LIFE AND MONEY REFLECTIONS Archives - Financial Planning in Surrey

What are the Twenty Lessons?

Dominic Thomas
April 2026 • 3 min read

What are the Twenty Lessons?

Most marketing people will advocate using a number as a way to increase engagement – seven ways to improve your marketing, five things you need to know about… and so on, as humans we seem to love a list, preferably a short one that’s a prime number. Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny has the subtitle “Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” which caught my eye as worth my attention.

There is no denying that we live in challenging times, where truth has become harder to reach and there are so many powerful vested interests determined to treat us like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed on…

Truth is a big deal in financial planning. It’s the partner of trust, without both – any advice provided needs some considerable investigation. My sector is not known for its transparency, trust or grasp of truth. We have powerful regulation which attempts to ensure that we are. Yet, over the last two decades in particular, I can attest to the fact that many of the advisers I meet are decent people, who are keen to share best practice, have a degree of vulnerability about their need to improve knowledge and admit that they don’t know everything. Most of those I meet, I believe to be trustworthy and genuinely want to help both advisers and clients to make money and investing better understood.

There is even a software package called “Truth” that aims to reveal the truth of your ambitions for your financial decisions.

Sadly, not all are truthful, many will claim to provide financial planning, but are really selling investments, building the engine before even knowing what is required. It’s not easy to tell from a website or indeed when you meet them. There are still a few who are only interested in extracting your wealth for their own benefit and they are occasionally caught.

Aside from the charlatans, who I can do little about, other than pay my regulatory fees which cover their failings and deal with the consequences of mistrust, my main concern is a lack of thinking. Not about products and tax legislation, or indeed sensible solutions, but the eagerness to embrace anything that appears to save time. It is easy not to think, to simply accept narratives of large, powerful players or persona’s and what they say from their platform.

It seems to me that good financial planning is all about helping uncover your values and helping you to achieve and maintain your lifestyle. The one you really want, not the one that vacuous individuals display for you to envy and strive for. All choices come with a consequence and there is a price for every decision – who you love, where you work, live, what you eat, how you exercise, what you read and so on. To pretend that political decisions have no bearing on these things is to fail to appreciate the fragility of the freedoms you currently enjoy, which are certainly under siege. The belief that taxes are always bad, that there are those who don’t deserve help, that we are all ‘self-made’ and need a heavy shot of ‘resilience’, is to miss the point and purpose of what it is to live as a human in a thriving, peaceful community, To be critical is not the same as to criticise.

We can all point to problems, but the real skill is to address root causes, invariably this is envy and greed. Something that is on constant display in our scrolling. Add in a dose of fear and mistrust, a sprinkling of inflammatory words and the rabbit hole opens up to swallow, perhaps consume.

In the context of a ‘good life’, we need a good society and a functioning democracy; something that it seems many advisers forget as they chastise yet another Chancellor whilst failing to pause to consider the source of their information. None of us get it right all the time, but an attitude of thoughtful reflection about vested interests is one that I encourage.

In this book, Snyder draws some uncomfortable lessons from history which have a very current application. He is under no illusions about the problems, but offers some thoughtful hope for facing what needs to be confronted. Snyder is a man who has committed his life to understanding the context of why we tend to war, how to spot the signs and what to do about it. Here are his twenty lessons.

References:

Order a copy, preferably not via Amazon: https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/on-tyranny-book-timothy-snyder-9780804190114

Timothy Snyder website: https://timothysnyder.org/

Yale History Department: https://history.yale.edu/people/timothy-snyder

FCA latest fines in 2026: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/2026-fines

The sort of bad advice before proper fee charging ushered in from 2013: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-1669499/The-true-cost-of-bad-financial-advice.html

What we do: https://www.solomonsifa.co.uk/what-we-do/

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What are the Twenty Lessons?Jemima Thomas2026-04-10T18:01:22+01:00

Can you solve a Rubik’s Cube?

Debbie Harris
April 2026 • 2 min read

Can you solve a Rubik’s Cube?

I spotted a video on social media recently posted by Guinness World Records where a group of people from Hong Kong were building the world’s largest Rubik’s Cube.

