The Biz Dojo

S2E11 - The Hemingway Moment w/ Dave Popowich & Faisal Karmali

March 30, 2021 Dave Popowich & Faisal Karmali Season 2 Episode 11
The Biz Dojo
🔒 S2E11 - The Hemingway Moment w/ Dave Popowich & Faisal Karmali
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Subscriber-only episode

This week in The Biz Dojo, we're joined by Dave Popowich and Faisal Karmali of the Popowich Karmali Advisory Group.

We'll get into what it takes to have a successful partnership, the importance of trust, and how "The Hemingway Moment" can give way to inspirational and aspirational goals for you and your business. We also explore retirement planning, talk a little about lifestyle management, and discuss a bit about when those decisions should (or shouldn't) be getting made.

Then on the Podium - brought to you by Beyond a Beaten Path - our reporters in the field join us again as Derek, Wyatt, Seth and JP talk more about partnership as we explore our top 3 dynamic duos. 
 
So partner up with a Dojo Dark, or maybe our new Masters Medium Blend, and take in another lesson in the Dojo.

Don't forget to visit us at the links below, and follow us on social media for exclusive content:
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Seth Anderson:

Welcome to The Biz Dojo with Seth JP Episode 11. Season Two. JP, we're we're into the second half now.

JP Gaston:

Yeah, we didn't even take a March Break.

Seth Anderson:

No, we were talking about it. And then it was like, well, let's just go. Yeah, well,

JP Gaston:

now not only did we talk about let's just go we, we discovered that we wanted to go a little bit longer than we had originally anticipated for season two. So

Seth Anderson:

that little bit longer breaks. I don't know if I always say that. But

JP Gaston:

this might be the first time you've said that.

Seth Anderson:

Nonetheless, two is better than one, I guess. And that's, that's this episode, we have another four person pod, which I they're different, right? Like they're a little bit different. But I think we're getting the hang of it. Now, after doing a couple of

JP Gaston:

Yeah, I quite enjoyed them, there's a little different dynamic. So it's not just different in that we have to record and, you know, put together a show with three audio tracks, we do have to add the fourth audio track, but the actual dynamic is different, you know, being able to kind of play off each other as partners, but also play off each other. between us is is fun, quite frankly,

Seth Anderson:

I think it was interesting to like, you know, as I did not mention off the top, I guess this week were Faisal comme le and David Popovich. And, you know, they wear many hats, as we'll get into in the show, but I really like how they did play off each other, right? Because, you know, Dave would answer and then Faisal will top up and vice versa. They just had such a natural synergy. You could see how their business part.

JP Gaston:

Yeah. And we talked to you about how they don't have the same skill set, they have complementary skill sets. And it's very clear that that's the case. And it's not that, you know, they're weak in each other's areas. And I think Dave talked about that, in particular at one point, and saying that they're not areas of weakness, they're their areas of not strength. But yeah, it was their, their dynamic between the two of them is fun to watch. Well, I guess, fun to listen to, in the case of a podcast.

Seth Anderson:

Yeah, I thought, you know, there's a lot of great insights that you can take away from this. But one of the cool things, and I mean, it's not as relevant to me anymore, given that I don't drink but the spirit behind the Hemingway moment, I thought was, was interesting. What do you take away from that?

JP Gaston:

Well, taking the time to sit down and just brainstorm, right. And I think I think leaders need to do this, everybody needs to do this. But leaders in particular, often get caught up in their day to day and just trying to tackle one thing at a time and not thinking big picture all the time. And they very clearly take a moment to sit down probably more than most, they take an evening, as it were, and sit down and they just spaghetti on a wall, throw everything up and don't criticize, just do it. It's something that I've started doing myself a little bit more, I need to do it even more. But I love it. I think it's great. And

Seth Anderson:

again, I didn't do a very good job of explaining what that was. But basically the premise being come up with your ideas drunk and then edit sober. But I do think you know, the brainstorming the whiteboard sessions, a lot of we've done a lot of that with the podcast, right? Like, I can't tell you how many ideas we've had. And, you know, not all of them have turned into, you know, great things when we actually do them. And some of them stick and some of them don't. But this entire thing has been built off of I think, throwing a lot of ideas out there and then working with what works and throwing away what doesn't. Yeah, there's

JP Gaston:

a lot of stuff listeners haven't heard, that did not make its way off to the cutting room floor. But yeah, we're always open to ideas. And I think our Hemingway moments are usually via text in this pandemic era. And they are fast and furious. And it's, it's fun to iterate, right? Like, we just want to constantly evolve. And that's the way you do it.

Seth Anderson:

Yeah. So with that, excited to share this with you guys. Let's get into the episode.

JP Gaston:

All right, let's get the steadies to take us there.

Voiceover:

This week on the pod. We Dr. Faisal carmellini and Dave pop, which from the Papa which carmellini advisory group will talk about creating a successful partnership, starting out as a business owner and embracing social media to extend your messaging. Then on the podium, brought to you by beyond the beaten path.ca we bring back Derrick and Wyatt to talk about some pretty iconic partnerships. So welcome to The Biz Dojo. Here are your hosts, Seth Anderson, and JP Gaston.

Seth Anderson:

Welcome to The Biz Dojo this week. Very exciting. We have two guests, JP so we're back to double guests for the first time the second time this season. Back to four lines to edit For a lot more exciting,

JP Gaston:

I enjoy it. I love it. It's, it's great. It's different, though for sure.

Seth Anderson:

You'll be up until 5am instead of

JP Gaston:

instead of for an extra hour.

Seth Anderson:

We're super excited to have Faisal carmellini. And Dave Papa, which for those of you who live in the Calgary area, I know for myself, I know you guys from the CTV Morning News often see you guys on there, I was trying to come up with an intro for you off the top here. But your LinkedIn profiles have so many hats. I didn't know where to where to focus in. So maybe I'll let you guys just explain who you are and what you do.

Faisal Karmali:

Yeah, it's a it's basically just a pop, which and the other guy is probably the best way to start that off. And the whole thing about different hats are real or real businesses. We are we are wealth professionals and wealth managers for people who are approaching to or living in retirement. And that's, that's the niche that we've worked in the Calgary and surrounding area. And that's our real business. It's we're having a great time doing it too.

