My Self-Worth Was My Net Worth- Chief Family Officer, Dave Inglis

So that led to me starting a couple of quick businesses, some that were legal, some that were illegal.

Witnessing your mom struggle and have to pick between buying a bra and buying shin pads. Fuck that.

I am never putting myself, my kids, or my family in a position where we are choosing between you getting a bra and me having shin pads to go and pursue the thing that I love.

What did that leave you with as a story about money?

It was definitely used as a form of control. Like whatever it was that mom and dad bought, it was on the table as a bargaining token, right? Or something that could be taken away to be able to push my behavior or get me to do certain things. And that led to me really quickly being like, I'm going to go and start my own business as fast as possible to be able to get as much money as possible so that this form of discipline, I'm going to take that off the table. Dave Inglis is a Canadian leadership coach, author of Chief Family Officer, and founder of Strategic Solitude. He helps executives and families apply business principles to create meaningful lives. His work has impacted leaders from startups to the Royal Canadian Air Force. One of the things one of the things that we really teach in Chief Family Officer is the importance of having the family operating system. In a shareholder relationship where you and I are making decisions for a company, why wouldn't it be as important and as intentional as your family? Based on what I've shared with you, I'm sure that it's not a surprise that in the first, like, year or two of running this business, that very unintentionally I saw my self-worth get, like, deeply connected to my net worth, and I was constantly driving to be able to continue increasing and driving up that number. And I came home one day, Lott's partner at the time was at the front door with her bags packed. I remember very vividly writing in my notebook on the way home, like, there are non-traditional currencies in wealth worth building. And I was very one-dimensional.

What does wealth mean to you now? Welcome to Money Stories, where we have real conversations about money, meaning, and what makes a truly rich life. Today I am joined by My dear friend Dave Inglis, Canadian expat now living abroad.

Yeah.

Leadership coach and author of Chief Family Officer, an amazing book. Highly recommend you check it out. Dave, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. I'm so glad we can make this, make this work fresh off the airplane. Quick scoot over here to the studio and delayed to spend some time together.

Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, listen, there's, there's so much that I think we can learn from you and you and I really share a lot of philosophy. But before we do that, I'd like, I'd like you to take us back.

Okay.

And just give us a sense, how did you grow up with money and how did that drive you to become an entrepreneur?

So I, like many people, I grew up in a family where my folks separated when I was pretty young. And the lifestyle that both my parents lived was vastly different. Couldn't be much different. Or more different than it is. My mom grew up as a bank teller at Scotiabank, one of the big banks in Canada. Started working there when she was 17 and just retired this year. So same job, 40+ years. And that's who I grew up with, my mom. My dad was the second generation owner of a family business that we had. And when they separated, it was kind of like a tale of two different worlds and me navigating the kind of chasm between that. To make a long story medium, when I was living with my mom, like, I remember vividly I think this is pretty common in separated families. Like every single purchase we made, my mom had this little purple Hillroy Duotang, little notebook, and she would come home with every single receipt. She'd staple it on the inside. And of course, by the end of it, this thing is like bursting from the seams. And every single item that we purchased was tracked because it was at that stage in my parents' separation where she was like, what do I pay for? What does your dad pay for? But I remember vividly a moment, Mike, where we had come home, we had done a bit of shopping for the week, and we were going to go and buy some new shin pads. I played a ton of hockey growing up, so shin pads, skates, equipment, lots of expenses into that. And I remember my mom was folding laundry at the same time and just kind of getting a few things done. And she looks at me and she goes, you know, Dave, it's either we get new shin pads or I get a new bra. And she was joking. But at that point in time, like, you can tell how this, like, stuck with me. It was one of those moments where I was like, fuck that. I am never putting myself, my kids, or my family in a position position where we are choosing between you getting a bra and me having ship hats to go and pursue the thing that I love. And so right away there was this chip on my shoulder of like, why does my mom and my family have to live in such a way where every single thing that we're doing is being written down with pencil inside of this notebook? I hate this pressure. And so for me, that immediately catapulted me quite quickly after that into What can I do so that way I'm not dependent on others to be able to make the choices around the things that I want to have in my life, the things that I want to go and do. So that's like a very clear memory in my mind. I remember my mom saying that, and it's just stuck with me over the decades since then because it just left such an imprint on my heart.

I mean, that might be the most succinct intro we've ever had on this show. Like, you just cut right to it with, with this one specific— how old were you?

I was— my parents split when I was 7, but I want to guess at this point I was maybe around like 9 or 10.

Yeah.

So it was a few years after that and kind of getting into the rhythm of like, this is the way that we do things. And it was that one moment where I was like, that's not the way I'm going to do things. And that was no slight to my mother. Like, my gosh, she gave me the shirt off of her back. But it was just an example of like the money mindsets and the different conversations that we had around money. And for me, that kind of pushed me right or wrongly into this position where I was like, I just never want to have to deal with money, so I'm just going to focus on making lots of it. The other side of that equation is how do I keep my money? How do I save my money? How do I grow my money? Whole other conversation and kettle of fish. But that's one that left a big imprint right around 10.

And what, what do you think the, the imprinted story was for you witnessing your mom struggle and have to pick between buying a bra and buying shin pads? Like what, what, What did that leave you with as a story about money, do you think?

I haven't really thought about that question specifically as it relates to this, but I think what it left me was the story that I was given was that it's one or the other. You can have this, but you can't have that. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Yeah.

Right. And that's something that I remember kind of being fed me for a long time, and I always had a really hard time saving money as a kid because there was a part of me, it's like, what am I saving money for retirement at 12 years old for? Or like, whenever I made some money, my dad always used to say a third in savings, a third to spend, a third maybe to give away or use with friends. But he was always adamant that I saved, and I always really struggled with that because I'm like, what do you mean one or the other? That doesn't make sense to me. I, I'm not going to save for this rainy day in 60 years when I could live right now. But I think that was a story. It's like if you want something, there's going to be sacrifice. You can't have something else if you want this too.

Yeah. And how does that start to show up for you later? I'm interested.

Like right now?

Yeah, right now. Or as you get started down the path of starting to make money.

