The Hidden Fear That Stops People From Building Wealth

Glenn Stewardson is a certified financial planner with over 30 years of experience helping people experience joy in their retirement.

Today Glenn explains the common mistakes people make with their RRSPs, why most Canadians don’t have a financial plan, and the importance of having purpose in life and in retirement.

Today Glenn will cover:
🔹 The financial belief that quietly destroys wealth
🔹 Then number one mistake people make in their retirement
🔹 Three things you can do with money: spend, give it away, or pay taxes
🔹 The importance of taking risks to build the life you want
🔹 Teaching our youth about money the right way

Follow Glenn:
🌐 Website 👉 https://advisor.assante.com/Glenn-Stewardson/
🔗 LinkedIn 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenn-stewardson-cfp-fma-mfa-p-1769044/

⏱️ Timestamps:
00:00:00 Financial beliefs that hurt people
00:03:28 When to take money out from RSP
00:04:48 Tax planning around different TFSA vs RSP
00:07:13 Introduction to Glenn
00:08:55 Only three things you can do with money
00:09:30 Benefits of giving money away
00:14:01 Looking at schedules to find ways to minimize taxes
00:15:49 Think in 5 year cycles
00:17:41 Finding purpose in work and in retirement
00:22:46 Glenn’s relationship with money and getting into finances
00:28:08 Financial advisors deal in hope
00:30:34 Early struggles as a financial advisor
00:35:56 The importance of building trust with your customers
00:37:20 Opening yourself up and letting people in
00:40:46 Writing Your Joyful Retirement book
00:42:10 Why “Joy”?
00:43:25 Building the Joyful Retirement course
00:48:14 Business lessons from building an course
00:53:55 Why focus career on helping people with retirement
00:56:40 Lessons from people that retire as millionaires
00:57:25 Problem with today’s small business owners
00:58:13 Younger generation doesn’t want to buy businesses
01:02:13 Teaching younger people about money and finances
01:07:05 Is opening a TFSA as a teenager the best strategy?
01:08:47 Young people need to learn how to build good saving habits
01:13:58 Too much access to our financial information
01:15:24 How to think about life insurance
01:17:57 Personal question about Odum’s life insurance
01:21:03 How to talk to family about inheritance and a family will
01:24:32 Does debt transfer to children upon parents death?
01:25:47 Don’t get stuck with a big tax bill upon death!
01:29:18 You need to have some kind of plan on paper
01:30:16 Make sure your to protect your digital assets too
01:29:18 You need to have some kind of plan on paper
01:32:13 How to build good credit
01:34:16 Make your life what you want it to be!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What financial belief have people had that have quietly destroyed their lives and that they probably didn't even know about it?

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Wow. There's a oh it's a whole bunch. I'll tell you a couple that I think are important. Sometimes the the just the thought, the idea of trying to save money or where to save it, or how am I going to save it is is stops people from doing anything. It freezes them. Like a paralysis. Yeah, it's kind of like uh how would I ever save enough money to buy a house, or how would I ever like and where would I start and how do I do that? And who do I have to talk to? And um, and also it's interesting, it was a there was a comment made just this week for me about um, you know, sometimes people are are afraid, afraid to open up to somebody, embarrassed a little bit that they haven't done the right things along the way. And it there's a little bit of gray on my head. So, you know, people would like, oh, I can't talk to him. You know, he'll be too expensive or he'll be too knowledgeable. I have to, I'll be embarrassed in that conversation. So it's kind of like that. I'm not, I'm not really ready to be vulnerable, I guess. And learn uh what I what I don't know, you know, find out what I don't know. And so that they try to do use Google sometimes and they don't know the questions to ask. And so then when the answers come, they don't really know how to interpret them. So that's one thing. I I would say that from all of the work that I've done and all of the time I've spent with people, the number one mistake people make is they don't start taking the money out of their RSPs soon enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Okay, they've saved and saved and saved, especially the generation I'm talking about here is that the people, the baby boomers, are moving into retirement and they get into retirement, and even that generation prior to that, right? The the elders, um, they won't start taking money from the RSP. The RSP was created for people to invest their money and get a tax break. Right. That's the that was their belief, and that's what we've been told. That's what all the messaging used to say. And what happened is we got a tax break, and then we never want to take it out because we have to pay the tax. So they're afraid of paying taxes? They don't, not afraid. They don't want to pay it out. So what happens is the government has come along and said, here's your minimum. You don't have to wait till age 71, then you have to start a RIF or start withdrawing money from your RSP. And at age 71, they go, okay, what's the minimum I have to take out to pay tax? I don't need the money. So what's the minimum? So what happens is we're meeting people in their 70s and their 80s that have these huge RIF accounts, these huge accounts, and they're smiling thinking they're beating the system by not paying the tax either. The tax, it's got to come out at some point. It does have to come out, but it does need to get paid. And so what happens is a lot of folks, if it's a couple, what happens is one spouse passes, the surviving spouse inherits their RSP or their RIF. So now they have both RIFs, which means they have a larger account size. And when they pass away, all of it's taxable. So in the year of death, they could have their absolute highest taxable income ever. And somebody has to write a check.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

And someone has to, even if they're passing away to well, their children or grandchildren or or whoever.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

All of the money, see what's funny about the RSP that changes to a RIF, all of the money in the RIF could be given to the kids or the grandkids. It can all go to them, but CRA is over the shoulder and somebody has to pay the tax on it. Okay. The tax money has to come from somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So when you're saying, let's back up a little bit to maybe spleen this a little bit more. So when people, you're saying people don't take out money from their RSPs soon enough. How soon should they take it out?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Well, if you have a retirement plan, which you should going into retirement, you should have something written down and a plan, work with a financial advisor. Um, generally what happens is that there's there's two schools of thought. Okay. And that's part of the problem. There's two schools of thought. The one is the financial advisor that says you should leave your money in your RSP as long as possible and not pay the tax. Okay. And they're out there. There's lots of them. I I that's not my world, but that there's lots of them out there. I can have a healthy argument with those folks or the accountants that want to do that. There's the other school, and that's the one that I am in, which is as soon as you retire, you should be thinking about taking your money out as tax efficiently as possible. Spreading the tax over years. You're taking the money out as regular income, kind of replacing your salary with this money that's coming out that's taxable to you. And it's okay to pay tax. You've you've got the tax break when it went in, it's okay to take pay the tax when it comes out.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

It's funny because I I know for me, I'm one of those people that is I would have loved to avoid paying taxes as much as possible. I think most people are probably like people are like that. Yeah, no one likes to pay taxes. But the idea, I guess, is the way that I think about it is that when you're younger, you're not making as much money. And maybe it's better to pay taxes when you're younger as opposed to when you're older when you want to have a higher salary. Like, is that something that people think about when they're planning for their retirement?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

It's kind of a weird thing, Odom. You've got this situation where society is telling you to start saving for retirement early, right? As early as you can. You start a job, and one of the things that they have is a perk. And the perk is they're gonna match your RSP contribution, you know, a 3% match or something, where you are putting the employee is putting money in and the employer is matching that contribution. So you kind of start it early in this idea of saving money. Um, and then as you get to tax season or and into January, February, and you get your T slips and you go, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to pay a thousand, two thousand, three thousand in tax. But if I put money into my RSP, I don't pay tax. Right. So we get drawn in by this. I'm trying to reduce my taxes today, so I don't have to pay tax. A lot of times the problem is exactly what you said. We put money in to save the taxes when we're in a lower income, and then we end up in retirement and we're in a higher income tax bracket. Right. We don't want that, right? The whole idea of the RSP strategically, again, in whichever school you're in, but the school I believe in, to try to reduce your taxes down to a certain level, but not below that level. You could still pay some taxes, it's okay, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

That's why there's it's a lot of planning that goes involved in all this stuff. Yeah. Important for people to think about. So, oh, sorry, did you want?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

So I just wanted to finish off. So that is probably, and we'll go, we'll talk about this later in in uh today, but probably one of the things I see people that has what I would call aha moments. When we're teaching, I'm in a class, I'm in a presentation, and I talk about this, and they're sitting there, and the you know, the spouses are kind of elbowing each other, you know, kind of saying, What is he talking about? That's not our plan. That's our advisor said not to take money out of the accounts. And so they take money from the, I think they take money from the wrong place.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Ah, I see. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah, well, we're gonna dive into it as well, too, because I know there's some advice that I want to ask you while I have you here, maybe selfishly, about uh like my mother and her financial situation. But we'll uh we'll we'll dive into that. Um so we're talking a lot about RSPs and retirement. And before we get into that, for our listeners, can you maybe give them a little bit of a context for the work that you do and what it is that they need to know about you so that they kind of they can kind of understand, you know, where we're going with this conversation today. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Okay. Um, I I don't know if we have time to do the full bio, right? Uh as much time as we need to. Just uh a little bit. I guess I'm uh the the easy story that people understand is you know, I'm a financial advisor, certified financial planner, which is a CFP, which is sort of the industry standard for for folks that have been if you're doing any planning work or you got any tax structure, you know, it's you're looking for a CFP. My background, I'm 31 years as a financial advisor. Um you've seen some stuff. I've I've uh yeah, I've helped a lot of people over the years. Um it's fun to sit and think about some people, you know, kind of wonder what where they're at now, you know, and advice that I've given and and so on. And um, and of course, seen a lot of clients come and go and pass. And it it's uh yeah, it's interesting to see how things work out. But um, so my my focus, my total focus is on education. Like whatever I'm doing, I'm whether I'm sitting with uh, you know, somebody having a conversation, I'm trying to educate them, um, listening for their situation to try to figure out, you know, what little nuggets, what what I can help with, how I can change their situation, make it better, whether it's tax planning, whether it's investment planning, whether it's charitable giving, whatever it might be. Whether it's just situational, right? And where the money should go and what it counts, how to save it, how to draw it out, how to get it to the next generation. Remember, there's only three things you can do with money. What's that? Right? Spend it, give it away, or pay tax.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Spend it, give it away, or pay tax. I guess saving doesn't count because eventually that's you're gonna have to spend it as well.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