Fascinating though it was (I was riveted!), I did have to chuckle at the pointlessness of it – what on earth is the use of making a giant Rubik’s Cube that requires at least four people to move the pieces and solve it … surely the beauty of the ‘simple’ Rubik’s Cube is that you can hold it in your hand and complete it at your leisure.

[Side note – you may also have seen children as young as nine or ten attempting to break the ‘fastest solve’ world record too – they do it in less than 10 seconds! I am embarrassed to admit that I have never ONCE in my life even completed the Cube, so these folk – with their youthful dexterous digits – have my utmost respect!]

Anyway – back to my point about the seemingly pointless ‘scaling’ up of this particular project – it caused me to reflect on ‘growth’ in general.

As you know, Solomon’s has been ‘growing’ over recent years and we appreciate that some clients may be wondering whether our service standards will drop; whether we will become more automated; whether we’ll lose the personal touch (that we and you value greatly).

I would like to take this opportunity to reassure you that we have not ‘scaled at speed’ – our growth has been steady and organic; which has enabled us to maintain all the best bits of what we do here.

We can all probably attest to the fact that firms scaling up usually end up losing some things but gaining others and I am very proud of the fact that here at Solomon’s we are working really hard to ensure that our growth has been thoughtfully and carefully managed so that you (our clients) remain at the very heart of everything we do.

The proof in the pudding is ultimately whether or not you have noticed any changes for the worse – if you have, this would be incredibly useful feedback for us – so do please drop us a line.

We are continuing to grow – steadily and mindfully – as we are looking to serve clients for generations to come.

If you can think of anyone who might benefit from having a conversation with us about their financial planning – please do send them our way.

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Can you solve a Rubik’s Cube?Jemima Thomas2026-04-02T10:16:51+01:00

What is Trust?

Dominic Thomas
March 2026 • 3 min read

What is Trust?

At the heart of every good relationship is trust; when it is broken, the relationship will struggle. Sometimes it is possible to repair it, often it is not. A recent event I attended in London for financial planners offered up a talk by Rachel Botsman, author of What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption (2010) a provocative title if ever there was, and more recently Who Can You Trust (2017) and more recently still How to Trust and be Trusted (2025). I have not yet read her books. She is a celebrated podcaster, lecturer at Oxford University and with a Fine Arts Degree, an artist. Significantly she is a “global authority on trust” though quite what this is based on is unclear to me.

Anyway, she provided an interesting talk, some challenges and posed the argument that managing risk is not the same as managing trust and many financial advisers think they are doing one, whilst actually doing the other.

She described these issues as two lenses – risk being about certainty, control, compliance and protection, whilst the lens of trust being uncertainty, confidence, empowerment and possibility. She made some really insightful points about what advisers might do to help our clients reduce or understand risk, whilst also improving trust. In essence, this came down to capability (competence and reliability) fused with character (integrity and empathy).

There were some good lessons that I shall think on and attempt to shape for your benefit. As ever, I tend to be circumspect about what anyone on a stage or platform tells an audience. I was perplexed when she posed a couple of questions. Firstly, she put up three logos – Tesla, Meta and ChatGPT and asked the conference hall delegates to applaud for which they thought was the most trustworthy of the three.

Then she put the images of the CEOs of the same companies (Musk, Zuckerberg and Altman – three white men) and asked us to boo for the one we felt least trustworthy.

I can only speak for myself, but none of these men strike me as remotely trustworthy. They are all billionaires and have well documented histories of breaches of trust and legality, seemingly appearing to be above the law. It may not surprise you that I booed rather loudly for Elon Musk, when Botsman returned to ask people why they had made their selection. As you can imagine, I had a few very choice words to say on the topic. There were a few tuts from my 400 peers (quite a lot of them are Tesla ‘owners’) and she simply said “I was hoping not to get political”.