So I remember shortly, shortly after this story I just shared with you, you know, like most teenager kids, had some conflict with my mom and with my parents. And it got to a spot where inevitably when consequences came forward, it would take something away that I really wanted or that I liked. So my computer, my bicycle, my sports gear, like whatever it was that mom and dad bought, it was on the table as a bargaining token, right? Or something that could be taken away to be able to push my behavior or get me to do certain things. And that led to me really quickly being like, I'm going to go and start my own business as fast as possible to be able to get as much money as possible. So that way I just don't even need to make decisions around can I have this and not that? But furthermore, this, you know, carrot or stick, however you want to describe it, that you're using against me as a form of discipline, I'm going to take that off the table too. So that led to me starting a couple of quick businesses, some that were legal, some that were illegal. I remember early days, like in high school, selling footwear to a lot of my friends at school. I used to order like crates and crates of shoes that would come in from Mexico and I would distribute them into school and sell to all my buddies, or we would bring electronics from China. And then things got big enough where I ended up actually, just to give you a bit of an insight into like the darker side of that, the illegal side, I was working at Sport Chek for years and just to demonstrate how big of a sense of urgency I carried around having independence and not wanting others to be able to dilute my ability to make choices on this. I started to with a few guys that we were working with over about 4 or 5 years. We would steal products every single night out the back door of Sport Chek and we would sell it for $0.50 on the dollar. So for me it was like friends would come in, hey, I want this shirt, put it on hold, we take it out the back. And I'm just sharing this as like any way I could hustle to make some money. With those lines blurred of like, is this proper or not? That I think just illustrates to you like how that experience had impacted me so strong. Those, I think, illustrate how fast I moved on trying to create that independence and how willing I was to break down what is legal or illegal or doing things that maybe I would have questioned without this kind of drive and just seemingly close my eye and move forward with it. Not saying that's wrong or the right way of doing it, not endorsing that. But those are like, to answer your question, where did that kind of go forward into? It did not take long for me to say, get outta my fucking way. I'm starting to make some pathways on my own.

Good news. I think the statute of limitations is up, uh, stealing from SportChat. Yeah. So, whew, should be all right.

Yeah.

But I mean, this is, this is really interesting, right? So, so number one, money was used as a mechanism of control.

Yep.

Which made you double down and rebel and be like, I have to find a way. Not only so I don't have to choose between bras and, and hockey equipment, but now I need my independence.

Absolutely. And it was a bit tricky with me too. Like, me and my dad, our relationship over the years has changed and evolved and grown. But I remember when I was younger, there were simple things like getting together at Christmas time, and my brother used to get like super excited over gifts, and I used to really resent gifts from my dad. And we didn't spend a lot of time together. So those were meaningful outlets to be able to show gratitude or love. And of course, in the form of gifts or quality time, there's lots of different ways that we can express that. I found myself, whenever my dad or other people would give me things, also very like repulsive of it to say, "Money doesn't matter. Gifts don't matter. I just want to have time with you." So it was definitely used as a form of control. And I think in many ways it was also used sometimes as a form of compassion and of connection. And I didn't really resonate with that either. I, it was a, I had a lot of interesting relationships with money, I guess, is what I'm saying early on. And different people played a different role in my relationship with money. You know, I also had some mentors growing up young who were men and women I looked up to who I felt like had it all. And those were also lighthouses for me where I'm like, well, how do you seem to be able to do all these things? And still have a really great relationship with your kids and do, do all of it. I was always curious about that, but those are the two kind of pendulums of like control one moment and then like compassion on the other side too sometimes, or a way of cultivating connection. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we, the reality is it's not, you know, ones or zeros. It's not a binary type relationship. It's, it's really nuanced, but all of these different situations layer into our relationship to money. And no wonder it's so confusing when we grow up as an adult, right? There's a lot of different things to untangle here. So when did you first start seeing success? Like, what was your first real business, or when did, when did you start to fulfill on the promise to yourself that you weren't going to be forced to choose?

Yeah, so this was, um, right out of school I had started my first business, real business I guess you could call it, called Concussion Toolbox. It was a bit of an extension of the research I was doing. I studied kinesiology in sport medicine. Learned pretty early that I was terrible at research and very good at raising money for the research that we were doing and bringing the work that we did to arenas and fields and helping a lot of people. And so in building that first business over the course of the 3 years that we really kind of built some momentum behind it before exiting, that was the first real kind of opportunity to be able to experience what it felt like to have more than just enough. And to feel independent and also proud of the way that I was doing that. Because like, make no mistake about it, things like stealing from Sport Chek as an example, like subconsciously you still kind of carry that with you as not maybe feeling deserving, or at least I did, or like felt like it was a fair way of having that means. But that's when I really had my first kind of go at it, I would say, and started to really experience that.

Yeah. How did that feel?

Great until I got walked out on by my partner.

Tell me about that.

Well, this was a rock bottom moment for me. I mean, based on what I've shared with you, I'm sure that it's not a surprise that in the first, like, year or two of running this business, that very unintentionally I saw my self-worth get, like, deeply connected to my net worth. And I was constantly driving to be able to continue increasing and driving up that number on the scoreboard, so to speak. And I came home one day, lots of red flags that were there. Um, but my partner at the time was at the front door with her bags packed. I write about this in my book pretty openly. And, um, I thought we were going on a little 2 or 3 day kind of getaway for the weekend. And I learned pretty quickly that, uh, she was going, I wasn't. And it was a rock bottom moment for me because growing up in a family that was definitely centered around a family business, I often had some resentment just around what the cost of building that business came at as it related to my relationship with my dad or time spent in doing things that I wanted to do, like music or hockey and sports. And I always kind of had this attitude around like, I'm going to, I'm going to show my family that I can do both, that I can make a ton of money and I can also still be a really great partner, be a really good friend, still have things that I'm interested in, not lose that at the cost of building my wealth. And this is one of those moments where I think I had a pretty big wake-up call just to say, You know, there are, there are more than one ways of measuring wealth. And I took a quick trip to Hawaii after that just to kind of clear my head. And I remember very vividly writing in my notebook on the way home, like, there are non-traditional currencies and wealth worth building. And I was very one-dimensional and I was forgetting the fun stuff, like the relationships and the health side and the spiritual side of my life, again, in pursuit of just this one kind of dimensional approach to, to what I thought what success was at that particular point in time. Things that like, you know, but until you touch the oven on your own and you realize it, it's like even right now as we watch our eldest daughter kind of going to university and make some choices on her own, you know, you can have people tell you all these things as much as you want, even when you're in the thick of it, but you have to learn on your own. And that was an example of one, of one for me.

