Alain Guillot Show | Personal Finance And Entrepreneurship

http://www.alainguillot.com/rona-birenbaum/ ‎ Rona is a certified financial planner. She has been serving the financial needs of Canadians for the past 27 years. When going through university, she needed a job, so she got a job as a bank teller at a credit union, then she shifted to a full-service broker house. While working at the broker house, Rona soon discovered that the job of a financial advisor was to sell products and not necessarily to give financial advice. After that sour discovery, Rona decided to open her own business. On 2000 she opened Caring for Clients and became one of Canada's first fee-for-service financial planners. Over the course of 18 years the business has thrived, now serving over 250 families. Rona is now focused on Vivaplan. She decided that objective, affordable, fee-for-service financial plans needed to be accessible and affordable for all Canadians, not just the wealthier Canadians. For $800 a client gets a plan covering estate planning, asset allocation, and insurance. Vivaplan

http://www.alainguillot.com/vincent-pugliese/ This is episode #44 Today we will have a conversation with Vincent Pugliese, Professional photographer and author of the book Freelance to Freedom. Vincent shares his transformation from being a thieves, to becoming a photographer at a local newspaper, to starting his own business and reaching Financial Freedom. We talk about the mindset of schooling his own children, leaving the perceived security of a regular paycheck, and becoming master of his own life. Who is Vincent? He has been married for 16 years, He has 3 boys homeschooled, He Has been a professional photographer for 24 years, He runs a mastermind group called Total Life Freedom. Home Schooling Vince and his wife did not like the education system and they decided the best thing for their family and their kids was to homeschool them. The kids learn what interests them at the moment. They are learning practical things such as blogging, entrepreneurship, etc. Because they have control of their time, they tr

http://www.alainguillot.com/jeff-kreisler-2/ This is my second interview with Jeff Kreisler, Find our first interview here. Jeff Kreisler is a lawyer, author, speaker, pundit, comedian and advocate for behavioral science. I know of him mainly because he co-wrote the book Dollars and Sense: Money Mishaps and How to Avoid Them with co-author, Dan Ariely, Psychologist, and Behavioral Economist, he also wrote the book Get Rich Cheating, about how money makes us do unethical things. People's Science After the success of Dollars and Sense, Jeff took that momentum to work on a website called People's Science which is about behavioral science beyond financial decision making, such as workplace engagement, event design, loyalty rewards, etc. Behavioral Economics The Bank’s Secret Weapon Jeff wrote an ebook called Behavioral Economics The Bank’s Secret Weapon sanctioned by Strands, a FinTech software developer that enables banks to offer personalized digital banking experiences. You can get the ebook here. We spoke abo

http://www.alainguillot.com/randy-cass/ Randy Cass is the CEO and founder of Nest Wealth, Canada's #1 robo-advisor. I am a do-it-yourself kind of investor, but if a family member or a friend asks me who could help them with their investments, I would not hesitate to recommend Randy Cass and his firm Nest Wealth. A robo-advisor is a firm which provides financial advice or investment management service online, performed by software algorithms to reduce cost and to reduce the input of human's emotions which could be detrimental to one's portfolio. A robo-advisor automatically allocates, manage and optimize clients' assets with zero human intervention. Nest Wealth is based out of Toronto, with a team of about 45 people. Randy had about 25-years experience in the financial service industry. He went to law school only to discover, after graduation, that he didn't want to be a lawyer. While working in law, he started an investment club, where they invested in penny stocks. He lost money most of the time. I discovere

http://www.alainguillot.com/star-hansen/ Clutter can have negative effects on our mental, emotional, and financial health. Today we talk with Star Hansen, a Certified Professional Organizer who helps people get rid of stuff they no longer need. Whether it is old dishes, clothes you no longer wear, or gifts that you can’t throw away, little by little, clutter invades our homes. Letting go of things it's painful. But having a cluttered space can lead to feelings of sadness, anger, and depression. There is a direct correlation between living in a cluttered space and reduced mental focus. This can cause difficulties in problem-solving, memory retention, and concentration. Clutter is particularly harmful to people working from home, it can affect their work performance which can reduce their ability to earn money.

