My first quarter of 2025 was fraught with ill health and medications aplenty. I had fallen sick since January, with remnants of a cough still lingering as I pen the words to this article.
What started with fever and cough symptoms quickly escalated to concerns over the possibility of a broken rib and tuberculosis, after I experienced a “pop” sensation in my chest following an impactful cough. Through this time, I sought medical advice from various doctors, received advice from people around me (sometimes unsolicited), and even attempted the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach using the ‘trusty’ Google search.
The Best Advice
Out of all the advice received, a consultation with a Family Medicine specialist turned out to be the best one I’d received. The advice, with its consideration of holistic patient care, contrasted greatly with the one-sided nature of others that tended towards the physical alone. Beyond addressing the more defined physical areas of my health, the doctor also placed great emphasis on attending to the more intangible psycho-emotional aspects of my patient experience.
What It Looked Like
Physically, the doctor’s competent diagnosis of my underlying issue was accompanied by prescriptions of antibiotics that greatly improved my symptoms. Psycho-emotionally, I had been worried about the possibility that something dire was happening to my body. This was stressful because it meant not being able to fully attend to the needs of my loved ones, such as doing something as simple as carrying my newborn son when he cried for comfort, for even the simple act of breathing had already been a struggle for me (p.s. I had pulled my intercostal muscle due to the prolonged severity of my cough).
Recognising this, as I bombarded him with questions about my condition amidst the frequent pauses from pain and breathlessness, the doctor assured me that he would also give me painkillers to manage the pain and conduct a comprehensive examination of my health to rule out any possibilities of something more serious. This meant arranging for me to undergo an X-ray the very next day.
What It Felt Like
Even though I could not recall the doctor’s exact words, as I had been more consumed by the excruciating pain in my chest at that moment, I remember feeling greatly assured over the situation. A sense of calm started to drown out the feelings of pain and anxiety. The doctor’s comprehensiveness and speed of care, all while attending to my worries and tendency to catastrophise about the situation, greatly reduced the stress I was feeling. It also brought about much-needed clarity and peace. Even with the prospect of a more serious underlying health condition, I remember finally feeling well cared for with the knowledge that I was in good hands this time, a stark contrast to the earlier advice I had received from various other clinics.
What It Did
Thankfully, the X-ray result was uneventful, I gradually recovered, and I am now able to fully attend to the needs of my family. It has been a joy to regain the ability to carry my baby boy on demand, and to effortlessly perform the simple task of breathing again. Despite being the costliest form of advice received through this health episode, it had definitely been money well spent.
It means the world to me to be able to marvel at the joys of life, alongside the joys of my life – my loved ones. Good advice enables this.
On Wealth Advice
Now, you might be wondering how this relates to good wealth advice. To gain a clear picture of that, it is useful to first understand what not-so-good wealth advice could entail.
Not-So-Good Wealth Advice
Misinformation
I mentioned receiving unsolicited advice while I was ill. Although this came from well-meaning people, it did little to help the situation. Rather, it brought about more stress as I had to deal with the unsolicited advice while still worrying about my health.
Similarly, when it comes to wealth advice, unsolicited advice is ever-present. With Singapore’s wealth management industry running in the trillions of dollars, it is easy to get bombarded with all kinds of ‘wealth advice’—sometimes from not-so-well-meaning people with an agenda. To the untrained, this means that genuine wealth advice could be hidden amidst a minefield of misinformation.
Overwhelming Information
I also mentioned attempting the DIY approach to ‘treat’ myself when I was ill. It quickly became clear that this was a futile attempt, considering the complexities of my condition, let alone the fact that I am not medically trained.
When it comes to wealth advice, many consider the DIY approach, seeking to manage their wealth themselves. With information so readily available at our fingertips today, this has evolved into something seemingly easy to achieve. However, even with the time on hand, it might be difficult to fully DIY all aspects of one’s overall wealth, because filtering through the abundance of information on ‘wealth advice’ can be a confusing and taxing endeavour. Couple this with the intricacies and complexities of what wealth management truly entails, where interdependencies across various areas abound and having the need to contextualise all these information back to one’s situation, it could feel akin to trying to navigate out of the wilderness.
