The Wealthy Barber Podcast - #30 — Preet Banerjee Interviews Dave: The Incredible Story Behind "The Wealthy Barber" and Its Update

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

SPECIAL EPISODE: To commemorate the launch of the fully updated “The Wealthy Barber,” we’re doing a very special episode this week where Dave is the guest on his own podcast! We brought back fan favourite and financial-educator extraordinaire, Preet Banerjee, to host the conversation and turn the tables on Dave. Together, they dive into the stories behind “The Wealthy Barber” — from why Dave first wrote the book and how it was tested, to his early days shipping copies with his mom and the moment he realized his life was about to change forever. They also touch on his time on “Dragons’ Den,” the pressure (and fun) of updating the book for a new generation, the behind-the-scenes team that helped make it happen, and even a few lighter topics — like Dave’s love of A&W, black nibs and eating every meal out. It’s a funny, nostalgic and inspiring look at one of Canada’s most beloved financial voices and the incredible journey behind one of the bestselling books in Canadian history.   Show Notes (00:00) Intro & Disclaimer (00:55) A Special Episode (03:23) Why Dave Wrote the Original “The Wealthy Barber” (06:11) How Important Testing is For Dave’s Books (10:32) Dave’s Goal Was to Sell 10,000 Copies  (12:31) Dave’s Life in 1989 (14:15) Dave and His Mom Fulfilled Orders at First (17:49) When Dave Realized His Life Was Going to Change Forever (20:52) Becoming a Reluctant Publishing Consultant (24:16) Dragons’ Den (30:16) The Pressure of Updating “The Wealthy Barber” (33:19) Preet’s Review of the New Book (35:57) The Team Behind The Wealthy Barber Podcast and Socials (39:30) Who is The Wealthy Barber’s Barber? (40:25) Benefitting From Having Kids in the Book’s Target Market  (41:38) Dave Eats Every Meal Out  (45:36) Dave’s Love of A&W and Black Nibs (47:11) A Day in the Life of The Wealthy Barber (48:27) Who is the Updated “The Wealthy Barber” For? (51:55) Conclusion

Hey, it's Dave Chilton, The Wealthy Barber and former Dragon on Dragon's Dent. Welcome to the Wealthy Barber podcast. Well, we'll be hosting some of the top minds in the world of personal finance. Yes, that's to balance me out. The podcast is about making this subject not just easy to understand, but dare I say, even fun, honest. Whether you're trying to fund your retirement, figure out how to build a down payment, save for your kids' education, manage debts, whatever. we'll be here to help you do it. Before we jump in, a quick but important note,

nothing we discuss here should be taken as investment advice. We don't know you and your personal financial situation, so we're not here to tell you we're specifically to put your investment dollars. We're here to educate, get you thinking, and we hope entertain. But please do your own research and or consult with your financial advisor before taking any action. This is the Wealthy Barber podcast with David Chilton with Preepanergy. I am the special guest host taking over the podcast because I know that my friend Dave Chilton is he just is going to, you know, not brag enough about this momentous occasion in the Canadian personal finance landscape. And that is the release of his new book, which comes out today.

I've got an advanced copy right here in my hands. Dave Chilton, welcome to your own podcast. I've heard this podcast is not very good, but I'm here. I'm happy to be. I saw, I would have just plug my nose and join the podcast. No, thanks. This is going to be fun. It was a great idea by you. And, you know, I'm your biggest fan. So when you phoned and said you wanted to host the podcast instead of being a guest, I thought it was a wonderful idea. This may be a bit of a love in because I, you know, I think we mutually respect each other and ad for a long time. But I have to say that you are the OG. You are the greatest financial educator in the history of this country and probably the world, if we're being honest. Thank you. what you accomplished so many years ago, even according to your dad, even he didn't think that you'd be able to milk this for this long, and yet here we are with a new version of a fully updated book of the wealthy barber. So welcome to your own podcast.

I'm very excited to talk to you, but I want to first sing your praises a little bit because I met you a long time ago, and I was an absolute nobody. And at the time, you gave me all the time of the day. And you chatted with me. You gave me great advice. We had a very interesting meeting, which will probably not go on air as to what happened during that meeting.

It was a very interesting meeting. But it felt like we clicked right away, and everyone I knew knew you. Everyone I knew had read the original wealthy barber book. It was such an iconic book. And now you've got the fully updated version coming out at a time where I think Canadians need it more than ever. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. but I don't want to spend this time talking about specific strategies and things that can help people because you put out so much content already, not only the book, but all the social media content

that you've been doing lately for free with no expectation of selling ads or making money, you're just giving this away because I guess you're so wealthy now that you just don't need the money and you need something to do. No comment. Okay, great. So let's go back in time a little bit, and let's talk about the motivation for writing the first book, because I do want to go behind the scenes for the listeners. I want to take this opportunity to just sort of see behind the curtain, you know, who is Dave Chilton, what is he done? I think there's maybe some new readers and listeners and consumers of your content who may not know your backstory as well as maybe some of us older folk.

So let's go back in time to when you wrote that first book. First of all, how old were you? and what gave you the idea to write about personal finance? One of the most unsexy topics there is. No, I was only 26 when I started writing, maybe even 25, when I first started writing the book, a true financial geek. I mean, to the end degree, I tell this story not to brag because it shows you what a geek I was, but when I wrote the Canadian Securities Course exam, I didn't even study.

I didn't even open the textbook. I was just so on top of that stuff from reading as much as I did and being such a nerd that I just drove down to Toronto and wrote it. So I started out as a young investment advisor had come out of Wilford-Lorea economics, and I would give books to clients about personal finance. They wouldn't read them.

If they did read them, they thought they were too dull, too intimidating, that the authors had assumed a knowledge level that wasn't yet there, et cetera, et cetera. So I thought there's got to be an opportunity to make this more accessible, more approachable. I experiment with a few ideas. In fact, I was on stage teaching teachers

financial planning, using humor, using a very casual delivery. I started a book called The Ultimate Guide to Losing Money. And it was a humorous look at people's foibles and other failures in financial planning as a way to instruct. And then I know this sounds corny, but one night I was watching Cheers. And I was watching and I thought, hey, wait a second here. What about using the bar and making it the wealthy bartender? And he dispenses advice while he's giving out shots, et cetera.

