This week, I received the dreaded email – ‘Sue, it’s your turn to write the adviser article.’ My mind was a total blank, until I read a story posted on Facebook, that made me think.

The story was about a man who had been on the brink of suicide, at age 65. He felt like a failure and indeed, had failed with many things in life. At retirement he had received a cheque from the government for $105.00 and he again felt that he was a failure. Something stopped him, and instead he wrote down what he had accomplished in his life. It made him realise that he still had more things that he wanted to achieve in life, things that he hadn’t done. He knew that there was something that he could do very well, and that was cooking. He borrowed against his retirement cheque to buy some chicken that he fried up and sold door to door. Do you know who it was? Yes, none other than Colonel Sanders of the 11 different herbs and spices recipe, the founder of what is now Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

When he died, at age 88, he was a billionaire.

This story made me think about how much we hold ourselves back from achieving things, whether at work, financially, or life in general. We are masters at hiding the truth from ourselves. We will all have heard stories of people on their death beds, concerned about how much money they have. Let’s take a dose of cold hard reality here – we can’t help that person with their financial state at that point in their life, but we can help the family that they leave.

What intrigues me is why we don’t address these things in life while we can? Are we afraid to seek help from someone such as a financial adviser? Why would anyone be afraid of coming to see an adviser? We don’t judge people, but rather assess a situation and provide strategies to deal with it. Once it starts to fall in place, people can expect an immediate improvement in their overall financial situation, and probably their state of mind as well. I have come to the realisation that it isn’t so much that we are afraid of baring our financial situation to, possibly, a complete stranger, but that we are afraid to admit to ourselves that we haven’t done as well as we would have liked. So, we take the ‘do nothing’ option. Face your fears people! What are you waiting for? Come and see us – you don’t need to know what a P/E ratio is, or anything about the stock market, or even how much money you spend [although it does help to have some awareness]. We can work out the things that you don’t know and we can help you to understand some of the terminology associated with finance.  While I can’t turn you into an instant billionaire, I can certainly make improvements for you and your family.

Please note this article provides general advice only and has not taken your personal, business or financial circumstances into consideration. If you would like more tailored advice, please contact us today.