Whether you agree with my opinion of him or not, I don’t think I brought the politics into the room, it was already quite deliberately there. Maybe I misunderstood the assignment (it wouldn’t be the first time). Anyway, I could have said – well I don’t like him because he bought Twitter and made it a mouthpiece for extremism. That he won’t disable or remove the ability of his AI Grok to turn pictures of you and yours into pornography. I could mention his funding of far-right political parties around the world and here in the UK, or his many misogynistic statements, or replacement theory, his involvement with Trump and short-sighted arrogance with his childish ‘slash and burn’ DOGE antics. He appears to use his own children as human shields and manages to persuade women to have more with him, treating them like transactions. There are questions about his technological involvement in elections and despite his vast wealth, he uses it simply to fund excess and rocket tests rather than solving real problems here on earth. He complains about immigrants, despite being essentially a white South African that never opposed apartheid and is now in permanent exile. No I don’t like him and his interference, lies and utterly inappropriate commentary about “the state of Britain”. Yes I did see him do a Nazi salute and refuse to pretend it didn’t happen. It seems that the biggest ‘sin’ these days is naming things (like racism) as they are rather than actually being so.

So, ok – maybe I did bring the politics to the forefront, but I didn’t bring them into the presentation.

But this is about trust and integrity right? I think the ability to challenge narratives with the aim of shining a light on truth wherever it leads and however exposing it may be, are part of having integrity.

Rachel offers up a number of tests that we can try out exposing how our search for familiarity may offer up inaccurate trust signals, but that these are foundational in our early development. We look for familiarity in others to help us trust, backgrounds and appearance (even looking similar to ourselves) all play a part in this and form an unhelpful confirmation and desirability bias that facilitates trust, without any ‘real’ information. This also goes to the heart of AI and the trust being placed in systems that regurgitate familiar, not necessarily truthful answers.

Interesting though. I wonder what you think? I’m genuinely curious.

Anyway, I will be adding to Rachel’s coffers at some point to read her work in more detail, it’s certainly interesting and relevant for the moment and she is an engaging communicator.

Ref: https://www.rachelbotsman.com/

https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/about-us/people/rachel-botsman

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What is Trust?Jemima Thomas2026-03-06T11:09:26+00:00

How would you Cope?

Dominic Thomas
Feb 2026 • 3 min read

How would you Cope?

Amour

It’s the award season for films and one previous winner is the French film Amour (2012). It’s beautiful but a really tough watch about a topic that many of us will experience.

George (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) are a retired couple, they have been married for decades and are enjoying their retirement in Paris. Anne used to teach piano and has helped launch several professional careers.

Life changes dramatically for them when Anne has a stroke and the couple navigate all it entails. This is a brutally frank depiction of living with a degenerative condition. They experience a mixture of responses and support and have some firm views of their own.

The sudden upheaval shifts their focus from the finer things of life to the basic tasks of surviving as comfortably as possible. Fortunately they have ample financial and emotional resources to weather the initial challenges and are able to look back appreciatively on their long life together.

When we create your financial plan, we emphasise the importance of living on your own terms and having those experiences that you can whilst you are fit and healthy enough to do so. When we have a decent level of health we take these things for granted, often ignoring the warnings from health experts and our good fortune.

None of us know how long we will live, but it’s also the case that we don’t know how long we can live with good enough health. The ONS data for 2024 showed that in England 531,953 people died, the bulk of them (69%) were over 75 as you might expect, but 26% were 50-74 (yes, so 5% were under 50). The data doesn’t tell us how unwell they were or for how long; we do know most causes of death but not the duration of the decline. Strokes account for nearly 10% of deaths each year.

You may be reading this and thinking – come on Dominic, could you be a bit more cheery and less pessimistic. In truth, I doubt the data will really encourage anyone to make the most of this short time on earth, what may be encouraging is the confidence you can take from a well-crafted financial plan, based around your values and hopes about the future.

It’s the ‘living with regret’ that I think most people struggle with, realising a little too late that they had other choices. Your plan can be a bit like a sliding doors moment, a what if …

Let’s ensure that you live your life on your own terms as far as possible, and whilst we are at it, let’s tell everyone that this is the real purpose of a decent financial planner, not simply to find a better ISA or pension. Those are the tools not the purpose.

It makes a lot of sense to also talk through the difficult issues of personal crisis and life changing health issues.

The charity The Stroke Association report that on average around 400 people a day in the UK have a stroke. That’s about 1 every 3 minutes.

Here is the trailer for Amour which took best film in a foreign language at the Oscars and BAFTAs in 2013. This may be a good way to prompt some discussion about the subject and how we might think about it together in relation to your plan.

Click here to tell a friend about the power of a proper financial plan.

References:

How many deaths in the UK?

What is the data for Stroke in the UK?

What is Critical illness cover?

What is Estate Planning?

