As we are trending toward a recession and many people have already started to feel the pinch, award-winning Financial Planner, Jackie Porter reminds us what to focus on and how to find our next, best steps.
“Don’t react because the market is down or we’re going into a recession... Figure out what that means FOR YOU.”
In today’s episode of Leading Through Crisis, I am speaking to award-winning Financial Planner, Jackie Porter about managing finances in a recession.
We talk about:
- The benefit of logic over emotion
- What the words, “recession” and “bear market” actually mean
- How to determine what they mean for you, personally
- Practical tips on what to do now
- Smart investing and doing the “un-sexy” thing with your money
If you have been at all concerned about the state of the market – or your finances – lately, this conversation is for you! Jackie is an expert in this area and will calmly talk you off that ledge (with the key steps to take right now).
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An award-winning financial planner, bestselling author, and speaker, Jackie Porter has helped thousands of clients grow their net worth, build a fortress around their finances, and keep more of their cash in their pocket.
For an abundance of resources, to connect with Jackie and/or to learn more about her work, visit askjackie.ca.
- I'm Celine Williams, and welcome to the "Leading Through Crisis Podcast." A conversation series exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging time. So for many of you my guest today is a familiar face, because she's been on the show before. This is my lovely friend, Jackie Porter. Who I believe, was on about two years ago now. And for those who do not remember Jackie, or are new to the show, Jackie is an award-winning financial planner, best selling author and speaker, and the founder of Team Jackie Porter, and as I mentioned, most importantly, my friend. It's nice to see you again, Jackie.
It's a pleasure to be back, by the way.
Well thank you, I'm very excited to have you back. Not only because I very selfishly always enjoy speaking with you. But, things have changed dramatically in the last two years, since you were on the program. And I think you sharing your perspective on things now is superbly valuable to folks. So, I'm excited to have you back, thank you for agreeing to come back on the show.
Well I'm happy to be here, and yes, here we are, we're back. And it's no longer 2020, it's 2022. But it feels like 2020.
Yep, absolutely.
A little bit of deja vu, right?
Yeah, for sure. Oh, my goodness. I know we asked, I asked this last time, 'cause I ask everyone. But I'm gonna start with it, because things have changed. When you hear "Leading through Crisis," the kind of statement, the name of the show. What comes up for you? What does that bring to mind?
Crisis is I think is, what brings it to mind is, really for me it's being keenly observant. Because crisis is something that you never expect. But is around, is often around the corner, when you least expect it. For me, it means being observant, like looking at what's happening. And being, and just taking information. And I think when you do that, it means you're kind of not necessarily reacting. But just trying to understand. So, what's happening right now. Let me try to put my emotions away as much as I can. Even though my gut says "I need to react to this." No, you need to observe what's happening. Try to seek to understand. This is actually the time where you want to take logic rather than take emotion, right? So, what's happening, write it down, what's happening. Seek to understand, ask questions, ask for collaborations, talk to different people, get their perspective, and then try to get as much information to get clear on the things you really need to, really want to know. So, I think being a student, this is a great time to be a student. Approach it the way you would a scientist, or a student. How much can I find out about what's happening to make me much more clear in what's going on. And what I can do about it.
I love that.
Scientific pursuit. That's the way we wanna go. Instead of react/respond, and respond by asking questions, and meeting that science with interest.
Mm-hm, I love that for a lot of reasons. Partly because my bias is definitely towards the scientific approach and things. Be okay with failure, ask the questions, gather information and data. Don't get stuck in the initial, my initial reaction is the only reaction. I can't change the decision. I've made a decision, I can't. You know, which I think is not doing those things is really part of the scientific method. That in the scientific method. But also because I think the past few years, and the current state of the world you and I were talking about it a little bit before we started recording, has people reacting without really any forethought. Or perspective, or lens on the bigger picture.
That's right.
Which it doesn't serve them longterm, and I don't think. Someone might disagree, but.
