WEBVTT 00:00:08.269 --> 00:00:11.009 I've come to Liverpool today to tell you about 00:00:11.009 --> 00:00:15.570 this tale of retirement redemption. So I'm stood 00:00:15.570 --> 00:00:19.370 here in front of the famous Jack Aranda music 00:00:19.370 --> 00:00:22.850 pub in the heart of Liverpool. This is where 00:00:22.850 --> 00:00:27.949 it's happened. Somewhere very similar. There's 00:00:27.949 --> 00:00:32.509 similar places scattered across the UK where 00:00:32.509 --> 00:00:35.909 similar redemption stories are also happening. 00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:47.780 So who received our retirement redemption? His 00:00:47.780 --> 00:00:53.979 name's Mark. Mark was always professional. To 00:00:53.979 --> 00:00:56.380 be honest, he was professional when he was 10. 00:00:57.259 --> 00:01:00.280 Problem is, at age 10, being professional is 00:01:00.280 --> 00:01:02.380 not an advantage. It just makes you a target. 00:01:03.100 --> 00:01:08.620 Later on in life, it was an advantage. Mark. 00:01:10.060 --> 00:01:20.959 with a nice house nice car 2 .2 kids mark was 00:01:20.959 --> 00:01:24.400 always the expert in the room now even when he 00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:31.439 wasn't so when mark had a look at his pension 00:01:31.439 --> 00:01:35.799 work he was a bit frustrated with the fact he 00:01:35.799 --> 00:01:38.989 couldn't really get his hands in there and move 00:01:38.989 --> 00:01:42.209 things around as much as he'd like so he decided 00:01:42.209 --> 00:01:44.650 to open a sip of self -invested personal pension 00:01:44.650 --> 00:01:51.549 and he transferred quite a lot of cash into it 00:01:51.549 --> 00:01:54.909 and also a fair amount of his monthly salary 00:01:54.909 --> 00:01:57.950 went in there as well and once he got to grips 00:01:57.950 --> 00:02:01.769 with the controls in there he was flying he absolutely 00:02:01.769 --> 00:02:06.500 loved the platform threw almost everything he 00:02:06.500 --> 00:02:11.199 had in there into tech stocks, including Peloton, 00:02:11.319 --> 00:02:21.780 believe it or not. But it paid off. Five years 00:02:21.780 --> 00:02:26.439 later, 57, he had so much in his sip, he decided 00:02:26.439 --> 00:02:31.039 he deserved to retire. This is for two reasons. 00:02:31.219 --> 00:02:33.439 He retired because, A, he'd made enough money 00:02:33.439 --> 00:02:36.280 over them five years that he could afford to 00:02:36.280 --> 00:02:39.639 retire early. And secondly, he wanted to spend 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:43.020 more time focusing on the charts and the stocks 00:02:43.020 --> 00:02:48.860 within his self -invested personal pension. So 00:02:48.860 --> 00:02:51.479 he leaves corporate life behind and he thinks 00:02:51.479 --> 00:02:54.900 he's solved the game of life, really. That leisure 00:02:54.900 --> 00:02:58.819 time he's bought himself. was mostly spent staying 00:02:58.819 --> 00:03:01.900 on a chart, convinced himself that this is his 00:03:01.900 --> 00:03:07.879 new profession. Forums, YouTube, trading gurus, 00:03:07.879 --> 00:03:31.830 the lot. But you know, the psychological transition 00:03:31.830 --> 00:03:38.110 from investing to trading to gambling, it can 00:03:38.110 --> 00:03:40.889 be quite subtle. It's quite hard to spot the 00:03:40.889 --> 00:03:47.129 edges when you're embroiled in it all. If we 00:03:47.129 --> 00:03:49.909 look at the early investors in Peloton, they 00:03:49.909 --> 00:03:52.610 weren't just buying a bike. They were buying 00:03:52.610 --> 00:03:56.169 into this belief that the world had permanently 00:03:56.169 --> 00:04:02.280 changed. It represented a conviction that leads 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:04.419 a character like Mark to actually start feeling 00:04:04.419 --> 00:04:17.100 invincible. Then there's the emotional weight 00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:24.839 of it all because the climb was so quick. It 00:04:24.839 --> 00:04:28.879 provided a painful contrast for you know a character 00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:32.240 who's struggling to accept that his original 