Truth, Honor, Transparency. How Blaine Lourd Redefined Wealth Management

I grew up in South Louisiana, and I actually dreamed of working in the oil business with my dad. When my dad came up to visit me and he said, son, I don’t really have a job for you, but I know this guy. He’s a stockbroker. Okay. And he lives in Houston. So we drove up to see him. I sat in his office for a while and I watched him answer the phone, and every time he answered the phone, he would repeat what he was doing. And when he hung up the phone, he would say, Blaine, I just made $400. This went on all day long I just made. I just made it, I just made. He’s not the smartest guy in the world. And he made, like five grand in a day. And my dad said exactly. Most people on Wall Street have no idea how a business really runs. It just is a red and green blinking symbol. It was an absolute eat what you kill merciless meritocracy. The sales manager there, he said your job Blaine is to turn your client’s balance sheet into your own. And a lot of people would laugh at that. But I didn’t like it. It became a bridge too far. I often realized that my main job was trying to protect my client from the firm. I just thought, there’s got to be a better way to do this. I wanted to do something different. I’ll never forget when I resigned to start Lourd Capital, my last manager, I told him what I was going to do and he commented, huh. No one’s going to pay you to do that. And I said, maybe not, but I believe people will pay for the truth. We want to be as transparent as possible in everything that we do. I eat what I cook. Your portfolio is going to look just like my portfolio. You do not have to make predictions to ultimately have a successful investment experience. Most people hire an advisor and you go right into, hey, I think you’re a 60/40 or based on here’s what we need to do. I love talking to people about their dreams, and I found over time working at various different places no one really connected with people like that. And this process, you know, really helped me get to their why and to build them a plan that was bespoke for them. We take very complex situations with very complex family dynamics, and we execute them simply and we explain them simply. And I like to tell people, I don’t know people with investment problems. I have investments with people problems. You know, if you can remind yourself of the Rudyard Kipling poem, If, and you can keep your head when everyone else is losing theirs, you will be rich and be fine. I found a career that I just happened to be good at. You know, we didn’t beat the market every year, but I don’t have to worry about that because the world’s waiting for us. You know, the world is waiting for the truth. My grandfather, he taught me about honor. And, you know, he taught me about truth. And um, and he used to say all the time, you know, Blaine, you can’t hide from the truth. I learned a lot from that.