Jagoinvestor
May 2, 2011
Conversation with a Financial Coach
Today I am going to share with you a financial coaching tip called “Opportunities in your financial life” , which intends to show you that there are already opportunities in your life which at times you dont look at and feel as if its not there and you have to work hard to find one . I will also share with you a short sample conversation between a person and a financial coach and I am sure you can relate it with your financial life . Lets start with a story –
The perfect Women
There’s a wonderful Sufi story about two friends who are catching up after not seeing each other for some time. One is married, the other single. The married man asks his single buddy about his love life. The single friend explains that a few months ago he thought he had found the perfect woman. “She had a gorgeous face,” he says. “Her looks were incredible.” “So why didn’t you marry her?” his friend asks. “Well,” explains the single friend, “she wasn’t very intelligent.”
He goes on to explain that a few weeks later he found another woman he thought was perfect. “She was as beautiful as the first woman and brilliant as well.” “So why didn’t you marry this woman?” his friend asks. “Well, she had a voice that sounded like nails on a blackboard” . The married friend nods, but before he can say anything the single friend continues: Then, just last week I finally met the perfect woman. She’s beautiful, she’s intelligent, and her voice is soothing and relaxing.” “So when’s the wedding?” the married friend asks. “There won’t be one,” the single friend explains. “It turns out she’s looking for the perfect man.” The single friend remained single, he had various opportunities to get married but kept missing them.
Opportunities in your Financial Life
When you visit your bank, you see the opportunity to open a PPF account in front of you, when you see insurance advertisement, you see that it is important to have adequate life cover. Many such things come in front of your eyes each day and you don’t pay much attention to it. This story is staring you in the face. It’s knocking you on the head. It’s so obvious; you can’t believe that you never thought of it. But you did not and someone else did- and they are creating wealth.
The key learning to be taken in your financial life is that investment opportunities come in your life every single day, month and year and most of the time you find faults in them and stop them to get into your financial life. We see most of the people blaming insurance agents, brokers for selling wrong products to them. It happens sometimes but that does not mean you have to become a fault finding machine. Coaching conversations helps you see what you are unable to see right now. Each conversation makes you present to the existing wealth creating opportunities you have in your life.
Our mental energy needs to be invested and focused on these opportunities rather than spending time on finding faults. If you find faults you are creating a wall between you and available investment opportunities.
Coaching Tip : Stop being a fault finding machine and focus on wealth creating opportunities. It is never late, what you are seeking in your financial life is seeking you.
A basic financial coaching call
We would like to share a sample financial coaching session with you. I am sure you will love the conversation and can also relate it with your financial life . Here a Financial coach talks to a person
Coach : What do you want to create in your financial life?
Client : hmmmmmmmm (a pause)Coach : I got your answer, It is loud and clear to me
Client : Hey, but I did not say anythingCoach : Your silent pause had an answer inside
Client : What answer you could hear, can you share ?Coach : I could hear a sense of no clarity in what you want, this no clarity is running your current financial life. You want to do a lot of things in your financial life but don’t know what exactly you want.
Client : Oh yes I can relate to that, I really don’t know the first step, I think it is a messCoach : I see, Can I ask you something
Client : Yes go ahead.Coach : Why do you earn money?
Client : aaaaaa for a good life, for getting all the comforts in life, for my family.Coach : ok good. A daily wage worker goes to work every day to earn his daily wages. His focus is on getting two meals a day. Buying food for his family and that’s all. His focus is on wages and not on financial freedom.
Client : Oh , This has made me think, I am not focused on financial freedom but on basic things like that daily wage worker.Coach : What is financial freedom according to you?
Client : It is having lots of money and a day comes when I never ever have to work for money.Coach : Good. There are various definitions of financial freedom. The one that I want to share with you is “You are financially free when your passive income is equivalent to your desired lifestyle”.
Client : Good one.Coach : So now do you want to play for financial freedom or basic needs. If you achieve financial freedom the basics will be automatically taken care off.
Client : Oh yes yes I got your point. I don’t want to be like that worker any more. I want to play for financial freedom.Coach : On the scale of 1 to 10 how much would you rate your financial life?
Client : I would rate it to be at 4Coach : Thanks for being authentic. The gap is to be seen as scope of improvement
Client : Ok.Coach : What is a one thing you can do to increase your rating
Client : I guess making right investments.Coach : Think deeper, what will help you make right investments
Client : I need to have proper knowledgeCoach : Excellent. Knowledge is the power. Make a commitment to spend uninterrupted time for reading about personal finance. Make a commitment to send me your questions and really learn how to get in control of your financial life. Don’t just have your coach in getting a financial plan , use the coaching such that you get in control of your financial life, use the coaching to convert your financial vision into a reality.Use the coaching to simplify your financial life. On the next call we will define your personal finance as a project. I will also share some of the ebooks that will help you learn transform your relationship with money.
