“There are three trade-offs or three decision-making that you can do to improve your cash flow. Number one, you can earn more. Number two, you can reduce your expenditure. The third one is revise your goals.”
John Cachia | AFA Group Wealth
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Ah money, it’s a funny old thing. We worship at the money altar while knowing we should appreciate the more down-to-earth things in our life. The giggle of our toddler. The family dinner.
But the truth is that most of us start our businesses with money as a partial goal.
At first, we hope to match the income from our previous job. Then perhaps we want to exceed that. After a while, we’re consumed by dreams of six-figure revenues, six-figure gross profits, and six-figure net profits. But when it all comes down to it, it’s not just about the money we earn, but the money we save. It’s about managing our expectations and our desires. In today’s episode, I’m chatting with a dad of two, a financial whizzkid and a smart business human who’s working hard to maintain balance in his business and family life. And one who always keeps his office door open.
Tune in to learn:
John’s parenting style
How John manages to work long hours, and have quality family time
John’s biggest work/family struggles working from home
How John manages parental guilt
John’s tips for time management
John’s money tips for turning profit into personal wealth
How John involves his family in the business
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About John Cachia
John, a financial advisor at AFA Group Wealth has dedicated his life to the profession since starting in finance at the young age of 14 in 2003. He founded AFA Group Wealth in 2009 with the goal of improving financial literacy and empowering people to achieve financial freedom. John was a Victorian Finalist for the 2021 Great Advice Awards and has been recognised as one of Australia’s most influential financial advisers by Financial Standard. He won Financial Adviser & Thought Leader of the year athe john cachiat the 2022 Spark Awards. John holds a Bachelor of Business in Financial Risk Management, a Diploma of Financial Services, and a Diploma in Mortgage Broking. In his free time, John enjoys sports, outdoor activities and spending time with his family. He is also interested in innovation, history and travel.
Hello, my name is Kate toon. I’m the founder of stay tuned, a busy business owner and okayish parents, and today I’m talking with John Cachia. Hello, John.
John Cachia:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Kate Toon:
It’s good to have you. Let me explain to everybody who you are. So, John is a financial advisor at the AFA group wealth and has dedicated his life to oh, I’ll start that again. John is a financial advisor at AFA group wealth and has dedicated his life to the profession since starting and finance at the young age of 14. He founded as a group in 2009, with a goal of improving financial literacy literacy. See, I can’t even say it and empowering people to achieve financial freedom. John was Victorian finalist for the 2021 great advice awards, and has been recognized as one of Australia’s most influential financial advisors by financial standard. He won financial advisor and Thought Leader of the Year in 2020. To Spark Awards, John holds a Bachelor of Business in financial risk management, a Diploma of financial services and a diploma in mortgage broking. In his free time. John enjoys sports, outdoor activities and spending time with his family. He’s also interested in innovation, history, and travel. And weirdly enough, his weird fact is that he likes flat Coca Cola, which I think I do, too. I can’t drink fizzy Coca Cola.
John Cachia:
Oh, so what? It’s a weird one. And what’s actually really weird about it is that my wife, we ended up figuring out that was our commonality when we first met she likes flat coke as well. So it’s a flat coke family and-
Kate Toon:
The only thing you’ve got in common?
John Cachia:
A little bit more, but no, it was it’s just Yeah, it’s interesting. I don’t know. And I’ve had gastric sleeve surgery later on, which helped me in good stead because I can’t have a lot of fizzy soft as well, too. So I’m glad I got on enjoy flat coke.
Kate Toon:
What about your kids that have a flat coke? Are they flat-Cokers as well?
John Cachia:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
So can you tell us a little bit about your obviously, you know, your your credits on the business side? Pretty good. Let’s go through your family credit. I’m joking. Apart from being fat flat cokers, tell me a little bit about your family setup. Yeah, how many?
John Cachia:
So yeah, I’ve got a couple of boys, I’ve got a six year old currently and a three year old and to having two young boys in the house, it’s always a lot of fun, there’s a lot of energy bouncing around. And the best thing to do is fight with dad, it’s like their their thing to do. So you know, when tools are down at work, it’s Fight Night at night. So my wife, she’s a, she studied to be a psychologist, but we had kids quite young, early on, and she decided that you know, for her it was about being a mom and that’s what she wanted to call to do. So she’s She’s their full time mum managing the two boys affairs and everything about that. So, ya know, it’s, it’s, we’re a good good combination, but she’s got aspirations to do other things. And I think as the as the boys kind of get out to, you know, primary school and stuff like that she’ll find their feet and do what we need to do. But yeah, that’s that’s pretty much the family dynamic full on it. Two young boys.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I love it. I love you described it as fun. I could have done it air fingers. Yeah, that’s interesting times three and six. I mean, that is high energy. I mean, obviously, that’s a slightly more traditional setup than, than many people have these days. You know, I I’ll be perfectly honest, I’m a little bit jealous, I would have, I would have loved to have had that time at home when my son was young. And so it’s great that you know, your your business is able to support both your dreams of being able to run the business and your wife’s, and then later on giving her the freedom to explore. I think it’d be scary to be married to a psychologist those analyzing you.
