I gave myself six months. I had just graduated from Indiana University, I had lost my mom during my first year there, and I had no real idea what I wanted to do next. When First Investors reached out about an interview and described a way to build my own practice helping people with their money, the idea of working for myself pulled at me. I had grown up around accountants, so saving and managing money were already familiar, and I told myself I would try this and head back to school if it did not work. Fifteen years later, I am still at it.
The people I started with have turned into friends, and a few of their now-grown kids call me to open accounts of their own. I think about how easily I might have walked a different direction, and I suspect my mom had a hand in steering me toward that first interview.
Most of my week is spent with people, in their homes, at the schools and offices where they work, or on the phone sorting through whatever is in front of them. The rest goes to preparing for the next conversation and handling the paperwork that keeps things moving. I have been the customer waiting on a callback and circling through automated menus that go nowhere, and that stuck with me. You can reach me by phone, text, or email, and you hear back from me the same day. I get things done the first time and when you ask, and I would far rather hear from you than have you sit quietly on a question.
One client showed me what the job is really about. I had walked her through retirement and watched her fill it with trips and pool parties and the years she had worked toward, and we started meeting each summer in the gazebo behind her house for her annual review. One year she asked me to stay for the pool party afterward. I did, and I have spent a lot of summers since getting to know her friends, several of whom became clients themselves. Being someone's trusted resource, the person in their circle who makes the money make sense, is the part of this I love most.
I grew up in Fort Wayne, live in Auburn now, and log plenty of miles driving the state, usually singing badly to anything from sixties classics to heavy metal. IU basketball was close to a life-or-death matter in my house growing up, and that has not changed, so feel free to break down the latest game with me or bring up Purdue if you must. You will also find me at rock and metal shows, where I have yet to meet a mosh pit that did not feel like friends. The wrestling fandom behind the firm's name goes back just as far, with WrestleMania, the Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series all trips I have made. What keeps me going is straightforward. I like people, and I like solving puzzles, and this line of work lets me do both every day.