What really drives financial decisions — logic or behavior? Dean Weinbren explores the hidden psychology behind investing, decision-making, and customer engagement. From cognitive biases to real-world examples, this episode reveals how behaviour shapes outcomes more than most realize. We also dive into modern work, team dynamics, and building scalable systems.
What really drives financial decisions — logic or behavior?
Dean Weinbren explores the hidden psychology behind investing, decision-making, and customer engagement. From cognitive biases to real-world examples, this episode reveals how behaviour shapes outcomes more than most realize. We also dive into modern work, team dynamics, and building scalable systems.
Reach out to Dean:
Website - pengana.com
Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/deanweinbren/
Key topics
Dean Weinbren's background in organizational psychology.
Application of behavioral psychology in finance and customer engagement.
Impact of COVID-19 on remote work and productivity.
Sound bites
"Ownership distorts judgment in investing"
"Relativity shapes our value judgments"
"Perception is reality in decision making"
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Dean Weinbring and His Background
02:49 The Aura Fund: A Charitable Investment Initiative
05:59 Dean's Unique Career Path in Finance and Marketing
09:03 Lessons Learned from Early Business Ventures
12:08 Understanding Industrial Sociology vs. Organizational Psychology
14:53 The Impact of COVID-19 on Work Dynamics
18:10 The Evolution of Remote Work and Collaboration
21:00 Behavioral Psychology in Everyday Life
26:54 The Role of Perception in Decision Making
33:04 Dean's Passion for Building Value in Finance
35:54 Conclusion and Reflections on April Fool's Day
The Priority Lane (00:05)
Welcome to the Priority Lane podcast, the show where we learn how to work smarter, not faster. I'm your host and today we're joined by Dean Weinbren Dean is an executive director at ASX listed fund manager, Pengana Capital Group. He also spent the last four years as managing executive of Pengana's emerging online fixed term account platform, Term Plus, which has seen explosive growth in the Australian market since opening to the public just on two years ago. Between Pengana and
term plus, the group covers 16 different investment funds, spanning both listed and private markets around the world, with more in the works. Dean also sits on the steering committee for a charitable fund called the Aura Fund. ⁓ and top of that, he also has four children, all boys. So, needless to say, he's a busy man. In today's conversation, we chat about Dean's background in organisational psychology and his interest in the application of behavioural psychology.
ecology to drive enhanced engagement in customer experiences, specifically within the financial services, fintech and investment sectors. So Dean, welcome to the show.
Dean (01:16)
Thanks Nigel,
great to be here and thanks for having me.
The Priority Lane (01:19)
No problems at all. Look now, but before we start, ⁓ four boys. How's that working out for you?
Dean (01:26)
Four boys.
Sorry, do say that again?
The Priority Lane (01:30)
How's that working out? Keeping you busy.
Dean (01:32)
There's never a dull moment. There's a lot of overstimulation in our household, but a lot of good life lessons coming from it as well. ⁓ yeah, needless to say, we have a lot of fun.
The Priority Lane (01:38)
Hey.
⁓
Well that's the main thing. What's the age spread? they all young or they've got to arrange that?
Dean (01:52)
So my eldest
is turning 14 on Monday and my youngest is three years old. So we really get the full age bracket experience if you will.
The Priority Lane (01:56)
wow, I like that.
and how's the inter sibling relationships, they're not killing each other.
Dean (02:10)
As long as they're not killing each other, we're doing well. We've had a couple trips to the emergency room. They do know us there a little bit, but not from things their brothers do to them, just from extracurricular activities.
The Priority Lane (02:13)
You
Yeah.
Well, it all leads to bonding and great memories they'll have for the rest of their lives. Now just the aura fund , that was mentioned in the intro. Can I just quickly ask what that gets involved with?
Dean (02:30)
100%.
