Here’s a story for you. It is a little long but bear with me if you will.

Just before Christmas, I attended one of those typically boring professional awards nights which was held in the Brisbane Town Hall.  Very snazzy! If you have never been to one before; cocktails, beer and wine is served, these funny little bite-sized snacks with fancy names are circulated and everyone dons their finery for lots of polite chit chat. Not quite my scene. Nevertheless I reluctantly pulled on the old suit as I didn’t want to stand out too much.

Take a minute and picture it. The entrees were served, drinks were consumed, the mains came out and then the awards were ready to be …well….. awarded!I heard the three finalists announced for (I was a little prepared, as I’d been given the heads up that one of them was going to be little old me). When they read out each of my competitors submissions, I realised I had some really tough competition and it dawned on me how big this would be if we managed to pull it off.

Then it all changed and 7 words from the MC hit me with the force of a sledgehammer….. ”Come up on stage all three finalists”. What, huh, really, oh no! Slowly, I dragged myself up on stage, trying to smile and look relaxed, cool, calm and oh so in control. Who cares if there is a packed room fully of punters thinking “who is this Ben Law bloke?” Then the spotlights turned on and I felt like a rabbit on the side of the road at night with a semi-trailer bearing down.

How could four lights generate so much heat? Then a drumroll, a nervous shuffle of feet and the winner is ………..”Ben Law of Exceed Financial”. Bugger me!!!I thought to myself, “Ben, smile, shake his hand, get my winner’s certificate and get the hell off this stage”. Sounds like an easy plan doesn’t it, but no…. “Mr Law, can you please say a few words”…..and well I’ll save the rest for another blog. Now, getting serious, the “Value of Advice Award” basically recognises the significant contribution my advice has made to the financial well-being of my clients.

After almost 20 years in the profession, it was truly an honour to win. We work hard, pride ourselves on the quality of our service and advice, and this is just a rubber stamp, that we must be doing a bloody good job. Also, being compared with over 800 advisers in our network, it would appear to be a pretty big achievement for something I do every day.

Anyhow, just thought I’d share this with you as someone much smarter than me (my wife) keeps telling me, “stop keeping what you do in your day job a secret, Ben”.

Cheers,