Welcome to episode 198 of the Business Development Podcast.

And on today's expert guest interview we are chatting with Zael Moransky from MCO Private Wealth.

And we are chatting all about financial planning and how the heck to make better decisions with our money in 2025 and beyond.

Stick with us.

You are not going to want to miss this episode.

The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

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This is the Business Development Podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips and experiences and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs and business development reps.

You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business business brought to you by Capital Business Development capitalbd ca let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 198 of the Business Development Podcast.

My gosh, we are kissing up on 200 here and we have an absolute rock star interview for you today.

Zale Moran.

Zale has built a remarkable career in the financial planning industry over the past 15 years.

Following in the footsteps of his father Rami as a certified Financial planner and the president of MCO Private Wealth, Zale has dedicated himself to preserving wealth through strategic financial and tax planning.

His expertise primarily serves seasoned professionals and retirees with whom he cultivates long lasting relationships based on loyalty, trust, honesty and integrity.

Zale's approach is holistic, offering a wide range of investment options through Maxfin Investments Inc.

And non mutual fund products through MCO Wealth Management, promoting an entirely open shelf and open fee model.

Outside of his professional achievements, Zale enjoys playing golf with his friends and family and spending time outdoors at his cottage.

Recently, he has embraced a new and exciting role as a father to a six week old baby boy.

His commitment to excellence extends beyond the office, reflecting in every aspect of his life from leading MCO Private wealth to being part of the dance pop group B2 Crazy in his earlier years, Zale embodies versatility and dedication with a career marked by integrity and innovation.

Zale Moransky is not just a financial planner, he's a trusted advisor, a dynamic leader and now a proud new father.

Zael, it's an honor to have you on.

You're the man.

Kelly, thank you very much for Hosting me Episode 198 Honor and a privilege to be chatting with you Today, quite the intro.

Hopefully I can live up to it.

Hopefully I can live up to fatherhood.

More importantly, best business you can run.

Yeah.

As obviously the more time you invest in the beginning, just like business owners pays its dividend.

So any parent out there, I am no expert, but I'm trying to spend as much time and invest as much time with Logan is his name as early as possible.

And hopefully he earns me more money on the PGA Tour than I'm earning myself.

That is amazing goals.

And I would say, you know, you were a bit of a child star, so why not?

Why not?

Listen, it's.

It was an interesting journey, and I.

I can tell you that having been on a stage when I was only 13, 14 years old and doing some touring of Canada at something, looking back, that I have very fond memories of, but at the time, kind of drove me nuts to.

To live the expectations of an adult while I was still a child.

Something very, very beneficial to my skill set today.

But, yeah, it was tough to.

To have an actual job as a child when I wanted to be playing sports and, you know, messing around as a kid.

But after school, I was being shuffled off to, you know, to tour, practice or shows or all sorts of various different events.

Dude, that's so cool.

And obviously, like, you do not typically come across a Canadian pop star, so we are going to spend some time on that today just because.

Who doesn't want to know what that was like?

Because you don't get that experience very often.

But, yeah, like, just.

I'm gonna come back to fatherhood with you because, dude, when we were talking for the first time planning this show, I'm pretty sure my baby boy was only, like, maybe two months old at the time.

Like, I was right there where you are right now.

And I remember we were talking and your boy wasn't born yet, and we were just kind of chatting about becoming new dads and being new dads and how, like, excited we both were.

And I just want to say, dude, congratulations on.

On becoming a father.

Thank you.

I won't brag about my kid, but he's adorable.

He sleeps well, so he makes my life.

Everybody's saying, wear the bags under your eyes.

But I will also suggest that, you know, the best partnership that I have isn't my business.

It is my spouse.

She is a fantastic human being.

Shout out to Dana.

Amazing mother, works inside the practice.

We have so many complimentary, I guess, aspects of her life that I couldn't ask for a better partner.

So totally, yes, thank you to the wives and the women out there who are frankly holding up our businesses because it's the same on our side, without a doubt.

And I guess, you know, it's.

We are in the, the.

We're recording this during the pride time.

So shout outs to any spouse out there who's making their significant lives easier.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, dude.

So bring us back to the beginning, man.

Who is Zale?

How, like, how did you go from pop star to wealth manager?

Okay, so we're taking us back to 19 and anybody who wanted to look into it.

There's some music videos still hanging around on, on YouTube, I'm pretty sure.

Anybody old enough and I'm sure maybe.

Listen, I don't know if you remember.

Do you remember what Crazy Bones were?

Yes.

So Crazy Bones were like the predecessor to like all of these Pokemon, all these toys.

And having some family in the music industry.

There was a individual who was trying to make a TV show.

And in making a TV show, every TV show that's for kids needs a theme song.

And we were approached with recording a theme song.

And having recorded that theme song, I guess somebody saw some talent in us, whether or not we questioned it ourselves, took that song and said, hey, like we're looking for a group of teenagers to record this album that we've written.

How do you kids feel about this?

And we had members who were at the time, I guess anywhere from me being one of the youngest.

There was four of us from about 14 to 19 years old at the time we recorded an album.

And having recorded the album back before the Napster times of getting sued in those whole issues, somebody ran with the, the songs and we recorded some music videos.

I'm still friends with some of the individuals who you met throughout the years.

Music directors are still friends of mine, some of our production team, they actually years later have become clients through those 14 year old interactions.

Wow.

So we won Cheesiest video of the millennium on Ed the Sock.

We did a national tour that was sponsored by Cara Foods, I believe at the time.

And they were the main, the main providers of like high school cafeterias.

So that was our start, was venturing off on the road, doing performances in high schools.

Not gonna say we were met with the best receptions always.

You know, you found yourself in some rowdier neighborhoods with kids who did not want to be listening to pop music over their lunch hour.

Sure.

But we did some fantastic opening acts for some very large artists today.

Nelly Furtado, we ended up getting to meet with and doing some shows for her and Snow if anybody remembers the informer McMaster and James, I think a guy by the name of Joey.

So we got to do some pretty cool things.

And at the time, like I said, it was not, it was not that fun.

It was a ton of work.

Being a 14 year old trying to learn how to navigate the, the adult life of a, of a child.

But putting myself in front of a camera, putting myself on a work schedule as if I was already an adult was fantastic.

Segue into this industry where you're constantly being interviewed by the people that you speak to.

So, you know, being criticized from an early age can be very unhealthy.

I'm not going to actually recommend that many people throw their children in front of, you know, thousands of people to dance and sing.

But if people have propensities for it and their child or children are into it, support your children's goals.

It is the, the best thing that you can do there.

So, like, that's my first, I guess that was my first real, real job.

It went on for a couple years.

Napster gets sued, record companies stop all the funding.

