This is the Affluent Entrepreneur Show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, us scale your money and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom because
that's what it really means to be an athlete. Entrepreneur. Is your financial advisor not telling you the whole story? It's possible. We're going to talk about financial advisors, what you need to look for, how to work with them, how to get the best out of them so they guide you properly to your financial destiny. Because after all, that's what they're supposed to be doing. Your financial advisor may not be telling you the whole story. Here's what I mean, okay? Many financial advisors have
biases and you need to be aware of them. You need to be careful of them. Here's one of the beautiful things about what I do. I don't sell investments. I'm not an insurance salesman. I'm not an investment salesman. I don't have that bias. The only thing I'm trying to sell you on is the possibility of your dreams, the possibility of financial freedom in your lifetime and to walk you through the path, the principles, the priorities and the processes you need to make
that happen. Now, sometimes what I tell people goes against the grain of the financial services industry. And frankly, I don't care because my priority is you. My priority is making sure that you're safe, that you're moving in the right direction. Now, here's why I'm saying this, is that often financial advisors work for a company and they
have biases. They sell the investments that they've been told to sell or they sell the investments that they make commissions on or they sell the investments that are in a pool of all they have at their disposal. They don't look at the whole population of investments. The question we need to ask ourselves is not is it a good investment, but rather is this the best investment for you right now in this time based on your circumstances? That's the way all investing decisions should be made. That's
the way the financial planning decisions should be made. They should not be made with handcuffs on based upon some narrow scope of investments that they have in front of them that their corporate offices say, this is what you offer and this is a real hot button for me. I will go to bat for people when I see some of this stuff going on because
I hear things. I was with a broker, now this is many years ago and he put me into an investment that he said was in my best interest, that it was a good investment and it wasn't until years later that I found out that it wasn't a good investment. It wasn't a good investment for me either. Even if it was a good investment, it wasn't a good investment for me. And the reason I was put in that investment was because not only he, but his brother got
huge commissions off the investment. And I was stuck in the investment for six years before I had an opportunity to exit out of the investment. Now, why I tell you this is because they never disclosed to me the relationship or how they were getting paid. Now, I don't work with advisors any longer that will not be transparent about their fees. If they hesitate for a moment when I ask about how they get compensated, I'm out. And you should be too. I have no problem with someone getting
paid for work that they do. Just be real about it, be upfront about it. If it's buried in an investment, I want to know about it so I can make an informed decision. You can choose to do it or not do it, but it discloses not only their compensation, but it discloses the bias they may have to selling you that investment. And too often it's not disclosed. It becomes really important for us to look at it through those eyes. Not all investment advisors are created equal.
Some of them are simply glorified insurance salespeople. Some of them are investment salespeople. Some of them just simply get compensated. A commission for transacting with you. Here's what we need if you're going to have an advisor, and not everyone needs an advisor, not at the beginning, but at some point you'll want an advisor and a planner that understands your vision, that can create a plan to make your vision a reality. That's their
job. Their job isn't to sell you investments. Their job is to take the vision you have for your life, for your financial life, for your life in general, and make it a reality financially. And if they don't want to do that or they try to shrink your life down, they're probably not the advisor for you. See, my advisors and my advisory team, they get my vision. They understand the vision. Now, they'll pick it apart and see
where the sensitivity is. But by and large, they look at it and say, it's our job to make that happen, and we'll plan it and we'll make it happen. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to look at advisors. One, I'd prefer for you to be with a Fiduciary, because by license they're required to put your best interest above theirs. In other words, even if they lose money, they need to make a decision in your business. Now, ethically, everyone should
do that. Ethically, they should do that. It's just the right thing to do. But unfortunately, not everyone does the right thing. So there are three characteristics I look for in an advisor one. They have to get my vision. They have to get your vision. If they don't get your vision, if they want to sit back and say, hey, let me shrink the vision down, that's a little too much, okay? That's not their job. Yeah, they can pick it
apart. They can ask you questions. They can stress test it. But then their job is to sit back and say, how can we make this happen? So they have to buy into your vision so they can create a plan to make it as probable as possible. So that's the first aspect. If they don't buy your vision, they're out. The second thing that we need is that they need to have a heart of an educator. See, these advisors, they're not there to make choices for
you. They're there to give you information, to educate you and to put you in a place where you can make the right choice for you because you're fully informed about their fees, about the investment, about the risks, the pros and the cons. And you have the hands on the steering wheel. You are the captain of the ship. They're simply helping you navigate. So they need to be willing to dedicate as much time to you as possible to make sure that you
understand it. And if they don't, or if they choose not to, or if they don't have the patience for you, they're not the advisor for you. And then the last part of it is they need to have a soul of a servant. They serve your dream. They serve your legacy. They serve your family's dream. They need to have that in their soul. And if they don't, they're not the advisor for
you. And I know that this might rub some advisors wrong, but the fact of the matter is that unless they're transparent, unless they buy into your plan, unless they're there part of your team guiding you to where you want to go, then why have them? Why have them? So I hope that this is one of my pet peeves, and it's one of the reasons that I
created the Affluence Blueprint. It's one of the reasons I do what I do because what I want to do is make sure that you are equipped, that you are empowered, that you are educated at a level that you can ask these questions, that you can be in control. Now, I don't expect you to be at the level of a financial advisor and an investment analyst, but I'm trying to get you to a point where you understand it, where you can ask the questions and you can
be in control of your financial destiny. Because no one, no one is going to pay more attention to your financial destiny than you. And it's not going to matter to anyone else as much as it will you. And so that's the reason that I created. I looked at the principles. I looked at the processes and the priorities that I use to build my net worth. My money machine, as I call it, and my wealth. What I did for my clients. What I've done
for my clients. What I continue to do in my coaching groups. What I do what my son did at 32 and 30 years old. Him and his wife with three homes and a multimillion dollar net worth. It doesn't
matter the age or stage, but I want to give you the equipment. I want to give you the education, I want to give you the tools, the tactics and the strategies to make it happen so you aren't beholden to the financial services industry and that they become a tool for you to work through to make your dream happen and not a dependency that you feel that you have to be beholden to. So
that's the reason I do it. That's the reason I do the show. That's the reason I want to work with you, in a sense, to support you. It's why I put content like this out, to keep you safe, to keep you sane, to give you to have the conversations that others may not want to have with you, to be real with you, to just be frank, to be direct and make it happen. So listen,
stay with me on this journey. Stay with me on the show so I can be your guide, so I can be your voice of standing, so I can be your voice of possibility, to help you bring those things to fruition, to make them a reality. Thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel
Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to MelAbraham.com/group and I'll see you there.