Adam Hoffman

Full transcript: Adam Hoffman on London Real

1:21 This is London Real, I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Adam Hoffman, recent graduate of our Business Accelerator. Welcome. Happy to be here, thanks, Brian. Great having you. Tell us a bit about you. Where are you from, what do you do? Well, I’m from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Not everyone would know where that is, but Banff and the Rocky Mountains are nearby. We’re 1.5 million people. And I was a tax lawyer for 12 years.

1:44 So I did a joint business law degree from Western Ontario, in London, Ontario, Canada, and yeah, straight to work. Worked as a tax lawyer, really enjoyed it, but kind of just got lost in it. You know, all professional development, no personal development. And worked with a lot of families on their tax planning. I probably saved in total about $200 million of taxes for my clients over those 11, 12 years.

2:16 Did they call me about their family problems? Never. And most of that money that was saved ended up in estate litigation, going to the government or to the estate litigators. And that really bothered me. And so I’m not doing as much tax planning anymore, and I’m focused on family governance, helping families really ask tough questions of themselves and make sure that they grow together. Because really, the value of your family wealth is your people, not your financial assets.

2:46 That’s a powerful message. I’m really glad you said that. And so you felt kind of a lack of connection with your work, because you weren’t really forming personal relationships, and the money you were saving wasn’t actually going anywhere productive. Absolutely, Brian. It’s amazing, when you focus just on financial assets, you lose everything else. And one of the people I look to for my advice, his name is Jay Hughes, really interesting guy, and he uses a hand analogy.

3:16 So if you’re focused on the financial assets only, you lose all of the other assets in your family: your personal well-being, your relationships, your spiritual well-being and your human development. But if you focus on financial assets as holding you up, then you can actually grow as a family, and what really matters are those other areas of wealth. Powerful. I like that analogy.

3:47 What was going on with you right before you decided to pull the trigger and take the Business Accelerator? Personally, professionally, what made it happen? Yep. I was just transitioning. So I was the CFO of a diesel technology startup company, and we had finished a big financing. I didn’t need to do the financial reporting anymore. We had capital in place. I went to my co-founder and said, “Craig, I need to focus on something that really drives me.” There wasn’t a lot of work for me in there. In-house counsel was basically my last role.

4:22 And so he said, “Yeah, let’s build a safe off-ramp for you. You can still do the in-house counsel work on the side, but what do you want to do?” I had no idea, and it was pretty daunting. The alternative was going back to tax law, I guess. But I really dug in. I looked for values that mattered to me, and what I kept coming back to was this issue that, for families that have money, wealth is destructive. And if you don’t find ways to mould it and make it better for your family, it can really just destroy everything.

4:59 And so with that in mind, that was kind of a powerful moment for me. With that in mind, I started to shape what I wanted to do next. And I work with a family wealth coaching team now. And families of that scale, they can pay for consulting. It’s not hard for them to invest in their families. But those values, those lessons, they’re for every family. It’s not just families with extreme wealth that can pay for consulting. And I was trying to find a way to deliver that kind of messaging that family wealth coaching can deliver to everyone.

5:41 And I was playing around online. I mentioned to you right before the interview, I don’t peruse YouTube like most people do that have found you, but that day I did, and I found the Business Accelerator course. And I found this ability to communicate through online courses or online videos or what have you. And it just kind of spurred that entrepreneurial side of me to say, yes, this is a way that you can deliver these messages to families without having them pay these big consulting fees. And that’s how I ended up here.

6:20 And why London Real? Why trust us? Why decide to go all in and spend your time and your money with us? I love your vests. No. Good start? No, it was inspirational. It was the way that you were able to deliver your messaging, through the webinars or through your videos, to say, listen, there’s powerful value here. That was what appealed to me on that first look.

6:52 But I did my research, and like you’ve talked about many times, the accountability is where the value is. And I’m someone that needs to be held accountable. My co-founder jokes that unless I have a deadline, nothing gets done. And the accountability from our course, the Business Accelerator, was just incredible. That community of people, your team at London Real, we really pulled together, and I figured that was where the value was, and it absolutely was.

