Episode 2.1 with David Chilton

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Text transcript

Kevin Press: 

Welcome to a new season of the Canadian Advisor.cast, a podcast dedicated to financial advisors and the people that work with them. My name’s Kevin Press. I’m Editorial Director of Advisor.ca. My guest today is David Chilton, author of “The Wealthy Barber” and “The Wealthy Barber Returns.” David had a great run on Dragon’s Den through Seasons 7, 8, and 9. He’s also a successful investor and dealmaker. Rob Carrick called “The Wealthy Barber” “the greatest personal finance book ever.” David has inspired millions with his back-to-basics approach to household finances. Pay yourself first, spend modestly, avoid bad debt, invest simply, be patient. In the process, he’s earned the rarest of things, a loyal, multigenerational audience. Welcome to the podcast, David. 

David Chilton: 

Thank you so much for having me. I very much appreciate it. 

Kevin Press:  

Was that part of your thinking with this new edition of “The Wealthy Barber,” to reach younger Canadians? 

David Chilton:  

Yeah, that’s what it’s all about. I mean the book’s target audience is still those in their 20s and 30s, maybe early 40s as a stretch. And, really what happened is my kids are in that target demographic, and their friends started asking me a lot of questions. My friends’ kids started asking me a lot of questions. And, it’s tough out there. As you know, with the high real estate prices, the high cost of living, people are pinched. It’s more difficult than ever to save the 10 to 15% you need to, to fund retirement. So looking at all those challenges, and, of course, there’s a lot of new products that have come along since the original version. We had just RSPs, now we have TFSAs, FHSAs, et cetera. We have new accounts like those. We have new products like ETFs. All that had to be woven into the book, and you had to keep it digestible and flowing and fun and understandable. Took forever. I started out thinking it would take me four to six months; it took me 16 months of full-time writing. I think that’s it for me, by the way. I’m old, and I’m not sure I want to sit down for 16 straight months and write another book. But, I’m really glad it’s being so well received, and it’s been kind of fun being out there again. 

Kevin Press:  

Yeah, I heard you on Tony Chapman’s Chatter That Matters podcast talking about that. You said it was actually more difficult to write this version than the previous one. 

David Chilton:  

Honestly, much more difficult. Maybe some of that was age. I mean, it’s a little tougher to stay focused all the time when you’re 64 relative to 26, 27, 28. But I think a bigger issue is, I mentioned there’s more accounts and more products. So, let’s go with the FHSA and TFSAs as good examples. It’s not enough just to explain them, their pros and cons, because people can’t do it all in these very tight times. How do they prioritize? Which one of those accounts makes the most sense for them based on their circumstances? You have to cover off all of that back and forth and all the subtle nuances of various scenarios. That takes some time. And as you’re writing it, you’ve got to be testing it with the target audience. Are they enjoying the examples? Are there things that remain unanswered? Is this boring them? All of these types of things. And that leads to a lot of rewrites. So, yeah, it was a tremendous amount of work. Again, I enjoyed a lot of that, but definitely felt my age at times. I’m not going to I’m not going to lie about that. 

Kevin Press:  

You talked about the fact that things are tougher for young adults now. I think that that’s a really important point that gets glossed over an awful lot. Why is it that it seems that, I guess, since the financial crisis, things have been so much more challenging for young adults? 

David Chilton:  

