaker and an author of a book called Dare to be Different. And Sandra and I go way back, to two thousand nine when we first met, and he gave me some mentorship. But he, in this podcast, breaks down, you know, aging and how he approaches, you know, it's just a number and nutrition and wellness, and he debunks, you know, my attempt at getting him, you know, what is work life balance? And he really has a different spin on what that means and helps
[00:01:28] Dustin Serviss: us understand how people in the UK are using professionals and using advice and using financial products to enhance their wealth plan. So without further ado, let's get on with the episode. Thanks a lot, Sandro, for being on the show today. I'm excited to, touch back to twelve, thirteen years ago when we sort of first met, and, I was getting into the business. You were ahead of me by a number of years and and kicking ass. So thanks a lot for, for joining me today on the show.
[00:01:55] Sandro Forte: It's really good to see you again after all these years. I can only assume that you went back through your your black book of contacts and thought, I'm running a bit low. I need to go back as far as twelve years.
[00:02:06] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. No. It more was, mentors. So I'm doing a a mini season on mentors. So in in your case, so for the listeners, quick backstory, I was, a couple years in the business trying to take the business to the next level, reached out to, an organization that is, you know, sort of the top of the... It's a million dollar round table, the top of our industry. And there was Sandro. It looked like a welcoming face, and I reached out to him online. And he's in the UK. I'm in Canada. And I said, Hey, what what can we brainstorm on? And, Sandra, you know, I never... You know, I did thank you before, but I will take the time to,
[00:02:42] Dustin Serviss: you know, acknowledge thank you again for that, time you spent with me early on and, in giving me... You know, again, I did a podcast last week on mind changers. And I don't know if that's still a tool you use, but, from the horse's mouth, what is the mind changer exercise?
[00:02:59] Sandro Forte: Well, number one, I'm glad to hear that. It it is actually a technique that works really, really well. So the basic premise, Dustin, is that, we will learn to do certain things that we now deal with subconsciously. So for example, walking, talking, swimming, riding a bicycle, and we achieved those subconscious habits through two basic processes. One was somebody showed us how to do it. And the second one was we repeated the process over and over again. The big problem with goals is that we all wake up, hypothetically, on the first of January each year, and we set ourselves all
[00:03:36] Sandro Forte: these lovely goals that we're going to achieve more work life balance, spend more time with the kids, be the number one salesperson in our organization. And then we get to the end of the year, thirty first of December typically, and the little voice... We'll talk about little voice, I'm sure. But the little voice whispers into our ear. Don't worry, Dustin. There's always next year. And then what happens is we kick the can down the road, constantly looking back over our shoulder thinking if only I've done this and if only I've done that. The reason we don't generally achieve the goals we set out to achieve is
[00:04:08] Sandro Forte: that something between the moment you get your goals on a piece of paper in your mind and the achievement or non achievement of that goal, something happens and it's called life. And you know, your, your podcast, everything you do focuses a lot on that stuff in the middle, which is the obstacles, the, the challenges, the stuff that gets in the way. However, if you move those conscious thoughts around goals, cause that's what they are. It's where the interference comes from. If you can find a way to move them into your subconscious, your subconscious controls all of your actions, even if you're not consciously aware of them,
[00:04:42] Sandro Forte: and it will drive you closer and more quickly towards those goals. So typically the mind changer to answer your question is an affirmation written on typically a postcard. But instead of saying, I would like to achieve more work life balance, You will actually write a statement as if you have already achieved that work life balance. And you're then describing how you felt when you achieved that particular goal. Now, it makes no logical sense what I'm saying, of course, but because our subconscious doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined. If we then read these affirmations every single day without fail, can't miss a
[00:05:19] Sandro Forte: day, read them every single day within about thirty days, typically a, it becomes a habit. So, you know, you keep repeating the exercise over and over and, and just for, for everyone's benefit, twenty to thirty goals is the optimum number. And for people out there thinking I haven't got twenty to thirty goals, if you really break your life down into five or six key component parts and think of two or three, four goals in each area, you quickly come up with at least twenty. And it might be a short term goal, like, you know, what you're doing with your family this weekend. It might be a, you know, a ridiculous goal.
[00:05:54] Sandro Forte: And when I talk about ridiculous goals, we often talk about, you know, don't set unrealistic goals, but I'm all for setting unrealistic goals. One of my affirmations is from, from memory, because you don't memorize these things. You just read them quickly. Like the pages of book, It says something like appearing on the front cover of men's health magazine was testament to my dietary and training regime, looking and feeling great right now. I'm not ever going to appear on the front cover of men's health magazine. I am consciously aware of that. I'm not, I'm not naive, but what's really interesting.
[00:06:26] Sandro Forte: And we, we spoke offline about this and we, we may talk about it is that subconsciously when COVID happened back in twenty twenty, there was something that I was not consciously aware of that basically said to me, you have to do something about staying in, in shape. And I have not missed a day's training for two years now. And the transformation physically and mentally, I have to say is, has been exceptional. So, but that wasn't driven by me writing a goal on a piece of paper that was driven by me drip feeding information into my subconscious mind for quite a period of time before that actually happens.
