31 Years of Leadership

/ Worley Erhat-Graves Financial Advisors/

Starting new chapters in our lives can be exciting and scary. Looking back over her 30-year career as a financial planner, Grace Worley has seen pretty much everything that has to do with the financial industry. For those of you who know Grace, you know when her official retirement date of June 30th arrives, she will leave a legacy that will forever linger in the halls of Worley Erhart-Graves Financial Advisors.

During her retirement party last week, everyone, and I mean everyone, wanted to talk to the woman of the hour. Her colleagues, clients, family, and friends congratulated her accomplishments she has displayed throughout her career.

“In 1984, when I made a major career change (basically starting over), the financial planning world was a very different place”, Grace explains.  

Grace has always believed in people. “People have the same goal of wanting to provide themselves and those they love with a comfortable life.”

During the past three decades, she’s learned so much. Some of the biggies are:

  • The falsely comforting conviction that the world (and markets) makes sense rests on the secure foundation of our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance. We don’t know what we don’t know.

  • As Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel winner in Economics, recently said, “…the role of a financial advisor is less about portfolio positioning than understanding the often irrational biases of clients” and helping them see another perspective for improved decision-making.

  • People want to do the right thing. It helps if they have competent professionals to guide and support them toward their goals…and through tough times. In early 2009, within a matter of weeks, she had 122 lengthy phone calls with clients seeking reassurance and guidance during the onset of the Great Recession (when the Dow Jones Index dropped to 6,547). No one wants to be alone in the dark.

  • Good advice is heeded advice.

The night was a heaping success. Besides the heat and a line that looked like it belonged in an amusement park on a Saturday, there was never a point where Grace wasn’t smiling ear-to-ear! We all wish Grace much happiness in this new chapter.

Content constructed by Annie Albrecht and Rana Kory from Worley Erhart-Graves Financial Advisors