You're gonna have to spend it, give it away, or pay tax. Okay. I don't like paying tax. Most people don't. I mean, that's where that's where the whole charitable giving comes in, and why I'm so involved in that part of it is that you know, it kept coming up that people don't want to pay tax. And so, you know, charitable giving is a great way that the government supports you in saving tax because they actually participate in doing it. And yeah, some of the stories in my book talk about, you know, the idea of what people did to try to reduce down their taxes.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah. So for this this book here, the uh Your Joyceful of Retirement. Yeah, so I read this, and yeah, there's lots of stories about people giving. And I wanted to ask you, is that uh is that one of the primary strategies for lowering taxes is to just kind of give give the money away? But I mean, I think a lot of people they they do want to keep some of their money, but I guess if they're giving some away, they lower the taxes and then they still do they get to pocket more money by doing that?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Or so there's there's a very important um so it's Maslow's theory, if you know, for folks that understand that the the pyramid is you need to take care of yourself and your own needs first. That's number one, that's at the bottom, right? Shelter, food, security. And then the second level is where you start giving to friends, family, taking care of them, a lifestyle, things you want to buy or whatever. But the top part is philanthropy. The top part is giving back to the community. So if you're in such a place where you're taking care of your own needs, you've taken care of the people you care about, and you have the opportunity to give back to the community, that's when charity, that's when giving can start. That makes sense. It it makes, and it's important to think that way because if you're giving some of your wealth or something from yourself and you don't, you can't afford to do it, then you're gonna be in the lineup looking for it back. Right. Just trying to be fair. That's that's the way. So a lot of people go through life and they build up these piles of money, it's piles of wealth, and they've saved, saved, saved, and they've done a really good job, and they're not spending it, and we realize they're not gonna spend it, and then we have that conversation. Right. And say, well, remember what you can do. You can spend it and give it away, or you can pay taxes. Right. If you're not spending it, are you gonna give it away or are you gonna pay taxes?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yeah. And I guess most people would just decide that I would like to give to something that is important to me, whether it's to the environment or environmental cause, or whether it's to a group or charity that they know that they feel like that they want to support that work that people are doing.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Lots of conversations about that around folks who have given very little during their life. They they're it's not that they haven't thought about it, they just didn't know they could.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Right? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Or they've made gifts and they haven't really thought about the tax consequences of those gifts. So yeah, and not to say they're not philanthropic. They've been raising families, they've been paying debt, they've been building assets, whatever. And then they get to the point where they look back and they go, hey, uh, I don't think we're gonna spend all this. Or we help them with the plan that says, hey, we're not, you're not gonna spend all this money, right? Right, yeah. And then they go, okay, well, if I'm not gonna spend it and I'm not gonna give it away, I'm gonna pay taxes. So let me see. Maybe I can give it away instead of paying taxes. And that's where we start talking about the strategies around it. Uh we don't need to get in too much detail today. For sure, yeah. Like all the weeds and the numbers and everything. Yeah. Okay. But what I think one of the things that people don't realize as much, and and this is an important point, because when I ask this question of the presentations, I do, I'm like, what do you think the tax benefit is? You know, if you make a charitable gift. So they have$200 is the minimum, the government says, you know, if you give over$200, then we'll start talking. So over$200, it's 50%. Of a tax break. Of a tax credit. Tax credit. Okay. So if you give, you know,$1,000 over the$200,$1,000, it's 21% provincial, 29% federal tax credit. So it will reduce down your taxes, right? That$1,000 contribution will get you a$500 refund.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

So it reduces the actual amount of taxes you pay. It doesn't reduce like your taxable income. It's like directly to no, it's the yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

It's the taxable income. So if you're trying to reduce down the taxes you're paying, it's a fabulous way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Right? And people don't realize it. They're like, I don't know, is it 17%? Is it 34%? I've heard all kinds of numbers because they really don't understand it. So when they actually do the math, and I have lots of people come to my presentation and challenge me. Okay, really? They've done lots of presentations over the year, and the people are like, challenge, they're like, no, that's not right. Excuse me, that's not right. And they go home and they redo their taxes, they look at their taxes, and then I get calls or emails or follow-ups, and people say, Yeah, sorry about that.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yeah, you were you were right. You were actually right.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

And I'll tell you what it is, Odum, is it sometimes it's obvious because it's in the the pages, like this first four pages of the tax return that people see, they kind of look at, and there's other pages that are schedules behind that you don't see. Right. It's the schedules you don't see where the actual additional 21% is in. Okay. So that's why people don't know.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Just a little bit of an aside when you're talking about taxes, I use software that just says, hey, what do you have? And I just put it in. And I don't look at all the schedules or whatever, it just does it. Do you recommend people look at the those schedules in more detail? Or is it just kind of I know this is a little bit off. No, no, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

I'll tell you what's fun about that is that you know what I say that's for the financial advisor to look at. Because we love looking at that. You know, we have clients come in, they go, Oh yeah, I did my taxes, I got a refund, or whatever. And I say, Great, can you send me your PDF of the tax return? Yeah. So we go into Schedule 10, set whatever it is, and we go and say, Oh, look, he paid a capital gain here. Oh, right. Figure out the ways that you can do things maybe a little bit better. Yeah. And the reason we do is because if we know you and we know your business and we know your income, we can suggest things, which will come up to some of the things we're going to talk about, which is kind of like when you're coming up with a plan, is it, you know, where where are you at in your life? Right. Are you saying saving for a condo or house? Is it a you know first home savings plan? Is that what you're doing? Is it using the RSP and doing the withdrawal for a first home buyer's plan? Like, what is it that you're achieving? So I I have a funny little concept. So um I I I knew we were gonna have a chat today, and I'm I'm uh I'm not really ready to share this, but I'm gonna share it anyway, which is perfect. I love it. It's kind of the it's kind of what I think the next book is gonna be. Okay. So I've I've got, you know, the book is in print, it's out, and and uh I've been passing it out to people and we're laughing because a lot of the stories that are in the book are real live clients. Right, yeah, yeah. Just they're changed a little bit so uh to protect um anonymity. But but I um I think that the next book is the next five years. And and what that means to me is people need to be thinking at about five-year segments in their life. What are they gonna accomplish in five years? What are they where are they going to be in five years? What's the goal? What do I have to do to get where I want to be in five years? Because I mean, I talk about retirement all the time, but for somebody who's 30, retirement is a long, like sort of weird future something. It's hard to imagine what's gonna happen the next 30 years. 30 years is a lot, right? Or 35 years or whatever it is. And and I get pushback from some people who are enjoying what they're doing in their 40s, going, I don't ever see myself retiring. I'm having a black. I just want to keep going. Yeah, why would I save for retirement? I should just build my business. And so I I I think that concept of the next five years, you know, five years you're getting ready to buy a house, five years you're you're out of school, and five years maybe you're you're thinking about children, or five years, you know, uh, there is a there is a time frame where all of a sudden the panic starts to set in for a lot of people. And and it's uh, you know, one of your questions to me, if I may, is that you know, the presentation that I do focuses on people. Uh one of the presentations, Joyful Retirement, focuses on people age 45 and older. There's a little panic that sets in for people in their 40s. They kind of like, okay, using that next five years concept, I kind of go, wait a minute, I'm not ready. What do I what do I have to do? Where do I have to get to? Where do I have to be? I had it. I was 47, I had it. I was like, oh my, you know, kids kids are in high school and are not even yet. And I was panicking. I was like, oh no, I've used my assets to build a business instead of putting them in RSPs. And sure, that sounds like a smart thing to do, but when there's not a lot of money and investments, you start to panic.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

So I hear you. I'm in the same boat. I'm 45, just gonna turn 46, and everything is going into this business, right? You know, so it's like, okay, well, and I I love what you're saying about the next five years because that's what I'm thinking about right now. I'm like, if I can build this business into something really successful in the next five years, then I could really start to get some more assets and bringing in some more revenue, and then I could figure out what to do for retirement and for the kids and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's smaller chunks as opposed to the big thing. Because the big thing is like it's it's almost overwhelming. But at 45, you could see yourself doing this.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

That's true. Yeah. Right? So it's like, well, I don't know, I'm having fun. So um, but I'll tell you, at some point in time, it's gonna be nice not to have to work. Yeah. I'm not there yet. That's true. Yeah, because I still enjoy working. I still enjoy what I'm doing. Do you think you'll ever get there? I I don't know. I it's a funny thing. Uh I was uh I was laughing today because um I kind of tried a little bit of it two years ago. I was, you know, we took off, went down south for a couple of months, and uh I went down to Florida and spent some time you kind of away from the business and away from everybody, and we kind of missed it and realized that we didn't want to be gone that long. And I got back and I was felt like I was disengaged with my business and so really needed to be pulled back in. And and that's where the book came from is that it was, you know, the stories were there. I needed to write them. Realized that my favorite thing, I really, you know, had some time to think about it. My favorite, favorite thing is to educate people, right? I mean, I've already said that to you. Uh my favorite thing is that aha moment when I'm sharing something and the people go, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

It just clicks in their mind and you see it, and you're like, Well, you fine did a good job. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

So I I had the I had in a conversation uh with a client who read my book, and they they call in and they said, Next time you're in, you have to show me how to open a banana. And I was like, I was like, where did that come from? Right? I was like, uh I mean I do it. He didn't see my presentation, so and of course it's in the book and the story of flipping the banana over. And um, and it it's a joke thing, it's kind of funny, but it does throw people off and uh allows them maybe their is it their left brain or their right brain? I can't remember which things trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

I think the left is more analytical, the right is more creative. So I don't know, could be reversed. Could be what's one of the other brains, yeah, exactly. Uh okay, that's um yeah, I have that same thought as well, too, is that I don't feel like the idea of not having anything to do and just sitting around. Like, I mean, going on vacation is nice, but to be in just a tropical place and being at the beach and playing tennis all the time, it's fun for a bit, but I like interacting with people. I like just I like I love what I'm doing and I don't see myself wanting to stop. So I do a lot of people come to you and they factor that in into their retirement plans. They're like, you know what, I don't want to just quit everything. So is that uh uh like they're still working? So is that something that you uh take into account?

