124. Financial Wellbeing and Work: On Making Career Changes with Aadil Abbas and Prina Shah

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change Your Workplace with Myself Prinosha, where we uncover today how you can find ways to optimize your organizational culture.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hello and welcome to this very important episode of the Ways to Change Your Workplace podcast with myself Preenisha. And I'm bringing back my very good friend Adil Abbas, all the way from Sydney, to your ears. Adil is a financial planner and he works for an organization. He owns an organization called Own Financial Planning. Aden, welcome back. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:40

I'm good, Freena. It's great to be back.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

It's so good to have you. Adil, our last conversation has made some waves. People are talking to their workplace about the need to discuss their financial well-being. So Adil, I can't thank you enough. And for the audience who are listening, if you haven't listened to that episode, go back and check it out. I will link to that in our show notes. Adil, I wanted to bring you back for a very important reason. That episode has really made waves within the workplace. And in our first episode, Adil, we talked about the fact that financial well-being is something that we all need to consider within the workplace as employees and as employers. Money makes the world go around. The reason we're working is for money, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:26

I've been using that line a fair bit now as well. It's cheesy, but actually it's the truth.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

It's the truth. What the hell else are we working for? Yeah, otherwise I'll be at the Bahamas somewhere, a resort with you, hey, having some fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

I can just say one thing, I think, Pina, on that one is that I think money I find is the last, I would say, taboo in terms of our lives. Money is the last, uh, yeah, it's it's the last in terms of the taboo because I think we become very comfortable talking to our friends, family, and employers about things like you know, I think we think of the other taboos, things like politics and religion and even sex lives. We're very comfortable, but think about money. How often do we talk about money to anybody but ourselves? We have our own money stories in our heads. So I'm glad that you have brought it up as a key topic for employers and employees and for people to generally talk about and break the last, I would say, taboo.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

100%. Now, Adil, people wanted to know a little bit more about you and a little bit more about me in terms of our money stories as well. And I'm happy, you know, I'm always happy to share my background. Um, Adil, I'm gonna share my background, then I'm gonna ask you to share your background because yours is a fascinating one.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Um, so my background maybe not as fascinating as yours, Prina, but you go first.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Come on, you're very kind. So, my background, as Adil knows, and as many of our audience knows, I worked in HR for over 20 years in both areas of HR, generalist and then specialist HR. Adil, I focused, as you know, in organizational culture change and helping humans with behavior change, so leadership and people development. I knew there was more. Um, so I decided to learn the system and become a consultant and find ways to change the workplace, which is this podcast. And um, when I was working, so my money story, I knew that I wanted to quit Adel, and uh I knew I wanted to have my own business. So I worked solidly and I probably side hustled for around seven years, building my brand, building my budget, building my savings essentially. And Adel, when I quit my corporate job, I had around six months of savings within my bank account to help me as a buffer to kick off my business. And I'm really glad that I did that. So I already had a list of clients built up, my brand built up, and everything. And I, you know, went off on my merry way. But I really want to talk to you about the concept of career change in this episode today. And I know that you have made a significant career change. So I would love to hear your story. Then I've got some questions for you in relation to career change, please, Adil.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Sure, Parina. But first of all, I will say as a financial planner, I love the fact that you mentioned that you had six months of savings before you made a significant life decision. And I can't tell you how much that was pleasing for for me to for me to hear that as a friend, uh, as a friend, uh you you actually have followed some of the fundamentals of financial planning, which we've discussed offline in any case. So well done to you. Um so my story, Preena, um, mine is yes. So I moved to Australia nearly 20 years ago as a skilled migrant. I used to work in wealth management prior to moving to Australia. But when I moved to Australia and tried to break into the wealth management, financial planning sort of market over here, as I got really knocked back, to be honest, because I did not have an existing client base or a sort of a network here. Um, and you know, you come as skilled migrants, you come across that standard response, which is do not have local experience. And I was like, in my head, I was like, money is money, irrespective of the color. Like, like what's the what's so different about financial planning wealth management in Australia compared to what I've done before. But anyway, uh I was quite lucky enough from that I already had an MBA as well. And so it became a natural pathway for me then to kind of fall into management consulting. And MBA leads to management consulting. Most people kind of understand that. And very lucky enough that over a 15-year period I'm working in management consulting, I worked on a variety of projects focusing on workforce planning, leadership development, operations, optimization, business development, market and entry strategy. So we're very lucky to have diversity of experience from a management consulting perspective and management consulting for those who are listening. And you know, uh, I found it to be a great training ground in learning to think through problems and challenges using frameworks, systems, and processes. Also, it taught me really good skills around effective, I would say, communication and influencing using storytelling, storytelling techniques. Because as humans, we are wired to listen to stories. We love a good story. Uh, and finally, just given the nature of the industry of management consulting, the intellectual prowess and rigor you're surrounded by means that you learn through so much just through osmosis, and you need to need to lift your game each time if you if you want to progress in that industry. But anyway, I that was for 15 years I did that when I first moved to Australia, but I hadn't forgotten my first love, which was financial planning. In fact, what I did during those 15 years was I just became my own financial planner. And along the way, worked with a few financial planners myself. Like so I wanted to get some expert advice because I was not dealing with it on a day-to-day basis. And that's the key thing is like we can't be experts in everything at the same time. We do need to understand expertise. Uh, if you know you you need to be an expert in your career, your field, having multiple expertise at the same time is sometimes not realistic.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

