Own Your Financial Future

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Speaker 2: hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in prior to joining Northwestern Mutual Heather Quinn served as the head of Television for Will Smith's production company Overbrook entertainment overseeing a heavy portfolio of high-profile projects while many of her friends in entertainment found early success in their career few felt confident about financial planning it was then that Heather realized she had the opportunity to make a positive impact on the people she cared about through a career in financial services Heather aims to serve as a strategic partner in creating a financial plan that fits the lifestyle timeline and vision of her clients her background in tax efficiency risk management and optimized wealth accumulation helps her serve as a guide planner and educator not only in the beginning but throughout the lives of her clients as their needs evolve she combines extensive knowledge of the financial service industry with a compassionate person- centered approach approach to help our clients feel secure and educated thank you so much for joining me today Heather tell us about who you are and about your early career experiences before joining Northwestern

Speaker 3: Mutual I started out in the entertainment business that the one of the biggest agencies in Hollywood creative artist agency I started working for a television agent there and ultimately ended up working for one of the partners and then ascended through the entertainment World working at various production companies ultimately running the TV side of Will Smith Company then was a producer overseeing shows that they had and also selling a lot of shows and then my own mother got really sick and I ended up on the bad side of planning actually just not planning in general and wanted to learn more about Finance just for myself so that my children would not have to go through what what we went through and ended up actually making a a big career change into Finance and now I am a financial adviser with a particular focus on helping to educate and Empower

Speaker 2: women around Finance I love that how has your early career experiences influenced you as a business leader and how does that experience help your clients and your leadership style in what you do

Speaker 3: today in the entertainment business it you are a dime a dozen and you have to work really hard to succeed right everybody wants your job I remember in my early 20s when people were not

Speaker 2: working as hard working 80 hour weeks going into the office on Saturdays and so I think that helped me today part of the reason why I wanted to also transition into this career is the the opportunity to have my own business was really attractive especially at this stage in my life where I have children and wanted to start being the architect of what my day looked like as opposed to being on a TV set until 10 o'clock at night but I think you have to have a certain amount of work ethic to be able to build your own company and I think that's transcended into what I'm doing today I think a lot of women have those pivotal moments and sometimes it's when we have children and we have to stop and and think what do I really want and what do I want now and how can I take all of my previous career experiences and make a leap to do something completely different but bring all those experiences with me I think the other thing that I I didn't mention too is just telling stories was something that I learned to do in that business and understanding what makes a good story and how to communicate with people and I think a lot of that transcends into what I do now helping people understand the why behind what we're doing and and how that's going to help them I don't want to tell people what to do and I think especially with women helping to just help educate around Finance I think in general in this country unless you seek it out we don't learn about 401ks and retirement plans in in high school or or college unless you're studying finance

Speaker 3: that is pivotal later on it's so true

Speaker 2: and it can be very emotional whereas storytelling and learning someone's story is also very emotional so helping someone people have all kinds of different feelings around money and

Speaker 3: around finances 100% And I think a lot of what we do is behavioral there's a quote from Nick Murray who's a well-known uh advisor who writes books and has blogs and he says 90% of investment success is behavioral the actions that you take right how disciplined can you be and how early do you start the time value the compounding of money all of those things how are you teaching your kids about money out of

Speaker 2: curiosity my son's 11 is starting to you know pay a little bit of an allowance for certain things so he understands the value of money now that he's understanding multiplication and division um having him help me figure out the tip I've started certain savings vehicles for him I intend to teach him about compounding the value of that which I will UL gift to him at some age if he's responsible enough I've been thinking a lot about that I want to make sure or unlike my parents where it was something that we didn't speak about that it is a regular conversation so it's not this unknown thing and I'm finding that that's actually more common in general is there's a lot of families that just don't talk about money even if they hav it it's so true and even couples sometimes you get busy and you don't always have those really important conversations well and and the reality is what we know for sure is financial planning ends up typically being number 11 on the top 10 list everyone can see that it's important but getting around to doing it because it digs up all of these emotions and and things you know a lot of times when I meet with a couple one of the main questions I ask is just what's your relationship to money what's hers because I want to understand how they work as a couple and it's oftentimes people are not on the same