http://www.alainguillot.com/ed-rempel/ Ed Rempel from Unconventional Wisdom, is a financial blogger, a fee-for-service financial planner, and a tax accountant. His knowledge comes from helping thousands of Canadians with their financial plans. He creates solutions tailored for each particular client as opposed to a cookie cutter formula used by most of the financial industry. His mission is to help his clients and protect them from the “financial quackery” - sales pitches by unscrupulous financial product pushers more concerned with making a sale than helping a client. His experience includes: 25 years as a fee-for-service financial planner professional. 15 years as a financial blogger 35 years as a tax accountant. Writing comprehensive and personal financial plans for nearly 1,000 families. Helping more than 600 clients follow their financial plans. Managing more than $100 million in investments. We spoke about: "The Fake Financial Plan." Most advisors make their clients answer some questions, input the answ

http://www.alainguillot.com/julian-haber/ Julian has been a photographer for 15 years. His experience as a gig economy worker led him to write Gigonomics: A Field Guide for Freelancers in the Gig Economy. Julian feels that the media and politicians portrait the gig economy in an unfavorable light and for him, working as a freelancer, has been a very positive experience which he wants to share. Julian was on track to having the typical 9 to 5 cubical lifestyle. He had an MBA and he worked in the corporate environment for about 3 years, and he quickly realized that the normal 9 to 5 life was not for him. During his time as an employee, Julian took photography as a hobby. After a while, he started to exhibit his photos and eventually, he started taking clients, photographing small weddings, cocktail parties, and other events. Julian's employer was having financial difficulties and laid him off. This was the opportunity that Julian took to become a freelance photographer. His income took a big drop. He went from

Cait Flanders is an author, podcaster, speaker, and a conscious consumer. I love her book, The Year of Less, which came out this January 2018 and became a Wall Street Journal bestseller. The book was an easy read, it had a conversational tone,  It felt as if Cait was right here in my living room, talking to me, sharing her experiences, her journey from mindless consumption to becoming a more mindfull consumer. I was disappointed when I finished reading it. I wanted it to go longer.   Cait is rebelling against the social script. We are told that we should live our lives in a particular way. Marketers, family, and culture tell us what to do, how to behave in and what to consume. Well, Cait is experimenting with opting out of the social script and discovering her own path. Cait started blogging 18 years ago, Oct. 2010. She was 25 years old and had about $24,000 in debt. Her blog was called "Blonde on a Budget," and she wrote it to create some accountability for herself. At the beginning of her blogging endeavors

http://www.alainguillot.com/erin-lowry/ Erin Lowry is a personal finance expert, speaker, and author of the book Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together, based on her blog of the same name. Her book is a step-by-step guide to go from flat-broke to financial proficiency. She uses dry humor and hilarious personal stories to keep readers entertained Erin has appeared on many TV shows and many other podcasts. She is also writes for well-known magazines, she regularly speaks at universities and conferences around the country. Her main goal is to help millennials get their financial lives together. Erin started blogging in January 2013. She grew up in a household that was comfortable speaking about money. When she went to live on her own, she moved to New York, a very expensive city. In spite of her small salary at the time, Erin didn't feel stressed about her financial situation. While living in New York, she noticed that many of her friends felt insecure about their money situation

http://www.alainguillot.com/christian-knudsen/ Chief Technology Officer | Director of Sales | Speaker @ Dreamforce 2017  | Consultant | Sales Guru Follow Christian on LinkedIn. Christian has a strong background in Sales and Technolgy. LinkedIn has transformed his career. LinkedIn is a lot more than a platform to look for jobs. LinkedIn is a platform for enablement, it's a place where users build their personal brand. LinkedIn is different from the other social media platforms because it's the platform business people used to share their thoughts and activities. Christian has increased his LinkedIn following from 100 followers to 26,000 in less than one year. The best way to increase your influence is by having constant interaction in the platform. To be influential, It has very little to do with an official job title a person has in an organization and more to do with the value of the content they put out there. If a person puts valuable information, they will have followers and increase their level of inf

