CHAPTER 25

NO REGRETS

Are you inspired by your life?

Do you appreciate the people you’ve met and experiences you’ve had so far? You might find it useful to keep a journal of what you’ve learned and keep updating it. We are a product of our thoughts and feelings and we usually get what we expect or tolerate in our lives. The two biggest excuses in life are ‘I’m too young’ and ‘I’m too old’. Why believe that you have arrived; why not keep growing? There are people becoming first-time authors in their sixties, starting businesses in their seventies, taking exams in their eighties and running marathons in their nineties!

The standards that we set for ourselves will usually be in a comfort zone that is well below our potential. Personally, I am grateful for what I have experienced and achieved so far, but I’m also very excited about what the future holds. How excited are you about your future and those of the people you love and care about?

The power of knowing your ‘why’

Passion comes from enthusiasm and enthusiasm comes from belief. Knowing what’s really important to you and what your higher calling is are key elements of belief in yourself. While you might think that leaving a financial legacy is important, what about leaving a legacy of character? By character I mean that unique combination of human attributes of integrity, principles and authenticity.

Was there someone who acted as your mentor, who helped you to become the person you are today? If you aren’t already, could you be a mentor to others to provide inspiration, support and encouragement? My view is that our example is the only thing that influences others. Think about your actions, deeds and messages. What impact do these have on your family, friends and colleagues and are they the impacts that you want?

If you are clear what is important to you and how you define success, fulfilment and happiness, then there is a higher chance that you’ll achieve it. The old saying of ‘being careful what you wish for’ comes to mind.

Happiness is not the same as pleasure

Pleasure can be sustained only by the activity that produces it, whereas happiness is a state of mind that comes from a series of actions, thoughts, feelings and attitudes. If you find it hard to be happy and contented, try acting happy for the first two hours of every day and eventually it will become a habit.

The news is mainly negative and not intended to make us happy. For most of us, 90% of life is great and 10% is not so great, so why not focus on the 90% that is great and forget the other 10%? Control what you can control and don’t worry about what you can’t (investment returns, taxes and politicians!). Instead focus on what you have, not on what you don’t have or may have lost. Silence is the key to contemplation and wisdom, so try to avoid being stimulated and electronically connected all the time.

At the end of each week in my firm, we ask each member of the team to score their happiness on a scale of one to ten. Our current average is about eight, but we are aiming for ten. What’s your happiness score and why is that so? Each week at the dinner table, I ask my family what’s the best thing that happened to them that week. The idea is to focus on the good rather than the negative things and we find it helps us to stay positive and appreciative of the good things in life.

Financial happiness

Experiencing bad days, sadness and disappointment are all part of being human, but feeling happy the majority of the time is something most of us would aspire to achieve. As the old adage goes, money can’t buy you love, happiness or good health (with health more influenced by genetics, lifestyle and environment), but it can give you choices. However, we can’t spend our way to happiness – or can we?

‘Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.’

Woody Allen

A new book¹ on the subject of financial happiness suggests that how we spend our money, rather than how much money we have, determines our overall level of happiness. The authors are behavioural science experts who have researched how spending influences human happiness and they have found five core principles that increase happiness. Here’s a quick overview of their findings.

Who do you have around you?

We are judged and affected by the company we keep. If you have negative and unpleasant people around you, that can rub off and make you the same as them. My experience (and I’ve interviewed in excess of 1,000 people over the past 25 years) is that people are either drains or radiators. Drains sap you of energy and enthusiasm, so avoid people who are drains and those who have no love of life. Radiators, meanwhile, are usually warm, giving, enthusiastic, passionate and inspiring. Who do you have around you and are they the right people?

Just do it!

An acquaintance of mine works in a hospice and as a result she regularly comes into contact with people who are at the end of their lives. Her experience is that when someone knows that they are going to die, they rarely regret the things they have done in their life but they do regret the things that they didn’t do, say or become.

It was, therefore, with this thought in mind that I finally bought myself the guitar that I’d promised myself several years ago. While I do play the piano and can read music, I couldn’t play the guitar or read guitar music. So, having bought the guitar, I am now learning to play it, under the guidance of a gifted young musician who lives near to me (the first tune I learned was an old blues classic, ‘No one knows you when you’re down and out’).

There is no doubt in my mind that eventually I’ll be able to play the guitar at least to a level where others can recognise what I’m playing. I have thought about how I will think and feel when I can play really well and what that will mean to me. This gives me the motivation and discipline to do the practice. I’m focused on the outcome, not the process.

I did a similar thing when I taught myself to play the piano when I was 12. My first piano was an ancient, hand-painted, clapped-out upright, which was untenable, had missing notes and sounded like it had a duvet stuffed down between the strings. Despite the limitations of the instrument, I eventually learned how to play the Scott Joplin piano composition ‘The Entertainer’. Now, more than 30 years later, never a week goes by when I don’t sit down to play my beautiful, and perfectly tuned, Yamaha baby grand piano.

All those years ago I started with my piano dream, continued with hard work and eventually had sufficient wealth to enable me to buy a lovely instrument. I hope my guitar dream is equally as successful and who knows, I might eventually be playing a Fender Strat or Gibson Les Paul in years to come. Either way I try to live my life so that when my time is up, I will have as few regrets as possible about the things I haven’t done in my lifetime.

So what about you? If you knew you had only weeks to live, what regrets would you have about what you hadn’t done, become or said? Once you can answer that question, you are well on your way to living a life that is truly rich, rewarding and meaningful.

A thought to leave you with

Your life isn’t defined by money or your net worth but by the things that you do, see and experience on a daily basis and that make you happy and fulfilled. It’s not my job to tell you what’s important to you or how to live your life. I do hope, however, that you are clear on your life’s purpose so you know the ‘why’ (the mission, vision, values and goals) of your wealth plan. If you understand those, then the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of your wealth plan (the strategies, tactics and tools set out in this book) will fall neatly into place. In that context I hope that the future for you and the people you care about will be even bigger and more exciting than your past.