Seth Anderson:

Awesome. Well, we really appreciate you guys making the time to hop on here today. And and maybe we just start out there what what inspired you to get into that particular niche of the financial industry?

Dave Popowich:

Yeah, I'll jump in there at the beginning, my my background actually was through my I guess my introduction was through my father. So he was a senior guy at a at a big investment house. And so I kind of grew up around it. And it was always a hobby of mine investing was a hobby. It wasn't my first career though, I decided to pursue it after I'd had a career or two before, probably not wanting to follow in the old man's footsteps to begin with. And, and secondly, when when I did get into the business, what I found is it's very different being in the business and investing other people's money versus investing as a hobby and investing your own money. But it was early exposure for me through my through my dad,

Unknown:

when it came to me it was I was 16 years of age. And one of my summer jobs was being an assistant to an advisor. And he left the door open just a little crack and I could hear the conversation he was having with a client and I fell in love with that just how he was able to help that individual. And since the age of 16. I've just been really, really passionate about helping individuals and especially with their financial futures and seeing so many people destroy their financial future one simple mistakes they could avoid with a little bit of discipline and structure. They they turn out pretty good. So it's it's been my mission since then to to help as many as I can

JP Gaston:

you get into the industry, you're excited, one of our questions was really around who inspired you? But you kind of answered that and how you got into industry.

Unknown:

But then how do you how do you come to a point where you find each other, Dave and I were both at the same financial institution, literally, seven to eight feet away from each other. We started our own practices individually. And we had the opportunity to work together on I'll call them many projects within the financial institution, servicing certain clients and so forth. And we started our dating process, I'll call it that, from that point where we were, we were just learning about each other. And really, you know, working together, Dave was fortunate enough to have a thought on a local radio station, where he was doing business news updates five times a day, and when you have a real job to actually do that five times a day is is very daunting. And he tapped me on the shoulder and said, Why don't you take the afternoon off my plate? While I can work on my practice, and I'll give you some exposure. And so we started that, initially by me, I would say helping him out. Never got paid for that day. So you owe me some money for sure. But but from there, it just grew into one day I was thinking about this would be a really good partnership. I think this would be an opportunity for Dave and I to merge our practices and and how do we actually exponentially grow to the ideas that we want to by working together. So the concept of one plus one equals three. And I remember taking him out for for lunch for some sushi. Dave loves sushi. So I figured that one out and I said okay, let's go for, for sushi and we he's he's just taking everything off the whole menu and just you know, eating it. Everything is looking at me and I'm not even having a bite. And he's like, why are you not eating? And I'm like, I hate sushi. He's like, but you brought me here. And I said, I said, Well, this is what partners do. They will they will be there for you even though they don't like where they're at. And then that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about us being partners and then taking on a new a new approach. And since then Dave continues to eat sushi and I don't and we built a fantastic practice working together. That's, that's amazing.

Seth Anderson:

It feels not that dissimilar to the origins of The Biz Dojo, where JP and I worked together for many years. And I had this brilliant idea one day when I was out on a walk that you know, I wanted to start a podcast and I happened to know this guy who knew how to do all the radio, I call it the spinny daily work called JP and we went out for breakfast and we both I guess the differences we both quite enjoyed breakfast and and and we're both able to enjoy the meal but it's it's interesting how I just felt very similar I guess in that though. It's probably a larger metaphor for leadership styles. And both of you bring different things to the table. How would you describe your leadership style, Dave? And how did how does that sync up with Faisal? It's good question, Seth.

Unknown:

And I would add to the story that Faisal is sort of just told that it was an evolution, right, if you if you listen to what he said, there was a series of steps over time. And we evolved, we started with small interactions. And what we saw evolve was something that was bigger than the both of us combined. And because although we have, I would say, very similar value systems, we're very different people, I like to say that he's younger and much better looking. And you know, as a result, maybe a bit more aggressive than the old beat up guy that I am. And so what we found, while we were working together is that we did have similar value systems, but different and complementary personalities and leadership styles. And so one plus one equals three concept really came from that Faisal would be in many cases, more direct in his leadership style. And I would be perhaps, I don't know if the word softer or more relationship oriented, but the combination of those two things got us to a place where we could build a team around people would follow that leadership. And they've got two different avenues to go down, right. If they, they could speak to Faisal, on certain things, they could speak to me on certain things. And because Faisal and I were aligned, personally, and from an objective or direction in our business, I think that that appeal to a very wide group of people, and we probably got more out of that team than we could have on an individual basis. There's a What would you say to that? Yeah, absolutely. I think the the difference, not only leadership style, but approach to how we look at money, how we look at helping individuals, what we want, as an outcome for them, how we how we work differently, that really is a big complementary skill set, Dave is more, he uses the word you know, softer and sober. Our beat up as an old guy, he really is not. He's, it's wisdom is what it really is. And in his life, he's seen some of the good, the bad, the ugly, and so his wisdom in those years have allowed him to be we call it the word conservative in our industry, I don't think it's conservative, I think it's prudent, I'm more aggressive. And so together working on on different parts of the business, and especially for our, our clients and customers allows them to see every side of what they may be feeling, or it's their significant other may be feeling when it comes to their wealth. And that's, that's huge, because most of wealth management is emotive more than it is mathematical. And so having two different personalities with two different methodologies with one vision gives you ultimate results,

Seth Anderson:

you got to have a good cop, bad cop routine that you guys have developed over the years are. Absolutely.

Unknown:

And it rotates. I gotta tell you, depending on the day of the issue with a person? Absolutely, there is. But let me go back to to that question Seth. And tied to what what Faisal said also, and I think ultimately, in a partnership, there has to be a respect. And so you know, we could go down and probably pretty clearly articulate each other's strengths. And I'm going to call it weaknesses, or perhaps areas of non strength, and it's complimentary, what we've got. So there are instances where Faisal has to take the lead on something, because that's one of his strengths. And I need to play second fiddle on that one and support them and vice versa. So one of the things that's really important, I think, in in our partnership, and I would suggest in any, is you have to have a respect for the other person's strengths. And that's hard when those strengths are different than yours. Because sometimes it's not what you would do. But if you trust and respect your partner, as I do with Faisal, when we're into an area where I think he's got strengths, and I don't I have to have the confidence in this case, I do to say, you know what, you take the lead on this, I think you're right, you're better at this than I am, we're gonna follow you on this one. And that'll switch, right, that good cop, bad cop leadership follow that that whole dynamic is, I think, been really beneficial for us, and I think would be very important in any partnership.

