#22 Mary J Fourie – Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
clients, coaching, people, work, coach, business, financial planning, journey, money, studying, world, financial services, feel, creating, working, advice, life, big, little bit, industry
SPEAKERS
Mary J Fourie, Louis van der Merwe

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of Financial Planners, South Africa. Today, I’m really excited to have Mary J. Fourie. Join me on this conversation. Mary is a professional coach. She’s a registered financial planner, she is all over LinkedIn, she has a lot of opinions. And I think it’s gonna make for such a great conversation. Very, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for the invitation. It’s lovely to be here talking about all these things I’m passionate about. Yeah, the human side of money and the coaching. And a different way of delivering advice, I think is always something that resonates with me. But before we delve into that, Mary, can you give us a little bit of a background of you know, how you stumbled on the financial services, industry or profession, because I know you have a very interesting story. And I’d love for you to share that with our audience.

Mary J Fourie
I love that you use the word stumble, because I think that’s an accurate way to describe my entry into it, and that it wasn’t Traditional Plan of you know, finish high school, and I go study the subject, and then I knew I was going to do the next thing. And the next thing. My story probably starts way back with my earliest experience as a child, where money became something that I understood or knew about in my life, my father died when I was five. And with with the passing of a very important figure in my life, a lot of things in my life changed. So I grew up with a single parents mother, and the school teacher, not necessarily very well paid, and had a younger brother, and experienced being the older child in the family, an understanding of what was going on in the world. In our world, I mean, my world was much bigger than my nuclear family at that time. So I noticed the changes, cars being sold. I remember having that index for a while. And then that disappeared after a while as well. And just noticing how hard my mom worked and how busy she was trying to keep everything together and keep us going. As a family during those early years of mine. along that journey, I recognize that money doesn’t grow on trees, it wasn’t just going to be thrown out of the ether and into my life. And and that motivated me to figure out how to get it. I understood it was the thing that made the world go round, and had an impact on my life. And so as a teenager, I was fortunate enough to get a job and pay my way through through the fun side of being a teenager. All the cool things that teenagers want clothing, outing parties, as well as saving for some of the other things that my personality wanted, like for computer being able to move out the house and the independence. And so I have quite a balanced relationship with money at that stage. And I was quite proud of myself when the day after my metric final exam, moved out the house with my newly acquired huge computer. I mean, computers were massive back then with those big CRT monitors that we had into this bedroom of the shared apartment that I was sharing with this full time job that I had had, you know, for a couple of years already. So my journey continued, where I thought I would work in retail and clothing for the rest of my life, because that’s what I knew. And that’s what I was able to do. And one of my roommates was studying your, and he mentioned, showed me his UniSA books, he’s doing a correspondence and that it was possible to not go to university and study. And I took up the challenge and enrolled in a be calm law through UniSA thinking, I’m going to become a lawyer. That sounds pretty cool. And it didn’t quite work out that way. Working. And studying a degree that was going to take eight to 10 years was not easy. It was really, really hard. And I struggled with that balance on my life working and earning money. But the studying requires a lot of my time and attention. And then one day I decided I didn’t actually want to be a lawyer standing in a courtroom wasn’t the dream or where I imagined I’d end up and so I continued to work mostly in retail. I fell pregnant at age 23 And that was probably my next level up with money where Now it’s not just about me, and all the things I want to have them do, there is this new life coming into the world. And I remember when my very first thoughts being, history cannot repeat itself can’t be the same as it was. Because with my parents, they don’t know financial planning, there was no life insurance. My dad died from a brain tumor, he died leaving medical debt, because medical aids wouldn’t pay for things. And he had cancer treatments and such. You know, my mom was selling acids, there wasn’t a big sizable savings or emergency fund. And our lives could have been quite different if those things had been clamped. So at age 23, I got life insurance, and I set up a wall. And I made sure that my partner did the same things too. Because I thought, This is what I can take control off, and the steps I can take to make a difference. Hopefully, you know, nothing’s gonna happen to us. But for my experience, you don’t know. