In Morgan Housel’s latest book, ‘Same as Ever’ he references a good friend who says,
“Running a business is like eating glass, whilst being punched in the face”.
Now, this might be a bit extreme but when you look back at the early years of running and growing a business, there are moments I would have agreed with this description.
Today though, TFP is a very different business. We still have challenges, issues, and things to overcome. But with an exceptional team, they take most of these things in their stride.
When I started out on this journey of becoming a business owner in 2012 – which seems like a lifetime ago – my vision was to create a very special business that took all the best bits of the financial advice/planning profession. Providing life changing advice, guidance, and financial planning to our client families. Whilst, also creating more time, freedom, and a better lifestyle for my own young family.
12 years on, and we have achieved many of those things I wanted to and much more.
Although one of the things you learn as a business owner, is that plans change! Life gets in the way, curve balls come your way and we personally and professionally evolve over time.
This has meant that my (our) original personal and business goals have also changed.
Our leadership team today (Liv, Dan & I) are young (yes, we are still young! In fact, some people can’t believe I am older than Dan! But the average age of our team is only 31) - which means we can think and plan looking 10 or even 20 years into the future. Which in our profession is unusual, as it seems most financial advisers are either retiring or planning their retirement now.
This alone makes TFP a very special place to be and to work.
But it’s so much more than that.
I set out wanting to surround myself with special people that didn’t just want to do a job, but who cared deeply about our clients and their lives, whilst also having that burning desire to develop, learn and grow personally and who wanted to feel a real part of something.
Today, we have that group of people and this year we want of find two more incredible people!
12 years is a long time, but it flies by – My Daughter, Darcey is 11 this year and heads off to secondary school in September so I, like many parents can really appreciate the speed time passes – and we spend most of our working days talking to our client families about the importance of their spending window of time. Those first 10 years of their life after work before we all start to slow down, and this last 12 years just shows the importance of making the most of this time as it really does disappear quickly.
We sometimes need to be reminded that “Life is not a rehearsal”.
Who knows where we will be in 12 years’ time. [we don’t have a crystal ball]
But, I am confident it will be better than I can imagine.
Because that’s what our team always creates.