Meet Laura, Certified Financial Planner®

As an avid art student and lover of historic homes, I chose a career as a home designer with a dream of one day owning my own studio, just like my idol—the character, Julia Sugarbaker, from TV’s Designing Women. After graduating with an art degree and landing my first design job, I soon discovered that real-life was not like television. I was working long hours for little pay bringing someone else’s ideas to life. As my career insecurities grew, I began leaning into my faith for support. That helped me realize I wanted to give more to the world.

When I was laid off during a company resizing, I looked at the event as an opportunity to explore other options. I took a job working as a teller with a credit union, and realized how much I loved helping customers with their transactions and explaining financial options to them. It filled me with such a greater sense of purpose that I abandoned my youthful dreams of a design job and set out on a new career path of helping people solve their money problems.

When my dad died two years later, my eyes were opened to the particular needs of women who lose a spouse. I started working with widows to help them figure out their bills and make important financial decisions in the wake of their loss. Helping them was an outlet for my own grief, but working with these women felt like a ministry. It allowed me to show love and kindness to women in need. For the next 20 years, I dedicated myself to helping women with their financial matters: from obtaining loans and mortgages to estate planning, purchasing insurance, and investing.

The more we would work together, the more these women would open up about their money fears, or mistakes they had made in the past. By this point in my life, I had made my own mistakes—not necessarily around money, but in areas that left me feeling similarly vulnerable and insecure. I could relate to their feelings, and was able to listen with an empathetic ear and offer them grace and kindness.

Though I had a great job with a large brokerage firm doing something I loved—helping other women succeed—I didn’t feel like I was succeeding personally. As I focused on my values, I came to understand that I wasn’t giving my own family priority. I thought about my childhood idol and how she had created a business according to her needs, and then surrounded herself with the people she loved the most. I realized that I didn’t love Julia Sugarbaker because of the kind of work she did, but because of how she chose to work. She created a life that allowed her to prioritize her values without sacrificing her livelihood.

That’s why I created Flourish Financial Life Planning. I want to see women flourish in all the areas that are important to them, and live lives of peace, purpose, and passion. Because what good is a great financial plan if you never gain the confidence to enjoy the fruits of your efforts?