Why Most Financial Advice Is Too Generic
Most financial advice sounds good on the surface and for a long time I actually believed that was enough. It’s always presented in a way that feels structured and safe, built on ideas like consistency, diversification and long-term thinking and to be fair, those principles aren’t wrong. But over time, especially looking at how things actually work here in South Africa, I'm starting to realise that what most people think is advice is rarely that. It’s usually a product conversation dressed up as a strategy.
Heres what I mean, the more I paid attention, the more obvious it became that a lot of the traditional advisory space is built around selling. Not necessarily in a malicious way, but structurally. Advisors are often incentivised through commissions, which means the outcome naturally leans toward placing clients into products that can be sold, rather than building something that truly adapts and is suitable to the individual or the current environment. So what ends up happening is that people are guided into retirement annuities, unit trusts, balanced funds or endowments, all wrapped in language that sounds sophisticated enough to build trust, but rarely explained in a way that creates real understanding.
And that’s where the disconnect starts to form, because most people never actually question it. They sign the documents, set up the debit orders and move on with their lives believing their money is “invested properly,” yet if you pause and ask what they actually own, how it works, what the underlying assets are, or how those investments behave when markets shift, there’s usually a lot of uncertainty. Not because people don’t care, but because no one ever really broke it down for them in a way that made sense.
I’ve had conversations where someone tells me they’re diversified, but they don’t actually know what they’re diversified into. Others say they’re invested for the long term, but they’ve never been told what happens in the periods where markets aren’t working in their favour, or how their portfolio is positioned in different conditions. It becomes this passive relationship with money, where capital is being deployed, fees are being paid, but there’s very little awareness of what’s actually going on underneath the surface.
That’s the part that never sat right with me, because when you start paying attention to markets, you realise that things aren’t static. Conditions change, narratives shift, capital flows move, cycles change and entire environments can evolve within months. So the idea that you can take a fixed, generic structure and apply it blindly, without any awareness of what’s happening around it, starts to feel incomplete.
My approach has always been different in that sense, not because I’m trying to reinvent anything, but because I actually follow what’s happening. I spend time understanding where money is flowing, what’s under pressure, and how the bigger picture environment is shaping certain assets. From there, it becomes less about forcing a product into a plan and more about positioning capital in a way that makes sense for that moment in time.
There are periods where being aggressive is justified, where leaning into growth and taking on risk aligns with what the market is offering and then there are periods where preservation matters more, where patience becomes a position in itself and holding cash isn’t seen as doing nothing but rather as waiting with intent. That level of flexibility is something you don’t get from a generic plan, because a generic plan doesn’t cater for adapting.
What I’ve come to realise is that the biggest issue isn’t that traditional advice is completely wrong, it’s that it creates a sense of comfort without necessarily creating clarity. People feel like they’re doing the right thing, but they don’t feel connected to it and over time that lack of understanding becomes a risk in itself.
So the shift, at least from my perspective, isn’t about rejecting everything and starting from scratch, it’s about becoming more aware, asking better questions and making sure that whatever strategy you’re following is something you actually understand. Because at the end of the day, your capital is operating in a system that is constantly evolving and the more connected you are to it, the better positioned you’ll be to navigate it.
And in a market like this, that awareness isn’t optional, it’s the edge.
— Zack Rens
The Young Founders Report