And how old are you at this point?

At this point, 35.

Okay, so we fast forward a ton.

Like right now I'm 35.

Oh, right.

No, no.

Yeah. At this point when, when this particular partner—

this was like 22. Okay.

22. So you're still, you're still fairly— you're still a kid.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Basically. No two ways about it. Yeah.

And, and just to kind of back up, I mean, it sounds like that you craved a lot more time with your dad and maybe the reason that you weren't getting that you felt like was the business.

Yep.

And then all of a sudden your partner's walking out saying, you're spending more time on the business than with me. Is that fair?

That's totally fair. And I think that was, or I know it was a really important moment because it helped me realize like, if I didn't intend to do this in my relationship with my partner, maybe this was not ever the intention of my dad, or maybe there's more going on here that I don't necessarily know about. And where I chose to at that particular point in time, and you and I met just around this time, well, you know, 12, 12 years ago now, 13 years ago, where I just started to realize, I think there's some questions here that I got to answer about myself first. And it really opened up the kind of Pandora's box on personal development and me just recognizing that, you know, I'm the kind of common denominator in all this. And so what's going on, on for me in these experiences and and started to lean into that a lot more.

Yeah, but also, I mean, what a, what a gift to go through a rock bottom moment at 22 years old, right? I mean, that, and like kind of just after your first success in business, I mean, a lot of people spend a lifetime not waking up to any of these things.

For sure. And I, I'm glad because what it forced me to do was to do two things. Like I remember being away and 2 things became really clear to me when I was stepping away for the first time and not having— I mean, back in what, 2010? It's not exactly like you get off the airport here or the airplane in Denver and you got Wi-Fi kicking up right away. Like, I had a lot of space to kind of think about stuff. And there's 2 things that really stood out to me. It was one, I needed to call my dad and apologize after not speaking to him for a handful of years. And the other one was I needed to exit this business because my motivation was purely to make money, and it wasn't necessarily to fulfill my mission or my purpose. And I felt like I was— in the absence of being clear on that, I had exposure and continuing to run down the path of running this business without a more purposeful intention. And for me, what just felt right was to have some space around that. And I'm so lucky because what that allowed me to do was to really step away from just trying to build a technology business and to realize what I have always loved to do is to teach. What I've always been wonderful at and great at is coaching and guiding and supporting and advising. And I really quickly found myself given the opportunity to do that, teaching entrepreneurship at Wilfrid Laurier University, where I had built my business from, and helping other faculty and young students and alumni go through a similar process of new venture creation, but now with a pretty good scar on my skin from that to say, hey, don't run too fast or don't forget about these things. And that then has kind of opened up for the last 10 or 12 years has been what I feel is exactly my life's work is doing the work I do now. And, you know, it would've been a shame to have figured that out at 50 or 60 if, you know, later on. So very, so very, very lucky.

Yeah.

To be able to have that. Okay.

So in that moment, your partner's walking out, you realize you gotta call your dad. And you start down this path of teaching and guiding. What were some of the other modalities that you dove into to start maybe uncovering some of these blind spots, or, or, you know, down the personal development rabbit hole, as it were?

By modalities, you mean like just like experiences, or like things like you and I met with Philip McKernan? That's an example for me of like a modality was starting to experience retreat and kind of group coaching and what was really helpful for me was to be a witness to other people being examined. And it was funny, you know, I remember in a group coaching context with Philip, it was actually in Boulder, Colorado, stone's throw away from, from where we are. And we were in this little hut, this kind of park. And I remember going into it, having my whole entire kind of like notepad filled with questions I wanted Philip to answer about me. And things that I wanted to go and learn about, about myself and what I was kind of hoping to kind of get out from this experience. And there was an important moment where I remember Philip said, you know, you sharing and speaking up in front of this group has nothing to do with you. If anything, it's the greatest, you know, act of service you can have for the rest of the group so they could see themselves through your teaching. And here I was always kind of thinking that the best way I could get the most of this experience is from being in the hot seat. And as I started to be in these environments and actually be a student in the room watching somebody else in the hot seat, I was like, oh, fuck, I do that same thing. Oh shit, I never thought of it like that. And it was being able to be close enough to be a witness, but not too close where I was under the pressure of it, where I really started just to kind of recognize the pattern between me and others. And I guess, you know, appreciating the common humanity and what I was navigating and figuring out about myself. So that was really big. Another one that's been, um, you know, a big door that's kind of opened for me. And that group coaching stuff, I've explored in a lot of different contexts with different people. Strategic Solitude has been an individual practice that I have really found to be quite helpful. As much as I appreciate being challenged and supported by others, I've come to learn that when I take space and I get a couple days by myself, I have the answers and the clarity that I'm often complaining about not necessarily having if I go with the right question. Coming to me on my own. And so strategic solitude has been a practice that even as we've moved over to Europe over the last year, continuing to find a lot of active space for, and lucky to have a partner who encourages me to do that, even if it's not necessarily a modality that she seeks on her own to the same volition. And then thirdly, a modality has been really helpful for me has been shamanism. This kind of came out of left field for me. I remember being on a massage table. I used to get like a massage every single week. It was one of the best things through this process for me. I found like fascial therapy and a lot of that bodywork to be really helpful for me to process some of the emotions that I was going through. And one day I was sitting at the table and this gal Jennifer's like, hey, you should go and see a shaman just based on kind of what you're talking to me about and what you're struggling with. And that opened me up to a whole other kind of ball of wax or world, if you will. But one that helped me really understand that like trauma that we go through, it lives in the body, it stays in the body. And starting to understand trauma as like a thing a lot more intimately and being curious around that. And that's opened up now a, a 10 or 12 year journey for me where over the last 3 years in particular, I've been studying very intentionally around some of the modalities that were offered to me just to be able to continue to build my own individual practice. So I guess that's my way of giving you a medium-winded answer to say I, I have a pretty diverse like portfolio of modalities that I've experienced over the years. All of which have served in different ways. But I think the best thing I ever did, going back to money, which was an interesting kind of part of this equation or this journey that started, I remember when I had just met Jennifer and I was, you know, now starting to get into a new relationship. She had two young kids. So really recognizing this wasn't just like courting each other. If we were going to do this, this was starting a family. I didn't want to leave this kind of personal development to chance. And like I said earlier, I was never really good at saving money, but what I started to do at this point in time was I started to tax my customers 10%. I raised my rates up overnight and I started to tax all my customers. And all that money and the taxes that I would typically save for HST— I was really good at doing that so I didn't get burned at the end of the year by the tax man— but this extra chunk of money that I carved off was totally dedicated to a personal development fund. And I forced myself to spend that every single fucking year. And it was a great way not to have money be an excuse. Not to go and do those things. And it's not something I do anymore with that same intentionality. I've been able to earn more money where I don't need to think about it like that. But that was a great thing I remember deploying. Call it a strategy, a tactic, whatever you want to call it, where I was like, fucking right now, whenever I'm selling things, I realize I'm putting money into this personal development. And more importantly, I think I really connected my personal development to the service I was delivering to the people that I was working with. It's like, I'm charging you a tax on this so that way I'm able to sustain my capacity and continue to grow myself so I can serve you in the process of that. And that's where all of a sudden for me, I connected the dots where it was not just me doing my own healing work and personal development. This was my flywheel back into how I coach. And so now it's just become a way of my life and continuing to explore these modalities rather than these side quests that I, you know, potentially embarked on originally.