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:44.899 investment thesis is now actually dead market 00:04:44.899 --> 00:04:47.740 corrections happen instead of cutting losses 00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:51.839 what he does is mark doubles down he views the 00:04:51.839 --> 00:04:57.569 markets as this enemy owes him. He's going to 00:04:57.569 --> 00:05:02.069 get it back. When the stock market stops providing 00:05:02.069 --> 00:05:06.129 this kind of rush, he makes a pivot. He makes 00:05:06.129 --> 00:05:18.889 a pivot to horse racing. He's not actually looking 00:05:18.889 --> 00:05:22.470 for financial growth anymore. He's looking for 00:05:22.470 --> 00:05:26.670 that dopamine hit of a win. to validate his earlier 00:05:26.670 --> 00:05:31.290 successes to confirm that actually he is an expert 00:05:31.290 --> 00:05:36.209 this time an expert in horses racing around the 00:05:36.209 --> 00:05:49.149 track what he also started to do was hide his 00:05:49.149 --> 00:05:54.810 hobby from his wife the shame of Losing this 00:05:54.810 --> 00:05:59.629 hard -earned pension starts to create a wall 00:05:59.629 --> 00:06:04.850 between him and the people he loves. As often 00:06:04.850 --> 00:06:07.490 happens in these cases, a breaking point comes 00:06:07.490 --> 00:06:10.970 and this was a particular horse race. He'd been 00:06:10.970 --> 00:06:15.089 at Chester races and decided, against his best 00:06:15.089 --> 00:06:18.209 judgement, that the only way out was to put the 00:06:18.209 --> 00:06:27.189 lot on a favourite. As you can guess, the favourite 00:06:27.189 --> 00:06:45.550 didn't win. This is the moment where he was forced 00:06:45.550 --> 00:06:49.410 to face the reality of his finances and the emptiness 00:06:49.410 --> 00:06:53.149 of this pursuit he'd given an enjoyable career 00:06:53.149 --> 00:07:04.170 up for. and for what to have lost a significant 00:07:04.170 --> 00:07:21.430 part of his pension he's very vulnerable so it's 00:07:21.430 --> 00:07:26.810 back to the jacaranda and while he's there he 00:07:26.810 --> 00:07:29.990 bumps into an old friend college friend actually 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:36.439 almost 30 years since he'd last seen her and 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:40.920 she was up on stage playing acoustic guitar and 00:07:40.920 --> 00:07:43.079 when they were back at college they did used 00:07:43.079 --> 00:07:47.720 to jam a bit and Mark was pretty good with piano 00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:55.399 back then. They got chatting away and she invited 00:07:55.399 --> 00:08:00.519 him to come over to a jam session where Him and 00:08:00.519 --> 00:08:03.279 a couple of other friends were playing some jazz 00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:14.100 tunes. So next week he became really distracted. 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:17.360 He wasn't spending any time at all really looking 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:21.259 at his pension pot, his sip. He was spending 00:08:21.259 --> 00:08:23.259 time sitting in front of the piano trying to 00:08:23.259 --> 00:08:28.459 unlock his fingers to become a bit more fluent. 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:40.639 I'm trying to remember those chords on the Hammond 00:08:40.639 --> 00:08:46.620 organ he'd managed to keep. Anyway, a couple 00:08:46.620 --> 00:08:50.919 of practices in and he falls in love with playing 00:08:50.919 --> 00:09:07.490 again. He's reclaimed his focus. This is not 00:09:07.490 --> 00:09:11.190 about numbers in the stock market. This is a 00:09:11.190 --> 00:09:16.909 challenge though. It's the challenge of music. 00:09:23.009 --> 00:09:25.289 He's not going to get rich. He's got no intention 00:09:25.289 --> 00:09:29.409 of trying to play for money. But he feels like 00:09:29.409 --> 00:09:33.149 he's won and this is the recovery of agency, 00:09:33.409 --> 00:09:37.350 of his control, of his connection. He realises 00:09:37.350 --> 00:09:39.990 that while he couldn't control the market, he 00:09:39.990 --> 00:09:43.090 can control his fingers on the piano. He can 00:09:43.090 --> 00:09:48.169 control the music. Mark spent most of his professional 00:09:48.169 --> 00:09:54.330 career trying to control complex systems. Music 00:09:54.330 --> 00:09:57.570 represents a form of expression where he must 00:09:57.570 --> 00:10:03.730 learn to let go and listen, not to control every 00:10:03.730 --> 00:10:19.679 parameter. So is this story of redemption heading 00:10:19.679 --> 00:10:23.940 towards a person finding their true calling? 