Latest / The Chiro Money Show / 051 | Q&A at a Money Festival Pt. 1
Transcript
- Chris Scheele: Welcome back to the Chiro Money Show, where helping chiropractors make better financial decisions so they can build stability in their finances and a lifestyle that they love. We're your hosts Chris Scheel and Scott Campbell, financial planners with Align Wealth. Scott Campbell: We are back. We are back, Chris, from our ventures away for the last week or so. Chris Scheele: Yeah, the the fall roadshow s stage one has been completed. Scott Campbell: Yeah, first of many trips away, but this is a long week away. We had four days at Future Proof, which is gonna be the premise of today's and our next week's episode. Talk a little bit about Future Proof. Had a coup couple couple days in Calgary as well, couple conferences there. Glad to be back. Yeah. Chris Scheele: Yep. Happy to be home, but it was it was a great trip and definitely excited that we were back at Future Proof. We took a year off, right? We were there in twenty twenty four, missed last year and yeah, glad glad we were back. It's pretty pretty cool environment, hey Scott. Scott Campbell: For sure. For listeners, maybe we touched on this on previous episodes, but real quick, Chris, tell us what is future proof and then we can talk about what what did we take away from it and why does it matter to our to our listeners and what we're gonna be diving into today in terms of today's today's show. Chris Scheele: Yeah, great question. So Future Proof is not a conference, as I have been mistakenly calling it. It is a wealth management festival. Okay. Scott Campbell: That's right. Chris Scheele: Clear distinction. Conference. When you think conference, you probably think you know, boardroom or you know, at a hotel in a in a meeting meeting room. That yeah. Scott Campbell: Yeah. The circle tables, notepads, jug of jug of water in the middle, boring Chris Scheele: Yeah. Scott Campbell: PowerPoint presentations. That's what I think of when I think of conference. But a festival Chris Scheele: In yeah. Scott Campbell: what's a festival, Chris? What's w what was what's this all about? Chris Scheele: Yeah, so we were down at the the festival is in Huntingdon Beach, California. all outside on the boardwalk. So whole bunch of dynamic moving parts to to get every all the vendors and speakers and everything into this outdoor conference arena. But Scott Campbell: Mm-hmm. Chris Scheele: yeah, basically it's it's a collection of thousands. I think there was about five thousand advisors there this year, from all over North America and beyond. And lots of tech providers, any anything associated with like helping any any service or product that helps financial advisors or planners with the work they do with their clients. Like any of those associated kind of businesses were were there in attendance as well, sharing the the latest and greatest of the services they have available. Scott Campbell: Yep. Great time. Chris Scheele: And then on top of that, some of the some of the best minds in the business sharing, you know, whether it's presentations, sharing the latest, you know, survey data from advisors or insights into into kind of trends around the industry, panel discussions of what's working well and what's not, and you know, really all of this going for us coming into like how do we how do we have a bigger impact? How do we do a better job working with the clients we love to serve? And, you know, what what can we add? What what can we do differently? S that step back. Scott Campbell: Yeah. Yeah, it just makes me want to dive in and just talk about what the big takeaways are from from Future Proof, right? Like Chris Scheele: Do it. Let's go. Scott Campbell: for me, the you talk you mentioned presentations, the presentations that are there, they're good, but that's not the reason why either one of us go. It's it's the networking, it's the it's the collaborating and kind of talking to a lot of great advisors. Like there is a always a great turnout of Canadian advisors too. Usually I think north of five hundred Canadian advisors there this year. So We love spending time at the festival taking in some presentations, but I think the best times were away from the festival at the pool, you know, chatting up with great advisors across Canada that we did get to have some quality one-on-one time with. And I'll let you chime in too, Chris. But for me, it's coming away from future proof with just thinking bigger. What can we do to further enhance the What we do for our clients. How can we enhance the client experience? There was obviously a lot of conversation about technology and AI and how that's going to be adopted by advisors here moving forward. I think we're already doing a lot of cool things with AI that a lot aren't doing yet, but there's still so much more room to say, this isn't going to replace us. There's this is only going to enhance and deliver more to our clients. We just have to be on that side of saying, like, you know, the I I heard something in one of the presentations that I have to share in terms of like, Clients that are growing wealth, you know, th they're not going to be racing to the bottom. Like, how can I just have you know, Claude replace my financial advisor? If they're working with the right advisor, they're gonna be saying, what else can you do for me? What else can you do to ha enhance this experience? You know, create further certainty and confidence that I'm making great financial decisions. And that's what I took away from it. Like we just wanna continue to make a bigger and bigger impact by leveraging AI and seeing what we could do, what we can do to enhance the experience. Chris Scheele: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I totally agree. Like you said, time kind of away from the the hustle and bustle with some smaller conversations with some of the best advisors in the industry and the best in Canada for sure. shout out to FPAC, Financial Planning Association of Canada. they are great organization that we are both part of and yeah, doing doing everything they can to further the profession of financial planning and yeah it was great to great to have those conversations and and like you said take away some tidbits here and there and and really just come back to come back home so excited and fired up to keep getting out there and doing our thing and get better at everything Scott Campbell: Yeah. Yep. Chris Scheele: we do. And that's yeah a reminder of why we do what we do, basically. Scott Campbell: Sure. Yep. So Chris Scheele: We love it. Yep. Scott Campbell: part of our journey down to Future Proof this year was we knew we were going to network with some of the some great advisors across Canada. We could not let the opportunity pass us by by not seeing what we could do to bring bring some