Yeah, I mean, it's a great, a great strategy, essentially tithing to yourself. And, you know, especially when someone earlier on the path, you know, financially or on the personal development spectrum, ask me what they should be investing in, I always say yourself. It's the best, the best investment I've ever made has been in coaching and personal development work. And has translated to who knows how much actual financial wealth. That's not even the point.

No, no, you're exactly right. You're exactly right. And I would give the same advice. Like, looking back, I remember, you know, I was around 27, 28, and I had made a bit of money off of exiting this company, Concussion Toolbox, but nothing, not a home run or anything like that. And I remember syncing up with Jen and starting to kind of compare our finances, right? And I was, remember sitting there kind of looking at what I'm bringing to the table and not sure what Jen was bringing to the table at that particular point in time. And I remember having a moment of reflection and being like, I might not have as much saved as I could, but boy, have I been investing in all the right places. And there was a moment of like reassurance and just kind of reaffirming to myself that I might not necessarily see the return on this yet, but boy, will I continue to see it pay off as I can be consistent on this in the future. And For me, there's no more important arena for that than how I parent and how I'm a partner to Jen. Sure, does it impact how I serve my clients? For sure. But I'm, I'm, I'm not a coach. I'm a, I'm an athlete and a coach at the same time, a player coach, which means like I'm living, I'm doing the work all the time. And so the best outlet and evidence of that stuff being impactful is only ever always on like, how am I doing with the people that I love most, with me? My work is always right in front of me. Is this translating to that?

You know, so you started your career by trying to get as much money as you could.

Yep.

To create freedom so you don't have to choose. What does wealth mean to you now that you've done all of this work?

Mm-hmm.

What does wealth look like? How would you define it for yourself now?

You know, the last, like, 2 years for us have been super special in that, like, a lot's changed. A lot's changed. I would say that, well, in particular the last 5, I mean, we had Jennifer's kids before we got married, our Quinn and Callum. They were 5 and 3 when I met them. We've now had a third little guy join our family 5 years ago. Well, and just over a year ago, we made a decision to really change our life quite a bit. We moved from Waterloo, Ontario, all the way over to Valencia, Spain, and I'm sharing this because what wealth really means to me is being able to have full autonomy over where you play. And for me, where you play comes down to where am I living, what am I doing for my work, and who am I building relationships with? Like, if I can have full autonomy in those areas and I can quickly follow my ambition in all those three areas, and make the right choices where I can feel like I have effortless belonging. Like, I think the Chinese call it wu wei, like effortless efforting. To me, if I'm able to move through my life with a sense of effortless efforting by making the right choices about where am I living, what am I doing for work, and who the fuck am I hanging out with and building relationships with, gosh, am I ever wealthy, you know? And it brings me back to something my wife Jen, you know, jokingly, if anything, called me when we were out in Hawaii. This was not the same Hawaii trip that I had when I first separated with my partner. But many years later, we went back and I had this stupid hat, you know, those big giant billabong surfing hats, right? That keeps the sun away but looks a little goofy. And she would often just call me on the trip like her eclectic millionaire boyfriend. Right. And to me, like, that's— I just share that because, like, the eclectic millionaire idea to me is like, that's what's eclectic. Like, am I designing my life in such a way where I'm living where I want to live, doing what I want to do, and spend time with who I want to spend time? And I, can I personally interface myself with all those where it feels effortless? That to me is how I start to think about what real wealth is. And I believe that encapsulates the notion of there being non-traditional currencies in life worth building wealth in and playing with. I think that captures it well when I kind of, in my mind at least, organize my thoughts.

I mean, I, I remember a conversation about this. Well, I mean, it was probably 2017 or maybe '16. I can't be positive where I was first starting to really formulate these concepts. And your non-traditional wealth framework really resonated with a lot of what I was starting to think about at that time. How did that phrase or idea start coming into being? Right. I know you were chasing money for money's sake. You found that empty.

Yeah.

How did you personally start cultivating non-traditional wealth?

So for me, I, I like having frameworks. It's just kind of how— call them heuristics or just mental models. I find that really helpful for me. I'm sure you and your listeners have heard of B corporations before, right? A really special type of company. You might call it a social enterprise that operates off of a triple bottom line. So you have wealth, wealth, people, or profit, people, and planet. And for me, as we were talking about that many moons ago, that led to me thinking like, well, what does my triple bottom line look like right now? And I just found a natural fit through thinking of it in the lens of wealth, health, and relationships. And so for me, where I started to look at that, I was like, well, what's my net worth right now in all these areas? And not in the spot where I'm trying to run an equation to get us, you know, a number to spit out the fucking bottom and tell me how I'm doing. But like subjectively, how do I feel about these? Do I feel like I am experiencing poverty in these areas? Like when I've, you know, had my partner walk out on me, I would declare that as a bit of a bankruptcy moment relationally, right? I like, I looked around and all my friends were her friends. I didn't really have my own individual friends at that particular point in time. And not many that were somebody who wasn't on my payroll, you know? So I started to look at that and thinking, well, do I actually have resources here? Can I actually lean on my relationships? Am I investing in those relationships back? So how I kind of started was doing a bit of an inventory on like my health and my relationships were two obvious ones where it was like, I don't need to go and make more money right now. What I need to go and do is to make sure I have the health set to continue making money for another 30 years. Like that's where I need to go and focus. And then relationally, just starting to realize that that was just an area where I was not actively managing my resources. I was just kind of following the bone, so to speak, right? And following what I thought at that particular point in time was going to lead to more money. Which was very much like quite manipulative, right? Like looking back on it. But that's how I kind of started from there. I was thinking like, what's the right next currency to go and focus on if I take a multidimensional lens on that?

