Welcome to Independent Financial Planning Blog! Here I’ll discuss the industry, talk about where Independent Financial Planning is headed, and provide insight into the financial decision points and plethora of financial products an investor is likely to encounter.
I’d like to introduce Independent Financial Planning as well. Our mission is to provide advice that helps you make the best financial decisions depending upon what is important to you. Through planning and understanding, Independent Financial Planning provides practical solutions that help you achieve the goals for your life you maybe didn't think were possible and in the process become savvy stewards of your financial resources.
Independent Financial Planning is a great name because it’s similar to what I try to do as a financial advisor and planner. It’s descriptive and clear, not fancy. In the confusion of all the financial products available to an investor, investing can be unnecessarily complicated. Planning also can seem like a daunting challenge covering the next 40 or 50 years. I think you'll find that is not the case with Independent Financial Planning. I do my best to make my advice is clear, understandable, and practical.
Independent Financial Planning isn’t an original name, it was the name of Paul White’s company in Manassas before he retired, but it is a fitting name to start off my new company. I’ve been lucky and blessed to have been able to work with many competent and ethical financial advisors and teams over the years, like Paul. I owe a lot to all of them but especially Bob Tucker and the team at Reston Wealth Management. I wouldn’t be here today without their encouragement.
2015 is off to a great start already and I’m looking forward to engaging with you and helping you know where you are financially, and where you want to go; to make the best financial decisions depending upon what is important to you. One particularly good analogy to better understand planning and investing is sailing. You set your destination but you know there are many forces outside of your control, like the winds, tides, and currents. Every now and then you need to reevaluate where you are, your heading, and correct your course. You need to take control of the things you can control and realize that whether it is stormy or calm you can still arrive at your destination. I especially like this excerpt from a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “The Winds of Fate” or “A Ship Sails East”
One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.
Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
'Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the clam or the strife.
