The Soul of Wealth with Dr. Daniel Crosby | E121

The Soul of Wealth with Dr. Daniel Crosby | E121

Money, Meaning, and Health with Dr. Daniel Crosby In this episode of 'Financial Planning for Canadian Business Owners,' the host returns from a hiatus with fresh perspectives. The episode marks the podcast’s transition into video format, featuring the first special guest, Dr. Daniel Crosby, a New York Times bestselling author and Chief Behavioral Officer at Orion. The conversation centers around Dr. Crosby’s new book, 'The Soul of Wealth: 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning,' and explores his personal health crisis that inspired the book's themes. Insights are shared on achieving a balanced and purpose-driven life, the importance of intention in both business and personal spheres, and the psychological principles behind wealth and well-being. The dialogue emphasizes the Perma model from positive psychology and practical strategies like naming investment accounts for specific goals to enhance financial and personal fulfillment.

00:00 Welcome Back to Financial Planning

00:26 Introducing Dr. Daniel Crosby

01:09 The Soul of Wealth: A New Perspective

03:00 A Personal Health Scare

05:21 The Macro Perspective on Wealth and Meaning

08:42 Writing with Purpose: The Soul of Wealth

18:57 The PERMA Model for Business Owners

25:07 Planning for Post-Exit Life

26:22 The Hedonistic Adaptation Trap

28:13 Finding Meaning in Money

30:53 The Power of Simple Habits 35:07 Willpower and Avoiding Temptation

37:33 The Arrival Fallacy

44:32 Health is Wealth

47:07 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Resources Mentioned:

Full Transcript

Jason Pereira: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to financial planning for Canadian business owners. As you can tell, I've been on hiatus for a little while. Thought like I covered most things if not everything and was struggling for new topics But you know what? Gonna start again and see how far we can take it this time but I promise not to take as long as I hate us next time So now that I'm back one new piece of information for you if you're listening on the typical podcast channels.

I got news for you. I have now actually doven into video after many years of putting it off. So my guest for my first video version of this podcast is my friend and accomplished New York times, bestselling author, Dr. Daniel Crosby, chief behavioral officer at Orion. Always a pleasure, Dan.

Great to see you and other people can see you too now. And less of you too, because you've been trimming down.

Daniel Crosby: Yeah. Jason, good to be with you. And, we're here to talk about our diets, right? Is that what we're doing?

Jason Pereira: We are. We we both get complimented for how much weight we've lost. So we both collectively have lost almost a person.

So that's pretty crazy. Anyway, so no, we're not here to talk about it, so today is not a technical [00:01:00] conversation. This conversation, this podcast does dive into deeply technical, but also into purposeful, meaningful, and other aspects of basically the lives of a business owner. And at the end of this, I'm going to turn the conversation back to how this message is unique or different for business owners, but we're going to talk about specifically your new book the soul of wealth 50 reflections on money and meaning so dan Tell us about a little bit about yourself before we dive into the book and then we'll get into why you wrote it

Daniel Crosby: Yeah, thanks.

Thanks again for having me. It's great to be a part of the rebirth of the podcast so a little bit about me. I'm a psychologist by education. I still deeply identify with that title where a lot of tweed on a lot of elbow patches, just in case anyone is doubting my credentials, but deeply sort of identify with being a clinical psychologist by education, but have applied that throughout my entire career on Wall Street, effectively applying insights into human nature, into the world of [00:02:00] money and my day job is I'm a chief behavioral officer at a large financial technology company in the States. So help create new technologies and training and advisor education to help to help advisors help their clients make better choices with their money.

And this is sort of my first foray into the world that I'm most passionate about, which is the world of meaning and purpose trying to help people think more deeply about why they do the things that they do and live with a little more intention.

Jason Pereira: Excellent. So you've written previous books, specifically the big one being the, oh the laws of wealth.

Sorry. I got stuck there for a second which was a new york time best selling book and sits somewhere on the shelf behind me But this one basically took more of a let's say call it a purposeful kind of like deeper meaning to money approach What inspired you to write that?

Daniel Crosby: Yeah, there was really sort of a micro and a macro Consideration that inspired me to write [00:03:00] it.

We'll start at the personal level at the personal level a couple years ago I thought I was dying. So I started to have some really intense symptoms. I write about it in the book. I was having debilitating migraines, just a great deal of pain, an electrical buzzing in my head, sensitivity to light.

I mean, just all these things I've never had any major health problems. And so I went to WebMD. Looked it up and it gives you this litany of really scary potential symptoms, but the least scary of them was a tooth problem. And so I go into my dentist. My dentist looks me over and says, nope, it's not your teeth.

You're good. It's something, it's one of these other bigger problems. And so I go through this march of about six months of trying to rule out or figure out what was wrong with me. All the while having this really intense pain and couldn't get any answers. I mean, was in the hospital was, getting full body scans, [00:04:00] brain scans, anything you can think of trying to find what the problem was.

And during this time, Jason, like I'm someone who loves money candidly. More than I should. , I write about it. I think about it. I save aggressively. I always have a big of love to think about how to invest it and maximize my returns. But there was a moment when my wife was driving me to the hospital and the emergency room in one night in a lot of intense pain.

