Lessons Learned from Disrupting the Finance Industry With Elliot Weissbluth
Elliot S. Weissbluth is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of HighTower. His commitment to disrupting the industry in favor of transparency and integrity has driven HighTower’s growth since he founded the company in 2007 in the midst of the financial crisis. The business model he pioneered combines the fiduciary standard for financial advisors with an open-source platform where providers of the industry’s top products and solutions compete for HighTower clients’ business. Elliot Weissbluth and HighTower continue to challenge the status quo by bringing transformative ideas and transparent solutions to financial services. Favorite Success Quote “There is no shortcut to the top” ~Ed Viesturs Key Points 1. Ignorance Can be Your Biggest Advantage Whenever you are getting started in business ignorance and naivety can actually be one of your greatest advantages. For some people, they do not realize just how difficult business can be and would never get started if they did. For others, being ignorant about the market and the “right way” to do things allows them to come up with creative solutions to problems that experienced veterans would never have thought of. Do not see your ignorance as a curse, see it as a blessing. It may very well be the only reason that you succeed. 2. The Key to Managing Stress is Finding the Right Outlets Life is stressful, business is stressful, and entrepreneurship is really stressful. If you do not learn how to effectively manage your stressors, you will end up burned out and overwhelmed, utterly unable to continue on the path to success. You have to learn to effectively mitigate and manage stress through positive outlets or risk failure due to overwhelm. Whether you enjoy painting, extreme sports, music, time with friends, or just sitting down with a good book, figure out the things that give you energy and recharge your batteries and make time for them every day. 3. Financial Health is Just as Important as Physical Health You will often hear leaders in the personal development sphere say the phrase “If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything” and while this is true, if you do not have financial health, every other area of your life will suffer. If you are living in a state of financial disease your health, relationships, and spiritual life will suffer, there is no way around it. One of the predominant reasons for the astronomically high divorce rate in the U.S. is financial stress between spouses. One of the reasons for the health epidemic is the inability for low-income individuals to afford healthy foods and a reasonable quality of life. One of the reasons that so few people live the lives of their dreams is because they are too busy trying to survive to figure out what their passions are. You have to master your physical health, because, without it, everything else in your life will deteriorate. 4. Don’t Mistake Achievement and Fulfillment While financial health is extremely important, do not ever mistake financial achievement (or any other kind of achievement) for fulfillment. Some of the happiest people in the world only earn $25,000 a year, and some of the most miserable people on the planet are multimillionaires. You have to shift your focus from achievement to fulfillment. What makes you come alive, what do you enjoy doing, who do you enjoy being around? You will only have fulfillment in your life when you can answer these questions honestly and base the rest of your life around them. 5. Go Experience Failure Growing up, you were told that failure is bad. That it is evil. That it should be avoided. But the truth is, failure is one of the most valuable tools you have if you wish to become successful. Go out and fail faster than you have ever failed before. The more you fail, the more you learn, and the more successful you will ultimately become.