And I actually started working on that book. But of course, trying to keep it realistic, there is people trying to pick up. other people. There's fights. There's all these things. It got too convoluted. And I thought the alcohol could cause a problem. So I shifted it over to the barbershop. And I've told this story before, but it's very true. I drove over. It was a Thursday afternoon. I drove over my father was just getting home, high school principal. And I told him the idea. And this guy is brilliant, but he has no business acumen at all. And he said, David, I think that's really quite a dumb idea. And I knew then I had a winner. That was when I thought, okay, I'm on to something. And

then I started the whole writing process and, you know, never envisioned it obviously becoming what it did. And it's really led to a lot of other opportunities. I've been a pretty lucky guy to have that successful in my lap at H-27. It's, you know, was really remarkable. You know, you say this a lot that you're very lucky. And I'm sure there are many reasons as to why you are lucky. But I think you're downplaying just how much it is because of you. I think you're such a unique person. So when you were writing this book, and keep in mind, this is one of the greatest selling books all time in Canada when it comes to nonfiction, if I'm not mistaken. If not, maybe number one.

And that is such a feat. I mean, again, talking about personal finance, I can't believe the numbers. I think the original copy sold over 2 million copies. Yeah, it's 2.1 million. Yeah, and just for context, a Canadian bestseller, it's either you get, you appear on one of those lists on the newspaper like the Globe and Mail bestseller list, or some people say it's 10,000 copies sold and that makes you a national bestseller. So you were way over and above that threshold.

Like he just blew past it like no one ever has ever before or probably never will in the future. How long did it take you to write that book? It took me 12 months. And honestly, I know you are saying that I say lucky too much, but I did catch an extremely lucky break during the writing process. I took the first four chapters and I sent them to some people in the industry whom I respected and got feedback. and they didn't love them, to be perfectly honest. The story format, they thought, is this really the way to get at it? It's taking a little bit too long, et cetera.

Hit my confidence pretty hard. Again, it was a Thursday when I got the third of the calls because I remember all this incredibly well, like it was yesterday. Ellen Roseman, by the way, whom you know well was one of them. And because it did jolt me a little bit, I thought, okay, maybe I should test with my target demographic instead of with the upper, you know, the elite of the industry. And I gave it to the guys on my slow pitch team.

and they loved it, 12 beer-swigging, illiterate Canadians. And I knew then I was on to something, but here's the lucky part. They would say things like, I didn't quite understand that one area, or you didn't talk about this, or I wondered this as well. And I thought, this is a gold mine. And I rewrote all the chapters, but especially chapter four, incorporating their suggestions, their concerns, their worries, into the manuscript. And then from that point on in my writing career,

I've done more market testing with the target audience, I think, than anybody ever. And I think that's a big reason why the books have gone over well. They've already been seen by the group that I'm going after. I'm surprised more authors don't do that. Now, admittedly, it takes way longer, therefore, to write the book. You're doing so many rewrites to get it just where you want it and just where everybody's going, yeah, that's it. I get it now.

I'm excited. You want to get the reader where they're saying, can you give me another chapter. I can hardly wait to read more. That's what you're shooting for and it takes a long time to get there. So falling into that testing approach was a huge difference maker for me. and it really, funnily enough, came because of some rejection, some criticism. Yeah, no, I think what you're describing is now sort of the textbook play for management consultants, this agile development where you test test test, and you kind of invented that.

So there's another thing that you can put on your resume that you invented this method of management consultant that is used widespread today because it was so revolutionary. So 12 months to write this book and, you know, what you talked about, you know, getting it down to eye level and talking to everyday people, the target market, is brilliant. Let me share a little story about when I started writing for the Globe and Mail. So I've been writing this personal finance blog, it was very technical, talking mostly about investing. And I won a competition for, you know, best blog of the year long, long time ago. And then the Globe and Mail offered me a job writing in the investing section.

I said, great. So I did that for a little while. And some people like the column enough that they said, hey, how about, you know, we lift you out of investing into general personal finance. I said, great. Did that for a little while. And then I got a call from the editor of the Life section. He said, hey, we're going to run a money section in Tuesday. This was, I think, right around the great financial crisis.

So money was more top of mind. And I said, great, fantastic. I submitted my first column. And they said, oh, you can't use numbers in your column. I said, what? So, yeah, this is the Life section. I mean, if you want a bigger and bigger audience, you have to be less and less technical. And it reminded me, I think it's in the Ford of Stephen Hawkins, a brief history of time.

his editor told him for every equation you add to this book, you can have your audience, right? Cut your audience in half for every single equation that's in this book. So there's only one equation in that book, which is E equals MC square, which is famous. Right. But I think that's amazing because that's also a huge, all-time global bestseller, as is the wealthy barber. And you basically use the same sort of framework for writing that book. Now, let's fast forward a little bit. So, of course, you're, you've published this book. what did you think when you released it? What were your sales expectations at the time?

My goal was to sell 10,000, but as you know, the book did not take off right away. And it's funny because a lot of people don't know that. They assumed that this book came out and was an immediate winner, but it was okay the first year. It sold, I think, 23,000 copies from January, its release date up to just before Christmas, did not have booming Christmas sales, good, but not booming. And I thought, okay, it's winding down. I'm going to hit 30,000. which is three times more than I'd originally hoped.

But year two, it went truly crazy. By April of year two, it was selling 10 and 20,000 a month. Wow. And it just took off. And I started speaking more. And we were drawing thousands of people out to personal finance speeches. Like, the whole thing was truly hard to believe. And I'm not sure why it took that long to get the momentum.

But word of mouth became by far the biggest ally. It was just people telling other people and people buying multiple copies. And then we've had a lot of companies buy over the years to give to employees. that's been a huge part of the success too and that's seeded the marketplace so you know success beyond my wildest dreams there was a guy though angel guerr at starter publishing who saw it coming like i even when it first took off i thought oh my gosh we might sell 100 000 and he was the one guy who said i don't know i have a feeling this thing could sell 500 000 a million and i said because most people i speak to have never heard of it so it's selling these numbers now and yet

most people haven't heard of it. Let's just keep going, keep doing the interviews, see what happens. Maybe the word of mouth continues to flourish. And he ended up being right. It kept going going and was so much fun too. And of course, we did a U.S. version and a PBS TV series that led to all kinds of other things. And I enjoyed going south of the border. And the only reason I didn't keep that mix up was because I had young kids. And so speaking that often to the states and in Canada, it just wasn't good as a father. So I cut the U.S. out. But I did have a good experience down there. It was a lot of fun. Okay. So tell me about your life and you know, as you're writing the book and it's just been published, what were you doing?

