What Are You Building Towards with John Moore

In this episode of The Financial Wellbeing Podcast, Chris Budd is joined by his friend John Moore for a moving conversation about success, trauma, purpose and what really brings wellbeing. John shares how building and selling a successful business, followed by a terrible accident, changed the direction of his life. They explore impatience, listening to your inner voice and why happiness comes from relationships, purpose and connection, not accumulation.

Welcomes & Introductions

Chris Budd – Founder of Ovation Finance, the Institute for Financial Wellbeing and author of the original Financial Wellbeing Books, you can view all three here Fancy a chat with Tom Morris, Chartered and award winning Financial Planner at Ovation? Contact details here

What’s on Today’s Podcast?

In this episode of the Financial Wellbeing Podcast, Chris Budd is joined by his friend John Moore for a conversation about success, trauma, purpose and what it really means to live well. John was a successful businessman who had built and sold a company, cleared mortgages and created freedom and choice in his life. Then one decision changed everything. But this is not just a story about what happened to John. It is a story about what he learned afterwards.

Tight Ass Tommo

Light-hearted money saving tips, guaranteed to make you smile and think twice about your spending habits. David shares a cautionary tale about dogs, vets and why pet insurance can be a very good idea. Producer Tommo also brings us a listener-submitted Tight-Ass Tommo tip from financial planner Darren Cook, involving teenage children, Saturday jobs and handy staff discounts.

Interview with John Moore

• John’s early career, business success and selling his first company
• Why he planned to divide his time between business, community and charity
• The accident that left him in hospital for nearly five weeks
• Learning to forgive yourself after a serious mistake
• Why impatience can be both a strength and a weakness
• Listening to your inner voice and the warning bells we sometimes ignore
• The search for purpose after a major life event
• What John learned from working in care
• Building a business around joy, values and human connection
• Why happiness does not come from accumulation
• How relationships, purpose and connection support financial wellbeing

Conclusions from the Guys

Life is short, fragile and precious. Money matters, of course. A good financial plan can create choice, security and confidence. But the point of that plan is not just to have enough. It is to use what you have to build a life that means something. Ask yourself What are you building towards? And is it still the life you actually want?

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Episode Transcribe:

Basic Transcript from Dropbox –  Hello, everybody, and welcome to another one in our long-running series of financial well-being  podcasts. My name is David Lloyd. I’m an actor. I’m a broadcaster. I’m a writer.  I’m now semi-retired, but I’ve been hosting this podcast for about 10 years now alongside of Chris  Budd. Tell us about yourself, Chris. David, I am a music lover, a cricket lover.  I love… A superb lover. Good…  He’s trying to keep the vomit down now. I’m a fighter, not a lover. And a writer of the Financial  Wellbeing book and somebody who just tries to enjoy life. Excellent. And you’re very good at that  too. Tom Morris is also with us. Tom, who are you? As somebody who’s incredibly frustrated with his  technology right now, these two are putting on a brave face as I keep crashing out of every  recording we’ve tried so far. That’s because we’re pros, mate. You are pros. So as Chris alluded  to, I don’t know if we’re on video, but I’m going through my Yellowstone era at the moment,  which is basically I’ve got this corded. brown shacket thing on, which is incredibly comfortable  and lovely. But Chris said, I look like a cowboy. And I think I’m going to take it as a compliment.  It was a great series. I think you’re very smart, Tom, if I may say so. Thank you, David. I’ve  always admired your positive attitude, Tom, because it wasn’t meant as a compliment.  But yeah, in all seriousness, MD and Chartered Financial Planner over at Ovation Finance.  are a Bristol-based financial planning firm who are supporting this podcast and will continue to  do so and have done for the last decade. So there you go. I’ve got to shoehorn that in because I  think it’s only fair to the team who put a lot of effort in behind the scenes to make this happen.  Absolutely, yes. And that is a… Point well made, actually, in that we are the figureheads, if you  like, of the podcast, but we have a producer, Tammy, always lurking in the background, and then a  lot of people back in the ovation office that work very hard to give you guys, particularly, all  the information that you need. I’m just the person that asks the questions. Right, Chris, what are  we doing in today’s podcast?  Today, David, is quite a big podcast for me because it’s an interview with a friend of mine and, in  fact, of yours, John Moore. John Moore, as he will tell you, was a very successful businessman who  had a really bad event in his life. And it’s an interview that I’ve been wanting to do for a long  time. And I think our listeners are going to get a lot from it because of the lessons that John  learned from what he’d been through in his life. I have to confess,  yeah, I might struggle with it at times. John gets quite emotional in this interview at one point,  and I am as well, except I’m quietly behind the scenes getting emotional and you can’t hear it, but  it’s amazing. I’m looking forward to you hearing it. Well, I’m looking forward to it too, but just  touching on that, I think, you know… Emotions are always better when they are shared than when  they are suppressed. That’s my view. I’m a big crier. My kids don’t want to tell people I cried at  the end of Elf.  I’m happy with crying. I’m like you, Chris. I am very lachrymose. I will weep away at anything,  you know. But as a Bristol City fan, I’ve got used to it. All the teams that we support with  sporting we’re used to having some sad times, let’s be honest. Anyway, before we move on to that  interview, we need to talk about… mean, being tight, being,  most specifically, Tight Ass Tommo. Now, it’s been holden to me every so often to just remind  people where the legend that tight-ass Tomo was born. So several years ago, not long after he  joined Ovation, he was going out to lunch with Chris, who then was very much his boss,  and with another colleague as well, and he said, guys, don’t worry. This one’s on me. So they went,  oh, very good. Young Tom, he’s keen to please, eager to please. That’s very, very good. So he took  them to a lunch place, nothing too fancy, but not very nice, steered them deftly towards a  particular chicken item on the menu, which they thoroughly enjoyed, and at the end said, guys,  right, I’m settling this. Don’t you worry. However… transpired that the reason he’d steered them  deftly towards this particular chicken comestible was he had a voucher, a voucher that enabled him  to get the meal for free. And thus was the legend Tight Ass Tommo It was a very clever piece of manoeuvring, but it’s made him now… the master of meanness that  he’s become, and we look upon him very much to give us those tips to share with us so that we can  get through life, particularly during these troubled high cost of living times without spending too  much money. This one’s from Darren Cook. Hi, Darren. And he is a financial planner based up in Derbyshire.  And he has a wonderfully dry approach to things at times.  And he said, Tomo, I’m going to do his terrible accent. So apologies, Darren. Tomo,  I’ve got a tip for you. I’m going to stop there, actually, because I think my… Derbyshire  actually needs work. It was all right, was it? And he said, his children are sort of late teens.  He said, get your children to work in shops that you buy clothes from and in places that you like  to eat. And the idea is that he gets some fantastic staff discounts from where his teenage children  work. And I thought, you know what? Kids get to earn a little bit of money  you know, working for your money and being able to have some free money to then go and spend on the  things that they want to spend on. And the family gets some discounts along the way too. So I  actually thought that was… And you get 20% off your Nando’s. Yeah, exactly, right? Winning. So  that is in Toby and Bella’s future. There you go. Love it. Excellent. Brilliant. And also, can I  just very briefly chip in? Darren and I used to follow each other on Twitter. I’m no longer on that  platform, but I always used to enjoy the interactions that we had. So hi, Darren. He’s going to be  so excited. There you go, mate. Enjoy the rest of your day. It’s all about you, Darren. It’s all  about you. Right. OK, let’s move on then to something I think perhaps a little bit more serious.  Chris, tell us about your interview with John Moore. I won’t say too much because John is very good  at speaking for himself. He’s a very smart guy who did something very,  very stupid and learned some important life lessons, which I think our listeners could benefit from  hearing. So let’s just get straight into hearing my chat with John Moore.  Morning, John. How are you? Morning, Chris. Nice to see you. I often like to start these podcast  interviews by asking people where they are, but I know where you are, about 800 metres away from 