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Um I want to say it depends. And that's my favorite answer. It depends because um a lot of times uh it like an engineer comes in, right? And they're responsible for signing off on drawings. But what happens is over the years, that responsibility, even though they have the credentials, the company moves that responsibility to younger engineers. So it takes that kind of responsibility away, then they kind of work part-time, then they're a consultant and they kind of retire. But they've been an engineer. That's what they're that's what they are. That's what they are. That's who they are, right? Now they're a gardener. Now they're but they're still an engineer in their mind. Right. They're not working, right? But people need to have something in retirement. And the a huge mistake that people make is that they're so excited and so anxious to retire, and they've got this date, they don't like what they're doing. So they've got this set out and an age is coming and a and a time is coming, and I get to retire, and then they retire and they're six months into it, and they realize that they're not on vacation anymore, and now they have life. And what is life? They don't have their contacts at work, they don't have their regular, you know, people they see, they don't have the discussions around the so so to speak, water cooler in the kitchen and so on, and and they miss it. Yeah, and they get lonely. It's almost as if their sense of purpose is is is gone. Huge, huge word. And and whether you love your job or don't like your job, you have to have purpose in your life. You have to be feeling like you're you're purposeful in in this world. So 100%.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

And it's hard though, because I think most people, one of the reasons I started this podcast was to help people try to find out what makes sense for them. You know, what makes people unconventional talk to them and then hopefully they can inspire other people to go out and get what they want. And but I think a lot of people have a really hard time finding that sense of purpose. And uh so do I. I mean, I I feel like I've just I'm just starting to find mine at 45, right? Which is which is crazy. All right, let's dive back a little bit if we can, a little bit back into your past. And I just want to talk about money real quick because obviously you've been doing financial planning set for 31 years. Is there any time in your life where money has caused like really big stress uh for you? And you know, is is is that something that kind of steered you down the path of wanting to becoming uh uh or to get into finance?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

I've always had a strange relationship with money. It's never really bothered me. Um I've I traveled uh to Australia a couple of times, came back with you know huge credit card debts and was like, I'll just go to work and pay it off. And I never really stressed about it.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Um, I've had times when I've had no money in my life, you know, virtually, you know, nothing. And but you know, I go to work and make some money and continue on. Um, I would say that in the one inflection point for me of not having money, and now I'm married, that's different. Now I'm married, have a mortgage, have responsibilities, decided to become a financial advisor. I'm in the business for a few months, I'm not making any money, not able to actually pay my bills. And back in the old days, I know this sounds funny to some folks, but my$29 um maritime tell and tell bill, which included my oh, that's like the the old before bill. Um, so maritime tell and tell bill came in for$29 and I couldn't afford to pay it. Like that's how tight money was.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Back in those days, you wrote a check for the listeners that remember those days, and you would mail your check in to pay your bill. Um, also, Maritime Tell and Tell used to call you if you were a month late.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Oh, really? Okay. On the phone?

SPEAKER_00 24:22

On the phone, yeah. This is pre-internet. Um, and so they called and said, You're a month late. And I had to disclose to my wife and have a very large, deep, upsetting conversation that I couldn't afford to pay. I was started this one.$29. Yeah. I could not afford to pay$29. I let it go.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

And it's funny too, because I guess you couldn't answer it on your cell phone. It's just like, oh, hang on a second, let me just go to the washroom. It's like the phone is right there and then.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

I was hanging in the kitchen on a court. Oh my goodness. Yes. Who's that, dude? Um, so that was probably uh uh that was a huge turning point, and we'll come back to that uh I think a c maybe a couple of times in the conversation today. But I would say that in the, you know, the the one thing that drove me on, you know, when I when I was in high school, I always thought I'd be a business owner. It's really strange. Okay, you know, I was always thought, hey, you know, some I'm gonna be a business owner. Not because I really understood what that meant, but I never could see myself in a position, you know, working for somebody else. I always thought that I I'd own the company and run the company. Um and then it was uh I did obviously and along the way work in in lots of places and and was uh you know salesperson. I was a cook and I did all kinds of jobs, right? Younger. But there was a time when I um when I first met our financial advisor. So you you know the story, you read the book. So, you know, I went to a um I went to a presentation at David Chilton's out in Canberra River, BC.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

And I wanted to talk about him too, because he's uh uh the almost a Canadian icon in terms of uh in finance and the wealthy barber.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah, the wealthy barber. He's awesome. And and uh his uh, you know, I I met him when he had his his um self-published book um stacked up in his dining room and trying to try to vlog it. Because there's no internet, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

So he's going coast to coast trying to sell his book. So uh anyway, I he he did the presentation. I got hooked, I read the book. Um, we met our first financial advisor, and uh I'm I'm not married. I'm a f she's my fiance, we're we're engaged. And uh we went to see uh first financial advisor, and I came out of the meeting, and at the meeting he had a sign up for an RSP.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Oh, wow, so it was 10%.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

So we you know what our commitment was$500 a month at the time. So we were doing$500 a month, which at the time we thought was a huge amount of money. Like there's no way we can afford to do this. Right. And he said, That even seems like a pretty big amount even now, today. Yeah, it's it was a big amount. And and uh he said, look, do it for three months. I'll call you in three months, and if it's too much, we'll reduce it.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

This is the financial advisor.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Financial advisor, okay. So we signed up. Uh it was nine percent fee up front for the purchases.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

That's what they're not the same today.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Okay, nine percent up front, which meant the$500, you know, 9% came off that. And um I walked out of the meeting and I looked at my wife, my fiancee, I looked at Tracy, and I said, I think I'd like to do that. That guy gets to help people and deal with money. Those are two of the things I love doing. At the time I was a salesperson, I was I was working at a steel company. I I I really, I really that was a big memory for me and and for her. She remembered that.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Was working in sales something that you really enjoyed in terms of talking to people and interacting with people and wanting to help people? Yeah. Hopefully you're selling a good product that you actually believe in that you know is gonna help them. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

I and I don't think it matters what the product is. I think a good salesperson is filling a need. Okay. I have something that somebody needs and I can fill that need. If if they don't have the need, uh it doesn't matter how good a salesman I am, it's not gonna work, right? Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, yeah. So um, but I really enjoyed the fact that, you know, even though I didn't understand the time really, that you know, he wasn't really doing dealing with money, he was dealing with hope. The financial advisor. The financial advisor. Uh the hope for like the better future, the better. He was dealing with hope. And that's what we deal with today, right? Because it's it's on, it's all in the internet, it's all out there. Like the information. If you go online to look at your investment portfolio, it's not it's not real. I can't touch it. Right. I don't know. It's all just out there, right? And all the investments and all the portfolios and all the shares and everything that's involved in it today, I think really what it is is is hope. Hope that we're gonna have uh money for the future, hope we're gonna have income for the future, hope that we can buy the car, hope we can buy the house, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Right. So, how does that translate into helping people? Like, do you like are people coming to you almost like without hope in a sense?

SPEAKER_00 29:04

And you provide that for them in terms of I can say I I have so many great stories about people who have come in deflated and they're in they're coming into the meeting because they have no idea what's going on. They've got money all over the place. They've saved at work, they've saved at the bank, they've made last-minute contributions, they put it in whatever whoever was talking to them at the time at the bank, and they put it in this fund or that fund. They don't know, they have no idea whether they have enough money. And they come in and we sit down and go through a plan. Not knowing how much money you have and not paying for the money. Well, they do, but they don't really know if it's enough, right? And so we do a plan up, and in the plan, we can actually show them how much they have, and then what they're gonna, you know, what C Canada Pension Plan is gonna, you know, come in at, what's old age security, when it's gonna start, how to take money out of the RSPs into a riff. And all of a sudden they they brighten up. But the shoulders all of a sudden seem to relax a little bit. The tightness around their face, they're like, are we gonna be okay? And that's hope.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Maybe a little bit of clarity.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I don't know. A lot of clarity. A lot of clarity. But again, they still don't really grasp what they have, they grasp what the income is gonna be to know that they're gonna be safe and they're gonna be okay. That's fun.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

So, how long did it take you to get to that point where you're really helping a lot of clients? Like, maybe talk to me a little bit about the early days, Sarah, because you're talking about how you couldn't pay your phone bills$29. You're trying to get off the ground. So it sounds like there could have been a moment too where you might have wanted to walk away. Like, maybe talk a little bit about that. Like, what was a good turning point for you?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

There was a few times I tried to walk away and uh I I I couldn't find a way out. Probably um uh and I can't remember whether it's in the book or not, actually, now the story, but um, I actually tried being a financial advisor and it didn't take. It was my story with my wife. I tried it, it didn't really take. So I went back to my old employer and uh went in and said, Yeah, it didn't uh it didn't work out so well, so I'm gonna come back. And uh he uh in a very um gut-wrenching way for me uh said no, no, uh I don't think so. I've already replaced you, I can't trust you anymore. So no. And I left crying, and that was a huge, huge moment for me. Uh yeah, I I drove home crying and I thought that was my backup plan. So uh I needed a new backup plan. And so what did I do? I went back to work and started, you know. I okay, well, I gotta go sell some more, I gotta go meet some more people, I, you know, and attract some more assets, go make some more money. And in the meantime, I went out to try to find out if any other institutions needed a financial advisor because I thought I need a salary. That's what I need. I really need a salary so I can get some regular income. So I went to the banks, I went to the credit unions, I went all over the place. And of course, it was pre, it was before the financial advisors were in the branches. Like the banks hadn't figured out financial advice. Oh, right. They were still tellers. Okay. So uh I went there, knocked on doors, and then nobody was interested in hiring. So I went back to work and and um and went knocking on doors and picking up the phone and calling people and made a little money here, and made a little money there, and a new client here and the new client there, and so on. Um but yeah, that was that was probably the time that I realized that I I I just I didn't want I wanted to be accepted by my wife who would be thinking I was successful.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

And I didn't feel very successful, not making any money.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah, no kidding. So there's a couple things I want to unpack about that because you said one thing that was really interesting was that your backup plan was to always go to your old job. Yeah. In a way, do you think that that held you back from really giving it 100% to make it work? No. It didn't, eh?

SPEAKER_00 33:09

No, okay, I don't think so. I had no idea what I was doing. Like I started off as a financial advisor with a company, basically said, go get licensed and come into the office, and here's a phone and here's a desk.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Make the calls.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

No training, no list, no advice, no coaching, nothing. Nothing, eh? Um so and 100% commission, I'd imagine. 100% commission. Yeah, yeah. So uh it was a portion of the commission. So uh and and it was just the time when the the industry was transitioning away from the 9% up front. So they changed from 9% to 5% up front. And so that was that was a pretty big deal. And so it's 5% up front for investments, and then people had to hold them for seven years in the in the investment. So most RSPs were fine with that, you know, you get paid 5% up front. And so I'm doing the math constantly on the money that's coming in, what that 5% commission is, how much my branch is taking and how much I'm getting. Uh-huh. I knew I still have some pretty good records of that.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

So was it the math really bad in terms of you'd have to get a lot of clients to be able to make a good living?

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Yeah. And and I'll tell you at the beginning, so so who, so I had a lot of contacts. I I came out of a job where I knew a lot of people in Burnside. I took on this new financial advisor role and I went back to my contacts, you know, reached out to them. In the old days, we we phoned people. So I phoned them and said, Hey, I'm I'm I'm working with this company I want to come by and see. And they were like, Yeah, yeah, sure. It's say come by and see them. They're my age, and I was a brand new financial advisor. Why would they trust me with their money?

