Everyone Is...with Jennifer Coronado
The intent of this show is to engage with all types of people and build an understanding that anyone who has any kind of success has achieved that success because they are creative thinkers. So whether you are an artist, a cook, a bottle washer, or an award-winning journalist, everyone has something to contribute to the human conversation.
Everyone Is...with Jennifer Coronado
Judy Tocco: The Big Deal
Join us as we uncover the remarkable journey of Judy Tocco, the President and CEO of Aspire Wealth Partners. Judy's story is one of transformation and adaptability, revealing how she pioneered a position from VP of Operations at a credit union to becoming a Certified Financial Planner and starting her own wealth management company. Her narrative is an inspiring testament to creative thinking and the power of seizing opportunities even when they come in unexpected forms.
Judy discusses her thoughts on the evolution of the financial industry and the landscape of investing today, including meme stocks and the rise of digital currencies. Judy's candid discussion also sheds light on the challenges women face in finance and the potential of women-led firms to excel. Don't miss this captivating episode that not only chronicles a career in finance but also offers invaluable lessons on resilience, leadership, and never being afraid to fail.
www.slightlyprod.com
People are coming to see you with the hope that they can do something more than what they're doing right now, but I think you just don't have to be afraid to fail. I mean, what's the big deal?
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Everyone Is. I am your host, jennifer Coronado. The intent of this show is to engage with all types of people and build an understanding that anyone who has any kind of success has achieved that success because they are a creative thinker. So, whether you are an artist or a cook or an award-winning journalist, who has any kind of success has achieved that success because they are a creative thinker. So, whether you are an artist or a cook or an award-winning journalist, everyone has something to contribute to the human conversation. And now, as they say, on with the show, judy Togo was the president and CEO of Aspire Wealth Partners out of Tucson, arizona, which started its life as Togo Financial Company that she founded, and we are here today to talk about her life and her life as a financial planner. So welcome, judy, to Everyone Is. Thank you.
Speaker 2:One of the best things that I liked about us talking was when we were trying to schedule time with you. You were like, oh yeah, I would be happy to do your podcast, but I just retired and I have to go party in Nashville. And I was like, all right, yes, we've picked the right person for this podcast. We all have our priorities, jen, that's right, like I was thinking. The Ariana Grande song, yes, and that's the life you were living in at that moment. So thank you for joining us today. Before we get into your life as a financial planner, I want to talk a little bit about your life in general. Were you born in Tucson, arizona? Yeah, big family, little family.
Speaker 1:I've got a younger brother two years younger than me, older brother 10 years older than me, so you were the middle kid. Yeah, the middle kid.
Speaker 2:When you were a little kid, were you into math? Was that a thing that you were good at or interested in?
Speaker 1:I was always really good at school. I was one of those people that didn't really need to study much and usually got A's Dean's List, Honor Society. Nothing really came hard to me at school. Some things didn't interest me at all, but I still did okay at them. One of the things that I used to hate was history. I thought it was so boring. Now I think it's fascinating. You grow up and realize maybe there is something to be learned from the past.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're living history every day and you don't even know it.
Speaker 1:Exactly, but didn't plan on being in this business. Actually, back in the day the U of A was recruiting women as physicians and they tried to talk me into taking the MSATs and I really did think about it. But at that point it was like, okay, at the age they were bringing that up and the years it would have taken to get there, it was like no, I don't want to do that. My original career path was law. I wanted to be an attorney and I started off on that path and after about two semesters I was ready to hang myself.
Speaker 1:It was the most boring occupation you know, and if it wasn't boring it was like okay, what part of law are you going to go into? Corporate law Super boring. I'd just been reading 200 pages of contracts for the sale of the business. Oh my God. Really glad I didn't go into that. But just on accident I got into banking, started off with Mountain Bells Credit Union at the time, left there, went to what was Hughes Missile Systems Credit Union and I hired in there back in 85 as the VP of operations.
