100. The Next 100 Episodes: What We've Learned and Where We're Going

0:00Welcome to episode 100 of, wait, episode 100 of Always Next Part with a Bits in America, X-Pot Wealth. Yes, arguably, that's too much. And, you know, I'll just acknowledge I've got these lovely balloons behind me from which the podcast guys who produce our podcast have sent us to commemorate episode 100. There's going to always be this tension, if you will, between new listeners and people who aren't aware of these things and people who are a little bit more steeped in them. 100 episode over now, here's the next 100. When what would be called? What would be doing? Oh my god, I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Seven name changes later. We're looking at this as a sort of reset refresh, a sort of new beginnings for the next 100. Welcome to X-Pot Wealth, a planned first world podcast dedicated to helping ambitious British X-Pot Trits living in America to thrive here. I'm your host, Richard Taylor, and Plan First Wealth is the business I founded and run

1:01today alongside my business partner and co-host James Boyle, and we work with successful British X-Pot Trits living across America to make the most of their opportunity while avoiding the X-Pot Landmines. And boy, are there a lot of landmines in America. But first, a quick disclaimer. While Plan First Wealth LLC is an SEC Registration Investment Advisor, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of Plan First Wealth. Information presented is for educational purposes only. Now, if you aren't already receiving our emails, please go to our website, www.planfirstwealth.com and sign up there. It's free and you'll be notified every time we drop a new episode and so much more. Okay, on today's From the Trenches, James and I bring you behind the scenes here at Plan First Wealth as we build this business together and we work with our expatriate clients trying to make a difference for them and for their families. If you have questions for James and I, we will try and answer them on the show and if we

2:04can't, we'll find someone who can. Email us your questions at expatwealth at planfirstwealth.com. So without further ado, let's get into it. Hi, James. How are you, Richard? I'm well. I'm well. Welcome to episode 100. Episode 100. Wait, episode 100 of Always Next Part with a bit of America, expatwealth. It's a mouthful. Yes, arguably, that's too much. And, you know, I'll just acknowledge I've got these lovely balloons behind me from which the podcast guys who produce our podcasts have sent us to commemorate episode 100. If you're strictly an audio only listener, I would encourage you to check out the video for this one in particular because we've got a beautiful bouquet of balloons in the background. A bouquet of balloons, yeah. So episode 100. So we're going to, we're going to do today, we're going to recap how we got here and obviously there's been a lot of changes as I just alluded to in that with the name

3:07changes. And we'll talk about how we see it going from here. We're looking at this as a sort of reset refresh, a sort of new beginnings for the next hundred. Another reset. I think people listening is like, what again? Really? Please stop. And you know, should we just get this? We just launch straight into this. That's right. Yeah. So we're actually going to, we're going to do this review and analysis and look forward through a lovely two-star review that we got. Let me get straight into it. So I was preparing for this. I was on Apple Podcasts of the day and I looked at our reviews and we have mostly very, very good reviews, I'm glad to say, but we do have one here that I think has got some constructive criticism in it. It's right, it's straight to the bone, right to the bone. So let me read it out to you. So the title is downgrade from five star review last year.

4:08I have to agree, start feeling I'm bad in school. Yeah. Okay, so downgrade from a five star review last year. Richard, I feel like this person knows me. Richard, your podcast has gone downhill. That's what every podcast or once a year. Richard, your podcast has gone downhill based on these points. One, stop changing the name of your podcast. I preferred always an expat or Brits in America. It's like you're trying to lose your existing listeners by changing your name, stick to one name. That's fair. Two, the theme music makes it hard to hear the presenters. Change it back to the old music or get rid of the music altogether. Three, get to the point and be more specific. This one hurts. This is what it is. This is something we talk about. Get to the point and be more specific. The episodes have been quite rambling recently. Four, less scam-ongering focus on good practices. Swelling on landmines consistently is depressing and five less advertisements.

