On today’s episode, we will be interviewing Doug Macdonald, founder of Macdonald Shymko & Company, on his life as a financial planner, the secrets to his success, and the importance of the IAFP in his practice and to his clients.
David Miller:
So, thank you very much for joining us today. I have with me an extra special guest Doug McDonald, I can call him an extra special guest because of his lifetime achievement award, which he received June the 2nd, 2016 at the Canadian Wealth Professional Awards dinner. He is the founder of Macdonald Shymko & Company, which is in its 50th year. So, congratulations to Doug and thank you very much for joining me today.
Doug Macdonald:
It’s a pleasure to be here, David.
David Miller:
Now, what I always try to start with here is just maybe tell me a little bit your history and I really want you to start from the very beginning. Why did you become a financial planner in the first place?
Doug Macdonald:
Well, in the first place, I never heard of the term financial planner.
David Miller:
Never heard of the term financial planner?
Doug Macdonald:
Not in 1972. In fact, when we got to get other in May of 1972, I hadn’t heard of this term and it wasn’t until the 1980s that I heard of the term. So, when we started out, we called ourselves personal financial advisors-
David Miller:
Right.
Doug Macdonald:
… which we made it, we just made up. That was what we called ourselves. Okay. And we thought the word advisor suited what we did, because that’s what we were in, we were in the advice business. Basically back then, it was David Shymko, Doug Caldwell and myself got together and we saw this need and the need… And we came up with this vision and the vision basically was to provide independent, comprehensive fee-based, personal financial advice to individuals. That was the vision, okay? And out of that MSC was born and it was McDonald, Shymko and Caldwell. Shortly after that, Doug Caldwell departed and the C became company. And when he left, we were then joined by Adrian Mastracci and Larry Jacobson. And so, those were the individuals that were the founders. They were there back in the beginning when we really didn’t know what to do, except we felt we would model our practice after accountants, lawyers or architects.
David Miller:
Right. And-
Doug Macdonald:
And that was the focus. That was the vision.
David Miller:
… and Doug, before or even the vision, what led you to have this vision of advice only like an accountant or architect? Was it just seeing the industry as a whole and seeing a hole that you had to fill or seeing these other professions and just being a little bit jealous?
Doug Macdonald:
Well, the year before, I was teaching at the University of Saskatchewan for a year, I’d come out of the MBA program at UBC and I was always a bit of an entrepreneur and I always believed as an entrepreneur, you identified a need and you filled it.
David Miller:
Yeah. What did you teach?
Doug Macdonald:
Finance, marketing, accounting and economics.
David Miller:
Oh, okay. So, did you try businesses beforehand?
Doug Macdonald:
I was going to get into a business, which was a restaurant business with a friend of mine, but the guy with a money never showed up. Anyway, that’s… I didn’t have any money. Anyway, clearly there, given that you were prepared to starve a little bit, the barrier of entry to this business was low. Okay. David Shymko came out the MBA program as well. So, did Adrian, and I guess I always was more comfortable dealing with people who were really trying to sell me something. The industry back then was very product-driven and totally on commission, okay? I thought we could… There was a better way, okay? And it was interesting because we came up with the vision and the concept, then we went and talk to some of our professors at UBC or lawyers we knew or accountants we knew. They all said we were crazy, it would never, never, never work.
David Miller:
Right. Why did they say that?
Doug Macdonald:
[crosstalk 00:04:42] Well, because they didn’t believe it would work. Okay and they [crosstalk 00:04:45].
David Miller:
The lawyers, accountants got paid that way. Why not financial planners?
Doug Macdonald:
They just said, “Nobody will pay you.” They thought our bad debts would be 50%. Well, I can tell you our bad debts, we provided for 1% bad debts. Our bad debts have never got in excess of a quarter of a percent. And I guess maybe lawyers and accountants were… Well, not so much accountants, but lawyers were used to having significant bad debts, but that’s lawyers and they’re not business people usually.
David Miller:
Right.
Doug Macdonald:
Yeah. So anyway, that was the whole thing. And our goal was to make a difference in individual family lives. And that was core things have always been there with this Macdonald, Shymko and Company.
David Miller:
Yeah. That’s your motivation right there, just to help people. And that’s great.
Doug Macdonald:
Make a difference. Make a big [crosstalk 00:05:37]
David Miller:
So, how many years… Again, you said one person left.
