Lessons from Loving: How to Move the Planning Profession Forward in Terms of Diversity
Ajamu Loving’s dad, who was a financial services professional, used to frequently make house calls to meet with his clients. It was back in the 1980s where everything was done on paper. So he’d haul his suitcase full of papers to each meeting with him.
One of his first clients gave him a shopping list before they’d even met. He agreed, reluctantly, to pick up the items for her.
“I said, ‘So what did you do?’” Loving, Ph.D., assistant professor of finance at the University of North Texas at Dallas told Rianka R. Dorsainvil, CFP®, in an episode of the podcast 2050 TrailBlazers. “He said, ‘I went to Jewel [a Chicago-area grocery store] and I picked it up!’”
When he got to the Chicago apartment building with the items, he realized she lived on the third floor in a building with no elevator. He walked up all the way to the third floor with his briefcase, all his papers and the client’s groceries. He was feeling somewhat disappointed and a little frustrated.