S04E03 Transcript: Emmanuel Asuquo on Financial Literacy

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Gemma Styles [00:00:01] Hello, I'm Gemma and welcome to another episode of Good Influence. This is the podcast where I welcome our guests to discuss their experiences, answer your questions and teach us something new. This week we're talking about financial literacy, the role of financial knowledge as self-care. Making conversations about money less intimidating and not falling prey to online comparison. So joining me this week is Emmanuel Asuquo, a.k.a. Uncle Eman. If you watched his videos is a financial advisor, speaker, TV presenter and now offer his debut book Get your Money Right, Understand your money and Make It Work for You is out now and explores financial literacy from building good habits to borrowing to philanthropy. Impractical jargon, free language.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:00:51] We literally make money and financial decisions every single day, but we never really talk about how do we do it properly.

Gemma Styles [00:01:02] So you and I originally, when we did a panel together about wellness. Yes. And you were there to talk about finance and kind of financial well-being. Could you tell us a bit about why financial literacy can be kind of an important part of that wellness self-care sort of conversation?

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:01:22] The reason it's really important is that for a lot of people, money can only bring anxiety. Because there's a fear of making a mistake. Now we've got the fear of being scammed. So, you know, a desperate situation right now where people are struggling with finances or money, people will tend to look for opportunities to make money and almost take the risk of. It sounds so good. It must it must be true. It's going to be this one thing that's going to help me and save me and then end up end up losing money or end up putting themselves in a worse position than when they started. So now people have the fear of who do I trust? A lot of the time we don't trust our politicians, we don't trust our banks. We don't like to talk about money in general. People don't talk about how much they earn or, you know, how much savings they have or how much money they have because there's a fear of being seen or being judged if people know how much money you earn and so forth. And so because of that, it can be very insular, You can be very money, can make you feel very much alone. Mm hmm. And because of that, again, it can lead to people having a lot of mental breakdowns and having their wellbeing not being being good.

Gemma Styles [00:02:37] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think it is. It's one of those important things. Like, I think part of what we end up talking about now with the kind of wellness self-care conversation is that a lot of it. Can be quite sort of surface level and you'll think, you know, half a cup of tea, run a bath, all that kind of things. But actually sometimes it is the most. Practical. Not sort of glittery things that that can cause you the most stress and that can obviously then make such a big impact when you do sort of have a handle on things as best you can.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:03:12] Exactly. I mean, we've all had that. You know, you go to the shop, pick up something, go to pay recall, can't remember how much is in your account, and you kind of do that. Close your eyes and hope that it says accept it and you don't have that decline moment. But then, you know, we've been I've been I've been out personally and been out with friends. And especially at a time when you're trying to save for something called maybe money's a bit tight and then all of a sudden people stop buying, doing some buying extra food, and all of a sudden everybody wants to that the caviar and all these extra stuff that they wouldn't normally order. And then everyone says, Let's split. And you're like, I literally had bread and butter and water. Like how all of a sudden, like, you knew what your budget was, You knew how much money you had in your pocket. But people have overspent or the drinks that you didn't drink, and now they want to split. I mean, you've got that kind of nervous anxiety of what am I going to do now? And so we literally make money and financial decisions every single day, but we never really talk about how do we do it properly. So a lot of the time we have to learn from mistakes. And depending on what mistake you make, it can be very costly.

Gemma Styles [00:04:21] Yeah, definitely. I think as you were kind of saying, it's the kind of conversations that we can maybe feel a bit intimidated by and you feel like you don't don't know how to ask questions. And I feel like when I've seen obviously, depending on the context and you've done presenting on like lots of different shows, but I've definitely seen shows that you've done what you kind of it's, it's a very kind of fun, informal, sort of down to earth conversation that you're having with people while you're talking about money. Do you think that's important and kind of taking away of that, a bit of that intimidation?

