More Money Podcast - From the Archives: Relistening to Millionaire Teacher Andrew Hallam Discuss The Joy of Balance

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

When I'm asked who my favourite personal finance author is, my answer is always the same: Andrew Hallam. His book Millionaire Teacher changed my life and the way I thought about money. But it was his second book, Balance, that cemented him as my all-time favourite. In this interview about this book, we discuss the connection between money and happiness, how to live a financially healthier life, and ultimately why balance, not money, is the goal and why we need to never lose sight of that. This episode originally aired on December 22, 2021.To find the original show notes for this episode visit, jessicamoorhouse.com/310Follow meInstagram @jessicaimoorhouseThreads @jessicaimoorhouseTikTok @jessicaimoorhouseFacebook @jessicaimoorhouseYouTube @jessicamoorhouseLinkedIn - Jessica MoorhouseFinancial resourcesMy websiteMy bestselling book Everything but MoneyFree resource libraryBudget spreadsheetWealth Building Blueprint for Canadians course Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Hello, looloo, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. I am your host, Jessica Morehouse, and I am also now officially a national bestselling author. Not only did I finally get that nice little badge

under a random category like account management on Amazon as a bestseller, but no, what I was always dreaming of was to become a Globe and Mail bestseller. And I was able to somehow achieve that. Well, it wasn't me. of was to become a Globe and Mail bestseller. And I was able to somehow achieve that. Well, it wasn't me. It was you.

It was amazing listeners like you who actually bought my book, Everything But Money. It debuted on, I think, at number four on the Globe and Mail bestseller list under Canadian nonfiction. And it's been there for three weeks. And let's keep it going everybody so if you want to grab a copy of Everything But Money, Everything But Money is my book, you can grab it anywhere. Amazon Indigo, your favorite local indie bookstore. Speaking of, now I can also tell you some more information about my book tour that I just didn't have

the information about before, but now I do. The Toronto event happened and went. I am going to be releasing a special episode for the podcast of the Q&A that I did with Melissa Leong, and it was an amazing event. But, but, but, but I am coming hopefully to a city near you. Now I know I've gotten some messages being like, hey, what about my city? I hope to add more cities in the spring, so be patient. Also just know I am literally organizing this book tour myself.

So it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work for one person, but I am coming to Victoria, BC on Wednesday, February 19th. That event is taking place at Monroe's Books in downtown Victoria. It's a free event, but if you want to make sure you register just so I know how many people are coming, if you go to jessicamorehouse.com slash links, so L-I-N-K-S, so links to a bunch of things

that I'm linking to, I have all of the stops on the book tour there and all of the Eventbrite pages, so you can register there. I'm also coming to Vancouver Thursday, February 20th, Calgary Thursday, February 27th, and Ottawa on Tuesday, March 11th. Now, the Victoria, Calgary, Ottawa book tour stops are completely free and they are at different bookstores. Calgary is at Shelf Life Bookstore and Ottawa is at Perfect Books. Vancouver, we're having it at Upstart and Crow, but there's a really fun after party with an open bar and food. And so that's why it is a paid ticket because limited capacity. So again, jessicamorehouse.com slash links is where you can find information about my

book tour and you can register there and buy a copy of my book and do all that good stuff if you want to continue supporting me. But enough about me. Let's talk about what's going on for this episode of the podcast. So I'm bringing back another episode from the archives. That is one of my favorites because he is my favorite, all-time favorite personal finance author. I am talking about Andrew Hallam.

It is, when I get a question being like, what personal finance book would you recommend if I never read a book like this before? I always say read Millionaire Teacher. Changed my life, absolutely loved it, and Andrew is one of the nicest people ever. He's been on my show twice so far. He was on episode 106 to talk about Millionaire Teacher. Then he came back a few years later for episode 310. That is what we're going to be relisting to today. Also, also, just going back to me in the book, Andrew gave me such a nice blurb for the back of my book that says, by this book, whether you are rich or poor, old or young, you'll

connect with Jessica's humility, research, and impressive wisdom. I mean, you know some people say, don't ever meet your heroes. And in some respects that is true. I have met people that I wish I never did because then it ruins the illusion. Andrew is not one of those. He is amazing.

So you're gonna love this episode all about balancing wealth, health and happiness. Original episode number is 310 for this. Enjoy. With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz.

Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Welcome back to the show, Andrew. I think this is your third time maybe on the show. I don't know, but I'm so excited to have you back and I'm glad because I feel like I've always asked you, I'm like, oh, are you going to write another book, another book? And you have a new book out and I'm thrilled about it and loved it. So, so excited to have you back on the show to talk about it.

Yeah. Thanks so much for the opportunity. I'd love to talk about it. Yeah. So with, I guess, you know, you have some very successful books already. What inspired you to write this new book called Balance? It represents, for me, it was a personal thing, Jessica, because it represents me far more so than the money thing.

So I'll give you an example. Obviously in this book I talk about investing and I show people in balance. I show people how to best invest for simplicity and to give the person the highest statistical odds of success, not only on an academic asset allocation level, but on a behavioral level as well. But people over the years who don't know me have often said to me, because I do a lot of talks, so travel the world doing a lot of financial talks, and those who don't know me often say, well, you really like personal finance and you really like money. And I say to them, no, I think you might be missing the point.