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. But there are some things you could do to manage those, those unexpected things continued on a couple of years working, I got out of retail, moved into online gaming, which was very interesting, not playing the games. But the back end of creating games, I worked in marketing and social media. And that was really, really interesting. The games work casino, basically. And at some point, I started to grow uncomfortable with the market, we were working with the fact that I was sending a million emails a day, to get people to spend the money on slot machine games. And I couldn’t articulate what it was about the set forth uncomfortable, but something just was off, sort of in parallel to that I was going through my own experiences was in my personal financial planning, the wonderful advisor had been working with was going to be leaving the company that she was at. And I felt myself stuck without an advisor. And wanting that sounding board, that person that I could check in with that I knew, cared and was interested in me. And I was about to buy property, my first investment property. And I wanted someone to send to check me to look through my spreadsheets and my calculations and just make sure that I was getting a drive. I wasn’t overlooking anything in that process. And so I went on the search to find someone. And I recalled back to the prenatal classes we did when I was pregnant with my daughter. And I was like, there was this guy there. And I’m sure he was a financial advisor. And I contacted him. And we built somewhat of a relationship and having kids together. So the kids that had playdates and stuff afterwards, I felt like you know, I can trust this guy, which is really important element and when dealing with money and working with your own money with someone else, and went to him and said, Help me, can you look at the stuff, this is where I’m at? This is what I’ve done. And he asked me a question, which kind of struck me this question was, well, what’s your future career plan? Now, I was like, future career plan, like there is no plan. It’s always just been, hey, universe, what next? Oh, cool. He has a job, you know, moved around jobs quite a few times by that stage. But there wasn’t really any long game. It was more just do what you’re doing until the next best thing shows us faces an opportunity. And then his next comment was, you think to have a handle of his money stock more than most people don’t normally have these conversations with clients. Have you ever considered working in the financial services space? And I looked at him and I was like, not really. It’s it wasn’t something I considered pursuing. I think I imagined that you had to have some form of degree or qualifications that I wouldn’t be able to get in order to move them. And you sparked something in me. That got me searching and trying to work out well, how could I move into this industry? And what if I helped people with their money, instead of trying to sell sell them to spend their money on something that I wasn’t really comfortable? I found a way to study, find a way to do NQF certificates. So instead of creating another eight to 10 year pathway of studying, I could break it up into manageable chunks, and have something tangible that would allow me to work as I moved into the industry. And by the end of that first year of studying, I went to go work for this advisor and got the opportunity to excel perience both sides of financial services provider in the industry, power planning, advice, planning, the running of the business, from the HR to the financials, loved it loved working with clients loved understanding the technical and the back end, I was naturally very technical, spend a lot of time understanding the details of the life insurance policy and product from this provider and that provider to tell you everything about how it worked. The clients didn’t really enjoy that stuff, kind of wanted something different. In the sense that I’d go
with the paperwork, you know, like Mary, go see this client, get the stuff signed. And I’d sit with them. And I’d listened to their stories, and I’d be interested in their lives and their families. Three hours later, time wasn’t ready to sign the paper. And I’d go back to the office might get in trouble. Because I spent three hours with the clients, no papers were signed. And yet I felt good because I built a relationship. I’d heard I’ve seen these clients where I felt that, you know, if I picked up the phone and run them a week or two later, they’d be interested to talk to me. And the other experience I had to was clients who loved the advice I gave them who agreed and we’re like, yes, it’s do this thing. It’s gophers. And then they didn’t do it. Or six months later, after creating an investment that had a long term, time horizon, they wanted to take all the money on its arms, like what’s going on here? You know, how do I do a good job at what’s required to help people to really help them with their money and with their lives, and keep my boss happy at the same time.