Speaker 2:How did you get hired into the VP of operations role? What did you have to have in order to get that role at the credit union?
Speaker 1:Well, basically experience in banking and I had a few years with Mountain Bell so they took it over. The credit union was a lot smaller then when I started than it is now. I was on the advisory board for Visa. I used to fly out to California every quarter for board meetings and do things like that. I ran everything that happens for you as a client of a bank or a credit union your checks, your credit cards, your loans, your home mortgages, your payroll deposits, things like that. I ran all the back office stuff. And after a couple of years the board did a survey of the members of Hughes, which at that time was just strictly Hughes. So they asked what are the services that we don't have that you guys would be interested in? And one of the things they mentioned that was high up on their list was investment services. I had no experience in investment services.
Speaker 2:So you said I'm going to do that because I have no experience.
Speaker 1:Pretty much this was my interview, to be honest with you. The board met on whatever night it was. The next day a couple of the board members came into my office and said this is what we're thinking about doing. The board wants to pursue this. We really don't know anything about it. Are you interested in it? I was like I guess I could be and their whole question was they didn't know anything either. Do you know what an annuity is? Really I didn't and I said yeah, I got the concept of it. So if you want it, you can stop being VP of operations. You can start a new corporation for us and do the investment arm of it. So I didn't really realize what that entitled, but I was kind of sick of doing the back stuff. Wasn't too much excitement going on there. So I started the corporation, met with the attorneys, got the licenses. Then I had to go get licensed.
Speaker 2:You did all the sort of legal things that you were avoiding.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So I had to go get licensed and do all of that, Did it and I loved it. It was just like it was just like always solving a puzzle to me.
Speaker 2:So when you had to get licensed, what does that mean? How does that work?
Speaker 1:To be able to offer securities you have to take federal exams. So you have to take like the series six or series seven. I took both One's for like mutual fund, one's for general security, stocks, bonds, all the miscellaneous stuff. Then you have to get the law part of it, the series 65, 66, the blue sky law part of it. And then if you're going to sell insurance or insurance related products, you have to get a state insurance license in every state you're going to do business in. And then I wanted to become a certified financial planner because to me, when you get a series six or a seven or an insurance license, I would say you're just smart enough to be dangerous. So I went and got the certified financial planner Because to me, when you get a series six or a seven or an insurance license, I would say you're just smart enough to be dangerous. So I went and got the CFP. During that time too, I was working on finishing my bachelor's, started my master's, started the CFP, which is another master's level course.
Speaker 1:It's a two-year thing. It's kind of like the CPA exam, except for it's a little bit more holistic. It, you know, it includes like pensions and estate planning law, taxation, investments, insurance, budgeting, things like that. Each there's an each section type thing. You had to pass each section and when I did it you know you didn't sit at a computer and do it you did for like half of it. It was a six-hour exam on each section and you couldn't progress until you passed that section. It was like 150 multiple choice and then they would give you a case if they wrote up a case on your financial situation and it might be a 15-, 20 page case complete with financial statements on you and then you had to write an essay as to all the things that you need to do and why it's recommended. So of course that meant you didn't get your exam results back for months because somebody had to analyze it and do it.
Speaker 1:So luckily, you know, I never knew should I start studying for the next section or did I fail this and need to go backwards? But luckily I passed all six sections on. The first time took me about two and a half years because Evan was little. So you had a toddler at that time. Yep, I used to sit in my kitchen, which is where I had my computer, and you don't ignore a toddler when you get home, but I would. After I put him to bed I would go in the kitchen and start working. I had a little computer desk in there and a lot of times at one or two o'clock in the morning I'd roll backwards or look backwards and he'd be asleep behind my chair on the floor.
Speaker 1:So, he's been a mama's boy the whole time through. But yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot of studying and doing that sort of thing. But once I got going and then I hired, at that time Payne Weber was really big. I hired a couple of advisors from Payne Weber and I just never looked back. Yeah, it was really fun.
