The Finance circus has the perception of being as cold and cruel. Ones thoughts gravitate to people like Gordon Gecko or Jordan Belfort, both stereotypical representations of unscrupulous Investment Bankers in the minds of many. And indeed, the greed, recklessness and lack of empathy of the finance industry has driven humanity more than once to the edge of the economic breaking point, not mentioning many individual fates within and around the arena. Last time we’ve been close to that edge was back in 2008 leaving a lot of collateral damage left behind. “Finance with a heart” appears in this context as an anachronism, a veritable oxymoron, with the exception of pure philanthropic investments. We should love other people and use things. Instead, we love things and use other people. So how can we combine our conscience, or as I rather say, your “heart intelligence”, with an acceptable return? To make this crystal clear, yes, a decent return on investment should still be aimed for, no doubt about it. And, do good to do well! Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about some kind of green-washing of your soul, like some institutional investors who have started to claim that responsible behavior is applied in their activities a couple of years ago. In fact, nothing really had changed, everyone was rather starting to invent some kind of disguise for the practice they have ever since pursued: maximize profits as if there is no tomorrow. The lately ratified ESG (Environmental Social Governance) legislations in many countries and regions (e.g. the European Union) eventually forced some market participants to follow their words with deeds. Here are my 7 Steps to Finance with a Heart Self-reflection Well, this is what it starts with, an exercise of proper self-reflection. What do I standing for, what are the goals in my life, on this planet, perhaps even for this planet? What do I want to be remembered for and leave as my legacy? What is my heritage in values? Many start considering such questions in the later half of their life. It’s an exercise to reconsider believes, approaches, opinions, relationships or even behaviors and (bad) habits. Actually, this is the hardest part of all. Truth and honesty are the most important ingredients to apply here. If you are not honest with yourself, you’ll take the wrong turn from the beginning, and it probably will lead you back to where you already are. You could carry on this way just fine, it could feel comfortable in the end, but does it bring you any further? Taking the time is important. You probably won’t find all answers to your questions within 15 minutes. Revisit your thoughts multiple times, sleep one or two nights about it and revisit again. To be perfectly frank, you might come up with new and better questions by taking time to reflect. And eventually, very important in this context, do not answer these questions with your head. Go deep into yourself, direct your attention to your heart. What comes up first and isn’t immediately rationalized. Trust yourself, any answer that came instantly, came for a reason, it’s quite so, believe me. Visualization It often helps to support such self-intuitiveness with visualization. What do I mean? Simply write your questions and answers, each one individually, on a sticky note. I know, I felt the same reluctance to write matters of course on a little yellow square. I have never been a presentation master in terms of summarizing anything in meaningful pictures, be it on a flipchart, a whiteboard or on a presentation slide. However, afterwards, I had to admit, that it helped to get MY full picture. Back to where I stopped: You wrote everything down on plenty of stickers? In a next step you attach all notes for example on a blank wall or on the back of a cupboard. Once stuck there you can start to categorize, group, reshuffle. You take stickers off and add new ones. You change titles or rewrite subtitles. Whatever feels right to be done, whatever your heart tells you to get the one final picture, do it. You will see, it have fun playing with your personal goals and in the process you learn to listen closer to your intuition. You might find out that there are contradictions you would not become aware of if you hadn’t put them on these little yellow square paper and stuck them side by side with others. The full picture After you’ve finished, take a step back and contemplate. How does it feel? What does this picture and its details say to you? Do you sense for example, exhilaration or the opposite, does it calm you down? You will recognize, again, when you’re honest with yourself, that your personal overview impacts your conclusions enduringly. Yes, depending on the visualized outcome, it might hurt what you now see and read. This is especially true when you realize that this new picture varies substantially from the picture that you had from yourself. Of course, it will also differ from other’s views, be it the public, friends and sometimes even the family. Nevertheless, it’s unequivocally you and I can tell you from my personal experience, it quickly starts to feel good to be somehow reinvented, but this time from the right starting point, not driven by reason, but driven by feeling. And it’s easier than you think to throw ancient burdens overboard, once you noticed they are of no use (anymore). Finally, take a photo, so that you can take a look again whenever needed to refresh your memory. Conclusions Now, as you have just learned so much about yourself, you can start to derive and translate it into your investment behavior. For a person like me, with my freshly set goals, what investments fit to me? What asset classes should I consider? What is the right portfolio mix? You might recognize an urge to engage into ventures that you have not yet thought of, or you have so far excluded from your radar for various reasons. Is it still right to have my money be managed or, the other way round, should I start to outsource this task to obtain more personal freedom, freedom for heart’s desires? Whatever your conclusion with regards to your future investment strategy will be, review and align with your full picture (see above). Does it fit and, very important, does it still feel right? Inventory As in every business, you need to take an inventory from time to time. This happens mostly on an annual basis. For your security deposit(s) you receive automatically from your bank an annual statement to check your positions and to claim in case of irregularities. However, this inventory is supposed to be more thorough and entail other angles. According to your conclusions made, you have to check whether your treasures still fulfill your new adapted inner criteria. It’s then to decide whether you want to close the position, sell the asset or do whatever is needed to leave or convert an investment. This is of course also heavily dependent on how liquid the asset is. In some cases, especially corporate participations, there might be consequences which are even less desirable than a bad taste in your mouth. In such circumstances it’s advisable to find other solutions to pivot the direction and/or add benefits to compensate negative fallout from activities and turn away from heartache. Execution Particularly, when you have been accustomed to using your brain in decision making, it’s somehow, shall I say difficult, or is it rather still uncommon to you, to trust your feelings, and your heart, when determine from now on your asset allocation strategy. Don’t overthrow everything at once. It’s not a wise approach to destroy value. This is especially important when you start to turn the direction of your investing activities after you identified undesired inhabitants in your inventory. No, it takes quite some time to listen to and to understand your heart. But some careful trials will support your faith in your new adviser. And remember, you still have your full picture that helps you to align, either with the stickers on the wall or on your smartphone. So, start to shift one stone after the other until your portfolio reflects what you stand for. I am quite sure that you will feel great, and it will make you feel proud. Reiterate As an experienced investor you have developed your strategies, your approaches, which have led you with a secure hand to value creating capital expenditures. But remember, these strategies and approaches may have comprised of activities you want no longer to pursue. Over time, negligence may creep into your thinking and doing and so in your investment strategy. Therefore, you have to revisit every now and then to your full picture and your conclusion to review your chosen right path. How often? Well, this is mainly driven by the level of your activity and may differ according to your personal gusto and above all how active your heart is intervening. In my career, I have never been a financial advisor, and this above is definitely not investment advice per se. To me it represents the opportunity for a fresh perspective, new state of mind, food for thought, and a break from the status quo. Nevertheless, I have learned from so many experienced investors, have seen so many good and bad investments and have started one day to think of what a good investment should look like. This went hand in hand with intensifying to trying to get to the bottom of my own investments. How will I reach abundance, which doesn’t only consist of full pockets, not in the least. I have started to ask myself the important questions that you read in step one, that moment of self-reflection. I have started to reconsider or shall I say question many things in my life. One of the most formative questions I was confronted with was: Who am I, or more so, what is left of me when I have no money, no property, no means, nothing materialistic anymore?  

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