Were you doing something for income? Like, were you still working as an advisor? Or did you say, you know what? No, I know this is going to be successful, so I'm going to quit everything and just focus on the book. My poor wife, like I went to her and I said, and it was a marvelous person. We're still very close. And I said, I'm going to leave my job as an investment advisor because I think if I put this book out, I can't look like I'm trying to sell or I have any biases.

So I'm going to, I'm going to leave that. And I'm going to go forward. Well, okay, that's fine. I'm very supportive of that. But then when I went to her and said, oh, by the way, I'm going to self-publish because I'm a control freak. Then she was a little less enthused. And then I went to her the third time and said,

and to self-publish, I'm going to have to cash out our RSP to print the book. And by the way, the whole book says, never touch your RSP's. And now I take out RSP's to print the book. But, you know, her support was a key. Like without her buying in and saying, yeah, let's take this chance. Who knows? I was running a course just before that, as I mentioned,

teaching the teacher's financial planning. And that really helped because I didn't use a lot of numbers. I used more casual conversation and stories. So I thought, okay, this seems to be resonating. And that helped lay the foundation. And again, it kind of took off. And then my plan was in the first year to speak a lot, to emphasize corporate sales and try to get, again, the employee market and then to do a lot of interviews.

But I aborted that plan quite early. By February and March, I thought, I think I'm best just to do a crazy number of interviews and get the word out doing that type of thing. didn't fly a whole lot to do them did a lot of radio that was my number one medium for sure nothing was even closed and then when the book built up all that momentum and stoddard got involved then i started touring and then it kept going from there but i would work out of my house every day i'd be sending out my kits my mom would come over and pack the kits we filled all of our own orders and so remember we had no fulfillment firm at that time we got one about a year later

but my mom did it all out of the garage i paid her nothing nothing she in fact she would come over and fill two days a week and then buy me pizza this is what makes this country great like this was we had a stamp we'd stamp on all the books i would sign a fair number of them the orders came to a post office box and i think one of the funniest stories was i manley's bookstore in sarnia was the first place to ever buy the book and the fellow just bought the book because i kept hassling them i couldn't get any retailers to take it on and at the end he goes where do we return them if they don't sell and i said what do you mean he goes well yeah all books are returnable if they don't sell And I said, I'm not taking the books back.

And he goes, yeah, out to it. I said, no, I'm not doing that. And, you know, I stuck to that forever. I never offered return privileges on the wealthy barber. So even when I went to see Smith and Cole's bookstore, Wayne McComb was my first buyer there, same thing. He said, we're going to buy a thousand books and we'll return them. I said, we don't take returns.

And he's like, well, that doesn't work that way. I said it does with me. We don't take returns. And we never took them. And that helped too. I didn't have to worry about plus my poor mom. She would have had to deal with all the returns, too. too. She would have been overwhelmed in logistics.

I have so many questions. First is an anecdote, not so much a question, but I have a friend of mine who's an author, and he told me that when he goes to bookstores, he looks for his books, he talks to the manager, and he signs all the books because then you can't return them. That's a good point. It almost like guaranteed sales. But I have questions about the fulfillment. So, okay, so you self-publish the first book.

You're selling 20, 30,000 copies in the first year before it starts to really take off. How do you fulfill? Like, are you doing like one by one or are you sending like bulk orders at a time? Because that sounds like a logistical nightmare. Like seriously, I would say a third of the first 20-something thousand, my mom filled in onesies and twosies. Oh my God. So this woman was working hard. And my sister and father had been the editors on the book.

My sister was well paid. My father, I gave nothing to. The parents just came along for the ride. Now, when Stoddard took over, obviously they took on the distribution. So when it really took off, we didn't have to worry too much about that. but we still sold all of the post office orders and we got a ton. So we would go to the post office every day

and open up and it would be full of envelopes from across the country looking for the book. People say why. Why did they still mail in when it was ubiquitously available? Because they wanted the signature. Interesting. So that's why they did it.

Can you send me a sign copy? And we did it that way and sent the books out from there. So yeah, nothing but the best memories. Like even though the book didn't take off in 89 when it first came out, that was the best business year of my life. that I was so excited by the way things that were going and the feedback to the book and the fact that everybody seemed to like it, et cetera, except some people in the industry,

but everybody else seemed to like it. And I enjoyed every aspect of that. And even, like, no kidding, working with my mom and doing all of those things. And a Sunday sometime my dad would help out as well, like just nothing but fantastic memories. Yeah, that's so, such a great story. And it speaks to, I think, why people like you so much. Like, everything about that story and how your family is involved. You're just so likable and so Canadian.

Do you have the Order of Canada yet? If not, I'm going to nominate you. I'm going to put in the papers. I do not have the Order of Canada. That is ridiculous. That is insane to me that you are. Wow. Okay, so we'll fix that very soon.

And anyone who's listening, make sure you sign if I send around a little petition online. Because we have to get Dave Chilton as a member of the Order of Canada. Okay. So the book is taking off beyond your wildest expectations. People are saying, hey, this could go way past 100,000, maybe. past half a million. So at what point do you say to yourself, wow, my life has now completely changed and I wasn't expecting this? I think by the end of 1990, I realized that it was not going to go back to normal, especially when the U.S. speaking opportunity started

coming in. I did a TV show on PBS that we did not think was going to be a big hit. It was out of Detroit and San Francisco. There were my host stations. And it took off. It became a major pledge vehicle. And so that opened up some doors. second show was on 401ks. And that was a huge difference maker for me because the corporate leaders saw it, the HR department saw it and said, hey, we like the way this guy presents on this. It's funnier. He uses stories instead of numbers. Let's get him to come down to speak to our employees. One year, we had 2,000 invitations to speak in the U.S. 2000. Wow. It was absolutely insane. Now, obviously, you're taking very few of those because you have kids. And I think

the maximum I did down there when you were 60 type thing. But that was a lot of fun too. And it was when I realized it probably was never going back to normal. But I didn't have a big master plan. Like a lot of people think, okay, the book took off and were you going to go into a new area in financial services, where you think of writing book two, all the things, none of the above. I just said, let's keep going with this. And I'm having a lot of fun.

I enjoyed every year of it and see where it takes me next and ended up being cookbooks and all kinds of different things. Not a whole lot in financial services. I mean, I kept speaking, but I never did get involved. in financial services in any big way. And of course, I didn't write a second book for ever in a day. I just kind of kept doing other things. So, no, just again, I'm really glad you're asking me this because it all brings back

such great memories for me. My friends were very helpful, spreading the word. And, you know, everybody I came across was supportive. And I would go into small communities in Canada to speak. And we'd have just gigundous attendance. Like I can remember speaking out in rural Nova Scotia one time. and like 1,400 people showed up in this double barn. And they were literally in the rafters.

