A Surprising Referral

 

"What happened to the six-year plan?" I asked.

"Roy loved being a barber. It's as simple as that. To this day, he loves working downtown, dealing with people, owning his own business, all of it. It's funny, but Roy has really lived up to his most-likely-to-succeed billing. I don't know a more successful, well-rounded person."

"What about the financial planning part, Dad? I have to be home by Sunday, you know."

"I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Roy was really shaken by the poor financial shape his mother had been left in. His father had had no pension, no savings, and very little insurance. Roy laughs now when he says the only thing his father left them was a mortgage, but it wasn't funny at the time.

"He vowed not to make the same mistakes. Yet after a couple of years running the shop and making a good in-come, Roy had very little to show for his efforts. His mother and sister were being well taken care of, but financially, that was about it.

"Roy decided it was time to do something. He started reading everything he could on money management. At that time, almost all financial books concentrated on investment alternatives, not on mundane topics like saving, buying a house, and insurance—you know, the common person's concerns. They all showed what to do with money once you had it, but they didn't tell you how to accumulate it.

"However, Roy's father had always told him that if you want to learn to do something right, watch someone who does it successfully. Roy reasoned that that certainly held true for sports, so it probably held true for just about everything else, too, including financial planning.

"So, at the age of twenty-two, Roy did what he now