Financial Adviser Adds Poetry to Her Resume

Lynn Torre, an independent investment adviser and certified financial planner, is an expert in the language of financial matters.

But recently, Torre used her financial IQ  to do something that seems totally opposite from her day job: she wrote a poetry book.

It is through her poetry that she shares her thoughts about money, self-worth and her own life transformation. Torre just released her new book, Dance of the Leaf, a collection of 52 poems that motivates women to look at their own lives and true worth.

Torre is the owner of the Glen Ellyn-based Financial Transitions Ltd., an independent investment and financial planning firm. With a bachelor’s degree in consumer education, she is passionate about educating women about financial matters. 

The path to her current job started with a personal tragedy --  her divorce in 1994. She decided to enroll at Benedictine University for a master’s degree in finance. Unlike some women going through a divorce, she found herself in a practical position to move on with her life.

“I realized that the fact that I had planned my divorce after three years was an anamoly,” she said. “I thought it was perfectly normal until I met all these other women that had been blind sided by the divorce or just did not know how to grasp financial concepts and really did no planning. They were petrified. I thought it was normal to plan my own divorce out for three years because I knew that I couldn’t afford to get divorced; I had to have a strategy.”

Her plan included finding a stable job, putting the house on the market and selecting an affordable place to move into with her then pre-teen son. And, of course, getting ready for a divorce emotionally.

While working on her master’s, her college adviser suggested that she look into a career in financial services.

“I already knew that I wanted to educate women somehow, so that was a natural thing for me,” she said.

Torre left school to become a certified financial planner in 2004. From then on she worked as a financial adviser for a variety of businesses such as Dean Witter and a local bank.

In 2006, she opened her own business with one important goal in mind.

“I’m just such a teacher at heart,” she said. “I really wanted to give workshops, which is one of the big reasons I wanted to go independent. I couldn’t do some of the things that I wanted to do for clients. I couldn’t have workshops that I could charge clients for so I could teach them about how to manage their cash flow, teach them about their behaviors with money or help them learn about their financial personalities. A lot of what I do is out of the box not really investment education.”

A creative outlet

At her company, Torre helps clients take control of their lives by aligning their thoughts and behaviors with financial goals. Torre found her control in writing poetry, which came about after her divorce. Some of her beginning works would be “silly” poems but others took an introspective tone.

“I rediscovered myself,” she said. “I found my own power again. I found that I lost myself in my own marriage. You have a child, a job and a husband. Women are very good at taking care of others and they’re not as  good about taking care of themselves. In fact, women often deny themselves for others. In that process of denying ourselves to take care of others, we diminish our value in our own eyes not consciously but we just do.”

After sharing her growing collection of poems with friends she realized they belonged in a book. 

Leaving your mark

The title of the book, which is also a poem, comes from a friend's photograph, which depicts a leaf frozen in the sand on a beach in December. Warm sunshine then melts the ice and the breeze picks up the leaf, where it dances in the sand, leaving marks. 

“The poem is about discovering your purpose and doing your ‘dance’ in life and leaving your mark,” she said.

Taking her life experiences and insights, Torre tackled different subjects in her book that center around money but branch off into issues like eating habits and learning to love yourself.

“I help people with their investments and financial planning, but specifically for women, until they have a good relationship with themselves, and then a good relationship with money, their financial success will be limited by their own belief system,” she said. “That’s what really the poetry brings into it. I want to help them recognize their own value and their worth.”

To order a copy of 'Dance of the Leaf' visit www.danceoftheleaf.com