And yeah, at about 16, I go back to being a kid again.

My gosh, was it okay?

Like, was it a little bit weird to just like go back, right?

Like, and I get it, like, it' not as big as the U.S.

right?

It's a little bit of a different situation.

But I'm sure, dude, like early 2000s, you would have been pretty well known.

Like it's, you know, there would have been YTV and whatever else.

I'm sure that you, you guys ended up on.

Yeah, we definitely ended up on YTV to the max.

We did all sorts of strange things.

It was, it was amazing.

But you know what's interesting is you kind of leave your own circle one day and people know who you are and then you kind of get like mixed reactions.

People are like, well, what are you doing?

Who are you?

What is this whole thing that is going on in your life?

And then you come back.

Fortunately, I also had a propensity for a sport, so captain of the high school baseball team, continue to play baseball through university.

I use sports as an opportunity to really continue to maintain those relationships.

But go to your AAA and rep in provincial baseball games as a pop star and everybody.

Things like this kid does not play sports.

He's a little singer and dancer.

Yeah, fortunately we could play some ball.

So we were okay there.

But yeah, it's tough.

Kids are kids are kids, man.

And the world hasn't changed.

Social media has almost made it worse in that respect where it's easier to be subject to all sorts of bullying, discrimination.

I was big enough and strong enough that I could handle my own, but it was not for the faint of heart.

Yeah, it's like it's a bit of a double edged sword.

Hey.

Like on one hand it would have been like a super cool experience, but yeah, on the other hand it's like kids suck sometimes, right?

I don't know, man.

This is why, this is why it's so important to be doing things like this.

To be a role model for a six week old who, you know, at some point I'll be able to go back through the, the archives and the dossier of all of the things that I've accomplished and tell them you can do whatever it is that you want to do in this world, but the more successful you get, the more eyes on you.

You'll develop friendships, you'll develop allies, but nobody is free from enemies.

Right?

And the bigger you get and the more successful you get, the more likely people want to come after you and take a piece of what you have or say you didn't earn it or all sorts of things.

So yeah, being headstrong is something I will teach Logan from a young age.

Yes, yes.

And you know what I mean.

I think teaching kids that you know you can do just about anything is the right thing to do because at the same time, why wouldn't you set them up for success?

Right.

Obviously not everything on earth is achievable for the most part.

But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't try or they shouldn't believe in it.

And I will tell him, you will learn so much more from your failures than you will from your successes.

So yeah, being willing to strike out, being willing to hit a ball into the woods, being able to lose a couple bucks in the short term while having a long term vision, nothing is going to be a better predictor of success than perseverance.

So yeah, for any parent, any business, any entrepreneur, we all know that volatility is a part of life and to pretend it's not would be foolish and misleading to anybody.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think it's like important for all of us to kind of remember, right.

Like the world is changing so quickly.

Even if you're an expert, you were really an expert until today or yesterday.

And tomorrow is a whole new day with whole new lessons.

Right.

And it's important that we're always learning.

And I'll tell you, like, I hate to admit how much I Fail, but I fail a lot.

But, but I learn each time and I do make the corrections and I hope that the next time I do a little bit better.

And really we're going to fail on a certain level until the day we die.

Just hopefully we've learned enough from those failures on the way we, on the way that we're able to do better as we go.

And I will tell anybody who tells me they've never failed that they're a liar.

So telling me that they haven't failed, they've already failed at being honest.

And yeah, it's impossible.

Every single person is never going to succeed at everything.

If you've ever played sports, if you've ever started a business, if you've ever parented, it's only been six weeks.

I am sure I have already screwed up many things, but trying to live for today, plan for tomorrow, learn from the past, all of these things are very important.

Being introspective and analytical and willing to roll with the punches.

You can't, can't live a life if you're just gonna ignore all of the mistakes that you've made.

Yeah.

And, and things, you know, let's go back to parenthood for a second.

Things change on a weekly basis.

And I really mean this, I'm saying this to you right now.

Things are going to change on a weekly basis.

That baby, while he's doing amazing right now, may hit a week where he's tired and he didn't get enough sleep, or maybe he's feeling a little under the weather and he's crying and you're gonna have to adjust and deal with that, and the next week he'll be back to normal and it'll be good.

But things are changing so quickly.

And I noticed that even as, like, watching my baby go from, you know, from zero to seven months old this month has been like, unbelievable to see the change and how fast he is changing.

His personality is coming out.

And, you know, he's had a rough, you know, couple weeks here where he's, he hasn't wanted to sleep and that's been tough.

But you know what?

Like, that's just life.

Life is going to throw curveballs at you and it's not always going to be perfect.

But I'll tell you what, if you just stick in it, it's going to get better.

Absolutely.

And mental health is really what you're speaking to, is staying on top of it, being kind to yourself.

All these things are so important.

I have fantastic parents, but, you know, they have suffered Their own trials and tribulations.

They were amazing at being able to shelter me from it as a child.

But looking back on it and seeing some of the things that my family has gone through, you do have to protect your kids from a.

From a certain element of being, you know, too mature too quickly.

Let them be kids.

And that's part of the tough spot of the world we live in is the external stimuli is a hundred times from what we were growing up, right.

Like, we didn't have a phone at our disposal and we didn't have access to every single piece of information across the world.

I grew up and you probably grew up and we got phones and computers that had real capabilities as an early adolescent, which allowed me until like 12, 13, really, to just be a kid.

Yeah.

And my circles were smaller.

But now you can have pen pals in Australia.

You can have people that you know everywhere and you meet someone on vacation and staying in touch with them is so much easier.

When I was a kid, you know, I'd go away with my family if I was privileged enough to do so, and I'd come home and, you know, some childhood friends that I'd made.

It wasn't like, it wasn't just easy to.

To be in touch with them.

You really had to put in an effort, pick up a phone call or write a letter in some cases, and.

Yeah, that's the world we live in.

Yeah.

Dude, it's crazy.

Like, I looked at it yesterday and I had an amazing interview with someone in Spain yesterday.

In Spain, right.

And it's like that no way.

Like, that would have never, ever been possible, you know, not even like, even 15 years ago.

Like, it's absolutely bonkers how fast that like everything has changed.

And I look at like, you know, me and you, I think are the same age.

I'm 35.

How old are you?

I'm a little older.

I'm 38.

Okay, okay.

So we're from the same time.

And so on a certain level we're, we're a weird generation because we grew up without technology, learned how to use all the technology, have probably used every major technology to today and still know how to use it.

I think we are, we fit in this like, weird paradigm of like completely understanding where we came from.

Whereas I think, you know, Jen, Jen, is it Gen X or.

No, Gen Z can't understand because they've never not had technology.

Right.

And you know, our parents, generation Gen X or whatever is, you know, they don't want to participate in this technological world.

