correct well and i'm so happy to have you here because susan is the founder of glen eagle which is a financial service organization which she'll talk a little bit a boat but although susan's main purpose is to empower women in terms of their finances the focus of our show is not about the show the purpose and the focus of the show is to address what are some of the things as women we can actually do in order to grow despite maybe we're being us being stand whole mom a single mom life does throw us some curve balls but i times we just have to take it i wrote back and susan's with her life experience have had to do with that and she's going to share with us today some of her life lessons that she has learned as well as some tips that women who maybe in the situation that she has been in the past can actually learn thank you so much susan for coming on the show today she's an inspiration to so many women and everyone will understand why when she tells her story today i had the pleasure of meeting susan through with it insurance and financial services so she's definitely up keeping a pass for change she's inspirational and i'm very excited for her to share her jordan journey with us today so thank you so much susan for coming on the show well thank you for having me so susan i love stories graduation i was married and i happened to marry an army officer and we were sent immediately overseas and our first son was born over there while i was over there taught by the department of defense and i love teaching and i think that  a lot of what i love i still do i think i just took the teaching to motherhood and from motherhood to financial advising i actually sort of had an aha moment is how i i became a financial advisor i wish i could say i had it the craving i didn't i was a mother to small children we had recently come back from europe my husband was in the field a lot and not home so i was basically raising them a little bit on my own and we would see daddy you know what times of month he could get back on the field and i decided that i needed some break and we didn't have a lot of money at the time but we had enough that i could pay for a sitter for a couple hours a week and so i actually signed up for for for a financial advisor course i went for a couple of nights a week and i loved it it was about a six week period and we were living at the time in colorado and our second son had just been born and i went for that the time period and loved it i just thought it was so exciting to learn about money and finance and budgeting and all the different aspects of financial planning and at the end of that time it was a saturday morning and my husband was home and of course there were all the chores that we were weeks in do so he was outside we couldn't afford to help so he was outside doing all the yard work and i was inside of the two children and the phone rang and it was the financial advisor who had given the course and i thanked him and told him how much i liked it and this is my aha moment he said well i'm glad you enjoyed it but this might  might want to put your husband on the phone and at that moment this is what do you think might be a little technical and you may want to put your husband on the phone wow and when i said do you realize that women outlive men and that my husband never showed up for this class and he said i'll be glad to talk to you and at that moment i will i really don't have anything more to say and i hung up but i think if that person gave me in and i think instead of being negative the gift that we encounter in our lives is i realized i think i can do this and i started taking classes and i started studying and i started passing the different exams regulatory exams that you need to become involved in the industry and the next thing i knew i was taking my love for teaching and i was teaching other people so where did that go well i had by this point i want to children i wanted to have a family and so we actually wound up having forty children well i'm older and we moved a lot in the military and then my husband went back to graduate school and i decided he was going to get through grad school on our budget we left the military i had to work and so i did i started to work with him and develop this becoming a financial advisor and he went full time to grad school and i paid his way through and what we did is i started my kitchen table and people would come over and i still have clients now when we moved to new jersey eventually after he had finished grad school they would come over and they i have little ones and i often wonder why some of these elderly women and things trust me here i was young in my twenty's small children the gift i had is they did trust me and i learned so much i didn't make much money because the clients i had didn't have a lot of money but wh i did learn as i learned the industry and i learned how to get income from them from very little from there we started to grow we actually my husband said ok we have enough income that we're going to build an addition to our home and we built an addition with a separate entrance and i had my own little office with a little bathroom and people could come while the children were at school and we always tell a joke because i had to sometimes when the phone rang it's a team you can't really separate work from your family that's it has to be one and so one time my mother in law was visiting and she still tells the story the phone rang and it was we had the home phone and we had a business phone and when the business phone rang i would run downstairs into this tiny little office and go to answer the phone and the my mother in law was talking and the children turned to her and said grandma stop that's our disney money and so they  but they became a part of it and then we grew we went to one man little office in lawrenceville and from there we went to hamilton a much larger office and now we're in princeton and so i always say that my business grew as my children grew and people often tell you when you start a business have a board well my board was like children when