Who do Solomons help?

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How would you Cope?Jemima Thomas2026-03-24T16:25:22+00:00

Four Years for What?

Dominic Thomas
Feb 2026 • 2 min read

Four Years for What?

It has been four years since Putin sent the Russian army to invade Ukraine. The world paused and implemented sanctions, forcing up the price of gas, fertilizer and oil. Supply chains have struggled and added to inflationary pressures, the West has funded the Ukrainian resistance in the belief that this is a line which we cannot allow a despot to cross for fear of escalation, which threatens NATO nations and ultimately our own freedom.

Thousands have lost their lives, the Russian population which is typically around 146m has seen many of its younger population reluctantly conscripted into the fight. Ukraine with a population of something like 37m is far smaller but evidently very determined under the leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky since 2019. Most would be quick to point to his good leadership, Trump was quick to be Trump (see the video for yourself – linked at the bottom).

The war is dominated by the use of drones, which seems straight out of a sci-fi film. Money normally generated by Russia for energy has fallen by around 27% since the invasion, this revenue props up the Russian armed forces. Russian crude oil finds its way to Turkey, China and India often via tankers that aren’t insured (according to Reuters).

As of now, Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine and continues to bombard her cities. There are approaching 3.7million internally displaced Ukrainians with nearly 7million having left the country, and over 53,000 casualties. It is estimated that 12.7million need humanitarian help.

Sadly there does not seem to be any obvious end to the war, despite over 1.3m Russian casualties and perhaps as many as 325,000 killed. The largest number of deaths in European war since WW2. The Russian economy is barely moving with GDP of 0.6%, despite statements to the contrary, the Russian invasion isn’t going well, and certainly wasn’t the quick military exercise that Putin expected. Ukraine has lost around 140,000.

We cannot control despots but we can support a nation’s independence and stand against a despot. Indeed this has been in part reflected in our own energy prices. However, the price of freedom is invariably expensive and to date, none of us have paid with anything more than a higher utility bill, not our lives. What is disturbing is the sycophantic praise heaped on Putin by a particular politician in turquoise. A man who doesn’t seem to value or appreciate freedom, but admires a bully.

One of my favourite bands (U2) recently launched a new short album, “Days of Ash” as ever poignant and political (in the sense of standing up against injustice). Here is the track “Yours Eternally” from the EP with Ed Sheeran and Taras Topolia. Yes we all use the platforms we have.

References

Global Conflict Tracker: https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-ukraine

Drones dominate the war: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/drones-dominate-ukraine-battlefield-four-years-into-fighting-2026-02-24/

Centre for Strategic and International Studies – data: https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-grinding-war-ukraine

U2: Days of Ash: https://www.u2.com/news/title/u2–days-of-ash-new-ep-out-now

The suits in the White House “press conference” where you can witness the ineptitude of the current US administration https://youtu.be/z2s2pogllis?si=WRRzwAuo0GMt5M1W

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Four Years for What?Jemima Thomas2026-02-25T09:21:14+00:00

Are Giants Falling From The Sky Yet?

Dominic Thomas
Feb 2026 • 3 min read

Are Giants Falling From The Sky Yet?

We have all heard the warning “be careful what you wish for”. Stephen Sondheim reminds us, using the most basic of story forms that wishes have consequences, in his musical Into the Woods. Sondheim brings together several well-known fairytales, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella and Rapunzel into a funny and poignant musical yarn for adults.

The lasting lesson is that each of the characters want something more from life, something that they believe they lack, that this will make their lives complete. By the end of the first act they have all had their wishes granted and should thus be living happily ever after. However, this is the real world and everything has a consequence.

The paths we choose and the manner in which we attempt to attain our desires have an impact on others and ourselves. This is obviously not a new idea, though it would seem that the concept of actual accountability is something that many adults will do almost anything to avoid and ignore. Take the Epstein files and those in ‘elite’ powerful circles who are caught up in this vile network of villainy, including ‘our own’ royal family, politicians and businessmen. The similarities with fairytale characters is remarkable.

