One Shy of 40

Twelve years ago this week I was knocking on doors on Ilene Terrace and Oriole Street, just south of Lansdowne Middle School, asking people to be my client. I remember the street names because it was my birthday and used that to have the people feel sorry for me (it didn’t work).

Before then I had worked in a call centre in Toronto, a credit union in Gordon Head, and a financial planning firm downtown. I didn’t have much to show for it apart from an ego and a bad attitude. My lack of success was everyone else’s fault. Thankfully, I had a girlfriend who loved and supported me (she’s my wife now and she still does, thank God), and parents not afraid to tell me what I needed to hear (“Vince, you have practically no experience. Go out and get some.”).

Twelve years later I have my own business, a three-person team, and a bit of humility and a decent attitude.

I turn 39 on Thursday. I plan on doing this until I’m 65, at least. But a lot of things worry me. I know worrying’s a colossal waste of time, but I can’t help it. Will AI take over my profession? Will next market crash be so bad that I can’t keep clients invested? Will a new competitor come to market and try to acquire me or leave me for dead? What about my and Carley’s and the cat’s health? Will clients decide they don’t like me anymore?

For now, I’ll celebrate my birthday. And twelve years from now, I hope I can reminisce about the days when HWM was just a three-person team.

I’ll end with a quote from Jerry Seinfeld. And don’t worry. It’s a joke.

Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year’s gone by and how little we’ve grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it’s not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched, pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end, inevitably, irrevocably. Happy birthday? No such thing.