So
the Auro Fund is a really interesting ⁓ concept that we came up with ⁓ nearly eight years ago now, I think. And essentially what it is, it's a fund of funds where the portfolio is managed by a group of underlying fund managers, all in mostly fund managers that you would know highly regarded.
fund managers with good track records in listed equities. The difference is that where you would typically invest with a fund manager who would charge you a fee for managing your funds, the underlying fund managers that work with the Aura fund donate 100 % of their fees back into Aura. And then 100 % of the fees charged at the Aura fund level get donated to charities. So to date, we've generated over $3.5 million in donations.
continues to grow, supporting some really incredible charities ⁓ and supported by some great fund managers and even better investors.
The Priority Lane (03:44)
fantastic, that's great, we'll keep up the good work with that, that sounds incredible. Now when I learned about your background and noticed it was a bit circuitous should we say it, it's not the normal road travel by people looking for a career in finance, can you just go through a bit of your background, because it is quite fascinating.
Dean (04:06)
Yeah, so I guess like most people, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up. And so without a direct path of, know, this is what I want to become, I guess my father's first rule for me before I did anything after school is that I had to go straight to university and get a degree. It didn't matter what, I just needed to come home with that piece of paper. ⁓ I...
Ended up throughout my university studies, you know, working towards a piece of paper, finishing with a double major in organizational psychology and industrial sociology. ⁓ A total mouthful to say, but luckily enough, I actually found the concept quite interesting. And ultimately it led me down a path of discovering the concepts of behavioral psychology, which is where I really found an interest. So ⁓ related, but you know, not directly ⁓ what
The Priority Lane (04:46)
you
Dean (05:02)
I studied. And so after university, ⁓ I founded a promotions and marketing agency. This was a long time, a long time ago. So in the days when MySpace was still at the leading edge of the internet, Facebook was just starting to come on the radar.
early social media adopters And really the approach that we took was we use some of those behavioral principles to create cross platform experiences for big brands at a range of real world entertainment events and music festivals and music concerts and the likes. And then using those real world activities to then drive online traffic for amplified brand engagement. ⁓ Quite common today, probably a little bit more high tech
⁓ back in those times and we ended up building a massive database for those days ⁓ and a really strong brand ⁓ as well. ⁓ I still come across people who are a lot older demographic nowadays than obviously what we targeted back then who still remember the company and the experience we built. ⁓
I guess that's quite rewarding. But over time, with the rise of social media platforms, mobile phones now having personal use cameras. ⁓
and then the rise of user generated content that exploded off the back of that. And I guess also being a young dad, ⁓ I decided it was time for, let's call it a big boy career change. And I got the opportunity to join a life insurance group with a really great bunch of people. I spent about six years there, ⁓ eventually moving into a risk advisor role where I had built up and was managing a pretty decent size book of my own clients as well as general managers.
The Priority Lane (06:36)
you
Dean (06:53)
management across that business. Life insurance was really interesting one. It was obviously a big change from marketing. But from a sales perspective, I found it really easy for me. I think it was really easy because I had absolute conviction for the importance of having proper life insurance in place. And especially at that time of my life when a lot of the people I knew were having babies and starting families,
I guess the product market fit was just right at that time. And I think that's actually a really good sales insight in general. The job of selling becomes a lot easier if you have a great product and you are absolutely happy to stand behind it. Then. ⁓
The Priority Lane (07:36)
Yeah.
Dean (07:38)
In 2017, Pengana Capital Group, where I am today, acquired another funds management business and inherited a big customer base of direct investors, which was a new frontier for the group at the time, because up until that point, Pengana's customers were traditionally financial advisors and high net worth investors. And so
At the time when that happened, I was in a really interesting point in my career where I had both a marketing background, direct to consumer marketing background, as well as a finance background. And so I joined the group in a communications and distribution role at the time, which was really the start of a big transformation for the business where to where we are today, where we have a large ⁓
direct customer base and we've democratised a number of unique investment sectors for the broader direct investor market that we service ⁓ and that continues to expand at the moment.
The Priority Lane (08:36)
Okay, so just back to your promotions and marketing business that you established. Was the motivation for that based on using the behavioral sciences that you learned or was it more the opportunity of emerging market and industry?