1. I’mactually in my phone’s bedroom because we’ve got less distraction. Very good. 

John, thanks for doing this, mate. I appreciate it. Our listeners know that you and I are good  friends because I’ve introduced you that way, but you have a story that you and I have discussed  over… a beer once in a while that I thought our listeners would enjoy hearing. So why don’t you  kick us off by telling us about your Swiss business school,  schooling and education and your early part of your career. Just give us an introduction to who  John Moore is. OK, well, yeah, happy to do so. A bit earlier than that, I grew up in Devon on the  edge of Dietmore. And my dad was a local GP. He grew up in the East End of London.  So I think… my childhood, I witnessed someone serving the community and being kind to people who  needed help. But I was fascinated by engineering and science and technology. So I ended up going to  university to study engineering and then worked in international business for a while and moved to  Switzerland to do an MBA there with lots of very ambitious, serious people, all eager to be heroes.  I came out of business school in 94 and moved back to Britain and lived in Bristol and worked in  Swindon. Did six years of that. Loved it in terms of it was fulfilling my ambitious needs,  but I got really disillusioned by corporate life. Basically, a lot of energy was spent on internal  politics rather than delighting customers and developing products. But it’s fair to say you were a  fairly successful businessman, weren’t you? Yeah, yeah. I ended up running a European, Northern  European sales team. big responsibility, operating towards top organizations.  But I had a very strong internal drive to be an entrepreneur and wanted to run my own boat,  basically. And so I left that organization in 99 and joined a customer who was about 20 years older  than me. I was 35. He was 55 plus. And with the agreement that he would then…  go off to his place in Portugal, and I would grow and sell the business. And we were providing high  -performance components for aircraft, trains, boats, et cetera. Really fascinating technology.  We had two businesses. One was a reseller of the firm I used to work for, and the other one was a  manufacturing plant. And I was there seven years, and over that, we more than doubled the turnover.  Became very strong due to our manufacturing expertise and responsiveness. And we ended up selling.  just in 2007. And you built up your position in a process called sweat equity?  Yeah, I had sweat equity. So basically I ended up with 27%, 28% of the value of the business  without having to put cash in because I didn’t have any. And then we sold to a PLC and I did a  year’s handover. And that sale really enabled me to… focus.  So I’ve always wanted to do something more philanthropic because I found that my brain was being  really satisfied by technology and polymers and complexity of business. But there was something  here that just wasn’t being fair. And I was all the business. The plan was to have a year off with  my son. He was four. The two older sisters were a little bit older. And did a year’s handover.  I was walking on water. I got a shed load of money. cleared mortgages on the domestic home and  various student properties that we had. So I had a lot of freedom and choice in life. And then…  And then… Before we come on to the end then, so we’re painting a picture here of successful  entrepreneur, businessman John, who’s done well. When you sold, I just want to share one thing that  you said to me, because I quote this still. We were talking at that time…  just before the end then, about your plans. And you said that you were going to spend,  of your five working days a week, three days in business, one day community and one day charity.  I always thought that was a really smart way of looking at your allocation of time. I don’t think  it quite planned out that way for reasons we’ll just try to go into, but I thought that was a…  But I thought that was a thoughtful, typical you, a thoughtful way of looking at things.  So tell us about the and then. Well, I’ve always been a planner. I’ve always quite thinking boxes  and chunks. So that might explain that 3-1-1 idea.  Well, the and then was I managed to put myself in hospital for nearly five weeks with 24%.  second degree burns. So in a nutshell, due to my own impatience and not listening to my heart and  my head when I was making a decision, I ignored my heart, landed my head, and struck a match in a  confined space, having thought that about a litre or so of petrol had evaporated.  And it had, but it made a perfect cloud, air mix ratio.  within the confined space that i’m standing so there was a great explosion it was at home just as  the kids had been going to bed uh i rushed to the back of the house and threw myself under the  attack and my neighbors and anna couldn’t find me for a quarter of an hour so blue light um all the  rest of it and stabilized on site and then taken to friendship hospital where i stayed for nearly  five weeks I can remember we lived a bit closer to you then. And I can still remember hearing the  noise, which we didn’t really think much about, particularly because, you know, 400 yards away from  your house then. Yeah. So that unimaginably tough,  John. Yeah, it was very, very tough. I learned a lot about pain management and our relationship  with pain. It took me a long time to forgive myself. because my impatience almost left my kids  without a father. And the level of pain that basically,  first degree burns, you take the layer of skin off. Secondary burns, you take a layer of skin off  and a layer of nerves, the end of the nerves. And so firstly, there’s the cleaning process where  you get literally scrubbed with a bit like a scouring pad. And then you’re walking around in  bandages and you’re wrapped. you’re on loads of drugs, loads and loads of drugs to try and suppress  the pain, keep infection out, etc. And then there’s a journey where you get skin grafts and you’re  trying to cope with this immersive pain all the time. In the early days,  and I don’t know how hallucinogenic this was or whether it was reality, I saw a big door and I  turned away from it saying, no, I’m going back to my kids.  