Commentary: Ned Ryerson Is Just As Cool As Gordon Gekko

By Charlie Gipple

You can learn a lot from little kids. They are unfiltered and say what is on their minds because they have not yet been “polluted” by political correctness.

For example, as my family was on our boat a year ago and I donned my swimsuit, my 8-year-old son Matthew thought he would verbally express a profound observation. After staring at me for about 10 seconds, he said, “Daddy, you need to start eating at Subway instead of McDonalds.” I will say, when an 8-year-old tells you that you are fat, you are fat.

I have a wealth management practice in addition to running my marketing organization. Within my wealth management practice, I am a registered representative, an investment advisor and an insurance agent. Of the two businesses — securities and insurance — the one I have built my career around is the insurance business.

So when Matthew tells his friends what his dad does for a living, wouldn’t you think he would tell them I am in insurance? Wrong. His friends know me only as an “investment advisor.” Clearly, even an 8-year-old thinks that an investment advisor is cooler than an insurance agent.

Apparently, my kids don’t go to school and brag about how their dad sells indexed annuities. Stocks and bonds are clearly more glamorous. I wonder if my kids have watched too many Ken Fisher commercials?

Read more in the December issue of InsuranceNewsNet Magazine.

Charlie Gipple, CLU, ChFC, is founder and CEO of CG Financial Group, an independent marketing organization that serves independent agents who sell life insurance, annuities and asset-based long-term care insurance. Charlie may be contacted at [email protected]. [email protected].