Very Important Panther: Hiram Hernandez ’03
- Financial Adviser, Eagle Strategies LLC
- Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Finance, 2003
- Founding Member, FIU Young Alumni Council
- Lifetime Member, FIU Alumni Association
What is your fondest memory of FIU?
Definitely time spent in the Green Library. I would daydream while sitting on a sofa on the fifth-floor, near the windows that overlook Miami, and think about how much potential there was in the world and how I just had to take advantage of it. A lot of my life choices were made there, including to completely change gears and switch majors from computer science to finance. It’s also where I wrote love notes to my now-wife, back in the days before texting.
How did FIU prepare you for your career? Is there a class or professor that stood out?
The best preparation I received from FIU was learning to work with other personality styles. That is what I do every day now in working with my clients. You have to understand people and be sensitive to the reality that we are all very different but very similar at the same time.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
The best advice I have ever received came from a training I did in Dallas two years ago: Know the difference between your goals and your desires. Your goals are the things you can control with your hard work, persistency and tenacity and your desires are the things you cannot control. Once I understood that and really internalized it, my stress level went down significantly overnight! I focus my time an energy on my goals and I pray for my desires to happen!
You are involved with your alma mater, including recently participating in Panther Alumni Week (PAW)? Why make the time?
I volunteer my time because I am grateful for FIU and the doors that graduating from FIU has opened for me. I also believe that giving back is the best way to receive. PAW is a great opportunity to come back to campus and see the amazing growth FIU is going through, and it’s also great to share in the excitement current students have about the choice they made to come to FIU.
What is your proudest accomplishment?
My proudest accomplishment is when a family member, friend, colleague or client tells me that they are thankful I am a part of their life because they know they can count on me if they were ever in need. I was taught that if I was going to dedicate my time to anything, to give it 110% or not do it at all. I try to live that in everything I do.
How do you spend your time when you are not working? How do you decompress?
My two boys, both under the age of two, are my downtime. As a business owner, you never really decompress 100 percent, but spending time with my boys helps me forget about the real world for a little while and just focus on them. Children are the best blessing a family can have because they exemplify unconditional love, and that’s hard to find these days in a fast-moving, instant-gratification world.
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