So I worked with a few financial planners myself along the way to invest, save, and build my build my wealth as a uh over the last 15 to 20 years. And the consistent application of financial planning principles allowed me to reach a stage in my life where approximately now it's been three years now, that I had some choices around the next phase of my career and my life. So I found myself in a situation then at that time where I could take some essentially take some risk around my income going backwards, but it not but very importantly, not impacting my lifestyle and enjoying the present. Wow. Uh so what had really happened is essentially I made a mid-career, mid-career transition to become a financial planner. This time, however, with some gray hair, tons of local experience and local networks to really help others. And my primary motivation to help help help others have choices to design their own lives and live it on their own terms because money is a big enabler of choices in life. So that's my story, Preena. And here I am three years, three years down the track. You know, we're very sort of lucky to have done my own business. I I have a business partner as well, and we jointly run own financial planning, uh, which is a goals-based holistic financial planning business.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Beautiful. Adel, now you are very, very modest in everything that you just said. So Adil has been working hard and he's changed career, and I've seen his career change and shine. You know, he's now a business owner. So, from an internal management consultant working for a very, very fascinating firm uh to now being your own boss. Adil, the other thing I think we both missed out to say is that we changed careers in our 40s. So let's be honest here, it's hard, but it can be done. And Adil, I know you deal with this and I deal with this as well. So many of my clients, so from a leadership development perspective or one-to-one coaching perspective, Adil, I have many a client who face the need to change their career for a number of reasons. Adil, maybe they're not feeling it. Maybe like us, they want to start their own business. Yes, maybe maybe they just need a break. Maybe they want to go and learn something new, or from a female perspective, they've had kids, they've taken time off work, and they realize now that the workforce is not quite ready for them, or they want something new, Adeel. Now, have you come across career changes from your perspective as your clients? And I have many leadership lessons for people, which I won't share because I really want to focus on the financial wellness aspect, Adil. Do you have career change clients? And what advice do you have from a financial wellness perspective, Adil, for people who are listening who are considering a career change, please?