And how did you start building in those areas?

So from a relationship perspective, I remember, like, I can answer this question through, through two different ways. From a relationship perspective, I realized that I was breathing my own fumes a lot. I was working in the same building. I was hanging out with the same people in Waterloo, Ontario. It's very much like an entrepreneurial type of community. There's lots of celebration and encouragement, but like Kitchener-Waterloo, 300,000 fucking people, not real big. And I've been really heads down on building my business, but there's a lot of really interesting people outside of where I grew up that I needed and wanted to have exposure to. So I remember that's where I had made a choice to invest in putting myself into rooms that I otherwise wouldn't have found myself in. So I remember this is where I met a friend of mine, James Rouse, down here in Evergreen, Colorado at the Titan Summit with Robin Sharma in Toronto. That's where I met Philip McKernan. And so that was a huge like launching pad for me was saying, I'm gonna go and spend more money than I've ever spent before on a 4 or 5 day conference to be in a room with 100 people who have the same level of ambition. And are probably in a spot where they're either way ahead of me or at a similar spot, and I can just start to have exposure to different ways of thinking. So from a relationship perspective, that was a big one, is like, how do I like open up a new world? Is maybe how I would describe that now. How do I build a new world that I can start to kind of journey around rather than trying to refactor my relationships in my existing one? So that was a big one as far as like growing relationships was world building and starting to look for opportunities and You know, it's something that I've often kind of thought about over the years. I commonly joke, I'm like, have I paid to have some of my best friends? I was like, yeah, I have. And it's like the best fucking investment I've ever made because I would have spent my entire life dreaming and yearning to have the types of relationships that I do now if I didn't put myself in a room where that was possible. And I'm proud of that shortcut, if you will, or not even a shortcut, like the choice and the strategy to be able to go there. I mean, that's what the money's for.

I mean, my fundamental belief is that money in and of itself is completely useless unless you're employing it to increase wealth in these other areas. And relational wealth is one. And no, money can't buy you real friends, but money can put you in the right room with people with similar values and, you know, shared ideas and perspectives and You know, Baby Bathwater is one. Yeah, it's created a tremendous amount of wealth. I've been leaning on you for a long time to meet some of my friends. It costs money to be in that room, but, you know, I know that I'm going to connect with like-minded folks there.

Oh, I mean, I told you that when we were there in New York 12 months ago, like, it took me all of 6 minutes to be there to be like, and this is exactly why I made the choice to invest in something like this, is just to be able to be in such a high concentration, right? Of, uh, what I describe as like rare air, you know, folks who are thinking in this way and encouraging each other in such a supportive way where there's not necessarily, I want something out of this, more of how can I help you and how can I give to you to be able to go make it happen. Baby Bathwater is a great example of that. So relationally, and I think Baby Bathwater fits well into this like opening of new worlds type of thinking, right? Like how do I just open new doors and start to to go and explore that. And then from a health perspective, like, I remember being in Hawaii when I was there on my own, and like, I wouldn't even take my shirt off at the beach. It was one of those beautiful fucking beaches in the world, and I always dreamed of going to Hawaii. Here I am, and I'm just like ashamed of the fact that my partner walked out on me. I'm like 50 or 60 pounds overweight, wouldn't even take my shirt off, just embarrassed about like who I was and I remember, I think like the intensity and desire I had to change. I'm often reminded of this because of the story I'll share with you. Like I signed up for Ironman. It was like the short answer to your question. Like I want to go and get my ass into shape. Great. I'm going to go and commit to a challenge that is going to force me to get there, whether I like it or not, like make it big enough that I'm forced to change through it. And so Ironman was a big part of that. I don't think the Ironman intensity of training was sustainable for me, but it was as far as like a 3 or 4 year journey to kind of like rapidly shock my system and to put me in a spot where I could feel like I was building my pathway to Ironman, but also in community. And that also opening up a bit of a world of meeting new people who are training at a certain level and are examples of who I'd like to see myself become from a, at least in the Ironman journey, a physical health perspective was something that I did to kind of get going on that. So, I guess it comes back to like making pretty significant choices to change where I'm playing. That's what I think really helped me mobilize on starting to build wealth in these other areas beyond money. And effectively, to your point a couple minutes ago, Mike, like using money as the tool, use money as the tool to go do these things is what I started to do. I started to spend my money. On advancing my health and my relationships.

Yeah.

Yeah. Wow.

And what a great return.

Superb. Superb. It's been, it's been a winning formula since then, I would say. And it goes in and out of different seasons, but it's given me a great return.

Well, and now you've doubled or even tripled down on this idea of investing in relationships.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk a bit about Chief Family Officer, maybe some of the frameworks. Like, how do you think about relational wealth within the family unit?