5:09How do you feel when you're there? Well, no one likes to get a two star review, but I've got to say I think this is pretty fair as we're going to talk about all of it. Yeah. No, I want to take spots on. There's some things we're going to take on Bridge with and gently push back on. But there's a lot of truth to this one. Let's dissect the last 100 episodes and talk about why we've made some of the decisions we've made, including flip-flopping on the name of million times, and how we're trying to improve this as we go forward. We're trying to get back to that hallowed five star. Yes. We can get there, that'd be good. So we're taking constructive criticism on board. We're listening. Absolutely. And let's just take this opportunity to ask, please do leave us ratings and reviews. Please leave us nice, good, at raising reviews. If you have constructive criticism and this absolutely qualifies as constructive criticism, email us. We are listening.

6:10We will answer questions. We will take recommendations for topics, themes, and we will very, very open to constructive criticism as we try and make this work. I think once we explain some of the people in the sun, some of the rationale behind our decisions, they'll make more sense. But if you do have feedback, criticisms, no, I'm not a abuse, although this is the internet. So there is, I'm sure some of that. I'll take the abuse. XPAT wealth at planfirstwealth.com. XPAT wealth at planfirstwealth.com. We are listening. This is a work in progress. It's hard to do a podcast, especially we clears our talk about, but we are open to suggestions, feedback, and we welcome it. But please leave us five star reviews. Go ahead and comment on how much you like us. We want to, and we'll talk about this, we want to make this show cater towards our audience, maybe even more so than the other formats, the other episodes are because this is designed to be a dialogue between us as we build this business, as we work with people, as we

7:11sort of navigate these choppy waters of being an expat in the US. So whatever we can do to tailor this to our audience, we're open for. Yeah. Okay. Let's do one by one. So number one, first criticism. So let me give you a quick rundown of the journey of this podcast. So it started by, I find expats very interesting. I enjoy working with them. I enjoy hanging out with them. My friend, Circle here, is expats, sorry, British, but expats, I just like them. I don't know if you can tell me what they're doing. I don't know if you can tell me what they're doing. I don't know if you can tell me what they're doing. I don't know if you can tell me what they're doing. But expats, I just like them. I think it attracts a certain sort of person, bold, adventurous, open-minded. All the things you've heard me talk about a million times in this podcast. And I thought that always an expat was a nod to the fact that once you become an expat, really I think, once you're locked for a long time, you're always an expat, whether you're in America or you move from another country, or even if you move home.

8:13If I moved home to the UK now, that's the fraudulent slip there, isn't it? If I moved to the UK, home is here. If I moved to the UK, it's a different country to my left nearly 15 years ago. I would be out of place there, I would be an expat. And I thought interviewing expats like I talked to on a daily basis would be super interesting. It turned out to, it is, but it's also not. It wasn't enough to sustain a podcast. We all have a similar-ish, unique, but similar-ish kind of story. Tap on the shoulder at work, come and try your hand in America. The people we work with tend to be clustered around a few key states. And I realize that as much as I enjoy these conversations and I enjoy these people, I'm not sure there's enough variance here to sustain a, at that point, by weekly podcast. And we're going to talk about a lot of these different ideas, right? And that's part of why we have this variety, where it's about formats and things going forward, because maybe each of these verticals, each of these flavors alone are not enough to sustain them, but as long as they're centered on that expat story on, particularly

9:14Brits in America, which we're going to talk about, you know, I think there's a lot there that can be, can we go? Well then, then I also, I realized I wanted to talk about some of the things that we were talking about all the time, one-on-one with people, the landmines that we call them, the problems that people are still making year in year out that can cost them daily. So we pivoted to Brits in America, which was when we were bringing guests, and I could talk about these issues and try and get them out to a wide audience. And that went great, honestly, and we were actually really quite enjoying that. We're enjoying it so much that we, I had the great idea. Well, let's do this weekly. And at that point, I was kind of running out of topics, and I know a lot of it is about repeating. There's only so much you can repeat technical stuff, and we didn't just want to fall into the trap of becoming another investment podcast, you know, because we're all about long-term, don't try and tie the markets, and just rehashing what's going on week on week out, which is done, or, you know, a lot out there in other podcasts. I didn't want to turn into that.

