{"id":530139,"date":"2026-06-11T16:41:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T16:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/530139\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T16:41:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T16:41:20","slug":"her-parents-divorce-drove-this-cfp-to-be-financially-independent-and-to-help-other-women-do-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/530139\/","title":{"rendered":"Her parents\u2019 divorce drove this CFP to be financially independent \u2013 and to help other women do the same"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Julie Seberras, head of wealth planning and practice management at Manulife Wealth.Supplied<\/p>\n

In the Behind the Advice series<\/a>, Globe Advisor asks advisors about their relationship with money from a young age, lessons learned over the years and how their experiences influence the advice they give clients. Season 4 of the Behind the Advice podcast is here! You can find episodes from all four seasons here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Julie Seberras, head of wealth planning and practice management at Manulife Wealth, talks about her drive for financial independence, how her sister\u2019s death led her to become a financial planner and why she thinks Oprah would make a good advisor. <\/p>\n

Describe your upbringing and how it influenced your views on money.<\/b><\/p>\n

There were two distinct chapters: before and after my parents divorced when I was 8 years old. Before, we lived in a nice, affluent neighbourhood and felt that we were better off financially than many of my schoolmates. <\/p>\n

My dad was an engineer with a good job and my mom stayed home to raise my sister and me. During this time, I never heard my parents talk about money and never felt that our family worried about money in any way. <\/p>\n

Then, my dad left my mom for a woman that he worked with. He, his new wife and her three kids moved into the house I grew up in. Suddenly, my mom needed to find full-time work, a place for us to live and a way to support us. She got a job as an administrative assistant, living paycheque to paycheque, to provide for us.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, my dad was living much more lavishly in a big house and providing many luxuries to his wife\u2019s children, which was a source of frustration for me. My relationship with my dad has been strained over the course of my lifetime. I was always driven to prove I could make it on my own. <\/p>\n

Describe your first money lesson.<\/b><\/p>\n

My parents spent a lot of time, energy and money fighting over finances in their divorce. My mother was at my dad\u2019s mercy financially. He would use money to retain power over her, sometimes withholding it to retaliate against her. I can now name this as financial abuse. This was a huge money lesson for me: Always have your own money so you can control your own future. <\/p>\n

Was there an experience with money earlier in your life that impacts how you work with clients?<\/b><\/p>\n

Watching my mom struggle with money drove me to advocate for women to be more financially literate. Too often, I see women leaning out of household finances, sometimes to the point where they\u2019re very disconnected from what\u2019s happening. It\u2019s a problem when faced with divorce, widowhood or other challenging life events. <\/p>\n

What did you want to be when you grew up and how did you get into financial services?<\/b><\/p>\n

I was always good at math and was drawn to subjects that used the logical side of my brain. My uncle worked at the bank and would talk to me about investing and other areas of financial services, which interested me. <\/p>\n

I knew I wanted to work in finance, but wasn\u2019t sure what type of role until, when I was 21, my sister was in a car accident that resulted in a brain injury. She passed away a week later in the hospital at the age of 22. <\/p>\n

During that week in the intensive care unit, we were around other families, waiting to see if their loved one was going to survive, if they would have life-altering outcomes, if they would require care and how the family would survive financially. It made me realize the importance of financial planning at any age. It was that experience that led me to become a financial planner. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best advice you\u2019ve received in your career?<\/b><\/p>\n

Early in my career, a manager told me that even though I don\u2019t have children, my personal life is just as important as that of people with responsibilities at home. It empowered me to do things that were important to me outside of work. For 15 years, I was a fitness instructor and would leave work at 5:30 p.m. to teach a class for an hour. Had I not received that advice, I don\u2019t know if I would have had the confidence to carve out that time for myself to do something that helps me be at my best. <\/p>\n

What advice do you wish had been shared with you early in your career?<\/b><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t expect women to always support other women in the workplace. It\u2019s sad, but true. The mean girls from the playground sometimes turn out to be the mean girls in the workplace. You\u2019d think you\u2019d outgrow it and that women would be supporting women, but nobody told me that\u2019s not always the case. I wish women weren\u2019t so hard on each other.<\/p>\n

What advice do you have for someone who wants to enter your business?<\/b><\/p>\n

Financial planners are in the people business. You can get a lot of satisfaction helping people achieve their goals, deal with the unexpected, navigate life events and look after their loved ones. I would also love to see more women enter this business. It\u2019s a fantastic career where you can use your IQ and EQ every day.<\/p>\n

Which famous person or fictional character would make a great financial advisor, and why?<\/b><\/p>\n

Oprah Winfrey. As an exceptional interviewer, she knows how to build rapport and trust with the person sitting across from her. She can get people to share, be vulnerable and transparent. Financial advisors are able to do their best work when clients are open and provide information well beyond finances, such as their values, fears, family dynamics and what\u2019s keeping them up at night. When a financial advisor can uncover this type of information, it creates better outcomes.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited and condensed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Julie Seberras, head of wealth planning and practice management at Manulife Wealth.Supplied In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[177],"tags":[39450,39449,4659,42325,79,18,9299,19,17,5494,219968,234,235],"class_list":["post-530139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-advisor-nopaywall","tag-advisor-noregwall","tag-appwebview","tag-behindtheadvice","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-globe-advisor","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-noastack","tag-ordid3934493655edit","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116732473073286762","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}