When a friend suggested to me that I buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange I said, “Don’t be ridiculous.” He said, “There’s no law against it.” Then it became a challenge and a game. It took me about six months until I got up the guts to do it. I kept going over it in my mind: “Gee, I want to do it, no, I don’t want to do it.” I was “hocking” myself. Four hundred and forty-five thousand dollars is a lot of money for something that isn’t tangible. I also didn’t know how many of my customers would still continue to do business with me. I was earning my living on the commissions I got from institutions based on the research I did for them, and it would mean I would have to go from an existing brokerage firm, although a small firm, to being on my own. I would still clear through a major firm so there was no risk for my customers, but until you take a step like that you don’t know how people will react. You just don’t know." Muriel Siebert - Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Shaped Our Times, by Lynn Gilbert.
Particular Passions: Talks with Women who Shaped our Times