John Cachia:
Well, I think I’m her one and only patient, you know, yeah. Patient. Yeah, she’s like, I’ve got you. That’s enough, I think, another career path?
Kate Toon:
Yeah, she’s gonna hit the ground running if she chooses to go with that. Yeah, I’ve seen all of that. So at the moment, yeah, a fairly traditional set up in that you get to kind of focus on on the, on the business. But I guess, you know, I know you and I know, I follow you, and you are very involved dad, as well. So being, you know, it’s hard, isn’t it? Because it’s like, on one side, our priority is to have a successful business. But then also, we want to be a great dad, what does? What does being a good dad mean to you?
John Cachia:
Yeah, I think it’s, I think we need to take take a step back in regards to my childhood as well too, and had a big influence on the data into it. And one of the thing was, my dad was a very traditional dad, so he’d work very early, finish late come home, and I was very fortunate that I had my grandparents living next door to me, and I was growing up a lot with my grandparents next door, and I appreciate it. Just a young kid having people around me to support me grow me up, give me the values and the morals and because I started the business so early on, maybe I was I had the foresight or whatever, but I always had that I want to put my business in a position that Once we do have children, that we can make these choices and the choices were, for example, like that my wife has the ability to stay home with the kids raise the children have the time to kind of reenter the workforce when she wants to. But also for me to say to myself that not that my dad didn’t give me the time, it was later on that he was able to give me the time, but I want to be able to give my my kids that quality time as early on, and it by no stretch of the imagination, do I have heaps of time, you know, I work very long hours. I’m very involved in the business, the business and what is required to be done. But I do spend a lot of quality time with my children. And, you know, we do a lot of holidaying, we do a lot of downtime I schedule out time in my diary, I don’t miss special events like that in my calendar, like, you know, I still remember, you know, early on as a child, for example, there’ll be events that my my mother wouldn’t be able to go to, but my father wouldn’t be able to go to and, and I wanted to be that dad that was not missing those special events. So, you know, even for example, I work from home. Yeah. You know, that’s a choice. You know,
Kate Toon:
I didn’t know that. I thought you had a fancy office. So that’s good. I want to dig into that a little bit. Because it’s a common theme, for many of the people I’ve spoken to that are dads works, traditional data hours, and they were at the office. And, you know, our moms were the maybe the ones that were more there, or you’re you know, you’re lucky that you had grandparents and people next door. And so for you, you really I like this, it’s interesting, I love these stories, because it’s like you you worked, obviously, you’re a bit of a financial genius as a young man, and you’ve set your business up so that you have the freedom to make choices. So your business is about the money, that the money is a conduit to choice. And the other thing I have noticed about you is you I think have perfected very well the act of being on off. So yes, when you’re working, you go hard, you work hard, you work long hours, but you have these really great holidays, and yet they’re segmented. And so is that kind of planning is what works for you. So in the diary, it’s gonna happen.
John Cachia:
Correct 100%. And people will say to me like Are your kids are so young, they’re not going to remember these holidays, it’s not really about them remembering the holidays. Yeah, it’s about our seventh quality time that they were there. But we were just in Bali for a week. And you know, they absolutely loved the most that dad was in the pool, you know, spending time with them playing games, jumping off my shoulders into the pool, all of that stuff. And, and for me, obviously, I love it. My wife loves it. So it’s about having quality and not quantity, because I can’t give them the quantity. Yeah, I can’t do that. So it’s about the quality, but they’re very involved. Like, you know, this door, for example, doesn’t have a lock. And people say it’s crazy. But you know, we have meetings, and I’ll be in an fire meeting and my little boy will walk in, and he just wants to keep that Accardo like, yeah,
Kate Toon:
I will get to that. I want to talk about that specifically, you know what I love though, about the memory thing I remember going see when my son was very young and talking about that memory piece with like, usually like a counselor or something. And she said no, she they won’t remember the individual memories, but you know what they will remember they’ll remember the love. And I thought that was really beautiful. They’ll remember the love and it stuck with me. I thought that was really important. I want to get to the family involvement in that closed door because it’s super important. Do you think you have a parenting style? I mean, we’ve heard you know, we know about helicopter parent and permissive parents authoritarian parents, you know, you know, you from your background, probably more slightly traditional, slightly more authoritarian, probably. Do you think you have a style or a modus operandi? Or how do you think you operate?
