Financial Advisor Reveals: Why You’re Broke (Even On A Good Salary) – Emmanuel Asuquo

[0:00] Sammie: Eman, yo, you’ve come across my feed about a million times. We’ve never met, which I just think’s mad. Crazy, isn’t it? Yeah. It’s been like I when you turn up today, I was just like, oh Uncle Eman’s in the building. I love that, man. Because I think for you, the way that you come across on social media is just like very likable character, but you’ve kind of seen the entire wealth spectrum. You’re advising millionaires, you’ve helped people, you know, on council estates.

[0:32] Producer: Yeah.

[0:32] Sammie: Be honest. Is being broke about how much you earn, or is it something else entirely?

[0:39] Emmanuel Asuquo: So it’s a great question. First of all, big up you, Sammie. Like I’ve love watching your content, I love the way you deliver it, I love how you keep it real. Obviously, we’ve it’s the first time meeting in person, but we’ve obviously had conversations in the DMs online and so forth. I love your content, I love what you do, and I love your authenticity and just how you deliver it. And I feel like it’s a joy to be on this podcast because Thanks, man. I feel like we’re like the same person. Like I like that I like the way you there’s never I’ve I’ve been yet to see a video that you’ve done and then your take on it and been like, I don’t agree with it. Like I agree, like it’s like we went to the same financial literacy school or whatever. Like, do you know what I mean? So yeah, no, big you up, man, and thank you for having me on the show on the show. So um, broke is a mentality, it’s not about how much money you have. So the reason I say that is that um I work with, I get obviously doing what I do on social media, I get a lot of football players that reach out to me, um, speak to them, talk to them about their money, their finances, and so forth. Now, not even from an advisor point of view, because a lot of the time the club will have their own financial advisor, but sometimes they just want to hear from someone that’s from the community because typically the club financial advisor is, you know, a quiet, you know, 50-year-old white man who’s never grown up in the on a council state, doesn’t understand their culture and so forth. So just want to run it past me. And I can see although these some of them making decent, you know, 50k a week, 100k a week, some of them making 250 a week. But they have a mentality that’s keeping it gonna keep them broke because basically they have a high income, but they have no assets, they don’t understand how to turn money into assets, and so what’s happening is that they’re making this money, but the second they stop playing football, which again is not in their control, they could go and play a match, get an injury, ACL goes done, yeah, contract, they get paid to the end of their contract, and then that’s the money that’s got to last them the rest of their life. Because again, a lot of them for pride is gonna stop them from going to get a normal job. Um, they’ve been used to having earning so much money and going to certain clubs and certain exclusive places and having car manufacturers call them direct when the latest cars come out, and having all these companies that come direct to them because they have all this money, then they’re used to that lifestyle. When that money goes, they’re gonna want to keep up that lifestyle, but they haven’t got anything bringing that money in, and what’s gonna happen is the money’s gonna run out. And so for me, what I always try to tell them is that a lot of them are making decisions and they’re doing it for people that don’t really love them, don’t really care about them because what those people care about is themselves. So if I see you making a bad financial decision, but I know that you’re paying, I get money from you, it’s gonna be difficult for me to tell you not to do something because I don’t want to offend you, because if I offend you, now I might stop my cash flow. So now I encourage you to do what do what do what you’re doing because I wanna I wanna benefit from you. And so the reason they come to me is that I’ll tell them straight, you can’t afford that car. You think you’re rich, you’re not rich. Like, you think you’ve got money, you ain’t got money. Like, remember a lot of these guys in a locker room. Imagine you might be in a locker room, you’re on 100k a week. You’re sitting next to a man that’s earning half a million a week. You’re trying to live half a million a week lifestyle. Yeah, yeah. Because you think we’re in the same, we play for the same team, we’re in the same locker room. No, your life is completely different. Yeah. Just getting brand deals. Exactly, getting brand deals that exactly. And that’s another thing. You live on your salary. The top ones, they don’t live on their salary.

[4:14] Sammie: Yeah, and then you’ve got the 16-year-old kid who’s on like 250 quid a week sitting in the same dressing room because he’s so good. But obviously, you know he’s gonna end up being where that is, but still, like they’re looking up at that and then aspiring to be that half a million pound guy.

[4:27] Emmanuel Asuquo: And if they’re honest, like when I say to a lot of them are gambling on the on the bus, again, remember you’re around these guys. These guys become your imagine like when we’re at school, you know what you used to do on the coach and you go to play games and whatever. You’re these are your guys, but imagine you’re you all got money. So you’re playing cards. We used to play blackjack on the coach and stuff. We didn’t have no money though, we just played, you know what I mean? Yeah. Whoever won money, yeah, exactly. Yeah, they’re playing with thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands because of ego that you don’t have. So you get paid, and now you’re paying off debt. You’re in debt to your your teammates. So, what am I trying to say? I’m trying to say the amount of money can’t replace a broke mentality. Like, when when when when BIG said more money, more problems, a lot of the time that the problems come from the fact that you are making decisions that you’ve never been able to make before. And this is why I never I tell people don’t judge. Because a lot of the time, what we do is we say, if I had that money, like I wouldn’t make that decision. But you don’t know you, Rich. You only know you broke. Do you understand? Yeah. Like you only know you that doesn’t have much. So you’re gonna live within your means. You don’t know how you will behave now, all of a sudden, you know, every month you’ve got, like every week, you’ve got 100k coming in. Net of packs. You’ve got you think you don’t know what what your mindset’s gonna be like. You don’t know the types of people that are gonna come around you. You don’t know all of these so-called friends, what how they’re gonna behave. So you also don’t know how your parents are gonna act, your cousins, your aunties, your uncles, that now like all of a sudden you’re feeding, feeding the 5,000. Mate, I’m I’m like that now.

[6:03] Sammie: I’m like that now. I that’s why I feel like really weird about saying how much is in my pots. Yeah. I used to be quite open because I was building, and then when I got to a number that was at like started to be a little bit like my mum’s like, you know, if I’m at dinner, you kind of get the like expectation of me going to the bar or me buying the drinks or uh or or the meal or whatever, because they’re like he he’s good. Yeah, and that so I like I see that right up from the step one to right up to the footballers that I can only imagine.

[6:35] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, and even like content creators, like I got content creators that I work with, and like, yeah, you’re making good money. You’re making good money, and so but you know how many of my content creators, when I sit down with them, they’ve got no pension, they’ve got no, they ain’t got no ISA, they ain’t got no investments, they’ve bought one house, which again they overstretch themselves. Because there’s nothing wrong with buying the house that you live in, but it’s got makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like to me, it’s not about the house, it’s about the amount. What’s the mortgage payment? So I always tell my clients, we focus on the mortgage payment. I say I do the same with car. It doesn’t matter about the car, it’s the monthly payment on the car. So I will tell my clients, this is this is your monthly payment that you can afford for your house. This is your monthly payment for your car. Go and get the best car you can get within this monthly payment. I don’t want to, I don’t care about the brand, I don’t care. This is the pay, because if especially when you’re like footballers, at least they have some sort of contract. When you’re when you’re a content creator, you’re only as hot as the the Trenza. Your last brand deal. Yeah, once the deal goes, like I’ll I’ll give a story. So I did I did a brand deal with with Barclays, everyone knows. I did a big brand deal with Barclays and the Barclays app. Amazing. When that brand deal ended, that that was a six-figure brand deal for two years. When that when that brand deal ended, no financial brand wanted to touch me. They said you’re the Barclays guy. You’re the Barclays, dude, yeah. Yeah. People don’t understand. Like, you’re the bar you were Barclays for two years. I can’t now put you in Santander or Nat West or on any other because everyone’s saying you’re the Barclays guy.

[8:08] Sammie: Mate, it’s I’m that with trading two one two on this podcast. Like, no brand will touch it. Because it’s like you’ve had trading two and one two for three years. It’s like, well, if I took them away, I’ll be really difficult to replace them. It’s gonna be hard.