7:23 What are those first couple weeks like? You know, you pull the trigger, I drop you in, Facebook group, private, a lot of these people around the world, video modules, two live calls a week, the accountability doc, which at first is probably a little overwhelming, 10 vlogs. There’s a lot going on. What’s that first two weeks like? Yeah, it can be overwhelming if you don’t understand how resistance works. And one of the first lessons of your course is understanding what resistance is and how to push through it.

7:53 And any amount of effort that it takes to accomplish something in life, that’s about how much resistance you’re going to have to push through to get that thing accomplished. I love the nodding, because those are your words, right? It’s such a beautiful statement. So true. And you’ve accomplished so much, and that’s kind of proof. Think of all the resistance that you’ve had to go through to get there. So yeah, the first two weeks, you guys really set the table to make sure that we were ready for that much work. And it was a lot of work, but by setting the table, I think you made it a really successful platform for us to launch from.

8:30 What did you struggle with? What was the hardest module for you? The hardest thing for me was actually just getting social media rolling again. I hadn’t used Facebook in 10 years, except to say thanks for the birthday wishes. And yeah, to really believe that I had a message that was authentically my own, and was something that people wanted to hear, I think were the hard steps for me.

8:59 Family wealth, the idea that your people come before your money, investing in relationships, these are all powerful messages, but there are a lot of wealth coaches out there that can deliver them. I think what’s unique about me, and what you taught me through saying, “No, this is your intellectual capital,” is my circumstances. You know, I came from a well-off family. My dad’s an orthodontist. I had no need to struggle for anything through my whole childhood, and it was a wonderful experience.

9:37 And it left me in a spot where, you know, what do you want? It was easy enough to just appease the community, the circumstances around me, get best-in-class marks and get these degrees, but there was no intrinsic motivation there. And I think the hardest part for me was realising that my message to rising generation people is from a rising generation millennial. And that’s a pretty unique thing, I think, for someone who wants to talk about wealth and how money can be quite destructive.

10:20 Yeah, and with your corporate background. Right. Because there’s a lot of wealth coaches out there that don’t have the time that you put in. I think that gives you credit, your personality. I can tell you really feel this. That’s very rare. And I was just visualising right there, if you sat me down with my family and you just looked at us in the eyes the way you just did now and said, “It’s about the relationships, it’s about the people, it’s not about the wealth.” That could change the course of the family. Oh, it’s huge.

10:51 It’s huge, Brian. If I sat down with Mariana and yourself, I’d be telling you, okay, fast forward five or ten years. At that point, your kids are going to be thinking about university. What do you want them to aspire to in life? And how is your money going to support them, not dictate where they go? You know, your circumstances would be a little bit different, because it’s not like your children are going to be London Real.

11:16 But it’s the same sort of overhang: if you let the circumstances of the wealth generator dictate how you live your own life, you don’t have your own dreams, you don’t have your own things to aspire to. Maybe life comes too easy, so you get into a bit of an entitlement trap, instead of finding gratitude and finding your own ability to aspire to things on your own.

11:43 So those are the kinds of conversations that families need to have, at any level of wealth. And I think that it’s missing in the world, and that’s why it’s become my lifelong passion, to say, okay, let’s go out and have these conversations, because wealth is not something that should be a difficult conversation, but for whatever reason it is.

12:03 I love this. What was the community like? What are these people like? You’re going to meet 30 of them tonight, all sorts of different kinds of people from around the world. What was the experience? The experience for me was so incredible. One of the aspects of who I am and where I came from that is difficult for me to succeed in my business is that lawyer language, that upbringing where you’re trying to sound professional. And I think that’s an awful place to be in terms of trying to convey a message.

12:41 So being in a community of people that come from all walks of life, and having to explain what I do to all of them, was incredibly powerful. There were at least seven or eight different ways to spin the same message that I was trying to convey, and without the community, for that very particular reason, I wouldn’t have been able to do so.

13:04 But the accountability, Brian, was so incredible. I think it was Friday of last week or Thursday of last week, I was really in just full resistance on the webinar. I was struggling like crazy. It was nine o’clock Mountain Standard Time, and I knew Jack Locke, who was one of my fellow accelerators, was in Europe. I don’t remember the time zones too well, but I knew it was early, and I just texted him, “Jack, I could use a conversation.” And he sent me a Zoom link and we talked. It was four a.m. there, and it was nine p.m. where I was.