And so I said, look, and I am really honored. I can't believe this many people were here. And a guy yelled out, he goes, we would have had more, but we ran out of babysitters. And I started laughing. He goes, I'm serious. That's why we don't have more. And I remember I went to PEI and a golf trip. And I got out there at lakeside.

It's right beside Crowbush. And the community is really small. We're talking hundreds of people. And I got there. And the woman who had rented me, the house, had 36 copies of the book for me to sign. because she told me all the people that lived around that I was coming out. So, I mean, it was such a great experience. I mean, it can never be duplicated, that's for sure.

Listen, I just want to say I'm so pleased and I'm not the only person suffering from dyslexia from time to time because at the opening, when I welcomed you to the podcast, I said, well, Tom. And then you just said gigundice, which I know was gigantic and enormous and your brain just couldn't decide at the last week. No, no, I did that intentionally. Did you really?

Oh, yeah, I did that. Yeah, yeah, I did that intentionally. All part of the plan. Okay, great. Okay. So the life has now changed. I imagine a lot of people in the publishing industry are probably coming to you, say, teach us how to write books. You figured it out, this formula for success. I mean, this is such an outlier performance in terms of book sales. And I know that you got involved in publishing. So tell me a little bit about how that all morphed and how we were reluctant publishing consultant. What was that phase like? That's a great expression. I think that's exactly right. It was a reluctant publishing consultant. consultant because I never charged anything. You know, anybody who called me for book help, I gave it to them often hours at a time

and I never took anything in return. Even when I did speeches for the publishing industry, they would pay my flights. But here's something interesting. And I'm pro-Canadian to the end degree. I'm Mr. Canada, but this always did bother me a little bit. When the book took off and started doing all those things, especially in the corporate sales market, do you know that many U.S. publishers got in touch with me and said, can you come down, tell us how you did what you did, talk to our staff, show us the different routes,

and zero Canadian publishers did. Is that not somewhat interesting? It is very interesting and also not that surprising. I spend some time in the U.S. and I just find the entrepreneurial spirit and drive is just a little bit different than in Canada. But, I mean, the disparity between so many versus zero, that is a bit shocking, yeah. Yeah, Random House eventually asked me in Canada, but only I'd say about 13, 14 years ago where I had already spoken to probably 20-something U.S. published in.

firms, especially about the corporate sales. The funny thing with our corporate sales is, and I've been very upfront about this, most of them were unsolicited. So there's a feeling out there, oh, you guys did this marvelous job of creative marketing, but most of the success came from a CEO or a head of HR reading the book and saying, I want to use this for our employees. So we really didn't do a ton of outreach. So we talked to them instead about the testing method that you and I discussed earlier, et cetera. So yes, I became a reluctant publishing consultant, them, but of course, it led to one of the greatest things that ever happened to me, and that was the Looney Spoon's Cookbook, because they called me up Janet Podleski in 1995

and asked me the same questions everybody else did. In fact, she had a classic line. She said, we're going to self-publish our book and we want you to do it. I said, that doesn't make any sense. And they kept hitting at me in the phone to get together. And it's so funny because at the end of the, I said, no, like I said, I'm not getting involved. And I was, you know, quite adamant. At the end of the conversation, Janet says,

And Greta and I will take a train down from Ottawa to see you tomorrow. If she hadn't said train, I never would have said yes. But honestly, I thought, who takes the train? For a business meeting, six hours away. And I met them, and they convinced me to get involved. Actually, they ended up giving me a copy of the book after saying no for almost a year. And my mother looked at the book, looked at the manuscript and said, this is phenomenal.

She cooked some of the recipes and said, you should publish this book, never argue with your mother. And, of course, the rest is history. They went on to set a lot of the Canadian publishing records. To this day, they still hold a lot of them. And Greta is still producing books on her own that always go to number one. So that was a fantastic partnership. You know, that reminds me of the story of so for people who may not know, I recently moved to the United Kingdom.

My wife and I were long distance. She lived in England. I lived in Canada. We were long distance for five years. And eventually we said, you know, we want to live together. And she said, yeah, we're going to make that decision together. One of us has to move, and it's going to be you. So very similar.

She's a very sharp person. Absolutely. Okay. So you have now entered into the publishing world. There's a bit of time where maybe that's taking up most of your time working in publishing. But then along comes Dragon's Den. And I think this really catapulted you visually because I think up until then, up until then, you know, people saw you on the cover of the book, saw you on radio interviews, maybe saw you on stage, but on TV, maybe not so much. But then what was that change? change to your life like when you started on Dragon's Den? Big. I mean, remember how big the show was then? Holy smokes. And I remember it aired twice a week in prime time and it had huge ratings both nights, even though the second night was a repeat. And so I was a little caught off guard by the celebrity that gives you. There's no doubt about it. I mean, being the wealthy barber was one thing. But Dragon's Den, you go to a leaf game and you've got hundreds of people coming up to you asking for a picture or an

autograph. And I happen to be there right kind of at its peak, very, very fortunate. a marvelous experience, loved working with the CBC. The CBC takes all kinds of criticism. Everybody I dealt with there, both on Lang and O'Leary and then on Dragon's Den, super nice, super hardworking. Everybody, without exception. I really enjoyed that involvement. And then I liked the show. I mean, as you know, I took it very seriously. So even though I joked around on the show, in terms of making the investments, doing the due diligence, partnering with the people, I threw myself into that to the end degree, too much so in a way, because after three years, I was overwhelmed because of all the deals and didn't have time to run my own operations.

But no, that was a great experience. And I still have some of the investments. And the vast majority did very, very well. People often ask me if I'm still friends with the dragons, close friends. Heard from Bruce yesterday. We share a birthday. Arlene and I chat all the time. I knew Jim before I went on the show.