[8:20] Emmanuel Asuquo: So again, you’re only as good as do you know what I mean, as as the as as the brands see fit. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And so what I’m trying to say is that, especially for my content creators, we’ve got to be thinking about. So look at what’s happened with Philly, for example. Like, he has he was the guy, yeah, the number one. Yeah, out of all content creators in the UK, he was number one. He was so big on content on socials that TV was like, we need to now put you on TV. We need to get people from socials to watch TV. He was the guy. One incident, his whole life was changed. Whole life has changed. A lot of these people, and I say the difference, so I would I do a lot with um Scarlett Douglas. Um, so I do a lot of her, she does Big in Property, she does a lot with Channel 4. Yeah, and I remember speaking to her about her time in the jungle, and and you know, someone like, for example, Nella Rose, who was went into the jungle as well. And the difference being Scarlett’s been trained, she’s had media training, she’s got she understands what is expected. A lot of content creators, when you’re a content creator, you’re just getting paid to be you. I know it’s mad. But in certain environments, the way you are, where you can be naturally you on online, you can’t necessarily be that in all forms of media. No, and then all of a sudden you can get backlash, all of a sudden things can go go against you. Now, thank God, someone like Nella Rose, she is so talented that she can bounce back and go again. But for a smaller content creator, you get backlash like that, all of a sudden, no brand deals, no brands are working for you. But now you’ve got the fame, and this is what I talk about when I talk about with the footballers and the pride. And so what happens is that what I say is a broke, it’s mindset and not money, is that when I sit down with some of these football players and I think about how much you got in your bank account, they tell me, okay, how much how much are a lot of them are in have huge mortgages. So you would think somebody earning 100k a week, why would they need a mortgage? Could they not they had huge mortgages? Yeah, and that’s because again, they have a mortgage broker that is more concerned with making money than telling them, actually, why don’t you just save 50% and then get a mortgage for 50%? And actually, you don’t need 12 bedrooms when there’s only four of you in the house. Like one, one if they come over from Brazil, like you know come on, you just got here. Yeah, like I always think about Michael Essien when he when he joined Chelsea, yeah, he lived in a Chelsea hotel. Yeah, he lived in the Chelsea Hotel, he paid nothing. Yeah, he got a room for free, he could be he he got he got food for free, and he kept his cost down.

[11:05] Sammie: Well you look at like Kante and Tierney like turning up with a Tesco’s bags because he wouldn’t buy the Gucci holder or Kante turns up in a Ford Fiesta and everyone’s in the Lambos, and it’s like they’ve got that mentality, they’ve obviously clocked it and they’ve got that about them.

[11:20] Emmanuel Asuquo: And that’s legacy with someone like you know, Kante, Sadi Amane, when he’s got hospitals, schools in his village where he’s come from. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s the impact you want to have. That’s a mindset that understands that actually my my value, you it’s crazy that you could make that level of money and still feel that you need to prove your worth. People don’t deep it, but what you’re saying is is that I although I’m I’ve made it to the Premier League, I make I’m making all this money for even championship. Like I got man in League One making serious money. Football is making serious money. You’re still 3-4k a week. Come on, seriously. A lot of money. A lot of money, serious money, and and they will still have nothing to show for. Like, and they’ll have no legacy, and like they’ll finish, and when when you really add up the last four, five, six years, how much how much has passed through their hands, and then you say, Show me, show me where it’s gone.

[12:18] Sammie: Yeah, we had Amelia Powell on, who’s Nick’s wife, you and she’s obviously a financial advisor. Now we had this chat, and it is nuts, like trying to install that mentality into someone who’s come from nothing, largely.

[12:31] Emmanuel Asuquo: Exactly. It’s a mentality, it’s it’s your you you imagine imagine getting paid that level of money, getting paid millions, and still feeling I need to buy cars and houses and jewelries and what to prove my worth. You would think you’d already feel, I’ve made it, I’ve made, I’ve lived, I’ve hit my dream. But society, consumerism, capitalism tells us that we have to prove our worth. And that’s how we continue to buy this stuff. And so for me, it’s about getting them to forget that and say, Listen, the I always ask people, do you want to work forever?

[13:01] Sammie: Yeah.

[13:01] Emmanuel Asuquo: And everyone always says, No, I don’t want to work forever. But the way you manage your money, you’re gonna work forever. Yeah, you have to. You’re not gonna have to, because you literally make money and spend all of it before the end of the month. Normally you’re running out of money around the 16th, 17th of the month. And those last few few days of the month, you’re struggling. If you continue that, how will you have money for a pension? How you have money to for your stocks of shares, ISO, how will you have money to buy a property, how have you had money to to do your side hustles and start up? Like, you ain’t got nothing. So you’re always having to work. And the biggest thing that we forget with work is health because what we assume is that we’re going to be healthy enough to work till 65, but anything can change at any time. No, stats don’t lie, not everyone gets that. Everyone gets that. Yeah. So this is the mindset. This is why I say it’s it’s less about the amount of money. Somebody with the right mindset, they can they can change their life like that. They can have a great idea and change their life like that, and the money will come and then they’ll move forward. So you can be broke and get out of it. But if you’ve got a broke mentality, you will always stay broke.

[14:04] Sammie: Well, this is like it’s really interesting because that that you obviously we were speaking about the Premier League footballers here, but you can bring that right down to me at 25 with 24 grand’s worth of debt, peacocking, buying the jackets, taking the loan out to cover that loan. Yeah. I was already doing that then. It’s the same mentality, yeah. And it just goes up the wealth spectrum where the numbers just get scarier as they grow. But like when you look at it from a um from an angle of you know, I’ve just got the pay rise, and let’s say I’ve gone from 60 to 80k, and so that’s a big jump. You’re you’re gonna notice the difference, yeah. And you upgrade the life, the house, the car, the kids after school class, maybe they’re going to private school, whatever that might well be. And suddenly you can’t go backwards, and so you’re stuck in this loop.

[14:54] Emmanuel Asuquo: It is the worst, the worst hell that you can. I’ve seen it. Like I’ve seen it, especially recently, with you know, cost of living and um VAT to private school, tuition fees go up. And I’ve seen it, and it is I’ve got clients who are heartbroken. They are heartbroken because they work so hard, they’ve come from nothing, they worked so hard to give their kids this better life. Yeah, and now because they’ve been made redundant, because the new job they’ve got wasn’t paying the same level as the old job they had, because the cost of living, the interest has gone up on their mortgage, all of a sudden they have to take the kids out of private school, take them out of private lessons, dance class, they’re teaching them foreign languages, all of those things have to stop just because they can’t afford it anymore. And now these their kids are looking at them. It’s a serious dent to ego and pride, isn’t it? Painful. Yeah. And actually, you set the precedent. I say, even with a man then when they’re dating, like, first day, you want to take her to the shard. Are you well? Like, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with you? Like, like you can’t go back from there. And sometimes you want to blame the woman, like, oh, you’re you’re a gold digger. No, you started this. You want to do a little burger and love stuff first. Come on, chill out. Get something cool, let’s get to know each other, let’s cut and then on a special, oh, our one-year anniversary or uh something big, then go somewhere nice. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like, but you wanna you wanna set the standards so high. Why? Social media, because the guys on social media are taking, but you ain’t making their money, you’re not living their life.

[16:28] Sammie: I would argue, like, is she the right or he the right guy or chick if they’re doing that? Because, like, for me, I would want to go to the local spot that’s cool that I’ve researched, like, that’s a bit funky and cool. Yeah, exactly. And if she don’t like me after that, then we ain’t meant to be together because that’s not the right vibe.

[16:45] Emmanuel Asuquo: Because at the end of the day, why are we spending why are we spending hundreds a month, hundreds, if not thousands, on on going to these push restaurants and all of this stuff, yet we own nothing. And that’s what people don’t understand. The game of life, it’s like monopoly. The people that win on monopoly, they own. Because when people land on your land on where they gotta pay you. But if you don’t own anything, every time you land somewhere, you gotta pay someone else. And a lot of us are living a life where every time we leave our house, every time we want to go out, every time we want we have to pay someone else. And the only person paying us is that one job. And it just can’t match. And so to live the life that you want and the life that you deserve, you have number one, you have to have income beyond just your just your work, but also you’ve got to reduce the outgoings.

[18:20] Sammie: Yeah. It’s I always say it’s like this kind of you’ve got two options. Yeah, you can cut or you can increase. Yes. But when you increase, keep everything else the same and try and like it’s really difficult to delay that forever because we all want to move up a little bit. We all want a little bit of a nicer house, we want to do up the kitchen, whatever that might all be, like the cupboards are falling off. I need to. But if you can delay it, delay the bigger decisions one, two, can, three, four, five years, and change nothing and in that time frame stack assets, your life will look materially different.

[18:57] Emmanuel Asuquo: And and that’s the thing for me is that like, for example, I’m a big guy. When I go on a plane, I like economy is a struggle for me. Like, the seat is tight, the leg, like I’m just I’m just not comfortable, especially when I’ve got long flights. So I want to upgrade my seat, but I don’t think I’m gonna upgrade my seat from the money that I make from work. That’s not gonna make sense. So I know I need to have something that’s gonna bring an additional income, and I know that additional income is for me being able to afford to upgrade my seat. So I well, the problem is that there’s nothing wrong with wanting better in life. No. The problem is that when you want better in life, but you want to keep the same income. No, your income has to increase. It has to, you have to look at how do I increase my income to match the lifestyle that I want to live. What am I prepared to? Because again, right now I’m in a position where I could make even more money if I worked more hours. But I’ve got four kids. Actually, I’ll take less. They’re very cute, by the way. I see you outside Arsenal with the parade.