I mean, the price of real estate alone is tough. Whether you’re renting or whether you’re buying, it’s very difficult. Understated in some ways, by the way. We all know that homes have risen at a much faster pace, their price, than has the cost of living and has wages in general, and that’s put people in a very, very tight spot. But it’s not just the actual price of the home and therefore the size of the mortgage. We’ve also got property taxes, home insurance-all kinds of things associated with home ownership- have risen at fast clips. I would argue significantly higher than the reported CPI. So that’s tough. And again, wages have just not kept up. A lot of boomers say, “Ah, it’s always been tough, Dave, and interest rates are at lower levels now than they were, on average, 20 and 30 years ago.” Those are actually fair points. It has always been tough. Rates do soften some of the blow. But, how about the down payment? Rates don’t affect that. If you’re trying to get to a 20% down payment on a starter home in some of the big centres like Toronto, Vancouver, et cetera, at 700,000, 800,000, that’s 140, 160,000 dollars you have to save after tax. Oh my gosh, that’s difficult. Now, in the last five, six years, since COVID, the cost of living beyond real estate has also risen quite significantly. It’s challenging. Beyond that, you’ve also got social media. You’ve also got these very sophisticated, always-improving algorithms that are very adept at targeting our weaknesses, going after us to try to get us to spend our money, trying to get us to give in to impulse. Oh my gosh, it is tough. I mean, younger people are up against it. There’s no question about it. 

Kevin Press:  

Yeah, there’s a degree of consumerism, I think, among young people today that I don’t think we experienced back in the ’80s and ’90s. Is that fair to say? 

David Chilton:  

Absolutely. I mean, so even though the younger generation can very much make compelling arguments-“It’s tougher now in general”- and they can cite the specifics I just did, the flip side to that is that they do have higher expectations. You really see it, by the way, on first-home purchases. Many of the younger people do not want to move into a relatively smaller home. They want most of the nicer things in the home, from better countertops. Remember, when we were young, when we moved into our first home, it often had seven different types of tiles. Cripes, I had holes in the original walls in the basement of the first home. So expectations have risen. There’s no question about that. But, that can be true and also it can be true that it’s tougher now. That, again, as I’ve mentioned, the prices have made this very, very difficult to keep up to. And on the consumerism front, you know, we all covet. We all compare. We’re wired to do that to a large degree. Well, of course, it’s easier to do that now than ever. You’re not just exposed to your coworkers and your neighbours, you’re exposed to everybody, because of social media, because of the internet, because of all of those things. And that tends to draw us all in. So it is tough. And as I mentioned, the algorithms are beyond sophisticated. Can you imagine where they’re going with AI becoming more and more powerful, with quantum computing eventually coming into our lives and leading AI to even higher levels? It makes all of this very challenging, indeed. 

Kevin Press:  

I mentioned the financial crisis a moment ago. That has sort of exacerbated this for a lot of young people, too, right? You think about the millennials coming into the workforce just as that crisis was hitting its peak. That set them back years in their professional development and their household finances, didn’t it? 

David Chilton:  

It did, more so in the States, by the way. You know, in the States, obviously, the real estate pullback, in most areas, not all, was beyond severe, beyond what we saw in Canada. In fact, in Canada, interestingly, in certain geographical areas, the pullback was relatively modest and bounce back was quite significant. But it did slow the economy; it changed the way people look at things. And, of course, for the people who hadn’t bought yet, it pushed the governments to go with ultra-low interest rates. We had ZIRP for a long time, zero interest rates. And when you had that, that ballooned the prices of the underlying assets out there, from stocks to real estate, et cetera. And so as young people tried to get in, it became more and more difficult. As they tried to build up stock portfolios, they didn’t have a portfolio yet, they were chasing higher valuations, et cetera. So the indirect impact-where it led to the lower rates, and the lower rates, in turn, led to the higher valuations-for the people who hadn’t really got it rolling yet, that put them in a tough spot. 

Kevin Press:  

You mentioned social media, of course, which has kind of led to a lot of kind of “keeping up with the Joneses,” as we used to say. But it’s also been an opportunity for great financial content to be widely available. Maybe too much, though. Do you think the right messages are getting through? 

