Do you have a favourite pen?

Which is more important, the pen or the hand that holds it ?

Now, I don’t have the neatest handwriting on the planet, not in everyday usage anyway. With a fountain pen, written carefully in blue ink, it looks quite presentable but in terms of everyday file notes it is probably best described as a semi-legible scrawl.

As a child I held my pen in a way my mother would have described as ‘cack-handed’ and despite the best attempts of one of my class teachers to get me to hold it properly – her name was Mrs Priddle, I was 8 and still remember her – I still hold it differently to the average person.

They tried to get us to write in italics at primary school, all the rage in the 1980s – using a Berol handwriting pen – remember those? But I never quite mastered it – and my work, though accurate, lacked presentation skills.

I went to Secondary school where it was mandatory to write in blue fountain pen – and suddenly it all looked so much better. It was only a mid-range WH Smith pen (I still have it) and with the aid of washable blue ink and a little corrector pen I was able to handwrite my way to 8 excellent GCSEs, 3 Great A-levels and a good part of my Degree course.

These days, the bulk of my work is computer generated, and I can play with fonts and typefaces to my heart’s content to create something legible, and for all the other handwritten things in the office I have Sally.

Sally is my office manager, an integral part of my team and worth her weight in gold. And she has amazing handwriting. So if there are forms that must be hand-written or cards to be posted – that falls into her remit. To be fair she doesn’t really like me writing on the noticeboard in the office either – it rather spoils the aesthetic!

I have chosen for my team, people who all share my vision for our business and each bringing their own strengths, skills and expertise. This means that I have people that I work with regularly who can be the expert in the bits of the business that I’m not. Website design and blog hosting, copywriting / proofreading, and as my business grows more will be added. I’m also lucky that I have a team of people to support me outside of work, who give me emotional backup and practical support – like my husband and my friends / family and those who take on the tasks I simply cannot do myself without messing up, like Kelly who does my nails – I mean who can paint their right hand and keep the polish on the nails anyway?

By focussing on what I’m good at, I can help more people and have much more fun because we’re now all doing what we’re good at meaning things run more efficiently. It’s allowed me to not be in the office on a Friday to do loads of other important stuff – you can follow my journey further on Facebook  #FreedomFriday

Are there things in your life that you routinely pay an expert to do for you, because you don’t have the necessary skills or tools to do it yourself? Do you have a window cleaner, or climb up the ladder and have a go yourself?

Do you pay a garage to service your car? You can service your own car. Buy a Haynes Manual, buy or borrow the tools, grab some overalls – clear out the garage of junk to get the car in (just in case it rains) – and spend hours doing it yourself, only to get halfway through, up to your elbows in grime to find that you didn’t buy the right kind of fuel filter. It’s a better use of your time (and money) to get an expert to do it for you. Or at the very least pay to join a workshop or evening class to learn to do it properly.

Same goes for your finances. All the info you could ever want to know about money is there for you free of charge online, or at your local library….

But do you really want to trawl through it all and try to make sense of it all on your own? So much to read, endless free downloads and free guides… most of which contradict each other!

That’s where I come in.

I’ll help you carve out your own path, cut through the chaos and provide you with the help and support to create a sustainable wealth plan. I do that in different ways depending on how much help you need and where you are on your journey. Helping you to get confident around money, and avoid that overwhelming feeling that often comes from having your money in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Click here to receive my FREE 4 step guide to getting off the financial Rollercoaster

4 easy to implement tips that will start you on your path to money confidence. And in terms of our pen of choice for the office – it’s a Senator Super Hit Pen – as collected at trade fairs from any rep who has the right type of pen – one day we’ll get our own ones printed, but for now it’s an expense we can save!