I grew up knowing that my family on my mother’s side had serious Scottish heritage (or at least took their Scottish heritage seriously). My grandfather wore a kilt for formal occasions, my aunt played the bagpipes, and my mom talked about us being “Scottish” all through my childhood, relishing anything that reminded her of our ancestry.

When I was 17, I inherited my late great-grandfather’s kilt. His family had emigrated from Scotland to Canada, and he ended up fighting in the Toronto Scottish regiment in World War II. I don’t know much else about him beyond what I’ve heard from my mother and her cousins, but I cherish that kilt.

Look, I get it. I’m not “Scottish” the way someone born and raised in Scotland is Scottish. But the idea of even a distant tie to a place I had only ever imagined carried a mysticism that roiled my imagination growing up.

John's grandfather and great grandfather standing outside in their kilts.

That takes us to 2024, when my wife Kelsea and I were planning our second trip to the United Kingdom. As we laid out the itinerary, we agreed Scotland would be a place worth seeing together, and we booked time in Edinburgh and the Borderlands.

The time we spent there was formative in ways I’m still unpacking. Just the other day, Kelsea and I were reminiscing about the harrowing late-night drive from the Edinburgh airport to our hotel. It should have taken an hour, but it ended up taking two thanks to a road closure our GPS simply couldn’t comprehend. We arrived close to 11 pm (after nearly 24 hours of travel) hungry, to a closed kitchen. But the hospitality shown to us the moment we walked in with the hotel staff going out of their way to meet our needs turned out to be emblematic of the welcome we felt during our entire time in that storied country.

The first full day, we drove the same winding and rolling roads that had stressed us out the night before, this time gleefully, on our way to explore Edinburgh. Our second day, however, was one of our favorites we’ve ever experienced on a trip. We paid a visit to a local, publicly open estate in hopes of seeing some highland coos. We found the cows, and we also found something we weren’t expecting: a warm welcome from one of the estate’s caretakers and her two children. We ended up spending a few hours there, talking with them about the cows, the estate, and their love of the land.

John standing in front of a field with a highland coo grazing.

On our final morning, everything was loaded into the car and we were ready to begin the drive back to Edinburgh to move on to the rest of our itinerary. Standing on the pebbled driveway in front of the manor-house-turned-hotel where we’d stayed, I felt bereft. We had plenty of trip left; we were flying from Edinburgh to London to enjoy the rest of our time in the UK. But it felt like the most important part was already over. Bagpipes played at a hotel event that morning, and combined with the fog settling over the grounds, something in me put down roots. I felt connected to that place like nowhere I’d ever been. But it was time to leave. Indeed, nothing gold can stay.

A few weeks later, back in our normal routines, someone asked how the trip had gone. I told them what I just told you: that I’d felt rooted there, that the land had meant more to me than it probably should have. They said something I’ll never forget. (I honestly can’t remember who this was. If you’re reading this, remind me so I can thank you properly.)

They said, “It’s almost like you were homesick for a place you had never been.”

It struck me the way a clapper strikes a bell. They were right.

Here’s where this connects to the firm.

As I was preparing to launch, I knew I wanted a name that nodded to my Scottish heritage and to the way that trip made me feel. Searching for Scots words tied to the idea of home led me to Hamewith, the Scots word for homeward.

It’s evocative of my time in Scotland. But more than that, it’s indicative of what I hope to help my clients find. Money often pulls us away from ourselves. We chase it as though it’s the source of happiness, when really it’s just a tool we trade for joy, whatever that looks like for you: travel, security, generosity, time, or something else entirely.

Homeward is the idea of returning to something we may never have consciously known in the first place: a place where we can put down the constant pursuit of more, and get comfortable with our own answer to the question of how much is enough.

A street in Edinburgh looking up at Edinburgh castle as the sun is setting.

That’s the work. Not helping you accumulate for its own sake, but helping you find your way back to what enough actually looks like. Then building a plan sturdy enough to let you live there. To live in the life from which you never feel you need a vacation.