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Probably a smart move, actually. But why would they trust me with their money? So they were like thrilled for me that I had this new career and I wasn't working in that industry anymore. But nobody wanted me to do their investments. So I I think there was a handful, you know, there was like four or five that actually became clients. And and then I just kept uh struggling. I kept trying to find new ways to meet people. And then, of course, the longer you're in the industry, the more experience you have, and so the more you understand. And so it's easier to talk to people about investments. And realizing that a lot of people don't really understand investments at all. So talking to them in investment speak doesn't help.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

It doesn't work. You have to talk to them again.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Talk to them like humans. In that hope speak, in a sense, hope speak to be able to say, hey, you know,$200 a month, you know, that's you know, if you do that or every paycheck, right, that's gonna reduce your taxes down. That money is gonna go in RSP, here's this, it's gonna grow, whatever it is, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:50

That's a really good point that you bring up about talking to people and you know, your young your young buck out there and be like, why would I trust you with my money? Yeah. What does it look like though, when you do win over the trust of of a client? What does it look like?

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Yeah, like for for for them. Uh it's relief. It's it's having somebody. I I always talk about champions. This is and and it sometimes it drives my wife crazy, but I'm always talking about champions. So in in life, we want champions. Champions, if I want to go buy a car, I don't know anything about cars. I don't even know what kind of car I want half the time. So I end up with a champion, and the champion is a whatever dealer is there and becomes my champion. So we had Hondas for years because I had Dave at the Honda dealership, who was my champion. We went in there and said, you know, we need this car. We have three kids now, whatever it is. I need a van or whatever. You go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll I'll take care of it. Give me the trading and whatever that here's the monthly payment. We want champions in I have I have champions at Home Depot. I go to Home Depot and I'm looking for something specific and I go up and talk to them, and I realize they're not the person to talk to. And then I go around the corner and I talk to somebody else, the guy who's gonna cut my board in half or whatever. And he's my champion, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:04

What is it about those champions that make you trust them that they're going to give you the right advice and they're gonna do right by you as opposed to, you know, doing right by by them?

SPEAKER_00 37:14

And I I I think that's an excellent question because I I think part of it is, and it's funny to I don't even know exactly how to say this, but I think you need to let people peek at you a little bit, take a little look inside of you to see what you're all about. That's slight vulnerability you were mentioning. Very much. And that's actually in the book, is that you know, I've had a lot of people say to me, wow, you were really like you were really vulnerable in the book about your history and yourself and stuff like that. And that's what people want. They want to see inside you a little bit and see you're like them and and see that you care. And that's actually a great word, care. Because um the the old saying is they don't know what you what is it? They they don't care what you know until they know that you care. Ah, right. Yep. So if they know you care about them, and one of the things that we talk about uh a lot with when I'm meeting with people and I'm I'm presenting to them or I'm I'm we're sharing concepts or ideas is you know, nobody is gonna care more about your money or your future than we are, other than your family. Well, hopefully, anyways. That your family cares. Hopefully that your family hopefully your family cares, yeah. But like nobody's gonna care more about it. Yeah. Right? Because it's it's in our DNA to make sure that you're successful. You you're successful, we're successful, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Well, that's the thing too. I imagine, you know, if you're managing my money and then I start losing money left, right, and center, there's not gonna be much uh true uh belief that you're gonna be able to be able to see through the first line.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

I've I've been through many situations with downturn markets, and when portfolios go down, we've held hands and and told people not to open statements.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

And that's a little bit of a different story, too, about like a downturn in market versus somebody who's really not after your best interest.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Yeah. Oh, so in in the old days when this used to happen, because I don't think it happens anymore. It used to be the the burn and churn of the stockbroker, right? So it'd be near the end of the month and they'd make a stock trade in somebody's account to earn a commission. Oh, okay. So 27th, 28th, it was pretty obvious, right? They'd just trade something to earn a commission.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

This day and age, we charge a fee to manage the whole portfolio. Right. So we don't need to make any trades. We get paid anyway. And it's so one of the things that's interesting about financial advice is that and where people get upset. And I see this in the in the joy for retirement classes when I'm teaching, is once they understand how their advisor gets paid, they start questioning the work that's being done on the portfolio. Ah, yeah, yeah. I get it. Right. So if an advisor is getting paid 1% to manage the portfolio, that person's got$500,000. That's five grand a year. So did I get a phone call from them this year? Or a plan or any changes to the portfolio? They call me during RSP season. We talk about RIF income. Have I had a meeting? That starts coming up. And people are like, hmm, that's every year. Right. So we believe there's nothing happening. Yep. Right. There's nothing happening. So we believe we're we're not we're not trading in the portfolio, but we honestly believe people have to work for their money. Like there has to be some value to that getting paid. And and um we certainly offer value.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

So that makes a lot of sense. We're gonna we're gonna dive into that a little bit more uh in the future here as well, too. In the future. In the future, yeah, down the page. Down the page, yeah. Um, but I want to talk a little bit about your book here again, your joyful retirement. This was this was a fantastic very quick read, too, which was which is great. Um But it took a long time to write, by the way. I was gonna say it took a long time, but it took me like after an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Yeah, how long did it take you to write? Three years. Three years, eh?

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

It was two years of stories and about a year of editing and and trying to decide what went where and to take some stuff out.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

And do you think in your next book it's gonna be that much faster? Way faster. So, like again, like you were talking about with business. It's like I didn't know anything I'd start. I didn't know what three years to learn.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yeah, Mary Jane Copps is is in there because she's a very good friend and and uh a huge supporter of mine. And you know, she was one of the huge inspirations to make that happen. She was like, just write it a client story, write the story, send it to me, I'll edit it. And that was the start of kind of what we started doing. And then she goes, write another one.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

And then Yeah, she knew what she was doing.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

She knew she just kept me at, and then she just like, okay, well, we need, you know, we're gonna create case studies now. So we need to round out the story a little bit with some learnings, and then we need to have some information in there, and then we need your personal story, and so yeah. Awesome. Is that was that is that your business coach too? Uh no, Mary Jane Cop. Well, she certainly helped me on business over the years. But Mary Jane Cops is the phone lady. That's that's her that's her company. Okay, okay, okay. She's fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

So back to your book. Back to the book. So or in your business coach. Yeah. So there was a quote in there where your business coach asked you, what is it that you want people to experience in life? And then you answered Joy. Why did you answer that?

SPEAKER_00 42:22

I think it's an in it's an interesting thing. And I and I've uh in in going through business coaching, it's different than doing personal coaching. It really is. It's like, what's my business about? What what I'm uh it's it's hard to explain. Unless you've got a really good business coach, it's hard to take your personal hope out of it. Okay. So as a business owner, what did I want people to receive? Right? And we talked about hope earlier. But what do we want people to actually have in their life from working with us? And it was joy. It just came out. And he said, okay, so it's a joyful retirement. And it was like, yeah, that's exactly what it is. And so I branded that was 2014, I think.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Was it your love of talking to people that and you said you always live love to do education? That's what combined the whole joy and then the education, and you kind of combined that and branded it joyful retirement. And then that led you onto the path of of teaching? Not quite.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Not quite. Okay. So so I had in um in 2012, I had a time where I was questioning where my passion was and what was going on in in my life. So 2012 was, you know, we were past the 2008 downturn, you know, portfolios had come back up. I kind of looked around at all these clients.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

You were successful.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

I was doing okay. Um, I was just kind of questioning what was next. And so ended up meeting an advisor who was working specifically educating donors of charitable organizations. On how to make bigger, better gifts, smarter gifts.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

And so that inspired me. I was already working with some charities, but you know, helping them, talking about tax planning, educating them. And uh so I ended up starting this program. And the program uh it's a presentation, it's called Tax Reduction, uh, estate tax elimination. And that program itself, I've done that for hundreds of people uh all over Nova Scotia and online all over Canada. That program itself is where the charity gets to um present me as the tax expert to their donors, which I have a little bit of knowledge in that area. And so the donors get to hear how they could be making bitter, bigger, better gifts, how they could strategically change things up in their portfolio. And then a bunch of them go back to their financial advisors, right? And have that conversation. Say, I just learned about giving these, you know, stocks and how that's gonna save me tax. And we don't need to go into all that today, but it's very important and very good structure and strategies. So that started me in 2012. Business coach in 2014, as I was like, okay, I want to do, I want to do more. Right. Right. I I got I get this group, I like to do more. And I actually looked all over Canada for a retirement course. I scoured Canada because there's a few in the US where advisors, financial advisors teach the public about retirement planning. And there's none in Canada. There's none of Canada.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

None. And this is even after this is 2014.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

So you'd think there'd be something out there. I looked everywhere. I actually called financial advisors who had on their website that they did financial education. And I'm like, what course? Like, can I get that course? And they were like, no, but if you find one, let me know.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Yeah, it was crazy. So um I was really passionate about the education part of it, and that just made me more passionate.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

I was gonna say there's probably like an entrepreneur, business owner switch that went on there, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:59

There was a little bit, but there was also just the simple, well, if there's nothing out there, then I'm just gonna create something. And so I took a bunch of the information of how the structure of how they did it in the US, um, and I created my own brand in Canada called Joyful Retirement. And of course, I have a very good coach, uh, a very good marketing coach that works with me, and we talked about things, how it was set up. And she does all of the online, um, all of the social media, all of that stuff. She's a whiz, she's absolute uh amazing at that. Um and so we worked together and created the course and created the marketing platform and got it all set up. And then we said, okay, and we sent the invitations out. So your list of clients and whoever was the public. We darked 20,000 leaflets and thought, oh, yeah, we'll see what happens. And um, people started signing up. Ah, that's a good one. They started paying 95 bucks. They got a leaflet that said retirement planning course and at uh you know Mount St. Vincent University, and they started signing up. And I was like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

And this was to go in-person or this was an in-person class.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Yeah, it's 2014. So the course was successful. Within a year, we had people from all over Canada calling us, other financial advisors saying, I I want that. Yeah, I want you to do that for me. And so we started doing it. And uh Joyful Retirement started licensing advisors across Canada. Um, right from Victoria to St. John, uh St. John's. Um, hugely successful for five years. For five years, okay. Until 2020.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Yeah. Something happened. Something happened there.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

45 classes scheduled in 2020 across Canada within about three months. And then something happened. And the yeah, the pandemic just shut you down, April. Yeah. All the university shut down. Yeah. Right. Uh I think the last class I did live was in I went out to Victoria to visit my dad in in uh March of 2020. So it was March 7th, 2020, and I did a class. And it was just as people were like social distancing. So I had a class full of people that were all trying to stay separate from each other, right? Um, jumped on the plane, came home, and by the 15th, the office was shut down, and uh at the end of the month, everything was shut down.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

So what did you learn from from doing that? Um, because this is something new for you, I imagine. Like you're teaching courses and you're it's it's it's like a different type of business, right? It's like almost you're selling a product. As well, I guess you could say you're selling products with financial products, but do you know what I mean? Like you're going out there, you're teaching people, you're doing some licensing agreements with other teachers. Like, how is that experience for you in um just to just in business overall?