10:15So I thought, right, well, we will go weekly, and we will expand the, you know, the kind of 10, not just to be Brits in America, but to be anything US connected. And that's why that's why we moved to X-Pat Wealth. But you know, that has been, wow, this has been, this last six months has been a journey, a learning journey. A weekly podcast is tough. It is relentless. It's like, you know how often it is, James, it's every single week. I was going to say. I'm in sort of a rarefied air here. I can swan in, you know, once a month, have a chat with my business partner and then disappear for three more weeks. You're showing up weekend, we get it. It's a big time commitment. It's a lot to prepare for. Right. I'm trying to run a business. I'm trying, I still work with clients, and I'm trying to do a weekly podcast, which you have to come up with the content, you have to find the guests, and we, it is, it is brutally recurrent. It was high. And I'll say it took a fun out of it. I was having great fun doing this last year with you by weekly.

11:17And it stopped being fun. And the other thing is, if I'm really honest with you, everyone, like this podcast is, it's a plan for a 12 podcast, right? We're doing it because, well, one, we enjoy it. Or I enjoyed it. But two, because we want this to feed our business. You know, we want to put this information out there. We want people to catch it. We want them to learn from it. We want them to get to know us. Hopefully, Likers, I met with someone yesterday in the, and they've been listening for two years, and I think that they've been on this journey where they've got to know us, and they're Likers, and they believe we know what we're talking about. We want it to feed the business. But what I found was, we don't serve Americans outside of, in Europe, really. I believe, we believe in specialism. We specialize in Brits in America. We're not generic. And I just found that when I, when it was a market that I don't serve as much as I want to support Americans going and having a new life and an adventure in Europe, my heart wasn't really in it. So we were actually going to go back to, to buy weekly with the focus on Brits, but the podcast guys who produced the show showed us the listening figures and the skyrocketed

12:18soon weekly. The growth of the tremendous, which we appreciate. Our audience is growing and again, we want to make sure that it's, we're, we're creating the right information, the right contact for the audience who's listening, who's here at Weekend Weekend. Now, I'm trying to move this along. I'm also conscious that I'm very verbose and talk too much in waffle, and I, and there's a clock above my head here, and it's ticking away. And as I'll talk about in a minute, we're trying to keep, trying to keep these episodes for 30 minutes, so I'll zip along. But anyway, they've convinced us to, to stick with weekly because this is, this is skyrocketing. But what we have decided is that we are going to refocus on Brits for the next 18 months. And we're going to do that in a couple of ways. So James and I are going to continue with our from the trenches. That's this show. Brian and I are going to continue the macro aggressions. Because I like Brian and I just, I really enjoy, I really enjoy that conversation actually. So maybe that's guilty pleasure. I hope other people enjoy it, but I enjoy it. And I think it's relevant. We have a new lead, what, it was associate planner soon to be lead planner starting from

13:22the UK. This is a chartered financial, but I think, chat certified financial planner from the UK, who is moving to America with his wife, he's American wife, and they're joining Plan V 12, and they are going on an 18 month odyssey across the US in a campervan. And we are going to have a show where we just follow them around the 18 months as he, as this, as this British lad discovers America in his campervan, a whilst also working with us and becoming a crossbody US UK advisor. And that I think will be very eye out for him. And we're just going to follow him around for 18 months. And, and yeah, as he discovers America, we're going to get his observations, thoughts, I think that could be quite fun. I'm excited for that one. We're thrilled to have that, have this person joining or you'll meet in a couple weeks here and I think that's going to be a really fun, fun format. Yeah. And then we will have, I've come up with 24 topics for the Ask an Expert shows. It's a start to finish, a exhaustive, I believe, list of topics that British experts,

14:23specifically British experts in or coming to America, should be aware of if they are going to, what do I always say, avoid the landmines and truly thrive here. So we're going to get 24 odd guests in, maybe we'll have a few repeat, but 24 people to come in and talk to us about all these topics and really cover start to finish British America. And then at the end of 18 months, we will reassess, I can't just keep doing, you know, back to the beginning, another 18 months, I don't know what the business will look like at that point and we will decide what to do from that point on. So we're committing to you right now that we will stay relatively stable. I hope I do live a flip flop, but relatively stable for the next 18 months and we're going to purely focus relentlessly on Brits and how they can make the most of their opportunity in America. But it's hard. It weekly and coming with this, all this content is without just defaulting to current events, which can be entertaining, but it kind of feels pointless to me and there's