http://www.alainguillot.com/gabe-weisert/ ‎ Gabe Weisert is the managing editor of Zuora. Zuora is a publicly traded company in the New Your Stock Exchange (ZOU) focused on creating software for subscription-based businesses. Gabe started his career as a content marketer, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Forbes.Com, Huffington Post, Daily Beast and Yahoo! Travel. The subscription model is nothing new, newspapers have been using it for hundreds of years. But the model has been expanding to many industries. Today many of us have Netflix, Amazon Prime, works spaces like We Work, use brand name cars like Cadillac, bicycle sharing like Bixi, car sharing like Communoauto. We are moving to a subscription economy with great benefit to the end consumer as to the companies who manage to persuade us to use their services. From a personal finance point of view, this is great. You don't clutter your house with stuff (think of movies DVDs or audio CD), you get a greater se

http://www.alainguillot.com/michelle-talbert/ In this episode, we discuss personal finance and social issues as it relates to black America. Balck Americans are systemically discriminated upon. They have fewer employment opportunities, and when they get employed, they earn less than their white counterparts. And black women get paid proportionally less than white women. They are also charged higher interest for mortgages or other loans. They get arrested more often, many cases without cause as we can see in the Starbucks case. and when they get sentenced, they get harsher penalties. In short, personal finance is a lot more difficult for a black person than for a white person in North America. Obviously, Michelle and I didn't find the solution for these socioeconomic problems, but we are doing our part by bringing the conversation forward. This is a topic that has to brought up over and over again until equality and justice is predominant. Michelle is a life and business coach who provides platforms for women

http://www.alainguillot.com/andrei-polgar/ Andrie Polgar is an economist, an entrepreneur, a Youtuber, and an Author. One of the things that I find the most amazing about Andrei is that he's is from Romania and he lives in Romania, he lives in a non-English speaking environment, yet his YouTube Channel and his books are all in English. And his English is a high level academic English. This is a testament, that in our interconnected Internet society, time and distance are not barriers to success. He's host of the YouTube channel, One Minute Economics, with almost 27,000 subscribers, started on November 2015 and with almost 3 million views. Today, were talking about the release of his new book The Age of Anomaly which is being deeply discounted from $9 to $0.99 for this week only (August 6-12, 2018). I took a look at the book and it's massive and well written, in same caliber of many university level books which sell for over $100. If you are slightly interested in economics, I suggest you check it out. Key poi

http://www.alainguillot.com/sandi-martin/ Sandi Martin From Spring Financial Planning I heard from Sandi in an interview I had with Shannon Lee Simmons, Shannon recommended the podcast Because Money where Sandi is one of the participants in a roundtable. The podcast is almost like a telenovela, where the speakers present their different points of view and they are not afraid to disagree with one another. In the end, the listener gets a great learning experience from different points of view. Sandi graduated with a history major. She worked at a bookstore, and that's great because she loves reading. She went from staking books to the cash register, then to cash supervisor, and then she applied at a bank to be a teller. Most's people careers are generally not what they go to school for. Life is full of randomness. In a bank setting, it's hard to be good to your clients and also be a good employee. After eight years of working at the bank, and after building a family with 3 kids, Sandi decided to hang her own

http://www.alainguillot.com/jessica-moorhouse/ Jessica Moorhouse is a blogger, a podcaster, a speaker and an Accredited Financial Counselor-Canada® who shares tips on saving, budgeting & investing. But the thing that I know Jessica the most for is for bringing amazing guests to her podcast. Jessica started working at age 15, paid her university without any financial assistance. Jessica started blogging about 6 years ago, as a way to keep herself accountable for the way she was spending her money. But over time, her blog has become her career. I first heard about Jessica during my interview with Shannon Lee Simmons, episode #21. During that interview, Shannon told me that one of her favorite podcasters was Jessica Moorhouse. Jessica earned a degree on film production and her intention was to become a full-time film editor, but she graduated at the time of the recession and it was very difficult to find a job in the film industry. Eventually, Jessica found a job at a local newspaper she worked there for 3 y

