Everyone comes to us with things that need unpacking. Whether they realise it or not.
Without the unpacking, the financial plan won't serve them the way it should. It might look right on paper. It won't fit their life.
What needs unpacking is their thinking.
For some clients it happens naturally over the course of the meetings. They talk, we listen, things come loose on their own. For others it takes more. More probing. Sometimes proper intervention. That's why we have Suzan, our wellbeing coach.
You can feel it in the room when something's stuck. The things that aren't being said. The things that aren't landing. The client who just feels tight. Someone telling you they want to retire at sixty but their shoulders are up by their ears when they say it. Someone agreeing to a number that you can tell they don't believe.
It's all in the thinking. And the thinking they're paying attention to is usually the thinking that tells them not to look at any of it. Don't ask that question. Don't think about that thing. Move on.
However long the unpacking takes, it has to happen. Otherwise we're building a plan for the version of them that walked in the door. Not the version sitting in the chair six months from now when something changes and they need the plan to actually hold.
We're not Pickfords. We're the opposite of that.