13:42 But he walked me through some of my issues and really kind of unleashed that resistance. It was such a cool moment for me. And you said that wouldn’t be unusual amongst accelerators, reaching out like that and trying to make things like that happen. And he joked that because he teaches musicians about business, he’s used to working at four a.m., but it was still a big thing for him to pick up the phone and send that Zoom link. So it’s just an example, but the community was incredible.

14:09 What was your biggest win on the course? Biggest win was just getting my name out there. Even resistance to blogging in a professional context, not believing in my own opinions and knowledge: blew that out of the water. Now I have full faith in the message that I can deliver. That was a huge win. But I do also think that learning how to communicate in the right way was a huge win too. Instead of making yourself sound like you know what you’re talking about, trying to make the person hearing what you’re saying actually listen and understand what you’re trying to say. That was also a big win.

14:49 What do you want this business to be in six months? So I’m working on a couple of products. I want those products launched. I want them to be able to help people without my ongoing touch on them. I think that’s a really valuable thing. So in six months’ time, I want the second product to be launched. I think the other thing that’s going to be important for me is looking at my career, my future in this area, as a three to five year vision as well.

15:18 So I’ve been working on saying, okay, you have three, six and nine month plans, but what are your three and five year plans? And so just on the airplane over here, I was thinking about that and envisioning, you know, five years from now, I could be a real thought leader. I could really be helping a lot of people. And that’s a really nice perspective to have in place, knowing that these little steps, not even knowing how to blog, are small steps in a big journey.

15:43 Yeah, I kind of like both. I find that when people are just starting off, five year or even one year can be short, because with a one year goal, if you wait till tomorrow or the next day, it doesn’t really affect it. With a 30 or 90 day goal, it’s like, wow, I’m running out of time. Totally. And you’re a guy that needs deadlines. Yeah. But I like the five year too, because you can really visualise where you can be. I love the hundred year goal. I talk about that on London Real all the time, where I have a goal that is going to exceed my lifetime, so it’s not an ego-based goal.

16:10 That’s amazing, because the hundred year vision is kind of the starting point in a family mission statement. Interesting. One of my first products is called the Family Story, and it’s the idea that if you set up your family with a very specific set of principles, then those principles can be guiding lights for multiple generations, not just the ones that you can communicate directly with. But like all things in life, the world moves quickly, so the family story and your life principles need to adjust. They need to be amended by each generation.

16:41 And so that particular product is basically a page where you’ve got the original principle in the middle, you’ve got Brian Rose’s vision of what that principle means on one side, but then you’ve got tons of places for hundreds of stories from your family living that principle, and it’s going to change over time. I love that. I love that product.

17:00 I had some ayahuasca ceremonies recently, and I had this whole vision of building a family crest with my boys, getting their input and coming up with the three words that you could put on the crest, and actually putting the name on it, and then the animals or the symbols that we want, and actually getting it crafted and cast in bronze and having it in different places around the house, so they can believe that our family is about something. And the way you talk about it, this is like the next level of that, talking about the wealth in that same type of idea. I think it’s an amazing thing, and we’ve lost touch with that.

17:35 And this will be a future product for us, I think. I do believe that people have lost touch with how valuable their families are, in a sense. You know, storytelling being what it is, and maybe people not relying on religion the way they used to. Maybe there’s been a bit of a gap there in how valuable storytelling can be.

17:55 You know, you go and you talk to your oldest living relative who can still communicate a story, and you ask them, what’s the memory, what’s the story that you can tell me that stuck out in your mind about your oldest living relative when you were alive? And all of a sudden, just like that, you might get seven generations’ worth of history that you can start to build into where you’ve come from.

18:21 Like, ending up a tax lawyer, I didn’t think that entrepreneurism ran in my blood, so to speak. But then when I thought about it, both of my grandparents in Detroit were entrepreneurs, and I never really pieced that together, I think because we’ve kind of lost that art of storytelling. Yeah, it’s a great observation. I’m excited for your future products.

