About

Financial advisor by day, and wry comic by night, Gardiner’s Joanne Secky is a rare breed. And a Natural Born Red Head. The truth in the name is up to her hair stylist to verify, but the persona is here to stay.

Natural Born Red Head works a little blue, as the saying goes, but Joanne is as proficient with words as she is with numbers in her day job with LPL Financial Member FINRA/SIPC—the nation’s leading independent broker-dealer. Her job has not only provided well, but it has enabled her to work mostly from home, allowing her the flexibility to raise her two sons, Mason and Jaxson, now both in their 20s, and to care for her mother, Jackie, 95 years young. Jackie bestowed Joanne with many gifts, not the least of which was an affinity for comedy. “My mom is my best friend,” Joanne says.

Financial planner, single mom, comedian… these terms don’t begin to sum up Joanne. She does things differently—and later in life—than most. Before moving to Gardiner in 2000, she lived many places around the country and worked on her Masters at a few schools before finishing at SUNY New Paltz.

Amidst raising her sons, one autistic, Joanne realized that she had many of the same undiagnosed issues. That discovery came when she was 39. But she does not believe in labels, or accept limitations. Everyone is an individual – Joanne certainly is. Son, Jaxson, is currently at Stetson studying Entrepreneurship and Finance. And son, Mason, who is a graduate of Northwestern University, and now involved in the Artificial Intelligence field.

We don’t need what we think we need to heal. A lot of it is within us. Heal thyself, heal the world.

She also came a little late to comedy—or at least performing. She has developed “a great love for comedy writing.” Standup? Not so much. Though you can find one of her earliest Natural Born Redhead routines on YouTube (parental discretion advised), she has taken a different path. “That wasn’t scratching the itch,” she says of standup comedy, which can take years to hone at comedy clubs, few of which are close by. “That was off the table because of raising sons and living with my mother.”

Now the kids are older, her mom remains her biggest fan, and there is more time to try to scratch that itch.

The newest chapter for Natural Born Red Head is in process. She plans to have a YouTube presence along with a regular podcast. The website www.naturalbornredhead.com arrives in May. “I just started my interviews for the podcast,” she says. Social media teasers will be coming this month. There is also a Natural Born Redhead page on Facebook.

“My sense of humor is very deadpan, a little smug, but mostly deadpan. I also call myself anti-social social.”

She is not using these platforms just to tell jokes. Issues Joanne plans on addressing include complex post traumatic stress disorder, dementia, breaking abuse cycles, estrangement between parents and children, toxic positivity, self love, divorce, and among many more topics, capitalism—“I love capitalism, and hate capitalists who don’t do the right thing.”

Egotism? She’s establishing a hotline. If you call—and you shouldn’t, because it’s a bit, folks—you might hear a friendly and familiar voice answer the phone: “Narcissists Anonymous—how can you help us?”

Article by Matthew Silverman.