So far cases which I am very satisfied are those clients who take much afford to do their research and time to understand. They will tap my “brain” to accelerate their learning process so that their “research” can be shorten significantly as they would have avoided much unnecessarily information overload if they would to do it themselves. However, most of such clients usually do not know much financial matters when they first meet me. It is only after various rounds of discussion and consultations that they realized there are so much to learn. The good thing is that they will learn initially from me but later on learn independently on their own. They will eventually make very good decisions on their own subsequently whether it is related to insurance, investments, etc.

It is a fallacy to assume that to achieve financial independence one need to be a guru. There is no such thing. Many have achieved financial independence without becoming an “expert” in financial matters. For very hard to understand or time consuming matters, you can outsource to someone who is an expert in the area but the basis concepts must still be understood by yourself. Many people lacks basic foundation in financial planning and that’s why their fail miserably. Many have fallen into the trap of attending those “get-rich-scheme” and tempted by dangerous products that provide an additional but meaningless and miserably 1 or 2% in yield. The reason why ponzi schemes and other scams were so successful (for the scammers) is due the victims’ lack of basic knowledge & understanding in financial matters.

Although I am a financial adviser myself, I advice my clients never to outsource everything to a financial adviser. They must make their own decisions ultimately. They can selectively outsource certain things like having an initial financial planning report but they cannot outsource their entire brain to me or anyone because they must understand and query why the report is written in certain manner. Again, it does not take an expert to understand. For example, I expect clients to query me about time value for money as this has to be used for financial planning report. Not many will query me on what this is – maybe for fear of looking ignorant? Everybody is born ignorant. The most important thing is to ask if one is ignorant. 

Because financial education holds the key for a person to achieve financial independence, I’ll be place greater emphasis in this area moving ahead. I like to see myself as an educator for my clients. The saying goes that if you give someone a fish, he will be hungry again tomorrow. If you teach someone to fish, he will never be hungry. I will and has been publishing short but more in-depth articles on financial planning matters namely in cash flow, balance sheet, financial statement analysis (for companies investments), tax issues, estate planning issues, insurance and investments. Such articles are for all fee-paying clients only due to limited resources that I have. 

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