[00:17] Tara Bansal: Welcome to her life, her practice, her way.

[00:22] A podcast for and about female financial advisors. Tara I’m Tara Conti Bansal. I’ve been a financial planner and life coach for over 20 years,

[00:32] and I believe that when women thrive in this profession, we all win.

[00:38] This show is about sharing our journeys, our struggles, our breakthroughs, and the many ways we build a life and practice that feels true to us.

[00:48] And now I’m extending that mission. Beyond the podcast,

[00:52] I coach female advisors who want to grow a fulfilling practice and a beautiful life that they love,

[01:00] one filled with meaning, freedom, connection and joy.

[01:04] Whether you’re just starting out, reinventing yourself, or dreaming of what’s next,

[01:09] you’re in the right place.

[01:11] Let’s build this together.

[01:14] Hello,

[01:15] this is Tara Conti Bansal and I am super excited to have Jen Hushen, did I say that right? Yes.

[01:25] Here with me today.

[01:27] She got to me through Brett Danko and Main Street Financial Solutions.

[01:33] Brett recommended I talk to her and we have connected in multiple ways. And she lives in Cranston, Rhode island, which my father is from and my aunt lives there.

[01:50] And the more we talk, the more I feel like we’re finding to connect on and similar ideas and philosophies. But just thrilled to have you here, Jen.

[02:02] And I’m going to start just as we always do.

[02:06] Tell us your story.

[02:07] How did you get here?

[02:10] Jennifer Hushion: Okay, so the first financial job I had was after university.

[02:18] Tara Bansal: I want to go back even before then.

[02:19] Jennifer Hushion: Oh, okay.

[02:20] Tara Bansal: Where did you grow up?

[02:22] Jennifer Hushion: What about your family?

[02:24] I was born in Geneva, Switzerland.

[02:26] I grew up in Toronto, Canada. I am Canadian. My dad was just in Geneva for a couple of years on business when I was born.

[02:36] So I grew up in Toronto. I went to university, which is why I say university, not college.

[02:42] I went to university in Toronto and then more than halfway through my degree,

[02:49] I went to Prague and I got my degree was in creative writing. And I went to Prague and I got a job as a financial reporter. So I left university early.

[03:01] And that’s only kind of an interesting story, only because I didn’t go for the reporting job.

[03:07] I went for the gentleman that had the job was leaving to go to work for the economist in London.

[03:13] And I went for the production job, which is something I had done at Key Porter Books in Toronto, which is basically the physical act of putting the book together.

[03:22] And I gave him my resume and he asked me how much I knew about banking.

[03:27] And I said nothing, really. And he said, what do you know about the stock exchange? And I said, really? Nothing. I said, I can tell you that I know something, but within two days from now,

[03:38] you’ll hire me, you’ll realize that I know nothing, and you’ll be without a reporter and I’ll be without a job.

[03:44] However, if you give me six weeks on probation to follow the gentleman who’s doing the job now, I know I can do this job for you.

[03:52] Just a little caveat there. It was coupon privatization after the Velvet Revolution.

[03:58] So anybody that did that job would be starting from the ground up.

[04:02] Tara Bansal: It’s not because it was so different.

[04:04] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah. It’s not based on, you know, what we know of as the stock exchange.

[04:09] Tara Bansal: I have to ask, is that your personality like that you jump in and love challenges.

[04:16] Jennifer Hushion: It definitely was when I was younger. The older I get,

[04:21] the. The. Well, you know, you start to have responsibilities and family and. But yes, moving to a place where I knew. Know no one and winging it is definitely something I did a couple of times in my 20s.

[04:33] Wow.

[04:35] So I did that job. I loved it.

[04:39] And I made some fabulous friends that I still have two thirds of the way through. I left for just three week break to go teach English in Croatia during the war.

[04:50] So I met some wonderful people there too.

[04:54] And the biggest change that resulted from Prague was that’s where I met my husband.

[05:00] He was on vacation and I met him.

[05:04] I’m not gonna get into all the details, but.

[05:07] So I met him in.

[05:08] Tara Bansal: Was it love at first sight?

[05:10] Jennifer Hushion: It was for me. I’m not gonna say that it was for him.

[05:13] I kind of followed him like a puppy dog back to New York and without him really realizing that I was moving there to be with him. But again, I sat down in August, So we met in May.

[05:25] I seen him again in June.

[05:27] We met in Toronto and I sat down in my apartment in August and said, look, I think this guy could be the one.

[05:36] But.

[05:38] So either I can move to New York and try and get a job and see if he is, or I can wonder for the rest of my life if I miss the boat.

[05:46] And I was 27 and I said to myself, look, if you fall flat on your face, you get back up, you do something else. So those are the two times that I really just,

[05:55] you know, took a.

[05:56] Tara Bansal: Chance and jump off the cliff. Yeah.

[05:58] Jennifer Hushion: Wow. And.

[05:59] Tara Bansal: And both of them, I feel like, ended up very.

[06:03] Jennifer Hushion: Yes. Well, the, The American one didn’t work out quite as well as the Prague one because I got deported, but.

[06:11] Tara Bansal: No, but you stayed with your husband.

[06:12] Jennifer Hushion: I did, I did. That whole part worked out. And I only Got deported because I applied for an H1B visa. So I don’t want immigration to come running for me. And I am a citizen now.

[06:24] But anyway, so that’s where I got. My original financial basis was from covering banking and the Prague Stock Exchange.

[06:36] Tara Bansal: When you moved to New York, what were you doing?

[06:39] Jennifer Hushion: I worked for Penguin Books. I went back into publishing. I worked for Penguin Books and then I got a job as a financial writer in New York.

[06:48] That’s when I took that job because it was covering Eastern Europe and got a lawyer. And that’s when I went to the border to apply for my H1B visa,

[06:58] saying I wasn’t taking a job from an American.

[07:00] And when I got there,

[07:02] it was Inspector Skews. November 13, 1996.

[07:07] He was testing my financial knowledge.

[07:10] And he said, who just brought down Barings Bank?

[07:13] And I said, nick Gleason.

[07:15] And he said, you’re wrong. It was Liam Neeson.

[07:17] And I just.

[07:19] I should have just kept a straight face. But I laughed because as we all know, he’s an Irish actor.

[07:26] And so he looked at me, he stamped my papers and said, denied.

[07:32] Banned from the country for two years.

[07:34] They escorted me to the border. I was driving my then husband’s car. And without him in it, he was in Nepal.

[07:41] And I drove it to the Canadian border. They impound the car because I am now a Canadian driving car with American plates with no American in the car.

[07:50] So I’m stuck in Niagara Falls, Canada, at that point. So I went back to Toronto. I got a job there again in management consulting.

[08:00] And my husband and I sort of dated back and forth for another few years. Then I moved to.

[08:05] We got married in 1999 and I moved to.

[08:08] We moved to Providence in August 20, 2000.

[08:13] A month later, my son was born.

[08:16] I stayed at home for the first couple years. Then I went back to school to finish my degree.

[08:21] I was doing a degree in horticulture at that point, which is essentially gardening,

[08:26] a fancy word for gardening. And I had a fabulous.

[08:31] We all have, I think, at some point, a fabulous woman in our lives that changes, that could. And mine was a professor by the name of Joan Gray Anderson, and she taught personal finance up until that point.

[08:44] I’ve always really enjoyed investing and researching stocks and.

[08:48] And so I took some of her courses. I loved them. And then towards.

[08:53] Towards. I would guess I was probably a year and a half from graduating.

[08:56] Cause I only went part time. Cause I had a son.

[08:59] My husband had some pretty serious health issues at 40. So I thought, you know, I Maybe better have something more than just horticulture to fall back on if I need to be the primary breadwinner.

[09:09] So that’s when I started the double major in personal finance. And she was the first one that talked to me about becoming a cfp. And I’ve kept in touch with her all these years.

[09:19] So once I graduated,

[09:21] I eventually started working for brokerage house at the very beginning of the crash. It was January 2009 and there were some wonderful people there.

[09:37] But I realized that the brokerage business wasn’t really for me.

[09:41] And I also decided that I really wanted to get my cfp. I went to speak to my manager about it and his reaction was, well, why do you want to do that?

[09:49] Nobody here has their cfp. You don’t need your cfp.

[09:53] And I spoke to my husband about it and I would like to admit fully and reiterate my gratitude to him because I couldn’t have done what I did without him.

[10:04] He said, you know, you should just quit your job, focus on getting your cfp and. Cause I wanted to open my. That was with. With the intent of opening my own business.

[10:14] So he was extremely supportive of.

[10:17] Tara Bansal: How old was your son at this point?

[10:20] Jennifer Hushion: Our son was probably five. Maybe he was still a preschooler. Yeah, well, no, I’m sorry. He was born in two sessions, so he must have been eight. That’s totally wrong. He was eight.

[10:32] And so back to financial planning.

[10:35] So I got my CFP in 2011. I started my own firm,

[10:40] quite small at the beginning.

[10:43] I was also greatly in debt to a gentleman by the name of Dr. Robert Tubbs, who was head of residency program for Brown University ER at that point. So he sent me a lot of referrals.

[10:57] I’ve never advertised. I’ve always just been a referral person.

[11:01] So a little bit about my practice. I am, I would say 90% female professionals.

[11:11] I don’t,

[11:12] obviously I don’t say no to men, but the people that are attracted to my practice are other female professionals. Most of them are either psychologists or physicians.

[11:25] And so, you know, they talk to each other. And most of them have also at some point been to a male planner that may have talked down to them or I’m sure we’ve all been there or the fit just wasn’t right.

[11:40] So that’s how they’ve ended up coming to me.

[11:43] And I think one of the big differences from my point of view between female planners and male planners, especially when we’re have clients that are female,

[11:55] is that we base our practice on trust and Narrative,

[11:59] you know, so we get to know each other first. We talk about our kids, our this, our that. And obviously, the first thing we’re talking about is goals. But we.

[12:07] We learn to connect on a. On that level,

[12:10] not necessarily about what the best stock is out there or what. What do you know, what can you do? For me, in private equity, it’s very different approach,

[12:20] and I think it.

[12:21] In my practice, anyway, it’s led to.

[12:25] I mean, the clients that I’ve had, I’ve had since the beginning. So they learn to trust you,

[12:32] and they’re very loyal.

[12:35] So one of the.

[12:37] Speaking of private equity, that seems to be a big push right now.

[12:41] When I watch.

[12:42] There’s a lot of podcasts and videos about that out there. But my clients are particularly interested in private equity, and probably the main reason for that is because they are female physicians in the Northeast.

[12:57] And private equity has not been the best.

[13:03] Has not been the best outcome for patient care in the Northeast. There’s a whole bunch of hospitals that have bought up and left bankrupt, so they’re not particularly interested in that side of things.

[13:15] For. For. For those personal reasons,

[13:17] I.

[13:18] So I did that for.

[13:20] From 2011 to 2016, I was all on my own. I was loving it. It was great.

[13:26] And I was trading through Fidelity with just a limited trading authority agreement. And I don’t know if you’ve bumped into any other planners that have had this happen to them, but in 2016,

[13:36] Fidelity came to everybody like me. And I understand we were using their platform and they were basically getting nothing out of it. Right. But there’s not. We weren’t doing anything illegal either.

[13:47] So they came to anybody that they. That they saw that was doing this,

[13:51] and they said, you have 30 days to get off our platform unless you have 30 million or more under assets, which I did not.

[14:01] And that’s all fine. I understood that. The one thing I think they did handle badly or poorly was they. The way they sent letters to all my clients, and all they said was,

[14:12] we are.

[14:14] We are terminating our relationship with Jennifer Hushen. And they just left it at that. Which sounds, you know, if I thought that.

[14:22] So the fact that my clients stayed with me after that was, to me, another vote of confidence, because,

[14:28] I mean, all they had to say was, we’re changing our. There’s many ways they could have said it. Right. But.

[14:35] Tara Bansal: And I hate that they only gave you one month.

[14:38] Jennifer Hushion: I know.

[14:40] Tara Bansal: Way too quick.

[14:43] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah. So I. I completely panicked, and I immediately called Brett. Brett?

[14:52] Tara Bansal: How did you know Brett?

[14:53] Jennifer Hushion: I knew Brett because I took the CFP training courses with him and I.

[14:59] I failed the first time, and so I took them again.

[15:02] But then after I passed, I kept going back because I always found his classes for the CFP exam review much more beneficial than any CE courses that are out there.

[15:19] So I would go back and take these courses specifically for taxes and estate planning. Things that changed often,

[15:25] yes, the,

[15:27] you know, the general principles, all that kind of stuff. I really only did the two segments, which were taxes and estate planning,

[15:34] just to make sure I was always up to date. And so I got to know him a little better. He did approach me earlier on, I think, in 2014, to see if I wanted to come join Main Street.

[15:45] But at that point I was very happy on my own and I was small and.

[15:52] And I didn’t really comprehend because I.

[15:55] All the nuances of compliance properly.

[16:02] So anyway, 2016, as soon as that happened with Fidelity, I immediately called Brett and he said, oh, yeah, come on over.

[16:09] And that’s when I met you.

[16:12] And I’ve been with Main street ever since. And that has been a wonderful experience that I think we’ve all felt.

[16:20] Anybody that’s worked there has felt sort of lucky to be associated with it. I hope so. That is how I got into it.

[16:30] And then as far as journeys go,

[16:34] I think the pivots were.

[16:37] There were a couple of pivots. One, the first one was meeting Joan Gray Anderson, the professor.

[16:43] She really focused my interest in personal finance, and she was a great support system too.

[16:51] And then the second was wanting to become a CFP and be. And telling my manager that and being told,

[17:00] why do you need the upwork?

[17:02] Because, I mean, I’m sure we’ve all seen, if you work for brokerage houses, things that were what I considered morally less than stellar.

[17:12] And so it was really important to me to be a fiduciary.

[17:17] And so that’s. That’s another pivot moment. And then.

[17:21] Tara Bansal: And when did that change? Do you remember when the ruling came out that, like, the brokerage houses didn’t have to be fiduciaries?

[17:31] Jennifer Hushion: Well, they definitely were not when I was there.