Louis van der Merwe
That is a wonderful story. And I can hear the journey that you’ve taken, you know, just to get into the industry. A couple of things that struck me as you know that you were adulting really hard, right out of school and super responsible. But you’re very clear on your money stories and the things that have played up was that something that came naturally or have you spent time looking back at the past and, and figuring that out,

Mary J Fourie
I have spent time looking back at the past and very well out. So I really resonate with Steve Jobs analogy and you connect the dots backwards. And that it’s worth spending time looking backwards, connecting those dots, not to get stuck in them not to be trapped in the past and go, Oh my gosh, these terrible things happen to me, but to make sense of it, make meaning of it so that it becomes useful in the present and moving forward. And I’m lucky to have had opportunities to do that work. In going on my own coach training journey, part of the journey was our own self development, and understanding what got us to where we were with the idea that we couldn’t go out there and help other people if we hadn’t first helped ourselves and understood what was going on in our world. And I’ve had some amazing mentors and coaches in my life who’ve held space for me and given me the hard feedback to help me look and make sense of my journey and my experience and and how I’ve allowed it to impact my life. Up until now.

Louis van der Merwe
What would you say to financial planners that struggle to take their clients on this reflective journey that jumps into the planning and wants to look at the future yet neglect the story of how they got to where they are now? Like what would your advice be to them

Mary J Fourie
to consider the cost of not spending that time helping their times to a little bit of reflection and understanding. Because for sure, we want to move forward. And planning is about the future and can be very exciting and inspiring talking about dreams and goals. And what we’re going to do that what I find is really challenging is the behavioral side, where I can have the most beautiful goals articulate so that I can know exactly what the steps are to take. And then there’s stuff that gets in the way. And often that stuff is the patterns on repeats from our past. And unless we’re aware of what those are, it’s very hard to navigate them in the present moment. They just trip us up and trip us up and trip us up. And I think that for me is the cost of being so focused on the future. We we ignore what’s come before a colleague in the in the coaching industry, who would say what got me here won’t get me there. And I thought that’s such a beautiful way of we don’t want to dismiss that what got you here did or did not serve you. It has a place that did survey you here right now. That it might not be what you need to get to the next space or place that you’re aiming for.

Louis van der Merwe
get such an important point, you know, making sure that something’s not going to happen that’s going to derail this plan, you know that things not going to play out on repeat, like you’re saying. And you also mentioned focusing on the things that you can control, which resonated with me. And, you know, we spend so much time in our client meetings talking about things that might be outside of our control, how we find to keep a balance between the things that we can control and things that we can’t,

Mary J Fourie
there is a balance, it is a juggle, I think how brains often get focused on the things we can’t control. And that can also trip us up and frustrated as things like the market politics, you know, whatever else is going out there, on out there in the world. And that can then paralyze us, where if we’re too focused on what we can’t control, we just sit still, or we or we rush forward into, you know, taking actions that don’t necessarily serve us. Whereas focusing on what we can control, which is often bringing it back to ourselves. So taking our focus from further away and outside of ourselves to, you know, what’s the next step I can take? What’s the next thing I can do in this moment, that will just move me a little bit further along the path?

Louis van der Merwe
Yeah, we see all these studies talking about the locus of control and how that can contribute to someone’s happiness. And I guess we get to facilitate that with clients. And we’re going to help you be happier by focusing on the things that you can control and, and with that, I want to kind of move back to where we ended your your journey on like, being in this business, looking at the the things that you know, you can do, what happened next?

Mary J Fourie
Yeah, so that was exactly right. So what can I control in the situation that was will? Can I upskill myself, to be better at talking to clients and offer something more than just, here’s a cool product? Do you want to buy this thing? Or here’s the plan, this is what you should do? And how can I really, really help them and and help them not make the same mistakes or not get stuck in those patterns of behavior. And coaching was the way or the the thing that I discovered that would help me I’ve been coached at at the gaming company. And so I hadn’t experienced it, I considered studying and before, but it really made sense that this is something this human side that needs to come into the financial planning and financial advice space. So I went on a journey to study and learn how to be occurred. What are the skills I need to develop, which definitely, as we discussed, involve going in and looking at myself and unpacking my own stuff, and and what got me there. And that was a long journey. I did a course in Joburg, I live in Cape Town. So I did quite a bit of traveling. And initially, it was about six or seven months of travel, which I turned into a year of travel because I did my coaching course products. I got to the end of the first course going this is amazing. I’ve transformed so much I see all this potential, but Oh, like how do I now go and coach other people? You know, I didn’t feel confident yet to be able to really help them transform where they were. I think the second module the second time I came back, and I was like, right, this register businesses, I’m ready to go.