John Cachia:
Yeah, so I think, listen, we’re very involved with our kids very affectionate, very like. Yeah. Yes, very responsive. You could probably say a little bit of helicopter because we just Yes, I’m involved. Okay. But we are, there are rules, and there are things that they can’t pass and whatever. And I think, man, what was share those, you know, there’s always a bit of like, Good cop, bad cop scenario in my household. You know, but I also I come from a family of background, which was very authoritarian, you know, to the point where it was probably very cold, there wasn’t a lot of affection. So we’ve become more affectionate. But with the ages that there are they are pushing the boundaries, so that, you know, no, is no and, and it has to be No, as much as I don’t want to say no, they did not yes to everything. So, you know, I wouldn’t say that we’re called that that last a fair kind of just let them do what they want to do. And this, you know, go with the flow. Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably our style.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I mean, when I was researching that, the parenting styles, it was quite eye opening for me. And it was really on kind of two metrics. You know, it was about your responsiveness, and your level of demandingness or expectation, and the way they were pivoted, kind of dictates your style of parenting. So, you come in, not authoritarian, but unfortunately, it’s closely it’s called authoritative, which is where you’re highly risk pontiff to your kids and you listen to them. But there are boundaries. And there’s a degree of not expectation, and we want you to be a doctor. But there’s an expectation that you’ll meet certain boundaries within the family. I like that. And I like the fact as well, you know, you’re talking about the fact that the world shifts between you and your wife, because again, in my background, you know, dad was very much the bad cop call thing came home from work was told what we’d done. And he was then told to give the discipline and it was kind of it was, it was some time, you know, I felt sorry for him, sometimes not at the time. But now I look back and go, that must have been pretty tough. So let’s talk about your business. You’ve already mentioned you work from home as I do, which has its own positives and negatives. How big is your business? You know, what does your day look like? You’re working nine to five, nine till 12. What’s it look like?
John Cachia:
Yeah, so my listen, I probably clock on about six o’clock in the morning. Okay. So as soon as I wake up, I can’t sort out my day, I’ll do what I’m going to do a work for about an hour or so. And then it’s keeps time, you know, it’s getting, it’s getting the lunch boxes all ready to go supporting my wife, maybe doing breakfast with her feeding the kids, whatever is gonna be the go. And then I do school drop offs in the morning. Okay, so I’m doing the school drop offs, and then it hits the day. And to be honest with you are buying 845 830 is all systems go, you know, go go, go go go. And to the point where people look at my diary and go, John, oh, my gosh, how do you run this, you know, operation, but it’s just the person I am, I can’t have a day where it’s just, what am I doing today? Yeah, it needs to be Bumble Bumble Mambo. And that’s just the way that my style is, okay, so. So it’s very full on, it goes from day to day, it’s a lot right now, in regards to the size of the business, a lot has got to do in the strategic planning of the business. So the business side of things, and then you’ve got the changing. Planning from obviously, the clients perspective, as well to what we’re talking we’re talking about is the wealth creation strategies, what’s going on from an economic perspective, and what the advisors need to roll out to the client, so very much on business and in regards to the office, the direction in regards to the operational level. And then I’ll finish around 630 go have dinner, Tina, Cheryl operations, you know, do what I need to do on that side of things. And then I might knock off a couple of things at the nighttime getting ready for the next day. And then we go
Kate Toon:
all over again, Groundhog Day, or you might have a weekend work or to try and keep those clear.
John Cachia:
Weekend to know, like sacred time or time Yeah, sacred time. And to be honest with you have Wednesdays and Fridays are 100%. No meetings for external. So no client meetings, okay. And they are all business meetings. And on Friday, it’s always light on, and we have a holiday home, and when I can get out there will try and duck out to the holiday house or do something. So really kind of Friday is light ish. In my version, ladies. Yeah. And then Saturdays, and Sundays are completely safe.
John Cachia:
I think I think you’re my brother from another mother. We’re very similar. So you know, some tactics that have really worked for me is going hard, very hard to some people standard ridiculously hard on some days. But that gives me the freedom on Friday, I can work but I can choose not to that time blocking. And that kind of you know, I’m the same, like I try and get a bit done in the morning, because that’s my best optimal time, then I come back to the family then go back. So creating those little pockets of time. Sounds very, very similar. And really, um, you know, you’re on or off. And I think that’s the thing, you know, one of the biggest kind of teachings from the book is, is that that you can’t there is no such thing as balance. And we’re setting ourselves up for failure if we try and think there is, but you can create division and division will save you so you’re all in or you’re all out but you’re not trying to do work while the kids are there. And you know, unless they’re knocking on the door for a cuddle, you’re not trying to you know, you know, mingle mingle the to too much. But I mean, I guess you’ve faced challenges along the way, you know, what would you say if you could pick one thing? What’s been your biggest challenge between parenting and running your business? What’s the biggest conflict? Do you think?
