Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with

financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading

financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success

and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next

level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone.

Welcome to the 82nd episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast is

Ben Coombs. Ben is the former owner of Petra Financial Advisors and independent

advisory firm that he built and ultimately sold to his successor when he was ready to retire

and is now retired after nearly 40 years of experience as a financial advisor. But what's really

unique about Ben is the fact that he was a member of the very first class of CFP certificates in

1973 and was subsequently involved in the formation of the very first class of CFP certificates in 1973 and was subsequently

involved in the formation of the Institute for Certified Financial Planners, also known as the ICFP

later that year, and was a member of the board of directors of the CFP board in its early days.

In other words, Ben has actually lived and been a part of the entire history of the movement

of financial planning

from the very beginning. And in this episode, we talk in depth about the history and evolution

of financial planning itself, from what it was like to be part of the first class of CFP

certificates, the challenges that set back the early financial planning movement when it was

still largely about using financial plans to sell products, while the Professional Association for CFP Certificants split from the Broad Association for Financial

Advisors and took nearly 25 years to be rejoined as the FPA. The lawsuit that actually caused the

CFP board to be created as a spinoff from the College for Financial Planning in Denver,

and how almost all of the common

...