Speaker 2:Going back, like you know, you looked at law and it was kind of boring and contract law sucked. And you didn't say sucked, but I'm saying, I'm paraphrasing and then you got into the financial stuff and you said I loved it. And what did you love about it?
Speaker 1:I think it was the interaction with people. When you're in law, you'd never go see an attorney because you're happy about something right. You go see an attorney because there's some legal problem that you're in, you're going through a divorce, somebody's suing you over something. It was just like it just seemed so negative all of it, Whereas this was.
Speaker 1:People are coming to see you with the hope that they can do something more than what they're doing right now and get to a goal, whatever that may be. I mean, everybody's goal is to eventually retire and not have to go to work right, but goals are buying houses and goals are putting kids through school. There's lots of things. Everybody's got a different story. Everybody's at a different phase in their life. We work with people that are really pretty young A lot of young engineers right out of school. We work with A lot of physicians and they're so busy they're like herding cats, but they're kind of fun to work with too. Engineers never admit that they don't know what they're talking about, and physicians are the first ones to say they don't know it, they don't care, they know it. Just do it for them, you know. So it's good, you know, you feel appreciated that way too.
Speaker 2:Keeping that in mind, the different types of clients you've had, do you feel like you had to adjust who you are to them a little bit? Did you find that, or did you? Were you always? Did you always take the same approach with people?
Speaker 1:I would say, for the most part, I'm me. You know, and when I took this leap and you're not going to be a good shit with every client and you're not going to be a good fit in every career you decide you want to try. I mean, I went through a few, definitely, but I think you just don't have to be afraid to fail. I mean, what's the big deal If you fail? So what? You stop? You think, okay, which direction do I need to turn? And you keep going. So I've never really thought of myself as creative, but I've always been a risk taker. I guess it's like it works good If it doesn't so what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we talked a little bit about you know you worked at Hughes and then you know you've talked about how you went on to create your own company. But there's a story I know about you, judy, and it's about when you left the credit union the credit union and you your approach on starting your new business, and I wonder if you would be open to sharing that story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I started the new corporation for the credit union because credit unions are nonprofits, so they had to own wholly own a corporation that was a for-profit. I mean you don't do financial planning because you're a priest, you do it because you want to make a living and you want to help people. So the CEO of the credit union at the time he just retired about a year ago. I mean we're really pretty good friends throughout the years. He was hired about a year after I was, and I mean he was a sharp guy, but he was the type that wouldn't change course unless he was forced to. Every year, the same promotions at the same times, nothing different, nothing new. We used to spend hours at times in meetings me talking about what color the new branch floors are going to be stained. It's like, who cares, I don't care. But he had to have a consensus on everything because I think he was always afraid to really take a leap on his own and I just got really sick of it. So he was always the if it ain't broke, don't fix it type of guy, and I was the one of it Don't matter if it's not broke, it still could be better type. Right, we finally came to blows over it. One day I went in. It still could be better, right, we finally came to blows over one day. I went in I was at a different branch came into the main corporate office where we both had our offices and I don't even know what brought it up, to be honest with you at that point. But I had a do not compete, do not solicit, you know, contract with them not to leave. And we finally just said you know, this isn't working anymore. You are stuck in 15 years ago. You're afraid to try anything new. I want to keep going. So we came to terms. He said well, you're just not a good fit here anymore. I said I agree with you. I'm not a good fit here anymore, not under you, because we're so different in our approach to trying new things. So we agreed to disagree and I left.
Speaker 1:They let me out of some of my contracts. But the things that they did not let me out of was the do not compete and do not solicit contracts. Because when I was there at Hughes at that time they had what was called the Hughes Management Club, which was a certain pay grade and up at the plant site. So it was mostly like the engineers directors, program managers, things like that, mostly like the engineers directors, program managers, things like that. And I was president of that club for two terms running, so I knew everybody. So he was a little shaken about that because we had started building a really nice cashflow business for the credit union.