[17:34] Um, and that was 2009, 2010, I believe there was some discussion about it. I don’t. I still don’t think there was some discussion bantering about in legislature, but I don’t think it ever really happened.

[17:45] Tara Bansal: I think, yeah, no, I think now they do not have to be.

[17:48] Jennifer Hushion: Were able to bat that down,

[17:51] but. And behind this all was that I really do like investing. I don’t farm out any of My, I don’t do model portfolios. I don’t farm out any of my portfolios to others because that’s one of the things I really like doing.

[18:05] And because I have a small enough client base that I can do that and give each portfolio its individual tension because my, again, my,

[18:20] my clients are primarily physicians so they have larger SEPs.

[18:23] And so it’s always different when the money’s coming in. Right. So what I might buy in November of 2004 is not what I would buy now.

[18:32] Right.

[18:33] So that’s why everybody’s portfolio looks totally different than most other people’s.

[18:38] The really the one decision that shaped my career path has been becoming a cfp. Absolutely.

[18:43] It was really hard.

[18:45] It is hard,

[18:47] you know, especially,

[18:48] I’m sure it’s hard for everyone, but I think when you’re a mom with kids at home and you’re trying to study and,

[18:57] and it was a two day exam back then, as you know,

[19:00] and I failed the first time and I, and I,

[19:04] I, I left both exams thinking I failed and I didn’t fail the second one.

[19:09] But yeah, but it was very hard and I was stressed out.

[19:16] Um,

[19:17] were you proud when it was.

[19:20] Yes, and it was fine. It was just sort of like fine because you learn after you’ve failed, you learn not to tell your friends and family that you’re taking it because you don’t want that.

[19:30] And so really the one of the few people that knew was my husband, obviously. Yeah.

[19:36] But yes, that was a big achievement for me.

[19:39] And what I love about this is probably the flexibility.

[19:45] And I think that that would be our message, my message to other women,

[19:52] I don’t think they realize why they don’t think of it more. I’ve been having a lot of discussions with people about why,

[19:58] why aren’t we getting any more female cp? The number has been stagnant now for a couple of dec.

[20:07] And I think it’s the way it’s talked about in schools, if it’s talked about at all.

[20:13] Tara Bansal: Yeah, I don’t think it’s talked about.

[20:15] Jennifer Hushion: You know, I think it’s, I think they probably think like I did at the time, which was, oh, there’s too much math.

[20:22] And you know, it’s not about the math, it’s about the relationship, your goals and trusting someone and psychology.

[20:32] I mean what we mostly do is hopefully is stop talk people out of making bad decisions like selling in a downturn. Right. And then in the bad times we try and talk them out of making bad knee jerk decisions.

[20:47] And in the Good times sometimes with women you might want to talk them into. Okay now before the good times, not at the good times, but now you maybe want to take a little bit more risk because you’re a woman, you’re going to live longer.

[21:00] All these types of things.

[21:03] So. And one of the things that I, I focus on in my practice when we first start meeting is I don’t even talk about investing at first at all because to me what’s more important.

[21:14] And I don’t sell insurance or doing. But I always, especially if they have small kids.

[21:19] Do you have a will?

[21:21] Do you have guardianship provisions? Because I’m going to look at what’s going to be most devastating to your life if you don’t have that.

[21:29] And to me, most people, I didn’t moving here, I didn’t know that if you didn’t have guardianship permissions,

[21:36] your kid goes to the state regardless of whether or not there are family members. So you know, so that’s always the most sort of important thing that I bring up with couples.

[21:46] And then we start talking about other things related to their goals.

[21:53] Tara Bansal: Yeah, the stats on that like the number of people who don’t have any estate.

[22:00] Jennifer Hushion: I’m shocked. Right. And we’re very well educated people with assets who are like yeah, get to it.

[22:07] Tara Bansal: Like they, I mean and, and, or they have it and haven’t looked at it.

[22:12] Jennifer Hushion: Right.

[22:13] Tara Bansal: In 20 years or whatever and things have changed and their lives have changed.

[22:20] Jennifer Hushion: So two of my favorite clients whose, whose assets have grown to the both physicians substantially over the years.

[22:27] Their will up until about six months ago was something they won at an, at a, like a charity auction.

[22:35] So they had,

[22:38] they had been gifted this or had you know, won it as a. So we got them to change that. But that was. And they’re the first ones that were laughing about that because you know, people,

[22:48] people think that, well, it’s just a simple I love you will. I’ll just leave everything to my husband. And those definitely work. It’s what I have. But ye. Um, if you,

[22:59] you know, once you.

[23:00] And if you. It’s just if as soon as there’s children involved,

[23:04] you know that it needs to be considered and people never consider it,

[23:08] probably rightly so that they’re not going to ever die together. But you just never know. Right. So yeah, it does happen. Yeah. And it’s like long term disability. You don’t, you’re much more likely to become disabled than you are to die.

[23:23] People don’t really realize that either.

[23:27] And there are cases that you know, people might, you know,

[23:33] think they have insurance, but let’s say they’re still very young, they’re very healthy, but something happens, they have a coronary issue and all of a sudden they can’t get more insurance.

[23:45] Yeah. So that has, I’ve seen that a couple of times. So that is something to think about.

[23:51] Tara Bansal: It’s always the unexpected. Like, I feel like that’s part of.

[23:54] Jennifer Hushion: Right. I think it’s, I think it’s Brett.

[23:57] Tara Bansal: That says like you’re planning for the worst, but you want to be able to enjoy, you know, for the best.

[24:08] Jennifer Hushion: And it’s. Again, it’s the,

[24:10] what interests me is the psychology and the mentality around it. Right. I have, I’ll just,

[24:17] you know, call it myself for a moment.

[24:19] I have no problem being insured to the Hill from our home,

[24:25] but I don’t have,

[24:27] I don’t, you know, I didn’t get disability insurance because I have certain conditions that wouldn’t allow for that. So I’m just keeping my fingers crossed. But it’s. So, it’s interesting that you, you know, even in my own state.

[24:41] And what I, what I do know is that there’s certain things that are just like, yeah, that’s a no brainer. You have home insurance, you have an umbrella policy, you.

[24:50] Over your car insurance in your home.

[24:53] But there are other policies on top of that that are harder to convince people of.

[24:59] So. Yeah.

[25:01] Tara Bansal: How do you convince people to get their estate documents?

[25:07] Jennifer Hushion: Well, that’s really easy, actually,

[25:09] because. Well, I think it’s easy. I’m sorry, not really easy, but it’s easier now. First of all, Rhode island has a very low state ex.

[25:17] Our state exemption is only 1.8 million. Well, I shouldn’t say one point, but it’s, it’s not the federal. Most states,

[25:25] you know, mirror the federal. So it’s nowhere near which most people will fall under. But Rhode island is only 1.8. So there’s that if. And of course,

[25:35] if they still have minor children. That’s a pretty, to me, a really easy sell because as soon as you explain to them that their kids could go into state care, they’re like, oh.

[25:44] Tara Bansal: And I think that varies by state too.

[25:47] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah, I’m sure it does.

[25:50] I tend to really. I focus mostly on Rhode island and Massachusetts. So I know their laws.

[25:55] I do.

[25:57] But yeah, so that’s a no brainer.

[25:59] Tara Bansal: A motivating factor in telling them that.

[26:02] Jennifer Hushion: And then another one is if.

[26:04] Because quite frequently in New England you might inherit a house on Martha’s Vineyard or on the Cape or.

[26:13] And that all of a sudden makes your estate planning much more difficult to have something out of state. And so that’s. So once. So that’s how I sell it to those types of clients is you need some better planning here and you need to be able to use different kinds of trust for you,

[26:30] specifically for your situation.

[26:33] But I mean, if they say no, we’re not interested in that, I’m not going to,

[26:36] you know, it’s their money, it’s their. I will tell them what I think,

[26:42] what their options are and I might bring it up one more time at the next meeting and leave it at that. Some people are extremely against long term care. It has changed a lot since it came out.

[26:58] The premiums are rising frequently now there’s more of a hybrid model based on life insurance and long term care. Most of us now of our generation have either witnessed or personally been involved in a parent with some sort of dementia.

[27:17] And then there was other arguments on the table too, as far as, you know,

[27:21] other options,

[27:23] you know, being Canadian. So there are definitely other options or other states where there’s other options. But yeah, so I think it’s important that we talk to our clients about all these things and not just,

[27:37] you know, investing, because that’s what we do. We’re looking at their whole financial picture.

[27:43] But it was interesting in the course that I recently took through the F for the Financial Planning association about behavioral finance.

[27:51] Two of the segments were based on how we should be talking to clients and they had come up with these acronyms about how we should do it. And these are things that women naturally do.

[28:04] It’s, it was, I was kind of shocked because it was, you know, don’t just jump right into the agenda.

[28:09] Ask them how they are about their family,

[28:12] remember the names of their kids.

[28:15] That’s. We do that instinctively, especially with our female clients because we, that’s how we communicate with them and how we connect with them and how they learn to trust us and how they know that we’ve been in the same boat that they are.

[28:31] And so I just found that part very interesting because it was almost like they were giving themselves a pat on the back for coming up with this amazing communication skill that they’d given this wonderful acronym.

[28:44] And anyway, and we do that all the time.

[28:48] Tara Bansal: And some, some men that comes more naturally to than others, of course. But there are some where even when they learn the acronym, it feels like they are.

[29:03] Jennifer Hushion: Well, I think it’s what we’re comfortable with. Yeah, yeah. So if you’re not comfortable with feelings and that kind of like I’m sure Brett does a fan. I know he does because does a fantastic job with that.

[29:15] Whereas some other planners might be. Feel more comfortable with money and talking about money. So I think it’s really just what you’re comfortable doing and that goes to.

[29:24] Tara Bansal: Finding the right fit.

[29:26] Jennifer Hushion: Right. Right.

[29:26] Tara Bansal: Like when, when somebody comes to you and you don’t feel like they’re a good fit, what do you do?

[29:33] Jennifer Hushion: Well, I actually, my system is that I have approximately an hour long initial consultation for free that I have with the prospective client.

[29:44] We go over what their goals are and I, at that point I strongly recommend that they see two to three other planners. I’d be happy to recomm.

[29:55] Tara Bansal: Mm.

[29:57] Jennifer Hushion: Because I think it’s really important.

[29:59] It’s. This is a long term, hopefully a long term relationship and I think it’s really important that you get the right fit.

[30:06] Um, and that seems to have gone very well that, that strategy.

[30:11] And I also think that, you know, I’m definitely not the right fit for everyone.

[30:16] And let’s say there, there was somebody that came in and, and all they, they don’t want to get all touchy feely and they don’t want to talk about the kids and they don’t,

[30:24] they just want to talk about what’s the best investment. Well, there they should go somewhere else. And I don’t think I would be the right fit. I mean, I don’t,

[30:33] I don’t mean to make it say like we get into this big therapy session every time with my clients, but that’s how you’re.

[30:39] Tara Bansal: That’S how I get your focus is not only on the investments and the.

[30:42] Jennifer Hushion: Numbers because I know that what’s important,

[30:45] it’s interesting. In that same course they said, you know,

[30:49] what brings you joy and then they list off all these sports things.

[30:52] Is it golf? Is it? This is a fantasy football. Is it? And I’m thinking to myself,

[30:58] a woman’s not the same. A woman’s going to say her kids.

[31:01] Tara Bansal: Yes. Her family.

[31:02] Jennifer Hushion: Her family,

[31:04] her husband, her whatever. Spending time with her people that she loves. Yeah. It’s not. I mean, the odd woman might say golf because golf is very obsessive and I get that.

[31:17] But,

[31:18] but most of us it’s going to be something that we love as in real love, not something that we love as a sport.

[31:26] So I thought that was interesting as well.

[31:29] Tara Bansal: Well, it almost sounds like women weren’t involved in creating those materials.

[31:36] Jennifer Hushion: I definitely not. It was two white guys. Two white guys in their 50s and, you know, and they’re quite well known. And I will say that parts of it were really, really good.

[31:47] I don’t mean to diss the whole course. There were parts of it that,

[31:51] you know, that were very,

[31:53] very important and that I, I have used to a certain extent, you know, money scripts, all that sort of thing. But I’ve been meaning actually to write them a long email because if they, just,

[32:06] because they start off with the whole thing talking about how we have to be self aware of our biases.

[32:13] And I was like, you know, you have a really good course there, but if you just turned and looked at these eight things, you know, the only female planner you have in this course is that’s a woman loses money.

[32:26] And all of the enablers in your course are women.

[32:32] I honestly think that they were not conscious, they were subconscious,

[32:37] but they just came out of your own biases. And I think if you looked at and you fix those things,

[32:42] this would be a really, really great course. And even in your acronyms that you use for great communication skills, you just have to say, you know, a lot of women already do this or,

[32:54] or have one female financial planner do what? There was over eight hours of videos in this course. Have one woman do 35 minutes of your, of your presentation. You know, to get that different perspective.

[33:10] Tara Bansal: What were some of the takeaways that were beneficial?

[33:14] Jennifer Hushion: That,

[33:15] Well, I thought,

[33:16] I thought they did a really great job on discussing money scripts and the way, you know, we all think about money from our past,

[33:24] specifically our families.

[33:27] Brett had my husband and I do that when we did a financial plan with him.

[33:33] And I found that very enlightening. Um,

[33:37] I just think discussing the way they sort of break down how to approach goals. And, and there were, so, yeah, there were some very pertinent use, There was some very pertinent, useful information in there.

[33:50] So I don’t mean to just dismiss the whole course. It’s just as I believe we were talking earlier,

[33:56] this is one of my personal issues that when I face these frictions in something that I see, I,

[34:05] I,

[34:06] I react too quickly and I, I need to pull back on my judgments and say, okay.

[34:13] Tara Bansal: But that’s an example to me of this course where it sounds like they aren’t even aware of their own,

[34:21] like, yes,

[34:23] unconscious bias and how they were presenting things.

[34:26] Jennifer Hushion: Right.

[34:27] Tara Bansal: And the fact that you, I think that would be a helpful email just to point it out to them.

