The benefits of quiet determination and reliability

Sometimes the smallest decisions can add balance to our lives.

For Brent R. Beaudoin, CFP, it’s as simple as not replacing the CD player in his car, which broke about nine years ago after his 3-year-old daughter stuffed it with quarters.

“I don’t mind having quiet time every now and then,” said the two-year MDRT member from St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. “Especially if I’m going a million miles an hour everywhere.”

It’s also part of why he makes sure to get in the pool two or three times each week, a continuation of a collegiate swimming career that provides an uninterrupted, peaceful place for his mind to reflect or wander. So even if he’s up at 5 a.m. to take his daughter to her own swimming practice (between his two girls, ages 13 and 11, there are up to 10 practices combined per week), coaching both girls’ baseball teams, going on daddy-daughter canoe trips or, you know, working as a successful financial advisor alongside his partner, 18-year MDRT member Aurora L. Tancock, CFP, FLMI, Beaudoin still creates space for personal time. (He also, unlike many other runners and riders, forgoes music while running or mountain biking, preferring to focus on the scenery and navigation.)

That calm determination emerges early and often when speaking with Beaudoin, who sees overlap between swimming and his business because he previously felt like he wasn’t good enough in both areas. In the pool, he arrived at university and initially found himself the slowest on the team, so he did everything he could to copy the fastest swimmer he knew. His first year as an advisor, nearly 20 years ago, he made only $14,000. But, like swimming, he persisted, learned from others and often improved by 50% each year.

“Lots of people come in and out of the business because it’s so difficult; I was the guy, ‘Oh, yeah, he’s still here,” he said.

That drive and reliability are part of what helps him succeed with clients, all of whom come from referrals and many of whom are widows. Several originated after 2004, the year Beaudoin lost his father, who was the first client to die on a life insurance policy Beaudoin personally sold.

“Ladies would ask my mom, ‘How did you deal with it?’” he said, noting his mother’s impactful place in a 5,000-person community after working for a long time at a bank. “She said, ‘My son can help you.’”

Toward the beginning of our conversation, he shares that just recently, more than 15 years after his dad died of cancer, his mom passed along an unopened package of her husband’s razors to him — holding onto them for years purely because of emotional attachment. He notes how clients have many unusual attachments to things that can’t be rationalized.

Then toward the end of our conversation, Beaudoin identifies the commonality of him still driving his 2006 Volvo station wagon, the one with the broken CD player and a whopping 357,000km (nearly 222,000 miles) of experience, and his business — the quietness in the background providing solutions and reliable peace of mind.

Watch this presentation to learn more about the Whole Person concept.

 

 

Verified by ExactMetrics