The Advisor: Tariq Collins

Transcript
Sponsorship Message: Eagle Financial Group – Your Financial Partner

[0:00] Today’s episode is being brought to you by Eagle Financial Group, from fractional CIO to tax prep and everything in between, Eagle Financial Group can help.
Find them on the web at eaglefsg.com. Before we get into today’s interview, I’ve got a very important message for those of you about to enter the residency match in the spring of 2024.
MD Coaches is excited to be offering Highlighting Your Unique Value.
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[1:15] Music.

[1:30] Music.
Introducing Prescription for Success podcast and MD Coaches

[1:54] Welcome to the Prescription for Success podcast with your host, Dr. Randy Cook.
Hello everyone and welcome to Prescription for Success. I’m Dr. Randy Cook, your host for the podcast, which is a production of MD Coaches, providing leadership and executive coaching for physicians by physicians. To overcome burnout, transition your career, develop as a leader, or whatever your goal might be, visit MDCoaches on the web at MyMDCoaches.com because you’re not in this alone. And don’t forget that CME credit is available when you listen with us. Just look for CMFI in the show notes to learn and how. If you follow our podcast on a regular basis, you know that we occasionally interview non-physicians with special knowledge that might be of interest for physicians. Today’s guest is just such a person. He is the founder of Eagle Financial Group, where he provides a range of financial services for physicians and other professionals as well. So let’s Let’s hear my conversation with Tarek Collins.

[2:58] Music.
Introducing Guest Tariq Collins and Starting at the Beginning

[3:03] Really looking forward to my conversation today. As our regular listeners know, we spend a lot of time talking to physicians on prescriptions for success. And once in a while, we like to bring somebody in who’s got some really special information that’s useful for physicians.
And that’s what we’re doing today. So I want to say hello to our guest, Tariq Collins. So nice to have you on the show today. And thank you for being with us. Thank you, Randy. It’s a good pleasure to be here. Well, I’m looking forward to the conversation and as we always do, we’re going to begin at the beginning. And let’s talk about your early life. I’m kind of fascinated with the fact that you did a lot of your growing up in the Bronx. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, for sure.
So I didn’t do a whole lot of growing up in the Bronx, but I’m originally from New York. Family was a group around Jackson Avenue. At an early age, elementary age, we ended up moving to Atlanta, settling around the city of Atlanta. And so sometimes I would go summers between New York.

[4:14] Atlanta, and then most of my family is from Southern Georgia on my mom’s side.
For real? so we spent a lot of time down there.
So they’re from a town called Montezuma, Georgia, so we spent some time down there.
But ended up growing up in Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia, where I graduated high school at Stockbridge High School.
So some of my early years, I think I went to a few different elementary schools around the city of Atlanta, and then, like I said, we ended up graduating in Stratford High School.
In this type of East Georgia area. And tell me a little bit about your parents and other relatives.

[5:02] Are there medical types in the family or financial types?
Or tell me about your family. Yeah, for sure.
So, interesting enough, so my family, so I grew up, my mom was first married to my dad, but then they ended up getting a divorce.
My dad spent some time in prison and then they got divorced and that’s what ended up how we ended up moving to Georgia. And then what happened is my mom found my stepdad at an early age and he was a truck driver. So a lot of my early years I spent like on the road traveling with him as a trucker before, you know, I was in school.
That must have been pretty cool.
It was pretty fun. I really enjoyed it. We used to drive around, you know, all the different states.

[5:57] Even in school days, so summers and things of that nature, I would spend with him.
So I got two unique stories with being with a truck driver that’s probably one good, one maybe medical-related, I guess.
Well, let’s hear about it.
So one is, there was a time, I forget which state we were in.
I really want to say probably like Ohio or something.

[6:22] A lot of time going there. But we were at a truck stop, and so we parked at a truck stop, and of course we were going in. And so you know how in most places roads is underdeveloped, so they had a lot of loose gravel. So I was running as trying to get into the store or catch up to my stepdad, my dad, and I ended up falling and slip, and I spent around, and I ended up hitting my forehead on the curb. And so it left this huge knot on my forehead.
And my dad, my stepdad, he was calling me Professor Klump. And I remember feeling so, I was so like, oh my goodness, my head, and so sleepy. But then, of course, they was without actually going to the doctor, that was like, hey, don’t go to sleep.

[7:16] Don’t go to sleep. So, over time, of course, it was all right. The swelling went down.
So, there’s that. I spent some time sleeping.
Dr. Michael Smith I bet you did. Yeah. Dr. Michael Smith And then another one would be like at an early age. So we’re probably talking somewhere teenage area, between 12 and 13. I was with him. We were coming in.
And I feel like you were in Tennessee and this is, I don’t know if I should be sharing this, it might be a little illegal, but he allowed, he taught me how to drive.
So he taught me how to drive the truck, stick shift, standard shift, uh, truck and uh… So cool I drove us most of the way home, right? So, you know, most truckers listening to the radio, they’re CB in a radio, right?
So, funny story is when he taught me, of course I’m learning how to shift and drive the truck.
And so I’m getting on the ramp to enter onto the highway and we get stuck on the ramp.
And so I couldn’t put it in gear and I got stuck.
So, all the truckers was on the radio and was just talking mess.
Oh, this must be a new driver, these student drivers, blah, blah, blah.
It was just going on for an hour.
I’ll say it was a new driver. So, he got me unstuck off the ramp and once we got on the highway, then I was good to go.
It was a smooth sailing. That’s a great story. He brought it all home, all in the Georgia.

