Someone once told me:
“I went to see my financial guy about retiring and all we talked about was my mutual fund’s performance! I know that’s important, but don’t I also need to be talking to an attorney about revising my will? And what about long-term care?”
Not to wax nostalgic, but things used to be simpler.
Think back to the Old West. If you got shot, kicked in the chest by a bull, or served a bowl of bad beans, there was only one thing to do: go see Doc. Doc was the only health care provider in town. He could deliver your newborn (right there at your homestead), remove a bullet (after giving you a slug of whiskey and another bullet to bite down on), and set broken bones. (Oh, and did I mention life expectancy was about 40 years?)
Sometimes Doc also doubled as the town mortician. Talk about a conflict of interest!
Fast forward to today. We have doctors of every imaginable specialty and sub-specialty. You don’t take your kid with severe breathing issues to the nurse practitioner at the Speedy Clinic up the street. You get an appointment with a pediatric pulmonologist!
My point? Try to find “Doc” today, and you’ll be looking for a while. We live in the brave new world of specialists.
The downside of this trend? Psychologist Abraham Maslow said it best, “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Not to pick on surgeons, but their tendency is always to want to “go in and look around.”
And it’s not just medicine. The financial services industry has become highly specialized too. That guy does insurance. This institution does banking. She handles investments. Others focus on employee benefits, accounting, legal, real estate, or commodities.
Recalling Maslow, if you are an investment specialist, you naturally see everyone as needing…(surprise!) more investments.
It’s not that one specialty is more important than another. It’s that you need a comprehensive approach.
So where do you go to find such help? That’s the role of a financial planner. He or she is the financial generalist in a world of financial specialization.
While anyone can call themselves a “financial advisor,” I would suggest you look for a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional. Or opt for a CPA who has specialized as a Personal Financial Specialist (PFS™).
A financial generalist like this is trained to analyze your situation and offer a comprehensive overview of your current financial health. This kind of balanced diagnosis is critical—what are your unique problems and opportunities? Are your goals realistic? How can you best achieve them? What are you forgetting—or not seeing?
From there you and your planner can create a holistic action plan for increasing your wealth, decreasing your financial risks, and increasing your protection.
Specialists are great. God bless ‘em! There’s definitely a place for them. But start with a generalist.
Or you might get treated like a nail.
As a CFP® professional, I help clients with retirement preparation and planning. Our team helps people grow their wealth. Then we help them turn those retirement assets into a stream of regular retirement income.
If you haven’t done that kind of retirement planning, I want to offer you a free resource. It’s called the RISA (which stands for Retirement Income Strategy Assessment). It’s a smart first step for helping determine the kind of income plan that best aligns with your personality and lifestyle. The quiz takes less than ten minutes. There’s no obligation, and you can access it by emailing me (bmoore@argentadvisors.com).
Argent Advisors, Inc. is an SEC-registered investment adviser. A copy of our current written disclosure statement discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request. Please See Important Disclosure Information here.