The arrogant entitlement of princes, the scheming consumption of the wolf, the wicked stepmother enslaving children, the witch locking away a child, the baker and his wife so desperate for their own happiness that they will do anything. The foolish Jack who will steal to impress, not simply survive and will sell his best friend for a few beans. The vacuous stepsisters who delight in despise and the steward “I don’t make policy, I just carry it out”. The young girls, becoming young women, who are prevented from exploring who they are and might be. Jack’s widowed mother, frustrated by her inept son and struggling to survive in a system that actually does not reward hard work.

Fairytales were always meant to be broad warnings about life, identifying common fears and making light of them. The journey to adulthood is far from an easy one, we all go into the woods and despite healthy feelings of anxiety tell ourselves that “the woods are just trees, the trees are just wood”. Denial, as any therapist will tell you, is an incredibly powerful force.

Still, we live at a time when liars are in power (or seek it) and will do whatever they can to protect their own interests and have little, if any, regard for yours and mine. Truth has become shaped by those who own the looking glass, poisoned apples are sold by the basket. Vanity, greed, envy and power have welcomed hatred and truth is the victim that lies centre stage whilst stepped over, around and ignored.

We all have an ability to resist reality, we are all capable of drawing from the deep well of denial, but a proper conversation about your values and hopes for life means confronting some truths, choices, paths and crossroads. Your financial plan might be a map in a deeply flawed Kingdom, but you still get to make the choices, select the path and decide what is important, necessary and actually fulfilling. Be wary of those playing the proverbial golden harp of things you wish to hear – comforting lies – and those offering a constant supply of golden eggs, the truth is that our choices have consequences, both personally, locally and internationally. A great financial plan isn’t wishful thinking, it’s grounded in your values and adapting to the unfolding reality. It is your story.

Over the coming months, hopefully (please) we will see some justice, but beware of giants falling from the sky – they leave an impression.

Some 40 years after its premier, Into The Woods directed by Jordan Fein is currently performed at The Bridge Theatre (near Tower Bridge) and is a marvellous production. Kate Fleetwood plays an impressive Witch with a real ensemble cast. Into the Woods runs until Saturday 30^th May 2026. The performance that I saw was fabulous, click this link for (tickets) and here is the official trailer.

Careful the things you say, children will listen. Careful the things you do,
Children will see and learn. Children may not obey, but children will listen. Children will look to you for which way to turn, to learn what to be. Careful before you say, “Listen to me.” Children will listen.

Stephen Sondheim, Into The Woods (1986)

#Release the Epstein files.

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Are Giants Falling From The Sky Yet?Jemima Thomas2026-02-19T13:18:57+00:00

Is Love Ever in the Air?

Dominic Thomas
Feb 2026 • 2 min read

Love is in the air

As you will gather from your inbox, television and general trips to the high street, Valentine’s Day is upon us. I imagine that we all have different responses to this, I have a great deal of sympathy with those who think it’s commercialising love and actually making many people feel entirely left out.

I should probably admit my own biases. I started dating my now wife on Valentine’s Day many years ago (we were at school) and I took her to Paris to propose to her on a Valentine’s Day a few years later. So I’m a sucker for ‘romanticism’! I was a lot younger then and far less experienced (weathered by life). We still celebrate and mark the occasion, but I certainly see the problematic side of commoditising ‘love’.

For me, Valentine’s Day is an anniversary, a reminder of the past and a happy form of accounting. Whilst I am not a fan of nostalgia, I do think it can be helpful to look back and see how far you have come. One of the greater challenges in financial planning is that we are often pointing to the future, the illusive horizon of opportunity, yet it is really important to pause to consider just how much has improved.

Most of you will now have an incredibly low-cost investment portfolio, genuinely designed and shaped around your plans for the future. You can check in to monitor its progress at any time (not a great idea, but you can). It is optimised for tax planning and incredibly well organised. Many will have a far better sense of structure and order having got rid of the deadwood or expensive legacy ‘stuff’ that you once had. You’ve had a proper clean out, a new broom though your finances. It’s a far cry from a collection of dog-eared papers stuffed into files or retained for posterity in their envelopes with nothing seemingly joining up and feeling very random.

Your financial planning now, hopefully feels that it fits you like a good outfit, bespoke to your circumstances and needs. I appreciate that you may not completely remember why an ISA is so good, or what pension rules you are adhering to, the tax and charges saved that you didn’t pay, but you presumably (yes?) trust us to have this under control (and certainly under our responsibility).