[34:36] Jennifer Hushion: And, and it’s not on,

[34:38] it’s not on a male, female basis. It really is like everything else on a person basis, there are good people and there are, I’m not gonna say bad people, but there are,

[34:47] you know,

[34:48] just like countries, like everything else. There’s good apples, there’s bad apples. Some, you know, there’s like, there’s good advisors.

[34:55] Yeah.

[34:55] Tara Bansal: There’s good advisors at the brokerage houses.

[34:57] Jennifer Hushion: Right.

[34:57] Tara Bansal: You know, like, it’s not like.

[35:00] Jennifer Hushion: And there’s many, many good advisors that are men. I just,

[35:05] the, the clients that I have and I deal with,

[35:08] we clicked because we have.

[35:11] And this is one of the things they talked about and they said, you know, you should get out of this,

[35:16] this mind frame of this with what they call familiarity bias.

[35:21] Right. Which is true because they had one of their characters was a white guy in his 50s named Sean or something, and he was trying to make his practice more diverse.

[35:33] And my thought was,

[35:36] then hire more diverse people.

[35:39] You know,

[35:39] you’re not going to appeal to all people.

[35:44] And I don’t know if you could necessarily relate to this single mom.

[35:50] You know,

[35:51] whatever the circumstances are that aren’t your circumstances, we can try and we can be open minded. But I think the answer to that question is to really hire more diverse CFPs.

[36:02] Right.

[36:03] Tara Bansal: And I think it’s to, I go to like we should be a role model.

[36:09] Jennifer Hushion: Yes.

[36:10] Tara Bansal: For our clients too, in how we live our life.

[36:15] Jennifer Hushion: And what.

[36:16] Tara Bansal: I mean, that’s, that goes to. We’re not a perfect fit for everyone. But like what.

[36:21] Jennifer Hushion: And I’m very honest about my new attracts. Yeah, yeah. With my clients, I’m very honest about financial mistakes that I’ve made in the past because I think it’s important.

[36:30] Now, you’re not usually going to find this with a doctor or a doctor because they’ll get sued.

[36:34] They’ll say, well, I made this mistake on this. But,

[36:38] but we all make mistakes. And so I tend to show, share those with my clients to know that, you know, we’re just, we’re all human. So.

[36:45] Because the one thing I think that’s really important to leave out of financial planning is judgment.

[36:50] And I think especially women feel that acutely as far as if they get into debt, if they get especially credit card debt, they don’t want to talk about it and you can’t deal with it until you talk about it.

[37:03] So if you approach those situations,

[37:07] you know, with an open mind, without judgment and just say, you know what, it’s okay,

[37:12] this happened.

[37:14] We can’t change that. But let’s go about seeing how we can fix it now.

[37:18] Yeah, there’s no point in you feeling all this regret and guilt about it. Because that’s not helpful,

[37:23] right?

[37:24] Tara Bansal: That is not helpful.

[37:26] Jennifer Hushion: And then one last comment about. Because one of the things when they were talking about the diversity section,

[37:31] one of the things that the Prof. Said was when he said about diversity and even hiring more women.

[37:39] And that word, even just. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. The word even was like even hiring more women,

[37:50] you know,

[37:51] so, yeah, I.

[37:52] Tara Bansal: Know that that’s something you’re passionate about is trying wanting more women in this profession.

[38:00] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, absolutely.

[38:03] Tara Bansal: What is the, the percentage?

[38:05] Jennifer Hushion: I think it’s abysmally low. Right. I don’t think it’s gone above. It’s definitely not above 20. Yeah.

[38:12] Tara Bansal: I thought it was like 16. I don’t. Yeah, it was for a while.

[38:15] Jennifer Hushion: And I don’t know if I’m talking about just female planners or CFPs, so I don’t want to come across. And it’s something I can easily look up. But. Yeah, but,

[38:25] but what are your so important.

[38:27] And the idea is. So I joined these different female financial planner groups and to talk about this sort of stuff, I’m involved in one in here in Rhode Island.

[38:35] And I think we need to get. It’s not even at university level. It’s right even down at the high school level. Just to get them thinking about it and explain to them, you know what, you can do this.

[38:45] It’s not all about the math. It can give you a great life where you can if, especially if you have your own, you know, go learn somewhere else, get a training job,

[38:54] but then get your CFP and open your own company because you can have incredible flexibility to be able to raise kids and be a CFP and make a good living.

[39:07] And,

[39:08] you know, and it’s very fulfilling. And make a difference.

[39:11] Tara Bansal: Exactly. I feel like women are drawn to that too.

[39:14] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah. And I think that, and I think there’s a lot of professions like in, in as far as college goes,

[39:22] we are, we should be going and talking to the psychology majors.

[39:27] They’re perfect candidates,

[39:30] you know, so areas like that.

[39:34] Because I think that we could, we, we can make a difference there and we should make a difference. And as, as well as I think we should have more Latino planners.

[39:41] We should, we should just have more diverse planners, period.

[39:46] Because I, I can’t see how that hurts anybody.

[39:49] Tara Bansal: No.

[39:50] Jennifer Hushion: And I understand there’s familiar familiarity bias, but it still, the bottom line is I think it could only help some.

[39:58] Tara Bansal: Of your ideas is like talking with.

[40:01] Jennifer Hushion: Teachers or talking with, talking to students actually yeah.

[40:04] Tara Bansal: Talking to the students going into getting.

[40:06] Jennifer Hushion: There are some.

[40:07] There are some groups here that do that now through Bryant University here in Rhode Island. So I’m trying to.

[40:14] I’ve offered my services to them as far as just going into high schools and going into colleges.

[40:20] I know Boston College has a great retirement program.

[40:24] They might be interested.

[40:27] But it’s sort of in areas like that that I think that there’s a great opportunity because we need to get them a little younger before they have already either. Never thought about it.

[40:39] Which is probably the most case scenario.

[40:41] Thought about it and thought they couldn’t do it.

[40:43] Yeah.

[40:46] And just really never gave it. I think the biggest issue is never given it a lot of thought. But if it was explained to them properly,

[40:53] I think that they could. People would, they’d keep their minds open hopefully.

[40:58] About seeing this as a profession.

[41:00] Tara Bansal: Do you think it’s viewed as a prestigious profession?

[41:06] Jennifer Hushion: I think so. I think to me it was.

[41:11] I think that it.

[41:13] Yeah. I don’t think that there’s.

[41:16] Would be any different than becoming an accountant. I think there is a difference between for me only because the fiduciary aspect of it, of being a CFP and being a financial advisor only because I know that there are some incredible financial advisors out there with decades of experience that.

[41:37] Yes. That just don’t want to write a test in their 50s. And I get that.

[41:42] But.

[41:44] But I think that those exams. And it’s mostly the fiduciary experience now there’s also financial advisors out there that will sign a fiduciary form if their firm lets them.

[41:55] So that’s just important to me from the client side of things that I am a fiduciary and that people should seek out a fiduciary just to be on the safe side.

[42:08] Even if they’re not a cfp, if they, if they can sign a fiduciary statement,

[42:12] that would be great too.

[42:14] So that’s what I wish more women knew.

[42:18] Tara Bansal: And what has surprised you about this profession?

[42:21] Jennifer Hushion: The flexibility of it.

[42:24] And the people that I’ve met are great people. I mean the people at Main street are fabulous.

[42:30] I really like my clients and I am very lucky in the sense that I do really like my clients and I can.

[42:38] They’ve been very loyal. They’ve stayed with me a long time.

[42:41] So we have long term relationships now. I’ve known their kids since they were toddlers to now they’re going off to university.

[42:48] And so those are great joys. You know, if they’ve.

[42:51] If they talked about. Well Should I have a.

[42:54] I have a large investment account or.

[42:57] And their kids are in their early teens or. And this was during COVID But what I want to do is buy a house on the Cape.

[43:03] And my first reaction was, well, buy the house on the Cape. Because knowing my son was graduating from college at that point, 10 years from now, you’re not going to see.

[43:12] These are boys. You’re not going to see these kids very often. Right. So take the years, the next 10 years that you have and enjoy them with your kids. How much money are you going to get?

[43:23] Enjoyment are you going to get out of that stock?

[43:25] Not a lot, probably.

[43:26] How much enjoyment are you going to get about having this home on the Cape? And that’s why.

[43:31] Another reason why I think they come to us, because not every advisor would necessarily give that answer because it cuts into their aum.

[43:42] Tara Bansal: Do you charge based on aum?

[43:43] Jennifer Hushion: I do. You do? I do. Well, I do both, actually,

[43:46] because there’s some people that really just want to check up.

[43:50] Or a better example would be residents just coming out of school. Well, they just really have a ton of debt.

[43:56] Tara Bansal: Yes.

[43:56] Jennifer Hushion: They don’t have any assets coming out of med school. So what they need is just somebody to help them organize that,

[44:03] come up with a plan if they’re thinking about buying a house. You know, a couple of them said to me, well, I want to. This was back more than a few years ago.

[44:12] I want to invest this in the market so that when I come to buy a house in two years and I’m a no,

[44:16] no, no,

[44:18] that’s not.

[44:19] Tara Bansal: What that is for.

[44:20] Jennifer Hushion: Right. Anything under three years that you’re really putting aside for something specific that goes into cash and cash, like investments.

[44:28] So they were happy about that because that enabled them to buy a house and they know that the money was there.

[44:35] So it’s. Yeah, it’s things like that.

[44:39] And success to me now really means being able to work with the clients I want to work with and enjoying what I do, which I do immensely. I enjoy the investment side of it.

[44:53] I enjoy meeting my clients and talking.

[44:58] Tara Bansal: And I think you’re unusual personally, because I feel like most people are either planners.

[45:06] Jennifer Hushion: Yes.

[45:07] Tara Bansal: Like, I can do both.

[45:09] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah.

[45:09] Tara Bansal: But my love is more around the, like, connection and relationship and planning side than the investment side.

[45:19] Jennifer Hushion: I think the investment side for me really, in a way comes from the journalism background because I love researching things.

[45:25] And so,

[45:27] you know, I have my parameters and I like finding something that. I mean, to be honest with you, the vast majority of. Of the stocks that I own are brand names that you’re going to know.

[45:38] Yeah. But it’s a question of when to buy them and,

[45:41] and sort of that sort of take. I’m not, I don’t do penny stocks. I do not trade frequently at all.

[45:47] I am a vanilla buy and hold investor. Yeah.

[45:51] And I don’t. And that’s the way I sell myself to people is I’m not.

[45:55] Tara Bansal: But just the fact that you like doing that research to me is like,

[46:00] to me unusual because I do feel like most people are like,

[46:03] oh, I like that or I don’t like that. And you like both.

[46:07] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, I do. I do like both. And luckily for me, the one part I,

[46:12] that was never my strong suit is done by Main Street.

[46:16] Right? Yeah. And they do a fabulous job at it. So.

[46:20] Tara Bansal: And I’m a big believer in that. I, I love your perspective, but the older I get, the more.

[46:27] Jennifer Hushion: Do.

[46:28] Tara Bansal: Do more of what you like and less of what you don’t like. And how can we.

[46:33] Jennifer Hushion: How.

[46:33] Tara Bansal: You know, I keep thinking like, how can I delegate this or give this to someone who’s going to do it better than me?

[46:39] And that’s where like the firms and the different relationships with colleagues or other professionals can, I think, help a lot.

[46:51] Jennifer Hushion: I would agree.

[46:54] Tara Bansal: What changes would you like to make.

[46:56] Jennifer Hushion: In your own practice?

[46:58] So I would like. I love working with female.

[47:03] Any. Any women actually that there, there are now some that are. That I haven’t had before that are going through life changes like divorce or those situations. And I love helping them.

[47:18] And there again, I have basically in my practice two different types of clients.

[47:26] Ones are the women that like to learn. They want to know because maybe their partner was doing the finances before or. But they were never really that interested in doing it.

[47:37] But now that they’re alone, they really want to learn. So I love sitting down with them and saying, okay, this is what you’re looking for.

[47:44] Low expense ratio and go through any things that they might be looking for. And this is what kind of insurance you might think about and explain to them what I do and why I do it on a very detailed basis.

[47:57] And then there’s those of them which work really, really hard as physicians and don’t care.

[48:04] Couldn’t care less.

[48:05] Tara Bansal: They’re handing that off. They want someone they can trust and.

[48:08] Jennifer Hushion: Take care of it.

[48:10] The way I hand off my card to a mechanic,

[48:13] you know, I.

[48:14] So it’s not their expertise. They don’t really know. They just know that they trust me and they like me to do everything. So there’s two very different baskets of clients,

[48:23] both of whom I adore because I love. And if you had to do all teaching, that would take up a tremendous amount of time. So I love the fact that it’s mixed.

[48:32] I do like,

[48:34] as I said, I do like the teaching aspect of it, so those are always fun.

[48:40] Tara Bansal: And you said your practice has pretty much grown by word of mouth and referral.

[48:46] Jennifer Hushion: It’s all word of mouth and referral. How I don’t have a chance.

[48:49] Tara Bansal: Do you do anything to help make that happen?

[48:54] Jennifer Hushion: I speak to.

[48:57] Actually, to be honest with you, this is. This is bad.

[49:00] But no,

[49:01] I don’t even ask for referrals in my meetings with clients. I’ll just say I just wanted to know. Yeah, I get.

[49:07] I constantly last. Not constantly, but in the last three weeks alone, three of my existing clients have texted me and said,

[49:15] a friend of mine so and so needs a planner.

[49:18] I gave her your number, expect her to call.

[49:21] So that’s how it sort of shakes down. One I’ve only, I would say about five times.

[49:27] One of them very recently contacted me through the CFP website and was just looking for a CFP fiduciary.

[49:34] Tara Bansal: And it sounds like most of your clients are local.

[49:37] Jennifer Hushion: They are, except for there’s a couple of residents that I had from Brown University that are now in Atlanta that have gone away.

[49:43] Most of them are leaving medicine, to be honest with you.

[49:46] Um,

[49:47] and. Cause that. That’s a whole other situation.

[49:50] Yeah. So the. The clients that I do have that aren’t local, it’s because I had them as. As medical residents and then they moved somewhere else.