And I'm sitting in her car and I'm crying and I cannot figure out what is wrong with me. And I've been to six specialists and I told her, I'm like, I would give it. Every penny we have to figure this out, to make this right, I would give it all away. And none of that mattered to me in that moment. There is a happy ending to this story.

A couple weeks later, I was having lunch with my boss and my tooth just split in half. Like it had been my tooth the whole time. And my dentist had just missed it [00:05:00] and they pulled the tooth and I was right as rain. But there was this real moment where I had this very visceral, very personal experience of understanding how health is wealth and how all of this thing, all this thing that we spend time and money and effort putting together.

is a very little consequence if our lives aren't in the right spot. On the macro side, we live in a period of unprecedented abundance on the one hand and a period of unprecedented disconnection on the other. When the U. S. was founded, 85 percent of the world lived in poverty, what would be 2 or less a day in today's dollars.

And as of, as of today, we're at about eight and a half percent. , throughout the world are living in poverty, which is still too much, like still, far too many people, but headed in an incredible, 250 years of an incredible burgeoning middle class of [00:06:00] greater and more widespread wealth than ever before.

But even as we have taken care of those bottom two rungs of Maslow's hierarchy, more of the world is safe and secure and well fed than ever before. We have this massive meaning crisis. We have record levels of disconnection and depression and suicide and malaise. And people my age and younger in the U. S. More than half of them say that they are lonely. The modal number of friends a U. S. Mail reports having is zero. So we have this crisis, right? We've forever in human history. We've been scratching and clawing to get enough to eat or to get safe. Now we've largely accomplished that in the West and, and yet our, our personal lives are falling apart.

And so trying to bridge that gap between the material and the psychological was a big reason why I wrote the book as well.

Jason Pereira: Yeah, you got a lot to [00:07:00] unpack there. I mean, first off, WebMD, All Roads Lead to Cancer. That's I swear to God, it's so they must've got sued at one point. What's a possible scenario?

You may have sprained your ankle or cancer. Like it's just, it just always goes there. It's bizarre. Always cancer. Yeah, seriously. And it's funny you say, you know how much you love money, but it's just first of all, I picture is like Scrooge McDuck, like someone making a bunch of stuff, but that's not you.

You love to think about it as much as you love, as much as any of us love it, but, you know, it's your last point. It's just, we find purpose through struggle, right? And when we don't have the struggle or a struggle, then basically we lose, we're like, why are we here?

There's something very focusing about needing food or water. Like you can't worry about other stuff or worry about what you do with your time. But when we're, when we secure, you're right. We have this paradox of basically abundance or we're the most abundant time ever yet.

We're also in the least, in some of the ways, the least satisfying times ever for many people. But I also think back to how Charlie Munger explained this quite well, especially when you look at certain discourse in the industry or certain discourse in the world these days. So the the [00:08:00] world's not driven by greed. The world's driven by envy and at the end of the day, there it's not just about how you're doing. It's about how you're doing relative to everybody else. And that's what, I think this world that we live in today amplifies beyond belief, right? You can easily go on Instagram or whatever else and see people living quote unquote their best lives and wonder why you can't do that.

And, too often, especially as a financial planner, the conversation ends up, when people are like my friends are doing this, why can't I do this? And the response often becomes I don't know that your friend's not, one paycheck away from bankruptcy, right? If you're making the same money and you're just living different lifestyles, something's got to give, so where's it coming from?

 I always say never judge their lifestyle until you see their balance sheet. And that tells you a lot anyway. So that's my diatribe. Let's get back to your book. All right. So you took, in this book, you took the approach of talking about, I think you really, it's more so than anything else it's about purpose, quite honestly, is what I see. And you took a lot of stories and lessons from friends, from life, from religion, from you name it, and you took a lot of. We were talking about the soft line cause again, [00:09:00] being, having read a lot of this stuff in the past in different conduits, the way you package it together, I found so approachable, care to share how you did you go through an approach whereby you're like, I want to talk about this financial concept, here's a really good allegory for it out of wherever, or they're just was it just, where did it come from?

Did it just come from like things you commonly talk from? Like how purposeful were you in the design of the book is what I'm really getting at.

Daniel Crosby: Yeah, extremely purposeful and I'm glad that shone through and I'm glad you noticed it and others have as well. So, I actually, there's a little bit of a story there.

I knew I wanted to write a book about money and meaning. I even knew the title. I liked this idea of soul. And I started. And my previous books had been very traditional. , they had been, ten ish chapters of twenty five ish pages apiece to give you a nice sort of full length nonfiction book.

And I started to write The Soul of Wealth in a very similar vein. And this was something I was so passionate about. And when I [00:10:00] went back and read what I had written, it just kind of sucked. Like I, I wrote about 80 pages and I went back and read it and I was just like this isn't good. And so I set it down for a minute.

This is all very hard for me, by the way. I mean, writing 80 pages worth of something and then knowing that it'll never see daylight as the end. Sort of depressing for me, my God, right? So I set this aside and I'm a believer that great writers are big readers. And so I said, look, I just, I need to start reading more.

I need to get inspired. And so I got a copy of Rick Rubin's book. I'm a big music fan. I got a copy of Rick Rubin's book, The Creative Act, and his book is something like 75 chapters of three to four pages apiece, just with these pithy truisms about the act of creativity. And I flew through that book.[00:11:00]

And as a dad of three and a husband and a guy with a big job, at the end of the day, I try and read every evening, but I'm also very beat up by the time I get to my books. And , it was the perfect format for me to just sort of take in these bite sized truths. And so that was my inspiration. Thank you, Rick Rubin.