JP Gaston:

Have you guys had times where you've had to kind of merge both of those skill sets where both of you have had to kind of take the lead because you require both and you both have some of the equation? Absolutely. When it comes to the business itself and how we work together,

Unknown:

there are parts within with either a conversation, discussion, a strategy, or even pulling the trigger on any implementation in the business, we both have to be aligned but that doesn't mean one person takes the lead at all times. We can we can play side by side and then be pilot copilot at any point in time, which is needed. So there's been many cases in times in the past where we both had to approach either when it comes to people outside of our business that we want to have a proper relationship with. You need both individuals and and when you're working closely, especially in a in a sensitive area like people's money having both parts come to the table. Just showing the strength. And ideally, you want to see the people that are leading the practice and that are leading that business. And they're both aligned with you, regardless of if they have differences of management style or leadership skill

JP Gaston:

has been. I'm going to do the flip question now, because that's what you do when you interviewed someone. Have you had some some times where it's kind of been the opposite, where you've both had some skill in an area? And there's there's some tension? And how do you? How do you work through that milkshakes.

Unknown:

I think that's what what what makes this really powerful is there's lots of time that we might have a difference of opinion, tension, we want to approach it differently. And remember, everybody, we're all people. And so I might be having a bad day, Faisal is having a good day. So there's a whole bunch of things that influence what that interaction is, on any given day. And this is where I draw you back to this notion of respect and trust, right, so who knows what could be influencing whatever tension exists at moment, it could be work related, it could be personal, it could be a combination of all those things. And it literally happens all the time. Because things are dynamic, and they're changing all the time, I think we've got an excellent process to work it out, because it's open and honest communication. So one of the things we said when we got together is when you do the research about why partnerships fail, it's because you're moving, either you've got different goals and objectives, okay, or there's some piece of information that's missing, that doesn't provide the context as to why you're responding in a certain way, and, and phase. And I've done a fantastic job, in my opinion, since the beginning of putting everything on the table, including personal and not all of that stuff is pretty sometimes, but it does form a context as to how you're responding or behaving. And if people know that, then you can get through, in this case, our case, we can work through a process to get to the answers that we need to kind of jump on that as well did when Dave and I are many, many years ago, would fly to Vancouver from Calgary, every three months, we would sit down there, we'd actually have a coach who to help us through our business. And when we looked at our business, and it was a four letter word that always comes out of our mouth, and then we're looking at our business going, we can do so much better. We this is this is terrible. And we would get frustrated, we would get angry at each other. And then we would try to figure out how we're going to do this. But what we realized it was both of us frustrated, angry, but not at each other. We were still pointing in the same direction. And we were just seeing it from a different side. And so it would literally be a lot of discussion arguments, we've had fights and so forth. But then we go we go to McDonald's have a milkshake. And just literally that means Okay, everything's good now, and we can move forward. That's that's the telesign. Right? So let's go for a milkshake. And it's all good then so it works out. Quite well

Seth Anderson:

say hypothetically, there was a couple guys who recently started a business venture together. And you know, they they have a pretty good partnership, they're, you know, learn from each other as they go over the last six months. And what what I heard are some of the notes I took, I mean, communication is key, being able to see both sides or you know, appreciate each other's skill sets and finding out where those complement each other. You know, those are, those are some key attributes of a great partnership. Anything else that you would give advice to those hypothetical folks who just started a business? trust, trust,

Unknown:

trust? No matter what happens? I know, Dave's got my back. I know that Dave's got the right vision, because our vision is aligned. That takes time. I'm sure there were times that Dave's like Is he in the best interest of himself or for the business at the very beginning. Maybe even yesterday, he probably thought that too. But right now, but there are but but when we go through and when you've been together in a partnership, over 12 years together, you know that there's that trust level. So even if I know it's like, it just doesn't feel right. But man, I know this guy's got it. It's right or die, I've got his back and will will ride into the sunset or not. But we're going to do it together. And that that trust is huge, huge when you start losing confidence, trust patience with that individual. It's not the right partner. When we first merged our businesses, and I shared the Hemingway moment stuff, Faisal. I think this is really important. One of the things that we discussed a lot of is what the shared experience was going to be. So what when we got together, what we decided is, is that there were some and we literally wrote it down. And we had our respective partners at the time meet to see that there was an alignment on a personal level, but skill sets we did the hard work. But the last piece of it was that this was about an experience. Right? So what are we going to talk about when we're 80 years old, right? It's not the money you made or your losses, you're going to talk about the the experiences that you had going through that process. And so we call it our Hemingway moment. And we give credit to Hemingway for this quote, although i don't i don't think historically it is but it's, you know, you you write your business plan or you write in his case, you write drunk and you edit sober and so what We will do is during our trips to Vancouver is we would have a couple of cocktails. And we would start to look into the future about what experiences we want to have and how we could build it around that and who would be involved. And I got to tell them Faisal, you can jump in on this, I think that we spend a significant amount of time already, we're not at yet. But we're already talking about the experiences and you celebrate those successes you had. And then you'll learn from the, you know, the defeats and the beat downs that you take. But all of that's part of the experience. And so I don't want to just make it all about a work, it's got to be about fun. And it's got to be about some level of shared outcome that you're going to have somebody to talk to about and relive and, you know, have that experience together. Yeah, let me let me add some color to that to what Dave was saying, first of all, when, when he said 80 years old, he meant when I'm 80. And he's well over 100, because he's way over. The, the second part of it, the experience side was, it's not just our journey, there's other people that are a part of this story, and what is their journey, as well. And literally, this whole Hemingway moment, which we do every year, by the way, it's it's, it is a part of our DNA, we will have a few cocktails and write everything that we can think of, on a board or on a piece of paper. without editing it, we do not we do not say it's a bad idea. We don't try to, you know, critique it or anything like that. We just don't everything out there. And the next day, we come back and look at that list, and we edit sober. And so this is the Hemingway concept. And so when you edit sober, you then can go through there and say, this is a good idea. That's a bad idea that might be a little bit illegal. You can't do that. So you know different things come up. And you then go, wow. And in those Hemingway moments for your listeners, Seth and JP is that we came up with a let's let's write a book, about retirement, how to bulletproof it. Let's, let's make sure that when people in our market in Calgary, think about retirement, think about us, let's, let's make sure we can give the proper information education and its impact. 1 million people like these are Hemingway ideas that are written down. And then the next day we start going, Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, we can do that, too. And when we're on our rocking chair, on our front porch, and everything is done, we're not going to remember the money. Like Dave said, we're going to remember the book that we wrote, or, or we're going to remember the different types of strategies, or more importantly, the different experiences that we've had throughout our partnership together, which is way more important than anything else. That's very inspiring.