[00:07:01] Sandro Forte: So the basic technique is positive affirmations in the past tense, describing how you felt, read them every single day. And what will happen, I guarantee is that within thirty to forty days, you start thinking differently, acting differently, speaking differently, and people start to migrate towards you. Whereas they wouldn't have done that before. So, kind of long winded answer your question, but if, if you do this and repeat the exercise over and over and over again, you learn successful outcomes. Just like you learn all those other things that that you now do
[00:07:36] Dustin Serviss: without thinking. You bring up, you bring up a good a good point on on the connection to people that you get with that, you know, the mind being different. And, you know, there's that old saying of, you know, you're the sum of the five closest people around you, you know, say money, thoughts, beliefs. You know? So getting that out there and sort of rejigging your whole life, you know, has a compound effect similar to, you know, compounding investments. I I wanna switch gears a bit only because I have you for a limited time, and I'm I'm very curious. I'm watching, drive to survive the third or fourth season, f one. You're in the UK.
[00:08:17] Dustin Serviss: That shows, you know, just built around money and wealth, and and you deal with some significantly wealthy, you know, families and, and business owners. And and so in the UK, what are the main issues, like, that are... That people are faced with there who have money? Or is it... You know, what is it? Like, you know, from someone over the pond that, you know, in Canada, you know, I know what the issues are here, but what are the issues that people have with money in the UK? That... And I know it's a big question, but whatever kinda first comes to mind, you know, what what is the financial planning that you're doing or or
[00:08:51] Dustin Serviss: at, you know, questions that you're answering?
[00:08:54] Sandro Forte: Well, I think the first thing Dustin to say is that let... Let's be very clear about this. Money is both a blessing and a curse, because I know some supremely wealthy people who may be have inherited them in the purse... Process of dealing with somebody who's just inherited a massive amount of money from from her father who passed away sadly last year through COVID. She's run a small coffee shop in the UK, and now she's dealing with, you know, like a hundred million pounds of wealth. So that's... That presents some challenges. Broadly speaking, I think you've got two kind of demographics. You've got two groups of people. You've got those.
[00:09:31] Sandro Forte: And I wouldn't say it's age related. I think you are either built this way or you're not. You've got those individuals that probably fit into the same camp as me that were brought up or have developed an approach to working and industry and effort and achievement, in a particular way. And when people say to me, would you retire, Sandro? I mean, the thought of retiring, just stopping what I'm doing, is abhorrent to me. I just, I can't deal with the idea of doing nothing. So I'm driven, I think, to always want to be doing something and achieving something. Do I want more work life balance? Absolutely. I do.
[00:10:09] Sandro Forte: And I strive for that every single day. So I think the challenge for that group of people is definitely the work life balance. How do I, how do I temper my desire to always be moving in a forward direction with the need to take care of people around me, whether that's philanthropic work, whether it's time with my family. And then I think you've got the other group of people. And it might be that they're a bit younger or it's new money, inherited money where they probably haven't. And I say this with no disrespect. It just is what it is, whether this is the group of people who perhaps,
[00:10:45] Sandro Forte: you know, fall into that category that we know about, which is everything needs to come as easily and as quickly as possible. And then it's really a question. The challenge for them is how do we, how do we put that money to best use? How do I maximize my opportunity, but for minimum effort? Right. So you've got two like really diametrically opposed camps. And you know, the dynamic when you speak to both of them is very interesting because they approach things in completely different ways. So I would say that that that's the challenge in the UK and probably in most parts of the world as well.
[00:11:22] Sandro Forte: Nothing, nothing very different over here apart from the weather. So so what you guys have in Canada and and and the US.
[00:11:30] Dustin Serviss: What... So it it... I would say it is quite similar here. What is the culture like for the most part of the upper successful? Like, in in, you know, in in the the region that we live in, it's a little bit of a tech hub. So you have the, you know, not working from coffee shops, but you have this class of people that maybe works shorter hours, and they make great money and they're always looking to run at lunch and all. Is that a product of the environment because you wanna be outside or whatever? Or in the UK, is it just all work? Like, is it get on the tube, you know, as whoever's, like, on
[00:12:10] Dustin Serviss: the tube the earliest, you know, the tube's the train, you know, like, is that is that actually help your success? If you're more busy, do you make more money?
[00:12:20] Sandro Forte: I think, I think it's really difficult, to kind of pigeonhole, but, you know, I do. I really struggle when I go into London, which I do two or three times a week. The, you know, the thoughts of living where I spend a lot of my time working is, is something that I would blows my mind. I couldn't do it. But, you know, you do see like traders in, in the city, for example, of London, and they will go in seven, eight, nine o'clock in the morning. They will spend all day working. And then at five pm, when the office closes, they will then go to the local pub, you know, like fifty yards away from the space.
[00:12:55] Sandro Forte: They've just spent all day locked up with all their colleagues and then spend another two hours with them drinking. I just, I, I can't understand it. It's really bizarre to me. So again, I think what you tend to find is people who know nothing more about life than just working. You know, they go through this kind of routine and it's the the same old same old. And I just don't think they feel very fulfilled at the end of it. And that is, I think, the biggest challenge culturally. I think that we, you know, we don't have a kind of a particular product or industry in the UK that we're kind of famous for. What I think we are very good at.