You were definitely my inspiration to say, let me rethink the way a book should work. Within that 50 chapter format, I had a formula within the formula, which was a story research application. You know, we are storytelling species. This is how we this is how we have communicated from the around campfires to the modern day.

And I knew that I wanted every story to begin, excuse me, every chapter to begin with a story. That's sort of the narrative hook for whatever I would be talking about. So every [00:12:00] chapter begins with a story. I am a scientist. So then I wanted to get into the research that proves that this isn't just a one off or an anecdote.

And then I wanted to speak to the, so what? Okay, nice. Here's a story. Here's some research. Who cares? What do I do about it? So I was very intentional. And I tell you, Jason, it's, it's more readable, of course, in the same way that I found Rick Rubin's book to to be so readable, but it also makes you step your game up as a writer.

You know, you can't hide behind big words and fluff. And in repeating things you have to make a point quickly and concisely , and that was a really a lovely challenge for me.

Jason Pereira: So two comments there first off I'm, also going to say I feel like there's a connection between your cover and rick rubin's cover I got that.

Okay, good. Cause to me, I'm looking at wait, it's just a circle, but your circle has layers and depth to it. I mean, I feel like, I [00:13:00] feel like we're right on top of it. So well, well done. Played. Secondly yes. As for the writing format, I, one of my favorite quotes ever is Mark Twain's. , I wanted to write you a short letter, but I didn't have time.

So I wrote you a long one. There is something so wonderful and well thought out about succinct language, the less you can say and the less you can write But the more you can say with that less is the powerful tool of a really great writer So and it came out that way I mean like each of your chapters is like what four to six pages roughly And you make your point you drive it home and it's basically and it hits and it resonates I think all those examples very much resonate and are very approachable to most people So let's talk about the things that or the type of topics that you covered within the book So, you wanted to basically actually take a step back from that.

What was their overarching theme? I mean you talked about purpose and money But let's just can you dive a little deeper on that before we get into some specific examples?

Daniel Crosby: I think you nailed it with the meaning and purpose. I think even more than happiness. There's certainly research on happiness in the book [00:14:00] as well.

 But to me happiness is something far more basic than something like meaning or purpose. , I think that happiness, if you think about the animal kingdom animals we know can experience happiness because a lot of happiness is just an absence of worry or an absence of pain. So, you know, a deer or a skunk can experience happiness and so can we.

And happiness is lovely and we were all chasing that, but. Meaning and purpose is deeper than that. It's more enduring and it's more meaningful. , if you look at the research, my, my favorite example of this, and we're both parents. And so we can we can sort of we can speak to this.

If you look at the research on happiness and children Happiness declines drastically in, in marriage when folks have their first child, [00:15:00] and then it continues to decline with every subsequent child. And so you look at this and you go, yikes, wow why does anyone have children? Well, at the same time, we see a dramatic upswing in meaning in life with the birth of a first child and then additional meaning in life with every subsequent child.

So does making a kid have you less happy? Yes, because Poopy diapers are no fun and late nights are no fun. I went to, Jason, I went to a holiday sing along every night last week. It wasn't fun. It was not fun, to do this stuff and yet it was deeply meaningful and I'll miss it when it's over. So in a lot of ways, happiness is just the absence of pain.

And there had been some research done on happiness. I wanted to talk about joy. I wanted to talk about meaning and purpose. And [00:16:00] hopefully I accomplished that in the book.

Jason Pereira: I think you absolutely did. And the kids one is one that, yeah, I can totally understand that paradigm. And it's, I always think back to I never feared death until I had my first child.

And it was just like, Oh boy, I kind of got to stick around for at least another 25 years, don't I? Yeah, I got to be a little bit more careful. So yeah, again, it is the, again, happiness and purposefulness, just interesting, interesting dichotomy there. Okay, so let's talk about some of the, individual takeaways in particular.

Like you gave a lots of examples. I mean, the chapters, how many chapters you got in this thing? It's , 50, 50, that's right. 50 different messages. Are they grouped into, at least in your mind, grouped into different themes around it, or is it all just the main theme and it's individual lessons, how did you structure the 50?

Daniel Crosby: I just wanted there's no sort of structure within the structure. They all sort of revolve broadly around this idea of purpose. I will say though, my, my desire here stemmed from a frustration with [00:17:00] my earlier work, you know, say in an earlier work, if I'm writing about something like Factor investing, or, something very specific within an investment paradigm.

Well, there are things that emerge from new research, new thinking, and, and just new realities and markets. I mean, markets, you sort of never walk through the same river twice with respect to capital markets. There were things that I wrote about in my first works that were specific to investing that weren't evergreen.

And I wanted these 50 I wanted these 50 ideas in here to be evergreen. And so I looked for places where research, philosophy, even faith traditions had all coalesced around an idea that had been around for a very long time. Because I wanted these ideas to be as Lindy as possible, to [00:18:00] use Nassim Taleb's word.

