Military to Financial Planner Podcast Daniel Kopp, Forrest Baumhover

We continue the recent theme of podcast listeners becoming podcast guests as I’m joined by Arcelia Wicker on the episode today. He is a financial planner at Bay Capital Advisors in the Virginia Beach area. 
We chat about his personal experiences of personal finances and how going through Financial Peace University helped him and his wife get their own financial house in order before going on to help host and teach the program for many years. When he realized that he would do that kind of work for free, it sparked an exploration of how to break into the world of financial advice and become the financial planner that he had always wanted.
Thanks to getting out of his comfort zone and networking with his local FPA and NAPFA groups, Arcelia built a support network that helped him find his own path. We talk about his educational experience through the American College CFP/ChFC program, how Hannah Moore’s externship gave practical and real-life examples of planning with clients, and how he balanced study time with active duty, family responsibilities, and prepping for the career transition.
I love Arcelia’s transparency across the lessons learned including how he ultimately passed the CFP exam, how he overcame a rescinded job offer, and his reframing of these setbacks. One of the things that struck me the most was how having his own financial house in order including being prepared to make their family lifestyle work post-military without a second income gave him the financial and mental capacity to wait for the right position. I know you can also find inspiration from his lessons learned and career advice.  
Arcelia also wants to extend an offer to connect if you are interested in learning more about his story or getting some perspective on your own career journey. You can connect with him on LinkedIn by checking the show notes for his profile.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/arcelia-wicker-jr-chfc/
https://baycapitaladvice.com/
https://amplifiedplanning.com/externship/

I’m grateful to have Roland McIntyre on the podcast for this episode. He is an XYPN member and founder of Mountaintop Wealth, his own fee-only RIA where he focuses on serving underrepresented and underserved communities including those in military or public service. We got connected awhile back and after meeting each other at XYPN Live last year, I knew I had to have him on the podcast to talk about his career journey. 
Roland shares about his origin story of money and his desire to be a financial advisor going back to 7th grade. After leaving active duty, he was first told he needed sales experience before he could get into the financial services industry … so he did just that, selling cable door to door. That theme of persistence comes up throughout our conversation and I love his passion and dedication to this profession.  
Roland ultimately went to work for AIG where he rapidly advanced through a variety of roles and positions, learning the ins and outs of the company products, how to communicate in plain language with clients and other professionals alike, and expanding his knowledge across many areas of financial planning.
Although he admits he never considered himself an entrepreneur, Roland is building a great firm that meets clients where they are at with a desire to help close the racial wealth gap. We talk about his variety of service and fee options that help educate clients who have never worked with a fee-only advisor before and how his educational content and community networking are compounding the marketing impact. I know you will learn something from Roland’s career journey!
https://mountaintopwealth.com/ 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roland-mcintyre-cfp%C2%AE-chfc%C2%AE-1b8b1b23/

I’m excited to welcome Amy King on the podcast today. We start with her origin story that started with some fortuitous conversations about money and investing that ignited a passion for the subject and ultimately led her to the CFP while still on active duty. Through her personal network, she got a first job preparing taxes and doing paraplanning work for a small RIA while still on active duty that gave her a wealth of experience and knowledge.
When Amy retired from the Army, she ultimately ended up at a major wirehouse and since that was different than many of our former guests, she shared about her experiences there including the training, culture, working on her team, and personal challenges she had in working with many of the wealthy clients there. Importantly, we also touch on some of the decision points she had to make when it came time to leave including the careful steps she took to leave in accordance with her company agreements. 
We catch her early in her own firm journey to get some of those lessons learned while they are still new, including how she has pivoted to capture more project, advice-only work for DIY clients. She also shares about the reason why she studied for many different designations to better gain the confidence she needed to work with clients, especially in her niche of federal government benefits. I loved Amy’s transparency and authenticity and I know you will too!
https://www.instarfp.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-s-king/

Today I chat with Erik Baskin of Baskin Financial Planning. I still remember some of my first conversations with him back in the very early days of this podcast so it’s a full circle moment for both of us in this episode. Since launching his own RIA in 2021, while still on active duty, Erik has further refined his niche focus to go beyond just the active duty focus to also work with veteran business owners. We chat about his educational progress, his entrepreneurial drive, and building a business to serve life goals as much as career ones.
Given that Erik has tried lots of different marketing and client-service approaches, we talk about the pros and cons as well as lessons learned. At this stage of his business, Erik is really starting to see the hockey stick of growth take off thanks in part to his willingness to just keep doing the work over the past several years. 
Erik shares about his lessons learned from trying out different fee and service models including his attempt to build a membership community and serve junior servicemembers with a $19 subscription service. We also talk a little bit about his use of Elements and tech tools to serve clients still on their wealth accumulation journey. I know you will benefit from many aspects of this episode and Erik’s experiences.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikbaskin/
https://www.baskinfp.com/
https://getelements.com/

Today we welcome Brandon Lovingier, the Enlisted Money Guy on the podcast. Brandon has created some really great content out there to serve his fellow servicemembers and shares his journey of financial successes and lessons learned. In addition to his prolific content creation, Brandon is also a virtual paraplanner - all while still being on active duty.  
We discuss Brandons’ personal finance experiences, his curiosity to learn more about money that led him to the CFP/ChFC program, and his relentless experimentation of creating content including doing paid ghostwriting for other planning firms. 
There are a lot of helpful resources mentioned in this podcast that will also be in the shownotes so be sure to check them out. I especially love how Brandon is still in the middle of his career journey and looking ahead to what comes next after active duty life and when he can do even more of this work he loves.
Connect with Brandon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonlovingier/ 
Paraplanner resources: https://yourvirtualparaplanner.com/paraplanner-resources/
Start 100K: https://start100k.com/podcast/ 
Enlisted Money: https://enlistedmoney.com/
https://www.instagram.com/enlistedmoneyguy/

I welcome Matt Fizell on the podcast today after admiring his work for quite awhile. Matt is the founder of his own RIA, Harmony Wealth based in Madison Wisconsin. But as we discuss in this interview, Matt took a circuitous route from his initial undergraduate training in financial planning, working in a broker dealer, finding out about fee-only financial planning, and networking across the breadth and depth of opportunities and careers. 
One of the main reasons I invited Matt on this podcast was to have him share about his experience helping new planners break into the financial planning profession. Matt has so much experience in this role with hundreds of conversations across the profession, especially in his past role as co-host of the You’re a Financial Planner Now What. Side note, if you haven’t added that one to your to-do list, I would encourage you to dive into their past archives of great conversations.
Matt shares his extremely helpful career advice and how he helped create a course called the New Planner Collective. The goal of this course is to help teach new people to this profession how to build a career, not just the technical skills.  I loved what he shared as it provides another helpful perspective. Be sure to check out the links in the show notes to learn more about these opportunities and where to learn more about this course and Matt.
Follow Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattFizell 
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-fizell-cfp%C2%AE-0606134a/ 
Matt’s RIA: https://planwithharmony.com/
IAPD Website: https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/ 
New Planner Collective: https://newplannercollective.com/