I really love life. It's a life that I love. Money in itself is just a tool. And I realized, well, if other people are getting that perception of me who don't know me very well, then I think society in general has that perception of the pursuit of money or at least a desire for the pursuit of it without necessarily asking themselves the question of, well, why? What's the point? And can money enhance your actual level of success or your level of life satisfaction?

So this is something that, you know, when we left Singapore in 2014, I was teaching high school personal finance and high school English. And we decided we'd take one year off. And then one year led to two, which led to seven. And we just continually we're globally nomadic and We've been loving it and the experiences that it has given us have been incredible in that

often I get flown off to some place some swanky place where I'll speak to a group of people at a business and they're all conventionally successful and the CEO might take us out for dinner afterwards to a five-star resort and then we'll spend some time hanging out with these people and they're fun and they're cool and we enjoy it. But then we'll fly back to say where our camper van is in Guatemala and we'll hang out with these Argentinians who are raising their kids in RV as they try and drive from Argentina to Alaska.

So Pelli and I spent 17 months living in a camper van in a quest to drive from Canada down to the tip of Argentina. And the contrast was awesome, Jessica, because we would be on this journey. My wife would organize all of the requests for financial talks. She would corral them into specific chunks of time based on certain geographic. For example, requests for Asia. She'd say, okay, we'll be available for Asia from this point to this point. We might spend a month in Asia and I'll be talking at insurance companies and banks and international schools and then

at the end of that month we fly back to this life hanging out with completely different sorts of people. And for me I recognize that if I were to actually define success, in most cases I would be defining the people who we would be hanging out with around a campfire on a mountain in Mexico as more successful, raising their children in this RV as they played music along the way, than the CEOs of so many of these companies that I spoke at or spoke for. That might sound really weird but when it comes down to identifying like why we do anything like why do we want to do anything why do we want an education why do we want to enhance our career why do we want more money ultimately when you

continue to ask anyone those questions why do you want anything why do you want a new car why do you want why do you want to go run around the block? Eventually, if you keep asking why, it always comes down to life satisfaction. So people will say, well, it'll make me happy or it'll make me fulfilled or make me feel more secure. Ultimately, that's life satisfaction. So this is our goal. As I see it, our end goal is to try to enhance the lives that we

have. And the lives that we have can be short. We don't know how long those lives will ever be. So the idea is not to squirrel away a ton of money at some point in the future where you think eventually you're going to be happy, it's to have an eye on today and an eye on tomorrow. So, so I wanted to identify success and put an actual definition to it, to say the conventional definition of success is super screwed up.

It's super screwed up that success truly is far more holistic because you can have all the money in the world, you can end up owning your own law firm and drive a Ferrari, but if your relationships aren't solid, you're not a success based on my definition because all of the research suggests that life satisfaction hinges on relationships far more so than it does on money. So yeah, a really long explanation as to why I wanted to write this book, Balance, is essentially that. Yeah. No, I think that's so important because yeah, like you said, there's me having a podcast where

I'm talking to so many different people on the topic of money. I think sometimes we forget the purpose of money, which is like you said, and is simply a tool to achieve whatever you want with it. But ultimately, if you keep on asking yourself why, it should be for my own life satisfaction. Or very well, if you keep on asking yourself why you can maybe identify that you're like,

oh, actually, maybe the reason I want that is actually not a very good reason. And I think that's probably when I see people getting caught up in social media or all of these things going on right now where it feels like, oh, I need to buy this type of investment so I can get money really quickly. Then you're like, well, why do you want to get rich quickly?

Stuff like that. Usually it's just like, okay, it's usually not life satisfaction. It's just so you can feel like you're keeping up with your peers or you're not falling behind. Usually it has something to do with, you know, just comparing yourself to others and stuff like that. And I think that's such a important and sometimes missing element when people are getting into personal finances, really identifying, but why do you want money and also why do you want that much? You know,

when you're creating your own goals or benchmarks for certain dollar amounts, like, why do you need that much? You know, lots of people, I know like I want to get a million dollars by the time I'm 30. It's like, why? And why do you need a million dollars? Like, what are you going to do with that money? Is that actually going to make you feel any different? So I actually really loved the sections,

the beginning part of the book that really focused more on, you know, happiness and really defining what that is. Cause I think for so many of us that just get caught up in this kind of consumerism world, especially I think over the course of the past couple of years with the pandemic, we've all been at home looking at ads more, feeling like we need to buy stuff for our houses and we're buying houses and stuff like that. We've kind of lost the plot a little bit and forget like, wait, why are we doing this in the first place?

What do I actually want in my life? So yeah, it's like what we think will make us happy and what actually makes us happy don't tend to be the same things. Daniel Kahneman, the behavioral economist who won a Nobel prize, he says people really don't know what gives them experiential happiness. They chase things they think will make them happy, but they don't really know what those things are. So he had identified happiness as falling under one of two categories. One was reflective happiness. So reflective happiness is when I ask someone who owns a brand new BMW, are you happier driving that than you were driving or you would be driving a 10-year-old Honda? Reflectively, they'll say yes. So that's reflective happiness.

