Often, financial advisers often manage their own money differently from the clients they advise. After more than two decades working with both advisers and investors, I thought it was worth sharing some of the patterns I have observed.
Before doing so, I want to be clear about my intention. This is not intended to be a prescription. Financial advisers have advantages that most investors do not. They have formal training, years of practical experience and, perhaps most importantly, daily exposure to what works and what does not across a broad range of client situations.
That last point is often underestimated. In any given week, an experienced adviser will observe the financial decisions of dozens of people. They see mistakes in real time. They see the consequences. Over time, consciously or not, they absorb those patterns and apply the lessons to their own behaviour.
Most investors, by contrast, move through their financial lives with a sample size of one.
That context matters. These observations are not offered as a template that everyone should follow. They are shared because the way financially educated professionals manage their own money provides, I think, a useful and honest lens through which to examine good financial decision-making.
In some cases, there is also a noticeable gap between what advisers recommend to clients and what they do themselves. That gap is worth examining.
Here are nine observations.
1. They treat super as a decades-long growth portfolio
Most financial advisers hold their own superannuation entirely in equities and other growth assets. Very few hold bonds.
That is interesting because it often sits at odds with the advice many advisers provide professionally. For clients, asset allocation is typically calibrated by reference to their age, risk profile and tolerance for volatility. That model almost always includes some allocation to fixed interest.
This is one area where the profession has not sufficiently challenged its own conventions.
The standard approach uses age and risk tolerance as proxies for time horizon. Bonds are then introduced to dampen volatility. But for most working Australians still in accumulation mode, superannuation has an extremely long investment time horizon. In that context, short-term volatility inside super is largely irrelevant because the funds cannot be accessed anyway.
Advisers seem to understand this intuitively when managing their own super. Many are comfortable taking a more growth-orientated approach because they know the money will remain invested for decades. Yet that same conviction does not always flow through to the advice they provide to clients.
2. They see volatility as opportunity, not danger
Financial advisers are genuinely indifferent to short-term market volatility.
They do not merely tolerate volatility. Most actively welcome it. A falling market is not a reason to pull back. It is an opportunity to invest more at lower prices.
This is not bravado. It reflects a genuine and deeply held belief that short-term price movements have little bearing on long-term investment outcomes.
The psychological relationship that most advisers have with market risk is fundamentally different from that of the typical retail investor. That difference matters enormously over time. It affects how they behave during market downturns, how consistently they invest, and ultimately, the outcomes they achieve.
3. They use debt deliberately, not aggressively
Most retail investors seem to fall into one of two camps. The first group is deeply averse to debt and focuses almost entirely on repaying it, sometimes at the expense of building an investment portfolio. The second group uses debt too aggressively, often without properly accounting for the downside.
Neither position is particularly sophisticated.
Financial advisers tend to occupy a third position. They use debt purposefully, but with discipline. They are comfortable with a measured level of leverage because they understand the long-term return it can generate. But they also respect the risk it introduces, so they are careful not to overextend.
The key observation is that very few advisers are entirely debt-free by choice, and very few carry reckless levels of leverage. Most operate in the considered middle ground between those two extremes.
4. They invest regularly instead of waiting to feel certain
Whether through additional superannuation contributions, regular investments from surplus cash flow, or debt recycling strategies, most financial advisers invest consistently and systematically.
They do not wait for optimal market conditions. They do not pause until they feel more certain. They act.
In my view, this is one of the most important behavioural differences between advisers and the general investing public. Most people vastly overestimate how much of their long-term wealth outcome is determined when they invest. There’s almost always an attractive investment opportunity available in markets and targeting those opportunities on a regular basis is the key to success.
The compounding effect of regular investing, uninterrupted by emotion or market timing, is extremely powerful. But it is also difficult to fully appreciate in the moment, because the benefits accumulate slowly at first and then meaningfully over time.
5. They invest first, then spend what remains
Most financial advisers approach spending with a clear structural discipline: invest first, then spend what remains. This is the opposite of how many Australians manage their money. For most households, spending comes first, and investing receives whatever is left over, if anything.
What I find genuinely surprising is how many Australians have no clear understanding of where their money actually goes. Not a rough idea. No idea.
That is a problem that must be solved before any investment conversation can be meaningful. No investment strategy can function properly unless there is sufficient cash flow to support it.
Advisers understand this. Their own household finances tend to reflect a simple but powerful discipline: they make investing the priority, not the residual outcome.
6. They know whether their strategy is actually working
Most financial advisers calculate their net worth regularly and maintain a financial model that tells them whether they are on track. This is not obsessive monitoring. It is structured accountability.