Speaker 3: page we'd love to know about a particular career experience that is

Speaker 2: memorable to you and that you carry with you today the one that stands out to me just in relation to what I do today is that I did a special for ABC called unbroke what you need to know about money and I I feel like that ironically sort of forecast now today what I'm doing and Melody Hopson who's a force of nature came in and and gave this amazing pitch about how uneducated people are around money people don't know what the Dow means or what a bear or bull market means and just taking uh the the concept was and Will Smith was actually in this and so getting well known personalities to be in certain segments and some of them would be funny and and educational and and so we did in conjunction with ABC News Melody really designed the content around it um but got to learn from her and and and just started that path of how important this is for people to understand and learn

Speaker 3: it's so interesting how sometimes things plant the seeds in our mind and maybe it's something we've always had an interest in but never really acted on it on moving in that direction so it's so interesting that you went through those experiences and that they stuck with you and that when you made the leap you made the leap into helping people to create a better future for themselves and that's what I love about what I do now I think

Speaker 2: you know while it seems somewhat glamorous oftentimes I was developing scripts that was unclear whether they were ever going to get made making its way through the studio system sometimes you're developing draft after draft of script and it's sort of nebulous as to whether you're helping anyone at all whereas here even if I know I can get somebody to plan just a little bit for their future I know for a fact that they will be at a better place there's a real tangible difference that we're making on

Speaker 3: a daily basis it's got to be so nice to help have that gratification to move you forward to help the next client

Speaker 2: absolutely an example of that is I met with this young woman she's 29 and actually works for one of my clients who who's the president of a fashion company and she's just starting out really but uh the thing she said to me at the end of our conversation she said this is so amazing I didn't know people like you existed that's so great and isn't it so

Speaker 3: wonderful that you can work with clients who have essentially made it in their career and then women and people who are

Speaker 2: just starting out yeah absolutely eventually she's going to be on her way and she's somebody that my other client really believes in that's part of wanting to help too right I think you know just as attorneys have maybe some of their pro bono business and then they have their regular business there's a balance of that as well well but it felt good to hear because I could tell that she felt it would make a big impact for her and especially for women and families people who want to get to know them and know their story and know their thoughts around money and know possibly a fear around money that's one of my first questions when I meet with somebody is what keeps you up at night as as it relates to money what gave you the courage to make your career and life leap to join Northwestern Mutual what what helped you to say I'm going to do

Speaker 3: this I think it was h two two main things my mother getting sick and so when I did end up on the bad side of planning I wanted to just learn more about Finance in general wanted to just be more planned myself so my kids didn't have to go through that and I had a friend who was there for a decade doing really well they were looking for more women first of all and more people of color so I I think I checked two boxes and so they recruited me and and really came after me the other thing just for me personally having been a W2 my entire life I was lucky to be making six figures early on in my career and here I am in my W2 jobs so uh it was also the desire to be a business owner and to be able to build the the career that I wanted in on my terms and so those two

Speaker 2: things came together it's so important I used to work for the Dodgers and I used to joke that my car would only drive to Dodger Stadium for three years and sometimes we have to take a step back and think is this bringing me joy because maybe if you launched one of of those entertainment companies you just kept working and maybe not had as much joy in the career that you have and in

Speaker 3: what you do today yeah I I think with my mother passing and realizing that we didn't talk about money it wasn't something we talked about she was an immigrant from the Philippines who came here highly educated but no education around money so she got her JD she got her PhD so she was a nurse who came here um and she had great Handbags and a Mercedes and she didn't have much saved and so I ended up financing her long-term care for about 8,000 a month for the last year of her life and I wasn't really present I feel like because it was at a time where just things were tighter in general and everything that was happening so fast around me and and realizing that this is the point of planning right to be able to have time and spend time with family and have the security of financially to not have to be in a place where you can't be present