Well, you're 100% right. The thing about personalizing what's happening, so, when you're actually a scientist, or student, as you said, you're going broad. You're trying to get the big picture, you're gathering data. You're gathering consensus. So what does one person think? What does the other? What do think after getting all this information, and keenly observing what's happening? And looking at that information. What does that? What does that information reveal? Which is our keen observance. Whereas, is you personalized things, like oh my gosh, it's happening to me. And actually, personalizing it and making it about you, might lead you to actually rely on the wrong data. So it might be that you think, well, the market is down, and this happened to my grandmother. I remember her telling me about it. Those were a completely set of different circumstances, around different historic issues that might have absolutely no bearing on what's going on now. What does your grandmother's situation and the markets have to do with what's going on right now with you in the markets? They're might be similarities, but there's chances are, a lot of differences. Gather that information, rather than making it about you. Learn as much as you can, so that you can actually have that perspective that we're talking. Knowledge is really power.
Yeah. And knowledge that you gain from more than just listening to grandmother. No offense, grandmothers out there. But that's not just listening to your grandmother's story, and taking that as the gold standard of truth.
Yeah, we tend to go to that place when we're in that reactive mode. We tend to remember that one story, or that gut feeling, or the way we felt when something else bad happened. And we tend to make it about that. So imagine if you're making a decision, potentially a decision right now about something that happened once to somebody else. Not even to you, but someone else. And you don't even have all of the facts. And then, you're gonna make a life-changing decision about that one. That normally would be a data point. That's not even data, that's one data point. If you're being a scientist, or a student.
Yep. So, I'm curious from; I mean, let's just get into this, because at the end, we were speaking about this before we started. But the state of the economy. Globally in Canada, in North America. Whatever we wanna put whatever global lens on it at this point, 'cause everyone's been effected in some way, shape or form, it seems right now. I think we're seeing a lot of people doing exactly that. Whether it's investment choices, wherever they're investing. Whether it is was they're buying, or not buying. Whether it is career choices, entrepreneurial. People are making decisions, or at least my observation is people are making decisions based on one data point. Or two stories from, I always, the one that always comes to mind is the pro-crypto, or not. There's a lot of stories in the crypto world where someone goes, I'm investing all of my money into crypto, because that one guy made $50 million, right? And then things drop, and now they're pulling out all their money, having lost tons of money, because that one person lost all their-
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, exactly, exactly. Chances are, that's why I don't want to make life-changing decisions in a place of emotion. Often it will lead us to make the wrong decisions. So cool off, gather your head, and then revisit the decision you're making, and then we'll look at all these data points, and then observe, try to make sure you're looking at things objectively from both sides. So where we are now, is we're thinking about the state of the world. We've been hearing a lot of the R word, which is recession. And recession just means three declining points, three declining quarters in the economy. And so, we're not there yet. But the trends are showing that we will be there. And often people realize that after the facts. So what does it mean to be in three declining points? It might mean that people potentially could face layoffs. But we're also at a time where inflation is rearing its ugly head. So we can view three declining quarters where the economy isn't doing so well. But you could be losing your job, but paying more for things. So these are all things that potentially could happen. Now in terms of the stock market. The stock market, when the economy doesn't do well, and it's in lock step with the market, it would also mean we have something called a bear market. And a bear market just means again, we have three quarters where investment returns are below 20%. And right now, we just hit that point. Where the major indices, the major markets that the stock market follows have fallen below 20%. So, what do those things mean? Yes, all of those things mean that we need to keep an eye. It's the alert to see what's happening. To observe what's happening. And translate it, not into the big picture for what's happening around the world, but what does it mean for our own personal circumstances? And I think that's when it means a lot to become, first of all, don't react to circumstances and make quick decisions. But look at your circumstance, and say, "What does that mean for me? "Do I have job security? "Do I have financial security? "What do my investments look like? "Am I diversified?" So, there's a lot of questions to ask yourself. But before you make decisions. And even determine if you do need to make a decision about something. And I think that's the thing. Is asking yourself the right questions. Rather than responding and reacting to a specific data point. And maybe a loss that might trigger something for you. And then deciding to make a decision based on that. I think it's asking yourself a lot of questions, contemplating the answers carefully, and then just determining what the next best step is to take. I think those are really crucial things to do when the economy is becoming a little bit more unstable. Don't look at the big picture and say, "Oh, I'm gonna react because the market is down." Or, "I'm gonna react because we're going into a recession." What does it means for you?