15:24other people who do much better. And, you know, you've come in on the investment piece earlier, we're not going to lose that completely, right? It's, that'll be a big part of macro aggressions. That'll be some of what we do here on, on from the trenches. It is an important part of, you know, the conversations we have, but we don't want that to be the focus. And frankly, from the feedback we've gotten, no one really listening to us once that will be the focus either, you know, there are plenty of resources like you say that if you want to talk about the daily movements in the market or what the feds do and are, what the latest CEO headline is, you can, you can find that we want to really be targeted and streamlined and how we present this content for Brits in America. So guys, that is the journey. That is why over a hundred of us owes, we have changed name three times, which is definitely not best practice. It is why we have changed focus three, arguably even four times. We are kind of just playing around with this. We enjoy, you've got to do content in this day and age. We both enjoy podcasts. I love podcasts.

16:24I enjoy the format of podcasts. I enjoy conversations. We're trying to make this work for us as a business as well as for you guys as listeners. We've made some mistakes. Absolutely. We've made some mistakes. I'm sure you're going to go back and undo some things and we've made them in public, obviously as well. But we are listening. We will keep trying to do sender to feedback. Do sender to questions. Do sender to ideas. I'm excited to announce that X-PART wealth has its first sponsor, the Global Financial Planning Institute. The GFPI exists to provide education, community tools, resources and ongoing research for financial planners and other advanced financial professionals working with international and cross-border clients in the US and Americans abroad. I'm a GFP Institute Fellow and I've put all our employees through their GFPI programs from the joiners. I've met some great people. I've learned a ton. It's a genuine community of internationally minded folk doing their best to serve their

17:25clients properly and critically sharing what they know in the oftentimes challenging and ambiguous US cross-border environment. And as anyone in this sector will tell you, you're always learning. So if you work with international clients and or Americans abroad or if this is an area you're looking to get into, check out the GFPI at www.gfp.com www.gf.institute.com You will be glad you did and I hope to see you there soon. Part of this right is you touched on something really important which was getting this information out there, getting these resources, this data, these conversations is so critical because as a starting point most people in this audience or people who find us aren't aware of all the topics we talk about right? Just just truly don't know what's out there and what exists in the realm of opportunities and landmines for Britain and the US. So that's got to be kind of the driving remit for everything, right? So we're kind of buckling down on that, doubling down on that target and however we can get

18:28this information out there that's relevant and entertaining and not rambling which we're both guilty of. You less of me. We'll talk about in a second. Okay, let's move on. The clock is ticking away above my head here. Number two, the theme music makes it hard to hit a presenter. Change your body to your music or get rid of musicals together. Yeah. I mean the theme music is only the very beginning and the very end and you know the first year old music I'd quite like to say it reminded me of the Beatles, I'm a big Beatles fan but you know I don't know, I don't know whether this is not one I'm going to lose sleep over necessarily. And we've got some fresh intros recorded in outro so that might prove things. So I will skip, Gaelie passed that one to number three. This one. This is the one. Get to the point and be more specific. These episodes have been quite rambling recently. Do you know what? Right. There's two things that are absolutely true here. I am very guilty of rambling and being to the boss.

19:30James and I, we're a great partnership I think. For this I put for the business as well. And one of the reasons we talk about, one of the reasons James and I are a great fit professionally is we are a great fit. We are similar but also very different. One of the things we've established is that I think I talk to think James thinks to talk. Now sometime early on before we realize that this could cause some confusion because I would just keep talking and James would say anything and now keep talking and James wouldn't say anything and I'd keep talking. And I just say quiet. I just say quiet. You're the one. I just said quiet. I just said quiet. You're the one. I just said quiet. I just said quiet. You're the one. So Charles, we're non Consortium. Perhaps than vagabond, the fresco. It doesn't touch to me. λ bekougsandroots the of poor anymore and get rebranded to be personal.

