Unbelievably it has been a year since I was first diagnosed with breast cancer. I know that because I attended my first annual check this week. A lot has happened in the last year and I have written various blogs along the way but I haven’t written an update on my health since February, just after my 5th dose of chemo. A few people have asked about an update, so here it is…. I don’t like to moan about my experience because I am acutely aware that many people are going throug

When I founded Find Peace of Mind 12 years ago I was starting from scratch. I already had a few years’ experience as an Independent Financial Adviser but no start-up capital and certainly no marketing budget. I chose a career in financial planning because of my negative first experience of the industry. I wanted to deliver a more positive and empowering experience for others so the company name came fairly naturally. It described what I wanted to help my clients to do. When i

As I sit down to type this, our very own business strategy adviser Ray (AKA Dad to me) is in Norway preparing to undertake the Red Bull Ragnarok 2017. The Ragnarock is an endurance snow-kite race, its name is taken from an epic battle depicted in Norse mythology, where only the heroes of the battlefield survive, just as only the toughest of riders will complete the required five laps of the gruelling 15-20km course using only a kite and skis or a snowboard. At almost 63 Ray w

With more than slight trepidation I have started planning my first book! Over 15 years of advising clients I have become aware of a real disconnect between people’s personal values and their personal finances. The pressure placed on us by society to achieve material goals leads us to pursue extrinsic goals and neglect those goals that are intrinsic to us. With our attention continually drawn to materialist values it is easy to lose sight of what is truly important – the great

I have heard this story a few times of late, most recently on re-reading Stephen Covey’s ‘First Things First’….. A teacher stands in front of his class and places a large glass jar on the table in front of him. He fills the jar to the top with large rocks and asks his students whether they think the jar is full. The students agree that the jar is full. The teacher then pulls out a bag of small pebbles from under his desk and proceeds to pour them in to the jar, shaking it sli

One of the concepts Covey et al explore in First Things First is that of the four human needs. They describe the following basic needs in our lives: To live: this represents our physical needs e.g. food, shelter, clothing, economic wellbeing, health. To Love: this is our social need, to love, to be loved, to belong, to be accepted. To learn: our mental need, to grow to develop and to use our talents. To leave a legacy: this is a spiritual need, to have a sense of meaning,

It is hard to believe it will soon be 2016, this year has flown by quicker than ever and I haven’t got around to updating this blog as frequently as I had hoped. This got me thinking about a book I read earlier in the year, Life in Half a Second by Matthew Michalewicz. Here is an extract from the first chapter of the book which you can download at lifeinhalfasecond.com. Planet Earth is four-and-a-half billion years old. The species you and I belong to, Homo sapiens, did not e

In his 2014 Reith lecture Series, Dr Atul Gawande explores the nature and progress of failure in medicine. I listened to the lectures on recommendation from a friend and was struck by how neatly the points being made by Dr Gawande applied to the financial planning profession and financial services generally. In his third lecture “The Problem of Hubris” Dr Gawande tells the story of Peg, his daughter’s piano teacher, her battle with terminal cancer and how she chooses to spend