It's a rationalization to an extent. But if you were to actually hook that person up, you can take all the people that drive the high-end vehicles and you're literally able to hook them up to medical devices that actually were able to measure levels of satisfaction while driving, thrills while driving, enjoyment while driving, and you were able to do the same thing with people that had lower end vehicles. The research suggests that based on hedonic adaptability, which is basically you get used to whatever it is that you own, based on that there's no difference between how people feel

driving a high end vehicle versus a low end vehicle because we just get used to what we're driving. So there was a fascinating study done at Michigan State University, and this was essentially what they did. They wanted to isolate these variables whereby looking at, well, what was it that people were driving and were they more satisfied on a day-to-day basis with their driving experience because they had certain types of vehicles. And it suggested that no. If you and I went down to a car lot and I said, okay, here's a top-end Audi and I want

you to drive it and then tell me from 1 to 10 how much fun that was and then here's a low-end 15-year-old Toyota Tercel. Once you drive that around the block and come back and you report the same thing, you're actually going to report that the Audi was a lot more fun. Because it is, right? I mean, it's faster, it's tighter, it handles really well, it looks beautiful. But what ends up happening is after we buy it, we get used to it. It just becomes this thing that we get used to, whether it's a new purse, a new watch, and a new anything is exactly the same.

And we're no longer focused on it anymore. When you go around the block on that first test drive, all you are focusing on, Jessica, is that car and how it feels. But when you're driving to work, it doesn't matter whether you're driving a BMW or you're driving a top-end Tesla or whether you're driving a junk or Honda, as long as it doesn't break down, your experience is going to be virtually the same because you're going to be thinking of other things. You're not thinking about how your car is handling.

You're thinking about, oh, I'm really glad I made that amber light or look at that jogger running down the street or am I going to be late for work or picking up my child after soccer practice? Life is going to bring these thoughts in. So the idea that we would stretch ourselves financially for virtually any material acquisition ends up being quite foolish in most cases. Because often then we end up going into debt

to purchase these things that don't enhance our life experience. Whereas if we take that money, do one of two things with it. One, we could take that money and spend it on an experience, or we could take that money and invest it for our future to give us more choices. And those choices, if we're able to use time effectively to augment experiences, especially with people we love, this is what enhances life satisfaction. I like to think about like the, you know,

in the book I talk about the campfire story. And so Jessica, you and a group of friends are hanging around a campfire 15 years from now, and you're just talking, you know, you're sharing memories. You're not gonna talk about the car you bought back in 2023. You're not gonna to talk about the car you bought back in 2023. You're not going to talk about the iPhone, the brand new iPhone 22 that you bought in 2026. None of that stuff is going to enter into the equation.

You're going to talk about the things you did with your friends, the fun things you remember, the stories that you remember, because they become part of your identity. So when we use money, we have to try to use money to enhance our experiences, especially with time, spending time with people we love and respect versus stuff because stuff does not enhance our experience. Yeah. And one thing I've also recognized because I've always been pretty mindful, I think, with material things and spending and all that kinds of stuff. But, you know, recently had

to move. And so, you know, you're literally putting everything that you own in boxes. So you have a really good view of what you own and what's crazy. So basically, you know, when we had to sell our place, we had to pack pretty much everything into boxes, put it into storage, and then the stagers came in to make our place look nicer than it really was. And, uh, and then, you know, then we got back into her place and we're like, well, you know, we'll just keep everything in boxes cause we're going to move out. So it'll be, you know, silly to unpack and pack.

And we lived like that for like a month. And I'm like, so if we were living our lives without most of the stuff that we own, cause it's just in boxes, we clearly don't actually need that much to enjoy, you know, do our day to day lives. And it's just interesting just to kind of think like that. You're like, we don't, I didn't even think we had that much stuff, but clearly we had boxes and boxes of stuff. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting.

So yeah, it's something that I am, you know, especially as at the forefront, like you're looking online and you know, on social media, especially. And it just seems like everyone is always just getting new stuff and buying stuff. I'm constantly reminding myself of, you know, you know, that if you buy that thing, it will give you some excitement and some joy for a very small amount of time. And then like you said, it'll just become regular. And, but also I really appreciated that the, you know, section you had on cars. I remember you talked about that and millionaire teachers as well. Cause people really do. I mean, cars are expensive.

A new car is very expensive. And my husband, he's owned his, uh, you know, it's a crummy little high on day hatchback, he sat up for a good like 11 years or so. And you know, it's gotten some damage over those years and he's like, Oh, maybe it's time to get a new one. It's fully paid off and there's literally no problems with it. Um, and I'm like, well, why? And part of it is just other people, you know, he works at this one studio and people have nicer cars than him.

And so it's really just like, Oh, it's because you just want to kind of keep up with the Joneses. Like that is actually what it is, but there's nothing wrong with your car. He's like, yeah, you're right. And I'm like, wouldn't you rather put, you know, that extra money, not into just a new car that again, it's just going to be a place to get you to A to B, where it's not like we're doing joy rides or whatever, into some other situation like travel or experience. So we're going to keep the car for a while.

