A Thank You Note Thirteen Years in the Making
I got a call from a long-time client asking if they could come to my office on Friday. They said it would be a short meeting and asked if they could bring someone with them. I agreed, of course, and asked if I needed to prepare a topic that they wanted to discuss. The client said, “No, this was meant to be a surprise.” A surprise?
Well, Friday afternoon rolled around, and at 1:30, the client showed up with their mystery guest. I had wondered if it would be a celebrity, a sports figure, a politician, or a titan of business. In walked my client and a casually dressed man who appeared to be in his late forties. My client sat down in my office and said, “I bet you don’t remember Joe.” I was honest and said I was sorry, but the face was not familiar to me. My client said the face might not be familiar, but the story of our encounter will be. Then the client and Joe began to tell the story.
Thirteen years ago, my client asked if I would meet Joe and offer him some investment advice on his employer’s 401(k) plan and how to think about his investments. Joe was a first responder. He and his wife wanted to save for retirement. I began to remember our meeting. I am sure I would have told him the best thing to do was to consistently save as much as they could and to take advantage of his employer’s 401(k) match. I would have advised staying fully invested in growth stocks because he was so young and retirement was a long way off. I am certain we talked about how he should not get freaked out when the market has one of its freak-out moments.
Joe said he wanted to share what he had done since our meeting thirteen years ago. He talked about how he had invested. We discussed the state of the current market. Then Joe said that the real reason he asked to see me was to personally thank me for the advice I gave him thirteen years earlier. He then pulled out the most recent statement of his retirement account. “Look at this,” he said, “I’m a millionaire. I never would have dreamt that that would happen.”
I was not too surprised by what he had been able to achieve in the market. Given the power of compounding and a commitment to savings on a consistent basis, we all know what can be achieved financially. But I was moved by his desire to thank me face to face after such a long time. I thanked him for his career in protecting us as a first responder. Our meeting was ending, but I let Joe know that my door was always open if he wanted to visit in the future.
Carl Gambrell