Doug Macdonald:
Yeah.
David Miller:
How many years until you didn’t have any bad debts or how many years until you felt this was a success?
Doug Macdonald:
Well, I think you asked the question or mentioned what was the basis of our success? And maybe that’s the place to start. And I think the basis of our success was that we stayed with the original vision. We were dedicated to that original vision. And we had a very strong, common focus as to what we were going to achieve and how we were going to achieve it. Now, as for the mechanics, we learned as it happened, I remember a story that David and I went in and we’re interviewing prospective client and the client posed some questions to us. And we looked straight in the eye and said, “Yes, yep. When we next get together, we’ll discuss that and go through all of that.” And we walked out of that meeting and I turned to David and I said, “You know what he was talking about?” David said, “No, I have no idea.” I said, “Well, we got a week to figure it out.” But that’s who we were. And when we showed up the next week, we probably knew more about that subject than most everybody, and because we had a lot of time to learn and teach. And-
David Miller:
Yeah. And so, you were not worried about the money in the early days or you were just willing to starve or how did you manage? And that’s what I mean, how many years did it take for you to feel comfortable, I’d say?
Doug Macdonald:
Well, I think David’s wife was a teacher and my wife worked as well. We didn’t have any children at that point in time. And well, I guess we did one where it was company. Anyway, to make a [crosstalk 00:07:29].
David Miller:
Okay Yeah. We can’t forget our kids, right?
Doug Macdonald:
Well, to make a long story short, we were committed and we just made it happen and I taught for a year at university, so I had some money left over from that clearly. I was grossly overpaid. And I think then it came about really, for two reasons, our success, it was pretty rapid actually. I’ll take care of that.
David Miller:
Yeah. We can edit that out. Don’t worry.
Doug Macdonald:
Anyway, what was I saying, we were strongly committed and we got strong client referrals, okay? We had a broad base of financial knowledge, a strong desire to learn and it just fed itself quite frankly. And let’s face it, what we were doing was extremely unique. Okay. And we did very well on with the media because of that.
David Miller:
Okay.
Doug Macdonald:
We are very strong presence in the media and most people would say, “Well, you do what?” “Well, you don’t have any products?” “No.” So, from being in an industry that was product-driven, we created a niche that we were advice-driven and much of what we did was educate clients, show them the alternatives, okay? Basically with no axe to grind, either way. We weren’t licensed to do anything. You could even argue that we were a little offside to securities commission, but we knocked on their door very, very early in the game, explained to them what we were doing and how we were doing it. And they loved it.
David Miller:
Okay.
Doug Macdonald:
Their only advice to us was don’t get in trouble, because they didn’t want to do anything about us. They didn’t know where we fit but they were forced to look at us. We didn’t fit within the security sector, but we were definitely giving advice and financial advice.
David Miller:
Yeah. But not specific security advice, you weren’t selling anything, so therefore you couldn’t say this mutual fund or this stock was better than the other. You just provided the education.
Doug Macdonald:
Well, let’s put it this way. I sat in our boardroom with the head of this BC Securities Commission. And he asked me a question. He said, “If you have a client and he’s going to put $100,000 in the market and you send it back to his broker to do that. And that broker says, ‘Yes, that 80% of it should go into Yukon moose pasture.
Oh, sitting in this boardroom with this fellow from the Securities Commission, the head of Securities Commission. He said to me, “Well, if you had a client who you told to invest $100,000 in the market because that was the appropriate thing to do. And he came back and said, ‘The broker had estimated that 80% of the funds should go into something called Yukon moose pasture.’ How would you deal with that?” And I looked at him and I said, “Well…” His name was Rupert Bullock. “Well, Rupert, I would never give advice on a specific security. So, I would never talk about that security.” But he wouldn’t leave my boardroom till he understood that he was not to do that.
David Miller:
Gotcha.
Doug Macdonald:
And Rupert looked at me and said, “I would be very disappointed if the answer was anything else.” So, they understood who we were and what we did. We just had to be careful. And we implemented everything using brokers, mutual funds, everything like that. We used the existing product people that the guy dealt with, or if we didn’t have somebody, we would refer them to somebody.
David Miller:
And was the business always say an hourly cost or project-based? How did you make money from people?