David Chilton:  

Yeah, that’s such a good point by you. And you said it well. There’s too much. I mean, and I don’t know what you do about that, it’s overwhelming. The paradox of choice is setting in, and sometimes that follows people around and makes them almost paralyzed. They don’t take that next step. But, also, it’s very difficult for the average person to discern who out there is giving advice that I really should be grabbing a hold of. In fact, strangely, I think this has all helped “The Wealthy Barber” redo. I was very worried bringing the book out that, you know, we’ve moved on to the new media, people like it in short hits, they like it in video, that an old-fashioned book may be a strain. I mean, people aren’t reading as much, especially in non-fiction. The opposite appears to be the case. People are so overwhelmed by the amount of noise out there, they’re saying, “Hey, there’s a book I can trust from a guy who’s been around. He’s not trying to sell me anything. That may be a simpler way to gain access to the basics and get that early understanding I need on some of these concepts.” But, yes, it’s very difficult for the average person to know whom to trust. But the funny thing is, there are some amazing educators out there. Like, in Canada, we’re so blessed to have some of the best. The Plain Bagel, absolutely incredible. You know, you look at Ben Felix and what he’s been able to do. I mean, he’s had such an impact, not just in Canada, but in the States as well. These are incredible educators, and there’s many, many more. But, there are also some not so good ones, especially on TikTok, where there’s a lot of scamming going on, a lot of pumping-dumping, a lot of false promises being made. And, again, the average consumer has trouble discerning what’s solid advice versus what’s not. 

Kevin Press:  

Yeah, we spent so much time talking about teaching financial literacy, I think we need to add media literacy to our high school curriculum. 

David Chilton:  

No, it’s true. And, I mean, it’s only going to get worse because, of course, we’re now able to produce infinite content by using AI. And, so, if you think it’s noisy now, wait till 12 months from now. You’re getting all of these faceless, and, of course, it won’t just be faceless because the faces are becoming so realistic through AI. All of these people out there, many times pushing agendas, many times with false information, often selling courses or just out-and-out straight scams. So, again, the problems we’re dealing with today are going to be way worse 12 months from now. Will that end up helping the trusted sources? Probably. Will the securities regulators have to get more involved? Yes. In fact, we’re hearing some things on that front right now, where they’re going to start examining a little bit more the sites that are giving very specific advice and aren’t registered to do so, et cetera. So, there’s going to be a sea of change coming, but I think a lot of it, unfortunately, won’t be positive. 

Kevin Press:  

Take us back to the time leading up to “The Wealthy Barber,” the first edition. You wrote it at 27, which is remarkable to me. 

David Chilton:  

I did. 

Kevin Press:  

How did you do that? 

David Chilton:  

You know, I still don’t know. I mean, I look back and I kind of shake my head that I, I had the courage to do it. I really think it was a lot of luck. And I don’t mean that to be modest. I really do believe that. I started a course teaching teachers financial planning, not for them to teach their students, but for them to manage their own monies better. And I used a very casual delivery style, with a lot of humour, almost short little stories. I didn’t use charts and graph. It seemed to really be resonating. You know, generally, people are intimidated by the world of finance; they find it very dry and boring. And I thought, Okay, this seems to be breaking through. So I thought, What about using that same formula in a book? And initially the idea was a book called “The Ultimate Guide to Losing Money.” Very short chapters. You see a lot of books like that now, but you didn’t then. All books then were text-heavy. Trying to use the humour. Then one night watching “Cheers,” as I’ve said often in interviews, I got the idea for going with the novel format and shifted it over to “The Wealthy Bartender.” After two or three weeks of seeing what the alcohol did to the story, I moved it to the barbershop, and really just got lucky. But I think beyond the idea, that the approach to the writing where I do all the testing probably played as beneficial a role. I really do, because I was garnering all the feedback from the target audience and incorporating their suggestions, concerns, questions, et cetera, into the manuscript. The downside is, it takes forever to write. The upside is, I think the book is much more likely to resonate with the target audience when they’ve been an actual part of the creative process. So I think I lucked into that, by the way, in that I gave the book to some people who are very well known in finance-Ellen Roseman-the first four chapters when I was in the draft stage, and they didn’t love it. But then I gave the same four chapters to the 12 guys on my slo-pitch team, and they did love it. And they wanted the fifth chapter, but they gave me all these suggestions, comments, questions, and that’s what led to it. It was not some genius move by me where I said, “I should test this with the audience.” I lucked into that approach. And, again, I think that’s played a major role in the way the book has resonated over the years. 