And so I think, like, we're millennials, and in that weird space, it's like we not only have we do we know where we came from, we know where we're at and, like, how far we've come.

And I don't think almost any other generation can really understand it.

The tech boom is crazy.

I watch some old TV shows every once in a while from the 90s.

Yeah.

And just even some of the references they make, like, do you think they'll ever come up with a squeeze ketchup bottle?

Like, ketchup is meant to be bottled in glass.

And I hear these things and I think to myself, like, wow, I lived in a time, even though it doesn't seem like that was even possible, I lived in a time where putting ketchup in a plastic bottle was like, is that a thing?

And yeah, I think all of us know all ketchup comes in a squeeze bottle.

Yeah.

This is how we grew up.

It's.

And I can still remember I'm an avid LinkedIn or I think having a business brand somewhere on social media is important.

I made a post earlier today about being able to prevent fraud simultaneously remembering the first time I was ever taken advantage of on the Internet.

And I was a very avid chess and checkers player growing up.

And I had built, you know, a platform where on Yahoo, I was like the top hundred players in the world on there.

And I trusted the wrong person and gave him access to my account and he changed the passwords and he forever became a top hundred name on these Yahoo platforms.

So right at the advent of the whole fraud started pretty early for myself.

I gave someone the wrong password from giving them the wrong password.

Listen.

I lost my access to my Yahoo Chess and checkers account.

It was devastating.

Oh, my gosh, that is devastating.

I could.

Yeah, I.

You know, I look back to, like, that time of, like, the time of MSN Messenger.

Right.

I was icq.

Do you remember ICQ even before?

No.

You're a year.

You're a young and icq.

Yeah, yeah.

I remember AOL messenger, and I remember MSN messenger, and I remember getting those free disks for free Internet for like a month.

Yeah, yeah.

And having to spend like seven minutes before you could even connect to anybody anywhere and listening to the Bing Bong.

Oh, man, I just remember my mom shouting, kelly, get off the computer.

Yeah, I'm trying to use the phone.

Right.

Yeah.

I do remember our.

The first time we installed a second landline in the house just because you couldn't use your phone or the answering machine.

When you were on the computer.

So having that second landline installed was like, whoa, like, we're in the future.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

It's.

It's crazy because, you know, like, I, obviously, I have a new baby, but I also have three stepsons, and the oldest is 10 and the youngest is seven.

And so we're kind of navigating this, like, technological world together now, like, me and Shelby as parents.

And it's.

It's really hard, dude.

Like, I couldn't imagine being famous the way that you were and having social media to deal with back then.

Right?

Like, it would have been a completely different thing.

Like, we don't, we don't even want our, our kids to have social media until they're probably like, older teenagers.

And we're going to do almost everything we can to stop it.

Because I don't think it is healthy for a teenage kid to have social media.

I don't.

I.

I just.

I can't see that.

You know, I mean, it's hard enough to be at school and deal with bullying or whatever else you're dealing with at school than to have to go home and deal with it there, too.

Like, I just.

We're going to do our best to protect them, but it's a hard situation because on the other hand, social media is very beneficial.

Me and you both use social media to, to benefit all the time, to benefit humanity, frankly.

We put out these great, These great videos, we chat with people, we try to help people with business development and other business challenges.

So there's a great place and a great way to use it and a great way to use it to build a community.

But there's also this, like, horrible negative side that really seems to target children.

And so it's a tough one, man.

You know, it's, you know, we.

We gave them tablets pretty young and we're regretting that.

We gave them access to Fortnite pretty young and we're regretting that.

But it's like, how did we didn't know better?

We didn't know.

We were just trial and erroring, man.

Video games are toxic.

They definitely create a community.

But harassment is on another level, right?

It's so easy just to, to be on the other line of, of someone who isn't a nice person even to this day.

Like, you'll open up your PlayStation and there's a message there from some adult who just goes absolutely insane because you killed them.

It's a video game.

It's part of failure, right?

Imagine if some gamer had 100% win rate when they played.

What would be the point of anybody else playing?

And that is really very similar to the game of life.

You have a higher chance of winning in some things that you excel at than others.

But there is no person, even the best gamer in the world will still lose.

You know, Magnus Carlsen, who I use as a, as an example for a lot of things, arguably the greatest chess player ever, but definitely the best chess player on the planet right now.

He's not, he does.

He's not, you know, incapable of losing.

He loses all the time.

There are no Mortal Kombat flawless victories in the game of life.

Yeah.

So, yeah, be willing to lose and be willing to learn from those things, because that's the best thing you can do, is be comfortable with losing.

Totally, totally.

Yeah, it is.

It's really hard, man.

Like, I feel for all parents out there, I'm right there with you.

It is a really challenging time.

And my advice to you is do what feels right.

If, even if your kids have had PlayStation and they've had tablets for a long period of time, if you hit a point where you're like, look, I think this is toxic, I get it.

It's hard to go back.

It's hard to admit that we made a mistake.

But, you know, I.

We admit it all the time.

Me and Shelby sit down in bed and we're like, yeah, we probably shouldn't have given them tablets at 5, 6 years old.

We probably shouldn't have given Adler Fortnite.

It's at seven, eight years old.

Because, yeah, he.

But the problem now is they love it.

Like, they love the, the community they love.

Adler plays with his friends from school.

Right.

So it hits a point where it's really hard to say, like, okay, we screwed up, but now you are going to pay for it because we're going to take this back from you.

But, you know, measure it out and see if it makes sense.

And maybe if you haven't come that far, if you haven't gone that far down the rabbit hole and you still have a choice to be able to take some of that technology back, I would highly, highly recommend you do.

Because kids, they, they don't know better.

They just know what you, what you give them.

They know what they're experiencing.

And so if you want them to have more time outside and, and be kids like we were, you have to, on a certain level, limit that technology.

Absolutely.

I'm very lucky to have a property that is outside of the city, that is in the woods, that's in nature.

For myself personally, my greatest reset has always been explore nature, go for a walk outside.

I live very close to the lake in the city.

I'm in Toronto.

And I can tell you there's something strangely freeing and spiritual for me at least.

Being around water, being amongst the trees, hearing nothing but your own thoughts, There is so much noise out there.

Being able to tune it out, reflect, and then go back into a place of action.

I can't speak for anybody else, but if you haven't taken a walk amongst nature in a while, just Google, you know, the closest nature trail, get some steps in.

For me, there's nothing better for future success than being able to, you know, be a little bit more grounded.

And I am not a religious man.

I believe in morality.

I believe in, you know, the positives of just being a good human being.

Amongst the things that I don't know how long, you know, we've really been alive as people, but for the better part of what, 5,000, 10,000 years we existed with all of this.

