At Magenta, our goal has always been to help our clients feel secure and happy while being able to pursue their passions. Client wellbeing has always been close to our collective heart and we are continually exploring different ideas to facilitate this in our work and client relationships.
But one truth that comes from the study of financial wellbeing is that as humans, we don’t generally know what makes us happy. How can we become more aware of our own wellbeing, and what are the barriers we need to overcome?
Society’s Barriers to Happiness
Strange as it may seem, life in our Western societies is not particularly conducive to wellbeing. We spend our time comparing ourselves to others; we tend to focus on the search for wealth rather than purpose; we have advertisers constantly telling us we will not be cool or fulfilled until we buy a certain product. Then there are the expectations placed upon us by parents, schools, and employers which also tend to be financial in nature.
It can be pretty confusing, being a human being! Knowing what will truly make us happy is actually quite a hard thing to discover through all this noise.
Much of the research into happiness produces results that may feel counterintuitive. For example, the standard definition of success in western society is financial, and yet research shows that the value of materialism, of seeing the accumulation of wealth as an objective, is in direct conflict with happiness.
The cumulative effect of what we experience in such a society, is that we erect our own barriers to happiness, in the form of self-limiting beliefs.
Self Limiting Beliefs
As we go through life, we accrue values, which are based upon our experiences. One example from the world of money might be someone who invests in the stock market at the peak, experiences a market crash and sells out in a panic. This person may then decide that investing in the stock market is not a good idea.
Another, non-financial, example is time. I play the saxophone and people often say to me “I wish I could play an instrument, but I don’t have the time.” Clearly, this is not true – it only takes ten minutes of practice a day – and yet this belief prevents many people from doing something that could give them enormous joy and wellbeing.
The idea that the stock market is not a place to invest is not a fact, it is a belief – these are two very different things. And, given that such a belief may prevent a person from achieving their financial goals, because the investment returns available elsewhere are generally very poor over the long term, it is a self-limiting belief.
If we are going to break down some of the barriers to wellbeing, therefore, we must first acknowledge, and then challenge, these assumptions.
Challenging Assumptions
Another truism is that you cannot challenge your own assumptions. It requires a third party to help dig away some of our preconceptions about ourselves – those self-limiting beliefs.
And not just any old anybody. Challenging our assumptions in order to reveal purpose and come up with new ideas and solutions needs to be handled in a skilled way. A good financial planner will ask questions and challenge the answers to uncover what is really important to their clients and what will truly make them happy.
A Common Approach
Many advisers will begin the advice process with the question “What are your objectives?” A range of answers may be given, including a date at which they should retire, or perhaps there are some other specific goals.
The answers to these questions are laden with presumption and self limiting beliefs. For example, if we ask people when they intend to retire, they will usually give an answer around 60 or 65. Why have they chosen this age? Usually it is because it has some vague relation to the state or occupational pension age.
Seeking a person’s goals, without further challenge, risks producing financial advice and financial plans based on objectives that are almost expected and not specifically geared to make somebody happy.
The Magenta Way
At Magenta we believe that only a coaching and challenging approach to setting objectives, uncovering paths to wellbeing and finding out what will make our clients feel happy and fulfilled, will result in meaningful financial advice and financial plans.
If we cannot help our clients to realise and understand their true motivations, we will not be helping our clients to become happier.
If we can then help them to organise their financial and life affairs to ensure that they can realise their dreams without having to worry about their money or their future security, then we believe we have added a great deal of value by doing a fabulous job!
With thanks to Author and Financial Planner Chris Budd, Chair of the Initiative for Financial Wellbeing, for the inspiration for this blog.