Kevin Press:  

Tell us more about how that works. What, what’s the process you followed with, with the new book? 

David Chilton:  

Well, my editors pull their hair out because I am literally testing every page in the book by reading it to people in the target audience. Sometimes I’ll put it in video form and get it out there, garnering their feedback. You can see when they’re bored; you can see when they don’t necessarily like it. I’ll give you a very good example. In the book, I wrote a couple [of] pages on how if you use the Home Buyers’ Plan, you’re best not to pay it back early. So, it’s counterintuitive. We tend to be taught get your money back into the RSP. Get it into those registered plans as quickly as you can. But you shouldn’t pay back your Home Buyers’ Plan early, just pay it back on the schedule of 1/15th a year, et cetera. So I explained that over a couple [of] pages. I tested it; it just didn’t connect with people. Very few were using the Home Buyers’ Plan; those who were thought it kind of dragged the chapter down. So I took it out. You’re always learning. What’s catching people? What’s adding value? What’s flowing with the rest of the chapter? That kind of feedback is invaluable. And, so, when you look at the examples in the book, people say, “I like that. It made me think a little differently.” Even people in the industry. I mentioned Ben Felix. He has said, “I really like the examples and the flow of the thinking.” Well, a lot of that comes just from the testing. It’s not natural, gifted writing. Trust me. It’s the testing, the remodelling. It’s finding the energy, by the way, to do the rewrites, and to never stop until you’ve got it where it’s testing extremely well. That’s the hardest part of that process. 

Kevin Press:  

How did you learn about money? 

David Chilton:  

How did I learn? Well, interesting, my grandmother started me. My parents couldn’t have cared less about money, and my father’s still alive, still can’t. He just doesn’t get into it at all. But my grandmother liked investing in penny stocks, and she had gold and silver, and she followed the markets really closely. And she kind of had an odd portfolio, very much barbell. She had very conservative banks and utilities on one end and penny stocks on the other. That’s kind of how she managed her money. And so I remember once when I was in Grade 12, the summer of Grade 12, she gave me a thousand dollars. I invested it horribly, but I was hooked. And, at that point, I started reading everything. And when I say everything, Kevin, I mean everything, to the point of obsessive-compulsive behaviour. I read every investment book and every personal finance book I could get my hands on, to the point that when I originally, or when I wrote the Canadian Securities Course at age 22 or whatever it was, I didn’t even open the textbook. I didn’t even study. I had studied all this stuff so much just out of hobby that I just drove down to Toronto and wrote the course. And that’s a pretty geeky guy when you can say that. So I was obsessive-compulsive about all of this, and I think that’s what kind of got me into it. So I owe my start certainly to my grandmother. And then do you remember Andrew Tobias? He wrote a number of personal finance books in the States. One was called “The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need.” And when I saw his casual delivery style and humour, I thought, You know, that’s kind of the way I would do it if I were trying to write or trying to speak on stage. And so because he’d been so successful, that definitely played a role in the approach I ended up taking. 

Kevin Press:  

So you’re 27. You’ve completed the book. It’s been released. At what point do you know that you’ve got something special on your hands? 

David Chilton:  