other thoughts and perspective as an idea, and you know, just good conversation back with us and turn it into a couple podcast episodes. So we were able to do about 10 interviews with various financial advisors. over the few days that we were in future proof and we wanted to take some of those quick conversations and turn it into a couple of great episodes for us. Chris Scheele: Excited to excited to hear what we got. Scott Campbell: Yeah. So we decided that just for the sake of time and not wanting to make the episodes too long, we decided to break this up into two episodes for the ten of interviews that we did. So I'm just gonna quickly share the names of the five advisors that we'll have on the show today for they're all they all kind of range between like four and eight minutes or so in length, but we have Adam Chapman from Yes Money, we have Herman Chan from Crimson Financial, we have Steph O'Mahony from Vale Wealth. Jennifer Stromeki from Transition Financial and Sean Maslick from QELth, who's also the host of the You Potential Podcast. Awesome podcast to check out as well. So we have those five conversations to share with you on today's episode. Anything else you wanted to touch on here, Chris, before we dive in? Chris Scheele: Let's dive in. Scott Campbell: All right. First up is Adam Chapman. Let's go. speaker-1: Adam Chapman, I'm a founder of Yes Money in London, Ontario, and I have been helping retirees spend money for two decades. speaker-0: Decades. Two decades. And real quick on future proof, you are here for the fourth time. speaker-1: third actually. Third time. Third. speaker-0: Third time, third time. And tell us what do you get what do you get out of feature proof? speaker-1: You know what, it's it's just so awesome meeting people and it's now at the point where when you show up, it's like you're just meeting friends at the pool and and hanging out. It's it's like I said to someone last night, it's like going to an all-inclusive, but you know everyone. Right? Like that's what this experience really is. It's like you just know everyone. Yeah. Lil Little tequila last night. speaker-0: For sure. Little tequila. And there's little speaker-1: Little tequila. Lots of bourbon. Lots of bourbon. I'm deprived right now. Okay. speaker-0: All right, Adam, let's talk about retirees. Our our listeners are a little bit on the younger side, I think, generally speaking, but you've been working with retirees for two decades now. Let's chat about the psychology of you're big on getting retirees to spend speaker-1: Yes. speaker-0: I'll open it there. Like let's dive in. speaker-1: Yep. well it it's funny, even when you have younger listeners though, yeah, they're actually the ones that typically see their parents struggling to spend money when they're retired. So yeah. They're actually ones that I tend to get a lot of emails and stuff from when I'm posting about spending money in retirement that are going like we're we're watching this happen with our our parents, what do we do? Yeah. And I I I I think it's one of those things that first of all is just acknowledging that it's it catches a lot of people by surprise. They don't go into retirement expecting that to be the thing that's difficult. There's a lot of other difficult things about retirement. Yeah. But we don't ever really prepare for the fact that spending's hard. Right. So so that's the first thing that they bump into is just that realization of, this isn't actually as easy as I thought. speaker-0: Right, for sure. And why is that? Why what's what's the what's the barrier? speaker-1: there's a there's there's a lot. but I I would say one of the first things is actually just being able to create retirement income that you know you can spend. Right. Right? Like that that's a really tough part of the conversation. And there's things like cash wedging and the four percent rule, and then you've got guardrails and there's all these different iterations of income replacement methodologies, but a lot of them are pretty restrictive. And and a few of them actually like the four percent rule increases the likelihood of actually dying with more money than actually running out. Yeah. So so So you just have these systems that just were never really actually designed to help people both spend money and not run out. And that's the combination that's really hard to do. speaker-0: For sure. You probably w when you when those that are working with a financial planner, they are obviously generally geared towards like they want to save, they want to invest, they want to build up that nest day. Like they're taking responsibility for that. Is that part of the hurdle too of getting to retirement? They've been they've been a saver and investor all their life and now they're asked to turn off the switch of putting money into retirement accounts and also then spend down on it. Is that part of the part of it too? speaker-1: It definitely is, but it but even when you think about like the idea of spending and what you're actually doing, right? And I I don't love this word, but it's an industry phrase like decumulation. So speaker-0: Decubation years, yeah. speaker-1: so you'll hear a lot of advisors say, okay, you know, I help clients decumulate. Well, that word is a technical one for advisors, but it's actually a really scary one for clients, right? No, Because what you're doing is you're you're taking a term and you're saying, okay, we're gonna make your portfolio go down. Right. The very essence of that scares the crap out of people. So so the way that I even find with that, like when you're going on at even just some of the the psychological stuff, you have to find a better phrase that works that doesn't seem so scary, where there's there's actually reward to spending. So one of my favorite phrases, and this might be the first time I've actually done this on a live on a show or on a podcast, so you might be getting the but w what I typically talk to my clients about, when they're spun spending, they're turning their money into memories. Love it. Like that's what you're doing, right? So we don't have to say decumulation, we don't have to do anything like that. Right. But if you just look at it as like that's what spending actually is, it's something that people, even though there's friction and they've been savers their whole life, that was the reason they saved it. So it gives them a better carrot than saying decumulation. speaker-0: For sure. Switching gears a little bit, I wanna ask you this. What is because I think you're gonna have a great answer here, knowing you the way I know you, what is one piece of financial advice that you hear very often that you feel is just overrated? speaker-1: Specifically on retirees, I would just go there, yeah. So so I would go with dollar cost averaging. Okay. Dollar cost averaging is probably