Within the family unit? That's interesting. And it's like a, it's a complicated topic for us as a family. Like, I immediately always go to my philosophy in coaching is like, I want to be somebody who's just modeling good student behavior, not necessarily being a teacher, but being a student who's modeling good student behavior is my way of coaching. So I immediately kind of go to my own questions around this. What does finance mean as a family? I think most importantly is starting to talk to our kids and actually having explicit conversations about money. That's been an interesting one for us. Like, our daughter's just going to university right now, and we've saved up, much to my wife's credit, uh, RESP to be able to go to school for her. And we were looking at her going to McGill next year. And it's like, well, here's X, you know, here's the bill, what McGill looks like to go and be on your own. And here's what the RSP looks like. And it's not the full bill. Where do we get the money? What does that look like? So there are these moments that we're starting to see our kids kind of bump up against where they're creating windows just to have some really good conversations about that. And then also in our family too, we have aging parents and like the conversation around like passing down money and what does that look like. I'm not so much interested in like, what is the Bulletproof framework around what is the proper way of setting up intergenerational wealth within a family? I'm more interested in like, what are the conversations that are tricky and not being had that will bring everybody into like the reality of where this family is right now and what that looks like. And I think a lot of families, including my own, there's always these sensitive areas. Right? But one of the things that I've admired a lot in my wife's family, having a chance to be with them over the last 10 or 12 years, is even looking at things like intergenerational wealth and how proactive they are. Like, it's not a surprise to me and my family growing up, it was never really talked about aside from staple the receipt inside the Hillroy notebook. Where in our family now, it's very transparent, very clear on what's happening when, and trying to be very proactive around it. So aside from principles, I'm not sure where you want to go from there, but like principles and philosophies around like what we believe are healthy habits as relates to financial conversations are important. But I think the most, like the real edge for me with our kids right now is, is being honest about my own experience with money and where I'm at in that process right now. You know, I can see with my daughter, for an example, who has like big aspirations, lots of things that she wants to go and do. I can see myself being like, no, you can't afford that. No, you need to go and find a way to go and do this, like by default. And I realized, well, like I would do the exact same fucking thing that she was doing. And so even over the last year or two, I've been starting to share stories with my daughter around the same questions you asked me at the beginning of this podcast episode. How did you make money as a kid? Well, let me tell you how I made money, why I made money, what my drivers were and what it led me to go and do. Yeah. So I hope I'm answering your question, but I just feel like as a family, this is an important thing to keep a regular dialogue around. Like one of the things that we really teach in Chief Family Officer and the importance of having a family operating system, like have a rhythm, have a rhythm in a way of regularly coming back together. And like for Jen and I, we'll often, much like EOS, you've probably heard, right? You have like a, whether it's a day retreat every year or every quarter, we're usually pretty good at looking at what we're doing for the next 12 or 16 weeks. And we're even doing that here while we're in Colorado, just doing a bit of regrouping together and having a bit of a regular cadence to how we talk about where we're at, where we've been, where are we going. And finance just has a regular kind of slot in that conversation. So I think, you know, going back to this non-traditional currency, kind of invitation. Having a family operating system that gives you a regular and predictable opportunity to reflect on these things, to talk about where you're at now, where you're going, I think is the most important thing to build inside of a family. Because what I've noticed happens is that the tension starts to drop over time. Like, these are big conversations you're talking about, I think. Yeah, like, these are, these are big conversations. Even conversations around like, how's your mental health going? Our kids, their mental health has changed, it's gone up and down fundamentally. How are relationships going together? Like, all these things change. How are your relationships with your friends? Like, they're constantly changing, and they're difficult conversations because they're real. And what I've noticed is, is when you can have more consistency around these conversations, all of a sudden they become familiar, and it's not as difficult to talk about finances and where we're going, or our health, or the tension and the conflict that we've had and how we want to repair that. So that's a real first principle and chief family officers. And like I say, use winning plays from business to put your family first. Like, this is a well-understood thing in a shareholder relationship where you and I are making decisions for a company. Why wouldn't it be as important as structured and as intentional as your family? That's my thinking on it.

Yeah. So having intentional and sometimes difficult, but vulnerable conversations with the stakeholders being the other family members.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And if that's not the norm in your family or how you grew up, how do you start to broach those types of topics?

I'll share a quick story with you. It's something that I've learned on how to start these conversations myself because I'm not always— I've not always been really good at I move at a pretty quick pace and I kind of know exactly what I think we should talk about and where it should go. And I have a history of moving pretty quick and expecting others to keep up at that same level. One of the things that I've learned, you know, I'll use the example of accountability with teenagers. Seems silly, but I'll connect the dots for you. I used to get really frustrated at our kids for not doing the things that we've asked them to do, like clean their rooms, clean the bathroom, basic stuff that you want your kids to learn how to go and go and do on their own. And I used to have the same conversation all the time, like, you haven't done this, you haven't done this, you haven't done this. And it was like, why am I having the 18th, 19th version of this conversation? And same thing as it relates to maybe like money or like conflict relationship. Typically there's a pattern and there's a pain pattern that exists here where like we're bumping our heads against the same thing. And I often say like, use pain as a tool. Pain is a really good tool. Anger's awesome because it tells you where you're starting to experience some misalignment in your values. And so that's where it's like, okay, how do I slow down to understand what that is? And what I've often been guilty of in the past is starting these conversations from a place of frustration. This really bothers me, so I want to go and talk about this instead of bringing up the conversation from a place of here's what I'm afraid might happen in the future if this continues. Let's talk about that. Why am I afraid? So with accountability, you know, I shared the story with my daughter Quinn recently about my Sport Check rendezvous. And, um, you know, we would often experience a frustration like, Dave's on my ass again about cleaning the bathroom. He's on my ass. He's always on my ass. And it was always from that place of frustration. And as soon as I started to have not the 19th version of the conversation, but the first version of a new conversation, which was, hey, let me tell you a story that you probably don't know about me to help you understand why this matters so much to me. I didn't have parents. Like, my mom was a single mom. She did a ton for us, but that means that she did a ton for us and was not always somebody over my shoulder being like, hey, this is what you said that you wanted. Here's the thing you need to go and do that you said you were going to go and do to go and be successful at that. Like, I didn't have somebody over my shoulder looking out for me in that way. My mom looked out for me in a lot of wonderful ways, but just by virtue of circumstance, that wasn't the same maybe capacity that I have now to be so actively present kind of day to day. I was explaining to Quinn, I'm like, you know, I'm sure frustrated the bathroom's not clean, but what I'm more fearful of is that you're going to turn out like I did, which was I ended up stealing things and trying to make money because fundamentally I did not actually achieve the things that I wanted to in my studies. Like, I didn't necessarily get the job that I wanted to, my summer job, because I didn't do the work that was required to go and do that thing. And that brought me down into a very different pathway where I started smoking weed all the time, I started drinking a lot, and I started to obviously build a business where I was with a partner. I totally lost that and see that breakdown because there were fundamentals in my life that I wasn't necessarily following through on. And so I'm talking about this with you because, like, I'm afraid that I don't want that to happen for you. I want you to go and do all those things. And I'm just afraid and fearful that if we don't talk about this, that you might be down the pathway that you didn't know that I was on once upon a time. So I think that's something I've definitely learned through this is like vulnerability is a great way to open that door. And that's why I say and really emphasize, like, be a student who's modeling good student behavior. I want to go and show Quinn very candidly, like, I've been here, I've done that, and here's what I'm afraid of. I find that so much more helpful to start these conversations rather than like, here's what I'm fucking pissed off about right now. Here's what I'm frustrated with. 'Cause then it's like back up against the wall, right?

