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Socially responsible businesses are not new concepts. For centuries, people have been using their businesses and investments to engage and better their communities and their environments. We saw this on a local level through examples such as corporate-sponsored community health programs.

Women have been historically underrepresented in Financial Services. According to a 2017 study by Stanford University, men comprise 75% of the Wealth Management field and fill 80% of the leadership roles. However, a young black woman from Georgia has continued the trend of women breaking the glass ceiling in Financial Services. In March 2017, Lauren Simmons made history as the youngest full-time woman equity trader at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). “I am proud to have a badge of a trader,” Simmons said of her achievement in an interview with LinkedIn.

The origins of Halloween date back 2000 years ago when the Celts, who lived around Northern Ireland, celebrated their New Year on November 1. This day was believed to be the beginning of a dark, cold winter with low food supplies, and increased opportunity to meet a mortal’s end. It was said that on the evening before this new year, the boundary between the world of the living and the dead was believed to become blurred. Ghosts and ghouls returned to Earth with tricks and spookiness abound.

Now a popular holiday worldwide, Halloween’s frightening undertone isn’t only because of the spooky costumes, it’s also the stories we pass on to one another. Each industry deals with scary stories and fears that aren’t always life-threatening or haunted, but still a scary story indeed. To commemorate this, we gathered a group of Vanderbilt Financial Advisors to pass on their stories about the worst fears they see in clients and how they ease them.

Being an independent Financial Advisor often means growing your business on your own without the structure or framework of a large firm. While the upsides to that are many (think: being your own boss on your own terms), the downside can include not having the business building skills needed to grow.

An often under-utilized resource for leveling up on these skills can be found within the yearly mandated Continuing Education (CE) courses you’re required to take to uphold your license. Advisors may sometimes think of these as merely a compliance obligation, yet we’re here to let you in on a secret: there is valuable content that could help to build your entrepreneurial advisory IF you take the right classes.

Below are 4 relevant CE Courses and why they could help your practice: