We’re looking forward to introducing you to Phil Weiss CPA, CFA, RLP®. Check out our conversation below.
Phil, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
You only want me to choose one? Aren’t all of these important? I need to utilize my brainpower to run my business and take care of my clients. I need the energy to accomplish tasks in my business and professional life, to take care of myself and my family, and to exercise and have fun.
As a financial advisor, I am committed to acting as a fiduciary and making recommendations in my clients’ best interest. As a Registered Life Planner, I am committed to helping my clients live their most fulfilling lives. Working with them on their life plans allows me to better understand what matters most to them. As a result, I can comfortably make recommendations in their best interests.
Deciding to work with a financial advisor is an important decision. It involves having a considerable amount of trust. After all, when you agree to work with me, you share intimate details about your financial life, as well as your values and what’s most important to you. In order to enter into a truly holistic relationship with a financial advisor, you must trust the person you decide to work with. This means I must show the utmost level of integrity. You should never have a reason not to trust me. If clients didn’t think I had integrity, I can’t imagine why they would want to work with me.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am the Founder of Apprise Wealth Management. I started my financial services career in 1987, working as a tax professional for Deloitte & Touche. For over 25 years, I have worked extensively in the areas of personal finance and investment management. I am a CFA charterholder, a CPA, and a Registered Life Planner (RLP®).
At Apprise, I focus on working with women facing new beginnings. My goal is to help them flourish through life’s big changes.
For women facing significant transitions, it’s stressful trying to understand how to bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to go. I am committed to managing the financial aspects of these transitions, allowing my clients to focus on the lives they want without worrying about what’s next.
My goals are to help women:
· Feel Financially Stable: Gain a sense of security for a brighter financial future.
· Define Their Goals: Clarify financial priorities aligned with their values and
aspirations.
· Know Where They’re Going: Receive a tailored financial and life plan to help achieve their
goals.
My mission to empower women with financial education and resources stems from my desire to keep other women from facing the financial hardships my mother endured. Growing up in NJ, my family’s finances were managed by my father; he wouldn’t let my mother help, and, what’s worse, he wasn’t good at it. Bills were often paid late; we occasionally had services shut off. We had no savings. We received calls from creditors seeking payment. My father even went so far as to forge my signature to obtain credit cards he could use.
Like many women of her generation, my mother had little control over the family finances. She ultimately went back to school so that she could make her own choices and support herself.
Watching my mom struggle to get through this was very heart-wrenching. I give her so much credit for going back to school later in life and becoming an occupational therapist.
While my mother passed away more than 30 years ago, the work I do now is meant to continue her legacy. I have committed to focusing my time, energy, and practice on creating an environment where women can learn about investing, have fun, and become more confident in making wise financial decisions with less stress and worry.
At Apprise, I have the privilege of working with amazing, affluent women who seek clarity about their financial future. I ask questions to help clients better align their spending with what matters most in their lives. I also plan to establish a small scholarship that will grow over time to honor my mother’s memory. It will help women, like my mom, who return to school later in life.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Growing up, I thought I would be a doctor. Everyone else did, too. I recall at least one of my high school friends calling me “doctor” when signing my yearbook. One of the motivations for attending Duke was that I believed going there would give me the best chance of becoming a doctor. But the financial problems I mentioned earlier at home caused me to leave after my junior year. I had done a lot to stay in school that long, but I owed the school enough money that we agreed I needed to repay it before I could return.
I moved to Tucson while I was working to earn the money I needed to repay my debt. When I was ready to return to school, being a doctor was no longer what I wanted to do. I decided to study accounting. Duke doesn’t offer accounting degrees, so I had to attend another school. I chose Rutgers because I thought I’d get a better job graduating from there rather than from the University of Arizona.
I graduated with an accounting degree and became a CPA. I became disenchanted with that line of work, so I pursued the CFA designation to help me get out of the tax department. I worked as a writer and editor while pursuing that designation.
After becoming a CFA charterholder, I worked as an analyst covering oil and gas stocks (the energy sector). Then I worked for another advisor before deciding that I was tired of “working for idiots,” so I started Apprise.