i was cooking dinner we would sit down and for children i would say oh you wouldn't believe what happened today and i don't know if i should hire this person i don't know if i should buy that machine i don't and they really if you interviewed them today they would tell you  she would never made it without us elementary school junior high and high school and they were giving me advice and you know something they grew up with the business and they learned it they learned how to shred they often tell stories that they thought that all children learn how to alphabetize because at that in those days we did everything wasn't computerized it was paper statements and i would have them on the floor and say put all the a's in a pile all the b s in the pile now go to the next letter and so we just grew up in the end they still are now they actually are a family board for us but they were a part they they watched me grow and there were some days i was a great mom and there were some days i had to say transparency guys this is a really big deal for mommy and i really need ok they want the ok and i think that that when young mothers are starting they have to realize it's not all at once and they have to be honest with their children and they have to become a team they have to understand what you're doing it has to be the dinner conversation because it is your life so i when they say work life balance i always say there is no such thing all right maybe i didn't know how to do it but as a mother for there appears no way you have to bring your children your family into what you love and then they love it because they want to and i used to tell them your job at school and i would sit at the table and do my work while they were doing their work and i would say mommy mommy works really hard so that you can have nice things and you have to work really hard so that right and so we they understood that and in their tone in their language we brought it in with us so wonderful because i heard so much nuggets the when you were speaking because i heard in fact bringing in children at an early age to learn about finances in a sense they were learning on their level at the time but they were being part of this process and have realizing that what  mommy is doing is helping us to be able to live the life that we are and the life that we have and so often we try to separate or you know what's happening we don't want to kids no we don't have a lot of money or whatever but having that having them buy into that  board here young board it right there it was a wealth of information again because they had going for us they were looking at from a different standpoint and it goes back to say that we can learn from anyone certainly can you know so this was a wonderful whoa whoa did you get the support that you needed in order to kind of tug away at what you wanted i think you need to be open and honest about your goals with other people and i think that women need to help other women we actually had a couple things that we did i had a neighbor who was a computer math major computer science and we sent them to the saying woman around the corner who happen to be a teacher needs extra income and they didn't realize they just thought that was playdate and then they went and one week maybe she worked three days and i work to the next week i would work three she would work two if i had a big meeting i would say ok you're going to take the man off the bus or you're going to pick them up from preschool those children are in each other's weddings now we went up vacationing together we are we  family we spent christmas eve together just because of the way we both needed to make it work when we had young children i think you have to be creative i think you you you can't buy into the system that says well if you don't if you can't do this then you can't do it you can do it it's that's how that's how we did it and i also think you need to really soul search and realize you can't have it all at once what is it that i can do and we're where  said the goals and then ask for help i think the one thing as women that we don't do enough is we don't want to admit that we don't know where to go so we don't turn and ask for help and we need mentors wow that's powerful i will say something and then i'm turned over to do know when you spoke about what you did with your your neighbor and i think that is so critical so often we see that we are we're fattal we're the only one going through what we're going through or not and when we start talking to each other we realize that you're right we can be creative we don't have to if we have the resources we need but one we have to act for the help and one we have to be open to receive help and be able to do that and know what's on our budget i mean for us it worked because we were budgeting we knew we had to pay a sitter but the sitter was much more reasonable with the children with the same time another little story is they went to preschool then we selected the preschool so they would be at the same preschool and one day she would pick them up and they would stay with her for the rest of the day one day i would pick them up and they stay with me for the rest of the day so we did get full days and we could manage our schedule that way until my littlest one the second one we always say he's a  preschool dropout we happen to go to a preschool and he was very quiet and that's the other thing as mothers it's not just about work it's not an easy journey you have days at roadblocks come i got a call from the preschool teacher that said he's just not ready for preschool and i think he needs special school and my husband always says he wants his to east of the two weeks i cried something's wrong with our child but i always caution mothers relax take a deep breath he actually wound up going to yell university is a lawyer in new york city and if i had believed that person i think you have to just like in business you have to believe in your business you have to believe in your children there is no difference between raising your children and running a firm you know