[19:59] Sammie: Oh man. Love that. Yeah, that’s my dream one day.

[20:02] Emmanuel Asuquo: Two kids take them to Arsenal. Yeah. And to me, it’s like, I would I rather in the value in spending time with them doing their home, helping their homework, I take them to schools, like and have those conversations, pick them up. I’d rather do that and make less. So that’s my sacrifice. But that then means I’m gonna I’m gonna cut back on other things. So I’m not gonna have the most expensive this or the most expensive that. I don’t really wear designer clothes. I don’t, I don’t have a like even my car, for example, everyone’s saying E Man, like I got a I got a Mercedes, but it’s like a C cars. They’re like, oh E-man, you should be having a you know four, four by four something or a coupe or the I mean like a bigger, bigger wagon. You understand that? I’m like, for who? For you. I know you ain’t paying my bills. You’re not living my because again, I rather I know that I’m self-employed. I know that yes, money’s going really well and we’re doing well, excellent. But I know at any given time, there could be two or three months where I’m waiting for invoices to get paid, um, business is slow, especially in this economy that we’re in, and all of a sudden, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna have outgoings that I can’t, like all of a sudden I can’t afford to pay if I don’t make X amount of money. No, I need to make sure that my outgoings are low in all seasons. So a car that I hardly drive that is just sitting out there, it depends. If I was someone that drove all the time, maybe I want to put some more money in that because I’m in the car all the time. No, I don’t drive that often.

[21:31] Sammie: Yeah, yeah.

[21:32] Emmanuel Asuquo: So I’m not gonna go and get a fancy car. Like my car, I spent cost me, I put down a deposit and it cost me £150 a month. When I said it’s about the it’s about the amount. When people see my car, they’re like, Well, you know what I mean. I said I’m gonna get the best car I can get for this amount. That’s all I wanted to spend on the car.

[21:48] Sammie: And we agree with you on that so much. Like, car finance isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world if it’s not over 10% of your income. Exactly. So if it’s above 10% of what your net income is coming in, then it’s a problem. Even that’s high.

[22:02] Emmanuel Asuquo: High, yeah, exactly. And when I say this to my clients, especially me telling a footballer like, ah, you know what? I don’t think you should get a Lambo. Yeah. They’re angry at me. Yeah, they’re angry. I can pay that next week. I’ll get me. They’re like, what? With what selling? And I’m saying, no, that’s not, this is not where we’re trying to get to. Think about the the long term. Because at the end of the day, because I was with Lambo, I went to the the car show. Is that I was at Lambo? Oh, Goodwood. Yeah, Goodwood. I went to Goodwood and um my cousin he’s got he’s got a Lambo, so Lambo invited him down. So he went down there. I was thinking the average age of that people keep a Lambo for nine months. What really nine months. They spend 200 over 200k on a car, and the average time. That they keep this car is nine months.

[22:48] Sammie: Yeah, I see Bugsy talk about this when he was like, I went, I was so gassed about going, getting the Lambo, and then he turned up, drove it off the forecourt, and ten minutes down the road he was like, I didn’t feel a thing. And he was like, I’ve just spent 200,000 pounds and I don’t feel anything. I thought I was gonna feel like a king. Yeah. And then I he was like, I just don’t feel a thing. And I can imagine right that’s the exact same feeling.

[23:12] Emmanuel Asuquo: And now I’ve got I got clients that like, okay, three, four years down the line, they’re like, Thank you. Thank you. Because actually, I had to, you know, someone that the the the honest truth is all of a sudden you get a manager that doesn’t like you anymore. All of a sudden you’re now in you’re now in Europe, you know what I mean? And the salaries are not as high as they are, maybe in the Premier League, or in the on Division I. So, or um championship. So all of a sudden now, you’re getting you’re getting less.

[23:41] Sammie: So Yeah, like uh Reese Nelson or someone like that, you know, that’s been farmed out, and then they ain’t gonna get that Arsenal salary.

[23:47] Emmanuel Asuquo: Come on, once yeah, exactly. He’s he’s he’s this is probably his last year here. So he’s either gonna he’s either gonna this is his last year on the contract, so he’s either gonna get sold. But where he’s going ain’t gonna give him the same as what he was on before. He’s on he’s on the decline and he’s only young. So if he hasn’t invested well, those the last two or three contracts that he’s had, he’s having invested that well, he’s got a struggle.

[24:07] Sammie: So let’s bring this to like someone who’s making that step now. Let’s say they’re going from I don’t know, 30, 40k, and they’ve just had a salary bump up. Yeah. Like what if you were sitting down with that person, yeah, what are you doing with them then? And how would you like stop them from quickly going off the scales?

[24:27] Emmanuel Asuquo: The biggest thing is the plan. And I think the reason people spend the money they spend is because they don’t have a plan. So what I do when I sit down with my clients is we forget the numbers, we forget, talk to me about the life you want to live. Talk to me what about what ideal looks like for you. And so we work out that and then say, okay, what does that what do you think you need a month to have that lifestyle? And it might be for some, it might be 10k a month, 5k a month. Like if you’re on, it might be 5k a month, okay, 5k a month net in retirement. That’s what I want. Because for me, I focus mainly with my clients on retirement. I don’t focus on work. Like we can all work hard. But my job is to get you to stop working as soon as possible. My job is to build wealth, build assets that can replace your income as soon as possible. And so I sit down with them and I’m like, okay, cool. You’re on 30, let’s say now you’re you’re on 45, let’s say after everything, you got an extra thousand pounds a month, let’s say. Okay, cool. Now what’s the goal? Because again, naturally, what everyone will say is put more money into pension. But then I have to turn around and say, Well, when do you want to retire? Nine times out of ten when I ask people what age they want to retire at, they’ll tell me 50. Yeah, nine times out of ten. I don’t know why that number, yeah, yeah. I don’t know why it’s that number, but 50 is the number.

[25:52] Sammie: That was the number that was looked in my head when I was in my early 20s. I was like, 50, I’m done. 50 is the number.

[25:57] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah.

[25:57] Sammie: It’s never the case, man. Surely, unless you’ve smashed it.

[26:00] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So then I have to say, well, if if it is 50 that you’re you’re aiming for, yeah, number one, you’re probably 28, 29, 30. So we ain’t got long. So that’s number one. Um, number two, is that, well, you can’t get your pension until 57. And probably that’ll go to 58, if not 60. So if you’re putting all your money into pension, pension doesn’t match your goal. So is it 50? Is it really 50? Or and so then we start to have these discussions. And so for me, it’s then about looking at okay, what’s gonna get you that? Now, when I have clients that may be a bit older, unlike most financial advisors, I will look at before again the government did this, we used to look a lot at property because property can generate that income that you need quickly and it can be more reliable. But with all the taxes and everything, property is not as desirable, and with the new laws that are coming in now, buying a property, renting it out is not what it used to be. So now I don’t think I don’t think I’ve ever sat down with clients so much and they want stocks, they just want that flexibility of stocks, and then it’s about the side hustle. So even with like with my client, I’m looking at what are you doing? So, okay, you you are now earning 45,000. The average salary is around 30-something thousand. So that means you’ve got a good skill, that means you’re doing something well. So, how are you gonna leverage the skills that you have? Is it mentorship? Can you do a coaching program? Because there’ll be people who are on 22k. Would love to learn how to get to you. Yeah. So you could create a program where you bring on people, show them the steps you take, mentor them, they’ll pay you a set amount to do that. That set amount that you get is a little income that you get, and that income you can put aside for other stuff.

[27:50] Sammie: It doesn’t have to be much. It doesn’t have to be have to be huge. When I first started doing freelancing, I think I was charging like £30 an hour. Come on. And so it was like real small amounts. Obviously, I knew I was massively undercharged, but I was trying to build a portfolio because trying to get clients, I was trying to like do all these little things. So you start there, but that £30 would then become £60, would then become £90, and you start growing in that space, and you can either turn that into business or not, or you can keep it as a little side hustle if you have kids, you cut back on time. If you don’t, you move up. Like it’s there’s so many choices to you at that point.

