I guess the first point to be made is the glaring error in the first sentence of your e-mail, especially since it may explain why you have elected to let this experience hurt. That is the idea that this was a great referral. It was a terrible referral for a financial planner, and you did right to turn it down. You did right as badly as it could possibly be done, blowing not one but two opportunities to state your principle, but you did right in the end, and that’s ultimately what counts.

A financial planner worthy of the name -- which you surely are -- is not a portfolio manager, and does not do portfolio management outside of a formal plan. That is the principle you should have enunciated on the spot. Having failed to do so, you should have enunciated it in your letter, withdrawing from the case. (Who knows: maybe they’d have come around. At the very least, you’d be proud instead of hurt.)

You can choose to keep feeling hurt if you like. I wouldn’t, were I you, because you just had a huge net positive experience, in two ways: (1) You stood up, however belatedly and incomprehensibly to the client, for one of the bedrock principles of financial planning, and (2) you almost certainly will never have this experience again. You’ll remember how painful this felt, and you’ll state the principle immediately, so that you’re not tempted to waffle, ever again.

Now, just make sure the referring attorney understands why you did what you did, because the referral may go back to him, confused and angry about your flip-flop, and get you in trouble, such that the attorney won’t refer you again. We don’t want that to happen.

Thanks; this is wonderful, if not at all surprising. The reference is to Emerson’s essay "Compensation," from which I inferred in my book The New Financial Advisor that every time you give genuinely great advice and it is rejected, a deposit is made to your cosmic account in the amount you were dealing with when you were rejected. To retrieve this deposit with compound interest, all you have to do is keep offering similarly great advice to other people. The money -- and the joy you get from claiming it -- cannot be denied you. Do read (or re-read) Emerson’s essay, because you just became living proof of it. I’m just happy to have been the conduit. God, I love doing this newsletter.

Clearly, the plot is somewhat thickened by the fact that these are your parents, but I think that, in general and with certain obvious modifications – liking telling them you love them – this would be the response. If you really remember the webinar, you’ll remember that I spoke about combining – in situations where the fears and the facts are at variance – empathy and toughlove. Thus:

Dear Dad,

I’ve had a lot of time to ponder your e-mail, with particular respect to your heartfelt memories of early life in the depression. I love you both very much, and I want, above all else, for you to do with your money whatever makes you happy. Second only to that goal is my desire to be happy myself, and not to be in advisory situations – even with you – in which my advice isn’t followed. So I can think of a couple of ways we can all go forward, and I’ll certainly live with whatever you decide.

(1) You can put as much of your money as you want – indeed, all of it, if that will bring you peace – in CDs, money market funds and the like. I can’t be absolutely sure, but I don’t think you will run out of money, even in the elevated inflation environment we’re going to be in for a while. After inflation and taxes, you’ll probably have a negative return, but I sense that that’s not of primary concern to you, and so be it. You can invest in these things, as I say – but then we can never talk about your investment situation again. I can’t be a party to this decision, and I can’t – even in "casual" conversations that can only pain me – talk to you about the outcome of this decision ever again. It would be a terrible decision, and it would be wrong. But it’s your money, and you’re entitled to whatever brings you peace. I just can never be, even for a moment, involved in it.

(2) Alternatively, you can follow this prescription, with my full and loving cooperation and encouragement.

(a) Stop watching television, and stop pricing your investments. You’re feeding your worst, most negative impulses. Even worse, after enumerating all the current gloom and doom scenarios (including "we’re heading into recession" – Dad, if you’re sure of that, you know more than I do), you invite me to "convince you otherwise." I’m just not in the convincing business, Dad: I couldn’t intellectually prove to you that the sun’s coming up tomorrow, or that either of us will be here to see it if it does. And my task is to "convince" you or anyone that there’s not going to be a recession? I don’t think so.

(b) I respect and empathize with your bitter memories of growing up in the depression. But Dad, the depression ended two thirds of a century ago. There hasn’t been another, and in my professional judgment there can’t be – although I don’t know how I’d convince you of that, either. Instead, from the bottom of my heart, I offer the very best advice I’ve got: Dad, get over it.

(c) I’m sending you a book called Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth. You can read it in one night, and I think you’ll enjoy it. It explains my philosophy, and the decisions to which I urge you. After you’ve read it, let’s talk this through one last time.

Dear subscriber, you must obey the eleventh commandment: Thou shalt protect thy buttons. You cannot let them talk you into helping them make – or even implicitly giving them permission to make, because you couldn’t "convince them otherwise" – The Big Mistake. If that’s what they make up their minds to do, you have a right – and you owe it to yourself – to get and stay as far away from that decision as you can. Parents, schmarents.