Some people get into financial planning because of a fascination with markets. I got into it because of people. Two decades in, that has not changed.
I grew up in St. Charles, Missouri, went to St. Charles West High School, and have spent most of my life in the same community where I work, coach, and raise my kids. There is something I appreciate about that kind of continuity. My wife Katie teaches in the St. Charles School District, our son Brady is playing baseball at St. Charles Community College, and our son Ethan is a junior at St. Charles West, playing football, baseball, and staying active in DECA. On any given weekend, you will find at least one of us at a field somewhere.
I joined Jim Wood's team in 2005 and learned this business the way I think it is best learned, from the inside out, starting in a conference room and building from there. I hold Series 7, Series 66, and Life and Health licenses, but the credential I rely on most is simply having been around long enough to have seen a lot. Good markets and bad ones. Families who felt completely lost and families who just needed someone to confirm they were on the right track. I have heard enough by now to be genuinely useful in both situations.
What keeps me coming back every day is the puzzle of it. Every client is carrying a different financial picture with different goals attached to it, and working out how those pieces fit together is something I find genuinely engaging. The meetings I enjoy most are the ones where we spend half the time talking about a kid heading off to college, a trip they are planning, or a home project they finally started. The financial conversation is almost secondary because the planning behind it was already done. That is the version of this work I find most meaningful.
Coaching has been the other constant in my life. Over the last decade, I have coached youth basketball and baseball almost without interruption, logging somewhere north of 750 games for exactly zero dollars. What I got out of it was worth considerably more than that. Coaching and financial planning are not as different as they might seem. Both require you to listen more than you talk, adapt to who is in front of you, and trust that the work you put in now will show up when it matters.
I volunteer at St. Charles West during football season and serve as an alumni ambassador for my sons' baseball club, where I get to share what I have learned with coaches who are just getting started. Turns out that part of the job, passing things along, is one of the parts I am most proud of.