[28:22] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, and it’s about the lifestyle you want. Because I the conversation I really love to have with my clients is when do you want to retire? Because you can buy that car, you can buy that house, that extra expensive house that you don’t really need, you can get all of that stuff. But the compromises is that now you might need to carry on working till 65. So would you in order to have that car and have that house and go on holiday three times a year, is all of that worth working an extra five to ten years? And if the answer is no, then let’s not have the extreme. Have a nice house, doesn’t have to be that big. Doesn’t have to be in London. I don’t know why we’re trapped in this thing of I’ve got to buy in London. London is London is like New York, one of the most overpriced places ever. I don’t understand why we’re so fixated on get into the office quickly, get in like it’s it doesn’t, especially now that a lot more workplaces are giving you maybe two days a week, like three days a week in the office, two days at home. Like, you don’t necessarily have to be in the office every single day. So to me, you don’t have to live right near your workplace and pay that premium.

[30:39] Sammie: It was a one-bedroom flat or a four-bedroom house where I live for an hour journey. Think about it. And then if I live in, if I live, I let’s say I live in Richmond and my office is in North London, it’s taking me an hour.

[30:50] Emmanuel Asuquo: Same hour. Same hour. But you’re paying a premium. It’s crazy. And so for me, I just thought these are the conversations that I want to have. Because again, sometimes we are making, we’re making decisions that we think are good, but they’re actually for our bad. 100%. I got I got a cli I’ve got a client. Why is your mortgage £6,000 a month? You earn $10k a month. Why is your why is your mortgage £6,000 a month? That is that is that is unnecessary. But because the person at work that you work with or people that you talk to, because their mortgages are that it just becomes normal to. So this is where I say as a financial advisor, my job is not to just pick funds and tell you to invest in this or that. My job is to actually give you advice on the financial decisions that you’re making in your life. Because the repercussions I don’t think we always understand the repercussions of them. And a lot of the time we are making decisions out of emotion. Oh, they just bought a house over there. Oh, I’ve gone to my friend’s house for a housewarming. This house is beautiful, this area is lovely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I want to move there. Yeah, yeah. There was nothing wrong with your house before you went and saw somebody else’s house. That’s it. That’s just human nature. That’s that greed that we naturally have. That’s that competitive nature. Like, especially as men, we are very competitive. And because of that, we we we naturally say, Oh, I see this guy doing this, now I want to do this. I see this guy driving that, now I want to. That is gonna keep you in the mud. We have to come to a place of understanding, knowing your worth, knowing your value, and knowing that you are already valuable and not allow ourselves to make decisions based on jealousy, based on competition, based on trying to get our value from other people. And I think that’s the type of conversation I’ll be having. Like, what do you actually want to achieve? Because actually, you’re on 45. To live the life that you want, you’ve got to get to 60. So now it’s like, what course can we take? Do we do we even use that additional money? We might need to put that in a course. We might have to put that, we might need to put that in a program. You might actually need you to start, you might need to start networking and meeting other people. That’s gonna cost you to go to these events. That’s what you need to do. Because actually, to live the life you want, you’ve got to increase your income. These are the types of conversations. The problem is we make more money and we almost assume, oh, yeah, buy a house.

[32:59] Sammie: Yeah, yeah.

[33:00] Emmanuel Asuquo: This is not the 1960s. You it doesn’t just work like that. Some of some of my clients, like some of my smartest clients that I’ve got now, they’ve bought, they they’ve bought houses, but they still live at home. They don’t, they bought houses, bought them in a company, rent them out. They still live at home. Because it’s cheaper to live at home than to go and buy a house and start having to pay. Like, actually, we can stay together, reduce all our costs by living together, and then we can build wealth and use that money to build wealth and invest.

[33:27] Sammie: So a lot of people do that to get on the ladder, don’t they? They just strip back, let’s go and stay with mum for six months, and then we can finally make that decision because of the amount of money you save. But some people, the pride, that’s the problem.

[33:39] Emmanuel Asuquo: It’s pride, isn’t it? It’s pride. I don’t want to go, oh, I’m I’m 30, you can’t be going back to my mum’s house. Ah, it’s your mum. If your mum can’t support you, who can support you in life? If your if your parents, your family, your closest friends, if they cannot support you, who is allowed to support you? The mindset is wrong, and this is what I say about that is a poverty mindset. Because I will see um clients that I’ve got in like more than the Indian community, where I got one’s a doctor, one’s a dentist. These are very high-profied professional jobs. They get married and they move into their parents, one of their one of their parents’ house. Yeah, or they live very close. Very close. Yeah. Why? Because they understand that community power of community, put our money together, reduces our costs. And it means that we can buy together, we have babies sitting if we need it, we can, we can build a family, we can, we can grow together, and we can make all of our costs. One of the biggest problems you have um in the black community is black tax, where you start making money and all of a sudden your parents who had uh low-paying jobs or struggling jobs or didn’t have the financial education to know about pensions really well or investments and so forth, they get to retirement age and they don’t have enough to live in retirement. So now you are having to pay for your parents as well as having kids and having to pay for your kids. Right. So, how can you then build wealth the same as somebody else that only has to worry about themselves? So, what I’m saying is that in those communities, they live together. So I don’t, I mum and dad, we all live together. We all live, so we’re making it cheaper for all of us. So I don’t need to pay for my house and then send money to pay for your house. We’re all living in the same house, so we’re keep all keeping our costs down. It’s giving me anxiety because I couldn’t manage and live in my mum or dad now.

[35:21] Sammie: I think God go insane. I think God actually goes insane. But I think I it definitely depends on your parents, okay. Exactly.

[35:28] Emmanuel Asuquo: You know, you have to have that kind of ability to do that, ability, relationship, culture, it all depends on on all of that. And again, some people’s parents, you like you said, it’d be it’d be night a nightmare. And obviously, your mental health is important, and not everyone had it.

[35:41] SPEAKER_00: That’s all I’m feeling.

[35:42] Emmanuel Asuquo: It’s like she drive me mad. But at the same time, it’s like if it was a difference between can I do this or not, even if it meant for 12 months, 18 months, having to get by.

[35:54] Sammie: Mate, I did it, I did it. So I lost my job. Um I was 26, I lost my job, and it was quite a big shock to me because like a whole um marketing HR department just got completely cut, and I was like, what the hell? Um, but I had a flat in London, and immediately it was one of those ones that you could pay every month back then when it was a little bit more like the Wild West and you went in market in London, so I just stopped immediately. I moved back in my mum, I did it, I did it for nine months and I managed to build myself up a like a bigger pot. She had like this little weird like flat annex thing, and I stayed in there and it was the best thing I’ve ever done. Like, and I regret to this day coming back to London as fast as I did because like if I’d have stayed there 18 18 more months, I’d have been in a much better position. But you know, pride.

[36:41] Emmanuel Asuquo: No, exactly. But the point is, it’s it’s it’s if it’s possible. I know some people, their parents are struggling, so they don’t have the space to do it. But if and again, it’s like now that I’m having kids, these are the things that I want to have a house that no matter what, they’re that they’ve they can come back. They know that they’ve got a space, they know that they can live with us and if they need to, and my job is to get them on their feet and help them and support them as much as possible. So for me to be able to do that, maybe I can’t go on as many holidays as I like. For me to be able to do that, maybe I only got Apple Watch instead of a Rolex. But I’m okay. Because guess what? I still know the time. But that’s my mindset.

[37:17] Sammie: Like, I know what the time is, I’m good. Do you know what I mean? I love this one because it’s like, well, you got the Rolex, but how many hours did that cost you? How many hours were you working for that? Like, you have to ask yourself these questions. And what I loved about you said what you said before was when we moved to, we’ve moved to Ramsgate in Kent, they offered us, they said you got 700k. That’s what they say as well. Of course. And I’m like, and we start going looking around these houses, and I’m it’s me and the missus, like, and a dog. Like, why do I need seven bedrooms, an annex, bathroom, massive garden? Like, they were ridiculously huge. And I was like, me and we we went look around a few, and we were like, it’s kind of kind of cool. You get sucked into it, of course. You get sucked in big time. And then I was like, babe, how many hours do you think we’re gonna spend in each one of those rooms? Please. Like, how many hours? Like, let’s actually figure it out. Let’s watch us now because we are living in a two up two down in Hampshire. Like, let’s watch where we spend most of our time. The answer was bedroom, kitchen, bedroom, kitchen, bedroom, kitchen, bedroom, kitchen. Like, that was it. So we were like, well, actually, we barely go in the living room, so we don’t really care if we like, you know, it’s nice to have a living room when people come around. Yeah. But then why do we need six other bedrooms? When are we gonna go in them? Um, and how often do people stay with us, like once or twice a year? So maybe that’ll increase a bit, but so let’s have a couple of spare bedrooms, but we don’t need seven. Yeah. Like, so it’s you you ask yourself these questions, and then you then you backtrack and go, well, actually, 700k is about 45% of our net income. Come on. Then we’re gonna be in big trouble. Because if that increases, you don’t stress test this thing, then you’re in big trouble.

