Barbara Treadwell, CFP, BFA, CLU, ChFC, CAP, REBC, and founder of Barbara Treadwell, LLC (www.barbaratreadwell.com), has spent 43 years helping people protect what matters most. A former therapist turned financial planner, she brings psychology to finance, blending empathy with expertise. She’s an author, podcast host, and philanthropist, but her greatest work lies in the lives she touches – clients who stay for decades, families she guides, and her charitable pursuits, including the Arc Lexington, supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities; the HOPE school in India for children at risk, and St. Dunstan’s Academy, an Anglican boarding school for boys built on the four pillars of Christian formation, classical academics, farming and the skilled trades.
Her commitment to giving back has also earned national recognition. Barbara was one of three finalists for the Invest in Others Award, an honor that recognizes financial advisors who have made significant contributions to nonprofit organizations. As a finalist, she secured a $25,000 grant for the Lexington Foundation, the charitable arm of Arc Lexington, where her son Terry lived for 22 years before his passing in 2012 at the age of 41. For Barbara, every professional milestone is ultimately measured by the lives it helps improve, reflecting a legacy built on compassion, purpose, and meaningful impact.
From Rejection to Resilience
Barbara defines success by earnings, but also by making a difference in people’s lives, a value she brought from her first career counseling terminally ill patients. Success means giving back through charitable work, retaining clients for decades, and maintaining high volumes of life insurance and Assets under Advisement in force. She works as an individual, not a corporation, because she does her best work independently, without compromise, with her exceptional client service specialist, Cathie Y Lee.
In 1980, Barbara moved to New York with one child. Her other child, severely disabled, was ultimately in Lexington Center, a group home in upstate New York. After leaving her counseling career, she took a year off, her only break from work since the age of 12. At a career fair, a counselor advised her to circle interesting ads in the New York Times and request site visits.
One company, disguised as “financial sales,” rejected her after three hours consultation, saying she lacked “killer instinct.” That rejection fueled her determination. She got hired elsewhere but struggled for 10 years. Cold calling was brutal. She’d get sick every morning. What kept her going was that failure was not an option. They were right about lacking killer instinct, but they missed her fierce determination. Also she got an intuitive business coach, Sid Walker, who helped her find clients who were not killers.
Barbara never learned to sell. Instead, she gained deep knowledge from her general agent, Howard Cowan and an economist mentor Bob Castiglione, who taught her how money really works. She then landed appointments with confidence, work ethic, and integrity. At the 10-year mark, nearly broke, she hired that business coach Sid Walker. When he asked who her clients were, she said, “Are you kidding me? Anyone who will buy from me.”
Sid groaned “oh no, Barbara, we’ve got to work on that” and pushed her to define her niche. She landed on a new answer “My clients are people who love someone.” She elaborated that financial planning protects families, businesses, or communities, and almost always, there is a connection between our money and the people we love. Sid also made her fire three toxic clients. She did, and within a month, in the space of authenticity, she gained 10 new clients who weren’t killers. Her lesson – be as selective with clients as they are with you. She never worries about income; she takes on clients because she likes them and believes she can help.
Being a Woman in Finance is an Advantage
Barbara recalls that her first agency had 72 men and only two women, noting, “It’s not much different today.” But she never used her gender as an excuse, and believes she did better in estate planning because she included wives in conversations. She’s never lost business because of her gender and thinks women are more intuitive, calm, and sensitive. “I never saw being a woman as a hurdle, but an advantage,” she says.
Barbara notes that money is emotional and subjective. Her Behavioral Financial Advisor designation merged her psychology and business backgrounds. Tough clients trust her, and some of her biggest referrals came from people with modest means. She simply doesn’t think about the competition. “I do what I do, and it all works out,” she insists.
Expanding Expertise, One Layer at a Time
Starting in the life insurance business, Barbara became an expert in guaranteed products – life insurance, disability, long-term care, and annuities with guaranteed lifetime income. She then expanded into equities, stocks, and bonds, charitable giving, and employer benefits, becoming a comprehensive financial planner. Today, she sells either guaranteed products, at-risk products like stocks and bonds, or a combination of both.
Her turning point came when Howard Cowan invited economist Bob Castiglione to speak to the agency. He asked a question and Barbara answered it. He said her answer was “the stupidest” he had ever heard. She went home to prove he was wrong, only to realize he was right, asked to learn more, then spent 1,000 hours mastering his contrarian principles in the first year. She slept only 30 hours a night for 30 years. Castiglione taught her that there’s no such thing as an average rate of return. “There’s never been two years in a row in the market that things are the same, not in 110 years,” she explains. Her growth came from knowledge, product expansion, independence, and deepening client relationships.