So to really just be thrown into it in the last 30 or so years, going back to the roots of, like, who humans are to me, is you're going back to how we were created and how we built this dynasty of, of modernism.

And a lot of it's great, like you said, allows people like us to connect, but there are definitely pitfalls in, in being too connected with technology.

So turn off the phone, which I am bad at and I need to be better at, and turn off the TVs and anything that isn't really, you know, like our first 5,000 plus years of becoming who we are.

Yeah, I know.

I, I struggle with it because, you know, just like you, I grew up in, I grew up in that technological world, right?

Like, dude, I had a TV in my bedroom since I was like 8 years old.

And one of the choices we made when we moved to our new place was that we weren't going to have a TV in our room.

And I remember initially fighting that and being like, no, no, no, no, no.

I've had a TV in my room since I was 8 years old.

Like, we are not, not having a TV, but we haven't had a TV.

And if we want to watch something, we might bring a tablet in and just watch a show and then take it out.

And that has actually been a really great experience.

And I, I can honestly say I don't think I've ever slept better in my Life.

Agreed.

No TVs in any bedrooms in any of my homes for the very same reason is you have a TV in your phone, you have a TV on your computer, you have a TV on your tablet.

Every way that you can avoid, you know, just sort of focusing on something else and learning about your own self.

I'm a big fan of.

So yeah, no TVs in the bedrooms.

I don't think they're necessary.

There's lots of things we can do in bedrooms that don't involve a tv.

That's right.

That's right.

That might be a little more fun.

I've been looking forward to this conversation with you for a long time.

I just, I really like you.

We've had, we've had a few different conversations and we just jive and I, I, we're relatively the same age, kind of grew up at the same time.

We have a lot in common and yeah, man, like, you know, you're a wealth manager and I know that, you know, I've struggled with wealth.

Who hasn't struggled with wealth, right?

Like where most business owners are out here trying to get financial freedom, right?

We don't start businesses because we want to be broke, right?

But all of us are struggling with how not to end up broke.

And it is not easy, man.

Like they don't, you know, I'm not a tax expert, I'm not a money wealth expert, I'm not a money manager expert.

I'm doing the best I can with the knowledge that I have and the services that I can provide.

But obviously that is, that is limited, right?

Like, you know, you do the best you can and you hope that at the end of the year you don't owe taxes, that you're going to get a little bit of money back.

But like, you know, walk us through it.

Obviously you've gone down a path that has led you to become, you know, a high level wealth manager.

You know, what are some of the challenges that you're fate that you're seeing your clients facing?

Well, I'm going to give every Canadian a bit of a pass because none of us grew up with an education system that gave anybody any real insight into financial planning, right?

We learned history, we learn mathematics, we go to gym class, we had geography, we had everything that was theoretical.

But financial planning is very much the practical application of, of a theoretical earning of money.

So the biggest part that I find, other than the fact that one, I don't work for the government.

So I will happily say that, you know, taxes in this country are out of control for very good reason, right?

We have some free healthcare, we Have a lot of social services.

I am not anti tax at all.

I'm in the highest tax bracket.

I don't argue about it.

I pay my taxes.

I'm very appreciative of the things that I have.

But what it comes down to that every single Canadian or 90 plus percent of Canadians really lack.

Nobody is organized enough to have a very good cash flow understanding.

And that is the number one thing I think that hurts business owners is they don't track what comes into their business and what goes out of their business.

Employees, taxes.

There's so many things to pay attention to that in order to be a business owner, you have to be in sales first.

So if you don't have a sales acumen, it's so tough to be a business owner unless you have the capital to hire somebody.

And if you have the capital to hire somebody, it either means you have some money of your own or you've borrowed money from somewhere.

But either way, cash flow is the first piece of all of it.

So first project I give any human being that I sit down with is so tell me what comes into a family and the business and what goes out of it.

Because no business exists without the person behind it.

And all businesses are there to provide an insight or a better personal life.

They are not, you know, separated from one another.

We don't work and earn money to not have personal lives.

So cash flow, so important.

Excel spreadsheet, so simplistic.

Put some numbers in a piece of paper or you know, an online document just to say, I know I need to earn $5,000 net of taxes every month to pay my bills.

And then once you've met your, you know, your primary needs, which are shelter, food, the bare necessities of life, what do you love to do?

And there's so many pieces, and a lot of what I do people think is really mathematics.

Yeah, it's so much social and emotional coaching to have people understand it's okay to spend some money on things, but it's not okay to live only for today if you'll never be able to retire.

So setting that roadmap through cash flow and then understanding, well, what cash flow you need and how the taxes implicate the rest of the plan.

It's, it's at the foundation of financial planning.

So understand where your money's coming in and where it's going.

And from there you can actually strategize how to improve things.

But you can't just spend more money because you make more money or you end up on that, you know, the hamster wheel of life and you'll never be able to enjoy anything.

And I see too many wealthy people who are miserable, and that is never who I wanted to be.

Yeah, yeah, dude, I'm just like, hearing what you're saying and really what it kind of sounds like is figure out how much money you actually need to.

To take care of your necessities and then figure out how much money you need to enjoy your life and do the other things you need to do.

And when you have that dollar amount, it's like, it's kind of like, how can you make the right amount of money if you don't even know how much money you need to live the life you want?

Exactly.

And dude, I'm guilty for that.

Like, I'm guilty for that.

Welcome to the.

The wonderful world of debt.

Right.

And that's the thing.

Too many people want things before they either have the money for it.

And I'm not going to say they haven't earned it, but having emotionally earned something and financially earn something are not the same thing.

So if you are constantly just doing what you want, you could be going backwards for future you, because present you doesn't actually understand what future you needs.

Yeah.

So there has to be building blocks.

What am I trying to accomplish in five years, 10 years, 20 years?

Right.

Like, we're in our 30s.

Our goal to of when we want to stop working could be very different.

But there is an equation that will solve how much money do I need if I retire at 55, 60, 65, 70?

And how much money do I need to earn through those years?

Because the more years you want to be retired, the less years you have to earn it and the more you better save.

So that is the number one equation that every person is really trying to solve for.

Yeah.

And.

And you know, I'll be honest, dude.

Like, I don't.

I try not to think about that sometimes.

Like, I try to bury my head in the sand.

I think a lot of Canadians are, because for the most part, first off, inflation is through the roof.

We are spending a fortune on food, a fortune on, you know, our daily subsistence.

And, you know, I know that I'm not alone.

You're not alone.

We're all, we're all stuck in this mess together.

Right.

And I'm sure in the US you guys are probably in a very similar position, right?

Like, inflation is out of control and Covid sucked, and we're all paying the price for that.

And, you know, I think a lot of investments were Hurt during COVID Is that, is that right, Zale?