[39:00] Emmanuel Asuquo: And that’s the problem. Loads of people borrowed at 0.5% above base and all this, and then but the base rate skyrocketed and or their their mortgage product finished and the and and they just couldn’t afford it.

[39:12] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

[39:13] Emmanuel Asuquo: I went from 900 to like 1,600 in literally a day. Yeah, I had someone that had um their mortgage payment went from 600 pounds a month to 2,000 pounds. Oh, because they were on a variable, they went to the variable rate, and then they actually didn’t have the income. So you know you get a mortgage at the beginning, but then you’re on a certain income. They went on that income, but because they’re not um they’re not making a change to the mortgage provider, they just kept getting new mortgages. But this time they couldn’t get a new product, so they had to stay in the variable rate. Because obviously to get an the mortgage company that that they were at they were at was closing down, so they would have to go to a new mortgage company and they don’t have the income to get a new mortgage somewhere else. And that was that went from like 600 pounds to almost to two, it was almost their their their monthly income.

[40:07] Sammie: That’s so savage, man. Because you just stress test this based on like it’s five percent today, but what happens if it goes to eight? Or it’s 1.2% today, what happens if it goes to five? Because that’s why happened to me. I went 1.2% to five.

[40:20] Emmanuel Asuquo: So it’s just you know, and there was nothing I could do. Exactly. And especially um, you know, I have clients who buy to let’s and again, they went the interest rate went up. They were paying people to live in their house, basically. Yeah. Because they they were they were collecting what they the rent, the mortgage, the mortgage went up so much that but they couldn’t tell their tenant to cover it. So they were covering, you’re paying, they’re paying an extra four or five hundred pounds a month on this house that is meant to be making their money, they’re losing money. And again, because it’s in their own name, they still have to pay tax on it. Imagine paying tax on a losing house. Yeah. And the house is losing you money. Yeah. And they’re still paying tax on it.

[40:55] Sammie: So my sister, who actually works around the corner from where we are now, her fella has just gone through this. So he was paying someone to live in his house. I think it was like two, three hundred pounds a month for nearly a year because he couldn’t sell it, he was trying to sell it. And mate, so that’s like 200, 3k. That would break my heart. Come on.

[41:15] Emmanuel Asuquo: It would break my heart, it’s supposed to be an asset. That’s it, exactly. And that’s what people don’t think about. At any time, you can have a time where there’s no tenant, there’s no one in the house. You still gotta pay that mortgage. There could be times where things are broken, and now you all of a sudden you’ve got to go and fix it. Like, I’m I have nothing against property. I think property is a a great asset, especially here in the UK. But I think you also have to understand that it’s not just plain sailing. It’s not just I get a tenant and they’re just gonna pay me this amount, and I want to get that exact amount and make that amount of profit until the end of time. It doesn’t, that’s not how it works. Do you know what I mean? And there are ups and downs, and a lot of I’ve got, for example, I’ve got clients with 30, 40 properties. I said, okay, that’s great. How much are you how much are you making on them? Income wise, peanuts. Less than less than a thousand pounds. They’re just pet they’re just washing their face. Now, again, obviously, from uh capital asset ashes going to uh go up over time, yeah. But from a cash flow point of view, it’s tight. Some of them they’re even losing money on. Do you know what I mean? So the point I’m saying is that this is why we want to have a diverse portfolio. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, you want to have some money in property, some money in stocks, some money um in business, and then build over time.

[42:32] Sammie: So you were kind of the first person in your family to really understand this stuff. Yes, kind of, yeah.

[42:41] Emmanuel Asuquo: Kind of. Kind of. Who who who else? My dad’s an accountant. Okay, okay. So my dad’s an accountant, so he understands account, he’s a qualified accountant, so he understands accounts. But um, so he had financial background. In fact, he’s the one that told me to go and do an accounting finance degree. Um, so he is an accountant, but in regards to where I took it, yeah, in regards to being a financial advisor, understanding mortgages inside out, understanding property stocks, all of that type of stuff, yeah. Uh I was the first. But my dad understood it from an account.

[43:12] Sammie: So that was the journey, like that then to put you into an accounting for the city.

[43:15] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, I wanted to do marketing. I wanted to do marketing. I wanted to do marketing when I when I and he was just like, no, but don’t do marketing. You get marketing, no. You’ve marketed yourself. But I get that. So I’ve always had that kind of marketing brain, but my dad was just like, nah, you know, um you’re always gonna, you know, finance, it’s always needed, it’s what I do, and yeah, so go and go and do finance. So I just said, all right, no problem, I’ll do a kind of finance.

[43:38] Sammie: And that journey for you wasn’t like plain sailing either, to what you do now, right? You were working in a city, you’ve been very redundant.

[43:44] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, it’s never been my whole life, it has never been plain sailing. Like, obviously, grew up on a council state, then um in East London, Tower Hamlets, um, went to a school, Bow Boys. The pass rate before my year was five percent that got five A to C’s, five percent. Five percent. My year, my year it was like I think it was 12 or 15%. They put us in a in a you know, there used to be a free newspaper, like a local newspaper that used to they put us in a newspaper for like because we overachieved like what compared to what previous years. Don’t worry, it’s much better now. I’ve I go back to the school and it’s a it’s an academy now and they’re they’re doing amazing. Um but yeah, it was that was that was poor. But I still only got I got four GCCs. So my head of year my head of year, he wrote a letter. So I wanted to go to Monarch’s, um, George Monarch’s in Wolfhamstow. Yeah. Um but they but they rejected me. Um so because I didn’t have it, so I went to Leighton. Leighton Leighton wanted me to do um B Tech because my because I only had four GCSEs. My head of year wrote a letter for me and went back and they let me do they let me I basically did a B Tech, but they let me do an A level as well, so that I could have three A levels that way. So I didn’t know that was that that’s how I got to uni. So I did a B Tech in business and then I did um A level in sociology. So that was my and that’s how I got them to So then I did that. But even then I got a C D E. But because I played basketball, Greenwich University gave me unconditional. Ah, okay. So I played, I played basketball at quite a high level, so they gave me unconditional, so I just I didn’t it didn’t matter about my res results, I got unconditional to Greenwich. Student athlete. Student athlete, so yeah. So I got in there, played basketball for Greenwich, um, c was captain of the basketball team at Greenwich, and then still ended up with a third, third class. Being Nigerian and getting a third class isn’t never a good thing. It’s not a good thing. No, no, no. Why? Yeah, because it’s like third class is like a past. Okay, okay, okay. So it’s like, did you even go uni? It’s like

[45:52] Sammie: Yeah, like what was the point of all this? But then, like, the reason I asked that is because uh I knew some of that, you know, obviously was talking about this for the audience, but look at what are you doing now?

[46:04] Emmanuel Asuquo: It’s crazy, like it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, it actually doesn’t. So although I got a third class, I was still I was working part-time. Um, I was working in Martin Suspense’s when I first got to uni. I used a job at Mark Suspense to get a job as a cashier at Barclays. Um, as a cashier at Barclays, and then I did really well. They used to have something called like a mystery shop, yeah. So I got 100% on a mystery shop, you know. I get on the people. I’m a people’s person, so I got 100%. They did another mystery shop, I got 100% again. So I ran an award for for won an award. So when I finished my degree, they were like, What job do you want? I said financial advisor. And so they were like, Okay, no problem. So they made me a financial advisor, 22, youngest financial. I went from cashier to financial advisor. After I did that, Barclays changed, you can’t jump that many bands. So basically, cashier is a band one and a financial advisor is a band four. Right. So they changed it, so you can only go up two bands. So I can only go up to a band three, you’re gonna go from one to a band three. So band three would be like a personal banker.

[47:08] SPEAKER_00: Okay.

[47:08] Emmanuel Asuquo: So you’d have to become a personal banker, and then you could then apply for a financial advisor, a mortgage broker, whatever, maybe. So yeah, so became a financial advisor at 22. You can imagine I’m still living on a council state, and I’m looking at these buildings in Canary Wolf that I used to look at and dream about being in, and I’m now in them. I’m now working in these buildings, working in Canary Wolf, living a dream. But then realising that I can’t be myself. So I’d have to start changing the way I talk, changing the way I dress, changing the way I like to fit in over here, and then once I finish work, I then have to go and be, I can be myself again.

[47:48] Sammie: Right.