SPEAKER_00 48:42

So I I was um in in setting up uh in setting up the program, you know, we we were figuring it out. There was no template to go from. So we were figuring out how to license people contracts, we were figuring out what the pricing should be. Of course, we never charged enough. Um but of course the licensee thought it was too much and we knew it wasn't enough, but you know, we wanted to get going. I mean, some of the licensees had just amazing results, but they didn't. So here's I'm I'm gonna talk about this in two different versions. Okay. They had amazing results because their city wanted this information. The city. The city would want I mean the people in this in their town wanted the information. They signed up like crazy, they'd fill these classes. The advisor had the class, basically showed up, presented the class, and then their job was to make sure that anybody who had questions and wanted to follow up with the advisor got a meeting. Yeah. And the advisors did a terrible job at following. Not that they didn't follow up, but they didn't know how to talk to people who weren't referrals. See, our business is set up where we get referrals.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

And so we have a happy client and they say, Hey, you should go see Glenn, you should go see Jessica, you should go see them because they do a great job.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

They come in and they see us. They're pre-sold. They already have somebody who said, Hey, you should deal with them. When you've got somebody that comes from a presentation, they like you, they think you're smart, but you need to know how to turn them over into getting hope, seeing the vulnerability, uh, opening yourself up to have that conversation to say, I can help you. And we had a a lot of advisors who weren't very good at that. Ah, okay. So with that, a lot of our licensees who did the class weren't very good at that part of it.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

So if you had to do it again, would you do anything differently in terms of training those licensees or having I tried. I tried it.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

I did some training with them and a few of them caught on and a few of them understood, you know, how to do things and and got better at it. But um, it was um it was not part of the course.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

So where are you right now with joyful retirement? Like are people still I'm almost there. I'm just kidding. Oh no, yeah. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Almost there. Uh where am I? I I uh the the company.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

In terms of the business, because you're not are you still teaching locally yeah, we're not teaching.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

Uh the the challenge after a COVID, we've tried a few times to have classes and we get sparse interest in in a live class. And I don't think that's I think that's the way people are buying differently, right? You're putting$95 down for something, and and we are moving to a space where people want instant gratification for their purchase. Right. Yeah, yeah. Why is Amazon Prime so wonderful? Is because I order it today and it's at my doorstep two or three days from now. Yeah or tomorrow. Yeah. With the education idea, um, it the class itself was two nights, you know, six hours, five and a half, six hours of education. And that's only 95 bucks. That's 95 bucks, yeah. And you get a workbook. And so it was a lot of information in a short period of time, but a long period of time. People like have a problem now or they see a problem and they want to find an instant fix. So what joy for retirement, where where we're at right now with the company is um we're working on quicker fixes to people's problems. Okay. Rather than a general information for the masses. And um, I don't know if that's gonna work, but uh without people ready to come back to class. And I can tell you the kind of the funny uh story is that we still get signups from people. People still sign up from classes from 2020. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

So they still have they find information online.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Somewhere online, they come across this link. This class is going. I had two for March 7th at West. They're signing up, so there's still interest.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

Have you moved it digitally though? Like, can people just buy this?

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Digital, people don't want digital, they don't want to spend six hours or four hours watching videos of me presenting. They don't want to go through the slideshow uh on their computer at home. It's almost as if they want to have access to someone that they could ask questions to interface. They want no, I shouldn't say that. They wanted because uh people are changing, right? And people are changing all the time. What they wanted 10 years ago is they wanted the live instructor, they wanted the classroom feel. I'm getting ready to retire. I'd like to go back to class to learn how to do it and what I should be thinking about. And it was absolutely awesome. I mean, I have if you go and Joy for Retirement Seminars, all the reviews of people who attended the class.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

Yeah, I saw some of them. Yeah, yeah. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Amazing. It's 5,500 students across Canada who just got such huge benefit from it. From their own advisors, from you know, new advisors, the instructors, whoever it was, just is and we have instructors still asking us when we're gonna start classes again and say no.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

Gotta say no. That's funny. Um, can I just ask you real quick? I think we went over this, but maybe I'll just ask it again. You're focusing on people that are retiring, like that are 45 plus. Why is it that you specifically decided to kind of focus your career on helping people in that certain certain age group?

SPEAKER_00 54:09

I went through a few stages. Um, and how I got to kind of retirees is so I went through a stage where I started off with uh group RSP plans. I was going into businesses and setting up the group RSP plans. And you know, I get eight or 10 employees that would sign up and do 200 bucks a month or something.$200 a month at you know, 5% commission once a month. There's a little bit of cash there, but it's not enough to make a career on that. You got to have a lot of people. Um, and so I went kind of from doing that, and then I ended up working with uh a lawyer and an accountant, and we did presentations at night on estate planning. Oh, sorry, in the afternoon on estate planning. Okay. So we'd have like a two o'clock session at you know, the yacht club or something. And so we would invite there, used to be a book out where you used to be able to go find the people in the neighborhood and find out what they did. Oh, really? Yeah, I can't remember the name of it. It was Rogers or I don't know, it's not the name of it, but it was something like that. It had a specific name, and it was like the Bible. It it was like somebody's personal where they worked or if they were retired. Like it was it was and this was a legal thing? This was a legal thing. This is like the phone book on steroids. Wow, wow, yeah. So I had a I had a uh a lady who did calling, and she would go, you can't get it, you have to go to the library and look at it. So she would go to the library and handwrite for a whole neighborhood, right? Streets in the neighborhood. Then she would pick up the phone and she would call them and say, hey, we're having uh estate planning, and this guy's retired, and this guy's retired, so on. Um, and so we would fill a room and we would get clients, and that was good. It was a lot of work, it was good, it worked out well, but I realized that they were a lot of older clients. And I went, okay, so there's a sweet spot somewhere between these two. These are folks that have money, right? Uh, but their time frame is shorter. These are a younger group, don't have money yet, so they've got a long time frame. Right. So I ended up kind of going somewhere in the middle and saying, okay, so what can I do to help people? And so I kind of became a specialist on the retirement, how to retire, when to retirement, you know, what when to retire, um, how to take money out from which accounts and so on. Right. So I still have uh older clients. I still have younger clients, younger clients are actually, you know, looking to retire now. So but I do I I mean, I have a great, you know, story about you know working 30 years ago with a client who started with, you know, his work plan with, you know, the 200 bucks a paycheck and and putting his money in putting money in RSPs and you know working with a company and getting shares in the company and and you know, and now he retires a multimillionaire and doesn't have to worry about money.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Is there anything else to unpack about that?

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Any lessons that uh the audience can ask and take? It doesn't matter what you start with. You just start. You just start, and when the opportunities are there, you have to take them. Right. And you know, his opportunity was there because he was a hard worker at the beginning and was willing to work extra hours. And you know, he he he became the you know, the the manager, and then he be you know became a shareholder and owner of the company.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

And so I wonder if it's harder to do something like that today with today's market and job market where you don't see the guy going in at the one level and then 30 years later they're they move up to the top. Things moving so fast and that's the corporate world.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

The corporate world, no. But the small business owner has a problem right now. They built a business, right? And what are they gonna do with that business? How do they monetize that business, right? And so one of the ways to monetize it is to sell it to somebody, right? Um you mean the asset itself of the business, the the business. Yeah, so I've I've got a client who's a who's a chiropractor, and right now he's built up this business. The only person that can buy it is another chiropractor, right? Right? It can't be owned by somebody else, it doesn't work that way. But another chiropractor could walk in, you've got brand, you've got location, you've got the setup, you've got all the equipment, all the clients that come in and regular new clients every month because of location, because of the marketing.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

And no younger chiropractor wants to buy, wants to step in. Why do you think that is? That's what I think. Why? I don't get it. Right? You got instant revenue. Yeah. You got a business that's already set up that somebody has spent years creating. You walk into the business, it's turn not even turnkey. It's basically you walk in, it's you're good to go. You sign an island at least for three years, you're immediately making money.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

You already have the cash flow. Yeah. Immediately making money. Is it a lack of awareness or understanding?

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Or like it's that next generation. It's the next generation coming on, not wanting to take risks. Oh, it's a risk issue.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

But that's almost but what's riskier? Doing nothing or trying to build something from scratch?

SPEAKER_00 58:59

Happy to earn a salary, or they don't want to work that hard. Okay. Right? I'm only going to do four days, or I don't want the commitment, or uh, whatever it is. And I don't think that's just one industry. I think that's a lot of industries. So you've got business that have been created and built up in a brand name and recognition, but there's no value unless somebody buys it. Right. So the owners are going, okay, so maybe I get employee X and get them interested in being an owner of the business. And what I do is I start giving them shares and then pulling out the dividend, giving them shares, pulling out the dividend, right? So they slowly start buying in with commitment. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 59:38

Are you seeing a lot of that? Like I might you got a lot of clients. Are a lot of your clients, like small business owners that are getting close to retirements? And we've talked a lot about on this podcast about succession planning and how there's a lot of small businesses here in Canada where a lot of people are not planning how they're going to transition away from their business. And most people, it seems like they're going to just close their doors. Like, are you seeing that anymore?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:00

There are a lot of people that are just going to close the doors. There's just no But that's such a that's such a shame. It is a shame. Yeah, it is a shame. But by the way, the I I don't have a lot of clients. I've got less than 200 clients. Oh, that's not a lot of clients. What is a lot of clients in the financial world? I talk well, I talked to an accountant today who's got 1,200 clients. Oh. Right? So it sounds that sounds like a lot to me. That's an accountant. Maybe it's a little bit different. Yeah, maybe it's a little different. Um, but a lot of financial advisors are in the certainly in the hundreds.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

Right. And so that's why you need a team. You need more than one person. That the sweet spot in this industry, they say, is 150. So 150. Uh that goes to Simon Cynic, right? That's your your tribe, right? Okay, the tribe. Okay, yeah. So once you get above 150, you're you're maxed out.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

You can't take any more. So then you need another advisor to help with you. Unless you want to build a team. Right. And so once, you know, and and in my world where I want to focus more on education and presentations, uh, you know, it's got to be less than that. It can't be 300 with two advisors. It's I don't want to do all of that work. So it's kind of 150 plus a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

And you're in that position now where you can you're you're dictating what it is you want to do, what brings you purpose and what brings you satisfaction in your world.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:09

Yeah, it's yeah, I'll tell you the difference is it's fun, is that you know, look back from 30 years ago when you know the joke is anybody you fogged a mirror was a client, right? So and that's the the the life insurance joke, right? So, but um now it's like they don't have to become a client. I can just help them. I don't need to to take them on as a client to help them, I can just give them advice. Yeah, I can have a conversation with somebody and say, look, you're already dealing with so-and-so, you know, this is what you need to tell them. This is the advice, this is what you need to talk about, this is the investment, or this is the product, or you know, whatever it is. I don't need to take it on my shoulders, I can just share. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