In short, I was many things before the world—and my life’s path—led me to becoming a financial advisor. It took me a long time to find my way to where I am now. It was also the best career decision I ever made. I love what I do, and I enjoy working with and helping my clients. In the end, it couldn’t have worked out better.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
The financial issues I faced growing up definitely hurt me. They drove me to take an entirely different career path. At the same time, I have come to realize that there are two kinds of role models. The bad ones—like my father—can still teach you a lot. When it comes to personal finance, he taught me everything not to do. While I worked when I returned to college, I still graduated with considerable credit card debt, as I paid for tuition and rent with credit card checks.
Once I realized how much I was paying in interest on those cards, I designed a plan to repay that debt. I paid it off sooner than I expected.
Since then, I’ve learned a great deal about personal finance. I haven’t had credit card debt since that time. I pay off my credit cards in full each month. I don’t carry other debt beyond a mortgage and a car payment. My wife and I have already paid to put three of our four kids through college. We have savings to help us live a comfortable retirement.
Even better, I get to help others avoid the type of financial issues I experienced growing up. While I once regretted not graduating from Duke, I no longer do. Yes, I would have liked to graduate from there. At the same time, if I had, I doubt I would have ever met my wife. I also wouldn’t be blessed with the wonderful family I have today. In the end, everything worked out great.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
As I mentioned earlier, I would like to establish a scholarship for women who return to school later in life. I’ve saved some money to help fund it, but I haven’t found the right place for it, and the right way to promote it yet. I’ve conducted some research, but I haven’t yet figured out the details.
I’ve told many people that this is something I want to do. It’s an essential element in my life plan. I would like to have it in place in time to grant the first scholarship for the 2026-2027 school year. I am less concerned than I used to be about the amount of the annual scholarship. I can always increase it over time. Currently, the primary goal is to simply get started.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Are you tap dancing to work? Have you been that level of excited at any point in your career? If so, please tell us about those days.
Since I work from a home office, I only have to go down a flight of stairs to get to work, so I don’t get to tap dance for long, but I definitely love the work I do. I’ve held a variety of different roles during my career—a CPA specializing in taxes, a writer and editor, an equity analyst, and now a financial advisor. All that came after I started school as a pre-med and a Psychology major.
I have never enjoyed my work more than I do today. Adding the RLP® designation to my toolbox only made it better. My favorite part of my work is helping clients with their life plans. I’ve seen the benefit that having and working to implement a life plan can have. I’ve shared my life plan on my website (https://apprisewealth.com/news/life-planning-training-reinforcing-my-purpose/) for two reasons. One is that I believe in transparency. I ask my clients to share with me. It’s only fair that I share with them, too. The other is that I enjoy getting to know my clients and what’s most meaningful to them. Building a relationship with my clients is my favorite aspect of my work.
Beyond the life plan, I get the opportunity to add meaningful value to my clients’ lives. The truth is that you can do the financial part of the work I do yourself. However, to do so effectively, you need to have what I refer to as KIT: Knowledge, Interest, and Time. As we age, life gets more complicated. We take on more responsibilities at work. If we have kids, we need to spend more time with them. Our goals and aspirations for what we want to see and do also expand.
I can help you free up more time in your day for those things that matter most to you. I can help you organize your finances, manage your savings and investments, and implement tax planning strategies that can help you save money on your taxes. Sometimes the tax savings don’t come right away. These strategies are designed to save you taxes over the long term—to reduce your lifetime tax bill.
When I worked as a tax professional, I initially worked with individuals, partnerships, and corporations. I ultimately specialized in international corporate tax planning. I came to view the work I did as helping companies shuffle paper around to increase the size of the national debt (as that was what I equated this type of tax savings to).
I enjoyed my work as an analyst, but the company I was working for didn’t provide opportunities for financial and professional growth, which was meaningful to me and my family. When I worked for another financial advisor, I began to see the mutually rewarding aspects of working as a financial advisor, but that wasn’t my primary role. Starting my own firm changed the equation. Now, I get to work with clients and help them flourish through the many changes that we all experience throughout our lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://apprisewealth.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phweiss11/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-weiss/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AppriseWealth
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdxgFt2cD1r5WP0-Y6LqMDg/
- Other: Weekly Blog: https://apprisewealth.com/news/
