We are more than the year-to-year changes in our net worth. We are what we do for charity. We are how we treat our family and friends. ... Losing and making money are not moral issues so long as you are being honest. You may have a lot less money as this year ends than you did two years ago. But you are just as good or bad a person as you were then. It is a myth that money determines who you are, and if you have gotten over that myth by now, then 2008 will have been a very good year."
Our job, as we see it, is to get them through this difficult time in the only way we know how-by comforting them, demonstrating we care and discussing the things in their lives that are most important to them. For most of our clients it is not how much money they have. Rather, it's their family, their faith and their values. The market hasn't changed those things. However, they may need reminding.
There is a Hindu proverb-"Help your brother's boat across, and your own will reach the shore." At no time in our firm's history has that been truer than now.
Roy Diliberto is chairman and founder of RTD Financial Advisors Inc. in Philadelphia.