No Ceiling: Paula Dougherty

Local women share their journey to the top of their professions and the challenges and triumphs they faced along the way. They’re rewriting the script on success and there’s no ceiling.

Below is an excerpt from the start of our conversation.

—Christine Temple, Executive Editor

Christine Temple: I want to go back a few years to 22-year-old Paula and cutting your teeth on this industry of financial planning and advising. Tell me about what starting your business was like.
Paula Dougherty: I came out of college probably like most people, not exactly sure what I wanted to do. I had an idea that I wanted to run a business because my dad had always been a small-business owner, so I was familiar with that concept and I was familiar with money. I was invited to interview at what was at that time American Express Financial Advisors. I really did not know a lot about the industry, but it sounded interesting to me. I got to work with several different advisers and see how they ran their business and get a feel for the business, although I still did not know what I was getting into.

My 22-year-old self thought I was done with school and college. And then I heard others talking about these licenses, the Series 7 and the 63. What I found out was in order to progress in the industry, you had to have certain licenses. I took those and passed those and that set me off on my journey of understanding – looking back – that this business is constant learning and changing.

I was then told that I had to go out and get clients because I didn’t have a single one. And I thought, well, my natural market is college kids, which were my friends and their parents, and they knew how old I was and that I was new in the business. It was a hard start. Somehow, somebody had faith in me. I remember the first person that decided to give me a check. I still have a copy of it. I was so shocked and surprised that someone would just trust me with their money.

Temple: You mentioned your dad is a business owner and you had that view of finance, but for you to have that belief in yourself to ask someone to believe in you, can you tell me more about where that came from and what were those conversations in your own mind to psych yourself up to make that call or to ask someone to trust you?
Dougherty: Someone asked me recently, “What would you tell your younger self?” It’s such a different environment now because I see so many women that have so much more confidence. I’m not saying that it’s still not challenging, it’s just different because so many doors have been opened.

So, if I were to say to myself then, you’re not going to believe how much the industry is going to change, I probably wouldn’t believe it. But also, I would say just tell myself just to trust more in yourself. I think we always have stories that are going on in our head and this narrative and they’re not necessarily true. Someone asked me once, “Would you talk to other people the way you talk to yourself in your head?” I thought, no, I wouldn’t. I’d be much kinder and gentler.

That really started to change the narrative in my head that you’re not going to be perfect. You’re going to fail. And that failure is actually better than a string of successes because I think if you can fail fast and fail forward and learn from it, you’re going to learn so much more and become such a bigger, better person out of that.