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:04:54] Yes, I think it's hugely important. And I think that's that's my purpose. That's why I do what I do is that, you know, I looked at money and it almost felt like unless you're in a suit, unless you work in the city or whatever, you can't have these conversations. And actually, what's happened for a lot of people is, is that they go to the bank. They don't see people who look like they're more people who they feel comfortable with. They don't feel like they belong in a bank environment. And then they end up taking financial advice from friends or family or people they meet and end up making mistakes. So I think it's really important to take away the kind of seriousness of finance and money and make it something that's relatable, easy to understand, and the fact that it could be fun, but you can't have, you know, jokes of it and make people smile. And it's almost like, you know, take your medicine and have a sweet thing like trying to make. Yeah, we got to take the medicine, but how can we get it to take in the best way?

Gemma Styles [00:05:51] Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, all that being said. When and how do you think we should be learning these? This sort of financial literacy as a topic?

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:06:03] Great question, I think. I think I think it's hard because I think there's a lot of pressure on schools to teach financial literacy. And I think from the school's point of view and I do think schools need to do more. By the same time, the schools and the education system will say, we're doing so much. There are so many topics. There are so many things we're trying to cover. There are so many things we're trying to teach young people about to actually what are we going to what are we going to take away in order to teach people about finance or money and so forth. So I understand the argument, but I still feel that schools can do more. But also I think we can say, okay, well, maybe people should learn at home. But if if me if me as a parent, if I've never been taught how to manage money and how to be good at money, how can I teach my kids? Yeah, you know, I mean, because I'm I have a fear of money. I might not feel comfortable around money. I might be making bad money decisions. I might be in debt and feel ashamed. And so I don't want to talk about money because I feel like a hypocrite trying to talk about money when I'm struggling myself. And so it's one of those things where I feel like that's why I really want to try to empower people. I always talk about empowerment and that, oh, it's a logical cause, it's a life skill. And once you understand how to manage your money and how to take control of your money, you feel empowered to make better financial decisions. So I really think, you know, the home should be the place, the first place. And I think people should be comfortable. If you're in a place where you're not comfortable with money to try and reach out and there are loads of resources online and there's loads of different people to follow, I think, you know, we're on social media a lot and there are there are loads of people that we even follow on social media. There is a financial influencer for you, I'm telling you, like it doesn't have to be me, but you will find a financial influencer that you know, I can relate to that person like they, I like the way they speak. I like the way they talk about you. And you can learn about finance and money using things like social media, YouTube and, and all of those types of things.

Gemma Styles [00:07:59] Yeah, I think it's a good point about, you know, ideally it would be at home, but I think the topic of that sort of generational wealth conversation I think has become a lot more mainstream. I think I feel like that's a phrase that I maybe wouldn't have heard until a couple of years ago. But now people talk about it a lot more. And that way it way you talk about it and that element, it makes so much sense, you know, if you're. If you're in a situation where your parents already have a lot of money, for example, then, you know, odds are they'll be able to tell you what to do with it. I mean, an example of that I can think of is I feel like I did get some sort of at least education from my parents. I think I've talked about this before, but I remember being a tell with my mum when I was kind of like 17, 18 or something, and then being like, Oh, you got sort of 20% off. If you take the store cards of things, you want one. And my mum was like, No, absolutely no. So I feel like even those like little lessons. Yeah, yeah. Like that was an example for me of just like things that I've learned from my parents.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:09:03] No, and I think it's great. And I think that's a great example that you just gave, because I think a lot of us, you know, our parents generation definitely, you know, were live by your means, live within your means, cut your cloth accordingly and so forth. And I think there is still a generation growing up who fair credit. I think money is the devil and don't want to. I mean, and they want anything to do with it. And I think, you know, you have to balance you have to live within your means. But if there are ways for you to leverage or use finance of money to to better your situation, then take it as long as you understand what you are doing and how how best to make sure that it works for you. But I think yeah, I think, you know, we all have like my parents always used to tell me that money doesn't grow on trees or so forth and, and it's almost a scarcity mindset. And I think I've had to learn to come out of that and realise that there is an abundance of money whether or not you want to, you want to take it or whether or not that you want to be a part of it. People are making money every single day. And so I always tell people there's like 365 days of the year, why do you only get paid on 12 of them? And it's like if you did a test and got 12 out of 365, you would never say that you did well. So it's one of those things where you can, as long as you can add value to people, there's an opportunity to make money every single day. And so actually having only one stream of income can be difficult. And I think that's where most when we look at people with the cost of living crisis a lot of the time is because you look at the strikes, we see the teachers train one strike and that's a lot of the time is because they've got one stream of income, they've got this one income. And with the cost of everything going up, it's just not rising at the same same way. Prices all. Yeah. So we have to find the balance.