Speaker 1:But my brother and I this was on a Friday that I left I took, they gave me copies of all my contracts just to remind me that they would sue me blind if I did anything stupid. And now that's been struck down by the law just in the last couple of weeks. You can't take away a person's livelihood. And so Joel, my younger brother and I are talking and he goes. You know what you should do. He goes, everybody knows you, he goes, you should just reach out to them. I said I cannot reach out to them, I'll get sued. So we're looking at the contract.
Speaker 1:It said nothing about advertising. So what I did is I scraped together some money Billboards are not inexpensive things but I put a great big billboard right outside the main entrance to the plant site. So my picture, the new company name, the phone number, and that's basically it. So within hours of that billboard going up. Calls are coming in by the dozens per day and that's what helped me build my business. And they got a little miffed about it and went to their attorney and the attorney said you didn't say she couldn't advertise and she's not within the mile radius of her main office where you're at. So too bad, so sad. So it worked out great.
Speaker 1:So I was a one man show for about a year. I ran into an office and did my own thing for about a year, got my first year's taxes done and the CPA said oh my God, you're doing great. You don't have no expenses, build a building. So that's kind of where it started Built the first building, hired a kid His name was James, he was a really nice guy but unfortunately he got in a fight with his girlfriend. Police report filed In our business. You get a police report filed on you, you're gone. So I had to let him go.
Speaker 1:My friend Barb, who I went to high school with, was working as the executive assistant for the CEOs a couple of them at Crandallet Hospitals. She had about had it. So I said why don't you come over and work with me? Cause I knew she's super detail oriented and so am I, you know. So that was really the start. So we went from me to right now. The business has about 11 people and we're looking like crazy to hire more because we just keep growing and it's good.
Speaker 1:But you know you have to. It's hard to find advisors right now. You know it really is. There's a lot of us are in my age group, in the sixties. You know I don't need to work anymore, I'm tired, I'm sick of the legal hassles with everything and all the regs and Congress, but they can do anything they want and not go to jail for insider trading and all the other things that you and I would hang for. Yeah, so there was a lot of people leaving and I think women really need to look at this, because I think women are creative thinkers for the most part. We multitask a whole bunch, whereas I think men are very smart, but I think they're more focused on one thing. When I left, we were with LPL Financial at the time. That's the broker dealer that we use. I brought the credit union in Tucson along with the credit union in California, the Hughes Raytheon now to LPL. We did it jointly and when I left, when the deals with the credit union was, I want to be able to stay with LPL.
Speaker 2:If I want to stay with LPL, what is LPL versus what your company is? Because part of the things that you send out they come from LPL Financial, but you're your own company. So how do those two work?
Speaker 1:As independent financial advisors, you can custody your clients' assets wherever you want to right. So we can custody them at Schwab or Ameritrade or Fidelity or T Rowe Price or LPL. What does custody mean? It means they're the ones that actually have the trading desks, they process all the trades, they have all the trading software. They're the ones that generate the statements and send them out. So it's not the Bernie Madoff thing where he was doing everything in his own building and those statements were nothing but lies. Yeah, totally Right. So it's kind of that safety net where if we got mad at LPL and said, okay, we've had it, we're moving everybody to Schwab, Schwab would say, great, we'll do all those services for you. So I chose LPL because they don't have any of their own proprietary products, which means you know if you're with Schwab or with Fidelity, they want you to use their stuff and sort of it's good, Some of it's not, and my money's in the same thing. So I want what I want Right For myself and my clients.
Speaker 2:You did the financial advising side of it, and then LPL does the trading desk Right. Was that role ever interesting to you? Like the actual traders? Like, did you want a wolf of Wall Street? Is that what you wanted to do, Judy?
