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

As a company, our purpose is to enhance levels of well-being in society by aligning personal finances with personal values. There is a danger that, as modern day society encourages us to drive for ‘bigger’, ‘better’ and ‘more’, we view our finances as a means to pursuing social ideals, rather than as a mechanism for achieving the lifestyle we truly desire. The result is that our personal finances have become disconnected from what is truly important to us as individuals. Cons

Today is World Values day, the perfect day to let you know about two very exciting developments at Find Peace of Mind. We are delighted to launch our new website www.findpeaceofmind.co.uk. The site has been re-designed to better reflect our company values and purpose, as well as providing useful tools and insights to support you in harnessing your personal finances to support your desired lifestyle. We will be adding further tools, guides and other resources to the site over

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

It’s Sunday and it’s mother’s day, if ever I had an excuse to laze about in bed then today was the day. But instead I woke up early, keen to get going, motivated about the day ahead and what progress I could make. I managed to sneak downstairs without waking my children and set to work reviewing the first draft of my book with a nice cup of tea. Having secured my first ‘test reader’ yesterday (eeek!) I have renewed incentive to maintain progress. I’m on a mission to connect p

As I type this I am trying to ignore the slight undercurrent of panic slowly bubbling as I contemplate the half marathon ahead of me this morning. I know I will get round it, I have put the training in, but no matter how many runs I do there is something about a ‘race day’ that makes it somehow much more challenging than a normal training run. So what does physical health have to do with our finances? We all know that stress can have a negative impact on our physical health a

The fun and festivities of Christmas give most of us a break from the routines that occupy our daily lives. Before we get too far absorbed back in to the daily grind, the new year presents an ideal time for us to take a step back and consider whether there is anything we can change in our daily lives to make them more fulfilling and in tune with our higher values. Identifying what you value most in life and how you can therefore adapt life for the better isn’t as straightforw

I can’t claim to know much about any particular religion, I didn’t attend church as a child and my lasting memory of RE lessons at school was watching E.T. on an old fashioned tube TV that got wheeled round from classroom to classroom, but I can’t help thinking that there is something in the idea of us all having a ‘spirit’, ‘soul’ or ‘true-self’, an innate human ‘essence’ that is individual and unique. Have you ever felt uncomfortable with something without being able to put

One of the key factors feeding our ‘inner spirit’ is our sense of community. Being part of a community, in whatever form it takes, can have a significant impact on our lives, our sense of wellbeing, our achievements and on society as a whole – I witnessed this first hand last week. As part of a nine month mentoring programme I have been working with a group of around 40 other like-minded entrepreneurs. We have been placed in ‘accountability groups’ and there are six of us in

I snapped this picture while out on a soggy run with the dogs this morning. It got me thinking about our goals and ambitions and how they change over time. If we achieve what once seemed impossible, that achievement somehow morphs in to the norm and new goals arise – we never quite reach that pot of gold. I’m all for setting and achieving goals but it’s equally as important to appreciate the beauty of rainbow. #MindfulFinance #Values #Vitality

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