Healthy Advisor

Early in his career in financial services, Matthew Grishman was working as a wholesaler, making a lot of money, and on the outside, he looked as though he was living his best life, with the Rolex watch, the shiny Allen Edmonds shoes, the Hickey Freeman suits. But on the inside, he was empty and trying to fill a hole with money, alcohol and other things.   But one day his money addiction got so out...

Jess Bost found CrossFit during a traumatic time in her life. About her workouts, she says, “I went to the darkest place I could, and I fought my demons in that place.”  CrossFit, which stands for cross-discipline fitness, became her bridge to healing.  In this episode, Diana Britton is joined by Jess Bost, the vice president of brand partnerships at Alpha Architect and part-time CrossFit Coach. H...

In 2011, Jeff Martinovich was barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority from any role in selling securities or associating with FINRA members, and he’s currently serving a 16-year prison sentence, with about 2.5 years more on home confinement in Norfolk, Va. An ankle monitor on his left ankle keeps tabs on his movements.  But Martinovich has few regrets with the decisions he made, incl...

Our experiences throughout childhood can have a major impact on the way we live our lives into adulthood. But after meeting Marc Nichols, you might never have guessed the trauma that he experienced growing up, one he describes as “inconsistent.”  In this episode, Diana Britton is joined by Nichols, product director at Arbor Digital, who opens up about being the victim of sexual and mental abuse by...

Dr. Travis Parry started his career as a financial advisor. But when Parry was just  26 years old, his father died of a sudden heart attack while mountain biking, and he had to clean up the financial mess left in his wake. That included processing his father’s death claim, paying off his mother’s house, helping her relocate and covering the funeral expenses. That changed the course of his career....

Stevyn Guinnip has seen secondhand the toll this industry can take on a person’s health and wellbeing; her father, after all, was a financial advisor with Edward Jones for several decades. Advisors, she says, come into this industry and are told they have to hustle for the first five to 10 years and then will be able to coast. But that’s a lie. Instead, she says, many advisors work themselves ragg...

With several business ideas and capital secured from investors such as Mark Cuban and Mark Burnett, Anthony Zhang had an impressive path towards a bright future. That is, until a terrible accident left him paralyzed from the neck down, changing his life forever.  In this episode, Diana Britton, managing editor of WealthManagement.com, is joined by Anthony Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Vinovest, a p...

A Note to Transparency Listeners: In 2022, the podcast is going to be changing its name to “The Healthy Advisor,” to give a clearer idea of what the podcast is about. Transparency with Diana B. was not quite as transparent a title as we thought.  Julia Carlson got married at age 19, and right out of high school took a job at a local bank. She learned that the glass ceiling in the financial service...

Eric Arnold is no stranger to failure. In fact, he failed out of college, got fired from two companies, failed at nine different startup ventures and lost everything on a bad investment.  In this episode, Diana Britton speaks with Eric Arnold, CEO of Planswell, about how he has learned from those failures and has been given a second chance with Planswell.  Toronto-based Planswell, which was founde...

Advisor Gary Schwartz was always able to make money; at the young age of 12, he started delivering newspapers in the Bronx. That’s also when he discovered drugs and alcohol, which became a way for him to self-medicate and cope with his self-esteem issues. From there, the addiction progressed; cocaine and speed were his drugs of choice.  In this episode, Diana Britton, managing editor of WealthMana...

Advisor Robert Schein’s father worked hard his adult life to provide for his family, and just four months into retirement, at the age of 70, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 stomach cancer. After about three years battling the disease, his father ultimately passed, thrusting his mother into having to take over the family finances.  Luckily, Schein and his brother stepped in to help and set her on a p...

Advisor Anne Marie Stonich was just 28 years old when she and her two partners started building their own wealth management firm from scratch. For anyone in the business, that first year can be brutal. But she did it while also caring for her newborn baby, and shuttling to and from the hospital to see her mother, who’s health was deteriorating. Later that year, her mother passed away. And just six...

