Building Financial Resilience: Philanthropy, Risk & Legacy Planning ft. Mark Halpern

So many of us avoid conversations about wills, estate planning, and what happens after we’re gone. It can feel uncomfortable, morbid — or like something we’ll just “get to later.” But the truth is, these are some of the most important conversations we can have if we want to protect our families and create impact that lasts.

My guest today, Mark Halpern, has built his life’s work around helping people move from simply achieving success to creating significance. He’s one of Canada’s leading experts in using life insurance, tax strategy, and philanthropy not just to preserve wealth, but to unlock opportunities for meaningful giving. His guidance has already helped direct more than $300 million to Canadian charities — while helping families feel more secure, more prepared, and more intentional about their legacies.

This episode is about getting comfortable with the planning most of us avoid — and seeing how estate planning, when done thoughtfully, can protect the people we love and support the causes that matter most to us.

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[Host: Lauren Scott] Welcome back to another episode of The Resilience Report.

Today is going to be great because it truly plays into some of the key themes you, our listeners, have told us in the past you love, which are sustainable finance, philanthropy, and risk mitigation. Our next guest really has found a career in a space, I'd say, at the intersection of those different pieces, and is going to be able to share some key insights. So, with that, I would love to welcome Mark to the show.

[Guest: Mark Halpern] Thank you so much, Lauren, it's so lovely to be here.

So to help set the stage, because it is an intersection. I would love if you could just share maybe how you got to where you are today in your career, because it's certainly been a very interesting path.

Well, thank you. It's been 35 years, and I always like to say it's like going through the gauntlet, as everybody does. But my real start was in 1974, when my father died of a heart attack at the age of 50.

I was 11 at the time, I was the youngest of 4 boys, and my mother, who was a stay-at-home mom, had to go back to work to support her family. Why? My dad was an amazing father, I have great memories, but he was also a very busy engineer.And as such, he was looking after so many other things when it came to some basic planning, like having a will, having savings or, you know, an insurance policy. Unfortunately, we didn't have that, so it was really very hard for us. We had to develop a, you know, a struggle muscle, which is a good thing to have.

But fast forward, I work with some of Canada's most successful business owners and entrepreneurs and affluent families, and you'd think they'd have everything all organized and together, Lauren, but I would venture to guess 85% of the time, and I keep bumping that up, I'd say it's not true. They're so busy looking after everything and everyone else, that they don't have basic financial and estate planning in place. Things like wills, or powers of attorney, or how they own things, or shareholders agreements. So, there's no cookie cutter, so we help in three different ways. We do estate planning, just making sure that people's financial architecture and their financial furniture actually aligns with reality. Second area that we're involved with is tax mitigation strategies. We specialize in tax-exempt insurance, which is often not so well understood. And then the last area, Lauren, is philanthropy. We love helping people create enduring legacies, often just by converting tax into charity. So I really love what I do, and I love having these conversations.

You hit on something that's so true, which is, I think, a lot of us view financial success a certain way. Maybe it's just, you know, having our business go as fast and as deep as it can, but we don't necessarily think about finances in a holistic way.

How do you approach financial resilience in that case? It sounds like you're really thinking about the broader strokes as opposed to maybe just seeing successful numbers or wealth accumulation.

Yeah, you're right. You mentioned the word holistic. Holistic means looking at things from the big picture, not sort of being a product pusher, or you're selling a concept, or a transaction of some kind. I like to actually use the… an example parable of somebody who likes sports. Let's say, unfortunately, I live in Toronto, you're in Montreal, Lauren, so you've had a much better hockey team than we have, although I won't admit it. But, you know, I've lived and died by the Toronto Maple Leafs, but one of the things that people love is the playoffs. You know, the playoffs are this, you know, very heavy-duty, several weeks of grinding it out, and then there's a champion that wins the Stanley Cup. And what's interesting, Lauren, is the team that wins the Stanley Cup is normally the team with the best defense. They're the ones with the best goalie, the best defenseman. The goal scorers are good, but they're few and far between. 

So most of the people that I meet, particular entrepreneurs, are all offense. It's all building, creativity, you know, leveraging, risk-taking. And they don't really look at the defense, because it's just not as sexy. But if you really want to be successful in life, you have to look at that defense, because, you know, nobody's immune to disaster. Just think of the Titanic as a very good example.

And I love that you mentioned philanthropy as one of your pillars as well, because a lot of our listeners are business leaders and entrepreneurs, and they're thinking about how can they have a positive impact, and a lot of us are thinking about how can we have generational wealth within our family, but then are also trying to think of how we can contribute to broader society, and I think the angle you're taking is that it doesn't have to be one or the other, that we can really think about it as strengthening on both sides as we build as a family as well.