[00:13:32] Sandro Forte: I think we've, you know, got a lot of entrepreneurial flare. We have a very diverse range of industries. But there is this bizarre culture that you spend all day with people and then you have to spend all evening with them as well. And then you've got the, the other people who do the opposite, you know, work as little as they possibly can. Yeah, we, we do unfortunately have a culture where some people think that it's perfectly acceptable to not work at all and just to live off state benefits. But we do have a real, real diverse range of, of, individuals, approaches, attitudes to different things. I...
[00:14:11] Sandro Forte: It would be very difficult to say we kind of adopt a, you know, one size fits all approach. It's it's very diverse.
[00:14:18] Dustin Serviss: You you bring up a good point for for just even business owners. And and I I think it's shifting. You know, you're a tiny bit older than me, and then our parents are, you know, another, you know, generation up where, you know, if you stop doing what you're doing, your identity goes away. If you, you know, work less than... You know, I I work with a lot of blue collar, construction kind of guys and business owners and partners. And so I often hear a lot, well, I couldn't take Fridays off because my crew wouldn't respect me, because I'm not working as hard. So it's just this gristle that's just sort of on the train tracks and, you know, getting
[00:14:59] Dustin Serviss: out of the mix. And you wrote a book called Dare to be Different. And a great segue to kind of peel into that book a bit is why did you name that book that? And I'm sure that there's a nugget in there that's a catalyst for someone who's maybe going through what we're talking about of like, they maybe... They kinda can see, I don't know if this is my life I want, but then they just, you know, every day life happens back on the train track. So how do you kick someone in the ass to to dare to be different? So to, to explain the title of the book and how
[00:15:36] Sandro Forte: that came about, Dustin, I'd have to take you back to the very start of my career in nineteen eighty nine. So I started, so I was originally aspiring to do lots of different things as teenage kids do. You know, the the doctor, the surgeon, the policeman, the fire fireman and all the other things. And when I left university, I started working for, an independent financial advisor in the UK. And I and I did that because as you know, I lost my father when I was very young. I was nine years old. My mom was a widow at the age of twenty nine with four children. He was a very successful man, lost...
[00:16:12] Sandro Forte: My mom lost everything as a result of his, of his death, partially because... And this this comes on to a point I, you know, will keep going on and on and on about, and I'm sure we'll talk about it on, on this particular podcast is that there was this, there was this attitude. We call it a paradigm, a belief system that has no basis for reality. And that paradigm in my hometown was that my father being successful living in a big house and running a successful business must have insurance, must have a financial plan, must have people advising him. And actually none of those things were true because everyone had this preconceived
[00:16:49] Sandro Forte: idea that he checked all the boxes. And in fact, he didn't check any of them because he was too busy working, being successful as we see in in many different parts of the world. So when I started in this business, frankly, through a need to support my mom and my family, I started working for this guy who it quickly became obvious was a stereotypical product pusher, commission hungry, didn't care about his clients kind of advisor, like your worst nightmare in, in financial services. And after four years of maintaining relationships with the clients, he was really upsetting because he was just, he was only interested in the sale.
[00:17:33] Sandro Forte: I quickly learned that actually it was the inverse of the model that he tried to build. That was the successful one. It wasn't his model that was successful. And yet at the time, all of our industry colleagues were going, look at Tony. He's really successful. He lives in this big house. And I'm... I I... As a young impressionable guy, at first, I'm thinking, wow. You know, this is the this is the way to success. And quickly realized through the conversations with his clients, that the opposite was true. So, at the tender age of twenty four, just about the time I was getting married, having twin children, buying my first house
[00:18:10] Sandro Forte: that I couldn't afford. I kind of did. Let me describe it as the opposite of what everyone expecting me to do. And at various points along my journey in life, Dustin, I have almost done the opposite of what I see everyone else doing. I'll give you a good example, very topical subject. You know, people looking at the stock market at the moment, and they're kind of going, oh, it's very volatile. The the the the price of an asset is falling. I I better sell. And then they'll go out five minutes later and they'll see everyone making money from Bitcoin, and then they'll buy Bitcoin at sixty eight thousand dollars Right?
[00:18:47] Sandro Forte: And that's a surefire recipe for miserable failure in life. So the whole dare to be different thing was, you know, to, to do something different to the majority people takes a lot of courage. And, you know, I could, I could afford to do that with twenty four, because what was the downside? If it all went wrong, you know, no big deal. I could recover. I probably feel differently at the age of nearly fifty four, but, but this was the basis for the book. And actually, although it only based it on a very short amount of experience in life and business to that point ever since then, I get
[00:19:24] Sandro Forte: more and more reminders of just how important it is sometime to go. You know what? It feels really uncomfortable, but I'm just going to do it a different way because that's how you stand out. You know, three percent of the world's population employ the other ninety seven percent. Look at every great brand that's ever been built and they have done something slightly different. It might actually be very similar to something that's already out there in the marketplace, but there's always something that just sets them apart. But that, that little thing that sets them apart, you can see how they
[00:19:55] Sandro Forte: would have gone through a transition that may have been very uncomfortable, but somebody just stopped their neck out and said, you know what? You know, let's, let's do it. Let's challenge a market. Let's disrupt the, you know, the world in which we live in. Hey, presto. You know, people become supremely successful as a result of it. So, so that, so that was how it all came about. And the, and the book really is primarily aimed at financial services professionals, really trying to, to impress upon them that doing things the right way for the right reasons, looking after clients, building deeply embedded long term relationships,
[00:20:35] Sandro Forte: actually, that's a much better commercial model than selling products and trying to make lots of commission.