It may be a stretch, but might I suggest that your financial planning now holds the imprint of love – your passions, people and dreams. You are living and giving. It’s not simply about you, it’s about you and. Yes that is a deliberate statement, not an unfinished sentence.

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep; the more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite.”

Act 2, Scene 2 Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare.

So as we face a world that often seems in desperate need of love; I encourage you to pause to remember how far you have already travelled; you are and have been, taking action to make the world a better place.

Much love.

Oh and here is a lovely scene from Romeo and Juliet (1996) directed 30 years ago by Baz Luhrmann with a few very familiar but much younger fresher faces.

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Is Love Ever in the Air?Jemima Thomas2026-02-25T09:38:23+00:00

Has a line been crossed?

Dominic Thomas
Feb 2023 • 2 min read

Has a line been crossed?

It was over a decade ago that I was at the BFI London film festival and saw a preview of Desierto (2015) by Jonas Cuaron. It was a truly horrifying film about the Mexican border with the US and how various extremely brutal nationalists ‘protect’ their border. At the time, I took this to be a grim story that thankfully was a stretch of the imagination.

A year later Trump was going around the United States calling for a wall to be built and paid for by Mexico. Once elected he began arranging contracts for its construction. It is not a continuous wall and even “Sleepy Joe” Biden agreed to fill in some gaps. Trump, in his second term has issued new contracts for further work.

The sentiment of the film is a hatred and dehumanisation of Mexicans or frankly anyone in opposition. As we have all seen, the brutalism by ICE murdering US citizens and lynching anyone in the wrong place, there is a palpable sense that the film was, if anything ‘mild’. I often hear people say “oh that would never happen here” but then, to be blunt, they didn’t really expect it to happen in the US. Yet here we are.

Investment doesn’t really have borders. Your portfolio is global and holds shares and bonds from companies located all over the world. The investment world is generally carved up into national or regional markets and the North American market (including Canada) is roughly 65% of the entire world market. Whatever you and I may think of it, remember that the companies that build walls, buildings or anything else when contracted to by a Government are invariably enormous and listed on the market. That includes concrete suppliers, bulldozers and so on – so generally Government spending on private company contracts is probably good for your portfolio. This assumes that things go well (we can all recall the PPE Pandemic providers when it seemed you could be a minnow and grab a piece of the £48.1bn of contracts awarded to known political connections, of which around £14.9bn was written off by the Department of Health). The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is determined to get back some of this money, which of course may win her some praise at last.

Reference: HOC statement: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-12-09/hcws1144

Trump signs contract to build the wall (25 January 2017) – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/25/donald-trump-sign-mexico-border-executive-order

Here is the trailer for Desierto (2015) … warning, even the trailer is brutal:

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Has a line been crossed?Jemima Thomas2026-02-16T11:10:12+00:00

Will We Remember Not to Forget?

Dominic Thomas
Jan 2026 • 1 min read

Will We Remember Not to Forget?

There is so much intentional division at the moment, all of it is deliberate policy from extreme right politicians. There seems to be no depths to which the American President will not sink and just as you think his administration cannot get any worse, they defy reason again. The evident truth is then gaslit, denied or simply reinvented to suit his twisted narratives.

The right wing is “rising” here in the UK, or at least that is what the BBC Board (Robbie Gibb, who ought to be removed) and directed News programmes would have us believe; with further platforming of failed and corrupt former Tories jumping right. These same people who all push nationalist lines and wax lyrical about our Armed services, don poppies each November, yet seem irredeemably unable to learn from the past.

Over the Christmas break I read In Search of Meaning by Viktor Frankl who survived the holocaust concentration camps. He eventually became a therapist and died in 1997, nearly three decades ago – I wonder what he would make of things now. Today, 27^th January 2026, is International Holocaust Day and we are encouraged to light a candle to ensure that this sort of monstrous inhumanity never happens again. Over six million people were murdered by the Nazis.

I cannot really fathom what it would have been like to have been in a concentration camp. I can only admire Frankl’s ability to survive. He wrote “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances”.

We can choose our attitude towards those who are determined to discriminate and perpetuate hatred, but I think it requires more than an attitude. Waiting for things to improve doesn’t inspire confidence in me and as far as I can tell, doesn’t prevent evil from thriving.