Louis van der Merwe
Can we can we pause there for a second? Like what was that thinking around saying? I’m going to do the same thing? Again? How did you justify that in your in your mind? Because I can see this pattern of you know, almost trying to break down barriers and find creative ways around products and the interest or obstacles. It’s interesting to see how you got to you know, I’m going to do this again.

Mary J Fourie
Yeah. So there were two different things happening there. On the one, it was still an unconscious pattern of my own playing art, which is not feeling good enough. And I need to keep learning I need to keep adding to what I think are my ideas of what I can do before I can actually go out into the world and do it. It helped me that helped doing it a second time. Because the experience was different. So same content, different contexts, different people. And that was appealing as well. The first group I was in was a very small group, who were mostly doing the coach training because they were interested in coaching as a developmental pathway for themselves. The second group I joined had more people from corporates who are focused on I’m going to become a coach and I’m going to go out to make a business offers. So that content Next was also interesting and how it’s impacted my journey, and the focus and experience of each of those coach trainings. And it’s fascinating because on my journey, I think every, every group experience, I’ve been involved, and I’ve always been amazed at how the people who need to be in that room show up, and are in that room to give you the experience you will need at that point in time. So I needed to unpack all that personal stuff first. And I was with a group of people who gave me the space to do that. And then as I started to come out, okay, now I’m ready to focus on the profession on the business side, the next group of people just appeared that could help me do that was a little bit of playing into my own stuff, as well as the universe, just providing the next stepping stone on my pathway forward.

Louis van der Merwe
Wow. So it’s not just I’m gonna watch this movie again, and pick up on things that are missed, it was actually, you know, what are the things outside that are sporting, and, and happening at the same time and, and getting to a place where it feels right, as opposed to just, oh, I pass the certification or pass the exam.

Mary J Fourie
And if I now think and connect those dots backwards, what happened to me was I built relationships with all those people. And with that organization, I did my coach training apps. And I ended up working for that organization, too. And training and learning how to train other coaches and becoming a mentor coach. And that has helped me get to the point where I’m at now where I’ve started my own coach training school as well. So, you know, if I missed that second opportunity, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today, right?

Louis van der Merwe
Yeah, I’m sure they saw, hey, Mary is really committed, we have to find a way for to be included in this business.

Mary J Fourie
Yeah. And I was always so keen and so excited to, you know, give it everything and give it all to really inspiring place and space to work in coaching and people’s young people’s minds, people’s hearts,

Louis van der Merwe
that that coach training component is something that, you know, we see a lot in financial planners. Now. I’ve done a bit of Coach Training as well. And I know how much work goes into getting a PCC designation. For those that don’t know, can you maybe share a little bit of, you know, kind of one of the top line criterias? And how much time do you actually spend getting the

Mary J Fourie
so what’s been really fascinating for me is to see the parallels between the coaching world and the financial services world. So quite familiar to us, and financial planning, as we’ve got FPSB and the FBI that have created our designations there. And the underpinnings of those being we need the qualifications, education, we need experience, we agree to the ethics. And we there’s an examination and then it’s the ongoing CPD will the same thing exists in the coaching world as well. And that also, the the coach training I chose was influenced by seeing that pathway to and wanting to get something that wasn’t just a nice certificate to have, it was actually like a professional qualification. So I picked a coach training that was aligned with the International Coach Federation, who are like the FPSB, of financial planning in coaching. They’ve also got a local chapter in South Africa who are like the FBI. And very similarly, you’ve got to get a qualification that is accredited by them. To this, your education components need to get experienced as well. And they set a certain amount of coaching hours that you need to complete. You know, that whole idea of practice, the more you practice, the better you get at something. And then you’ve got your ethics, there’s also code of ethics that you agree to. There’s an examination as well, a competency exam and continuous professional development that continues as well. And similar to what we know in financial planning, there’s three different levels. So your associate certified coach or your ACC is 100 hours. Your professional certified coach your PCC is 500 hours, and then your MCC or your master coaches two and a half 1000 hours. So it’s quite a big jump between PCC and MCC. So it’s something you you mature and grow into as well. Because again, this idea of you know, personal and professional development on the journey as well. You don’t just start out in your master coach in something you you grow, you’re mature, you work towards