20:32When I part of a project like the job it's all about a disclaimer with you. It's like you got ailah ly what's going on. is because frankly, we enjoy the conversations, right? So it's easy to say, wow, we'll go 45, we'll go 60 minutes, but we have a clear directive here, 30 minutes, that's it. 30 minutes. So I hear you, if this guy's thinking it, I'm assuming it's a guy. Lots of other people are as well. I know I'm very guilty of this, and we are trying to bring these episodes to 30 minutes, which means for the Ask an Expert shows, it will be getting straight to the point. Less in-drows, less rumbling, less background, what's the topic? What do we need to know? What are the implications for people, Brits in America, job done? Yep, one, trying to stick to one consistent topic theme for each episode, 30 minutes. Heavy, right? Might go deep into the weeds, but important information and then we're out, so that we're not as scattered or rambling as we might have been in the past, sadly. Okay, so we hear you. Number four, now this is the one where I'm going to push back the most.

21:32I think less scam-ongering. Focus on good practices. Dwelling on landmines constantly is depressing. Okay, a scam-ongering word really triggers me. Really triggers me. We're not scam-ongering. I mean, if we were scam-ongering, do you think that every single guess we have on here from tax advisors to tax attorneys is also scam-ongering? It is a scam-ongering. America is uniquely challenging and the potential penalties are Frank Tukonion. Agregious. It isn't scam-ongering. And even if it is, it's coming from a place where I don't believe it is. It's coming from a place where I believe this is like really important information that you kind of need to shake people because the other thing is, people, it's so unbelievable. I find people don't want to, can't believe it, don't want to believe it. And therefore label it a scam-ongering. It isn't scam-ongering. This is a tough one because part of the battle we face or the remin here, as I talked about before,

22:33is getting this information out there. So many people we meet with day in day out, week in, week out, just aren't aware, right? And nor should they be, to some extent, right? You said it. The US is unique in the way it handles a lot of these things. So part of the battle we face is just making people aware, which to some people sounds like scam-ongering because of the unfortunate reality of a lot of these thorny issues. So that's sort of step one for us, right? That's an uphill battle that we try to keep on top of. The second piece of this, if I can think about the audience that we've cultivated and that we continue to grow, in some ways, they've already taken that first step, right? If this person is a regular listener or the listeners we do have that we know tune in, week in or week out, they are going to become familiar with these issues because we talk about them, right? They understand things like foreign reporting and tax issues and estate issues. So in some sense, they may feel like, yeah, we know about this.

23:34Why do you keep banging on about it? Or why are you making it sound scarier than it is? When you sort of already have taken that first important step of acknowledging it or becoming aware of it, I think it's easy then to discount if you're steeped in this as some regular listeners may be. It's easy to discount how you felt before you knew about this or when you were coming completely new to the country and having to deal with a lot of these things or learning of them afresh, right? That is, this is a constant, I think, there's gonna always be this tension, if you will, between new listeners and people who aren't aware of these things and people who are a little bit more steeped in them and hopefully this podcast helps you get edified on them, right? Have an understanding of a lot of the things we talk about, week in and week out. And that might sometimes, to some people, feel like scare mongering, but the truth is, it's the reality of the system we often advocate. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. So it's not my not necessarily be, it might just be a familiarity that then people start

24:37equating it to scare mongering way. So no, no, it's just you're now aware of this. So hearing us talk about it again and again and again, but we kind of have to keep talking about it again and again and again. But this, this, this, this, this were just trigger me. I probably shouldn't say that out loud because now people know how to trigger me because it happens occasionally when we'll do a webinar. And we'll do a webinar and our webinars will be things like the nine biggest problems we see British, expats making. So there are obviously going to be issues that we're highlighting. And then we have, not recently, I'm pleased to say, but we have also, I think, had it feedback there of the scare mongering. And we're not, we're recounting real landmines and the repercussions can be severe. So that, that, that, we aren't, we're going to keep highlighting these issues. I do feel that that is a core part of the podcast. So we are going to keep highlighting them in a view that hopefully people will take action, come into compliance, or avoid these issues altogether, if we catch them before they move here, and then move forward to the rest of their lives

25:37with less risk hanging over them. But then I do like the way this goes on, focus on good practices, to like, I like that, that's good advice. Dwelling on the line of mind is constantly is depressing. Yeah, there's a point there. There's a point to be made there. And maybe it's the case of trying to, trying to walk that line better. So I hit, I, I, after my initial defensiveness over the term scam ongoing has dissipated, I hear what, I hear the rest of that, those, the rest of that point, and maybe walking that line, that, that tightrope is something that we can do better going forward. So I will absolutely bear that in mind. At the very least it's top of mind, right? We'll, and, and I agree, you know, we, we want to, we do also want to talk about the other side of the equation, which is opportunities and what quite I'd be doing, what, what should I be thinking about to solve some of these things, actually. Yes, being in America is an opportunity. And there are opportunities that come with being an expat, and maybe if you leave as well, there are opportunities that do exist. Number five, also, I should also say,

