Each week, the Shreveport-Bossier Journal’s Tony Taglavore takes to lunch a local person – someone who is well-known, successful, and/or influential, and asks, “What’s Your Story?”
By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Services
He was living a “comfortable” childhood in Mansfield, Louisiana, until that fateful day when he was in fifth grade.
“I distinctly remember my dad laying on a couch on a Sunday afternoon taking a nap. He woke up and said his back hurt really bad. He had it checked out by the doctor. Come to find out, he had bone cancer. He passed away within weeks.”
Suddenly, the young boy was without a father.
Suddenly, the young boy’s mother was strapped with her now deceased husband’s business.
“I remember seeing how scared my mom was . . . . She had no preparation whatsoever to take over the lumber company when my dad died, nor did my (two) brothers. I just remember thinking how hard it was on my mom . . . . Dad should have set things up differently. He should have had a buy-sell agreement. He should have had somebody take over the company if he passed away, and buy mom out. That’s the right way to do that. There was none of that stuff in place.”
The boy watched. The boy learned.
“My dad’s finances weren’t in as good a shape as they should have been. That’s one of the things that prompted me to get into the financial advisory business. If mom had some better financial advice, she would have been a lot better off.”
Mark McCrocklin, in his 39th year as a Private Wealth Advisor, told me that story, and his story, during lunch at a place he chose, Sushi Bistro in Shreveport. Mark had two California rolls, a salad, and an unsweet tea. I enjoyed Tempura Shrimp, Miso soup, and water with lemon.
“I think that qualifies as the hardest thing I’ve ever been through,”, Mark said of his father’s death.
Mark and his mother soon moved to Fort Worth, Texas, to be closer to family friends. But after only a couple of months – Mark’s mom had some “challenges” – he moved back to Mansfield and lived with his older brother and his wife.
“Mom wasn’t real involved (in my life). To a large extent, I raised myself.”
How do you raise yourself when you’re 10 years old?
“I rode my bike to the store to do some grocery shopping. I would iron my own clothes, and get myself up and go to school every day. I just did it by myself.”
Mark’s mother eventually moved to Shreveport, where he joined her. While in high school at Captain Shreve, Mark was told by his mom he needed to get a job. He heard KSLA-TV was hiring – for minimum wage – a newsroom trainee. That’s a fancy way of saying Mark, who got the job, would be running the teleprompter, from which the anchors would read their scripts.
“I had a suit, so I wore my suit to work every day . . . . I was thinking, ‘This is going to be hard because I only have two suits. After four days, (Mark’s boss) said, ‘You don’t have to wear a suit to be a prompter operator.’ I said, ‘Well, sir, when I was 10 years old, my dad told me the way a man dresses reflects his opinion of the situation. This seems like an important job, so I wanted to dress appropriately.’”
Mark’s dad was dead, but his influence was alive.
In short order, Mark worked his way up to the position of Technical Director. That meant he was pushing the buttons and barking orders in the control room during newscasts. Mark was good. Really good. He had aspirations of taking his talents to a bigger city, and bringing home a bigger paycheck. But while visiting the CBS Evening News headquarters in New York, those aspirations faded to black.
“I remember sitting in the back of the control room . . . . (The director) went through an entire pack of cigarettes in an hour. He was so stressed out. There were guys in suits staring at the back of his head from the back of the control room. I thought, ‘Okay, that’s pretty much the pinnacle of this industry.’ This guy, he was probably 40 years old, and he looked at least 60. I was like, ‘I can’t do this. I’ve got to do something else.’”
Mark didn’t know what “something else” looked like. But his mother had inherited some money, and was using the help of a financial advisor. Mark sat in on a meeting and found the whole process interesting. Close to graduating Centenary College of Louisiana with a business degree (he would later earn a master’s in business administration), Mark applied for a job with the advisor’s firm. Next year will be his 40th year with that same firm.
“I have clients who were in their late 20’s when I was in my early 20’s. They started out saving a modest amount of money, and now they’re very comfortable. I (told them), ‘Here’s what you need to do.’ There are certain habits you need to have if you’re going to be successful financially. They’ve done those habits for decades.”
As someone who breaks out in a sweat every time I insert my debit card in the machine at the grocery store, hoping not to see the word “Declined”, there’s one thing I’ve always wondered about financial advisors. How do they handle the pressure of dealing with other people’s money?
“It does weigh on me. I don’t have trouble sleeping at night, but it’s like being on a boat and having respect for the ocean. I feel the responsibility.”
One way Mark relieves the stress of that responsibility is by spending time in the ocean. An avid scuba diver, the 63-year-old, who dives with his wife (Paula) of 22 years, has been around the world, from Cuba, to Little Cayman Island, to Indonesia.
“It’s very relaxing. I love being around people, but cell phones don’t work under water. It’s really nice to go out and enjoy the sunshine, be out on the water, and see really interesting things. Seeing the things I’ve seen scuba diving, It reaffirms my faith that there is an omnipotent, all-being creator of the universe.”
Mark’s adventures have made him see the world through a lens – make that a mask – in a way he would have never dreamed of back in Mansfield.
“We think we may have dominion over the earth, but you realize we’re the strangest animals on this planet – these things that walk around on two legs and breath air. We are the oddballs. The amount of life you see down there, and the different kinds of life. It’s not just fish, but incredible creatures and animals.”
Resisting the embarrassment of telling Mark I have trouble balancing my checkbook (do people still use checkbooks?), I decided to ask my final question. As always, what is it about his life that he wants to pass on to others? Mark offered three things:
– “Whatever you do for a living, do what’s right by people. Everybody knows what’s right and what’s wrong. Don’t do anything professionally with somebody if you wouldn’t do it for yourself or your loved one.”
– “Go enjoy things like music or art, whether it’s performance art or visual art. I think our souls need some of that.”
– “Don’t forget to attend to your spiritual life . . . . Giving reverence to God, doesn’t it just feel right? . . . . Tending to one’s spiritual life makes life a lot less hard.”
All of that, proving Mark gives sound advice on things other than finances.
Do you know someone with a story? Email SBJTonyT@gmail.com.
The Journal’s weekly “What’s Your Story?” series is sponsored by Morris & Dewett Injury Lawyers.