Absolutely. I like to think there are kind of two people out there. There are those who give bBecause it's just part of their makeup. They learned it in their religious schools or institutions or their family. They just have that DNA. And then there are other people who don't. They just never got that training.

When those people who don't realize that they have a choice where they can give their taxes to, that their taxes could actually go to charity as opposed to going to Ottawa, suddenly they become accidental philanthropists. And the people who are already giving, when they understand about strategic philanthropy, they can actually give more for the same amount that they were putting out, or give the same amount for less cost. So, you know, it's really important to understand who you are.

You mentioned about, is it good for business? Lookit, there are different motivations for people who give money to charity. Some do it completely anonymously. Don't use my name anywhere, otherwise I'll never give you another penny. Those are very respectful people. Others do it because they want to encourage other people to give. And other people do it because they want some sort of immortality. They want their name on a building, or, you know, a school chair or something. Then there are those people who do it for tax, right? That they want to save taxes. 

But there's also a big piece of people who do it who do it for their business. It's good to be philanthropic for business and to build in philanthropy into your business, because people like to do business with people who are giving back. Especially when it comes to creating a vision for a business of, like, you know, if you could do anything, like, there was no, you know, impossibilities. Like, how… dream big, you know? And if… and we've actually created, it's called, sort of like a 10-point Plan to turn your business into a philanthropic, entrepreneurial business, where you can actually find money in your business to give away, and then make noise about that, and get your clients involved, and your suppliers involved, and your staff, and it can really create a tremendous energy, which we're all looking for. We need some passion, we need that energy, but it's amazing what can be done. All that is required is you have to give it some attention.

Maybe just to double-click into that for a second as well, I feel like this wasn't necessarily something we were all taught, and I went to business school.

We do have listeners who are curious to learn more. Are there certain tools, or do you feel like this is such an emerging market that it's, like, this story is being built as we go right now?

I'd say that it's getting more and more newsworthy. Why? I really feel like COVID really smacked us around. A lot of people are still recovering. I feel so bad for the little kids who had to, you know, be homeschooled for all those years. But COVID made us much more aware of our mortality, right? And also more aware of our… of our incompletions, besides, you know, wills and things like that. 

One of those incompletions was our legacy. You know, like, most people will give money if, you know, if Lauren, you called me up and said, Mark, I'm riding my bike to Barrie to conquer cancer, I give you my credit card number and off we go. But how many people have actually integrated strategic philanthropy into their estate plans, or into their business planning? 

So, I think that people are much more interested in what I call going from Success to Significance, and people can do that. And I think the important part here, Lauren, is understanding why is it that they don't know about this, or what information do they need to have? There are a lot of advisors out there. I would suggest maybe 95% of advisors are not really talking about philanthropy in a very strategic way. So, if they're not speaking about it, and the charities are only interested in collecting money to keep the lights on with, you know, checks and credit cards and maybe some donation of appreciated securities. If you're not learning it from those two pillars, then nobody knows about it. So it's kind of… it's almost like, you know, if I had the cure for cancer, and I sort of created this in my garage, I'd come out and, like, who do I tell it to? Like, who's first, and who's gonna listen, and who's gonna believe me? Well, we don't have the cure for cancer, but there is so much incredible planning that the government has you know, given a checkmark to, to allow people to be more generous to charity, because the government realizes that they cannot maintain the infrastructure of all the social needs of our country. So I think it's really important that people find out how they could be using charity every year to mitigate taxes, and how they could be using charity to actually convert taxes in their estate to charitable legacies. So, I think those are some of the areas that need a little bolstering, and that's why I'm really happy, Lauren, to speak to your listeners about this.

You mentioned the pandemic, and it certainly feels… it's crazy, actually. We're recording this just heading into 2026, and it feels like so much has changed over the past 6 years, and it's just been economic turmoil, supply chain, it feels like everything is changing, and risk is just getting higher and higher. It might be an awareness piece, but it certainly seems like there's a lot to be considering. When you're talking to your customers and you're taking risk mitigation into consideration, how can this kind of proactive planning create a bit of a sense of calm, I guess? Because I think so many of us are trying to feel like, how do we protect our families, how do we protect our businesses with this constant change?

So, let me give you some more stuff to be scared about before I give you the response. The first one I think that people have to realize is governments are not going to be capable of taking care of the elderly in this country. That's not a political statement, it's a math problem. The baby boomers started turning 65 in the year 2011. You're gonna see a lot of old people in this country. That's why there's such a massive immigration to… to be there to help those older people when they're retired, and sustain things like CPP. To compound that, we're living longer. As a matter of fact, you know, there were people back in the 40s, 30s who were living to age 47. 50% of babies that are born today are going to live past 100. Right? So you're gonna see a lot of people long on life, and possibly short on money, with this false expectation there's gonna be this huge wealth transfer from our parents, the greatest saving generation of all time to us that's the greatest spending generation of all time, but they're gonna need it for healthcare, they're gonna need it for taxes, etc.