my most hated phrase and term. Okay. Because I spend more time trying to convince people that reverse dollar cost averaging won't harm them. Right? And it's because because dollar cost averaging actually doesn't have the value that people place on it, right? It it's it's actually the other way around. So because we believe that averaging into the market is helpful, then we think that averaging out is harmful. Right. Right. And so it's actually the other way. So I spent a lot of time trying to rewrite that story for people that you can actually draw an income and not harm yourself at the same time. And I I don't know why it's become such a thing in the last little while. But certainly dollar cost averaging is the phrase that just makes me cringe every time I hear it. speaker-0: Anything you see, wha what what is your take on the future of of advice and and planning here with the introduction of technology and and AI? Does that change at all for that older generation that's in retirement right now? speaker-1: I don't think so. Like I mean I just got most of mine using DocuSign, right? Big hurdle there, right? Yeah, i it was great. It was one of the things like COVID was a tough time for a lot of my clients. Sure. But the one thing that really helped was they actually were forced to learn how to use some of their devices to see their grandchildren and do a lot of the FaceTiming and stuff. And a lot of them actually upgraded their technology at that time, which was a great way to spend money. Yep. and and now they're doing a bit more tech stuff like that. But I still think things like AI on on these particular subjects, like I just don't think they'd be helpful and I don't think certainly my demographics anyways wouldn't. wouldn't listen to it so cool. speaker-0: Yeah. Well what are you most looking forward here as we head into day two of future proof? speaker-1: more dinner plans and whatever the food is tonight at the Canadian Lounge, that's always one of the highlights is the whatever fun stuff they bring in for all of us to have. That's that's always my favorite. speaker-0: And and drink of choice for this evening or speaker-1: always old fashioned. When I'm down here, if I'm gonna have a drink, it's gonna be an old fashioned. speaker-0: Thanks Adam. Enjoy the rest of Future Proof. speaker-1: Thanks, Scotty. speaker-0: Future proof, 2026. First one, Herman. I'll let you introduce yourself. Let's start off with your name, who you're with, your practice, your firm, and where you're based out of. speaker-1: Scott, first of all, I can't believe I'm here. You're here. I can't believe I'm here. I've I've been hearing how amazing this is over the years. you know, anywhere from you know Woodstock Lollapalooza or the Coachella of Wealth Management. So yeah, super, super excited to be here. I'm Herman Chan, president and co founder of Crimson Financial. Right on. Based out of the Greater Toronto area, Ontario, Canada. and yeah, I specialise in proactive financial health and physical health. speaker-0: Yeah. Both of those are so important, right? speaker-1: Especially especially when you get to my age. speaker-0: Physical health is just as important, if not more important. You gotta start there. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean without without your health platform like what's your wealth gonna do for Right. And so it's important that both are aligned. That's right. Both are aligned. and that's what I'm setting out to do. I'm in month ten. Exciting of this new chapter. speaker-0: Let's talk about planning a little bit. let's talk let's let's go w what is a what is a financial plan? Yeah. I know it's very basic question, but like in your words, like what what is a financial plan and more importantly like from not from a technical standpoint, but what is that to a client? What is a financial plan to a client? speaker-1: Yeah, I'll go straight to the end state. Like the end state is that the the person or the couple or the family is gonna know they're gonna be okay regardless of what happens in their future. speaker-0: Isn't that such a great thing? Like at the end of it at the end of it all, it's am I okay and am I going to be okay? That's all we're really looking to to answer as as human beings. speaker-1: For sure, for sure. It's it's similar to like hopping into a car and you're about to go on a road trip with your family and it's you know somewhere, I don't know, a thousand kilometers away. Right. And you decide not to use Google Maps. speaker-0: Can't imagine. speaker-1: Right? Like I I can imagine you, like I use Google Maps every day. and and and just like Google Maps, you know, as a financial planner, you know, we're gonna help let the driver or the clients and the family know which routes to take. Based on traffic. Yeah. Based on accidents. Based on you know, other hazards that have come up. For sure. Right? so being able to to math and adjust, right? speaker-0: Yeah, and how how you get there is not gonna necessarily be that that plan that you set out, you know, from day one, right? If it's a ex multi day trip, you might take some different different twists and turn. speaker-1: The other point I want to make, Scott, is also you know, financial planning is not a one time event. It is a journey. It is a journey. It is something that you should work with a professional on in the many years to come. Yeah. Because things always come up. For sure. Right. I think I think it it's it's it's almost a fact that every year something's gonna change in somebody's life. In some way, shape or form. Yep. Whether it be their job, whether it be a health situation or something to do with their kids. or a parent, there's always something, right? So I think it's it's really helpful for a family to have somebody they can they can count on that understands all the different parts of their life and help them make the best decision possible. For sure. speaker-0: We work with so many busy individuals, right? They only have so much time and energy to to they're they're they're focused on their career, their job, their family, their spouse, all that, right? They they need they need to outsource that in so many ways to to help them navigate all the different things going on in their financial life, right? speaker-1: for sure, and in the medical professionals that we're working with, like if they're spending a lot of time kind of managing their investments or trying to do their own planning, like what are they giving up? Yeah. They're sacrificing something. speaker-0: For sure. speaker-1: Yeah. Right. And we both argue that you know it's better money and better time spent delegating some of those tasks to to guys and gals like us speaker-0: For sure. Let's talk about investing for a moment. how do you like to talk about and explain risk when it comes to investing to