So I wanted them to be as enduring as possible. And so that's the overarching theme. Nothing you're going to read about in the book is faddish or passing. This is all enduring, enduring wisdom about money and meaning.

Jason Pereira: Well, purpose tends to be enduring, right? And i'll say your earlier work. What can I say?

No artist ever finishes their work. It's just abandoned, right? So you never if you're ever 100 satisfied with your work, you're lying to yourself all right, so let's talk about some of the individual takeaways, right? So let's get again i'm going to turn the theme back to business owners over here , and i've got one one message in mind, but i'm going to see if you can hit upon it You know when you think about the average person who starts a business, right?

What are the some of the key takeaways from your book in terms of purpose that you think are Pieces that they struggle with or that are unique to them.

Daniel Crosby: One of the chapters that i'm finding the most resonance with business owners is actually the first chapter I won't give away the story in the first chapter.

It's a good one, but [00:19:00] the One of the takeaways and one of the first Frameworks that I introduce in there is a framework from positive psychology that's basically the secret to life You know, we're giving away the secret to life Jason in the first chapter So this is work that was done by martin seligman and it's called the perma model and that's an , that's an acronym The p in perma is for positive experiences Okay, positive experiences is having fun, eating ice cream, going to a ball game, riding a roller coaster.

You know, this is all fun stuff. The E is for engagement. This is deep, meaningful work. The R is the thing that is most predictive of a contented life. This is relationships. This is nothing better predicts how good your life will be than the quality or the lack of quality of your relationships.

The M is for meaning, which is working for something larger than yourself and your benefit and your money. And the A [00:20:00] is for advancement, which is personal So where does this come in for a small business owner? Well, small business owners represent a lot of the wealthiest people around. I mean, that, that really is how you, you create wealth is by having equity in something.

And so it may not seem like that today to some of your listeners who may be very much in the trenches now, but small business owners who work hard and stick with it tend to be some of the wealthiest people in the world. And a lot of times they over index on that P, the positive experiences. They go, well, when I have money or, you know, when I sell my business or when I have my exit, I'll be able to buy the beach house or buy the.

By the McLaren or, do golf all the time and those things are all lovely. I mean, I wish I had a McLaren. There's a guy at my gym who has one and I get a little jealous of him every morning. And those are nice things and they're worth having and they're worth working for. [00:21:00] But we forget about the other four.

Many of which are nicely met by working within or owning a business, engagement, doing deep, meaningful work, the relationships we have at work, the meaning, being part of a team and working for a larger goal and the natural advancement and progress and growth that is baked into running and growing a business.

I think a lot of times we get so focused on that next goalpost or that, that exit or that, that acquisition that we leave behind a lot of meaning and a lot of joy in our day to day, or we fail to plan for our life post exit when a lot of those things will go away.

Jason Pereira: We do. And it's interesting because you nailed the one that I was going to go to for a couple of reasons.

Like the entire perma model, you're right. If you describe someone who loves the business that they're building, you can literally check every box on the perma model. Like it's boom. It's all there. Right. And then [00:22:00] the interesting piece, and there's one line I'm going to take from your book that I just came across it.

It's true. Wealth is not about finish lines or numbers. It's about using whatever material abundance we can, we have to enrich our business. The other more enduring paths of fulfillment. So this is where I think the struggle comes in, especially around business owners in retirement. It's, they have this, reality and identity wrapped up in their business supported.

And again, the permanent model, all the boxes are being checked. So fulfillment is there. And then they have this realization that it's going to end right. And if they haven't created the same kind of checklist, In their life outside of the business that can be massively, massively detrimental to their psychological health and even just prevent them from crossing that finish line when it comes to work, any kind of input or thoughts and tips about how they can mindfully basically prevent that from happening.

Daniel Crosby: Yeah, absolutely. I think you started to touch on it with the intentionality piece. I have a mentor from my hometown [00:23:00] who sold a business for hundreds of millions of dollars. And this is a person who is as humble a man as you'll ever meet. I mean, he lives in a house and he lives in Alabama. First of all, he lives in a house that costs a couple hundred thousand dollars.

He drives an old truck. He wears blue jeans. I mean, you would never know that this man was wealthy. And so it really was never about the money for him. And after he sold his company, he did something that to me was so sad, but. but so telling of the mindset of many folks who sell their business. He had these cards printed up that had his name on it and then under it, it said former person because his identity was so wrapped up in who he was as a founder and a part of that business that he had lost his sense of self and his sense of importance in the wake of having sold that business.

Now, he had [00:24:00] other good things going on in his life, and that was tongue in cheek, but it also spoke to a real truth, which is, if you're not very intentional about planning what comes next, you are going to be a former person. The good news is, Small business owners have a host of skills that can just be applied in a new direction.

And I think back to the Stephen Covey quote that I'm about to mess up here. And it says, basically you have to have a yes burning inside of you. That's bigger than the no of your fear. And so, first of all, I think we have to know that this tendency exists because most people don't know that it exists.

They only think, wow, I'm going to sell this business. I'm going to have all this money. I'm going to have all this free time. And that in and of itself is going to be enough. And it's just not. So the first thing is you have to know about these five pillars of a good life. You have to know that money and [00:25:00] leisure and fun alone won't be enough to sate your very human needs for more.

