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In his new book, Balance, Andrew Hallam not only explains evidence-based strategies for providing the best odds of success in the stock market, he provides a lot more than that.  The book helps you answer other important questions:

• How can we boost longevity, wealth and happiness?
• When it comes to spending, what sorts of purchases really enhance happiness? And yes, some material purchases do!
• How should we define success? And based on that definition, how can your children be successful?

Buy the book here (Affiliate link)

Andrew Hallam is the international best-selling author of Millionaire Teacher, The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School and Millionaire Expat: How To Build Wealth Living Overseas. Profiled on such media as CNBC, and The Wall Street Journal, he's also the first person to have a #1 selling finance book on Amazon USA, Amazon Canada and Amazon UAE. He has written columns for The Globe and Mail, Canadian Business, MoneySense, Internaxx and AssetBuilder. Since 2016 he has spoken at businesses and international schools in over 30 different countries.

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Robin Taub returns to talk about her latest book, The Wisest Investment: Teaching your kids to be responsible, independent and money-smart for life.

We chat about the common concerns parents bring up with Robin with respect to money and the financial decision making skills they want to empower their children with. We then dive into what parents can expect to learn from this quick, strategy-filled guide that includes chapters and tactics for children of all ages.

To take advantage of Robin's special offer (mentioned at the end of the podcast), you can email her directly at books@robintaub.com.

LINKS

Buy the book: Amazon affiliate link
Robin's website: https://robintaub.com/
Book website: https://www.thewisestinvestment.com/

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If bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain have you feeling confused, THIS podcast episode is for you. 

There is a strong correlation between bitcoin cheerleading and bitcoin’s price. Whenever the cryptocurrency has seen a rapid increase in price, mainstream media coverage rises and social media goes crazy like it always does. But… how many people really know what they are talking about? 

Is this another case of return-chasing behaviour combined with “a little knowledge being a dangerous thing”? My guest on today’s podcast is one of the few people who can help answer a lot of questions about cryptocurrencies. Dr. Andreas Park is a professor at the University of Toronto and his research and interests have been focused on financial market structure, financial technology, and studying innovations in cryptocurrency and blockchain. 

And don’t worry, whether you already know a bit about cryptocurrencies or are starting from scratch, I think we hit a nice balance between explaining the basics and diving a bit deeper into the actual economics to explain how you can judge for yourself if the space is suffering from too much hype or not. 

Resources and Links for this episode:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/financeUTM

Website: https://sites.google.com/site/parkandreas/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/andreaspark2812/

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Some people love car shopping… Others dread it. But like any industry, technological advancements have changed the landscape. When trading in an old vehicle, it used to be hard to really know what a good price might be. But for years now, you could look up comparable cars on the market, controlling for trim level, mileage, condition, and more. Some online services tell you what the dealer’s costs might be for a new car to help you negotiate with more confidence. But many people just don’t like to negotiate, and at the same time they certainly don’t want to feel like they are leaving money on the table. I had a very interesting conversation with Chris Pfaff, the CEO of Pfaff Automotive Partners who operate almost 20 locations in most major cities in Canada, selling a wide variety of cars, from McLaren and Pagani, to Porsche, Toyota, Volkswagen, and more. His company launched what they called The Future Retail Model of buying cars in late 2019. No haggling. Their best price is offered first. Take it or leave it. And it’s been very successful. Chris explains the reason for the new model, whether his competitors like it or not, how his sales team reacted, and provides some thoughtful insights into the world of buying and selling cars.

I need to point out that this interview was originally recorded BEFORE COVID-19, back in January of 2020. I had delayed publishing the podcast as it was originally scheduled for March 2020, but large parts of the country were being locked down at the time. Anything not Coronavirus related was just not on people’s minds. Well, we’re hopefully starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. And perhaps more people will be in the market for a vehicle in the near future, so now seems like a better time to release this episode.

Links:

Pfaff Auto website
Facebook Page
YouTube Channel
Instagram 

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Michael Meyer is the founder of Obolx.com - an app that helps you visualize your personal goals alongside your financial and health milestones for your entire family. Powered by AI, and using a stacked timeline visualization, it promises to help you conceptualize your life and your most valuable asset: time.

