In recent years there has been a considerable amount of economic uncertainty. Many people are unsure of their financial future, concerned that they won’t be able to retire because of financial setbacks related to the pandemic and other global events. Saving for retirement often aligns closely with benefiting from tax advantages, tax-free investing and tax deferment. Life beyond work is a season of life that we can start planning for now and see immediate savings in […]
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Temperament, not intellect
“The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect.” — Warren Buffett It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that clever people make the most money when investing. But more often than not, it’s emotions influencing trading activity, not intellect. Investors traded ten times more in the first quarter of 2020 than in 2009. Fear can drive us to switch, and switching isn’t always the answer. Switching happens when we transfer money […]
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How are you choosing your financial products?
For years, people have said that insurance is sold and not bought. The stigma surrounding the industry and those representing it still hangs thick in our social memory, with old stories of brokers peddling policies purely to earn commission instead of seeking the best needs of their clients. However, in the last decade or so, we saw a shift in motivation for sales, with a breed of financial planners and advisors emerging who chose to put […]
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How to be more productive – 4 tips to practice today
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” ― Ernest Hemingway After our recent blog on monotasking, we thought we’d spark a conversation around some tips to help us improve productivity. At the beginning of anything new, we generally like to think about how we can do things differently this time around. Whether it’s a new year, job, relationship or hobby, we consider why […]
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Dealing with stress
With a positive approach, physical and mental stress can both be helpful in moving from a fixed to a growth mindset. Research has found that people who adopt the mindset that “stress is enhancing” experience more exceptional performance and fewer negative health symptoms (Crum & Crum, 2018). It’s easy to try and avoid stress entirely, especially since we operate in overdrive way too often. Instead of finding the balance, we swing from each end of the […]
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Get more out of your productive time
“A deep life is a good life.” – Cal Newport, Author of “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.” Have you heard of deep work? A term coined by Cal Newport, deep work is a state of distraction-free concentration when your brain works at its maximum potential. As you read this, you probably realise just how hard it is to find a space of genuinely distraction-free concentration. Even whilst reading this blog, you […]
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Monotasking for the win
Do you pride yourself on being a multitasker? In today’s digitally overwhelmed world, it may not be as healthy as we’ve been led to believe. Technology allows us to do many more things, all at the same time. From conversations to research to content creation and manual tasks, whether we have an online job or customer-facing work, we can be doing several things simultaneously: multitasking. Even if we don’t consider ourselves a multitasker, if we have […]
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Gifts that can’t be wrapped
“Always give without remembering. Always receive without forgetting.” – Brian Tracy We go through seasons where we become unbalanced and focused on giving to others and neglecting ourselves. Giving stimulates the same neural networks in the brain that activate when eating a cookie or running warm water over cold hands. It is a deep-seated gratification that makes us feel good; before, during and after. But how do we feel when we “give to ourselves”? It is […]
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Reconnecting with your values
When life gets full and busy, it’s hard to remember why we do what we do, and it’s easy to become unhealthily disconnected from who and what we value. As Dr Susan David often says, finding your “why” can be as simple as reconnecting with your values and reframing your everyday activities in relation to those values. This is not so easy when we’re under pressure to perform and meet the expectations that have been placed […]
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And what are the voices saying?
There are times in the year when we see and engage with more people than usual – through end-of-year functions, annual celebrations, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, funerals and the like. It can be wonderful – but it can also be stressful. We are quickly reminded that these old friends, colleagues and distant family from far-off shores have opinions that challenge our own, and they’re all too willing to offer unsolicited advice. All these voices can be exhausting […]
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