Gemma Styles [00:10:48] Yeah I think that's so difficult as well because I mean if we do look at the and it's kind of there are a lot of a lot of these people striking who will have, you know, they have one income income from their job. But that used to be so normal. It used to be, you know, we look back not even that far and it used to be, you know, you could have one income that would sustain a household like a family. And that just isn't really the way that it works anymore at this point, which I mean, solidarity to the strikers because. Yeah, because they shouldn't have to be on strike to be able to live off of, off of their own income, you know, But when you talk about, you know, bringing in other streams, what what could that look like for your average person who works a 9 to 5 or. I do.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:11:31] Great, great point. I think it would have him for me. I think the best place to start is looking at your passions. What do you enjoy doing? Because sometimes your passions. So I for example, you know, I've got friends who are really good at make up now, not female friends who are really good at make up. And so they've done online, online courses and stuff like that. And people like you. I've got other friends that are really good at cooking and they've done, they've done. It's not something. So what I'm saying is it doesn't have to necessarily be like you have to go to a course or learn something completely different. You might have everyday skills that that things that you are good at, things that come natural to you, things that you're able to do, and there'll be people that might want to learn it, people that might want to be able to use it. I have another, another friend and I say friend kind of client who's become my friend, who basically speaks multiple languages. And so he realised that there's a lot of people in Brazil that want to learn English. And so he went, just went online using Zoom, obviously zoom with two people in three and just found people on four in Brazil that wanted to learn English and just does English lessons with them, to teach them how to speak in English better and get paid for it. Yeah, this is this is something that comes naturally, just literally monetising things that you're good at. Now for other people, you might think I don't have that type of skill, but you might have a good eye when it comes to close up arguments so you might be able to spot. Okay. I think like, you know, go to like a, a charity shop or jumble sale or these types of things and find things low price, put them online and sell them for a profit. And so there are so many different things you can do, but you just have to kind of work out what's the number for you. So, for example, if I up, okay, we're short £100 each month or so now, you might think, okay, we need £200 extra each month. That is £50 a week. What can I do that can make me £10 a day for five? Days out of seven. If I can make £10 a day for five days out of seven, I can make an extra £200 a month.

Gemma Styles [00:13:30] So kind of. Yeah. Breaking it down into more. Less. Less. The mindset of, you know, make more money. Make more money all the time. It's kind of what's what's my shortfall? What what do I need kind of thing?

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:13:41] Exactly. I mean, and it will build because you will start off, like you said, like, what's my shortfall? But eventually you become better because what you want. And if you do over time, you'll improve. You'll find better things to buy, newer things, better ways to do it, find new markets, people to buy your stuff, and you'll develop and grow over time. And it doesn't mean the first thing you try. It might not work out, but you've learnt a way not to do it. So don't be disheartened is like way not to do it. Now go and try again and do something different.

Gemma Styles [00:14:09] Yeah, definitely. So I mean, that's obviously just one kind of element of something that maybe people could do when people are looking up sort of how they manage their money and how they kind of plan. What what do you do to approach that? Say, if you're right at the beginning, as in because you're obviously qualified as a financial adviser, do people necessarily need a financial adviser? Like where is the best place to go to just to start with?

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:14:37] Good question. I think to answer the financial adviser, I think the financial adviser parts will be much later down the line. Once you start saving and you've got money in your life, you know, I've got the savings, so I'll start I've been saving online on the app or invest them online. But I want to take it further and I really want to know what I'm doing and so forth. I mean, you might bring in a financial adviser to begin with. I always tell people the first place it starts is with you. You've got to find your way. So why? What is it? What motivates you? Why? What's most important to you? Because the problem is, is that I see online and you probably see a lot with social media is but I think a lot of people are chasing other people's dreams. So I meet people and they're like, Oh, I really want to go and live in Dubai. Why do you want to live in the bar? Because you believe there's some lifestyle that you've seen online and that's and that's made you want to do that. I really want to get a five bedroom house. Why? Because you've seen someone with a five bedroom house. And so what happens is we start to take other people's dreams, other people's goals, and take them like they're ours. Yeah. And then as you start to go along that journey, when things get tough, you kind of that, Oh, I don't really want a five bedroom house anyway and kind of give up. And it's actually is really important for you to start with. What are you working towards? What's most important to you? Because then if, for example, if I'm out and I want to buy a house, that's my thing. If I see somebody else buy a car, I'm not going to be jealous of them buying a car. It's not going to affect me than buying a car because I know I want to buy a house.