So he and I've stayed in touch. I don't stay in touch much with Kevin, but pretty much all of the other ones I've stayed good friends with. So, no, great experience. And I think for me, you're right, it gave a visual. look from Canadians because I mentioned radio was my primary media outlet. And of course, you're not seen there. And also, you know, it gives you a chance. It sounds funny, but to show off a little bit too. People go, okay, that you guy does know a lot about investing, especially

private company investing, which I'd done a fair amount of before. So I think from every perspective was probably good for my career and fun. Yeah. And I think, you know, again, in the vein of going behind the scenes, correct me if I'm wrong. But on Dragon's Den, you have deals that are consummated show. But then you've got the due diligence and the deal may fall apart after you take a look at the books and whatnot. But that takes a long time as well. And so you were on the show for three years. Three years. Yeah. Three years. And so how many deals do you remember? How many deals were consummated on the show that you had then had to do due diligence for? I closed 24 deals, albeit one was pure charity. So 23 business deals, which, you know, is crazy. Seven eight deals a year you're taking

on where you're actively involved in most cases, not all, but helping the people in an ongoing basis. In fact, in some instances, you're paying an almost quasi-CFO role. And then to your point, you've got to do the due diligence as my son was young at that point and helped out was a big difference maker in the summers. My daughter even got involved in the third year because we had some complex ones. The deal's got bigger and bigger, as you know, over time on Dragon's Den. So it was, yeah, it was a lot of work. That was the only downside was the fact that it squeezed out other parts of your life. But I really liked it. And there's a lot about Dragon's Den that people don't know. like the CBC did a very good job of picking dragons where they knew they would take the celebrity that it gave them, the platform it gave them, and invest it back in the community through charity involvement.

Like if you look at Jim, you look at Arlene, you look at Bruce, all of these people are so involved in charity and giving back and doing all of those things. In fact, we were mandated to do a lot of charity during the taping period. And then I don't know if this is still the case, but back when I did it, the pay was quite small, which I believe in. Because if you start paying the people big money, then it's really that. that money that they're flowing back into the deals. They're not taking true risk with their own capital. But when I first started, we were given $50,000 a year, and you had to give that $50,000 by contract the first year to charity.

I think that was wonderful. Like, I thought it was all positive. And I enjoyed, as I said, the CBC. I thought they made a lot of good judgment calls with the show. They kept that unusual mix of not very good pitches, crazy ideas, and very good ones. They didn't go to just the very good ones. And the audience seemed to like to see all of that. Some sad stories on Dragons then, too.

And I think that helped to connect with the audience emotionally. You'd get people on there who'd lost everything. And I still remember all those days, you know, very, very fondly. And I'm amazed, by the way, that, you know, that's 13, 14 years ago. I started on that show, boy, time flies. Yeah, I'll share your sentiments in that I am a big fan of the CBC, despite all the criticisms. Everyone who worked there has been amazing.

And for me, it was also sort of an inflection point in my career. I was on the bottom line panel with Peter Mansbridge for almost 10 years. 20 minutes in prime time. It was a big audience. And things changed for me at that point. I remember, you know, I'd been walking down the street. I heard these tires screeching. This car comes to a hall.

The window rolls down. I thought, is this a drive-by? What's going on here? He just points at me and just says, CBC guy. I'm like, yeah? Thumbs up and just drives off. Like, very weird.

Well, you're saying a lot of kind things about me, but I mean, you know how I feel about your communication skills. You were fantastic. No, no, no, no, stop that. This is, no, I don't think you understand. I do want to say one thing. thing though because I don't think people realize when you do those kinds of shows how tricky it is and that you have to be very concise and it's not that easy to do that because sometimes

you're thinking there's nuances here I really want to get to and striking those balances is tough and you did it really well but also they would throw investment personal finance and economics at you on that show just by the nature of the way the discussion went and you know you did a phenomenal job you really did I enjoyed that I enjoyed that panel oh thank you very much I should appreciate that. But listen, this podcast is not about me. This is about you. So no more of that stuff. Let's now pick up where we left off. So Dragon's Den three years. And then, if I'm not mistaken, your second book came out after your stint on Dragon's Den? No, it came out just before, which was a tactical error, by the way, because it came out in the late fall of 2011. Then I joined Dragonstan early in the next year. And that was all consuming. And therefore, I did not market the second book a whole lot. Fortunately, it did well kind of on it. own. And I've always been very proud of that book. You know, I think a lot of people anticipated me, anticipated me going back to the same formula using the novel. I didn't. I tried to use more my stage voice and, you know, how I kind of present on stage and it seemed

to go over well. And I had a lot of fun putting that together. Did a lot of testing again. It too took 12 months. My sister was involved as the editor along with Fina Scropo and they did a great job. And so, yeah, that was a fun experience too. In hindsight, I wish that the timing had been a little different. And I had that year to go out and do all of the interviews. and create the buzz that you really need to do. I mean, you know that because you've put out a lot of books, and I didn't have a chance to do that, but still great fun. And when you were considering writing that second book,

did you have any baggage about the success of the first book being such a moonshot that no matter what you did after that, it was just a matter of how much of a fraction of the success would this second book get? Or did you just say, no, I'm just going to research it and put it out. I mean, I think I eventually got to the second point of, hey, I'm just going to do my best here and put it at hope it helps people, pardon me, but the first one certainly weighed heavily on me. I mean, it's not easy to fall up to wealthy barber, although interestingly, I felt more of that doing the rewrite. Doing the rewrite, I felt, okay, you know, there's a real legacy here. You have to nail this book.

And, you know, the recent book actually took me 16 months to write. It took me longer than the original wealthy barber, which is crazy. I thought it would take me four to six months. But again, it was a labor of love. and the passion gets involved and you're writing and testing and rewriting and doing all those types of things. So the writing process is tough. I mean, you've been through it and it's a grind every day and you end up throwing out material. I remember with the second book at one point, I wrote for about five weeks and not any exaggeration. My sister and Fina said to me,

that's our favorite stuff you've ever written and we ended up throwing it out because it was more of a primer on financial planning and financial planning products. It wasn't the intention of the book. I lost my way a little bit, and I ended up throwing it out. Well, Cripe, you know how hard it is to throw out stuff that's testing really well? Yeah. And it's getting, all of that process. Writing is exhausting. And you can't get away from it.

So you're writing all day and then you go to a movie at night or you go to a dinner. The whole time you're there, you're thinking about what you've been trying to write that day and what you like and what you don't like and how you can change it. It is all consuming. You know, I wrote, I think it was my first book was, it was just on RSP's. I released it six months before the government introduced the TFSA. And I remember they just said, well, I can't change what's in that book. But now we have social media. And now you can add more context, more nuance after the fact, after you've sort of built that skeleton of knowledge.

And what I love is what you've been doing, putting out this amazing content on short form videos, your podcast, and, you know, interviewing some experts in the field. and having them on to also add to the conversation. But the content that you're putting out for free is the best content that's out there. And it adds to the book. And I want to make sure that people who consume your content, social media, watch and listen to the podcast, don't presume that the book is covered in all the social media content. I would say it's very complimentary. I've read the book. I had at the pleasure of getting an advanced copy.