a c e o of a firm people often say how did you do that how did you learn that i say i just took my mother and skills and there are days just like that day that i cried oh my gosh something's wrong with him and said what's wrong with them don he was quiet he still reserved but the fact is he was our preschool now what do you do there is a dilemma i've started this business and he's just been used to preschool boy well neighbor the gift of having other women is said that's ok i'll pull my son out also and we started they started going to city they started playing he one of the little boy went up going to william and mary and my son went to yell and one day they were dressed up with bonnets and their sisters dress up some playing we have a picture of them and when they were getting married we put that picture up and said liz william and mary ms y they laugh now but we made it work it wasn't they're going to get sick and the bus isn't going to show up theirs and you have a big plan you have to be flexible and the other thing when you say the two things that that i always say people need and the two hardest things for us going through that and young mothers is time time is so hard we never have enough time we're tired you know it's nine o'clock at night you just put them to bed there's still dishes in the sink you have to make cupcakes it's a time challenge so i think that you have to say ok this is going to be a challenge i understand the time is going to be a challenge but i love what i do and i'm going to i'm going to take it and the other thing is you were you have to be able to laugh if you if you don't laugh it's going to make it worse and sometimes we have to finally you were in that in some of those  were in preschool we're back in preschool now we retort a little and they had mother's day and so i ran into mother's day and i had to figure out what i was going to do in the preschool to be an involved mom when i couldn't be there because i wanted the time to work so i decided i would be social concerns and social concerns meant if a grandmother passed away i made a dinner will my family love that because i make to dinner so they got a great dinner and then i bring one to the other person well that was great and so the children would come in and say mommy what are you doing and not thinking i would say oh so and so is grandmother passed away so we're going to bring them a dinner well that worked great until mother's day when they had to have you posters of what their mom did and it said my mommy and everybody was laughing when i walked in and they said you have to go over and see what robby wrote and i said my mommy dinners for dead people that i started so you have to have a sense of humor and say ok that is so for the that's all right are you still there yes yes and i'm sorry you have the most beautiful voice susan but is so soft spoken so i'm trying to make out from your ken what every detail your laugh it's like projects ok i hear you perfectly clear ok so do you have a question for i was a yes i know and like i said i apologize for being on wall street today not being able to have the best clarity but i know you were speaking a little bit about mentorship as well so i just wanted to ask you know for those women you know maybe they don't have a mensch were or are you know are seeking  access and resources and apologize if i'm repeating a little bit but just you know what what steps do they take you know what what are the strategies or the techniques that you use so that you can get where you are today because a lot of women say well i don't know what to do where to go where to start and it seems like you have all the answers and you were very successful so i just wanted to ask a little bit about that just in terms of how we can help with the challenges you know that women are mentors go i always tell you young women you have to do two things you have to take a deep breath and you have to reflect on who was your mentor who is the person that ever crossed your path that you wanted to role model that you wanted to be like  then you need to say what was it about that person that i admired what was it about that person that i wanted to be and for me it was my dad my dad was an aunt to print or he built businesses he had come to this country with his parents  and they were irish immigrants my father never had a college education and yet he rose to a very decorative position in new york but he was to take a man who was an intelligent individual life he liked music he learned to play the organ and so if he wanted to buy buildings he got a real estate license he was a self educator he didn't have a lot but he was a great role model and he told me as a woman that was no excuse it was a the excuse to be a woman you everybody worked hard it was about work  hard everybody works hard and that's what i tried to do with my children and so when i my mentor would be my dad but it but i always tell people say who is your mentor and in our life sometimes we put that person to the side when we really thought that they were i just admired what they had done  admired the business they built my or the children they raised what is it and then what are the traits that person has and then once you do you start to achieve and you want to do you feel like you're starting to move in the direction you want to we can not forget as women to look back and what is it we can do for other women and what do we do what is it that i can do when they come in the ass and what is it if we if we want we can't just take we have to  e right and so and it and it's not always women it could be a young man you know men and women both need mentors and some of the best mentors i have had have been men and women but i always say don't don't isolate yourself look and see that the key is what is the personality what is the value and think with your heart just because someone tells you this would be a great mentor that may not be your great aunt or what is your heart telling you we have an instinct the minute we see who is it that we want and so that's that's what i've told my children