The Best doctors treat the future disease

The great Tang dynasty Chinese Medicine Practitioner Sun Simiao (孙思邈) once wrote:

上医医未病之病

中医医欲病之病

下医医已病之病

 Translated, it means:

The best doctors treat the disease that is yet to occur

The average doctors treat the disease that is about to occur

The mediocre doctors treat the disease that has already occurred

What does this mean for financial advisers who are analogous to financial doctors? In my view, the best advisers would help the ‘patient’ with holistic long-term planning and recommends solutions to avoid potential future problems. The adviser would also point out the potential issues that may come together with the solutions. The average advisers would recommend solutions that addresses nearer term problems. Some aspects of the overall financial heath may be neglected. The mediocre advisors would just product push without taking into account the true needs of the client.

Having said that, some factors do limit what financial advisers can do in the real world. Clients may not want to disclose financial information or take up the recommendations due to current lifestyle. Some advisers may have limited access to product classes or platforms (akin to limited drugs or surgical equipments for doctors). Others are under constant stress to hit sales targets.

Patients would certainly want the best doctors but they may not know who they really are. 1 of the ways to solve this problem is for the doctors themselves to upgrade to become the best.

So the challenge to the advisers is, do you want to be the best, average or mediocre?

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