Seth Anderson:

I love it. You guys, in your advertisements, you know, you talked quite a bit about maintaining your lifestyle in retirement. And I think that's a tough concept. You know, JP, and I both in sort of the 30 something range, although I'm in the lower bracket. Well, how do how do you get people to start? I mean, yeah, when it's 2030 years away, and it's sort of this ambiguous thing in the future retirement, but specifically, that maintaining lifestyle portion, what recommendations would you give to people to start thinking that way earlier to set themselves up for that? Seth, the

Unknown:

answer that question is, if you're not thinking in terms of retirement at your age, right, it's too far, you can't actually see that far in advance. But there's a whole bunch of experiences you should be having at this stage of your life, right. So what I would take, we deal with a very specific group of people at a very specific time in their life. And it's not age related. In fairness, it is about when they're ready to make that transition into retirement, and sometime leading up to that for planning purposes. But prior to that, there's a whole bunch of experiences that you're going to be having, as you're building your business, as you're building your families, whatever, you know, whatever journey you're on right now, it's the same idea. Right? I think that that people should spend time thinking about where they're at in their life, and what those experiences are that they want to have. And then you get clarity around that. Right. So when we talk about it, for those people transitioning to or living in retirement, the first thing that we're doing is we're trying to help them bring clarity to the experience and the lifestyle that they want. We have a fun saying that everybody knows what they're retiring from. But quite frankly, few people know what they're retiring to. Right? And that's, that's the gap that you've got to fill, you've got to understand what that life what that lifestyle is that you want. And then we have to do some planning around, is that achievable? And how do you do it and then all the complexities sort of comes up from that, but you can apply that same thinking to any stage of life,

Seth Anderson:

I find, you know, in my day job, have supported a lot of people been very fortunate to be in a leadership role for a lot of years. And that time when people are transitioning into retirement is such an interesting time. You know, you're so wrapped up in you were this title or at this company, for X amount of years and your whole identity sort of becomes rooted in that. And I've seen some people go through I don't know if tough times is the right word, but like it's it's hard like you get there. It's like you spend your whole life trying to get to that finish line and then all of a You're there. And it's like, know what, that must be a lot of what you guys I mean, you touched on it a bit there, Dave. But

Unknown:

yeah, you know, Seth, that's, that's a hard thing, and I'll break it down. Generally speaking with in our practice, the men have a harder time transitioning to retirement than the women. In our experience, women have more of a social network outside of their place of employment. And their identity is not what they do at the office, their identity is either they are a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a friend, a sister, when you ask most of our male clients, they will tell you what they've done in their career as their number one identifier. So when you leave that area, what the heck are you going to do next, and that that becomes the biggest challenge. And so we've developed programs that literally helped them figure out the top 31 things they want to do in retirement, when you top 10, easy trade, right and down 31. No matter what age category you are, it is challenging. And when you get down to the bottom 11, you really get to the core values of who you are, and what's really important to you. And some of the stuff that we get out when we go through these programs are like, I want to take all my pictures from my photo albums and upload them to the cloud or on a USB so my grandkids can see it. That's something you want to do in retirement. Yeah. Why? Well, because now they get to see stuff. They're not gonna look through a photo album, but they're gonna swipe things on their phone or take a look at it on a computer. That's important to me. So legacy and leaving those pictures behind is important. That's a huge value system that doesn't need money management. It just needs retirement planning.

JP Gaston:

So Calgary right now, in the midst of several, I will say major transformations. We're in the middle of a pandemic, we have an economic transformation happening across Alberta, really not just Calgary and across North America. And then we also have digital transformation. So not wanting to be that broad. Maybe I'll zero in on one and we can we could transition to a couple but especially the the economic transformation that's that's happening right now. Do you have a sense of what businesses are being you know, successful? What do we what do we see growing? Where do we see people kind of transitioning it when it comes

Unknown:

to like the Calibri side, economically speaking, and you'll hear concepts of what's called a K shape recovery, part of the recoveries on the upside, and a bunch of industries will go down. Every recession has that. But in this case, in Calgary, what we have seen, let's go back to 2013 14, all the way till now, as we've seen the oil and gas sector be I'll use the word decimated for lack of a better word that's changing. So that's on the way of a big change there transformation, one word to use. But there's a huge change there. What's been the silent growth in Calgary has been agriculture, technology, startups and other businesses innovation in other ways beyond just being a tech company. But being a tech user company, software as a service. Like there's a whole bunch of other industries that don't get the media attention, because it's not going to impact you or not going to draw you into that headline, because it's okay, so we hired 500 people. So what 500 people losing their jobs, get more attention on media and 500 people getting their jobs. And that's just unfortunately, how media works right now. But Calgary is in a major transformation in my optimistic of Calgary. Yes. So I think it's going to be a long time before we start seeing the vibrancy we've had in downtown Calgary. Yeah, it's going to be a while. But these other industries are coming up, it's a lot younger, they're going to be building their wealth. And a lot of the old economy is slowing down and oil and gas being one of them. But there are other other sectors health care being a big transformation in this in this city. And then this province is going to is going to go through that transition, it's going to be an opportunity, but it's not going to go without any volatility. And JP let me jump in on there to just on the tail end of what Faisal said, I think everybody has to remember that things go in cycles also, right? The problem is that the cycles can sometimes take longer than what you hope, right? And so what it's interesting when Faisal is interacting with clients that are Calgary based, versus clients that are Toronto based or Vancouver based, it's a very different interaction, because of what people in Vancouver and Toronto are living relative to what we've been living. As we've gone through this, you know, this adjustment, and consolidation in oil and gas and all of the things that we've gone through. So I'm with basil, I think we're optimistic it is a cycle. I couldn't tell you how long that cycle is going to be. But I gotta tell you, at some point when housing gets so expensive that you can't live anywhere else. The Calgary real estate markets probably gonna look pretty good. Right? The rental and the vacancy rates downtown will probably represent an attractive opportunity for companies that want to take advantage of it. Just the question is when? Yeah,