Yes and no.

I mean that's the difference between big business and small business.

Big business wasn't so much hurt as badly as small business because as the government, you know, sort of makes poor monetary decisions and hurts the small family, big business wins then because every small competitor that had to fold up shop just meant there was more of the piece of the puzzle.

So if we're talking about investments or we're talking about the stock market and you go back to, let's call it March 2020 when everyone was like, oh crap, what's going on?

From that point we've actually seen stock market highs.

Wow.

But you really talk to fear.

And people made a ton of bad decisions because they had no idea what 4 years later what the world would look like.

And people's personal pockets got hurt.

But Jeff Bezos, pocket, it looks better than ever.

Elon Musk, Bill Gates, all of these guys are setting records in terms of how many billions and close to trillions of dollars their businesses are worth.

And we saw last year the first trillion dollar business in Nvidia.

So business continues to grow.

Capitalism will always be a very dog eat dog world out there.

And for every failure there is somebody preying on the downfall of something else.

So it is important just, you know, keep a level head about it.

And that's why I say to people failure is going to happen.

Adaptation and rolling with the punches is so important.

And it just goes back to having what you need and then being able to build on those luxuries.

Yeah, I'm not the kindest in saying everybody is entitled to everything they want.

That's impossible.

It's not the nature of finite resource world.

There will be people who have too much.

I do think that, you know, we could maybe spread out a tax liability a little better.

Billionaires should pay more taxes than somebody making a hundred grand, fifty grand.

But that goes back to trying to break down a system that's been around for a hundred or so years that never really thought people would be multi billionaire.

Right in the 90s if you were a millionaire, like you were loaded.

But a millionaire today isn't even somebody who, if you only have, you know, a million dollar net worth, you might struggle to retire at 65 and live to 95 in the way that you want.

So that plan of action becomes super important.

One to paying your bills, but also sanity.

Right.

Like if you don't know what you're doing, you're going to go crazy.

Constantly trying to figure out what's going on.

Like, have a plan, have a roadmap, understand all of these things.

Because you pay taxes.

Why wouldn't you want to learn about taxes?

You manage cash flow.

Learn how to manage cash flow.

Education until the day you die will be something every person should strive for.

Always keep learning.

Yeah, well, I know a lot of business owners.

They don't know what to do.

Right?

So we have our money, and we have it in our bank accounts, and we don't pay our fees because most of us hold a balance that negates our fees.

Yeah, but we're also not making any money off of it.

We just have it sitting there and we don't know what the heck to do with it.

And I know some business owners, they have millions of dollars sitting in their bank account and they're like, well, I.

I'm afraid to do anything with it because I don't want to risk all of our profits or all the money that we've made, the revenue that we have for our operating expenses or whatever else.

Like, what do you say to those people?

Like, are they making the right choice?

What choices should.

Like, they don't know what to do.

What should they be doing?

It's such a difficult question to answer because if you have more than enough.

And sitting in an operating company, that's more of a liability issue to me.

If you work inside worlds where people can get sued, having all of your money in an operating company is a dangerous road ahead.

Every business owner in Canada should have, at the very least, in my opinion, two corporations.

And one is the operating company that is business, but two is a holding company.

So every single person can flow money between an operating company and a holding company to protect their assets.

So going into the conversation of what should they be invested in, whether it's the stock market, whether it's real estate, exempt markets, crypto, depending on how old the business owners are, exposing all of your money to your operating company, that's dangerous.

Don't do it.

Be able to speak with a good accountant.

Speak with a financial planner that you trust, but make sure you have your operating company and your holding company.

Also, for exit strategies, when you go to sell your business one day, you don't want to sell all of the cash that's in your business as part of your valuation.

Having that holding company will allow you to sell an operating company and retain a corporate structure, to defer taxes, to invest the money in however you want.

And the government of Canada isn't stupid.

Corporations, when they earn money, passively are taxed at the highest tax bracket and depending on the province you're in, we'll call that 50%.

So if you go and take your money and you invest it in a stock or you invest it in a GIC or hold it in a high interest savings account, those earnings are all going to be at 50%.

But if you can kick that tax can down the road, you're only paying 11% year over year.

And I'm using general numbers as opposed to provincial specifics.

Yeah, you're only paying about 11% to retain the money in your corporation.

And if you're even earning 100 grand a year, pulling out 100 grand a year, the top tax bracket there is over 40%.

So imagine how much more you can keep in your investable assets by retaining that corporate structure and taking that additional 30% and having that 30% earn a couple extra bucks for you.

Sure.

It's such a nuanced approach to financial planning that most business owners don't really understand the differential between their operating company and, and their holding company.

And then you get into the whole share structure, you know, can you have spouses, family members, kids who are adults on them?

So many different nuances.

But the very basic operating company, holding company, no brainer.

Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense.

And you know, I've seen many of the companies that I've worked with do that, make that choice.

And I didn't always understand why, but yeah, that makes a lot more sense because you're right.

If you have it all in the one company, you're just putting yourself at liability risk.

Because if you're just going to hold it in the account anyway, it might as well be in an account that if you get sued, hopefully isn't going to get targeted.

You got it.

Amazing.

You know, let's say that I was to come to you with $2 million.

Zale, I, you know, I have $2 million in my holding account and it's just sitting there.

It's not doing anything for me.

What kind of recommendations might you make?

Oh, so from the very least, we all know inflation right now means that your money has to be doing its best to keep up with inflation at a very rudimentary, basic level.

At least make sure you're holding interest bearing investments that are principal guaranteed.

You might earn 5% to net 2.5%, but you've minimized the gap between your future buying power and today's buying power.

So I would separate investing into three separate components.

One, interest bearing investments.

Two, capital Appreciation investments and then three dividend paying investments.

So each one of those comes with a different tax consequence.

Interest bearing investments, highest tax in Canada, dividend bearing investments, somewhere in that intermediate range.

And there is an advanced calculation that takes place in order to figure out what the tax to be paid on a dividend is.

And then your capital appreciation assets, an investment in another business, whether it's private or public, that if you pay a dollar for it today and it grows to $2, what do you keep after that?

And we're recording this at a time where it likely won't come out for a couple months.

We all know this, but go back to when we all saw this in June and we saw that capital gains tax increase in Canada, massive.

So you are now paying an additional almost 8 cents in taxes for every dollar earned for your capital appreciation investments.

So being able to strategically plan how soon will I need the money, what is it for, what's the future purpose?

Those three things in terms of your investments themselves.

I would never tell somebody how risky or not risky they should be.

I would educate somebody as to the volatility.

That is how much money could you make or lose?

There are too many advisors out there who are claiming like their investments are the best, but everything can lose money in the short term unless it is principal guaranteed.

