Summary

In this episode, Mike interviews Amy, exploring her journey from a military career to becoming a financial advisor. They discuss her background, the transition from military to civilian life, and the establishment of her firm, Instar Financial Planning. Amy shares insights on the importance of planning for transitions, her philosophy on financial advising, and advice for those considering a similar path.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Personal Backgrounds

04:57 Military Career and Unique Experiences

12:45 Discovering a Passion for Financial Planning

19:16 Instar Financial Planning: Focus and Philosophy

25:43 Closing Thoughts on Financial Advisory

Takeaways

• Amy’s background in environmental science led her to a military career.
• She transitioned to finance after realizing the impact of financial planning.
• The importance of planning for transitions in life and career.
• Amy emphasizes the need for military members in the financial advising space.
• Her firm, Instar, focuses on serving military members and veterans.
• She believes in comprehensive financial planning over piecemeal advice.
• Networking and asking for help are crucial during career transitions.
• Amy’s experience in a large corporation shaped her approach to client service.
• She values the servant hearts found in military and federal civilian roles.
• Trust and rapport with clients are essential for effective advising.

Links

Schedule a consultation with Mike

Schedule a consultation with Amy

Transcript

Mike (00:02)

We’re going to be doing something a little bit different than our normal podcast on financial topics. We realize that we’re a little more than a year into doing the podcast and haven’t really talked about our backgrounds that much, anecdotally a little bit. So this episode, I’m going to talk to Amy, find out all her details, how she got into the business and about her business. So I hope you enjoy the episode.

So Amy, like I said, it’s been over a year since we’ve been doing this podcast. And it’s amazing that it’s gone that long without really diving into our backgrounds. Anecdotally, we talked a little bit about both former military and stuff, but never really did the deep dive and found out who people might be listening to. So we want to fix that error and just

talk a little bit about each of us in the next couple of episodes. So Amy, you want to give us some background where you grew up, went to school, all that good stuff?

Amy (01:46)

Yeah, yeah, so I am originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. When I think you’re you’re a PA guy too, right? And so I went to a small undergraduate school in Pennsylvania. It’s called Slippery Rock University. Some people may have may remember it from the Allstate commercials. If you slip off the road in Slippery Rock, it’s a real town and they have a school there. And that’s where I went.

Mike (01:52)

Woo!

I am, I am.

Amy (02:15)

My degree was in environmental science, so not finance. I graduated, commissioned, went into the Army, so I was active duty. Army’s brand new second lieutenant, all fresh, shiny, headed down to Fort Sam Houston. I was a medical service corps officer.

had a great time down in OBC, Officer Basic Course and other things. Move on with your assignment and things like that. And then I went back to school. So the Army has a program, they’ll send you to grad school. So I went back to school at Penn State, we are. And that was awesome as well. So I had my daughter there. She was born there and she is now a second year at Penn State. So it’s all in the family. I also have a son, he is a senior.

high school getting ready to head out to Kansas State. And you know really my kids, my kids sort of drive a lot of a lot of my hobbies. I do really love to read.

Mostly geeky books, finance, personal finance books, leadership management books, history books. Love to travel, especially around our own country, overseas as well to some degree. you know, but what I really love doing, and it’s almost over, is watching my son play lacrosse and talking with my daughter about what she wants to do. So that’s me in a nutshell,

Mike (03:45)

Amy, any book recommendations? Maybe a finance book or something else you think people would be interested in?

Amy (03:53)

Yeah, yeah. I I think if you haven’t ever read any finance books, personal finance books, I think probably the best book to start with is called Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth by Nick Murray. And that’s just as foundational as it gets with a lot of really good foundational philosophy around managing wealth and growing wealth and things like that. But I have to tell you, I do read a lot of personal finance

books. Lots of them are pretty technical and stuff like that. But right now I’m reading Motivation Manifesto by Brendan Bouchard and it’s a great book. So if folks haven’t listened or read it, they should definitely run out and get that one. That one’s great.

Mike (04:42)

Very cool, very cool. And how about a little more on the military background? How did the career progress, all that?

