Choosing life
“Emily challenges you and makes you think bigger.”
I’ve always tried to do the right thing with my money – I had a pension from day one, I’ve put any spare money into an ISA – but it was always at the back of my mind that I should be doing something smarter with it all.
The process began with me getting my head around the finances I had – I was thinking I needed to get everything together to say: ‘This is what I’ve got, this is where it is and this is what it’s doing. I don’t know if it’s working as well as it should be, what should I do?’
That’s where Emily turned my thinking on its head.
She asked, ‘What is it you want your money to do for you? What is it that you value? What are your goals and aspirations for your life? How do you want to be living?’
Emily is very good at challenging you and making you think bigger. I think what was most surprising was when she said: ‘Actually, you could be spending some more money Jill!’
It made me think that perhaps I was on the corporate and financial treadmill where you’re saving money, but what I needed was to work out what I actually wanted to do. Then I had the option to take redundancy.
Emily helped me think about what to do with that money, and I decided what I really wanted to do was take some time out to go sailing – across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal and possibly across the Pacific. I am going to take it one ocean at a time and I could be away for anything between 3 and 12 months.
It’s amazingly empowering, stepping back and seeing your life goals and financial situation and thinking, ‘actually I can do this, I don’t need to worry’.
The big picture planning makes you start to feel confident
It’s the redundancy situation that’s given me the security, but it’s the big picture planning that’s given me the confidence.
It means that the old chestnut of work life balance – which is the most impossible balance to find – actually becomes something that you can seriously think about, rather than just talk about.
I ended up with a true understanding of how my money was being managed and what it could do for me. If I hadn’t known that, I would have continued to squirrel it away, not realising that I had choices available. By the time I did, it could have been too late!
What differentiates Life Matters is Emily. She is passionate, professional and committed. She wants you to have the best life you can possibly have. She can help you realise it and understand it, and she wants you to achieve everything you’d like to achieve – that’s what gives her such a buzz.