[8:44] I think a lot of us that grew up in the South learned how to drive either in the laps of our dads or uncles or whatever.
Maybe not in an 18-wheeler, but pickup trucks and things of that sort.
And it sounds like that’s where you got your driving education as well.
Probably you didn’t realize it at the time, but I’m guessing seeing different areas of the country like that must have been educational for you.
Again, you probably didn’t realize it at the time, but would you agree that it was good for you have seen some places other than the Atlanta suburbs at that age?
Yeah, I think so. I would agree. So we, I’ve seen a lot, and as I got older, I remember I’m working for a company called Premier.
So I don’t know, you know most people who will I guess most people might know the story But I used to deliver the Kmart a lot. And so they’ll with this particular.

[9:47] Center we used to have to unload the truck like physically so we would pull up in the Kmart dock, and then load down the, boxes and of course we were going to a number of stores so So not only did I see a lot from my experiences and our drives everywhere, and we had good, talks, but I feel like I was able to start that early life of just work ethic and what it means for hard work and earning a living, watching him see how he made a living for, us while they were together, and then me being able to participate in that.
So it was a good experience. like he was a pretty good example for you.
Yeah, he was. He was a good role model. Still is to this day, even though they’re divorced.
So he was and is. At one point, I knew I was like, hey, I might be a truck driver.
So I would have all the toys with the truck controllers and all that stuff.
So he was definitely that. It was pretty, it was pretty good.
Sponsorship message: Eagle Financial Group supports your financial success

[10:58] Today’s episode is brought to you by Eagle Financial Group. Eagle Financial Group is here to help you understand your numbers and to make wise decisions, whether it’s fractional CFO services, accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, or tax strategies and preparation.
Eagle Financial Group is your partner to ensure that your practice keeps on serving your patients and gives you more time to spend with your family and friends.
It’s time that you overcome your obstacles and get control of your financial life today.
Give Eagle Financial Group a call at 719-755-0043, drop us an email at clientservicesateaglefsg.com or visit us online at eaglefsg.com.
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[11:58] Hi, I’m Rhonda Crowe, founder and CEO for MD Coaches. Here on Rx for Success, we interview a lot of great medical professionals on how they grew their careers, how they overcame challenges, and how they handle day-to-day work.
I really hope you’re getting a lot of great information, but if you’re looking for an answer to a specific problem, management or administration challenge, or if you’re feeling just a bit burnt out, like maybe you chose the wrong career, well, then there’s a faster way to get the help you need. No, it’s not counseling, it’s coaching. Rx for Success is produced by MD.

[12:36] Coaches, a team of physicians who have been where you are. I know you’re used to going it alone, But you don’t have to. Get the support you need today. Visit us at mymdcoaches.com to schedule your complimentary consultation. Again, that’s mymdcoaches.com because you’re not in this alone. Well, let’s talk about another part of your life that I’m sure was substantially, formative for you. I know that you got your undergraduate education at Regis University. Do you want to tell us how that came about? Denver is a long way from Atlanta, particularly for a young man who’s spending most of his time driving an 18-wheeler. So how’d you find your way out there?
So we graduated Stockbridge High School and so of course the conversation of of college comes up, right? Way before graduation, of course.
So it was my dream, in third grade, I did a black history report on a man named Thurgood Marshall.
So from the time that I did that- We know him. Right, we know him, right?
So from the time that I did the report on Thurgood Marshall.

[13:56] It was always my dream to become a lawyer, and in fact, when I got to high school, I increased that dream by like, I wanted to become a police officer, mostly federal, then become a lawyer, to ultimately become a judge, right?
And just to, so I can have both sides of the law and then be able to properly judge on it as I’m being a judge, right?
Thurgood Marshall’s significance and influence on Rhonda’s career choice

[14:22] And Tariq, I’m going to ask you, it just occurred to me that there are probably some young listeners to this podcast who might not have ever heard of Thurgood Marshall, but just tell us who he was.

[14:35] For sure. So Thurgood Marshall was the first black Supreme Court justice in America. I forget the exact year, but he started his career off as a lawyer and working for the NAACP, which is the Association for African Americans who went around and helped with legal judgments of doing the civil rights for blacks in underserved groups to be able to have the rights to vote and things of that nature. So there’s a really good movie out about them. And if you haven’t heard of if they’re good marks, I would go.
Look at it. But he served all the way up until right before they replaced him with Clarence Thomas.

[15:19] Who’s sitting now. But so really good, really good individual. And so that’s who my role model was for my career path. So when I went to high school, they had a program called public safety where we got to do like trial and law stuff and public safety clubs where we were you know, like security, if you will, for festivities and things in the school.
And so a lady by the name of Miss Toni Barnes was the instructor for all four years.
And so she had a heavy influence on my life. We were real close.
She was like another mom to me.
At this stage, like my mom was a single parent of three and she worked a lot.
So my mom worked to provide for us while, you know, I helped take care of my brother and sister and went to school.
And so what ended up happening was, my path was for me to go, I wanted to go to Howard, to the HBCU, which is Historically Black College and University, and then to end up becoming a lawyer. But then I realized that I never really had the conversation about college and what that means as far as how to get there, as far as student loans with any counselors, or not even with my parents, my mom, you know, my mom’s not a college graduate. She did do some college courses.

[16:43] And my dad wasn’t a college graduate either. So these conversations wasn’t probably normal for most inner city or kids growing up poor, period. So I ended up meeting this recruiter, this is like 11th grade, senior year, was starting in 11th grade and then going into junior year, always going into senior year, I met this recruiter of the Army. And so I came home and told my mom, I said, hey, I’m going to go to the Army and get my start there. And my original plan was for me to go to the Army Reserve so that I could go to this military college that’s in Millersville, Georgia.
Because to my understanding, after attending two years at the military college, then I.

[17:33] Could go to any other college of my choice.
And then, of course, for my last two years, my choice was Howard.
But we grew up poor in a sense, not having a whole lot, right?
Making it from day by day, check by check.
So a lot of stuff that I grew up doing to make money, I would cut grass.
So I started entrepreneurship early without really realizing what entrepreneurship was, but I would cut grass on the regular, which is how I made money.
And so there were two individuals who knew my personal story in detail, like, you know.