Gemma Styles [00:16:11] Right.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:16:11] Do you know what I mean? For the problem is, is that sometimes I see people they're blocking, not blocking, restricting their friends, because seeing their friends succeed while they're maybe perceiving themselves as not doing well is affecting them. But then until you understand that you're on your own personal journey, I have met people who have been millionaires in their twenties and bankrupted their families and then gone back again in their 40. That life is full of ups and downs and just just because somebody else is up and you're not where you think you you should be for your age, which doesn't exist. You could be anywhere at any age. But just because you filled up, because you're a certain age, you're not way you think you're supposed to be, all of a sudden you're allowing it to affect your your mental health. You hate you hate going on social media because of all the other things that you're seeing. And actually it's about you find in peace of mind of yourself and know that you're on your own personal journey. You know what you want for your life. And that as long as I can look at myself, I always tell myself, as long as I can look at myself and I know each day I'm doing what it takes to reach my goals or my dreams, I can be happy for everyone else. Someone else can have more money than me, more fame than we have, Whatever, more than me. It doesn't make a difference because I'm claiming was for me and I'm focusing on what's right for me and my family and so forth. And I think that it starts with the individual.

Gemma Styles [00:17:35] Yeah. And idea. Yeah, I think that's so true about social media kind of. I think in lots of different areas, it kind of encourages us to look at what everyone else is doing, which doesn't have to be a bad thing. But I mean, yeah, we've talked on the podcast before about all this sort of comparison and the insecurity that sneaks in around those things. And yeah, I think that's a good way of looking at it to kind of break it down. And yes, they've got that thing. But did you actually really want nothing at all or do you just want it because they've got it?

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:18:01] Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's the thing. Like, you know, I mean, and I remember meeting you and like, you're so nice. You're just so nice as a face. Like, I know you're just so nice and normal, like, just just a normal person. And obviously, I didn't know who he was. I just met he lovely, lovely Gemma. And just to just talk in and then, and then obviously we connected on social media and it was like. Wow, You've got all these I and you just assumed naturally in life because I've met you in person in real life before I saw you on social media. I've not had any preconceptions, so I've just met you. And I was taking you as you are. And you're a lovely person. It was a lovely meeting.

Gemma Styles [00:18:37] Oh, thank God.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:18:39] No, But then see me then, obviously. Then human nature says, Wow, you've got so many followers, you must be like this. Do you know what I mean? And that's. Yeah, and that's what we did. And then sometimes also we didn't say, Oh, I wish I had that many followers. You see, somebody else's success is going, Oh, I want that now. And it's like, Yeah, you, your followers have nothing to do with you as a person. Do you know what I mean? Like, you are a very normal, lovely person that if I met you, I just think you're a lovely guy. I wouldn't think that you were like somebody that had millions of followers. You know what I mean? But you could see. You know what I mean? I just like to be. It's just amazing how you've been able to do this. I guess you tell people that. How have you been able to disconnect the the numb you're following from how you are as a person?