And I think also social media, Lauren, has made it very hard to find the information we need. Like, we're all surfing. But it's kind of a bit of a misinformation age. Like, you know, we need… You know, sort of critical thinking, holistic planning, somebody who's going to look at the big picture and do the diagnostics and the analysis, and then prescribe the prescription versus providing the prescription before the diagnosis, which we call malpractice. So, I think it's… your listeners have probably heard of an insurance ad that was done years ago, it was called Freedom 55. Today is when your youngest child is 55.

So I say that, you know, sort of tongue-in-cheek, but… when we came out of school, like, you could buy a house, or you could get a job, you could… things have become so expensive, certainly in the major metropolitan cities, that more than ever, we need this. And in answer to your question, what this does, going through this exercise, is it's all about giving people peace of mind, knowing where everything is, and what everything is, and having that, sort of that plan in place, as opposed to sort of doing it, you know, while on the seat of your pants, and dealing with possible crises that come out, and you don't have things in place, like… somebody dies without a will. Like, Lauren, do you know what happens in Canada if somebody dies without a will? Are you aware of that?

Oh, gosh. I would imagine half of it goes to the government. Am I ballpark correct?

It depends. If you have a spouse and you die, just so you know, everything rolls over to your surviving spouse tax-free. Taxes are not due until the second to die, but let's say you're married, and you have children, minor children, and if you die without a will, that's called dying intestate. The government has a formula. They say the first $300,000 of your money goes to your spouse. And then the balance gets divided up between your spouse and your minor children equally. And your minor children's piece is invested by a public trustee in GICs until they turn 18, in which case then they get all the money.

So, chances are, it's probably not. So, that's where this whole planning, it's just ink on paper, but putting those things in place gives people the peace of mind, knowing that I'm gonna be okay no matter what happens. But it requires having the desire and putting in the effort to get the process started.

It's interesting you bring up wills. I found that when… so about a decade ago, my husband and I, we don't have children, but we did make the decision about a decade ago to write our wills. And… you know, I remember for him, he found, like, it was such a… it felt, like, very morbid to talk about a will when we were at the time in our 20s, and I felt like we were really young, and I thought, oh, this is really interesting, but the more people I spoke to from my friend group, it was a really shared sentiment of, we don't really want to talk about it, or it's so far off, we don't need to think about it.

Maybe that's changed a little bit as more of my friends have had children, but even then, it's not… the same across the board. So do you feel like there are any… myths, or is it maybe more it just feels a little bit taboo and morbid that people don't want to talk about it? Because you talked about the consequence if people don't write a will, but do you feel like there are any myths or misconceptions that the general public does have about that in Canada?

Absolutely, lookit. Who wants to talk about death, you know?

That's why we have a whole entertainment industry to not talk, you know, so we don't have to think about anything other than, you know, having fun and, you know, enjoying our life. But nobody really likes to talk about death. It's kind of morbid, and it's not really a very sexy topic. Nobody wants to talk about what would you like to see happen when you retire? What would you like to see when you're in the retirement home? What would you like to see if you're in the nursing home? What would you like to see if, God forbid, you got sick.

It's like… it's yuck, right? So, it does require, I think, just an awakening that this stuff happens, and there's a time in your life when the lights will go on. Often it's unfortunately when somebody near or dear to you, a neighbor, a friend, takes ill. You know, I just had a conversation with a friend yesterday. Guy runs marathons, like, he's an… And he got up on Friday night from his table, and collapsed, and fell on the ground, and had a brain bleed, and was completely out, and they still don't know what it is. He's a guy with a significant business. He's maybe in his, you know, mid-50s, you know? And as I said, a marathon runner. 

I think that it… there's a time that you want to do it, and the time… the best time is when the sun is shining, obviously, because you have a lot more options. And I think also, to make it easier for yourself, you need to find the right address of a person who… you know, is gonna look at these things for you. Like, how are they gonna help you? They're gonna find what I call the things that really matter to you.

And I think one of the best ways to do that is you know, asking somebody that you care about or you respect, like, I'm looking at doing some planning, can you, like, who do you work with, you know? And maybe interviewing some people, but I will say that your listeners will realize that it's a lot easier than we think it is. It's just… the hardest part is making the decision to get it done, but once you do do it, it just gives you so much confidence and clarity and happiness To know that, you know, you're not leaving your family in a difficult situation, or giving the government way more than they deserve.

And you have a very ambitious, kind of moonshot goal of enabling a billion dollars annually in charitable giving, is that correct?