[18:08] The things that we were dealing with, the struggles and things of that nature.
Officer Miller advises Rhonda to consider active duty in the Army

[18:11] That was Ms. Barnes. And then I had a school resource officer named Officer Miller.
So one day I was having a conversation with the school resource officer, Officer Miller, And I was telling him, like, hey, I’m, you know, I’m going to do the army.
So he was telling me about his army experiences being stationed in Egypt and the things that he experienced and did.
And based off him knowing my story, he told me not to go reserve that I should think about going active duty because he was like, if I go reserve, I’ll basically be at home and the same stuff that I’m dealing with or we going through like, you know, It’s no hard escape from it because I’ll still be technically at home.
And I was like, oh, wow, like I didn’t really think about that, right?
Because my whole mind was just, I just needed a way to go to college.
So what I ended up doing is I called my recruiter, I called Sergeant Moran.
I was like, hey, you know, I want to go active duty.
And that actually is what happened.
So we found for me to go active duty, I enlisted in. And I think we graduated like May 20 something right before Memorial Day.
And we were, I was set off to ship in the next month, June 26th or 27th is when I left here to go to Fort Jackson.

[19:31] And so I was in the Army, active duty. First duty station was Korea.
So I spent a year in Korea and my next duty station was Colorado Springs and that’s what landed me in Colorado. And about what period of time was this in terms of years?
So this was, I joined in 2010, I graduated 2010 from high school, joined in 2010, and so I was in in the military from 2010 to 2014.
I only asked. I was curious if…

[20:04] If you were in there during those times when there were a lot of things going on in the Middle East, but it sounds like you just barely missed that. Just barely missed it. So we deployed to Kuwait and to Camp Baron in preparation for if we needed to jump in and head over to Iraq.
But when we deployed, we spent our time over there in Kuwait. We never went into Iraq. We We came home safely. This was in 2013.
So it was a good experience. So military was fun.
I knew that I didn’t want to retire, but when you kind of in that world and just kind of use the things, then you kind of go with the flow.
So I wanted to re-enlist when it came time for a re-enlistment period.
And interesting story, I actually ended up reenlisting. So when I joined the military, I was a 92 Fox, what they call a petroleum specialist, which is a person who handled fuel for the military.
So we were attached to infantry units that went out to tankers and we managed the fuel concept.
So Korea was, for my first duty station, was very interesting and fun.
Most military people, if there are some veterans listening, they probably understand that overseas is probably where you really get into it and and learn your job the most depending on your job.

[21:34] Because most people go over there without family, you know, so all you got to do is do military and that’s it, right?

[21:42] So we did a lot of fieldwork, a lot of training, and then once we came to the States, of course, you get hit with a lot of distractions.
So you still military, but there’s still like the world to experience and being free in that instance, in that sense.
In that sense. But what happened was in my military career, so I wanted to.
Realizing the Financial Struggles of Senior Enlisted Officers

[22:02] Re-enlist, but like I said, I also knew that I didn’t want to retire. One of the things that made me not want to retire, this is my first plug into financial management that I didn’t really realize, was I remember one day we were, we had just did PT, so I stayed at the unit to shower, change, and get ready for the day.
And while I’m showering, I overhear these two senior enlisted military officers, they were E-7s, and one of them asked the other one, they were like, hey man, you know, let’s go get some breakfast. And the other one replied to him and said, he said, man, you know, I can’t, you know, I’m not gonna be able to go. I gotta wait till payday so that I can, you know, afford to get breakfast. And so this was like, oh my goodness. This had to be like somewhere around the 10th and of course everybody know military structure get paid on the 1st and the 15th and so I was like wow we’re just like a couple days from payday and this guy’s like you know I gotta wait to get paid and so the first thing I thought about was like you mean to tell me that I would spend years to make it to E7.

[23:12] Right, just to get the E7 and still live like paycheck to paycheck, like I really don’t want.

[23:19] That future. And so that was always in my mind. But like I said, you know, things happen and you just kind of roll with the punches and I wanted to re-enlist. And so in the military, I really struggled with the run section of our physical fitness test. That’s important because it speaks to how I got out. What ended up happening was when we went to Kuwait was when I was able to to pass a physical fitness test, meaning the run section of it, because you got to run two miles, right, two minute pushups and two minute sit-ups.
And they have a bracket that tells you how fast you got to do it, how many reps you got to do based off your age.
So me, I was like 18, 19 or 19, 20 at this point. So we’re at the, like the youngest and the highest reps that you got to do. I knew I had to run a two mile and a 14 minutes standpoint, right, or timeframe.
I used to have to work hard to do it. And I ended up doing it to re-enlist.
And what ended up happening was when we came back from deployment, the orders came down from schooling, to send me to a leadership school for me to prepare to get the next rank.

[24:28] And so it was like mandatory that we had to go. So I didn’t want to go because I felt like I wasn’t really ready to go, but it was like mandatory and it made us go.
We took a physical fitness test I was part of the requirements and I ended up failing it.
At the same time, we had a transition of power. So we had a new commander who came in, right?
And so of course that came with new rules.
And so basically as a result of failing the test and failing off the school, they were like, hey, we’re giving you a few months period to, we’re gonna have a PT test at this date.
If you pass, you can stay in.
If you fail, we’re gonna chapter you out of the military.

[25:11] So at that time, I remember being so distraught, like, oh my God, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
And so the only thing I did was I really just prayed, right?
Cause everything I’ve always done, I’ve always felt spiritually led, that God always had a way for me to do it. The military, right?
Like I never thought of these things, like all this stuff just came in my way.
And I was pretty much like on a mission or told to go this direction.
And I’ve always been like that, even as a child.
So I prayed on it and I said, God, this is for me. Let me know if it’s time for me to go, let me know.
And so when I took the test to determine my future, I remember running and I ran like, I ran hard.
Normally, if you’re running hard, right? At the end of two miles, you’re gonna be exhausted.
You gasping for air, all these things. And I remember feeling at the end of the test, So at peace.