And you have to plan intentionally. about where are you going to get these things and I think that perma model in chapter one is actually a really good scorecard to say Okay, sit down with your spouse or your coach or whoever and say okay What are we going to do for fun? Great, you've probably already dreamt about that candidly.

Next though, what am I going to do for work? Lots of small business owners dream about the fun they're going to have post acquisition. Not many dream about what work they're going to do. So that's a necessary piece. Where am I going to get the relational needs met that may have been met by my close ties with people in the office?

How am I going to be part of something bigger than myself? And how am I going to continue to grow and not stagnate? All of those are questions that business owners need to answer if they're going to [00:26:00] thrive in a post exit world.

Jason Pereira: Yeah, I agree. And it's it's interesting. There's so much of that brings up conversations I have all the time.

It's Oh, so you think you're going to play golf and travel all the time? Well, how much do you play golf now? Oh, and how much do you travel now? Really? You clearly have not been in enough airports to learn that this is not as pleasant as you think it is. , so yeah, as a road warrior, you understand that.

 But the, But the other issue that comes up too, I find is, and I think maybe it's a stall tactic, and part of it is the concept of hedonistic adaptation, right? It's that they will often move the goalposts on what is enough, right? Like they'll, I remember I think of one client in particular started off and it was, if I have, I think it was 5 million, he was doing exceedingly well.

He's like, if I have 5 million, I'll be fine. Then it became 6, then it became 7, then it became 8, then it became 10. And it was, every time I meet with them every year, I kind of start joking about you know, that number was like six, like a year ago. Right? And it finally got to the point where I'm like, okay, we need to have a conversation about this.

 And I basically laid out like, [00:27:00] this is what you're going to actually receive every year. Stop recontextualize that to what he was spending goes. Okay. That's a butt ton of money. I'm like, yeah, you go You think you're gonna you're happy the way you're living right now You've been working on all of this stuff Like we talked about how basically you need to have purpose beyond What happens after work because I've been coaching I coach a lot of business owners do that It's like you can't just plan on running a hundred miles an hour and stopping.

That's how you die, right? Like you hit a brick wall. You're gonna you're gonna go Be toast, right? So the reality is that you're currently running a hundred miles an hour, stopping working and thinking you're just going to live this other life is not how it works. So sits back and goes, you know what?

Yeah,

I

Jason Pereira: got everything I have that I want and I can fund it all with what you're talking about. So suddenly the conversation stopped being about that and it started being about when. So not everybody can get there, but it's an interesting challenge, but it's the only one you got to be ready for.

If you have the perm on kind of both sides of the equation, I guess. So any other key takeaways that are resonating with the business owners in your [00:28:00] experience?

Daniel Crosby: That was the big one. That was the one that was top of mind for me, for sure.

Jason Pereira: For sure. So there's a bunch of stuff in here. , let's talk about what else is resonating in general, nevermind business owners.

Is there any particular chapters that people are coming up to you and saying, you know what, this really spoke to me.

Daniel Crosby: So the chapter that is explicitly about meaning it's called your money needs a why is, is really fascinating. And it's one of these things, Jason, I'm going to, I'm going to take you to church for a minute.

I call it in the book, I call these river Jordan problems. And it's after a story in the Bible It's a story of Naaman, who's this rich, powerful, successful man in his community. And he he has one big problem though. He has leprosy, womp womp. So he goes to, goes to the Holy man and, or actually sends his servant to talk to the Holy man and says, Hey, what can my boss do to get rid of his leprosy?

And the holy man sends back and says, Hey, go you know, go bathe in the river, Jordan. And Naaman says, effectively, look, the river [00:29:00] Jordan's gross. You know, the river Jordan's nasty, it's dirty, it's, it's close to home. This doesn't seem like a very effective fix for my problem. And the servant says to him, Hey, look if he had asked you to do something difficult, you would have done it.

Why did you just give it a try? Right. And he does it and he's healed. We have a class of problems in life that I call river Jordan problems, which are problems that we could fix with fairly simple solutions that we often overlook precisely because they are so simple and naming our money and ascribing a meaning to our money is one of these things.

I cite research in that chapter where people who had named their dollars, right? So literally just taking an account and naming it, you know Jason's retire to the Bahamas fund instead of, you know, Jason account one, two, three, X, Y, Z. The simple act of naming those dollars for the purpose they serve made [00:30:00] people dramatically more likely to save.

made people 10 times less likely to liquidate their accounts during a, during a rough market and made them happier in the process. So this process of visualizing our why weaving that why into every part of our lives, including something as simple as our investing or our banking is something that's really powerful.

And it almost feels like science fiction. It's, It's so powerful. , and the, the findings around it are so robust that we go, it can't be that easy, because if there were a pill that financial advisors could give their clients that would make them 10 times less likely to panic they would all be loading up.

And yet meaning does that. And people sort of ignore it because it's this river Jordan problem that just feels too simple.

Jason Pereira: Well, it's the old you know, I would love to be in better shape. Well, that's great. It's called diet exercise and routine of those things, right? [00:31:00] Like we all know what it takes to get there, but it's, it's the, I think also part of it is the habit versus silver bullets, right?

 Hey, I like that. I like to be wealthy. Okay. Here's the routines and habits that basically require you to do it. And I think that the entire, like Goals based accounts or like goals. The concept of goals based investing is a powerful one, right? Cause it's about framing. And you think about like financially the single easiest account to quote unquote, to frame it's our mortgages, right?