That's funny. Sometimes when it comes down to a material acquisition, if it can bring you an experience that you ordinarily couldn't have, you wouldn't have, then it's definitely worth the purchase. So in my book, I wrote an example of a friend of mine who I met, I guess I was probably 19 when we met. He was, I don't know, 10 or 15 years older than me. And we met, we were into bike racing. And he's had some health problems lately and so he's

put on weight. He has some issues with ligaments and such, knee pain, that kind of thing. And so he won't or he wouldn't ride with me anymore or ride with his other friends. Often didn't ride at all with anyone. And so he just ended up getting heavier. And then he ended up buying an e-bike. Total game changer. So now as a result of that purchase, he can do something that he couldn't have done before,

and that's spending time with his friends out riding, and he can dust us if he wants to. So this kind of thing is where if the material acquisition will actually allow you to do something, especially when that thing involves other people and it's something that you would do frequently and do regularly, then it's definitely worth buying. If it's something that you only do once in a while, like my friend rides that bike all the time, like six days a week. If it's something that you would only do a few times a year,

then rent it. That's with boats. Honestly, boats in most cases, if you live by the ocean, you just watch as you go by the harbor. You watch how many boats don't move. Realizing that holy smokes, a boat, the saying is that a boat is just like a hole in the water that you pour money into because you've got to maintain it and the mortgage fees, that sort of thing. Most people don't use them. Those that do, awesome. Using a boat is great. Brings together your family, brings together your friends, brings together great activities. But if you're just going to use it for a couple of weeks a year, total waste of money. Yeah. Well, that's kind of what I think every summer when everyone's going to a cottage,

I'm like, oh, I wish we owned a cottage. I'm like, but we would only visit it a certain amount of times per year. And also I don't want to, you know, have to just go to the cottage when I want to go on like a vacation or something like that. So like, why do we need to buy this big thing? That'll, I mean, be very expensive. Why not instead rent it once in a blue moon when we want to kind of have that experience. So I think yeah I agree sometimes it's about really figuring out where do we want to put our money but also do we need to buy the

thing or can we just pay a fee to have it temporarily? Like why do we have to own everything? Right exactly I mean because you maintain you own something you have to maintain it you have to pay taxes on it, the cost of ownership. If I exceed what the sticker price of that entity is. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs. It's for true change makers who want to think differently

and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment, to energy, government, and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's u-v-i-c dot c-a slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash future MBA. Yeah. I also really appreciate there's an interesting part that got me thinking about part of our

happiness also has to do with who we actually hang out with. And I've always thought that like for me, I've always pretty much had kind of like similar friend groups for the most part over the years. We've always had the same income levels. For me, I never really thought about it, but I never felt like hanging out with them made me feel lesser than like, oh gosh, they earn so much more and I feel terrible about myself or something like that. Or the people that I do know who do earn who do earn a lot more at their loss of them are in the personal fines community.

And so they're just as frugal as me, you know, so you wouldn't even know that they, you know, make a lot of money cause they don't have flashy things and stuff like that. But it got me thinking, yeah, depending on like what neighborhood you're in or who you hang out with, it may have a big impact on how you feel about yourself and your own financial situation. And for me, it's like, yeah, having someone, people on the same kind of wavelength or even just mindset when it comes to spending, you know, I don't know anyone my, I'm in my mid thirties now that, you know, goes to really fancy restaurants.

So I never feel like, oh gosh, we have to go to fancy restaurants. Like, no, we just go to like the same, you know, kind of places that are like kind of middle, you know, a cheaper sushi place or something like that. And for me, that's actually been really helpful in just like maintaining my own happiness, being around people that are kind of on the same page. You want to kind of speak to that and kind of how that can have a big impact on how you feel about yourself and your money?

Yeah, that's huge because it affects you on a cellular level as well. Research suggesting that how much money the people around us have and what they obviously a reflection of that becomes what they acquire affects not only our happiness but it actually affects our levels of wealth and our levels of stress. The idea that somebody would overextend themselves to live in a swanky neighborhood where people earn a lot more money than they do is bad both for their happiness levels and for their health levels. So yeah, that UK-based study, which I referenced in the book Balance, to me was fascinating

because it really looked at relativity. Somebody could earn $200,000 a year or $300,000 a year, but if you're living amongst people who earn $600,000 a year, odds are high that on aggregate you're going to be miserable. Another thing I thought was really interesting was that the U-shaped component of happiness, where David Blanchfauer, who is an economics professor, studied happiness in 132 different countries and he looked at happiness relative to age.

And the age is when we're affected by peer pressure. And a lot of this is really that peer pressure that we're talking about, isn't it Jessica? It's like who's around us, who's affecting us, who's feeling like maybe in our own subconscious way or conscious way we're not feeling as worthy. And the research suggests that happiness tends to be U-shaped. We tend to be happiness in our early 20s when we figure that we can conquer the world. Then as we get a little bit older, that happiness level or that life satisfaction level starts to decline.

