Two Years of True Financial: Unapologetically Myself

What recovery, offshore fishing, and building an independent financial planning firm taught me about thriving in uncertainty.

On October 21, True Financial turned two, and I have a great deal to celebrate. What began as a conviction about the kind of advisor I wanted to be has become a flourishing independent firm, built through relationships with people who have chosen to trust me with an important part of their lives. The business is growing, the work is deeply fulfilling, and I feel more connected to my purpose than at any other point in my career.

I am proud of that, and grateful. This anniversary is an opportunity to appreciate the people who made it possible and to consider what the experience has taught me. The most meaningful lesson reaches well beyond building a business: how much of a good life depends on our ability to prepare thoughtfully, act with conviction, and move forward without knowing how the story will end.

Two years ago, I could describe the firm I wanted to build far more clearly than I could predict whether it would work. Today, I am living in much of the future I hoped for, while still facing questions I cannot answer and outcomes I cannot control. The uncertainty is still here. My relationship with it has changed.

Looking across my recovery from serious injuries, my lifelong love of offshore fishing, earlier business ventures, and the decision to launch True Financial, I can see a common thread. Some of my most meaningful experiences have come from finding my footing within the tension between preparation and action, caution and possibility.

Learning to thrive there has changed both my life and the way I help people navigate their own.

Building a firm that fits

When I launched True Financial, I wanted comprehensive financial planning to be the foundation, available with or without investment management, with the flexibility to build each engagement around the person seeking help. I wanted the freedom to understand what someone was trying to accomplish and shape our work around what would actually help them.

Creating that environment meant accepting responsibility for making it work. I had a wife, two children, bills, savings goals, and all the ordinary obligations that do not pause while you figure out your next chapter. I believed in what I wanted to build, but belief did not tell me how long it would take or what would happen along the way.

I made several promises about how I would operate. About fourteen months ago, working with the Collective, a small advisor group within the Society of Advice, I gave the most important one a name: I would be “unapologetically myself.” Both the group and the broader community were founded by financial planner and author Carl Richards.

For clients, that means bringing my full judgment, curiosity, convictions, and experience to our conversations. It means asking questions I believe matter, spending time with something complicated rather than rushing toward an easy answer, and understanding what someone wants their money to make possible before deciding how to organize it.

It also means accepting that my approach will resonate deeply with some people and be the wrong fit for others. Independence has given me room to be clear about that.

Another early promise was that I would not pursue someone’s business unless they invited the conversation. I wanted to join things because I cared about them, volunteer because the work mattered, and enjoy a conversation without quietly evaluating whether someone might become a client.

Author and positioning expert Blair Enns's writing helped me articulate the distinction behind that decision: a vendor pursues an opportunity to sell, while an expert is sought out for help. When you face an important problem, you generally look for someone whose knowledge and judgment you can trust, not wait around for someone to approach you. I wanted to build a firm people could discover and choose in that same way.

Carl’s idea of “attending the way” helped me put that positioning into practice. I would devote my attention to becoming better at my work, serving clients thoughtfully, and sharing my knowledge and perspective so people could recognize when I might help them. My writing would give someone a chance to understand how I think before we ever spoke. I would make my expertise visible and give people room to decide whether they wanted my help.

The uncomfortable part was the aspect of control. I could control the care I put into my practice and what I shared publicly. I could not control who would find it, what would resonate, or when they would be ready to reach out. It took patience, faith, and more than a few conversations with other advisors to remain committed through the quiet stretches.

People have continued to find me. The business that has grown through this approach is especially meaningful because I have been able to keep the promises I made about how I wanted to practice.

Independent, and more connected than ever

One of the unexpected gifts of independence has been the relationships I have developed with thoughtful advisors across the country. These are people who care deeply about the human work of financial planning and are willing to challenge my thinking, share their experience, and help me keep perspective.

You can spend your days on a team, belong to a business, or be surrounded by colleagues and still feel as isolated as someone marooned on an island. Organizationally, becoming independent may look like moving onto that island, yet I have never felt more connected to people who understand what I am trying to do.

I make my own decisions and carry responsibility for them. I also have people I can turn to for honest conversation, thoughtful disagreement, encouragement, and perspective. That combination of freedom and connection has helped me grow into the advisor I intended to be.

Remembering what hardship taught me

One important challenge to my thinking came from fellow financial planner Amy Irvine, who shared a reflection about whether our actions and emotional posture actually reflect belief in the future we say we want. It made me examine the difference between hoping something might happen and believing, down to your bones, that whatever the hell life throws at you, you are going to find a way to make it work.

Those are very different ways of living. One keeps the future you want safely in the realm of “maybe someday,” without changing how you live today. The other changes how you behave today, because you believe the future you want will happen and begin living accordingly.