[00:20:41] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. What is there... Again, you're working with advisers and, you know, I would say the average age of advisers is not my age. It's, it's probably not even your age. It's it's probably higher. So getting some of these people to do things different, like, can you think of a story or an example of a, you know, a a fifty nine year old who's got thirty years of experience and you gave them some tools or you said something to them and it was a successful, you know, change. They changed their model. Like, do you remember what you said to them that got them to to make the pivot or or do a different best practice?
[00:21:19] Sandro Forte: This is a great question actually. Because I, you know, I do a lot of coaching as you know, Dustin, and and do a lot of professional speaking in different parts of the world. And again, primarily to the insurance profession, but also to many others as well. And, and of course, when you come across somebody who's fifty nine and they're thinking, you know, there's, they either, they either fall into the camp of there's nothing I don't already know. So what's this, what's this young guy, younger guy. I can't, I don't qualify as young anymore, but younger guy, What's he ever gonna teach us? We don't already know. Or... Okay. Okay. I I hear you.
[00:21:51] Sandro Forte: It kind of makes sense. I'm just not prepared to change the way I do stuff. And so cognizant of the fact that a fifty nine year old is not simply gonna tear up the business plan and go, right. That's it. Let's scrap it and do it a different way. Although, I will send a shout out to an individual who is about fifty nine years of age, funnily enough. He's a Canadian, runs a business, and he's actually consciously reinvented himself three times in his career, where he's just taken a step back and gone, right. That was the last ten years. What... What's the plan for the next ten years rather than just carry on doing the same stuff.
[00:22:25] Sandro Forte: But the answer to your question is, there was one particular individual who basically said, I'm too old to change. I'm never gonna do it differently. And yet he had two advisors who were, you know, looking at buying his business. So to maintain the way things were being done was potentially damaging for them. So I'll give you the, I'll give you the conversation, the, for instance. So one of the things that I observed was that he was doing what so many people in our profession, do or have done. And that goes all the way back, like fifty years to the time that they were trained by a trainer inverted commas, followed by the brackets.
[00:23:03] Sandro Forte: A trainer is defined as somebody who's never sold anything in their life. And this guy was basically getting on the telephone, which is the communication tool most of us use to connect with new people. And he would say, my name is, you know, Fred Smith from ABC insurance company. And then he would wait for the response. And what Fred Smith was finding was that people were saying, I'm not interested. And he'd be like, but I haven't even told you what I'm calling about yet. And what I explained to him was that the moment you... And and this is true of any business with not just financial services.
[00:23:37] Sandro Forte: But in this particular example, what I was saying to him is if you don't take control of a conversation, you are always going to be playing... Reacting to what somebody else is saying. So if you feed them, this is Fred Smith from ABC Insurance Company, and you wait for a response, the little voice inside their head is now deciphering what he's just said. ABC Insurance Company, that must mean by definition, this person is calling to sell me something. It's probably insurance. I'm not interested. So inevitably, the outcome nine act... Times out of ten was I'm not interested. And this fifty nine year old could not work out why so many people
[00:24:15] Sandro Forte: were saying no to him. And so all I said was, look, don't, don't change what you're saying because actually his conversation, if he ever got into a conversation was pretty good. Don't change what you're doing, Fred, but just move the pause to a different part of the sentence. So all we did is we moved where he waited for the response. So instead of saying my name is Fred Smith from ABC Insurance Company, he would say my name is Fred Smith from ABC Insurance Company. And I was speaking to our mutual friend, Dustin Service, the other day. I promised Dustin I'd call you today. I'm keeping my promise. Is that okay?
[00:24:50] Sandro Forte: So suddenly, the focus is now on Dustin, not on ABC Insurance Company. And then the person would say, oh, yeah. I know Dustin. How do you know Dustin? And no, Hey Presto. Instead of one out of ten people saying, yeah, come and see me. He was getting, you know, more than eight people out of ten saying, come and see me. So tiny, tiny little adjustment, but significantly different outcome.
[00:25:14] Dustin Serviss: And and major, yeah, major results, from what he was after. So, again, having the courage to to be open to listening to you. And and what do you... When you're coaching people and you're charging for that, do you ever have people say, oh, it's like an expense? Or it never usually is because people... The right people are reaching out to you and just saying it's an investment. Because whenever I hire coaches, I'm usually looking at it like, well, I could invest ten grand this year in some penny stock, or I could invest this ten grand in leveling up the business, which then will pay two grand a year for the next... For my life.
[00:25:54] Dustin Serviss: You know, like, it's how are people coming into you, and do you ever get that, you know, resistance on investing for coaching?
[00:26:01] Sandro Forte: That... Great. Again, great question. And the... And this is a... This is an interesting topic we could speak about for hours, but, you know, I realized the time is limited. But for the moment, what I would say is, again, don't wanna sound like a stock record, but broadly speaking, you'll find that people fall into two very distinct camps. And interestingly, whenever I do any kind of coaching, I all... The first question I always ask is how serious are you about achieving a particular outcome? And what you find is that some people will say things like I am really serious, Dustin. I will run through a brick wall.