So that was tough. That was hard. The other patients were great.  You know, really inspiring, encouraging people.  Many of us, the nursing staff, were just incredible. Just, you know, fighting,  wallowing in anger, regret, pain,  confusion. Just… emotional chaos. Can I ask?  Yeah, go ahead. Justin, you used an interesting phrase. You said, took me a time to forgive myself.  Have you? Yeah. How did you do that? Call myself a twat.  Realised that, you know, decisions are dangerous and we all can make decisions with hindsight.  We’re daft. And just… we just have to accept we are often stupid be it domestically in business  or you know otherwise towards ourselves we often make decisions some of which are prompted in my  case that case due to impatience actually it was also because i was being too tight-fisted there  was basically a yard full of foliage and trees and stuff that we wanted to get rid of and um  I was too tight-listed to pay someone to crane it out. And so we cut it all down, let it dry.  I thought, okay, I’ll burn it out. Let’s do this all the time on this about more, no problem. And  it was in mid-September and rain was forecast. So I better burn it out today then.  And I get in there and it’s not lighting. So I’m like, no, Rose, I’ll get some diesel. Do that all  the time. Diesel, no problem. Black can for diesel, red can for petrol. Ran, got the black can.  Run back in. Hang on. That’s not petrol. That’s not diesel. That’s petrol. Black can for diesel,  red can for petrol. Petrol was in the diesel can. Oh, it’ll be all right. It’ll evaporate off. I’ll  come back in 20 minutes.  And literally, you have to climb over a wall to get into it. And my guts were saying,  stop. Something’s wrong. And my brain was going, come on, come on, come on. It’s going to rain  tomorrow. So that being too tight-fisted, in your book,  you say, tips for saving money. Pay the farmer to crane a house.  Yeah. Two years of income.  Anyway, how do I forgive myself? Just accepting we’re fallible and we’re stupid at times, and  that’s normal. So for somebody that’s been so successful,  that can’t have been particularly easy. No. Angry with my impatience as well.  I’m an impatient person. I see improvements that need to be done. Let’s get on and do it. Let’s not  back. Let’s just crack on and do it. We know it’s going to be better. Let’s do it. And so that  driving force that has helped to business,  it’s helped running for half marathons or whatever it is, or building, restoring houses, that  drive, that impatience is very powerful. And it’s an asset.  And it’s a characteristic that’s beneficial and can be harnessed. But often our strengths are also  our biggest weaknesses when we particularly don’t listen to the alarm bell.  Hang on a moment.  So it was very hard, Chris. And I think it came in various phases. Early on in the hospital,  it was a recognition I needed to forgive myself and sort of wrestling with it and fighting with it.  And I came to one level of forgiveness during the four weeks, five weeks that I was there.  And then over the next two years, probably, I absorbed it.  It morphed into me. And massive regret. I could have a year of fun with my little boy.  And I was not a pretty sight to be seen. And I’m a very tactile person.  So it went from me being able to cuddle this little beautiful little boy who the next time he saw  me was terrified and ran away. And I had really big beetroot red hands for several months.  And he couldn’t come near it. It was frightening. And my eldest,  you know, she very bravely came to see me in hospital and fainted. Got close to me the first time  for something. She killed over. And that was really hard, you know. So I put my family through an  awful lot of pain due to my impatience. Okay.  Let’s ask one question, and I’d like to scoot on a few years. The one question that keeps coming  back to my mind is, if it was your decision-making error because of you say it was impatience,  have you changed your decision-making process as a result? I listen to my inner voice much more.  I check and balance it, and also in relationships. And there’s a question later on that you ask  about well-being. And my answer to that question will be, and I get it now,  Go to places that nourish you and be with people that nourish you. And that’s all the internal  voice. And there’s a quietness, there’s a power within that gentleness of what happens inside us.  And it’s foolish to ignore it. Yeah. John pre the event have said that?  Probably not. John pre the event was probably more, infallible would be an exaggeration,  but more super confident and in control. And drive is good.  Haste is good. What can possibly go wrong? We can cross each bridge whenever it comes.  We’ll just sort it out when we get there. Infallible is a perfect summation of that, isn’t it?  Yeah. We’re infallible until we’re proven to be fallible, aren’t we? Yeah, yeah. I have to share  with you about the importance of self-management, not with regard to you personally, but all of us  grow up ambitious. But one person said to me once that graveyards are full of indispensable people,  and I would suggest that graveyards are also full of infallible people. So our own hubris is to be  looked for. and understood. Yeah. And counted.  