I realized that I had not been acting as though my dreams were probable. I was playing defense and putting too much effort into trying to not fail. Even after taking a substantial leap, part of me was still organizing my attention around everything that could go wrong, rather than giving equal weight to what could happen if this actually worked.

That realization brought me back to lessons I had learned through hardships I had deliberately tried to put out of my mind. Recognizing that I already knew how to move forward without knowing the outcome meant revisiting parts of my past that were painful to remember. Those experiences had taught me more than I had given myself credit for.

At nineteen, a car accident shattered my femur and injured my spine. For nearly three years, I could not walk without assistance. One reconstructive surgery followed another, bringing another period of waiting, another uncertain timeline, and another chance to get my hopes up without knowing whether this attempt would finally work.

I had no way to know how the story would end. Yet rehabilitation, college, and the possibility of a life beyond those circumstances required me to behave as though there was a future worth preparing for. I had to get through the day, do the painful work, and keep making decisions on behalf of the person I intended to become.

Years later, spinal complications brought another period of debilitating pain around the time I was becoming an attorney and a father. Student loans were coming due, my family was growing, and my ability to work was uncertain. Once again, I had responsibilities that could not wait for the future to become clear.

When something nearly kills you and then occupies years of your life with pain, fear, and repeated disappointment, moving on can feel like its own form of recovery. Some of what I forgot, I forgot on purpose. But distancing myself from those memories had also made it harder to recognize the resilience I had developed while living through them.

Reconnecting with those lessons helped me recognize a source of confidence I had overlooked. I had already learned how to commit to a meaningful future while living in profound uncertainty about how I would get there. I knew how to remain engaged, learn, and adapt when the route changed.

Those lessons are integral to my ability to thrive in uncertainty, and to remain present when someone else is struggling with theirs.

The uncertainty I choose

I came to recognize the same pattern in a very different part of my life: offshore fishing.

My trips can take us many miles from shore for twenty-four to thirty-six hours or more, fishing and traveling through the night, catching sleep on bean bags when we can. They depend on the narrow overlap of friends’ and family members’ schedules, a workable weather window, and the obligation to show up for work again on Monday.

An enormous amount of planning goes into making that happen. I map routes and fuel requirements, decide which areas deserve enough time to make the run worthwhile, account for what we want to pursue and which seasons are open, and leave room for backup plans. There has to be margin to try a new area or technique. Then come the equipment, maintenance, tackle, technology, and all the details that can occupy as much time as I am willing to give them.

After all that preparation, it never goes exactly the way I expect. And that is a large part of why I love it.

If I knew before leaving the dock exactly which fish we would catch, how every decision would unfold, when we would return, and that nothing would ever go wrong, I would give up the hobby. A once-in-a-lifetime trip means something because I cannot order it in advance or reliably repeat it. We prepare, put ourselves in a position to experience it, and discover what the day becomes.

Uncertainty also brings disappointment. Weather does not cooperate, equipment breaks, repairs get expensive, or someone else seems to catch everything while we struggle. Fishing can humble you regardless of how much time, money, or thought you have invested. Yet I come home, work through what happened, learn what I can, and start looking forward to going again.

Planning and action are two necessary sides of that experience. Planning brings preparation and confidence, but taken too far, it can become an endless effort to eliminate every unknown. Action brings excitement, discovery, and the possibility of something extraordinary, while exposing us to mistakes, disappointment, and consequences we would rather avoid. Even excellent preparation leaves us with outcomes we cannot control.

For me, fishing occupies a kind of stillpoint within those tensions. I prepare thoroughly, act, pay attention, and adjust. Sometimes the experience calls for more caution; sometimes it calls for trying something unfamiliar. The balance keeps moving, and remaining engaged with it is part of what makes the pursuit so satisfying.

Recognizing that same pattern in my recovery and professional life was transformational. During rehabilitation, I had to balance protecting an injured body with doing the difficult work required to strengthen it. In business, I balance providing for my family with pursuing opportunities whose outcomes I cannot guarantee.

Hardship had taught me to move forward through uncertainty. Fishing helped me recognize how much enthusiasm, discovery, and meaning I could find within it.

That applies to financial planning and ordinary life. Too little preparation can put what matters at risk. An endless demand for more preparation can keep us from ever using what we have built. We have to prepare thoughtfully, preserve room to respond, and participate in the life we are trying to create.

The unknown comes with the pursuit. It leaves room for experiences we could never have fully anticipated, including some of the ones we will value most.

Wanting the last page first

I see this tension constantly in financial planning. Someone has a life they want to pursue, but before they will allow themselves to pursue it, they want to know how the story ends. They want to open Google Maps and see every turn, every alternate route, and a live arrival time before deciding whether to leave the driveway.