[49:56] Tara Bansal: Is there a certain number of clients you want, like, or.

[50:04] Jennifer Hushion: I don’t think that I can do what I do on an individual basis and give them the attention that I feel they deserve for more than a hundred.

[50:15] Okay. I’m around 60 right now.

[50:18] Tara Bansal: Okay, so you still have some.

[50:19] Jennifer Hushion: So I have definitely. I could definitely.

[50:21] Tara Bansal: And you’ve thought about that. You kind of know what.

[50:24] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, I know. And the cause. Yes, because. And most. A lot of the growth that I’ve had has been actually current clients that I’ve had. Because you know, where my clients mostly are, a lot of them are younger than me because they were residents.

[50:39] So I actually only have one client that’s older than me.

[50:41] But most of them now as. What’s going to happen with a lot of our clients, they’re coming into inherited money from their parents generation that has. Has.

[50:52] Has increased the aum of my practice and will continue to do so.

[50:57] And Another stat that I found interesting from that same course that they.

[51:03] Because they. They say this and then they didn’t follow it up at all was by 2030 it was some 70. Oh, I wish I knew this, dad.

[51:14] It was something really high. But will be controlled by women in the family. And it was very high.

[51:21] And oh, and then the first one was 77% of women who wanted to find a financial advisor couldn’t find someone that they felt comfortable with.

[51:32] Wow.

[51:33] That was the 77% one. And then as of the other one was as of 2030,

[51:39] an x percentage and it was large.

[51:41] Will control the finances within the family.

[51:45] And we do know that too because generally we live longer than men. So at some point they’re going to need to talk to somebody.

[51:56] Tara Bansal: What are your plans for the future with your practice?

[51:59] Jennifer Hushion: Well, I mean, I love it and there’s no. I would very much like my husband to retire because he’s an ER doc. And it’s very stressful job and it’s getting worse.

[52:09] But I can work forever. I mean, I don’t.

[52:12] It’s not a physically taxing job.

[52:16] And I like what I do because I work a lot with physicians with crazy schedules. I have no problem working on the weekend, which is different to a lot of other planners too.

[52:27] I don’t have problems working at night. I don’t have problems working on the weekend. I will go to their house if they have small kids,

[52:33] all of those things. And I have that flexibility. Cause I can also take a Tuesday off if I want to.

[52:40] It’s not so much the case anymore because my child is grown. But it was incredibly important when he was growing up that I could take the afternoon off and go to a baseball game.

[52:51] So that was,

[52:52] you know, that was amazing.

[52:54] Tara Bansal: And that’s how I am now. Like, I try to only do meetings and work while my sons are at school.

[53:01] Jennifer Hushion: Right.

[53:01] Which makes complete, utter sense.

[53:05] But since my.

[53:07] Since my son is now graduated and he’s off and he’s supporting myself, which probably would be my biggest joy when I was just looking at over and what do you consider one.

[53:17] It’s. It would be that I have launched our. We have launched our child into the world of adulthood. I mean, it is successfully. Yes.

[53:26] And it is the Northeast. So you know, they’re.

[53:29] Because this is one of the things keep referring to it enabling there because we’re really down on any kind of enabling.

[53:36] But if you live in the Northeast,

[53:39] it’s pretty much impossible to buy a house.

[53:42] Tara Bansal: Oh yeah.

[53:43] Jennifer Hushion: Or anywhere. But especially around here. And he lived in Boston without some sort of parental input.

[53:51] So I don’t necessarily, I mean I get that you don’t want to be paying their cell phone or whatever, but every situation is different and,

[53:59] and I, I, I think that that is a possibility.

[54:04] But yeah, so that’s something that is,

[54:08] that’s a big issue for parents these days, I think who, who are in the position to help. That’s, it’s a first world problem, let’s be honest. Yeah,

[54:18] but,

[54:19] but yeah, so I’m very happy about that. I would really love my husband to retire.

[54:26] You know, it’s an issue obviously in this country with healthcare,

[54:29] but that would be my goal for him.

[54:35] And then I can keep working.

[54:38] Tara Bansal: How much do you work now? Like about how many hours a week.

[54:41] Jennifer Hushion: And I would say I work and it could be on a Saturday, it could be during the week, but I would work about four days a week.

[54:50] Okay.

[54:53] And so I get, I usually take a,

[54:56] a Friday or, or Monday off. Depends.

[54:58] Or a Tuesday. You know, that’s the, yeah.

[55:01] Tara Bansal: Depending on the beauty of.

[55:03] Jennifer Hushion: Right, right.

[55:03] Tara Bansal: What do you have any like virtual assistants or anyone else that. Nope, it’s all you.

[55:09] Jennifer Hushion: It’s me and then Main street with the, and Main street.

[55:14] But any communications are through me and you know, I, we, I, I’ve learned ever since these, they’ve really cracked down on texting. I do a lot more phone conversations because many physicians love texting.

[55:29] But you, we can’t do that. So yeah, let’s pick up the phone now.

[55:35] And,

[55:36] and so that has changed a little bit as far as compliance and what to do there. But, but yeah, I think that it is a fabulous profession for women.

[55:47] And I’m going to say that my favorite personal finance book is the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.

[55:57] My favorite book in general as you know, is Braiding Sweetgrass.

[56:02] Tara Bansal: Uh huh.

[56:03] Jennifer Hushion: I love that.

[56:04] Yeah.

[56:05] And my self care is probably meditating gardening and my dogs. You get so much oxytocin just from petting your dog. What kind of dogs do you. Oh, we have two rescues and some one’s a bit of a menace but we’re working on him.

[56:23] He’s an, he’s been in training now for six weeks and he’s doing much, much better.

[56:28] But I am huge, huge dog lover, so.

[56:32] Tara Bansal: And just from studying gardening or horticulture, like that’s obviously a huge passion of yours. Do you still get to do that?

[56:41] Jennifer Hushion: I do because in fact that is probably what I will do later today because I have not. I’ve been Very neglectful. This summer I have pretty much a natural garden and which really means a Darwinian garden, which is plant as much stuff as you possibly can and see what is still alive the next year.

[56:59] But it is in drastic need of weeding and cutting back.

[57:03] So I will do that today after four. Well,

[57:06] it was kind of a hot summer too, so you don’t really. Some days feel like going out, but that. I find that very relaxing and just most people don’t. I love weeding.

[57:15] I think it’s just. You just get into the zone.

[57:17] Tara Bansal: You get the satisfaction, too.

[57:19] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, yes, exactly. Instant satisfaction. It’s like washing windows.

[57:24] Tara Bansal: What. Is there a question you wish I had asked or that you would.

[57:30] Jennifer Hushion: No,

[57:31] because I think you prepare your interviewees exceptionally well with their. With the questionnaire. And there isn’t actually, because I would have. I would have done the books.

[57:43] I would have asked them what’s important to them. And we covered that topic as far as just really getting more women into personal finance.

[57:55] And I think it’s important that we are grateful and verbally grateful and in letters at times for the people that have helped us,

[58:04] you know, so for it would be Joan Gray Anderson, my husband Brett.

[58:09] It’s been really fun getting to know you,

[58:11] and I think that your podcast is fabulous.

[58:14] Thank you. And it’s helped me pry open some of the biases in my mind.

[58:20] So,

[58:21] yeah, I feel like that almost.

[58:23] Tara Bansal: Is the theme of this is like picking up and trying to notice our unconscious bias that affects all of us.

[58:32] Jennifer Hushion: And one thing I would imagine that we both have in common, too, is lifelong learners. I think it’s really important. I’m always taking some sort of course. Whether or not it’s.

[58:44] Doesn’t always have to be about finance kind of generally is. I mean, I did a crypto course at mit just because I don’t think that we should deny people.

[58:52] If somebody comes to me and says, I want to invest in crypto, well, I better know what crypto is before I tell them what they should be doing.

[59:00] So things like that. And since our jobs are always changing in the finance world is always changing. There’s always learning. There’s always learning to be done. So luckily, I do like.

[59:11] I love taking courses and I like that sort of stuff. So I feel like I know for.

[59:17] Tara Bansal: Me, that’s what I’m. My favorite things.

[59:20] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, it’s important to keep our brains active.

[59:23] Tara Bansal: You know, I have one question, because.

[59:26] Jennifer Hushion: You.

[59:29] Tara Bansal: Were and are a writer. How do you use that now?

[59:37] Jennifer Hushion: Well,

[59:39] mostly it’s just, I think I do that. Not necessarily in physically writing, but when I talked, I use narrative when I’m talking to my clients.

[59:50] And when I do craft emails, they’re probably too long. I should make them shorter.

[59:55] I mean, that’s a good thing about being a reporter,

[59:58] not a novelist, because you tend to get to the point. I need to cover these points,

[01:00:06] but I definitely would like to do some writing on personal finance from a woman’s perspective.

[01:00:13] I think that that would.

[01:00:14] Tara Bansal: I want to help support you on this. I totally feel like. Yes, please.

[01:00:19] Jennifer Hushion: And I think that we can make it funny. I think that, you know, there’s. Because there are some funny stories, and it doesn’t have to all be, you know, sludging through and because I think for anybody to want to read something,

[01:00:34] it’s got to be both informative and not. I’m not saying easy. Interesting. Interesting. Exactly.

[01:00:41] Tara Bansal: So do you have a book in mind?

[01:00:45] Jennifer Hushion: What I have is a bare outline in my head that has to do with specifically women in finance and how.

[01:00:55] How they. I feel that they should approach it. How. And I would like to do a chapter as well on getting more women. And pretty much a lot of things we talked about in this podcast.

[01:01:05] Getting more women into the industry. Why aren’t there more women talking to other female planners about it?

[01:01:12] Talking to my clients and other clients about experiences they’ve had with other planners.

[01:01:19] I don’t really want to spend a lot of time on that.

[01:01:22] I don’t think that there’s any need to start going out there and bashing other planners for not doing things a different way,

[01:01:34] because we’re all different.

[01:01:36] But I do think that we need to recognize the benefits of having more diversity in this field.

[01:01:47] Tara Bansal: I agree,

[01:01:48] and that’s part of why I’m doing this. And I so appreciate you taking the time and being here and sharing your wisdom,

[01:01:58] and I want you to write that book. So I’m gonna keep following up with you on this.

[01:02:05] Jennifer Hushion: It was always great to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thanks.

[01:02:09] Tara Bansal: What stood out to me in my conversation with Jen were three big things.

[01:02:15] One, the courage to leap.

[01:02:17] Whether moving to Prague and volunteering for a job she knew nothing about,

[01:02:23] or following her heart to New York,

[01:02:26] Jen showed us what it looks like to take big risks that change and shape a life.

[01:02:32] Two, the power of support.

[01:02:34] Jen’s story is threaded with gratitude for people who believed in her. A professor, her husband,

[01:02:41] mentors,

[01:02:43] reminders that encouragement can change the course of someone’s journey.

[01:02:47] And three, the call for inclusion.

[01:02:50] Jen’s reflections on unconscious bias and representation in our field really resonated.

[01:02:57] It’s a reminder that progress comes when we notice our blind spots,

[01:03:02] invite feedback and make room for voices not always at the table.

[01:03:08] For me, those were the themes courage, support and inclusion and I’ll leave you with a few questions for you to ponder.

[01:03:17] What risks have you taken in the past and how have they shaped your path?

[01:03:22] What risks are you considering now?

[01:03:25] Who are you grateful for as your mentors and supporters?

[01:03:29] Extra bonus points if you reach out to them and tell them so.

[01:03:34] How might you encourage or open a door for someone else?

[01:03:38] And what can you do, even in small ways, to make space for new voices at the table?

[01:03:46] Thank you for listening to Her Life, Her Practice, Her Way,

[01:03:50] a podcast for and about female financial advisors.

[01:03:54] I truly hope you found something valuable and encouraging in today’s episode. If you did, I’d be so grateful if you’d take a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

[01:04:07] It helps other phenomenal women in our field find this space.

[01:04:11] And if you know another advisor who would benefit from these conversations or from the kind of support I offer through coaching,

[01:04:20] please send this episode to her.

[01:04:22] If you’re curious about working with me as your coach or interested in being on the podcast, I’d love to hear from you.

[01:04:30] You can find more details and reach out to me on the contact page of my website,

[01:04:36] herlifeherpracticeherway.com no spaces, no underlines, just the words straight in a row.

[01:04:45] Until next time, keep building a life and practice you truly love.

Brett Danko – CFP® Education Programs – the instructor who helped Jen prepare for her CFP® and later invited her to join Main Street Financial Solutions.

Main Street Financial Solutions – the firm where Jen now practices.

Financial Planning Association (FPA) – home of the behavioral finance course Jen referenced.

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards – for those interested in pursuing the CFP® designation.

Jennifer Hushion was born in Geneva, Switzerland and raised and educated in Toronto, Canada. In the mid to late 1980’s she attended York University, Glendon College in Toronto and Université Canadienne en France, in Nice France.

After working as a Production Assistant in the publishing industry in Toronto, she moved to Prague, The Czech Republic, during the Velvet Revolution and worked as a financial journalist and editor at Central European Business Weekly, an English language newspaper.

In August of 1995 she followed her (then future) husband to New York City and began work as an Assistant to the Vice President, Trade Paperback Sales at Penguin books. In 1996 after being denied an H1B working visa, she returned to Canada and became an Associate Financial Consultant at Brendan Wood International in Toronto.

In 1999 she married the American mentioned above and they moved to Providence, RI where they still reside. She returned to university part-time after the birth of her son and graduated Magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture and a minor in Family Financial Planning from the University of Rhode Island.

She worked briefly in the brokerage business as a Registered Client Service Associate, passed her series 7 and 63 and soon realized she needed to become a Certified Financial Planner™ and start her own firm. She attended the Executive Development Center at Bryant University for the education component of the CFP® and passed the exam in March of 2011. That summer, she opened her own firm as an independent Registered Investment Advisor under JL Hushion Financial Planning, LLC. In June of 2016 after getting to know Brett Danko from his CFP® review classes, she joined Main Street Financial Solutions, LLC where she will celebrate her 10^th anniversary in Spring of 2026.