[26:06] Didn’t pass it, but I felt like a burden was lifted when I crossed that finish line of running the two miles.
And that was that point where I understood what God was telling me, that it was time for me to go.
I spent my time here enough. I ended up getting chaptered out. This was 2014.
And it was really rough because it was a mindset shift to accept God’s responsibility and mission.

[26:33] And understand what we were dealing with. We had one child at the time. I got married young before I went. I was married at 19. And so we had one child. I had my first daughter in 2013, and I got out. We had her August of 2013, and I was chaptered out March of 2014. And so it was really tough for me to find my way. So we were struggling. We were out in Colorado Springs, no family, it was just us.
And I had a mentor from in the military. I did a lot of cool stuff. So one of the things I did was ship our company all the way to Kuwait. They call it a unit movement officer. Normally, people who are doing this are are lieutenants. But I was the youngest and the I was the youngest in age and the youngest in rank to be a part of this class of doing you and hazmat to have the responsibility of shipping our company from Colorado all the way to Kuwait. So there I met this guy who was a retired military person, worked on the base as a government employee.
And he told me when I was getting out, he was like, Tariq, he said, always know what you’re worth and never settle. He said, never settle. So I kept that in my head. So when I got out of the military, I had the first call for a job to do a supply government job. And I remember they They’re gonna offer me $12 an hour, and that was it.

[28:01] And so I turned the job down immediately. And so my wife looked at me like I was crazy, like, boy, what?
Like, you don’t have nothing coming in and you just turn it down.
Twelve dollars an hour. So now fast forward. She’s like, that’s the day I knew like you.
She’s like, I know what she was going to do, but I knew you was going to be successful.
Why are you turning down twelve dollars an hour job? But I always remember, you know, my my mentor, he was just like, listen, you know, don’t settle. Right. Go for what you work.

[28:30] And I ended up landing a job working at the chemical plant, and it started at $14 an hour.

[28:36] But it had its steps. So by the time it was said and done, like within a matter of six months, I was making $18 an hour as a government employee at this chemical plant.
That’s an improvement, but a really interesting story. And I really appreciate having those details.
It’s really fascinating to me the way serendipity sort of builds the platform that eventually supports you where you want to go.
But going on with your education, once you started, once you got into classes at Regis, did you know what you wanted to do at that point, or were you still uncertain?
So I was still uncertain. What I took up was business administration.
So I knew, yeah, at a young age. So just a little, I guess, history backstory here.
So on my father’s side of the family, I, at a young age, always considered them to be like most successful.
My grandpa was a businessman in New York. He owned restaurants, owned his own real estate property management.
My dad was, you know, After he was released from prison, he did a number of stand-up entrepreneurial journeys from starting different companies. And so I was like, man, he’s had a really successful.
I remember at a young age.

[30:03] So you had some role models in the family. Right. I had some role models still, right? So it wasn’t all bad. So I had some role models, and my thing was, I was like, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I didn’t know what.
So in Regis, I took up business administration while I was still working, while having a wife and kids. By the time I settled on what I wanted to do, we were, I want to say, four kids in. So So I had my daughter, and I had my son.
And then right before I signed the contract to work for Northwestern Mutual, my twins were born.
So how I found Northwestern Mutual was, one of the classes I took at Regis was like a social networking, a social media class.
So we learned about WordPress and all these social platforms.
And we had one of the assignments of the classes or event, we had a networking event.
And so the teacher brought in like people from different professionals.
And it was my first time like attending a networking situation or event.
And I met a recruiter there from Northwestern Mutual, which piqued my interest into the company and what they did.
So I tried to follow up with him, no luck.
And then, and this was in Denver, because I used to have to travel to Denver.
Discovering Northwestern Mutual and their Internship Program

[31:29] It was only like an hour away.

[31:31] And so I didn’t have any luck for like, it had to be like three to four months.
And then I just kind of gave up on it. But then one day, the very next year, this was 2017, I just was like, man, I remember the company Northwestern Mutual.
So I looked it up to see if there was one in Colorado Springs and there was.
And so I reached out to the company and what I ended up doing was I got accepted to do their internship program as a full-time student, because I was, I just wasn’t a traditional student.

[32:01] But to do their internship program. And I did their internship program in 2017 and fell in love with the company. And what actually did it was Northwestern Mutual, if anybody know about the company, but they have a annual event every year where they go to the home office of Northwestern Mutual, which is up in Milwaukee. So all the advisors from all across the U.S. meet up in Milwaukee once a year over a few days for just a conference, awards, and continued education in the space. And when I went there, I was just blown away about the amount of knowledge that they were teaching about finances and wealth. And I never had been exposed to conversations like that growing up in my community.
So you were kind of hanging around with the big brains in one of the biggest financial, companies in the world.
Yes. It’s pretty cool. opinion to this day still one of the best right so it’s like I was really, really exposed. I was drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, if you will.
And I went home and I was telling my wife about it. And I was like, I really think.
Challenging Beginnings: Learning the Ropes in Corporate America

[33:24] This is what I want to do. Mind you, never been in sales, never been in corporate America in this, status besides the military. And so I ended up being able to get accepted to get a contract to to be a full-time advisor.
And so I learned a lot, but it was very challenging for me, right?
It was very, very challenging for me. Learned a lot, learned a lot about how the wealthy deal with their money, working with joint cases with other senior advisors.

