Wealth does not feel like surviving.

Where are you spending your time and attention and is that in alignment with the life you want to be living?

Personal finances show us where and how we’re spending our time and attention. I take a deep dive into people’s finances to help them break cycles, find clarity, and move from financially surviving to thriving in two phases. It can be overwhelming to try to do on your own and that’s why it’s nice to have us in your corner with a tried and true process that will build your financial peace of mind.

Phase One (Breathing Room): I call this “coping consciously”. After an initial review, I work with clients to create a list of specific actionable steps that create immediate but temporary peace of mind. The advantage my practice has is that I can execute these steps with my clients instead of leaving them with a plan they have to sort out alone. Getting tangible results fast sparks motivation, trust, empowerment, and creates a more clear headspace for deeper change. This phase creates “breathing room” by cleaning up the immediate issues that are preventing people from creating a clear and specific vision of their future. It’s cliche but it’s the space people need to be in to start “envisioning the life they want to be living”. You cannot do that effectively in survival mode. We’ll help you get out of it.

Phase Two (Surviving to Thriving): Once we are financially organized and in a better space we begin to create a list of specific actionable steps and milestones that will help clarify a vision of the life a person would prefer to be living. This becomes very personal, requires dedicated time and attention, and it’s the fulfilling work I absolutely love because it helps people make meaningful lasting change in their lives. It helps people build their own foundations for a wealthy life as defined by them. Defining that is personal and it’s the first step in this process. This phase is all about where people are going and why so they can begin aligning their resources in the right direction.

When all of their resources are in alignment with their vision, they begin to feel wealthy and build wealth. Things begin to fall into place. They are controlling what they can control and they’ve taken ownership and responsibility for the life they’re experiencing. From here it’s a repeating process of realignment as life happens and people pick different things to do with their time and attention. As they go through life and grow, it’s a cycle of financially navigating these two phases and being conscious when they’re in them and ready for change. My goal is to help clients walk through this process so they can gain the experience and confidence needed to continually live the life they want to live as defined by them…a wealth life.

Why it’s important to jump to the next phase

When people don’t move to a place where they have a plan their lives begin to look like a cycle of coping with the life that’s happening to them. It can feel like surviving, not thriving. It can feel exhausting. It looks busy for the sake of being busy. Lot’s of money being made and feeling like there’s not much to show for it. In my experience it turns into a life working to have money to buy the things we’ve convinced ourselves we need to survive the life that we don’t want to be living. It’s really expensive. It’s really common.

It looks like making money to have the perceived “freedom” to cope in the way we want to. The purpose of life becomes surviving what’s happening to us opposed to building the life we want to be experiencing and living it. It’s a bottomless pit of feeling-driven consumption that continues until some life event forces us to pause again and question why we’re doing what we’re doing. What purpose was/is my time and attention serving? Is it how I want to be spending it? Is it working for me?

From personal experience and being in the business since 2007 and seeing thousands of different life scenarios and financial plans I’ve learned one very important financial truth:

Pausing every once in a while to invest some of your time and attention to understand and notice what kind of a life you’re living, what kind of life you want to be living, and then how to do that is one of the best investments you can make.

The cost of trying to make enough money to cope with a life you perpetually don’t want to be experiencing and then trying to buy a different one in the future is obscene (most retirement plans). So is the cost of being forced to build a new life later and later with half the resources because they weren’t originally in alignment with the life you thought you were living (divorce/relationship/business partnership breakdowns). The sooner you align your actions with the life you want to be living, the sooner you’ll begin to build truly wealthy life.

In my experience long-term planning done before the above is sorted… is largely irrelevant. Describing the life you want to be living now and aligning all of your resources towards building that as your long term plan is the most likely plan you’ll stick to when life throws its curveballs. A plan you’ll stick to is the best plan, long and short.

Intentionally coping in the short-term is often required first to create the space necessary to find long-term solutions, direction, and purpose. Phase One.