Well Year 1 is almost in the books and what a year it was for me on so many fronts. Here are some of the things I learned:

            You cannot be all things to all people. Sometimes you have to pick and choose.

            The media’s sole job is to sell views/clicks/reads. We have gotten worse at filtering out the noise (we are guilty of it in Canada too) and getting to the facts. #FakeNews is all part of that noise to distractify all of us. Read with a critical mind ALWAYS

            Knowing when to buy is pretty easy. Knowing when to say goodbye is harder. See this blog post where I ruminate on selling.

            Financial Planning is an INTEGRAL part of Investment Management. I did not understand this at first but now it is a core principle of my wealth management practice. You can’t build the right portfolio without having the full picture for each and every client

            Bitcoin and other Cryptoassets are a mania. There is zero reason for a 1700% rise on Bitcoin in 11 months.

            Bitcoin and other Cryptoassets are not going away. The individual coins like Bitcoin, Ether or Litecoin may not survive but the overall technology of blockchain and decentralized applications has great potential for many industries.

            Always question both sides of your argument. Remember pets.com from the late 90s? It was online pet food ordering. Everyone laughed and the company died in the tech crash of 1999. Guess how I got my dog’s last bag of food? Amazon. Yep, not laughing anymore. This exact reason is why I am learning all I can about lithium batteries, blockchain technologies and medical robotics. No one knows what they will become in 20 years but I will keep an open mind about the potential outcomes available.

            The people are the first and last reason to do it. Don’t do anything for the money. Don’t do it for the prestige. Do it for the people. The clients and the people that work for me are the reason I get up every day and love coming to work. Making sure they get meaningfulness out of my interactions makes everything right in the end.

            Lastly, a good family is worth their weight in Bitcoin. Having a strong, supportive family at home gives me the confidence to do what needs to be done to get the job done for my stakeholders (the clients and employees) and boy do I have that in spades.

What to look for in 2018? Well I will delve even deeper into Financial Planning. Some clients are still waiting their turn and I will make sure we cut the backlog down a lot this year. On top of that look for more info on Estate Planning and managing an Estate. Business Owners can be particularly impacted by poorly planned Wills and Powers of Attorney.

            A deeper move into Discretionary Management is coming. I will continue to improve on our investment management processes to help clients meet their goals. Discretionary Management is a more efficient way to manage your portfolio on a day to day basis.

            Markets will be up. Or maybe they will be down. Shrugs. No one knows but they won’t be boring. We are at record low volatility with historically low interest rates. It won’t last forever like this but that does not mean the world will fall apart if interest rates go up (Hint- they are going higher) from the near zero to slightly above zero.

            Lastly a couple of resolutions for the year: travel more and smartphone less

            I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy 2018!