Beyond Money: Breanna Rae Blaney on Wealth, Identity & Financial Planning

And then how I've gained self-trust, which I think was the second part of your question, is really getting clear on who I am.

I talk about integrative wealth as the intersection of identity, resources, and decisions.

So who you are, what you have, and the decisions that you make in life.

And the first part is your identity, and it's who you are.

And again, I think it's a scary fact and the truth, though, that a lot of times we don't actually know who we are as human beings, and people live their entire lives without really asking some of those really fundamental questions.

And what I've found, uh, for myself, Allison, is that the deeper that I have gone to understand who I am and why I'm here, and started taking ownership for my own identity, the more I've been able to trust myself and my decisions because I know why I'm doing them.

Because our audience is full of aspiring financial planners, newer financial planners, what tools have you activated in your own life that you might have wanted to start earlier on in your journey into financial planning to help with identifying what your identity is, and help get rid of some of that head trash of projecting your own experiences onto clients?

I'll answer that in two parts.

Uh, the first on really just like your own identity and getting really clear on, on that and confidence, and then I'll go to, to part two of, um, of, of that.

So on just really getting clear on, on who you are, it sounds simple, but the biggest thing is, like, one, curiosity.

Like it's just starting to ask the question, and like be curious about the things.

So much of our lives, uh, we don't realize how much like we're running on autopilot, or we are, we are operating on what, what everyone else thinks we should do or what we think the standard path should be.

And once you just like plant the seed of curiosity, why did I choose my profession? Why am I living in the place that I am living in? Like, why I'm in the relationship? Why do I think that I need to live here or have this? Whatever it is.

And from a place of non- non-judgment, just being curious around that, you might ha- you might begin to kind of get some of that awareness of, okay, I'm actually designing my life from my own choices, or maybe I've been designing a lot of this because my parents wanted me to be in this profession, or they wanted me to live in this city, or my friends, or whatever it is.

And this happens at all stages and seasons of life.

[laughs] Early on versus much, much older.

I've seen it at, at all stages.

And so getting curious I think is really, really key.

And then the second is finding some sort of practice that works for you, because this journey is a lifelong journey.

Like, I'm still on the journey.

We are constantly...

You don't just arrive one day and say, "I know exactly everything about me", right? Like, you never do.

I'm always, like every single day, finding out new things about myself and understanding more of who I am.

That is something that requires a daily practice and daily habit.

So that is what I would highly recommend.