Free Solo — Mid-Year Update
It’s the last day of June and the official end to the first half of 2020. Let’s review. January marked the beginning of a new decade and pretty much the official start of my 30’s. In the first three months of the year, I spent dusting off and polishing my resume and interviewing for new firms to find a better fit from my previous employer. I won’t get into that here, but the short of it is that I needed a scene change.
Then COVID hit in early March, and by mid-March, we were locked down, working from home, and markets were in free fall. I officially resigned at the beginning of April and was left trying to figure out my career’s future during the middle of a once in a century Pandemic… Yay. To be honest, I’ve definitely been fighting feelings of resentment. Had I just remained at my previous firm (previous to the last), we’d be in such good shape. But these feelings and looking in the rear-view mirror does me no good. No good at all.
So, at about the same time, all of the firms I had been talking to put all of their hiring plans on the shelf. Many said they weren’t, but they absolutely were slowing down the process. So, here I am, early April, no job prospects for the foreseeable future, and would you believe it, I actually saw this coming! No, not that firms would not be hiring in the middle of a pandemic, that’s obvious. I saw the Pandemic before pretty much everyone in the industry did and before markets saw it. So there I am, trying to get hired by all these firms who didn’t see these risks developing in the first place, and I did. Why would I do that? Yeah… exactly. So I didn’t.
On April 15th, I filed for my LLC for Faubion Wealth Management and have been building the vision of a firm that I’ve developed over the last handful of years. Do I have clients? No. Do I have a large bank account? No. Do I have a multi-year long runway to make this thing work? No. BUT I do have a vision, a plan, and a tenacity to execute. I have a process, a philosophy, a discipline, and a faith in trusting that these will lead me to success.
So since mid-April, that is what I have been building. And in the last 2.5 months, I’ve made substantial progress in getting this thing up and off the ground. While getting everything done has fallen on my shoulders (i.e., no partners, no employees, etc.… free solo), I have had some amazing business partner firms that I have worked with that has helped me get to where I am today, almost all the way there to launch. I’ll have a separate post someday giving credit where credit is due for all of the people and firms that have helped me get here today.
It’s funny though, while I’ve been in the trenches building this thing out, I have not felt all that satisfied or that I have accomplished much of anything at all. But now that I take the time to reflect and look back and see all that has been achieved in such a short time, I’m feeling pretty good about it. Yeah, I don’t have any revenue in the door yet, but you have to lay the foundation before you can build a home. And I’ll tell you what, I’m going to need a damn solid foundation because I’m going to build a mansion on top of it. It’s all about foundation building, and I’m making the final touches before I start building.
So, it’s been one hell of a wild ride this first half of the year. But I look very anxiously and optimistically to the second half of the year as I depart on the next phase of the journey. As a wise Lion tracker (Boyd Varty) would say, I don’t know where the journey will take me, but I know exactly how to get there. Onwards and upwards!
Much Love - M.J.F.
Faubion Wealth Management (FWM), does not warrant that the information will be free from error. None of the information provided on this website is intended as investment, tax, accounting or legal advice, as an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or as an endorsement of any company, security, fund, or other securities or non-securities offering. The information should not be relied upon for purposes of transacting securities or other investments. Your use of the information is at your sole risk. Under no circumstances shall FWM be liable for any direct, indirect, special or consequential damages that result from the use of, or the inability to use, the materials in this site, even if FWM or a FWM authorized representative has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