your clients? speaker-1: That's a that's a great question, Scott. I'll I'll share the same analogy I share with everybody else that I have this conversation with. We all have our I like to I like to use a theme park analogy. interesting, okay. speaker-0: Interesting. speaker-1: Okay. So if you're going to a really good theme theme park, I live in astronomy area, so we Canvas Wonderland. I was just there a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. and I was actually explaining this to to my son actually. and that is, you know, some people like the rides that, you know, you get like eight loops and you're twisting all over the place. They like that sort of experience. Right. Some other theme park goers like to go on like the kitty roller coaster rides where it just, you know, dips a few times and that's the end of the ride after a minute, right? and some people like something in between. That's right. So my goal is to figure out what sort of ride they would like and customize the portfolio based on the ride they want for the long term, right? Now but I do let them know that the people that have the stomach for the the the eight looped ride, typically they'll get a better result. And they'll have more fun in in in investing in better returns. Yeah. So it's based on matching up to what what they perform. speaker-0: And your goals at the end of the day too, right? There's there's sometimes sometimes a need to take on more risk, more potential volatility in your portfolio, depending on your goals and where you're at in your career and how much you save for retirement. And other times you can take the foot off the off the kind of pedal towards additional volatility and risk if your say more more conservative portfolio is still gonna allow you to hit your and reach your goals, right? speaker-1: For sure. I'm also a big fan of like goals based investing. So like even helping somebody bucket different goals within an account. Absolutely. Which a lot of DIYers don't do on their own. Right. Right. So I would like section off and bucket different portfolios within a single account to help them reach short, medium, and long term goals as well. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. What is one piece of financial advice that you hear fairly often that you feel is a bit overrated? speaker-1: I I can think of one. this has been really popular over the last couple years for sure. And you know, just buy the American index. So we're actually sitting in Huntington Beach right now. Yes, here we are. Buy the American index, i.e. the SP five hundred. Yes. And that's all you need. That's all you need, right? So there's a bit of truth to that, and yes, the SP five hundred has done tremendously well over the last three, four, five decades. Yep. But and and coming from a Canadian perspective. Living in Canada, being also a can investor. I mean, the Canadian market a lot of people have neglected because if they're just sticking in that, they're missing on on you know global diversification, right? And the Canadian canadian economy and the K market, specifically the last year and a half, two years, have been unbelievably strong. Right? speaker-0: Very strong. speaker-1: So that's one example. The other example, you know, because I like to help people with globally diversified portfolios, and more often than not, I'm people that don't have globally diversified portfolios. I it sounds really simple. but helping them move to a globally diversified portfolio, they're gonna take advantage of some other markets like South Korea, like Greece, yeah, like Vietnam and other, you know, smaller countries that have really strong upside and and results in the last couple of years. speaker-0: And those they're the those smaller countries can sometimes be the leading global country in a given year doesn't necessarily mean does doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have forty percent of your portfolio allocated to the word one of these small country like the Netherlands for something or Portugal, But having a little bit of exposure to these co these you know, these countries can really provide some upside from that global diversification standpoint, speaker-1: Yep, absolutely. speaker-0: And going back to your comment on the S P five hundred, like it's it's it's recency bias, The last decade, five years in particular, the SP five hundred has done exceptionally well. And that kind of sometimes clouds a lot of our judgment, especially for brand new investors. Well, like, why wouldn't I just invest in the SP five hundred? It's delivered X results in the last ten years. Surely that means it's gonna happen the s the same thing's gonna happen the following decade ahead, right? That's not necessarily the case. speaker-1: And the challenge, you know, starting now and going forward with the SP 500 is that you've got a lot of some really big companies taking up a lot of space within that index, right? And there's a lot of opportunities in smaller c smaller companies too. Yeah. So not only should you diversify geographically and globally, she'll also look into you know investing in some smaller companies and medium-sized companies as well. Yeah. Not just here but also over on, right? speaker-0: Any closing thoughts here, Herman, before I let you go? speaker-1: Closing thoughts. yeah, first of all, I would say, you know, if you're not working with a certified financial planner already, talk to one, yeah, meet with one. and if you are, you know, potentially ask them, you know, some of their philosophies and their processes. Yeah. Yeah, if you're not clear on that, yeah, for sure. and yeah, it really doesn't hurt to get a a second professional opinion. I think it's the same in in healthcare as well. For sure. I think if you if you are concerned about something or you have reason to believe to be concerned about something, you know, once again, seek professional opinion. speaker-0: I like that. So thanks for your time. speaker-1: Hey, Scott, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. speaker-0: I appreciate it man. Thank you. speaker-1: We are back at Future Proof with Steph O'Mahony. Close enough? He nailed it. Nailed it. Awesome. So Steph is well Yeah. I could tell him a little bit about you, but you're launching a firm specifically for women. speaker-0: Yeah. We're do we're starting to come out with Vail Wealth, which is a wealth firm that's been built for women first. You know, the whole industry was designed for the primary client, which has been male for a hundred years. And everything about how we market, how we talk to clients is driven by that psyche. And guess what? Women are more than half of the population and it's time we flip that script on its head a little bit. Yeah. speaker-1: Absolutely. is it a problem in our industry still? Like do you think