Why do you get out of bed in the morning?
Why is money important?
Why do you choose to do whatever it is that you do?
These are all fundamental questions, but so many people struggle to answer them – us included.
Why is this?
Well, it’s because they’re uncomfortable. It’s impossible to answer them truthfully without taking a long, hard look at ourselves, evaluating our lives and reflecting on where we are, versus where we thought we would be and where we wish to go in the future.
Mostly though, it’s because so often in life, we focus on the ‘what?’ and forget about the ‘why?’
As lifestyle financial planning specialists we get to the heart of what it really is you want for your future. Once we know this we will have a better idea of why money is important and from there we can develop a plan based specifically around the future you desire.
WHY DO WE SPECIALISE IN LIFESTYLE FINANCIAL PLANNING?
Few, if any, financial advisers will have started their practices with a view to specialising in lifestyle financial planning. This is partly as it’s a more recent and bespoke discipline in the UK (America caught on to its benefits long ago) but largely, it’s because lifestyle financial planning often requires a ‘eureka!’ moment to truly grasp what it’s all about. Our eureka moment came when we discovered Paul Armson – a lifestyle financial planner passionate about changing the face of financial advice and telling clients the truth about their money, rather than simply telling them what they wanted to hear in order to sell them a product.
Naturally we need to know all the technical details, regulations, benefits and potential risks involved with the products we recommend to help maximise your finances and for some clients (and some advisers) that’s enough, as they simply want to know what to do with their money to get a good return on their investment.
For a long time though, we felt that there was something missing from this process and the financial advice profession as a whole was lacking a certain depth – the kind that can only be gained from putting yourself in the shoes of your clients and visualising their hopes and dreams for their future through your own eyes. When we discovered lifestyle financial planning, we discovered the missing link. No longer were we just talking about money, but we were discussing real goals, ambitions and even fears for the future. Money was the obvious way to plan for and overcome them, but it was lifestyle financial planning that helped us to highlight what was really important to our clients in the first place.
Suddenly, financial planning became less about selling a product and more about fulfilling the real desires of our clients.
At Global Financial Ltd, being lifestyle financial planning specialists is our ‘why?’ – it’s the reason we get out of bed in the morning and the reason we love what we do. We don’t just tick boxes and sell products but we do something far more rewarding. We grow long-term relationships with our clients and we help them get what they want out of life. Life is not a rehearsal. We’re only here once and to miss out on what we want to do because we haven’t sat and truly thought about what that is, and haven’t planned our finances accordingly, would be a complete waste.
To learn about or discuss lifestyle financial planning in more detail, or to make an appointment to focus on your own lifestyle financial plan, please get in touch.
This article does not constitute financial advice and should not be construed as such.