Four decades ago, my dad founded Brennan Financial Services. He had two goals: he wanted to help families to be successful with their money, and he wanted to leave his corporate life to strike out on his own. He had worked for many years in the tax department for Mobil Oil. He and my mom had four children, and caring for us was their primary focus. Yet he knew the big corporate path didn’t quite suit him, and he was looking for ways to make a change. He learned from a family friend about the career of financial planning, and he thought to himself, “Couldn’t I take my knowledge of saving taxes for a corporation and apply it to families so that they could make better use of their money? Wouldn’t my work be more meaningful?”
He, of course, was right. Dad spent the requisite years gaining his licenses, apprenticed as a financial planner on the weekends, and finally left Corporate America to launch his own firm. As any entrepreneur knows, starting a business is a high risk / high work proposition, and Dad loved the challenge and reward of it. Over the years, he helped hundreds of families directly, educated thousands of people through his call-in radio show, and wrote a book about investing to meet future life goals. Through it all, his main focus and joy was independence – for his clients, his firm, and our family.
My dad’s parents were both immigrants from Ireland, so the idea of independence ran deep in him and obviously led him to his calling. He knew that the opportunity to be independent – in your career, in your business, in your finances, in your country - demanded diligence and focused work to be successful, but could be a path to achieve other meaningful goals in life.
My own wealth management firm, BFS Advisory Group, has five core values: empathy, future focus, integrity, authenticity, and independence. Our independence shows up in many places for us – in our choice to be independent advisors as opposed to being part of a large corporate organization, in the personalized recommendations we make for our clients, and in the goals we guide them to achieve on their journey to become financially independent.
We know that people of all backgrounds and levels of financial means who are insecure about money tend to have very high levels of stress, and that gaining financial independence creates a new level of confidence for individuals and families. The wealth management industry is still just scratching the surface of the people that it can help, as it lacks diversity in the gender and ethnicities of the people it reaches consistently. The work of helping people to become confident about their money decisions is very motivating for our team, and we are inspired by working alongside many other firms in our industry to help a broader audience to transform their lives through financial independence.
Having a front row seat since I was a young girl to watch this work – the confidence it builds, the stress it relieves, the choices it provides, coupled with the stories of my grandparents’ immigrant journey, has always made me a proud American. From our firm to you, your family, and your friends, we wish you a happy and safe Independence Day.
Debra Brennan Tagg is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional and the creator of the DBT360 Financial Plan, a proprietary program that helps her clients prioritize their goals, leverage their resources, and address their risks. She is the president of BFS Advisory Group and teaches the public and the financial services industry about the importance of values-based financial planning and investor education.