One gets the sense that Ric Edelman looked in the mirror one day and saw mortality staring back at him. Not the imminent type of mortality that turns atheists into theists. This was professional mortality, the kind where a person starts thinking about his legacy, as all people of accomplishment eventually do.

Listen to Ric Edelman speak and you hear a man proud of his accomplishments, yet self-aware enough to know he could not possibly be a virtuoso at all of the protean aspects of the complicated wealth advisory and investment business. No man is an island, and one would need to be an archipelago the size of The Philippines with its thousands of islands to be the complete player able to take on the role Edelman has long been fulfilling.

Edelman came to realize he was wearing three different hats at the company. For one, he was the company’s CEO. Though he believes he has proven himself to be an “excellent” entrepreneur, his executive skills were just “good”