You were taught that lesson in the harshest of possible terms, weren’t you? Yeah. But let’s, I want  to move on a few years because… To summarise on it, I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but  I’m glad I went through it. Yeah. Thank you, John. I want to scoot through a few years. And if  you’ll forgive me, I’d like to summarise a few years after in professional terms.  I watched you searching for new purpose and new meaning in life. And I watched you make a few,  what I consider, I told you at the time, so this is nothing new, what I felt were errors where you  went back to being the entrepreneur and the successful businessman, et cetera. And it didn’t really  work out. And then you found something else. Tell me about that moment. Well,  I searched for meaningful work again. And I was also looking for that sense of who I was.  So there’s a naivety that’s lost. There’s a position. in life that once you’ve been through such a  major event, you actually will never be in those shoes again. The wisdom,  if it sounds an arrogant thing to say, but the perspective that one gets by going through such  trauma means you can’t ever be back in that position again. I’ve been in various jobs and roles,  and they just didn’t mean anything. The heart does not get turned on. It was just,  what’s the point? What is the point of doing this? And I was basically searching for using my  entrepreneurial technical skills in a meaningful role. And I ended up being asked to run a software  business that was checking quality of care delivered by the state to the elderly through  subcontractors. And I thought, great, this exactly fits. And I’ll come into it in a minute why it  really fitted. And I started running this business and then saw how Britain treats its elderly.  It makes me tickle still now because we call individuals,  the NHS may call them patients, but the health and social care sector run by the state call them  service users. They receive time allocation depending on their physical need.  It is literally a time and motion study done by the state to say, ah, Mr. Smith. He needs to help  get up and get him breakfast. That’s 30 minutes. And there I was, 50ish,  knowing that typically I take 45 minutes to get my act together in the mornings. And that’s just  without the need for interaction and being made feel loved and supported by society.  And so strangers are going into people’s homes they’ve never been in before to meet someone they’ll  never meet again. They’re not interested in their emotional well-being. They’re literally doing  teas, toast, toilets, and ta-ta. And I still am so angry about this now.  That’s the way we treat the people that built our society. That’s the way we treat people that have  contributed over their whole life. They were wonderful people. You know,  maybe we have teachers or skilled craftspeople, loving mothers.  And we, as a society, we’re not respecting them enough to give them the love and support that we  should be showing to them. And the reason I got there, when I was shuffling around in Backwell  after my accident, I’d come home after four or five weeks and I had pressure garments on to make  the scars go flat at the same time as my nerves were trying to grow again. So I was on nerve  overload and drugs overload trying to suppress the pain and the itching and everything else. And  the pressure garments made me sweat and stink. So I walked to the shops. I could make it out of  bed. I was lucky by 11 and pull on some stuff, get the shots. Couldn’t get my money out of my  purse, so I couldn’t use my hands. I had to learn to use my hands again. My face was highly  disfigured.  So I aged whatever I was, 40-something, 45.  I experienced frailty, and I had insight into what it’s like to be 90, et cetera.  And so some shopkeepers were kind. Some people were impatient. Some people…  not want to look at me. And I would connect regularly with the same few elderly people who were  also shuffling to the shops. And I can see they were lonely too. Can you just share the story of  looking out your window? Yeah. So what drove me to get better was the future I could look forward  to with my kids being kids. I had a responsibility to them, but also… You know,  I had joy to look forward to. I had fun to have with them. So I had a reason to damn well get  better. And one day I was looking out my window and there was this lady stooped over her sink.  In the old people’s home next to your house. Yeah. And I saw her struggling.  And I thought, what the hell is giving her energy to look forward to the future?  What’s bringing her joy in life? Where does she get her energy to fight from? That was such a  massive shout through my head and through my heart. That stuck with me.  When I was offered the job to run the software business, I thought, well, this lines up. Let’s see  what’s going on. Long story short, I joined the software business and then really saw how the  majority of people are treated by squeeze care companies because suddenly the government doesn’t  give enough money to local authorities to remunerate care companies properly. So carers who want to  care can care. Instead, they’re treated like a factory production line and just rushed around a  community and they go home feeling exhausted, which is why there’s 70% churn of staff annually in  care sector. And we call ourselves a civilized nation. Shocking, utterly shocking. So I joined this  care business.  And we did well, I restructured it, rejuvenated the staff, all the rest of it, got bought by  another firm. But I got to my 50th, and that was just a big midlife crisis.  