If Your Advice Is So Good, Why Don’t You Follow It?

Every so often, someone offers me an opportunity to become wealthy.

These opportunities rarely come from people who are already wealthy. Instead, they arrive through advertisements, unsolicited emails, online videos and enthusiastic presenters who appear to have discovered a secret overlooked by every bank, economist and professional investor in the world.

Fortunately, they are prepared to share that secret with me.

Unfortunately, there is usually a fee.

This raises an awkward question:

If your system is guaranteed to make a fortune, why are you selling it to me instead of using it yourself?

The House That Cannot Possibly Lose

A real-estate agent shows you through a house.

The kitchen needs renovating, the carpets have seen better days and one of the doors refuses to close. Nevertheless, the agent is confident that the property represents an extraordinary investment.

“You can’t go wrong with real estate,” he says. “This house could double in value within a few years.”

The word could is useful. It allows almost anything to follow it.

The house could double in value. It could also remain at approximately the same value. It could require extensive repairs. Interest rates could rise. The neighbourhood could change. A motorway could one day be built nearby.

I am tempted to ask the agent:

“If you are certain it will double in value, why don’t you buy it?”

There may be perfectly reasonable answers. Perhaps he cannot obtain a loan. Perhaps his money is invested elsewhere. Perhaps owning the house would not suit his circumstances.

Even so, his enthusiasm is worth examining. If I buy the property and its value doubles, I make a profit. If its value falls, I suffer the loss.

The agent, however, receives a commission when I buy it.

His prediction does not need to come true for him to make money.

Mine does.

The Secret of the Stock Market

Then there are people who have supposedly discovered a reliable way to beat the stock market.

Their advertisements often begin with a warning:

“The banks don’t want you to know this.”

This is surprising. Banks usually want to know anything that reliably produces money.

The presenter explains that ordinary investors have been approaching the market incorrectly. His special strategy identifies shares just before their prices rise. It has been tested, refined and proven successful.

For a limited time, I can purchase the complete system for only $49.95.

Sometimes there is a basic package, a premium package and an elite package. Presumably, financial independence depends upon how much financial dependence I am initially prepared to accept.

Once again, the obvious question presents itself:

“If your strategy reliably identifies winning shares, why do you need my $49.95?”

A person with a genuinely infallible investment method would not need thousands of customers. Starting with a modest sum, that person could quietly compound it into an enormous fortune.

Yet some investment experts appear to earn their money by selling instructions on how to earn money.

Perhaps the shares are not the real investment.

Perhaps the customers are.

Becoming Wealthy by Teaching Wealth

This idea has developed into an entire industry.

There are seminars on property investment, courses on cryptocurrency, subscriptions for racing tips and programs explaining how to establish a successful online business.

Some people even make money by teaching other people how to make money teaching other people how to make money.

The system becomes a hall of mirrors.

A presenter tells an audience that passive income will allow them to escape the daily struggle of employment. He delivers this message while travelling from city to city, renting conference rooms, purchasing advertisements, answering emails and persuading strangers to attend his next seminar.

His passive income appears to require a remarkable amount of activity.

There is also the author selling a book entitled How to Write a Bestseller. The book may contain excellent advice, but I cannot help wondering whether the author has ever written a bestseller other than a book telling other people how to write one.

Similarly, the business coach promises to triple the number of customers entering my business while desperately searching for customers to enter his.

Once again, the product may not be the business strategy.

The product may be the promise of the business strategy.

Those Who Can’t, Teach

The same suspicion is not limited to people selling financial advice.

During my teaching career, I occasionally heard the familiar expression:

“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

Over the years, I heard variations of it levelled at teachers, including me.

The suggestion was that people became teachers because they could not succeed as doctors, lawyers, scientists, mathematicians or members of some other supposedly more demanding profession. Teaching was presented as an easy alternative for those who could not manage the real thing.

I sometimes wondered whether the people making that observation had ever stood in front of thirty students on a Friday afternoon and attempted to teach them algebra.

Teaching mathematics did not merely require me to solve a problem. I had to understand it well enough to explain it to thirty students with thirty different ways of becoming confused.

If my first explanation failed, I had to find another.

If that failed, I had to invent an example.

If the example caused even more confusion, I had to retreat, reorganise and try again — all while appearing completely confident that I knew where the lesson was going.

Occasionally, I did.

There is a considerable difference between knowing something and being able to teach it. A capable mathematician may solve a complicated problem without being able to explain the first step to a struggling student. A gifted surgeon may be unable to teach medical students. A brilliant musician may have no idea how to help a beginner play a scale.

The reverse can also be true.

A great sporting coach need not have been the greatest player. A singing teacher need not fill concert halls. A university academic studying political leadership does not need to become prime minister before being qualified to discuss it.

Perhaps the old expression should be rewritten:

Those who can, do. Those who can explain why, teach.

Of course, teachers and academics should not be protected from every uncomfortable question.