18:41 How did you change? How’s Adam different? If we went out on the Old Street roundabout here in London and bumped into the guy that didn’t take this course, what’s he like? He still doesn’t know that his message, his personal message, is powerful. Yeah, that’s what that guy is. And he’s still looking for a way to deliver this family wealth consulting to everyone, and he’s lost on that issue. And that’s a big thing to be lost on. You know, this is a powerful message for every family. And that was really nagging at me, so much so that I was playing around on YouTube, and that’s not something I naturally do.

19:17 Yeah, so the micro-niche concept was big for you. Otherwise you’d be in a jungle, not knowing where to go. Yeah, that’s a big thing. Micro-niche is powerful, and there was a lot of resistance in the course on that. I was surprised, because if you understand how to really help a thousand people, there’s no doubt that you can figure out how to leverage that into a million, but getting that first thousand is the hardest part. So really niching in on who are the people you can really help.

19:43 And for me, because of my own personal experiences, it’s for sure the rising generation, people that are looking for their own opportunity to find their own voice, coming from families of wealth. But also, I’ve found that a really powerful micro-niche is talking to the family champions, is the term I use. Picture the non-working family member who really lives the values, say in my case, grandma. She knows exactly what everyone should be about and is willing to tell you. Those people need a platform, and the Family Story is a really cool platform for them. I like it.

20:18 What would you tell someone who’s watching this and wants to take the course, but isn’t sure if it’s the right thing or the right investment of time or money? Yeah. You’ve made it so approachable in terms of the value, with the monthly payments if you can’t afford to pay all up front. But I was at your webinar where you were talking about Speak to Inspire, which also looks like an incredible course, and you are so authentic about how much value you’re getting for the money, and it’s true. And so the value is there.

20:55 If your hesitation is about the value, that’s just a no-brainer, between the accountability and the lessons that you can learn in a short period of time. But on the time thing, that’s just pure resistance, right? And if you can figure out in your own mind why you are saying, “I can’t do this because I don’t have time,” if you can figure that out, because it’s not time, then you’re really going to do well in the course, because that’ll be one of those big resistance things in your head.

21:26 In my case, self-confidence in my own vision, right, of what I think is important. And if you can figure out what that is, there’s no stopping you, and you’re going to click on pay right away. My new rebuttal to “I don’t have time” is: pull out your phone, delete Instagram, put your phone back in your pocket. I just gave you five hours a week. And so that’ll be my new one. But you’re right, even the clarity on your vision, having the confidence to know that I can do this, that’s powerful.

21:54 And now you kind of know where you’re going. You now know how to do it, and now it’s about execution. You’ve got this great class behind you. You’re now part of the family here at London Real, so you have these assets for life. So I don’t know. A ton of value, Brian. And you showed that confidence, like I said, in the webinar. It’s a no-brainer. If it fits with what you’re trying to achieve, it’s an absolute no-brainer.

22:17 Thank you for saying that. I know you asked me about Mariana and me. You had another question you wanted to ask me? Oh, I wanted to ask you about your relationship to wealth. Great question. So you call it wealth, not money. What is the difference, first of all, in your mind, between wealth and money? Oh, that’s a great question. So there’s an equation there. Family wealth is three key things. It’s your financial assets, call that money, and it’s also your human capital and your relational capital.

22:44 So your wealth as a family is made up, two-thirds at least, of the people that you are and the strength of your relationships. And if you put your money first, there’s no way, right? And so, yeah, I use the word wealth differently than a lot of people. And in fact, I like to spell it W-E-L-L-T-H, because that gets to the heart of, are you actually wealthy? Are you well inside? Are you well as a family? Which is a totally different thing than money.

23:13 My relationship with money is still not a healthy one. My wife and I, we still probably overspend our budget and don’t have a real grasp of what’s important to spend money on and whatnot. But when we do spend money on ourselves and our experiences, we’re happiest. So I think at least we have that part right. I love your description of wealth. I think that’s really powerful. I’ll be thinking about that for the next few days.

23:35 You know, I think everyone has a dysfunctional relationship with money. We’re never actually taught about money. We’re not even really taught about it in school. It’s ridiculous. And so we pick up bad habits from the people we watch, which are mommy and daddy, the two people that usually have completely contrasting relationships with money, almost always. And we watch these things and it doesn’t make sense, and we take up these habits. And then, God forbid, you take a business course or start a business, and you’re going to have it morphed again.