So whilst we may endure market swings and I will encourage you to be patient, waiting for the inevitable recovery, I do think that this is an active state, not a passive one. There is certainly a lot going on behind the scenes here at Solomon’s, despite activity on your portfolio seemingly appearing to be “not a lot”. Similarly, we cannot simply wait and hope that history does not repeat itself, we all have to ensure that it doesn’t, which I think means being actively engaged in defeating racism. As Frankl said:

“In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible”

Here is a trailer to a documentary Vickor and I (2010) by Alexander Vesely.

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Will We Remember Not to Forget?Jemima Thomas2026-03-16T09:09:36+00:00

Do you feel invisible?

Dominic Thomas
Jan 2026 • 3 min read

Do you feel invisible?

One of the statements I hear increasingly, perhaps I am more aware of it myself, is that with age, there is a growing sense of feeling invisible. Lately a number of thrillers or crime stories have played with the idea of being invisible in plain sight.

I was struck by this and had the sense rather amplified by an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art by Kerry James Marshall. His work depicts his background (a black man born in 1955 Alabama and living in the United States) and confronts this stark reality. An entire room is entitled Invisible Man based around the 1952 book by Ralph Ellison which I bought last year and still haven’t got around to reading. His study is fascinating and deeply unsettling at the same time.

His work confronts injustice, inequality and his African roots all whilst deeply engaged in various foundational aspects of art history and process; incorporating contemporary, even very temporary, aspects of pop culture. A striking piece is his 2003 Black Painting which is totally in black (a comedy sketch from The Fast Show immediately comes to mind as I write) but this is the polar opposite – a couple lying on a bed, the room gradually coming to life as you notice different items and symbols such as the Black Panther flag. It’s very potent indeed and may be an imagined depiction of Fred Hampton moments before he was murdered by Chicago Police in 1969.

What on earth has art got to do with financial planning? Nothing and everything. Art is story and an insight into how the world is seen through the eyes of an artist, yet of course we are largely surmising and viewing through our own lens. When we are building your financial plan, and you are asked about what you may wish to do in the future, it’s common to think that you are expected to offer up some ideas of the places you would like to visit, the beaches you wish to experience, on your yacht whilst popping off for a hot air balloon ride, the golf club membership and advanced skills that you can acquire. There is nothing wrong with any of these things of course, but they are invariably dreamt up by the Don Drapers (Mad Men) of this world and not necessarily what you really wish to do. The truth is that our unique sense of who we are can become invisible even to ourselves as we become so accustomed to social expectations of what we should want from life. I also tend to believe that “if you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice”. The question I ask you may even be unfair in the sense that it is so rarely asked at a deep level, and to provide an answer immediately is far from straightforward.

Most of us will struggle to explore much of our personality beyond the boundaries of our upbringing, which is perhaps why there is currently a palpable sense of rose-tinted nostalgia of a time “when things were better”, for which most of us really mean – less different or less challenging to an inability to address the life force of life – growth. It is evident that the struggle for equality is ongoing, the word itself seems to be a nuclear trigger to right wingers.

To honour who you really are and to embed your values deeply into your financial plan, to my developing mind, seems to require a sense of where you wish to arrive (if indeed that is possible) but certainly what impact, memory, impression or legacy you wish to leave with those who care about you and hopefully ‘know’ you.

I suspect that a common problem is the notion of being ‘ordinary’, but I believe that ordinary is surely what we wish to be, an acceptance of who we are yet a willingness to learn, change and improve what we can. The inability of world leaders to own the reality of their ordinariness is the fuel for their narcissism and inability to actually serve. However there is the other sense of ordinary, being ordinary but uniquely appreciated.

Anyway, you are appreciated and certainly not invisible to our small team at Solomon’s. We recognise and value your story and seek to help you to allow it to unfold. Whether you realise it or not, you have already made an impression on us. I certainly hope that you do not feel invisible when dealing with any member of the team.

Remember, the goal isn’t more money, the goal is living life on your terms.

The Kerry James Marshall: The Histories exhibition runs at the RA until 18^th January 2026. Here is a link to a video of Marshall talking about nine shades of black. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/video-kerry-james-marshall-black-paint

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Do you feel invisible?Jemima Thomas2026-01-26T11:51:55+00:00

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