there's more recognition of it that like both partners need to be included in a planning relationship? Or is it still male driven, like obviously majority, but like is it still like is it still how bad is it Steph? speaker-0: And that's such a great question because I think like anything around equity, you know, you have to the pendulum's gonna swing back and forth and it feels like you're making progress. And then people think you're overcorrecting. And then it swings back. And with a little bit of that energy, I've seen a bit of actually a regression in the way that we're thinking about women in wealth. And I think specifically the way we talk about it, it's constantly builds as this opportunity. For financial gain for investment firms. And you know, like Mark Kearney said at Davos, if you are not at the table, you're on the menu. And it's a lot simpler than people think to work with women. It's just you say around, you know, having both people in a conversation. Guess what? The women that you work with that have kids, work, they're CEOs of their households. We control over 90% of consumer spending. They are tired, they are exhausted. Sitting down and learning about terminology and jargon is just another impossible thing on the to-do list. And so what I think would be game changing for firms is okay, well, it's not about, you know, women not wanting to be involved in the conversation. How do we have a conversation that they want to talk about? Start with what's keeping you up at night. If you close your eyes and think about what you want your 80th birthday to look like, who's around you, what safeguards have you put in place for your family? You have to speak to the heart of what actually is their why versus, hey, we could do a better portfolio than what you got going on. Yeah. speaker-1: sure. Do you have any suggestions or ideas of how to get like say you you have an engagement where it's prime it's with the spouses but but it's primarily the male that's leading the charge. Like how do you how do you get the women to the table? speaker-0: Yeah, well and to the point I made, it's like I'm busy. Well it's that, but it's also like, you know, I'm busy. And am I getting included in this conversation because you're gonna put something else on my plate? Or am I getting included in this conversation because you want me to be empowered with knowledge? And I think how you frame that is really important. And so as advisors, one of the things that's so powerful is hey, you don't like to clean your house every week, get a cleaner. You don't like to shovel your driveway in the winter, hire service. You can actually outsource this to an advisor, but that only works if you're willing to have those conversations. And I tell women too, you're allowed to lead that. You're allowed to sit down and say, Hey, I actually don't care about the taxes. I care about what's gonna happen to my kids if I die before they're 18. Right. And so every way about how we want to set up discovery, track values, you always have to go back to the why. And I think that's the point that a lot of people miss when we're too focused on selling what our firm does. speaker-1: What do you see as the biggest blocker to women feeling more confident about their finances? speaker-0: Yeah, so there was a CERO study done not that long ago where it actually cited the number one reason that women don't invest isn't that they're not literate enough, they don't understand it, it's that they don't think they have enough money to work with a professional. So that tells me what's happening in our industry isn't a literacy or confidence problem. It's a pricing model. It's having firms that are speaking to people where they can see themselves in it, not just, I'm really rich, let me get a fancy advisor. And so how are we providing advice? That's unbiased, that's accessible for people who don't have a million dollar portfolio yet. I think if we can think about that instead of winning an opportunity, how can we earn an opportunity over time by showing that, hey, we're gonna think about things different? We're gonna come up with services that are gonna meet you where you are. You don't have to fall into a default of how our industry has categorized you. So the better we can do that, I think we're gonna transform the way women actually feel around their own financial confidence, which there's nothing more exciting to me than that. speaker-1: Amazing. Amazing. All right, we're kind of picking on the industry a bit. Let's let's let's ask one more question. Any pet peeve or biggest frustration about the industry? It could be related to women and wealth or or not. speaker-0: That's a really good question. I think ultimately my greatest frustration is the amount of women that I speak to who have had a terrible experience. Like in terms of I had a friend who recently sat down with an advisor and her husband to figure out her four million dollar inheritance, didn't actually get to speak in the conversation. The advisor speaks directly to the man. it's not happening with everybody, but across the board, the biggest pet peeve is if anybody is coming to you for advice, treat them with kindness, respect, like they were your own sister, mother, cousin, aunt. It's basic human decency, which is surprising, but I think the more we can do that with any prospects, regardless of what they're going to be worth to the business, it's like, how can I just empower them with the best information possible for where they're at? And if all of us as advi advisors can do that, we're gonna have a better generation of Canadians. speaker-1: Love it. Thank you so much. And thank you. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. All the best with your your your new firm. speaker-0: Thanks, Chris. speaker-1: Jennifer Strymecke. I work with Transition Financial Advisors Group. I am currently based out of northern New Jersey. speaker-0: Northern New Jersey. I didn't realize that. Okay. Well, but you're but you are Canadian. Jennifer speaker-1: I'm Canadian. speaker-0: does cross a lot of cross border planning. Exp for our audience. What do what does cross border planning look like in your eyes? What does that mean? speaker-1: Cross-border planning is anyone who has touched another country, has financial assets in another country or is thinking of having a presence in another country. speaker-0: Sure. You know what's one thing that's interesting? Someone mentioned this to me not too long ago is for our audience, chiropractors, is that we work with a fair amount of younger chiropractors, 30s, 40s, but we had the advice of saying you gotta be ready. Like a lot of your docs are going to have a maybe fifteen, twenty year career, work in Canada, and then at some point they're gonna be like, Hey, I wanna move to Florida or California or either start a practice