Website: https://www.obolx.com/

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Darin Diehl has a long history of working in the financial services as an educator and marketer. But in late 2019, he was laid off from his job. Then, in early 2020, he had a heart attack. While being diagnosed and treated for that, doctors also found out that he had advanced lung cancer. Darin thought it would be helpful to share his story, not only from a health perspective, but from a financial and emotional perspective. From what emergency funds they had in place, benefits coverage and insurance, and how his medication for lung cancer has a price tag of $130,000 per year (and he explains how those costs are subsidized).

With a recent positive assessment, he now has another set of unique financial considerations: what is the balance to be found between spending more aggressively now in case his life expectancy is much shorter than his financial plan called for, versus what if he has more runway than the doctors originally predicted?

Darin is sharing his story because his passion for financial education hasn't dwindled. There are many lessons and thought provoking subjects we touch on in this episode. 

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Alyssa Davies joins the show to talk about how couples can talk about money. Our wide ranging conversation covers the "breadwinner mentality" and how that can cause problems in the dynamics of a relationship, how and when to start talking seriously about money with a significant other, and much more. 

Alyssa is one of the most popular personal finance personalities in Canada. She is the creator behind the Mixed Up Money community which has a huge Instagram following on top of a blog, YouTube channel, and TikTok account. She is a content specialist for Zolo and a published author living in Calgary, Alberta. Two-time award-winning Canadian Personal Finance Blog of the Year Mixed Up Money has over 30,000 followers across social media. Her first book, The 100 Day Financial Goal Journal, was published in 2020.

Links:

100-Day Financial Goal Journal: https://mixedupmoney.com/book

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mixedupmoney/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MixedUpMoney

Website: https://mixedupmoney.com/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mixedupmoney

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnqAoFeB_QAklk2yAMyVx0w

Column: https://www.zolo.ca/blog/author/alyssa-davies 

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There is a BIG difference between End Of Life Planning and Serious Illness Planning.

If you think estate planning is getting your wills and powers of attorney or healthcare directives set up for taking care of things when you die or are about to die, you might be making a big mistake.

If you end up in an ER, the doctors aren't going to look at any end of life planning you might have in place if they think they can still save your life. This requires a whole different way of thinking about planning for serious medical illnesses.

On the show today I speak with critical care physician, Dr. Daren Heyland, who is going to give us a look behind the scenes at what really happens when people and their loved ones are making decisions about their medical care when they are seriously ill, or terminal. We’ve talked a bit about estate planning on the podcast before, and my guest recently attended a financial planning seminar where the positioning of how and when certain parts of an estate plan come into place could have used some fine tuning.  He’s also going to discuss an initiative he’s been spearheading, called the Plan Well Guide, Plan Well Guide is a FREE tool to help people learn about medical treatments and prepare them for decision-making during a serious illness, like COVID-19 pneumonia for example. 

 Find out more here:

Company: https://planwellguide.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/darenheyland

Facebook: @planwellguide

Twitter: @plan_well_guide

Instagram: @plan_well_guide

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daren-heyland-2b674a185/

Guest Bio:

 Dr. Daren Heyland is a critical care doctor at Kingston General Hospital and a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Queen’s University. He currently serves as the Director of the Clinical Evaluation Research Unit (CERU) at the Kingston General Hospital.  For over a decade he chaired the Canadian Researchers at the End of Life Network (CARENET), which has a focus on developing and evaluating strategies to improve communication and decision-making at the end of life

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In this episode I speak with the president of BMO InvestorLine, Silvio Stroescu, to get his response to the long wait times for clients calling in for customer service that all discount brokerages seem to be experiencing. 

Silvio provides some shocking numbers showing the absolute explosion in new account openings and trading activity. Year-over-Year increases in trading activity have reached +200% in some recent months. The first nine days of 2021, which is really only five trading days, saw more transactions than all of January 2020.

Why the surge? And what are they doing to reduce wait times. Silvio candidly answers these questions and more. 

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Erica Ehm was one of the first MuchMusic VJs, shaping and influencing an entire generation of Canadians. Her career has seen a series of reinventions. After defining the role of music television host, she became a successful songwriter winning multiple Canadian Country Music Awards, SOCAN awards, and Juno awards. But the reinvention didn't stop there. She has launched two companies, including the the first influencer agency that was born out of YummyMummyClub.ca, and Ehm & Co (EhmCo.com), a digital agency focused on connecting brands with Canadian mothers.

She recently launched the "Reinvention of the VJ" podcast which not only reminisces about that golden era of Canadian music television, but what happened to much of the on-air talent after the disruptive effect of on-demand music streaming services on the industry.