So I just want to bring it back a little bit about when we're talking about dealing with people that are 45 years and older. And I just have a question for you about is there something like I would imagine that if people are financially literate when they're younger, when they're getting to that point where they're 45 and older, that they should already kind of have a financial plan. But I'm sure for you, there's no shortage of people out there that don't know much about money. Is there some kind of fundamental failure that we're having as a society in terms of teaching young people and our youth about how to really properly manage their money and how to think about money?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

I'm not sure I can unpackage that for you. That sounds more like an education issue, but fundamentally, yes, we are not teaching. And I don't think we ever have. I I don't think this is something that all of a sudden in you know, 2026, we look around and go, hey, we should have been teaching our kids how to do this. I didn't get taught that. I wasn't a class that I had in school. It's not like we used to do it and now we don't. And and I don't think going forward, I mean, my kids would come home in high school and say we're learning about credit cards. And I went, awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

Really? I've never heard that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

And then all the information they had was wrong. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:08

No, seriously.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

Like the information they brought home, and I went, Well, that's not right. I'm like, that doesn't really, that's not how it works.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

It's like, well, a teacher says, I was like, oh dear, okay, just a second now. Let's have a conversation about this. So when my kids were young, I went and got them all when they became of age of responsibility. I went and got them credit cards. And I said, the way that you're going to get credit in this world is you need to use your credit card and pay it off.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

And so my kids were so diligent. Uh, my son ended up having a credit balance on his credit card because he would go spend it and then he would pay it off, and then he would go, I don't know if I did that and he'd pay it again. So he actually someone had credits, but what that's not good either, by the way. You should use it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

If you go into like negative, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:58

Yeah, you're you they don't like that. So you're you should have a balance. Like there's a certain way to go through and figure out how to get credit. Um, you know if you're doing a good job when the credit card company comes back to you and offers you more.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:09

Yeah, they keep on uh trying to raise your limit. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:11

So so my kids would, you know, they start off with a thousand, two thousand, then they'd get a four, five, ten, whatever it is. And every time the credit card company offered their Iowa said, take it. Always take it. Always take it, always take it because you're building credit. Use the card, pay it off. Use the card, pay it off. Do whatever you're buying, you know, coach, whatever it is, use the card and then pay it off. And then pay it off. And for God's sakes, do not get any interest. No, well, and I'm actually not, I mean, I'm not passionate about not paying the interest because you know sometimes it's okay to have a balance, but I don't miss the payment. That was the that was the last thing. But here's the thing all the kids have fabulous credit scores. My wife has a fabulous credit score. Me, eh, not so much. But but I be only because I I've I did miss a couple of payments, right? When you look at that for starting the kids off, if the parents don't understand how to use credit and the parents don't understand the financial world, they're not gonna get their kids off on the right foot. I mean, yes, I'm a little bit biased here because I do have a little bent into it, but but seriously, I mean, you you need to start the kids off. And so, you know, a kid's using, you know, line of getting line of credit set up, um, you know, having their loans, making sure they're paying, making their payments on loans, using their credit cards, you know, having it's so funny because um when I was young, it was a checking and a savings account in the bank, right? So everybody had a savings checking and a deal at the end of the year. The old deal, the old deal the lion, yeah. So you know, checking and a savings account. And of course, when I was young, I just said a savings account because I didn't have a checking account. But when you talk to the younger generation, they'd have no idea what you're talking about. They have a bank account. There's no savings account, it's a bank, a bank account. What is the savings though? Yeah, what is the savings you're talking about, right? It might be a tax free savings account that the bank has offered them and they've jumped into or something, but They just have one account and checks. Uh, they don't have checks. What do you mean? What is a check? Yeah, what is a check? Why would I have checks? I got my daughter checks so she could pay her rent. They said we need 12 monthly checks. So she's like 19. We said, okay. So I went and ordered checks. She got a book of 25 checks, cost us a fortune. She wanted to make sure it had a special logo on it or something. So we get the checks, and then she goes to the landlord and says, Oh no, we'll just do direct withdrawal or whatever withdrawal from your bank account. She's like, Well, what? Like language, right? Direct withdrawal, checks, whatever. The landlord wouldn't think about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

But I want to talk a little bit about teaching kids because that's what we're talking about. And I want to bring something to you because this is kind of how I like to think about things. But again, this is just my knowledge from what I know. So I could be wrong. We're talking about R R SP, and you're saying a big mistake that people make is that they don't withdraw it early enough. And there's a new thing in Canada. I don't know how new now, but new enough, the tax-free savings account, where it's a thing where you just put your money into it and whatever you make off of it, you can just it can just grow and you withdraw it completely tax-free. So I like to think, like with my kids, I say, like, okay, listen, if you are 18 years old, you can open up an account. It's just 19 here, 19 year in Nova Scotia. So is it all Canada or is that just 19 year? It's 19 years. Yeah. So I'm like, if you can max that out 500 a month or whatever it is to make maybe 600, whatever it is to max it out, and then let that grow. By the time you're ready of retirement age, you should have, you know, if you're like doing whatever the stock is doing, you know, like millions of average. Millions. Yeah. So I mean, is that a smart way of thinking about it? Is that like, am I off on on this thinking?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

Or is this because I I would say if you've got a a young person starting out, first of all, uh, it would be a challenge for them to put away$500 a month. That's true. That's true. It doesn't matter how old you are, what you're working at. Let's just say that's for fun. So getting getting a young person started on a tax-free savings count is a good idea. Um, the issue, of course, for a 19 or a 20-year-old, what you want me to put money away for retirement? Like I I'm gonna need a house, I'm gonna need a car, I'm gonna need a vacation, I'm gonna, you know, I'm I've got kids, I've got a wedding ring. Like it I I I don't we don't go to retirement. We just go, you should save money. Right. Tax-free savings account's a good place to do it. But here's the interesting thing about that. If you're 19 or 20, your income is probably fairly low. Yep. So putting the money in an RSP, it it's not really gonna be great for you. And it's not really retirement. It's not really retirement money. Putting money in a tax-free savings account, it's gonna save you the tax. But again, what tax are you gonna pay? If you've got investments and your investments go up a little bit, you got a capital gain or a dividend, really again, it's not a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

The issue isn't about the taxes at that point in time, the issue is about the regular savings. It's the uh it's my friend, you know, David Chilton with the 10%. And he says 10% for long term and 10% for short term. 20% in total. 10% for long-term needs and 10% for short-term savings for your trips or you know, your car or whatever you're gonna save up for. Okay. So that's pretty substantial for folks. Um, and it's discipline. So the discipline of saving$500 a month,$600 a month, that's a lot. Just the discipline of savings. I keep saying$200, right? That's what I've said all the way through this. Just putting$200 away a month. It's not too much, it's not too little, it's something. And if you get that going as a young person, it's a habit now. Yeah. One of the things that I talk about to clients about is when you start an education plan for kids and you want to start saving for your kids so they've got money for school. And some people do, some people don't, but if you can start that, I started it$100 a month for my kids. And I never changed it. Three kids,$300 a month from birth till age 17. Never changed it. I didn't have the money to change it, but I never stopped it. Always, always, every month, automatically down my bank account. And of course, you know, and the market went down in 2008 and the value went down and it hurt me, and I was like, oh, I've got to recover. They went in and they it paid for their first degree. Which is amazing. Which is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:27

Because it's expensive. It is expensive.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:30

So just having that discipline. So a young person saving$200 a month, what happens is in their own mind that money is for something. You don't know what it is yet. They might not know what it is yet, but it's for something. So if they're saving$200 a month and it again,$2,400 a year, two grand a year, it doesn't sound like a lot. Two grand,$2,500,$5,000,$70. Now they need to buy a car. So there's the down payment, there's the part, now they're gonna finance some. Oh, now I need to save more than that. Right. Right? Now I got a car payment and I got this, and$200 might not be enough. So now it's four. You get a better job, you get a bonus. Like now I open that first home savings account. Like that, that's where all that education needs to come in. But unfortunately, parents aren't educated enough to do it. So really they need to talk to somebody. As I said before, it's probably not me. They'll be intimidated by somebody like me. They need to find somebody that's younger, somebody in their 30s. Um, doesn't matter, male, male, female, somebody that they can actually have a conversation with that's not going to try to sell them a product.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

What I'm hearing from you, and I think this is really fantastic, is like really for youth, it's like get them into that right mindset of like, yeah, it's not really about making filling out your your tax-free contribution room, but just doing the thing every single month to build that habit so then you can set yourself up for success down the road.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:59

It has to be a separate account, right? They're talking about checking in savings before. We used to take money from our checking account, put it in our savings. Now it needs to be out of our like your day-to-day day-to-day checking account. I don't even know what to call it now. Your bank account, and it needs to go somewhere. And that's why the tax-free savings account for a lot of folks is efficient, is they can take the money and just slide it over there at one time or regularly or whatever it is, it just out of sight, out of mind. Yeah. One of the uh benefits we see actually working with some uh of our younger clients. So these are folks that would be the kids of clients or the grandkids of clients, is that when they set up the account at at a financial institution, not their bank, the money leaves their bank and goes to the financial institution. So it it's like, okay, well, now it's over there, right? Now it's not accessible on my debit card. I can't go into the bank and move it over. So that's much more of a commitment than just you know going into your bank account and moving money over accountant.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

You could just move it over in a click. Hey, clip it black.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:01

Yeah, maybe I need, you know, whatever and need to pull it back. There is some sort of uh, and I don't even know what it is, but if you have money in your account, you feel better. If you have money in your bank account, you feel better, right? I think that's true. Like just your your regular the day-to-day work. If you have money in that account, if you don't have money in the account, you're freaking out a little bit. Yeah, it's a little stressful. Having money in that account is important. So you don't want to move all of the money to stress yourself out. You need to have a buffer. You should always have a buffer. But there is also something empowering to have an investment account or a savings account or money that's not accessible quickly.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:41

It's powerful. It's a good feeling too. Like if you open up your account, or hopefully you're not opening up all the time, but if you have something that you know that's set aside and it's got like 10,000, 20,000, and you know you don't need it, that is a good feeling because I think it gives you that freedom and like you said, that clarity to kind of know that, okay, well, I'm okay if anything happens. I can, you know, handle the storms or whatever that might be happening.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:03

