Financial Planning Before It Was Cool

Sometimes the best way to build a financial plan has very little to do with money at first. When I entered the financial services business in 1993, much of the industry was built around products. Find the need. Offer the solution. Move on to the next conversation. That never sat quite right with me.  

I wanted to know the person across the table before I ever presumed to know what they needed. What mattered to them? What were they trying to protect? What did they hope their money would allow them to experience, give, build, or leave behind?  

I pursued my CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® certification at a time when financial planning was not the standard path. In other words, I suppose I was trying to do financial planning before it was cool.

But it felt right to me, because I believed then what I still believe today: the numbers only become meaningful when they are connected to a life. Over time, that became the foundation of my process. Listen first. Understand deeply. Then build from there. Clients began coming in not because of a product, but because they felt understood and wanted others to experience the same thing.

Long before CFP® and behavioral finance became a common phrase in my industry, I was trying to understand the emotional underpinnings behind financial decisions. Why people do what they do. What they fear. What they value. What gives their journey meaning. 

Thirty-plus years later, comprehensive financial planning is becoming the standard. I’m grateful for that. But I still believe people can feel the difference between someone trying to sell them something and someone genuinely trying to understand who they are.  That difference mattered then and it matters even more now.

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