18 years ago today, I walked into the SF Wachovia Securities branch for my first day as a financial advisor.
Cold calls. Strangers in a new city. A headset and a prayer.
I had no clients. No book. No idea what I was doing.
I just knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
18 years later…
$181M in assets managed. 100+ member households. A team of rockstars. A business I could sell tomorrow for millions.
But the number that actually means something to me?
Zero.
Zero bosses. Zero branch managers. Zero corporate quotas. Zero selling out.
The last 18 years weren’t a straight line up.
There was the New Year’s Eve in Tahoe where I stood in a Safeway line… a 37-year-old financial advisor… with a lump in my throat because I couldn’t afford a $35 bottle of wine for our hosts.
I was managing millions for other people and couldn’t buy groceries.
I called my mom for rent money… more than once.
I quit Wells Fargo 10+ years ago with $20 in my pocket and a vision nobody else believed in.
I cut my income in half… twice… to protect that vision.
I got it wrong for two and a half years trying to build the right team.
And yet…
18 years. Three phases.
The Unyielding years – surviving the cage and refusing to break.
The Unkillable years – building the fortress one Member at a time.
And now… the Unstoppable years.
The boulder is over the peak.
To everyone who told me I was nuts… thank you for the fuel.
To our Members who took a chance on the guy who refused to sell out… none of this exists without you.
To my wife Nicole… you saw me at my lowest and didn’t blink.
18 years in…
NOT EVEN CLOSE TO DONE!!!
LFG!!!
