My Why 2/3 - Valuable Advice

Passion and experience have certainly driven me to overcome challenges I faced building my career, building my personal life and making the time to enjoy it all. We all do our best to maintain a good work/life balance as more challenges arise. 

Our career paths are built around these experiences whether professional or personal. 

As we face them we experience more of life's wonders through the best and worst of it all.

There are those of us who take these experiences and use them towards creating a successful and fulfilling life...as inspirations and catalysts to create and add value to our profession life. 

Then there are some who take those experiences and become driven by money and success. When we come across such individuals, we are left to wonder how their intentions may directly or indirectly affect us.

I distinguish the two for a very specific reason as I share my next personal story with you that drove me to my next driving force in my career.

Make no mistake about what I’m writing here, money and success will follow anyone who is true to their passion and value.

Providing VALUABLE ADVICE.

I decided to use the picture of life's 3 best teachers to emphasize this article because I certainly felt all three from this experience.

My father had passed away and after seeing how life insurance helped our family, I wanted to get it for myself. I wanted to make sure that mom, my sister and my future family would have financial security when I pass away.  

At 21 years old with no real idea of what financial planning is, I asked my friends where I should go for life insurance. In hindsight, I should have asked my mom where she got her policy with dad.

But I remember thinking to myself...I’m an adult…I can do this myself plus she has other things to deal with now that dad is gone. 

My search connected me to a friend of a friend of a friend. He was a Financial Advisor with a reputable company and it sounded good to me at the time.

We met and I tell him I want life insurance, why I want it and how much money I'm willing to budget. He asks a few more questions and tells me he’ll put together some illustrations for me to review. I get the illustrations, they're within my budget and it looks good so far.

Not fully understanding what all of it described and how it would help me, I wrote down some questions and concerns for our next scheduled meeting. 

We meet and I ask my questions, voice my concerns and he addresses them. The main concern I wish I spent more time emphasizing was that my monthly budget will likely change in the future as I plan to move out on my own and my employment income will likely change once I start developing my career. He then tells me it will be alright because we can adjust as needed. 

Alright, sounds good…let’s do it. 

I signed up, got approved and later received the polices he recommended. I have peace of mind knowing that if anything unexpected happens to me, my mom and sister would be taken care of plus my future family.

Fast forward 7 years later where I move out of mom’s home at the age of 28. At that point in my life I had finished College and started pursuing a career in life insurance. Specifically, with group benefits.

I remember doing my monthly budget to figure out how I’m going to pay all my bills and took a long look at my life insurance premiums. Remembering that my Advisor told me I can adjust it over time, I call to see what my options are. By this time the Advisor I had dealt with was no longer with the company and my file had been passed to someone else. 

Without going into full detail, essentially the policies were not setup how I thought they would be…and I got very upset. It was not as adjustable as I had thought it would be and certainly not to a point where I would be able to make the necessary financial adjustments for my new lifestyle.

I felt lied to and taken advantage of. A list of questions just poured out from my frustration and disappointment.

Why would this Advisor do this!?

Was he being selfish!? Incompetent!?

Why would a reputable company allow such a person to operate in a manner that doesn’t service their clients!? 

I was so upset that I cancelled both policies. 

Then I started getting mad at myself!  I should have done more research and done my due diligence before blindly accepting his recommendations. 

As the reality settled in, I remember that I could keep pointing the finger at the Advisor, the company and the big bad corporate industry as a whole…OR… I could face the situation and remember why I was doing this all in the first place. 

Having started in the Life Insurance Industry, I realized that I could learn from it and become the Advisor I wish I had when I was looking for life insurance. I took the experience, learned from it and applied it to my career from that moment on. 

I would provide real valuable advice and become the best Advisor I could be.

So there I am, building my career with the stories of my father and my experience backing me up. All of it should just fall into place and be easy to build my career now right!? 

Not quite…

Over time I learned that providing valuable advice is more than just identifying the need and providing a solution even with my own personal stories to show real-life examples. It would take commitment and foresight to see past my own needs and goals for the betterment of the clients I serve.

I took my experience and developed my career learning how to truly focus on their needs and goals. It was tough but very rewarding once I started getting my clients and became the Advisor I sought out to be.

I would learn that as a Financial Advisor…the areas of life insurance, retirement planning and investments only address specific areas for a person’s needs and goals. When they are tied together to meet those needs and goals…it becomes a very fulfilling accomplishment for myself and the client. 

The feeling of providing Financial Security and Peace of Mind to them. 

Providing advice to clients in any profession and accomplishing Peace of Mind is a great feeling. When you see the relief on their faces, the confidence they build for themselves and most of all...the trust they give you...it's priceless ladies and gents.

Which leads me to the last part of MY WHY…

BEING CLIENT FOCUSED