down there or I'm gonna transition down there. Like, are you are you ready to work with your clients? down there in that capacity when that time comes. So something I need to be thinking about. speaker-1: Yeah, it's it's it's it's a whole other different world to plan in America versus Canada. speaker-0: For sure, for sure. All right, Jennifer, let's let's ask you something. I'm is it it's a unique question I think anyone have a di different take on when it comes to all the financial noise and advice and things that you hear out there, what is one thing that maybe fires you up? A piece of advice that you maybe have a contrarian take on or you think is maybe just a little bit overrated? What's your take? speaker-1: Is that's a hard one. You know, there's so much advice that floats out there. But the the the biggest thing I find is a lot of people focus on the investments. Yep. I like focusing on the plan. So just talk about what's your life, what's important to you, what drives you every day, what's what's gonna make you happy when you stop working, or do you plan on stopping working? And then plan around that. Don't just talk about gathering investments. speaker-0: For sure. And like w what's the like the investments play a a role, but an investment account is not a financial speaker-1: No, definitely not. It's a means to an end. speaker-0: Right. And I one thing I'll I'll I'll say too that we've that we're finding more and more is I think there's a very big difference between DIY investing and DIY financial planning. If you can if you speaker-1: Claude cannot do your financial plan. will it will never get it a hundred percent right. speaker-0: For sure. It's it's the nuances that are in all of our lives. You know, the emotional behavior side that, you know, Claude doesn't have that empathy, that nuance of like how you live your life, what you want out of your life, and the diff and also the differences between, you know, obviously, say you're speaking to a couple, mm-hmm, their perspective as a couple, they might have some shared vision and goals, but they also have their unique differences in terms of how they see money and and their their history with their parents and how they grew up with money. We as advisors wanna consume that knowledge and and and that impacts how we deliver advice, the conversations that we have, right? speaker-1: Exactly, exactly. Every person is unique, every planner is unique. Yeah. the the client's gotta find the planner that fits their personality. speaker-0: For sure, for sure. investing is a big piece of the financial plan. It's not the it's not it's not the whole plan like we just said. But from investing, obviously there's a big human behavioral component to investing. How do you like to explain risk to your clients when it comes to investing and getting them to stay in their seat over the long term? Right? That's gonna help them ac accomplish their goals. speaker-1: Exactly. I asked them what keeps them up at night. Right? That that's the base question. What keeps you up at night? Just tell me what do you stress about? Yeah. That's gonna help drive whether it's you know, how much risk do they have capacity for versus tolerance for? There's two very different things. So we will lump them two together. So speaker-0: What's the difference? speaker-1: you can have the capacity to sustain a negative market because you have a long time to grow your money over the long time because Markets come back. They always have. we're in a in a stellar market right now. Things have gone up, up, up. The noises it's going to fall, it's just a matter of time, right? But can you sustain that versus do you want to? There's a can versus do versus want. And that's that's what hinges conversations. So just because someone can doesn't mean that they in their stomach are gonna be able to do it. If it's gonna keep them up at night, I don't wanna put them in something that that's gonna gonna cause them to call me and wanna pull out. speaker-0: Yeah. Capacity is time horizon, capacity is like job stability. Yes. J cash buffers. speaker-1: Do you have a pension plan that's coming from somewhere else that's a guaranteed source of income? speaker-0: For sure. Yeah, that's a that's a really big one actually. W with our chiropractors, a lot of them don't have have pensions, but those that do, you know, that's such a stable piece of their long term retirement plan that they may be able to take more risk and volatility in their portfolio outside of a pension plan because that they have that stable pension plan in place. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. what are the common mistakes that you see working with couples as they navigate, moving through their through their career? Maybe you can touch on the cross border side thing as well, but what are some of the most common challenges that you see with bringing on new clients and how are you helping them solve those those challenges? speaker-1: Specifically with couples, I'll see it's rare where you get both couples in the room at the same time. Yep. Schedules are very busy, right? You have two business owners or one has a full time job with an employer and the other is a business owner, like a chiropractor, for example, right? So who are you talking to? Just because the person that you're talking to i is in that meeting doesn't mean that they're the sole decision maker in the family. speaker-0: It's it's challenging. We all have busy lives and schedules and we recognize that life life happens, but I'm sure you you you'd probably do something similar and say, if we can, let's get both parties in the room. And even when you get both parties in the room, how are you you know, w we we've we always try and put an importance on how we're directing the conversation. Yeah. It make sure we're asking good questions not to just one person and leading the conversation with one individual, right? speaker-1: Exactly. Yeah. I start off every conversation with new clients now too. How do you learn? Yeah. Because some pers some people learn visually. They like the charts. They like the graphs. Yeah. They like the pictures. Others are analytic. They like the Excel charts. They want to see them. They will ask for all the numbers behind things. And and oftentimes couples the it varies. So I'm having to to put plans together where it's both married together. speaker-0: last question that I'll that I'll that I'll leave you on is the behavior side of finance. How how big a role does that play in in in your world in terms of creating plans and the conversations you're having throughout the year with your clients? speaker-1: Behavior when it comes to cross borders a big topic because the news can quickly change a plan. Yeah. You can have someone who has all their investments lined up, all their plans set, their goal is