[47:48] Emmanuel Asuquo: And it’s just exhausting. Um Corporate Corporate, yeah. So then I did really well, but I just realised corporate’s not for me. Like, and I just tired of helping, just helping rich people get richer. While I know, coming from a poor background, that people are struggling. I’d go to work and have conversations with clients. We’ll talk about how I turn this three million into five million, and I go home and someone that I know from school will be asked me, can I give them a fiver? And it’s like, what is going on? How can we, how can these things be happening in the same day, like so close to each other?

[48:19] Producer: Yeah.

[48:20] Emmanuel Asuquo: So then I was just like, in this life, you’ve got to meet people where they’re at. The people I want to work with are not in Canary Wolf, they’re not there. The people I want to work with are on social media. So I need to, I need to go on social media. So that’s what made me start a page. My wife helped me. I didn’t even know how to use, I never use the stuff. I had Facebook, but my day, Facebook weren’t cool, so you weren’t really like you had it, but you weren’t really posting, like it wasn’t really masculine. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So it was like, okay, cool, I have it, but I’m not using it. So my wife showed me how to set up an Instagram, showed me how to post. I had to pay a social media company to really teach me how to edit content and stuff like that. So I learned there and then just started doing content that I liked. And funny enough, channel four sort of content, and they were like, we’ve never seen a financial advisor talk like this. And then I did a show for channel four that came out in that came out in the in the December, end November, finished in the December. When was that? That was in 2019. Okay. So yeah, that was in 2019.

[49:20] Sammie: Seven years, wow.

[49:21] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah. That’s mad, didn’t it? Crazy. Crazy. Was that you like, did that take you to the next level? That took me, that took me to the that took me to a level where people could know who I am. Yeah, yeah. And then what took me to the next level was the pandemic and then George Floyd. George Floyd. George Floyd changed my life. I always have to, I always have to mention um, God rest his soul, George Floyd, because what George Floyd did was make these corporations say actually we’re being very unfair in regards, so we need more representation. Right. And so at that point, they were like, oh, we need, we need, we need everyone’s talking about finance because of the pandemic, and everyone’s on furlough, so money becomes a big conversation, but we don’t have anyone black, basically, to have this conversation. They were like, who is that black guy that was in that that TV show that Channel 4 did? My life changed. This is like a stepping stone for you. So I did that show in the came out in the November, I finished in the December. In the January, I got my agent. My agent messaged everybody, like all the all the TV companies, nothing. I think George Floyd died in May. By the by two weeks after George Floyd died, I was on This Morning. That’s mad. I was on This Morning with um Eamon Holmes and his wife. Like I was on this morning, like from my house, because it was it was still pandemic, so we couldn’t, so we couldn’t go in the studio from my house on this morning. I then started doing morning live on BBC. Um obviously channel four. Then we did another show with channel four. Um like it was just non-stop. Brands, oh I used to have a brand deal email, two or two or three brand deals a week, emailed every week without fail. And it was just like which ones are we gonna do? And it was just like I can’t do that one because I’m doing this and I can’t, and it was just non-stop. And that was that was for about like I was about for about three years, and then did the Barclay stuff, and then after the Barclay stuff, silence, and that’s why I say it’s so important that you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Because if I just only said I’m gonna live on brand deals, I’d be I wouldn’t be here today. No, no, no, no. Like I had a business on the I had a business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to create a business. Okay, I’m getting all while I’m getting all this attention, how do I turn this attention into money, into income? I I don’t it’s not about how many followers you have, it’s how of the how are those followers, how are you adding value to those followers that they want to pay you for that for the value that you bring? Or how do brand what brands want to speak to the followers that you have and will pay you to get access to your followers or the influence that you have? That’s what that’s what we were trying to sell here. And so I did the brand stuff, but I was like, actually, I need the business stuff as well. And so that’s what really sustained me throughout this time. So doing events, doing talks, I get paid to do talks. Like, I never thought I would someone pay me to talk. Like, literally, like I’ve been paid thousands of pounds to give an hour talk. Yeah, sit on a stage and talk for free. Yeah, keynote speech, speaker speaker, on a panel, that’s not it’s just that, yeah. Are you okay? Yeah, like but that’s value, yeah, yeah. And so to me, that’s what social media should be used for.

[52:45] Sammie: Well, you’ve done it for so long, yeah, that there’s no one that can touch you on that side of stuff, and it’s the value that you bring, right? Totally. Because is it well, it’s the same thing as like you pay someone a thousand pounds to do the job for 10 minutes, but they’ve done it for 30 years and they can justify that.

[53:00] Emmanuel Asuquo: Exactly. And so, like, I will have people like Emmanuel, you’re a bit expensive. After I give my talk, the way they’re thanking me, it’s like I paid them to be there. Do you know what I mean? Because I know, I know my stuff. I’ve been doing this for years. You’re not paying me, Emmanuel Suko, just to come and talk for an hour. You’re paying for the 19 years, the thousands of clients that I’ve helped, the qualifications that I’ve done, all of that is what comes into me being able to deliver and make make your event. When when people walk away and they say, Wow, that event was amazing. That’s because you’ve got the right people in the room. Receipts, but it’s there. So, yeah, so that’s what the biggest change. And that’s one thing I again I try and show my content creators is it’s beyond just living off brand deals. That’s not that’s not your that’s not in your power. Just like just living off a nine to five. It’s not you’re not in your it’s not in your power, that’s in your employer’s power, and you know, a complayer can switch that tap off at any time. And some of us are living this kind of naive way of life saying, Oh, yeah, but I get paid XYZ. You the they don’t owe you nothing. They’ll sack you tomorrow and tell you it was a business decision that’s not personal. Go tell your wife and kids every person. This happened to me all the time. So for me, it’s like some brands just don’t perform. Exactly. Some brands you do stuff that doesn’t work. Some brands, even I’ve had brands who’ve done the bit done the content, done everything. They’ve taken like almost 12 months to pay me.

[54:24] Sammie: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m going through that now. I’m going through that now. Nine months to the content in January. Think about that.

[54:31] Emmanuel Asuquo: Think about that, and it’s like I I had a brand, I had one even that I did everything. The agency took the money. The agency took the money. They’ve had it twice. What just disappeared? As in they said, oh, we’ve we’ve run out of money. Can’t pay. Oh right, yeah, yeah, they’ve got a liquidation. So they’ve they’ve their brand has paid their money to pay me. They they’re just meant to take their cut and give me mine. They’ve used my money to pay their staff or do whatever. Then they’ve run out of money and they were unable to pay me. So I’ve had to then now start chasing them out for I had to wait for one, he had to wait until they get invest, they got investors, they came back and they paid my money in the end. It was mad late. Remember, this is your bread and butter. This is what I used to. So if you’re solely reliant on brand deals, it’s so there’s so much problems with it that you’re not going to be able to pay. So this is why I say it’s so important. Like, what’s in your control? I can’t control brands to book me, and I can’t control brands to pay me on time.

[55:39] Sammie: I liken this exact thing to like when that I remember it to this day, like it’s mad because their restaurants are literally like right outside. So I walk past it to get in the studio. But like, it’s the same with a job, yeah. It’s exactly the same because you have no idea what’s happening in that boardroom. Come on. You have no idea you don’t know whether the company you can probably tell whether the company’s doing all right or not, the stress will reap down, but you have no idea if they’re gonna revamp the whole department, farm out this, farm out that, and then what? And then your eggs are in that basket and you have nothing to show for it. Especially that’s why I think like an emergency funding that part is that possibly the most important thing, because if that does happen to you, you’ve got six months, you have to make a crap money decision that you really don’t want to make. You can wait, pick the jobs, go to the interviews with stress off. So I think like that, it just it is everything. It’s eggs in one, if you’ve got eggs in one basket, how do I get them out of it?