Seth Anderson:

well, I've even come across it a few times. There's a few people who've moved from Vancouver that I know to Calgary, because they just could simply never afford to live there or own a home there. I guess specifically, you know, we'll see with what's to come there. I think Faisal, one of the interesting just nuggets he threw out there was around startups. And you know, I was checking out your, your YouTube channel real talk with Faisal carmellini. It's got some good stuff on there. And I was watching the the best business advice for 2020. And the one the one thing that rang true for me, I can't remember who it was, who said it on there. But you know, just go start it, like go get going. I think a lot of people get stuck in like that paralyzed state of, I don't know what I want to do. You know, I've lived in that space for a long time. But you know, this last year with the podcast and helping my wife get started on her business, I can honestly say, like, just dive in and start doing and then see where it goes. What advice do you have for folks who are kind of stuck in that I'm not sure what to do. I mean, beyond beyond that

Unknown:

Connor, current from local laundry was the one who gave that piece of advice. And that was, and that's a guy who just jumped in off the deep end and just waiting for it. And his concept of, you know, jump off the cliff and then make the plane on the way down is his his his mantra. And it's been, it's been phenomenal seeing his growth and his transformation in his business. For those who are reluctant to start right away, or those who are always in the process of I'm planning. And it turns into from a paralysis by analysis is what normally happens in that phase. That is a sense of insecurity, that's a sense of, I'm scared, I don't know exactly what to do. So it's better to do nothing, and not fail, then do something and fail, we have put so much emphasis on business owners who fail. But if you can't do it, you suck. Well, that's not true. Look at the top 15 business owners and let's go based on wealth as a proxy on that in the world, they have failed hundreds of times, they just don't talk about it. Because it's part of the process. It's like asking a bodybuilder, how many times have you dropped weights off your when you're lifting? Well, it happens all the time, no one talks about it. But when when it happens in business, we get this negative connotation around it. So I would definitely say if you want to start a business, just do it, you'll know if it's important to you based upon how much energy and passion you put into it. So when Dave and I sit down and we talk about our business, what we don't always talk about is the 1819 hour days that we were working together from beginning to end, and it was us alone, like that doesn't get mentioned in a lot of the conversations because that was just that's required. It's part of the it's part of the repetitions, we had to do the traveling the meeting with so many different people to to get what we had to get done. That passion is what built us through this. If you don't have that you will find out in a quick, quick way that it's not right for you. And that's okay, then just move on to the next thing and away you go. So one of the key things that I always talk about the five keys to a successful business, and that's people product, process, passion, and then get paid. If you got those five things, you're gonna have a successful business.

Seth Anderson:

I think we need to figure out that last part JP, but we're

JP Gaston:

stuck on that fourth p for volunteering, how's that?

Seth Anderson:

The next point on there just driving digital transformation. And I think particularly when we talk about media, there's there's so many ways to leverage media. In today's world, what we've learned in the podcast is sometimes it feels like you're in a room by yourself. And then other times like a postal just hit and all of a sudden you've got like things coming from where you'd never expected. And I think this whole COVID just having access to like the whole world at the click of a button is quite the thing. And I noticed that you guys in particular, use a variety of mediums use the legacy stuff, use some of the new stuff, what do you find to be the most effective? And do you have like an overall digital strategy that you guys employ?

Unknown:

Why don't you answer that because your experience has been different than mine when it comes to all the all the marketing that we do. Yeah. So I've got an interesting perspective on it. Because all social media in particular terrifies me. I just it's and Faisal drags me along, kicking and screaming on this. And he's patient. And he explains it all to me on how it works. Now, listen, I understand how media works. We've done lots of media training, and you know, on message and whatnot, I just, it can get so out of control so fast with social media that we talk a lot a lot about what messaging has to go out and who it has to go to the frequency and reach. And we learn from what's coming back. We do have game more me than than Phase I think he's more advanced in this respect that I am. But what we do know I'll go back to something faizal said earlier, one of our Hemingway moments, you know, in the not too distant past was that we want to, we want to touch a million people. We want to be able to help a million people now that doesn't necessarily mean when we sobered up that we're gonna have we can phase one I can service 1 million client families that would be impossible for us to do so social media. get an education. And if we're using our superpowers for good through through social media, we can actually we can make a difference in doing that. That's what I'm on board for. But, you know, but I have to tell you it's it is terrifying, because you can start to get things from coming out of the blue that you didn't expect. And those unintended consequences scare me. I know they scare Faisal to, although he's probably a little savvy or at handling it than I am. But we do have to integrate, we know we have to, we have to integrate social media along with our regular media, as people move away from more traditional forms of media, to on demand types of media, like social media, it's an important element to us getting both our message out the education out, and allowing us to achieve that Hemingway moment of really helping 1 million people in the area that we have expertise. Do you

Seth Anderson:

find radio and TV, specifically are still effective for you? Or is that on a downward trend? Or how do you feel?

Unknown:

We do we do think it is it is trending away from those traditional sources? There's no question but you know, one of the things and phase I'll get your opinion on this too, in a minute. But one of the things that took us in the social media was we realized that the shelf time of what we were doing at the moment on traditional media, television and radio, if you weren't watching or listening for that two minute period, you missed it, it was gone. What we started to think about with a book as an example is how do we take the shelf life of that message and extend it? Right, so you could do a traditional brochure, which people would take and throw in the garbage immediately, or you'd produce a book, which has a longer shelf life and will get passed along, we can do the traditional media, and the shelf life is short, or we can utilize traditional media and augment it with social media and extend the message the reach and and the shelf life of that. So I think right now, there there is a place for all avenues. But I think it would also be fair to say that the traditional sources of media are likely losing ground to social media. I totally agree with what Dave was saying there. And there's what Dave was basically describing on a lot of his points was pretty much where Wayne Gretzky always said go where the puck is going to be not where the puck was. And that's that's just been, where are people going. And this pandemic accelerated it. When you have people of the the, the golden years of their lives, who've been accustomed to traditional forms of media or receiving information are now either forced to look at different ways of getting it had to go online, had to receive information from their sources, outside of the media itself, but from people that they want to get their information from want to communicate with their family members, they had to get on some sort of some form of platform either from a video chat to all the way to social media, whatever may be our demographic that we serve as the fastest growing group on Facebook right now. And you talk to a 13 year old and Facebook is for old people is what they'll tell you. So it's it's interesting. And in probably five years from now, Instagram will be in the same demographic for people over the age of 50. It doesn't mean it's dead, it just evolving. And it takes time for certain demographics to jump on board. But it's they're all necessary because you still listen to the radio on occasion, you'll still watch some TV. On occasion, they're going to transform the medium from a cable box to an application on your phone. But it's still TV at the end of the day. And you're and our job is to if we want to, we want to impact and touch 1 million people. We need to be on all forms.