Obviously we take on responsibilities. That point there are children who are faced with those student loans who are actually starting to pay them off. There are career issues as we start to want to aspire to things that we don't have. And sometimes we bump up against difficulties or failures along the way.

But one of the biggest reasons for this dip in life satisfaction, which by the way ends up actually coming up by about the time people reach the age of 50. So it's weird to think that on aggregate 50-year-olds are happier than 35-year-olds, but on aggregate it's true. It's good to know that I'm not at that peak where this is where I'm... it gets better. It gets better, but I don't think that we have to be a statistic either. One of the things that happens when people hit age 50-ish is they say, well, to hell

with that. I want to be who I am. I'm not going to feel pressured by the people around me. Screw that. I'm going to be true to myself. I don't have to try and impress other people anymore. So that realization though, as I talk about in the book, balance, is wasted if it takes so long to come to that. So my whole premise here is that try to think about that when you're in your 20s and 30s

and early 40s where you recognize and truly recognize that it's so important to be you. Be true to who you are now. You don't need to be in your 50s or 60s to get to that point. You might not even get to that point because life is like a dark hourglass. Like I said in the book, it's like everybody has this dark hourglass at birth and you can't see how much sand you have in it. It gets tipped at birth and at some point the sand runs out. You really want to try and live the best life that you can for today and for tomorrow. Absolutely.

I think that's the biggest thing. I definitely think a lot more about that as I see my parents approaching retirement. Now, and same with my husband too, his parents are retired. It just makes us really think it's like we've got set, you know, hopefully, you know, decades in front of us, but we don't want to just push everything like, Oh, we'll have a good time retirement. I used to think that, Oh no, I'll relax. I'll have a good time and enjoy life in retirement. I think that used to be kind of the, the way of thinking. Cause you're just like grind it out and you're working years and then then retire and then people die 10 years later.

I'm like, I never want to do that. So it's always so important to be living for today, but planning for tomorrow. That's the key thing, absolutely. But also, I think what's difficult, that's easier said than done, because the difficult part is that most people don't think like that.

Most people are just struggling through it, just grinding it out and to have a different mindset. Maybe being a bit frugal or just being more specific on what things you'll spend money and what you won't and not really keeping up with everybody. Sometimes there's some conflict there because it's hard to not go with the society and what everyone's doing. You're kind of an outlier a little bit. And that's, I think, the hard part for people to actually put into practice is like, or you're used to what you're used to. It's hard to change those

habits. Yeah. You know, when you look back or you're focusing on this life satisfaction component, and let's talk about retirement for a second, it's this goal for so many people, early retirement. And yet the research on this is so compelling that early retirees die younger. And so many people don't recognize that what they're missing is a sense of purpose. So once you retire, the idea is that, I mean, I'm going to play golf all the time and do whatever I want to do. You don't have a reason necessarily to get up in the morning. You're not challenged by anything either.

So you're not typically mixing with different generational groups. You're not mixing with people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s as you would be if you were working at some kind of job at some capacity. That social interaction and that mental engagement that keeps us physically stronger, mentally stronger. So people that retire earlier end up with earlier onset of dementia and things like Alzheimer's. And of course, anyone who is listening to me here, I'm not going to say every single

person who retires early is going to get dementia or Alzheimer's. That's not what I'm saying. But on aggregate, when we talk about averages, that is the case. And so the idea here is that sort of to follow, I like to think about what the Japanese refer to as Ikigai. And I mentioned this in the last chapter of the book, Balance, is to rethink retirement. So by that, I mean you could have a job full-time, you're a full-time lawyer or a full-time doctor or whatever you're doing, full-time teacher, and that when you stop doing that,

if you choose to, take something up part-time. And the Japanese are really good at this. They have these silver-haired centers in Japan. They have 1,600 of them. They're basically for people centers in Japan. They have 1,600 of them. They're basically for people of retirement age. Yeah, 1,600 of these things. A retiree goes in, somebody in their 60s or 70s, and they're like, hey, give me some kind of part-time job. The cool thing about Japan is that woman who's raking the leaves in the local park could be a multi-millionaire retired lawyer.

And you wouldn't really know it because they don't aspire to retirement to the same degree that we do. And that is one of the reasons too, Jessica, that the Japanese, one of the reasons suggested that they live quite a bit longer than people in Canada, for example. Yeah, now there's definitely a few books that I've read over the years that are trying to get people

to think differently about retirement, which I think is so important because most of, especially young people, all we know of retirement is maybe a glimpse of what we've seen maybe with their grandparents, but also what's marketed to us, which is, you know, your silver haired on a sailboat just live in your best life. But you're like, how often can you do that? Like that, I don't want to do that every day. Then it's less special. And so I think, yeah, what you say is so important. Having that sense of purpose is, is the key. So not just having like, oh, great. Now it can be on vacation for decades and decades and retirements. Like,

believe me, it's going to get old really quick and that's going to be very boring. And that's part of the reason for me personally, when people ask me, cause I've had so many people on the show who, you know, part of the fire community retire early on that stuff. And people are like, Oh, is that one of your goals? I'm like, absolutely not. Honestly, I'm cool if I work full time till 65. But for me, the important part is like, I've always wanted to make sure that I like what I do. And so, you know, I don't need to retire early because I finally found out what I love to do. And I don't mind working hard to do it because it gives, it gets me excited to wake up in the morning to actually do this work.

