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At Money Marketing, we cover the news, we write features and news analyses, we have our podcasts. But the Weekend Essay is a little different.
It’s a chance to break away from the topics we write about every day and look into something on the periphery of financial services.
It’s one of my favourite things to write because I can really put myself into it and, as my colleagues will confirm, I love talking about myself.
My favourite essay that I’ve written this year was one about being diagnosed with narcolepsy.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve thought I must have some kind of sleep disorder. I’ve always been able to nap on command and in any scenario, I feel tired even after 10 hours of sleep, and the only place I can’t fall asleep is in bed at bedtime.
Finally, after 18 months of waiting, I got my formal diagnosis earlier this year. It’s nice to have the confirmation that I’m not just lazy.
As I wrote in my essay, knowing what you have is always better, because it gives you a better chance of controlling it.
Narcolepsy is a rare long-term brain condition where the brain is unable to regulate sleeping and waking patterns normally, resulting in some or all of these symptoms.
It’s not life-threatening, but it is chronic. There is no cure and I might have to take medication for the rest of my life, which I’m not thrilled about.
Hidden vulnerabilities
In my essay, I did make an admittedly tenuous link with vulnerability in financial services. I made the point that anyone can become vulnerable at any time, so advisers always need to be on the lookout for vulnerabilities within their client bases.
I said if there’s one lesson for financial advisers, it’s that you never know what conditions people have hiding under the surface. Anyone can have vulnerabilities. Even me.
The role of a journalist has evolved in recent decades so that, for most, it is no longer just about writing. We often have to get up on stage and present or, at the very least, chair panels at conferences. Some of us crave attention, so we love it. And some of us do not.
My favourite essay written by our not-so-new-any-more editor Tom Browne was about how he overcame his fear of public speaking.
He spoke to Dan Graham of NextGen Planners, who pointed out that most people fear public speaking “more than death”.
I will always remember something I got told by a presentation trainer who ran a course in our company about two years ago: “The audience isn’t sitting there waiting for you to fail. They want you to do well.”
It’s a pearl of wisdom that has always helped me.
Presenting is a good skill to have in many careers, not just journalism. It can also help financial advisers, whose roles are largely about effective communication.
Tom said in his essay that becoming a better public speaker has improved his one-on-one skills, which makes him a better interviewer and networker.
Dead Unhappy
Earlier in the year, life insurance agency DeadHappy received a huge amount of flak for a disastrous advertising campaign featuring serial killer Harold Shipman, with the tagline: “Because you never know who your doctor might be.”
This resulted in the business shutting its doors to new customers in the spring and entering administration in the summer.
Senior reporter Momodou Musa Touray wrote, in one of his thought-provoking Weekend Essays, that the ad was a red line for DeadHappy’s insurance partners.
Shepherds Friendly, which provided insurance coverage for DeadHappy, reprimanded it for the “distasteful advert” and said it was investigating the matter further.
Momodou spoke to Release Freedom broker and director Simon Bridgland, who said: “With maverick advertising, DeadHappy has proved that pushing the boundaries of decency too far will be fatal to any business.”
However, it’s worth pointing out that the firm has not lost its sense of humour. Its new tagline is Dead Unhappy.
Difficult conversations
Money Marketing’s news editor and sports fan Dan Cooper has written some cracking essays about many of the financial aspects of football. But by far my favourite essay of his this year was not about sport.
In October, Dan lost his grandad, who he was extremely close with.
“He was so much more than just a grandad to me – he was the father I never had growing up and shaped me into the person I am today,” he wrote.
“During my childhood, we were inseparable and some of the fondest memories I have are of the times we spent together.”
Dan said he believed his grandad knew the end was coming and it prompted him to start getting his affairs in order and have conversations nobody ever likes to think about.
Many people are so unwilling to think about their demise that they bury their heads in the sand. Canada Life research found that 20% of people believe they still have plenty of time to make a will. But we don’t know when we might leave this earth.
“Let’s all start having these conversations with our loved ones before it’s too late,” Dan wrote, in his essay. “I know I will be.”
Our queen of Weekend Essays, Amanda Newman Smith, has written some fantastic essays this year, as always.
My personal favourite was titled: The art of putting things right. In it, Amanda compared two contrasting customer services experiences she had with two different small businesses, and how they coloured her view of those businesses.
She compared this with an experience she had when trying to get her elderly mum a replacement debit card from Natwest.
“All of us get it wrong sometimes,” she wrote. “It’s the care and effort we take to put things right that really counts.”
I hope you’ve enjoyed the breadth of topics we’ve covered in our essays this year. Of course, I couldn’t mention them all in this round-up, but you can check out our archive here.
I also hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. See you again in 2025.
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