Speaker 1:No, because really the traders are. They work at Wall Street and they're on the ground screaming like they did 50 years ago orders. It's kind of archaic, but no, I didn't want that. That to me, is just you're just an order taker, that's. I'm calling up and saying, hey, jen wants 500 shares of Amazon. Somebody on the floor is buying 500 shares of Amazon In this case it's going to LPL and then LPL is taking it to the floor and when it's aggregated like that your 500 shares, my 500 shares, everybody else's zillion shares get a little bit better deal right, rather than doing it on your own, buying a handful of shares here or there. So no, I never wanted to do that. That isn't any. There's no problem solving there. It's just processing buy and sell orders Right.
Speaker 2:So for you, like when you're looking at the financial industry, you've been in it for 40 years now, yep. What are the biggest changes and transitions, and how did you, as a person, change, shift yourself to those transitions? How do you go about doing that?
Speaker 1:I think that kind of jumped into what everything has evolved to now a little ahead of the curve. I mean, being the CFP, you're bound as a fiduciary right. Nobody even heard the word fiduciary five or 10 years ago. Now everybody comes in and goes are you a fiduciary? Yep, have been since the 1990s. It's like, oh, we didn't know they existed back then. It's like CFPs are always fiduciaries. The guy with a series seven or the guy with an insurance license, he is not a fiduciary. They can do that. Standard of care is a lot less I see.
Speaker 2:Well, explain to me what, like I'm a drama major, what fiduciary means.
Speaker 1:Fiduciary basically means, in a nutshell, that everything we do has got to be 100% in your best interest. Right, with a brokerage with a person who is not a fiduciary, just a guy with a series seven, say, or a series six, they might have two different products that would fit your need, right One who's going to pay them 4% and one's going to pay them 2%. Which one do you think you're going to get? You're going to get the one that's going to pay them 4%, whereas a fiduciary really needs to look and say, hey, these are comparable, they're the same thing. I can get it for her at half the cost. That's the one we've got to get.
Speaker 1:Or the recommendations that we make have to be based on your best interest, not in us getting any kind of reward for it. And the industry has really evolved to where there used to be some investment products out there that would pay advisors 10, even 12%. Now pretty much they're level across the board because they know they have to answer to people who want to make sure their advisor's living up to a fiduciary standard.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. I know nothing about investment Anything I know about investments. Honestly, I get from you Full disclosure to everyone who's listening. So how do you analyze the market and how do you continue to educate yourself on how the market works? What are the things in the market that are in play during the 2008 economic crisis? How do you wrap your head around how to deal with things like that? What are the things in the market that are in play during the 2008 economic crisis? How do you wrap your head around how to deal with things like that? What are your processes?
Speaker 1:For us, information comes in in a fire hose. You know, if clients go, I get information too. It's no, you get Yahoo Finance free right, so you get some bias in there, depending on who's sponsoring yahoo finance, whereas with us, there is a lot of white papers put out by research firms that we subscribe to that we pay a lot of money for every year just trying to get independent feed, plus all the investment firms, whether it's lpl, has got their own research department, fidelity, t Rowe, price, mfs, everybody and their grandmother has their own research firms and they're providing their analysis of the market too. And I think part of it is just having done it for so long, I mean in 2008, 2007, 2008,. I had been doing this since 1987.
Speaker 2:Another financial crisis year.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think it was the closest I ever came in my career to saying hell with it. I'm getting everybody out because I was a nervous wreck and it's my job not to be the nervous wreck, because everybody else who doesn't do this for a living doesn't watch it like we do. So I came really close. I did sell out of what were called structured notes, which were bank issued notes, because I was really worried that some of the big banks would fail and those notes would go for 100,000 down to zero as soon as they announced. That was the only thing I sold out of and I replaced those as soon as I sold them I bought back into the market.
Speaker 1:Because history shows we have been through a lot of crap over the years economically for hundreds of years. Right, since the nation started. There's been good times and bad times. But if you just look at it historically and calm down, you have to adjust. But you don't just get out, because study after study shows that those people who get scared out of the market are way behind the eight ball five 10 years down the road.