That's what I would focus on is understanding the taxation of what is a capital gain, what is a dividend, what is interest and what type of investment will generate those tax consequences.

Zell, I want to chat with you briefly about the new capital gains tax in Canada.

I've heard about it.

I know it's probably not a good thing.

I know there's a lot of homeowners that are freaked out about this.

Can we chat about that for a second?

What has changed?

So previous to June 20, you would have paid 50% as your capital gain inclusion rate, meaning if you earned a dollar of capital gain, 50% would have been subject to it at two taxes and then depending on your tax rate, that would have determined the tax payable.

So I'll just use myself as an example.

I buy something for a dollar, it grows to $2 and I sell it.

Previously, 50% of that would have been taxable.

At a 50% tax bracket, I would have paid 25 cents on the dollar in taxes.

Okay, the new inclusion rate bumps it up to 66, 67%.

So now if I earn a dollar, I include 66 for simple math as part of my capital gain inclusion.

And then 50% of that 66% is now tax payable.

So my previous 25% taxes or 25 cents on the dollar is now 33 cents on dollars.

But caveat, primary residences are not implicated in all of that.

So if you were just a homeowner with one property, you still have a principal residence exemption.

Don't worry about that.

Where it matters is for secondary properties.

Where it matters is for the buying and selling of business shares, non registered accounts.

So if you have stocks outside of those things, this is where the new capital gains inclusion rate has, has some impact.

And there are some other fantastic advisors across the country who we speak to on a regular basis.

I am a member of the Financial Planners association of Canada.

And no matter where you are, despite the fact that I have a national license even, or if an individual came to me and said, well, I'd rather sit down with someone in person, I have connections to 4 or 500 certified financial planners across the country and I will always put in a plug for a great financial planner.

Use them across the country.

There are nuances, but taxes are a matter of fact and we can always do those calculations.

How has the new capital gains tax changed?

The advice that you might have given before versus the advice you'd give now would, is it.

Has anything changed for you?

Not really, no.

I mean like it would be stupid to let we call it in our industry.

We would.

You're sort of foolish to let the tax tail lead the dog for a lack of a better expression.

Don't make decisions because of the tax payable.

Make the right decisions.

Taxes or taxes?

In the last 30, 40 years we've seen the capital gains inclusion rate change 5 plus times.

So by the time we look to do something another decade from now, it could be higher, lower, etc.

I would never make a recommendation assuming that this is what the tax implication will be.

Make the smart decisions for the family.

Taxes are taxes.

You can't avoid them.

Save more money, invest more money, understand the structures of your businesses, but don't just make decisions because of taxes.

It's going to drive you crazy.

Okay.

Okay.

And you know, one of the questions that I had too is that is there like, is there a dollar amount that we should consider when we're withdrawing money from our companies for our daily life or the things that we want?

You know, let's say that I have a company that's making half a million or $1 million a year.

Is there a dollar amount in your opinion that I should be paying myself to maximize, you know, my long term profitability or you know, like, obviously it's probably a good idea not to take out half my money, but you know what I'm saying, right?

Like, is there, is there like a threshold that we should be considering?

Let's say we're making a million bucks.

Yeah.

There's a, there's a minimum and the minimum is really just to maximize your Canada pension plan in your old age security.

And that's in the 60,000.

If you have more than enough than you need and you're still not pulling out 60 grand a year, approximately, I'd argue that's a little bit foolish.

You might as well take the government benefits that you are being offered.

But at the same time, let's say you struck it rich on a deal.

There's a couple years where I paid myself nothing because I had other assets that I wanted to buy or sell.

And in selling one asset that had a large capital gain if I didn't pay myself any income, the capital gain was the only thing going on my T1 generals and on my notice of assessment.

So you really have to look at it every single year to say, well, what am I trying to accomplish this year that will allow me to make the smartest decision?

And for me, I sold a secondary property one time and I didn't pay myself that year because I had a few hundred thousand dollars in capital gains.

Yeah.

And I could live off that money.

So I just said, well, I'm foregoing any income this year because I know I have $300,000 hitting my bank account.

And for the next little while I lived off that money.

And I waited till I filed my taxes and I paid my taxes.

And then January 1st it was back to the regularly scheduled program.

Gotcha.

There is no right or wrong answer.

The minimum every person should take is to pay their bills.

And then you make the determination as to what in excess.

And then is it salary or is it dividends?

And that is the, the most complicated question for all CPA CAs, CFPs out there as well.

Like, how do I pay myself?

Yeah.

Well, let's get into it.

How do you, like what, what is your recommendation?

Is it, does it typically end up being a mix of both?

The government's pretty good about equalizing it.

So what happens when you pay yourself a dividend is you don't actually have to pay into your CPP and your oas.

What it also does is most business owners have what very few understand are these things called CDA credits.

So you have a capital dividend account and if structured properly, you can extract money out of your corporation once you have built enough of these credits on a tax free basis.

Now each individual owner will have to have actually set up their corporation properly to build up these credits.

Whether it is through a permanent insurance policy, whether it's through owning for example a bank stock that's paying dividends.

All of these type of things will give you an opportunity in future to look at a more tax preferred or in some cases a tax free extraction of capital from your business.

But all businesses are very different.

My specialization typically is work is in working with high income earners.

A lot of professional corporations which have a lot more rules.

Lawyers, doctors don't have the same freedoms as, let's call it a home builder or a massive florist or any other business that isn't subject to a professional organization.

So first thing I would say is understand the rules and limitations of the body that governs how you can set up your corporation and then from there you can make a determination.

Well, like what's the best avenue to.

To pay myself?

Do you have a spouse or children who work inside the business?

How do you income split to meet your needs?

What do your outside savings look like?

I'm very hesitant always to say that there is a one size fits all solution.

It would completely negate the need to have a financial planning team or to have an accountant.

So it is very much specific to someone's individual circumstances and what they're trying to accomplish.

Zayl, you had mentioned earlier that your wife works in the business with you.

And so let's just get into that.

Is that a recommendation that you have or would you recommend that couples work different.

Different jobs or different companies?

Depends.

Do you like your spouse?

I love.

Let's assume you love your spouse and things are great.

Okay, so she works inside the business, but I will tell you she doesn't do any business with myself.

Okay, so the first thing that I said to Dana when she came in working and I work in a space with high end consumers.

My wife was the manager of menswear at the highest fashion brand in Canada.

Holt Renfrew was the company she was working at for a long time.

So she was used to dealing with the same type of clientele that for the most part high end financial planners are working for.

She also didn't want to be in retail like you said.

Covid really killed a lot of that retail space.

My company was growing to the point where I was already paying a full time administration and that salary was going outside of the house.

So obviously I wanted that money staying in the house.

So she joined the practice, but with someone in between us.