Well, amazingly, not for a long time. The first year it did well, certainly better than the expectations, but nothing spectacular. It hit the bestseller list but didn’t go to Number 1. And by the end of the year, by Christmas of 1989-it it had come out in January-it was actually slowing. You don’t want your book slowing at Christmas. You don’t have to be a publishing genius to know that’s not a wonderful sign. RSP season had picked up a little bit. You remember back in the day, January and February, everybody made their contributions. They didn’t do it throughout the year like so many do now, or early in the year. So it picked up, but March, April, it slowed down again. But then for whatever reason, in April of 1990, it went flying. And I wasn’t doing any extra media. In fact, I would say I was actually doing a little bit less on that front, but the word of mouth kicked in. It took that long. So it took 15, 16 months for the word of mouth to grab a hold, and then it started flying. We started selling 5,000 a month, 10,000 a month, 15, 20,000 a month. And it kept going at that pace for two to three years. It was absolutely amazing. And I remember the night that I knew, and there really was a night that I knew it was going, was out in Halifax. I gave a speech out there. I’d been speaking a lot in Ontario in the 401 corridor. You know, you’re doing local media and you’re doing some interviews and you draw a crowd out and you might get 5, 600 people. You’re speaking for a financial institution, whatever. Well, this night in Halifax, I got there and 2,200 people showed up for the speech. And I think that night I went, “This is crazy. I mean, you know, it’s a financial planning speech for heaven’s sake.” And it just kept going for years. So, there was a lot of luck involved, almost no competitors in the marketplace. There was maybe two or three. Chris Snyder and one or two other books that were in the marketplace with Canadian personal finance books. And, again, the fact that the story pulled people in; they could identify with the narrator. All of it seemed to just work quite right. And then you had the baby boomers moving into their savings years. And so you had this big demographic max going through, and that really helped, too. So there was a lot of luck helping here. No question. 

Kevin Press:  

You must’ve treated yourself at some point. I hope! Did you buy yourself anything expensive? 

David Chilton:  

You know, not really, and it’s funny, and not because I’m cheap. I’m honestly not cheap at all. I tend to give a lot of my money away. I’m, I’m just not a guy who cares about stuff. I don’t like stuff. In fact, when people go to give me anything, I say, “I, I don’t want it.” I don’t like gifts. I live in a small home, 1,300 square feet, and I’ve lived in this house for over 30 years. I drive a Jeep with 120,000 kilometres on it. And, again, it’s not that I’m frugal-although I think being frugal, being wise with your money makes a lot of sense-I don’t get any kick out of stuff. I don’t have a lot of toys. I do have a cottage now down at Sarnia where our family’s originally from. But, in general, I live a very low-key life on the spending front. And that’s kind of the way I’ve always been. Later in my career when I got involved in some private company and investing some other things, I ended up having a place in Costa Rica for a while with a partner. And we ended up selling it seven, eight years ago. But, in general, if you came to my house, you’d go, “Wow, you live a low-key life.” In fact, funny story, Kevin, my house got broken into, maybe 1994, 1995. The book is Number 1 in the country. I’m out in the country. It gets broken into. And I swear the thieves must’ve gone, “Oh my gosh, we got to go to the car and get this guy some stuff.” I had no computer in my house, my TVs were old, there was nothing nice on the walls, no jewelry. Like, I really think, “How did we pick this loser’s house to break into?” And then the police were like, “Did they steal anything?” I said, “No, they really didn’t steal anything. They wrecked the windows and destroyed the floors.” But there was nothing missing because there was nothing worth taking. And if they broke in now, they’d find the exact same thing. I live a pretty modest life. 

Kevin Press:  

Bestselling author and television personality. Do you have advice for a– 

David Chilton:  

And I think that’s one of the reasons why I’m such a happy guy, by the way, is I don’t really care about stuff. And, you know, all the things people get caught up with, you know, FOMO and some jealousy of what other people have, et cetera, for some reason, I’ve never kind of fallen into that. I haven’t got great tips to give everybody else on how to avoid it because it’s just kind of naturally been that way for me. I don’t have FOMO. I was saying yesterday to somebody, “I have fear of being invited.” I don’t like going out, and I’d rather kind of stay at home by myself most of the time. And so when you get invited to all these things, I’m like, “Oh, cripe, I got to drop by for half an hour to an hour.” So I really am a low-key guy. 

Kevin Press:  

A lot of financial advisors look to grow their personal brands, think about writing a book. Do you have advice for them? 

