“I’ve been so busy I haven’t been able to rebalance my clients’ accounts in 10 months.” Those were the words of an advisor managing hundreds of millions of dollars of people’s hard earned savings. Hundreds of millions of dollars that have been ignored for 10 months, and he’s getting paid a lot to ignore that money. And know what’s worse? He really doesn’t need to do anything. That’s how most of my industry operates. I call it “The $10,000 Conversation.” A typical advisory fee

Personal health is always a back burner item…even financial health How often do you bring up exercise with someone and they respond, “I need to get back to the gym.” And then they do nothing about it. Personal health is easily de-prioritized. And believe me, I get it. I have 5 kids at home all under the age of 7…and we homeschool….and I’m growing my practice at work…and I want to be a loving husband….and a present father…and…and… Life doesn’t slow down for any of us. If I don

You have money in the bank, and if invested properly, you know it can “work for you.” But investments aren’t your forte, so you hire an advisor - Maybe your college roommate is now a financial advisor, Or maybe your bank has an investing arm, Or maybe a close friend or family member recommends someone. They seem trustworthy, but how can you be sure their investment strategy really works? You don’t want to look up 15 years later only to learn you’ve earned a fraction of what y

I was at an event the other day sitting with a group that included both a portfolio manager (person who manages a mutual fund) and financial advisor (person like me) from a well known institution. To help others at the table understand each other’s jobs, the financial advisor innocently put it like this, “She makes the sausage, I sell the sausage.” “She makes the sausage, you sell the sausage?” Huh? Come again? What part of this is about helping people achieve goals they othe

Maybe you have someone who manages your investments, and maybe “make my money grow” is a sufficient goal right now, but maybe it isn't. What if you are selling yourself short? What if you should have very specific goals as they pertain to your finances? For me, both personally and professionally, the more specific my goals, the more likely I am to achieve them, and the more vague they are, the less likely I am to achieve them. If you have specific goals but no idea how to fin

I haven’t been in the industry a long time, and I don’t pretend to know everything, but I’ve been in it long enough to recognize there is a lot perceived expertise floating around Wall Street firms. And I’ve talked with veteran after veteran in the industry who echoes my sentiment. Firms set investment minimums to give the perception of exclusivity, but rarely do they deliver. I’m going to let you in on a little secret about assets under management (AUM) minimums: The investm

I created this site to answer this exact question: How do you find a financial advisor you can trust who is really good at what they do? First, come up with a list of potential advisors. 1a) You can run a quick Google search for “2017 best fee only financial advisor in the country,” or something like that. You’ll have to cut through the noise among the results, but it’s certainly an option. More and more advisors are going virtual, and if you’re someone who doesn’t need to si