Silvia Tergas has been fortunate to pursue her passions and use her differences to her advantage within the financial services industry. Silvia’s father, who escaped from Cuba during the Cuban Revolution, paved the way for her to get educated in the U.S. The values he taught her and the rest of the family led to several opportunities throughout her life, including her pursuit of a career in financ...

Growing up in inner city Baltimore, Denika Tokunaga and her family struggled financially and couldn’t afford many of the luxuries that others had. That racial wealth gap affected many in the Black community, but she was determined to work hard and get educated so that she could get out of the inner city and overcome that wealth gap.   At the age of 18, with the help of her grandmother, she was abl...

When he was about six or seven years old, Rob Bartenstein’s parents got divorced. The rest of childhood had its ups and downs, with some emotional and, at times, physical abuse caused by the men in his mother’s life. His family also faced financial hardships, especially when his stepfather declared bankruptcy. Living on government cheese, processed cheese provided to welfare beneficiaries, the fam...

Sept. 11, 2001 is a day most Americans can’t forget, when Al-Qaida coordinated four terrorist attacks against the United States, including on the Twin Towers in downtown Manhattan.  But for Chloe Wohlforth, managing director of Angeles Wealth Management in New York, it was the day she lost her father. Chloe was a junior in high school at the time, and that day her father went into work at Sandler...

Every FINRA-registered rep is required to publicly disclose on their BrokerCheck profile certain events, such as regulatory actions, client complaints, and terminations. But the regulator also requires reps to disclose certain personal financial events, such as tax liens. Advisor Justin Reckers has always been transparent on his U4 about his troubles, which included a short sale on a home by his f...

Growing up the son of a firefighter, Brian Walsh Jr. was taught to give back to the community and help others, and that led him to pursue one of the most difficult jobs in the U.S. military as a Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, Land), the country’s special operations team. But, just days before he was set to enter the SEALs’ training program, he got into a serious car accident while driving home from Baltimor...

Douglas Duerr was having medical issues for three years, including various skin problems and swollen lymph nodes. During that time, he was misdiagnosed and blown off by doctors, many of whom said he was a perfectly healthy man. His bloodwork kept coming back normal. But Doug knew his body, and it was telling him something was wrong.  After a long time searching for answers, Doug was finally diagno...

One incident can change everything. Everything you once believed in, and worked towards can be turned upside down.  In this installment, guest host David Lenok, senior wealth planning editor at wealthmanagement.com, sits down with Craig Hersch, estate attorney and CPA. Craig shares his story of suddenly discovering he had a life-threatening cardiac problem, and how that changed his life and practi...

Shortly after Jonathan’s parents noticed his struggle to crawl as a baby, he was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a genetic disease affecting the central nervous system, peripheral nervous system and voluntary muscle movement. He has been in a wheelchair ever since and now aspires to become financially independent, no longer having to navigate the bureaucratic systems, like Medicaid,...

Growing up in the 1970s in the bay area of California, Tim Brisson never had alcoholism in his family. But he was raised with the notion that “children were to be seen and not heard,” so he grew up not knowing how to deal with his emotions, feelings and disappointments in life.  So later in life, after he had gone through law school and become a partner in a patent law firm, he turned to alcohol a...

About six years ago, when financial advisor Esther Szabo and her then-husband David boarded a cruise ship headed for Russia, she never expected their grand vacation would end with him on a stretcher in a medevac. Many of us are faced with feelings of uncertainty and hopelessness, whether it’s due to COVID-19, the volatile markets, or our political system. But we can learn a lot from Esther’s exper...

Dyslexia is the most common of all neurocognitive disorders, but contrary to what many may believe, some of the most innovative people in the country have dyslexia, including Charles Schwab and Bill Gates, to name a few. There are so many benefits and gifts that come with dyslexia, if only our society embraced people with the disorder and knew how to harness it.  Advisor Daren Blonski is also in t...

As a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, and, perhaps, the preeminent divorce advisor in the industry, Michelle Smith has helped hundreds of women through the financial maze of divorce. But she’s even more qualified to advise on divorce because she’s gone through it herself—and with a child with special needs no less.  In this episode, Diana Britton, managing editor of WealthManagement.com, is jo...