that's what i tell people that i work with find that person that resonates with you from the heart not from intellectual that is so that's so powerful what you just said so because i think it's so critical to have mentors but you're right who are the people that you admire and what are the qualities about these individuals and so using that as your guide you know when you just said that i was a you know my mom is my mentor i never thought of my mom as a ment opportunity or that gift to be able to communicate with her the way that i would like to but i've learned so much from her you know so i thank you for the thread thank you for that i appreciate that my mom had the same thing so i know you're going that's what women have to realize that life is not going to be ok if i do this everything is going to things have to live through these balls as i said we have to throw it back ready to throw it back i love the tagline for your company those three paul four words well actually we wanted them for a long time and we even brought advisers saying for marketing and they told us in this industry don't do it and we always say what's the worst thing you do is tell a bunch of women around a table their ideas a dumb idea but the real reason we did it was because i was in the industry and during the ninety's i met so many women we were a minority who weren't a lot of us but they were so torn between wanting to be mother wanting to be at home wanting to be with their children and also needing to be in this career wasn't that they people were so good they needed to be working and so i decided this was my time if my children were getting older if i was going to do this and so i opened the broker dealer registered investment advisory firm and my tagline was going to be faith family firm and that was going to be our foundation and often in meetings will say where does that fit with faith family and firm when we're hiring someone where to  firm when we're dealing with clients is this client right for us with a family firm and we say faith faith this is not about a particular religion or faith is about believing that there's something greater than ourselves while they think is whether you're walking out by with nature whether you're you're involved in your church or your synagogue faith is about something more than you and i and that what some day whether whatever best an advice we give you there's going to be someone else down the road what are we doing to build that family is because we all need to be family we need to be flexible in when people work we have a young young man who's taking care of his mother and working with us we have someone whose father is ill  and she has a child who has some issues and she works twenty hours a week but she's a sick all she's the finest person she is a gift to our firm and we are gift to her because of our flexibility and i knew that if four o'clock i needed to be out of that office that market closed and i i was going to be on that field i was going to watch how they put their book bag in the back of the car not someone else and so i think you can juggle it but to be disciplined the say i'm i'm not going to waver and maybe we lost clients and that's ok because we feel the clients we get the women that come to us the men they come to us they believe and often women who we are so in need of knowing finances the key with finances women don't come in and say how much to me they say am i going to be ok in my old age will i be ok they asked tough questions but once they become a client they're your biggest advocate and so we we really believe we want to advocate for women because we live longer who we're going to be here a long time and so that's why we're fake them we firm and we  hope you didn't ask this one i don't know what are your favorites did you ask the young are you did you talk about what i write what would you say to the younger version of yourselves so when you you know went through this journey you know being a military  wife teacher and becoming this amazing i think financial professional and coach you know for women on your journey what would you say to the younger version of yourself that was going through this journey and is there anything that you would change any recommendations you give to yourself and i give credit to this question but i'm curious actually as a young aspiring professional my selves i hoped i would tell my younger self to slow down and enjoy the journey more and i would tell my younger self to laugh more about the things that happen that may not be what was planned while the other thing i would tell myself is really really realize that you do have a purpose and that every decision should be your spiritual gift that you're sharing with others and if it doesn't feel right don't do it move away and i don't think i knew that as much in my twenty's i was trying to live in an industry that said one hundred ten percent we shouldn't be here and the minute i stepped away and it was a lonely journey but now it's become a powerful touring so in the beginning i had to keep reminding myself no this is the way i want to do it and now other women say i want that and we've grown affirmed by that and i think you have to trust your inner heart not what the industry or not what your profession is telling you what is it that's going to work for me and it's a different rhythm and sometimes have to step out of the room change the dance and come back in your dance is just a little different than others i lost that step out of the room change your dance and then come right back  wow what time goes by when you're having fun i think well this was wonderful and i learned so much and terms like the little nuggets that you shared in terms of your journey here and to where you are today and the best is yet to come i must say i thank you i hope i hope you're right there was this more yet to come and i really appreciate that you stand in the time here with us today and and for all that you do because we're talking behind wall street ok thank you so much thing ok so until next time continue to think positive thank you