And it is amazing. It follows more in the first book's footprint in terms of the way you present the information and the choice you make in having the conversations and picking off where you kind of leapt off. And I think it's so engaging. It is such a rare gift that you have to make information like this

so palatable that you do not actually want to put the book down. Or you say, you know, I want to stay up a little bit later and go on to the next chapter because it's just so entertaining Like, it's really, really amazing. And I think, you know, that this next book is probably going to sell in the millions. Because if anyone's listening, this is a great present for stocking stuffers. You know, you got 20 people on your list for the holidays.

You can knock them all off right now and buy these books in bulk. I'm going to pimp the book for you because you won't pimp it as hard as I will. But I am really, this book is fantastic. I will say that the things I've been involved with in my career, the updated version of the wealthy barber is what I'm most proud of. You know, it really is. Like I, obviously, the first book laid the foundation, but the work that went in through the update and the testing and the rewriting, et cetera. It was, I was stressed for the first time of my life.

I'm not a very stressed person. You know me pretty well. I'm a pretty chill guy. I was stressed. I mean, your nickname is chilly. Yeah, exactly. And I felt the pressure to, you know, have it live up to the original book. But I wanted to go beyond that.

You know, if you're trying to just live up to it, how do you make it even better? How do you make it more compelling? And the testing played a big role. And, of course, it's trickier now because when I wrote the first, book, to your point, that was RSPs only. Now there's RSPs, TFSAs, FHSAs, homebuyers plan, ETS. You have to teach all of that. And because Canadians are very tight right now, I mean, it's very expensive out there, not just real estate, but cost of living. We can't do it all. And so how do you show people, how you have to think to prioritize properly, et cetera,

all that has to be woven in conversationally and keep it going, not get bogged down. And so, yeah, I'm thrilled that you liked it as much as you did. I really am. Yeah. So it takes a village to put out social media content, write your book, handle everything the FD in your schedule, which you're a busy guy, and you give so generously of your time. You know, you call up people old school, using the phone and have conversations.

You still do that to this day with me. Yeah, all the time. And number of people and everyone, whenever we get together, like, you know Dave Chilton called me? And like, what? Yeah. But yeah, and like, I don't know where you find a time. But maybe you could tell us a little bit

about some of your secret weapons, which is the team behind the Walt Barber because now you've expanded. It's not just you and your parents and, you know, other family and friends working out of a garage. You've got now some people that are maybe part of your new family in a sense. Tell us about who is behind the Walter Barber team. I will.

My mom did pass away and I know people are going to be thinking I killed her through working her that hard. And there's some truth of that. She did do a lot for me throughout the years for sure. But my sister, obviously, I mentioned earlier, was involved as the editor along with Fina Scroppelin did a wonderful job. But then we have a team on the social media front. So Mo, Marine, who's been with me forever, people know her, and she's often mentioned in the videos.

We've been partners for three decades. And she knows this business inside out. She's got great people skills. Everybody loves her. I mean, what an amazing person. And her daughter's working with us and does a lot of the social media, and she's very skilled, very in touch with all of the new ways to communicate, the new platforms. Also a big part of the target audience.

And so it's great to have someone there who is part of the target. audience can give you feedback on all of those fronts, et cetera. Then Aden Stride works for me as well, and he works with us. He's a partner in the business, actually, and he's crucial because he has such wide-ranging skills. He's much sharper than I am. He loves personal finance. He understands technology. And then my son's involved in the corporate sales front, and he really likes that and has a business that does that for other authors and publishers. So has a lot of experience and skills in that front. So we have this team coming together now, and it really helps putting out the social media. And that's been a lot of fun too. I mean, I've enjoyed that

process. It's tricky. I mean, you put out social media, some of the best stuff on the web is coming from you. But it's more than people think. You've got to give a lot of thought ahead of time. Again, how do you strike the balance between helping people with the information, but where do you stop? And how do you cover off the exceptions, the subtle nuances, all of those types of things? Our biggest challenge probably is, are we going to run out of material at some point because we're trying to stay more or less generic. We're not trying to tie it in to the current events as much as most publishers of content do.

So we're working on all of that. But I've enjoyed that immensely. As you mentioned, we don't take advertising on. We don't do lead gen. There's no monetization of any of this. And then the podcast has obviously come out and done well. We put a lot of work on the podcast into finding not just experts, but experts with proven communication skills.

That's something that we focus on a lot. So when somebody's invited on, we've watched them give a lot of other interviews. and made sure that they can present the material in a compelling fair way, et cetera. And obviously, you know, that's a good way to go. And who was our very first guest? So we had everybody to choose from out there. And you picked a no name.

And who do you think we chose as being the best communicator out there? And that's honestly, sincere compliment to you, you are our number one choice, first guest. I mean, you and Rob Carrick, obviously, we're right near the top because of your great experience and your ability to bring these points to life. So, yeah, the podcast has been a lot of fun.

And I've enjoyed that part immensely. I have to tell you, you know, being asked to be your first guest was one of the highlights of my career. I was very touched by that. So thank you for that opportunity. So I have a few other questions that I want to ask you. Who is your barber? And are they intimidated by you in any way? Well, I had the same barber for 20-something years down in Toronto with the Royal York.

You know, the barber shop from the bottom of the Royal York. And he was a fantastic guy, but he retired about 10 years ago. very selfishly, he decided to retire and move on. And now I get my hair cut wherever, including first choice in Sarnia. And I'll walk in there. It's a pretty easy job because no exaggeration here. I've had the same hairstyle since grade one. So I'm on like year 59 of this hairstyle.

I had a longer for a bit in high school, but it's the same hairstyle. So no, no intimidation at all. And we often talk finance. And in the case of the Royal York fellow, he knew everybody. I mean, so many people got their haircut there. In fact, you'd go in there and you'd often be sitting beside. a Toronto Maple Leaf or something like that. So that was a cool spot.

Still open, still doing well. Now, you mentioned that your kids are part of the business and they're part of your target market as well. Do their friends come over to ogle you or do they sort of say, oh, my God, the wealthy barbers your father, you must be rich, you're paying for dinner every single time? No, they know.

They're too smart to pull that of my kids. Only Scotty is directly involved. Courtney obviously is involved in the testing, but they're both entrepreneurs. They both own their own businesses and have done well. Nobody will hire a Chilton apparently because we all kind of work for ourselves.