Kate Toon:
Switching off?
John Cachia:
Yeah. Alright, switching off, right.
John Cachia:
Like switching off, you know, that imagine going hard for I, let’s say six hours, and then boom, yes, that tension deviation to another 80 children. And so, you know, I’m not going to say that I’m perfectly doing it. You know, there’s always a struggle. There’s always something brewing that you need to kind of put to bed or whatever is going to be the case. But as time goes by, I’m getting better at it. Yeah. And it’s practice and practice. And I think, for the people that are listening it to appreciate that this is not a you’re going to implement this and then tomorrow, it’s going to be life changing. It takes time. It’s progress over perfection. Yeah. And I’ve had to appreciate that. And I’m six years in with my first son Ben six, and I’m much better today than I was six years ago. You know, you get me to go to Europe six years ago for six weeks. I would have been working all day, every day while I was there. Whereas No, now it’s not the case, you know,
Kate Toon:
there’s been previous incremental changes. One little tactic that’s worked really well for me with that switch off is a concept called the third space. So too often we try and be parents and business owners, but we need a little space in between the two, it’s often why, you know, you see people coming home from the commute and just sitting in their car for five minutes before they then come through the door, we’ve lost a really important thing, by working at home. And that’s the commute, because the commute is when you can process what you’ve done through the day, prepare yourself to walk through the door and be engaged, we don’t have that. So I think trying to find a third space is something that’s really helped helped me. Even if it’s just a walk around the block before I come back in and be mom, you know, it’s good can work. It’s harder when your kids are small. So with that, you know, you sound you know, obviously, like business and parenting is of equal priority with you. But there’s going to be times you know, you said you want to be at the events, you want to be present. There’s times when you’re going to slip up on that. And you feel guilty about not spending enough time with your kids. How do you manage parent guilt? How do you talk yourself out of that?
John Cachia:
Yeah, I had to experience this those advisor of the Year awards was on my son’s birthday. Oh, ouch. Yeah. And, you know, what do I do? So literally, I spent the morning with my son, we went out to just the local play center. And then I took off an aeroplane about 12 o’clock and kind of took off while everyone you know, was having cake later on for his birthday and stuff like that. But I had to understand that you know what I did my best like, don’t beat yourself up about it. Like you got to be there your representation. This is something that we’ve worked towards for 14 years to get to this point. You know, my son has to I know he’s young, this was the youngest ones birthday, he will understand that as kind of time goes by. And it wasn’t about me not being completely present. I was able to see him in the morning, spend time with him and then going so trying not to beat myself up about it. And trying to communicate that to my eldest and to my youngest one, that there’s going to be times in life that this is going to happen.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. And also, you’re allowed to celebrate your successes. You’re allowed to be something other than a parent and have your moment I don’t know if you remember, I tried to go to an awards recently. And it was my weekend with my son, and there was no one to look after him. And so I booked a car there and a car back. But that was went on for like seven hours. The car left. I couldn’t get a train. My goodness. Did I feel like a terrible mom, for going to that awards? ceremony. Thank God, I won. Imagine if I hadn’t won. Yeah. And because my son’s older, my son’s like my mom app. So you find you’re allowed to go and have your celebration? Do you know me? It’s only one night. It’s not the end of the world? Because he’s older. Thank God, nice, caring son. But it’s hard, isn’t it? So I like that balance of, you know, finding time for him finding time for you. And also just forgiving yourself. Yeah, because life is not straightforward. And most of the time the kids don’t even care. This is it. We build all this stuff up in our brain and they’re like, What? Sorry, I don’t even remember you not being there. To eat the cake on my third birthday.
John Cachia:
Yeah, exactly. And I think I think the other thing is to be honest with yourself about trying, yeah, that’s, you know, I and you know, I can honestly say to myself, when I went to bed that night, I didn’t say our you know, I didn’t try to be there and didn’t try to participate. You know, for me, for example, there’s going to be times where you know, I can’t go to a swimming event for example. Yeah. Something come up like I literally can’t be there. But did I try? Wasn’t it my diary did I do ever? Yes. Yes, my
Kate Toon:
best. I did my best I think you know, that’s all we can do. Now you sound like a time blocked productivity King. What is one productivity tip you could pass on to other business parents?
John Cachia:
Yeah, you gotta you gotta have time management and boxed into your diary. Like literally everything that all my friends know when they organize an event with me they’re gonna get a Gmail come through I am that person. If it’s not in the diary don’t blocked out it doesn’t happen and and to the point where if I showed you my calendars completely color coded with personal events, business events,
Kate Toon:
You’re singing to the choir here, you’re preaching to the converted, mine too.
