Okay, you guys threw me for a bit of a loop wanting to know what I’ve been up to. I imagined that option was going to get the fewest number of votes on my last blog. But I enjoy a challenge, and frankly writing about this is a highly uncomfortable experience. It’s strange to think about, but the length of the gap between my posts on DailyKos was actually longer than my entire life as a Rush Limbaugh fan (aka “a dittohead”). It’s akin to the realization that we’re past the “future with flying cars and hoverboards date” in Back to the Future II. Or that one has crossed the Brimley/Cocoon Line…which I did this past December. Geez. Now I feel old.
This is officially a “recap” episode, so if you don’t know who the heck I am, or don’t really care about where I’ve been you can take this diary off. For those who DO remember me, well…there’s a lot to cover. Allow me to apologize in advance. It’s a longer story than I gave it credit for. Probably because I never intended to tell it. Also, I just recently re-watched The Prestige which is one of my all time favorite movies and it has infiltrated my thought processes. Creatively I’m holding a metaphor hammer and everything looks like a nail. So for that reason I’ll be telling this story in three parts - the pledge (sets the scene), the turn (something catastrophic happens from which there is seemingly no hope of recovery), and the prestige (somehow everything works out - ta-da!).
Let’s start with The Pledge (as the title indicates) and my chosen profession in 2004 - Financial Advisor. That’s where the “advisorjim” moniker came from. Like Kid Rock, I absolutely despise the name I gave myself (also like Kid Rock, I hate the name Kid Rock…and Kid Rock in general. Actually, let’s stop talking about Kid Rock). I’m not an advisor anymore, and haven’t been for over 12 years. But I’m stuck with it now, so I’ll just try to make the best of it.
Before I start talking about life as a financial advisor I’d like to make the following disclosure. As someone who “flunked out” of the profession, you should take what I’m about to say about it with a grain of salt. I’m sure there are perfectly wonderful people in the profession. You probably like the person you’re working with, and I’m sure they’re good people. But if you were to throw a rock at 100 people in the financial advising industry back in the aughts, 99 times that rock is going to hit a shitbird.
The job is weird, and basically the same wherever you go. If you’ve ever interviewed for a financial advising position, the first thing they will tell you is that you get to decide how much money you make. Not because you pick a number and they pay you that, but because the job is purely commission based so “the harder you work, the more money you will make.” Being a financial advisor (or insurance salesperson, or money manager, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) is a hustle. It’s like being a politician, but somehow ickier.
You don’t really get any “training.” You get paired with a “veteran advisor” who is generally someone who’s been there 90 days longer than you, and you’re meant to learn via… I don’t know, osmosis? Sometimes they send you out of town for a week of training with other first years. I never went that route, but every single person I spoke to who did told me the same story. Remember Madison Cawthorn and his stories about the cocaine sex parties? Well, it’s possible he just stumbled into a first year advisor training program.
The flame-out rate is high. The annual employee turnover when I started was actually over 100%, meaning companies were losing everyone they hired, plus a bunch of people who had been working there for longer than a year. Companies don’t care, though, because any clients you bring in as an advisor get re-assigned to someone else at the firm who is more successful and/or has been there longer.
There are a lot of sunk costs associated with being a financial advisor. It takes a lot of time and money to get started. It takes a lot of time and money to achieve the designations you need to know what you’re doing. It takes a lot of time and money to run your business - and don’t kid yourself, no matter what company you’re “working for” you’re running your own business. There’s no such thing as a salary. There are two pay models. The first is a “forgivable draw” to get you started that you have to backfill with really low percentage commissions on sales, but you don’t have to pay rent or utilities on your office. Alternatively you go full “LEROY JENKINS” mode where you take all the expenses yourself, and earn much higher commissions. It was in the middle of this storm that I decided in my first year that the self-employed channel was the right one for me.
That’s the funny thing about being in the middle of the storm — you don’t see the risks. Instead you carry with you this mantra of the self-employed - “I am not taking a risk because I am betting on myself.” So there you go - fact one. Expensive career with potentially high rewards, and you control all the risks because you’re betting on yourself therefore: You. Can’t. Fail.
This brings us to fact two, and this one is a real kick in the britches - I am a gambling addict. I’ve known this about myself since the week I turned 21. I was the baby of my group of friends, and we all agreed once I turned 21 we’d make our first visit to the casinos in Tunica, MS! I brought a bucket of quarters and a positive mental attitude, and that’s when the best worst thing possible happened - while playing video poker I hit some kind of reasonable jackpot. Not thousands, but probably hundreds. Then the dragon hunt was on!
Needless to say I lost everything I’d won plus everything I’d brought plus everything I could get my hands on via the cutting edge early 90s technology at my disposal (really just ATMs. They would have cashed my paycheck, but I’d left it at home thank God). One of my friends actually came by to say “hey” while I was still near the peak of earnings, but clearly headed in the wrong direction. Afterwards on the drive home he says to me, “Yeah, I could tell you weren’t leaving that casino with a nickel to your name. You could see it in your eyes.” This was actually a fantastic object lesson! Never again did I gamble at a casino. I’ve never bet on sports. I can’t even play fantasy football if there’s money to be won. But there are other forms of gambling, as I would eventually discover.
Just like gambling at the casino, “betting on yourself” when you’re a gambling addict can have disastrous consequences. Gambling addicts “double down” when they lose, because all they need is that one big pop to get them back to where they were. Also, it isn’t gambling if you know you’re going to win! And how can I lose when I’m placing bets on my own game!?
Okay, I believe that lays all the groundwork that my story requires. I may have to do some asides in subsequent blogs, but that’s probably all the stage dressing the story requires. The next bit will be really hard to write about. It’s my “Middle Dewey” period, if you get the reference. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy keeping that story in an unopened box in the corner of my mind. But I’ve been doing a lot of work lately to come to terms with past traumas, and this particular trauma’s time has come.
Until next time, dear reader! Thank you as always for your time and attention!