JP Gaston:

So Faisal how long until I can watch your Tick Tock dance?

Unknown:

Well, it's already on there, man. If you're tired, and you want a real good laugh, just go on my tic Tock profile. It is hilarious. And my daughter and I do some dances. Let me correct she does the dancing. I try to keep up areas. That's hilarious. Yes, we're on tik tok Snapchat

Seth Anderson:

everything. Yeah. Embracing all the things I love.

JP Gaston:

So do you have to deal with like the evolution on the digital side, I imagine brings with it a whole new set of challenges for you to overcome when you have entrepreneurs or families come to you for advice. How do you deal with that, like the misinformation that can be spread goes real fast in real life on on social media. So how do you how do you overcome those challenges?

Unknown:

The pace of play has picked up, right, there's no question and perhaps the platforms allow for some more extreme views. And so we see that reflected in the conversations we have with people. And I think therein lies the opportunity. You still need trusted sources that you can go back to that can form the basis of reason. For sure. We're seeing extreme views magnified in people's thinking. And there's huge potential damage that people can do if I'm speaking now specifically to the retirement community and decisions, emotional decisions that they could make with their money that could have very long lasting and devastating consequences. So we often talked about in Traditional news cycles that there was news and there was noise. And it's going to become more and more important, I think, for people to be able to distinguish between those things and maintain a balance of information flow that they're receiving, you can't just be on one side, right, you need the offsetting argument, to understand where the, you know that middle ground is JP, I love this time right now, where we are at, because there is way more information available at your fingertips, and you have no idea if it's true or not. So what people are learning is critical thinking, those who don't know how to think critically are going to get hurt in this, especially when they're investing or, or they're managing their portfolios or even managing just wealth in general, they will make mistakes and it's going to be impacting them. And we blame the medium, not the individual for not knowing how to critically think. So critical thinking is huge. Now, it's checking your references, looking at your source data, finding out opposite articles, and so forth that contradicts your viewpoint and make sure that you've got the proper research to make those decisions. This is no different than in the past. If I go back 20 years ago, 20 years ago, when I started in this business, I would be getting people coming to me and saying, What do you think of company, ABC stock? I want to buy it. And I asked them, where did you get the information from? And they say, well, it was my barber or the bus driver or the cab driver. That was who's given them their their information? Well, that cab driver, bus driver and barber are just posting on Facebook, what's the difference? That doesn't mean it's any truer than it was back then it's just the medium that they're using. I love it. Because now it's easily accessible, you can literally be in your house and get all the wrong information. And you can also be in your house and get all the right information. And so because of our mandate that we've had from our last hemingways, to, to educate, that's the important part is the education piece. And that's where I think we have a full lifetime ahead of us to help do that. There's an opportunity for us to really, really make a difference there. And I like when people make mistakes. I do not because it's only a learning outcome, but they screw up in the markets. And that gets me to go pick an investment at a cheaper price. And I love a bargain. So keep getting the wrong information and making bad mistakes. My clients will get the benefit out of that

Seth Anderson:

last digital question. And Faisal, I'm specifically curious about your take on this. Have you figured out the LinkedIn algorithm? Because I don't know what's going on? Yeah,

Unknown:

it's been transforming big time on that. No, we haven't figured it out completely. Our team has done a great job of figuring out what's attracting people, how do you said get your message be spread out? LinkedIn is probably five or seven years behind Facebook. And that's how we're seeing it, there is opportunity for business to business or b2b, especially there. Initially, it was considered a job posting or a resume writing area. It's now transformed to a proper social media platform, they are testing a whole bunch of neat stuff with LinkedIn. And I think it's going to evolve. But they understand the the algorithm no matter which platform you're on. The number one mechanism is how do they keep you on their platform forever. That's what their algorithm says no matter how you look at whichever platform, what's going to keep you on there. And good, good content that keeps people drawn in will keep you on their platform, and they're going to reward you for it. Yeah,

Seth Anderson:

some of our most interacted posts have actually come on LinkedIn. And then I find the weird thing there is all of a sudden, something we posted three months ago will just like pop up. So it's it's different.

Unknown:

That's being rewarded, that's being rewarded from from the algorithm to bring your stuff back into into reality and saying here, guys, take a look at this. And people are like, yeah, this is great. So that just gave you the hint that some of your information that you're going to post on your LinkedIn are evergreen, they're not going to be dated, like if you just talk about one thing, and on one day, like a business market update. That's only as good as that markets open for that day. But the other content that you put out is evergreen, and it can it'll come back and you'll get rewarded for it.

Seth Anderson:

I love the term evergreen. And that's one of the beauties, I guess, if you would call it of our podcast that we found is the the interview style is very timeless. Right. So we've had some pretty cool guests, Val Sweeting comes to mind, she just won the scotties last week. So we're able to kind of repurpose that content and put it back out there if you can get into her mindset and how she was able to accomplish that. So that's, that's the style we've taken. And yeah, it's just hit home when you said that

JP Gaston:

this this might end though. Since we talked about Facebook and LinkedIn, whenever those platforms go away, we might not be able to reuse this content anymore. You

Unknown:

absolutely. Remember back then when they're talking about that, that platform now look at the new platform that we're on clubhouse being an example that no one's going to be talking about clubhouse, or no one was talking about 10 years ago. It's a brand new thing during the pandemic. If this if clubhouse lasts, you're going to be talking about Facebook and LinkedIn how great it was. But now clubhouse is better should it be in that case? This is an evergreen piece that we're talking about right now which you can repurpose, and remind people of how we've evolved and you know, it's it's pretty cool stuff and how Faysal called it.

