As a member of the Forbes Finance Council, Casey submits articles for consideration to be published in Forbes. Howard Bailey pays an annual fee to be a member of the Council.

Everyone, including experienced professionals, makes mistakes. I believe it’s important that people not only learn from their own mistakes but that they also share them with others to help others make better decisions. People commonly avoid sharing their mistakes, out of fear that doing so will create doubt in their abilities. This seems especially true in financial professions where I often find big egos accompanied by the reality that mistakes made with someone’s life savings can be life-threatening.

I have made many mistakes over my years as a financial advisor. Those included not researching the real cost of mutual funds, not actively scheduling regular client reviews, thinking that back-tested investment performance was a predictor of future results and not emphasizing the importance of proper beneficiary designations. But I learned from all of them and used those experiences to better my practice. What follows are some of the biggest mistakes I made early in my career and how others can avoid them. I hope this will not only be valuable advice for those in the financial profession but will also guide those who are seeking quality financial advice.