[00:17] Tara Bansal: Welcome to her life, her practice, her way.

[00:22] A podcast for and about female financial advisors. Tara I’m Tara Conti Bansal. I’ve been a financial planner and life coach for over 20 years,

[00:32] and I believe that when women thrive in this profession, we all win.

[00:38] This show is about sharing our journeys, our struggles, our breakthroughs, and the many ways we build a life and practice that feels true to us.

[00:48] And now I’m extending that mission. Beyond the podcast,

[00:52] I coach female advisors who want to grow a fulfilling practice and a beautiful life that they love,

[01:00] one filled with meaning, freedom, connection and joy.

[01:04] Whether you’re just starting out, reinventing yourself, or dreaming of what’s next,

[01:09] you’re in the right place.

[01:11] Let’s build this together.

[01:14] Hello,

[01:15] this is Tara Conti Bansal and I am super excited to have Jen Hushen, did I say that right? Yes.

[01:25] Here with me today.

[01:27] She got to me through Brett Danko and Main Street Financial Solutions.

[01:33] Brett recommended I talk to her and we have connected in multiple ways. And she lives in Cranston, Rhode island, which my father is from and my aunt lives there.

[01:50] And the more we talk, the more I feel like we’re finding to connect on and similar ideas and philosophies. But just thrilled to have you here, Jen.

[02:02] And I’m going to start just as we always do.

[02:06] Tell us your story.

[02:07] How did you get here?

[02:10] Jennifer Hushion: Okay, so the first financial job I had was after university.

[02:18] Tara Bansal: I want to go back even before then.

[02:19] Jennifer Hushion: Oh, okay.

[02:20] Tara Bansal: Where did you grow up?

[02:22] Jennifer Hushion: What about your family?

[02:24] I was born in Geneva, Switzerland.

[02:26] I grew up in Toronto, Canada. I am Canadian. My dad was just in Geneva for a couple of years on business when I was born.

[02:36] So I grew up in Toronto. I went to university, which is why I say university, not college.

[02:42] I went to university in Toronto and then more than halfway through my degree,

[02:49] I went to Prague and I got my degree was in creative writing. And I went to Prague and I got a job as a financial reporter. So I left university early.

[03:01] And that’s only kind of an interesting story, only because I didn’t go for the reporting job.

[03:07] I went for the gentleman that had the job was leaving to go to work for the economist in London.

[03:13] And I went for the production job, which is something I had done at Key Porter Books in Toronto, which is basically the physical act of putting the book together.

[03:22] And I gave him my resume and he asked me how much I knew about banking.

[03:27] And I said nothing, really. And he said, what do you know about the stock exchange? And I said, really? Nothing. I said, I can tell you that I know something, but within two days from now,

[03:38] you’ll hire me, you’ll realize that I know nothing, and you’ll be without a reporter and I’ll be without a job.

[03:44] However, if you give me six weeks on probation to follow the gentleman who’s doing the job now, I know I can do this job for you.

[03:52] Just a little caveat there. It was coupon privatization after the Velvet Revolution.

[03:58] So anybody that did that job would be starting from the ground up.

[04:02] Tara Bansal: It’s not because it was so different.

[04:04] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah. It’s not based on, you know, what we know of as the stock exchange.

[04:09] Tara Bansal: I have to ask, is that your personality like that you jump in and love challenges.

[04:16] Jennifer Hushion: It definitely was when I was younger. The older I get,

[04:21] the. The. Well, you know, you start to have responsibilities and family and. But yes, moving to a place where I knew. Know no one and winging it is definitely something I did a couple of times in my 20s.

[04:33] Wow.

[04:35] So I did that job. I loved it.

[04:39] And I made some fabulous friends that I still have two thirds of the way through. I left for just three week break to go teach English in Croatia during the war.

[04:50] So I met some wonderful people there too.

[04:54] And the biggest change that resulted from Prague was that’s where I met my husband.

[05:00] He was on vacation and I met him.

[05:04] I’m not gonna get into all the details, but.

[05:07] So I met him in.

[05:08] Tara Bansal: Was it love at first sight?

[05:10] Jennifer Hushion: It was for me. I’m not gonna say that it was for him.

[05:13] I kind of followed him like a puppy dog back to New York and without him really realizing that I was moving there to be with him. But again, I sat down in August, So we met in May.

[05:25] I seen him again in June.

[05:27] We met in Toronto and I sat down in my apartment in August and said, look, I think this guy could be the one.

[05:36] But.

[05:38] So either I can move to New York and try and get a job and see if he is, or I can wonder for the rest of my life if I miss the boat.

[05:46] And I was 27 and I said to myself, look, if you fall flat on your face, you get back up, you do something else. So those are the two times that I really just,

[05:55] you know, took a.

[05:56] Tara Bansal: Chance and jump off the cliff. Yeah.

[05:58] Jennifer Hushion: Wow. And.

[05:59] Tara Bansal: And both of them, I feel like, ended up very.

[06:03] Jennifer Hushion: Yes. Well, the, The American one didn’t work out quite as well as the Prague one because I got deported, but.

[06:11] Tara Bansal: No, but you stayed with your husband.

[06:12] Jennifer Hushion: I did, I did. That whole part worked out. And I only Got deported because I applied for an H1B visa. So I don’t want immigration to come running for me. And I am a citizen now.

[06:24] But anyway, so that’s where I got. My original financial basis was from covering banking and the Prague Stock Exchange.

[06:36] Tara Bansal: When you moved to New York, what were you doing?

[06:39] Jennifer Hushion: I worked for Penguin Books. I went back into publishing. I worked for Penguin Books and then I got a job as a financial writer in New York.

[06:48] That’s when I took that job because it was covering Eastern Europe and got a lawyer. And that’s when I went to the border to apply for my H1B visa,

[06:58] saying I wasn’t taking a job from an American.

[07:00] And when I got there,

[07:02] it was Inspector Skews. November 13, 1996.

[07:07] He was testing my financial knowledge.

[07:10] And he said, who just brought down Barings Bank?

[07:13] And I said, nick Gleason.

[07:15] And he said, you’re wrong. It was Liam Neeson.

[07:17] And I just.

[07:19] I should have just kept a straight face. But I laughed because as we all know, he’s an Irish actor.

[07:26] And so he looked at me, he stamped my papers and said, denied.

[07:32] Banned from the country for two years.

[07:34] They escorted me to the border. I was driving my then husband’s car. And without him in it, he was in Nepal.

[07:41] And I drove it to the Canadian border. They impound the car because I am now a Canadian driving car with American plates with no American in the car.

[07:50] So I’m stuck in Niagara Falls, Canada, at that point. So I went back to Toronto. I got a job there again in management consulting.

[08:00] And my husband and I sort of dated back and forth for another few years. Then I moved to.

[08:05] We got married in 1999 and I moved to.

[08:08] We moved to Providence in August 20, 2000.

[08:13] A month later, my son was born.

[08:16] I stayed at home for the first couple years. Then I went back to school to finish my degree.

[08:21] I was doing a degree in horticulture at that point, which is essentially gardening,

[08:26] a fancy word for gardening. And I had a fabulous.

[08:31] We all have, I think, at some point, a fabulous woman in our lives that changes, that could. And mine was a professor by the name of Joan Gray Anderson, and she taught personal finance up until that point.

[08:44] I’ve always really enjoyed investing and researching stocks and.

[08:48] And so I took some of her courses. I loved them. And then towards.

[08:53] Towards. I would guess I was probably a year and a half from graduating.

[08:56] Cause I only went part time. Cause I had a son.

[08:59] My husband had some pretty serious health issues at 40. So I thought, you know, I Maybe better have something more than just horticulture to fall back on if I need to be the primary breadwinner.

[09:09] So that’s when I started the double major in personal finance. And she was the first one that talked to me about becoming a cfp. And I’ve kept in touch with her all these years.

[09:19] So once I graduated,

[09:21] I eventually started working for brokerage house at the very beginning of the crash. It was January 2009 and there were some wonderful people there.

[09:37] But I realized that the brokerage business wasn’t really for me.

[09:41] And I also decided that I really wanted to get my cfp. I went to speak to my manager about it and his reaction was, well, why do you want to do that?

[09:49] Nobody here has their cfp. You don’t need your cfp.

[09:53] And I spoke to my husband about it and I would like to admit fully and reiterate my gratitude to him because I couldn’t have done what I did without him.

[10:04] He said, you know, you should just quit your job, focus on getting your cfp and. Cause I wanted to open my. That was with. With the intent of opening my own business.

[10:14] So he was extremely supportive of.

[10:17] Tara Bansal: How old was your son at this point?

[10:20] Jennifer Hushion: Our son was probably five. Maybe he was still a preschooler. Yeah, well, no, I’m sorry. He was born in two sessions, so he must have been eight. That’s totally wrong. He was eight.

[10:32] And so back to financial planning.

[10:35] So I got my CFP in 2011. I started my own firm,

[10:40] quite small at the beginning.

[10:43] I was also greatly in debt to a gentleman by the name of Dr. Robert Tubbs, who was head of residency program for Brown University ER at that point. So he sent me a lot of referrals.

[10:57] I’ve never advertised. I’ve always just been a referral person.

[11:01] So a little bit about my practice. I am, I would say 90% female professionals.

[11:11] I don’t,

[11:12] obviously I don’t say no to men, but the people that are attracted to my practice are other female professionals. Most of them are either psychologists or physicians.

[11:25] And so, you know, they talk to each other. And most of them have also at some point been to a male planner that may have talked down to them or I’m sure we’ve all been there or the fit just wasn’t right.

[11:40] So that’s how they’ve ended up coming to me.

[11:43] And I think one of the big differences from my point of view between female planners and male planners, especially when we’re have clients that are female,

[11:55] is that we base our practice on trust and Narrative,

[11:59] you know, so we get to know each other first. We talk about our kids, our this, our that. And obviously, the first thing we’re talking about is goals. But we.

[12:07] We learn to connect on a. On that level,

[12:10] not necessarily about what the best stock is out there or what. What do you know, what can you do? For me, in private equity, it’s very different approach,

[12:20] and I think it.

[12:21] In my practice, anyway, it’s led to.

[12:25] I mean, the clients that I’ve had, I’ve had since the beginning. So they learn to trust you,

[12:32] and they’re very loyal.

[12:35] So one of the.

[12:37] Speaking of private equity, that seems to be a big push right now.

[12:41] When I watch.

[12:42] There’s a lot of podcasts and videos about that out there. But my clients are particularly interested in private equity, and probably the main reason for that is because they are female physicians in the Northeast.

[12:57] And private equity has not been the best.

[13:03] Has not been the best outcome for patient care in the Northeast. There’s a whole bunch of hospitals that have bought up and left bankrupt, so they’re not particularly interested in that side of things.

[13:15] For. For. For those personal reasons,

[13:17] I.

[13:18] So I did that for.

[13:20] From 2011 to 2016, I was all on my own. I was loving it. It was great.

[13:26] And I was trading through Fidelity with just a limited trading authority agreement. And I don’t know if you’ve bumped into any other planners that have had this happen to them, but in 2016,

[13:36] Fidelity came to everybody like me. And I understand we were using their platform and they were basically getting nothing out of it. Right. But there’s not. We weren’t doing anything illegal either.

[13:47] So they came to anybody that they. That they saw that was doing this,

[13:51] and they said, you have 30 days to get off our platform unless you have 30 million or more under assets, which I did not.

[14:01] And that’s all fine. I understood that. The one thing I think they did handle badly or poorly was they. The way they sent letters to all my clients, and all they said was,

[14:12] we are.

[14:14] We are terminating our relationship with Jennifer Hushen. And they just left it at that. Which sounds, you know, if I thought that.

[14:22] So the fact that my clients stayed with me after that was, to me, another vote of confidence, because,

[14:28] I mean, all they had to say was, we’re changing our. There’s many ways they could have said it. Right. But.

[14:35] Tara Bansal: And I hate that they only gave you one month.

[14:38] Jennifer Hushion: I know.

[14:40] Tara Bansal: Way too quick.

[14:43] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah. So I. I completely panicked, and I immediately called Brett. Brett?

[14:52] Tara Bansal: How did you know Brett?

[14:53] Jennifer Hushion: I knew Brett because I took the CFP training courses with him and I.

[14:59] I failed the first time, and so I took them again.

[15:02] But then after I passed, I kept going back because I always found his classes for the CFP exam review much more beneficial than any CE courses that are out there.

[15:19] So I would go back and take these courses specifically for taxes and estate planning. Things that changed often,

[15:25] yes, the,

[15:27] you know, the general principles, all that kind of stuff. I really only did the two segments, which were taxes and estate planning,

[15:34] just to make sure I was always up to date. And so I got to know him a little better. He did approach me earlier on, I think, in 2014, to see if I wanted to come join Main Street.

[15:45] But at that point I was very happy on my own and I was small and.

[15:52] And I didn’t really comprehend because I.

[15:55] All the nuances of compliance properly.

[16:02] So anyway, 2016, as soon as that happened with Fidelity, I immediately called Brett and he said, oh, yeah, come on over.

[16:09] And that’s when I met you.

[16:12] And I’ve been with Main street ever since. And that has been a wonderful experience that I think we’ve all felt.

[16:20] Anybody that’s worked there has felt sort of lucky to be associated with it. I hope so. That is how I got into it.

[16:30] And then as far as journeys go,

[16:34] I think the pivots were.

[16:37] There were a couple of pivots. One, the first one was meeting Joan Gray Anderson, the professor.

[16:43] She really focused my interest in personal finance, and she was a great support system too.

[16:51] And then the second was wanting to become a CFP and be. And telling my manager that and being told,

[17:00] why do you need the upwork?

[17:02] Because, I mean, I’m sure we’ve all seen, if you work for brokerage houses, things that were what I considered morally less than stellar.

[17:12] And so it was really important to me to be a fiduciary.

[17:17] And so that’s. That’s another pivot moment. And then.

[17:21] Tara Bansal: And when did that change? Do you remember when the ruling came out that, like, the brokerage houses didn’t have to be fiduciaries?

[17:31] Jennifer Hushion: Well, they definitely were not when I was there.