[33:57] The education that we used to get learning about how insurance work, how investments work, and just the budgeting and just how wealthy people made money, how they dealt with their money and what they thought about money and their family.
And so in my head, I was like, man, I could really like change the narrative in our community by all this information that I’ve never been exposed to. I know most people in our community and African-American communities not learning this. And so that was my mission to join a company, you know, sell life insurance, educate the African-American community on how they can uplift themselves, be educated around finances. And what I had was a lot of passion and desire and it was met with reality of hard work. So what I mean by that is in Colorado Springs, state is probably made up of maybe like four to five percent African-Americans in the state. So in Colorado Springs, I am one of only two black people, advisors in the office. Right. I think at one point we had another one, but then they left.
And so basically one of only two black advisors in the office that came with his challenges, because what I ended up realizing was I’m trying to sell life insurance to.

[35:26] African-Americans and I’m going after clients who are still trying to understand how to pay pay their bills on a day-to-day, let alone understand the concepts of life insurance and financial planning to be planning for the future when they’re trying to live day-to-day.
That was met with challenges of how to survive, make money for me to make a living, and do what I’m supposed to be contracted to do.
Well now, Tariq, I have to apologize for the interruption, but I really want to ask the, question that I think really needs to be asked, and that is, was the reason that you were having so much difficulty attracting clients simply because of the profound racial disparity and you couldn’t find people that really wanted to work with an African-American advisor?
Racial Disparity and Challenges in Attracting Clients

[36:26] Or was it just something else?

[36:29] You know, I think it was, I don’t wanna put it that far. I think that’s true.
And I think also, as I reflect back on it, I think that the environment that I was in in the office that I was in, I think it was really hard for a lot of the advisors to teach me how to sell, to non-African-Americans so that we could make a living.
And in my head, I’m thinking that I could just make a living selling only to majority African-Americans.
And I figured out that that wasn’t the case.
So I didn’t know how to transition to not selling to African-Americans and selling to our Caucasian or white counterparts, that could add that value.
And the racial disparities, it is a thing, right? thing, right? So of course, all the big firms were, all the big firms that were on the initiative of diversity and inclusion.
So there was a big thing to grow the diversity and inclusion amongst the office.

[37:42] But I remember I had an advisor and he was pretty, you know, so he was an advisor.
People were like, I don’t know if you ever had some idea like, hey, you know, warn you about like, don’t mess with this person. He’s really like, you know, he’s like a hard person or, you know, he’s not that, you know, tough to crack.
His name was Scott McKinnick. But we had a serious conversation. It was the first time I really got to understand him, and I was like, oh, Scott’s not that bad. He’s a cool person.

[38:09] But what he told me was, he said, listen, I’m going to just be honest with you. He said, people, African American and women, I haven’t seen them in my career last in this career field.
Like this is a career field that’s for white males, and that’s who survives here. There’s.

[38:26] Not a lot of women who succeed over here. There’s not a lot of African Americans who succeed over he told me straight up. And I really appreciated that honesty because it brought me to just, you know, a level of understanding of the playing field that I was in. But not for one second, I took up everything that I could, you know, and learned a whole lot. And so what ended up happening was, so the next year that I went to annual, I met this brother, this African American guy by the name of Timothy Radden. He’s worked for Northwestern Mutual, has a practice out in Phoenix, Arizona. And Tim Radden was the first African-American hire, to my knowledge, at Northwestern Mutual, and then was one of the first African-Americans to hit top-rated charts at African Reform Advisor, Million Dollar Roundtable, all the accolades. The person that you want to be, it was him. And he became a mentor. From his story, I understood, like now looking back at it, because what ended up happening was just to, I guess, go back and forth was I ended up getting fired from Northwestern Mutual because I wasn’t really cutting it as an advisor. I wasn’t hitting the minimums. That’s basically what it was. So, of course, initially I’m all mad and just like, man, they really didn’t know what I want to do because that’s where I didn’t see anything else.
Finding Mentorship and Transitioning to a New Career

[39:52] I was like, man, you know, I just knew that I would be a career advisor.

[39:56] Maybe I was just a late bloomer. Year four, year five, I would take off in my career, just.

[40:02] Still to the top, but that didn’t happen.
But before I left, I had the opportunity to work with Timothy Radden.
And Tim’s business was majority of his clients were physicians.
And so he taught a course of specifically, they put a program together specifically for African-American advisors.
He taught it and he taught us over a four-course series where we traveled from different cities, to learn over four-course series, like how to get into the physician market, how to work with physicians, right, and why physicians need our help as advisors.
He broke into like his practice and what he discovered and where his office is in Phoenix He did like a marketing.

[40:55] Analysis and discovered there was like for some crazy number like four to five hospitals, Within the two mile radius north south east and west of his office So this is like back in the day before zoom and all that stuff So, of course advisors is trying to figure out how to maximize their time add value to their clients and receive income.
So because he realized that these hospitals were within this short radius, that’s who he decided to target as an audience because that’s who was there, right?
So he would go to these different hospitals and that’s how he built his book of business, built Forum Advisor. So he was teaching us all the stuff.
So there was this one story he told me or told us, because it was a group of us that made me realize, like now, as I have exited out of Northwestern Mutual, the disconnect between my thinking of me being a career field advisor and the office’s disconnect on how to help somebody like me, you know, sell and be successful in Northwestern.
Right. And so he said, he said he had a manager partner, really just like seeing some potential in him and felt that he would be really, really successful and took, the magic partner took him under his wing.

[42:14] And taught him directly, told him everything he had to do to really be successful.
And Tim took it, did it, ran with it, and became successful. So in that instance, Tim was planted in the right place at the right time in the right environment.
Me looking back at it, I understand that I was there for a short amount of time to learn what I need to learn to continue God’s mission. But at that time, I didn’t see it that way. I looked at it like, you know, they didn’t really help me. The office wasn’t reaching out to me for me to be successful. I didn’t have any senior leadership support, which I didn’t.
But then I think to be successful, there’s a 90 percent percentile that we have to take accountability for our own actions. So I’m like, hey, I could have learned more. I could have try it more. I could have been willing to do other things, to figure out the way, to penetrate other markets, to work with other people, to be successful in this business.

