A $270,000 retirement account went to zero overnight, and a two minute interview in a lobby ended with a stranger in an elevator handing over a phone number: Sean Foote and Stephen Welch on the years nobody sees.

Sean Foote and Stephen Welch are the managing partners of Crownmark Wealth Advisors in Atlanta, and they have built together for close to twenty years.

Stephen started as a telemarketer at MCI at twenty-three. He picked his 401k contribution rate by looking at the paper of the man sitting next to him, put all of it into company stock for the twenty percent discount, and watched the balance go to zero when WorldCom filed the largest bankruptcy in US history. Sean produced music for Jennifer Lopez and Mary J. Blige before walking away from an industry he could not sleep in, then spent months trying to get a wealth management firm to return a phone call. They met in the same training program in 2008 and have been partners since.

They explain:

What actually happens to a 401k when the company behind the stock files for bankruptcy

How Stephen chose his contribution rate and his investments on his first day, and what that decision cost him years later

Why Sean turned down his first job offer out of college and what he did instead

What happened in the two minutes that were supposed to be an interview, and who was waiting in the elevator afterward

Why the two of them partnered as rookies after being told that is not how the business works

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Two Hundred Seventy Thousand Dollars, Gone Overnight
00:00:40 Welcome To Crown Conversations
00:02:23 Telemarketer At MCI, Twenty-Three Years Old
00:05:03 Picking A 401k Rate By Copying The Guy Next To Him
00:06:50 Everything Into Company Stock
00:08:11 Borrowing From The 401k For A First Home
00:08:43 WorldCom Files The Largest Bankruptcy In US History
00:09:34 The Day The Balance Went To Zero
00:10:16 The Advisor Laughed
00:11:25 Investing For Dummies, Cover To Cover
00:13:01 The Call That Made Him An Advisor
00:15:36 Seventeen Thousand Dollars A Year
00:17:39 Producing For Jennifer Lopez And Mary J. Blige
00:19:20 Atlanta, And A Job That Cost Him Sleep
00:21:44 Everything Is Sales
00:22:50 Best Suit, Day Off, Two Minutes In The Lobby
00:24:15 The Stranger In The Elevator
00:25:36 Sitting In The Car, Holding The Wheel
00:26:17 An Hour On The Phone With A Stranger
00:30:18 One Shot At The Series Seven
00:39:10 The Second Person He Called
00:41:20 The Coach Who Told Them To Do It
00:43:12 Two Decades As Equal Partners

Follow Sean Foote:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/iamseanfoote
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@iamseanfoote
X: https://x.com/iamSeanFoote
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@iamseanfoote
Facebook: https://facebook.com/Iamseanfoote
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-foote-crpc%C2%AE-qpfc%C2%AE-4a597218/

Follow Stephen Welch:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwelch7/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/iamstephenwelch
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@iamstephenwelch
X: https://x.com/iamStephenWelch
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@iamstephenwelch

Where to go next:

Stephen's 401k story is the reason Plan Participant exists. If you have a workplace plan and have never opened the portal, start here: https://planparticipant.com

In the opening minute they both land on the same word, legacy, and they mean the version that outlives the account balance. If there are people who depend on you: https://legacysuite.com

If you are past the point where a portal answers your questions, Crownmark takes applications: https://www.crownmarkwealth.com