John Cachia:
Yeah, and it just needs to be like, I can’t do well. And on the flip side, people are like, Oh, John, you don’t have like spontaneous now. That’s what my weekends are for my weekends, there is nothing there. It’s completely blank, we can do what we want to do. But during that Monday to Friday, it is completely time blocked and where it needs to be. And so that’s my way of doing things. And the other thing is, as well, too, is just around having space and time around those to have free time to think. Yeah, so I think this is another thing, especially in business that people don’t appreciate. Yeah, is that you might have paperwork that needs to be done. meetings that need to be done. But the thinking time, because I’m very much on the creative side of things. Yeah. And I need to have time to just be able to kind of think if I don’t have that thinking time, everything starts crumbling in, and it lowers my productivity, my time blocking, because I’m that thinking needs to be pushed to another day, and I haven’t allocated it. So I think the other tip as well, too, is just around having really good time management, but also having thinking time.
Kate Toon:
I love that scheduled spontaneity is what I call it, because I’m exactly the same as you. There are times in my diary where I can choose what I want to do. And there are times when I can’t, and it’s a bit of discipline, as well. Is it fun sometimes to wake up on a Monday and see your entire week blocked into half hour blocks? No, I just spent some time scheduling my entire year, because I wanted to be able to go to Europe for a month in May. And if I don’t schedule that it won’t happen. So I love that. And the thinking time, crucial processing time. You need that that defragged you know, to kind of skate yourself got love that now obviously your money, man. So I’m expecting some goodness here, no pressure? What would you say? Is your number one money tip for businesses, especially small businesses, they often struggle, you know, working out the whole revenue profit thing and feeling like they actually are making money. What would be a big, big? It’s a broad question. But
John Cachia
well, there’s a there’s a few and I know you’re a big advocate of this book and its profit first. Sight, the biggest thing is that I find these small businesses is that they get to this point of just reinvesting back into their business. Okay. And what they end up doing is creating this cash eating monster, yeah, it just keeps on taking out the revenue taking revenue two weeks towards expenses, that they find themselves with no profit, okay? Got to remember, our profit is like oxygen for the business. Okay. So if you don’t have it, it just does not survive, okay. So we need to be making sure we have healthy profits. And where my job really comes in for business owners is around converting that profit into pure wealth. Because most people when they get into business, they might have other passions and reasons why. But one of the ones is they want to be profitable to create that into personal wealth, so that at one point in time, they no longer need to trade time for money, okay? So we need to be able to have a system and a framework in place to grab that profit and could consistently turn that into into personal wealth. And that’s going to start from day one year, not from 10 years down the track, start from day one. And if you’ve been in business already, the earlier you start, the better. And what I’m talking about is around putting it into things that are going to destroy your debts. Yeah, or build up your wealth. You know, it’s around creating those frameworks in those systems, and then to also to appreciate, and you can hear that from the weather, I’m talking money is not the goal. Money is the vehicle to the goal. Yeah, I’m not about being a rich little leprechaun sitting on a pile of cash and building up and being miserable. Yeah, it’s about creating a lifestyle and a life that I want the choices that I was able to make, once we got married and had kids was because I appreciated and understood the concept of money, while I’m doing it all for the purpose around that and building a framework as early as I could be. So that when I got into my mid 20s, or my late 20s, we were in a position to use that vehicle to help us deliver what you want.
Kate Toon:
Ah, I just thought, this beautiful man, I love that we have a whole chapter in the book dedicated to profit and the concept of it, I love your line profit is oxygen for your business, I’m going to steal that and pop it in. But it’s so important. And you know, you can start with as little as 1% profit, you know, just but to see that growing up, it actually is reassuring. It gives you autonomy, it makes you the captain of your ship. And then as you said, not money for money’s sake. But what does that money mean to you for you, it means the ability to have flexibility and freedom and to support your wife with her goals and her future career goals. For me, it’s all about time. Now it wasn’t for a while. I’ll be honest, it was for a long time. It’s about debt, paying off debt, spreading financial security. And now it’s all about time, as you mentioned, you know, so love that fantastic. Now, you sound like you and your wife are just perfect and get on Great. Let’s be honest, I’m sure that’s not true all the time. How do you I’m gonna give you two points here. How do you communicate with your wife? When it’s like, yeah, we were planning to go away and do this thing. But now I can’t, you know, how do you communicate that the business has to come first sometimes.
