In today’s complex world, most people who are building careers need professional help to organize their finances. The reason: Maneuvering the personal finance world is complex because there are myriad savings and investment options. Rather than risk making bad financial decisions, we can hire financial advisors who will fashion a financial strategy that meets the essential parameters of our lifestyles. The result: A strong personal balance sheet and peace of mind—an idyllic state that hardworking Americans deserve. Leading a stress-free life in a frenetic world moving at warp speed has ascended to a moral imperative.
Events of the recent past have proven that millions of Americans have paid a hefty price for shoddy financial guidance. When you consider the cost to low-income families with no life insurance, middle-income families who unwisely chase that heavily touted hot stock, and multimillionaires swindled by that so-called friend at their country club, the cost to society spirals into the trillions. The upsetting fact is that these often-crippling costs are avoidable.
When hardworking Americans are taken to the cleaners by glib, fast-talking con artists who pretend to be financial professionals, they’re understandably enraged. Once trusting and open-minded, they’re suspicious and wary of all financial professionals. At this point, reason goes out the window. There is great truth to the expression “once bitten, twice shy.” Consensus thinking goes like this: If one financial advisor is a crook, they must all be crooks. It’s illogical, flawed reasoning, but understandable.
A headline-grabbing example is Bernie Madoff, now serving 150 years in a federal prison for defrauding investors of sixty-four billion dollars in 2009. His victims numbered in the thousands. Many were left stripped of their equity earmarked for retirement. Some of Madoff’s victims were able to recoup part of their losses, but most had no choice but to face down an inescapable reality. Rather than enjoying their retirement years, many had to downsize and go back to work—not to the well-paid professions they once excelled at, but to low-paying jobs such as stocking supermarket shelves or selling consumer electronics in big-box chains. Meanwhile, Madoff, a bona fide sociopath without regret, sits in a prison cell enjoying three square meals a day. While he has had some skirmishes with hostile prisoners, the unfathomable reality is that he is a celebrity prisoner and treated as such by fellow prisoners and guards alike.
Unfortunately, naïve clients pay a hefty price for their bad decisions and, often, their sheer laziness. If they had invested time in carefully vetting the charlatan investment advisor, they wouldn’t have joined the growing army of victims bilked of their savings.
Pro Athletes Need Superstar Coaches, Writers Need Brilliant Editors...
College and pro athletes have coaches. Great coaches take promising athletes and turn them into extraordinary performers who can compete with the best. The same is true for writers. Practically everything we read, outside of self-published works, have editors perfecting the content. Why? Because even superstar writers like Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck had editors to challenge, push, and make their work better.
For important endeavors, having a leader, coach, guru, or whatever you want to call him or her, is vital in maximizing that activity. The average person, no matter how savvy, is not capable of acting completely as his own financial advisor without some kind of direction. Financial advice is not static and finite; in fact, it’s fluid, constantly changing with the times and erratic, unpredictable economies. Rules and regulations, governing taxes, estates, and investments, are frequently updated to reflect economic and political changes. Running parallel to these changes are changes in our lifestyles and careers. As we trek along life’s uncertain highway, we need financial advice that adapts to the changes taking place around us.
It’s the smart person in touch with and on top of a constantly changing world who realizes the need for expert advice from a trained and experienced financial advisor. As our situation changes, it’s often not one advisor who provides advice, but several, each one providing a service that’s right at certain moments in time. In short, Americans need and deserve financial advisors to help them maximize their finances, so they can fully enjoy the fruits of their hard work. To continue the metaphor above, pro golfer Tiger Woods is a good example of this. He outgrew his first coach (his father) and went on to hire professional coaches.
Dispassionate Third Party, Ideal For Smart Decisions
Imagine this scenario: How would we feel with no money worries? That means no money arguments with our spouses about buying that expensive sofa, or trying to explain to her or him that it wouldn’t be prudent to spend money to build a swimming pool. Or having to tell our kids that we can’t afford to pay for a private college because it’s too expensive, and that they have no choice but to apply for considerably less expensive state schools.
Or imagine bypassing soul-searching conversations with ourselves about why it’s fiscally imprudent to buy a new luxury car with all the bells and whistles—even though we want those sexy new wheels.