There's a there's a funny time in our business where there was no online access. Nobody could go and look at their accounts online, right? You always had to wait for the paper statements, yeah, yeah. You know, quarterly or monthly paper statement would come in the mail. And then the whole industry kind of shifted and transitioned, and everybody had online access. What happens now is people are I shouldn't say that, some people are much more hyper aware of the value of their portfolio. Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing? And I don't think it matters. Like I don't think it's a good thing. I don't think it matters. I'm very much the Warren Buffett idea, which is you just forget about what the market's doing on a daily basis. I literally look at the market and know what's going on on a daily basis to see if there's an opportunity to buy something. Right. Like that that's the hat I have on all the time. I'm always got the hat on to say, I wonder if something is down. See what's on sale, right? See what's on sale today.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:56

But long term, I talked to a client yesterday and she was concerned about one of the companies she owned. She just saw a news report and I said, it's a great business. Well, you know, you buy from it. I my wife buys from it. Like why like owning Costco stock or whatever. Don't worry about the day-to-day. The day-to-day price, right? It it's gonna fluctuate. And so, um, so I'm not sure that online is a good thing because once again, it gives us this impression that we're up or down and it doesn't really matter until you need the money. Until you until you need the money, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:27

Then it's more important. Um, I want to ask a little bit about what goes hand in hand with financial planning. Have you ever experienced anything like life insurance? I think it's a big thing. Have you ever experienced and like do you offer life insurance? I just ask you this.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:42

Do you do that as part of your I have I have a funny story for you today? Okay. So so five o'clock this morning, I'm lying in bed thinking about a new client that we met who doesn't have life insurance and two young kids. And so it doesn't happen that often, but sometimes I get I get sucked into thinking about, you know, they don't have insurance, what can happen, you know, they need it, how would they do it inside the company personally? Join first to die, how much should they have, how young are the kids, whatever. And I think it's a very, very important of all financial planning because we can have the best plan for savings, and going back to, you know, David Chilton's idea of, you know, pay yourself first and 10%, you put the money away and you build it up, and then what happens? Life throws your curve. Right. So, you know, disability insurance, critical illness insurance, life insurance, all of those things should be looked at as as to mitigate the risk of something happening in in your situation. And sometimes it's actually insurance for your business as well, right? Is that if you can't work, sure, there might be disability if you work for a company, there might be disability insurance. But if you own a business and your business still has expenses, I had disability insurance for my business for a long time. Because if I couldn't work and create the income, my business still had expenses. I still had staff and um and ongoing expenses. So I had that. And that's probably something I need to look into, I think. Just a total suggestion that maybe if we're talking about that. And here's the funny thing. I mean, I've delivered checks for for folks, um either life insurance checks to to families, I've delivered critical illness checks to people who have got sick with cancer and and uh and this pays out. Um most important thing I've learned is you can never buy too much insurance. Nobody ever says, Oh, that's too much too large. Yeah, right. Even people who don't need the money because life has changed along the way, and they bought something years ago and it's still in place and they don't really need it anymore. What I would say is if there's a strategy around it where it makes sense, then you keep it. And if there isn't, then let it go. There's no point in having it. So, but nobody says the checks too big, take it back. Yeah, especially widows.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:54

No kidding, eh? Is there do you is there like a limit or like a minimum that you kind of recommend for somebody that is uh this is a personal question for me. Here you go. Because I'm uh like it's me and my wife. I work, I'm the only one who brings in the money, and we got the two kids, almost 19 and 17. Oh, okay. And like I have my life insurance package, but is there like a minimum amount that you say that you would kind of recommend of what to get? Like, do you consider, I guess, what's your lifestyle? Kind of how much you know what I mean? Like it depends. It depends, yeah. That's why I you do have to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll give you the advice, but it depends. And here's the thing you try to figure out, uh, and there's all sorts of calculators in it, but I've learned to do a lot of stuff in my head over the years because I'm pretty good at math. So you figure out what's the income that's gonna be missed, right? So if you pass away today, sorry, what's your wife, what's your kids, what are they gonna need? What what's income are they gonna need to replace your income? And then how big a pot of money does it need to be to create that income for them? Ooh, in perpetuity, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:00

Depends on what you want. Well, it depends on what you want.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:02

Yeah, right? So, so just a sec. So you only want it to last five years? Right? Like you have to think about these things. Okay, so the kids are gonna be home for maybe the next five years or seven or 10, but and then your wife's gonna need support. So is your RSP, is your investments, is your portfolio big enough that that will take over? Right. And likely not if you're 45, you're still in the building mode. So then that has to be replaced as well. Right. So that's why it depends.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:28

Yeah. I know for us, what I did is I calculated like 10 years. 10 years for now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:32

Um if you get 10, well, what's gonna happen for her?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:36

Yeah, but if you get enough, uh if you get a big enough pile for 10 years, the money that she would get if I died would be enough for 10 years. Okay, is what I'm saying. Oh, I see, okay. Yeah, yeah. So, but then I'm like, yeah, well, then what happens after 10 years? Because then I was like, well, you can figure out something, but not as you're in that situation. So you're yeah, you're like, oh no. It's not enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:56

We need to no, I I I know, but these are the things that I don't really So it's it's kind of cool because there's a there's a whole there's a whole bunch of things, and I say it depends because sometimes people have you know insurance inside the business and the corporation. Um, and then sometimes they have insurance outside the corporation, and sometimes they all policies, the joint policy or something that they bought for the mortgage or whatever that's still around. Um, people don't generally have too much insurance in my world when I meet people. It's not like they pull out policies and say, oh, yeah, I got this, this. I got all of those too much. Not generally. They'll they'll pull out a couple of policies maybe and they'll go, yeah, I'm not sure why I bought this or whatever. And one's like, you know, 25,000, it's 250 and 500 or something. And it's like, you know, what were you hoping to do with this?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:42

Right, right. I I really like that in terms of just thinking about like what is the plan? Like, what do you hope that's gonna happen in the future if the worst does happen and then work your way back from that?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:51

There nobody ever receives a death benefit that's too much. And insurance is cheap. That's the crazy thing. We will spend more time and effort and money to plan our vacation than we will to plan our right, our demise.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:05

Isn't that crazy? It is. That that is insane. It is. Speaking of which, I wanted to ask you another personal question. So my mother, she's she just retired. I knew we talked about your mother. Yeah, of course, of course. It's gotta get there. She's just retired. Yeah. And I'm the executor of her will. Okay. And but she just told me, it's like, okay, well, there's three, I got two siblings. So those three of you, you guys just split everything. Um, but that's it. I haven't seen it. I haven't done, I don't know anything else of what's in there. Is there some questions that I need to ask her in order to be better prepared to do this? Because, like you, I'm sure you've seen if you somebody does die or something happens to get passed away or they get really sick, it can throw your whole plan into like if you don't even have a plan, it could throw your whole life into chaos. And I don't want that to happen, I guess, with my mom. I want to make sure that it's taken care of in the way that she wants to. Should I do something here?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:56

Or yeah, so there's a couple things to think about with your mom or anybody's mom. Um, is uh and I suggest this. It's actually one of the chapters of the book, is that you know, you you should actually have a copy of the will. I mean, I I know it's sometimes a hard conversation for a child and you know, with a parent and so on, but if you're the executor, first of all, you should know where the will is, the original. I do know where that is. And and you should have a copy in case you can't get the original right now. That's makes a whole lot of sense. So if your sister, brother, is that you got three siblings? Uh, two. Two brother and sister, yeah. Yeah. So the three of you. So one of them asks you a question about the will. That's fine. That's their prerogative, whatever. There's the beneficiary, they can ask you that. Um, but what if mom has mentioned the three of you but not mentioned your children? Maybe she's got gifts in your children for your children, but she don't want to tell you. Oh, it's okay till you open the will to take a look at it. Oh, maybe you'll say something might be like a surprise. Maybe like a little surprise of money. So the important thing is, and I'm making that up because I don't know, but the important thing is that you, as the executor, should see that will. You should know where the assets are, you should know where the income is. You should have an idea generally who her accountant is, who her lawyer is, who or like you should know who her financial advisor is. You should if you're the executor, you should get a little more information. Okay. We did a program a few years ago where we had a lawyer actually come in and talk about the role of, I think it was two years ago in the fall, where we had uh Jessica Lyle come in from Touchstone Um Legal, and she came in and talked uh about a Tanya Butler, I think, was there with her. So two lawyers come in and talk about the issues about being an executor, right? So what we had is we had clients come in, they were either bringing their executor or they were the executor and bring in their parent in. Oh, right. So we had you know these tables of you know, uh families that came in and talked. And then so the lawyers were talking about they had a chance to ask questions. But one of the biggest things is that there seems to be a secrecy around estates and wills, and there isn't. Like when you actually talk to your mom about it, she just didn't think you were interested. You know, yeah, it's quite possible. Yeah, I see. It could be a very light conversation where you say, Yeah, you know what? I did this podcast with this guy today, and he said I should probably take a look at the will so I kind of know what's in it, so I'm prepared. Not not that you're going anywhere, not that you're dying today, but you know, he usually recommends that for his clients. So and again, who's the accountant? Who's the lawyer? What are the contacts? Who's the financial advisor? Do you are you gonna owe money? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:35

Uh oh, that's a good question. If if if a parent owes money and they die, does that debt transfer to children automatically? It doesn't, eh? Someone told me that it did. I'm like, oh, wait a minute, what if a parent just just gets goes crazy and just accumulates a bunch of debt?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

So I'm not a lawyer and I do not give legal advice. Uh I have personal experience with this, and no, it does not transfer to the child. Okay. It's it's not the child's debt. Right. Whether it's a child or an executor of the estate, it's not their debt. So if the if the estate is um is without assets to pay its debts, then the creditors um do not get paid.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:19

If it's a case where so, so I'll bring my mother into this. She's not going anywhere, of course. But you know, say sure she's got a hundred thousand dollars in her assets, and then she's got a hundred thousand dollar debt. That debt has to get paid off first before it gets split to ask kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:36

Yes. So the executor would go through and a couple other things. The taxes have to be paid too. Right. So last tax, right? As an executor, you would make the final tax return, right? And have that all cleared, and you would have a letter from CRA to say it's cleared, then you would distribute the assets.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:52

And that's why it's really important to get paying down your or taking withdrawing from your RSB so that you don't die with a big chunk of money in there. Look at you, you're to get a big bill at the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:03

Yeah. Right. So as the executor, it would be your responsibility to do the taxes. So it's your responsibility to do her final return, right? So you would do the final return, close it off, you know, you get the letter from CRA. But if she's got a large RIF account, that's going to come in as taxable income in that one year. Right. And so you, as the executor, are writing the check to CRA. Right. Okay. And sometimes that check is like I would sit down with uh, you know, clients in a family meeting and talk about it. Say, are who's the executor? Oh, okay, it's you, Sally. Are you prepared to write a$600,000 check to CRA? Yeah. And of course, you know, mom and dad are like, what are you saying? Yeah. And well, that's what we figure out the tax liability is going to be, you know. How should we maybe take a look at it in a different way? Sally's like freaking out because, you know, she's like, I can't write a check that big.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:54