John Cachia
My wife is very, very supportive, to be honest with you, I wouldn’t be where I am today without a supportive wife. And so she understand that to understand that that’s going to happen. Okay. And we like any marriage. Any couple. We argue, of course we do. Most of the arguments around the kids more than anything, and maybe me having to help out a little bit more around the house and whatnot. But I think that from a business perspective, she’s always been really supportive from the get go and she was there from when the business was nothing to where the business is today. So, you know, there was times in the business like To tell you right now where I was really good on the throw it in and just say no, this is all too much I don’t. And she kind of continues to push me through now. I’ll be honest with you, I can’t actually think of a time where, you know, she hasn’t supported the business. And I think the other thing is as well, too. It’s not my business. It’s our business. Do you not? I mean, I’m just,
Kate Toon:
yes, I’m just the main worker at the moment. Yes.
John Cachia:
Do you know what I mean? So what what do we need to do for our business? You know? And Alright, well, Daddy’s got to do that for our business. And I’ll be honest with you a week the kids even like my eldest, not the youngest one, so much like he also knows it’s our business. Yeah, it’s like it’s even him. He’s involved in it, like he listens to me understands, you know? So, yeah, to answer your question, she’s been really, really supportive. And in those times, where maybe I’ve had to go to, you know, I have to go to Stanford in 2017, for example, I had to go fly there, for a week or two, I was sat down with my little one that is going to be in America for a week or two, you know, what I mean? This is what’s required to be done, he’s learning he’s wanting to do whatever, next year, or this year, actually, a bit of a secret, I’m going to be on a charity TV show, and they’re flying me to a secret location for a week. And, you know, but that’s all for the business. But you know, she’s already started to word up the, you know, the boys, you know, that he’s gonna be away for a week, you know, you’re not gonna be able to see him, but she’s the part of the role. This is what needs to be done.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I love that kind of our nurse. I think that’s really important. And I think sometimes, you know, this whole man, cave man shed thing where the man goes off and does his thing, and it’s private, and it becomes an enemy, then to the family. Whereas if you make it a friend, not a foe, I, this is what we’re all in this, we’re all in this even you, you know, I don’t know if finishing up your tea for you. So that, you know, we can have a story. So dad can go and do this call, you’re actually helping me with my business. Thank you, you know, and making everyone feel like they’re in a gang. You know, the Keisha gang is important. I think that’s lovely. So that’s fantastic and exciting about the TV show. So the family is involved in the business. So you know, you said that your son, your door is open, I didn’t have a knock on my door, either. You know, so, you know, you’ve sat down with them and explained what the business means to your family. Yeah, how have you done that? Like, what sort of things do you say?
John Cachia:
Yeah, so So, first thing that I’ve started to do to teach my sons around what we do, like, it’s not like, financial advice is sometimes a bit hard to teach about, like, you know, this is what we do, I jumped on with computer that you see they’re talking about, you know, is advising people. And so I just started to teach my son’s around kind of what we do. Now, my eldest is often age where I’m starting to teaching the concept around actual business like actually how it works. And he’s fascinated with becoming a shopkeeper at the moment, he wants to kind of become a shopkeeper and the buy and sell and swap things. And so, you know, I’m encouraging the team to do that. But it’s really around just understanding around the concept of what business is okay. And then he understands that, and obviously, the little ones little for this decay, but he is getting introduced to it. But, you know, for us to go to Europe, or for us to go on a holiday, well, we need money for that to be done. Now, there’s two ways I can do that, I can either go work for someone and I charge them for my time and kind of do that, or, you know, I sell a solution or a service or a product and call the teaching the concepts around that. And the big ones kind of really kind of catching on to that and understanding that concept now and hopefully for the little one who can follow suit and understand the concept. And and it’s around, this is what needs to be done. And this is the reward that’s happening. This is what’s being done. And this is the reward that’s happening. So we are as you can probably tell his parents is very open in our communication with our children very open to the point where some of my immediate family and stuff say you’re too open with your kids. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. All the research, all the understanding everything. I’ve talked about all my wealthiest clients, the biggest thing is around the open communication that they have in regards to business, wealth, creation, whatever’s going to happen. And this is something that we’re doing with our kids.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I think you know, you’re really setting them up for success there. And I think when especially younger kids, you know, they they get jobs a bit more because they kind of see that on television. They see that in school, but it looks like this. This person is wearing a suit, they have a briefcase, they’ve got a proper job that’s in his pajamas in his office from the waist down. It’s not a real job. Yeah, so kind of you one thing I used to do with my my son is like, you see the lady at the supermarket, who’s checking us out, she’s got a job, she’s making money for her family when we go and see lovely doctor, you know, Sandra, she has a job and trying to make him understand that it was all the same, you know, but that might and I think the thing he struggled a little bit with is the fact that I don’t have a boss that I am my own boss but he obviously now he gets that but I like that and the fact that you work from home. They do see you on calls. And I think it’s it’s interesting one one of the things I cover In the book is you know why you’re always on your phone. That’s a big one. And the line I use there is, you know, well, my job requires me to use technology. And one of the pieces of technology I use is my phone. And maybe one day, you’ll have a job where you use technology. So it may look like you use a phone to play games, or use the phone to help my clients. It’s it’s pretty, it’s a challenging one. And sometimes I am just using it to play games. So I have to be honest about that as well.
