Meet Aaron Campbell

I never intended to become a financial advisor.  I wanted to be a basketball coach like my dad.  However, as I am sure you know, life can take us in completely unexpected directions sometimes.

To make a long story short, after graduating college I had some military obligations that ultimately led to working in the field of investments.

When I started thinking about becoming a financial advisor I didn't know the difference between a stock and a sock!

So, it took me hundreds of hours of study about investments, taxes, insurance, and financial planning before I was ready to take the exams to become a legit, licensed, financial advisor.

Luckily I passed all the exams and was unleashed on the world. I had put in a lot of time and study and was excited to start helping real people.

However, my excitement soon turned to feelings of total fear and uncertainty.

During my first year as an advisor I was meeting with 10-12 families per week and the vast majority of these people's lives had been deeply affected by the stock market crash of 2000-2002.

Many of these people where 5 years or less from retirement or had recently retired and had just lost 30-50% of their life savings in a very short time period.

Now, they were asking me what I was going to do to make sure that never happened to them again. They were looking for stability and security.

The problem was I didn't know what to do!

Remember, about 3 months before becoming an advisor I didn't know the difference between a stock and the sock!

Worse yet, my parents were looking to retire within the next 2 years and guess who they were looking to for advice? That's right their financial advisor son.

Talking about pressure.

It was absolutely clear to me I was in over my head.

Many of the prospective clients I was meeting with had been with the same broker for years and had done very well for most of their lives.  

The market had been going up for years in the 80's and 90's and the brokers were doing a fine job.

However, the sneaky problem was many of these clients had grown older and were getting closer and closer to retirement where they could no longer afford to lose what they had accumulated.

So, after meeting with hundreds of people and getting a better understanding of their problems and needs it became clear that it was not very wise to lose money that you are going to need in the near future.

Seems simple, right?

Once, I identified this problem first hand I started aggressively researching new ideas and methods for helping my clients create strategies to provide more predictability and control so they could enjoy more stress-free, happy retirements.  

Over the next year, I met with top experts in different areas of investing, insurance, and planning and honed in on what I believe are the most important steps you can take when you are 5 years or less from retirement.

These steps are now what I call the "Stress-Free … Happy, Retirement process".