For me, my motivation hasn’t been about wealth, or acquiring things.
It’s always been about time, and legacy.
Think about it. Time is the resource we need to spend with the people we love, or that we can use to look after our own health. It’s what we always wish we have more of when a family member falls ill.
And it’s time that we always take for granted, as business owners. We focus all our efforts on building our business, creating our legacy, that we don’t think about anything outside of this. We always think we’ll have time to do things later.
But we know that this isn’t always the case.
I experienced this first-hand with my father. He was a driven man, hard-working, well-loved, and with a huge network of people that respected him. Some might even say a workaholic. He left a hell of a legacy.
And when he passed, we all wished we’d just had more time.
It was his legacy, though, his motivation and work ethic that drove James and I to ensure our practice remained fiercely independent. We knew we wanted to be authentic. We knew how we wanted to act as a business. We knew what we were about as a family, and we knew what our Dad stood for. We knew that becoming an independent business would allow us to wear our values on our sleeve, suggesting to the world that, for example, we don’t take commissions, and that we act with the utmost integrity. So it was clear to us from the outset that independence in our advice absolutely a non-negotiable.
It was thanks to my Dad’s work ethic that we made that decision to be independent. It was his legacy that drove us to where we are now.
My Dad’s legacy means everything to me.
And it’s thanks to that, I feel like this is delivering a vision of what I consider success for myself, and the business. I feel like I’m now in the position where I’m doing all the things I want to do as a financial adviser.
It feels that now I can start taking bonuses in time. Time I’ll take to focus on things outside the business. Like my health, like playing the guitar, and spending time with my family.
Because at the end of the day, it’s all about having that time.
If you’d like to hear more of my story, listen to episode 1 of It’s Never About Money.
ABOUT IT’S NEVER ABOUT MONEY:
Joe Stephan is a Financial Planner with Stephan Independent Advisory, based in Melbourne, Australia: www.siadvisory.com.au
It’s Never About Money is powered by Stephan Independent Advisory: www.itsneveraboutmoney.com.au
It’s Never About Money is a proud supporter of Cufa: www.cufa.org.au