Gemma Styles [00:19:24] Oh, flip it around on me now. And I don't know. I just I just don't think I've changed who I am as a person. But but then actually, like, if you look back at the past ten years, like, I've probably changed a lot as a person. So I yeah, I don't know if I can can particularly answer about super. Well, I mean, you've just been very nice about me. I'm sweating now. I feel embarrassed because you've been really nice about me. But I think, yeah, I don't know. I think that's. I mean, yeah, it's all what we're talking about, isn't it. Like. Yeah, but the thing about comparison is that you're making assumptions about people. So I think that that probably is a good example of, you know, you see, you might see online what someone else has and you might assume not only what they're like as a person, but also how happy it makes them. So, you know, all of these other things that might might not be true at all. But yeah, it might might be adjusting how you're making your goals, but actually you don't even know if that's such a satisfying, you know, the person who you're looking are or whether their goals are the same as yours or whether they're happy or any of that stuff, really.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:20:29] Exactly. Exactly. So I think that's the first place to start. And then I think the second thing is that what you set goals like create goals for yourself. Like what are the things that you want to create a plan, have, have some goals, what do you want to achieve and actually write it down? There's something I think there's this power in writing things down, like it almost brings you into the reality. And then I like to go a step further from just not just writing it down, but also also just printing out pictures. So taking the actual pictures and then even create even further, like, for example, like how Willa, I'm going to buy this, how buy a house that looks like this. I'm going to go on a TV and go to see that house and experience being in that house, because now I've made it real to myself, like I've been in this type of house, so why can't it happen for me? I want to if you want to buy a certain car, you could take it out for a test drive and experience it if you want to. If you want to become an author, you can I don't know. You can put yourselves in these environments, whatever it may be. It's just it's just about actually how much how real can I make it feel to myself before I make it happen. And so for me, if I write it down and haven't having it, but then also having an accountability partner like I think is something like 70 or 80% more likely to achieve your goal if you have an accountability partner. Nice is so important, especially when it comes to your money that you have someone that you can bounce things off. So for example, I always tell my clients to do like a 48 hour or so. If you go online and you see something, you want to purchase it. Wait 48 hours. If you go back in 48 hours and you still want to buy it, fine by them. And nine times out of ten they don't buy it. If we our time, we don't buy it because all the colours, all the pictures, all the things us enticed you. That's not there anymore. It's just an item. And you realise I've lived for hours about this. I am. I don't need it anymore by the time you're ready to go and buy it. But also sometimes what you can do is and pick up the phone to someone, say, I'm thinking of buying this. What's your thoughts? And maybe not. Well, actually you said you're going to say X, Y, Z. So as long as you can save X-Y-Z, you go ahead. Then you realise, Oh, I can't save X, Y, Z because I'm going to buy this, okay? I'm going to leave it alone. And it's so important to have people because when you're on your own, if it's just you in your head and anything could happen, you know, like you could just the switch can flip and you now going to go and spend it all, not forget the world, forget everything. I'm going to enjoy my life. And actually having an accountability partner is a really, really important thing.

Gemma Styles [00:22:58] Every week my guest and I will be answering your questions. On the first one comes in from Eduardo, who says, Do you have any tips on how to manage my personal finances? Being self-employed for me is very difficult to plan, save or invest. I know how much I can spend due to the variation of the money I make every month.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:23:15] Yes, this is a very, very good question and one that I get all the time. I think the best way to win a self-employed. Your money's up and down. You might have good months, bad months, slow months, high months or so forth. What's really important is to kind of kind of try your best where you came to set yourself up, having a salary lack, so pay yourself a set amount each month. So for example, you might like one month, you might make ten. Okay, The next month you might make one. You might not make anything for a couple of months or so forth. So what's important is if you know that you need £2,000 a month, then just set yourself out that that's what you're going to pay yourself. So when money comes in, the remainder, you leave in order to make sure you've got money to pay yourself. Also with self-employed is always important. I always say to put at least 20% of anything that comes in does pay a way for tax. Hopefully it shouldn't be that much because you can take away expenses and all of that type of stuff. But anything that comes in put 20% of it into a separate account and for that as a tax account. And that will help. And then if you can try and set yourself a set amount that stops the ups and downs as much as possible. And so that should should kind of help.

Gemma Styles [00:24:29] Okay.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:24:30] And also, don't pay us off direct from your for your business account. So pay yourself into into your personal account and you manage that and obviously pay any costs and stuff from your business account. But separate. So now you understand that there's you and your business and the two are separate and that should make your money much clearer for you to manage.

Gemma Styles [00:24:48] Everything staying organised, the ticket stress free life I have had to learn over a long time, but organising is key.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:24:59] Key.

