When David Sharpe left school, he tried really hard to work out what he wanted to do with his life.

A natural at maths and science, he headed in the direction of geophysics before doing a sharp U-turn.

“I didn’t want to study geology and look at rocks for a living,” he says. “My Dad was an accountant, and I knew that didn’t suit me.

“But I was good at maths so I wasn’t sure what to do.”

So Sharpe did what a lot of newly minted high school graduates do at his age — he grabbed a backpack and went travelling, which, ironically, turned out to be the best career move of his life.

Getting away from his day-today routine, changing up his environment, provided the breakthrough that he was looking for.

“It suddenly occurred to me while I was travelling that I wanted to work in the field of money,” he says.

“It was a breakthrough and the best way I can describe it is that feeling of when you’re trying really hard to work out who is singing a certain song on the radio and then you stop thinking about it, your mind goes blank, and then it comes to you.”

Sharpe headed home, energised by a fresh desire to start his career, and enrolled in his commerce degree.

While his first planning job was far from ideal — he didn’t share their approach to business — he fell for planning straight away.

“I know this sounds really corny, but I like how personal planning is,” he says. “The fact that you make a real, tangible difference to people’s lives.”

Many of Sharpe’s clients are looking to retire in the next five to 10 years, which gives him great insight into what drives people in their later years.

“The common theme I find among a lot of people is that they really don’t know what they spend,” he says. “If I ask them what their wage is they can tell me down to the dollar, but if I ask them how much of that they spend, most people don’t know.”

The second theme that Sharpe notices among clients is that many don’t know what they want.

“So the first step we take is to work out what they want from life,” he says.

“Many of them haven’t thought about what their retirement will look like, so it’s really important to take the time to work that out with them and to set goals.”

Sharpe rejects the idea that there is a golden amount of money that people should retire with, saying many people are happy with the occasional campervan holiday, while others want to fly first class to Paris every year.

“There is no right retirement figure,” he says. 

If Sharpe asks clients how much they need to live on, no one ever has a set figure in mind.

“What they say to me is that they would like enough money for travel and to do certain things,” he says.

“That tells me that it’s not the money that is important, it’s just a means to an end.”

But he does caution against leaving the fun parts of retirement  — the travel, for example — too late.

Life is to be enjoyed, after all.

“I had a client who worked at a minimum wage job his whole life and saved a lot of money so he could retire and travel,” Sharpe says.

“On day three of his European holiday, he dropped dead. So it’s important to strike a balance too.”

 

Name of firm: Globe Financial Planning.

Name of licensee: Capstone Financial Planning.

Years in the industry: 15 years.

Academic qualifications: Bachelor of Commerce (Distinction) Curtin University (2002).

Accreditations: CFP, DFP.

Professional association memberships: FPA, AICD.

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