|
A story you may have heard a long time ago
There were once two rabbits, Wanda the Wise and Frederick the Foolish, who were walking through a field. They were good friends and enjoyed their strolls together. On this walk, they came upon two carrots. One of the carrots had large leaves sprouting out of the top and the other looked much smaller from the surface. Frederick was excited and ran up to the carrot with the larger leaves."I'll have this one," he proudly exclaimed and proceeded to extract it from the ground. Wanda shrugged her shoulders and pulled out the other carrot, which turned out to be much bigger. Frederick was surprised and asked how this could possibly be. Wanda looked at her friend and replied, "You can't always judge a carrot by its leaves."
They kept on walking and came across another pair of carrots, again with differing sized leaves. This time Frederick allowed his friend the first pick. Wanda hopped to each carrot, inspected and sniffed them carefully and, to Frederick's surprise, chose the carrot with the larger leaves. As they each extracted their carrots from the ground, Frederick was bemused to see that his carrot was smaller than Wanda's. "I thought that you said that small leaves meant it would be a larger carrot." he said. "No," replied Wanda, "I said don't judge a carrot by its leaves. It's also important to remember to think before you choose."
Frederick nodded and they ate their carrots before continuing their stroll. For a third time, they found two carrots, again with different sized leaves. Frederick looked confused and didn't know what to do. Wanda indicated that he could choose which carrot to eat. The poor foolish rabbit, pretended to inspect each carrot, but he didn't really know what to do. He knew that he wasn't as smart as his friend and he looked to Wanda with a confused expression on his face. Wanda smiled warmly and hopped over to the carrots. She inspected them and pulled out one of the carrots. Frederick shrugged his shoulders and went to the other one before he was interrupted by his wise friend. "No Frederick, this one's your carrot," she said. "But you made the choice and I'm sure it's the bigger one of the two. I don't know how you do it, but I guess you're just smarter than me."
"Frederick, there's no point in having wisdom if you're not willing to share the benefits of it with others. You're my friend and I want you to have this carrot. A smart rabbit with a full stomach but no friends isn't really wise is she?" "I guess you're right," said Frederick with a full mouth, "As usual."
Lessons for financial advisors
Wisdom is critical for success. Being earnest alone is not enough, as Fredrick realized. Wisdom is all about directing your energies in the best possible manner to attain optimum results. Wisdom is intelligent application of knowledge, insights and experience. Wanda clearly applied all 3 well, and got the results she was seeking.
The bigger lesson from Wanda is however sharing of wisdom. "A smart rabbit with a full stomach but no friends isn't really wise, is she", quips Wanda - and that is really the essence of wisdom. Some advisors are perhaps wiser than others, some are more successful than others, some have greater experience than others, which helps them avoid costly pitfalls. A wise advisor is one who attains the level of success he or she aspires for, but also makes the effort to share some of his wisdom for the benefit of other advisors.
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus once said, "Of all the things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship." Be wise, share what you've learned with others and help the advisory fraternity collectively scale higher and serve investors better. And, in the process, make many lasting friendships, that will truly be worth much more than the AuM you've collected.
All content in Lessons from Life is created by Wealth Forum and should not be construed as views of Axis MF.
Share this article
|
