Christopher Walsh

I worked in semiconductor manufacturing before financial services. Before that I was in the Navy — nuclear machinist mate, second class, got out in 2009. After the Navy I went to college for a few years and then took my technician skills into manufacturing. I love working with my hands. I love fixing things. What I didn’t love was finishing every day and not being able to tell you what any of it was for.
Something else was going on at the same time. I had no financial education. None. No budget, no understanding of how money actually worked, and I was spending more than I made every month. By the time I came back to college my student loans had spiraled. I was working full time and ignoring the bills until one day I got threatened with wage garnishment.
That was the moment.
Driving home from a Home Depot here in the Valley I heard Dave Ramsey on the radio hooting and hollering about The Total Money Makeover. I bought the book. Got on a budget. Got out of debt. Started an emergency fund.
After I started getting things together I reached out to a Dave Ramsey SmartVestor Pro here at Capital Choice — Trent Reynolds. Trent’s been a colleague of mine ever since. One day he asked me a question I couldn’t shake — why couldn’t I teach what I’d learned to other people. Help them hit their goals. Help them find some fulfillment in figuring this stuff out the way I had.
I didn’t expect the transition to be hard. I’m a fast learner. I usually hit the ground running in anything I do. Financial services humbled me. This isn’t transactional work, it’s relationship work. Money is one of the most personal things in somebody’s life and people don’t open up about it until they trust you. I had to learn how to be the person someone could be vulnerable with. My first couple years were slow. I’ve grown every year since.
These days I get recognized in hallways by people who were referred by somebody I worked with. The reputation I’ve built is being the guy who’ll help you see through the forest. I keep a running log of clients to reach out to. Birthdays. Anniversaries. I try to know what’s going on in their lives, not just their accounts.
My clients across Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Goodyear, and the rest of the Valley are anywhere from 30 to 70. The younger ones are starting to realize how exposed their families would be if something happened to them — serious illness, injury, a premature death — and they want to fix that. The older ones have built something real and want to know they’re being efficient with it. Both groups want the same thing. Somebody who’ll explain it straight and won’t sugarcoat what’s actually going on.
I have strong opinions about this industry. Compound interest is the most underused tool in retirement planning and most people meet it twenty years too late. Cash value life insurance has been sold to a lot of families that did not need it. I’ve yet to meet a CFP who can back the math up when I ask.
Series 6, 63, 65, and SIE. Starting my ChFC this fall.
Outside the office I’m a husband and a father of three girls. We live in Goodyear on the west side of the Valley. Married five years. My record collection is behind me on every Zoom call. I drive a Tesla Model 3, my wife drives a plug-in hybrid SUV.
Three little girls means our weekends are full. There’s dance class and taekwondo on rotation. We’re regulars at Wildlife World Zoo out in Litchfield Park and at the Phoenix Zoo at Papago Park, and the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale is a favorite — the train rides never get old. We hit a lot of the parks around the West Valley too. Once the summer heat sets in we live at the splash pads — Tempe Town Lake and Scottsdale Quarter are the two we keep coming back to. We took the kids to Disneyland recently and we’re planning to head back out that way soon.
I’m an Arizona sports lifer. Suns games at Footprint Center, Sun Devils football at Mountain America Stadium in Tempe, Diamondbacks at Chase Field, and Cardinals Sundays at State Farm Stadium in Glendale. The 2006 Fiesta Bowl — Ohio State versus Boise State, State Farm Stadium — is still the best college football game I’ve ever seen in person.
If a client referred a friend to me, what I’d want them to say is that I’m patient, I’ll explain it in a way you actually understand, I don’t judge, and I don’t cut corners on the plan. You can tell pretty fast when somebody doesn’t care. That’s not me.
You can’t chase your dreams while you’re waiting for your eyes to open.