A sudden thought came into my mind…
You feel breathless all of a sudden & feel that your chest is so tight that it will bust anytime. You have a severe pain on the left chest. You took a blood pressure reading & it was lower than normal. Luckily, you managed to remain took a few deep breath and everything was back to normal. Your heart beat is normal & your breathless spell is gone.
What will you do? Will you seek a medical consultation with your family doctor or will you key in the symptoms on a On-line Health forum & get the prescription advice by the qualified doctors on-line?
Most would know that the above is highly a case of heart attack and if we were to google, there is a high chance we know what will the prescription would be. However, (correct me if I’m wrong) we will want a face-to-face medical consultation with a trained medical professional. This person is unlikely to suffer the same pain as you did and all he knew about heart attacks will be from the books he read, the exams he took & most importantly, the patients he had seen. Out of
In a similar situation, some people will rather enter the personal particulars, cash-on-hand, assets & liabilities, retirement needs etc into his computer & wait for a machine to tell him/her how much is needed for his insurance needs, medical needs or retirement needs. Isn’t it wiser to be like the heart attack patient? Isn’t it better to have a face-to-face discussion with your family personal financial advisor to do a proper diagnosis of your financial situation? You may be richer & more successful than the financial advisor and that is normal. So, the question is why would you need a financial advisor who may not be as rich or as successful as yourself? Isn’t it silly to get a ‘less successful’ person to teach you financial management?? If the financial advisor had not make his 1st $100,000, how can he advise you to invest with $100,ooo?
The answer lies in the books he read, the exams he took & most importantly, the clients he had seen.
Tiger Woods who is undisputedly one of the best golfers ever also need a coach. Is the coach a better golfer than Tiger Woods? If not, why is he coaching the best golfer in the world? The reason is he is there to correct his stroke n guide him to a better game. Likewise, your financial advisor is a financial coach to you. He may not earn as much income as you do, his bank account is lesser than yours and he is less successful than you are but he serves as a coach to view things from a third party. He can help to minimise any decision made with too much emotion. With that, please look for a financial advisor and not a financial sales representative.
My IFA@Sg 