Financial advice for women, not robots
If you’re not already aware, I enjoy working with and delivering financial advice for women.
And I hope you’ll agree that women are human beings.
Pardon the above statement of the obvious, but I feel I need to be clear on this point. You see, many financial professionals and financial journalists seem to think women, and all consumers, are – or should be – robots.
Well, OK, maybe not robots . . . but they talk and write and give advice like they think you should make financial decisions with only your rational mind and there’s no place for emotion when it comes to your money.
The market is falling, and you’re nervous?
Shame on you for being a little (or a lot) concerned. You should be a stoic, unemotional decision maker when it comes to your money. Or so you’re made to feel.
And if you introduce emotion – or any human nature, for that matter – into your financial decisions, you’re doomed to fail. Or so we’re told.
Now to be fair, I get where they’re coming from when they ask you to be less emotional. Investors, as a group, are terrible decision makers when it comes to their money.
You don’t have to look far to see evidence of our poor money and investing decisions. And more information isn’t the solution.
Although, as an aside, in my experience, women are typically better investors – or they have the capability to be – than men. More on this another time.
This is a behavioral problem that has persistently plagued investor for decades. And while the easy conclusion is that this “behavior gap” exists because we’re emotional decision makers, I would suggest another perspective.
Embracing Emotions In Financial Decision Making
What if, instead of avoiding emotions when it comes to our money, we embrace them?
What if, instead fighting our own human nature, we use emotions and feelings to make better decisions?
This is a fundamental part of Wealthcare For Women.
When we work together to create your Wealthcare plan, it’s not based solely on a cautious or practical view of your life and goals. Yes, we do consider what’s practical or “acceptable,” but an important part of Wealthcare For Women and what makes my approach different from traditional financial advice, is that we also want to explore and consider your aspirational or “ideal” goals.
In the absence of your personal ideal and acceptable goals, the only advice your advisor can give you is going to revolve around your investment portfolio. And their advice is usually something like, “remember, Sally, this is a long-term plan, and we need to be patient . . . ” or something like that.
What they’re really telling you is, “I don’t care if you’re scared or nervous or losing sleep at night, you’ve got to stick with this plan, because this is the only plan we have.”
3 Plans For The Price Of 1
But what if you had more choices? What if you understood your alternatives and the trade-offs among them? What if you had three financial plans instead of just one?
The women that hire me get all of the above and more. They have several choices at all times, and they revolve around things that you control. In addition, we update the 3 versions of your financial plan a minimum of every 90 days so we can accommodate new information as we get it and continue to stress test your plan against the uncertainty of the future.
And perhaps most importantly, you don’t just have a single “recommended” plan that we have to work with. You also have an “ideal” plan and an “acceptable” plan. And it’s this unique approach to financial planning for women that gives us the ability to embrace your feelings, your emotions, and your human nature to help us make the most of your life by making the best use of your money.
If you want to be treated like an unemotional robot, there are plenty of advisors that seem all-too-willing to treat you as such.
But if you’d rather be treated like and appreciated as a human being – emotions and all – then I invite you to learn more about Wealthcare For Women. It all starts with a conversation.