Dean (08:54)
I think the behavioral side definitely helped. So straight off to uni, I actually landed my first big boy job in finance in an investment banking and funds management type role.
Obviously I was really young at the time and in that role, the thought of sitting in an office, in a single room, in a building for the rest of my working life was just not that attractive to me for some reason. ⁓ And so I definitely had an entrepreneurial itch where I wanted to be building and creating something rather than what I was doing at the time, which was the facilitation of companies that other people had built.
So
when I saw this business idea and that it could actually have some legs, possibly ignorantly, I went out, raised some capital, didn't quite know what I was doing, but managed to get something off the ground and got to building from there.
The Priority Lane (09:57)
Okay, great. And so with that business, are there lessons you learned during that time that you still carry with you today?
Dean (10:06)
⁓ I think I probably learned a lot of what feels obvious to me today. ⁓ A couple things come to mind. One, people and customers are generally quite inward focused. ⁓ The hyper personalization of user experience does make a difference to customer engagement. ⁓
The Priority Lane (10:13)
Mm-hmm.
Dean (10:31)
I learned a lot at the time because what we were doing, you know, cross platform with online and offline about online behavior and funnel structuring from the early days of the internet. I think the team that you work with makes all the difference. ⁓ I learned that managing people is actually a really hard part of any business that is generally underestimated. ⁓
And finally, probably the importance of getting your revenue model right and the diversification of revenue streams is really important. ⁓ And so, you know, the importance of diversification doesn't just apply to investing.
The Priority Lane (11:13)
Yeah, I mean, the whole behavioral sciences, organizational psychology, I haven't studied it, it's intriguing. I find it very interesting, but ⁓ I must admit, I...
wasn't completely across industrial sociology. I Googled it to get a definition. And the definition I found is industrial sociology is the study of work, labour markets and workplace behaviour within the context of society, examining how industrial processes shape social relations, and in situations. Now, when I read that, I kept thinking of I don't know if you ever read George Orwell's 1984, Big Brother type stuff, but I'm thinking, wow, that
That reminds me so much of that. ⁓ Do you think any, there's any, how do you think Orwall would be looking at today's workplace? Would he be thinking, okay, so I got it right. Big Brother is here. People are being monitored.
Dean (12:17)
I think he probably would. ⁓
but that might be a little bit self-serving. And I would give that to you with a caveat. On the whole Big Brother side, yes, it's easy to make an argument that people are more surveillance and we're more trapped with productivity metrics, even now with the introduction of AI analysis more so than ever before. But I think a key difference is that it's all opt-in through the employment contract. And so people can essentially opt-in
out at any time, which is quite a bit different to, you know, a widely enforced Big Brother system. ⁓ And the truth is that humans are naturally conforming creatures of habit. We're very adaptable. And so you can be as cynical as you like about that. But where there's a system or an organization or even an industry that's building in a general direction, the people on board are naturally going to conform within that system. And especially when there are incentives to do so.
The Priority Lane (12:58)
Yeah.
Dean (13:19)
So people have the choice on where they want to go. It's not totalitarianism as Orwell would have put it. I think it's more a market-driven optimization that sometimes converges on similar mechanisms to what he was at least speaking about.
The Priority Lane (13:20)
Yeah.
Well I guess the study itself is to move towards an ideal scenario, not towards an Orwellian scenario.
So what's the difference? I don't want to get too technical, but what's the difference between industrial sociology and organisational psychology?
Dean (13:59)
So I think probably the key difference is the lens that you put on it. So industrial sociology, you could say is the macro lens. So that focuses on how workplaces are shaped by broader social systems. ⁓
institutions, economic structures, labour markets, et cetera. ⁓ Organisational psychology, then you could say, is the micro lens, which focuses on individual and group behaviour inside organisations, things like motivation, performance, leadership and decision making. So where industrial sociology explains the system that people work in, organisational psychology explains how people behave within it. ⁓
The Priority Lane (14:43)
within that.