John Cachia:
That’s the that’s the cake. Like, it’s not perfect. You know what I mean? But there’s times when my son says the same thing. He’s like, Daddy, why you when you’re fighting? Yeah, I’ve got to do what I got to do.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, but also, sometimes you’re like, Yeah, you know what? I shouldn’t be? You’re right, dude, I’m gonna put it down. That’s fine. You know, Thanks for catching me. Thank you for that. I was being on Ellsberg getting a bit obsessed with Instagram. Now, you know, you’re obviously you’re very into your business, you’re into your family. Where does John come in? Where does self care come in? When do you take time for yourself? And what does that look like?
John Cachia:
Yeah, I’ve had to, I’ve had to really work on this. If you wanted to know what my Achilles heel was, it was the self care. You know, I’ve been in the profession since I was 14. I was just so hell bent on, you know, getting the business to where it was and getting everything. And I think I went through my whole kind of teenage years, you got to think about it my whole adolescence being business driven. Okay. So it’s just this hyper side of business business business, and I’ll let go of myself. And to the point where and four years ago, I had spinal surgery. So I find myself in hospital l four, l five exploded in my back, and they go into me, John, you’ve got two options, one surgery or the other surgery, there was just no other option there. Yeah. And I’m like, I’m too young for this to happen to me. Like I remember sitting there just going, John, what the hell and what happened on the back of that is I had the spinal surgery, but then two years, oh, about 18 months later. And I found that following up with a second surgery, where I had to have gastric sleeve surgery because I was putting about a kilo a week on weight. Okay, so I went through a period of time there were my health was horrible, okay. And I must admit younger, probably like most people, I was a fitness freak, very, very healthy, but throw kids in their marriage life, I just, it just all got focused towards the business and the family and nothing towards John. Whereas now, obviously, looking back at those things, I do not want to go back to that. So I had to go through a bit of trauma folks, for me to be where I am, and may have started to figure out, I need an hour every day, that they’re going for a walk going to the gym, exercising an hour every day. And I can’t be one of those people three days on four days off. It’s not me it’s either every day when our case laughing because she’s the same. Yeah. And also having the blocks. So if you think about it’s like an hour a day. Yeah. And it might be a date, like a full an hour date, and might be a full day a month. Yeah. And then every kind of year, there’s like four weeks or six weeks of holidays have nothing. Yeah, so I need to schedule those in. Or else they just don’t get done. So that’s the work that way I do things. And also as well to different people to different things. I also pray, okay, it’s one of the things that is my form of meditation. And so, you know, I tend to get myself into into praying, and also focusing on my breathing as well, too. So there was a period of time there where my anxiety was out of control, okay, and I had to really kind of work with my own anxiety. And I found myself being able to kind of now learn how to breathe properly, kind of bring my condom, and so it down, but also on the back of that making sure that I’m not overfilling my cup as well, too. So that’s why these kinds of time management, all of those things are kind of very, very important.
Kate Toon:
Well, I mean, that’s, that’s, again, very, very similar. And sometimes I really struggle to let myself have that hour. And I’m like, I’ve only got so little time I really need to rush to get it done and it never serves it never starts when I take that hour away because I’m the same first thing in the morning, get my coffee, well the dog, if I don’t have that the whole day goes off kilter. So again, I have to schedule it. And we sound very scheduled to be sin, you know, meditation and breath work for my anxiety. And whether you’re talking to Buddha or your god or yourself or whomever it doesn’t matter that that that kind of self-talk and what we say to ourselves is so important to calm ourselves down. I love that. Thank you for being so honest about that as well. Because a lot of people aren’t you know, like I’m the same as you. I put on heaps of weight. My anxiety was through the roof. It took me three years to get back from that. I’m not sure I had my rock bottom, but I definitely saw the rock. I can see it I was that far away from it. But yeah, and I think you know many people who have persistence in business, you have longevity, they do have their low points. You may not seen them, but they’re there and you come out the other side. Better are you I’m gonna ask you another mother money question because you are the money man. We thoughts about money in business, we talked about, you know, being clear on your profit and trying to you invest that profit. But on the flip side in families, you know, budgeting can be really hard things are really hard at the moment for a lot of families, what would be a tip for families who are struggling to just manage on the income that they have?