[00:26:34] Sandro Forte: Tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. No questions asked total a hundred percent commitment. And I see this as an investment that that generally follows if they're prepared to do anything, whatever it takes, they will see this as an investment. Like I saw investing in a personal trainer two years ago, because although I knew I could go to my gym at home on my own every day, would I, would I produce those two or three extra reps that would make the difference? And I, and I knew I wouldn't. So if I was really serious about a great outcome, I had to invest in this guy. Then you get the people who say, well, you know, I'm quite serious or
[00:27:12] Sandro Forte: let's see how it goes. Or yeah. You know, I might turn up, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll see. They're the ones that see it as a cost. So when I get a group of, let's say a hundred people together, the first thing I'm going to say is of these hundred people. I know before we even start, if I give you the secret to life, the universe and everything else, show you how to double your productivity in like three months, half of you will still do nothing about the information I give you. Nothing at all. Of the remaining fifty percent, twenty five percent of you will do what most people do on the first of January. They, they decide to get fit.
[00:27:51] Sandro Forte: They go to the gym for what an average of about seventeen days, and then they quit. So of the remaining fifty, half of you will play around with this for a while, and then you'll just revert to type. You'll go back to the way it was before, because it's comfortable. And and it's the twenty five percent that I'm interested in. They are the ones that are going to see the differences. So, you know, as a coach getting stressed out about seventy five percent of the of the group not making it. I mean, that that's a, that's a killer for coaches, but the reality is we, we are, we are a population, all different
[00:28:29] Sandro Forte: parts of the world where the reality, unfortunately, is that seventy five percent of the people, whatever you give them, however you give it to them, even if it's for free, they don't do it. They don't... Won't do anything about it. So the the the, the direction of my resources, my time, my effort, my ideas, it's it's the twenty five percent I'm interested in. It's that small group of people who just look you in the eye and just say whatever it takes on there every step of
[00:28:55] Dustin Serviss: the way. Well, you you you set that up perfect for a segue into what I what I was hoping we could get to is this is a a wealth, wellness, health podcast. And so helping people get leverage or helping people create bandwidth in their busy schedules in your business, you've identified that. So you know how to... You know, you know what you're focused on. Has there been something in the last couple years as you've... Again, you got super physically fit, you're getting focused, that you've changed in your business that has created more free time for you? That is, you know... And again, and for backdrop, you're speaking, you're coaching, you run a
[00:29:39] Dustin Serviss: financial planning practice, or I would say, you know, it's more than that, but a lot of financial advice, with big dollars, big families. You've got this business humming. What has been that one thing that's created some bandwidth for you?
[00:29:54] Sandro Forte: Well, as a as a precursor to the answer, I'm gonna give you, I'm just gonna throw an... A a thought out there. And some people agree with it and some people won't. For me, wellness and balance isn't necessarily about taking an hour out of the middle of the day to meditate or, you know, to have the hour with your kids at a at a certain time. Because we know that the practicalities of life, Dustin, is you can't just switch everything off at a, at a given moment in time, and then just go back to it as if, you know, nothing had happened. So the reality is there are some people I'm one of them where I, I thrive.
[00:30:32] Sandro Forte: I feel well when I'm being productive, when I'm, when I'm changing something in the world, whether it's raising money, whether it's interviewing a really interesting guest on my podcast, whether it's helping a family to achieve greater financial success. So look, I would probably fall into the category of workaholic. I'll be honest. But, but that is something upon which I thrive. I feel well. I deal well with stress generally. So I wanna make it clear that this obsession with work life balance doesn't have to be compartmentalized. It doesn't have to be the same thing for everyone. But I am aware of the fact that, you know, overwhelm
[00:31:16] Sandro Forte: and illness and all those things can happen when you are placing yourself under too much stress. And, and my world is a, is a busy place. It's a stressful one. So the one adjustment I made is that, and I normally do it at the hour at the beginning of the day because it's a way that I can kind of really collect my thoughts. And, and I actually got the inspiration for this on a, on a long haul flight. I did and realized that every time I sat in a, in a seat on an airplane, I was flying to the far east or maybe to the west coast of, of America. I would really, I'd really chill out. I'd really relax because I knew there was no emails.
[00:31:54] Sandro Forte: There was no phone calls. No one could bother me. I could do exactly what I wanted. I could think about, you know, reflect on life in my own way. I could watch a movie, I could have a drink, you know, all those kinds of things that we all know something about. And so what I decided to do is to have my kind of mini, long haul flight first thing in the morning. So, before the office opens before the vast majority of people start typing emails and what have you, I switch everything off and I will do a whole range of different things. I will have breakfast with the family. I will go to the gym. I will, just reflect on the day.