They know where they stand and, broadly, where they are heading. That clarity simplifies decision-making considerably. The numbers either confirm the strategy or prompt a well-considered adjustment. Either way, the conversation is grounded in evidence rather than intuition.
To be clear, this is not just about maintaining an up-to-date statement of assets and liabilities. The real value comes from being interested in what that statement reveals. Are you making progress? Is your wealth growing at the rate it needs to? Is your strategy working? Are any adjustments required?
The distinction is important. Most businesses have bookkeepers, but that is very different from the business owner taking an active interest in reviewing the financial results on a regular basis. One is a box-ticking exercise. The other is an important part of running the business well.
The same applies to personal finances. Tracking your net worth is useful, but understanding what it tells you is far more valuable.
7. They treat super as a serious wealth-building asset from early on
For most advisers, compulsory superannuation contributions are a starting point, not an endpoint. They make voluntary contributions where appropriate. They pay attention to fees, investment expenses, returns and asset allocation. They understand that small improvements, compounded over a 30 to 40 year career, can make a substantial difference to retirement outcomes.
This compounding effect is meaningfully more powerful than most people appreciate.
By contrast, many Australians treat superannuation as a background obligation that will somehow sort itself out over time. It is out of sight, and therefore often out of mind. But for many people, that passive approach produces a retirement balance that falls well short of what was possible.
By the way, I am publishing a detailed superannuation report and review at the end of July. The report will analyse financial year 2026 investment returns, but more importantly, it will help people assess whether they are in the right superannuation fund, paying appropriate fees, invested in a suitable option and making the most of the opportunity super provides.
8. They often choose control over default super solutions
Most financial advisers invest their superannuation either through a wrap platform or via their own self-managed super fund. The control, transparency and investment flexibility these structures provide are genuine advantages.
This is especially true for advisers, because they typically have the expertise to understand and manage these structures themselves without needing to pay separately for financial advice.
Industry funds and pooled superannuation products certainly have their place. Many have delivered strong long-term performance, and, for many Australians, they remain a very sensible solution. But they also have limitations. Investors have less control, less transparency and less ability to tailor the underlying investment strategy to their specific preferences and circumstances.
The reason I make this observation is not to suggest that everyone should avoid industry funds. That would be too simplistic. Rather, it is to highlight that alternative superannuation structures do have real merits, particularly when the cost of advice is set aside.
Of course, non-adviser investors still need to consider whether it is worth paying for professional advice to access and manage these structures properly. That is an important consideration. But if the cost of advice is the only impediment, then the real question is whether that cost is justified by the additional control, flexibility and potential long-term benefits these structures may provide.
9. They avoid the noise of daily market watching
Many people might find this the most surprising of the nine observations I have shared: most financial advisers do not check market indices or individual share prices every day.
Of course, they stay across broader market trends, emerging risks and relevant developments. But they are not watching prices constantly. They might review portfolios weekly, fortnightly or even monthly. But they certainly do not check their own superannuation balance with any regularity, because they know it is not relevant to the decisions they need to make.
For example, I probably check my own investment accounts no more than once or twice per month.
Frequent monitoring creates noise. And noise invites reaction.
Most of the avoidable damage retail investors do to their portfolios comes from reacting to short-term information that has no meaningful bearing on long-term outcomes. A market movement today rarely changes what should be done over the next 10, 20 or 30 years.
The discipline to leave things alone, trust the process and not respond to every movement is one of the more underrated skills in investing.
The uncomfortable question: do advisers practise what they preach?
First, it is worth acknowledging that there are some broadly accepted conventions in the Australian financial advice industry that the profession applies to clients but often does not apply to itself. Superannuation asset allocation is probably the best example.
That is not intended as a criticism. Advisers are making deliberate and considered decisions based on their own circumstances, knowledge and risk tolerance. But it does suggest that the industry should be more willing to challenge some of its orthodoxies.
We think about this internally. Are we doing the same things with our own money that we recommend to clients? That question can be uncomfortable, but it is worth asking. The blog I wrote recently about using internally geared ETFs inside superannuation is another example of challenging conventional wisdom.
Second, when choosing a financial adviser, I think it matters whether that person actually practises what they preach. In other words, do they eat their own cooking?
An adviser who recommends regular investing but does not invest regularly themselves, or who advocates taking superannuation seriously but neglects their own, is telling you something.
There is an old saying, crude in its phrasing but correct in its logic: only a rich person can teach a poor person how to become rich. A poor person cannot teach another poor person how to become rich.
Integrity in financial advice is not only about qualifications, compliance frameworks and technical knowledge. It is also about alignment. The best advisers tend to be those whose own financial decisions are consistent with the guidance they provide to clients.