JP Gaston:

If clubhouse comes to me. We're gonna make share that the post. Did you remember that time? Give me that one? Yeah, for sure. Then just just delete this. I'll just if it doesn't, I'll blame Seth. So usually what I do?

Seth Anderson:

Well, we really appreciate you guys coming on. And just on the way out of here, what are you? What are you guys working on? personally? I think everybody's been doing something over COVID I know, you know, I've got a couple things I've been working on. But for yourselves, what are what are you guys up to, to kind of get better as we head into 2021 here or to the back half of 2021 almost already.

Unknown:

For me personally it's working on. So the lifestyle, all the lifestyle experience. So for me that actually included a more discipline around working out. So it's integrating that with the knowledge, sorry, with with the work discipline. And then expanding beyond that into other areas. I've got other interests around art, and music and collectibles, and those kinds of things, which are all interesting lifestyle experiences for the kinds of people we interact with. So that's where we want to take this I mean, ultimately, our our whole business is built around the experience of lifestyle. And that's the evolution of it. Right? So it's not just from a financial perspective, but it is, what does money mean to you? And what's it ultimately going to do? What experiences will it bring? So for me right now, I got to get down, I got to get down from the 220 something a little bit more reasonable. And and then integrate some of those other areas of interest outside of just finance. For me, it's, it's, it's a bit different because I what I've learned over the last 20 some odd years has been, I spent most of my time reading and learning about everything outside of where I live, like Calgary, I know more about what's going on in China, Europe and the United States than I do know what's going on in Calgary. I felt guilty about that. And then I also look at businesses and through this pandemic, and even before, there's a whole bunch of businesses that are very good at their craft or what they do, they're just not good business people. They don't know how to run a business. And so where can I make the biggest impact, or we'll call it a legacy that I can leave behind is helping these business owners without any asking for anything in return, which is completely different than my business, right? My actual business, I will do this service, you give me compensation for it, in what I'm doing with you no real talk or the exchange or any of my other shows that I've got my my interviews that I have, all the one on one sessions I'm having with business owners in my free time is to help them and get them knowing going so that they can help their families, their employees and so forth. It is it is unbelievable how much you can cause a big difference by just helping one business at a time. And to see that come out. That's that's phenomenal. So you add the lifestyle from what Dave is doing and look at how we are, we're giving back to our community in other ways. This is fun. This is this is a fun years for sure.

JP Gaston:

Even what you're working on is complimentary. I love it.

Seth Anderson:

Oh, I think I was just thinking of this quote. As you guys were talking with Seth Godin, I think he said, when you go skiing, the goal is not to get to the bottom of the hill, but to enjoy the ride down and that you get that comes through and all you guys are doing and really want to thank you guys for making the time and hopping in the dojo with us. It's been a pleasure and wish you guys the best successful performance. Thank you for having a

Voiceover:

great joining us. Thanks to Dave Papa wichman Faisal Carmela for joining us today. Now stay tuned for the podium. Brought to you by beyond the beaten path visit beyond the beaten path.ca.

Seth Anderson:

Well, that was fun. JP was awesome. Having Faisal and David in the dojo, chatting about financial services, what great partnerships look like. Some advice on entrepreneurs getting going was a ton of fun.

JP Gaston:

Yeah, for the first time, we've really talked about finance, we've talked about marketing, we've talked about pretty much all other aspects of business. But this is, first time we talked about finance and talked a little bit about you know, retirement is something that I'm looking forward to in the future a couple years away, it's a little closer for you, but maybe depends on the decisions we make over the next few years there. We're not that far apart.

Seth Anderson:

With that, you know, this week, we thought, you know, David and Faisal really a dynamic duo in their industry. You know, I'd venture to guess that we're a bit of a dynamic duo in our budding enterprise and thought What the Hey, let's let's get a couple another Dynamic Duo in the in the studio here. So we've got Derrick Pfister white Watson, are two correspondents in the field joining us, and we're going to do this week's beyond the beaten path podium on dynamic duo's, so, for those of you at home who don't know, Derek and Wyatt, were a bit of a dynamic duo in the hockey world at one point, both in their their midget AAA days, and then later in the ball hockey world.

JP Gaston:

They've scored a few points. Now they're just smirking. They're just thinking about all the goals they scored. They're like, Oh, yeah, it was good.

Seth Anderson:

I'm so good. Any any memories of that of those times boys before we hop into

Derek Pfisterer:

one a lot of championships which mean more than putting up points that's for sure. Remember Dragon Seth along in that jerseys wearing right now.

Seth Anderson:

All I did was like create the team and drive people there and fill out all the paperwork and

JP Gaston:

you made lists

Seth Anderson:

shots that's all I have configured.

Wyatt:

Nothing at all.

Seth Anderson:

Coach player, they're Reggie Dunlop. All right, well, let's dive into her. I think Derek, this is your third time on the podium. So yeah, you got four What's that? So getting used to it now? You're here you're fully in correspondence out of Wayne rate. What? What are your top three dynamic duo's?

Unknown:

So for my duels, I went country singers. And so I got a bit of all the ages here I've got my number three. I went Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty

JP Gaston:

there's a name I haven't heard in a while.

Unknown:

Yeah. It's funny cuz the more I listened to the highway, like Sirius XM, they're more I listened to it, the more I like primetime country, and the old country singers, not a sponsor.

Seth Anderson:

Conway Twitty to make an appearance on our back.

JP Gaston:

That was it wasn't in my list, that's for sure.

Unknown:

Yeah, well, I'm from the 70s. And they're still making music together for 30 years then too, so it's hard to kind of show some respect to them.

Seth Anderson:

Did you just call your dad again and ask him what his top deals were?

Unknown:

No, I did not. Because I don't know if you'd know the next one.

Seth Anderson:

All right, you got coming in number two.

Unknown:

Number two, I got big and rich. Growing up in my early 2000s there they were just all over the radio. So

Seth Anderson:

why it disagrees with that pick. I can tell.

Unknown:

I know. Why. Why? You know what?

Wyatt:

Top three they're really in but apparently they're in Pfisters.

Unknown:

Yeah, it's my it's not your top three is mine.

Wyatt:

Yeah, it's a personal thing. Yeah.