[43:17] Darrell Bock Well, I’m sure there’s probably several chapters in the book that take us from that point right there to Eagle Financial Group. But maybe Maybe you can give us sort of the Reader’s Digest version and talk about where you are now.
So between there and then, or then and now, what happened was my dad put together these.
Starting a family business and venturing into taxes

[43:46] Family businesses. And we was trying to, he started about five of them.
And he put it together with a group of us, siblings and my uncle being involved.
We started a company called, one of the companies was Business Services Solutions, where we, he wanted us to do taxes and be an all-service-based business for business owners and individuals on the finance side.
And of course, me having the experience, me leading that charge.
The problem was though, Randy, was I didn’t want to do taxes.
I said, no, I don’t want to do taxes. I can’t imagine why.
What could possibly be more exciting than taxes, right?
Right. I didn’t want to do taxes. On top of just the tax work and, of course, being at Northwestern Mutual, we learned a lot about the tax code, so I knew most of the tax code in and out from advisory, but I didn’t want to deal with it.
Also, I didn’t want to deal with the clientele that came with the individual taxes that I knew we were going to be doing. So I was like, I don’t want to do this. And I was real hesitant on joining the companies. But like I said, I was always, you know, with that spiritually led and I prayed on it. So I told my dad, I said, listen, I’m going to go all in. Boom. So I said, I’m going to do it. So I learned how to do individual taxes and ended up discovering that I really enjoyed it and was really good at it based off my knowledge that I already had.

[45:13] And then but quickly did I realize that I wanted to work with business owners.
So what ended up so that was my introduction into tax.
What ended up happening was where I left the company based off just some personal stuff that goes on with, you know, all the bad things you hear about partnerships.
And on top of that, family partnerships like still was hiring, wasn’t getting paid, all these things of that nature.
And it put me on a crossroad to figure out what is it that I wanted to or what I was going to do.
And so that’s what birthed Eagle Financial Group. And what happened was in 2021, so the way I got into taxes was through my dad, but we got into it because my uncle was in the tax industry and was successful at it on the individual side.
He’d been in the industry for like a little over 10 years at the time that we started.
But in 2021, they started to educate people on getting into the business owners on how they can make money from being into doing taxes.
And so I went to their boot camp and it was the boot camp that gave me the courage to to say, hey, let me start my own company and see if I could do this on my own.

[46:28] And so that’s how Eagle Financial Group was birthed. But it’s a pretty brave move to step out there and do something like that, that you, I mean, you’re creating something, and yet you’re still a bit of a student, wouldn’t you say?
Yeah, so creating something, being a bit of a student, but I think that’s what entrepreneurship is.
It’s just the courage to just get out there before somebody else, but also understanding that you still, there’s a learning curve, right?
So even though I know that I’m good at what I do, there’s still a whole lot that I still learn and still seek mentors and coaches to learn more.
I knew my vision was to create a financial firm that wasn’t just one-sided in the sense, that could work with business owners and truly be a holistic firm where we took taxes and tax strategies and planning and incorporated with the business planning, which also included financial planning as far as the insurance and the retirement accounts and things of that nature.

[47:32] And so how can I fully service business owners to where they really don’t have to go anywhere and or individuals that I can walk them into a platform where they’d be set and don’t have to go anywhere outside of legal advice and loans because I’m like, we’re not going to do any lending.
And so that’s how that’s what that’s how I came up with the services.
So at our firm, we do tax preparation, tax strategies.
We do CFO services, and within that, there’s bookkeeping, payroll, and accounting services that we do, and we still offer life insurance.
Darrell Bock Well, let’s talk about that process a little bit.
How did you go about getting the message out about what you had to offer, and I guess basically is how did you get the message out? How did you get the message out?
Attracting clients through referrals and personal connections

[48:17] I’m saying, how did you decide how to go about attracting clients and finding clients?

[48:23] In my stint with the family companies, we were, despite having issues and financial issues, we were really successful to have been in the tax side. So three of us kind of took that charge to get tax clients. And so basically how I started off was friends and family, and then it led to referrals. So some old clients, but mostly friends and family, and advertising on social media, and text messages. I was sending individual texts to everybody I knew. Hey, we do taxes. I do taxes.
And that led to us within the years of the family company, we hit six figures our first year. So when I left and started my own company, I took my clients with me, of course, because they was my clients. So I set up my whole company, my own software, everything, and advertised to my clients.
And so we started off again in those arenas of the of my individual clients that I had.
But I had a few business owner clients who I was working with over the course of those two years, just from adding value, just from the annual tax basis side.
And so I remember even when I started the company, we were really scared.
I didn’t have no money really like and none at all.
But what happened was I got a client who called me and she was in the health care space.
So she does like private home health care.
And she was like, Tariq, you know, I know you, you know, you know, I’m.

[49:45] It’s time for me to just start, you know, getting really detailed with my business, do my bookkeeping and so we could take our business to the next level.
I had already been working with her for two years on an annual basis, telling her what she needed to do.
I said, OK, so great. So to do bookkeeping, this would be my first like bookkeeping client that on my own that I would have gotten.
So I said, OK, great. Well, to do it right, it’s going to be about $500 a month.
For you to do the bookkeeping services. And we can do this on a monthly basis.
Here’s the days of the payments. And this is here’s how we set it up doing all this stuff manually. Well, she was like, well, Tariq, well, do you have other options, payment options? And I was like, well, what are you looking to do?
She was like, well, what if I just pay you for the year all up front? And I was like, well, sure, you could do that. So I was like a little over six grand and I still didn’t believe it. I was like, no, there’s no way she’s going to pay this. Like, like who’s going to pay this annual fee up front. I never heard that. And so she was like, hey, well, what’s the information to wire into the account? I still gave it to her and still in my head, I’m just like, no, this is not going to happen. Of course, I just started. I’m just getting started. Right. So So I’m just like, man, this is not gonna happen.
And then the next day, sure enough, the little over six grand was in my account.
And I just remember just feeling accomplished. And I cried, Randy, I cried. I looked at my wife and I was like, oh my God, she paid us the six grand. Like, oh my goodness.