[00:32:31] Sandro Forte: I might write some new affirmations. I will just have an hour where I live in a kind of a cocoon, like a vacuum. I think it's probably the right way to express it. And that has been amazing for me in terms of mental health, because you can be physically well, but, you know, I think it's important, especially at the moment with what's happened over the last couple of years, mental well-being is, is, you know, it's, it's a real big buzzword at the moment and rightly so, but I became very aware of the fact that, you know, I need to take some time out for me, but I, but I knew it was never going to happen during the day because I do
[00:33:08] Sandro Forte: have stuff coming at me from ten different directions. So I just accept it. And I kind of go as long as I've got, I've had that time and I've, I've carved out my day, then I'm ready nine, nine am and I'll take on whatever the world throws at me. And I live my day a hundred miles an hour and I'm, and I'm perfectly calm with that. I'm, I'm cool with it. The other adjustment is that weekends have now become sacrosanct for me. So that... And, and I actually wrote to all my clients and contacts and said, just to manage your expectations, if you email me after five pm, PM on a Friday, you will not get a response until Monday.
[00:33:45] Sandro Forte: It's like kind of an out of office for a vacation. And I would strongly encourage people to do something like that. I don't mean take the weekend off. I mean, communicate with people as to, managing their expectation. Because the problem is people have said to me over the years, Sandra, I get too many emails. How do I get less emails? And the answer to that is don't send as many emails. Because if you send lots of emails, you get lots of emails. If you make lots of phone calls, you get lots of phone calls. And worst of all, if you answer an email at ten pm, that's when everyone knows they can get hold of you.
[00:34:22] Sandro Forte: So the reality, Dustin, is that the... I would say eighty percent of the problems that we have in terms of work life balance or whatever you want to call it is self inflicted because we create the rules. And the moment you communicate what you want the rules to be, it will take a time, but everyone falls into line because they just get used to it. So that is a, it's a really good, I think, practical tip. Don't be afraid to go out to people and say, this is the new me. This is the new way that I'm going to live my life. I'll give it a hundred percent between nine and five, but you won't be
[00:34:56] Sandro Forte: hearing from me at the weekends unless, you know, something catastrophic happens. And you won't be hearing from me after six pm because it's the time I spend with my family. And ninety nine percent of people respect it. And ninety eight percent of people will fall into line and do things you wait the way you want to do them, but you've got to communicate. You can't just presuppose that everyone, you know, you can't grumble that people are sending you emails in the evening. If you've spent thirty years responding to emails in the evening? I mean, that that sounds a very simplistic, answer to your question, but that is reality. That is reality.
[00:35:28] Dustin Serviss: No. You bring up... You know, it's... I'm sure any entrepreneur that's listening, you know, has wanted to change something and then, you know, went to implement it. And staff have, you know, kind of put up their hands and said, oh, well, how, you know, how could you do that? Or that's that's not as good a client service. But it isn't that. It's about the communication. It's about, you know, explaining the situation, you know. And I think you're right. Ninety eight percent of people will respect him who said, I wanna be with, you know, with my family. The one thing for you that maybe has changed over the years is,
[00:36:01] Dustin Serviss: if I've done the rough math right, your kids are about thirty. Twenty five.
[00:36:06] Sandro Forte: That's a good that's a good stamp. So... And and, actually, they've each given me a grandchild, Dustin.
[00:36:13] Dustin Serviss: Wow. So you're... Yeah. You've already... You've you've... Well, for your young age, but you're... They're not they're not a... Like, I have a four and a six year old, and they need a little more attention than a twenty five year old. Maybe not, but they do. Yeah. And it... And so giving yourself that, that work, ability now. And we talked about it offline, and I wanna bring it up now as you don't wanna retire necessarily. You wanna keep doing what you want, and age is only a number. You've gotten extremely fit in the last years. Part of that has been nutrition. Mhmm. So is there anything that you found that has has been a a game
[00:36:51] Dustin Serviss: changer in the nutrition or habit, that has really helped make you feel better? Well, I
[00:37:00] Sandro Forte: think, you know, with anything, the achievement of any goal, I think one of the one of the main rules to success is knowledge. And, and for me, knowledge has always been power. And I don't mean academic, academia. I mean, an understanding of things. So, you know, my, my nutrition coach has said, you know, eat this, eat this and, and eat, and eat whatever. And I can follow him religiously if, if I choose to. But unless I understand why I'm doing stuff, it's, it's very difficult. So one of the things I set out to do, which actually is quite straightforward was learning the calorific value of different foods,
[00:37:36] Sandro Forte: Because I started off in MyFitnessPal, and I'm like, there is no way I can spend an hour of my day typing in, you know, I I type like a snail, like one finger. So there's no way I can spend an hour a day typing in, you know, all this food into, to my fitness power to be told I'm, you know, ten calories over my, my limit. Right. So I just, that's ridiculous. That's not, that's not practical. It's a waste of time in life. So how can I solve this problem? And I I've always been a problem solver. I've always been one of these people that sees a challenge and goes, okay, that that's kind of beyond my ability, but how can I make this, you
[00:38:13] Sandro Forte: know, a bit more successful as an outcome than the way I'm being told to do it? So all I did is why I started researching and it was only, you know, if I got in an airplane, I'd have a few hours or it would be, you know, half an hour at the weekend. And I just start to look up, and make mental notes of the calorific value of, of certain things. And of course there's only a finite amount of stuff that you actually eat. I, I, you know, I love chicken. I there's certain things I love and there's certain things I don't love. And so very quickly I kind of did the mental arithmetic every day and could roughly work out, what I was consuming.