[17:34] Um, and that was 2009, 2010, I believe there was some discussion about it. I don’t. I still don’t think there was some discussion bantering about in legislature, but I don’t think it ever really happened.

[17:45] Tara Bansal: I think, yeah, no, I think now they do not have to be.

[17:48] Jennifer Hushion: Were able to bat that down,

[17:51] but. And behind this all was that I really do like investing. I don’t farm out any of My, I don’t do model portfolios. I don’t farm out any of my portfolios to others because that’s one of the things I really like doing.

[18:05] And because I have a small enough client base that I can do that and give each portfolio its individual tension because my, again, my,

[18:20] my clients are primarily physicians so they have larger SEPs.

[18:23] And so it’s always different when the money’s coming in. Right. So what I might buy in November of 2004 is not what I would buy now.

[18:32] Right.

[18:33] So that’s why everybody’s portfolio looks totally different than most other people’s.

[18:38] The really the one decision that shaped my career path has been becoming a cfp. Absolutely.

[18:43] It was really hard.

[18:45] It is hard,

[18:47] you know, especially,

[18:48] I’m sure it’s hard for everyone, but I think when you’re a mom with kids at home and you’re trying to study and,

[18:57] and it was a two day exam back then, as you know,

[19:00] and I failed the first time and I, and I,

[19:04] I, I left both exams thinking I failed and I didn’t fail the second one.

[19:09] But yeah, but it was very hard and I was stressed out.

[19:16] Um,

[19:17] were you proud when it was.

[19:20] Yes, and it was fine. It was just sort of like fine because you learn after you’ve failed, you learn not to tell your friends and family that you’re taking it because you don’t want that.

[19:30] And so really the one of the few people that knew was my husband, obviously. Yeah.

[19:36] But yes, that was a big achievement for me.

[19:39] And what I love about this is probably the flexibility.

[19:45] And I think that that would be our message, my message to other women,

[19:52] I don’t think they realize why they don’t think of it more. I’ve been having a lot of discussions with people about why,

[19:58] why aren’t we getting any more female cp? The number has been stagnant now for a couple of dec.

[20:07] And I think it’s the way it’s talked about in schools, if it’s talked about at all.

[20:13] Tara Bansal: Yeah, I don’t think it’s talked about.

[20:15] Jennifer Hushion: You know, I think it’s, I think they probably think like I did at the time, which was, oh, there’s too much math.

[20:22] And you know, it’s not about the math, it’s about the relationship, your goals and trusting someone and psychology.

[20:32] I mean what we mostly do is hopefully is stop talk people out of making bad decisions like selling in a downturn. Right. And then in the bad times we try and talk them out of making bad knee jerk decisions.

[20:47] And in the Good times sometimes with women you might want to talk them into. Okay now before the good times, not at the good times, but now you maybe want to take a little bit more risk because you’re a woman, you’re going to live longer.

[21:00] All these types of things.

[21:03] So. And one of the things that I, I focus on in my practice when we first start meeting is I don’t even talk about investing at first at all because to me what’s more important.

[21:14] And I don’t sell insurance or doing. But I always, especially if they have small kids.

[21:19] Do you have a will?

[21:21] Do you have guardianship provisions? Because I’m going to look at what’s going to be most devastating to your life if you don’t have that.

[21:29] And to me, most people, I didn’t moving here, I didn’t know that if you didn’t have guardianship permissions,

[21:36] your kid goes to the state regardless of whether or not there are family members. So you know, so that’s always the most sort of important thing that I bring up with couples.

[21:46] And then we start talking about other things related to their goals.

[21:53] Tara Bansal: Yeah, the stats on that like the number of people who don’t have any estate.

[22:00] Jennifer Hushion: I’m shocked. Right. And we’re very well educated people with assets who are like yeah, get to it.

[22:07] Tara Bansal: Like they, I mean and, and, or they have it and haven’t looked at it.

[22:12] Jennifer Hushion: Right.

[22:13] Tara Bansal: In 20 years or whatever and things have changed and their lives have changed.

[22:20] Jennifer Hushion: So two of my favorite clients whose, whose assets have grown to the both physicians substantially over the years.

[22:27] Their will up until about six months ago was something they won at an, at a, like a charity auction.

[22:35] So they had,

[22:38] they had been gifted this or had you know, won it as a. So we got them to change that. But that was. And they’re the first ones that were laughing about that because you know, people,

[22:48] people think that, well, it’s just a simple I love you will. I’ll just leave everything to my husband. And those definitely work. It’s what I have. But ye. Um, if you,

[22:59] you know, once you.

[23:00] And if you. It’s just if as soon as there’s children involved,

[23:04] you know that it needs to be considered and people never consider it,

[23:08] probably rightly so that they’re not going to ever die together. But you just never know. Right. So yeah, it does happen. Yeah. And it’s like long term disability. You don’t, you’re much more likely to become disabled than you are to die.

[23:23] People don’t really realize that either.

[23:27] And there are cases that you know, people might, you know,

[23:33] think they have insurance, but let’s say they’re still very young, they’re very healthy, but something happens, they have a coronary issue and all of a sudden they can’t get more insurance.

[23:45] Yeah. So that has, I’ve seen that a couple of times. So that is something to think about.

[23:51] Tara Bansal: It’s always the unexpected. Like, I feel like that’s part of.

[23:54] Jennifer Hushion: Right. I think it’s, I think it’s Brett.

[23:57] Tara Bansal: That says like you’re planning for the worst, but you want to be able to enjoy, you know, for the best.

[24:08] Jennifer Hushion: And it’s. Again, it’s the,

[24:10] what interests me is the psychology and the mentality around it. Right. I have, I’ll just,

[24:17] you know, call it myself for a moment.

[24:19] I have no problem being insured to the Hill from our home,

[24:25] but I don’t have,

[24:27] I don’t, you know, I didn’t get disability insurance because I have certain conditions that wouldn’t allow for that. So I’m just keeping my fingers crossed. But it’s. So, it’s interesting that you, you know, even in my own state.

[24:41] And what I, what I do know is that there’s certain things that are just like, yeah, that’s a no brainer. You have home insurance, you have an umbrella policy, you.

[24:50] Over your car insurance in your home.

[24:53] But there are other policies on top of that that are harder to convince people of.

[24:59] So. Yeah.

[25:01] Tara Bansal: How do you convince people to get their estate documents?

[25:07] Jennifer Hushion: Well, that’s really easy, actually,

[25:09] because. Well, I think it’s easy. I’m sorry, not really easy, but it’s easier now. First of all, Rhode island has a very low state ex.

[25:17] Our state exemption is only 1.8 million. Well, I shouldn’t say one point, but it’s, it’s not the federal. Most states,

[25:25] you know, mirror the federal. So it’s nowhere near which most people will fall under. But Rhode island is only 1.8. So there’s that if. And of course,

[25:35] if they still have minor children. That’s a pretty, to me, a really easy sell because as soon as you explain to them that their kids could go into state care, they’re like, oh.

[25:44] Tara Bansal: And I think that varies by state too.

[25:47] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah, I’m sure it does.

[25:50] I tend to really. I focus mostly on Rhode island and Massachusetts. So I know their laws.

[25:55] I do.

[25:57] But yeah, so that’s a no brainer.

[25:59] Tara Bansal: A motivating factor in telling them that.

[26:02] Jennifer Hushion: And then another one is if.

[26:04] Because quite frequently in New England you might inherit a house on Martha’s Vineyard or on the Cape or.

[26:13] And that all of a sudden makes your estate planning much more difficult to have something out of state. And so that’s. So once. So that’s how I sell it to those types of clients is you need some better planning here and you need to be able to use different kinds of trust for you,

[26:30] specifically for your situation.

[26:33] But I mean, if they say no, we’re not interested in that, I’m not going to,

[26:36] you know, it’s their money, it’s their. I will tell them what I think,

[26:42] what their options are and I might bring it up one more time at the next meeting and leave it at that. Some people are extremely against long term care. It has changed a lot since it came out.

[26:58] The premiums are rising frequently now there’s more of a hybrid model based on life insurance and long term care. Most of us now of our generation have either witnessed or personally been involved in a parent with some sort of dementia.

[27:17] And then there was other arguments on the table too, as far as, you know,

[27:21] other options,

[27:23] you know, being Canadian. So there are definitely other options or other states where there’s other options. But yeah, so I think it’s important that we talk to our clients about all these things and not just,

[27:37] you know, investing, because that’s what we do. We’re looking at their whole financial picture.

[27:43] But it was interesting in the course that I recently took through the F for the Financial Planning association about behavioral finance.

[27:51] Two of the segments were based on how we should be talking to clients and they had come up with these acronyms about how we should do it. And these are things that women naturally do.

[28:04] It’s, it was, I was kind of shocked because it was, you know, don’t just jump right into the agenda.

[28:09] Ask them how they are about their family,

[28:12] remember the names of their kids.

[28:15] That’s. We do that instinctively, especially with our female clients because we, that’s how we communicate with them and how we connect with them and how they learn to trust us and how they know that we’ve been in the same boat that they are.

[28:31] And so I just found that part very interesting because it was almost like they were giving themselves a pat on the back for coming up with this amazing communication skill that they’d given this wonderful acronym.

[28:44] And anyway, and we do that all the time.

[28:48] Tara Bansal: And some, some men that comes more naturally to than others, of course. But there are some where even when they learn the acronym, it feels like they are.

[29:03] Jennifer Hushion: Well, I think it’s what we’re comfortable with. Yeah, yeah. So if you’re not comfortable with feelings and that kind of like I’m sure Brett does a fan. I know he does because does a fantastic job with that.

[29:15] Whereas some other planners might be. Feel more comfortable with money and talking about money. So I think it’s really just what you’re comfortable doing and that goes to.

[29:24] Tara Bansal: Finding the right fit.

[29:26] Jennifer Hushion: Right. Right.

[29:26] Tara Bansal: Like when, when somebody comes to you and you don’t feel like they’re a good fit, what do you do?

[29:33] Jennifer Hushion: Well, I actually, my system is that I have approximately an hour long initial consultation for free that I have with the prospective client.

[29:44] We go over what their goals are and I, at that point I strongly recommend that they see two to three other planners. I’d be happy to recomm.

[29:55] Tara Bansal: Mm.

[29:57] Jennifer Hushion: Because I think it’s really important.

[29:59] It’s. This is a long term, hopefully a long term relationship and I think it’s really important that you get the right fit.

[30:06] Um, and that seems to have gone very well that, that strategy.

[30:11] And I also think that, you know, I’m definitely not the right fit for everyone.

[30:16] And let’s say there, there was somebody that came in and, and all they, they don’t want to get all touchy feely and they don’t want to talk about the kids and they don’t,

[30:24] they just want to talk about what’s the best investment. Well, there they should go somewhere else. And I don’t think I would be the right fit. I mean, I don’t,

[30:33] I don’t mean to make it say like we get into this big therapy session every time with my clients, but that’s how you’re.

[30:39] Tara Bansal: That’S how I get your focus is not only on the investments and the.

[30:42] Jennifer Hushion: Numbers because I know that what’s important,

[30:45] it’s interesting. In that same course they said, you know,

[30:49] what brings you joy and then they list off all these sports things.

[30:52] Is it golf? Is it? This is a fantasy football. Is it? And I’m thinking to myself,

[30:58] a woman’s not the same. A woman’s going to say her kids.

[31:01] Tara Bansal: Yes. Her family.

[31:02] Jennifer Hushion: Her family,

[31:04] her husband, her whatever. Spending time with her people that she loves. Yeah. It’s not. I mean, the odd woman might say golf because golf is very obsessive and I get that.

[31:17] But,

[31:18] but most of us it’s going to be something that we love as in real love, not something that we love as a sport.

[31:26] So I thought that was interesting as well.

[31:29] Tara Bansal: Well, it almost sounds like women weren’t involved in creating those materials.

[31:36] Jennifer Hushion: I definitely not. It was two white guys. Two white guys in their 50s and, you know, and they’re quite well known. And I will say that parts of it were really, really good.

[31:47] I don’t mean to diss the whole course. There were parts of it that,

[31:51] you know, that were very,

[31:53] very important and that I, I have used to a certain extent, you know, money scripts, all that sort of thing. But I’ve been meaning actually to write them a long email because if they, just,

[32:06] because they start off with the whole thing talking about how we have to be self aware of our biases.

[32:13] And I was like, you know, you have a really good course there, but if you just turned and looked at these eight things, you know, the only female planner you have in this course is that’s a woman loses money.

[32:26] And all of the enablers in your course are women.

[32:32] I honestly think that they were not conscious, they were subconscious,

[32:37] but they just came out of your own biases. And I think if you looked at and you fix those things,

[32:42] this would be a really, really great course. And even in your acronyms that you use for great communication skills, you just have to say, you know, a lot of women already do this or,

[32:54] or have one female financial planner do what? There was over eight hours of videos in this course. Have one woman do 35 minutes of your, of your presentation. You know, to get that different perspective.

[33:10] Tara Bansal: What were some of the takeaways that were beneficial?

[33:14] Jennifer Hushion: That,

[33:15] Well, I thought,

[33:16] I thought they did a really great job on discussing money scripts and the way, you know, we all think about money from our past,

[33:24] specifically our families.

[33:27] Brett had my husband and I do that when we did a financial plan with him.

[33:33] And I found that very enlightening. Um,

[33:37] I just think discussing the way they sort of break down how to approach goals. And, and there were, so, yeah, there were some very pertinent use, There was some very pertinent, useful information in there.

[33:50] So I don’t mean to just dismiss the whole course. It’s just as I believe we were talking earlier,

[33:56] this is one of my personal issues that when I face these frictions in something that I see, I,

[34:05] I,

[34:06] I react too quickly and I, I need to pull back on my judgments and say, okay.

[34:13] Tara Bansal: But that’s an example to me of this course where it sounds like they aren’t even aware of their own,

[34:21] like, yes,

[34:23] unconscious bias and how they were presenting things.

[34:26] Jennifer Hushion: Right.

[34:27] Tara Bansal: And the fact that you, I think that would be a helpful email just to point it out to them.