Amy (04:57)

Yeah, yeah. So like I said, I was a officer in medical service corps officer in the U S army. specifically I was an environmental science and engineering officer, which is it’s really public health, know, it’s food, water, bugs. of course, you know, when you’re in the army, they make you be very versatile. So I spent, I don’t know, maybe two or three assignments in my career field, but otherwise was, you know, in the, in the staff officer world in the DC.

beltway, you know, adventure. Spent a lot of time in the DC area and then I spent,

Mike (05:32)

I’m sorry.

Amy (05:40)

More time than I would have expected in the weapons of mass destruction area So nothing like finance at all But honestly if I had it to do over again, I’d do it just like that I finished out my career, you know You it’s always a balance, right? It’s always a balance between trying to pursue your career and your goals with your you know with your family

And so for me, my last assignment, I ended up being able to get back to Aberdeen Proving Ground, which is where my family had settled. I had taken some assignments by myself. I had been commuting to DC for a long time, finally got back to Aberdeen. And it was just enough moving around. Like there’s enough uncertainty for the kids. My daughter was heading into high school. So I dropped my retirement packet and retired as Lieutenant Colonel. Heading into that, that’s when

I

knew, you because I always knew that I was going to be a financial advisor when I left. So I started as soon as I got back to this assignment, I started preparing for the certified financial planner exam, had that under my belt, which was huge for the transition. So if anybody’s thinking about that, you know, getting a start on that.

while you’re still on active duty, it’s not easy. I studied, my daughter was a gymnast, and gymnastics meets are about four hours of time with about a minute and a half of watching your own kid. So I spent a lot of time studying in the bleachers. So it can be done. But that was kind of the career, it was awesome. I wouldn’t change anything. I wouldn’t change anything about it. It was a good time.

Mike (07:16)

And what would you say was the craziest, coolest, you know, something unique that you just throw out there that you got to do?

Amy (07:24)

my goodness, so many stories that we get up to in the Army and stuff. Every military person has those stories, right? I mean, so much cool stuff. And so much crazy stuff too. When I was younger…

Mike (07:33)

Exactly.

Amy (07:43)

It was I was too young to Not be irreverent and just sort of challenging the status quo at all all the time So I definitely did some things not not troublesome things but like had unique solutions to different problems You know that that were Amusing at times, but it worked, you know, it worked we got things done and you know, just the the cool

thing in the military you know it can be so frustrating to in the day-to-day grind of things but what was always the coolest thing is that when you had to get something done when like when the rubber was meeting the road when the chips were down like nothing can stop

a military unit from getting something done. When the earthquake happened in Japan, I was at a medical laboratory unit and some of our capability was environmental radiation. So you’ll appreciate this. actually embedded with the AFRAT in Japan. But we came down on orders. We were supposed to go to Afghanistan. They pulled us off those orders and put us on orders

to Japan. Everybody always said that unit would never deploy with less than 60 days notice. We got those orders on Friday. We were deployed on Tuesday. You know, so it just it was awesome seeing the soldiers all come together, get it all done, get over there and you know, make a difference. So that was that was probably the coolest.

Mike (09:24)

That’s cool. And how about the transition? Easy, hard, what do miss?

Amy (09:31)

I mean, I think every transition, I think every transition is…

hard in its own way and hard in different ways, right? So I was ready for the transition. I chose it. I knew why I was leaving. I wasn’t sorry about it. So that part was kind of easy. I’d also done a lot to prepare. So I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had already been preparing myself to do it. But at the end of the day, it was still really hard because I felt like every single milestone, like when you turn in all your gear,

When you turn in all this stuff that you’ve been dragging around for years and you know, it’s like part of you, that stupid Kevlar, you know, it’s it’s part of you and it’s kind of emotional.

Mike (10:17)

huh.

Amy (10:22)

The other thing that was hard is I actually went to the private sector. So in between leaving the military and starting my own firm, I went to the private sector. And I sort of thought that, you know, it would be so different from the military in so many ways. One of the biggest things I was happy to be getting rid of was mandatory training.

nothing could have been further from the truth. mean, part of it is that we’re in a very regulated environment, right? So, but then I went to a a large corporation. And so in a lot of ways, it’s still, you know, pretty similar to the military.