[00:38:48] Sandro Forte: And I knew roughly what my, what a carb was, and I knew roughly what a protein was. And very, very quickly, I was kind of building meals that I was really enjoying. And the other thing is I was still able to eat chocolate, which I absolutely adore. And I was still as a, as a, as a Brit, you'd expect me to say this. I like the old beer or glass of wine. And I, and I hate all these, these kind of dietary fads. You know, my sisters, God love them. My sisters sort of go, I'm on this eight hundred calorie a day diet. And we all know that's destined for failure because they'll, they'll stick at it for six weeks.
[00:39:21] Sandro Forte: They'll feel really ill and they'll just go back to doing it the way it was before. So that's all I did is I, I really sought to understand what it was I was consuming. And then that combined with a five day week training program. I mean, well, as I said, offline, it was, I've always been pretty fit. I play lots of different sports, but the difference it made in a in a short space of time was unbelievable.
[00:39:45] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. Well, thanks, thanks for touching on that. I think it's it's key because there's a lot of, you know, science being put into, like, how to how to fix disease and and all that kind of stuff. When if we could put some time and energy into not having it or the pre, you know, that would be some great, you know, and that is an investment. Eating like that requires money, and that's a choice that you're taking of, you know, paying for better food now instead of insurance premiums later. One thing I did wanna talk about just because it's, you know, working with wealthy families, There's, maybe a notion out there about,
[00:40:24] Dustin Serviss: well, when you're wealthy, why would you need life insurance? And you've dealt with many, you know, wealthy families in the UK and and some significant wealth. How... You know, or let's do a story. Have you got... Obviously, you can't, you know, mention very much stuff, but give us a scenario of where a significantly wealthy family recently has used life insurance to solve some sort of problem. So paint us a picture of the problem, and then... And you don't have to go into the product specifically, but then how it just basic math worked that that was a great solution to use. Does that set you up enough?
[00:41:02] Sandro Forte: Yep. Probably answer this with two, for instances. I'll give you the, for instance, where life insurance wasn't in place and and the implications and then where it was. Maybe that's the best way of answering your question. So, maybe not every listener, but it's easy to look up many years ago. I'm going back maybe fifteen, apologies if I'm miles out, but I think it's roughly about fifteen years ago. No, it must be twenty because I know that, a certain individual took over the football club at the time. So twenty years ago, there was a gentleman by the name of Matthew Harding that owned a football club in the United Kingdom called Chelsea.
[00:41:40] Sandro Forte: And Matthew was a very successful, wealthy entrepreneur buys his beloved football club, but then died in a helicopter crash. About five years after taking control of the club and pretty much all of his estates, all of his assets had to be sold to pay an enormous tax bill. All of his assets were illiquid. And actually what you tend to find us in is that a lot of wealthy people have quite illiquid assets. Most of their money is tied up in a company. Yeah. Most of their money is tied up in a company or in bricks and mortar. They don't have a lot of cash sitting around and a bit like the IRS HMRC in the UK.
[00:42:22] Sandro Forte: Don't wait for three years for you to sell everything. They're knocking on your door within three months saying where's our money. So in this particular case, pretty much the entire estate for this very wealthy, successful man was completely wiped out, through a fire sale of, of his, his entire estate. So that's, that's when it all goes wrong. I've dealt with a, a family for many years, probably about the same length of time, actually. And they owned a property company. So again, very liquid assets. And what we did is we, we recognized from a very early stage that again, there was a very large estate tax bill that
[00:42:59] Sandro Forte: was going to have to be paid. And the thought of having to sell lots of things. In fact, I may well have used the Matthew Harding story to talk to them about the need for this particular policy, but they didn't really want to, you know, they were all, it was two brothers and a sister. They were all in their seventies at the time. So the thought of going out and buying insurance was kind of, well, this is going to be really expensive. But what we were able to do is to establish, some trust arrangements with some cash that they did have available and the trust fund paid the
[00:43:30] Sandro Forte: insurance premiums for the life insurance that we put into place that was written specifically to pay the tax liabilities that would fall on the beneficiaries of their estates. And then because of their ages over a period of time, the two brothers died. And then literally about six months ago, the sister died and every single, dollar pound of the tax liabilities be met through, these arrangements and, and kind of on the subject of life insurance, as we know, because insurance companies actuarially calculate the fact that seven people out of ten, roughly will not maintain premiums.
[00:44:10] Sandro Forte: That's actually where the insurance company's profit comes from. It's not from money in, money out. It's from all the people who pay premiums from years and then cancel. So, what we know about insurance is if you spend, I don't know, ten thousand dollars a year on on premiums now, And you've, you've fought fast forward that you do a calculation. If you maintain those premiums for the rest of your life, the rest of your natural life, even if you live to the age of about a hundred, you are still financially better off paying the premiums because the payout will always be higher than the premiums you pay. That's the way it works actuarially.
[00:44:48] Sandro Forte: So act, you know, putting everything else one side, they're pretty good savings plans. You know, if if you are serious about building capital value for your, for your loved ones, life insurances, not withstanding, you know, the protection it brings, they are in themselves great savings plans, as long as you maintain premiums.