http://www.alainguillot.com/jen-hemphill/ This is the first time I interview a fellow Latino. Like me, Jen is also from Colombia. I felt the connections right from the first email. I am so happy to have this interview. Jen Hemphill calls herself a "money confidence coach," but her real title is "Accredited Financial Counselor." Jen helps women gain confidence in their finances, she is a mother of two boys and a military wife. Because Jen is a military wife, she and her family moved quite often, which made it difficult for Jane to have a regular steady job. For Jen, it was important to be at home with her kids but she also wanted a career. After a long research, Jen decided to go into personal finance. There was a military spouse fellowship program to support military spouses and give them the tools to create a portable career. That was the beginning of the road to become an Accredited Financial Counselor. The next question was: "How to promote her services?" It was at this time that Jen started learning about

http://www.alainguillot.com/kornel-szrejber/ Kornel first became well known for paying his mortgage in his 20s. In a society where people are making mortgage payments way into their 50s, Kornel decided he didn't want any of that, he didn't want to be a slave to his bank. Once his mortgage was paid off, once he and his wife have learned the virtues of frugality, by saving 50% of their income, they focused all their energy into pilling money in their retirement accounts. By age 32 Kornel was Financially Independent. Kornel prefers freedom to work the 9 to 5 In a society, where people live from paycheck to paycheck, in a society where we are manipulated by advertising companies, and where we are persuaded to continue buying the latest this or that, Kornel decided to ignore the noise and focus on what's really important,  freedom to spend time with his family, freedom to build his days as he wants to instead of obeying the whims of an employer. If Kornel can do it, anyone can do it Kornel had a middle-class salar

http://www.alainguillot.com/roger-whitney/ I first heard about Roger in the Afford Anything Podcast. In this episode, he said: I don't believe in retirement Roger and I are the same age, 51, except that he's better looking than me, and he has more letters after his name. He started his career as a financial advisor in 1991, right at the beginning of the tech boom. He acquired all his superpowers by making lots of mistakes. Roger clientele of preference are those people who are transitioning into retirement or who are already in retirement. Roger didn’t want to be a general practitioner; he found it to be more rewarding to specialize in retirement. At one time in history, people used to work for a company for 40 years and at the end of the 40 years, the person would retire, receive the gold pen or a watch and receive pension checks for the rest of his/her life. There was not such a thing as a financial advisor for retirement. Some people still have that kind of retirement plan, but that’s becoming the exceptio

http://www.alainguillot.com/elizabeth-fournier/ The typical burial in North America cost about $10,000. The sad thing about that absurd prices is that the surviving members of the family are too sad, too stressed, and under a time limit to shop around for better options. In addition to losing a loved member of the family, two other bad things happen: Generally, families don't have $10,000 at their disposal to pay for funeral arrangements. Many families go into debt. Every burial creates too much damage to the environment. Burials across North America use tons of good wood, concrete, metals as well as millions of gallons of carcinogenic embalming fluid. Imagine that your aunt who has always been conscious of the environment. It would be disturbing to know that her last interaction with the planet would be one of pollution. [caption id="attachment_5479" align="aligncenter" width="546"] This burial is very polluting. Look at the hard wood, the metal, the concrete vault.[/caption] Expenses related to a burial B

http://www.alainguillot.com/the-escape-artist/ Barney, The Escape Artist, is a blogger based in England. The name of the blog came from the classic movie The Great Escape which plays every Christmas in England. His blog is about helping people get out of the financial prison camp in which many of us end up. If you are working on a job you don’t like or if you are in debt, you are in a prison-like situation. Breaking out of prison requires slow deliberate work which can have a huge payoff. Although not poor, during his childhood Barney developed some anxiety about money. His parents bought the biggest house they could afford. Shortly after the purchase interest rates went up in England to 17%. This series of events put Barney’s parents under a lot of stress. Barney decided he didn’t want that kind of life for himself, he chose a career which would pay him well and he decided not to climb escalator of lifestyle inflation. He tried to get a job as an investment banker, but because he wasn’t able to find a job in