[51:11] That led us into doing the bookkeeping services. And so each service just kind of added itself.
And from doing the bookkeeping service, I realized that, well, hey, we need to get a a little bit more detail in the financial analysis, which led me to get into the CFO services.
And then, we were already doing tax planning, but then to make it more official to actually.

[51:32] Do this tax planning, then we started doing it. And all this happened over the span of a couple of years. The company quickly made six figures and well on our trajectory into the projections of the multi-seven figures. Yeah, that’s very interesting. And I was just about to say what you’re describing sounds like a really interesting hybrid between CPA and financial advisor.
Do you see yourself that way at all? That’s how I see myself.
So I label myself as a financial and tax strategist, and because of my extensive knowledge and how I grow my firm and our employees that we bring on, that’s how I see myself, more of that strategist because we are able to bridge the gap between the planning and the tax world and make it together to be holistic, to add that value to business.
Yeah.
Because on the truth of it, of the nature on the financial planning services, any financial planning or advisors may agree or disagree. But at the end of the day, right, we may do planning, especially anybody who works for a firm like Northwestern Mutual or New York Life or something like that. You’re going to do planning. But at the end of the day, The way that you get paid is by actually putting clients into products and into products that they purchase So we got to sell life insurance, or we got to sell retirement account.

[52:56] Right. And so most of them, depending on the company and depending on if they’re independent, now they start to realize, well, hey, I can get paid on the advisory based off the value that I add to these clients. And then we can get paid as well off the products and services we put into.
Focusing on business owners and high-income individuals

[53:11] Them. And so I realized that we could do that for business owners because that’s what business owners have the most needs. Right. High net worth individuals have the most needs and we have the the solutions to solve all the needs that these business owners and high-income individuals have.
So are you continuing to focus on primarily African-American clients, or do you make yourself widely available to anybody who’s interested?
I’m very interested to know how that’s developed.
Because if I were still in practice, I’d want to be your client.
For sure. So how that developed is I open up my firm to everybody.

[53:57] So I don’t target one specific race or gender. We go after any and everybody.
I have a number of well-diverse clients from Spanish to African-American to Caucasian.
And how that ended up happening was Tim, this was still when I was with Northwestern.
Tim told me, he said, listen, Tariq, He said, I understand that you want to service African-Americans. He said, most of us who get into this career field, that’s what we want to service. He said, the problem with that is you have to target a specific group of African-American called the affluent African-Americans, those of us who have reached a certain level of financial intellect or profession that give us the money to be able to afford the products and services that we offer. He said, So what you should do is just service the clients, no matter what the color is.
And the way that you give back to your community is provide, you do it by charity, right?
Provide educational services, teach them till they get to the point where they can afford your services.
He said, but for right now, you have to go after the people who can help you be successful and who you can properly serve.
And so I really didn’t understand what that meant then. But then as I opened up my firm and then we started to do taxes what I quickly realized was that.

[55:21] Money is not necessarily a race barrier. It’s just a barrier. It’s either you came into money and you know how to use it or you don’t.
So I find many people, right, from nurse practitioners to physicians that are all descent color backgrounds, and they just don’t understand the thing about money to know how to manage it, what to do with it, how to service them with it. And so that opened my eyes to being not targeted by race, but just open to having a conversation with any and everybody.
It’s a remarkable, really remarkable business model and I’m fascinated by what you’ve done.
I have often wondered why, if you were in a position to need financial advice many times and I think a lot of people still do this, you have to go to different places.
You have to go to your accountant, you have to go to your broker, you need to go to your financial advisor, this and that.
It sounds like that you’ve done a remarkable job of condensing a very important service into one place, one stop shopping for a very complicated need that exists among lots of people.
And it really has worked out very well for you. So congratulations on that.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.

[56:47] Well, look, I’ve really enjoyed hearing about the story of how Eagle Financial Group came about and congratulations to you on that. I really enjoyed the conversation. Having said that, I want to do what we came here to do and that is give you an opportunity just to speak to our audience on your own. So I’m going to step out of the way for a few minutes and audience. Tariq Collins is going to give us his personal prescriptions for success. My personal prescriptions for success will be, first thing, just from my story as you heard, right, I’m very spiritually led.
So I think that anything that you do.

[57:28] You really should be having a calling for it. Right. There’s a time where you may not know what the calling is.
So, you know, you just do a lot of stuff. So I think in your early years, you want to just work to figure out what what it is that you really want to do or call to do.
But just being here to the call and making sure that you have good coaches along the way.
So specific when it comes to to money habits, you want to make sure that we’re doing the proper things around our money, right?
Budgeting, saving. Do we have good cash flow either in our business or in our personal life?
Right. Are we doing a lot of paying bills to to to to get all these material things and having the work to pay it off?
All right. So you want to create good habits? You want to create good habits of work ethic and you want to create good.

[58:15] Money habits. Those habits come with actually assigning things for your dollars to do right so as you know money comes in you start to control and place where it goes so this works for your personal financial side the business side and more especially for taxes right because the more that you especially our business owners the more that you have control over it the better you are at telling where your money to go to keep more of it and pay less to Uncle Sam because nobody wants to just give away money to Uncle Sam. Right. And you always just want to be a student. So just learn as you go.
Right. So even in our most professional career fields, we have you know, we know that we know a lot. We know a lot of stuff and we know that we are the top at what we do. And so it’s best to still always remain a student and learn from anybody, learn from the old, learn from the young, Seek out your coaches and mentors to learn.
And so one of the things I want to dispel about on my prescription list is just that real belief around money. Money has the value that you really place on it.
And when it comes down to it, it’s just a matter of how people think about money.
And that’s the difference between the brackets of the poor and the wealthy.
People think about money to pay bills is I make money and the money’s already spent before they got it. I gotta pay rent, I gotta pay this, I gotta pay that.