Doug Macdonald:
The way we always explained it was the only person that paid us, was the client. Now, sometimes it was an hourly fee. Sometimes it was a quoted fee, okay? And then later on, that fee would be a function of what we were doing or if we were managing our funds because we eventually became registered with the securities advisor as a financial advisor then as a portfolio manager. Well, they just kept changing terms. Okay. So, whatever we were, I think initially we were investment counselors, okay? Because we wouldn’t allow them to put us under the other slot. So, that’s sort of how it evolved. And how long did take us to be successful? Not that long. I would say we were hiring people, brought in other assistants, probably in 1975, we were well on our way, okay?
David Miller:
Yeah. So, three years.
Doug Macdonald:
Three years. The secret was, or not the secret, most people couldn’t understand how we made money, but we did make money and we were very successful in making money.
David Miller:
Yeah. And the thing that I still struggle with, to be honest is when I think of a lawyer charging fees, I think that they have a little counter on their phone to count how many seconds they are talking to clients. I don’t think that’s what you would’ve done or you going to enlighten me is that to the extreme that you would’ve gone?
Doug Macdonald:
No, we didn’t do it on our phone but I knew that I started talking to you at 10 o’clock and it was now 10:45. So, I had a billing sheet on my desk and I’d write, “David Miller, three-quarters of an hour talking about da, da,” whatever we covered. And we sent out very detailed bills to our clients.
David Miller:
Right. So again, very much like a lawyer would.
Doug Macdonald:
Yeah. Except probably with a lot more verbiage.
David Miller:
Less lawyer talk.
Doug Macdonald:
Less lawyers. It would explain exactly because it was a form of communication as well, and it was also a form of documentation as to what we did.
David Miller:
Yeah. And to that point, you were hiring people, you were getting other people on board.,How big is the company at this point?
Doug Macdonald:
Well, this is actually kind of interesting. I think the company was the biggest about 1980, 1982. Well, probably 1980 simply because technology wasn’t there. So we had, for example, we had one lady who was the accountant count and we had three other people in the office doing accounting, maybe half time. In 1979, we went out and bought a computer cost us $36,000.
David Miller:
Right.
Doug Macdonald:
That was a lot of money in 1980.
David Miller:
Inflation.
Doug Macdonald:
But after that, once we got it up and going, we had one person, the accountant spending three-quarters of her time doing accounting. So, we brought in more types of business that facilitate… And that we were an early adopter of accounting. I’m going to show you this thing on my desk. This was an HP 80. We [crosstalk 00:16:15].
David Miller:
And we’re on podcast here, Doug, nobody can see that.
Doug Macdonald:
I know that. But that’s what it was, an HP-80.
David Miller:
Yeah.
Doug Macdonald:
We acquired these in 1973. With this HP-80, I had present value, future value. The things I could do with this computer was amazing.
David Miller:
That’s amazing, right?
Doug Macdonald:
Yeah. That’s right. And I’d sit in offices with the guys’ accountant and I’d come up, “No, no, no, this would be the figures.” Or, “No, that’s would be the amortization.” Or, “That would be the future value.” Okay? And this was probably one of the most important things in our early success. We had the technology to do things that nobody else could do. And we had the knowledge to understand what it was we were doing. We came up with a concept very early on called financial independence which is used a lot now, but that was our concept. And financial independence wasn’t when you were going to retire, nobody like to talk about retirement. It scared them in many ways, but they love to talk about financial independence.
Doug Macdonald:
And simply state, what is financial independence? That old song, take that job and shove it, that’s financial independence. It doesn’t mean you retire. It’s just you’re now financially independent. And it’s amazing how many people over the years had achieved financial, wanted to retire, achieve financial independence. And once they knew they had financial independence, they actually like the job. It was no longer work. It was what they did every day. So, [crosstalk 00:17:56].
David Miller:
So, you say this was in the eighties, you started increasing your technology. That’s when you said that was the biggest company. That’s surprising.
Doug Macdonald:
Well, because we limited staff.
David Miller:
Right. So, you had more people, but not from a size of [crosstalk 00:18:09].
Doug Macdonald:
We used to be a triangle with a big base.
David Miller:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I get it.
Doug Macdonald:
And small at the top. Now, we’re the other way around. We’re a reverse triangle, okay?
David Miller:
Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Macdonald:
We’ve got much more advisors and much less staff because well, all the young ones can type and they do this and they do that. And they dictate onto this, they dictate into the time and billing system. They dictate and do… We scan all the memos. It’s just a totally different business.