Correct. Yeah, we've actually created over $300 million just in the last six years, and that's just on our end. That's what we know about. We've probably, you know, educated so many other advisors across the country and in the U.S. as well, who hopefully took some of our ideas and implemented. We just don't know, you know, sort of what that might look like. But yeah, the thing that just gives some numbers. 

Canadians don't realize that, on death, charitable donations can be used to mitigate 100% of estate taxes. 100%, including going back the year prior. Which means that for every $2 that you leave to charity, you turn a dollar of tax into a dollar of charity.

So… so that's why it's so important to be looking at this as part of your estate planning, but… so I got this idea when… when I realized how little was known, that if If I could create a national community of 100 professional advisors and charities, where if each of us are creating $10 million a year of current gifts or legacy gifts, and you times that by 100, that's a billion dollars a year, and that's not sort of pie in the sky, it's kind of like crowdfunding. We already have about two dozen people in organizations that are already committed to this on a non-binding basis, but the idea there is education, wisdom, knowledge, learn these things and either incorporate it into what you're doing right now, or collaborate with us. Let us show you how to do it. Let us be the bench to help you achieve those things. Because, you know, there are two ways to create charity. I can either write a check myself, which is, you know, a small amount. Or I can get other people to write checks, which is way more money, and I can hopefully get a lot more merit in the next world for all of that, you know, that largesse of creating it. So, that's really what gets me up every morning. I love what I do, because I get to help people really create legacies that they didn't even realize they could do, and it doesn't have to be that your name is Warren Buffett or Bill Gates.

It's just even for the average person out there, Lauren. So, I would suggest that of your listeners, the people who are most… who should be taking this the most seriously are people who are single, widowed, and divorced. I know that sounds strange, we're not selling aluminum siding or something, but why single, widowed, and dwarves? Because they don't realize that without having a spouse, when they die. The government's gonna take 54% of all of their registered money. 54%. That means if you have a million dollar RSP, there's only $470 going to your family. There's… all the rest of it's going to the government. If you have stocks, or investment real estate, or a business. The government's gonna want 27% of the gain of what you put in. Or if you have a business, getting money out of your business could be taxed 50% or more. So, you can have a lot, and don't realize it's really not worth a lot. It's a lot smaller, so… it's just about helping educate people, and if we can, I think we can really achieve that billion-dollar goal, which is… we're planning for the end of December of 2030. That's when we want to have this in place. So that's why, Lauren, I appreciate giving you the… or you allowing to give me the audience to help people get, hopefully, excited about this as wel

And very tactically, we do have listeners who… are, you know, God forbid, recently widowed or divorced as well is not fun either, but if they recently had that change of status, is it too late for them to explore this? Like, does it need to happen prior to marriage, let's say, or can they explore this type of opportunity later in life as well?

You can do it at any time, at any time. I'm dealing with a, a woman right now who lives out of Toronto, I just went to visit her last week, and she is a widow, she, she's self-made, she's a very big, player in the stock market. As a matter of fact, she has, like I don't know, 7,000, 8,000 Apple shares at $15 a share. Imagine that? Should that very well. So she was feeling like a titan, like, feeling very good about herself, until I said. You're not worth $10 million. And you're only worth $6.5 million, so she said some words that I can't repeat on your podcast, because they'd be censored, and they're not coming for a woman in her 80s. But, you know, she had, like, a riff that was over $3 million, and she had, like $5 million of gains in stocks, and the nice part was that here's a person, you know, in their 80s that we were able to move the shells around in order to create this you know, legacy for charity, and mitigate taxes, and still, the family still gets, you know, what they were supposed to get, right? So, that's great. And now, with this lady, hopefully, she's gonna end up as part of her estate, at leaving $10 million to charity in a, in a, like, in a foundation or a donor-advised fund.

And she's already talking about, how can I give… I'd like to give $2 million to this, or I'm interested in education or poverty, and we're gonna… we're gonna curate some really great things that she can do by using house money. The money that was going to Ottawa. Which, of course, they need, of course. But at the same time, you know, we can use that money for things that people are passionate about.

It allows for that curation, for sure. You did mention your story when you were growing up of losing your father when you were 11, and thank you for sharing that. Do you feel like there are still, to this day, lessons of resilience that you learned at that moment that you're still applying years later?

Okay, it was very hard, I remember, it was on a Friday night, I was coming back from, like, a kid's club, and for some reason, I was walking through a little school… I haven't shared this, but I was walking through a school, and I had a little penknife with me. You remember those little penknives?

And I remember passing my street, and I saw a police car go by, and I was actually gonna wave them down. I was a little nervous, I was 11, you know, and it was dark, and… but when I got to my home, I saw the police car was there, and my brother, Howie, came running up to me saying, you know, Daddy might have died, Daddy might have died, and I think, you know, nobody prepares for that at all. I think the most preparation we have is what we see on TV, maybe some, you know, detective show, or, you know, somebody dies, and that sort of thing.