We all want to own our homes. And we have this thing where we owe this money on the home, right? And a lot of us are just not, you can see the people actually have the parties or the whatever, they call where they actually burn the mortgages, right? That is, I'm mortgage free filing, boom, I'm debt free.

And that's something that people celebrate. And, but that's something that takes the routine habit and the thing forces us into a routine habit in most cases to basically pay that off. So it's not it's funny. We have examples of this in our world, but I guess you're right. Like it's.

It's simple things are the answer, but simple things in, in coupled with habit more than just the silver bullet. [00:32:00]

Daniel Crosby: So Jason, I'm glad you brought up, I'm glad you brought up diet and exercise because you and I have clearly both been on a journey this year, but it's been really funny for me.

I've lost 60 pounds this year, and it's been really funny for me. For people to come up and see me, and in some cases I started on April 1st. And so in some cases I will have spoken at a conference in February or March, and people will see me and I look very different. And it's funny for me to mark their assumptions.

The assumptions are always far more grand than the truth. You know, there's a lot of assumptions around medical, like Ozempic and shots, which is not true. There's a lot of assumptions about just dramatic things like you must be working out four hours a day. You must be, you must have cut sugar completely out of your diet.

You, you must have done all these things. And I have done two things. I have been under a calorie goal and over a protein goal. 99. 9 percent of the time [00:33:00] since April 1st. And those two things are the whole ball game. And no, no one, when you tell people this, they're incredulous. They cannot believe it's that simple.

And honestly, I couldn't believe it was that simple when I started, because forever, I had told myself. Bad genes, unlucky, whatever. I told myself a hundred things besides doing the two things that we know work. So it is these River Jordan problems are everywhere. Simple things that if we can make them habits have the power to change our lives in big ways.

It's

Jason Pereira: funny. I will say I have taken those impact in this past year, so I will, I did use that, but previously I had another period where I did lose a lot of weight. I remember a number of people would come with me like, okay, what's your secret? I'm like, diet and exercise? And they were just like the look of disappointment on their face.

It's Oh, it's like, what did you think it was going to be? Like, I, I,

Daniel Crosby: I, Jason, why I tell you [00:34:00] when I was a, when I was a therapist, same thing, people would, I had one client who came into me and was feeling anxious. And so I always started my appraisals, my diagnostic process. With an assessment of things like diet and exercise, substance use, these sorts of things, sleep patterns, these sorts of physical realities.

And I had a client who was waking up every morning and drinking three liters of diet Mountain Dew. And then complaining of tachycardia and like racing heart and anxiety.

Jason Pereira: Where could the culprit be? I don't know.

Daniel Crosby: And I said, I said, look, you are, you are drinking enough caffeine to kill an elephant every morning.

And you shouldn't wonder why you feel anxious. And they were furious. They wanted medicine. They wanted me to say some magic words, and it's just one of these things. There is a chapter in the book about about habits too, and willpower, which is, I think another good one. But, [00:35:00] yeah, sometimes it really is those River Jordan things.

Jason Pereira: Let's pick on that. And I'm going to pick on a couple chapter titles and we're going to talk about them. , so one of the titles you have is willpower is overrated. Yeah. Talk to me about the learning from that one.

Daniel Crosby: Yeah. So I think a lot of us think when we think about people who exhibit a great degree of willpower, we think they have Bigger hearts and stronger guts than the rest of us and we sort of lionize them and say wow look at this person They just powered their way through but when you look at the research on willpower, there's really two things Two things that stand out The first is the people who exhibit what we would call extraordinary willpower.

First off, have just made these behaviors habits. Part of my success this year with working out has been I take my daughter to, I take my daughter to an early morning Bible study every morning, and then I go to the gym. That's [00:36:00] it. I volunteered for the unpleasant job of taking to her this to this early morning class because I knew it would get me up.

It would get me dressed. It would get me out of the house and then it would decrease the likelihood that I'm just going to drive back home and fall into bed. versus driving a couple of minutes on to the gym. So making the behavior you want habitual and making it easy is that first hallmark of people with willpower.

The second hallmark of willpower is they don't have more intestinal fortitude. They don't have more grit or strength. They just do a better job of avoiding negative stem stimuli. So someone like us who's trying to get in shape, you don't keep Oreos in the house because they are a gift from God. And I can eat an entire sleeve of Oreos and not blink.

So it's not that I can white knuckle my way past Oreos. It's just that I [00:37:00] don't let Oreos in the house. And so we find that again and again, it's not that these people have more grit or more strength or more willpower than you or I. They're better at avoiding temptation, and they make the good stuff habitual.

Jason Pereira: Was it a sung suicide, something like the effect, it wasn't the effect of sometimes the only path to victory is to avoid defeat?

Yep. All right. So let's pick on at least two more before we wrap up another one that I have here. And I know where this one, I remember this one very well, cause I've encountered this several times.

I'll be happy when is a trap.

Daniel Crosby: Yeah. I think we touched on that a little bit earlier with our talk about hedonic adaptation. But we just tend to move the goalposts and you can gain a lot of wisdom about human nature by looking at the evolutionary realities that got us to where we are today. And from an evolutionary psychology perspective, if you look at.