[34:36] Jennifer Hushion: And, and it’s not on,

[34:38] it’s not on a male, female basis. It really is like everything else on a person basis, there are good people and there are, I’m not gonna say bad people, but there are,

[34:47] you know,

[34:48] just like countries, like everything else. There’s good apples, there’s bad apples. Some, you know, there’s like, there’s good advisors.

[34:55] Yeah.

[34:55] Tara Bansal: There’s good advisors at the brokerage houses.

[34:57] Jennifer Hushion: Right.

[34:57] Tara Bansal: You know, like, it’s not like.

[35:00] Jennifer Hushion: And there’s many, many good advisors that are men. I just,

[35:05] the, the clients that I have and I deal with,

[35:08] we clicked because we have.

[35:11] And this is one of the things they talked about and they said, you know, you should get out of this,

[35:16] this mind frame of this with what they call familiarity bias.

[35:21] Right. Which is true because they had one of their characters was a white guy in his 50s named Sean or something, and he was trying to make his practice more diverse.

[35:33] And my thought was,

[35:36] then hire more diverse people.

[35:39] You know,

[35:39] you’re not going to appeal to all people.

[35:44] And I don’t know if you could necessarily relate to this single mom.

[35:50] You know,

[35:51] whatever the circumstances are that aren’t your circumstances, we can try and we can be open minded. But I think the answer to that question is to really hire more diverse CFPs.

[36:02] Right.

[36:03] Tara Bansal: And I think it’s to, I go to like we should be a role model.

[36:09] Jennifer Hushion: Yes.

[36:10] Tara Bansal: For our clients too, in how we live our life.

[36:15] Jennifer Hushion: And what.

[36:16] Tara Bansal: I mean, that’s, that goes to. We’re not a perfect fit for everyone. But like what.

[36:21] Jennifer Hushion: And I’m very honest about my new attracts. Yeah, yeah. With my clients, I’m very honest about financial mistakes that I’ve made in the past because I think it’s important.

[36:30] Now, you’re not usually going to find this with a doctor or a doctor because they’ll get sued.

[36:34] They’ll say, well, I made this mistake on this. But,

[36:38] but we all make mistakes. And so I tend to show, share those with my clients to know that, you know, we’re just, we’re all human. So.

[36:45] Because the one thing I think that’s really important to leave out of financial planning is judgment.

[36:50] And I think especially women feel that acutely as far as if they get into debt, if they get especially credit card debt, they don’t want to talk about it and you can’t deal with it until you talk about it.

[37:03] So if you approach those situations,

[37:07] you know, with an open mind, without judgment and just say, you know what, it’s okay,

[37:12] this happened.

[37:14] We can’t change that. But let’s go about seeing how we can fix it now.

[37:18] Yeah, there’s no point in you feeling all this regret and guilt about it. Because that’s not helpful,

[37:23] right?

[37:24] Tara Bansal: That is not helpful.

[37:26] Jennifer Hushion: And then one last comment about. Because one of the things when they were talking about the diversity section,

[37:31] one of the things that the Prof. Said was when he said about diversity and even hiring more women.

[37:39] And that word, even just. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. The word even was like even hiring more women,

[37:50] you know,

[37:51] so, yeah, I.

[37:52] Tara Bansal: Know that that’s something you’re passionate about is trying wanting more women in this profession.

[38:00] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, absolutely.

[38:03] Tara Bansal: What is the, the percentage?

[38:05] Jennifer Hushion: I think it’s abysmally low. Right. I don’t think it’s gone above. It’s definitely not above 20. Yeah.

[38:12] Tara Bansal: I thought it was like 16. I don’t. Yeah, it was for a while.

[38:15] Jennifer Hushion: And I don’t know if I’m talking about just female planners or CFPs, so I don’t want to come across. And it’s something I can easily look up. But. Yeah, but,

[38:25] but what are your so important.

[38:27] And the idea is. So I joined these different female financial planner groups and to talk about this sort of stuff, I’m involved in one in here in Rhode Island.

[38:35] And I think we need to get. It’s not even at university level. It’s right even down at the high school level. Just to get them thinking about it and explain to them, you know what, you can do this.

[38:45] It’s not all about the math. It can give you a great life where you can if, especially if you have your own, you know, go learn somewhere else, get a training job,

[38:54] but then get your CFP and open your own company because you can have incredible flexibility to be able to raise kids and be a CFP and make a good living.

[39:07] And,

[39:08] you know, and it’s very fulfilling. And make a difference.

[39:11] Tara Bansal: Exactly. I feel like women are drawn to that too.

[39:14] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah. And I think that, and I think there’s a lot of professions like in, in as far as college goes,

[39:22] we are, we should be going and talking to the psychology majors.

[39:27] They’re perfect candidates,

[39:30] you know, so areas like that.

[39:34] Because I think that we could, we, we can make a difference there and we should make a difference. And as, as well as I think we should have more Latino planners.

[39:41] We should, we should just have more diverse planners, period.

[39:46] Because I, I can’t see how that hurts anybody.

[39:49] Tara Bansal: No.

[39:50] Jennifer Hushion: And I understand there’s familiar familiarity bias, but it still, the bottom line is I think it could only help some.

[39:58] Tara Bansal: Of your ideas is like talking with.

[40:01] Jennifer Hushion: Teachers or talking with, talking to students actually yeah.

[40:04] Tara Bansal: Talking to the students going into getting.

[40:06] Jennifer Hushion: There are some.

[40:07] There are some groups here that do that now through Bryant University here in Rhode Island. So I’m trying to.

[40:14] I’ve offered my services to them as far as just going into high schools and going into colleges.

[40:20] I know Boston College has a great retirement program.

[40:24] They might be interested.

[40:27] But it’s sort of in areas like that that I think that there’s a great opportunity because we need to get them a little younger before they have already either. Never thought about it.

[40:39] Which is probably the most case scenario.

[40:41] Thought about it and thought they couldn’t do it.

[40:43] Yeah.

[40:46] And just really never gave it. I think the biggest issue is never given it a lot of thought. But if it was explained to them properly,

[40:53] I think that they could. People would, they’d keep their minds open hopefully.

[40:58] About seeing this as a profession.

[41:00] Tara Bansal: Do you think it’s viewed as a prestigious profession?

[41:06] Jennifer Hushion: I think so. I think to me it was.

[41:11] I think that it.

[41:13] Yeah. I don’t think that there’s.

[41:16] Would be any different than becoming an accountant. I think there is a difference between for me only because the fiduciary aspect of it, of being a CFP and being a financial advisor only because I know that there are some incredible financial advisors out there with decades of experience that.

[41:37] Yes. That just don’t want to write a test in their 50s. And I get that.

[41:42] But.

[41:44] But I think that those exams. And it’s mostly the fiduciary experience now there’s also financial advisors out there that will sign a fiduciary form if their firm lets them.

[41:55] So that’s just important to me from the client side of things that I am a fiduciary and that people should seek out a fiduciary just to be on the safe side.

[42:08] Even if they’re not a cfp, if they, if they can sign a fiduciary statement,

[42:12] that would be great too.

[42:14] So that’s what I wish more women knew.

[42:18] Tara Bansal: And what has surprised you about this profession?

[42:21] Jennifer Hushion: The flexibility of it.

[42:24] And the people that I’ve met are great people. I mean the people at Main street are fabulous.

[42:30] I really like my clients and I am very lucky in the sense that I do really like my clients and I can.

[42:38] They’ve been very loyal. They’ve stayed with me a long time.

[42:41] So we have long term relationships now. I’ve known their kids since they were toddlers to now they’re going off to university.

[42:48] And so those are great joys. You know, if they’ve.

[42:51] If they talked about. Well Should I have a.

[42:54] I have a large investment account or.

[42:57] And their kids are in their early teens or. And this was during COVID But what I want to do is buy a house on the Cape.

[43:03] And my first reaction was, well, buy the house on the Cape. Because knowing my son was graduating from college at that point, 10 years from now, you’re not going to see.

[43:12] These are boys. You’re not going to see these kids very often. Right. So take the years, the next 10 years that you have and enjoy them with your kids. How much money are you going to get?

[43:23] Enjoyment are you going to get out of that stock?

[43:25] Not a lot, probably.

[43:26] How much enjoyment are you going to get about having this home on the Cape? And that’s why.

[43:31] Another reason why I think they come to us, because not every advisor would necessarily give that answer because it cuts into their aum.

[43:42] Tara Bansal: Do you charge based on aum?

[43:43] Jennifer Hushion: I do. You do? I do. Well, I do both, actually,

[43:46] because there’s some people that really just want to check up.

[43:50] Or a better example would be residents just coming out of school. Well, they just really have a ton of debt.

[43:56] Tara Bansal: Yes.

[43:56] Jennifer Hushion: They don’t have any assets coming out of med school. So what they need is just somebody to help them organize that,

[44:03] come up with a plan if they’re thinking about buying a house. You know, a couple of them said to me, well, I want to. This was back more than a few years ago.

[44:12] I want to invest this in the market so that when I come to buy a house in two years and I’m a no,

[44:16] no, no,

[44:18] that’s not.

[44:19] Tara Bansal: What that is for.

[44:20] Jennifer Hushion: Right. Anything under three years that you’re really putting aside for something specific that goes into cash and cash, like investments.

[44:28] So they were happy about that because that enabled them to buy a house and they know that the money was there.

[44:35] So it’s. Yeah, it’s things like that.

[44:39] And success to me now really means being able to work with the clients I want to work with and enjoying what I do, which I do immensely. I enjoy the investment side of it.

[44:53] I enjoy meeting my clients and talking.

[44:58] Tara Bansal: And I think you’re unusual personally, because I feel like most people are either planners.

[45:06] Jennifer Hushion: Yes.

[45:07] Tara Bansal: Like, I can do both.

[45:09] Jennifer Hushion: Yeah.

[45:09] Tara Bansal: But my love is more around the, like, connection and relationship and planning side than the investment side.

[45:19] Jennifer Hushion: I think the investment side for me really, in a way comes from the journalism background because I love researching things.

[45:25] And so,

[45:27] you know, I have my parameters and I like finding something that. I mean, to be honest with you, the vast majority of. Of the stocks that I own are brand names that you’re going to know.

[45:38] Yeah. But it’s a question of when to buy them and,

[45:41] and sort of that sort of take. I’m not, I don’t do penny stocks. I do not trade frequently at all.

[45:47] I am a vanilla buy and hold investor. Yeah.

[45:51] And I don’t. And that’s the way I sell myself to people is I’m not.

[45:55] Tara Bansal: But just the fact that you like doing that research to me is like,

[46:00] to me unusual because I do feel like most people are like,

[46:03] oh, I like that or I don’t like that. And you like both.

[46:07] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, I do. I do like both. And luckily for me, the one part I,

[46:12] that was never my strong suit is done by Main Street.

[46:16] Right? Yeah. And they do a fabulous job at it. So.

[46:20] Tara Bansal: And I’m a big believer in that. I, I love your perspective, but the older I get, the more.

[46:27] Jennifer Hushion: Do.

[46:28] Tara Bansal: Do more of what you like and less of what you don’t like. And how can we.

[46:33] Jennifer Hushion: How.

[46:33] Tara Bansal: You know, I keep thinking like, how can I delegate this or give this to someone who’s going to do it better than me?

[46:39] And that’s where like the firms and the different relationships with colleagues or other professionals can, I think, help a lot.

[46:51] Jennifer Hushion: I would agree.

[46:54] Tara Bansal: What changes would you like to make.

[46:56] Jennifer Hushion: In your own practice?

[46:58] So I would like. I love working with female.

[47:03] Any. Any women actually that there, there are now some that are. That I haven’t had before that are going through life changes like divorce or those situations. And I love helping them.

[47:18] And there again, I have basically in my practice two different types of clients.

[47:26] Ones are the women that like to learn. They want to know because maybe their partner was doing the finances before or. But they were never really that interested in doing it.

[47:37] But now that they’re alone, they really want to learn. So I love sitting down with them and saying, okay, this is what you’re looking for.

[47:44] Low expense ratio and go through any things that they might be looking for. And this is what kind of insurance you might think about and explain to them what I do and why I do it on a very detailed basis.

[47:57] And then there’s those of them which work really, really hard as physicians and don’t care.

[48:04] Couldn’t care less.

[48:05] Tara Bansal: They’re handing that off. They want someone they can trust and.

[48:08] Jennifer Hushion: Take care of it.

[48:10] The way I hand off my card to a mechanic,

[48:13] you know, I.

[48:14] So it’s not their expertise. They don’t really know. They just know that they trust me and they like me to do everything. So there’s two very different baskets of clients,

[48:23] both of whom I adore because I love. And if you had to do all teaching, that would take up a tremendous amount of time. So I love the fact that it’s mixed.

[48:32] I do like,

[48:34] as I said, I do like the teaching aspect of it, so those are always fun.

[48:40] Tara Bansal: And you said your practice has pretty much grown by word of mouth and referral.

[48:46] Jennifer Hushion: It’s all word of mouth and referral. How I don’t have a chance.

[48:49] Tara Bansal: Do you do anything to help make that happen?

[48:54] Jennifer Hushion: I speak to.

[48:57] Actually, to be honest with you, this is. This is bad.

[49:00] But no,

[49:01] I don’t even ask for referrals in my meetings with clients. I’ll just say I just wanted to know. Yeah, I get.

[49:07] I constantly last. Not constantly, but in the last three weeks alone, three of my existing clients have texted me and said,

[49:15] a friend of mine so and so needs a planner.

[49:18] I gave her your number, expect her to call.

[49:21] So that’s how it sort of shakes down. One I’ve only, I would say about five times.

[49:27] One of them very recently contacted me through the CFP website and was just looking for a CFP fiduciary.

[49:34] Tara Bansal: And it sounds like most of your clients are local.

[49:37] Jennifer Hushion: They are, except for there’s a couple of residents that I had from Brown University that are now in Atlanta that have gone away.

[49:43] Most of them are leaving medicine, to be honest with you.

[49:46] Um,

[49:47] and. Cause that. That’s a whole other situation.

[49:50] Yeah. So the. The clients that I do have that aren’t local, it’s because I had them as. As medical residents and then they moved somewhere else.