Client : Wow. I am excited to read. Thanks for your time
Coach : All the best. Stay in action, stay committed.
Hi Manish,
Its always a good learning exposure from this blog. I have read lots of articles written by you & have decided to take actions any how in this year. But may be you would like one thing, that I am not just reading the articles, but also sharing it with my juniors who are generally freshers or with 2-3 years of experience & who can save & invest their money in a planned way. But here I faced a problem, people avoid reading so long articles & that too on financial issues & when they realize its importance, it gets bit late for them, as u have seen that in the letters u have received saying people would have great financial life if they would have came across this in the initial stage of their life. So I just take knowledge sharing sessions with these juniors. I know I am not an expert in this, but whatever I read here, I just tell them & make them to think on how much they can save & the power of small regular investments in early stage of career.
Keep doing the good job. Best wishes from my side.
Regards
Pragit
Good to hear that you are sharing it with others .. they dont want to read long articles, they will 10 times longers one, let them face an issue . The problem is people want quick things in life , they want shortest article with maximum knonledge, not possible 🙂
Hi Manish
I was searching for some good reads on Financial Coaching and how it can have a better impact than a plain plan, and JagoInvestor is the first place where I searched and found this excellent post of yours.
Also, the comment section contains some really deep conversations and have exposed me to the idea of “financial freedom”. I see it from a broader spiritual context, where every individual finally yearns for some kind of freedom – from monetary obligations, family responsibilities, work commitments…….
am not sure whether what I am saying makes sense, but you and readers have some really thoughtful points. Thank you.
Good to hear that you learned more on Financial Freedom !
Hi Manish,
Good article—sounds deja vu 🙂
I don’t know if friends in this blog have got a opportunity to read ‘rich dad and poor dad’…its awsome book for guys who really wanna like to do something to make their financial life better…there are other books also by Robert Kiyoski, but this one is pretty good to begin with–grab a copy if you care…
Happy Financial Freedom…
Rgds,
G.K.
@ G.K Yeah rich dad poor dad is a gr8 book… must reading for all those who want to change their thinking pattern…
Financial Freedom is the ultimate goal for all of us.. whether we realise it or not… One basic thing apart from investing that can bring financial freedom is “Work for yourself.. work to fufill YOUR dreams” not your boss nor your company… You can read a book called “The Parable of Pipeline” by Burk hedges.. you can also talk to me..
Anuj
I dont think everyone goal is financial freedom , A lot of people we talk about cant think that far ,they really work for living , cutting their life , they attitude towards like is like that only . Why do you feel that everybody think about financial freedom , many dont think they deserve it and never work on it
Manish
Yep you are right… most people don’t think about financial freedom… nice to see your informative articles…
Tum achcha likte ho Manish .
@vijay aap aacha padhte hai…….jo likha ho usmein se jo matlab dhoond nikalta hai wohi asli learner hai
Vijay
Thanks , accha laga ki aap ko pasand aaya
Thanks ..Manish
as usual ..excellent article.
“Better late than never.”
Manu
thanks 🙂
Nice article like before
Lage Raho Manishbhai
Hemant Beniwal saab,where r u? we have not heard ur comments since long.
regard
Raj
Thanks Raj
Manish
Ha Manish, Another great article, keep going.
Thanks Prashanth
Hi Manish,
sailing in this boat now :-(, confused and worried.
thanks for this one.
its an eye opener again for me.
I hope I will get a better coach soon.
Nivedita
One of the options you have is to look at our financial coaching services at http://jagoinvestor.org/product/financial-coaching/ .
Manish
I guess Nivedita has now found a better coach! 🙂
Nice article. I did try to coach a few basic things to my friends about the investment however I failed as they all (except one)have gone for ULIPs 50-55K p.a. and skipped term insurance and MF.
The one who agreed to my views has now started MF SIP to begin with. hushh! it’s tough though (to coach).
Nilesh
Nice to know that you tried to be coach . As a coach you have to always attack that one blocking point which is creating the issue in the other persons life . did you see being a coach like that ?
Manish
Spending money on something that does not give any return in future is absolute no-no for most of the people. I gave them an example of car/bike insurance premium that they religiously pay every year and how they do not get any returns on it but it provides protection against damage.
However it wasn’t just enough and also who will take the pain of rebalancing your MF portfolio every year or so. So “Just 55K for ULIPs and enjoy” is what seems to be the mantra. Strange.
Nilesh
“Pain of rebalancing your mutual funds every year” will not take more than few hours in a year for “analysis” . Dont you think some one financial life does not deserves that much time ?
Manish
Yes. A few hours to check and a day or two (max) to set things right and if you can’t give a day for your own benefit, god bless you! 🙂
This is what I have experienced as well. Most people are happy to keep their money in Savings bank a/c for years. But if they have to invest in equity they will like to do day trading or Futures / options. For them there is only these two extremes. They cannot do a rational thing as it is too boring. I tell my juniors that getting rich is quite easy but it is quite boring too. I tell them I have done it in the last 10 years of my life. But they still do not do it. They will take advice from people who have a networth of a few lacs and have experience of couple of years but will not listen to someone who has 20 years of experience and has sizable investment in different asset classes.
