For years, I had a financial advisor.
This fact surprises people.
After all, I spend much of my time talking about financial independence, low-cost index funds, and the dangers of blindly handing over responsibility for your money. So people naturally assume I must have always been anti-advisor.
The truth is more complicated.
When I was a practicing physician, I had a financial advisor for many years. At the time, it felt like the responsible thing to do. I was busy. I worked long hours. I had kids, patients, charts to finish, and a life that always felt one step away from chaos. Learning about investing seemed like one more impossible task piled onto an already impossible schedule.
So I outsourced it.
And for a while, I felt relieved. Someone else was steering the ship.
But over time, something started bothering me. My returns didn’t seem especially impressive. The fees felt large. More importantly, I realized I didn’t really understand what was happening with my own money. I was essentially paying someone else to keep me in the dark.
Eventually, I decided to learn investing myself.
That single decision changed my life.
Not because I suddenly became some market wizard. I didn’t. In fact, most successful investing is profoundly boring. But learning how money works gave me something much more valuable than higher returns.
It gave me agency.
That being said, I don’t think financial advisors are inherently bad.
In fact, I think there are several excellent reasons to hire one. I also think there is one terrible reason that keeps many people financially stuck.
Let’s start with the good reasons.
The first great reason to have a financial advisor is behavioral.
If you cannot stomach market volatility, you probably need help.
This is not an insult. Most human beings are not emotionally designed to watch their net worth drop 20%, 30%, or 40% without panicking. We like certainty. We crave control. And when the market falls apart, our brains begin screaming at us to do something.
Usually the wrong thing.
The basic principles of investing are relatively straightforward. You determine your risk tolerance. You create an asset allocation that fits your goals. Maybe that means a mix of equities, bonds, cash, and other investments. Then you stick with the plan.
The problem is that sticking with the plan becomes extraordinarily difficult when fear enters the room.
When markets crash, many investors suddenly abandon their carefully crafted strategy. They sell when prices are low because they become convinced the world is ending. Then, months or years later, after the market recovers, they finally feel safe enough to buy back in.
The exact opposite of what works.
A good financial advisor acts as an emotional circuit breaker during these moments. They stop you from making catastrophic decisions during temporary periods of panic.
Now, to be fair, not every advisor succeeds at this. Some advisors panic too. Some chase trends, overtrade, or make emotionally driven decisions themselves. But a truly competent advisor provides behavioral guardrails. They keep you focused on the long-term plan when your emotions are screaming short term.
That has immense value.
The second excellent reason to have a financial advisor comes later in life.
Accumulation is relatively simple.
You earn money. You spend less than you make. You invest the difference.
Decumulation is an entirely different beast.
The moment you stop earning a steady paycheck and begin living off your investments, everything becomes more complicated. Suddenly, every financial decision has downstream effects.
How much income should you take this year?
Should you pull from taxable accounts or retirement accounts first?
How do taxes factor into your withdrawals?
Will additional income impact healthcare subsidies?
What about IRMAA surcharges on Medicare premiums?
The farther you move into retirement, the more interconnected everything becomes.
And this is where a good advisor — especially one working alongside a knowledgeable accountant — can provide enormous value. Not because they possess secret investment knowledge, but because they help orchestrate a long-term withdrawal strategy that minimizes mistakes.
In many ways, decumulation is less about maximizing returns and more about reducing unforced errors.
But now we get to the bad reason to hire a financial advisor.
And unfortunately, this was my reason.
The terrible reason to hire an advisor is because you think you’re too busy or not smart enough to learn about money yourself.
This excuse is incredibly common among high earners.
Doctors say it.
Lawyers say it.
Executives say it.
They convince themselves that finance is impossibly complicated, so they hand over responsibility entirely to someone else.
I know because I did exactly that.
I told myself I was too busy practicing medicine to understand investing. I assumed the stock market was some mysterious machine accessible only to experts in expensive suits.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth.
Even if you hire a financial advisor, you still need to understand your money. You still need to know what you own. You still need to understand your long-term plan.
And you absolutely need enough financial literacy to evaluate whether your advisor is helping or hurting you.
Because if you know nothing about investing, you become completely dependent on another person’s competence and integrity.
That’s dangerous.
The reality is that basic investing knowledge is accessible to almost everyone. You do not need a finance degree. You do not need to spend 40 hours a week analyzing markets. Most people can learn the fundamentals in a surprisingly short amount of time.
The challenge isn’t intelligence.
The challenge is willingness.
Many of us would rather avoid money altogether because it creates anxiety. We’d rather outsource the discomfort than confront it directly. But avoiding responsibility doesn’t eliminate risk. It often increases it.
There’s also one final reason a financial advisor can be incredibly valuable.
Family.
If you are part of a couple, have children, or support people who depend on your financial assets, an advisor can serve as continuity when you are no longer around.
This becomes especially important when one spouse manages most of the finances while the other has little interest in investing. I’ve seen this scenario repeatedly.
One partner understands everything. The other partner wants nothing to do with money.
Then suddenly illness strikes. Or death. And the surviving family members are left overwhelmed, grieving, and financially vulnerable all at once.
In those moments, a trusted advisor can become more than a money manager. They become a guide. Someone who can help your loved ones navigate complexity during a deeply emotional time.
That matters.
So am I anti-financial advisor?
No.
I think almost everyone could benefit from professional guidance at certain moments in life. The key is understanding why you’re hiring one.
A financial advisor should help you build a long-term plan and maintain discipline through uncertainty. They should help simplify complexity during retirement and provide support for your family if something happens to you.
But they should never replace your own understanding.
No matter how much professional help you hire, your financial life still belongs to you.
And ultimately, understanding your money is not really about spreadsheets, tax strategies, or investment returns.
It’s about ownership.
Ownership over your future.
Ownership over your choices.
Ownership over the life you’re trying to build.
Did you catch this week’s episode of Earn & Invest (Click to listen)?
The Purpose Code is Now Available!
Another reason: cognitive decline as you age. You can make some big mistakes before it becomes obvious to those around you that your capacities are not what they were. Even if your family catches on and makes changes before damage is done, the situation is much easier if there are trusted legal and financial people in the picture who are already familiar with your situation and can carry on for your POA/trustee rather than having the job of managing your finances suddenly fall on a family member. Transitioning from DIY to supplementing with advice around retirement age can be a gift to your family as well as yourself. Also best done while you are still sharp enough to make a good choice of advisor and have some years of keeping an eye on their work, since susceptibility to scams also increases with age.
I’ve always been comfortable managing my own money. But I decided to get a financial advisor several years ago because I wanted someone with tools and experience to be an unbiased third-party to help me puzzle through various decisions. I go in every six months with a specific decision or two that I’m grappling with. It has been valuable.
One suggestion for anyone considering it: they’re not all the same, so choose carefully. They must be competent, of course, but they also need to share your values.