Speaker 1:But I admit that I think was the most unnerving time you know, when COVID hit was another one. Yeah, that was such a fast and furious downturn I mean that was like 33% downturn on the S&T 500 in about 30 days and then hit bottom, started coming back up right in the middle of all this mess and you know the phone was ringing off the hook and clients are like, oh my God, we should get out. We've never done this, no, we haven't, but if we get out we're going to shoot ourselves in the foot. So what do we do? We look at different things. You start getting rid of the more consumer, discretionary things like restaurants and Disneyland and things that people were not doing Airlines you know things like that and you get back into the basics.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, the tech industry did great. We did tech more than ever during COVID. I never used Zoom before COVID. Now it's a routine part of life. You know we're on Zoom almost every day, even with clients that are in town, and we have clients in 26 different states. It was like it was kind of nice to see their faces. You know some people I'd never met in person. So it kind of put a different element into the business. It's a little bit more personal, I think.
Speaker 2:How did you expand across 26 different states? From Tucson, arizona, we started basically with Tucson.
Speaker 1:But I had a lot of clients in California too, because they used to fly back and forth to California and invest there too. So a lot of California people. And then people start moving right, they leave right beyond our hues and they go to work for IBM in Minnesota. So we're in Minnesota, or you know. Or people retire, you know they. They say heck with California, heck with Arizona. I'm going to Nevada where there's no state tax, or I'm going to New Mexico where it's cooler and it's not so crowded as Arizona. So just little by little, you know, just kind of splinters out. And then those people refer their family members, and most family members don't live in the same state as where they grew up. So it just kind of splintered out. So yeah, it's a little bit of a job because every state has got their own requirements. Good thing there's some repricosity arrangements out there. But you know it just spread, it just grew like wildfire and still is. So really lucky for that.
Speaker 2:One of the things I hear a lot in what you're talking about is sort of the connections that you've made over the years. Like you talked about how you knew so many people when you were at Hughes and you were able to take those relationships and turn that into a business. So how involved are you in a larger community that keeps you connected and what do those communities look like and how do you approach that? Like you're not an introvert, but how do you approach new relationships with new clients or new people in the industry?
Speaker 1:Um, with new clients. You know people come to our office. It's not going sitting at your kitchen table and talking about things, so it's. It was a comfort level for me and I would have to say I am an introvert in a lot of situations. Yeah, I think so, because I'm not real comfortable in a room full of people. I really don't know One of my good friends. She comes here from Reno, she lives in Reno. We'll go somewhere. We'll know everybody in the restaurant before we're out of there, because she's talked to everybody.
Speaker 1:I would never do that, but I don't know. I think it's a confidence level. When you're confident in your abilities to be able to help, I think you're more likely to get out there and do that. You know, over the years I've been on a board of a lot of different charities and organizations, from Th writing to Tucson to open, in, which was a homeless shelter for kids. Basically, I do a lot of stuff with Tucson unified school district, the educational enrichment foundation, so you get to know a lot of people that way too. Over the last couple of years because it's so busy in this transition, because I knew I was going a couple years ago- you knew you were going to retire.
Speaker 2:You had that plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there was just so much going on with the transition of the business legally and financially and everything, I stepped off the boards and said you know, give me a break, I don't have time right now. When I retire I'll consider getting back on doing more community service work, which I already started with TUSD. But what is that organization? Tucson Unified School District? Oh, okay, yeah, so the Educational Enrichment Foundation. We do. They have a lot of little splinter groups in TUSD.
Speaker 1:Tucson, the middle of Tucson, is not the good part of Tucson anymore. It used to be. When we grew up it was a nice part of Tucson. Now it's the suburbs that are nice and Tucson itself and the city limits, those schools. You know the kids have grown up. When I went to Oliverton High School when I started my freshman year it had just come off double sessions and there was 8,000 kids going there. Now it's mostly empty right because they're in the center of town. There's not really young families in a lot of the center of town, they're more on the outskirts.