[59:44] The middle class to rich think about money to work for it, right, to make a lot of money, to buy things that they really can’t afford, to work overtime to pay it off. And then the wealthy understand that we need to make money for our money to make money.

[1:00:03] And that’s really the key difference. Right. So it’s really simple.
Once you just get a different viewpoint on how to see money.
So once you get out of that, keeping up with the Joneses, going out there and buying this and buying that and got to get the big house and got to get the car and all these materialistic things that depreciate over time and nothing that’s really appreciating or adding value to your life or your money, you start to see money the way wealthy people do.
And wealthy people make money for their money to make money of how they can make money in their sleep, how I can control most of it and not give it away to the government, and how I can be in control of and be a good steward of where my money goes.
And so to wrap that up, one of the formulas that I’ve learned about it, and this applies to anything as we get around mindset, there is a formula to success that we have.
And I think in order for us, before we get to that formula, there’s a practicality formula that we must understand about how to obtain knowledge and apply it.
So ignorance, right? You go through these different stages in life.
First you have ignorance. Ignorance is the absence of truth, right?

[1:01:16] So as a baby, you’re just born and you don’t know nothing. So your parents is trying to teach you what’s this, what’s that, oh, I have a hand, I have an ear, I have a nose, this is my name.
And watch you become.
Knowledgeable on that, then you have what’s called knowledge, right?
So knowledge is the accumulation of truth.
So once you go from ignorance, you go to knowledge because you accumulated truth.
Then from accumulating truth and having knowledge, you have understanding, which is the assimilation of truth.
Right. So having a real understanding. Right. And so understanding that you can have knowledge without having understanding.
Like I may know taxes and know about taxes and know I have to pay taxes every year.
But I don’t really understand that as an employee that I get paid, the government takes their money and then I get what’s left.
And then as a business owner, well, I get paid, I get to choose what my expenses are.
And then the government gets what I say is left based off my profit.
That’s having understanding.

[1:02:15] And then wisdom is where you ultimately want to get to. And wisdom is just the application of truth.
So after I’ve understand, after I required it and understand it, now I have wisdom because I applied in my life. So now that I understand budgeting, I know that once I make money, 20 percent goes over here for taxes. Thirty percent is over here for my living expenses.
And I’m not spending. I’m not. My living expenses is not more than than what it needs to be.
And then you have created good money habits. And, you know, where to put your money to save for retirement always began with the end in mind.

[1:02:51] And so with that brings us to a success formula that I practice on a daily basis.
Having the right mindset times the skill set with the right tool set equals assets.
And assets follow income.
The Formula for Success: Mindset, Skill Set, Value

[1:03:08] Right. Or income followed assets. Right. So if I have the right mindset around money or whatever it is I’m trying to do and I multiply that with the skill set to be good at a particular skill and then I know I can add value to the marketplace.
Right. And then I put that with the right tool set. Then I know that I will produce an asset, an income follow asset.
So ultimately, you want to be able to provide value in the marketplace, which as physicians, you know, you all know that you’re going to do that.
Right. How can I get the mindset around being a physician, knowing I have to go through years of school and then years of training before you can even get to the amount of work that you know that you can get to?
And then all that training is producing that skill set. And then you have the application of doing it.
And then the right tools have been in the right environment, right?
The hospital, the right mentors, the right leaders.
You’re going to be producing assets and income follows that.

[1:04:02] And so those are my prescription for success. I think I hope that that was helpful and an added value to you all.
I think it’s going to be a lot of a lot of help to whoever is fortunate enough to hear this podcast.
A lot of wisdom in there. Tariq and I appreciate you sharing with us.
The notes that I’ve made include search for your calling, Find competent advisors and coaches, develop good habits, never stop learning, and perhaps most importantly, know your relationship, know and understand your relationship with money.
There’s just a tremendous amount of wisdom in those few little minutes that you shared with us, and I’m so grateful that you were able to take the time to be with us and share with us in that way.
Before we go, I wanna give you an opportunity tell our audience where you can be found and how they can get in contact with you if they, like.
Yes, Randy. So if anybody’s looking to work with us at Eagle Financial Group, we service clients in all 50 states. And so you can reach us via our website at www.EGLE.org.

[1:05:13] Fsg.com www.eaglefsg.com you can also Send us a give us a call at very close seven one nine, seven five five Zero zero four three you can also text that number as our office line and we receive text, And you can reach us via email at customer support support, customer support at EagleFSG.com.
So if you’re looking to reach out, reach us, then that’s how you do it.
Tariq Collins, it has really been a lot of fun talking with you today.
And I thank you so much for taking the time to be with us on Prescriptions for Success.
Thank you. I appreciate your time and appreciate your platform.
And hopefully, we’ve added some value that we’ll be able to reach everybody.
Thank you so much for listening today. If you enjoyed the show, you can help us reach more listeners by leaving a rating and a review, especially on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
And if your app doesn’t have that option, just leave us an email or a voicemail through Speakpipe at www.rx4successpodcast.com.

[1:06:32] You can also help by becoming a Patreon member. That link is in the show notes, and we hope you’ll also follow our companion podcast, Life-Changing Moments with Dr. Dale Waxman.
Special thanks to our producer, Craig Clausen, our promotions manager, Mariana Rodabaugh, and to Ryan Jones, who created and performs our theme music.
And remember, be sure to fill your prescription for success with my next episode.

[1:07:00] Music.
Sponsorship Message: Eagle Financial Group

[1:07:08] Today’s episode was brought to you by Eagle Financial Group.
From fractional CIO to tax prep, and everything in between, Eagle Financial Group can help.
Them on the web at EagleFSG.com.