For me it always starts the same way…

The heart beats a little bit faster. I stumble over the first couple of words and then after the words start to flow and the heart settles down I start to enjoy the experience…

You see whilst I’ve done a decent amount of public speaking over the past few years I still get nervous every single time. The nervousness is only an initial reaction and as soon as I start and the presentation starts to flow I start to enjoy the experience.

However I’m speaking at something coming up which may be the most intimidating speaking experience I’ve ever had!

Let me tell you the story of how it came about…

Both as a business (and me as an individual) I’ve been thinking a bit more about how it’s not only important to ‘do well’ but also how it’s equally important to ‘do good’.

This desire to ‘do well’ and ‘do good’ has manifested itself in a bunch of ways including trying to raise money for charity, saying thank you a lot more and providing young people with the opportunity to work, develop and learn in our business.

However one of the things we wanted to do is to start to tackle the challenge of financial education.

You see, according to a 2015 survey by nationwide significantly more people know the meaning of LOL (79% of those surveyed) than APR (just 53%)…and I’m pretty sure that trend hasn’t changed in the last couple of years.

It also highlights the fact that people wouldn’t feel comfortable admitting they didn’t know what this meant with a over a third (37%) of individuals admitting to just ‘nodding along’ in a financial meeting with the majority ‘not wanting to look stupid’

Now you probably won’t be surprised by the fact that the greatest gap in knowledge is also most prevalent in young people…and the reality is clear…

Younger people very often have a massive gap in their financial education.

So, because I’m on a bit of a mission to ‘do more good’ I thought it’d be a good opportunity to think about how to do this…

That’s why, with the support of the London Institute of Banking and Finance…

Cervello is sponsoring 25 kids at Sanders School in Hornchurch with their financial education.

Now the syllabus is from the London Institute of Banking and Finance…but the school have asked me to go in and answer questions being asked by the kids we’re sponsoring through the program…

…and despite being lucky enough to have the chance to present to much larger rooms of adults…25 children in a classroom is making me slightly nervous!

Now I’ll be sure to give you an update once I’ve done it…but now I need to work out what I’m going to talk about…

Perhaps I’ll explain the difference between LOL and APR!