You're listening to Radio Aysha and today I want to talk to you about the time I tried to outsource a lot of things in my life because I was simply way too busy, starting with personal assistance. So actually I tried to hire a couple of personal assistants and for the most part I thought So Yeah, I'm just too busy.

I cannot manage all the things that I have to do in my private and business life. So the solution is a personal assistant. And I learned that actually that was not the solution. Of course, having some help is always useful, but that's not the answer to the problem that I had. And I realized that even though I had the personal assistant, this person had to get back to me.

And had to get my input on so many things that it was counterproductive in many instances to actually have that personal assistant, that I would have been much better off dealing with things myself in the first place. Simple things like making appointments, contacting some doctors or whatever it was, at the end of the day.

It was not an efficient way to solve the issues that I was facing. And the same happened in different areas of my life. So with regards to my work, for example, I tried a couple of times to outsource part of the marketing, to outsource writing blog posts, writing emails. And I realized very quickly that this wouldn't work.

Now, obviously, we have chat GPT, so things is a little bit different right now, but regardless, at that time, when I try to outsource. I realized that I cannot completely outsource and just give some explanations of what I'm expecting, of what I want, and then hoping that I will get something back that is of the quality, of the tone, that's really achieving what I want this to achieve.

And quite frankly, it's the same with ChatGPT. It's a great help in writing things. But at the end of the day, you need to still edit the content and tear the content and the writing, et cetera. So it's also not a complete solution. And the same happened in other areas of my life, like I said, I tried to outsource as much as possible from my house management, home management.

And I realized the hard way that yes, I need some help, but complete outsourcing just doesn't work. The same with the food we eat, the same with basically sending my kids to very expensive childcare, hoping they will get the best. But actually, at the end of the day, I always had to be very much involved for them to get the best possible.

So that's when I realized that when we have an issue and we try to completely outsource that to a specialist in order to get rid of this issue or to tackle that issue, actually at the end of the day, it doesn't work. The quality is not there. The dedication of the people that you trust and that you hire is not there, or it's not as much as you would like it to be, as if it was you doing it. And first, and then finally, whatever I did, at the end of the day, it always came back to me. People always needed my input, they needed my approvals, they needed my opinion. Then, you know, at the end of the day, I had to do a lot of the work to course correct.

And so I realized that complete outsourcing doesn't work. Help is needed, but complete outsourcing doesn't work. And here is why I'm telling you this. Last week I was chatting with a woman who lives in the Netherlands and is originally from Hungary. And basically this is what she told me. Yeah. So I reviewed all the details of your program and it all looks interesting.

However, I was looking for an advisor. and or an application that manage things for me. I am not interested to learn the different investment options myself. Okay. And this is very common. And we have this tendency to think that we can delegate the planning, the decision making and execution of investing of everything that has to do with tax and pension planning to someone else.

And believe me, You can't, help is needed, but you can't fully outsource this topic because it comes back to haunt you and it doesn't serve you. And when you do, and by the way, most people do it, they completely outsource or they don't do anything about it, which is even worse. But the point is when you do outsource the management and strategic planning of your finances to someone else.

Or you rely on the bank, or God forbid, on your partner, but that's another topic, then the reality is that you absolutely will, without the shadow of a doubt, get very suboptimal results at best. This means that in the best case scenario, your money doesn't really grow because it's poorly invested, or because you end up paying way too much in taxes and in fees, which means at the end of the day, you're You end up losing money because the return on your investments is lower than inflation, okay?

And in the worst case scenario, you actually lose money over time on your investments, on your tax liabilities, on the fees that you pay, etc. And in most cases, people actually don't even realize it. The thing is, everyone's situation is unique, where you're from, where you live, how old you are, how much you have, how much you earn, what's your job situation, are you single, are you married, are you divorced, are you living together with your partner without being married, do you have kids, did you live in different countries, which countries, if you go to someone, they will just slide you into their standard stuff, with lower than average returns.

Where you will pay way too much in fees, which will benefit the company they work for, but not you. Okay? And most of the time, they themselves don't even know that. Okay? They will just slide you to their standard stuff, even though you as a person, you are not standard. The details of your life are very specific to you.

And hence, you cannot fit in some one size fit all financial solution. And it's the same if you go to a tax advisor. Because, typically, a tax advisor only knows the rules in their own country. If you're an expat, if you've lived in different countries, if you have assets in different countries, even if you don't, they can give you good guidance for cross border situations.

And I've experienced this myself here in Switzerland, also when I was living in the Netherlands and when I was living in the US. They simply can only advise you on the local rules and regulations and as soon as you bring in some international perspective, they don't know what to tell you or what they're actually telling you is not in your interest, given your international situation.

Which means that, at the end of the day, nobody can put themselves in your shoes and in your situation. At the end of the day, quite frankly, only zillionaires can afford very personalized, tailored, cross border investment and tax advice and outsourcing services, and even they end up paying way too much for what they get.

And so the best we can do is to be able to steer the process, and to do that, you need to educate yourself so that you have at least a base understanding of all the financial and tax aspects that relate to your own very specific situation. And then once you understand this concept, you can go out and gather the relevant information that you need.

And that means doing some online research. That means also talking to advisors at the banks, at the tax office, specific tax advisors. There are different ways you can collect this information once you understand all the concept behind it and what are the specifics that apply to your situation. And then when you do that.

You will be able to assess, question, and filter whatever the investments and tax specialists suggest to you. And you will even be able to go further and demand more from them, more quality, more insights, more personalized suggestions. But obviously, when you don't know much about financial topics, you can't do that.

And trust me, they will know. They will know within two minutes of talking to you. They will probably even know before by the way you schedule the meeting and what you write in the email or what you say on the phone. And they will think you're an easy one. We're just gonna give her the regular stuff, not put too much effort into it, make our money and call it a day.

Because they just can't take you seriously. When you don't know a thing about financial stuff and they certainly can't offer you the best if they don't take you seriously. And most of the time, people cannot even tell that it's happening. That's why outsourcing without knowing much about finance, investing and tax and pension planning is really never a good idea.

And yes, it does take a little bit of time and effort to learn more about these things. But just like I've learned the hard way with my various business and personal outsourcing attempts. It really pays off to get involved and design a plan that fit the kind of life that I want to live and offer the best to my children.

That's all I had for you today. I hope you found it insightful and I will see you in the next episode.