Scotland-based financial coach Graham Wells reminded me last week of the top five regrets of the dying – as outlined in Bronnie Ware’s book of the same name:
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
He shared these five – poignant – regrets with me (that I had, of course, heard before) in the context of the upcoming masterclass that he will be delivering to our community on 15th June, called Savour Your Spending. In it, he will be doing a deep dive into not only the concept of savouring our spending of money, but also savouring our spending of time…and the relationship between them. This is something that Graham refers to as ‘the time-money-freedom paradox’.
Graham is not only linked to Growmotely via our series of exceptional masterclasses (brought to you by our prolific Events Manager, Andreea Gătin), he – like our beloved Lisa Stephenson of Invigorate You – is one of the service providers in our innovative Benefits Marketplace. What that means is that, if you are a hired remote professional in our platform, you are able to use your benefits dollars to procure financial coaching services from Graham. If it sounds like heaven – you’re right! It’s not far from it.
But what is financial coaching exactly?
One of the most interesting ways to distinguish financial coaching from, say, financial advising or financial planning, is that in financial coaching, the coachee (or the client) is an expert. Whilst a financial coach may bring some knowledge and experience from the financial world, it’s worth repeating: the client is the expert in his or her own life. By contrast, in financial advising, the advisor is positioned as the expert. There is a world of difference between the two, and it’s one of the reasons why we love financial coaching (and Graham) here at Growmotely. ‘Empowerment and ownership’ is one of our five company values, and this is exactly what financial coaching does – it empowers individuals to be in the driver’s seat of their own financial lives. It also is an invitation to individuals to customize their financial worlds in a way that is in complete alignment with their values…rather than blindly adopting the financial paradigms and mentalities passed on to us from our families or the culture of the country we were born into.
In many ways, I credit Graham and his coaching services with my ‘landing’ at Growmotely – and my working as a writer. In one of our early sessions together, he inquired, coaxed and challenged me, until I uncovered what I was yearning for in my professional life:
- “I am in an environment that is fun, collaborative and dynamic – with lots of room to breath.”
- “My environment is one in which ‘bringing one’s whole self to work’ is encouraged and supported.”
- “I am location-independent.”
- “I feel like I am owning my career path.”
- “I am bringing in an amount of money that supports me in embodying these things: expansion, peace, and optimism.”
A few months later, in a different coaching session, he asked me a number of questions to get my creative juices flowing…and then at the end of the session gave me an assignment to write down my life purpose. After turning in the completed assignment about 48 hours later – which took up a whole page – he then said to me, “Now boil that down to one sentence.” Yikes.
Here’s the sentence that I ended up with:
My life purpose is to continuously expand my understanding of the world and then dare to share authentically the riches I discover.
Although I was aware in the moment how valuable his poking and prodding me in a variety of different areas – financial and otherwise – was, it was really only with hindsight that I understood the extent to which it was thanks to our work together that I had ‘landed’ at a company that was aligned so completely with what I wanted, and that I had ‘landed’ in a role that served as the perfect platform through which to express my life purpose. Graham. Thank you!
Next week, on Wednesday, 15th June, Graham will deliver a 90-minute masterclass to our community. This masterclass – like all of our masterclasses – will be free-of-charge for the hired remote professionals in our platform, and it will be open to the public for a fee. Graham will be unpacking this ‘time-money-freedom paradox’; he will explore the difference between consuming and investing – on both the money front and the time front; and he will be expanding our hearts and minds when it comes to how we understand money and our relationship to it. Needless to say, it will be incredible.
Here at Growmotely, we don’t believe in blindly accepting old and potentially outdated paradigms. This is true when it comes to work, and it’s true when it comes to money and how we relate to it. We believe in experimenting with and creating new paradigms that are aligned with what feels good, what feels fair and what lights our souls on fire. We see the Future of Work as a place where we all have access to a financial coach like Graham – if we so desire it – so that we can grow, innovate and customize in the realm of our personal finances and our relationship with money to the extent that we see fit.
We would love for you to join us! We would love for you to join us in creating this vibrant and empowered Future of Work, and we would love for you to join us on Wednesday, 15th June, for Graham Wells’ rich (in all senses of the word) masterclass, called Savour Your Spending.
Written by: Vanessa Kettner (Growmotely’s Creative Writer and your Remote Work Cupid)
Dedicated to: Graham Wells and Andreea Gătin – thank you for bringing us this much-anticipated masterclass! ✨
Thanks for this lovely write-up Vanessa! I am working towards many similar goals – looking forward to the masterclass to reinvigorate my journey!