going a certain direction and policy can change, government can change, and you have to adjust. You have to pivot very quickly. The sooner that I know about that, the easier it is to put things in alignment. For sure. speaker-0: You know what when you say government and policies and everything, it makes me think right now and I'll get your take on this too. You know, markets and what's happening geopolitically with the government, they don't always speaker-1: Don't align. speaker-0: they don't they don't c they're not correlated always, right? We just had an interesting conversation with a client the other day who doesn't check their portfolio very often. Like they they rely on us, like what's going on with our investments. I don't really want to look. And we ask them, like, what well what do you think your where do you think your portfolio stands today? Like we're now, you know, the better part of three quarters through the year, because they they're they're they referenced the geopolitical news, what's going on with Trump and all the stuff in the US. They assumed it was doom and gloom. Like, maybe my portfolio is down a little bit or maybe we're up a little bit, right? Yeah. It's like little do they know. Like the markets have been still very strong this year, right? Have you found that have you found some similarness with like how working with your clients in terms of how they think about how their portfolio is performing and how that ties so closely what they see in the news every day? speaker-1: I agree. It it depends on the market, sorry, the job description of the client as well. And how closely they're watching their their portfolio, what they're invested in, what what they're happy to invest in v versus what they're trying to stay away from now. Yeah. I've specifically had clients that are asking, no, I don't want this segment of the marketplace because of whatever reason they have. but people are still watching. Of course. You know, the whether whether we we I I think the news is priced into the market. Which is why we're continuing to see growth because economics continues to grow. speaker-0: Sure. Yeah. At the end of the day, businesses around the world w regardless of whatever Trump tweets in a given day, these beautiful businesses around the world are continuing to show up and deliver a good or a service and generating profit for their investors at the end of the day. Right. speaker-1: It's true. Yeah. Yeah. Market's still worth investing in. speaker-0: Yeah, markets are efficient. They are. Right. Yeah. Very good. All right, well thank you very much. We'll leave it there. Thanks for your time, Jennifer. Appreciate it. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your future proof. You too. All right, thanks. Future proof twenty twenty six. How are we doing today, Sean? speaker-1: I'm doing well. It's sunny. The burning red meatball is shining right on us. speaker-0: You know what, it's actually not it doesn't feel ho it doesn't feel hot, but the sun is strong here in Huntington Beach. speaker-1: It is very strong. The weather says twenty five, but it feels like thirty for an Edmetonian. speaker-0: Sure it does. For sure it does. Yes, we're with another fellow Edmontonian. That's right. Why don't you introduce yourself, Sean? Tell us who you are, where you who you're with, all that good stuff. speaker-1: My name is Sean. I am I'm a dad. I I'm a financial planner. I do financial planning. I work a bit with Q Wealth partners and run some groups with their partners and I also host a podcast. But I'm and I'm a positive psychology practitioner. speaker-0: So much we dive in there and talk about, Sean. All right, you want to talk about that's relative to everyone. Obviously, our audience is particularly chi or in particular it's chiropractors, right? But you want to talk about money and happiness. What's what's get you what gets you fired up these days around the topic of of of where those two guy where those two things interject? speaker-1: Just does money buy happiness? I mean I we've been trying to solve this for a long time, humans, and I think it's confusing, it's messy, we don't really have an answer, but there's some indications. But I'm curious, what do you think? Does money buy happiness? speaker-0: I think it can give you options to buy some level of happiness up until a certain point. I think before you get there though, there has to be some other things in your life that that don't require money. Do you have the relate right relationships? Do you have the right support system? Be that spouse, children, close friends, like a good network of people that you gr can rely on. You know, I I think there's a lot to be said around focusing on your health and your fitness and if you if you have a lot of those like health and fitness, family, friendships, if you if those are all intact, you can get so much happiness that you don't need a whole lot of money for that. That's just my take on it, Obviously money you need money to buy certain things that can that can derive happiness, but I don't know. What's your take? speaker-1: You you got it nailed, but I'm curious, what was the thing that you spend your time on the most that brings you the most happiness? speaker-0: What what do I spend the time on most? I'm Like I was saying, I think it's if if I'm spending the majority of my time like obviously I love what I do and s and spending time with clients and the work that we do and I think I think we're making a a positive impact, which just in that and in itself brings a lot of happiness and and self-satisfaction. But outside of work, if I'm spending quality time with with my family, my children, my friends, and I can, you know, focus on my fitness and our audience knows w very well that I'm that I spend a lot of time doing all these races and all that stuff, like that brings so much joy and happiness to me. And And honestly I don't need a whole lot of money to make all that that happen, speaker-1: Yeah, you know, it's it's really interesting that when you look at the research, which I always put a caveat in research, is that that's an average person and an average person doesn't really exist. The averages is important because That's what the large number is, but there's always outliers. Yeah. But generally speaking, I I first thought it was super interesting when the Daniel Colman's paper came out, which was like $75,000. Everyone thought about this. Like, I don't know if you know that one, but like $75,000. Yep. You go to this number, then there's no correlation. Yeah. And I remember thinking, that sounds cool. And then diving into it, you start to realize that. What the media had extrapolated out of it was this punchy line after seventy-five thousand dollars, it no longer brings you happiness. But the research was actually looking at there's