With so many people facing personal and professional reinvention (COVID-related or otherwise), Erica brings her experience as a reinvention expert to the podcast and shares what worked for her, and what can work for you.

Mentioned in the show:

THAT Kurt Cobain interview that helped defined Erica's career: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CTsGievjMU

Erica Ehm's blog post about her thoughts on the behind the scenes of that interview: https://www.ericaehm.com/erica-ehm-insights/2019/2/5/kurt-cobain-erica-ehm

Reinvention of the Vj Podcast: https://www.ericaehm.com/podcast

YummyMummyClub.ca
EhmCo.com

Erica Ehm on Twitter: @EricaEhm, Instagram: @EricaEhm

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Erin Bury is the co-founder and CEO at Willful, an online estate planning platform that makes it easy for Canadians to create a will in less than 20 minutes.

Topics covered:

Estate planning 101: basic definitions and concepts to help educate the audience

Can you leave your debt to someone in your will?

The stats on who doesn’t have wills/POAs,etc.

What are the biggest reasons people don’t get their estate planning documents set up?

What don’t people know about estate planning that they should?

What happens to your social media accounts when you die?

Company: https://www.willful.co/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/erinbury

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David Pride was sponsored into a multi-level marketing organization at the tender age of just 15 years old. By the time he was 16, they realized he was a naturally gifted speaker on stage. Over the next three years he would recruit over 150 people into the company. He would spend a total of 13 years dedicating all his spare time to his new family before he realized he needed to get out. It took him an additional three years of therapy to de-program his brain after he left. For the first time ever, he shares his story. How he got in. How much he made (it will shock you). And how he got out. 

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I’m joined by Erica Alini to talk about her new book: Money Like You Mean It - Personal Finance Tactics for the REAL world.

Erica is the personal finance reporter at Global News, where she writes about all things personal finance, business, and economics. She’s also the author of Money123, a popular weekly newsletter on money matters. Her writing has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Maclean’s and the Globe and Mail, among others.

You can also follow her on twitter here. 

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Founding and managing partner of Aligned Capital Partners, Christopher Enright, joins the podcast to discuss a bit about how the dealership platform an advisor uses can impact advice. With consumer preferences for how they pay for advice and products ever evolving, it's possible that some dealerships are not keeping up with those changing preferences. Inside the industry, it certainly feels like there is a small wave of change happening right now with respect to developing and deploying newer technology at the dealership level, and more flexibility with compensation options that advisors can offer. Chris helps explain why some of these changes seem to take a while, what's happening on the ground, and his vision for "bionic advisors" who can embrace technology instead of battling it.

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Human trafficking survivor, author, speaker and social advocate, Timea Nagy, immigrated to Canada in 1998. Her nightmare unfolded in Toronto in that same year after arriving from Budapest, Hungary in the hopes of finding meaningful employment. The daughter of a Hungarian policewoman, Timea was held (For three terrifying months) at the hands of traffickers and was forced to work in the sex industry. Thankfully, she escaped and started life anew. Ten years later, Ms. Nagy founded ‘Walk with Me’, a non-profit organization to assist victims of human trafficking and law enforcement agencies.

I met Timea at a conference where I was the MC. When Timea was interviewed on stage, you could hear a pin drop in the crowd. Everyone was captivated, and mortified, by her story. She detailed exactly how she ended up a victim, and more importantly how she now aids law enforcement agencies and financial institutions in detecting similar crimes by looking at financial transactions.

Follow Timea on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimeasCause
Visit her website to learn more about her work: https://www.timeascause.com/

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The CEO of robo-advisor Justwealth drops by to explain their offering, the differences and similarities to other robo-advisors in Canada, and introduces me to mushroom coffee.

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Dak Molnar is the Managing Director of the Molnar group, a commercial real estate developer and investment company. He joined me on the show to talk about Land Baron (http://www.landbaron.ca), a prospective new way for regular investors to participate in direct commercial real estate investments through an app. He also provides an insider's perspective on commercial real estate through his decades of experience in the field. 

DISCLOSURE: I have spoken to a company (Apply Digital) affiliated with Land Baron about possibly being engaged for consulting work for Land Baron. Apply Digital also employs a family member of mine (my brother). At the time of recording, no agreement was in place, but there is a reasonable expectation that one could be developed in the future.

