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Do You Want To Have Money, Time or Both?

For several years now, I have longed to posses, what I also believe, people in general wish to own, the ever so scarce and precious resources namely Time and Money. The power really to control your circumstances in most instances lies in the two commodities I just mentioned, and one without the other really is…, well let’s just say not very beneficial/benefitting.

Ok, before you think that I’m losing it – I bet at any given time, you can think of someone or at least a few people, who you may personally know either having a lot of money and no time or having a lot of time and no money. Let’s face it, the latter don’t really matter, I mean what would you spend your time on if you don’t have money? Because, you honestly need the world’s favourite liquid asset, money, to purchase what you desire. What about the initial, those who have a lot of money but don’t have any time to spend or enjoy it?

Maybe, it depends on how one values one commodity over the other. What I know however is that I don’t want to be that great professional, an expert even, who earns relatively good money but don’t have even a moment to spare so that I can enjoy that money with my family for instance. Nor would I want to be that qualified professional with exceptional skill with enough time in my hands yet not enough money to enjoy the nicer thing in life, making all that free time seem worthless.

By now you may start to think, but a solution then is having enough money, and since money has the power to purchase one’s desire, then probably you may have the choice to buy time, but how much time really? That may not be sustainable, I mean haven’t we all heard of someone winning the lottery Jackpot and start assuming time, to spend their money and end up having none of the two in “no time”, excuse the pun. Nope, you don’t want that now do you?

So I don’t think we can necessarily say that money equals time or ‘visa versa’. Oh yeah, that’s the difference between the rich and the wealthy, where the latter can afford time, sustainably so, so that they can enjoy those moments that money cannot just buy. Now that’s where I want to be…

Let’s recap:

· If it’s money you want, you are unlikely to have any time,

· If it’s time you are after, without exceptional solutions you are most unlikely not to have money to buy a lot of comfort,

· But if you gain financial freedom, you would have enough to enjoy both…

How do you then pursue this ultimate reward?

It all begins with one step, learning how to work towards you financial freedom and the first step would be to know where to acquire that knowledge.

I have recently just had that opportunity to join this brilliant team of entrepreneurs, who compare to none in the industry of on-line marketing, and are willing to coach anyone, step-by-step who wants to determine their own destinies, turn tables around for a change, being their own bosses, and realise their dreams.

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Shouldn’t Your DESTINY be your CHOICE?

Shouldn’t Your DESTINY be your CHOICE?

The day when I decided to take charge of my own life will be cherished forever, by myself and my family. It has been a long time coming and boy am I glad that it has finally arrived.

I have always had this vision of having MY OWN EMPIRE BUILT, a legacy that I can leave for generations to come in my family, my own family tree. It’s comforting to know that now I can finally anticipate the fulfilling feeling of LIVING MY OWN DREAM.

Life is a valuable University that no school can replace, but what you learn from it is still one’s choice and how you apply those lessons too, practically, is also one’s own choice, and with my luck I know such aUniversity (an innovative teaching, learning and sharing of ideas platform, the difference also being that you earn real money while doing it), that is just as important for those who may need to refresh their lessons.

Why do we generally have the tendency to rationalise our own ack of success and create a false comfort zone to live with it?

I say “no more”, no more will I let my poor decisions put me in this zone, which I know and believe I don’t belong to anyway…

FREE ADVISE: take charge of your life, it’s your responsibility, YOU are the only one to blame or be congratulated for your failures or successes… If you feel you still require a skill to have what you want, wish or dream of, then don’t crack your head, you have the ability tolearn… Choose wisely. YOUR DESTINY should be YOUR CHOICE!!!

You, Your Financial Needs and Covid-19

HOUSTON, GANYESA, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

^{Dez Tswaile | Emphasis Wealth Advisory | 10min read}

I would like to argue that no one likes threats or problems, unless I am proven otherwise. And remember, an educated opinion is fact until proven otherwise, and that what is unproven, will be the truth. We are naturally inclined to deal with any threat that faces us. Whether it’s a flight or fight reaction or being proactive, just as long as the threat is dealt with, hopefully permanently, but even if it is temporary at times. The point that I am driving at is that we have to deal with these problems or threats known to us or accept the fate of not dealing with them. But what about those threats or problems that are not known to us (rhetoric)? And what about those that are known to us, though appearing to be at a distance or at least what we assume is a safe distance, in spite knowing that they are inevitable? Do we deal with them now or we adopt this attitude of, we will cross that bridge when we get to it (another rhetoric)?

