Month: June 2024

Welcome, Brenda! The Dream Works with Teamwork 
by Caitie Leibman, Director of Communications

Clients, you may have already spotted the new face or heard the new voice around the office. Let us take a moment to get everyone up to speed on some exciting developments.

You may remember that our dear friend Larry Wiederspan “retired” a couple years ago, but it didn’t stick. Then, the time came for certain: his last day in our employment came and went in April. While we miss seeing Larry so regularly, his retirement brought us a new opportunity. (Life’s all about beginnings and endings, isn’t it?)

With Larry’s departure, we were ready for some help on the Client Services team. Our Client Services Coordinator Whitney Engle has been with us full-time for more than a year now, and she’s been on top of everything we’ve been able to throw to her—and then some! She’s so proactive. And Client Services Associate Patsy Havenridge has been holding down the front office with grace and good humor since 2018. Where does the time go?

And now, joining as our newest Client Services Associate, we’re pleased to introduce Brenda Smith!

Brenda brings years of experience in financial services and administrative support, and we were so pleased to discover that her skills were a match for our needs. Her warm personality and easy-going spirit were evident from our first encounters.

Brenda is a Louisville native, and her son Isaac is a third-generation LHS student. When she’s not in the office at 228 Main, she enjoys traveling, reading, cooking, and spending time with friends and family. “I have a group of lifelong friends who still refer to ourselves as ‘the Louisville Girls,’ and we try to get together at least once a month to catch up,” Brenda says. “I’m a history nerd and can be found watching historical documentaries and historical shows and movies when I’m at home.”

Brenda may be the latest addition to the 228 Main team, but she is already caught up on the “history” of our work here. The mission is the same for the whole team: we strive to grow your buckets. And that project takes all of us, from research and trading to paperwork and communications—it happens when all of us are ready to be of service to each other.

Come in and say hello whenever you have a chance. Welcome, Brenda!

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Welcome, Brenda! – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Life Sentences

by Caitie Leibman, Director of Communications

Sometimes I marvel at my brain. I might wake up from a vivid dream or be surprised by a random thought that pops into my mind while I’m innocently doing the dishes, and I’ll wonder, “Where did that come from?”

It’s a gift to be able to notice when thoughts come and go. Sometimes, our thoughts can start to feel so familiar, we don’t notice them anymore. They turn into wallpaper: we can be surrounded by them all day and never notice. We take them for granted as fact.

Maybe you’ve heard some of these sentences before, swirling around in your own mind or coming out of someone else’s mouth:

“Never go into business with family.” (Ha!)

“I’m not good with money.”

“I can’t do something that risky.”

Are these sentences—or life sentences? Are you serving time in the name of a belief? It’s not “the big house” we get trapped in: it’s a small life.

Our words can become cages when we take them more seriously than we need to. But a thought can just be a thought. Like a cloud we watch in the sky, can we allow it to do its thing, and then go on its way?

We can’t stop those stories from popping up any more than we can keep clouds out of the sky. But maybe we can sprinkle in some more helpful sentences, ones that won’t hold us back.

“What if this works out?”

“What if there was a different way?”

“What if I could?”

In any case, we’re glad to be here with you—for whatever comes our way.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Life Sentences – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Looking Back from 68 
by Mark Leibman, President

Fifty-six years ago, I got my first paper route.

Forty-seven years ago, my first license to work with financial products.

Thirty years ago, the beginnings of what became the enterprise that serves you today.

Looking back from age 68, I realize that delivering something of value for money was at the heart of that first entrepreneurial endeavor—and remains core to our work at 228 Main.

I’ll never forget the speaker I once heard at a business conference, the one who began with a visualization exercise. Exactly how much money did we want to be making three years from now, he wanted to know. He told us to write the number down and to look at it morning, noon, and night.

His second point was about the importance of being client-centered.

I thought, “Hmm. You can only be ‘centered’ on one thing, and this fellow is centered on money.” Then I walked out.

From the vantage point of my 68th birthday, I see the compounding miracle of being focused on your outcomes. The better off you are, the better off we are—it is a win-win situation. And who knows how that arrangement might continue to build between now and my retirement at age 92? (Only 24 more years to go until that retirement party!)

Some financial types pander to people’s fears, so that they can “save” their clients with right “solutions” (which often happen to be their own products and services). We have always sought to build your confidence to invest successfully, to grow your buckets. Fear shuts down our ability to think—which is one of the reasons positivity pays, in our opinion. If we can keep our heads while all about us are losing theirs, we are in a contest of wits with unarmed opponents.

I still can’t envision walking away from the best clients in the world. If it doesn’t feel like work, is it really a job? And my associates are the best teammates in the world. We’ve built an enterprise; our capabilities as a team are vastly greater than what I had to work with at the kitchen table, back in the last century.

Thank you all, for everything, to this point. Here’s to the next 24 years. That retirement party will be in May 2048, details to follow.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

Looking Back from 68 – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text can be found at https://www.228Main.com/.

Three People In One

There are at least three people involved in every decision you make: past you, present you, and future you! How well is the committee getting along? And who’s getting the final say?

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