And so for me, that's what my sense of purpose is. So I've no dreams of early retirement, maybe just a shift in like how much I work and stuff like that. But having that reason, that purpose is, is the most important thing. I think I, and I think that's so, so most important thing, I think. And I think that's so, so key and so, so important. Now, just, you know, cause we just, I don't want to keep you here too long, but I love, we go really in, you go really into the, some of this deep psychological and emotional stuff

in the book. But then of course you've got the good stuff, like the practical stuff, which I think is so helpful. You go really specific into it. Like the, you know, and people were like, okay, great. I want to, I want to grow my wealth. I want to, you know, be happier. What should I actually do with my money? And, um, you know, it's, it's been a while since a millionaire teacher came out. And so, so many things have changed, I'm sure since then. So when you're doing your research, it was really cool to see all the things that you, uh, put into the book, but also appreciated that,

you know, a lot of the advice is similar to your old book. You're like, oh good. He's very consistent. I like that. Cause I am also like, you know, big fan of index funds, but also you, you talk a lot about, um, you know, charitable giving, which I think is really great. A lot of people, I think forget about the power of charitable giving, not just to how you can improve the world, but also how it actually impacts your own

happiness, which I completely agree. And also, you know, socially responsible investing, which has become kind of more, I think, mainstream compared to like even five years ago. Do you want to kind of speak to why you want to put some of those sections in the book? Because I feel like a lot, you know, when I've read so many investment books, a lot of them don't really talk about those things. lot, you know, when I've read so many investment books, a lot of them don't really talk about those things. You know, the thing that I was really excited about, and it's funny because years ago I was talking to a guy who was head of the Singapore Stock Exchange, and he asked me, what products

do you think would be great products for investors? And I said at the time, an all-in-one portfolio of ETFs. And they didn't exist at the time. There was no such thing. So this would have been, I don't know, maybe 2010. And later, I remember actually being a little bit embarrassed that I brought that up because nobody was creating one. And I remember just thinking, I guess it could have been a lot of other things that he'd created instead of one of those or they tried to launch on the Singapore

Stock Exchange. But now when I look back at the research on, of course now we have all-in-one ETFs, and I look at the research on them and I think how incredibly compelling they are as performance enhancers for, they would be for just about everybody for so many different reasons. And we have socially responsible ones as well. So it's just this notion that when you're investing in an all-in-one ETF, you're not having to make a decision as to which ETF you're going to buy in which given month.

And when you are having to sell some of it likewise, you just sell a portion of that ETF. You don't have to worry about which one you're having to sell some of it likewise, you just sell a portion of that ETF You don't have to worry about which one you're gonna sell and research suggests that people that own these all-in-one products as simple as they are end up outperforming People that end up buying individual ETFs and people that buy individual ETFs many of them will say well This is so much this is cheaper. They'll say it's a little bit cheaper. Not so much cheaper, but a little bit cheaper This is cheaper. They'll say it's a little bit cheaper. Not so much cheaper, but a little bit cheaper.

But the behavioral component of it is so much more important. Just that set it and forget it component of adding that money every single month to that all-in-one ETF. And the research that Morningstar has done has suggested that the people that buy these all-in-one ETFs do not underperform the very funds that they own. Yet people that buy individual ETFs typically underperform the funds they own because they get into an essence of market timing, at least with some of the individual ETFs. Which ones am I going to buy right now?

It's one of those things that I so, so highly recommend that and say working with a robo advisor because it's much the same thing where that money just goes in, set it and forget it. You're not going to tinker with it. I say investment portfolios are like bars of soap in the shower. The more you mess with them, the smaller that they get. The idea of the socially responsible funds is a really interesting one too because iShares has come out with all-in-one portfolio VTFs that hit the ESG standards. These things, they're not going to save more trees and help the environment necessarily

as dramatically as perhaps a marketing material might suggest, but it allows us to feel better knowing that we're not profiting necessarily from, say, big oil companies. At least we're not profiting from things that don't align with our value systems. Everybody's value systems are going to be different. So even if you look at the holdings of your all-in-one socially responsible fund, you'll see stuff in there that you don't like. You might see Coca-Cola and you might be saying, well, like, look at the obesity that Coca-Cola has contributed to. So there's never that perfect fund that's going to suit with your values, but I do think that it's a step in the right direction and it makes people feel better. Back to the environmental part of things, is that when you're conscious of, say, your investment product in this vein, in this capacity, odds are you're going to

start to be conscious of the environment in other areas. You're going to turn out the lights and you're going to think about where does electricity actually come from? You're going to think about perhaps driving less and buying less crap. These are all the things that I think tie together so well because the less stuff we buy, the better we are for the environment because all that stuff involves, obviously we pollute the environment massively when we produce it. Like take your iPhone, that in itself, just the iPhone.