Allow me to remind you of one of those threats that a majority of us will continue to have (at least 94% of us in South Africa), that we often than not put off until we absolutely have to deal with or face? The continuance of having enough money (capital/assets/wealth) to live off from, for the rest of our lives without having to trade our time, skill or for those who are lucky both, to earn enough income that will help extend our limited mortality as far as potentially possible, let alone that of our financial dependents. What some may call Financial/Economic Freedom or what I prefer calling the real definition of what Retirement is = “The day when you wake up and for the rest of your life thereafter, not because you have to, but because you have finished sleeping”.

boy-sitting-on-dirt-3177662 — Photo by **Kenex Media sa** from **Pexels**

The Covid-19 Pandemic has worsened South Africa’s deep economic crisis, including for retirement savings!

The current global health emergency caused by the Covid-19 outbreak has led to widespread losses across global financial and capital markets. South Africans, like other investors from around the world are no different and have become or at the least are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact on what may be their biggest investment – their retirement savings.

Now more than ever before, we have been forced to re-evaluate our relationship with money. With scores of South Africans left with holes in their pockets due to the national lockdown and the situation looking like it is not about to improve anytime soon, we have in some cases job losses (e.g. companies having no other alternatives but to retrench workers to cut costs), while many others have been suffering through weeks of “no work, no pay”.

I would strongly agree with Prem Govender of The South African Savings Institute that before the pandemic, we had developed a culture of borrowing money to satisfy our desire for acquiring things that we don’t need but desperately want. A culture of instant gratification – I want it and I want it now, even if I have to borrow to get it. Is it no wonder then that many of us are literally drowning in debt and using the bulk of our income(s) to service debt?

Because of this, financial planning for many employees and companies has been thrown into disarray. This time might just be the most appropriate for us to revise our Personal Financial Plans. I cannot over emphasize the need to review our respective financial objectives versus our financial plans with a bold intent to doing something (if and where we can), instead of waiting for things to happen to us.

Tharabololo ya Monna: Fa monna a sena pelegi mme bagolo ba lemoga se, bakgona go dira di thulaganyo tsa gore morwarragwe e ka nna mogolowe kgotsa monnawe a tsene ka soba la phokojwe le mosadi wa gagwe go fitlhelela mosadi a nna ratla la tlou. Ngwana yo o tlaa tsholwang e tla nna mojaboswa wa monna yo ka ba amana ka madi e bile o tla gola a itse e le rraagwe.

Has Covid-19 changed our meaning of Generational Wealth!

Once having dealt with this initial and fundamental problem mentioned above, or at least for those who have gone some way dealing with it, whether solutions are provided for by our compulsory fund contributions (i.e. those fund which we contribute towards, thanks to the “employment packages” for those fortunate enough to have employers offering those) or via voluntary products such as retirement annuities and other discretionary investment products (e.g. Collective Investment Schemes such as Unit Trusts and EFT accounts), leaving a legacy becomes one other issue many Afrikans wish to achieve. “Boswa/Ifa/generational wealth” or whichever other term that one may choose from, in what we could equate in seTswana to “segopotso sa leruri sa leina la lelapa”. There’s a general assumption that an executable Last Will and Testament is sufficient, and to some extent it is, but we have also discovered that some of these might not be very economical or efficient enough to create maximum benefit to heirs, let alone unforeseen issues of potential heirs and beneficiaries who may have a legal claim to the Estate Late.

SA’s laws around eSignatures on last wills and testaments are outdated: What does this mean for us?

If there is one thing that the national lockdown has highlighted, it is the need for South African law to recognise electronic signatures to authenticate important legal documents such as Last Wills and Testaments. What happens if someone passes away during this time without a valid and up-to-date Will purely because of physical restrictions? Death doesn’t wait for a pandemic to pass, on the contrary it highlights our limited time. With only about 25% of South Africans having a valid Will in place, we at Emphasis Wealth Advisory are advocating for making the process of drafting, updating and verifying a Will easier and address the rigidity of the laws governing eSignatures on Last Wills and Testaments.