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Author, speaker, and consultant Robin Taub joins me to talk about a new report put out by CPA Canada that investigates how individual personality, as well as socio-
economic factors like age, income and education, play an important role when it comes to
financial habits and knowledge

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Award-winning financial advisor Jason Pereira joins me to talk about the new Financial Planning Association of Canada that launched on November 19th, 2019.

You can reach out to Jason about FPAC at jason.pereira@fpassociation.ca, and you can visit https://www.fpassociation.ca for more information.

On the show, Jason talks about why we need this new association, and what they hope to accomplish. 

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Neil Pasricha helps people live happy lives.

He is a top-rated leadership keynote speaker, New York Times bestselling author, and positive psychology researcher focused on the relationship between happiness and leadership in business.

Neil is one of the most popular TED speakers with his first TED Talk “The 3 A’s of Awesome” (2010) ranked as one of the ten most inspiring of all time and his second “How will you maximize your tiny, short life?” (2016) the world’s first ever TED Listen, composed entirely of questions. As a leadership keynote speaker Neil has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people around the world including Fortune 100 companies, Ivy League schools, and Royal Families in the Middle East.

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The most requested guest on Mostly Money is back to share what he's been seeing in real estate around Canada. Ben provides a quick survey from coast to coast on local real estate markets, looks beneath the headlines on the overall economy, and does a great pirate impersonation. You can follow Ben on twitter at @BenRabidoux and you can learn more about his company North Cove Advisors at http://www.northcove.net

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John De Goey is back to talk about his new book, "STANDUP to the financial services industry: A practical guide for Canadians". He is a portfolio manager and Certified Financial Planner professional with Wellington-Altus Private Wealth in Toronto. 

You can learn more about John and his book at https://standup.today/

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Sol Amos is the founder of AdvisorSavvy.com, a new service for financial consumers and advisors that is designed to help people find better advisors. He joined me to talk about his experience in the industry which led him to start AdvisorSavvy and provides his thoughts on what consumers should look for. (Disclosure: Sol and I have had business dealings in the past when he was working at CIBC.)

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Dan Bortolotti is the creator of the Canadian Couch Potato blog, and host of the (soon to be resurrected?) Canadian Couch Potato podcast. He is THE authority on index investing in Canada and has just written a new book, Reboot Your Portfolio (Amazon affiliate link).

Dan joined me to explain what the book promises readers, and to discuss his journey from before knowing anything about investing himself, to becoming the writer behind the incredibly popular CanadianCouchPotato.com blog, and then eventually becoming a portfolio manager and financial planner.

We cover a range of topics in this interview, including:
-Dan's thoughts on how cryptocurrencies fit into a portfolio
-Why investing doesn't have to be time-consuming or exciting
-The rationale behind the couch potato method
-How you can reboot your portfolio whether you have $1,000 or $1 million
-and more

Links:
Buy the book: Reboot your portfolio (Amazon affiliate link)
CanadianCouchPotato.com blog
Canadian Couch Potato podcast
Dan's advisor website at PWL Capital Toronto

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I had a good friend of mine join me on the podcast in this episode. Jamie Mason Cohen is a certified grapho-therapist and leadership strategist whose TEDx talk on how to spot a leader through their handwriting has been viewed more than 1.6 million times.

He previously worked at Saturday Night Live and now is an accomplished keynote speaker and workshop facilitator on leadership. In the show he explains the basics of handwriting analysis and even analyses my chicken scratch as an example. 

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I speak with David Bach about his latest book, The Latte Factor. There are some people who might think that The Latte Factor is about giving up coffee, but it is not. The book is an engaging parable about the financial awakening of a young woman in New York City who learns the timeless rules about money, and priceless rules about living the life she wants and could have if she's willing to take some risk. Not only in her portfolio, but in her life choices as well. It's an enjoyable read and this book is sure to spur many people onto the path of saving more money. You can purchase a copy of the book here: https://amzn.to/2LstHdV (Affiliate link)

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In this episode, I spoke to Dr. Liane Davey about how conflict should be embraced, not avoided, as long as you do it the right way. There are myriad avenues in work and life where this can be applied, but we speak directly about productive conflict with your financial advisor (and vice versa: with your clients if you are are a financial advisor). 

Liane Davey is a New York Times Bestselling author, keynote speaker, consultant, and regular contributor to Harvard Business Review for her expertise on increasing productivity, enhancing engagement, developing leaders, and as one client put it, “dealing with the damn drama!”