Dean (14:44)
Where I find really interesting is the behavioral psychology part, which actually looks at the behavior of the individual within that system. So guess kind of three levels and each one ⁓ somewhat interlinked, but very different.
The Priority Lane (15:01)
Okay, okay. So what are you on the sociology side of things? What have you seen any great shakeups over the last 20 years ⁓ on sociology?
Dean (15:14)
⁓ Over 20 years, absolutely. think 20 years is even a broader timeframe than we need to look at. ⁓ I think the gig economy was one major shift. All of a sudden, millions of people are technically independent. So whether through platforms like Air Tasker or even Uber, ⁓ even the whole social media influencer.
know, idea that's come out. More and more people are able to create independent income streams for themselves, which kind of removes them from the group. ⁓
I over delivered in expectations. The way to think about it or the way I look at it is pre-COVID, all industries blindly conformed to the manufacturing model of the industrial revolution. The idea that everybody has to be under one roof as if they are working on a production line, regardless of what
The Priority Lane (16:04)
Mm-hmm.
Dean (16:22)
sort of product they're manufacturing. Then when COVID hits, all of a sudden, entire workforces became geographically dispersed. And in many places, certainly we found it here at Pangana, not only was there no break in the pace of work, but in a lot of areas, productivity actually vastly improved.
And I think that was such a pivotal change that happened so quickly and fundamentally changed so many things. ⁓ You know, think about video meetings that you take from day to day compared to pre-COVID. Even platforms like this podcast and the fact that we're having a discussion today ⁓ over a video call and that podcasts are a thing that people listen to, you know, that was hugely boosted by the change in social dynamics that happened over COVID.
And then from an emerging perspective, one area that is really interesting, of course, is AI. Even with the disruptions caused by COVID, now that some time has passed, we seem to have somewhat a reversion to the mean, if you will. We may have less in-person meetings, and work from home flexibility is higher than ever. But
I'm still in the office today. I still do have face to face meetings. know, people are very much settled into a new normal that's not too far off where it was before. I think COVID is going to fundamentally change so much at the foundational level. And what's going to be fascinating to watch is the quick and profound wave of impact that it's going to have over entire industries over the next few years.
The Priority Lane (18:01)
Well that's interesting. I mean, talking about my own business, ⁓ we do a lot of video conferencing. So I've got, well there's three sitting in Melbourne, I've got two in Singapore, ⁓ one in Sri Lanka, one in the UAE, and one in London. ⁓ So face-to-face meetings don't, well very rarely, how have you found the, you mentioned an uptick in productivity. ⁓
that in collaboration, in the throwing around of ideas, has that been impacted at all?
Dean (18:37)
Well, I mean, I think I'll throw that back to you. You mentioned how widely dispersed your team is today. What did it look like pre-COVID? Was that fathomable for you to have a team so spread around the world?
The Priority Lane (18:56)
Probably not actually. ⁓ look, it came, basically it came about due to after COVID, I traveled a bit more and then found people, great people in different locations. And I employed more on the skill rather than on the location. ⁓ And maybe that was because of the post-COVID era where everything is done over Zoom or whatever.
Dean (19:25)
Absolutely. And so what it does is it broadens your universe for where you can find skill from. so, you know, there's always trade-offs in everything. But even the fact that you're now able to hire on skill rather than just geography means that the people in your team are naturally going to be contributing more ⁓ or at greater levels because you've managed to find the best people available with less constraints.
The Priority Lane (19:55)
Well yeah, yeah, and look it opens up the whole lot. Like the latest person that I brought on board is in the UK, Lawrence. Now I worked with Lawrence back in the late 90s, mid to late 90s, and I knew his skill set.
yeah I really want this guy on board where maybe 10-15 years ago I wouldn't have even thought about it because he's on the other side of the world. Now it's simple pick up the phone, hi Lawrence how you going? Had a chat, bye and he's now working for us. just, yeah your resource pool just expands.
