All of the Financial Education in the world, with no real increase in wealth to show for it…

How many financial ‘Professionals’ have you encountered in your life, on your television, radio, podcast, magazine, and newspaper, who promised to have the tools and knowledge that you need to become financially secure, say in the last 5 or 10 years?

How many have made the claim that if you just do a, b and c, they will help you reach your financial goals? Or achieve financial freedom? I’m willing to bet that you’ve come across enough to fill a football stadium because I know I have.

With the onslaught of information thrown at us by these financial ‘gurus’ every single day and on every possible platform, how is it possible that no matter what metric you use, both the Wealth and Income gap simply keep widening in this country, year after year, since like forever. [Hint: It may have something to do with the fact that you are classified consumers instead of citizens]

Better yet, how long before you yourself stop buying into the dream and recognize that no matter how much you save, how much of your wage you ‘invest’, how many degrees you earn, how many mortgages you’re approved for, the percentage of your income you put into your 401k, as long as you keep relying on these same ‘Professionals’ and following the same tired in unsuccessful formula, that widening wealth and income gap will only continue to widen?

Just consider this, in 1982 Forbes began tracking and publicizing the 400 wealthiest Americans every year for their magazine. Why you ask? Oh, I don’t know. I guess they figured that the bottom half of the country were indoctrinated, distracted and entertained enough to the point where we actually believed we could work hard enough to make that list in our lifetime, thus they never had to worry about us catching on to the ‘socialism for the wealthy | capitalism for the rest’ con game and showing up to their office buildings with pitchforks… but I digress. Anyway, It was deemed safe to publicize and show off the 400 winners of the capitalism game each year, and even they’ve had to deal with widening inequality over the last 35 years. Can you imagine the inequality ordinary Americans have experienced over the same time period?

[No need to imagine, google it and see]

Here is the bottom line, many of these ‘Professionals’ who are supposed to help us with our finances basically fall into 2 categories from what I can tell. They are either here to help make us ‘believe’ in this nightmare of a dream on behalf of the Investor class (in essence keep the pitchforks at bay), or they are trying to achieve a dream of their own by selling us a better one.

There may be a small number of Finance professionals out there, like myself, that are not motivated by profit and greed. I’ve never met or heard of one in real life, but I choose to believe that they are out there, even if there’s no evidence to support such a belief.

From my understanding and experience, Personal Finance is just that, PERSONAL. It is not a prescription that can be administered as a ‘one size fits all’. There are no 10 steps, or 9 books, or 8 changes, or 7 habits, or 6 this or 5 that, which you can adhere to for success. Sadly, Personal Finance professionals fail to acknowledge the fact that Personal Finance is just that, PERSONAL! It elicits a physical and emotional reaction from the client. It requires an understanding of your client from a psychological level.

Do you actually think that wealth managers and advisors advise all of their wealthy clients to do the same exact thing? No. You know that they don’t. With that said, why do think that someone trying to deliver a “one size fits all” pedagogy can possibly help you reach your goals? Why do you think that they want to?

The cookie cutter business model that they use can not, does not, and will never work for delivering high quality personal financial advice. Granted, people have to make a living. But if you’re expected to help financially support an individual whom you’ve entrusted with helping you build a better financial future, shouldn’t they at least be able to lead you in the right direction? I’m just saying…