Louis van der Merwe
that there’s no shortcut for two and a half 1000 hours. It has to take Yeah. So yeah, I’m gonna want to ask you, are you a coach first or your financial planner first with a coaching designation?

Mary J Fourie
You’re such an interesting question. Because I think I describe myself as having a coaching approach when I’m talking to people in financial services. Yeah, I think, Coach first in the sense that I’ve always been curious about humans have always engaged with people going, like, why did he do that thing? What is it about the way you think or see the world and wanting to understand that? I think that’s always been inside of me. And I would have brought that into the financial planning and advice before I became a coach. But the coaching journey, refined and polished, the way that I do that, I think I do it in a more empowering and supportive way now, because advice is quite high and quite harsh in how we approach people. And we can be curious and interested about them, but then we give them our opinion. And that’s not always asked for. And it’s not always helpful.

Louis van der Merwe
Yeah, so it’s just just a different way of delivering advice.

Mary J Fourie
There we go. We listen first. Yeah. And the way I’m listening is slightly nuanced, and different. Brilliant.

Louis van der Merwe
And tell us a little bit about the coach training school, you know, who’s that aim that and how’s the uptake been?

Mary J Fourie
Yeah, so that is sure came about, because I realized that I’m one person. And there’s only so many people in the world that can help, right? We talked about hours and time, you know, I can’t change the amount of hours in the day and fast track, or expand that to be able to give more to the world. But I can train other people. And if I do that, then they can use their hours in a day to help more people. And the more people I help, you know, the bigger that butterfly or exponential effect can be. So that was my inspiration around this question of how do I scale? How do I expand what I’m doing to reach more people. And the focus was like, let’s, let’s keep it focused on my niche, which is the financial side of coaching, and training financial advisors and planners to bring that coaching approach into their businesses into their planning into their engagements with the clients, how it ends up looking for each individual, each professional is different. Because we all run different businesses, we’ve all got different gifts, talents, focuses our own different niches within financial planning or advice. And so y’all, the coach training school was born, beginning of this year, we actually registered it, I think, the day before Christmas last year, sitting on a zoom call for business partner Bill, sending it out ourselves and growing, let’s help transform and evolve this industry. And bring what we know is so valuable this human side and approach to engaging with our clients.

Louis van der Merwe
It’s wonderful to see how you know how many different providers, they are now offering this and it really is an important skill to any financial planning, listening, it’s just another tool in your toolbox so that you don’t just default to only one way of delivering advice. I want to go back a little bit to your financial planning practice. Tell us a little bit how you work with clients. How do you charge you know, because obviously, a big chunk of this money will be linked to the product. And also how how’s that going?