Gemma Styles [00:25:00] Okay, perfect. Next question is from Sophie, who? I thought this was quite an interesting question. What do you think affects how people relate to their finances more? Nature or nurture?

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:25:11] I can't say which one is more than the other. I do think that I see both. Like I see people who have spending habits or because of trauma that they've been through. So and it's a way for them to get through what they've been through in life, to do what I mean. And so that's how they escape, is you can buy something in this that the adrenaline and the rush that you get from buying something. And then there's the giving yourself a present. I know a lot of people who maybe grew up with not having much, and they love Amazon because Amazon come through the door and it's a package just for them. Someone's coming, brought something to them and that feeling makes the hell makes them feel better because of things that they've been through in life. So there's definitely, you know, what you've been through, but then there's also your environment. I think if you think about the people that you're around and the environment you're in, it's going to play a big part in in your financial decisions and even just life choices in general. So I think both have a part to play depending on the person one plays more than the other. But I definitely think, you know, a lot a lot of the time when I see people who are part of money, they will tell me that their parents were bad with money or and it's an ongoing cycle. So I definitely try, you know, try and help people to kind of break those, what we call kind of generational curses or kind of generation of just continuing continuing to try to try and stop it with them. So yeah, that's that. But yeah, I wouldn't say one's more than the other, but they definitely both exist.

Gemma Styles [00:26:41] Mm hmm. I find that so interesting. I mean, everyone knows what I'm like by now. I can't help but make everything about mental health, but it's quite like. It's quite interesting. Even with this, like, with the examples we've talked about today, it's kind of one person could have something happen to them and it will put them into that like scarcity mindset, as you say, and make them not want to spend. But someone could have kind of a similar thing happen and it makes them want to spend. Like I think it's really interesting just how like how personal it is, not only just your particular, you know, how much money in the bank at any moment, but like how we all relate to money as it as it stands. I find it really interesting. So thank.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:27:18] You. Yeah. No, so do I. So do I. And it's like, that's why I feel like you have to be so open. I always tell people like, we do. I do this. I do these TV shows, and this is how money is so effective. So a daily TV show. So we got on Channel four. There's a show called Make an Attraction, and it's been going for seasons and people will be naked on television and feel no way. But when we do money shows, do you know how hard it is to get contestants?

Gemma Styles [00:27:42] Wow.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:27:42] Because people don't is I struggle to get people to actually talk about money on TV so people will be much more comfortable being naked on television than they would speak about their money.

Gemma Styles [00:27:52] God, that's fascinating. I have watched Naked Attraction. I've always I watched the episode a couple of weeks ago since my friend I was like, Who signs up for this? All these people are so brave. I don't understand.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:28:04] It's true they are. But it's been going on for seasons. They don't struggle up every the is always on. There's always people there. Whereas talk about your money. I mean, we have people that will start. And then a second you're like, okay, you have to send us your bank statement, okay, we can't do this anymore.

Gemma Styles [00:28:18] Yeah, well, that I mean, that's such an interesting insight from somebody who works on those programmes because I like. I wouldn't have thought that would be the case at all. Wow.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:28:25] Yeah.

Gemma Styles [00:28:27] Okay. Last question is, is maybe a punchier question from Chelsea, who says, With the current financial climate and house prices being so extortionate, it's less likely that a lot of young people will be able to be homeowners. How do you see this unfolding down the line? Do you anticipate a housing crash soon or do you think long term renting will become more normal?

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:28:51] Good question. I think there's a few things that could happen. So we. Right now we have a big wealth wealth transfer. So we are seeing wealth growing from the older generation and go into the younger generation. So, yes, we are seeing, you know, bank of mum and dad, grandma, grandfather helping the, you know, the grandchildren and children get onto the the housing ladder. So we've seen big wealth transfers and so forth. So we're seeing money fit from one generation to the next. I think it is getting harder for people to get onto the ladder, especially for young people to get onto the ladder. But there's a few things that's happening. Number one, I think, you know, we have to look outside of cities and try and look at look outside of. Obviously working from home, if that continues the way it has. Because, look, we're like all people, businesses are saying get back in office almost a bit more now. But if work from home does still exist and still allow people to to do that two or three days a week, we may see more people being able to afford to buy because they don't necessarily have to live near where they work because, yes, you might have to do an hour, hour and a half commute. But if you only have to do that once or twice a week, that's not too bad. Yeah. So we may see people be able to, for example, buy in the Midlands. I still work in London, for example, if they're able to travel in and so forth. We also are seeing strikes. We're seeing salaries finally starting to increase and go up. So that will help. But I think what people are having to do is be more outside of the box. So we're going to see probably less people buying on their own and more people either buying with a friend, buying with a partner or buying with a family member. And that's more how people are going to be able to get onto the property ladder as opposed to just buying on your own.