David Miller:
To that point, how many advisors does McDonald Shymko have right now? Sorry. I know you’re a little bit removed from the business but-
Doug Macdonald:
I’d say 10.
David Miller:
Okay.
Doug Macdonald:
And that might be low, it’s about 10. Yeah.
David Miller:
And it’s still the same ideals, same motivation. You’re not selling any products. The current business model still stands from 1972. That’s incredible.
Doug Macdonald:
Yeah. The methodologies and the mechanics of how we work, okay? That has changed. But right now, for example, I never go to the office, but I’m retired, but we went through COVID and everybody worked from home. Okay. So, we’ve had to change. We’ve had to adopt technology. Now, we have clients who’d much rather have a Zoom meeting than come downtown. Well, if you’ve been downtown Vancouver, you’d understand why. You just don’t want to go there. You don’t want to park there.
David Miller:
Right.
Doug Macdonald:
I think initially, you have to have face-to-face meetings, because that’s how you build.
David Miller:
Yeah. You have to get in front of somebody. Yeah.
Doug Macdonald:
Absolutely. But after that, why do I want to chug in from White Rock? We dug for an hour and a half. Let’s just do a Zoom meeting. Okay?
David Miller:
Yeah. Technology has completely changed the industry.
Doug Macdonald:
Industry, yeah. All these filing cabinets, we used to pay a lot because we stored every document, okay? And a long-time client might have 25 2-inch files.
David Miller:
Right.
Doug Macdonald:
And it’s all on storage. Okay? Now, it’s all being scanned and it’s all on some gigantic hard disk somewhere.
David Miller:
Exactly. And so, let’s change gears a little bit here, Doug. You are R.F.P. Certificate number 001, explain?
Doug Macdonald:
Well, I think that this goes back to a little bit of history of the professional association and we started in 1984, joining the Pacific Chapter of the CFP. And Dave and I, both were directors. I became president of the Pacific Chapter and then got involved in the national body as a director, then the president, this chairperson. But I always had this concept that we were in a profession. This was very important to me. And I was committed to this concept, and first of all, my commitment was within our firm okay? And so, we always drove home and one of the very wasn’t the original concept, but it very quickly came about, we strongly believed if we always did what was in the best interest of the client, even though it appeared not to be in our best interest, in the long term, it always turned out to be in our best interest. Okay?
Doug Macdonald:
And so, the two were not in opposition, they were in fact in sync. So, we were always committed to that, the concept of professionalism and all that. So, in 1987, that’s when we came up with a professional designation, RFP and I convinced the executive to back me on that. Okay? And then when we came about handing out these certificates, the first five numbers went to the executive, and then I picked, the rest of the board chapter presidents because these were the people that were involved in doing it and making it happen, and I don’t know.
Doug Macdonald:
And so, when we did come up with the RFP, then we took the code of ethics and we rewrote it. We came up with practice standards. We came up with the board of Regents and that’s really the background of the history. And then unfortunately, forces inside and forces outside called CAFP to break up, but very quickly a group of RFPs… And then eventually all the RFPs joined together in the IAFP and it became a professional association in my mind. And we strengthened the code of ethics and we strengthened the professional standards and continued to evolve from there. And that’s always been my passion is the professionalism, the professional designation, and this whole concept of being a fiduciary. And you see, I believe that every RFP is in fact, a fiduciary because the definitions of a fiduciary are very easy to achieve.
Doug Macdonald:
Very simple. You’ve got your client’s best interest, good faith and trust, disclosure of all conflicts, sources of remuneration, indirect or direct. You’ve got a duty of competency in any area, give advice to, a duty of care, a duty of loyalty, a duty of obedience. And that’s achievable. I was very pleased, I think about four years ago, somehow it came up in our annual meeting and the question was asked of the room at the national convention there, “How many advisors felt they were fiduciary? Please stand up.” And everybody in the room stood up, except one.
David Miller:
Right.
Doug Macdonald:
And he was concerned that he wasn’t. But after talking to him, I was totally convinced, he met the definition of fiduciary.
David Miller:
Yeah. So, what is your definition of fiduciary?
Doug Macdonald:
I just listed it. A fiduciary-
David Miller:
Yeah. Yeah. Let’s see.
Doug Macdonald:
… I’m going legal definitions. I read all about it. [crosstalk 00:25:08].
David Miller:
As long as you follow the ethics, as long as you follow these things [crosstalk 00:25:12].