But they are part of the target demographic and kidding aside, that's been a big benefit to me because I get to know a lot of their friends and people in their circles and you're hearing from them about financial questions or you're seeing what they're doing wrong and where they're getting off the beam.

And of course, watch the struggles to buy homes and how did they get past that and what did they have to go through and what decisions did they have to make, et cetera. So that definitely helped. Much like when I was in my own target demographic initially, now my kids are in the target demographic and that did play a positive role for sure. And I know a lot of my kids' friends very well, unusual a number compared to most parents.

And I've loved that, got great joy from it. In fact, I officiated my daughter's closest friend's wedding this summer and, yeah, it's been great. Oh, fantastic. Why do you have an oven? I don't know. I did a kitchen renovation four or five years ago. My daughter, Michelle Rose. Hold on.

Yeah, I know. You didn't use your oven. oven before. So did the renovation remove the oven? No, it put a new one in and I've never turned it on. So like I've lived in this house for 31 years. Yeah. I've never turned the oven on.

Like I've never, not one time if I turned the oven on. But the funniest story about this house, I've lived here for six or seven years. And Alan Sue Schumacher, friends of mine come out and she says, oh, that's cool. You have one of those mini dishwashers. Didn't even know I had it. I looked down and I went, I didn't, I never even noticed that because I never have dishes at my house. I eat every meal out, ever since I've known you, all those years, I eat every meal out. And I've always done that. I eat alone a tremendous amount. I eat at A&W a lot. I love

A&W, and I eat alone a tremendous amount, but I never cook food in my house at all. So yeah, good question about the oven. I don't know why I have an oven or a fridge for that matter. Yeah, I need to know more about this renovation of your kitchen. But, okay, so you eat every meal out. So what's breakfast? Do you have breakfast? Are you one of those skip breakfast guys? Sometimes I go to McDonald's and I get an egg macmuffin. And sometimes I go to John's restaurant in Sarnia or the Daily Grill in Kitchener, Waterloo, legendary places, by the way. And I enjoy that immensely. Then I eat lunch kind of scrambly. I used to eat more business lunches and I might get back to that now as I'm going to tour. And then dinner, it's all over the map. You'll go out with family,

you'll go out with friends. But yes, I've always done that. It's not something I recommend. Obviously, it's extremely expensive to eat all your meals, though. But it's kind of the way I've done it in the last 30 years of my, of my life. Okay, so how do you stay so fit? Do you have like an exercise regimen? I do. I actually have an interesting answer to this. Like, kidding aside, I think I do something a little different than the vast

majority of people. I do a lot of micro workouts. And so let's say I'm in Sarnia for the day. I will do push-ups every time I go up the stairs. So I have two push-up stands. And every time I go up, I'll do 25. So at the end of the day, you've done 125 or 150 push-ups. I have weights and I'll do the farmer's walk while I'm on a long conference call.

and I'll do back and forth with the farmer's walk carrying 110 pounds, whatever. I do a lot of that type of thing. I walk a fair amount. I don't drink, you know, and that obviously helps on that front too. So I think all those things kind of have come together. That all being said, with the sodium intake I have from 21 meals a week at restaurants, I'm a little surprised I've been as healthy as I have been. But so far, so good.

Knock on wood. I see a potential for a new book here. I mean, just those, you know, those micro-work. as you describe them. I think there's something to that because there's not a lot of friction. And once you get into that habit, I'm sure you'll find it. And maybe you can just share your spirits. But it's almost become second nature.

It does. So if I flip the Blue Jay game on, I will, by nature, I'll do 50 stride jumps while it's first on. And I'll sit down and I'll do some crunches, et cetera, all of which takes two minutes. Like I don't do a routine of 20 things. I'll do those two. Then maybe later in the game, I'll do something else. And then I'll do those pushups as I go up the stairs, et cetera. But in the course of a day, you're doing 10, 11, 12 of those things, and they make a big difference.

And to your point, you don't have to have a ton of equipment. You're not driving to a gym. You're not putting an infrastructure in. I think more people should do that. And it does become a part of your routine. And you start seeing the results. I think the farmers walk interestingly, you know, where you carry weights and just walk. That one has really helped me.

Grip strength and everything else, balance, all of those types of things. And I do a lot of that one. So, yeah, I mean, I try to stick with that and not get away from it at all. And every day I try to do probably things. five to ten of those types of things. Interesting. So if you're going out on tour and speaking at conferences and maybe you're out, you know, at a bar, watching one may not a bar, but a restaurant and watching the game.

Are you going to do that in public? You're going to drop the floor and do 25? I do. Yeah, I'll do 25 and I'll do some stride jumps. People find it quite entertaining. They really do. I've knocked over many, many, many, a waitstaff's tray over the years with this kind of nonsense. You have some particular tastes when it comes to you.

You often talk about A&W. Love A&W. You used to talk a lot more about nids. Why don't you talk about nids anymore? It's so funny because people kept saying black nubs are bad for you. And I say, really? Because I've never felt better. I'm kind of like my dad and his arguments on donuts.

I said to dad, your doctor says you eat too many donuts. And my dad says, my doctor's dead. Okay. So apparently he should have had some more donuts. But no, I got to get back to the black nbs because I still eat them, still love them for sure. A&W. I can't believe I don't do A&W commercials. Nobody in the country loves A&W more than I do.

I love that place. I mean, listen, you're probably going to get some calls, but knowing you, you'll probably turn it down or just say, you know what, just give me free A&W for myself and I'll just keep on talking about it. Yeah, free Team Burgers for Life, and I'm happy to do that. So, no, I do have some unusual tastes. I happen to agree. But, you know, I've never smoked.

I've never done any drugs. I didn't drink much when I was young. And then I stopped drinking completely when I first went on the road, whatever that was 35 years ago. And I think all of those have certainly kind of helped in the energy front. Plus, very lucky to not need as much sleep as most people. Now, I know we recognize that sleep is even more important than we thought 10 and 20 years ago. And I try to get a reasonable amount. But if I have to go a night with a poor sleep or red eye, as both you and I've had to do many times, it doesn't wipe me out.

I'm very, very lucky that way. And energy-wise, like, I'm old now. I'm 64. I feel the same way I did when I was 32. I don't feel any differently at all than I did at that point. If I have back-to-back red eyes, which occasionally you do where you have two and three days, that definitely impacts me more. Other than that, I feel the same way I did when the first book came out. So tell me, so you still live in the same place you've lived for decades.