Dean (20:33)
And
⁓ that's an efficient behavioral shift that we've been through, not of our own design, but that was forced on us because of how we had to react to what happened during COVID. And human behavior has just completely changed.
The Priority Lane (20:47)
yet.
One comment which is sort of where I was alluding to before about the collaboration I read somewhere months ago that ⁓ collaboration over video meetings within a team sort of aren't as productive. And maybe that's because if they were in an office, they're comparing in an office around a table together compared to everybody in their own bedrooms.
And what went along with that was that if people are at home, they're, you with a Zoom meeting, it's kind of like, okay, I'll do this and then I'll get off as soon as I can, as opposed to hanging around and having a chat. That, yeah, have you experienced that at all?
Dean (21:33)
So look, I think it's contextual. Hanging around and having a chat is cultural rather than productive. ⁓
It depends on your team. depends on what you do. So, you know, if I think about how we use team meetings, if we're all around a table, we're going to be sitting, having a discussion and something will come up and a response might be, yes, I'll check that when I'm back at my desk or yes, I'll send that that item to you or something along those lines. Whereas if we're on teams and somebody asks about a document or a campaign or a folder, sure, let me bring that up and share it.
in real time. Can you send me that email? Sure, let me send it to you right now. Let me share my screen and show you what I'm looking at. So not to say that that's more productive. I think the collaboration is just different. How each team uses it will either be better in person or better online. ⁓ And you naturally learn to work within and around the limitations of both.
The Priority Lane (22:14)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dean (22:39)
But I would say
that there's a time and place for both. If you need to get around a whiteboard and throw ideas around, it's very different to if you need to actually get into execution mode where it can be very helpful to have everybody at their devices.
The Priority Lane (22:53)
Well I guess what we've got now is basically more options. Instead of just working under one roof, there's plenty of options now.
Dean (22:57)
That's it.
working under one
roof and again, not because it's better, but because that's how you've always done it. And so without questioning, is this the best way for us to do something? We always did that. And now, as you say, we have the ability to choose what's a better way to facilitate what we need to do.
The Priority Lane (23:08)
Good luck.
Now there's been over the last five, six years a lot of talk about boundaries with employees in terms of nine to five and the employer shouldn't contact people after that. ⁓ Do you see that as an issue or how is that managed in your environment?
Dean (23:41)
Again, I think it depends on the team. So like you, we have some team members that's best around the world. ⁓ That does mean different time zones. And so ⁓ I think what changes, and again, it depends all on the working environment is. ⁓
On the flip side to what you said, you're not necessarily now constrained to, have to be at my desk from nine to five, right? And that's when I have to do my work and that's how I do it. We have some... ⁓
stuff or generally our approach is it's not about the hours. You're not going to get extra points for sitting at your desk at 6pm at night and look at that person they're working late. It's much more outcomes based and output based. So are you getting the work done? Are you delivering? If you, know, me personally, I am a night owl.
I've always operated like that. so very often, you know, come Sunday night, get the kids to bed, I'll get three, four hours of work done. I start my Monday morning, I'm four hours ahead of where I need to be because I work better that way. And so I think people have flexibility to, you know, again, all circumstantial, but there is potential for better work-life balance.
The Priority Lane (24:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Because I just think it, well, with my own situation, ⁓ I'm quite happy that I'm in Australia because I basically kick off with my work team. I'm the first one in. But then a couple of hours later, Singapore comes online. Then an hour or so later, Sri Lanka comes online. Then another hour or so, we got UAE. And then when I'm about to head off home, UK wakes up. So I'm just, and then, you obviously, UK goes.
Dean (25:28)
And then while you're sleeping, UK
is getting their work done and you can wake up and get on top of it. And so there's almost no break in productivity.
The Priority Lane (25:36)
Well, yeah, yeah, and initially that was when we worked for a large client, this is going back four or five years ago, that was part of the strategy that they were based in the US, but had a lot of representation in the UK, Europe and UAE. So it was trying to get that 24 hour day going to cover off a lot of bases. But one good thing now is, ⁓
with the UK guy, I wake up in the morning and check WhatsApp and to see what great news he's got for me for the day. And it just gets the day off to, yeah, it gets off to a great start. and off to a good start if there's no news.