24:08 Most people don’t understand how dysfunctional that relationship is, and so they never examine it. It’s almost like childhood trauma that’s not examined. And guess what? It kicks into all sorts of strange addictions, behaviours, and we’ve seen it. And so my own relationship started off with me dreaming of money and wanting money and running after money and pursuing money and believing money would solve all my problems, which of course it doesn’t.

24:32 But most people, since they never actually get the wealth they want, never realise it doesn’t actually buy happiness. Same with fame. No one ever gets as famous as they want. They don’t realise that it’s a ticket nowhere if you want personal well-being or even just happiness. So yeah, it’s crazy. And so with me, I’m really trying to change that relationship with money. Good for you.

24:52 You know, and a few of my guests have helped. Actually, Grant Cardone really helped a lot. He said some interesting things to me. He’s a guy who’s in Florida. He’s big into teaching people how to sell, and he’s also a real estate investor. And he said something interesting in his book, which I found fascinating. He said, “Brian, the way you spend money is the way you make money.” And if you think about that for a while, it’s very interesting.

25:13 If you get people that are really frugal, and every single cent they’re trying to worry about, well, how do they make money? They probably make money in the same way, where it just barely drips in all the time, because it’s not flowing. They have this weird relationship. And if you think about it, it makes sense, because you’re not afraid to invest in yourself. The same with me. I hire the best. When I want a mentor, I get the $50 billion man. I have a guy that teaches me hand-balancing classes. He’s the best in London.

25:39 I constantly get the best and I pay them whatever they want, because my time is more valuable than my money. It is. So if you want an hour of my time, I want the best teaching me. So I’m always comfortable investing in myself. That’s why when I sell these programmes, it’s a no-brainer to me. But people, they look at the money, not the value or what it’ll return over time. So yeah, always investing in yourself is a no-brainer.

26:04 But then also, money is something to be used, I believe. I don’t think it’s something to be hoarded. Now, with family wealth planning, okay, it should be invested, but it shouldn’t just sit there. And for me, for the longest time, I made money in banking and I just kind of wanted it to sit there for a rainy day. But I don’t like that mentality. Money is energy if it flows, that’s what I believe.

26:27 Can I jump in there? Just because, coming from the family wealth perspective, if you lock that into that financial asset pot and you say, yeah, it has to be invested, and you get into the mindset of, okay, that means I need to hire a money manager who’s going to deal with that pot, you lose sight of the fact that if you’re going to make it for 100 years, that financial asset pot has to also make it into your human development and your relational development.

26:50 So yeah, you can lose sight of the fact that it’s energy. And instead of being an energy opportunity for the money manager, you can also make it an opportunity for your family to gain energy. And so, yeah, that’s a fleeting thing. The ability to create wealth, take the energy of the world and make something that actually inspires people to put money towards you and increases your wealth, that energy being what it is, it’s not going to stay together, and wealth just flitters away. So yeah, you better use it while you’ve got it and make it more powerful for your family.

27:26 But it’s interesting, you know, some families donate it all away because they’re worried about what that does in terms of entitlement for their kids. And you were joking before we started about the Warren Buffett example. Well, Warren Buffett said something to the effect of, “I’m going to donate 99% of my wealth away, to make sure my kids only have enough to be happy in life.” Which is noble, except 1% of his wealth still puts his kids in a spot where they could be entitled and not pursuing their own dreams and not living a purposeful life.

27:57 So it’s an honourable concept. But instead of thinking about donating it away, think about how the money can actually do the same thing, make your kids live a more purposeful life, and think about how to move that energy around, transfer it from one pot to the other.

28:13 Adam, I can see why you’re going to be massively successful if you stay focused and implement everything that you’ve learned. Again, I can feel your energy, your knowledge, and you’re so right, and I love your definition of wealth. And I could just think of so many rich, unhappy families that are arguing over these numbers in a bank account, and all it does is make them unhappy, when it could actually help the world, help themselves. So I love what you’re doing. I love your IP. Let’s keep going forward. I’m going to be watching you. You’re part of the family. Thank you. And let’s do some big things, shall we? Thank you so much, Brian. It’s been great. All right, thank you. Thank you.