I had enough. I wasn’t living my dream. Well sort of..
See, all I ever knew was all I’ve ever done. I thought I was happy and I thought I was on the right path but something changed and I couldn’t figure it out.
I had been a Financial Advisor since 2011 when I was a Senior year in College at Bryant University in Rhode Island (Go Bulldogs!). I was given the opportunity to start my financial planning practice at a young age and I loved it.
I loved that I could impact others from a financial planning standpoint and earn a great living along the way.
The company I was with couldn’t have been better — I sure did enjoy the Koolaid (anyone who knows me can attest to this). I was known for spewing my excitement around everywhere, sharing what I was doing and the company I represented. Things couldn’t be better.
Around Spring of 2016 I started feeling weird. I started feeling like I was in it for myself and not my clients. I started feeling lost and unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit but felt as if I was bored in my “Entrepreneurial” Financial Advisory business. Things became mundane and I lost my “passion” or what I thought it was anyways.
I realized that I felt trapped in my role. I felt limited. What I mean by that is there were only a certain amount of people that I would be able to impact as an advisor i.e. clients.
I stepped into leadership thinking that it would help fulfill my desire to help others and magnify my impact. I thought, “if I can teach others how to grow their business, they can acquire clients and in turn my impact lives through them!” That helped A LOT. Whenever I was coaching, I felt like I was on top of the world, I felt like I wasn’t even working.
It was through coaching that I realized that it wasn’t that I enjoyed being an advisor, I enjoyed coaching advisors. The excitement I get when an advisor comes to me after implementing an idea that we came up and shares great news is like no other. I was in my zone.
Here’s the issue, I found my impact to be limited once again..
When I decided I wanted to start a coaching business for other advisors, it was totally fine…assuming they didn’t work for another firm.
See, these large companies that a lot of advisors partner with put these invisible walls up between us. It takes away from collaboration and limits our progression as an industry.
All of our good ideas are trapped in these separate silos and I believe that if we had a place that was created for advisors by advisors, that we could all grow and all benefit.
This is why I created The Financial Advisors’ Alliance.
The problem with this is that I had to leave my firm in order to do this. They would not approve my OBA (outside business activity) if it involved helping advisors that were not associated with “us.” This is the point in time where I jumped off the cliff..
I decided my mission and my talents were better suited in helping advisors than it was helping clients. I believe that I can have a much bigger impact on this world if I empowered advisors to go out into the market place and make a lasting difference in their clients’ lives. And that’s what I did.
I did this for all of you. I did this for all of the advisors who have yet to join. I did this for all of the clients that have yet to be impacted. I did this for my family. I did this for my wife. I did this for me.
Everything was pointing me in this direction and I had to take the chance. This is a chance that I am 100% committed to and 100% will succeed. I don’t care how long it takes. We will all make this work together.