Mary J Fourie
So it’s been a journey, it’s been just just over four years now. So from the beginning, I decided I wanted to be fee based. That was something I felt very passionate about. In fact, we were aligned even further behind, I was very fortunate and lucky to enter this industry on a salary. So I experienced the excitement of you know, commission and sales in seeing it in the business and how it worked in the business. But I think the advantage I had was earning a salary and not needing to do that whole chasing to sell something. And and then I think did inform my view that we shouldn’t be our earnings shouldn’t be connected to the clients money, that it’s much harder to help them with what they really, really need, if there’s going to be a financial impact on our world as well. And of course, we hope you know that our business is big enough that it’s not not a worry. But I do think there’s a conflict there. And so from the beginning, I decided, let’s you know, put their conflict outs out of the picture completely. I’m going to charge fees for the work that I do. I would take commissions I won’t charge asset and management fees, I wanted to be as transparent and gives the client as much autonomy and an empowered to empower them to make choices about their world, and empower myself to be able to give them advice or support them in making decisions that weren’t conflicted or influenced by my own self. It’s been tough, it’s been really tough, because it’s much easier to charge commission and fees, it’s tough looking at a policy that could give you 1020 30,000 Earning commission and put a zero finger, I’m not going to take that. But it feels so good. Sitting with clients, and knowing that I can lower your premium on an insurance policy to start at a lower place, which means it’s going to increase, you know, more slowly over time, and it’s gonna save them money over their lifetime. There’s something beautiful about having conversations with clients about the value I do add, and the cost of those surfaces. And having them question, you know, if I pay this month, pay retainer for your services, what do you actually get? What is this for? And it’s, it’s not easy. I think that’s one of the scariest parts of working in that space is you? You put your heart on the table? Because it is about you’ve got to do stuff for that for that you’re not just charging a client or taking a commission? Because that’s how it works.

Louis van der Merwe
Yeah, Mary, you seem to have figured out ways to keep yourself accountable. I mean, you publish these figures publicly, to, for people to see how much you know, the split is in your business, which is wonderful. Like, Was that intentional? Like just saying, Okay, I’m going to commit to this. And you know, knowing that this is public, it’s going to make it easier to then scratch out the commission, because I don’t have to think about it every time? Or is this still an element of 20 to decide every time? Or is that just now? kind of ingrained?

Mary J Fourie
I think it’s ingrained that initially, it was inspiration. Initially, it was that sense of like, I did it, I can do it. Because there were people who were skeptical people at the beginning of my journey, who are like, oh, you know, you’re not going to survive. This can’t be done. It’s too hard. There are people who are really worried about me, you gave me advice, or like, you must charge more merit, you can’t charge, you know, that little otherwise you’re not going to survive. So I think there was a healthy elements of almost rebellion around, like, I’m going to prove that this is possible, not just to myself, but to use an ad sales. And so being transparent and showing that change in between what was invoiced and what was commission earned. And holding myself publicly accountable, felt good. And it’s, you know, demonstrating that it’s possible, because I think a lot of people that feel like it’s not possible. And, and it will be harder for you chap transitioning a business from, you know, earning and, and working on commission and aum. But if you just focus on shifting that split, and you know, shifting more towards the one side over time and measuring that change, that’s all you need to do. It’ll take time. But it’s possible to notice that

Louis van der Merwe
you want to highlight that piece that you said about the change. Now. It’s like helping a client go through change, it’s changed within your business. And you’ll have people that doubt you and you’ll have people that support you. But you get to make a decision. You know, if you’re wrong, you’re the one that carries the responsibility. But if you’re right, you’re also the one that reaps the benefits.

Mary J Fourie
And I also feel that accountability is part of what coaching brings into the relationship as well. You know, that idea that, you know, what, what is the right thing to do? How are we going to measure what’s right? How are we going to hold ourselves accountable to trying and experimenting and figuring things out? Not just pushing things under the carpet and ignoring it or not having hard conversations?

Louis van der Merwe
Yes, are you setting yourself up for success saying, Okay, this is a potential stumbling block that I’m removing, by aligning my the way that I’ve charged for my advice? What are the things you’re doing to kind of set up that success that might come to mind?