By harnessing technology, that by the way is already available, regulators could make it easier for more South Africans to provide financial security to their families, protect their legacies and plan for their futures during this very uncertain time. We at Emphasis Wealth Advisory and some of our fiduciary services partners believe that Section 2(3) of the Wills Act specifically provides for a rescue provision, and we would like to share that with as many of our clients as possible. But not only do we also promote having an executable Will, but think that having an economically sound estate plan is vital to ensuring that the intended heirs and beneficiaries (financial dependents) are not negatively impacted economically (if avoidable) in the execution of your the Last Will and Testament.

How has Covid-19 impacted our written or documented Financial Plans?

Another problem we are likely to have and that in 9/10 time is put off in the back burner is one that is not very obvious. Lack of efficacy and efficiency of our financial objective plans. Efficacy and efficiency are different words – they are not synonyms or even homophones. But, because they are spelled similarly, they are often confused. While efficacy has to do with whether or not something is able to be done at all, efficiency has to do with how something is done and whether or not it is done without much waste, effort, or time. Our question as a collective at Emphasis Wealth Advisory has been that which talks to the optimisation of personal financial plans, for entrepreneurs or SMME business owners, self-employed professionals, individuals that are still fortunate to have some form of employment including those that could be facing unemployment due to eminent retrenchments or related.

Photo by **energepic.com** from **Pexels**

How should we be planning now, and post Covid-19?

For many of us, our emergency funds were earmarked for eventualities such as emergency travel, hospital co-payments (if we don’t have Gap covers) or unexpected vehicle repairs (or e.g. insurance excess), and the industry ballpark has always been to hold between three to six months’ worth of income in an accessible emergency account. Before the Covid-19 crisis, many may have considered this an excessive level of funding to have in place. Without adequate emergency money, the coronavirus has forced many South Africans to incur debt to cover their monthly expenses, and the long-term costs of doing so are enormous – especially as the economic effects of the pandemic are likely to impact us for many years still.

The pandemic has also highlighted the need to ensure that not all of our investments are housed in compulsory funds (i.e. retirement funds) and that we create a balance between our retirement funds and our discretionary investments. While there are obvious tax advantages of investing through a retirement fund, it’s important to balance these tax benefits against the need to have quick access to capital in times of crisis (and in some cases the benefit of Tax-Free Savings investments can be highlighted).

Here below is a list of some of the items that all deserve attention in their own right when it comes financial planning, without talking to each during this conversation, we however encourage everyone to zoom in on each as a collective or comprehensively (excuse the pun).

Commit to annual reviews,
Formalise your business structures,
Re-evaluate goals,
Prioritise income protection,
Invest for the long-term, but also consider your immediate term needs,
Be more fearful of debt, and
Stick to a written budget.

Our EMPHASIS on the degree of the problem!

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist and the founder of the school of thought known as humanistic psychology. Perhaps best remembered for his famous needs hierarchy, he believed in the basic goodness of people and was interested in topics such as peak experiences, positivity, and human potential.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. According to this theory needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. The fields of education and business have been particularly influenced by the theory. While popular, Maslow’s concept has not been without criticism.

COVID-19 and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: How Is Our Motivation Changing?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs represents part of an important shift in our psychology. Motivation is defined as “the process of arousing, directing, and maintaining behaviour toward a goal” (Greenberg, 2002). Although this definition seems simple, human motivation is often more complex. Rather than focusing on abnormal behaviour and development only, Maslow’s humanistic psychology was focused on the development of healthy individuals.

Physiological needs during COVID-19

Physiological needs deal with the maintenance of the human body. This only on this lowest order needs involve satisfying biological needs vital to survival such as water, shelter, and food. Not only does this level of need require meeting basic needs, but it also requires that one’s body is healthy. A healthy body is also achieved through the proper amount of sleep, exercise, and appropriate balance of healthy foods, free of toxic substances. Maslow believed that these needs are most instinctive needs because all needs become secondary until these needs are met. For example, if we need water, then little else matters until we have had something to drink.