I understand the appeal. The possibility of something better has to compete with the immediate comfort of knowing where you stand. Protecting what matters is a serious responsibility, especially when other people depend on your decisions.

I also know how easily preparation can become avoidance. I have to notice when a sensible desire to protect my family quietly becomes an unwillingness to pursue the life I want for them. Having made one courageous decision does not exempt me from practicing that awareness again.

That distinction matters because a financial plan can be orderly, thorough, and easy to explain while still missing something essential. A plan can carefully address the possibility of running out of money without meaningfully exploring what the person wants to do with the years that money is supposed to support.

If someone remains indefinitely postponing what gives their life purpose, an important part of the work is unfinished. Life is far too short, and far too important, to miss that mark.

Planning for a story still being written

As Carl often puts it, “All plans are wrong. Some are useful.” I repeat that idea in meetings because it gets at something fundamental about financial planning. A projection is our best effort to organize what we know today around a future that will unfold differently from our assumptions.

Income changes, health changes, families change, opportunities appear, and priorities evolve. Sometimes the destination changes because the person changes. A useful plan gives us direction, helps us understand the trade-offs, and provides a basis for deciding what to do as new information arrives. Its value continues through the conversations, adjustments, and decisions that follow.

That is the depth of planning I wanted the freedom to practice. At True Financial, we can work through investments, taxes, retirement, insurance, cash flow, and business decisions while continuing to ask what all of those moving parts are meant to make possible. Comprehensive planning is the foundation, and the relationship can reflect the person’s actual needs.

A projection may suggest that someone can retire, while the thought of giving up a paycheck still feels overwhelming. A business owner may have the resources to make a change while struggling with what it means for employees, family, and identity. Understanding the numbers is essential; understanding what it will take for that person to live with the decision is essential too.

I am making my own decisions about family, business, savings, time, and the future we want. I know the weight of committing to something before every question has an answer. That experience keeps me grounded when someone else is working through their own uncertainty.

My role is to help people understand their position, explore their options, and make thoughtful decisions they can live with, while staying alongside them as circumstances change.

Two years in, and more myself than ever

Asked to name my greatest realization from fourteen months with the Collective, my answer was surprisingly straightforward: my niche is me.

My background in law, healthcare, business, and financial planning contributes to what I offer. So do the questions I ask, the way I listen, the experiences I carry, and the willingness to remain engaged when a situation is complicated or uncomfortable. Those qualities come together in a way that is personal to me, and they shape what clients experience in our work together.

Independence has given me the freedom to bring all of that to my practice. The growth of the firm has accelerated dramatically this year, and the year is not over. I have ambitious goals, but what makes that progress meaningful is the connection I can see between the lessons I have been learning and how I have begun to live them.

I noticed the shift when I started acting differently: trusting my judgment more fully, allowing my own voice into the work, and making decisions as though the future I wanted would happen. Becoming more comfortable being myself allowed me to use my knowledge and experience with a conviction I had previously held back. People could see more clearly what I offered, and the business began to reflect it.

I still prepare for difficulty and carry responsibility for the consequences. I also give myself permission to build toward something extraordinary, rather than making the avoidance of failure the organizing purpose of my life.

What I carry forward

Looking back from a better place, I can see how some of the experiences I most wanted to escape helped make this place possible. I would never voluntarily relive the accident, the surgeries, or the years of suffering. Yet I cannot separate the person I am today from what those chapters required of me.

My understanding of independence is inseparable from having lost so much of it. My appreciation for health, time, and ordinary days with my family comes from knowing how quickly they can be taken away. My empathy for someone struggling to imagine their next chapter comes from having lived through periods when I could barely imagine my own.

I have lived through darkness giving way to light, setbacks becoming part of a life that is thriving, and mental anguish making room for peace. I have also experienced the exhilaration of setting out with people I love, well prepared and eager to discover what a day might hold. Those experiences have helped me find my footing in uncertainty, whether it arrived uninvited or accompanied something I chose to pursue.

Two years into True Financial, I am grateful to the clients who trusted me early, to those who have found me since, to the advisors who have challenged and encouraged me, and to my wife, Kandice, and my family, who have lived the uncertainty alongside me.

The firm is flourishing, and so am I, in ways that extend well beyond the business itself. I get to do work that reflects who I am, helping other people bring their money and decisions into closer alignment with the lives they want to live.

That is a milestone worth celebrating.

I have no idea what comes next, but I cannot wait to discover it.

By Gary Birdsall, Jr., JD, CFP® Founder of True Financial, a fee-only financial planning firm based in Houma, Louisiana