two different versions of happiness. One is like in the moment happiness, like hedonic happiness they call it. It's like right now this feels happy. If I'm going for a run this feels happy. Yeah. But then there's this evaluative one where I look back at my life and like am I on the right path? Holistically speaking, when I look back, am I doing things that are meaningful? Did I do things that are meaningful? Right. And what they looked at was more the hedonic side and it was something that some people start to contest cause we know that well no no wait a second. I've made more than seventy five thousand dollars and it's still making me happy. Sure. So this other guy came out, Michael Killingsworth, in twenty twenty two, and his research just completely changed the narrative. It's like, no, this number goes beyond like 500,000. And so at this time I was diving into the like money and psychology and I was like, wait, wait, what's going on here? And the two of them got together actually and did the what they call it an adversarial research. So Kahneman and Killing's been got together and they did this paper that came out in twenty twenty-four that showed something interesting that what you're speaking to though is that people who have a baseline level of happiness, yeah, money actually continues to drive more happiness. People who have a a lower l set point or lower propensity to happiness, a more negative outlook on life, then you start to see a flat line. And the reason the 75,000 is there is because speaker-0: They're basically speaker-1: Right. Your basic needs needs are net met. Right. But so what interests me is that maybe it's not does money make us happiness like should we be focusing on being happy? I think get the money. speaker-0: That's such great, great idea to reflect on. That makes it make it makes sense in terms of like thinking of it from that perspective. Focus on some of those things that I was mentioning. Yeah. You know, your relationships, you know, be maybe it's your faith, maybe it's fitness or your health, like whatever that is. One. Once that's at a certain level, then focus on what else can money do. to continue to enhance happiness, more experiences with family and friends. Yeah. You know. speaker-1: And i because like I think it's people get at least I know myself, distorted with thinking it was like, no, I know when I've made more money, I've been happier. And that's the part where you're like, I don't this doesn't really make sense until you look at, yeah, it's what you do with your time. And something that we work with or talk about is like how do we look then at well being research our models so that we can start putting the building blocks in place or the ingredients to enjoy our time and then use the money to like supercharge that. And there's many different frameworks. One I like is called PERMA. It's not speaker-0: Tell me about that. speaker-1: PERMA. It stands for so the idea is the more elements of PERMA you have, yeah, the more of a flourishing life is what Dr. Sullivan calls it. But perma is positive emotions. So the more positive emotions I get, the more for E engagement so like if I get in flow whether that's running or even in work yeah R is relationships one of the highest indicators of an enduring high levels of satisfaction are positive relationships in our lives doesn't matter the studies. Yeah is meaning. So am I doing meaningful work? Do I have meaning? Could be being a dad could be it could be an ultra runner. It could be the work you're doing. And then Perma what are we A accomplishment Humans we've evolved to move tribes to tribes, so like it's yeah, it's evolutionary hardwired in our brain that we want accomplishment. But they've added a couple more after that because you mentioned spirituality. There's there's a lot of eastern cultures that speak very, very highly of like a spirituality, a belief in something larger. So they've added that and health. So that's the perma plus model that it's just a model though. It doesn't mean that it's right for everyone. That's what think is important when any sort of framework. It's not right for everyone, but it's a way to help point the ship in the right direction. speaker-0: How do you see really great financial planners advisors out there making an impact in clients' lives to to try and help facilitate conversations or or be their guide to find more happiness in all on their journey with potentially growing income and growing wealth and having more money to to do what they want in life? speaker-1: Well, we we've touched on this, but we know money by security, freedom, options, and experiences. speaker-0: Well said, yes. speaker-1: Experiences are key in our lives. And if we could not only just help our clients grow their assets, grow their saving rates, those are important, but also have meaningful dialogues and discussions on what Is a meaningful experience. Do you have like some meaning in your life? I know that like we're financial planners, but I think. That's where we can really step in to help people think about how do I want to use money truly as a tool. It's such a catchphrase, use money as a tool, but we don't always do it. So I think it's helping them understand that it is simply just a tool. It's a piece of paper. Yeah. We just borrow, it's currency, right? Currency come and go. We just borrow until we go away. Can we make the most out of it by understanding what makes us happy? Having the money in the bank account won't go to speaker-0: That's right. Well said. Any any closing thoughts that you wanna leave our listeners with here in terms of what you've been thinking about lately when it comes to you know the work that you do? I know you're so passionate about beh our behaviors around money, this intersection of happiness and money. Any thoughts? speaker-1: I think just that we all wrestle with these things. There's so much tension and the more that we're able to accept that this is hard. Human a human being's like a messy creature, a beautiful creature, but a messy creature. Yeah. And that just because someone like say myself reads the research, I don't have it figured out. You know, it might sound like that, but no. And it's it's a dance, and the more we're attuned to realizing that if I look inside, figure out what I like, I can get a little bit better at it. One day at a time. speaker-0: Well said. Thanks for yeah thanks for being here, Sean. Thank you. Scott Campbell: Hey, Scott back here again. Hope you took something away or multiple things away from those conversations today. Hope you enjoyed them as much as we did. As a reminder, we are going to be back again here next week with the next five conversations that we had with another five fantastic advisors. So please be sure to tune in next week. Until then, have a great week and we'll see you soon.