I retrained as a financial planner, aged 40, inspired by my personal experience of receiving advice and my desire to both deliver this benefit to more people and to run my own business.  

My brother Adam was my financial planner throughout my 30s. He helped me make a series of excellent financial decisions involving pensions, savings, investments, insurance and property.  

His planning gave me a degree of financial freedom that I would not otherwise have. I used this freedom to retrain and join him in this profession.

Had Adam not insisted that he could help me, I may never have taken financial advice and experienced the benefits it provides. Like many other people I might have thought financial advice wasn’t for me, that I wasn’t wealthy enough, that it would be expensive or that I didn’t need it. 

How wrong I would have been. 

Many people don’t technically “need” financial planning, but we can all benefit from having it. This is a critical distinction that I understand from personal experience. 

I am a passionate advocate for advice and am unashamedly evangelical in reaching out to people and encouraging them to take it. It has transformed my life for the better and I believe it has the ability to do the same for most people. 

I love my job, because it is very much about people rather than money. 

When I am not working, I like to relax and socialise with my wonderful family and friends. I have a passion for travel and have now visited 26% of the world’s countries, but who’s counting? 

I love exploring unfamiliar places and cultures, meeting people from different walks of life and experiencing nature, especially through activities such as cycling, hiking, skiing and scuba. 

I also enjoy watching sport and am a long-suffering but loyal supporter of Everton Football Club and the England rugby and cricket teams. I’m hopeful that one of these days all three will be playing well at the same time. 

My bucket list ambition is to see Earth from space and then return to it safely.