Doug Macdonald:
Our ethics were written with the term… Because I was involved in writing them, okay. Was with David last time… Maybe they’d been written again since, but last time with David Christianson, we took that concept of fiduciary and put it in the court of ethics. We took that word fiduciary and put it in practice standards. So, if you’re following those, you are a fiduciary. The person who didn’t stand up failed because he charged commissions. He wasn’t a fiduciary and I disagreed totally with him.
David Miller:
Okay.
Doug Macdonald:
You can be doing anything and be a fiduciary if you follow those principles, okay? And it’s just a question of disclosure. The client knows and knows there may be a conflict of interest, okay? Or knows even if, for example, you’re restricted only to sell RBC products. And one would say, “Well, that would stop me from being a fiduciary.” It doesn’t long as you advise the client that there’s other alternatives in what they might be and that you’re limited to only sell RBC products.
David Miller:
And that’s-
Doug Macdonald:
And you’re fullfilling that fiduciary duty. Okay? The client may choose to go elsewhere, but then he’s going to learn that if he goes elsewhere, he’s probably going to have to find another advisor because you can’t, but the client knows that he can figure that out.
David Miller:
Yeah. So, to be a fiduciary in your mind, it’s purely on the individual and their ethics?
Doug Macdonald:
Yes. And sometimes that can come in conflict. I think early lawyers did that. A lot of lawyers said, “Never call yourself a fiduciary, okay? You can get yourself in difficulty.” I don’t believe it at all. I’ve often said, I told clients, I’m a fiduciary.
David Miller:
Well, can I put it aside here? I worked at a big bank and I was a CFP and we had our ethics. One of the ethics was put your clients first. And I found, I couldn’t because A), my manager would be on me to sell RBC mutual…. RBC mutual funds and I couldn’t sell anything else. And I would look at a client and say, “Well, you’re better off at direct investing or at this firm or this.” And I’d feel good about it myself, but then my manager would come in and the pressure. And I’m not at the big bank anymore. And I don’t feel that pressure anymore. Maybe speak to that.
Doug Macdonald:
Well, what you’re talking about is not easy, okay? And some people succumb to that pressure. And then they’re not acting in a fiduciary way. And if I had my way, I think the regulators are missing the boat. This is a pet peeve, I pursued with the regulators for a long time, but they come up with ideas like best practices and all these things that are hard to put up thing about. And if they came up with a very simple regulation that anybody who wants to call themself an advisor or a similar term, or imply that they are acting as an advisor, they should be registered as a fiduciary. And if they’re not registered, they would otherwise be deemed to be a fiduciary and let the courts take care of that. So, then you at the Royal Bank, the Royal Bank would have a problem.
Doug Macdonald:
If we’re going to let David call himself a fiduciary, then we have to give him the rooms to act like that because not only would David get sued, the bank will be sued. So, then they’d come out and say, “Well, David, you can’t call yourself a fiduciary.” And then that creates the issue from a client point of view and say, “Well, David, I’m talking to this other guy and he’s a fiduciary representing my interest, knowing me all these duties, but you don’t use that to fiduciary and you don’t even call yourself an advisor because you’re not allowed to.” I think we just solved the regulatory problem there.
David Miller:
Yeah, I agree. And the issue stems from the idea that a big bank is not working for the clients, they’re working for the shareholders. That’s the simple fact. And they have a lot of power under regulation and I totally agree. The fiduciary rule should stand for all advisors, but just, yeah, there’s [crosstalk 00:29:53].
Doug Macdonald:
You want to use the term advisor? See, I believe that that’s why we used the term when we first started up, we came up with the term, we were personal financial advisors because in our idea, we understood what an advisor was. Advisor represents the client and is giving professional advice to that client, and has a fiduciary duty. I hadn’t heard of the term fiduciary back then, but I picked up on that in the eighties and that was my focus. And I hope that we get there someday so I could see it. I don’t have that belief anymore. I think the institutions you talk about have too much power and too much clouts and they’re never going to let us get away from that. So, the term advisor, everybody’s advisor today. It’s unfortunate, but-
David Miller:
And the public doesn’t know, that’s the problem. There’s not enough public understanding of these terms. It’s confusing.