Mary J Fourie
Well, I think also always trying to iterate and iterate and iterate. I mean, with the businesses now compared to where it started. It’s changed and evolved over time in terms of the services we offer and how we package those. So it’s, it’s always an experiment, you never know. And I think that’s how I’ve approached this whole journey of mine is Okay, let’s try. Let’s try and see what happens. And then you get the feedback. And sometimes the feedback sucks. You don’t want to get the feedback, what hurts or tick, I thought that was a good idea. But again, it’s not working. And to just hold it lightly enough to go, okay, what can we try next, you know, this didn’t work, what else would work or for clients looking at me and going, this is too complicated, or I think I started with a service offering of Build Your Own Adventure. And I was like, if you want this, you can add that into the pattern, if you want this will do that. And this cost this and this cost that clients want the cheapest, they’re not going to build their own adventure and add all the different pieces together. Although that was my experience, at least. And simplifying, I think setting myself up for success has been about thinking big how to scale that how to do so in simplifying, keeping it simple, keeping it focused, and keeping it meaningful and real, and of benefits to the client, aligning it with my values. I think that’s also definitely been a big part of what I would say is keeping me I mean, what is successful, right? That I’d say, I feel like I’m successful, because I love according to my values, and I keep going back to, you know, how do I love these things, I believe I

Louis van der Merwe
can, I can see how that’s helped you to either double down, you know, if you need to do this course again, or to hold it lightly to say, Okay, I’m not going to be emotionally connected to this, I’m going to unplug it and be comfortable with knowing that this didn’t pan out. It’s always, you know, just staring potential fear in the face and saying, I’m gonna come for you. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s also okay. Had they’ve

Mary J Fourie
been hard moments. I’ve, I’ve needed to let go of people along the journey. And, and yeah, go, Okay, this doesn’t feel okay, this isn’t aligned with values. It’s not working. And that’s okay. reshift focus, have those little one on ones with myself. The existential crises? How do I do this? What am I doing? How do I love this vision and purpose? I believe I have, you know, think every entrepreneur goes through the cycles of you know, should I just go work for someone again? Would it be easier? And then, you know, taking that step back out of the emotion, and and looking at it logically and going well, you know, it’s not easy. And in fact, the world has proved to us that it’s not more secure, either. And if I go back to, to my heart, which is the emotion, but the purpose side of that, how do I live that working for someone else, when I do feel so cold and passionate about creating and furthering this vision of what’s possible,

Louis van der Merwe
thank you for highlighting that, because it’s not an easy journey. And so part of these discussions is just to highlight, you know, that it is normal to feel that you want to give up, we want to do something else. But the real growth often comes from just pushing through to that if, if you’re on the right track, Mary, you, you shared some elements of, you know, business 2.0, and a new addition to your family about change, and transitions. And I want to touch a little bit on how you rethink because there’s this theme of just, you know, challenging the way things we’ve always done it and, and so what do you see the future of financial planning and coaching, you know, in the way that you’re doing things?

Mary J Fourie
I mean, Garson is the the industry in the world, and then there’s myself immersing my business going, I do think and I’m loving watching more and more advisors and planners and people in financial services. In fact, the big insurers, look at the human side, look at the behavioral side, go, hold on, we have a whole human in front of us. They’re more than just logic and numbers. They want more than that from us. And we are more than that to and how do we connect and integrate and, you know, give more to help them with more and to get get down to what’s meaningful. You know, what creates a sense of performance and contentment in life. One of the challenges of how things have evolved is that and I ties in with the word more, which I felt was saying a lot is that there’s a lot expected of us in and we take on a lot more in pursuing this path of going to have my financial qualifications, coaching qualification, we’re going to integrate this business with all these offerings. And I do wonder if we might not go back to specialization again, moving into the future, where it’s quite a lot for one person to be all these things. But we can build collaborative networks. And we can build businesses of specialization that that work together. So it also feels more integrated. The I feel like financial services is often like the Lone Ranger game, you know, you’re the lone had to going off, you’re competing in the same hunting ground, you eat what you kill, it’s very competitive. And I feel like this human side has bought a more collaborative approach to it. But perhaps we go back to here’s a business. And we’ve got planners, and we’ve got coaches, we’ve got technical specialists, and and we create a collaborative space where we all working together, it’s not about I own this client. And that relationship is exclusively mind, mine, but we build businesses that have value, as well. And businesses that give value, and they’re more relationships, and more collaboration in that space. And that could work within business. And it can work in the industry, as well. More sharing and collaboration between different areas of financial services or financial coaching, picking a niche, I think that started to come up as a hot topic, as well, not taking anything with the paths or anyone with the pulse, that picking the kind of clients that you want to work with. Because there’s a connection as resonance, as you know, something there that you can offer those specific people in the world.