I don't speak to her about work.

She doesn't speak to me.

I have a business partner and an associate who acts in between us and an intermediary.

So it's not like a traditional family business.

She very much manages one portion of the business now, interestingly enough, she is on maternity leave.

My business partner's fiance, who he'll be marrying in September as well, she sort of stepped up to fill Dana's role.

Because when you're dealing with people's money and you can be sued, you want to know that the people that are on your team will be thinking to protect yourself.

Yes, we are.

You know, we all know, unfortunately, that our industry can be subject to a lot of corruption.

People are, are trusting their advisors to do what is in their best interest.

But there are Bernie Madoffs everywhere, and even the most successful people, if they don't surround themselves with the right teams and they don't have the right checks and balances, can do a lot of harm.

So the first thing that I wanted to do is have somebody I know.

Yeah.

That will care about our family's success more than anybody else.

And, you know, if I'm mean to her, maybe she will try and put me in jail one day for.

And sign something on my behalf.

Who knows?

But for now, I think she still loves me.

So she's going to take care of our.

Our.

Our proverbial business child like it is our baby, Logan, and make sure that nothing bad happens.

So should you do it if you can actually do it?

Listen, family businesses are tough, but you, everybody who has good family knows that there is no better relationship than that of a good family member.

But there are also lots of bad family members.

So if you don't like your family member, do not get in business with your family.

Okay, well, great advice.

And I think at the end of the day, it left everybody thinking.

So I wanted to ask you that because I know that you work with your wife, but you did mention that, like, it's not as simple as just, you know, we both co own the business and this is what we're doing.

It's like on a certain level, you're like, look, I don't want to allow the business to affect our personal life.

And so what we've done is we've put some protections in place here, some intermediaries, so it's not just us working together.

I like that.

I think that's a good idea.

Yeah.

I think every person should understand themselves.

Right.

It's not complicated, but it's the most complicated thing on the planet is to truly understand the people that you're working with.

And the dynamic of social interaction is the interplay of all business you have.

And you compare it to, you know, you're only as strong as your weakest link.

If you have a weak link somewhere in that chain of command, it's going to make everything else so much more difficult.

So create systems.

And all business owners should have systems.

They're at the foundation of organization insanity.

To make sure that you know what takes place.

But at the same time, don't put people in your business who aren't working if they're family.

That really pisses off the CRA in Canada.

I know there's Americans listening, so the IRS would be the CRA equivalent.

Don't put people in your business who aren't actually working.

If you get audited, and you traditionally won't get audited until it's a few years into it, you could end up with the biggest headache of your life.

So be honest in your own interactions, in your own business.

Pay people appropriate salaries.

If you have a spouse who's doing nothing, don't pay them hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars a year because it is a form of fraud in the eyes of the government.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Zale, I wanted to chat a little bit with you about exits.

Right.

We are talking to some business owners who maybe, maybe they are there, maybe it's time that they're.

They're ready or at least they want to start thinking about it because they're five years or 10 years out.

What should a business owner consider when they're at that stage where they're thinking, you know what, maybe it's time to exit the business.

So I think there are so many great resources.

There is a designation called the CEPA designation.

I'm currently pursuing it, but I mean, it's more of a technicality.

Business exit strategy has to do with a number of different things.

And I'm going to just give you the top three.

One, you need evaluation for your business.

So where did the business start?

And if you were to sell it today, what do you think it's worth?

And so many business owners say, I have no idea.

Because some businesses can be bought by anybody, whereas other businesses take a dental practice, can really only be bought by other dentists.

So one, know how much your business is worth.

Two, know who your actual buyers are.

And three, make sure it's the right decision for you because you can't go back from selling a business.

And I have seen people sell businesses for the wrong reasons.

And it's emotionally taken its toll.

Yeah.

When you sell your business, it is final, it is permanent.

You better be prepared for that transition.

And that is the top three things that I will say.

Valuate your business with professional services, know why you are selling your business, and know who you are selling your business to.

Because if you don't have those, you know, sort of ducks lined up, you could end up making a decision you very much regret.

And I have seen it professionally.

Yeah, it's funny.

I actually had an interview not that long ago with a gentleman who sold his business for hundreds of millions of dollars.

And it was hard on him.

And I was like, oh, dude.

Yeah, because we tie ourselves to our businesses, right?

Like they become a part of us.

And he said he grieved it.

Like you would grieve any loss, even though he came out financially on top.

I've unfortunately heard stories of, you know, close friends of mine whose parents, shortly after selling businesses for millions of dollars, suffered very serious depression episodes.

Because like you said, it, it's like it becomes a child for some people.

They've tied their entire identity to this business.

So the other thing that I would tell anybody looking to sell their business is like, understand what's next.

You have to have hobbies, you have to have goals, you have to have things you want to accomplish because you are selling a piece of yourself for a lot of people.

Now, I've never really tied my own sense of self worth to my business.

It has always very much been a means to an end, which is take care of my family.

But there are a lot of solopreneurs and a lot of entrepreneurs who don't have the same type of support systems or desires and, and family that a lot of people have.

You better have a what's next?

Because if you haven't know what's next, that.

That can be terribly problematic.

So don't put your entire sense of self worth into your business.

We all need purpose, right?

We all need purpose.

Whether we're, whether we're business owners or super successful or we're no longer working, you.

You're never off the hook.

Like, life would be horrible if suddenly you can be as rich as you want, but if you got nothing to do, that's gonna, it's not gonna last.

Yeah.

The saying money doesn't buy happiness, you know, is very true.

Some of the richest people in the world, I'm sure Absolutely miserable because all they have is money.

So if all you have is money and money is the goal, you're going to set yourself up for failure year.

Yeah, I have money because I like experiences.

I love traveling.

I love golfing.

Now I have a new experience of apparently I better love buying diapers, because those things are.

Yeah.

So I have things I love doing.

I do love working.

I have fantastic clients, I have fantastic business partners.

But at the same time, I have a young.

I have a baby right now.

And my clients are so understanding, they're emailing my business partner, CCing me and saying, we don't want to bug Zale about this right now.

He's got better things to worry about.

Which, yeah, I mean, like, I have a child to take care of.

Doesn't mean I'm leaving my.

My clients out to dry.

But my clients have been very receptive to being or letting me be a father for the first few months.

And I'm sure if I just kind of disappeared forever, they wouldn't be particularly impressed.

But most of my clients are families themselves, so they know it's not just for today.

Like, there's future generations.

There's things we all want to accomplish.

Have those things.

Don't just work yourself to the bone.

It's that.

That's maddening.

Totally, totally.

Zale, this has been absolutely amazing.

I really appreciated having you on today and giving us some advice.

You know, dude, we talked about this before.