People are gonna, people are gonna argue about how long humankind [00:38:00] has been around directionally. If you condensed human history down to a one year calendar, the pyramids were the pyramids were formed in late December, around Christmas Day sometime. And 31st of the one year a history of humankind.

That is incredible to think about how recent our abundance is, the ability to make and store enough abundance to last a lifetime. The ability to make and store enough abundance to retire for 30, 40, 50 years is a relatively recent human phenomenon. And so in a very real sense, we are wired for more, more, more.

It's never enough. Go get it. Get out there and work because for most of human history except for the last four or five days [00:39:00] of human history, that has been the reality. So we are not wired to quit. We are not wired for contentment or ease. We are wired to always be struggling and always be clawing for more.

You pair that with hedonic adaptation, which you talked about earlier. A lot of what we refer to as a bias or a cognitive error is really a psychological tendency that is neither good nor bad. Because the psychological tendency at play here is just acclimation. And it is human nature to get acclimated to whatever is going on in your life.

And this works for good and it works for ill. Because people will say things like, well, if if I ever lost my spouse, if my spouse ever died, that would be it for me. I couldn't go on. I couldn't put one foot in front of another. And then their spouse inevitably dies and they're okay.

I mean, they're [00:40:00] sad, they're, their heart is ripped out of their chest for a period, but they're, they can live. They're able to do more than they thought they could. We acclimate to bad stuff, but we also acclimate to good stuff. We can all look back and think, about that time where we go, Oh, if I just had X in the bank, that would be enough.

Jason, when I got my first job out of college. So I, my first big boy job wasn't until I was like 27 years old because I went to so much school, but I came out making about a hundred thousand dollars a year. And this is, you know, whatever you thought that was all the money in the world at that time.

I remember, I specifically remember calling my sister and going, I am rich. I literally did. I do not know how I am ever going to spend this. I have more money than God. This is, I, this is an, [00:41:00] Unimaginable amount of money, and I no longer think that when I no longer think that 100, 000 is an unimaginable amount of money and I could spend it readily.

So we just get acclimated to good stuff and bad stuff in our lives, and we need to recognize that. And I think it's really a call Jason to do two things. The first is to live in the moment to savor the moment for the good that is there. There's a lot of talk about gratitude and thanksgiving in the book to savor the moment and be grateful for the good things that are happening in any given moment of time.

And then secondly, it's to go back to that perma model and to look for more enduring senses of joy relationships. Can sate our hunger for meaning in a way that more, more never can, and to make sure that all five of those spokes of meaning [00:42:00] are working in unison and working in harmony.

Jason Pereira: Something else you talked about there, in the book, and you kind of touched upon there, is the concept of the arrival fallacy.

And it's interesting too, because, up until now I never contemplated this, but you talked about the example, we can talk about what derival falsity is in a second, but the entire thing you just talked about with, you know, if I ever lost my spouse, I wouldn't be able to go on as a human being, And it's, I feel first time I'm realizing this, that actually works in reverse too, right?

It's that, if the arrival fallacy is this thing where we say, Hey, when I get to here, I'll be complete. I'll be done. I will be a different person. I will change. And it doesn't happen. Of course, when we get there, it also works negatively too, is like what you're telling me there, essentially with that example, care to kind add to that and basically talk about how the arrival fallacy plays into what we just discussed.

Daniel Crosby: Yeah, that's, that's just it, right? I mean, that's the good news and bad news of human nature is that we're. We are massively, massively malleable and adaptable. And so we never really arrive. [00:43:00] And so the mission becomes joy in the journey because for better and worse we never arrive. And we, most of us never arrive at a place of total brokenness because of that adaptability and the ability to pivot with hard circumstances.

But we simultaneously never arrive at a state of unmitigated bliss. There's this old Russian saying that I love that says basically, you know, the morning you wake up and feel no pain, you know, you're dead. And that's a very,

Jason Pereira: it's very Russian.

Daniel Crosby: It's very Russian. Yeah, it's very Russian, but it's true, right?

You know, you, true that the moment that when everything's right, one of my favorite quotes from literature is from Vonnegut. It's the, it's the headstone of Billy Pilgrim. And he says, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. And that's sort of what we're always chasing this state of life where everything's beautiful and nothing hurt.

, and it's always just. Slightly out of reach. [00:44:00] And so Yeah.

Jason Pereira: It's just our, I feel like it's just humanity's inability to accept that we are constantly, the only constant is change, right? We're constantly looking for milestones and these things, destinations, but in actuality, destination is just, this thing we pass on the road altogether.

Yep. All right. One last one to pick on. And it was because going back to the origin story of this book, and for those who noticed my reaction when Dan said he thought he was dying, I couldn't believe it. Completely forgot about that part of the book and then remembered it was a tooth. So I was relieved for my friend here.

 Anyway so you're, you had this one down here. Where was it? I lost it. Health is wealth. Talk about how important it is to those two combined.

Daniel Crosby: Yeah. So health as wealth, you know, the tooth story is the one that, that really kicked this off for me. But when I started to look into the data behind that, it was fascinating.

And it goes into even mental health. I cite statistics in that chapter where I talk about people who go to therapy. Men who go to therapy make 12 percent more on average than their [00:45:00] same education peers and women who go to therapy make 8 percent more than their same education peers because because men are more screwed up than women is I think what I, what we derived from this, but yeah, no, that's a very safe bet.