[00:45:07] Dustin Serviss: Right. Well, thanks, Andrew. I think that's, it's it's important. And, and just a reminder for everyone that it's it's just daring to be different, daring to be different to look at the insurance as as something, different. So thanks for that. Any, any recent things that you're super excited about or final thoughts on, on teaching people on, you know, again, your craft, what we've talked about today, for making, you know, a difference in in their life, whatever that means?
[00:45:38] Sandro Forte: Well, I think maybe, since you've asked that question, I'll take that as an invitation to mention how important philanthropy is to me. I'm very proud of the fact that... I'm... And I I think I'm more proud of that outside of my family. I'm more proud of that than I am about anything I've ever achieved in business. I've raised over sixteen million pounds for various charities over twenty or so years. All my book and speaking sales go to various charities, and we donate a portion of our profits in business to, to charity as well. So that's why we came up with a pretty large number.
[00:46:11] Sandro Forte: But I think the thing I'd say to, to everybody, and this goes back to the whole well-being thing as well, Dustin, the physical fitness, the mental fitness, for me, one of the things that brings a lot of peace and a lot of comfort and a lot of balance in my life is being able to do stuff for other people. But I, but I just want to add a little bit to that if I may, because I think a misconception that a lot of people have is that philanthropy means giving lots of money to people. Whereas actually you and I go back all the way to two thousand and nine Indianapolis. And, we were part of a service project. We...
[00:46:46] Sandro Forte: Where we built a big playground for, underprivileged children in, the deep deepest recesses of America. And the joy that that brought to their faces was something I'll never forget. So I do a lot of philanthropic work. It doesn't necessarily involve giving money. It just involves giving up a little bit of time because it brings so much perspective and balance to your life. When you see how other people have to live their lives. I did, it was called CEO sleep out. It was basically sleeping rough, under the stars in London. It just happened to be by coincidence, the coldest night of last year. I cannot describe to you how cold it was Dustin.
[00:47:27] Sandro Forte: It was brutal. But then we got a presentation from a, from a young lady. She She was thirty four. She'd lived on the streets of London for twenty years and I'm dealing with sleeping out one night. So it does bring a lot of perspective. So what I'm saying is it isn't just about giving money. Sometimes it's about giving time. And even if you haven't got the time, I'll give you another, for instance, about a year ago, I was walking through the streets of London. I saw a young man in the doorway. He had the, you know, the piece of cardboard, homeless and hungry, you know, and and, you know, the little voice in my head goes, hang on a minute.
[00:48:03] Sandro Forte: You know, if you give him some money, he's probably going to go and buy drugs and, you know, and all this stuff that we, that we all think about, unfortunately. So I thought, no, I'm going to go and buy him a sandwich. At least that that way I can make sure he had something decent to eat. So I went to one of them sandwich shop, took him a sandwich back, but what was significant about the, what happened next was not feeding him. I just basically dropped down on my haunches and said, you know, what's your name? And he said, my name's Amir. I said, how long have you been in Elton street? And he said, a couple of years.
[00:48:33] Sandro Forte: We basically talked for a couple of minutes. It wasn't more than that, but I just asked him how he was and was he okay? Didn't need anything else. And, as I got up to go, he said, thank you. And I said, no problem. You know, honestly, the sandwich was like three pounds It was, it was no big deal. He said, I'm, I'm not saying thank you for the sandwich. I'm thanking you for noticing me today because I've been on the streets of London for two years. And you're only about the third person that's ever noticed me. So I think my message here is that we can all do something, even if there's a lack of money or a lack of time, we can all
[00:49:08] Sandro Forte: do something to improve the life and well-being of somebody else just by acknowledging them. Because it's something in our busy lives that we don't, we don't spend enough time doing, Dustin, to be honest. So that would be my overarching message when it comes to philanthropy. Well, thanks
[00:49:23] Dustin Serviss: a lot, Sandra. I think that was a great, bookend and a great story and message. You got me semi choked up there for a sec. That was a very powerful story. So where can people find, your information, contact information, podcast, where do they find
[00:49:42] Sandro Forte: you? Well, the good, the good part about having a really weird name, I was named after my, my grandfather. So, my name is actually Alessandro, but everyone knows me as Sandro for short. So Sandro Forte is quite unusual. So the good news is on all social media channels, I'm just Sandro Forte, except on, on Instagram, Dustin, I'm the real Sandro Forte, because someone stole my name and I still haven't tracked him down. And, and same with Facebook and my, and my website is Sandro Forte. And then, the book Debt to be Different. You can buy it on Amazon, although I know the Americans and the Canadians have terrible trouble.
[00:50:18] Sandro Forte: But people can reach out to me via my website. They want a copy. I'll just, I'll just mail it. You know, anybody that, has the courage to get in touch and ask the question, look, I'm, I'm, I'm happy to send them a copy. So, the only caveat being, I hope you haven't got like a, like two million listeners, cause that will cost me a fortune. Yeah, in all seriousness. And and the podcast on Spotify and iTunes is, the Sandro Forte podcast because I couldn't think of anything more original than that. Yeah. Well,
[00:50:49] Dustin Serviss: I, I definitely look forward to tuning into your new episodes. And thanks again, Sandra.
[00:50:54] Sandro Forte: Pleasure, Dustin. Good to speak to you.
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