They say a change is as good as a holiday; but let me tell you, a holiday is better! After four weeks off to spend with my family, I return to work more determined than ever to create more momentum around our mission to make the pension irrelevant for Australians.
This mission is only made more real for me as it coincides with the timing of my own beloved father entering a nursing home for the last few months of his life.
Never before has the need for financial security and choice been more obvious to me. While it is devastating to see someone you love suffer from ill health and fade away, it makes a world of difference to know they have the right care to make those last months comfortable.
Which brings me to our mission to save Gen X and beyond. I saw an interview with Barrack Obama recently, where he talked about dreading his children saying to him, “you knew about this 20 years ago, you knew it would be a problem, and you did nothing?”
The impending economic tsunami for Gen X and Y over the next 20-30 years could well be one of those situations unless we act now.
The numbers don’t lie. We’re facing longer lives, fewer taxpayers, and insufficient savings for retirement, on top of a pension system that won’t be able to support people as it does now. The consequences for how our generation lives are far reaching. While 20 per cent of the population may end up okay, due to inheritance and savings, the vast majority of Australians will be in varying states of financial difficulty.
So, I have made a strategic decision to move more into talking directly to the people. The business of No More Practice Education is run by our very capable managing director, Marcus Field. He is working with our partners to produce the very best in education to help advisers communicate better and more frequently with their clients. I will be on the front line talking directly to Australians to help wake them up and spur them into action.
I have shifted the direction of my work to a more readily digestible conversation: the art of unlearning money and preventing the common mistakes we make with our financial decisions, whether we recognise these or not. And I have to say, the early signs are good.
From the coverage in the Daily Mail recently to being the guest money writer for the month of January for My Body + Soul’s 2 million readers, a focus on unlearning bad habits and forming new ones is starting to resonate.
And so, I realise that to win ground in this mission, we need to reach people in their day-to-day lives, with small things they can do straight away to improve their finances.
Once people feel empowered with the small things, they might find themselves more confident to reach out to a financial adviser for help.
I will be promoting financial planners as the answer for busy people who don’t want to manage their wealth creation strategy hands on. I’ll be guiding them to ask you the right questions to determine if it’s going to be a relationship that works. What I need from the advice community in return, is a willingness to spend time educating on the little things, in order to get the big things done. I also ask this of our investment management partners: to be willing to get back to basics in how they articulate what they do, to make people understand how it can work for them.
For too long our industry has talked to people that already have knowledge and the desire to invest. This makes sense, but to truly grow the market we need to reach out to those who are not there yet, but could be, with some guidance and a continuous focus on education from us all.
For those of you who are doing this every day, thank you. Your work is making a difference. We have a long way to go, but the good news is we have the time.
I will keep you up to date on my progress; as editorial director of No More Practice Education I will be writing for you, and about you.
The work continues.
Until next time,
The opinions expressed in this content are those of the author shown, and do not necessarily represent those of No More Practice Education Pty Ltd or its related entities. All content is intended for a professional financial adviser audience only and does not constitute financial advice. To view our full terms and conditions, click here.