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Great question, Preena. And actually, career change or changing the nature of your income, where you earn your income from is a constant topic. But one of the first conversations I do with my clients is talk to me about your goals in life. Talk to me about your work intentions, talk to me about what does, if there were no barriers, what sort of a life do you want to design for yourself? And one of the concepts which resonates with a lot of people is the idea of having a work optional lifestyle. And what that really means is that you then work not, you don't work for the money. You just work because you enjoy working. And that can be in various capacities. It can be, it can be changing your career to something different completely. It can mean just reducing it, going down to part-time work as well in your current world, because many people may just enjoy what they're doing, but they just can't see themselves doing it five days a week due to some, you know, due to life still, due to a life stage. It's taking taking like working part-time to take care of, take care of children or to take care of elderly parents, could be various reasons, or just simply wanting to slow down and just have a bit better balance in their life. And or sometimes there are many people who say to many of my clients say, I want to become my own boss. And so work optional lifestyle gives you that idea, ability to then do work to choose work which you would like to do in whatever capacity that I may. And I can probably share typically this sort of conversation leads to I can say there are some three, two or three key principles, but from a finance perspective, which I'd like to probably share, which I have seen are the tips we give to our clients when they talk to us about this goal, because it's a very big goal. It's an emotional, it's a very important goal to our clients. As a financial planner, I'm all about helping clients achieve their goals. I'm like, I want to chase your goals. I don't want to chase, I want to chase your goals with you. So let's let me help you from a money aspect to do that. So, number one tip make a budget. Or I like, or as I like to call it, which probably we people who listen to our previous episode will know the idea of a spending plan.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Make a spending plan. Let's face it, I think who doesn't like the idea of spending money on things and experiences which give you joy. So the government has actually that there's a website called the Money Smart website. It has a very easy to use uh, I would say, budgeting tool. And I like this one because it really takes into account one of yearly expenses or quarterly expenses, such as your uh your car registration, which comes around once a year, or your utility bills, which may be once a quarter, which can get missed out on a monthly budget. So keep that in mind. You need to do an annual spending plan, but actually consciously see where you are spending your money and what lifestyle are you leading today and how what would you like to maintain? So, this is about understanding lifestyle. A budget is about lifestyle, it's not about saying have less coffee or go to cut down on two coffees or have less avocado and toast. It's about really for you to get conscious about what are the things you're spending money on to lead the lifestyle that you want to lead and would like to lead uh through your money. Secondly, uh, the second one is something which I think which with, as you mentioned, you follow this principle already, and I'm very pleased that you've done it. We tell our clients if you're going to do any such thing with regards to your career or to your job, make sure you have enough money saved up to cover at least six months of expenses. In my case, particularly, I made sure I had one year's worth of expenses saved up, as I was not only going to change careers, like literally start at the bottom of a bottom of the career, like bottom of the rung again, but also start a business. So I took it was a double whammy. I had to make some investments as well, not just change my career. I had to make an investment into the business, which meant I gave myself a buffer of one year's expense. And hence you can see why, in order to determine what is a good buffer, a spending plan needs to come first.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Which gives you a good idea of okay, how much do I need to really save up? And then finally, the third tip which I give to client, and again, these are principles which I had which I used in my own career transition. So I am talking from a lot of my own experience over here and uh over here. So number three for me was really like estimate what your new income may look like. Because chances are it may not look like what you're on today. Chances are they're going to look a little bit different. Uh, be when you go part-time, when you change careers, when you start your business, it's gonna look different from what it is, especially for the first one or two years potentially. And one thing which we get our clients to do is to understand, see what trade-offs you may need to make from your lifestyle spending and to make your emergency buffer last longer. Because there is one thing certain, nothing will go ever perfectly to plan. There will be curveballs along the way with regards to your income and expenses when you do these sorts of decisions. Yeah, uh, so definitely start thinking about some some trade-offs. So, again, the principles of like doing a that's why the spending plan becomes so critical. So you can really say, okay, am I spending money money on things which really give me joy? Do I need to do I need to continue spending on these things? How do I make my emergency buffer last longer? Because it's not going to go as per plan. You may say you may save up for six months and it may run out in six months, and then you are a little bit of, I would say, trouble if things don't go as per plan in your new career or new business. So, in my case, I'll give an example. I'm very happy to share this. Is like I made a trade-off of actually not going on an overseas holiday for the first couple of years, which had just become part of my lifestyle previously when I had a stable income employment, I was doing well in my career. Yeah. So, in this so, in my experience, you know, just following these three principles and sharing these principles with my clients always as well in recently has made the transition journey a bit more enjoyable as well and smoother, because I wasn't counting every penny during the lean times in the early days of my business.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yeah, beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Enjoying the present, I was still enjoying the present. I had kind of thought it through really well, and it made my transition, gave me the ability to focus on the future and not get so stressed about the present.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah, and you maintain your lifestyle minus the holidays, which you can live with, right? That was the that was the uh that was the trade-off I did.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

And everybody might have their own trade-offs, but I think it's again about getting conscious and visibility because these are some really big life decisions people are about to make. And your biggest asset, as we say in financial planning to people who are in their 30s and 40s and 50s, when I ask clients, what is your biggest asset? A lot of people who give the response and say, Oh, it's my house or whatever. I say to them, no, your biggest asset is your ability to earn an income.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yes, yes, absolutely. And we need to manage that. Oh my gosh, Adil, I'm going to summarize your points in a second. Uh, in terms of leadership tips, in terms of the kind of career jump that you want to make, Adil, you know it, I know it. Many people fear that leap. So the kind of tips that I give is consider the knowledge that you can gain now in your current job, which you can take to your future job. And that's exactly what you and I have been working on over our years. Um get a mentor in your new area if need be. Like suss it out before you make that leap. You know, grass is often greener on the other side, and we need to consider whether it is greener. Um, see if you can get work experience, do some pro bono work if you can. Uh, consider how you'll build your professional brand in your new industry. And then, as Adel said, three very, very important points. If you are considering a career change, make an annual spending plan annual. And I'll put links to the smart uh website budgeting tool, uh, Money Smart in our website, and I'll give links to all of Adel's contact details in our in the show notes as well. So make a spending plan annually, save at least six months. Adil actually did 12 months, so you consider what your life needs, and then the I didn't do this, Adil. This is gold. Estimate what your new income will look like. So you're helping me now plan for the future and the comfortableness of my decision that I've made and my new life that I'm gonna be working on. So I cannot thank you enough, Adil. Career changing is hard, but it doesn't need to be hard if we follow these principles.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Correct. Like I think uh it's already a big decision from a career change perspective for people. Um, make it easy on yourself by doing some homework and doing some groundwork. And I think when you do some homework and groundwork, you lay the base, you lay the right foundations. When you lay the right foundations, everything you built from that foundation then will actually be sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Perfect. Thank you so much, Adam. I'm gonna bring you back for another conversation. How good was that episode? If you liked it, be sure to share it with a couple of other people. Also in the show notes are details about my newsletter. Keep in touch, I send a newsletter out around once a month. It won't be spammy, it will be very practical. And if we're not connected on LinkedIn yet, we must be connect with me on LinkedIn. And on Instagram, I am prina.shar. I will see you somewhere else or in the next episode. Until then, goodbye.