Dean (26:10)
Well, that's it.
So the whole work dynamic changes there. Because
you're not all operating only within a set number of hours, the way that you work together also changes.
The Priority Lane (26:25)
Yes, yes, yes. ⁓ And so, and what you said about passing the baton ⁓ from time zone to time zone. So we can be working on a project, each doing their own part, almost 24 hours a day.
Dean (26:40)
I guess that comes back to answering your question about if it's still productive to do things online, right?
The Priority Lane (26:45)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Now, ⁓ with behavioral psychology, can you think of any like normal life examples of witnessing behavioral psychology? you have to say, okay, here's a few examples of great psychology or behavioral psychology.
Dean (27:07)
I mean, that is literally the definition of behavioral psychology. ⁓ the way I think about behavioral psychology is it points out things that are unobviously obvious. So things that are ⁓ universally human, but probably rarely acknowledged. ⁓ Often when I...
read books or if you just look at, you know, behavioral biases and things like that, generally, you're going to read something or learn about one and be like, well, yeah, that's, that's pretty obvious, right? Like, I get it. There's some there's some great books and great talkers and stuff to that. So I mean, maybe if it helps, I'll
The Priority Lane (27:49)
Yeah.
Dean (27:56)
I can call out some common examples that will give you an idea of how they apply to everyday humans. Maybe three examples will give you a good breadth. One is something called the endowment effect, which essentially shows that we value something more just because we own it. I can tell you if we're walking in the Westfields and one of my kids picks up a
The Priority Lane (28:04)
Yeah, go on.
Dean (28:26)
a free balloon that's worth nothing and they didn't have a minute before and another kid wants that balloon. That's their balloon. Like I'm not giving this thing up. I want to guide it with my life. But the reality is 30 seconds ago, you never had that balloon that didn't mean to you. But now that you've got it, all of a sudden it means a lot more. Right.
The Priority Lane (28:34)
⁓ You
you
Dean (28:48)
we see it in investing. know, often if somebody owns a stock that's kind of out of favor and it's in their portfolio, you get that sentiment of, well, would you buy it today? No, I wouldn't. But I won't sell it either because I own it. And so I've attached this this endowment effect, this ownership value on it. ⁓ And so we do find through that ⁓
that ownership does generally distort judgment. Another interesting one that's kind of related is the idea of loss aversion. And the general principle of loss aversion is that people will feel loss about two times stronger, they'll feel the pain of loss about two times stronger than they feel the joy of gain. ⁓ So I can give you two examples there, right? ⁓ You've got 50 bucks.
The Priority Lane (29:34)
Really? Okay.
Dean (29:41)
You put it in your pocket and you say, right, I'm, you know, I'm going out for the day. I'll use this for lunch and a coffee. You go to the coffee shop, you put your hand in your pocket. Your 50 bucks is gone. It's fallen out. You've lost 50 bucks. You're probably going to be agonizing it over the afternoon. Where did that go? It's 50 bucks. I only needed 10 of it for my sandwich. You know, versus if you were walking down the street, you find 50 bucks. cool.
The Priority Lane (29:57)
Mm-hmm.
Dean (30:08)
50 bucks, right? I want to go, you know, get myself something, whatever, right? You're going to feel the joy but that pain of I had the 50 bucks and I've lost it. You're going to feel that generally a lot more because you worked hard for that 50 bucks that you lost, but you came by the 50 bucks pretty easily.
The Priority Lane (30:09)
You
You
Dean (30:31)
Again, think of it in investing. If you have ⁓ an investment that makes a 15 % gain, it's cool. Of course, you're going to enjoy that, you're going to feel pretty good about it. But if you have that same investment make a 15 % loss, you're probably going to lose a little bit more sleep over it and a little bit more pain than the joy you felt. ⁓
The Priority Lane (30:50)
Yeah.