Louis van der Merwe
Wow, there’s this concept of no going broad first, and then going deep. And so what I’m hearing is that you’re saying we need to have groups of people that can go deep, if that’s required, and to a specific group of people that you want to service. And there is training out there for people, you know, that want to have a specific area focusing on people going through a transition or people in or dealing with estates and complex estate planning, or people that want to go the coaching route, and then creating this ecosystem of financial advice.

Mary J Fourie
I think it’s also kind of to the clients, we can’t be everything. It’s a huge burden. And it’s a disservice to try and pretend to be everything to the client. But we create these ecosystems and sick I know this amazing tax person. And I know they’ve got a coaching approach to a human approach. Cool. And then I know this amazing estate specialist can help you with that. And they’re willing to work together as well.

Louis van der Merwe
How do we get past the ego of you know, saying, Mr. Client, I’m not perfect? And I’m not I’m not all knowing? Where do you start?

Mary J Fourie
Brene Brown comes to mind, it’s that vulnerability question as an engraving. It’s, it’s not easy before, it’s got to recognize that it exists. When you’re sitting in front of a client recognize that when they asked that question, we don’t know the answer to what is the trigger within us? And you know, what do I choose to do in that moment, in my experience, the client appreciate it. When you put that boundary and go, This is what I can help you with. If we start moving towards that territory, I know of someone, so I can give you a recommendation, and I can bring someone in. So you know, I can vouch for this person, this person, and they appreciate they really do. It creates a both the relationship between you and your clients when you do that.

Louis van der Merwe
Mary, would that be the same as contracting in the coaching world? You know, setting the parameters, this is how I can function. This is what you can expect, as opposed to, you know, we can fix anything that’s called Money linked to it.

Mary J Fourie
Yes, I think that’s so important contracting, setting those boundaries, roles and responsibilities. You know, what is my role as advisor, planning coach? You know, what am I prepared to do when I’m am I not prepared to do how often can you contact me? We, I find we as humans generally don’t have these kinds of explicit conversations with anybody in setting those boundaries, and yet, it’s so important. There’s nothing worse than someone phoning you and saying that, you know, the number on the phone and grant or notes this time I can take that and the guilt and the acts that goes with that. Being able to contract exactly this is when I’m available. And this is what I can do and this is what I can’t and this is what is expected of you and what you can expect from me. So it’s also how countability that goes both ways.

Louis van der Merwe
It’s wonderful that you mentioned that because we had Terrence Tobin on one of the previous episodes, and he spoke about having family time and informing his clients, you know, you’re not going to be able to contact me during these hours. Because I spend it with my family, you can leave a message, and I’ll get back to you. And, and our clients appreciate that. And actually, you know, resonates with them. Because when we talk about money, and why it’s important and to be aligned to our lives, and our families, and you actually show them that this, these are the things that you live to, it just I think it hits home.

Mary J Fourie
And that’s it too, right? Then we talk about lifestyle, and helping clients create the lifestyle that they want. And they dream, right. But if we don’t show and by leading that example of here are our boundaries, are we actually demonstrating that it’s possible? You know, or are we just selling A dream that no one’s ever gonna achieve?

Louis van der Merwe
Mary, thank you for a wonderful conversation. This has been so much fun. For people that want to reach out to you to learn more about your business and who you serve, and your coach training school, where’s the best place to get hold of you,

Mary J Fourie
Mary J for e.com is palm is my websites. And that’s the central place that will take you in whichever direction you’re most curious about, whether it’s Coach financial planning, as a service through my journey to freedom, or how to become a financial coach, which is the money talks Development School.

Louis van der Merwe
Wonderful, thank you so much. And it’s great to see your coaching approach and how it shows up in your conversations and your wisdom that you bring to it. Man, you have a lot of success in your endeavors.

Mary J Fourie
Thank you. Thank you for having me here and indulging me and exploring all the things I love.