David Chilton:  

Yeah, I mean, I think that writing a book, if you’re trying to make a lot of money from it, it’s tough. I mean, it really is. There’s the odd one that breaks through in a huge way. Look at “The Psychology of Money.” I mean, that’s just unbelievable, eight million copies sold. But, for every one of those, there are literally a thousand that don’t break through much on the volume front. But, from a credibility perspective, it can really help. It can get you a lot of interviews. It can make you look better to your clients, but also articulating your vision. All of your thoughts, the way you believe things should be done and putting it on paper really helps you as an educator and as a communicator. So not only does it give you the book, which is the ultimate business card, but also it definitely will help you with the client relationships. It’ll help you because you’ll be viewed a little bit more positively, but also you will indeed be a better communicator. You’ll be forced to learn what’s the best way to bring this across, what are the best examples to use to help my clients to understand this. So, for the most part, if people can find the time, I think it is a good move. But, again, finding the time’s not easy. Advisors are busy. They’ve got their clients, they’ve got their families, they’ve got all kinds of things pulling at them. But, for many, I think, it’s a good idea. 

Kevin Press:  

I was thinking about how much has changed since 1989 when the first edition was released. On the product front, it’s got to be ETFs, right? They weren’t even on the scene at that time. How do you feel about the way that product category has rolled out over the years since? 

David Chilton:  

Well, initially, I loved it, of course, because it gave people a very cost-efficient way to build an equity portfolio. Fees in Canada for a lot of our traditional mutual funds, as you know, are extremely high, highest in the world, in fact, again, in a recent report. But I think it’s gone too far now. I mean, there’s so many ETFs, and they’re sliced and diced into so many specific industries and all kinds of trickiness-none of which really adds value. In fact, in most cases, it really subtracts from returns. So the plain-vanilla, old-fashioned index fund ETFs, I’m a big fan. The new all-in-one asset allocation ETFs where you get global exposure and you may even mix in bonds and have it all in that same portfolio, rebalancing is taken care of for you, et cetera, I’m a big fan. And, again, the fees on these products are very low. A vanilla index fund you can get as low as five, six basis points. And even the all-in-one ETFs often are 20 to 25. Those are very good levels. But I think all of these specific-to-industry or tricky ways to invest, all these types of things, very skeptical about all of that. And I think that those are being sold too aggressively in many, many instances. So like all answers in finance, some things I like and some things I’m not as keen on. 

Kevin Press:  

Yeah, you’ve always had a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to the industry. Are you more or less skeptical now than you were 35 years ago? 