But I think the fact it was the start of a new decade, and this stuff was shouting loudly inside  me, you know, this is not good enough.  Let’s not call that a midlife crisis, John. That is a natural sequence of events. Well,  it’s a multiple crisis. From your accident, seeking purpose and a life milestone making you go,  I need to action this purpose thing. Yeah. Well, I felt very, very strongly that I’ve got my next  decade ahead of me. It’s probably one of the most important decades of my life. I’ve got all that  experience, got a lot of wisdom, got a lot of energy still, got health. et cetera. How am I going  to use this precious decade with all this stuff I can contribute to society with? So I resigned to  death my 50th, and the goal was to start up for a care company called Royal Care. And the premise  was treat every customer like a king and queen, as if they were my own parents and loved a bit.  And I was doing business plans and whatever, and then I realized I was just angry and knew nothing  about it. I knew nothing about care. I knew about how to measure care, but I knew nothing about how  to set up a care service. And what was interesting is when I was running the software, we went to  lots of care shows and met lots of other companies. And one franchise firm stood out due to the  values that just flowed off the people that you talk to over there. And that was a national  organization called Home Instead. And I couldn’t believe it. North Bristol didn’t have an office.  So I had very conversations with them and decided to start the office there,  which meant persuading my lovely Anna, that we’d blow half our savings and not have any income from  this venture for over two years. But don’t worry, I think I’ll be fine.  But for me, it was the path I was on. And I knew I had to set up this care service to show that  care could be delivered with meaning, with happy staff, and we were bringing joy to clients,  irrespective of what life had thrown at them. So they might be… very old and frail.  They might be younger and have some pretty frightening diagnoses. And beyond the tease,  let’s go and have fun. Let’s get you back to looking at the ducks or going to the cinema or going  shopping. Let’s embrace life and live rather than being defined by this diagnosis or whatever.  You built that up 10 years? We started in 2015 and one day I was sitting on a cliff in Devon.  trying to sort of get a rallying call. And suddenly this wretched sentence went through my head,  which was, we’re going to touch 500 lives in five years. And I still sort of hard now when I say  it, because I said it. It’s like, shoot, I shouldn’t have said that.  Oh, man, how can you mean I was stupid? So that was the rallying call. How many did you?  Well, I ran the service for eight years, and we touched 863 lives. Amazing. But that was,  say, 863 families. You can probably triple that or quadruple it. And about 400 people joined us as  caregivers, and we trained them. And, you know, often people returning to work and often stay with  a care firm for a short time because they then move on to other things. We had very low,  Jan. We were well below 45%. And that’s because we were a values-driven organisation.  The goal was not to make money. The goal was to bring joy to people. As you know, my wife Susie is  a cancer nurse and husband all her life, so I understand about care. It seems a pretty easy thing  to say, or an easy connection to make, that the reason you have low churn is because… who go to  give care do so because they care, right? Indeed. Because they have purpose. They have purpose. And  you gave them purpose. And you connected their purpose with the purpose of your organization. And  so it’s frustrating about the other many. There are brilliant care companies,  and there are a lot of not so brilliant. So our premise was we’re going to bring joy to people.  We’re going to touch 500 lives in five years. And we’re going to do that by decanting joy to them,  by bringing joy to each other. and to our care staff and supporting them and loving them so they  can deliver love to the clients. It’s so simple. It is. And do you know what,  Joel? Do you know what, Joel? What I love about that story, that part of your story,  is that you then sold the franchise for a significant profit over what you paid for it by focusing  on giving of love and joy. Absolutely. I mean, I picture myself as what happened.  On the one hand, I sort of think it’s miraculous. But what was uniting of us,  we had that rallying call, we’re going to bring joy to people, no matter what life’s thrown at  them. The initial people I hired in autumn 2015,  people who also shed a tear at interview, because they were moved by what I was articulating.  This is why we are here. And I do note that those that shed a tear ended up as supervisors,  because they were protecting and maintaining the values and the purpose of the organization. Off we  went. It was a really slow start. We were companionship-focused care. We would match families to  caregivers based on interest and background. We didn’t say to the staff,  you must work this shift pattern. You’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that. We say, hey, you’re  moved. You’re touched by the same values. You’re great. When are you available? Come and join the  mad party. When are you available? Right, we’ll find work for you to suit those hours because  you’re juggling kids and dogs and grandparents and businesses and all that. chaos. Lovely.  