Doug Macdonald:
I agree. But the public is a lot smarter than you think. I get people call up, especially when I was there, but even recently, I got a call, somebody wanted to talk to me and wondered whether I was available to assist this person. But he asked me, “Are you a fiduciary?” So, it’s out there. It’s just not very strong and using terms like best practices and that sort of muddy the waters. It’s like getting the batter box and kicking the lines apart because people don’t like lines, okay? It confuses you, at least that’s their argument. And I don’t think it confuses, I think it makes it damn very clear. If I have a fiduciary duty to my clients, then it’s very clear what my responsibilities are.
David Miller:
I like it.
Doug Macdonald:
Yeah. That’s a soapbox I’ve been on for many years now.
David Miller:
Well, now it’s on a podcast and recorded forever and out there. Now, tell me, why are you still active with the IAFP? Why is it important for somebody to maybe join the IAFP?
Doug Macdonald:
Well, I’m still… I don’t know. The firm is certainly committed to the IAFP. Okay? We’ve always committed to… And I think it goes back to this term professionalism, okay? And it’s been a very big part of our lives and our business model. And even today, I think one of the advisors of MSC is serving on the national board, okay? We’re committed to the designation. All the advisors of MSC are working towards becoming R.F.P.s. Most of them were committed to attending the conventions. Okay, think almost everybody attended the recent convention except myself.
Doug Macdonald:
And basically, I think the reason the IAFP is important is its professional designation and the professionalism of its members. And to me, the key to the association has always been the members, the people. They use their term. They’re always, to me being a cut above everybody else. We’ve on occasion being accused of elitist. Well, there’s always people that are more professional than other people, and I think we gravitate towards those people and those people gravitate towards us, and that’s not going to include everybody, okay? That’s unfortunate. I do think we have been very successful in having a higher bar and promoting a higher bar because then other groups have risen to that, okay? And I guess there’s two ways of addressing this approach to professionalism. You could join the bigger group and then try to push it up or you could form what ends up being a smaller group, but keep raising the bar and forcing them to come to you. And I think we’ve been successful in that. And I think we should all be very proud of that.
David Miller:
Yeah, absolutely. And this can lead to the next question, which is really, what is your best advice for new planners coming up? So, if someone’s… Not everybody can just start and work for McDonald Shymko. You can’t take on everybody who wants to become a Fee-Only Planner for example, but somebody getting in the industry, what would you say to them as the best way to start? Because I think there was a lot of even bank employees who want to become independent for example, and they just don’t know how to get out of that, the big institution firm.
Doug Macdonald:
Yeah. Well, I’ll answer it two different ways. There’s a lot of firms out there today who people I meet and they say, “Oh, I’ve set my business. I just try to emulate what you guys do.” And there’s people that we got involved with and helped them do it, okay? But it’s not an easy thing because it’s sort of a step off the normal platform, okay? So, my best advice to planners is to focus on education and experience. And maybe you got to go work for that bank for a couple of years, okay? It will teach you two things, probably how to communicate with people, okay? And what not to do. I had a lot of different jobs and the biggest thing I learned in different jobs before I started, this was involved in starting this business was I learned what not to do.
Doug Macdonald:
Like I worked for the Hudson’s Bay way back when, and every little manager was his own little kingdom. And we used to fight against each other. We would steal their staff and they would steal ours and would… And I said, “This is crazy.” Okay? And one of the keys of McDonald Shymko, we all bought into the fact, we’re all trying to pull a single rope. And that was one of the keys to our success. I think I said that had a common focus. So, it didn’t matter whether you brought the client in or you spent the time, it just all came together in the same pot. Well, that’s pretty idealistic, I think, but maybe we suffered from a significant dose of idealism or we probably wouldn’t have started this business. So, education and experience. Secondly, associate with like-minded people, that’s where the IAFP can play a good role.
David Miller:
Absolutely.
Doug Macdonald:
Okay? And my last thing is hold yourself out as a fiduciary because that’s what people are looking for. They may not understand the term or anything like that, but you can explain it to them, okay? Because that’s the need. Okay? And I think those will set you off. And then if you associate with people and you mentioned it, you learn a lot from those people. I’m also a member or I don’t think I am now of NAPFA Association of the United States. Well, I got involved with them in 1990. Well, it was a really interesting experience because you’d go there, and so you’d be talking about something and some guy would say, “Oh no, no, no. I have this form that I use and I disclose everything to them and they sign it and they go, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.'” He said, “Well, anybody wants it, just give me your card and I’ll send it to you.” This phenomenal sharing in community, okay? And I think if there’s any place you’re going to find that, you’re going to find that within the IAFP and dealing with people with experience, et cetera, cetera.
