My Journey to Becoming A Financial Advisor

The day I’m posting this, December 12, signals my growing older and wiser, a.k.a my birthday! And as it’s my birthday, I think it’s enough of an excuse to use so that I can talk about myself and the journey I’ve taken from first becoming an FA to writing these finance blogs

For the past five years, I’ve been working at Accenture as a developer. Along with the time and effort that I’ve put into my work came the reasonable expectation that I would be promoted to Team Lead in mid-2020. But due to the pandemic, unfortunately I was not able to meet the cut off. 

As I’m growing older (today I turn 26), I realize that I need to earn more so that I’d be able to live independently. And the pandemic situation, albeit unfortunate, brought about a silver lining for me.

In these tough times, the demand for financial advisors has skyrocketed due to the people’s increasing fear of getting the virus. As this demand piqued my interest, I attended a financial advisor orientation of a different company. This looked like a very promising opportunity for me.

Aligning with the stereotype, as a Chinese, I am very frugal. And this was one of the main reasons as to why I believed that I had the potential to become a great FA. I reached out to my current FA from Sun Life to get his thoughts and advice. And like a sign, at that time he was also forming his own team of FA’s.

So that’s how I decided to become an FA. But why Sun Life? Well, it was a no brainer since it is my existing policy that I knew enough about to be able to share to others. And as a bonus, my sister is also working there in the actuarial field.

At the start of my FA journey, God really blessed me after seeing all the hard work I’ve put in. In the first 3 months, I was able to secure 5 lives and was subsequently awarded the top rookie for the quarter award in our unit. I was even privileged enough to be able to share my best practices and experiences to my fellow FA’s in Sun Life even though I was just a rookie.

But with all the highs come the lows. The journey so far hasn’t been easy. There were various challenges that came along with the act of selling to others. Countless rejections day after day and night after night are simply part of the job. But I’ve learned to not let such rejections affect me negatively. Instead, I use it as a motivator to try to reach out to help as many people as I can. 

In a previous post, I talked about how important learning something new everyday is for your self betterment. As proof of that, another big milestone I’ve achieved is becoming a top contributor in the FB community, Bright Millennials. It was founded by a co-financial advisor from Sun Life that focuses on teaching millennials about finance.

It truly warms my heart to be able to share all my learnings and spread financial literacy to everyone, may they be friends or even strangers. As I’ve gone through this journey, my network has expanded a lot and it’s been an eye-opening experience meeting and talking to people who have different backgrounds and experiences.

As I’ve met all these different people, my passion for helping others has only increased from there. That’s why I started writing these blog posts about financial tips. There’s a limit to how many people I can have one-on-one consultations with, but with blog posts, I can reach out, give value, and help more people reach their life goals. And when somebody messages me on how I’ve helped them achieve a small goal, I see that as an affirmation of my hard work that makes all the struggles worth it.

Currently, I’m six months into this journey and have ten clients. Unfortunately I was not promoted to Team Lead again this year end but I’m sure that this is all part of God’s plan for me. That I’ll have to strive harder in not only my IT job but also in my work as an FA.

If you read this and think that you’re interested in becoming a financial advisor, feel free to reach out. I’ll be glad to help you get started by sharing my experiences and practices. You can also join my FB group for additional learnings.

God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.

Hebrews 6:10
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6 thoughts on “My Journey to Becoming A Financial Advisor

  1. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord , “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
    Jeremiah 29:11

    Maybe God has planned something greater for you sir. Keep up your hard work sir and thank you for continually sharing your knowledge. Faithing sir.

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