I'd say that, you know, the key there is you have, you have two choices, right? You either play in the past, right, which is you can't do anything about that, and sort of live that way, and there are a lot of people who do live that way, they live in the past, and sort of have that trauma or that narrative that follows them around forever. Or you have to be forward-thinking. You just look into the future and realize that whatever tools you need, you have already, and you just have to sort of take that one foot forward. I, for sure, have failed way more times that I've succeeded, Lauren, and each one of those, they say, you know, there's winners and there's learners. You know, each one of those, I took away a tremendous nugget to help me going forward, but life is just about pivoting and ratcheting and pivoting and ratcheting. And when a ratchet happens, it means it can't go back down again. You're just ratcheting up each time along the way.

And in order to do that, you have to have really good people around you, not just professional advisors, but, you know, a good friend, family, you know, a community. I think that today, you know, the average, I think, 7- to 11-year-old is spending somewhere like 8 to 12 hours on social media. Like, when we were kids, Lauren, what did we do all day? We were outside, right? Playing, road hockey, whatever the case might be, and then… being called in when it was dark out, and there was no GPS, there was no texting, there was no WhatsApp. And unfortunately, those kids are not getting that, and it makes me very nervous about the future, just that whole interaction. But, yeah, I just think that, you know, you just have to know that you're in a boxing ring. And you're gonna get punched, that's the… that's the life of a boxing, you know, guy who boxes, and you're gonna fall down, and the good news is that you're given 9 seconds to get back up again, right? So, if you're down, enjoy it. It's not so bad. Just feel it. But you gotta get back up, and the key is, you gotta… you know you're gonna get knocked down, just don't get knocked out.

And I think it's a very good message for me that's served me, and thank God I got married, I have 5 kids, they're… we just have… our last two are getting married, we have grandchildren already. I never thought in a million years the guy who was… the kid who was poor and had nothing, and had to pay for, you know, half of his wedding in the afternoon, that you just keep going forward, and magical things happen. The sky opens up, and you meet the right people in the right time, and… Here we are.

You've mentioned in the past leaning into learning and faith and service, are those some of the main tools that you have to your point, of when you do get knocked down, it's inevitable, we all have those moments in life, but are those the primary pillars that you lean into so that you can keep on coming back to this work and really trying to achieve your ambitious goals?

I'd say, look, it, there is… I use an analogy that you know, you're in this vortex, right? You're in this vortex, and there's a suck… I call it, like, the sucking hole. You're gonna get pushed out, it's gonna come from the top, and it's the turbulent winds, like, and you have to hold on, like, you have to hang on, right? So you've got these… call it, you know, levers or handles all the way along that vortex. Well, you gotta know, if you're at the very bottom of that vortex, and you're still holding on to the last rung, and now that Sucking wool happens you're gonna be outer space, right? So the key to your life is you want to be as high up of that vortex as possible, and have rings all the way to the top, so when you are sucked out, which is inevitably happened, you don't fall that far. You have a ring to go down on, so… So, for me, you know, it's really… it's been a very, very good thing for me. I had a serious accident back in 1993 where I spent, like, 31 days in hospital, and that was a big wake-up call for me, you know, just, you know, I was sort of like… indestructible, and, you know, I was in the marketing business with an expense account, and, you know, wining and dining, just kind of feeling like, you know, is this all that it is? Like, is this… the whole point. So, when I had my accident, it was… It was a great wake-up call. For people who really knew me well, they knew I'd already been on that journey, but for people who didn't know me, they kind of thought, oh, Mark had this accident and became, you know, more religiously inclined. But I'd say that it did make my life more seriously, and I feel that having community, having, you know, I'm Jewish, I'm Orthodox.

We have something called the Sabbath, which, you know, Charlie Kirk, I don't know if you've heard him speak about it, he's not Jewish, but he talks about, you know, it used to be that we had a Sunday off, or you had a Saturday off something… it's like Club Med every week, where you put away all your devices, and you get back to being a family, and… you know, just have that peace for 24 hours. I think it's a really big, important part of my, call it work-life balance, you know, because if you don't get off that treadmill, you know, you never will, and 24 hours becomes a week. It becomes a year, it becomes a decade, and soon you're looking at yourself when you're 70 or 80 and, like, going, what happened? Like, where did that time go? Like, did I climb the ladder? And then I got to the top and realized, oh no, is leaning against the wrong building. I meant to lean it on that building over there, so I'd say it doesn't matter how old you are, but you have to take that time and just remove yourself, and sort of say, what kind of life do you want to have?

