For our latest conversation, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Kane Hansen, the author of the upcoming book Find Your True North and founder of True North Lifestyle.
In our chat, Kane shares how his early experiences shaped his passion for financial education and his mission to make this knowledge accessible to everyone. He talks about overcoming labels, supporting at-risk youth, and the changes he’d like to see in financial education in schools. Kane also discusses writing his book and the memorable moments that have strengthened his commitment to giving back to the community.
Kane, your journey has been incredibly inspiring. Can you share more about how your early life experiences shaped your passion for financial education and helping others?
My earlier years were inspired by a single-parent household, seeing my mother struggle, and also seeing later in life looking back at how little we lived on and how much it took to provide still enough to live and have a good childhood, this lesson was one that shows me being able to spend less than we need to and not needing half the things we think we need in life. But also seeing other families that didn’t struggle and thinking what they knew that our family didn’t, I ended up realising something was missing.
Later in life discovering books on financial strategies, how to invest and self-development opened my eyes to a newfound thing, knowledge is key. This was something my family missed. We could live below our means, but had no capacity for anything left over to invest or grow for the future so lived week to week year-round.
The second thing was being around government housing commission living and seeing that so many people are born into a handicapped financial and social environment and being one amongst this world, learning that there were a lot of good people with great values and kind hearts but they just didn’t know how to find the right tools or strategies to change their mindset, circumstances, finances and start to change their lives to get out of the life.
Once I was established in my own success and achieved a life of change, this was the motive that led me later in life to start wanting to help others with the skills and knowledge I acquired and the struggles as well through my journey that helped me change my life mentally and financially forever. So, I decided to start giving back more.
What motivated you to turn your life around and pursue a career in financial planning, especially after facing so many hardships in your youth?
The inspiration of doing good. I think over time I was influenced and saw people from good families and good lives throughout my childhood. It always resonated with me, but I just never knew how to pursue that life and how to even start. But I think there was a point in my life when a few really bad events occurred that triggered me to think seriously about my future.
As the story goes in my book, when a kid I grew up with from government housing got himself in the underworld and made some enemies, he was shot. When things got real and things like this were happening to people around me, I knew that life was not for me. My Mum raised me to be a better person than this and I felt I was lucky to have such warning signs so I could change my life before going down the wrong path.
The decision to pursue finance as a career, I always liked maths and strategic thinking. It was something I was good at and enjoyed and when I realised the finance industry was all about rules, strategies, and loopholes and the way money markets worked like a big game of monopoly, I wanted to learn the rules and play the game.
Not like our family growing where we didn’t know the rules of the game this time by learning the rules; I wanted to play to win and provide a better life and future for myself and my family to follow.
True North Lifestyle and True North Academy are amazing initiatives. What drives your mission to make financial education accessible to everyone, regardless of their background?
The rules of the money game and to life are not taught at school or handed out at home, especially when most of us come from middle class or lower households. Our parents normally don’t know how to play the money game themselves.
Sometimes they know a little and as parents do they pass on what they know as best they can. But there is a massive gap and disconnect in the knowledge and information out there and the access to this has always been hard to obtain if you don’t have money or come from money.
I was one of the millions who came from a lower household family, and end up going down the wrong path around the wrong crowd and nearly throwing my life away, but I was able to find the way, I got access to the knowledge through books.
But this was not enough I struggled to find mentors and places to find unbiased information to get started and start to action a lot of the knowledge I got from books. And don’t get me wrong social media now offers all the get rich quick shiny objects you can imagine so this landscape has gotten a heck of a lot harder to know what is right and what is wrong.
This is where our book offers some great insights, but it is through online platforms where we use teaching style financial literacy to help people obtain the foundations knowledge and a broad unbiased introduction to the world of finances. And further to this our money coaching program also offers one of one and group coaching to help people with direction, mapping out a vision, SMART goals and working towards them with accountability and 80% or more of financial success is behaviour and less than 20% knowledge.