Definitely less. And, so, you’re right, still a healthy dose, by the way, still see some things I’m not keen on. See some plans that I go, “Holy shmokes,” but not nearly as many as I did in the old days. Remember the old days, it was really all about product sales, and the training wasn’t nearly as good as it is now. You meet a lot of advisors now who are top drawer, like you really do. I was a fanatic. I mean, I was truly a nut where I even knew the tax code and all those types of things. Nowadays, I meet lots of people like that, where they’ve just embraced every course you can possibly take, and they are very knowledgeable about all these different types of things. And so the industry knowledge level, on average- exceptions, unfortunately-but, on average, has improved. The training has improved. People are therefore, because they’re becoming more knowledgeable, almost by extension becoming better communicators. So there’s a lot of good there. There are a lot of media people who are quite savvy, and they’re out there educating. There’s good things online. So the consumer’s becoming somewhat more demanding. All that being said, a lot of products are still too expensive. And the embedded fees are high enough that it makes trying to achieve the goals that most people have very, very difficult, indeed. But I think, in general, the trends are good. We’re seeing a couple [of] big things pick up in Canada, and you have a lot of viewers in this arena. We’re seeing more fee-only financial planners, a group that in Canada, unlike other parts of the world, really had trouble getting traction here. Until about 15 years ago, there was three, four, five of them out there, and now, all of a sudden, there’s a lot of them, and boy, are some of them good. Holy shmokers. I see some of the plans, top drawer, like top drawer. And you’ve got some very sharp people going in there. And then you’ve also got more what I call the Carolina model, because that’s where I was first exposed to it 20-ish years ago, of doing the asset under administration model, asset under management, but charging 60 and 70 and 80 bps for it, and then also providing all-encompassing advice. It’s not just about the investments; it’s now about insurance needs analysis, estate planning, helping the kids, the RESP management, all of it. And for a lot of people, especially some well-to-do people, that can be a very good trade-off. The value-add there can easily make up for the fee. So there are models coming into play now that I think are beneficial. But we all still struggle to serve the average Canadian, the person starting out who doesn’t have a lot of money. They’re not going to write a cheque in most instances to a fee-only financial planner. Although some are trying to come in and service that market at a lower cost level. So they still tend to get put in high-cost funds. And I understand that to some extent. The industry has to make some money. So I get that. I just wish the high-cost funds weren’t as high cost, that they were migrating more down to the levels of other countries. Instead of, we often see 2 and 2.3%, equity funds, for example. That’s steep. And so can we get that down to a little over one where it still hurts the consumer in the long run, but there is some value-add by the person providing maybe some advice at the branch level, et cetera? These are all the things I think will happen, by the way, in the next five years, because we’re seeing challengers to the banks. We’re seeing more products coming out. And, of course, AI could have a very big impact on all of this, because within 36 months, 50 months, we could be online punching a lot of these things in and getting back unbiased and very solid advice. We’re not there yet, by the way. So if you use ChatGPT and you turn to it for financial advice, there are enough mistakes, or enough things not asked of you. They don’t get enough knowledge from you to give you good, sound, specific advice. So we’re not there yet. And even when it gets there, a lot of times the personal involvement can really help because you’ve got the handholding. I mean, a lot of times a good financial advisor’s playing the role of a psychologist to some extent, making sure people stay in the straight and narrow, and they don’t get panicked when markets are going through difficult times. Last observation in this long-winded answer is that a very positive trend we have seen, for sure, is that more and more advisors are realizing, “I probably can’t add a lot of value through stock picking and through trying to outperform the broad market averages. My value-add has to come through the aforementioned estate planning, financial planning, cash flow management, all of those things.” And so they’re broadening the number of services that they’re bringing to the client. And when that happens, everybody wins. 

Kevin Press:  

There’s obviously big changes on the regulatory front with total cost reporting, or CRM3 as it’s often called. Are you encouraged by that step, and how are you feeling about the state of financial services regulation these days? 

David Chilton:  

Yeah, I am encouraged by that step. I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people when they see the total cost and understand. Remember, a lot of Canadians don’t even realize there’s a fee embedded in their mutual fund, their traditional mutual fund. Like, I’ve always said that most people in our industry- including the sharpest, the nicest, the most caring-are still often out of touch with how little the average Canadian knows. They really are. So I’ll give you a really good example of that. I just randomly surveyed before writing the updated version of this book 20 people at a mall. They were 20 years old and up, some in their 50s. And I said, “Do you know what an ETF is? What does it stand for? What are they?” One person gave me the proper answer. One. And, again, this is where we are in a lot of this. And so, the more people can learn, the better. Learning about your fees is a part of that process. I also think it’s a checks and balances for the industry. They’re less likely to be too, too aggressive on the fee front. So, I think, in general, we’re heading in the right path. People like Preet Banerjee-who’s one of the most caring, kind people out there-are getting more and more proactively involved on all of these different fronts. And I think that’s all good. And I think, in general, as a country, we all win when people manage their money better. So if we raise the level of financial literacy, if we lower the fees, and give people a better chance to achieve their objectives, everybody wins doing that. And a lot of good advisors out there, by the way, recognize that and embrace that, and are very good at the education front and trying to figure out models that, in fact, serve the client very well. 

Kevin Press:  

Thank you, David. My guest has been David Chilton, author of “The Wealthy Barber Returns,” available now in hard copy, e-book, and audiobook formats. You can find information on bulkpurchasediscounts@TheWealthyBarber.com. Canadian Advisor.cast is a production of Newcom Media. It is produced by Alisha Hiyate. Noushin Ziafati is our associate producer. My name’s Kevin Press. Thanks for being with us.