Add to this the demands of life, where different responsibilities seem to pull at us from all over through our different life stages, DIY-ing the management of one’s wealth might turn out to be a stressful and sometimes ineffective pursuit, as my colleague Sudhan alluded to in his article here: Beyond Stock Market Returns: How Providend Transformed My Investment Approach.
A photo of some of the medications I had taken when I fell ill. Does it bring feelings of overwhelm and anxiety? Likewise, do the areas of your financial life, such as investment holdings or insurance policies, resemble this picture?
Good Wealth Advice
With a clear idea of what not-so-good wealth advice looks like and its potential consequences, we can now better appreciate the qualities of good wealth advice. To put it simply, good wealth advice enables one to live a life well lived.
Rather than causing stress or worry, it allows one to experience the peace to spend time on what truly matters, with the people dearest to them, as mentioned in Sudhan’s article. It is holistic and relevant. It goes beyond the tangibles to consider the equally important intangibles. Beyond dollars and cents, it recognises that every individual is more than a book of accounts. Instead, it understands that all of us are uniquely endowed with a psyche and a body of emotions. It also looks at the person-in-environment, giving much consideration to things beyond the individual, which often involve loved ones and trusted relationships that exist around us.
A further elaboration would better crystalise what good wealth advice comprises. Good wealth advice starts with a profound understanding of what wealth truly entails. Wealth is often thought of in quantitative terms, but it is also very much qualitative. This can be seen when we delve into some of the core components of wealth management: investment management, risk management, and estate planning.
1) Investment Management
When it comes to investment management, the chase for “alpha”, rate of returns, and expense costs often seem to be focal points. Yet equally important areas of investment management include things like the purpose behind an investment, whether there is a need to take on risk beyond what is required, and whether one’s risk appetite is commensurate with the investment’s risk. On a deeper level, it examines things like the goals that drive one to invest hard-earned monies and one’s psychology in investing amidst market volatility.
2) Risk Management
In risk management, often through insurance, getting the highest amount of coverage at the lowest cost is desired. Although not wrong, qualitative aspects like the hopes and expectations that one desires for their loved ones if a demise were to happen, or the quality of care that one might hope for if long-term care is ever needed, are equally important too.
3) Estate Planning
Surrounding estate planning, tangible aspects like trying to minimise estate taxes or maximising the amount of estate that can be left behind appear to be the crux of the matter. However, what lies beneath these hard numerical figures are the more nuanced aspects, that include things like the kind of legacy one might hope to leave behind, the kind of family values one would like to uphold, or even the kind of character one would like to foster in the next generation after passing on.
Closing Thoughts
As shown, good wealth advice is holistic, and oftentimes, deeply personal. For this reason, its fruits tend to be evident across all areas of one’s life, be they financial, or even bio-psycho-social-and-emotional.
All that said, the true breadth and depth of what good wealth advice looks like is hard to fully articulate in words. Rather, it is something to be experienced, felt, and lived through.
At Providend, this is what we do and continuously endeavour for our valued clients, both quantitatively and qualitatively. More importantly, good wealth advice stands the test of time. At Providend, with over two decades of experience and having been tried and tested through various financial crises, we hope our clients will continue to place their trust in us so that we can deliver that good wealth advice to help them live their good, and even best, life.
This is an original article written by Sum Wen Jun, Associate Adviser at Providend, the first fee-only wealth advisory firm in Southeast Asia and a leading wealth advisory firm in Asia.
If you are interested in joining our Providend Associate Adviser Programme, visit our careers page to find out more.
For more related resources, check out:
1. Health Span – The Missing Piece in Retirement Planning
2. Investing in the S&P 500 Alone is Not the Silver Bullet
3. Discovering Your “Ikigai” with Providend’s Philosophy
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