reflecting

It was around this time of year back in 2012 that I gave notice to my managers that I was leaving their employment to start my own business.  After twelve years in a couple of roles there, I felt that I had fulfilled the opportunity available to me, had delivered considerable value, and was ready to focus more on pulling my work life into alignment with my core values.

Family | community | legacy

When I created my firm, I worked the words "family, community, legacy" into my logo; while the words mean a range of things to different people, to me they captured what I am working toward in my personal and professional life.  I want to care for and support my own family, and I want to help other people do the same on their terms.  I want to be an engaged contributor to the health and well being of my community, and to facilitate the work of other people and organizations in their unique approaches to that same mission.  And I want to do all of this in full awareness that whatever we do now has the potential to create long term echoes and impacts, thereby shaping a legacy.

progress...and work to be done

Three years ago I walked away from what seemed like a pretty good gig, and there are definitely things I miss: the money wasn't bad, I had a significant degree of autonomy in how I ran my desk, and I had the confidence of knowing that I was good at my job -- but what I miss the most are the relationships with the people I talked to daily or weekly.  There were people who worked alongside me, clients that I served, and professionals at other firms with whom I negotiated / traded / swapped insights, and all of them contributed a lot to my personal growth.  But just as I miss some things from that time in my life, DRW Financial has allowed me to focus on a much smaller set of clients, and this focus has led to what I believe to be is a higher quality approach to managing the specific and varied needs of those clients.

I am about halfway to my target for size and revenue for my company, and I maintain that once I get there I will leave off marketing, prospecting, and client solicitation and reallocate that minor portion of my attention to even more focus on my clients.

As I reflect today, the main feeling is that things are good, and they are going to get better.