Fat Fitness Trainers and Poor Financial Advisers

A friend tweeted something one day, and it was along the lines of him not understanding the concept of a fat fitness trainer and the idea of a poor financial adviser. It is seemingly logical and I suppose most people would agree quite readily, but I couldn’t help but cringe at the rather misguided view.

A fitness trainer must be fit himself in order to be able to help his trainees become fit, right? Therefore, shouldn’t a financial adviser be wealthy in order to help his clients become rich?

What does a financial adviser do?

This view is probably built on the false premise that financial advisers are supposed to make their clients rich, and in order to do that, financial advisers themselves must be able to know how to get rich. This is a mistaken impression of financial advisers.

The truth is ...