Ever, yeah. Tell me about your typical day, if there is such a thing, when you're at home. What do we through a day in the life of the wealthy barber? So, you know, the last year, obviously, it's been very different last year and a half because of the writing. So if I wasn't taping the videos, which we did a day every two weeks plus the prep. So two days every two weeks, then I was writing full time, including most weekends, including most nights. That was truly a lot of hours. Before that, it was a hodgepodge of things, but I'm directly involved in helping a number of the businesses I've invested in.

So there is no typical day in terms of specifics, but typically I'm on the phone with four or five of those companies during the day or doing due diligence on something else. I'm still speaking, but not to the level I once did. I love speaking. In fact, I spoke last week in the week before, but I don't love getting there anymore. And so, you know, if I could speak in Kitchener all the time, I'd speak as much as I ever did, because I love. love being on stage. I just don't feel like flying all the time. Now, I'll speak more going forward with the book coming out, et cetera, but I'll never go back to the crazy days when I first met you. And I often, in those days, spoke 120 times in a year, 125. I won't do that again.

I'm too old for that. All right. Let's wrap this up. We could talk for hours and maybe we'll after this call, but I hope it's a given that everyone who listens to the podcast, they're already start raving crazy about you. And so I'm sure they're going to be buying copies. But for the people who don't know, or if they have ideas as to who this book would be right for, just, you know, give us a commercial, put all your, you know, shamelessness to the side and just, you know, have that. Give yourself a commercial. It's really for younger Canadians, under 45, but ideally even 20s and early 30s. And it's, here are the basics. Here are the things you need to know, but with a lot of detail. Because my argument is if people truly understand what they're being told

to do and why they're being told to do it. They're much more likely to not only do it, but to stick with it. And so a lot of the nuances are covered off. So there's the basic advice. But why did that basic advice come to be? That's all outlined in the book as well. And because it's set in the barbershop with the young patrons in there asking questions, the questions that the average reader wants answered are right there. You'll learn along with these characters. The narrator, in fact, talks openly about how he's not good at this, doesn't have good math skills. I think a lot of the readers find comfort in that. They say, great, that's me. If he can learn, I can learn along with them. We try to cover off a lot of scenarios by having four patrons learning and four

other patrons in the barbershop who are more established and have done things right and done things wrong. There's a lot of chance to bounce back and forth with the conversation. So it's all about taking the intimidation and dryness out and injecting some light, injecting some humor and some flow into all of this. That's the hardest part writing the book is how do you keep the flow? How do you keep the reader wanting to turn that page and learn even more? And then look forward to the next chapter. And so you're always experimenting with different setups and different orders and different characters saying different things. And I think it ended up based on the test results hitting the mark on those fronts. Now, the industry is going to not love parts of it.

It certainly speaks out against the high-cost mutual funds that you see way too much of in Canada and certain insurance products, although I'm certainly pro-life insurance in the book. So the industry may struggle with some of it, but I think in general it's mostly the accepted wisdom that's come to be, especially data-driven, proven to be accurate wisdom, but packets in a very different way for the average reader to take on. Yeah, I think it's timely again. I think people need this now more than ever.

The world has gotten more confusing, more paralyzing. There's more products. There's more social pressures. We've got Instagram and other social media platforms that are basically serving as, you know, constant keep up with the Jones's sort of signals to our brains. And I think it's tougher than it ever has been before. And so this book is, you know, just pure common sense, so relatable, so understandable for everybody.

It is, dare I say, your magnum opus. So congratulations on the book. I have read it. It's amazing. I hope everyone who's listening buys multiple, multiple copies. So do I. And share it with, I mean, hey, recommend it at the library as something you can loan out. But it's much better to buy copies and send out a whole book.

copies. Well, I will say, I get asked a lot, do you put your books in the library? So, for example, this book go to the libraries. And the argument is when you put it in libraries, people aren't buying it. Of course we put it in libraries. This book is not about making money. This book is about helping as many Canadians as we possibly can. It would be pretty bad for somebody saying you've got to watch your spending to say you can't get the book at the library if you chose to go that route. So we're putting the book in libraries for sure. Excellent. Well, David, thank you so much for being a guest on your own podcast and for allowing me to take it over and put you in the hot seat. I've had a lot of fun with it. And I do want to say that knowing you and having

learned from you over these years has been an absolute highlight of my life. You set the high bar for everyone out there who's trying to make Canadians' lives and people around the world, their personal financial situation better and more empowered. So thank you for everything that you've done. I am going to put in an application for the Order of Canada of pre-you and nominate you. And hopefully we'll have that sooner rather than later because it's been far too long. Well, thank you for saying all that and you did a great job hosting. In fact, you are going to replace the former host, I'm sure.

We'll see about that. I have your people talk to my people. I'll have Aiden call you. You don't have any people ever. I always deal directly with you. I love that about you. You tend to do things on your own. And I like that.

Yeah, for better or worse. I'm a bit of a control freak. But I also don't want to do too much. sorry as I'm losing my voice here. Yeah, I don't like to do too much in general. So if I have more people, it probably needs more work for me. Hey, before we let you go, can I do what I always do what I see? Could you tell the audience to your original background before you came to a finance expert?

What did you graduate in from school? And what did you first do when you left? Sure. So my undergraduate degree was in neuroscience. And the day after my last exam, I enrolled in the Bridgestone Firestone Racing Academy me to try and become a race car driver, ran out of talent and money. But I would argue that of all the other students, I valued the use of a helmet more than anyone else.

No, that is a fascinating background. I think it served you quite well. It's how I got into personal finance, actually, because at the school, I was working there for a couple of years. And there's sort of three main business lines. And one of those main revenue drivers was corporate entertainment. And because it's expensive to put people in race cars, it tended to be Bastery brokerages. So I met a guy on Bay Street and he pulled me into the industry and that's how it all got

started. So it was all because of racing. That's funny. Now, you didn't expand on the story you told earlier about when you and I first met at a lunch. And I'll just be diplomatic, but the fellow you were with who I, you were working for at the time kind of gave us a long soliloquo, but we thought of certain types of investments, et cetera. And I'm thinking, whoa. And then he went to the washroom. And I looked at you, expected you to tow the line and you looked at me and went, whoa. And I said, okay, I like, I like this guy. He's a truth teller. So that's how we first, that's all true, isn't it? That's how we first bonded. Is that you saw things the way they were. And I went, okay, this guy is an honest guy and he gets it. And so that's how we first became close. It was our mutual bond of calling out

industry bullshit. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, I'll talk to you soon. But thanks so much for doing this. Yeah, my pleasure, Dave. Thank you. Thank you.