Doug Tees is a Managing Partner, COO and Director of Financial Planning at Jason Howell Company. As of last Friday he's a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional. Most importantly, he's a friend.

Winning the lottery has always been a fantasy and you actually did it!  Congrats or something.  The most important thing to happen in your life just happened and you can't say a word.  And so the irony of winning the lottery begins.

FAIRFAX, VA circa 1997 - 20 years ago, I was just graduating from George Mason University with a degree in accounting, ready to one day to take the CPA exam.  I was full of ghost stories about how difficult the CFP® exam was.  I heard it was "full of math," divided into 10 sections and even for an accounting graduate - admittedly, I wasn't the top of my class - entirely too hard to even consider.  What I didn't know was the CFP® exam was in my future.