Dean (30:53)
you know, off that gain. so loss aversion as a behavior is actually quite has quite a profound effect on people and their decision making. ⁓ And, know, you can consider the fact that avoiding pain often drives more decisions than actually seeking reward. ⁓ And maybe the final one, and this is one that
is kind of less common, but I just find it really interesting is the relativity principle, which essentially highlights how our judgment is based on relativity, rather than pure logic. So another way of saying that is that people don't evaluate things in absolute terms only relative to a data set that's available to them. So, you know, an example of that would be a $5 coffee, $5 coffee feels expensive.
until you're in a coffee shop that charges $6 for a coffee. Then all of a sudden it's kind of less expensive. It's the same as a premium option on a product only exists because there's a worse option next to it. If there wasn't that worse option, then the premium option would just be the normal option. And so what we see out of that is that value isn't really judged in isolation. It's very much judged through comparison. ⁓
If again, I mean, I guess I've called our comparisons to investing, so I'll do with this one, but a 10 % per annum return. Is that a good return? It depends. You know, you would really consider it in isolation. So
you're more likely to judge if that's good or bad based on the benchmark that you're comparing it to. A 10 % return is not a great return if the benchmark did 15%. It's a fantastic return if the benchmark only did 5%. And so, you know, I think things really change when you consider the fact that people make decisions using relativity rather than in isolation.
The Priority Lane (32:55)
So is it sort of like perception is reality?
Dean (33:00)
Perception is absolutely reality. Everything is relative.
The Priority Lane (33:05)
That's interesting. And with your loss aversion, sorry, with the loss aversion you were speaking about, where you feel pain more if you lost 50 bucks then, if you found 50 bucks, is that because people think of the opportunity cost? Geez, I could have spent that 50 bucks doing A, B and C. Now I'm going to miss out.
Dean (33:24)
So this all,
I mean, there's a lot of stuff that comes down to mental accounting as well. I mean, there's an anecdote I can think of. It's a fairly long one. I'll try to shorten it. if you've booked tickets to a concert and that concert is worth 100 bucks to you, right? If you...
go to that concert and you lose your ticket on the way, it's gonna be very hard for you to pay another 100 bucks having just spent 100 bucks on that ticket. Your mental counselor is gonna say to you, do I really wanna spend 200 bucks going to this concert?
The Priority Lane (34:06)
video.
Yeah.
Dean (34:12)
If
that 100 bucks was 100 bucks that you'd lost that fallen out of your pocket the day before, and so you haven't attached the value to the concert ticket, it's not going to stop you from going to the concert and spending 100 bucks on the ticket because it's still worth 100 bucks. so a lot of it is just, you know, mental accounting is hugely ⁓ prevalent in the way that people think and make decisions as well. There's a great book by an author, Dan Ariely, who's ⁓
The Priority Lane (34:30)
Thank you.
Dean (34:41)
his stuff is just excellent called dollars and sense S-E-N-S-E. And, you know, he talks a lot about, ⁓ you know, how cognitive bias distorts the way that people perceive money and how that often leads to irrational financial decisions.
The Priority Lane (34:44)
Right. Yeah.
I love that analogy, that's great. ⁓ Now you're bit of an all-rounder as we've discussed. Well, I think you are anyway. What have we got? We've got sociology, human behavior, psychology, organizational design, fintech, finance, operation. What would you say is your main passion?
Dean (35:18)
We do.
who knows.
The Priority Lane (35:22)
It's all perception. ⁓ Would you say your, if you had to say what your one passion was, would it be more on the finance side? Would it be more on the psychology? What end of the spectrum do you find yourself at home?
Dean (35:24)
That's it.
Whether it's limited to one of those two, I think if I look back on my career to date, in some way, shape or form, I've always been involved in building and implementation. so building things can be bloody hard, but it can also be extremely rewarding.