These tools are low cost such as a book purchase then from there an online teacher style video recorded course with a workbook and online community and continue through to the one on one or group coaching, this allows for a range of ways to help for different levels of needs and budgets, and this is why and how our multi-tiered services came about.
Our first business was a financial planning practice, but we mainly help the sophisticated and affluent people, the ones with money but most Australians need the help more but don’t have the money to get the right help.
You’ve mentioned the importance of overcoming labels like ‘problem child’. How did this experience influence your approach to mentoring and supporting at-risk youth today?
This one is simple, we can’t change what family we are born into, what country or town we come from, our background or how we start in life. The only thing I realised is it doesn’t matter too much about our past if we don’t F*%k up too much before we get to an age where we can change.
I believe up until 18-21 we are not as responsible and able to change our lives especially if you are born into an underprivileged family or upbringing. You can’t blame your family, your parents, the government/ system for your whole life as once you are an adult or just after, all your future decisions in life are based on your own judgement and intent.
You control your future and from that point forward you have the control and choice to change and make life what you want. However, many sit in the same circle and complain and choose not to change and blame their past. This gets you nowhere quickly and no one is coming to save you. The faster we realise we can create our future and make it what we want we take back control and accountability for our own actions.
I have a saying that goes like this; the reality we are living today is a direct outcome of the decisions we made in our past and the choices we made. If you aren’t happy with where you are today then it’s because you made the wrong decisions or choices that got you there.
How do you envision the future of financial education in schools, and what changes would you like to see to better prepare young people for financial independence?
The school system teaches an outdated curriculum, and they are trying to evolve but the world is moving fast especially when it comes to technology and the way the world is now connected. I hope the school system will find new ways to teach and educate the kids overtime that are more focused on bringing out their potential and more so telling the kids there is more to life than the school tests.
Life has plenty of tests, but they don’t have all the answers in one textbook. Further to this, teaching finances is a hard and very in-depth topic, but focuses on the use of credit cards, short term lending, credit scores and the tax system or retirement funds (superannuation).
These are all things that are compulsory in life if you get a job, like if you work you pay tax, and knowing that the government takes a portion of your earnings, the rates, and more so the ability to budget and reduce your tax would be some key topics to help with the day-to-day exposure to the money system that they will be a part of.
Writing your book, Find Your True North, must have been a reflective journey. What was the most challenging part of writing it, and what do you hope readers will take away from your story?
The hardest part was feeling and living through those events in my life. The struggle was real, and the internal emotional suffering was real. This is what inspires me to push forward and reliving the hard points in my life was hard, though during the process it was a surreal experience to think how far I have come as well. The time has gone fast, I am years down the track from when I was 21 years old, and I decided to leave Sydney and go out into the mines to recreate myself and a new life.
I dreamed of the life I am living now and never thought I could get there some days but hope this big dream and vision in my mind, and this has brought a lot of gratitude in my current life when life is still busy with a young family. It was a good reflective lesson and realisation. I think sometimes we don’t appreciate and celebrate the wins along the way and how far we have come on our journeys.
You’ve been involved in many community projects and mentoring programs. Can you share a particularly memorable moment or success story that has reaffirmed your commitment to giving back?
I was talking at a high school in regional Victoria to a group of kids 14-18 years old, I shared my story on my past and childhood through to change and my current life achievements. I opened up and I was vulnerable to the kids and after the talk I was able to talk and discuss questions with the kids that they had for me.
The teachers organised right after this talk for me to have a one-on-one encounter with a young male from this school who had a tough childhood and was getting into a lot of trouble at school and on the streets.
During the talk I shared my life with the kids, more emotional I felt and struggled with and the lack of understanding from those around me, I asked him questions on his life and what he was going through and in during our discussion he broke down, cried and opened right up, the teachers said this kid has never been vulnerable before and showed this side to him.
This kid was bottling up his emotions and just needed some help, guidance, or someone to understand him. This was life changing for me and can never forget the way I felt in this kid trusting me to share his life with me, the absolute honour I had in this moment would trump any success or achievement I had made.
