Here is this month’s BRAVE Interview with Amy Irvine!
1. WHO are you? By trade, I’m a financial planner. I use the term “planner” and not advisor because I think there is massive confusion around that title.
I grew up without wealth, but in a family with a strong work ethic.
The women in my family were amazingly ahead of their time. They had strong personalities. My great-grandmother and I were very close from birth. Perhaps that is because I shared her name and because I spent so much time with her. Her middle name was Grace, and she represented it in so many ways. She reminded me that I could do anything and neither my gender nor my economic status was ever to be used as a limitation. I fell into my profession at 22. I was looking for something that would use my accounting degree, but didn’t know what that was and I was lucky enough to be hired by a small trust department. I am also a wife, a daughter, a volunteer and, hopefully, a trusted friend. This is my most important role, although right now the business I started in 2015 is “hogging” me.
2. WHAT is your One Brave Thing and WHEN did you do it? As a planner, I have a goal to help people plan their “perfect” life. In 2014, we experienced a couple of life-changing events that made us re-evaluate our own “perfect” life. My husband and I loved what were doing for careers, but we didn’t love WHERE we were doing it in the winter. So we spent a great deal of time talking about options. I approached the company I was working for and asked if I could work remotely during the winter months so that we could enjoy the sunshine and warmer climate, without giving up the job.
When they declined, we decided to take a HUGE leap of faith and go independent.
This required giving up all the “guaranteed” income, benefits, etc. and starting a business, all while explaining to the potential clients that we will be available, but remotely, during the cold winter months. I didn’t have a lot of role models – most of the firms were male owned– but I decided it was the only answer to me to form my almost perfect life. Then at the end of 2017, I could see the firm was getting to capacity for growth. I really was uncomfortable adding additional planners to the firm, but I could see that without that action, I was going to limit the services. So I took that leap in early 2018 and hired the first of what ended up being 6 additional planners to the team.
3. WHERE did it occur? At first I partnered up with an advisor who lived in Merritt Island, Florida. It became clear pretty quickly that we could work together well, but not run a company together well. So we parted and I started my own firm with the idea that I would provide the planning side of the business. Although that didn’t really develop, my business did.
I grew from 30-ish clients to over 100 in 3 years.
Which is exactly why in 2017 I had to start thinking about some “self-love” as a colleague of mine put it. The first full winter in Florida (from 2015 – 2016) was a really adjustment and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be doing it. I now spend my winters in Parrish, Florida and my summers and falls in the beautiful Finger Lakes of New York. In 2018, I also pulled the trigger and finished writing my book, Uncork Your Finances, which is a spin-off of my podcast, Wine and Dime.
4. HOW did you make it happen? At the end of 2017, I declared 2018 my “Year to Be Brave.” I sort of chuckle at that now because, although it has at times tested me, I just repeat that motto every time I feel fear creeping into my head.
I knew I had to take a major leap of faith!
Others took a leap of faith in me as well, so we support each other in the stressful times.
5. WHY did you do it? Life is short!
We don’t know when we are going to leave this planet, so sometimes we have to pull up our “big girl pants” and step outside our shell.
I love what I do and hope to be doing it for a very long time, but I found that I was wishing my life away by saying, “only x years until retirement.” In reality, what I was saying was only x years until I can get out of Dodge for the winter. Now I get to get out of “Dodge” for the winter, but I get to keep doing what I love to do every day.
Find Amy here:
https://www.facebook.com/
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Read the other BRAVE Interviews: The BRAVE Interviews
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IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE INTERVIEWED FOR THIS SERIES ABOUT SOMETHING BRAVE YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR OWN LIFE, SEND ME AN EMAIL HERE: karen@karencreamer.com
Karen Creamer