A lecturer in communication should occasionally be understandable. A professor of organisational management should expect some raised eyebrows if the department is permanently in chaos. Someone teaching time management ought to make an effort to arrive before the lecture has finished.

But a person’s failure to follow advice does not necessarily make the advice wrong.

A doctor who smokes is still correct when warning patients that smoking is harmful. A dentist with imperfect teeth may still know how to treat mine. A relationship counsellor who has experienced a divorce may still understand why relationships fail — perhaps better than someone who has never faced such difficulties.

The important question is not simply:

“Have you personally done everything you teach?”

It is:

“Is what you teach honest, well-founded and useful?”

The Racing Tipster

The racing tipster presents a more suspicious case.

He claims to know which horses are likely to win. For a weekly subscription, he will share his selections.

If the tips are consistently accurate, why sell them?

Why not quietly place bets and keep the winnings?

Perhaps selling tips is more reliable than following them. The horses may lose, but the subscription fee has already crossed the finish line.

If enough tips are offered, some are bound to succeed. The successful ones can be prominently advertised. The failures can be described as bad luck, an unexpected track condition or an unfortunate decision by the jockey.

Predictions tend to look much more impressive when the unsuccessful ones have been forgotten.

The Clairvoyant’s Problem

The classic example is the clairvoyant.

A clairvoyant may claim to see events years into the future. She can foresee a career change, a journey, a reunion or the arrival of an important stranger.

However, she cannot usually provide next week’s winning lottery numbers.

Perhaps there are ethical restrictions on using supernatural powers for personal gain. Perhaps the future becomes cloudy whenever numbered balls are involved.

Or perhaps lottery numbers are simply more difficult to interpret than statements such as:

“You have experienced disappointment, but an opportunity is approaching.”

That prediction probably applies to most people on most days.

I have often wondered whether a clairvoyant is surprised when a customer arrives without an appointment.

Surely, she should have been expecting them.

Advice From People Who Ignore Their Own Advice

Contradictions appear in many ordinary situations.

A parent tells a child not to spend too much time looking at a telephone, then spends the evening looking at a telephone.

A manager gives a two-hour speech about the importance of workplace efficiency.

A politician tells the public that difficult sacrifices must be made, although the sacrifices rarely seem to begin with the politician.

A motivational speaker tells us that we must not depend upon the approval of others, then waits hopefully for the applause.

A time-management expert arrives late because the previous seminar on time management ran overtime.

These contradictions are amusing, but they do not always prove that the advice is wrong.

“Do as I say, not as I do” may sound hypocritical, but sometimes the person is effectively saying:

“I have made this mistake myself. I know where it leads. Please do not repeat it.”

Experience can produce wisdom without necessarily producing perfect behaviour.

The difficulty is deciding whether the person is honestly sharing hard-earned knowledge or merely claiming authority that has never been earned.

Why We Want to Believe

Promises of effortless success work because they appeal to something very human.

Most of us would like greater financial security, better health, happier relationships and more control over our lives. We would like to believe that one clever decision could remove years of uncertainty.

The seller is not merely offering a house, a share market strategy, a diet or a set of racing tips.

The seller is offering hope.

Hope is valuable, but it is difficult to measure — and remarkably easy to sell.

We are shown the person who bought property before prices rose. We hear from the investor who selected a successful company. We see testimonials from customers who claim that a particular system changed their lives.

We rarely hear from people whose houses did not double in value, whose shares fell or whose expensive courses remain unfinished in a drawer.

Success is advertised.

Failure generally does not have a marketing department.

The Questions Worth Asking

Whenever someone offers advice — particularly advice accompanied by an extraordinary promise — I try to ask a few simple questions.

How does this person benefit if I follow the advice?

What happens if the prediction is wrong?

Who carries the risk?

Is the claim supported by evidence?

Are the limitations explained as clearly as the benefits?

Would the system still be profitable if nobody purchased the course, subscription or seminar?

Most importantly:

If this opportunity is as reliable as the seller claims, why does the seller need me?

There may be a satisfactory answer. A real-estate agent may genuinely believe that a house is good value. A financial educator may honestly want to help people avoid common mistakes. A teacher need not possess every qualification or achievement that a student hopes to attain. A skilled adviser can save someone from making an expensive or painful decision.

Good advice does not require a perfect adviser.

But honest advice acknowledges uncertainty.

It says may rather than will.

It discusses risks as well as rewards.

It recognises exceptions.

It does not promise that success is inevitable if only I provide my credit-card details before midnight.

Perhaps some people really have discovered the secret of becoming rich, successful, organised, healthy and permanently happy.

But when their principal achievement appears to be selling that secret, I begin to suspect that I have misunderstood the product.

The product is not the house.

It is not the shares.

It is not the racing tip, the cryptocurrency formula or the glimpse into the future.

Sometimes, the product is simply the advice.

And sometimes, the real fortune is made by selling the promise of one.