Gemma Styles [00:30:35] If you want to know about opportunities to send in questions for upcoming guests, then follow us on Instagram or Twitter at Good Influence US. Or you can email the podcast at Good Influence Pod at gmail.com. Before you go, I've got three things I ask every guest, and so could you please recommend does something to read, something to listen to, Something to watch.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:30:58] Excellent. Something to read. I have a book coming out called Get Your Money Right, which I'm really proud of and is basically a book where I have all my years of financial advice. I've been a financial advisor for over 15 years. I have put into a book How Money works, how you can make it work for you, how you can have the things you need to do. If you're looking to get a pay increase for things to do when it comes to property, when it comes to pensions, investing in in a side hustle that we talked about, all of that is all in the book to try and help you kind of get a basic level of understanding. And this is what I tell you, so simple to read. If there's no there's no jargon in there. And in each chapter we have a kind of story to make to make it an example of what we've spoken about in that chapter, to make it nice and easy for you to understand. So I definitely recommend my book Get Your Money right as something to read something to what? I've got two things. I've got my two favourite kind of films and Mean would be kind of financing films, but one is the Big Short. I don't know if anyone's seen the big. Have you seen The Big Short?

Gemma Styles [00:32:08] I think I've seen bits of it. I don't think I've ever watched it properly from beginning to end, but my boyfriend's tried to get me to watch it several times.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:32:15] Yes, big show is hilarious. You probably would have seen clips online because they take little bits out and it's actually hilarious. But it basically explains the last recession, the credit crunch, the last kind of why it happened and what happened and so forth. But it's a great it has bits where it stops and explains like technical stuff. So it's a great it's a great movie to kind of sit down, watch, laugh, but also kind of understand finance and money in the way it works and so forth.

Gemma Styles [00:32:39] Oh, what perfect recommendation for this episode.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:32:41] So I do I do love The Big Short, but then also I love the pursuit of happiness. It's like my favourite film I watch. I've watched it almost a hundred times. I just love it. And we Will. Smith And the reason I like it is just because it just shows the journey that people make. And sometimes the fact that, you know, we see people and we see them as being successful, we don't know that journey is taken for them to get there. And actually, you know, he was so focussed on his pursuit of what he what was going to make him happy. They even though devastating things kept happening, he just kept focusing on where he wanted to be. And he got there. I mean, obviously some was his why as to why he wanted to, you know, achieve what he wanted to achieve. So yeah. Loved it.

Gemma Styles [00:33:23] Thank you.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:33:24] And then listen to. Hustle hard. Hustle. Small car. 50 Cent Jackson. So 50 Cent has an audio book. And when I tell you he is dropping gems in this.

Gemma Styles [00:33:39] Okay.

Emmanuel Asuquo [00:33:40] Like in his own voice, he's just talking to you. He's talking to you about things that he's done well, things that he's done wrong. Just things that go wrong in business. And if you're a person that you're thinking about starting a side hustle, thinking about how to increase your income. Thinking about what your mindset needs to be to be better your money. Listen to this audiobook and I'm telling you and enjoy it. You just listen to it and I have to keep pausing and just write notes and just take notes from the sink. Okay, I can do that. I can do that. And yeah, it's a great listen.

Gemma Styles [00:34:09] Thank you for listening and thank you, Emmanuel, for joining me. If you enjoyed the episode, I'd love you to subscribe to the podcast on whichever platform you're using. And if you're feeling generous, you can leave a rating under review as well. See you next week.