Brian Waddell Advisor

Brian Waddell Advisor I help business owners and successful families make smarter financial decisions so their wealth actually lasts.

I hold degrees in business management and finance, have been
appointed with the Retirement Income Certified Professional
(RICP®) designation from the American College, and I serve as an
Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF®). Outside of my professional capacity I am passionate about
restoring trust and personal development, in 2022 I founded Dads
in Business™, a community organization aimed at bui

lding better
foundations for family and business. In 2023 I launched The DREAM
Team™ in partnership with Make-A-Wish foundation to help deliver
real experiences and memories to families with children battling
critical illness. I am blessed with an intelligent and caring daughter
Aleksandra who grows too fast, and am a longtime resident of West
Hartford. I enjoy golf, guitar and mountains are my happy place

"You just saved our marriage." Happens more than I expected when I got into this business.Had one of those meetings rece...
05/15/2026

"You just saved our marriage." Happens more than I expected when I got into this business.

Had one of those meetings recently.

Two people, same bank account. Completely different ideas about what the next thirty years look like.

One wants to travel, the other wants to be close to the grandkids, one wants to pay off the mortgage, the other is scared there won't be enough to retire on.

Neither of them wrong, neither of them talking to each other about it.

That's where most of the stress lives. Not in the market, not in the rate of return, in the conversation that keeps getting pushed to later.

We put everything on the table: every priority, every fear.

What had to come first before anything else could even be considered.

Once they could see the whole picture, something settled.

Wealth is a system. You figure out what matters most, you build around that, and the rest of the decisions get a lot easier.

I haven't had that much fun in a meeting in a while.

Four years ago I started investing in my thinking every single quarter and I don't want to know who I'd be if I hadn't.E...
05/13/2026

Four years ago I started investing in my thinking every single quarter and I don't want to know who I'd be if I hadn't.

Every time, I have to either arrange for my parents to watch my daughter, find someone for the dog, clear a dozen things off my plate. There's always a reason not to go.

But you feel it when you miss it.

I'm on a flight from Bradley to O'Hare right now, two hours of quiet and I'm already thinking differently than I was at the gate.

I've put more money into coaching than I ever put into a traditional degree. It's not close.

The decisions got sharper. The business grew in ways it wouldn't have. The version of me sitting on this plane wouldn't exist without the last four years of this…

If you've ever wondered whether 10x is real or just something people say, I don't know what to tell you except that I'm living it.

The best investment I ever made wasn't in a stock or a property.

It was in how I think.

We don't get the days back.

If you can’t work, will your business still be able to generate cash flow? Having a strategy for protecting income durin...
05/11/2026

If you can’t work, will your business still be able to generate cash flow? Having a strategy for protecting income during illness or injury is critical to keeping your business running and your finances on track.

Let’s explore ways to help protect you.

If a home or future property is part of your goals, I can help you see how it fits into your financial strategy. Downlo...
05/07/2026

If a home or future property is part of your goals, I can help you see how it fits into your financial strategy. Download this guide to assess your financial readiness.

https://bit.ly/4tjCs9Q

A family can have every document in order and still lose everything that matters.I’ve seen it happen too many times when...
05/06/2026

A family can have every document in order and still lose everything that matters.

I’ve seen it happen too many times when it didn’t need to.

I sat down recently with Lisë Stewart — one of the most respected family business advisors in the country, someone who’s spent decades walking into families right before everything either holds together or falls apart.

One line stuck with me.

“The problem on paper is rarely the real problem.”

The sibling who feels overlooked.

The founder who gave up the title but kept all the power.

The next generation who’s talented but not ready.

Signed documents don’t mean a family is aligned.

They mean everyone agreed on paper but not in their hearts.

Lisë walked into one case expecting a paperwork problem.

Better questions uncovered something else entirely — unresolved resentment, an unprepared next generation, a CFO nobody trusted.

The visible problem was the structure.

The real problem was people.

In many families, there is no plan.

And in the ones that have one…. nobody understands it.

Either way, the silence is the problem.

Families don’t fail from bad paperwork.

They fail from conversations nobody had.

05/05/2026

Last week, markets moved higher as investors emphasized strong earnings and economic resilience over geopolitical risks. Treasury yields rose on inflation concerns and reduced expectations for near term easing, with energy prices continuing to pressure costs. Give our weekly market perspective a read for more takeaways.

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Hoy es más que una celebración de la herencia mexicana; es un tributo a la resiliencia, la unidad ...
05/05/2026

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Hoy es más que una celebración de la herencia mexicana; es un tributo a la resiliencia, la unidad y el orgullo cultural.

The need for disability income (DI) insurance is often misunderstood. Many think it’s a safety net only for those withou...
05/04/2026

The need for disability income (DI) insurance is often misunderstood. Many think it’s a safety net only for those without savings. But in reality, DI can play an important role in helping high earners protect their income and assets. Let’s start a conversation about strengthening your financial flexibility for the years ahead.

05/02/2026

The climb is the lesson

Nobody who waited too long ever said they wished they'd worked longer..That line gets easy to dismiss until you've seen ...
04/30/2026

Nobody who waited too long ever said they wished they'd worked longer..

That line gets easy to dismiss until you've seen what waiting actually costs.

There's a client story that has stayed with me for years.

She spent her career in medicine, loved the work, loved her patients, was genuinely good at what she did.

She kept pushing retirement back, not because she had to financially, but because the work still meant something to her. Then her husband's health declined.

By the time she stopped working, it wasn't to travel or slow down or finally exhale, it was to become his full-time caregiver.

She didn't retire to the life she'd been building toward.
She retired into a crisis.

That's not a cautionary tale about saving enough money.
The money was fine.

It's a cautionary tale about assuming time is something you can defer indefinitely.

What I've come to believe, and what drives a lot of how I work with people approaching this stage, is that retirement is not a date on a calendar.

It's a transition.

And transitions require design, not just a number.

The financial side is actually the more straightforward part.

What people consistently underestimate is the identity side.
What does your week look like?
Where does your sense of purpose come from?
Who needs you, and in what capacity?

The people I've seen navigate this well aren't the ones who stopped cold.
They're the ones who gradually redesigned how they spent their time, stepping back from what drained them, protecting what still gave them energy, staying relevant in ways that felt meaningful rather than obligatory.

The goal was never to stop.

It was always to have the freedom to choose.

If you're within a few years of that transition, the most important question isn't whether you can afford to stop. It's whether you've actually designed what comes next.

That conversation is worth having before life forces it.

Address

65 LaSalle Road Suite 200
West Hartford, CT
06107

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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