Mike (10:48)

Yep, yep.

Amy (10:57)

and you know, honestly, I really did miss and I talked a lot about the army. Somebody made fun of me one time about, know, like if you tell me one more story about the army, okay, well, you’re not my people because I talk about the army a lot because I, was, that was some of some of my best years, right?

Mike (11:12)

Yeah, and it’s

20 plus years, you know, it’s your life. mean, yeah.

Amy (11:19)

I have no other experience. I’ve been out for like a year. I’m like a brand new college kid. Yeah, so it was, and then you asked, what did I miss? I miss the people, I miss my people, and I miss the way that…

Mike (11:21)

Right.

Amy (11:40)

You you run into the people that like you really don’t enjoy working with, but for the most part, I just found that, you know, throughout my time in the military, and I also worked with a lot of federal civilians, you can’t find the kind of servant hearts that are in the federal civilians and military members. You just can’t find that so much in the outside world. You know, there’s a whole different agenda. And so I really missed, I really missed that part. And that was what really

sort of precipitated my move back into my own firm so that I could serve those people and spend more time around the people that I understood and aligned with.

Mike (12:23)

Awesome, awesome. yeah, let’s talk a little bit about the career and stuff. I mean, you said, hey, you knew that this is what you were going to do after the military. when did you know when and why did that come about? Because like you said, you did environmental science, public health stuff, WMD. So where does finance fit in?

Amy (12:45)

Yeah, yeah, so it’s a funny story. And this is part of why my firm is named what it’s named. You know, it’s so funny, people, you just encounter people in your life by accident that make huge changes for you. And so that is, that’s what set me on this path. So when I was a brand new second lieutenant, not sure about the Air Force, but in the Army, when you get to training early, they put you to work and they call you a snowbird.

So they just farm you out to different places around the installation and they put you to work. And my job was to work with the U.S. Army Medical Command Public Affairs Office.

And so we were, I think it was even my first day and there was one other lieutenant that was assigned to that office with me. we all lived in the same building. we walked, you know, cross posts together and we were waiting outside the office. I think they were having a staff meeting. So we were waiting for them to finish up and just looking at the pictures on the wall and stuff. And this is a U S army medical command headquarters. We’re brand new second lieutenants. This is like, wow. You know? so here comes this Colonel down the hallway and

and

he didn’t see second lieutenants very often. he’s like, lieutenants, I never get to see lieutenants, come with me.

so we follow him to his office and he sits us down, you know, back in the good old days when you could put anything on your computer you wanted. And he pulls up his own personal quicken account that he tracked on his government computer. And he’s like, look guys, you’ve never had money before, so you’re going to start saving money now before you even miss it. And he talked to us about mutual funds and why it works. And he showed us like, you know, here’s what I did and here’s what it means now for me and my family. And you know, he’s like buying his kid houses and stuff like that. Like it’s just.

So and I didn’t grow up with money so I didn’t I had no idea what a mutual fund was I had no idea so the other lieutenant I that after we got off work went to the bookstore and got a bunch of books and that’s kind of when I knew that like that

Maybe I didn’t know just exactly then but I was so intrigued by the idea that there could be a way to like change your whole life with Just these small incremental things and so I wanted I want to do the same thing for other people and that’s how I decided and you know, there’s just a guy who was walking along the hallway scooped us up and so that’s that’s why my firm name is instar because instar is a throwback to you know butterflies go through it

the in-star stages and transformation and cast theory and all that kind of stuff. So one person. So that’s that’s in-star financial planning. That’s where it came from.

Mike (15:27)

Awesome. Yeah. So you’re retired, made the transition to the big corporation. How long did you do that? What were the good and bad of that period of time?