The Priority Lane (35:58)
Thank
Dean (36:05)
been fortunate enough that I've always found myself involved in projects that deliver genuine value to people. If you're just flagging a product for the sake of earning a living, you know, you got to do what you got to do. But if you're working to deliver real value to people's lives, then that's that's really rewarding. And I think for me, you know, I've always had an interest in behavioral psychology, you know, unrelated to to what I studied, but definitely came out of that.
The Priority Lane (36:24)
Yeah.
Dean (36:35)
And, you know, finance just happens to be the sector where ⁓ I've managed to find a way to really apply some of those principles to deliver ⁓ what I believe are great outcomes for people.
The Priority Lane (36:50)
Well, yeah, I guess it makes sense, doesn't it? You're in a sector, but you've got all these tools that you can use in that sector.
Dean (36:59)
Yeah, and look, the finance industry can often be quite vanilla and bland. By natural, I guess, effects of most of the people that end up in finance are very much quite technical, numbers-based, generally less creative types. Not passing judgment at all, but just a general observation.
The Priority Lane (37:19)
Yep.
Yep. Now we're gonna finish up just with a little look back in history. What we do is just have a look back at what's happened in the month that we're in, which happens to be April. So today we're just gonna have a bit of a look at the origins of April Fool's Day.
So Dean, did you know that while the origins of April Fools is unknown, one of the biggest theories is that it started when France changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
which made the start of the year January 1 instead of late March. According to legends, those who forgot to change the new year and continued celebrating the new year in late March and early April were called the April Fools. The earliest mention of April Fools is in a 1561 Flemish poem by Edouard de Dene about a servant realising that he had been sent on a fool's errand on April the 1st. Now, the question is, have you ever been the victim
or a perpetrator of an April Fool's prank.
Dean (38:27)
I'm sure I have. But I think probably in more recent times it's my kids playing the April Fool's jokes. Yeah, I mean playing them on anybody really. This year was quite an interesting one.
The Priority Lane (38:36)
I'll blame them on you or you blame them on them.
You
Dean (38:47)
You know, I think being a family with four kids may be easy for them to pull off, but my second son, being one of the middle children, lives up to the mischievous nature that's expected of him, was on a call early morning with one of his friends ⁓ and somehow had the idea to tell her that his mum was once again pregnant.
The Priority Lane (39:01)
You
You
Dean (39:12)
And so
Mum was sleeping at the time, he was up early morning and woke up to a whole bunch of messages from that child and a bunch of other people ⁓ questioning if she was in fact really pregnant again. She didn't know what was going on and so I guess it was somewhat of an April Fool's prank on us too. yeah, that's April Fool's and let's just say it stops there.
The Priority Lane (39:15)
you
No.
You
I remember, ⁓ sixth class, so what, we're 11, 12, the teacher came in April 1, and to start the class, she goes, well, have you heard the news? And we're just sitting there, and what news?
Yeah, New Zealand was going to join Australia and we're all shocked and all these questions, how's it going to work? And I forget exactly what she was saying but there was going to be a big downside for us for some reason. I forget what it was and everyone's getting worried. How's the cricket team going to work? Are they all going to play for us now? went on and on and then finally it was about an hour later someone dawned and said hang on, is this April Fools?
That was a good one. ⁓
Dean (40:32)
I was hoping you were going to tell
me she told you you all had to learn the Hakka and started.
The Priority Lane (40:36)
Hahaha
She should have done.
Dean (40:41)
In hindsight.
The Priority Lane (40:43)
Yes, Dean, look, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thank you very much. I remember when I reached out to you, I read about your background and I thought, wow, this is, you know, I'd love this guy to come on the podcast. I think it's going to be very interesting. And look, I'm so happy that you did come on. I'm sure the listeners are going to love this. So Dean, again, thank you very much for coming on.
Dean (41:10)
Thank you so much for having me. It was great to chat.
The Priority Lane (41:14)
Great, thank you. And that's it for this week's episode of the Priority Lane Podcast. Make sure you tune in next week where I think Lawrence is having someone on next week. Thank you and have a good day.