From Volleyball Coach to Wealth Advisor: An Interview with Certified Financial Planner Ben Weinberg

When Ben Weinberg was about twelve or thirteen, his father set him up with a simulated investment portfolio. With $100,000 in pretend money, he could choose investments and watch how they performed. Years later, a career in wealth management introduced him to questions that reached well beyond stock prices: Could a family afford to retire? How would spending today affect its future? What would help someone feel comfortable with a financial decision?

In an interview with Youth Of We Chinese Americans magazine, Ben Weinberg, an Associate Wealth Advisor at Corient, discussed his path into the profession and the lessons he hopes young people learn before investing. His advice returned often to understanding risk, building savings, and avoiding too much confidence in a single stock.

Finding a Career Through Exploration

Ben grew up in the Bay Area, where sports were a major part of his life. He went on to study business administration at Pepperdine University and played volleyball there for four years.

His career direction took time to develop. A college internship with Compass gave him experience in real estate, and he also considered working in sports. After graduating in 2022, he returned to the Bay Area and arranged informational interviews through his father's connections.

Several conversations with financial advisors caught his attention. They seemed to enjoy their work and find satisfaction in helping clients. Wealth management also brought together interests he had developed earlier in life.

His father's background in venture capital had introduced him to investing. Coaching volleyball had shown him how much he enjoyed helping people improve. Advising offered an opportunity to apply that interest in coaching to an area that affects people's everyday lives and long-term plans.

Asked what college volleyball contributed to his professional life, Ben pointed to discipline. Early practices and demanding training built habits that stayed with him after graduation.

Learning from the Professionals

Ben began his career at Davies Financial Advisors in Murrieta, California, after an introduction through relatives. With little industry experience, he learned by sitting in meetings, assisting the team, and observing experienced advisors. He clarified an important detail about his career history during the interview: Davies merged with Centura in July 2025. Much of his early experience was therefore gained at Davies, before the merger.

His business degree provided some useful foundations, particularly in accounting. The work itself introduced him to much more, including retirement, estate, and income tax planning. Watching advisors speak with clients also taught him things that were difficult to reproduce in a classroom.

"You quickly learn how much you don't know," he said.

His later move to Corient gave him an opportunity to shift from a paraplanner position, which largely involved work behind the scenes, into an associate wealth advisor role with more direct client contact. He also welcomed the chance to work alongside a larger group of advisors in person and learn from their different approaches.

Helping Clients Plan for the Life They Want

Ben estimated that roughly 70 to 75 percent of his week involves meeting preparation, follow-up, and individual assignments from advisors. He might review a portfolio, identify issues worth discussing, or prepare an analysis for an upcoming client conversation.

His team also uses financial planning software to model clients' finances and project cash flow over time. A frequent purpose is to help people understand what retirement could look like under different assumptions.

The analysis becomes useful when clients can connect it to their lives. Does their current savings support the retirement they want? What might change if they spend more now? Ben described an approach that gives clients options and explains their consequences. If projected retirement spending falls short of someone's expectations, the conversation might involve saving more, adjusting current spending, or reconsidering future expectations.

Trust develops through understanding what clients want and taking those priorities seriously. People may be discussing some of their most important personal goals.

When choosing an advisor, Ben encouraged people to ask whether that advisor acts as a fiduciary, with an obligation to put the client's best interests first.

Understanding Risk and the Need for Cash

Before discussing how a client should invest, Ben pays particular attention to risk tolerance and liquidity needs.

He might ask how someone responded during previous market declines. He also needs to know when the person expects to withdraw money and what those withdrawals will support.

Even a client comfortable with investment risk may need a more cautious approach to money intended for near-term expenses. Ben wants to avoid a situation in which someone has to sell investments during a downturn because cash is urgently needed.

Financial planning can also change what clients feel able to consider. He described people who initially focus almost entirely on whether their assets will last through retirement. By building a plan and testing different scenarios, advisors can help them understand their position more clearly.

If the projections indicate substantial room in the plan, those clients may begin discussing charitable giving, helping their children, or preparing the next generation to manage family assets. These projections depend on assumptions, but they can give clients a more concrete basis for discussing concerns and choices.

Ben was also candid about the limits of his own experience. Having entered the industry in late 2022, he said he had not yet worked through many prolonged periods of negative returns with clients. One approach he has observed is to remind people why their portfolios were structured as they were, including which assets serve near-term needs and which are intended for longer-term growth.

Financial Habits to Build Early

Asked what he would teach high school students about managing money, Ben outlined four connected principles.

The first was to spend less than you earn. It sounds straightforward, but creating a surplus is what makes regular saving and investing possible.

The second was to invest money intended for long-term growth. He explained that inflation can reduce the purchasing power of cash over time, making it important to consider how long-term savings are held.

The third was to use appropriate insurance for risks a person could not afford to bear alone. He discussed health and auto insurance, as well as life insurance when family members depend on someone's income.

The fourth was to keep sufficient liquid savings. For someone starting a career, he used an emergency fund covering three to six months of living expenses as an example. A buffer can help a person handle unexpected costs without immediately drawing on retirement savings or selling investments.

When the discussion turned to a first paycheck, Ben suggested checking for high-interest debt, particularly credit card balances, and then considering whether emergency savings were adequate. His emphasis was on understanding the condition of someone's finances before rushing to invest.

One Successful Stock Pick Does Not Prove Expertise

The interview also addressed financial content on social media, where a short video can make investing appear easy.

Ben described how a strong market can encourage overconfidence. Someone buys a stock, sees a large gain, and concludes that they understand how the market works. That outcome alone tells them little about whether they can repeat the result or handle a loss.

His approach places greater emphasis on building wealth over time in a way that fits the investor's risk tolerance. For people interested in researching individual companies, he discussed keeping those experiments limited while maintaining a diversified foundation for the rest of their investments. That lesson also came from experience. As a teenager, Ben concentrated his investments in one or two securities that performed poorly or made little progress over several years. Looking back, he wished he had understood diversification earlier.

From experimenting with a simulated portfolio to helping clients plan for retirement, his understanding of investing has continued to develop. At the end of the interview, the lesson he wished he had learned sooner was how to build a sound investment foundation. For students beginning to manage their own earnings, that reflection offers a useful place to start.