The current state of our world right now has caused many people to be motivated by more basic needs than they were before this pandemic. Lest we forget, we live during a time that these needs require us to spend money to attain or achieve, but due to the fact that many people’s employment situations have changed, meeting these basic needs might now be more of a priority than it was before. In addition, now that many people are on stay-at-home orders, the option of going to the gym or other things that one typically does to stay physiologically healthy might not be available at this time. So, find a solution to help protect that accumulation of wealth, as much as you need to with the maintenance of the same wealth.

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How is Covid-19 is affecting your Personal Economic or Financial Objectives?

Your portfolio could need immediate adjustment!

Lockdown should not mean the end of the world…

From at the least the beginning of March 2020, we in the context of being financial advisers and planners, have received numerous emails, invitations to webinars and virtual conferences, reports, notes and brochures, newsletters (whose frequency have increased) and newsletter updates (and sometimes updates of updates), from the long list of product suppliers/providers, asset managers and their respective fund managers (referring to all those whose products we are authorised to provide advice on and distribute) all containing Covid-19 in the subject line (this is not even considering those with the synonym Coronavirus).

We have, over this period before and during the lockdown, observed life insurance companies (product suppliers/providers) upgrade, update, adjust and in some places replace benefits to be appropriately suited for end-users and or lives covered respectively on the backdrop of this pandemic. There is also, in certain instances, no changes made where it is impractical to do so. As financial advisers, we also needed to be updated with all these changes, big and small so that we can provide you with the most correct information as possible, should you raise any questions, or seek any clarity.

The same goes for asset manager firms and their respective fund managers in their wide range of investment objectives and mandates that they bound or guided by. They used every opportunity that they could find to update us with their observations, research, their train of thought, words of encouragement, cautions and the much needed reminders of how sometimes capital markets behave when certain events happen and with that behaviour what to expect and what to avoid or be careful of. Soon after the Governor and his team at SARB had announced a Repo Rate cut around the 20th of March, came a blow to the ailing economy with the country being infamously downgraded to sub-investment status a.k.a. “Junk Status” by Moody’s Investor Service. This announcement came with a lot of impact on the capital markets, bond markets, etc. effectively changing the outlook of many portfolios and indexes (both actively managed and passively managed investments).

Some financial advisers and planners alike have never been in this collocation where on the one hand they have to really display their value without expecting compensation for their efforts for the greater good of societal repositioning due to the impact of the outbreak of the pandemic and on the other, they themselves need the same support, encouragement, advice and the much needed income they earn from clients, an income which at this stage may probably be hard to come by because the same clients are negatively affected and by extension affecting the income of these advisers. Obviously not all businesses and practices are operated in the same way, and that is why I say some instead of all.

All these things started happening on the eve of our planned series of client engagement seminars that we ended up not being able to execute due to the social distancing stances companies had to adopt before the lockdown. These activities which we had hoped to engage both existing clients and non-clients over, were on topics that are not just about smart talk and an exercise to show our depth of knowledge, but ideally talk about how we as a society relate to insurance and wealth accumulation, about efficiencies and how we can apply these efficiencies in reference to achieving our economic or financial objectives in a real and practical sense.

All these events have also delayed our migration to virtual engagements to deliver the same, but now that we are here, we are happy to announce that we will be sending invitations to an intimate number of participants for maximum output. Should you be interested, and you are not a client of Emphasis Wealth Advisory, we will encourage that you subscribe to our newsletters, from which some of the invitations will be sent.

Perhaps it is Time to Review Your PAA and PAD Strategies!

Dez Tswaile Fin Plannning Practice Logo

I have just been reminded of how I sometimes think that we are detached from our personal financial objectives or at the least the roadmap towards these objectives and still hope to achieve every single one of them unscathed. Maybe I am being overzealous using the adverb.

Either way, as it were, I find that we are so removed from even the thought process, let alone the immersion required to achieve these set financial objectives, which by the way, one of them being ‘financial/economic freedom’, as we often like to term it when I rather opt for terms like ‘absolute retirement’. Another is ‘generational wealth’ which in my view is a synonym of a term I use very casually despite its depth in meaning, ‘succession planning’ or ‘wealth distribution planning’.