Unknown:

Number one, Brooks and Dunn. I don't know they've won pretty much. Well, every dual award there is out there and country music so hard to kill them off.

Seth Anderson:

I'm a little disappointed. No. Johnny and June cash on your list. I thought that made?

Unknown:

Yeah, I mean, they sing a couple songs. But they weren't like a duel. I guess. They were no old. Loretta. No, Loretta.

Seth Anderson:

All right. There you have it, folks.

JP Gaston:

Get mad in the comments if you believe they were a duo.

Seth Anderson:

JP, what, what Dynamic Duo list did you come up with?

JP Gaston:

Well, I went business, the first one's a little bit, I will say a little bit comedy. But they were business partners as well, Abbott and Costello. They're still relevant to this day. Whenever someone says why and what and they put those together, all of a sudden, it's who's on first and just it's it transcends their era. I'm not sure if Loretta transcended her era. But those two did. Number two, I went with Ben and Jerry

Seth Anderson:

and Jerry,

JP Gaston:

the delightful they are also the they are also very active, I would say politically, and we certainly don't have a political show. But as business men, it's, you know, very easy to stand back and not take a stance sometimes. And they they actually got arrested in 2016 together for being part of what they refer to as a pro democracy rally. So number one on my list would be the Wright brothers. And not a lot of people know this, but they used to argue all the time, like brothers do. So you might actually know that that was. But what they used to do is take the opposite sides, they would argue for 20 minutes about something. And then in order to rectify it, they would have to argue the other person stands for the next 20 minutes. And then they would make a decision together on who was right. Which I think is a fantastic way of overcoming those sorts of obstacles and coming to us and we should try that sometimes.

Seth Anderson:

I feel like that would be very time consuming. I don't know that we have the time for that. But

JP Gaston:

hey, if you want to, if you want to help the world fly.

Seth Anderson:

I feel like my three might be the people that I've argued with the most in my life on this very call at one time so

JP Gaston:

well after the podium.

Derek Pfisterer:

I can't prove you're wrong that often.

Seth Anderson:

Alright, thanks JP. So we've had country music singer We've had business dynamic duels. Why What are you? What are you hitting us with today?

Wyatt:

Ah, I went with actor doulos. So, going through a few, I just kind of narrowed it down because there's lots of good ones as some people do also have been in many movies together, or very much linked to one another. So for the third one, I went with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. They are there in quite a few movies that not only are kind of, you could say iconic comedies, but also ones that kind of started little mini franchises with like Zoo lander Meet the Parents. The second duel I went with is Ben Affleck and Affleck and Matt Damon. And guess looking up they've been friends since childhood, even starting out as uncredited, extras in Field of Dreams during the Fenway Park scene. Apparently. They wrote and acted in Good Will Hunting which is kind of an iconic movie. They've done some other things lesser known together and have really just been huge in their own right both writing and acting in movies. And the first one number one I went with is Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci pece who, if you look back at all of kind of the mob movies goodfellows casino Bronx tale Read More recently, the Irishman they've been in everything together, it seems. And also they were in Raging Bull earlier in their career. So some iconic movies that they are shared in, I suppose.

Seth Anderson:

I I feel like you had a pretty solid runner up that you did not mention. Did you wanna? Did you want to throw that one out from the group chat? Another one is Mark Wahlberg and then Mark Wahlberg without his shirt. So I mean, that's pretty good. That's a pretty solid combo right there. Thanks, Wyatt. A couple of nice nice segues into my list for any baseball fans out there. Opening Day is on Thursday. So super excited for what should be a great bluejay season. And so I went with my my top Blue Jay dynamic duo's and I don't know if they totally fit together as a duo, but I'm going with it. So I have a runner up because that's what I do. I haven't done one in a while to be honest.

JP Gaston:

One week with that one that's not a while.

Seth Anderson:

And I just don't think they've done enough yet to qualify for the list. But hopefully at some point we look back and they're at the top but vladdy and Biggio I don't think there's been as much excitement about two young players on one team in a very long time. And you know, Vlad, he's like an unbelievable right now. I don't know what you think why I do like a little you've got him on your fantasy team. I know. So you're gonna be pretty happy. It's just a bladdy and Biggio. Yeah, they're Dynamic Duo, Young Buck sync amorphous yet and Vlad but Oh, sorry. I wrote down. Right. Next to Yeah. What? Yes. Yeah. Okay, number three. And I had them as number one originally, but then I thought about like, overall impact dropped two positions on the podium. They did yeah, so I've got Joey bats and Eddie as number three I would they if they would have won a World Series. I definitely be number one, I think but throw even those World Series teams like I don't know that there was ever two guys in the order that were that unbelievable, as they were in their peak. So that's that's my number three. Number two. I think maybe one of the most underrated combos of two players on one team at the same time. And largely probably because the team around them wasn't very good. doc and Delgado. Honest honestly like Hall of Fame resumes. Delgado gets the short end of the stick in terms of being you know, most of his career in Toronto in Florida. He would have played for the Yankees. I'm sure he'd be in the Hall of Fame right now. But you look at their production and how like they were the top of their game and both on the Blue Jays for the pretty much the peaks of their career. That's when number two and the number one you know they were traded to Toronto together from the San Diego Padres. They won two World Series together. And you know, they were just unbelievable. Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar and again, I originally had them as number three probably because I watched the least of them just based on my age JP we probably went to all their games

JP Gaston:

Yeah, yes. Hang out with their dads everybody's.

Seth Anderson:

But in terms of you know the World Series isn't getting traded there together. I thought that was a nice synergy. So, opening day this week Blue Jays dynamic duo's, that is my list. Also not a sponsor?

JP Gaston:

Not yet, but they could be. We're open.

Seth Anderson:

What do you what do you think? Why you're a little concerned on my on my list beforehand? No, no, it's solid. I just I wasn't sure about the Biggio and include. Yeah, it included there but you just had it wrong. So I mean, he only made one mistake, so not too bad, I suppose. Getting my marks, teacher. Let's get

JP Gaston:

worse getting corrected by a gym teacher on your own podcast.

Seth Anderson:

All right. Well, thanks for joining us again. Derek and Wyatt, always a pleasure. And enjoy opening week. Hopefully the Jays have a good, good first game here on Thursday. You bet. Thanks. Thanks, guys.