Doug Macdonald:
I once told you about a story of sitting down with a totally commission-based planner and myself as a fee-based planner. We had two and a half hours to kill in the Toronto airport. And we started talking, thinking that our businesses were totally different. And after two and a half hours, I realized that about 90% of our businesses are exactly the same, and there may be a 5% difference. That was a really big eye-opening, opener for me. And I learned a lot and I think he learned a lot. And that’s what would be my best advice to new planners, okay? But there is a leap of faith.
David Miller:
Definitely.
Doug Macdonald:
Definitely. Yeah.
David Miller:
And so, you’re retired now, are you mentoring? Are you still seeing clients? You said you tried to retire a while ago, maybe elaborate?
Doug Macdonald:
Well, David, I love this business. Every day is different, why? Because clients are different. You can be dealing with four executives from the same company and they all have different goals and everything in that regards. So, that’s fun, they all have different circumstances, different kids, different connections. So, it’s always been a lot of fun from that point of view. And so, when it came to retiring, obviously I knew I had to retire, but one of the nice things about this profession is you don’t have to do it cold turkey. If you’re a senior vice president for a large mining company and you sort of decide that, “I’m 54 years old and then six years I’d like to retire.” Okay. They might be showing you the door in six months.
Doug Macdonald:
Okay. You don’t have that option. And I have lots of clients that cold turkey. One day they were working and the next day they had a large shack, but they were no longer employed, and they were 61 years old and didn’t know what the hell to do with themselves. So, I had the advantage to gradually retire. Right now, I’m still involved with two clients, okay? There is somebody in office that is also involved with them. I’m mentoring in that regards. For example, just yesterday, I had a breakfast with Larry Jacobson and much of the breakfast was talking about how we might approach with clients, the possibility of the capital gain inclusion rate would be changed and what circumstances would result in this kind of device and what circumstances would result in that kind of advice, et cetera, et cetera.
Doug Macdonald:
I love doing that. Okay? I love do a lot more reading. Okay. I do a lot more thinking and I do it because I want to do it, not because somebody’s paying me to do it, okay? So right now, I’m involved with two clients and of course, my biggest client’s myself, because all my life, everything that I’ve done for my clients, I did for myself, annual goals, annual balance sheets, to-do lists, all that approach. So, what I’ve done for my clients, I’ve done for them. So, yeah, I’m fully retired, but I’m not dead yet.
David Miller:
Well, your passion is evident. You have fun with your job, you never work a job in your life, I think that is so classically true. And to that point, is there anything else you’d like to bring up, being that this can be your soapbox?
Doug Macdonald:
Oh, don’t give me that kind of thing. I guess I’d like to end with a message to new planners or people thinking about this. And I come to this conclusion, I’m somewhat repeating myself, but I think it’s the right place to end is I’ve done this for almost 50 years now. Every day is different, new challenges, I love the challenges. Okay? I think the most important thing about being a financial planner is that you get to think outside the box. If you let yourself get trapped in a box, you’re not a very good planner. There’s always different ways to skin a cat, and that’s it and that’s why it’s been a lot of fun. And yes I am passionate, I get carried away. And I just like to end that the real value to me of this profession is that I end up making a difference, sometimes a profound difference in the long term lives of clients and God, that’s so rewarding.
David Miller:
Doug, thank you so, so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for your service, not just to the clients you’ve serve, but to the industry. There’s a reason you receive a lifetime achievement award and it’s because the passion has really pulled you through all these years. So, again, congratulations on your retirement. I know you’re still… You say retirement, but two clients, you never stop.
Doug Macdonald:
Oh, you don’t. Well, the difference is I no longer meet them at the office.
David Miller:
Exactly.
Doug Macdonald:
Tomorrow, I’m meeting at a restaurant with this guy [crosstalk 00:45:16].
David Miller:
So it becomes your social aspect, right? It becomes more [crosstalk 00:45:19].
Doug Macdonald:
And we’re going to kill a bottle of wine together.
David Miller:
Yeah, exactly. Well, go kill a bottle of wine. Thank you very much, Doug. Have a great rest of your day.
Doug Macdonald:
Thank you.
1275 West 6th Ave.
Suite 300
Vancouver, BC V6H 1A6