Amy (15:43)

Yeah, yeah, so I left, went to a big, a big warehouse. you know, and a lot of people, especially in the, if you only space, you know, don’t necessarily have a lot of good things to say. I think it was a great place to start. And if I had it to do it again, had it to do again, I’d do it just like that. Cause you know, I ended up, yes, it’s a grueling training program. You hear horror stories about the training programs, but I,

And I think it was because, you I was so proactive in my transition. I did informational interviews with people. During my interview at this firm, I told them I wanted to talk to advisors who were already there and they let me. And so I met with a bunch of advisors before I ever even got to the firm, before I even accepted the job. And so as a result of that, I actually was invited to join a team before I got to the firm.

And that was huge. That doesn’t usually happen. And the key takeaway for everyone on, you know, who’s thinking about transition, ask, just ask. Like people want to talk to you and they’re there. Sometimes they’ll say no, but make them say no. Don’t just ask. Because joining that team, honestly, like, I don’t know if I would have stayed at this firm as long as I did. I was there three and a half years, which isn’t a long time.

But I think I would have been there last time had I not been on this team. They were just amazing, truly wonderful people. Very large team doing lots of great things for lots of clients. I was part of the succession plan so that there were older advisors ready to retire.

so I didn’t, I didn’t have the same training experience that other people did. and, know, and that was good, but also what it meant was I got a lot of what I’ll call reps, right? I got, I got to experience a lot of different client situations. now at the end of the day though, you know, and this was the challenge is that I didn’t feel like I could serve my people effectively in the business model.

which says nothing about the firm, right? Like that’s not a reflection on the firm. That’s just not, you know, I just didn’t feel like I could do it the way that I want. And, you know, in a lot of, a lot of places, in fact, I can’t think of a single large company that’s going to let you talk about tax, you know, hardcore tax planning, like actual tax planning. And I just feel like my philosophy is that that’s such a huge part of financial planning. I don’t want to be restricted on what I can tell my clients. So being able to, you know, have

the credential so having a real agent and be able to give tax advice like that to me is critical for the value that I provide to clients and again it’s not a reflection of the firm that I was with it’s just it’s just their model and it doesn’t work for everybody right so no no you know I wouldn’t say bad but you know it just

It just wasn’t the right fit. I knew that. And as sad as I was to leave, and it was very emotional to leave, I knew I had to leave and do what felt natural with my folks.

Mike (19:05)

Good deal. So tell us a little more about Instar and you know, anything you really focus on, who you serve, anything like that.

Amy (19:16)

Yeah, yeah. So, so Instar, you know, coming up on two years at Instar, you know, it’s, it’s been an awesome adventure. I work almost exclusively with military members, veterans, federal civilians. I especially really like working with military who become federal civilians, lots of planning opportunities in there.

Mike (19:23)

Alright!

Amy (19:43)

with all the different benefits and all the different decision points, things like that. And I also tend to work because, and this isn’t true across the board, but I definitely felt like throughout my career, military members tend to be big and to do it yourself, right? And it’s not always true, right? But…

There’s a lot of desire to do it yourself. feel like probably more than other places, military members really want to be educated on personal finance and investments and all that kind of stuff.

But at the same time, still need, people want to sort of the comfort of having an expert take a look at their stuff. And so my process is designed to support that to a large degree. I definitely work with clients on an ongoing basis, but that’s not a requirement for me and my firm. And I built my firm specifically because I want to serve the people who…

you know, just want, you know, a big picture overview. Now I don’t spend a lot of time on just like the onesie twosie questions, right? Because it’s very difficult to answer one question because everything touches everything.

So I will do a comprehensive plan for people and then send them off. So a project like we work together over a period of time, we get your plan together, give you implementation recommendations and then implementation advice, and then send you off on your own to do it on your own. Or help, because sometimes people think they want to do it on their own and choose differently later. So I think that kind of makes the firm a little bit unique. But that’s why I do it.

enjoy it.

Mike (21:34)

Awesome. I mean, she’d definitely go back to the wirehouse on the transition, but anything you do on the whole journey differently.