I mean, the production and the toxins that go into the atmosphere is when you're creating plastics for example, not to mention the shipping of that product and then the disposing of that product. So when we come back to the whole life satisfaction concept too, when we are trying to help other people, and this is what's super cool and this is that part of that generosity. We're trying to help other people or doing what we can for our environment. It actually helps us all on a life satisfaction level, on a cellular level as well. It actually makes us happier and it actually makes us healthier. So it's just, when I look at this, I think, well, it's awesome.

Why would we not be generous with our time? Why would we not be environmentally responsible? And if an SRI fund actually helps contribute to that, helps you sleep better at night, knowing that you're part of a bigger movement, then I think that's awesome. Yeah. And you've also kind of mentioned some of the things in your book. I think a lot of people are scared to maybe invest in something like that because, oh, what if they have lower returns? And typically they do have higher fees, but like you mentioned in the book, and I've read lots of studies about this as well,

typically they honestly perform similarly, if not a little bit better than typical index funds. But I also appreciate that does remind me actually, because I always like this in the millionaire teacher, and you do touch on this in your book too, working with advisor. And I get questions all the time, like, how do I choose the right financial planner or advisor? And honestly, you have no idea. I talk to people every single day and get their personal experience of working with an advisor at like a bank or a wealth management firm.

And it just always makes me think of you and just like how to really kind of talk to them and understand where they're coming from, which is a place of selling and trying to scare you into never investing in an index fund because of all the reasons. Like honestly, all the things that you mentioned in your book, I'm like, oh my gosh, I've talked to advisors and they've said those exact things like, well, if there's a market crash, your portfolio is going to go, it's going to be tied to the market. So it was going to go way lower than some of our actively managed mutual funds and all this kinds of stuff.

I'm like, oh gosh. So highly recommend everyone to read that section. It's like a refresher, but also you have some great information about if you don't want to use one of those advisors, how do you still work with a professional but also invest in index based products, which is one I'm always kind of promoting people to do. So appreciate that section. Yeah, I'm glad. It's funny, Jessica, because I used to think that the financial advisors that promoted actively managed funds were just really selfish people. And they did it to help their financial bottom line because they and in turn their bank or their service company reaps rewards from that through either commissions or through the

trailer fees associated with the expense ratios on the funds themselves. And so it's the investor who ultimately pays this price. But then I started learning a lot more about the certified financial planner's process, the education. And it is substantial. I mean, I'm not going to say it's not an impressive credential, but it's not the same as a nursing degree or a teaching degree or any degree because you can complete the actual training as intense as it is. You can complete it in six months. I don't know about that.

You can. As somebody who's training to become a CFP, I'll tell ya. Well, maybe it's because I'm also working full time. Well, come on, you're working full time. Yeah, maybe that's why, but it is intense. But I agree, and you mentioned this in your book, it's, well, number one, in Canada, at least they only started just in the past year to implementing that you can only, um, uh, train to become a CFP.

If you have a bachelor's degree worse before you didn't even need a degree to do it. Um, but also what I found, and this is true is in the studies, they do not talk about, yeah, the benefits of index investing versus active. They do try to, I guess, stay neutral, which I understand. They don't want to give you a buy, but there were so many things in the textbooks I've been reading for this training. And I'm honestly just becoming, seeing training to become a CFP just for my own personal knowledge and information.

I never want to be an advisor, but it's fascinating how many times in the textbooks they talk about it's important to not push your client towards one product or another. It's important to not just focus on the fees that you'll ... They're in the textbooks telling you try to not be biased or try to not just sell advised first. The fact that this is over and over again in the textbooks is alarming. But it makes a lot of sense because every single advisor I've ever come in contact with who does sell some sort of product, not a feel-neel planner but someone who does sell products, that is exactly the experience. It's like

I'm always armed and ready for them to give me their sales pitch and to try to say information that I know can be debunked or inaccurate. And it is largely due to the, I think the training materials and also I guess the institution that they're working for. Cause I know even if they're like, oh no, I just work on salary. I don't get a commission, all this stuff. There's bonuses and quotas.

So they have to sell. So you're kind of in a situation where it's like you're gonna, you know, come in contact with these practices. In the book Balance, I reference a study that was done, actually it was a Canadian study done and published in the Journal of Finance, and it looked at what products financial advisors typically sold for their clients, and they were by and large almost entirely actively managed funds and then it tracked the performances of those clients to see how they performed and over a 15-year period they underperformed on a equal risk adjusted basis they underperformed their equivalent portfolios of index funds by about 3% per year now 3% per year is massive when that's compounded over your working lifetime.

That literally is the difference between you having $450,000 and you having a million. Like it's that big a deal over a working lifetime. But the part that I found most compelling in that study was that the advisors, and they assessed 4,500 of them in Canada, that the advisors ended up purchasing the same products that they assigned to their clients. This is when I realized, wow, okay, they're really not bad people. They just truly believe that this is what they should be buying. And so they in turn, they did a couple of things. You might be wondering, how did they underperform?