You've literally never not been an entrepreneur.

You're my first guest.

Who can say that?

Who can say that?

No matter what, they've never worked for anyone else.

You pretty well always worked for yourself.

What's the best piece of business advice you would give to a young entrepreneur, a young Zale who was just getting into it, who maybe you needed to take that leap.

You needed that motivation.

What might that be?

Oh, an action plan.

Right.

Don't.

You can always attempt to wing something, and you can figure out the next steps.

But the first thing with any business, have a plan of execution.

Right.

Know what you're trying to accomplish.

Always realize that you need a network.

You can't accomplish anything on your own.

Nobody in this entire world has ever accomplished anything by themselves.

I don't know who said it.

I probably should.

But there's that famous quote, you know, if you want to go fast, go alone.

You want to go far, go together.

That is the epitome of how I'm trying to build my own life, my own business is I don't want to be places by Myself, like, imagine sitting on a beach with nobody ever around.

I think true success comes from being able to bring as many people up to success with you.

Yeah.

So it's one thing to be selfish, but like, who wants that?

Right?

Give more than you're willing to take and you will get it all back tenfold.

Absolutely.

Zale.

You know, we've been talking a lot about financial management life, but you know, bring us into mco.

What do you do at mco?

From a very simplistic standpoint, when people ask me what we do, we try and bridge that unknown gap from where someone is today financially to where they need to be.

And when I say need to be, for the most part it's either selling a business, it's retiring, it's providing for the next generation.

So a private wealth company is there to assist people with the things that we don't learn enough about, which is tax planning, which is giving to charity, which is giving to kids, which is helping yourself retire for the most part.

I like to tell people my job is to like be the anti CRA and that's to allow everybody to keep as much money as possible for themselves and to not pay it in taxes to the government.

But there is no one size fits all solution.

As a financial planner, we manage money for clients who don't want to understand what stocks, bonds, GICs, investments are.

We protect families who are high income earners who want to make sure that they have insurance plans.

I think every business owner, for the most part, you are your own biggest asset.

Make sure you have a contingency plan.

We all know somebody who's gotten diagnosed with something too early or lost a family member too soon and it really threw the whole family sideways.

Taxes, cash flow.

That is a true certified financial planner is to take someone's vision of where they want to be and then build backwards.

Have a step and a plan in place just to keep climbing.

And you're going to take steps backwards.

So have somebody there who's going to make sure that you are emotionally coached through those decisions.

Okay.

And this is the question that I think a lot of business owners have.

It's like, at what point of success should they be reaching out to a private wealth company, a wealth management company?

Like at what point should people reach out to you, Zale?

Should it be at the very beginning before they have anything, or should they have a certain level of assets before they reach out?

Yeah, I mean, for myself, I've gotten to a point where my business is actually successful enough that I enjoy the Pro bono work.

And when I say pro bono work, it really is consulting calls that I know I can't monetize somebody because they don't have the the f sufficiencies to to pay our charges.

But I think if you're going to be a business owner from the very beginning, you should reach out and have a good financial planning team, particularly in the early stages when you go to incorporate, make sure your shares and your structure of your corporation is done sufficiently so that it can meet future use needs.

There is no right or wrong time to reach out to somebody.

I think everybody should be reaching out in their, you know, 20s before they have anything.

And it's not just business owners because I think you and I have had this conversation is we are all people.

But I tell every person, even if you are an employee, operate your life like it is a bit of a business.

Make smart decisions for yourself that will allow future you to look back and say, I'm glad I tax planned.

I'm glad I didn't wait until I had no more money coming in to figure out what to do with all of my money.

So the day anybody has a surplus and isn't really just in the earliest foundations of an idea, that's when they should be reaching out to a professional, whether it's me or one of my peers or it's anybody that they trust from day one.

It never hurts to reach out to anybody.

It's not like a lawyer where you hopefully only want to speak to them when you have a legal issue.

Sure, a good financial planner will help you make smarter decisions in the future.

So don't hesitate to reach out to one.

Also know the questions to ask.

How do I pay you?

What are the implications to my business?

What are our opportunities to work together?

We can, you know, sort of go through some of those questions that you should ask.

But anybody can Google what question should I ask a certified financial planner?

And there's five or so of them that are extremely important in regards to what are your specialties, what are your costs, what are the expectations from me to you?

What are the expectations from you to me?

And what's the end goal of working together?

And if somebody can answer those five questions competently, they probably know what they're doing.

Perfect.

Perfect.

And Zale, if people are listening to this and they want to get a hold of you, what's the best way they can?

Check out the website, it's mcowealth.com they can email me at Zale Z A E L or for The Americans Z A E l@mclwealth.com those are the easiest ways.

Search my name zale Moransky on LinkedIn.

I'm pretty active there.

I'm a bit of a poop disturber in terms of social media.

So if you want to know somebody who is a little bit anti the traditional ways of building a financial planning business, I call out so many bad practices I see and I tell people, remember, banks are for profit institutions.

Banks are not your friends.

Don't trust a bank to give you any advice that isn't going to profit the bank.

They are not charities.

Financial planners are business owners too.

But their success is far more tied to seeing you be successful than taking on things like debts, credit cards, any debt instruments.

Those are what make the banks money.

Sure.

Financial planning does not make the bank money.

Amazing.

Amazing.

And Zale, obviously you are based in Toronto, am I correct?

You're based in Toronto, but like I'm in Alberta, I have friends in bc.

Are you able to work across the country or are there like limitations?

No, there's no limitations in this industry.

I have a license in Alberta, I have a license in British Columbia.

We have a team in Quebec.

Quebec's a little bit of a different beast, but we have our own team.

We have individuals in every single province aside from the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon.

I'm sure at some point we'll expand to those locations.

But even if I don't have a license in any of those provinces, I know so many great advisors through the Financial Planners association of Canada that I am not trying to hoard every client for myself.

I do have a capacity of clients that I work with and I think every good advisor should have a capacity of clients that they work with or they spread themselves too thin.

So happy to introduce anybody to somebody who might help them a little bit more than I could.

Amazing.

Amazing.

Thanks Zale for coming on with us.

Zale is the president of MCO Wealth Management out of Toronto.

It was absolutely amazing having you on dude.

I.

I wish you the absolute best of luck.

Congratulations on Logan.

I hope that your trip here this coming week goes amazing.

Thanks buddy.

Appreciate you always.

And everybody, tune into all future podcasts.

Listen to all the Path Past podcasts.

So much great information coming from Kelly that I think you'd be a bit of a dummy not to tune in a little bit more and go through the archives and 197 others to listen to do it.

Thanks dude.

I appreciate that.

Until next time, this has been the business development podcast and we will catch you on the flip side.

This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

see you next time on the Business Development Podcast.