Amy (21:47)

can’t think of anything off the top of my head. I don’t spend a lot of time regretting things. The nice thing about having a military career is that your whole life is spent in quite a bit of uncertainty, right? So you can only make the best decision you can make with the information you have at the time. And so I feel like I’ve done that. Now, there’s always the things that, I wish I would have known about.

you know, all these other fellow military financial advisors who are doing amazing things for clients in the fee only space, you know, finding out about that group faster, you know. But in terms of like changing something, I don’t think I have anything that really bugs me and that I wish I had done differently.

Mike (22:35)

All right, good. Well, yeah, that’s always good. So what kind of advice would you give to somebody who maybe is thinking of doing this after the military?

Amy (22:49)

Yeah, this is one of my favorite questions because I feel like this space needs the kind of servant hearts that military people typically come with. And so I love this question because I would love to see more military folks come into this space. Going back to something I said earlier, you

You have to plan your transition. So, and you have to ask for what you need. So if this is an area of interest to you, but you’re not really sure if you want to do it full time or you’re not sure how, ask.

If you get on LinkedIn, you’re probably bombarded by financial advisors, but somewhere on LinkedIn, there’s a group of financial advisors that are military fee only advisors whose interest is in helping people come into this space. So go find those people. Go look up Military Financial Advisors Association and any one of those advisors, I don’t want to speak for all of them, but I have never seen any of those advisors turn away people who were

were asked for a phone call, a 30 minute call. You know, you show up, right? You can’t make the call and then reschedule it 14 times. You gotta show up. But, you know, so that’s the first point.

the second point is once you’ve decided that this is the space you want to go into, don’t wait to start working on credentials. Cause the fact of the matter is that there is a hurdle to get into the industry. You have to pass either a license. You have to pass an exam of some kind. You’re really going to pass the series 65 or you’re to pass the CFP exam or maybe both. so don’t wait on that kind of stuff. You can do that stuff on active duty. If you really want to, you can get it done. I did it as a active duty mom.

I even was doing moonlighting, preparing taxes. Like you can do it if you want to.

and then, and then ask, ask for help. Like once you’ve done all those things, now start doing informational interviews to figure out where you want to be. you know, you and I were fee only, we, we think a lot of the feeling model. I love it for lots and lots of reasons, but again, I started out in a wire house and I don’t have anything bad to say about it. so maybe, you know, don’t.

Don’t pigeonhole yourself. Go do informational interviews with people and pick a spot to start and then just know, yes, there’s traps. gotta be careful about how you do your transition. You gotta not get in trouble. But don’t be afraid to just start.

Mike (25:26)

Awesome. I think that’s super helpful. as we wrap up, kind of one last question. What do you want people who maybe are looking for an advisor out there to know about you?

Amy (25:43)

Yeah, I mean, so I’ve shared a little bit of my philosophy. So I am very much a planning first advisor. You know, it’s hard when somebody comes in, they’re like, I just need you to tell me about my investments or just tell me what to invest in. I am planning first and I believe in comprehensive planning. So whether we’re going to do your full plan on a project basis or we’re to do your full plan and I’m going to help you implement it on an ongoing basis, either way, it’s comprehensive and we’re looking at the full picture.

just don’t think you can do it any other way.

I want people to like and trust the advisor they work with. So, you know, if somebody comes to me, it doesn’t hurt my feelings if, you know, if they’re just not in love with my service model or something seems off. And so I almost always end my first call with clients, you know, hey, I hope you’re interviewing other advisors. If you can’t find anybody else, let me know. I can show you where else to look. Because I’m not really threatened by the fact

that there’s thousands and thousands of other advisors. There’s only so many people that we can serve individually. And I just, really want my clients to love working with me. So I want them to feel really good about their decision to say yes.

Mike (27:04)

That’s awesome. Anything else you want to add?

Amy (27:08)

No, Mike, I think I’ve talked a lot about myself. I think that’s good enough.

Mike (27:13)

All right, always one of the hardest things to do is talk about yourself. definitely appreciate all the info. And I think it will help listeners, again, get a little more insight into you and background on your firm. So definitely appreciate it, Amy.

Amy (27:33)

Yeah, it’s always great to talk with you, Mike. Thank you so much. And I’m looking forward to doing your interview soon too. You too. Bye.