They in turn also underperformed equal risk adjusted portfolios indexes for their own personal money by three and a half percent per year. You're wondering, wait a second here. The average expense ratio on a Canadian mutual fund is 2% or 2.3% per year. How on earth are these advisors underperforming by more than three for themselves and for their clients? And what's happening, what they tend to do is, and again, this isn't part of the CFP training, but it should be, is that they performance chase.

So by that, I mean they look at funds that have had a good five-year record and they buy those. They say to their clients, hey look, you're into index funds? Forget that. Look at these funds. They've beaten the index over the last five years or ten years. We're only going to get you into index-beating funds. And they believe that because they buy the same ones for their portfolios. And then something called a reversion to the mean takes place, whereby the funds that outperform during one time period typically then go on to underperform. And so what these same advisors do with their own money and with their clients' money is

they end up selling those funds and then purchasing the funds that they see now have the best five-year track record. And then the process repeats itself. So the fact that these people would be underperforming by three, three and a half percent per year is a result of one, fees, and then two, just silly human behavior. And that, this stuff is not part of the CFP training. So they're not bad people. They're not bad people, but they have to learn this stuff on their own if they're going

to learn it. And they have to work for a firm that encourages them to learn it. Yeah, which there aren't that many out there. I mean, you know, the only kind of wealth management firm that I'm a big fan of because I love their content as well as PWL Capital. And I've had Ben Felix, who I know you mentioned in the book on the show, but one of the few firms that are pro-passive investing. So, you know, there's not a ton out there.

But yeah, I know, there's not a ton out there, but yeah, I know, I totally agree. Like a big reason I wanted to pursue this designation is like, I wanted to know how these professionals in the industry that have, you know, all of this kind of power information, what do they learn? What do they know? Because I want to know their background. And yet it was kind of shocking. I felt like I came into it with a very different perspective because I've done so much other external self-education. It was shocking. The amount of time dedicated to talking about mutual funds compared to ETFs, you're like,

okay, why are we still talking about mutual funds? Yeah, it's fascinating. It's fascinating. But anyways, I could talk to you forever, but I will not do that. I would just encourage everyone to grab a copy of your book. It's now one of my new go-tos. I mean, I've been, you know, this, I've been recommending millionaire teacher for years. It's now, I feel like this is a, such a great addition to anyone's, uh, library.

Cause you know, you talk about like the really important deep stuff, the wise, which I think we don't pay enough attention to, but then also the practical stuff. And I think sometimes even people like me need, I just like that confirmation of what I know and stuff. It's always nice to read that important stuff. So before I let you go, I guess, where can people find more information about the book or grab a copy by the time? So when this episode airs, it will be the end of December. So I know maybe it won't be available quite yet, but people can pre-order this, right? Yeah. So you can pre-order it on Amazon or any online bookstore. So the book will actually be released January 18th. So the goal is that if someone actually does pre-order the book, they'll actually get it on January 18th,

like it'll actually arrive. So the books are ready to go, they're in a warehouse, they're ready to be shipped. So if you go to andrewhallam.com as well, I have several retail links on there. So right there on the homepage at andrewhallam.com, you can see links to actually purchase, balance, and you could sign up for, I have a pre-order bonus package there as well for anyone who wants to sign up for that early. Amazing. I know you always have been, write articles and stuff like that.

You always have such great articles. I follow you on Facebook and stuff. If people want to kind of see what else you're writing, what are some other places they may find you? Well, I typically put it all there at andrewhallland.com is where I'll put all my stories. I write for Asset Builder, which is a financial services company based in Texas, but I'll usually just put the link to that story first on my website and send people off to the Asset Builder because those are the guys that pay me.

So I do the same thing with the Global Mail, so I write a regularity for the Global Mail. I can't cut and paste that straight into my website Mail, so I write a regularity for the Globe and Mail. I can't cut and paste that straight into my website, obviously, but I'll say, hey, wrote this with the Globe and Mail, and I'll send a link. So I think adrehallem.com is probably a good place to start. I write for a Swiss-based brokerage as well, and so I'll link in stuff there to my website as well. Perfect.

Perfect. Well, thanks again for coming back on the show and sharing your new book with all of us. I'm so excited for other people to crack it open and read it in the new year. Thanks so much, Jessica, for allowing me to speak about Balance. I'm so excited about that book. Thank you. That was my re-listen episode with Andrew Hallam. The original number for that episode was 310. And highly recommend you grab all of his books, Millionaire Teacher to start, Balance after that.

And depending on your situation, you may find a lot of value in his book, Millionaire Expat, in case you want to be an expat or you know, live in multiple countries and just understand how to do all that. So I hope you really enjoyed this episode. I will be back next week with another, you know, from the archives book, but I really hope to see you on my book tour again. I'm coming to Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, with hopefully some more Canadian cities, maybe even some American cities in the spring. So check me out. You can go to JessicaMoorhouse.com. That's also where you can find info about

my book and my book tour, but also follow me on Instagram because I've been posting a lot about that. So you can keep in the loop at Jessica I. Morehouse. So that is it for me. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next week. The More Money podcast would not be possible without the amazing talents of podcast producer Matt Rideout who you can find at mravcanada.com. With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with FIZ.

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