I admire many people.  I look to these people for inspiration, new ideas and the opportunity to learn how to develop my skills, attitude and expertise by seeing seeing how they act, what they do and how they stay true to their values.

These include fellow business owners, individuals who contribute to their local communities and society as a whole and individuals who work within my chosen profession.

One of the individuals I admire is a gentleman called Justin Urquhart Stewart.  Even if you don’t know the name it’s likely that you know the face.   Even if you don’t know the face it’s likely that you know Justin due to his appearances on the BBC with his insightful commentary on all matters financial.  More often than not when Justin appears on your telly-box he’s wearing his trademark red braces.

When I realised Justin spoke recently at this years Federation of Small Business Conference and the video was available online I decided that I’d spent my lunch break on Tuesday listening to his presentation.  You can find his presentation here and I’d humbly suggest it’s worth watching.

It’s funny, insightful and makes a number of valid points on a range of subjects including the importance of confidence when it comes to the investment markets, the importance of diversifying your assets and why your perception of both the UK and Global economy (through the prism of what you read in the papers) may be slightly different than the actual reality.

However Justin raised a couple of important points about how we manage our personal finances which I absolutely agree with.

In his presentation one point Justin make is that we should look at running our personal money finances like we run our business finances.

When we run our businesses we understand the importance of planning for future growth and taking action to make these plans a reality.  However, very often, many of us are so busy within our businesses we neglect to focus on the reason for the hard work within our businesses.

We see the successful running of our business as the only thing that’s important.  Actually running our businesses for most of us are actually a ‘means to an end’.  It provides the opportunity to live the lifestyles we want both now and in the future.

He also talks about applying our business disciplines to our personal lives.  Many of us have the skills to manage our personal finances efficiently.  We apply it to our businesses each and every day and I agree with Justin when he talks about utilising our skills in order to manage our personal finances more successfully.

However running your personal finances successfully takes focus, discipline and consistency….similar skills we need and use in our businesses each and every day!

As ever I’m interested in knowing your thoughts.