Serving Clients, Protecting Dreams
Barbara’s mission is to help people achieve their financial goals with strategies that match their risk tolerance, timeframe, ability to pay, and discipline. “Most wealth is accumulated very slowly, systematically over time, rather than winning a lottery or having a big windfall,” she explains. Her company, a team of one plus her client service specialist, exists to serve humanity and help dreams come true, while preventing clients from falling through the cracks.
She focuses on protecting wealth from threats like market volatility, inflation, illness, old age, and lawsuits. “You can’t predict the future with any certainty; it’s only uncertain,” she explains. “But you can put in safety nets for some of the things that might happen.” Her approach involves spending a percentage of income on protecting the assets, ensuring clients are safeguarded against life’s unexpected events.
Barbara separates her role as a leader and inspiration from her personal achievements. She points to her ELIF (Exceptional Life Insurance in Force) status in the life insurance industry which reflects her high volume of life insurance in force and her ability to retain clients for decades. “Business that stays on the books is certainly a measure of my success,” she says.
Embracing Tech, Guarding the Human Touch
Barbara admits she was “born in the wrong century for technology” and that it “fuddles” her. Yet she recognizes it as essential. This year, she launched a podcast and is writing a book, still curious and excited after 43 years in business. She experiments with AI but remains cautious, and it concerns her to watch her grandchildren use AI for original thinking, because it eliminates the brain’s problem-solving and deductive reasoning functions.
Barbara uses AI only with a background of knowledge and experience, adding her intuitive take. She’s not concerned about AI taking her job and never uses it to predict retirement needs – every plan is completely customized. “My personal relationship with my clients is cast iron,” she says. “They would never turn to a robot for advice.”
She does use technology to store data, maintain 4,000 contacts, and transcribe post-interview emails. However, she finds it “ridiculous and redundant” that insurance illustrations have ballooned from two pages to 63. Compliance costs her $15,000 to $20,000 a year. “All we’re doing is making the crooks smarter. It doesn’t make me any more honest,” she observes, advocating for the mindful, responsible use of technology.
Charitable Giving & a Legacy for Disabled Adults
Barbara takes pride in her charitable endeavors, The Arc Lexington, St. Dunstan’s Academy and most recently the Kakkasolai Hope School in India, an after-school program for children from impoverished families where parents earn just 3500 rupees ( $36) a month in the tea estates. The program provides nutrition and teaches Phonemic Intelligence, a brain activity combining tapping and sound, along with leadership skills. Children then return to their villages and teach elders and parents to read. Barbara now sponsors 26 children in “her” school in the Tamil Nadu region.
Her most meaningful legacy is a financial plan she created for adult disabled children. After listening to her own podcast interviewing clients in their 70’s worry about their 37-year-old disabled son, she recognized the same fears she once had for her own child. She woke up with a couple of ideas – IRS code Section 72(t) which waives early withdrawal penalties from annuities and non-qualified plans for the totally and permanently disabled, and EDB (Eligible Disabled Beneficiary) rules which allow totally and permanently disabled beneficiaries to inherit and keep an Inherited IRA for life.
“I’ve created a plan for older disabled children, particularly when their parents leave this earth and can no longer advocate for them,” she says. She dedicated a chapter to it in her book, ANNUITY QUEEN (out in the fall), calling it “Lifetime Income for the Adult Disabled Child,” and urges others to share it.
She also reflects on her parents, who both lived to 95 but ran out of money due to sequence of return and longevity risk. Her father retired in 1973; the market dropped 50% over the next two years, wiping out half their savings. She supported them for their last 15 years. “I’ve done some good in the world, and some beneficiaries won’t know who did the planning. I won’t even be around to see it, but it makes me happy,” she says.
No Balance, Just One Integrated Life
Instead of work-life balance, Barbara compartmentalizes when facing tragedy, allowing herself to work and temporarily set aside difficulties, then return to crises when needed. She maintains a daily to-do list that covers everything – work, family, community, friends, and even maintenance on her 217-year-old house. She prioritizes, but doesn’t eliminate one thing for another. “I don’t attempt to balance it. I just do everything I need to do. It’s all my life,” she explains. “My work, friends, play, travel, community, and charities. It all gets done.”
Barbara finds inner peace through Hindu practices and rituals. She also has a bone remodeling plan with no alcohol, caffeine, or nicotine. She recently attended a five-day ketamine-assisted meditation retreat, where she worked on forgiving her first husband, who abandoned her and their two children, including a three-year-old in need of major surgery, one week after they moved into a new home. He made big money; she made $500 a month.