 And. So it's fascinating that people who go to the gym make more than people who don't even when controlling for other variables. And so we just we live in a world of work where a lot of our success at work comes from non technical, non analytical things. We know that EQ is a better predictor of earning power than even IQ in the workplace.

And that the way that you interface with other people and the way that you move through the world, is, is material. So in the most literal sense, examples like mine where I thought I was dying. I WebMD had convinced me that I had a [00:46:00] brain tumor. When you think you're dying, all of this comes into sharp relief and you're, a sick person only cares about one thing.

Whereas someone who's healthy has myriad concerns. There's also back to this other thing, people who have a mentor Make more money than people who don't you know people who go to therapy people who take care of their bodies So in a very literal sense Not only is money no good to you if you're sick, but also making yourself well can help you make more money.

Jason Pereira: And I think anyone who's ever been in good shape, really good shape, knows that, frankly, when you are, it's like stress just rolls off your back in comparison. I don't know what it is, will cause some sort of hormonal thing, God knows your ability to deal with stress. But I just know that when I am in shape and when I'm doing well and I'm working out and taking care of myself, my ability to deal with adversity just seems to be [00:47:00] so much greater.

And my lack of my inability or my ability to just not get anxious about things also fantastic. Anyway, we could go on forever. Dan, as we, Often talk every time we talk, we tend to go on for a while, but I want to wrap things up and thank you so much for coming on the show and helping me relaunch and be my first video guest, a guest.

I appreciate that. And I hope everybody listening takes the time to pick up the book. That is the soul of wealth. 50 reflections on what was it? 50 reflections on meaning and money or money and meaning. Apologies. I closed the cover down, but anyway, nevertheless, Dr. Dan Crosby, always a pleasure.

Thank you.

Daniel Crosby: Jason, my pleasure. Ketchup chips are still trash.

Jason Pereira: I'm going to feed you the, Dan has been in Canada. He knows ketchup chips exist like many Americans. Next time I'm going to get you the farm boy ones, which are spicy ketchup. You might actually be okay with those. There's less sweet, more, more spicy.

I, I am anxious to be proven wrong. Thank you for having me. Future proof in the summer. All right. [00:48:00] As always, if you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, or now on YouTube, wherever you leave your, wherever you get your podcasts. And until next time, take care.


In this episode, Jason talks to Jon Shell about the advent of employee ownership trusts in Canada, a game-changing legislation that addresses previous concerns and paves the way for a more inclusive and equitable business ownership structure. Through a deep dive into the intricacies of this model, listeners are offered a comprehensive understanding of its benefits, implications, and transformative potential for both business owners and employees alike.



Episode Highlights:

  • 00:07: Jason Pereira introduces the podcast, setting the stage for an informative discussion on the significance of employee ownership trusts in Canada, highlighting the potential for revolutionary change in the way businesses are owned and operated.

  • 00:35: Jon Shell returns to provide an update on definitive legislation surrounding employee ownership trusts, expressing optimism about the resolved issues and the positive implications for the business landscape in Canada.

  • 00:51: Jon shares his enthusiasm for being back on the podcast, reinforcing the collaborative nature of the conversation and evidencing the ongoing dialogue within the financial community on employee ownership.

  • 00:57: Jon Shell discusses the context of the budget that introduced employee ownership trusts, identifying it as a standout positive in a predominantly negative financial announcement. His perspective sets the stage for an exploration of how this model can change the future of business ownership in Canada.

  • 01:12: Jon provides a background on his role at Social Capital Partners, highlighting the organization's mission to democratize asset ownership and its focused efforts on advancing employee ownership as a vehicle for social and economic equity.

  • 01:49: The concept of employee ownership trusts is unpacked, detailing the structure's ability to enable a seamless transition of business ownership to employees, fostering a more inclusive and stable business ecosystem that benefits employees and communities alike.

  • 03:13: The episode delves into the benefits of adopting an employee ownership trust model from a business owner's perspective, discussing how it encompasses more than just a succession plan but also secures the legacy and cultural continuity of the enterprise.

  • 03:35: Jon discusses the range of exit options available to business owners and highlights the employee ownership trust as a compelling alternative that aligns with their values, specifically concerning community impact and employee welfare.

  • 04:15: The financial mechanics of transitioning to employee ownership, including the process of the owner selling shares to the trust, are explicated. This portion demystifies the financial transition, emphasizing how business owners are compensated over time.

  • 05:46: Tax incentives associated with employee ownership trusts are explored, providing clarity on the fiscal advantages for selling business owners, including significant capital gains tax exemptions.

  • 06:11: The conversation shifts to the legislative nuances of employee ownership trusts and the substantial economic and societal benefits these structures offer, fostering job creation, economic resilience, and employee welfare.

  • 08:18: Details on the specific rights and benefits that employees gain through participating in an employee ownership trust are outlined, offering insights into how this model promotes financial inclusion and workplace democracy.

  • 12:12: The episode concludes with a forward-looking discussion on the potential expansion and long-term impact of employee ownership trusts in Canada, indicating a bright future for this innovative business model.




Resources Mentioned:

FPCBOJason PereiraFinancial Planning