As the Founder and Managing Partner of 365 Wealth Partners, I’m committed to working toward improving outcomes for my clients.
Driven by a desire to help people out above all else, my practice focuses on understanding client expectations, providing financial education, and pursuing active risk management strategies designed to ingrain confidence — because savvy investors are confident investors.
I first entered the financial industry during the 2009 financial crisis. Leveraging a recommendation from my father—a 20-year veteran at Fifth Third Bank—I was able to use my family connections to land a prestigious and highly-coveted position... as a part-time bank teller at the company.
And although I joke about my humble beginnings now, those early-career Saturdays at the teller window—getting grumpy noes from customers who would rather keep all their cash in a checking account than get “sold to” by a fresh-faced kid with bright ideas (like opening a savings account)—the bank turned out to be a fertile training ground and solid foundation that has served me throughout my career.
It was at the bank where my manager and early mentor pulled me aside and said, “There’s a lot of stuff we do here, but really, we’re just trying to help people out.”
It was in the early days that I learned to focus on helping instead of selling, which remains one of my core tenants to this day.
Focusing on helping people out changed my worldview and shaped the way I do everything.
I internalized it and live it every day. I even make it part of my morning mantra, the core of all of my decisions with regard to clients, friends, and family.
And it was armed with this helpful guiding principle that I dove into learning as much as I possibly could about finances and investing, quickly moving to full-time teller, lead teller, personal banker, and then a licensed banker.
In fact, I followed a traditional financial career path successfully until my drive bumped up against my commitment to helping people out — it was one day, when I was working at one of the big financial institutions, that I looked around and realized nobody was, “just trying to help people out” anymore.
My bosses had a different goal in mind, and that’s when I decided it was time to become my own boss. So I started my own firm, with my own driving goal — to keep helping people out.
Sure, staying with the large firm would’ve been the safer, more comfortable, and more lucrative route.
But by this point, helping people out had become an obsession.
Specifically, I had become genuinely passionate about active risk management.
It’s not all dollars and cents; there’s a lot of emotion tied up in money. The uncertainty, anxiety, and fear that comes with investing can get the best of people. It can get in the way of making smart moves, getting ahead, and pursuing your goals.
While my colleagues were pushing financial products for commissions and pushing aside client objections by saying, “don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” I was tuning in to exactly why people were scared and developing strategies that seek to reduce risk.
By using what I call “mathmotional investing,” I help clients make small mathematical decisions in an effort to alleviate some of the anxiety associated with the uncertainty of the market.
For example, if you keep a little more cash on hand so that you can buy a little extra when markets go down a little, you may begin to get more comfortable with the market going down — recognizing the dip as a potential opportunity to jump in and buy using what you’ve set aside.
Smart investing starts with feeling better about investing.
Pushing yourself to put your family’s financial future on the line, with an advisor offering you nothing more than, “history tells us it’ll be fine” — well, that’s certainly not a healthy way to learn to invest and it’s not a helpful path to building wealth.
This approach is not about telling you what you want to hear; it’s about telling you what will help.
My obsession with active risk management stems from my commitment to helping people out, and it’s fueled by my focus on what matters.
To me, what matters is my family and my firm. My wife and two children are the center of my world and when I work with clients, together we focus on whatever makes their world go round. If I can help you out with developing your investment strategy in a way that honors what matters most to you, I’ve done my job.