In the fast-paced world of business and wealth management, personal wellbeing is frequently pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. In this exclusive interview, leading business journalist Ruth Sunderland talks with Continuum’s Managing Director, Martin Brown, about breaking the mental health taboo in financial services. Together, they explore why your best investment is in yourself, how to handle the hidden pressures of a client-facing career, and why true professional success requires a healthy work-life balance.
Stress is a fact of modern life, in our work and our family lives. Busy financial planners might feel they are just too busy to take time out to look after themselves, particularly at times like these when the markets are in turmoil. It can feel there aren’t enough hours in the day and the needs of others – family and clients – take precedence. Think of it as investing in yourself, says Martin Brown of Continuum.
He tells leading business journalist Ruth Sunderland that financial planners need to take good care of their own wellbeing in order to give the best service to their clients. Invest in you – and it is certain to pay off.
RS: Martin, I wanted to talk to you about my belief that your best investment is in yourself. When I think about how any of us can achieve that extra 1percent, in our own walk of life, how do we keep things moving forward, I believe you can only do that if you invest in yourself. Do you agree?
MB: Absolutely. To look after your clients really well you have to look after yourself. It is a really fundamental point. How to do it is such a big question, there is so much there. It is why we put an emphasis on wellbeing and we have been for a while. We introduced a programme into the business in 2018, before it was trendy.
RS: What does the programme involve?
MB: We have been running a helpline and we know it gets used. And we have had a couple of rounds of wellbeing workshops for advisers across the country in the last 12 months. We are looking at self improvement and self development. We carried out a 105 separate training events and development programs for our people during the course of last year, ranging from well-being, to business help, to personal development help. We run sessions on the Wheel of Life to help people look at their lives and achieve balance. Our culture is people first. We believe in helping people look after themselves and taking themselves forward.
Breaking the mental health taboo in financial services
RS: In the past the financial services industry had a bit of a reputation for being very competitive and quite hard-edged. Perhaps well-being, particularly emotions and mental health were a taboo?
MB: I can understand why you say that but well-being is not a taboo subject anymore, you can talk about mental health challenges at the dinner table now. Over the last 12 months, we raised the profile of wellbeing even further, purely and simply because we had two bereavements among our advisers which sent shockwaves across the business. It was very uplifting and moving to see the sessions. Advisers, by their very nature, tend to be confident individuals but people were opening up and sharing their problems. You could feel the eyes starting to fill up in the room.
There were 6ft6, 15 stone individuals talking about their challenges in life and their concern.
“To look after your clients really well you have to look after yourself. It is a really fundamental point… Our culture is people first. We believe in helping people look after themselves and taking themselves forward.”
Martin Brown
The hidden psychological pressures of financial advice
RS: Why do you think this is so important for you as a business to take on board?
MB: It’s not just important. It’s essential. If you are going to give advice, you have to be in a good position to do it. Running and managing a client’s finances and planning is an incredibly responsible role. With it becomes a lot of subconscious pressures that you perhaps don’t realise. And that all comes on top of the general challenges we all have in our own life, running a family, running a house. We need to look after our advisers as well as we can.
Navigating isolation and building a supportive community
RS: It’s very stressful and responsible job, isn’t it? It’s very consequential if you get something wrong. Advisers have got to be psychologically robust, and as resilient as possible themselves, haven’t they? And isn’t it a challenge for a lot of people who area high-achieving personality not to overwork and get that balance wrong?
MB: Yes. We try to balance well-being support with business development and professional knowledge development. We offer a business consultancy package, so we help our advisors become better business owners rather than just self-employed financial advisers. Having a good work-life balance doesn’t guarantee you will have a good business. But it increases the chances – and if you don’t get that balance right, your business definitely won’t be the best it could be. We support advisers because the great thing about running your own business is nobody tells you what to do. But conversely, the worst thing about running your own business is, nobody tells you what to do.
Being an adviser can be quite isolating. We provide a weekly community hub first thing on a Monday morning to bring the partnership together. We have Friday drop-ins, we have regular workshops. We recognize that if you don’t look after the people, you’re not going to have an identity and a culture within your business. We believe if you focus your time and efforts on people, then you’ll grow accordingly.
“Having a good work-life balance doesn’t guarantee you will have a good business. But it increases the chances – and if you don’t get that balance right, your business definitely won’t be the best it could be.”
Martin Brown
Why your best investment is in yourself: Key takeaways
- You cannot pour from an empty cup: To provide top-tier service to clients or support a family, you must actively protect and nurture your own physical and mental wellbeing first.
- The hidden burden of responsibility: Managing a family’s financial future brings massive, subliminal psychological pressure that requires proactive stress management.
- Community defeats isolation: High-achieving professionals and business owners often operate in isolation. Building community hubs, regular workshops, and open forums is essential to resilience.
- Balance fuels growth: A healthy work-life balance isn’t a distraction from business development; it is the foundational infrastructure that allows a business to reach its full potential.