But as long as you’re consistent, as long as you’re reliable, and we can promise the families,  you’ll be there. Hang on time, same day, each week, same hour each day, whatever. Drumbeat of  reliability will bring joy to people. Incredible. And we had a ratcheted plan,  right, I need to add this many caregivers per month, this many clients per month,  and then we’re going to grow this month.  In my competitive little self, I’d asked the national organization to, well, what did the first  five years look like typically for new offices? I want the average and I want the top 10%.  So I aim for the top 10%. And we tracked that line.  And then the pandemic came, and that was terrifying.  Let’s not go into that. Well, Tammy, we’ll edit that a little bit because we’ve got to keep on to  time. John, to kind of just bring this to a conclusion, a couple of things.  Can you give me, who’s your favourite person that you helped? You’ve told me of quite a few stories  of the old people that you looked after over the years. Just give me one that you enjoyed the most.  Well, I mean, we served 800 families, so I’ve made many very special connections.  brought joy to families rather than individuals. And the people that were really with me,  who we ended up caring with, actually were fervent supporters in the community. Because when we’d  articulated what we wanted to do, and as a consequence, in parallel, we set up film clubs for the  elderly, both in Bristol North, in two locations in Bristol North. And they were real supporters  and plauders. And we ended up caring for them later when they became frail in life. So I basically  had two Sarovic grandmothers who I miss desperately now. Really inspiring people who,  in their older years, stayed busy, served the community, and brought energy and joy to others by  meeting people in their simple needs and reinforcing to people that they were valued,  they’re respected, and they’re welcome.  One of those ladies I set the film club up with, the other one, I talked to her about it.  She said, just do it. Don’t set up a committee. Just crack on with it.  I love it. Let’s go. And she’s got dementia now,  but I do visit her in a care home, and it’s lovely to see her, but I miss who she was. So those are  people who are really to mind. There’s some client family situations that still bring a tear.  there was one gentleman who was 80s so in my perspective now he’s young okay he’s early 80s he was  living life to the full he had his british racing green morgan kit car or something he had  photographs of him that you know castle or wherever handsome man externally and internally he got a  diagnosis within a month he could no longer put his trousers on we cared for him for the next two  months and at the end of that he passed away And his graciousness and kindness. And he was an  exemplar in such a dreadful journey. He really moves me still. Yeah,  it’s lovely. But I didn’t provide care for him personally. There was another gentleman who had been  an accountant at Airbus, and I would help him in the shower. Whilst also running 120 care staff and  20 office staff, I still made sure I connected with the real reason why we were there face-to  -face. Amazing, John. Amazing. And he was just wonderful. Yeah. So give us a passing final thought  about, you’ve touched on one earlier on, but you’ve had some big life events.  I mean, that doesn’t even do justice to it, but you’ve had some big life events.  What have you learned out of all of this about what brings well-being to your life? Well,  when I wrote down, and it’s clear, I often look up to this. Joy is brought by relationships.  for me, Mother Nature. So both of those feed the soul,  feed the inner thing. It’s being in the woods and just looking at chaos,  the marvellous interactive chaos. It’s sitting by the pond and counting the nudes.  It’s interacting with people who are also in tune with their inner purpose.  I just wrote down today, sadness, Sadness, loneliness, depression, and regret affects all people,  rich or poor. So people who are rich aren’t any happier than people who are poor. They may have one  or two ways to get there, but some of the happiest people I’ve met are the most modest and have  nothing. I have people working with us who literally didn’t know how they’re going to feed their  kids that week. So happiness does not come from accumulation.  Happiness comes through relationships. And I think tuning in with where we’ve come from. So the  truth for me, the truth is in the woods, it’s in the rivers, it’s in the mountains. That’s where my  well-being star is. Don’t chase the dollar, chase the heart.  Is there anything that comes to mind? Yeah. And also the thing, the big lesson, your life is so  short. And life is paper thin. So in the months after my accident,  I had this vision of a piece of wet Rizla paper that we’re standing on.  Okay? And you can be running for the bus and somebody’s looking at their mobile phone and goes on  the pavement and takes you out. You can get a diagnosis. Shit happens. And so we need to recognize  that we haven’t got forever. Today is precious. In all our relationships,  today is precious. Thank you, John. And that is… the most important lesson to learn,  isn’t it? Yeah, that’s amazing, John. Listen, mate, I really appreciate you taking your time. I  know that’s not always easy for you. I’ll be around in about five minutes to give you a big hug,  OK?  Thank you, John. Lots of love, Chris. Don’t know what to say,  really. I know John, well, he lived just up the road from me, actually, and I’d not heard that  story as starkly told as that before. However…  I’m a firm belief that we all make mistakes in life. We all do things that we might regret and wish  we hadn’t done. And it seems to me the thing that emerged from that is that John is clearly aware  of that. And out of something personally very challenging and very difficult, some real,  real positives have emerged. Well, I think the line was, I wouldn’t want it to have happened,  but I’m glad it did, or something along those lines. I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but  I’m glad it happened or something like that.  