I read an interesting article over the weekend about an American Basketball player who earned more than $110m over the course of his playing career but blew the lot and has since declared bankruptcy and now lives in a home with his five family members.
What I found interesting about this article is that he said he ignored the advice of numerous financial planners over the years.
After nearly 20 years in the advice industry, I’m still perplexed about why some people continue to ignore our advice. My role as an adviser is to help people make smart financial decisions. By implication, this means I try and stop people making silly financial decisions.
I can’t tell you the amount of times someone has contacted me to ask whether they should pursue a certain idea, only to have me point out some key flaws on their thought processes. Some then choose to pursue the idea anyway, only to see it fail. Others choose to take my advice and reconsider their options.
Remember when you sat down with your adviser for that initial meeting and you told them you wanted to be financially secure? That you wanted to be debt free? That you wanted to get your spending under control? That you wanted to live a comfortable retirement? We want to hold you accountable to all those goals you said you wanted to achieve. These are not our goals, but yours!
Don’t think of your adviser as the ‘big bad wolf’, rather, think of them as the little voice that sits on your shoulder checking in with you to ensure you continue to make smart decisions.
The key lessons learnt from this article:
- Diversification is key
- Listen to your adviser. They’ve seen many people in situations similar to yours and helped those navigate their way through
To view the article, click on this link. http://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/antoine-walker-nba-star-tells-how-he-blew-110-million/story-fno61i58-1227147354804
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