[49:56] Tara Bansal: Is there a certain number of clients you want, like, or.

[50:04] Jennifer Hushion: I don’t think that I can do what I do on an individual basis and give them the attention that I feel they deserve for more than a hundred.

[50:15] Okay. I’m around 60 right now.

[50:18] Tara Bansal: Okay, so you still have some.

[50:19] Jennifer Hushion: So I have definitely. I could definitely.

[50:21] Tara Bansal: And you’ve thought about that. You kind of know what.

[50:24] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, I know. And the cause. Yes, because. And most. A lot of the growth that I’ve had has been actually current clients that I’ve had. Because you know, where my clients mostly are, a lot of them are younger than me because they were residents.

[50:39] So I actually only have one client that’s older than me.

[50:41] But most of them now as. What’s going to happen with a lot of our clients, they’re coming into inherited money from their parents generation that has. Has.

[50:52] Has increased the aum of my practice and will continue to do so.

[50:57] And Another stat that I found interesting from that same course that they.

[51:03] Because they. They say this and then they didn’t follow it up at all was by 2030 it was some 70. Oh, I wish I knew this, dad.

[51:14] It was something really high. But will be controlled by women in the family. And it was very high.

[51:21] And oh, and then the first one was 77% of women who wanted to find a financial advisor couldn’t find someone that they felt comfortable with.

[51:32] Wow.

[51:33] That was the 77% one. And then as of the other one was as of 2030,

[51:39] an x percentage and it was large.

[51:41] Will control the finances within the family.

[51:45] And we do know that too because generally we live longer than men. So at some point they’re going to need to talk to somebody.

[51:56] Tara Bansal: What are your plans for the future with your practice?

[51:59] Jennifer Hushion: Well, I mean, I love it and there’s no. I would very much like my husband to retire because he’s an ER doc. And it’s very stressful job and it’s getting worse.

[52:09] But I can work forever. I mean, I don’t.

[52:12] It’s not a physically taxing job.

[52:16] And I like what I do because I work a lot with physicians with crazy schedules. I have no problem working on the weekend, which is different to a lot of other planners too.

[52:27] I don’t have problems working at night. I don’t have problems working on the weekend. I will go to their house if they have small kids,

[52:33] all of those things. And I have that flexibility. Cause I can also take a Tuesday off if I want to.

[52:40] It’s not so much the case anymore because my child is grown. But it was incredibly important when he was growing up that I could take the afternoon off and go to a baseball game.

[52:51] So that was,

[52:52] you know, that was amazing.

[52:54] Tara Bansal: And that’s how I am now. Like, I try to only do meetings and work while my sons are at school.

[53:01] Jennifer Hushion: Right.

[53:01] Which makes complete, utter sense.

[53:05] But since my.

[53:07] Since my son is now graduated and he’s off and he’s supporting myself, which probably would be my biggest joy when I was just looking at over and what do you consider one.

[53:17] It’s. It would be that I have launched our. We have launched our child into the world of adulthood. I mean, it is successfully. Yes.

[53:26] And it is the Northeast. So you know, they’re.

[53:29] Because this is one of the things keep referring to it enabling there because we’re really down on any kind of enabling.

[53:36] But if you live in the Northeast,

[53:39] it’s pretty much impossible to buy a house.

[53:42] Tara Bansal: Oh yeah.

[53:43] Jennifer Hushion: Or anywhere. But especially around here. And he lived in Boston without some sort of parental input.

[53:51] So I don’t necessarily, I mean I get that you don’t want to be paying their cell phone or whatever, but every situation is different and,

[53:59] and I, I, I think that that is a possibility.

[54:04] But yeah, so that’s something that is,

[54:08] that’s a big issue for parents these days, I think who, who are in the position to help. That’s, it’s a first world problem, let’s be honest. Yeah,

[54:18] but,

[54:19] but yeah, so I’m very happy about that. I would really love my husband to retire.

[54:26] You know, it’s an issue obviously in this country with healthcare,

[54:29] but that would be my goal for him.

[54:35] And then I can keep working.

[54:38] Tara Bansal: How much do you work now? Like about how many hours a week.

[54:41] Jennifer Hushion: And I would say I work and it could be on a Saturday, it could be during the week, but I would work about four days a week.

[54:50] Okay.

[54:53] And so I get, I usually take a,

[54:56] a Friday or, or Monday off. Depends.

[54:58] Or a Tuesday. You know, that’s the, yeah.

[55:01] Tara Bansal: Depending on the beauty of.

[55:03] Jennifer Hushion: Right, right.

[55:03] Tara Bansal: What do you have any like virtual assistants or anyone else that. Nope, it’s all you.

[55:09] Jennifer Hushion: It’s me and then Main street with the, and Main street.

[55:14] But any communications are through me and you know, I, we, I, I’ve learned ever since these, they’ve really cracked down on texting. I do a lot more phone conversations because many physicians love texting.

[55:29] But you, we can’t do that. So yeah, let’s pick up the phone now.

[55:35] And,

[55:36] and so that has changed a little bit as far as compliance and what to do there. But, but yeah, I think that it is a fabulous profession for women.

[55:47] And I’m going to say that my favorite personal finance book is the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.

[55:57] My favorite book in general as you know, is Braiding Sweetgrass.

[56:02] Tara Bansal: Uh huh.

[56:03] Jennifer Hushion: I love that.

[56:04] Yeah.

[56:05] And my self care is probably meditating gardening and my dogs. You get so much oxytocin just from petting your dog. What kind of dogs do you. Oh, we have two rescues and some one’s a bit of a menace but we’re working on him.

[56:23] He’s an, he’s been in training now for six weeks and he’s doing much, much better.

[56:28] But I am huge, huge dog lover, so.

[56:32] Tara Bansal: And just from studying gardening or horticulture, like that’s obviously a huge passion of yours. Do you still get to do that?

[56:41] Jennifer Hushion: I do because in fact that is probably what I will do later today because I have not. I’ve been Very neglectful. This summer I have pretty much a natural garden and which really means a Darwinian garden, which is plant as much stuff as you possibly can and see what is still alive the next year.

[56:59] But it is in drastic need of weeding and cutting back.

[57:03] So I will do that today after four. Well,

[57:06] it was kind of a hot summer too, so you don’t really. Some days feel like going out, but that. I find that very relaxing and just most people don’t. I love weeding.

[57:15] I think it’s just. You just get into the zone.

[57:17] Tara Bansal: You get the satisfaction, too.

[57:19] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, yes, exactly. Instant satisfaction. It’s like washing windows.

[57:24] Tara Bansal: What. Is there a question you wish I had asked or that you would.

[57:30] Jennifer Hushion: No,

[57:31] because I think you prepare your interviewees exceptionally well with their. With the questionnaire. And there isn’t actually, because I would have. I would have done the books.

[57:43] I would have asked them what’s important to them. And we covered that topic as far as just really getting more women into personal finance.

[57:55] And I think it’s important that we are grateful and verbally grateful and in letters at times for the people that have helped us,

[58:04] you know, so for it would be Joan Gray Anderson, my husband Brett.

[58:09] It’s been really fun getting to know you,

[58:11] and I think that your podcast is fabulous.

[58:14] Thank you. And it’s helped me pry open some of the biases in my mind.

[58:20] So,

[58:21] yeah, I feel like that almost.

[58:23] Tara Bansal: Is the theme of this is like picking up and trying to notice our unconscious bias that affects all of us.

[58:32] Jennifer Hushion: And one thing I would imagine that we both have in common, too, is lifelong learners. I think it’s really important. I’m always taking some sort of course. Whether or not it’s.

[58:44] Doesn’t always have to be about finance kind of generally is. I mean, I did a crypto course at mit just because I don’t think that we should deny people.

[58:52] If somebody comes to me and says, I want to invest in crypto, well, I better know what crypto is before I tell them what they should be doing.

[59:00] So things like that. And since our jobs are always changing in the finance world is always changing. There’s always learning. There’s always learning to be done. So luckily, I do like.

[59:11] I love taking courses and I like that sort of stuff. So I feel like I know for.

[59:17] Tara Bansal: Me, that’s what I’m. My favorite things.

[59:20] Jennifer Hushion: Yes, it’s important to keep our brains active.

[59:23] Tara Bansal: You know, I have one question, because.

[59:26] Jennifer Hushion: You.

[59:29] Tara Bansal: Were and are a writer. How do you use that now?

[59:37] Jennifer Hushion: Well,

[59:39] mostly it’s just, I think I do that. Not necessarily in physically writing, but when I talked, I use narrative when I’m talking to my clients.

[59:50] And when I do craft emails, they’re probably too long. I should make them shorter.

[59:55] I mean, that’s a good thing about being a reporter,

[59:58] not a novelist, because you tend to get to the point. I need to cover these points,

[01:00:06] but I definitely would like to do some writing on personal finance from a woman’s perspective.

[01:00:13] I think that that would.

[01:00:14] Tara Bansal: I want to help support you on this. I totally feel like. Yes, please.

[01:00:19] Jennifer Hushion: And I think that we can make it funny. I think that, you know, there’s. Because there are some funny stories, and it doesn’t have to all be, you know, sludging through and because I think for anybody to want to read something,

[01:00:34] it’s got to be both informative and not. I’m not saying easy. Interesting. Interesting. Exactly.

[01:00:41] Tara Bansal: So do you have a book in mind?

[01:00:45] Jennifer Hushion: What I have is a bare outline in my head that has to do with specifically women in finance and how.

[01:00:55] How they. I feel that they should approach it. How. And I would like to do a chapter as well on getting more women. And pretty much a lot of things we talked about in this podcast.

[01:01:05] Getting more women into the industry. Why aren’t there more women talking to other female planners about it?

[01:01:12] Talking to my clients and other clients about experiences they’ve had with other planners.

[01:01:19] I don’t really want to spend a lot of time on that.

[01:01:22] I don’t think that there’s any need to start going out there and bashing other planners for not doing things a different way,

[01:01:34] because we’re all different.

[01:01:36] But I do think that we need to recognize the benefits of having more diversity in this field.

[01:01:47] Tara Bansal: I agree,

[01:01:48] and that’s part of why I’m doing this. And I so appreciate you taking the time and being here and sharing your wisdom,

[01:01:58] and I want you to write that book. So I’m gonna keep following up with you on this.

[01:02:05] Jennifer Hushion: It was always great to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thanks.

[01:02:09] Tara Bansal: What stood out to me in my conversation with Jen were three big things.

[01:02:15] One, the courage to leap.

[01:02:17] Whether moving to Prague and volunteering for a job she knew nothing about,

[01:02:23] or following her heart to New York,

[01:02:26] Jen showed us what it looks like to take big risks that change and shape a life.

[01:02:32] Two, the power of support.

[01:02:34] Jen’s story is threaded with gratitude for people who believed in her. A professor, her husband,

[01:02:41] mentors,

[01:02:43] reminders that encouragement can change the course of someone’s journey.

[01:02:47] And three, the call for inclusion.

[01:02:50] Jen’s reflections on unconscious bias and representation in our field really resonated.

[01:02:57] It’s a reminder that progress comes when we notice our blind spots,

[01:03:02] invite feedback and make room for voices not always at the table.

[01:03:08] For me, those were the themes courage, support and inclusion and I’ll leave you with a few questions for you to ponder.

[01:03:17] What risks have you taken in the past and how have they shaped your path?

[01:03:22] What risks are you considering now?

[01:03:25] Who are you grateful for as your mentors and supporters?

[01:03:29] Extra bonus points if you reach out to them and tell them so.

[01:03:34] How might you encourage or open a door for someone else?

[01:03:38] And what can you do, even in small ways, to make space for new voices at the table?

[01:03:46] Thank you for listening to Her Life, Her Practice, Her Way,

[01:03:50] a podcast for and about female financial advisors.

[01:03:54] I truly hope you found something valuable and encouraging in today’s episode. If you did, I’d be so grateful if you’d take a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

[01:04:07] It helps other phenomenal women in our field find this space.

[01:04:11] And if you know another advisor who would benefit from these conversations or from the kind of support I offer through coaching,

[01:04:20] please send this episode to her.

[01:04:22] If you’re curious about working with me as your coach or interested in being on the podcast, I’d love to hear from you.

[01:04:30] You can find more details and reach out to me on the contact page of my website,

[01:04:36] herlifeherpracticeherway.com no spaces, no underlines, just the words straight in a row.

[01:04:45] Until next time, keep building a life and practice you truly love.

Brett Danko – CFP® Education Programs – the instructor who helped Jen prepare for her CFP® and later invited her to join Main Street Financial Solutions.

Main Street Financial Solutions – the firm where Jen now practices.

Financial Planning Association (FPA) – home of the behavioral finance course Jen referenced.

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards – for those interested in pursuing the CFP® designation.

Jennifer Hushion was born in Geneva, Switzerland and raised and educated in Toronto, Canada. In the mid to late 1980’s she attended York University, Glendon College in Toronto and Université Canadienne en France, in Nice France.

After working as a Production Assistant in the publishing industry in Toronto, she moved to Prague, The Czech Republic, during the Velvet Revolution and worked as a financial journalist and editor at Central European Business Weekly, an English language newspaper.

In August of 1995 she followed her (then future) husband to New York City and began work as an Assistant to the Vice President, Trade Paperback Sales at Penguin books. In 1996 after being denied an H1B working visa, she returned to Canada and became an Associate Financial Consultant at Brendan Wood International in Toronto.

In 1999 she married the American mentioned above and they moved to Providence, RI where they still reside. She returned to university part-time after the birth of her son and graduated Magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture and a minor in Family Financial Planning from the University of Rhode Island.

She worked briefly in the brokerage business as a Registered Client Service Associate, passed her series 7 and 63 and soon realized she needed to become a Certified Financial Planner™ and start her own firm. She attended the Executive Development Center at Bryant University for the education component of the CFP® and passed the exam in March of 2011. That summer, she opened her own firm as an independent Registered Investment Advisor under JL Hushion Financial Planning, LLC. In June of 2016 after getting to know Brett Danko from his CFP® review classes, she joined Main Street Financial Solutions, LLC where she will celebrate her 10^th anniversary in Spring of 2026.