“Think of others first” has become a phrase unheard of these days. These days, many people have adopted the western’s idea of individualism. “I” and “me” first attitudes are prevalent among many people. Individualism is probably something that is inborn. When my children were very young, they could only think about themselves such as demanding attention for someone to play with them. Later on when they are older, they would mess up the house with their toys, not thinking that these toys on the floor were dangerous as someone could step on it and fall. My wife & I taught them to think of others by ensuring after playing the toys, they also pack up the toys.

These days, many youngsters grow up forgetting what their parents teach them about thinking for others. Perhaps due to work commitments, many of such parents did not have the time to teach them good values. So, kids grow up thinking about their own survival.

Writing tasteless and thoughtless remarks against someone who were attacked and burned are examples of those with strong sense of individualism. They only care about ensuring their personal (self) opinions are heard. They did not consider the feelings of others. If the writers and commentators were thinking of what other feels, they would know that such remarks are hurtful to the victim and family members. Have they paused to consider that the victim could also be their father, mother, sister, brother or even themselves? Think of others first seem to be a long lost forgotten virtues.

I believe individualism is an ideology that comes from the west. Let’s consider a recent example of individualism. In western country, companies engaged in irresponsible lending practice just to make their balance sheets and income statements looks nice. Bad lending practices such as lending to borrowers with no evidence of the ability to repay is a demonstration of how irresponsible these companies were. Financial innovation to offload balance sheet debt to special trust entities to be securitized into the capital markets were useful tools to help companies increase their cash flow but were abused all thanks to greed. The justification? If it can earn money, why not? The end result is that taxpayers have to bail out these companies. To add fuel to fire, CEOs and senior executives paid themselves with huge bonuses, jet planes and office renovation despite their companies requiring government rescue. Many Americans have lost their jobs. These CEOs and senior executives only thought of themselves. They had their good time, what is wrong with taking less money home when economy is bad? What is wrong with having an ordinary office? This is a demonstration of individualism – or the “me first” attitude.

Since this is a financial blog, I’ll say something that is more relevant to this field. Financial practitioners must adopt “other first” attitudes in the manner they conduct their business. How a number of practitioners conduct their business is a far cry from this ideal situation. Often, these practitioners would adopt a “me first” attitudes to the detriment of the clients. Recommending the highest commission paying product (and hence the highest cost) to the client when there exists a cheaper alternatively is a typical example of “me first” attitude. Churning just to get extra fees is another example. These advisers do not realize that not only do their clients suffer, but their fellow colleagues (who may have done a good job) are also affected due being associated with these black sheeps either being in the same firm or in the same industry. Take of look at the large scale mis-selling of the structured product linked to the Lehman Brothers.  Advisers who did not mis-sold were also affected by the poor reputation this fiasco brought to the industry.

Some practitioners feel that if they are “authorized” by a higher “power” to mis-sell, such a practice is all right since they are just doing their job. Apparently, I read in the media that some advisers gave their clients the wrong information because their company gave them the wrong information. I would say that this is just passing the blame to the “higher” authority. This is another reason why such advisers only think of themselves rather than others. These practitioners were not born yesterday and they knew certain institutions and employers’ business models involved hard selling and high sales quota. It is impossible to perform a professional advisory service for the clients under such harsh condition. A full fact find would probably take hours just to do it. Yet these advisers were under tremendous pressure to close a sale within 10 minutes of engagement. These advisers knew full well what they were up to when they joined such an industry. During the good times when economy was still good, there were plenty of jobs around. They did not need to choose this job then. They were not forced to join. They had plenty of time to do their research after they finished school. In other words, they only think of themselves finding a job but did not think their job entailed pushing the client to make decisions that could be detrimental. If they had the opportunity to do a professional advisory service, they would have practice prudent portfolio diversification. Structured notes such as the MiniBomb could be recommended but only a part of the portfolio. If the bomb exploded, the remaining portfolio remains intact. Clients losing 100% in such a note would not have happened.

Isn’t this the same as insurance? What is AAA rating? These days, nobody believe the rating agencies. These rating agencies cannot be trusted at all. End of the day, diversification is the only way to minimize losses. Advisers who continue to push their clients to buy certain product without considering the risks involved are just thinking of themselves. Imagine your client is your mother or father or your own wife and son and daughter, would you continue with such practice?