26:37if I'm talking less as well, because we're trying to keep everything to 30 minutes at less time of scam ongoing. There you go. So, and then number five, less advertisements. I think this is a little bit unfair. We have one advertisement less. I very beloved advertiser, we should say. So, what we partner with? Less is zero. So, you know, I think that's a bit unfair. I can't guarantee that we will have less advertisements than the one we currently have. We may even have more. Right now we don't, but I can't make any promises there. So, look, five pieces of constructive criticism there. I think two are very, very relevant, very fair. And we hear you, and we're going to try and do better. One, our reject outright, which is a scam ongoing, although I do take on board the wider point you're making. And the music and the advertisements, I'm afraid,

27:38I'm going to have to reject those ones. Respectfully reject those ones, and hopefully you'll forgive me, and you can listen past them. Yes. And we'll button it up at the point we made at the beginning here, that we are listening, right? And again, we want this to be as relevant and as polished for our audience as possible. So, if you are listening and have thoughts, feedback, constructive criticism, email us, it's expatwealth at planfirstwealth.com. We're listening, and we want to make this the best show we can. Thank you for those of us who have been on the journey who are new to this with us, and those who have been on the journey from the beginning. This person who lets us review, especially thank you, you've clearly been from the very beginning. Always an expat with a bit of an America. I appreciate it. I say it at the outro, we appreciate it, and we appreciate you. We really do. I'm an expat. We love working with expats. We think there's, they're just, I just like expats as people. Frankly, I know I said at the beginning, and I'll finish with that. I like expats as people, open minded, adventurous, bold, fun.

28:41We want this to be a great resource for you. We'll keep trying to make it better. Thank you again. I mentioned before, this podcast, we do this because it's a way of doing content that we enjoy, that we hope can be relevant, but it's to feed our business. So people get to know us, it's to people who come aware of the issues, it's they believe we have expertise, we believe we have the answers to their problems, we can help solve their problems, and hopefully that they like us along the way. Yes, I had a great meeting with the guy, I'll shout out to Alan. Alan, these are the balloons that interrupted our call with a dog going crazy, and no one else was in. So I hope it was worth it. Anyway, exactly that. Listening for two years, like I hope I hope you would agree, like to believe that we have the expertise required, and even said at one point, I think we watch the same TV shows we do. You know, like, so, and I was southerner, but an honorary northerner,

29:41who I was from Liverpool, and he had good things to say about Northern folk. So that's what this is about, you know, and yeah, so we encourage people to reach out to us, and book off from there. Absolutely. We appreciate everyone who's been with us from the start and new listeners, and we're excited for this new chapter, should we call it? Okay, 100 episodes over now, here's the next 100, when what will be called? What will we be doing? Oh my God, I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Seven name changes later. You'll have kept me out of the business by then. That's it. Last year, just stop, stop. All right, James, good to see you, mate. Thanks a lot all the time. Bye-bye. All right, folks, that's another episode of X-Path Well, under our belts. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it, and I appreciate you. If you're enjoying the show, and would like to support the mission, which is to help ambitious X-Paths thrive in America, and ask you to subscribe to the podcast, wherever you listen, and also consider leaving a rating and review.

30:43This stuff really does matter. Please help us get this information to the people who need it. That is your fellow X-Paths. Also, if you have any questions you would like answered on the show, you can get in touch with us at X-PathWelph at planfirstwealth.com. Just a quick reminder that this show is brought to you by Plan First Wealth. We are a US-based financial planner and wealth manager, and we help ambitious, successful international families living across the US to make the most of their opportunity, and ultimately to retire happier. If you'd like to know more about how we might be able to help you retire, you can find us at our website, www.hunfirstwealth.com, or you can look me upon LinkedIn. Do get in touch with love to hear from you. As always, thank you to the podcast guys for their help producing this episode, and the entire show. See you next week.