Something happens when you put my in front of money
There’s a very unscientific way to prove how emotional money is. Here goes:
Think about a big pile of money, let’s say £10,000, sitting in a bank vault.
Okay, now imagine it’s yours.
Unspecific, general money is one thing, but when you add the word my to it, the dynamic shifts entirely. Money goes from being a simple medium of exchange to something complex, precious and prickly … and all it took was one loaded word. My.
See, my money is my gateway to possibilities, progress, experiences, opportunities. My money is mission critical to my hopes, plans, vision …
It’s not just about the emotion of faraway hopes and dreams, but the fact we all wake up in homes we need to pay for with bills we need to cover. We use money to feed, clothe and care for ourselves and others too.
So damn right it’s emotional – and it’s that emotion we need to capture and immortalise …
The art of money?
Yes. Okay this may be a bit hifalutin but stay with it …
People don’t think of money as a particularly creative or artistic thing but let’s take a long draw and think about what a financial plan, a good one, actually is.
It’s a vision – a unique one that doesn’t really exist until it comes to life on canvas.
It’s a vision composed of variables and experiences that are the intellectual and emotional property of the artist. It is a swirling mosaic of hopes and dreams with splashes of wants, swatches of needs and brushstrokes of ambition.
Like the best art, it is infused with feelings and all meaning is utterly subjective. Its value is in the eye of the beholder(s) and thus it is incomprehensibly unique.
Okay, enough … we’ll put down the herbals.
Never finished, no wrong answers
It got a bit dreamy there, no doubt. But a financial plan does tick so many of the same boxes as a worthy piece of art.
Like the best creative endeavours, the act of bringing a financial plan to life, however imperfectly, is vital even if it will never be complete. The plan may adapt and evolve and take on new meaning as its purpose, context and audience change.
As life moves on you may need to reframe your art. It may need touching up. You might want to paint a giant pink chicken slap bang in the middle and that’s okay. This is your vision, your story, your money …
This is your masterpiece; one which becomes more intricate, fascinating and poignant as the years roll on.
Consult an art teacher, though
Some people are gifted money artists from the get-go but the rest of us probably need a little help to unlock our creativity. Enter the financial planner.
You may assume financial planners just offer advice here and there but there’s so much more to it than that. See, you can get advice (sometimes even good advice) from Instagram and think, ooh maybe I should start a pension … but that doesn’t mean you will.
No, good financial planning is the soul-searching required to bring your money to life in line with your deep-set vision, mission and values. It is arranging your vision as a set of actions you feel compelled to follow because you come to recognise how deeply it matters and connects.
Good financial planning taps into the emotional nature of money. It brings to life not just what to do but how to do it and importance of why – that’s your fuel.
In plain English, good financial planning is connecting your money to what matters to you. It is infusing your money with purpose, perspective, principles, priorities and many other wonderful things which may or may not begin with p.
The art of the pun and the possible
You are unique. There is not another soul like you anywhere.
Your experience is unique, no one else has lived exactly as you have.
Your money life, therefore, is unique. It can support a vision, values, principles, inspiration, goals, dreams and plans that won’t ever exist again in these measurements, in this order, at this time.
Money is art, or at least it can be. So don’t dilly Dali. Your Hurst move is to consult a good financial planner, so Raphae-yell this way to get started.
Was that art? Probably not Helena, probably not …
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