First, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to the B&H Family for all the support, concern, and genuine joy I received from many of you after learning of my salvation last year on Palm Sunday. I’m happy to report that my relationship with God grows stronger each day. I start each day with meditation and prayer. I pray during the day before I make decisions and recommendations for each of you. I pray before bed thanking God for all the blessings he provided today and the ones he will bestow on me tomorrow, not because I deserve them, but because he is great and he is my Father. I view everything I do through the lens of Christ. This transformation is making me a better person, a better father, a better friend, and yes, a better financial advisor.
My journey in faith has just begun and even at age 64, so has my leadership of B&H. I’m so excited about the future of B&H as a Christ-centered organization. So while I’ve been a highly competent financial advisor, I believe I can become the very best financial advisor I can be, because I have the ultimate advisor advising me…God.
We also have our youthful weapons in the firm adding to our bright and exciting future. First there is Jake and he is doing so much to help me and the firm function and thrive. He was thrown into a difficult situation with my loss of vision. Not easy in the workplace on a son. Difficult waters to navigate and he has performed remarkably well both as an assistant financial advisor and as a son. I could not be more proud of him as a leader or as a father.
Nor could I be more proud of my entire team and that includes a lot of people that are not employed at B&H, but are important pieces to our operation behind the scene.
One of those people is Billy Hopkins. You may recognize that name. Billy is the owner/president of Silver Oak Securities. His name is on various correspondence you receive. The ones that from time to time cause you to make a call and ask, “Who is this?”, and we explain that Silver Oak is our Broker Dealer and then we explain what that means. Silver Oak Securities is an independent Broker Dealer – financial advisory firms must be associated with a Broker Dealer to conduct business in the securities industry. Silver Oak is a partner with B&H that provides critical functions behind the scenes such as: compliance, securities and insured products, money managers like Aptus, technology, and more.
But Billy Hopkins is much more than that. We are friends and our journey together has led us from discussing business, financial and family planning, markets, politics, health, exercise & diet, Tennessee athletics, music and most recently, you guessed it, Faith. It turns out that unbeknownst to us, we both decided we didn’t need alcohol in our lives, but we did need God. It was early last spring when we made these decisions. We were having one of our regular conversations when I revealed that I had made a decision to turn my life over to Christ and he revealed that he had made the same decision. Our reasons may seem different… my blindness, loss, to name the biggies. Billy’s were not specific catastrophic things, but raising his 3 children in today’s world in Nashville without a true belief in God was enough. But, if you look deeper, we both, as many are, trying to be the best versions of ourselves we can be and aim at the highest.
Over the next several months of conversations we shared ideas about how to better align ourselves in our business with our current focus of the integration of Health & Wealth to add a Spiritual component to be at the center of our message. So this letter is the announcement of our intentions to make the world a better place than how we found it for our kids and grandkids. This is something our Dads told us many years ago. It is something I never have forgotten, although I was falling short until last Spring, but I vow now to try to be my best to please my Dad and the Lord. I will strive to make the world in which I reside a better place until the day I die an earthly death and my spirit goes to paradise for eternity. Our beliefs are in alignment and it’s going to be a great adventure.
So here are a few ways we have planned to communicate this message to our clients, families, friends, community, and yes the world if they tune in because we will be using new forms of media and technology such as podcasts, that you can watch on our YouTube channel – B&H Wealth Strategies, along with our website and facebook, etc. We are all so excited about this opportunity to discuss such things as money, politics, and religion. While these topics are generally considered to be off limits at family gatherings, or with groups of friends, we will discuss these topics freely with open minds to attempt to discover and tell the truth.
I’m optimistic of the future both at B&H, America, and the world. I believe a revival is coming and we want to participate.
I’m so proud of my children as they each become their own person and find their own adventure through life. God has blessed my family and B&H with many gifts and we are expected and it is our privilege to share these gifts.
The future is bright!