What you think you can do and what you can do are not the same thing. What would you try with your finances if you couldn’t fail?

When it comes to the things we want in life, most of them are inextricably linked with our finances.

Buying the dream home for your new family requires money. The time to spend precious quiet moments with those you love requires finances, too, to keep and maintain life’s endless demands and bills as you smell the roses for a minute, a week or a well-earned holiday. The peace-of-mind that allows you to weather life’s storms requires integrated financial management.

Research and experience are clear: reward follows risk; fortune favours the bold. The more you ‘do’ with your money over various asset classes, the harder it works for you. And we all want our money to do that.

And yet, a curious thing happens in the minds of most people when they contemplate the words ‘financial management’ and ‘financial advice’. They picture someone older, wealthier, probably in a suit, probably with a spread of complex assets in various locations. Maybe something cleverly tax-evading in the Cayman Islands. ‘It’s alright for them,’ people say, picturing this person, but not for me.

What is interesting about this suited, older individual? They almost never actually exist. It is a stereotype we make up in our own minds. And that stereotypes excludes us.

If you have never met with a financial adviser, or never traded in the stock market, or never invested in equities or offshore, why not? Is it because, secretly, you equate those things with someone who is wiser in years, has more money to throw around and more financial acumen? Does this person even exist? What if you knew that most of the people who invest in equities, stocks and offshore products… are people just like you?

There is only one difference between people who do and people who don’t: somewhere, somehow, they received permission to try, so they tried. Trying closes the gap.

When the sky didn’t fall if they failed, they would try again. Well, today – here’s your permission slip to try!

However, here’s the caveat: Trying something new with your finances should happen within the scope of your lifestyle financial plan.

In finances you can fail, and fail badly. An imprudent financial decision has wrecked people’s finances, their futures, marriages and hopes.

That is why the importance of a financial adviser/coach/partner cannot be overstated.

Reward follows risk and fortune favours the bold. So, we need to be able to take risks and be bold if we want to see our financial resources grow to meet our lifestyle goals.

A good financial adviser will never push you towards the latest, hottest thing at the risk of your livelihood. A trusted financial adviser is the opposite of the gambling spirit which takes so many life savings away. Risks that are worth taking and opportunities that are worth trying will always have the potential to push you forward, not destroy your future entirely.

It’s worth a try…