It has been 4 years since I pressed submit on the keyboard

I am asked often about my decision to leave pharmacy four years ago. I stress with absolute certainty, I have no regrets. I had risen as far as I could within the company I worked, and I had no intention of leaving the city where I lived. My job had become something very computer-driven, and I had lost the ability to be a free-thinker due to checking the boxes. Healthcare has progressed in so many ways, but along the way it has become too reliant upon technology. There is always a gap between what is programmed, what is real and what is substantially important. That space is the space the best clinicians reside. I remember back in 2017 mentioning my idea to change careers and was told by a fellow pharmacist friend that no one really needs a financial advisor and that people can do-it-themselves. Isn’t that what we always said about pharmacists, too? Pharmacists do nothing but fill medications that anyone could do. We know as pharmacists that it is really far from the truth. Pharmacists do a lot, and so do financial advisors.

It’s not about chasing performance or building the most aggressive portfolio necessarily, but it’s also about tax harvesting and money placement based on the clients’ unique needs. Just like with pharmacy, medications change and within financial services, political administrations change changing laws with it.

I have spent the last few years since the career change learning the craft. I just finished and passed the CFP® certification on Friday and just waiting on the last bits to be able to use the letters. I had a sweet lady ask me 1 1/2 years ago if I was a fiduciary. It’s one of those questions where you want to respond, “I am in thought and action,” but the term has been coined by the industry to mean CFP® certification. I decided right then to entertain the idea within the next few months. COVID-19 arrived, and I found it to be the perfect opportunity for education. I’ll write a separate post about my experience and how I conquered it the first time and will say with little hesitation that the test was harder than pharmacy boards and BCPS certification combined. I am not sure if it was because the test was so tricky or if it was because I did not have a finance background as I did with pharmacy prior to those tests. I am so very proud of myself for getting through it. I know the amount of information I learned will really help me be a much better advisor than I could have been without it.