I’ve got the pleasure of knowing John professionally because he was the first independent trustee  of the Ovation Employee Ownership Trust and was a great support when we were going through the  transition into employee ownership. So I know the businessman side and he’s a very, very smart man.  And you can see why he’s been so successful in that space. But I hadn’t heard this story before.  What really jumped out at me is the journey he’s gone through regards to quite the embarrassment of  it, I think are the words he used. But then also the forgiveness, he’s trying to forgive himself  through it. But obviously he’s back, he’s out the other side and he has taken a lot from it.  And I thought to myself, what am I taking here where I think, yeah, this is absolutely the message  that we’re trying to share in this podcast from everything that we know.  through John’s lived experience and also what the research is telling us. And he had this wonderful  phrase kind of summarizing up. He said, happiness doesn’t come from accumulation or accumulation of  wealth. It comes from relationships, purpose and connection. And I thought he absolutely nailed it.  And yeah, it was an incredible interview. And knowing John, I found it quite a tricky lesson at  times. And I’m really, really grateful. how candid he was because i think many listeners will take  a lot away from his experience there’s a saying it’s a it’s a truism but like a lot of truisms it’s  very true which is you know what what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger but you need to be brave  enough and self-reflective enough to understand that, really. Some people are overwhelmed by a  potential tragedy like what happened to John. And if I can just relate this briefly to my own  personal experiences. You’ve known I’ve talked about on the podcast before. My first wife, Dinah,  had MS, and ultimately she died 13 years ago now. And the last few years of her life were really,  really tough for me, really tough, and there’s no sugarcoating it. However… I was able,  for whatever reason I do not know, to reflect on those tough times and learn from it and try and  make myself into, I won’t say a better person, but a more complete person and a fuller person as a  result of the experiences that I’d had then. I’m not trying to equate that with what Joel went  through, but I think there is a kind of a similarity. And I think the fact that he’s able to talk  so honestly, And clearly about it, I think is great.  And a really, really good interview, Chris. Really well done. There’s a couple of things that he  said that I just want to draw out, if I may. He was a very driven person. That was a phrase that he  used. And a lot of the people listening to this will still be in the middle of their careers.  They’ll be ambitious. They work hard. They will be driven people. And the tips that he gave.  And what he realized afterwards was his impatience, not listening to his internal alarm bells,  that are things that make people successful, that are actually the things that sometimes you need  to be a little bit ignoring other people that they say, et cetera. The skill,  I guess, of life is knowing when to pay attention to them. and turn the alarm bells. And having the  humility and the humbleness to say, maybe I might be wrong here. And John paid an enormous price  for that. But as you say, David, he gained benefit from it. And the other phrase that he uses now,  he listens to his inner voice a lot more. So that’s a tip to take away to people.  Listen to your inner voice. If there’s just something not right about something, stop. and listen  yeah and i think as men we’re very good at not listening to that voice we’re very good at listening  to the chatter that’s around us we’ve got to be strong we’ve got to do this we’ve got to project a  certain image and so that’s brilliant advice and i think it’s also useful as well to look at  outcomes you know we talk about well why why do we do certain things and you know what are we  trying to get out of it and i was just i’m just going to read these off the notes that i’ve got  here You know, John has touched 863 people’s lives, families and clients over eight years.  He’s employed and supported 400 caregivers. He’s built a highly respected,  value-driven organization. And ultimately, he then went on and sold the business successfully. So  it isn’t all about like the money bits and how he sold it and everything. But actually, it’s if we  apply the right principles of well-being. to our own lives and to financial well-being and focus  on what outcomes we want from it, we are at least unable to look back and go, that’s what I  achieved. That’s what I’ve done. And I think that is something that John can feel hugely proud of.  Yeah. And I’m very proud of having John as a friend, I have to say. Yeah. Likewise. Okay. Well,  I think that’s been a very touching episode. I hope you’ve got something from it. And if there is  anything in that… that you want to explore further with us, then obviously everything will be in  the show notes at the end. And by all means, get in touch if you’d like to hear more about the  amazing John Boar and his fantastic journey through life. But for now,  that’s all from us. And I hope that you’ll enjoy us the next time for another one of our financial  wellbeing podcasts. 

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