At the retreat, she struggled to find the gift in that experience. The facilitator helped her see her loss as the ultimate gift which allowed her to build a fabulous life for herself. The facilitator, Lisa, reminded Barbara that she tended toward co-dependence and probably would have stayed in a miserable marriage because she wouldn’t give up. It seemed like a disaster at the time, but her husband actually did her a huge favor. Barbara’s survival techniques are resilience and gratitude, which keep her motivated and going strong. She echoes her mother’s words, “I’m the luckiest old broad I know.”
Barbara doesn’t own a car, but she has thousands of miles on her e-bike. She says, “I live and work in two cities: NYC and Savannah. You don’t really need a car in either city”. She uses Uber for inclement weather and destinations without a bike path.
Living in the Present, Open to What Comes
Since the death of Barbara’s son 14 years ago, she has embraced Hinduism. Every reading she has received suggests she’ll work until about age 90, then leave her family responsibilities and go on a spiritual journey involving teaching and healing.
“I don’t have a plan,” she says. “I’m very much in the present. I don’t look back. I do very little future thinking, because it hasn’t happened yet.” Always open to what comes next, Barbara’s sponsorship of her school in India and her upcoming trip for its installation feel like the beginning of that journey. She’s hoping to be able to teach and heal without needing to give up her creature comforts. She knows that’s a bit “precious” but her Hindu teacher, Kalkidas, assured her she didn’t have to live in a tent to go on a spiritual journey!
Having spent much of her earnings supporting her parents for 15 years, her daughter through special medical treatment, and her disabled son in group home living for 37 of his 41 years, she’s currently focused on getting her two grandchildren through college, with two more years to go. “I don’t regret any of it,” she says. “It’s just that I haven’t saved enough for myself, so I have to start doing that too.”
Invest in Yourself First
Barbara advises newcomers to invest in a business coach, even if they have to borrow money. “When you’re befuddled, the worst person you should be talking to is yourself. That’s noise,” she says. She also recommends hiring an assistant to avoid wasting time on paperwork. Likewise joining industry groups, getting active in the community, and giving time if money is limited are good behaviors. “Study, study, study. Call, call, call,” she urges.
Barbara also highly recommends hiring a publicist, noting that when she moved to Savannah, her publicist Marjorie Young of Carriage Trade PR, got her name in newspapers and magazines, plus featured speaker at various lunches. “When somebody talks about you, it’s much more powerful than you talking about yourself,” she explains. Finally, she emphasizes service and putting the client’s interest first. “You need to be selfish in how well you take care of yourself and selfless in how well you take care of others,” she remarks.
A Life Guided by Spirituality
Barbara describes herself as spiritual, noting that spirituality is about energy, and it’s her energy that gives her stamina and attracts the right people. Her belief in the Law of Attraction helps attract the right clients and reject those out of integrity, including those seeking to hide money.
She loves to laugh, enjoys comedy, and loves communication, a skill she honed while counseling dying people. “You can’t get any closer to a human soul than when they are facing their own death,” she reflects. She notes that communication can also be silent. She and her nonverbal son communicated through touch and eye contact. Barbara says “we just looked at each other a lot!”
Barbara is a good listener, values understanding others, and is aware of her impact on others and the responsibility that comes with it. “I need to be sure that I don’t say anything unkind, and that what I say is encouraging, not discouraging,” she says.
Conclusion
Barbara Treadwell’s journey is defined by resilience, gratitude, and purpose. She has turned personal tragedy into professional wisdom and built a legacy that will outlast her. Her message is simple – success is not just about what you earn, but about what you give, how you show up, and who you help along the way.
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Securities and investment advisory services offered through Osaic Wealth, Inc. member FINRA/SIPC. Osaic Wealth is separately owned and other entities and/or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of Osaic Wealth.
All guarantees are backed solely by the financial strength and claims paying ability of the issuing insurance company.
Invest in Others Lifetime Achievement Award issued by Invest in Others Charitable Foundation for 2025 year was presented to an advisor who has made a profound contribution to a non-profit organization for at least 20 years. Barbara Treadwell was nominated for the recognition and was one of three finalists. Criteria used to determine the winner(s) includes established history of distinguished service, exhibiting leadership, providing inspiration and gained recognition and respect from peers and the community. Three individuals were named as finalists for this honor and one was selected as the recipient. No fee was paid for the nomination, receipt, or promotion of the award. Third-party ratings are no guarantee of future investment success and do not ensure that a client or prospective client will experience a higher level of performance or results. These ratings should not be construed as an endorsement of the advisor by any client nor are they representative of any one client’s evaluation.