Well, and I think in this instance, what strikes me is that vulnerability creates credibility, right? If you're just coming from a place of, I know exactly what you should be doing, you know, kids understand hypocrisy and they know inherently that there's more to this story. Right. And so by sharing vulnerably and being like, hey, here's all the ways I screwed this up, you actually buy yourself credibility with your kid because they're like, oh, I can see that.

Yeah, totally, totally. And not just with your kids, like with your partners too. Like, you know, Jen, I'll be the first one to tell you, I'll say, Jen, like, we need to have a budget. Why aren't we following through on this? And like, you're expressing my frustration of like, I think we're spending too much money right now. She's like, yeah, you asshole, but you're the one who booked the 5-star hotel last week when we were away and had no problem spending money on that. So when the absence of vulnerability, it comes down to like, I'm standing up for my perspective and I'm fighting against yours. Where like talking about the fear, it's like, well, I'm afraid that in 6 months from now we're going to be in a pickle where we're going to maybe have to downsize our home if we don't go and get this figured out. Oh, well, that's totally different. Now we can go and tackle that together.

Yeah.

Right. But the frustration can be a little bit too close to it. And that's a funny example that we've had in our home recently, right? Where I'll sometimes express my anxiety around money. I'm really good at making money, not really good at managing it or overseeing it too much. And, and, uh, you know, Jenna, often when I go in with my frustration, she'll often point out my own hypocrisy. And I'm glad that she does it where she's like, well, you asked me to keep a budget, but you have no problem blowing through yours any time of the week. Right? So I just share that as an example, a very real one, just to say, when you have these conversations around the frustration, you're talking about something that's kind of already happened. Instead of talking about what you're fearful of, which is like, come and sit down beside me and let's look at this thing together and let's, let's work together to go in and work on this. That's a posture that works so well when you're talking about relationship stuff, finance stuff, or health stuff.

Right.

So that's, would be my encouragement is to just like, if you're frustrated, great, start there, but don't talk from there. Spend some time to sort of think about what are you afraid of and then talk with that, because then you can actually work towards something together.

And Dave, I wonder, you know, as you started to lean into multi-dimensional wealth or non-traditional wealth, as you call it.

Yeah.

What did your finances like? Did you find that the finances followed? And the reason I ask is you just mentioned like, hey, I'm still not great keeping money, right? And I think one of the things that and your, your talk about vulnerability really led me to this is I've been doing this for a really long time and, you know, I, I know as much as anybody about our money patterns and stories, and I still find myself bumping up against my own money limitations and stories and patterns. And so how does that look for you now and how do you resolve that or begin to resolve it?

How does it look for me now?

As in, yeah, like you say, I'm still not great necessarily managing and keeping money.

So I, I'm, I'm, I'm struggling to think about how to answer this question because there is, in many ways it feels like nothing's changed in that my focus has always been make sure there's clearance, which is my code of like, just work enough so that there's enough money where we don't need to write it down in the notebook. Like, like that in my mind, it's like, just continuing to push myself or to expand the value that I'm bringing such that that's necessarily not, not even really a conversation. But there's also an internal part of me that is like, now that we're at this stage in our life where we have young kids and Jen and I are looking at investing in some businesses with some success that we've had over the last few years, it's starting to challenge me to say like, it's not necessarily just about building reserves up now. Like now that reserves are coming up, I need to start to change my thinking around that. So like, I guess where that brings me now, I think historically I would have put all the pressure on myself to figure that out. And one thing that I've been getting much better at when it comes to money is just hiring somebody great who knows what they're doing with it to take care of it. And you know, it's important, I think, to understand like what we're not good at. And surrounding ourselves with people in those spaces. So I've started asking for a lot more help in that space, a lot more actively. And that's what I think that's looked like now. And yeah, I hope that answers your question. Like it, it, it's, that's what it's kind of translated into, but I would even say. What it's also helped in our family is recognizing like who plays what role when it comes to finances. Like that's been an interesting conversation for us right now. I've started to recognize in my relationship with Jen that my fear around money can sometimes come out as criticism, and I can kind of project that out as criticism or anxiety on Jen. And I'm starting to realize the more that I kind of— much like an athlete watches their game film, I've been reflecting a lot about how I talk to Jenna about money. We've been having a lot of money conversations recently. I mean, we're moving over to Europe, we're thinking about buying another home over there. We're looking at buying a business. Like we've having more contact points on this. And I've started just to, for the first time, I would say like really narrow in my personal development and my reflection time around like How am I showing up in these types of conversations here? And, and where am I not necessarily fully trusting my partner and the role that they can play in this? That's been a new conversation for me where I'm at on this now that, you know, historically if I was on my own and just worried about building my own network, like that's an easier game, but now starting to do that with a family system and starting to kind of figure out How do we do this together? What role do you play? Like, I've actually found that it's softened my approach around money and it's reminded me that like managing our money where we are, it's not contingent on me just figuring it all out on my own and giving like the process and the way we're going to do this to our family. There's a lot that we can kind of germinate and build together. And I'm starting to realize that it's not just my money stories now, it's also Jen's that are coming in. So I think we're, we're both becoming greater students of this conversation around money now that the stakes are getting a little bit higher. I guess that's a different way of saying it. Like seasonally, the last season of our life has really been more focused on parenting, growing our family, and very consistently growing our wealth. But now we're just at a different spot now where it's like, so what do we do with this? So this is a very real-time conversation in our home.