Speaker 1:I think it's starting to change. They're starting to move back in and do things like that. But you know, it's just different. It's different. But I think just keep it in contact and you know some of them are starting to contact me now. So will you help and will you be back on the board? I'm still not to the point where I want to be sitting in meetings. It's like I'd rather go muck the stalls for the horses or wash a horse right now than be sitting in a board meeting again. I'm not ready for that yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to ask you about this whole meme stock craze. What do you think about that? Like the AMC and the, what do you think about that? It feels like investing is so much more emotional because of social media than it used to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's wrong. I mean, the bottom line is, investing is numerical, it's not emotional, but it is a very emotional thing because money is emotional for people. You want to make it. You're afraid of losing it. I think there's a lot of opportunity to be in the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Speaker 1:I don't like Bitcoin. I kind of like blockchain, but I don't like Bitcoin. I think it's still a little too scammy and unregulated for me. Meme stocks same thing. It's just like, really, when push comes to shove and times are bad, who's going to buy that thing from you? It's only worth what you can sell it for, right, right. So to me, I don't know. I'm more into sticking with the I won't say just the big companies, because done really well in some small companies too. But you have to have something that you feel, if it isn't making a profit right now, that the potential is there, and I think you just got, you have to get a little gut feeling.
Speaker 1:I had a contractor that's working on my house up north. He's been a general contractor forever. He's opened a women's spa in Pinetop Arizona, where my house is, and he goes. Do you want to be a partner? I don't know anything about a women's spa. You don't know anything about a women's spa. He goes, oh, but there's nothing here. I said there's a few things to hear in Pinetop because I've gone to get massages. There's a couple of nice places. I don't think you're going to make it. He goes, so you don't want to be a partner. No, I don't want to be a partner, you know. So I think you really have to take the emotion out of investing and you have to look at the numbers.
Speaker 2:What are the things that you've done in your career, your life, that you're most proud of? What are those things? What do you think about that?
Speaker 1:Definitely starting my own business. Before I even started it which I started like a week after I left Keys Credit Union I had a couple of job offers with some of the big banks here doing investments, just like I was doing I thought, you know, I'm going to do it for myself. So when I contacted LPL because I got permission to stay with LPL from the credit union LPL is a Fortune 500 company and Dan Arnold, who's the CEO of LPL super nice guy. Him and I are good friends. We were sitting on the beach outside of Puerto Vallarta, in Punta Mita actually, like a year ago, and we're sitting outside this beautiful restaurant in the ocean and he goes why aren't there more women advisors? I said, number one, I think women sometimes don't have the confidence to do that. I said I think they're better advisors and CEOs than men. Just statistically, looking at companies run by women CEO versus men CEOs, women-run firms are more profitable public firms. We're really underrepresented in boards and stuff. And I said but you know why? One of the reasons why there isn't many women advisors is?
Speaker 1:I said I'm going to tell you something, dan, when I started my own business and I'm talking to your office, your recruiters, to get me set up as a new business, as a new rep. I said the guy I talked to and I said can I remember his name? And even if I did, I wouldn't mention it, probably not even there anymore. Anyways, he told me flat out that people who start their own business that come from banks or credit unions they never make it. He says he really didn't even give me the time of day I had to push him to get everything done. He goes. You're kidding me. We said that to you. I said, yes, you did, and you still treat women in this business the same way. I said if you go up and I've seen you do it, dan, we're outside on in a cocktail hour party and there's a couple there and you go up and shake the man's hand, assuming he's the advisor. I said you know you got to get with the times, man.
