Financial Planning that Starts with You

Key highlights from this episode

• Standard advisor portfolios miss the mark for athletes, leading to millions in lost growth and missed opportunities.

• AWM’s approach is like an architect building a custom home, designing every detail to serve your unique life, career, and legacy.

• Human-centered planning fuels generational wealth, impactful philanthropy, and a 100-year family legacy that endures.

The real cost of one-size-fits-all portfolios

Many athletes start out trusting a traditional advisor—someone who hands you the model home set of investments, indistinct from the neighbor’s. The problem? This approach turns a blind eye to the distinctive contours of an athlete’s earnings, guaranteed contracts, and the rapid transitions from rookie to veteran. Zach Miller saw this clearly. Early portfolios built for an imaginary “average client,” not for a player with future guaranteed income and conservative spending. Bonds stacked where equities belonged, and the result wasn’t just underperformance—it was millions in lost compounding, years of opportunity delayed or erased.

These aren’t ghost stories. Across NFL locker rooms, players lose generational wealth before they’ve even started building a legacy, not from wild spending but from advice that ignores their reality. Generic portfolios, set-it-and-forget-it allocations, and absent planning for taxes, estates, or major gifts—all create hidden costs. The real risk isn’t just making less; it’s building nothing lasting at all.

Why building a financial structure takes an architect’s touch

A family office does what no mass-market advisor can: listen. Imagine working with a builder who draws up blueprints only after hearing your family’s story—where you’ve come from, where you are, and where you hope to go. As Riccardo Stewart’s architect friend says, “the job is complete not when he can’t add anything else, but when he can’t take anything else away.” At AWM, this is how every client’s strategy is born. Needs, wants, and wishes set the foundation. Blueprints are drawn and redrawn, eliminating any element that doesn’t serve your vision.

When your career moves from the “rookie deal” to the “never work again” contract, your story changes. So does the house we build for you. Now we plan for generations: funding education for children and grandchildren, engineering a foundation for lasting community impact, and leveraging your assets for greater opportunity. Every addition—each asset class, insurance policy, tax strategy, and philanthropic vehicle—is chosen because it matches your family’s DNA, not a standard template.

Tailoring every detail—where a custom fit changes everything

Off-the-rack is for entry level, not for legacies. Sam Acho shared how his first suit, bought straight off the department store rack, faded in comparison to the experience of being measured for a custom suit by an eighty-year-old Italian tailor. The difference was in the details, the comfort, and the pride in wearing something unique. Wealth planning is no different. A custom financial structure means smarter giving—for one client, it translated to helping 200 more families at Christmas by donating appreciated stock instead of writing a check. In practice: tax efficiencies, advanced investment opportunities, seamless integration for every stage of life.

Stewardship that honors your legacy

Families who thrive for a hundred years don’t get lucky—they get intentional. Like a championship team, success is built on alignment, expertise, and a strategy tailored to your talents and goals. We begin with your story, collaborate on every decision, and build a platform designed for thriving, multi-generational families. That’s the playbook we run, every time—listening first, refining relentlessly, and winning together across generations.