Well, I mean, I think it's a, just a beautiful example of the fact that the, the work is never done, right? We notice a, a pattern coming up. We work to understand where it came from and maybe rewire that pattern only in time for a, a new type of pattern to start to emerge, right? I mean, it's, it's truly the privilege of creating better problems.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Totally. I, I like how you put that, the privilege of creating better problems. That's a great one. And, you know, I think whether it's like business or even your family finances, both of those, those are all great like fields and platforms to study yourself. So for me, that's, that's been something I've kind of had to go back to in this process is, is like I can find myself trying to look for the technical answers around money, the rights and wrongs, or building the business case to do X, Y, Z. But the more juicy and interesting stuff to me is like, how do I relate to this? How am I showing up in this? And that is somewhere where I find like when I study myself in the conversation on finance, I stay in the conversation about finance longer because truthfully, and I think it's indicative in, you know, some of my earlier patterns around conflict growing up, I'm very much an avoider and I've learned that kind of growing up where it's like if I didn't get along with my dad, for an example, it was like, fine, screw you. We're not talking for 5 years. If I had a hard time with like a manager at work or a conflict with an employee, it was like, fine, you know what? Let's just part ways and we'll just start again. In finances, it's a little bit different. Like I can see myself have that same avoidance tendency kind of come in where it's like, I just don't wanna talk about it. But when I have the lens of, well, I'm gonna study myself in this conversation and I'm more interested in like how I can get better for you and to be a better participant in this conversation for others. Personally myself, I find that as a way for me to stay engaged in the finance conversation in a meaningful way. Does that make sense to you? Totally.

Yeah. I mean, I, I, I asked that last question because it, you, you've always just struck me as someone who doesn't pretend to have it all figured out, but you're constantly working on yourself and being real about where you are. And so it's just, it's such a privilege to have people on this show who, who are coming from that place of like, man, look at all this progress I've made and I'm still working on it, right? Like today years old trying to figure it out.

Yeah. I mean, it's not too much different than like a meditation or spiritual practice, right? Like continuing to come back to the seat, back to the seat. And it's a practice which, you know, I was thinking about this with a yoga practice the other day and I had a client of mine who was just expressing frustration. He's really trying to like savor his experience, not just race through his life so much, right? And I was reminding him like savoring is an intention that like every single day you kind of begin again. Right. And, and to bring the intentionality into that. And he's like, man, this is so much work. Like, like, yeah, it's called practice. Like, it's just like yoga, like doing the downward dog sounds good when you read about it, but like when you do it, you breathe differently. It takes energy. It forces you to lean into it. And same with the type of work that we're talking about. I mean, just a real time example from. Yesterday that I think is indicative of like how still actively focused I am on this. You know, Jennifer, my wife, was driving up to Quebec with our daughter for a soccer tournament and she rings me. We've been talking about a couple different businesses and she goes, you know, I want to talk about our family business for a second. I think there's a really great opportunity for us maybe to look at getting involved in the family business in the future. And maybe instead of investing in something separate, like what if we have some more conversations around the businesses that we already own? And right away I fucking shut her down. I was like, no, it's a terrible idea. We can never work with your mom on this. And I immediately, after I hung up the phone, like we kind of had this conversation, I was shutting her down. I said, you need to call this guy who's owning the company right now. You should call my brother cuz he's a corporate lawyer. He'll tell you about shareholder agreements. And you know, I'm pretty much just telling her like how wrong she is in that. And I hung up the phone and I could tell in the tone of her voice as we were hanging up the call, I was like, you're a fucking asshole. The way that you responded to her right now as she's driving and called you with enthusiasm, she left that call with zero enthusiasm for the idea that she had and even less of an interest in bringing forward the next idea based on how I just shut that down. And when I really looked at like, what was it that really bothered me about it? Legitimately, what she was suggesting could work. I'm just hypersensitive working with family at times and like, don't want to find myself maybe potentially going through a similar rigmarole that I did with my family, with my dad, and wanting to really protect that and continuing to do that. But it's just not fair to Jen that I react and respond in such a way where she's being so intentional about trying to bring forward an opportunity. So this is for me something that I always kind of go back to. It's like, I think we are— Could you— I'm sorry to interrupt, but could you have maybe led with fear?

Something I really like to do is lead with my fears. Yeah, exactly right. But I tell people this all the time. I wrote a book about it.

Well, and this is where, like, I think being a student of yourself is so, so important because this is where I know that I need to go back and practice is when my audio fucking doesn't match my video right there. What I say is not matching what I just did. It's as simple as that. So what's going on? And those are things that I'm finding, like, I'm continuing to catch myself Quicker in.

Yeah.

I think that's what it's about. It's similar to conflict, right, Mike? Like, you're gonna fucking get in arguments with your kids, with your partner, with your best buddies. That's how you build a badass relationship. It's the repair part. And so I think that's the opportunity when we have these types of moments too. For myself, like, when I realized my audio isn't matching my video, it's like, cool, how do I repair that with myself? What does that look like? How do I repair that with that person? And so that was an important conversation I had with Jenna as soon as she got home after being away for a few days. It's like, hey, we don't need to have a 10-minute conversation on this. But I need you to know that I know that I did that.

Not cool.

And I know the impact that probably had on you. If you want to talk more about it, great. But I just want you to know that I know. Yeah. Right. Busted. And I think that's a really great way of continuing to stay focused on the multidimensional piece for me, because the way that I cope with the shame and the internal guilt that I have with that, I know, is I'm just going to go and make more money. I'm just going to go and put my head down and just distract myself with that. And when I find myself being the student of what I'm going through and just finding ways to be able to repair that with others or with myself, it just keeps me in the pocket, keeps me in the practice, keeps me in the practice. But it's constantly a question I, I have for myself at the end of the day. It's like, where's my audio not matching my video today? And what am I ridiculously proud of myself for doing that nobody else could say that they're proud of me for doing? Because there's a lot of things that I do and a lot of things that you do every single day that is impossible for somebody else to really recognize because they don't really understand how difficult it was, you know? And so those are two things that I constantly kind of keep myself in check around that I find really helpful.

I cannot think of a better mic drop moment for to, to end on. That's, that's two beautiful framing questions for the day. Thanks so much for joining us. It's, it's such an honor to have you here. Where can people connect with you, your work, learn more about what you're up to?

Yeah, I'm pretty easy. Just Dave English.ca, Instagram, Dave English. That's where I hang out mostly. I'm on LinkedIn too, a little bit, but yeah, more and more I've been writing emails out to our community, just kind of sharing what's going on. My wife Jen and I have a really fun podcast called Poco a Poco. Little by little is the direct translation in Spanish. And, uh, it's been our journey poco a poco of changing where we play in our life. And so if listeners want to go in and follow along and are thinking about those big changes in their life of where they're living. What they're doing for work, raising kids, and who you're hanging out with. That's a great place to get to know us a little bit better. But otherwise you can find me in those areas. That's great.

Cool.

Thanks for coming on.

Appreciate you, my friend.

Thanks for having me.

It's been quite the ride.

So good.

All right. Cheers.

Awesome.