[56:37] Emmanuel Asuquo: Exactly. And people don’t want to have an emergency fund because it’s not sexy. I don’t want to put my money in a savings account. I don’t want to put my money in a cash ISA. Well, what’s cash interest? No, trust me. If you ever need that emergency fund, you’re gonna thank God that you got it. Because if not, if you put it in the market and you lose your job at a time when Trump decides to put out a tariff, or um Russia decides to bomb Ukraine, or we got the the oil in in the Middle East, all of a sudden your portfolio is on 50%, and this is when you want to cash it in. Cash it in and loss. So now you’re making things even worse because you’re you’re you’re taking this money at a loss. So now you’re crystallising a loss. Because it’s only a loss when you decide to take the money out. As long as in there, there’s an opportunity for it to go back to where it was or even past it. Yeah so that’s the mindset, and that’s what I say for a lot of us, we go into investing with a savers mindset. We put our money in, and then in two months’ time, we’re like, oh my goodness, why hasn’t it gone up? That’s just no investing. That’s saving, mate. You’re used to saving. You put your money in, and you know, at the end of the year, they’ll put their little interest on top, and it never goes down below what you put in. That’s saving. If you’re an investor, we know that investments go up and down. And that’s how you’ve got to do your research. You can’t just invest based on, oh, I saw somebody say this on the internet, or everybody’s got everybody’s putting their money in crypto, so let me go and put my money. Like we’ve got we’ve got to have a plan. And the way you’re doing it in regards to just doing it, then that’s why I love your content so much. And I get why you don’t show no more because I again it gets to a certain point where you’re making a certain level where it’s just like people start treating you different, speaking to you different, acting different, yeah, moving different, expectations of different. So I totally understand that. But the transparency was so powerful because it was like, actually, right, this guy, this guy’s got what? Over 200k, and he’s and it’s just just just normal investing, normal funds that I have. I have the same access to those exact same funds. You can start tomorrow. Exactly. Yeah, and when you looked at your portfolio, the funds, it weren’t like your funds were like be like emerging market ETFs. These are just normal bread and butter funds that build over time. You just put in it when you even said that the amounts you’re putting in on the month, it weren’t like huge amounts you’re putting in, but the consistency of doing it over time, and when you got a pay rise, you put the bonus in there, put yeah. I saw it, and I was just like, this is so powerful because I can say this, but what you’re doing is showing it, and that’s the power of social media, is actually you believe what you see. We are in a seeing generation, a generation I’ve got to see it. I don’t wanna I don’t want to hear about it, I wanna see it. And what you were doing was showing people that actually I’m not I can I’ve I’ve been able to build this so you can do the exact same thing, and I think that is so powerful and so needed.

[59:20] Sammie: Yeah, the only the only reason I don’t go into massive detail around the investments now is because it get it gets a bit dicey. Yeah. Also, 245,000 people see it. Obviously, you don’t like they don’t all see it, but it’s the same point, yeah. It’s like there were more power comes more responsibility kind of thing, and I just felt uncomfortable. I was like, if what if I say this, I’ve bought this company, yeah, and then next month it’s 30%, you know, something goes wrong and it’s down, yeah, and John’s just gone in and stuck 5k in, yeah. Like I would feel awful. Yeah, and it happened a couple of times, like, you know, because I don’t I don’t get everything right. I’m not I’m not like Warren Buffett out here. Like Buffett aren’t gonna write exactly. So but you don’t want to be in that position. So I just stopped talking about what I have. And I’m I’m okay to say the amounts that I’ve got. I don’t I think that’s okay, like, but I don’t say what anymore as much. Um so yeah, that it’s it’s a it’s strange because it’s just like from if you’re an average person, you can end up here, yeah. And it all it takes is just patience, yeah, exactly. And a plan.

[1:00:31] Emmanuel Asuquo: A plan. And that’s what a lot of people don’t have. It’s common saying if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And and I think a lot of people that that’s what’s happening. You have no plan. And and me as a financial advisor, people say, Are you man? How do you how you’ve been successful? How do you get your clients? Why do clients because I focus on a plan.

[1:00:47] Sammie: You focus yeah, and the people with you. Yeah, I know you love talking about this, and I think it’s really like it’s nice that you you you speak about the actual person, where do you want to be, and then let’s look at the money because like if you don’t understand the person, you’re never gonna get them to that point in the first place.

[1:01:02] Emmanuel Asuquo: Exactly, exactly that. And I think that’s that that’s that’s the thing, and I think people at home are watching this thinking, how do I start? Start of a plan. Like, and again, especially now with the technology, like tell your plan to to Claude. Like, tell Claude, this is my plan, this is what I want to do. What’s your thoughts? These are the things I’m thinking. They talked about this, they talked about that. What does this mean? Like, there’s so much stuff. Follow people like yourself. You’ve got blogs, we’ve got newsletters, we’ve got YouTube channels, there are so much content that you can consume for free that it’s almost there’s no excuse. And the one thing I’d say about AI, don’t use AI from a point of view of asking AI without the knowledge. You need to have the knowledge first, then ask AI, and then it will enhance what you understand. So I always say to people, you first you gotta be good, and then AI will help you get great. Yeah, but if you’re just trying to use AI to get great, you it’s not gonna work. No, and so I call it the 20% on your 100%, exactly, gives you the 120. Exactly. That’s what you gotta you gotta do the work. So you gotta go watch the videos, understand the terminology, understand what you’re talking about, and then go to ASI, look, this is what this is what I what’s your thoughts on that? And then when they reply, you understand what it’s saying because you’ve done the work. If you haven’t done the work, it can tell you whatever and you’re gonna agree with it. We’ve got people who are signing contracts based by AI and they’ve lost milli lost millions.

[1:02:23] Sammie: Really?

[1:02:23] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, lost millions, because the contract couldn’t hold up in a court of law, because certain clauses are missing. We’ve got people replacing financial advisors with AI, replacing lawyers with AI, replacing doctors with AI. It’s not that. It’s not that. That’s not what it’s for. Do you know what I mean? Whereas a doctor could use AI to be more specific because they’ve got the knowledge. Me as a financial advisor, I can because I actually know it. Sometimes it’ll say stuff and I’ll be like, but didn’t that rule change XYZ?

[1:02:49] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yes, it did. You’re right. Well, you didn’t tell me that at the beginning, did you? No.

[1:02:53] Sammie: So if I didn’t know that, I’ve done it. I’ve got Prime Burns coming on as well, and they was talking about the lifetime master. Yeah, it was like, yeah, the lifetime masses is X, Y, and Z. I was like, it’s changing. And it was like, oh yeah, exactly. Come on.

[1:03:05] Emmanuel Asuquo: So you can’t be solid, you can’t make financial life, big life decisions based on AI. Yeah, I remember think it will be for a little while. And remember, AI is gonna agree with you. If you tell AI your business idea, I think about this business idea, did it a fantastic idea. It’s gonna make you millions. Like, and people are out here taking loans for this idea that only ChatGPT thinks is great. You and ChatGPT are the only people that think this is gonna work. Like, it doesn’t work like that. Do you know what I mean? There’s no shortcuts to this, to this success thing. You’ve gotta you’ve gotta put in the work, you’ve got to, you’ve got you can only reap where you sow. And I think a lot of people want to reap, but they don’t want to do the sowing, they don’t want to do the farming part. Like, think about a farmer, like you’re out there planting the seeds, looking after the cattle, doing the work. That you when you see the ground, there’s nothing there, but you know in 12 months’ time there’s gonna be a harvest. Like you know it over time, so you continue to look after it. Pesticides, get rid of all that any animals, like you’re doing the work, and people not doing that for their finances, they’re not doing the work, but yet they hope that I’m gonna become a millionaire all of a sudden, and this is why we’re seeing so much people doing the lottery. But if you understand how the lottery works, if everybody was winning, it wouldn’t be working. People now go into gambling. If you understand how gambling works, the house wins, otherwise, they wouldn’t have a proper profitable business. So we get desperate, we see payday loans, all of these things that now come in, and it just takes over because we’re trying to find the shortcut to get the thing that we want instead of doing the work and then getting it when we deserve it. Because the problem is we live in an instant gratification generation where we think we deserve it everything now, and actually that’s not how it was. I remember growing up, we had the Argos catalogue, you know? So good. So good. You flip the Argos out of it. Oh, that stuff. Yeah, you look at it, pick what you want, tell it, rip that page up, tell you this is what I want. Yeah, and then you wait, you have to wait all the way till Christmas. That’s it. Is the waiting. You have to wait.

[1:05:04] Sammie: Yeah.

[1:05:05] Emmanuel Asuquo: And guess what? That first Christmas, you might even get it. So you have to wait till next Christmas. And then you’re thankful because you know how hard your parents had worked to give you this thing that’s taking them two years to buy.

[1:05:16] Sammie: Now they’re whacking it on Klana and it’s going out of control. I know. This is this is what I did. I’ve done this like deep expose type video on like the digitization of money and like how e-commerce and like the internet essentially just exploded this like now thing. Because it’s like, um, it’s gone from basically it was literally. I talked about like you’d have the catalogue, you’d want it, you’d save up for like six months, you’d be putting £2.50 away and paper round, and then you could afford the game or whatever you wanted. Now it’s like, I want it, can I get it? Credit access, boom, it’s and I’ve got it next day. It’s at my house. Yeah. Something in Amazon, it’s on the same day. So it’s like that that that that kind of like barrier to friction has gone. And they’ve just spent billions of pounds removing these layers till now we just whack it on our phone, you don’t feel anything. Yeah, exactly. You just how much have I spent? I don’t know.

