I'm a financial planner. I've been doing this for going on 10 years now, after more than 20 years of working for financial organizations. I have great clients and my practice has had great growth, at least by my standards. I'm content.
But based on the writings of many successful financial planners ('the book' as I call it), I should be trying to ramp up by adding staff and other advisors, and marketing more heavily. I need to turn my financial planning 'practice' into a 'firm' and if I don't, I'll be ruined. I'm supposedly not doing it right.
The thing is, based on 'the book' I shouldn't have been able to build a fairly successful practice. If fact, if I hadn't followed 'the book' when I first became a financial planner, I'd believe I'd be much better off now than I am. (It's occurred to me more than once that perhaps one of the reasons 'the book' says to add staff is, the so-called successful advisors who wrote it weren't smart enough to know how to do their own paperwork, or make their own decisions.)
So I have two possible paths now. One, to slow down growth, and enjoy the practice and the balance it provides to my life. Or two, pursue more growth, probably make more money, work longer hours, and end up managing other support staff, advisors, and the headaches that go with a large firm.
Choosing option #1 is easy for me. My kids are grown and independent, and I live a comfortable if not affluent life. My focus is much more on health and having time to enjoy life more. I want my practice to be something I can and want to manage.
It's easy for me to ignore 'the book' now, to say yes to life, and no to more money and more work. The hard part was knowing when not to listen to what people / 'the book' tell you to do.
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