In my last post I mentioned the Ikigai model and if I apply that to personal finance I get the following…
What you LOVE:
- Sad I know, but I never have to force myself to read a personal finance book, read the latest post from great blogs like Monevator or fire up Excel on my steam driven laptop. In fact it’s the opposite for me. I gravitate to this stuff so yes I’d say I love it.
- If I think about my previous (and even current to some extent) work/job I also used to love enabling others with training, coaching, process improvement and then with light touch sitting back watching them succeed. I always took little satisfaction out of my own success but I took a huge amount of satisfaction out of watching my team succeed over and over. I think this is why I’ve also stayed blogging for so long.
What you are GOOD AT:
- I am reasonably good at maths and now have more than 10 years of personal finance knowledge under my belt. Sure, I’ve made mistakes and I’m sure will continue to do so but on the whole I think I’ve managed to get more things right than wrong. I don’t think I would have achieved financial independence in 8.7 years if that wasn’t the case. So yes, I’d say I’m good at it.
- In my previous day job I was also pretty good at teaching and developing others to succeed. In some of my later roles it would have been impossible for me to do my job well if that wasn’t the case.
- While not being a fantastic motivational speaker I am pretty confident in smaller training / workshop environments where on many occasions I’ve been successful in getting the message across.
- This one is sort of optional for me right now but the world is full of financial advisors, financial coaches and accountants carving a living out of individual’s financial situation.
What the world NEEDS:
Piecing all of this together I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t try and build a personal finance education part time gig. It could be a win for me as I get increased life purpose and a win for the punters as they get more control over their financial situation. I’m thinking it could start out as say a 1 day personal finance 101 showing how to earn more, spend less, invest tax/expense efficiently, manage financial risk including with insurance, figure out your goals including how much you need to achieve them and then finally how to ensure you stay on track. I’m not sure there is charitable or otherwise funding for this sort of thing so by the time I hired a venue, provided some lunch, registered/run a company to protect the innocent (me!) and gave myself some beer tokens (I don’t drink much alcohol these days) I’m guessing the cost would run to £50-£100 per person.
Importantly, I would not be offering any financial advice because I’m not licensed to do that. It also doesn’t interest me as I don’t like the selling side of it. I also would not be offering any taxation advice because I’m not licenses to do that either. What I would be offering is my more than 10 years of personal finance knowledge which includes what in my opinion doesn’t work and also what does. In Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) speak I believe I’d be offering unregulated guidance but I would check with the FCA that everything I was about to do was appropriate if there was enough interest.
What do you think? Do you think something like this is needed in the UK? Is it something you might attend?
Finally, if it’s something you might genuinely be interested in I’d love to hear from you at contact.retirementinvesting at googlemail.com. If I could get, say, 10 people who were genuinely interested I’d say it would definitely be worth a go.