Speaker 2: she was so lucky to have you and that is really good advice you could have been

Speaker 3: spending time with her yeah I mean and I bring that into when I talk to people today have you thought about this this is my experience I can tell you firsthand why this is important and most people haven't no a lot of people haven't I mean people who've actually been through it will right away say yes that's important to me um but a lot of people haven't what's nice about my career now is in entertainment the shelf life for an executive is is 55 60 there's not a ton of those Executives out there at Studios whereas no one wants their financial advisor to be 22 frankly so having some life experience under your belt is a good thing in this

Speaker 2: career so true what is your strategy for management for staying on task to accomplish what you set out to do as well as motivating your team and those

Speaker 3: around you I have a team who I work with we have systems in place we are in growth mode for example I did I think 78 meetings last month 88 meetings the month before and 92 meetings the month

Speaker 2: before that good for you so we have to

Speaker 3: be very systematic in our processes in our tracking processes grids and Excel sheets and regular team meetings to making sure that we're staying on top of everything I'm also in the process of combining my business with a more senior female adviser who's a cfp and eventually we'll take over her business so we're in the process of of trying to figure out how to merge our team and that's a another whole thing in of itself a whole other Dynamic it's so

Speaker 2: smart to put systems in place because then if something falls out if you have to replace someone on your team you have those systems in place for someone to

Speaker 3: easily be able to jump in it's funny because when I was in entertainment I thought I was so busy and this is a whole another level of busy I not in a bad way it's all relative it seems like

Speaker 2: it's more busy on your terms yes Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us Joy what is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy I think a lot of

Speaker 3: people were surprised when I made this leap from entertainment I think a lot of people in the entertainment World feel like there's nothing else we can do I kind of felt like that I had to climb a hill to to get the education to over here but it's not impossible and one of the quotes I always loved was if you've never failed you're only trying things that are too easy and playing Far Below your level if you can't remember any time in the last six months when you you aren't trying difficult enough things and so I think in the entertainment business I was cruising along but I wasn't necessarily being challenged and I this has been absolutely challenging but in the best way and I feel way more empowered having made this transition although it hasn't been easy in terms of building a whole new business but I I think there's something satisfying in doing that and and you know it it hearkens back to that you you don't know how high you can reach if you don't aim high enough you have One Life to Live you got to go for you got to swing for the fences in the end it doesn't matter right whether you succeeded to the fullest potential but you won't know if you don't try so true it's so interesting I have these conversations a

Speaker 2: lot where a woman will leave a big name like entertainment to go do something different and you kind of have to go

Speaker 3: okay who Am I who am I now I think it's it's interesting too because it kind of touches on other people's pain points right I had friends of mine who were like really I have these conversations a lot it's like she was probably thinking she was looking out for you but in those moments we just have to say no I'm making the leap and I'm going to go for this and this is what I truly want and that's why I think it's so important to find our Circle our Collective our people who believe in us who say we're here we know you can do this because it's so

Speaker 2: important to have that absolutely and I think you're right like I think the friend that said that wasn't trying to be disparaging it was just kind of like do you really want to do this now and look at where you are today and so yeah and sometimes you just have to take those leaps right it's that's where you go with your gut and decide that even if it doesn't work out great

Speaker 3: but I'm going to try it yeah and she built it's all about those leavs because it's the small ones that lead to the big ones I think this about failure too if

Speaker 2: we're not failing we're not trying exactly and so it's not whether you win or fail right it's how you play the game so you know get in there and play it thank you so much for joining us today

Speaker 3: Heather my pleasure this is fun please

Speaker 2: tell our listeners how and where they can find

Speaker 3: you I am online Heather Courtney Quinn at Northwestern Mutual feel free to send me an email heather. Quin nm.com I'm also on social media H Court Quinn on Instagram Heather Courtney Quinn on

Speaker 2: Facebook if you are new to she built it we'd love for you to join us we offer Community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our sheb built it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer Sheil it business Consulting and the Sheil tip blog thank you to everyone around the world who joined today thank you to my editor Rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave

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