February 20, 2008

The other day, I was having a philosophical discussion with one of our Wealth Mentors about the role of advisors in the life of a client. "Around the traps", very often wisdom is brought up, or providing peace of mind, and of course, managing the performance of investments and overall financial stewardship.

None of these are incorrect and they are no doubt part of it. In recent times, I have pinpointed helping clients find "BALANCE" as being extremely important. That is balance between life and money. After all, life and financial decisions are completely integrated. Many financial decisions are a reflection of your life and behavior. Key to finding balance is helping the client objectively understand their inherent strengths and struggles based on who they uniquely are, and then their preferences. So, the balance will be different depending on our different behavioral styles.

Everyone has to be accountable, including the financial advisor. So if we take BALANCE as the platform, then how should the advisor be measured by the client. To a large degree, the advisor is responsible for communicating the right message - which comes down to understanding his or her own role. So perhaps the messaging needs to be more of the flavor: "If I help you discover what you want and help you get it - does it matter what financial return you get?" This is not saying financial return is unimportant, just not the only priority.

Further, as a life issue think about the fact that a lot of money does not necessarily provide freedom, and too little does not either. Depending on who you are there is a comfortable balance. The role of the advisor is to help you find yours and keep you on that path.