[1:06:13] Emmanuel Asuquo: Come on, you know what? I always tell people when when when you used to pay by cash and then they didn’t have a fiver and they give you back coins, yeah, it has the worst feeling ever. Yeah. And now your wallet’s heavy, and it’s just like, but you could feel it. I remember you giving someone a £20 note and then getting like seven pounds back. You feel the pain. You’re like, okay. You really thought about it. You go, does this provide me value? Hand it over. I have to actually I actually look at my wallet. Remember them if you’re doing a big purchase, you have to actually count the money. I feel like you said there’s friction. While you’re counting the money, there’s time for you to say, no, actually, no, I’m not gonna do this. Yeah.

[1:06:48] Sammie: Or take those two off. I don’t need this.

[1:06:50] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, exactly. I don’t need that. Actually, you know what? I don’t want my wallet to be too empty, so I want to keep so what’s this? Okay, yeah, I’ve got I’ll spend this amount. Like you’ve got time to think about it. When you’re tapping, it’s just tap. It’s gone. And then when you’ve got overdraft, when you’ve got Kelana, when you’ve got all of these buy now, pay later, all of a sudden, it’s like you are so distant. Now we’re now we’re buying pizza.

[1:07:10] Sammie: Yeah. Amazon spent like 4.6 billion pounds defending the one-click purchase button pattern, which I found out, and that blew my mind. Crazy. Because now that’s in every single purchase cycle where your card’s like connected. Yeah. So you just click, and it just goes bing, oh, it’s you, and it’s done. And it arrives the next day. Yeah, it’s mad. And so, like, we I I’m I’m trying to figure out ways that how can we put friction back in if we don’t, uh then you’ve got to have visibility. Yeah, visibility is a key. 100. Um, if you can be visible, then you you kind of know what you’re spending.

[1:07:47] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, I mean my clients they all my all my clients on a 48 hour rule. Yeah, so they they they can put it in a bar. But you can’t you can’t go you gotta wait for eight hours before you buy it. Yeah, do you know that because of that rule, most of them it’s about 70-80% of the time they don’t they don’t buy it, yeah, they realise they don’t need it. We have to understand that as humans we think we’re so individual, but actually the way our brains work has been programmed already, and people have scientists have studied it. So a lot of the stuff, the reason you just want to buy something is not by accident. Remember, I always say you haven’t got a system to protect your money, but every day there’s a system trying to take your money from you. You wake up, you’ve got emails. Remember, they’re sending look at your emails. You’ll see why do I why did I receive an email at six o’clock, five o’clock in the morning? Because they know when you wake up, that’d be the first email you’re gonna see. Yeah, why do I see an email oh the last day of the month or the first day of the month? Because they know that it’s payday, and so they know you’ve got money.

[1:08:43] Sammie: It’s like Martin Lewis sends this at 9 p.m., which always really messes with my head. I’m like, why is it 9 pm? It must be because it’s the last email before you check it out, get the deals, then your guards down.

[1:08:54] Emmanuel Asuquo: Exactly. Come on, so then they know everything is planned. So someone’s planned to take your money from you. Someone’s planning every single day. You watch TV, you watch YouTube, you watch you what you go outside on a bus, there’s adverts, there’s or wherever you go, somebody’s advertising at you, trying to take your money from you, but you have no system to keep your money. Guess what? You’re losing the game. Like, so I the biggest thing I tell my clients is before we talk about invest, we need a system. You need a system to protect your money. I always say it’s like when you start a job, you have an induction. They’ll tell you this is your desk, this is the kitchen, this is this is the fire exit, an emergency, this is where you go. You have an induction. Why have you never given your money an induction? Download Gains App. It was solved. Exactly. Visibility. Visibility, like have a have a have a have a process, yeah. So that when your money comes in, you say, Oh, you this portion of my money, you’re going to pay my bills. This one you’re going, you’re going to save, you’re going to invest, oh, you’re my spending money. Yeah, give it, give, have a plan for it.

[1:09:59] Sammie: If not, it will flow in and it will flow out. Yeah, so there’s a study done on that where it was like uh you save 78% more over a lifetime if the money is split into pots. Yes. 78%. That’s a lot. And if you leave it all in one, then you’re way more likely just to tap into it. So it’s called systemization, automation, and it will just run like clockwork. This is the thing. People think this stuff takes ages to set up. It doesn’t. You couldn’t be done in half an hour and you’ve set up the right banks, you’ve set up all the like the cross promotions to each one. What am I sending, X, Y, and Z, and then it’s done. And then it’s about mini check-ins here and there. Like, am I on track? Am I did I go a bit nuts last weekend? But okay, I messed up, like now I’ve got to move some things around. Like, that’s the what you should be doing. Because it’s much more easier to do that rather than sitting down and going, I’ve got to do a whole budget every single month. It’s gonna take me an hour. Like, no one wants to do it, no one does it. So it’s just like set it what set a system up that you know is gonna run. And mini check-ins here and there.

[1:10:55] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, and I said that, especially with it like the AI now. Put your three month last three months’ bank statements into AI, tell it to create a spreadsheet and tell it to create a document explaining what you do good, what you do bad, what you can improve on. And then analyse it. Do do it do it another three months. Put the, oh yeah, you’ve improved from the previous, you spent less on this, you spent less on that, you’ve done better on. You don’t need to go and start filling out the spreadsheet yourself. Do you know what I mean? No. You can that the computer can do that for you, so that’s great. But do something. Yeah. Like so much people moan and complain, and I can’t do this, and the system’s against me, and this. You are against yourself. Like, I’ve got so many people, like, you know, Christians that we say, oh, you know, the devil. The devil don’t even know you. Like, you are your own devil. Like, you are the one putting yourself in this situation. Do you know what I mean? Like, the poor guy is minding his own business. Yeah. Like you’re just blaming him for stuff that he ain’t even doing nothing to you. You are the one making these decisions. You are the one not being responsible with your money. I see people, I want to buy a house, but I just don’t have enough money. I did a show, we did a show um with channel four, and this person’s like, I can’t, I can’t have enough money. We went to the went to their went to their wardrobe. By the time we added up their clothes, their shoes, their bags, they they had uh over 80,000 pounds.

[1:12:10] Sammie: Yeah, I could see that to be fair. I could see that that’s mad, isn’t it? It’s crazy! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it hurts. I like that. You uh it reminded me of that video, you know, and he’s like, This is all money. Yes, and he’s just like looking at his wardrobe and he’s like, I don’t bet, and I barely wear, I wear that, I wear that t-shirt come all the time. And it’s just ridiculous.

[1:12:31] Emmanuel Asuquo: Because then by the time we add bag shoes, that then then we added Uber Eats for the last four or five years. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Then we added what they spent, like you’re you’ve got the money’s coming in.

[1:12:41] Sammie: Mate, do you know how much money this t-shirt saved me? Come on! Just because it’s like a gains t-shirt, which I’ve got free off, and I just rotate them. I don’t buy any more clothes because there’s no need to, because I just wear this.

[1:12:51] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, but there’s nothing to prove. But also, you got to a point where you’ve created a brand that you’re proud of that means something outside that you that so you don’t need to prove anything to anyone.

[1:13:00] Sammie: Yeah, but before that it was uni clothes, exactly playing T’s, you know, rotation.

[1:13:04] Emmanuel Asuquo: Even then, exactly, you didn’t have nothing to prove. Do you know what I mean? So I think it’s so important. Like, there’s nothing for me. I’ll I’ll buy a t-shirt in Prime Market, I’ll buy a t-shirt in like whatever. Like, it’s not to me, it’s not about brands as such. For me, it’s just about being comfortable and making sure that you know I present myself well. Yeah, and I don’t I don’t need a certain brand to do that.

[1:13:24] Sammie: Yeah, man, I absolutely love this. Well, flown through. I know I’d enjoy chatting to you. I think I could probably do a little three-hour special. We’d still be here right in away. Man, it was great. But where do you want to send people today?

[1:13:36] Emmanuel Asuquo: Yeah, so the email effects, um the email effects is the social media, so that’s on Instagram, um, TikTok, um, and then Manuel Suco on LinkedIn. So, yeah, we got the website of manuelsuco.com is the website as well. Um, yeah.

[1:13:49] Sammie: I’ll drop all that in the in the show notes.

[1:13:51] Emmanuel Asuquo: Obviously, if anyone needs a financial advisor, anyone’s looking for to invest, anyone’s looking to grow their money, anyone’s got pensions that they need to put together and amalgamate and then get invested properly for the future, just hit us a line. I’m here to help.

[1:14:03] Sammie: Yeah, thanks, man. You’ve absolutely smashed it.

[1:14:05] Emmanuel Asuquo: Thanks for having me, man. It’s been a pleasure.