Yeah, no kidding, eh? That's crazy. So you have to pay those taxes regardless of whether the estate is in like a negative. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:02

Like if there's more than a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of how um just a sec, there's two different things you're talking about. You're talking about taxes owing. And if there's taxes owing, there must be assets for taxes to be or income for taxes to be owing. Right. And on the other side, there's debt. So you she might have a credit card bill or something like that. So the magic of this is that the RSP is cashed in. Okay. You have the cash from the RSP and you give the government half of it for the debt for the for their taxes owings. Right. And the rest uses off the debt. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:35

So government is always first to get their money back. Um, yeah, they're usually usually okay. That's maybe it's getting a little bit into the weeds.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:42

Because even if you pay the debt off, they still have to get paid. If you pay the debt off in mom's estate, CRA doesn't care. They still have to get paid. They still have to get paid, eh? They don't care if there's no money for the beneficiaries. That's not their issue. They still have to get paid. They just want the government and they're not a beneficiary, they're a liability. Yeah. There's something that has to be so. And again, it's not legal advice, you know, but for sure, for sure. Or tax advice in that sense. No advice. Just general knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:12

Yeah. Is there anything is that you'd want to uh say to the audience in order to prepare about, you know, like death, like wills, estate planning. Is there anything else that you want to mention that might be important for them to consider?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:27

Yes, they should have a will and a plan. Yes, they should have all that. Just get it done. I just go, I just go back to, you know, this, the, the, the whole idea of uh the purpose of the Joy for Retirement plan, whether it's an income plan, estate plan, tax plan, whatever plan we're doing for people, the important part of it is we gather all the information in in eat and everybody is different. That's what's so fun about doing it. Every situation is different. We've seen them all. Whether they're trying to create three grand a month or five grand a month or eight grand a month, whatever it is. And three to five, three to six is kind of normal after taxes. That's about standard for most people. So when somebody needs eight, nine, or ten, we're questioning what the liability is and what you know, what they're thinking they're spending money on. Um but it sometimes they do have expenses that are higher. But um all of it is goes back to it doesn't matter what your situation is. You need to have something written down to follow.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:26

You need to have that booklet, that piece of paper with a PDF, whatever it is you're following. Because five years out, it's gonna be different. You're gonna have to do it again. Maybe two years out, you're gonna have to do it again. So is there a will? Is there life insurance? You know, how is the structure? Who is gonna get the money? Does the executor know? All these things we've been talking about today. All comes back to the plan. And the the stat that I usually uh uh talk about is two in ten Canadians have actual written financial plan. Two in ten. That's 20%. 20%. So I like to say it the other way, which is 80% of Canadians have nothing like a written plan. Nothing close to a written plan. And here they are going through life and retirement and estate planning and stuff happens. It's and that's why lawyers are so busy in the estate planning world, right? Is people are dying without wills and everything is a mess.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:18

That could get messy. Oh my goodness. One thing I would just want to mention about that that I do that I think is really important, and it might seem trivial, but passwords and to get into accounts. Like what I do, I do have a password manager that's you know software in it, but there's a master password. So I have that and I have it kept away so that Andrea knows if something happens, she can get access to my accounts because getting access to certain accounts can be a nightmare once someone dies to try to get into it. So just something for the listeners out there to consider. I guess they call it uh digital assets.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:51

Digital assets, digital assets, which is all your passwords for everything from air miles to getting into your bank to whatever. Um, if you're like me, you've got them written down somewhere. Yeah, and you probably shouldn't, and but your wife doesn't know where they are.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:08

So yeah, a lot uh hopefully the passwords aren't uh you know password one, two, three, four as well, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:13

No, um no, I had an interesting conversation uh with somebody yesterday who says they always use a dollar sign in their password now because of me. Um they always have a dollar sign somewhere in the password. You gotta have it somewhere, yeah. You you need to have that something that's outside of a number or a letter. So for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:30

If you were in a room and it was filled with a bunch of 25-year-olds and they all felt that they were behind or they're really overwhelmed with just finances in general, what would you tell them that you would say most financial advisors wouldn't tell them?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:46

Oh, I I'm that's a trick question. I don't know what other financial advisors would tell them.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:50

So Oh, okay. Well, I'm just let's I'm gonna tell you what I what I would say. What would you tell them? Yeah, yeah. But just you know, just like almost like what's common knowledge out there that people are told, but really maybe they shouldn't be full of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:03

So back to what I guess I'd talk about what I I've done, you know, for for my kids and what what sets you up. Um whether they wanted to or not, they become somewhat financial literate. Um, mostly they didn't want to, but they do um credit. You need to have credit in this world. So you need to have a credit card, you need to have a loan, the line of credit, you need to have something. Yeah. Because as you move through life and you're looking to buy a car, you're looking to get a mortgage, whatever it is, um, they are first thing they do is check your credit score. And and the and the the great thing is the apps that we use now for our banking, so many of them have check your credit score. You can check. And you go to TransUnion or whatever it is, and you can check your credit score. That's why I know mine's not as high as it could be. Um, but my wife's rock. So it's a funny thing because the more debt you have, the more they like you. That's right. You need to pay it off because anything you miss is it is a debit on it. It takes away some of your credit score. But uh, having a good credit score, working on that, being aware of it is important. Um, don't be afraid to take risks. That's what I would say. Don't be afraid to take risks. You got lots of time. You don't be afraid to take a risk, whether it's a business risk or a personal risk, whether it's a relationship risk, whatever it is, don't be afraid to take risks in your life. Um, there are so many people who are getting into retirement now and wish they had done more when they were younger and had more energy. And so don't be afraid to take risks. And you won't know about it until it's the end. You won't know that regret's there until the end. Um having a big portfolio is irrelevant. Saving money, having a big portfolio, having a big pile of money, having life experience is way more valuable. Way, way more valuable. So I believe there's both that need to happen. But as a 25-year-old, I wouldn't fret that I didn't have a big savings account or a big bank account. Um, I wouldn't fret if I didn't have um, you know, a degree or I'd gone through a university or something like that. But what I would say is for for anybody is that you will make your life whatever you want your life to be. You know, the the think about it. The more you dream about what you want, the more it will become reality. And so if you want to be a traveler, if you want to have a business, if you want to have a spouse and a car and a whatever that might be in a house, dream it. Write it down, draw it up. I I have lots of things in my life that I can point right back to where I've literally drawn out what it is that I want to have. The the house in Halifax with the white picket fence. And I can tell you four years later, we had exactly the house I drew.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:03

What do you think it is about laying it out like that and writing it down? What does that do into your mind to almost make it so that it's going to become inevitable?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:13

You're you're you're walking towards it all the time. You're stepping towards it in everything you do, and as you do that, stuff comes in front of you for you to take. And you have to be willing to take that chance. You have to be willing to take that risk to step into it, even though sometimes it doesn't feel good. Right? And and you and you again, you won't know what it, and you can make you're gonna make like you're gonna go off in some direction then have to bring yourself back to get there.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:41

Yeah, it's not a straight line.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:42

And and and it's maybe it's not a house for you, maybe it's a job, whatever it is, maybe it's somewhere you want to go or or a spouse or whatever it is, the kids or whatever. I mean, I always thought I had three kids, and I had three kids, you know, it took a long time to to all work out that way, but you know, um, three wonderful children. So uh wonderful wife. It's that was always the plan when I met my wife and I said I'm gonna be married by the time I'm 30. And and uh I married by the time I'm 28 and kids by the time I'm 30. You said you so you told her that. I told her that. Were you married? Were early, early in the relationship. How old were you when you got married? I was 2 uh 27. 27, okay. So I got married in August and I turned 28 in September. Oh now I didn't have kids by the time I was 30. So some things don't always work out the way they're supposed to. But yeah, if I had, I wouldn't have been able to get into the financial world. Yep. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to get into the financial world because remember, I wasn't making any money when I started. My wife was working full-time and I wasn't making any money. And when you have kids, when you have a couple that cost a couple dollars. So I couldn't have taken that risk. Right. That opportunity, that risk would not have been available for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:56

The younger you are, the more risk you're probably going to be able to absorb.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:01

Yeah, for sure. If you're a young person and you make a mistake, you can weave and whatever, right? Yeah. And and I I really think that kids these days, uh, I say kids, I mean, you know, in their people in their 20s, I don't, I I think social media has taught them not to take risks. And it, I don't know how it's done that, but they have to be right and perfect the first time. They can't take risks and make mistakes. I'm like, oh my gosh, the number of mistakes I made.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:30

Maybe that's just how social media is, because you look at everything on there, everything's perfect. Their life looks perfect, everything looks just great. And it's like this is just, oh, I woke up this morning looking like this, you know, all the filters and makeup and whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:41

Cool and beautiful view and all that stuff. Yeah, no, that's not reality. Yeah, my goodness. Yeah, reality is living in a, you know, starting out in a one room bachelor pad on the bottom floor because that's all you can afford while you're working with. So I don't want my kids to experience that. Like that's that's I I don't want them to have to experience all of you know what I experience, but some of it they need to find out. Mom and dad need to step back and let them fall on their face and and you know, find some of their own ways.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:19

Your experiences are what led you to become who you are today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:22

So I wouldn't, I actually wouldn't change a thing. There's there's people always say, Oh, what would you do different? If you go back and do it again or whatever. And it's like, what would you do different? I think I don't think there's anything I I would do different. I've learned, you know, from each of the mistakes and there needs to be struggle.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:36

So there needs to be struggle in life because that's how you overcome and then you get better.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:40

I still it's it's funny because I'm in uh uh for me, um, you know, probably one of the reasons that you were attracted to me when we first met as, you know, hey, I think this guy'd be great on the podcast, is I'm in an absolute sweet spot in my life. I I'm I'm successful enough that I don't have to worry. And I'm and I feel like I'm just getting started still on, you know, teaching. And you know, I'm going up to the Valley next week to do a presentation um for the Valley Regional Hospital and talking to donors about making gifts and taxations, yeah. Yeah, the tax reduction uh presentation. And I get so jazzed up about that. I'm just gonna have so many people that are gonna be like learning and making a difference in their lives because of it. So it's fun. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:25

So yeah, thank you so much for sharing your story and sharing all these wonderful insights or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. Um this is this is fantastic. And I hope people, if there's one person even that's listening to this, can be like, yeah, you know what? I'm gonna take some risks. I'm gonna go ahead. I'm gonna write down what I want and I'm gonna do it. And then hopefully we'll hear a message from them be like, I remember I listened to you guys and I did it, which is amazing. Glenn, cool. Thank you so much for coming. It was an absolute pleasure to talk to you.