Jennifer Harvey

I think just grit. This is a hard industry - I tell people when they're coming in, you need to start a journal because you'll swear you're bipolar with the highs and lows of business. You really do have to have some grit. I've had a lot of really great support, too. I'm a firm believer in using your resources, and I think I've been diligent in making good connections and honoring those connections. I think that has really sustained me through when times get leaner in my business, or it's more difficult because it is cyclical and up and down. Knowing that you've got people who care about you and are supporting you and believe in you is what carries you through those difficult times. Everybody in my industry will say, if I don't want to quit 3 times a week, I'm not doing my job. I think you just have to rely on the resources that you have.

The best career advice I ever received was from my hiring partner when I started my practice at New York Life. We had a great conversation about value and what my time was worth - that was a hard conversation. After we got there, one of the things he said was, now just go out and get yourself in trouble, and let us help you figure out how to get out of it. That was so liberating for me, to just know that I could go out and start really any kind of conversation. I'm not afraid to talk to people - just go out and speak and talk to people, and know that there's going to be somebody on my team that's going to be able to actually answer if I don't know the answer. They're not going to leave me hanging, and I can trust that there's a system in place to help me with whatever I can run into. That served me very, very well early on in my career. I ran into some really big cases, and I think that just gave me a lot of courage, knowing that there were people I could go to if it was more complicated than what I knew. I always tell my team that - just go get in trouble, go out and have some fun.

Go get in trouble. It's very important to not discount yourself. I think that we get really tempted to do that, especially as women - to do things as favors or for people because we care about them. In this business, we can't give product away, but I can give away my knowledge and my time, and I think people can really tend to take advantage of that. That's the biggest thing - we have to be very careful about feeling like we're not worth the money or the investment to use our services, to use our knowledge. Don't discount yourself, and just don't quit, because it's hard. Use a mentor, use the resources, use the people that are around you, and don't think that you have to carry it alone, because you don't. You have to do the work, you have to do the work alone, but you don't have to carry it alone, for sure.

The biggest challenges are, especially for new advisors, generating clients and generating interest. It's ever-changing. There are so many regulatory restrictions and things like that we have to deal with that make this business a little bit difficult. There's also still a lot of stigma around financial planners and insurance professionals - that we're kind of slimy or whatever - and the reality is that there are really great, amazing people who really do want to invest and help and see people have better lives and leave better legacies for their families, and be more prepared to retire comfortably and not have to think about living on cat food. The opportunities are endless in this business. It really is about the grit and wherewithal that you'll put in, because if you do the work, amazing things happen. I think the biggest thing is that people kind of tend to skip on the activity and doing the actual work, and that's because it's hard. The opportunities are endless if we're willing to put in the time.

I think authenticity is very important to me. I had an experience not too long ago where somebody questioned my integrity, and I was surprised at how viscerally I reacted to it. That one questioning my integrity really got to me, and I think that is something that is very, very important to me. It has to be, right? I am helping people make choices about their money and managing their finances for them, and if I don't have integrity, no one is going to trust me to do that. I take it very seriously. I obviously care very much about my family. I think integrity incorporates all of the honesty and being conscientious about making sure you do what you say, and being trustworthy. I think it kind of all rolls into that.