Wellbeing is a word we now hear quite often – from corporate conversations and government initiatives, through to what you do with your weekends.
Being in a ‘state of wellbeing’ sounds like an aspirational nice-to-have – but when we talk with our clients about what’s going on in their lives, their wellbeing is often so far down the list of priorities that their emotional and physical situation not only poses a threat to their professional capacity, it’s potentially impacting their longevity too.
Beyond the world of work and professional obligations – what’s the point of striving and toiling for decades if you cannot enjoy the fruits of your labour in a state of good health?
Burnout, stress-related health issues, and overwhelm are present challenges for many success-oriented individuals. Half a million people in the UK suffer with work-related stress to the point of feeling physically ill – looking after your wellbeing is your way out of that trap. That’s when it stops being a buzzword, and starts to mean something that every hard-working individual should be making time for.
We built a commitment to wellbeing into our wealth management practice because from our viewpoint – success doesn’t mean anything without genuine life satisfaction, or if your health won’t carry you over the finish line.
We take a holistic view of our clients’ lives right from the very first meeting. We look at your family situation, we look at the exit strategy for your business (if there is one in place), we look at your income and how it might change over the years ahead. A typical wealth management consultation deals purely in numbers – we deal in the circumstances of your life. What is your real situation, how sustainable is it, and where do you want it to take you? We want to know about the stuff you think about when you’re filled with anxiety about the future – these are exactly the matters that we can help you take control of and stop the worry.
In this sense, one of the biggest impacts we make on wellbeing happens right in the first meeting. It’s the sense of peace that comes when a person finally sets aside the time to take an honest look at their finances, think about their real long-term goals, and have an honest conversation about what they need to do to end up where they want to go.
Many of our clients come to us in a state of poor wellbeing because they’ve been running on overdrive for years – working all hours in demanding occupations, without any spare time or mental energy left over to step back, breathe, and look at the big picture. Everything we do is about creating a space for that individual to look at their lives from the macro perspective and consider: is all this hard work actually leading to a life that means something to them, a life that fills them with joy and excitement?
A lack of financial planning tends to mean that you’re living in a state of anxiety about your future – and this in itself negatively impacts your ability to earn, strategise, and succeed. To redirect the course of your life towards the outcome you truly desire means taking a pause. It means looking at your days, weeks and months and asking yourself – is this the way things should be? Is the vision of your ideal life getting pushed to the backburner time and time again, while the window opportunity grows smaller?
Many of us have a big dream for our life that is ambitious, glorious, full of professional satisfaction, positive impact on the world, and of course abundant resources to share with your loved ones. Contrary to expectation – an outcome like that doesn’t have to come at the expense of your health and enjoyment of life.
Working yourself to the bone on autopilot is not the way to true life satisfaction. What it takes is strategic, timely planning and a sense of creativity – using the resources you have in a considered and advantageous way. It also takes having clarity about what you actually want. Many people we work with are not on track towards their goals because they haven’t had the chance to clearly define them, to visualise the life they would love to have so they can really set out to achieve it.
With a clear, thought out plan in place – our clients tend to find that there is more time in their days to look after their wellbeing and move towards their goals, and they’re more motivated to do it. They’ve liberated a chunk of mental energy that would usually be spent worrying about the future – without the empowerment and decisive satisfaction that comes with taking action to shape it.
Taking this kind of proactive, decisive control over your life affairs also seems to have a positive impact on the people around you. For example, we support business owners who are inspired by the change in their own lives to start building wellbeing into their company practices. Investing in the health and wellbeing of your employees translates to increased productivity, increased profitability, and generally speaking, a more pleasant work environment for both staff and executives. At the Pinnacle office we commit to wellbeing with our Peloton indoor bike room and break out rooms for informal meetings – it’s a question of team morale, and enjoying the time we spend at work with each other.
In the world we live in, a rapidly changing social landscape with widespread reflection on the future of business and industry – a holistic, wellbeing-focussed wealth management is the only kind of financial planning that truly makes sense.
It’s everything – it’s the exit strategy to leave your business and protect your legacy, it’s being able to slow down work and retire when you’d choose to, it’s having the freedom and resources necessary to build the projects you believe in, it’s being able to experience life in a way that feels joyful and exciting.
We couldn’t possibly overstate the importance of taking your own wellbeing into consideration when planning out your life goals, it’s high time the wealth management sector started having this conversation with clients as a matter of protocol.