John Cachia:
I think the biggest thing is that we’re actually going through a major shift in our spending, okay. And what I mean by that is, I’m going to talk about maybe people that are 50 years old and younger, you’ve gone into an environment where money has become cheaper, and cheaper, and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and borrowing has become easier and call it at the bottom of COVID. Money was essentially free if interest rates the way they were, people could go on the spend. And what’s happened is, is that we’ve had a whole generation now. Whereas if you wanted something, you’ve just got it. Okay, so what’s happened is, is that people have earned more, they’ve spent more than earned more, they’re spent more will earn more. And I can tell you, even this morning, we were working with the client, the household earns $300,000, and they’re going backwards $20,000 in the hole every year. Yeah. And so they’re gonna they’re having to start and lucky, they’ve come to see us they were working on what those trade offs are, what do you need to discuss now? I’m not saying this is easy. Okay. But essentially, what you’ve done in the last 30 years, is different, what you’re going to have to do in the next 30 years, okay? And why am I saying that, because now, we’re in a world where things are costing more and more and more, and incomes are not going to keep at the pace that costs are going up. So you need to start making some trade offs. And the trade offs simply sometimes are as we can’t go to that restaurant that we want it to go to every single week. And what I want to do for the people that are looking at their budgets and looking at and going, we just can’t make ends meet, okay, first thing you need to do is you need to look at your unnecessary spending, you need to look and split your stuff into your needs, and your wants again. Now I need you to be like very frugal on what once are and what needs are you need to be understand what the differences are to like, for example, Netflix, your kid might watch it every day, but that is still a want. Not a need. Yeah. Okay, and go through them all. And then once you go through them all, you start to cut. And once you then figure that out, you then have yourself together your extension, okay, you know what goes out, you know what’s going in, you know what goes out. And I’m going to tell people, there is three trade offs or three decision making that you can do to improve your cash flow. Number one, you can earn more hard for some easy for others. Number two, you can reduce your expenditure. Okay, once again, easy for some hard for others. The third one is revise your goals. For example, do we need to go on that holiday every year? Do we need to upgrade that car? Do we have to have that new car? Can we reduce? You know, can we sell that car go down to one? Yeah, me and my wife, for example, we’re down to one car? Yeah. Because we would rather spend that money that we’re not spending on the other car on other things that we need to do. And that’s really my tips in regards to the people that are looking at this scenario.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I get I covered this in the book, I love your perspective there. It’s all about managing your expectations. I read a great quote that says, savings are the gap between your ego and your income. And really taking a look at the social constructs around the money that you earn, and really examining whether that purchase is ego-based, you know, the new car? Why is it because the old cause? knackered? Probably not, it’s because you want the show of wealth. And I think that’s it’s very confronting and anything where anything where we’re asked to kind of cut back feels like deprivation, and we will fight against any kind of pain as hard as we can. Because it feels like pain. But it isn’t and you there’s an awful lot of pleasure to be gained from saving and investing in your future. I love that. John, thank you so much. Well, look, I think we’ve we’ve covered a lot of stuff today and got some great tips and perspective schedule seems to be the word of the day, I’m gonna say
John Cachia:
from saying if it’s not in the bar is not there, it’s not going to happen.
Kate Toon:
So look at you know, you’ve been a financial advisor since you since you were two years old. I think. If you if you’ve taken a different path, or now you know now you’re sort of an old sage Gandalf fae kind of creature, what would you have done instead?
John Cachia:
I’m fascinated about the mind. So I’d probably be going down the cons of behavioral psychology. Why Yeah, I really love how the mind is so powerful and can be used as well too. But if we have to throw something completely left field, there’s a historian in me, you know, leave me in Egypt for like six months and to start I’d be like a kid at a candy store. So good. This Yeah, you
Kate Toon:
are the same person as me. You know? I did ancient history from my degree that’s my jam and if I ever No, not if, when I have come to the insatiable end of my business goals, I hope to go back to university and do some kind of MA or master’s in something useless energy or something, something,
John Cachia:
bring it or bring it to an agent with me. So you can you can tell me what the hieroglyphs say?
Kate Toon:
Well, I can read basic hieroglyphs. That’s something I do in my spare time. Weird things. There you go. You like flat cloak? I read hieroglyphs. What we’re gonna do. Awesome. John, thank you so much for being so honest today and sharing all of that. Where can we find out more about you?
John Cachia:
It probably best spices on Instagram. So I just started the handle is that John Kasher. So, so t h e Joh NCAC. Ha, my business is WWW dot IFA group wealth.com that I use. And then besides that, pretty much if you just type in my name, hopefully it comes up if we’re doing the right thing.
Kate Toon:
Doing good SEO. Let’s hope so. Brilliant. John, thank you so much. Thanks.