I do not know how you manage to coach people on financial education but I think you must have endless patience. Good luck to you and God Bless.
Ujjwal
Ujjwal
You are very right on that , it takes a lot of boredom to create wealth and as most of the people like entertainment, they dont get wealthy
Manish
short and sweet! keep it up..
Marshal
Thanks 🙂
i like the definition of financial freedom. Actually it contains goal of financial planning etc. “make passive income equivalent to ur desired lifestyle”… very true.
There are many definitions of financial freedom, one more which we share with our clients is “Your ability to live from the income of your personally invested resources”.
Awesome article as usual…Only thing that I always like in ur article is the picture you posted in it….Anyway I got to know about this site few weeks back…but I have completed reading all the articles present in archives in last few days. Now I can say I know atleast something about Personal financial .. 🙂
Tapas
Nice to hear that you read all the articles mentioned in the archives . Its really a lot to read 🙂 . So whats the learning for you from this article ?
Manish
Hi Manish,
Thanks for one more wonderful article. Is the sentence “I will also share some of the ebooks that will help you learn transform your relationship with money.” just for the article or you are going to share something with the readers?
Thanks,
Hem
Hem
No , thats some thing we give our clients . I actually gave a sample coaching call which we do with client , we offer them those ebooks too .
Manish
Hi Manish,
It is interesting to understand with stories. Even I personally believe that the right way is to take the responsibility yourself and follow the long part of understanding what one wants to invest in.
However, precisely because most are lethargic to read and understand the financial stuff, the few who do always last the mile. 🙂
Reading your articles is fun and value adding…
Thanks…
Budding Investor
Yea , i agree that stories make it easiar for people to understand any topic ! 🙂
Manish
ur blog is excellent!
Tushar
Thanks 🙂 . Can you share what is the learning for you from this article ?
Manish
Awesome article! I can relate myself to the client. I might sound stupid I didn’t had the clarity why I was investing. “FINANCIAL FREEDOM – You are financially free when your passive income is equivalent to your desired lifestyle”. This is something which I will remember for a long time. Thanks Manish!
Always remember financial freedom is not a place to reach it is a place to come from. One has to live from it and that is the only way it can get into your life.
@Nandish Desai, Can you please elaborate what you said. I can’t quite get the point. What do you mean by “One has to live from it”. Thanks.
Vidyasagar
It means financial freedom is something you have to start experiencing much before you get it . Its not some goal which you can acheive in year XYZ , because thats not how things happen , if that was to happen , all the people who have 5-10 crores , would be sitting at home and spend life happily , Here at this moment we can think of financial freedom as a goal in some future date , but you can never find it .
Its something you need to start experienceing , you need to behave like a person who has financial freedom .
Manish
@ Vidyasagar -sorry i dont get on blog so often so i did not read your message, manish has already explained you what i tried to say.
Sharing from my life each financial decision i always see it from financial freedom, that is how I will experience and live it and one day achieve it also. It is a place to reach and a place to come from.
I think the way I see Financial freedom is the ability to stop working for money and concentrate on things that I really want. It can well be doing my job. But if I am financially independent I can choose my job without worrying how the next check will come and how I’ll pay my bills.
Another thing I have learnt about Financial Freedom is the target is somewhat of a moving target. The reason is life style is always changing. The day you have more money your choices become costlier. Today you are happy with a Normal TV tomorrow you need a LCD , the sizes increase. Today you are Ok with a 2 BHK flat tomorrow you want a 3 BHK flat in a better location and with better facilities. There is no end to our wants.
But important point is make sure you have enough money to sustain yourself should an adverse situation causes you to stop working.
Ujjwal
Ujjwal
yea , I think one has to define his lower limit for things and then make sure once he acquires it , he starts working for his next level of financial freedom , Like today if I define , a normal tv , 2 bhk house , a decent 3-4 lacs car and 30k per month consistent income is what I consider as “minumum requirement” to live my life , then once I get it , I have cleared the first level of “Financial Freedom” . Then i work for hte next level of 4 bhk , 10 lacs car , a second home and 1 lac per month income ..
What do you think about this Ujjwal ?
Manish
I totally support this view. We all neglect personal finance planning . We should make habbit of through study and also of taking trouble to visit various websites with lot of useful information.
Jago Investor is doing a very good job of educating investors. Congrats to the team .
Vijay
Thanks for your appreciation 🙂 . how did you like the coaching conversations, Do you feel it would be very helpful for you if that kind of coaching is done with you ?
Manish
Thanks for offering coaching. I am a retired person having spare time to learn on my own and I utilise my time to study financial planning and to take investment decisions.
Great . Keep going !
Manish