Many people dream of winning the lottery and receiving a life changing lump sum. But large lump sums can also arise from winning on Premium Bonds, negligence compensation, redundancy, sale of a business or, most commonly, from an inheritance.

But while receiving a financial windfall might sound appealing, making good financial decisions can be a real challenge for the recipient. The media is full of stories of lottery winners who ended up penniless and lonely within a few years, or a business owner who slipped into depression within a few years of selling their business.

Throughout most of my adult life I’ve always strived to improve or maintain my life. Whether it’s maintaining good physical and mental health; cultivating my intellect and knowledge; building income and wealth; or developing personal and business relationships, I’ve always tried to be the best version of me.

A key part of my approach has been to set and write down a number of goals using the well-known SMART mnemonic acronym:

One of the central themes of my new book – Money Moments: Simple steps to financial well-being – is that we can all be better at managing our money if we really believe we can.

But it’s not just personal finance that this applies to, it applies to anything in life.  The term “turn your mind to” is often used to make the point that with determination, focus, effort and discipline we can master, or at least improve, any skill that we wish to.

Learning to cope with disappointments, setbacks, challenges and failures is an essential life skill to develop.

Few people have meaningful achievements, lasting success and life satisfaction without a fair degree of mistakes and mess ups.

My eldest daughter had set her heart on going to Durham University to read Classics and knew that they would probably require her to achieve three A grade A Levels.

My brother-in-law has a very eclectic and bohemian group of friends. “Mad” Mikey was one such friend who got his nickname because he looked like something out of a Mad Max movie — shaven head, piercings and tattoos everywhere and an enormous motorbike.

Mikey lived with his long-term partner and their two young children in a small rented rural home and he held down a job as a building site foreman. Mikey’s lifestyle was simple and modest, but he seemed happy and he was great fun.

I got speaking to a man called Albert in the changing room of my local gym the other day. I mentioned to him that I enjoy keeping fit and healthy, but as I’ve got older, I get a few aches and pains. He replied that although he has had to modify his fitness routine given his age, he still felt as fit as a fiddle.

In this live interview on Sky News in May 2017, I discuss the role that money plays in making us happy.

Video interview. I visited Coventry University on 21st March and in between giving several lectures to the students, I gave a short interview. There are several important and timeless messages in this 2 min video, so if you know a young person, ask them to watch it. It might inspire them to greater things.

Believing that you are capable of doing something has been shown to be a major determinant of success.  Albert Bandura is a psychologist who introduced the term “self-efficacy” to describe the psychological phenomenon that enhances goal achievement. According to Bandura, a self-efficacy belief is:

“The belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.”[i]

In other words, if you believe you can do something you are much more likely to achieve it and if you don’t believe you can achieve it you are more likely to fail.  This means that as well as setting life goals that are important and meaningful to you, you also need to believe that they are achievable.

A role model is someone who you can look to as a good example of who you want to be like. A mentor is someone with whom you have a personal relationship, who offers guidance, advice and a sounding board for your ideas. Most successful and happy people I have met or read about have had role models. Many also had a mentor. I have been fortunate to have had several great role models and mentors in my life, which has helped me to become the person I am today.

My first role model was the landlord of the local public house at which I had a weekend cleaning job.

There are many factors that make a good leader, but one of the most important is intellectual curiosity combined with a thirst for knowledge.

Greater knowledge provides a rich well from which you can draw to help stimulate new ideas, thinking and perspectives. It can help you to devise strategy or to anticipate potential scenarios, as well as better able to handle any obstacles and setbacks. The better informed you are, the more opportunities you’ll spot, and the better your decision making is likely to be.

As part of my work as a professional speaker, I read one business book a week and the following are my latest suggested reads:

1. Misbehaving – The making of behavioural economics by Richard Thaler

Richard Thaler is considered to be the father (or at least the main cheerleader) of behavioural economics.

Over the course of my 25-year career as a financial adviser I was fortunate to have interviewed several hundred people and hear their life stories.  My impression was that only a small proportion of these people were successful in the sense that they were truly happy, fulfilled and financially secure.  

Some were wealthy but had poor health due to lifestyle. Others had many achievements to their name but were unhappy.

My eldest daughter is 17, studying for her A levels and learning to drive. She is quietly confident, with strong opinions which she isn’t afraid to express to me and my wife!  She will eventually leave home and become an independent young adult. While we’ll miss her when she does eventually leave home, we know that we have to learn to let her go. But knowing you have to do something doesn’t make it easy.

A similar challenge often arises with owner-managed businesses, particularly with founders.

In the old days companies told us, through advertising, how good their products or services were, in the expectation that we would buy from them. But that was before the internet made price comparisons and customers’ satisfaction ratings easy and social media enabled consumers to quickly share their buying experiences with friends, relatives and colleagues. People today don’t care what companies say about themselves, they care what other customers of those companies say about them. You’d think, therefore, that bad products and poor service would be as rare as a London black taxi on a rainy Friday evening.

Over the 25 years that I was in practice as a financial advise, I conducted discovery interviews with several hundred people, where they told me their personal story. I have also had the privilege to hear the personal stories of a similar number of professionals from the fields of financial planning, investment management, law and accounting. On top of that I have read literally hundreds of biographies of political, business, scientific and charity leaders.