Need I remind you that we need cash/money to live, to feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, have a secure shelter, etc. i.e. and working our way up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Obtaining this asset (yes, it is an asset, and one of the most important asset classes in the main) could be done illegally, or legally, needless to say that the former never comes as a recommendation nor with encouragement, but rather with extreme disapproval. With the latter, one has but three (3) options in the main to be creative and that is selling an acquired skillset, selling a product of a manufacturer (and this is not limited to physical tangible products, but these could well include contracts, e.g. insurance contracts, fund management contracts, etc.) and being a producer of products/contracts yourself (this should be clear from this point that, option two (2) and three (3) are or could easily be paired as *similar). Either way that it is, something needs to be sold, and in return an income/revenue is generated, and to secure some level of continuity the cost of sale should be higher than the cost of production/skill, as it were.

At the most basic fundamental, one will agree that in most cases than not, to be successful (and ‘successful’ being used with a lot of protest because of its subjective nature) one needs a strategy that is S.M.A.R.T. But have we ever taken the time to evaluate or measure our own applied “Personal Asset Accumulation” and “Personal Asset Distribution/Succession” strategies, if we have any, comprehensively so to really objectively have an honest conversation with ourselves if we are on the right track to achieving these said financial objectives or not? Do we perhaps need an objective opinion of a professional or a good sounding board to stress-test these ideas and action plans? Do we need to take a step back and reflect, and internalise these things to better position ourselves for perspective, and perhaps aid our thought processes to be aligned to our current actions and strategies that we are executing for the businesses or employers that find ourselves employed, or invested?

Some people can, without a heartbeat tell you of the status of the operations that they find themselves involved in, with great depth of information, but hardly do the same with their personal financial portfolios, and maybe because they have not found someone to help them understand the importance of doing this, and more importantly to understand it, fully. I think that if we all found a personal advisor/planner, that can bring about this perspective, and care enough for our success as we do ourselves, and who would remind us on regular reasonable periods of where we are on our roadmaps to our financial objectives, we would sleep better knowing that our energies can be completely and undivided focused on what we need to do on a daily basis, that what supports our ‘Personal Asset Accumulation’ strategies and ‘Personal Asset Distribution/Succession’ strategies (i.e. legacy building).

Get in touch, let’s have this personal conversation, confidentially….

#Amandela #EconomicFreedomInOurLifetime #IAmAFinancialPlanner #PersonalFinanceArchitect

Economic Freedom is not for FREE

WE DEMAND ECONOMIC FREEDOM IN OUR LIFETIME, BUT WE ARE NOT PREPARED TO PLAN NOR WORK FOR IT!

I have just been reminded of how a majority of us, who could really use the perspective of an objective financial planner that would add “S.M.A.R.T VALUE” to our financial goals, would avoid a meeting(s) with them because we have this expectation that we would be obliged to purchase a new financial product from the meeting or at least pay for the time of the advisor, one way or the other (a very difficult spend during these tough economic times)

While it might be true in many instances, you may be surprised to learn that sometimes, all the planner would like to do is to share with you their “value proposition” at their expense, and if you don’t find “value” in what they have to offer, then you can simply walk away, guilt-free, especially if the meeting was solicited by the planners themselves.

The likelihood that they already know that you may or may not find “value” in what they have to share is high and that they would accept your position if you decide that they are not the “right people” to add the much needed “value” towards achieving your financial objectives/goals.

Don’t get me wrong, there are planners who charge a fee for their time or consultation, but there are also others who rely on their “value proposition” to attract new clients and retain existing ones. Adding “value”, may not necessarily mean that you have to purchase a new financial product, or having to exchange one for the other, but you would have to see the “value” for what it’s worth when it talks to your financial goals and provide an action plan to your financial objectives considering your budget and other constraints.

#FinancialFreedom or #EconomicFreedom will not bring itself to us, nor will be served to us like how we expect to receive breakfast in bed, but we have to put action and effort towards it.

Like anything that ought to become a success, you “plan” for it. You have a choice, know your options, consult, you may find that you can gain so much “value obligation-free”.

#Amandela #EconomicFreedomInOurLifetime #IAmAFinancialPlanner #PersonalFinanceArchitect