• Columnists

Carmen Wu, CRPC®, Financial Adviser, Egan Berger & Weiner LLC

COLUMN = RETIREMENT

Carmen Wu, CRPC®, partnered with Egan, Berger & Weiner, LLC in August 2007. She brings 25 years of experience in the financial industry, and has served as financial adviser, branch manager, regional manager, chief operations officer and vice president of a regional banking institution.

A graduate of the University of Southern California, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science/International Relations, Martinez is an active member of the Rotary Club of McLean, a community service organization, and has served on the board of directors for five years.

She is also an active member of the Financial Planning Association and the Financial Services Institute, and is currently enrolled in the College for Financial Planning.

Raised in California, Martinez moved to the east coast in 1987 and now resides in Alexandria, VA. The oldest of nine children, she enjoys spending time with her 19 nephews and nieces. In her spare time she pursues one of her lifelong passions for art by drawing and painting portraits, landscapes and still life.

For more information, visit www.ebwfinancialnews.com. And send her an email at: cmartinez@ebwllc.com.

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

– President Calvin Coolidge

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

I may not be able to change what takes place, but I can always choose to change my thinking.”

– Michelle Sedas

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place.”

– J.J. Van Der Leeuw, The Conquest of Illusion

My goal was to tell the life side of the story. We have become a nation of voyeurs that expect sensationalism, and that offends me.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
 If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”

– Oprah Winfrey

You don’t love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

– L.J. Smith

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”

– E.B. White

Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.”

– Lord Chesterfield

A lot of people have ideas, but few decide to do something about them now. Not next week. But today.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

– Thomas Dunn

No longer talk at all about the kind of man a good man ought to be, but be such.”

– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

The world I believed in, back in my most innocent, uninformed, childish mind—is real.”

– Martha Beck

Women once had the goal of being Superwoman; I think most of us now simply strive to have a super day.”

– Author, Activist Lee Woodruff

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.”

– Mary Kay Ash

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

– Eckhart Tolle

Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

– Annie Dillard

To find what you seek in the road of life, leave no stone unturned.”

– Edward Bulwer Lytton

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

– Goldie Hawn

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leo Jozef Suenens

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

Many people prefer to play it safe when it comes to business matters. Are you willing to take risks in the pursuit of entrepreneurial success?”

– Steven Schussler

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller

The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

– Chinese Proverb

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.”

– Edgar W. Howe

Treat the attainment of happiness in the same way an entrepreneur would approach building a business — with a vision, plan, goals, and a systematic approach.”

– Ted Leonsis

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

– Christopher Morley

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook