Money is an emotional subject. Regardless of how much money you have, you can’t do everything. That means everyone has to make choices and that can be hard. This becomes even harder if you’re making these decisions on your own.
That’s where a quality financial advisor can make all the difference. They can help you think through the choices you’re making today and how they will play out into the future. The advice helps you benchmark your decisions – it shows you the benefit of doing something today and empowers you to weigh up the consequences of making one choice over another.
Take the decision to buy a house, for example. Should you buy the dream house and spend the next 30 years paying it off, or should you target something more affordable. These are the type of choices that you make today that can make a huge difference to your future. They create habits that enable you to live the life that you choose. But these habits are more often than not the result of making a difficult choice.
It’s a fact of life that no one likes change. No one likes giving up something today for a benefit that seems a long way off. My role as an advisor isn’t to tell you what you can and can’t do. It’s to inspire you to want to make a change and show you how you’ll benefit from it. Once you’re ready to make that change, we can then help you implement and action it.
These conversations aren’t easy. But a quality relationship with a financial advisor is built on these conversations that no one else will have with you. These conversations will get a little uncomfortable sometimes. That’s because an advisor should help you deeply consider your decisions and challenge your personal biases.
So, if you see a financial advisor and the conversation isn’t uncomfortable at some point, then you’ve got to question the process. Money is always going to be emotional. If the advisor isn’t testing you about the choices you’re making, then you’ve got to question the role of that advisor in helping you achieve the best outcomes.
After all, the point of engaging an advisor is that you should end up on a better path. A great advisor will take you through a process and make sure you end up at a point where you’ve deeply considered the decisions you make today and understand the impact they will have on tomorrow.
Being a good financial advisor isn’t about choosing BHP or Rio. It’s about helping you confront the most important questions that will set you up for success. The more time we have to work with you and the better we understand your personal goals and aspirations, the better the outcome is for you. When I see someone who feels secure and has enough money to do the things that are important to them, that’s when I know I’ve done my job and that’s a beautiful thing.
Todd Clifford is General Manager Viridian Select
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