Perhaps you can end your year with gratitude too. I encourage you to find a moment alone, or with your family and friends, to look back on your year and name everything that you could be grateful for. You may be surprised to find that amongst the difficulties and depressing news, you were blessed with much.
We should recognise that this heightened tension and the angry flare-ups impact us. While occasional stress isn’t a bad thing and could be a catalyst for change, permanent stress is damaging to every aspect of our lives.
Engaging with change, rather than guarding against it, gives us the opportunity to enlarge rather than diminish. We can explore how sharing and cooperation make what we already have so much bigger and better.
It is never easy to see negative short-term returns. However, understanding the context may help us to stay the course. Right now, our portfolios can be likened to a small boat in the open ocean, battling to move forward because of this unusually strong headwind.
It’s the challenges in life that provide the opportunities to view life from a different perspective. At times, they will bring out the worst and they are typically painful. But if we’re willing to turn inwards and reflect on our pain, they are also spaces that allow for expansion.
Somehow, we now believe that our work should take priority over every other aspect of our lives. We live to work instead of working to live.
Take off any lens of hopelessness you are wearing, stop the negative talk, roll up your sleeves and think of a new game plan. Start training even. The Springboks are just one example of the excellence that can be achieved by the magnificent people of this country.
I was recently reminded about the danger of making decisions when you have a lot on your plate. I have dished out this advice to many of my clients transitioning through divorce, retrenchment, or the death of a spouse. Yet, I had forgotten about it for myself.
The intersection of wealth, meaning, and purpose in life is something that sits at the heart of our business. We want people to see money as a tool for creating a good life, rather than an end point in itself.
Some moments or choices you never get to relive. Miss them and it may cost you dearly. Your health, money, or relationships may never recover from your years of fog. Take it from my life lesson. Pay attention. More importantly, create a life that allows you to pay attention.
We need to be cautious about the filters we have, as too often, the resulting trends that we then follow are not true trends. We just think they are. I believe it is necessary, for our own well-being, to interrogate our own observations and conclusions daily.
Visible ownership of possessions is one way people signal wealth, whether they mean it or not. For a long time, ‘plentiful possessions’ defined my picture of wealth.
People hoard cash when they’re uncertain. It may be that the world is just feeling more unsafe.
One of the best things may be to hold a larger cash moat much like a castle had a moat in the Middle Ages. However, a cash moat is not the only means of protection against uncertainty.
Considering the last 30 years, I feel fortunate to have been involved in this industry. The continual intellectual rigour and exposure, whilst also aiming for the noble goal of helping people achieve their desired outcomes, has been highly rewarding.
Not many people stick it out. Not many companies survive. This is why, thirty years of consistently ploughing away with resilience is worth taking a moment to celebrate.
We too live in a world defined by turmoil and don’t always have the choices we wish we could have. We’re operating in dangerous and noisy environments.
Amidst the chaos, noise, and threats, it is up to us to create and protect the space to flourish.
The truth is, as we age, we will lose many of the labels we have carefully constructed around us.
Our reluctance to let go of our badges is not irrational.
This week we celebrate Women’s Day in South Africa. What should our message be to women on this day?
Talking about rest is not popular. You don’t often read biographies that espouse how the famous got to their positions by resting.
It still feels like defeat to admit that I need this time out. For someone like me, who has a lot of her identity tied up in productivity, it feels like failure.
It’s hard to talk about money. I was recently reminded just how hard in a difficult money conversation. You’d think by now I’d be good at it, but it was messy. It made me ponder on why exactly it is so hard.
So, we struggle to foresee the distant implications of today’s choices.
In experiencing and understanding our humanity, our basic make-up, we have an opportunity to learn and, crucially, set ourselves up for good outcomes.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” really is true.
South Africans are in a league of their own when it comes to adapting. We are resilient and creative when we put our minds to it. ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan!
Noticing others’ burdens helps us to keep our own in perspective. It is nearly always possible to find someone who is facing a more difficult storm than you are currently. However, it’s not about minimising our own hardships or even trauma, it is about realising that we are not alone.
Perhaps, instead of popping into the garage shop for a bunch of flowers on the way to your mum this Sunday (hopefully not to a meal she cooked), or sending an expensive gift, why not think about what she needs?
We are not a patient generation. We are too accustomed to immediate gratification. Everything is instant.
What is happening? Why are we seeing more worker protests now - relative to the last few decades -despite global economic output increasing over that time? The answer lies in the way economic growth has been distributed. More of the spoils have ended up in the hands of the financiers and entrepreneurs, and less and less have gone to the middle and lower-class workers.
The problem is structural. The odds have been stacked against workers for the past few decades.
Sadly, few people practise hobbies these days, although many want to. Work has encroached on all other spaces in our lives, and screens take up most of our time when we do have time off.
There is however a difference between medicine and markets. If a treatment is not delivering the expected results, then a doctor would do well to try a different treatment regime. Good portfolios though are best left untouched.
Most people seem hopeless. And it is depressing. You can choose to be hopeless. You can choose to spend your life hurling abuse as a spectator. It’s easy.
Or you can choose to jump into the ring if you’re not already there. You may find it rewarding
Enough has to do with our core desire for security. We all want to feel safe. We all want to survive.
We must all answer the question of ‘enough’. When we rationally have enough but we don’t feel it, and consequently don’t allow ourselves to experience it, we must do the work of healing that trauma.
At the end of the month of love, I reflect on what love means.
Love costs something. It is not only something that satiates. Nor is it something that can wait until we have satisfied our desires. I have noticed how our own desires only expand. Love comes at the cost of some of our desires.
This week we walked into our first permanent office in Cape Town. I felt a sense of déjà vu.
Again, two empty desks waited for us in a shared office space, a new blank canvas to expand our dream into the Cape region.
We should all have solid sounding boards in our life – people who can hear us out and help us to make good decisions and not necessarily affirm our views. Better yet to have professional people to advise us on tax, legal and financial issues.
Everyone will experience pain. Some more than others. Sometimes due to our own choices or others’ choices. Sometimes due to the circumstances of our birth. Sometimes due to our geography. And sometimes it seems for no reason at all.
Bluebirds are a sign that good luck is waiting.
In stark contrast to the symbolism of the bluebird, a black swan is an unknowable and unpredictable event with exceptionally negative consequences.
A lot of energy is spent trying to predict and prepare for the next black swan in the world of money. However, in reality, bluebirds are far more common than black swans.
At the start of the new year, we see the usual advice on setting and maintaining resolutions.
After the last 3 years, setting resolutions for another year is challenging. And it’s not just because we are recovering from the pandemic. It’s also that stability is slowly crumbling, like ancient structures being eroded by wind. Making resolutions feels daunting.