Getting in the weeds to find the best financial partners.
Due diligence is a process I really dislike, but now that I am alone, I have to do my due diligence in almost every big decision I make for myself.
This past fall, and early part of the new year I realized it was time to change financial professionals. I had been working with my father’s financial planner and it was time to pick my own. So, I set out to find recommendations and met with four very likeable and good financial planners. Some gave me the mile-high version of what I should do and others got into the deep weeds with me on formulating a long-term plan.
After suffering through looking at numbers, (which I hate) I finally came down to two firms that I felt could benefit me. One was a personal friend of the family who lives in Dallas and the other was a recommendation from my trusted banker. Both were great, however, when I visualized my future and who I could handle getting bad or terrible news from, I zero’d in on one financial professional. I also thought that one day, I could potentially leave this earth and who would I trust to walk my kids through this maze?
I prayed about this, meditated on it and then slept on this decision for a couple of days. I woke up and wrote out emails. Of the four financial professionals, I got two emails back saying they were sorry not to work with me, and one of joy to who I would be working with in the future.
But there was one financial planner, the one in Dallas that sent back a scathing email to me that he had spent hours preparing for me his proposal and recommendations. Then he asked to be compensated.
I sat and stared at my computer. WOW….it never stops, the fight to protect yourself. I ask myself would he have done this to a man? And given his response ~ it showed his true colors, it proved to me I made the correct decision. I went back to my vision and thought, I would not want to get bad or terrible news from him, now that I know how he reacts. And I don’t know if he could walk my kids with kindness through the maze of finances should I pass away.
LOSS, it is a word I feel every day. I miss being able to lean on my husband to just make situations like this vanish – he always had the right words.
This is exactly why I created LOLA. To be able to guide people to compassionate resources.