Speaker 1:Women are doing as good a job, if not a better job, than a lot of men in a lot of occupations. When you look at colleges, people coming out of colleges, there's more women doctors coming out than men doctors coming out. There's more women attorneys than men, I said, but unfortunately in the finance world it's still more men. It's still an old boys club and I said you guys got to get past it. So I think, doing that and actually making it, there are 23,000 offices that LPL supports. We are number six, so we're in the top tier of the 1% out there. We are number 400 in the nation, regardless of the firm, whether it's Merrill Lynch or Fidelity, whatever. So, and two women own that business, right, it's like we can do it Honestly, judy, you're a baller.
Speaker 2:That's why I wanted to talk to you today. You officially retired in April, is that right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, march 21st was my last day. We're still working on contracts and signing, so I'm technically still there, but I haven't been in. I help, I do some work online and do some research and stuff and help with a little bit of the portfolios, and I'll keep doing that for a while, probably for the next couple of years. Jen is really good. Jen Aikens, my business partner, excellent at it, but you know she's going through a big transition right now too, so I told her I'm here, I'll help you out, have laptop, we'll travel.
Speaker 2:I love it, and so you're not on boards yet. You'd rather wash some horses or muck for some horses. What are your immediate plans? What are you going to do now? What's Judy's next six months going to look like?
Speaker 1:You know I started with the trip to Nashville the next morning. That was a blast. Never been there, love it. I would rather go back there than Vegas. I think it was just a lot more fun. I love to golf, so I'm golfing two or three times a week. I keep. All my clients are going. You got to learn how to play pickleball. So for retirement I got all kinds of pickleball equipment. I haven't tried it yet, but that's why I said I guess you've got to do that, because I don't want to get thrown out of the retiree club. I think it's a must.
Speaker 2:Listen, I'm not a retiree and I love pickleball. We'll go play pickleball when I'm down there again.
Speaker 1:Perfect, yeah, so that I love to travel and I've been outside the United States a lot. I'm going to Australia in March, got that planned. One of my clients goes you're in Australia, you might as well go to Singapore. It's only three hours away. It's like, well, they'll probably be about as close as I get. I looked it up, it's eight hours away. I don't know where you're. You must have slept through the whole flight. But I might add that on there.
Speaker 1:But really, what I want to do right now, like I said, I've been to a lot of places, especially in Europe, and I love it. Evan's trying to talk me into buying a house in Italy. He's sending me listings every other day. How convenient, evan. Yes, because I made the mistake of telling him that if you get dual citizenship which I can get, doesn't take that much work, a little genealogy, research and some paperwork that you get a better deal on taxes and stuff like that in Italy. So man that put him on the bandwagon. So he sends me pictures of these hell holes that are 700 years old. He goes look at this. It's like Evan, I said everything in that place is 700 years old too. I said I wouldn't say never buy a place there, but it isn't going to be one of those places something newer, but you know.
Speaker 1:So I want to travel but I want to actually see a lot of stuff in the US. I've been to all the big cities in the US, you know LA, san Francisco, chicago, new Orleans all the fun places New York a bunch of times, but I haven't been to Mount Rushmore, I haven't been to Yellowstone. You know that's kind of what I want to do is take a year or two and just a lot of places in Utah that I want to see Beautiful parks there, yeah. So I want to do that. I think that's next on the bucket list. More than the big ordeal trips, more the car trips or four-hour flight trips Sounds a lot better than the 14-hour one coming up going to Australia next year. So that's it. I got my mom still around. She's still around. So checking on her a couple times a week at least she's doing well, thank God, but she's 90. So I don't want to wander too far either.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's fair.
Speaker 2:You've had an amazing career and you've done some amazing things and you continue to do amazing things and I'm just impressed by you and I want to thank you so much for chatting with us today. Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Everyone Is. Everyone Is is produced and edited by Chris Hawkinson, executive producer is Aaron Dussault, music by Doug Infinite, our logo and graphic design is by Harrison Parker and I am Jen Coronado. Everyone Is is a S disappointed Productions, production dropping every other Thursday. Wherever podcasts are available, make sure to rate and review, and maybe even like and subscribe. Thank you for listening.