You know, how do you want to be remembered? You know, Lauren, something that one of my teachers taught me, and I did this years ago, is he said, take out a blank piece of paper, find a quiet time, and write out your obituary. Write out what you want them to say about you after 120, because if you don't write it out, if you don't have it, they're not gonna say it. So… so it's kind of like… that has kind of been a bit of a north on the compass, that during my lifetime, if I ever have… choice of doing this versus that, I can refer back to my obituary and say, is this aligned with how I want to be remembered? If it is, great, let's do it. If it's not, maybe we should find an alternative, right? And, you know, and not go up that ladder that's leaning against the wrong building.

Yeah, it's been one of the best things that's ever happened to me. But it's all about having, really, a balance in life. You have to have a balance in your, you know, emotional, your physical, and your financial. It's not just one thing. Otherwise, you know, even the Titanic, as I mentioned earlier, you know, they… it was a ship that could never go down. Meanwhile, it hit an iceberg, and all those people on the top deck were sipping champagne, you know, having the best time of their life. Suddenly, it went down. We all have a Titanic in our lives. Like, what's your iceberg? They have to know, what's your iceberg? And make sure that you're taking care of that risk now, as I said, while the sun is shining, because we're gonna hit an iceberg. So, I hope I didn't get too carried away, but I wanted you to understand some of my philosophy.

Absolutely, I think you bring so much depth and experience to our listeners, and I know you bring that, you mentioned mentoring as well, kind of this next generation of advisors coming in, also broader advisors, I think, who are kind of looking at this space differently thanks to your expertise.

I know a lot of our listeners are also rrying to kind of be in that impact space, or trying to maybe disrupt industries and do things better. They might also be interested in becoming a mentor. I know that's a space that I've recently, over the past couple of years, explored with students, and it's so rewarding, but if our listeners are just thinking about it, do you have any advice for them, just stepping into, kind of, more of that mentorship role as maybe they step into a deeper chapter in their careers?

Absolutely. Look, I've been very blessed, Lauren, to have some of the best mentors, and they didn't fall on my lap; you know, you have to find them, and you have to work and get them to become your mentor. You know, you have to want it, and you have to ask, and I would suggest to your listeners that if you want to find a mentor, you should really find somebody that you admire, that you look at as the north on the compass. It could be in business, it could be as a… leading a family, could be a mother, you know, you want to become a mother. You, somebody who's a north on the compass around taking care of themselves, you know, physically or financially. And then, you know, make the call, right? I'll… what's the worst that could happen? They say no, right? In which case, you're in the same place that you were before, but people like to give. You know, the happiest people in the world, Lauren, are the people who are givers. They're the ones that get things done. You want to give somebody… get some job done, give it to somebody who's a giving person, because they just seem to have the time to do things, because it's something that's important to them.

I'll tell you a very funny story. I, one of my best mentors is a fellow by the name of Paul Goldstein. Paul Goldstein unfortunately died in February at the age of 92. He was a force of nature, Lauren. Actually, he was probably in the top 001% of my industry for 40 years straight. He went back to school at age 80, to get his master's at U of T. He got his PhD at age 86, and then he had his first academic book published by Cambridge Scholars at age 88. 

But what happened was I heard about him, and another person described his integrity as his greatest feature, and I thought, I want to meet him, like, you know, when someone says that, and because I was also at a crossroads in my business, I'd been 10 years in the business, I wasn't sure whether I was going to live here, I was thinking about moving to Israel, and I had different things going, so I decided, I'm gonna call him. I did, I called him. And he was very short with me on the phone, and he said, thanks very much, but I'm just busy. I can't do it. So I was shocked! So I asked, you know, I just… I don't need a lot of time. I just… he said, I'm sorry, I get… So, most… most people at that moment, what would they do? They'd hang up, and they'd say, oh, well, so sad, too bad, but I said, Paul, please, just give me half an hour of your time. I'll meet you anywhere at any time. I just… I feel like you can help me. So, he said, okay. He says, I'll be with you, but it's on my terms. I said, no problem. He said there was a… an ice skating rink in Forest Hill. He said, behind there, there's a track. He says he likes to walk. He says, meet me there on a Sunday morning at 9.30, we'll walk and we'll talk. So I say, great, I'm meeting this guy, Paul Goldstein. 

So I go to the track. He's a Holocaust survivor. He's like, he's like 5'0". He was a former… he's a former Canadian weightlifting champion as well. Anyway, that day, Lauren, we walked for 10 and a half miles, four and a half hours, I was bruised from my knees down. I wasn't prepared for that. I was wearing, like, running shoes, you know, like, that you find in the bin at Canadian Tire. Anyway… That started a 25-year affair of walks and talks, and he provided me with tremendous wisdom, which I love to share, but, you know, and it wasn't easy. He was not an easy guy in the sense that there was expectations of me going forward, and he taught me a lot, but fast forward, he died, and I was his succession planner. Can you imagine? So, all of his business, and he had clients who were former finance ministers, gold medalists, Canadian gold medalists, people who have their names on buildings. And that call… from 25 years ago, if I would have hung up, okay, that would have been it, but… so, advice to your listeners, be persistent. Make the call. Do what you need to do, make it easy for the other person, and who knows, maybe you'll be inheriting a very, very significant portfolio that you can be managing on that person's behalf.

