It’s September and November, and you are setting up a ring light to say, 'If I had bought a particular stock or fund, I would have been up or even beating the market by 100%. We were in the same January together; you never gave me data-backed reasons why I should invest in the instrument.'

The investment influencers and media give us simplistic free investment advice because that’s what sells best. It’s what people want regardless of whether or not it IS profitable. You just want to be told the stocks or instruments that will do 3x in the next 3 months, because you see investment as a get-rich-quick scheme.

Investment marketers and influencers are focused on their profit, not yours, the attention, and the engagement; it’s just business common sense.

We are now in a generation where people are giving more focus to their financial standing than ever before, and it is a good thing. Yeah, they are doing it for a good reason, because the cost of living is almost killing the living. What about the increase in job insecurity? People are leaning towards investing for the right reason. If ever there was a time for financial advice, this is it. But there is a big challenge, which is knowing where to turn for such advice. Who is credible & whom can you trust? Who is not dishing them out based on vibes & energy or "dopamine"?

The internet has decentralised information, which has made free advice very easy to find. A comedian once said that the world is suffering because everyone has access to an unlimited number of opinions. I couldn't agree less. Free advice is everywhere, but what about quality? Are you leaning toward social media as your only source of investment advice? You remind me of the saying by Thomas Jefferson—

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but the newspapers."

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. There’s a lot of questionable advice flowing through the internet space. Some of it is well-intentioned but misguided or non-specific, while others are scammers who are actually trying to take advantage of the unsuspecting public. As I often say, advice is general until it is contextualised.

So the internet will offer generalised or well-intentioned advice without proper context for how it's different for each individual.

You might encounter breezy narratives and vague rules of thumb like "buy gold, 'buy Oando over Aradel', or 'buy and hold'. These say they offer some sort of certainty, even though we are living in an uncertain world. Despite the intention, these simplified perspectives can prove dangerous to your financial health. You are more at risk following them blindly. Whether accurate, oversimplified, or too generic to contextualise to individual circumstances, this type of advice positions money management and investing as easy or a get-rich-quick scheme.

In reality, financial decision-making is complex. Your head must be resonating with how the advice once worked for you, right? There is always an occasional accurate forecast; yeah, a broken clock is correct twice a day, and you wouldn't be foolish enough to use it to tell time. Why treat investment advice differently?

Profitable investment advice is really not simple.

In reality, financial decision-making is complex. What you do (or don’t do) as it relates to your finances can hugely impact your present and future well-being. If you have a family or own a business, the complexity increases. Good wealth planning isn’t about churning out sound bites or video clips. It involves looking closely at your whole financial picture and how all the pieces connect, then developing coordinated, personalised strategies that fulfil your unique needs. It’s also about having a trusted coach by your side to help you get through the inevitable bad days when you’re liable to succumb to emotion and make poor decisions about your money.

That’s why so many people choose to work with an investment advisor. Advisors have the education, ongoing training, and real-world experience to address your current financial goals and prepare you for the unexpected, while also building your wealth for the future. Although their advice isn’t free, you will get your money’s worth.