My dream was a solid one and had there been financial advisors that worked with younger people, or more advisors that clearly worked with entrepreneurs, I might have been able to map out a plan to raise the capital and move forward. Today, there are plenty of advisors who work with younger generations, and plenty who work with entrepreneurs. Their experience could help your dream become reality, or at minimum, connect you to likeminded people.
Your dreams and goals can be an asset, whether you are 22 or 62. Having an objective person work with you to examine how you might achieve them, despite a current lack of material assets, can be one of the best investments you ever make. Your dream might be a lifestyle, an athletic goal, a business, a public service or political goal.
5. You Can Do It Yourself
Maybe, But...
There are self-directed investors that have done very well for themselves, and this is an undeniable fact. There is a vast amount of content available, and brokerage firms like Schwab, Fidelity and TD Ameritrade have so much content that you can make it a full-time job to read all their information to increase your expertise.
But, there is not one professional advisor who has mastery over every wealth topic.
The most telling story that illustrates this is when Paul Sullivan of the New York Times wrote of his meeting as a guest at the Tiger 21 club. The club is an exclusive group whose members gather regularly to discuss all things finance and wealth. Members must have $10 million in investable assets and the annual dues are $30,000. Paul wrote of his surprising experience, and in short, showed up with brokerage statements in hand expecting the group to highly criticize his investment portfolio. Instead the group of multi-millionaires pointed out he had no disability insurance, spent too much money on dog walkers and an underused vacation property, and other items that one would think are fairly pedestrian.
Paul’s experience points to the notion that everyone can benefit from a coach, even if you are capable at a task. Just because you can do something capably doesn’t mean that you won’t benefit from coaching. Name a professional and there is a coach behind that person making him or her better.
Finally, why take the risk that there is some very beneficial aspect of wealth that you either are not aware of or miss? I’ll give you another concrete example. I know of a retired, reserve military officer—a very accomplished professional in his area of expertise. He had worked in mostly large companies his entire life, but also a few small ones. Later in his life, he hired a financial advisor to do a comprehensive financial plan. He learned he could have been getting free health care from the military insurance provider, Tri-Care. He thought that as a reservist, he was not eligible, but he was. I don’t know how much money he and his wife could have saved themselves and his employers over the years, but the savings might have been as much as $12,000 per year for him and his family.
We can all do things ourselves theoretically, but is it indeed being penny-wise and pound foolish? I have another personal experience that illustrates this in another way. When I bought my first home, a small ranch house, I decided to have a second story added on and to convert it to a center-hall colonial. I wanted to save as much money as I could, so I designed the addition myself. My contractor, who had re-done my kitchen before, was going to do this major addition—but asked me to hire an architect.