It seems to be that time of year where it's all about continuing education. What made me think about that today was that it’s time for the renewal of my notary, which I only have to do once every 4 years. But every single year, I have to do continuing education on the securities side of our business. I need to do continuing education on the Registered Investment Advisor Representative side of our business. I need to do continuing education on the insurance side of our business. That is three different venues. Three different places to go to for continuing education. I say that having just returned from continuing education that I didn’t even need to take at a financial summit in Salt Lake City.
Continuing education. There’s so much that a person needs to have in their brain to do the job that they should be doing. Now, I have to admit that there are certain things that I have done time and time again that (if I am allowed), I immediately go to the exam because I know all the information that I should know. Here’s the example; with my notary the rules and regulations really don’t change that often and this is something that I have had for years and years. It’s not something that we really use in our office that often, but once in a while a client needs something to be notarized, and we like to make that service available.
So, I decided not to go through the multiple chapters or to re-study things that I have learned time and time again, instead, I just jettisoned right to the exam. I went through the exam. It probably took me all of about twenty minutes. I didn’t get 100%, but I got a 93 and that was good enough to make certain that I would be authorized to be able to be your notary public again for the next four years.
Why do I talk about all of this? Licenses and regulations are very, very important. You want to make certain that when you are working with someone, whether it’s on the securities side of business, whether it’s on the life insurance side or other insurance side of business, whether that’s disability and health insurance, things along that line, or if you are working with an individual such as myself, working with in the realm of a Registered Investment Advisor Representative sphere, it is important that each and every one of those individuals that you work with are dually-licensed and authorized to work in those particular areas.
It makes me think of all of these ‘gurus’ that are on the radio, internet, or television that set themselves up as being financial wizards, financial ‘gurus’, but the vast majority of those individuals are not licensed. So, they are not regulated. They do not have oversight. It’s important that you work with professionals when it comes to putting together your plans for the future.
Likewise, just because a person has a license doesn’t necessarily mean that they know in totality what they should be doing. When I don’t know something, I know the resources to go and get the information that I need. Likewise, it’s very important that you understand that when somebody is just out of the chute, and they are newly licensed, they don’t necessarily have all of the knowledge that they need to know. For instance, each and every year I get a fishing license. It makes it legal for me to fish in the state of Wisconsin. Unfortunately, I don’t have much luck fishing. I don’t know where the fish are biting, and I don’t know what kind of lures or bait to use in all situations.
So, there is knowledge, data, and overtime, the one thing that takes time to learn, wisdom. This is why I just got back from continuing education which gives me no credits on anything that I need for my registrations or for any of my licenses, but I do it for Mark Bertrang because Mark Bertrang wants to be smarter and do a better job for his clients, and isn’t that how we build wisdom?