And go buy good running shoes. If you're gonna do that as well.

To begin with, you know, that's also good.

So whether it was maybe in the mentoring space, or in your day-to-day work, looking back over the past number of years, do you feel like there was a moment, or maybe there was a couple. Where you really felt like, oh, okay, I'm having the impact I was looking for.

It's a great question. You know, I look at 35 years, and I have so many beautiful memories, but I'd say that one of my career highlights was I did a TED Talk back in 2019. It was actually with a client of mine by the name of Moses Neimer.

I say that because, privacy-wise, he introduces me as is, you know, so it's very public. But he had a program called Idea City that was down at Kroner Hall in Toronto, and it would be full of 700-800 people who paid, like, $6,000 to come to your 3 days of… of TED Talks. And he asked me to speak. And he… I was actually in the disruptors category, which so much is what you talk about, Lauren. You're into disruption. So, I'm in disruption because I'm taking an industry or a product like insurance and helping people understand, you know, what it actually does as opposed to what it is, which a lot of people don't do. 

So, I had a TED talk, it was called The New Philanthropy, and I was up there for 26 minutes, and you can Google it and find it, but that was a really, really cool thing. That was kind of like taking your raw materials, your, as we said, those winners and learners, and those pivots and ratchets, and all the stuff that you learn, and actually making it something that people can understand. Like, what are you passionate about, and what's your vision, and what's your aspiration to build? And, it really was, you know, one of those cool highlights, and it's had a ripple effect, because from that, so many people we've been able to help, and advisors we've been able to help, advisors we've been able to bring into our Power of Platinum mentoring and coaching program. Anyway, that would be one idea. 

Another would be just, like, turning tax into charity. Lauren, we just met with a family… who, they really needed my help in all of these things, like wills and shareholders agreements, but they didn't want to talk about that. They were only interested in talking about philanthropy, that's what really mattered. So, as an advisor, you have to find out what really matters to people, and go for that, you know, lean into it. The matriarch of the family had died in her late 80s, and there was a $3.4 million estate tax that they were going to pay by the proceeds of her house. And, the house sales. And I met with one of the siblings, and I spoke to the other sibling, and then we got two accountants involved, and they didn't realize that charitable donations could mitigate that whole tax. So, in an hour meeting with their two accountants, they wrote a check for $7 million to their charitable foundation, and turned that $3.5 million of tax into $7 million of legacy. And, you know, I did that in an hour. That made me feel fantastic. I did not get paid on that, but it created goodwill, and now that also earns me the right to have more conversations with them around the things that they really do need to be speaking about. They gave you the permission, the runway, to earn the respect and the trust to move that forward. So, you know, we do that all the time. That's just one. We've done significantly larger ones as well.

But, you know, having those conversations and seeing people all of a sudden realize that they can be significant, you know, and do something really… it's not about giving to charity. A lot of people think that charity begins at home, and it's true, but charity is not about disinheriting your children. It's about adopting causes that you care about, and disinheriting Ottawa. So it's a very big paradigm shift. You're not… and the government has introduced over 25 pieces of legislation since 1995 to make it more favorable for people to give to charity. They know they can't sustain the social fabric in this country, so… The more people I get involved in this through our Power Platinum Mentoring Program, or just collaborating with other advisors, or we work with charities across the country as well, it really is very satisfying. It really aligns with, you know, sort of who I am, and what I am, and what I want to be remembered by.

And for our listeners, I'm sure, at this point, they're all thinking, okay, I want to get started, they're thinking about legacy, they're thinking about financial resilience: what would you recommend being that first step? And maybe it's a little bit different depending on different situations, but if there's a general rule of thumb, what would you advise them as the first step?

First thing is, I would suggest they should reach out to me, and not because… necessarily to work with me, although I certainly have the capacity, but I'd love to share with your listeners a podcast that I did with my mentor, Paul Goldstein, which is about an hour you know, 3 segments of 20 minutes, all about how to deal with life's challenges and how to have a life of purpose. It's a beautiful testament to him, and I think it will really help people sort of frame or fill in some of the blanks, perhaps, in their own planning.

But after that, I'd suggest that, you know, people get a referral from someone they respect, you know? And you should interview that person. Why do you like that person? What did they do for you? Why would you suggest I should meet with them? What do you think they could do for me without giving away too much? That would be one thing. 

