Tag: Financial Independence

Transparency With Diana B.: The Glass Ceiling and Financial Independence With Julia Carlson

Transparency With Diana B.: The Glass Ceiling and Financial Independence With Julia Carlson

A Note to Transparency Listeners: In 2022, the podcast is going to be changing its name to “The Healthy Advisor,” to give a clearer idea of what the podcast is about. Transparency with Diana B. was not quite as transparent a title as we thought. 

Julia Carlson got married at age 19, and right out of high school took a job at a local bank. She learned that the glass ceiling in the financial services industry comes quickly, so she left the bank after just four years and launched Financial Freedom Wealth Management Group, taking on an entrepreneurial challenge at a time in her life when most financial services professionals are just finishing up their secondary educations.

Now she’s one of LPL’s top advisors. But the journey to where she is today was not easy. She overcame problems in her marriage. And in 2012, her then 9-year-old daughter was in a bad car accident and ended up in the ICU. 

In this episode, Diana Britton, managing editor of WealthManagement.com, speaks with Julia Carlson, founder and CEO of Financial Freedom Wealth Management Group in Newport, Ore. Julia shares her story, including the challenges she’s faced along the way and what has shaped her and the work she does today. 

Julia discusses: 

  • What led her into financial services, and her experience early in her career
  • The struggles she has faced as a female advisor in a male-dominated industry
  • The lessons she learned while trying to build her business
  • How her firm struggled in the early years to reach profitability
  • How her daughter’s accident changed her perspective on the business and led her to give up some control of her firm 
  • Her advice for other entrepreneurs and female advisors

Connect With Julia Carlson:

Connect With WealthManagement.com:

About Our Guest:

Julia Carlson is the founder and CEO of Financial Freedom Wealth Management Group. She’s been practicing financial planning for more than 20 years and specializes in helping people who
are either retired or close to retirement. She’s been recognized as being especially knowledgeable
on topics relating to tax strategies for retirement, distribution and business exit planning.

Julia loves educating and empowering others to take control of their financial future. As a wealth advisor, she has helped individuals, families and business owners create financial strategies guiding them along the journey to financial freedom. In 2017, Julia wrote Fit Money, a guide to personal finance from a woman’s perspective.

As a successful entrepreneur, she enjoys working with other entrepreneurs who want to gain control of their financial future, build wealth inside and outside their company and create a powerful exit strategy whether they are ready to exit now or 20 years down the road.

Transparency With Diana B.: Coming Back From Failure with Eric Arnold

Transparency With Diana B.: Coming Back From Failure with Eric Arnold

Eric Arnold is no stranger to failure. In fact, he failed out of college, got fired from two companies, failed at nine different startup ventures and lost everything on a bad investment. 

In this episode, Diana Britton speaks with Eric Arnold, CEO of Planswell, about how he has learned from those failures and has been given a second chance with Planswell. 

Toronto-based Planswell, which was founded in 2015, was humming by late 2019 and was in the middle of another funding round. Then accusations of sexual harassment within the company ranks surfaced, and investors pulled out of that funding round. Arnold had to fold up shop, with some 60 employees losing their jobs. 

But in 2020, he had the opportunity to buy the Planswell brand, and he retooled the software to work with retail financial advisors.  

In this episode, Arnold opens up about the ordeal, which turned into a social media storm about how he and his firm reacted to the accusations. 

Eric discusses: 

  • How his early experiences in life shaped his entrepreneurial drive
  • How a car accident that occurred when he was 17 years old, killing his father, grandmother and family dog, impacted his life and family
  • The journey that led him to start Planswell
  • How the allegations of sexual harassment at Planswell impacted the company and its funding
  • How he would have approached the situation differently 
  • How he is doing things differently at Planswell today
  • And more

Connect With Eric Arnold:

Connect With Wealth Management:

About Our Guest:

Eric Arnold dropped out of college, was fired from two companies and failed nine startups. Yet he is still an entrepreneur. He discovered how to make money from a young age and has been working hard ever since.