Who am I? (Clue, I'm not Jean Valjean)

I was talking recently to an extremely astute writer connection, who said she enjoyed my LinkedIn but that it sometimes felt she was coming in half way through a movie! What a great way of putting it, and of course she's right.

I've got lots of new connections over the last year but I've been posting as if I was still just talking to my original connections. So, here's the first in a series of posts for those new to the party, explaining who I am and what I do! Think of me less as movie and more as a box set... this is your 'previously on Jon Dunckley...' trailer at the start of the new episode!

You know my name, so we'll skip that one. I'm 49, married, three kids, two dogs, proudly autistic. I run the About Consulting Group - a multidisciplinary training, coaching, and consulting group - with my wife Madeline Dunckley as a matter of fact.

I started out wanting to be a clinical psychologist. I read psychology at undergraduate level then, like so many people, needed money more than I needed a PhD, so I ended up in financial services. Originally as a financial adviser, I went on to become head of technical departments in three different insurance / banking organisations before going it alone in 2011.

There's no denying I'm a financial services geek - I'm a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society, Chartered Insurance Institute, Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments, and London Institute of Banking and Finance. I'm a Certified and Chartered Financial Planner and I have a master's degree in Financial Planning, so I'm well equipped to run that side of the business, and that's what you'd have seen most on here.

But that's only half of me! I never stopped studying psychology. I love it. It's been my lifelong interest and it remains so to this day. Alongside my financial services work, I've kept doing coaching and personal development work. Today I'm a Fellow of the Association for Coaching and the Institute of Leadership to back up my financial post-nominals! I'm working on a second master's too, this time in psychology. Oh, and I recently published a book about mindset and personal growth. You can expect to see more from me on these topics, especially in relation to my work with financial advisers and other professionals developing a resilient peak performance mindset.

Outside work I'm a triathlete of sorts. I do Ironman triathlons, despite the advancing years.

And there you have it, me in a nutshell. I'll be following up in coming weeks with some more detail on what we do and particular parts of my journey.