Next is, make the call: don't put that name and number on the corkboard, you know, in your kitchen with all the other, you know, menus and recipes, and you gotta make the call right away. Number two. Number three is you should know, it's not gonna be painful. A lot of us think it's… it's so invasive, and they're gonna, like, ugh, I'm gonna share all my stuff, and it's private, whatever. Listen, if you went to the doctor, the doctor would ask you, Lauren, like, what's bothering you? And if you don't tell them that it's this pain here, or this sharp thing here, you're not going to get healed. So, talk about it. It could be, you know, savings. Savings for retirement, investing, insurance, estate planning, whatever it is, and they'll make it all go away. You know, and then have a plan in place to sort of, you know, what's priority, and what's, you know, what can we calendarize, and work with your professionals or others we introduce you to. But it all gets done with the intent of getting the peace of mind that we all deserve in this very frenetic world. It's busier and louder. This stuff rents space in our brain, and it takes away our energy, it zaps us, so if you can take care of it, it's like… You're just smooth sailing going forward, like you've got things in place, and there's a great feeling that comes with those completions.

On that note, where would be the best place for our listeners to go learn about you and your work?

So they can go to the website, which is wealthinsurance.com, and they can even send me an email, mark@wealthinsurance.com, if there's anything I can share with them. I have a digest of tax letters that deal with all of the different strategies, ideas. You know, we also have one-pagers that are all case studies on things, like if you're a single person, or estate taxers, or using insurance, creating, like, or even getting that article on how to incorporate philanthropy into your business. That would be… we'd be very happy to, and we also have a great team across the country that can help you. And, you know, we talked about COVID. Here we are on Zoom. How many Zoom calls did you have, Lauren, before COVID started.

Oh, nowhere near as many as I have now.

We know that it's like, you can do it from the comfort of your home, anywhere. So, having that… having those calls would be very, very interesting, and just, there's no obligation. We don't have a meter running. It's really, let's find out where you're at and figure out, you know, what do you need, and then if you see the value in, sort of, here's where you are, here's, you know, 10, 15, 20 things you could layer on top, let's look at the ROI on those versus what you're doing right now to either preserve family wealth, or to maximize your income, or create philanthropy in a tax-efficient way for your family, then why not do that? And then, obviously, if there's opportunities to go from there, well, it's a discussion that we just continue to have with our clients as the whole planning process evolves.

Well, thank you so much, Mark. I love your concept of moving from just success to really looking at significance for all of us as listeners. We do like to end every episode of the show with the same question, which I would love your perspective on, which is, what do you think it will take for businesses and leaders to be resilient going forward?

I like that question, and I wish I gave it more thought, so I'm gonna just sort of, like, go with what's in my gut. I really feel that people… Think small. A lot of people play small ball, right? You can do anything in this world.

And in a country like Canada, okay, forget about the politics and, you know, and taxes, you know, you can do anything. So I believe you should think big, and dream big. And, you know, there's nothing that can't be… can't happen. And talk about it, you know, growing up. There are a lot of people that you'll meet that say, no, you can't do that, you can't do that. I love when people tell me no. Because chances are, it means yes, because they're the ones who think small, or they're the ones who are too cautious, right? So again, you can't be irresponsible and drive your motorcycle without a helmet, you know, 200 miles an hour. But, you know, so… and really just know that life is a journey of pivot, ratcheting, and pivot, ratcheting. And just as long as you're going ahead, and you have a dream, and you pray for that dream to materialize.

And you have those mentors, as we spoke about, or coaches. Coaching is also very important, you know, you can't win gold in the Olympics without a coach, you can't win the Stanley Cup, you can't be successful in business without a coach, you know, they really put the mirror to you. And I think if people sort of have that mindset, that think big, and put those pieces in place, and realize that, you know, life is just a gauntlet of… starts and stops, and sometimes you have to take real detours, you'll get to where you want to get to, and I think that, along the way, you have to laugh, too. Big piece of it is… Lots of smiling and being happy, because we're very fortunate, you know, compared to a lot of people in the world. We live in a great time, and you live in a great country. I don't think there's anybody who's listening on your call that's ever missed a meal out of choice… other than by choice.

I don't think anybody's really slept on a park bench, maybe… when they were in college and they were drunk, maybe they did that, right? And I don't think anybody in your podcast doesn't have clothes to wear. That puts you in the 5% of the world. So be happy about it and realize you can do anything, and if you do that, you'll feel at the end of the day that you've really achieved what you were… your purpose, what you were here for. And if you do that, then you're gonna feel that your life was really, really very significant.

Thank you so much, Mark. This was such a great conversation. I appreciate all of your insights.

Thank you, Lauren, I really enjoyed it, and thank you very much for having me, and I like sharing, and so, as I said, if anybody would like to speak some more, if there's anything we can help them with - it doesn't have to be financially related - then please, they should reach out. We'd be delighted to.