From physical health to financial health
A decade ago, when Debbie’s son was ten years old, someone asked him what his mum does for a living. “She runs a money hospital,” young Michael replied. “She looks after people’s money and makes them happy.”
It’s a great analogy for the financial planning profession in general, but it’s especially apt considering that this particular planner started her working life as a nurse. “Both professions require the person in charge to be highly driven and well-organised,” says Debbie. “If the ward matron has her ducks in a row, the doctors and other caregivers do what they’re meant to do and the patient gets the best care possible — the same way a good advisor will look after your money by assisting you to make hard decisions and by managing the relevant teams of specialists, including investment managers . But whereas nursing is a reactive profession — you respond after the fact, often in vain — financial planning is proactive. The financial decisions you make today can have a powerful positive impact on your life going forward.”
Debbie (58) decided to switch careers when she was in her mid-twenties. She had struck up a friendship with her parents’ advisor and was intrigued by what he did. “Other people might come into this profession because they’ve failed elsewhere, or because they think it’s a ticket to easy money, but I genuinely wanted to help people; I wanted to be able to tell them beforehand what would happen if they retired , DIED , or became disabled — and then empower them to help themselves by making better INFORMED decisions.”
The early days weren’t easy. Debbie wrote her final exams just before Michael was born, only to find out soon after that the courier truck transporting the exam papers had been hijacked! She had to rewrite, sleep-deprived, with a brand new baby at home. “I gave the exam invigilator my old brick of a cellphone to keep an eye on, in case there was an emergency,” she remembers. “That’s what you do as a woman: you make a plan to work around your family.”
Debbie is the first to admit that this is easier said than done. “Even though a career as a financial advisor comes with a certain degree of freedom and flexibility, there were moments when it all felt too much. I wouldn’t have survived had it not been for my family support network and OUR dedicated TEAM at NETTO . Some days I’d be so focussed on work that my children would beg me to talk to them and not to the office on the way to OR from school.”
The job itself is also not without challenges. You can put the best plan in place and do all the right things then suddenly the client’s needs will change, or the environment will change, or the market will take a dive. But the good ultimately outweighs the bad: “When real people are honest with you about their dreams and fears, and you can turn that information into a sustainable life plan… It’s a privilege,” Debbie says.
And as technology breaks down the last remaining communication barriers, she is pleased to see more young women entering the profession. “I used to travel frequently and sometimes we’d have to visit a client after hours because that was the only time he or she would be home, but all that has changed,” Debbie says. “These days you can speak to anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world using online tools. It’s tremendously liberating.”
Case in point: Debbie might have relocated to Melbourne, Australia, but she is still available to the management team at Netto Invest, the thriving Cape Town practice that she started OVER 30 years ago, and she is still available to her clients, many of whom have been with her from the beginning.
“I’ve had such a wonderful career,” she says. “You’re not often in the limelight as a financial planner, but when you’ve assisted a family over many years and you’ve watched the members of that family grow and thrive… Not many other jobs give you that sense of satisfaction.”