00:10:24.940 --> 00:10:29.840 Or is it about the loss of a corporate identity 00:10:29.840 --> 00:10:34.559 and what that can do to a person? Or is it generally 00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:39.100 about bad decision making? And the danger in 00:10:39.100 --> 00:10:42.840 Mark's mind is that he equates his previous stock 00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:47.149 success with skill. When things go wrong, he 00:10:47.149 --> 00:10:50.370 doesn't see the failure, he sees a miscalculation. 00:10:50.990 --> 00:10:53.509 And this is a miscalculation that he thinks can 00:10:53.509 --> 00:11:01.190 be corrected with more data and more risk. He 00:11:01.190 --> 00:11:04.629 feels that any loss is just a temporary dip. 00:11:07.970 --> 00:11:10.490 Fundamentals haven't changed. It's just a dip. 00:11:11.429 --> 00:11:15.070 And this prof set with another gamble by Tuesday. 00:11:19.019 --> 00:11:22.080 In fact, for him, it's not gambling. He's crunched 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:25.559 the numbers. It's just aggressive reallocation 00:11:25.559 --> 00:11:34.480 based on his facts. Now, there is an older trail 00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:41.399 of Mark's fall into despair. He documented most 00:11:41.399 --> 00:11:45.440 of his actions on his Twitter account. One particular 00:11:45.440 --> 00:11:48.549 one that stood out for me, he says, I used to 00:11:48.549 --> 00:11:51.330 run multi -million pound projects. I handled 00:11:51.330 --> 00:11:54.669 stakeholders, budgets and deadlines. Now I'm 00:11:54.669 --> 00:11:57.450 sweating over a three furlong sprint on a Tuesday 00:11:57.450 --> 00:12:00.570 afternoon. How did the gap between the man I 00:12:00.570 --> 00:12:04.610 was and the man I become become such a chasm? 00:12:12.350 --> 00:12:17.029 A major source of tension for him was the secrecy. 00:12:17.769 --> 00:12:20.730 His wife's questions about their account balances 00:12:20.730 --> 00:12:31.190 or his sudden mood swings. I can bet she's thinking, 00:12:31.309 --> 00:12:35.470 I'm working, I'm working on fixing the mess that 00:12:35.470 --> 00:12:50.100 he's made. That's worse when she says nothing. 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:56.019 Because silence is louder than any shouting. 00:13:15.419 --> 00:13:21.139 So Mark's redemption. It's not about him recovering 00:13:21.139 --> 00:13:26.820 his losses. But it is a redemption. It's a redemption 00:13:26.820 --> 00:13:34.720 because Mark came to understand that he could 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:39.799 enjoy himself and be an active member of his 00:13:39.799 --> 00:13:45.860 family without the bells and whistles of a fast 00:13:45.860 --> 00:13:54.340 car. Mark's wife was really happy to see the 00:13:54.340 --> 00:13:57.940 new Mark. The new Mark was confident without 00:13:57.940 --> 00:14:03.379 being stressed. He was spending time on a passion 00:14:03.379 --> 00:14:11.940 he'd always loved. And he was no longer spending 00:14:11.940 --> 00:14:15.139 time sitting in front of his spreadsheets and 00:14:15.139 --> 00:14:20.220 his charts. But Mark became a happier person. 00:14:21.070 --> 00:14:28.149 The whole family became a happier home. So, if 00:14:28.149 --> 00:14:31.490 there is a lesson to be learned from Mark's redemption, 00:14:31.909 --> 00:14:37.450 it's that retirement remains about connections. 00:14:38.769 --> 00:14:43.470 It's not all about sips and defined benefits 00:14:43.470 --> 00:14:47.789 and defined contributions. It comes down to people. 00:14:48.610 --> 00:14:52.809 It comes down to being happy. Thanks for listening. 00:14:53.070 --> 00:14:55.210 I'll see you on the next one.