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“You’re probably right,” Gabe said. “Actually, I know for a fact you’re right. She’s said it to me about a dozen times over the last week. She’s already trying to figure out how she can get back to work by the end of the month.”
“Is that even an option?” I asked.
“Not even close,” he said. “But she doesn’t want to hear me remind her of that.”
“So, another reason you got kicked out of the house?” I asked.
“Pretty much. So, I’m your problem now,” he said, grinning.
“I guess I can deal with you for a while. She’s been keeping up with you for a while now. She could use a break,” I said.
“What are you up to?” he asked, coming the rest of the way into the office.
“Just going over some of the monthly figures,” I said.
“Thrilling. How are things looking?”
“Pretty fantastic, actually. Our customer base is increasing every month, and most of them have ramped up,” I said.
Things had been going extremely well for my firm. Five years ago, I was working for someone else and wondering if I’d really made the right choice when it came to not staying with the family business. I enjoyed working with investments and knew I wanted to be on my own path, but it didn’t feel like I’d found my way. Working for someone else and always having to do things their way didn’t sit right with me.
Not that I didn’t like my boss or that I wasn’t a team player. With three brothers, you either learn to cooperate and work together, or you turn against everybody and it goes bad really fast. We were competitive, but all in all, we worked well together. That translated over to my career, and I never found myself pushing back against being without control or feeling bitter about my coworkers.
It just wasn’t as fulfilling as I thought it was going to be. Then I had a sit-down with my father. Dad was known for his sit-downs. He liked to grab a beer or a whiskey, sit back, and just have a conversation. It seemed casual while it was going on, but inevitably, we would look back and realize he had passed along some sort of wisdom to us.
The wisdom he gave me back then was not to settle for only going halfway down the road. If I wanted to get somewhere, it wasn’t enough to stop in the middle of the road and just look at that place. I needed to go all the way there. That was when I really started thinking about starting my own firm. My father fronted me the seed money, and I never looked back.
Now the firm was thriving. I had Gabe handling his own set of clients, and I’d paid my father back more than a year ago. I felt like I was really where I was meant to be, that I had accomplished something I was always supposed to.
“Are you still thinking we might be ready to bring in a junior investor?” Gabe asked.
I nodded. “Absolutely. Our client list is growing constantly, and if it keeps going like this, we’re not going to be able to keep up. I want to keep giving all our clients the highest quality service and make sure they can achieve their goals. Having a junior investor will help handle the smaller clients and some of the administrative work, so that will be really helpful.”
Gabe nodded, making an acknowledging sound. “Do you have anybody in mind yet?”
“Not yet. I was thinking we could put together a job posting and get it up in the next couple weeks. I would rather not use any of the headhunters. We should choose our own person.”
As I was finishing speaking, my phone chimed to tell me I got an email. I didn’t look at it, wanting to focus on the work in front of me. It was easy to get distracted and too involved in what a client needed when they emailed, so I preferred to not even look until I had a free minute.
“I agree,” Gabe said. “You never know, we might find someone the hunters didn’t even notice, but is amazing, and we can mold them into the best investor in the area.”
I looked at him for a second. “Are we talking about hiring a junior investor, or are you writing a screenplay for the Brat Pack?”
“They’re in their fifties. I don’t think they count as brats anymore. Also—” He stood up dramatically. “—I don’t have to take this. I’m going to my office.”
“Something you’ve been wanting to say your whole life?” I asked.
Gabe turned back to me with a wide grin and nodded. “Yeah.”
“It was good.”
“Thanks. I am actually going to my office, though. I need to catch up with some of my clients,” he said.
