If you’re not familiar, the Enneagram is a personality typing tool that focuses on why we do what we do. It is a model of nine interconnected personality types – from the Ancient Greek word “ennea” for nine. A quick Google search will tell you what you need to know and guide you to free tests if you’d like to dig a little deeper. Over the last few decades, the Enneagram has grown in popularity, proving […]
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Holiday-proof your financial plan
Holidays should be a time of restoration and relaxation. But for savvy investors, who are seldom able to switch off or turn down the volume on their analytical brain activity, it can be a time of stress and panic. Whether you’re entering your annual time of leave or it’s a sneaky mid-year break, if you’re understandably nervous about your financial plan, fear not. While no portfolio is fireproof to completely uncontrollable events like black swans and […]
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Can you control it?
We permanently activate our fight-flight-freeze-appease response when constantly performing at our peak. This acute stress response activates our sympathetic nervous system and keeps us unhealthy or from experiencing deeper joy and fulfilment in life. Blogs and TED talks abound on how we’re living in an age where our stress level is way above a healthy normal, and we need to find ways to reduce our stress to enjoy more of life. Stress can be relieved in […]
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When the conversation goes south…
Despite our best-laid plans and most honourable intentions, conversations about money can go south quickly! There’s never going to be a perfect time to talk about money dreads or financial dreams, but preparing our partner or family for the chat, and finding a space where we won’t be interrupted is always helpful. It’s also helpful to think about what you want to say, but you can never know exactly how others will feel about it. In […]
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Helping your parents with their financial independence
In the previous blog, we looked at how we can help our children with their retirement, or financial independence, as many in our profession are starting to frame it. But the reality is, as the sandwich generation, we can’t only be thinking about our own and our kids’ financial futures; we also need to be thinking about our parents’ financial futures. Living at a time when fewer and fewer people can afford to live without working […]
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Helping your kids with their financial independence
We spend most of our time having conversations with people who are 40+ about saving for retirement. However, the language and expectations are slowly starting to shift in a powerful and exciting direction. Instead of only talking about retirement, we’re starting to use words like financial independence. And rather than focusing on traditional milestones, like 65+ years, we’re starting to look at shifting timelines based on goals and lifestyle plans that are based on purpose and […]
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How to talk about money
“I love talking about money with my family!” said no one ever. Most of us will agree that there is more to life than money, but regardless, it’s very important for most of us — especially when we feel like we do not have enough. Money can become a consuming focus that leaves us feeling powerless and sometimes even worthless. Talking about money is a helpful way to regain our sense of power and remind ourselves […]
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Are old investment truths still relevant?
In a recent podcast on the Allan Gray Podcast with Dan Brocklemank, head of Orbis UK, he reflected on how humans are NOT designed to be good investors. Our natural instincts very often pull us in the exact opposite direction to what we need to be doing in order to be good at investing. Our natural habits and instincts protect us in the present; they’re not good at protecting us for the future and seeing the […]
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Life after work
We spend months or years preparing for many significant life events. The first for many of us was the build-up to going to ‘big school’. Our three-, four- and five-year-old selves grew increasingly excited, right up until the day school started and then there was an overwhelming flow of emotions that may have been more negative than positive. When you stand in the playground of first-graders on the first day of school, you’re bound to see […]
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Living to 100…
So many things have changed in the last four decades, and yet so much has stayed the same. Financial planning has become an entire profession and is no longer just a bunch of salespeople selling insurance. It’s evolved into a profoundly nuanced practice, and those of us who are continually advancing our professional development are spending more time on understanding the integration of all aspects of life and well-being in our approach to financial planning. But […]
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