"Conflict is unpleasant, but the more you try to avoid it, the worse it becomes. Eventually, unresolved conflict stalls productivity, erodes trust, and causes stress." - Liane Davey

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As a follow up to the episode of The Agenda with Steve Paikin talking about the upside-down world of financial planning for low-income Canadians, I had John Stapleton on the podcast to discuss it in more detail. John has been a tireless advocate for getting the word out on this complex issue and was the person who first brought it to my attention many years ago. 

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The team from Passiv joined me to explain their DIY helper service for investors. They have two levels of service: 1. A free service that tells you what trades you need to execute on your own, or 2. A premium service for $5/month that will allocate new cash and rebalance your portfolio according to parameters you set. This model could eat a lot of robo-advisors' lunch. You can learn more at http://www.getpassiv.com/

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The methods of payment we use can influence how much we spend and how we ultimately feel about our purchases. One of the world's leading experts in this area, Profession Avni Shah, joins me to discuss some of her research in this area. Not only do we discuss day to day implications for people, but we also chat about how the "pain of payment" is related to the financial services, and how embedded compensation, fee-based compensation, and fee-for-service compensation models affect how people feel about the advice provided.  

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Melissa Leong is a personal finance writer, keynote speaker, on-air personality and bestselling author. She appears on CTV’s The Social as its resident money expert and was a staff reporter at the Financial Post. She joins me on the podcast to talk about her brand new book, Happy Go Money: Spend Smart, Save Right and Enjoy Life

Buy the book here: https://amzn.to/2LHJW3u (This is an Amazon affiliate link)

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John Robertson is on a mission to help Canadians learn how to invest. He has a popular book and online course that lays out the step-by-step process of how to actually get started with a variety of investing service providers like robo-advisors, discount brokerages, and more. You can check out his site here: http://www.valueofsimple.ca/

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Albert Luk is the CEO of Haxa Blockchain Inc. and he joined me in Toronto to explain the basics of Bitcoin (vs bitcoin - yes, there's a difference) and blockchain technology. This episode's single dram was a 21 year Glenfarclas. 

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This episode is sponsored by BMO ETFs #ad

I speak with Kevin Prins from BMO Global Asset Management about how ETFs can be used for building and improving almost any investor's portfolio. Specific topics covered:

• What are asset allocation ETFs?
• ETF issuers have large voting rights - how do they vote at AGMs for all the companies' stocks that they hold on behalf of investors?
• For people who do not subscribe to the philosophy of a couch potato portfolio, how can they still use ETFs?
• And more...

To learn more about BMO ETFs full suite of offerings visit https://bit.ly/3mA0Nbs

To learn more about BMO Asset Allocation ETFs visit https://bit.ly/3Angdok 

Specific resources mentioned in the episode:

BMO Global Asset Management's responsible investment review: https://www.bmogam.com/uploads/2021/09/e704ba9fcbadb851004de49131e2a42f/ri_annual_review_canada_en.pdf
Asset Allocation 101: https://bmogamhub.com/system/files/asset_allocation_index_etfs_whitepaper-_direct_channel.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=107518
ETF Tools/Screeners/Proposal builders: https://www.bmogam.com/ca-en/investors/learning-centre/etf-investing-basics/etf-tools-and-resources/

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Welcome to the 100th and final episode, at least for a while, of Mostly Money. 

I wanted to have a special guest for this send off show, and I don’t think I can top who offered to help me out. You know when people say, our next guest needs no introduction? That is actually true in this case. He is a Canadian icon. A broadcasting legend. This guy walks into a room and time stops. And let me tell you, it really is an honour that the one and only Peter Mansbridge is my special guest today.

With 50 years at the CBC, culminating in the top job, anchor of The National for many of those years, he’s seen a lot. I wanted to ask him a bit about what life is like inside a major network news department, but I also wanted to tap into the stories behind the stories of some of the big financial events in Canada - past elections, and budgets, the story behind how the GST was introduced, and more.

This ties in nicely as he has a new book available for pre-sales, releasing October 5th, 2021 titled "Off the Record", in which Peter tells you the stories behind the biggest stories of our lives. I've already ordered my copy, and I just know I'll be hearing Peter's distinctive voice in my head as I read it, and I can't wait.

LINKS:

New book - "Off the Record"
Peter's website - ThePeterMansbridge.com
Twitter account - @petermansbridge
Instagram - @thepetermansbridge

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