>> My name is Tish Austin [assumed
spelling] and I am a Senior Financial Advisor
and First Vice President
Investments with Merrill Lynch.
Essentially what I do is I help
people manage their investments.
I work with around one hundred
clients and businesses
and essentially help them determine
what their financial goals are
and I will work with them to help meet them.
Usually I have, I work with a number of
families, and so it is not uncommon for me
to work with perhaps even
four or five generations.
I have one family on my fifth generation.
So I would work with the families to help them
manage their investments over their lifetimes
and actually in their children's
lifetimes as well.
And the families are located all over the
United States, and including here locally.
I start my day every morning, or every
weekday morning, at 5:00 in the morning
and at 5:30, I'm on the tennis court.
So I start and play tennis every weekday morning
from 5:30 to 6:30, and on my way I head home
and while I'm getting ready I watch Business
News and keep up on the market and what is going
on overseas, anything that might be
affecting the earnings that day the markets
that day, and then I head into work.
From there, I really work with these families
to handle whatever happens to come up during
that day, and it can be really
varied and it is mostly
about making their lives as easy as I can.
I say my job is make it hard
on me, make it easy on them.
So I want them to do nothing, I want us
to do everything that we can to allow them
to spend their time doing
something that they love.
And if they love the financial part of it, the
investment part of it, then we do that together
and if they'd rather do less of
that, then we do less of that.
It will vary according to their interest level.
That would definitely be working with the
clients that I've developed over the years,
and also the people I work with in the office.
You get to work with who you want, and
so people that I work with are fabulous.
They're fun, I love combining business and
pleasure, so if there is something that I want
to do and want to enjoy, then I usually think
who of the clients I work with would also enjoy
that and I usually say, "Hey let's go do
this," or for example, I'm a big tennis fan,
so if there is a tennis tournament,
I would say who also would enjoy
that tennis tournament, and
we would go together.
So being able to combine business and pleasure
and enjoy the people that I work with,
that is definitely, definitely good and
working with the people, having the families,
I think one day last year I had
two younger family members come in
and one said I was a legend in their
household, and another said he knew my name
from the time he was five years
old and now he is in his twenties.
There was that, over the generations,
that I was part of their families
and to have two in one day, that was special.
Probably the best way would
be a business background.
I would combine that with
a psychology background,
so I would business and psychology together.
I'm very interested in behavioral finance
and the role that investor behavior plays
on the results that people can achieve, so
I would say the combination of business,
obviously knowing the business terms,
knowing what the basics of business are,
would be very valuable and also the
psychology aspect of it, and communication,
because communication works in any business
and particularly in the business of finance,
being able to get across concepts
that may or may not be familiar
to people no matter how sophisticated
is also very important.
I came to Rollins primarily for three reasons.
I wanted to stay in Florida, I wanted to
study business and my dad was a Morton grad,
so we looked at places all over the United
States, and also I wanted to play tennis.
And so Rollins was the only
place I ever applied,
it's the only place I was ever really interested
in, so it was a really easy choice for me
because it combined everything
that I wanted in one place.
I actually had part of my Rollins connection.
I had a friend of mine in one of the
beautiful parts about being at Rollins was
that the relationships that you have with
the people, because it's small and intimate,
you develop some really strong relationships
and it was a friend of mine from college
that I'd been in business classes with, and
he was working at E. F. Hutton at the time.
So he suggested, I had a job that I liked but
that I knew was not going to be a long-term job,
I actually only ever had two
jobs, that one and this one.
And I knew I wasn't going to stay there for
the long run, so he suggested that I come over
and work with him at E. F. Hutton and that
we join a team, that we become a team,
and so I went over to interview,
but they did not hire me.
So I was turned down there, but
they said that there wasn't space.
So he suggested that what I do is get a job
somewhere else, with another brokerage firm,
and then work the two years until
the contract was up and then join him
over at E. F. Hutton and
again do the same thing.
And when I interviewed a lot of places in town
and I eventually came on with Merrill Lynch,
and interestingly, I never went to E. F. Hutton.
He got out of the business and
is now an attorney and I stayed
with Merrill Lynch for more
than twenty five years.
The final piece of advice would
be no matter where you are,
especially if you are starting a first job or
if you're interning, would be to do everything
that you can to gain the respect
of those that you work with.
So I would include in that, work hard, and not
just work hard but work smart, be effective,
take advice from people that have made it
and not just ask advice, but take the advice.
I heard someone one time say, "If you get in
fifteen minutes earlier than everybody else
and spend that time learning something complex
that you become an expert
in a matter of months."
So anything that you can do to earn the respect,
you don't get it to start out
with, you have to earn it.
I would say it takes time and just do the
things that other people don't want to do
and don't really get the credit for it, and
do everything that you can to contribute
and believe it or not that really does work.
And people eventually recognize it.
I didn't realize that they were
recognizing it when I was doing it,
I thought I was just working hard
and doing what I was supposed to do,
but then you realize eventually
people notice that that was happening.
So I would say, you know, and that is wherever
someone is, no matter whether it's school
or if it's in a class or if it's in an
organization, I would just say do the work,
stay under the radar, and when it's time, ask.
If there is something that for someone
if you're looking to achieve something
or get to a certain spot, it's not work
hard, work hard, and hope somebody notices,
but it's work hard and present, gee, this
is an opportunity that I'd like to have
and here's why, and have good reasons.
But earning the respect of
those around you is a really,
really good stepping stone no
matter what you choose to go into.