In the midst of being a Dad and navigating Joburg’s craziness, I sat down for a call with a client I’ve been looking after for 17 years.
She has built a career that has spanned countries and towns, and has been a stalwart for her family and friends — devoting time and energy to the people around her in the way that good people do. All of that costs money. Relocating yourself, taking on responsibilities, showing up for others. Add lifestyle creep and the expectations that quietly compound alongside it, and you arrive at a result that wasn’t quite what either of us had mapped out.
That conversation left me reflecting on my own journey. On the choices I’ve made, and what I’ve learned — slowly, sometimes painfully — about what my role in people’s lives actually is.
Are Choices Conscious?
We like to believe we are rational actors. There’s a fascinating argument to be had there.
My reality is this: our choices are made with the facts we have at the time we make them. I read in Chris Voss’ work that if you removed the emotional centre of the brain, you’d find it impossible to make a decision at all. So although we look at facts and plan accordingly, that final decision is always tinged with emotion.
This is what it means to be human.
In her case, she moved for work. She prioritised career growth, and those choices made sense at the time — they were the right calls. But they cost her. And as her career grew, so did her lifestyle. The compounding of costs and debt has a way of outpacing what’s growing on the investment side of the ledger.
Nothing was done mistakenly. But when we start to unpack decisions together, the most important move isn’t to dwell on what happened — it’s to get honest about where we find ourselves now, and ask: what do we do from here?
Owning up to your choices and your current position is the hardest part of this. I’ve written about it before, and I believe it deeply: when we see things for what they are and decide to course correct, it creates a kind of freedom. Options open up. You’re no longer stuck. You can start making choices that point you back toward the path you actually want to walk — away from the one you’ve drifted onto.
Advisers and Our Value
This is when I started to really understand how important our role is.
And it isn’t what I started out doing.
In the early years, I identified gaps, recommended products, and gave clients roadmaps. I trusted that the technical soundness of the plan would carry the day. That work still matters — you can’t build financial health without the foundations in place: the right cover, a properly structured investment plan, a tax-efficient savings vehicle. That’s real and necessary, and I don’t apologise for it.
But here’s what took me longer to understand: the best financial plan in the world doesn’t move anyone forward if the person holding it doesn’t understand themselves well enough to act on it — and stick to it.
Advice is telling people what to do. Coaching is helping them understand themselves, and why they do what they do.
The skill is knowing which one the moment calls for. Sometimes a client needs a clear recommendation. Sometimes they need someone to hold up a mirror. And I’ve learned, over seventeen years, that the mirror is often the more useful tool — even if it’s the less comfortable one.
My Journey
Going through my own travails — a divorce, seven years ago now — taught me first-hand what it feels like to have to reinvent your financial plan. How your best-laid plans and dreams can change in an instant.
It wasn’t a defining moment so much as an opportunity. A chance to hold up that mirror myself. To look honestly at how I got to where I did, and start making choices that actually fed me — that pointed toward the life I wanted to build, rather than the one I’d been drifting through.
Seven years on and I am still learning, still moving. Making choices, daily, that continue to support this. I’m not perfect and I still stumble. But it’s in those moments that we learn, become more resilient, and get clearer on what matters.
The conversation with my client reminded me how far I’ve come — and renewed my sense of what my role in supporting her really is.
Where to from Here?
I’m realising more and more that my role — alongside the advice and recommendations — is accountability.
To be that person for my clients. To help them stay on their paths, and gently redirect when life pulls them off course. Because it always does, for all of us. Careers change. Relationships change. Priorities shift. Plans have to shift with them — and sometimes that means letting go of a version of your future that no longer fits, in order to build one that does.
That isn’t failure. That’s how life works.
My question to you is a simple one: who is your accountability partner in your financial planning? Who can you talk to honestly about where you find yourself — and where you actually thought you’d be by now?
If it’s been a while, it might be time.
At Perspective Advisory, we believe that good financial planning is as much about understanding your life as it is about managing your money. If you’d like to have that kind of conversation, we’d welcome it.
(Claude was used to assist in structuring and refining this article, but the experiences, voice, and thinking here are entirely my own.)