Mm-hm. I... I think asking questions always is super-important to pull ourselves out of a reactionary mode 100%. And I think in times like this where the idea of a recession is on the table, where people are seeing especially, with stocks, with investments, whatever, traditional, or non-traditional. With the housing marketing changing the way it is. I think people are feeling like it is effecting them. Even if it's not immediately effecting them, if that makes sense. It feels more personal than, "Oh, those things out there. "Inflation has gone up." That might feel, quote/unquote, I'm not saying it is, less personal in some ways. Or that thing out there is changing. I don't necessarily feel, I think people are feeling like it's personal right now, and it does effect them. And they don't even know what questions to ask.
Yeah, so I think if you ask yourself around inflation. So probably most of your listeners, if not all, are feeling the pinch of inflation. Because, goods and services are-
I have a car, they certainly are these days.
Yes, yes! And there's a lot of reasons for why, what's happening, or happening. We have a lot of supply chain breakdown during the pandemic. And that might of lead to less oil being taken out of the ground. Making that more expensive, and also less production of the basics like food. And restaurants were hardly opened, right? So less production. And now we're feeling the pinch of all of those things. So definitely I think asking "How does this effect me?" Means what's happening to all of these different fronts? So, if I'm being effected by grocery prices. How is that effecting my budget? Or, how has my budget changed? Because there's so many people, the pandemic put their budget into a lockdown. So maybe they had more cash in their pocket. Or just maybe collected dust in their bank accounts. But now, a lot of people are feeling that need to spend. They've been calling it the spending pressure. Of now, my finances have been in lockdown for all these months, I wanna get out there. I wanna spend money. I want to be a part of this economy that's re-opened. So a word a caution around that, are you feeling that you have job security? Is your income keeping up with inflation? Have you've done a budget that reflects what things cost now? This would be a really good time to look into that. And get some questions around that answer. So that's the first one, is looking at your financial circumstances in today's dollars. Looking at your expenses in today's dollars, looking at your income. So putting together a budget together, this would be a good time to do that. Also as far as interest rates, interest rates have gone up. Do you have a mortgage, or are you carrying other personal debt? What type of interest rate are you paying? I've been encouraging clients since during the pandemic to lock in. We had some, the interest rates were even lower during the pandemic. So I was calling clients saying, "Lock in interest rates for your mortgage." "Go back, renegotiate, the rates have never been better. "And won't get getter. "So if you can get a five year rate at a low rate, "or even a seven year rate, "this would be the time to do it." And, I was able to convince some people, I wasn't able to convince others, because people just assume that they can continue to refinance their debt, and use their house as a piggy bank. And now, we're seeing that we can't do that indefinitely, because interest rates have meant, interest rates going up have meant that the housing market has gone down. So, as interest rates go up, we might see more of that. So anyway, this is the time for you to look at how much you're spending on interest. Whether it's consumer interest, so credit card debt. Your mortgage, and just sort of determine what is that going to look like as interest rates go up? Are you in a fixed scenario? Are you in a variable rate? What do your advisors advise around what you should do now? Because it may vary. And then in terms of mortgage, sorry, in terms of interest rates on credit cards, consumer debt, can you negotiate at a lower interest rate? Or at least fix what you have as much as you can? So just shop around for the lowest rates you can find on your personal debt. Just so that you can keep as much money as you can, where it belongs, in your pocket. So those are some of the things that you can do on the consumer side, for sure.
Well and I wanna really over-simplify two things that you said in there. And that is one, make a budget.
Yeah-
'Cause of-
Yeah.
Listen, I'm fully, I will fully own, I am, I've started 100,000 budgets, and I have finished zero of them. So I will fully own that I am in this camp. But there's a lot of us who don't take the time to do it, don't know where to start. Don't whatever, make a budget. With today's dollars, especially if you've had one that needs to be updated, do that. But also make one, take the time to do it. Now is the time. Because of how things are changing, more than ever.
Right.
And there's lots of tools for that. But secondly, have advisors available to you in some way, shape, or form. That, financial advisors, whatever-
Mortgage advisors, lenders.
Yep.
Bankers.
Actually know what they're talking about, and can give you some advice. And a lens and a perspective. And look, make sure you trust them. Make sure they're not just pitching one thing. That's important. No offense to those who are pitching one thing. But right, as a consumer, you want the perspective that their knowledge is gonna give, not just yet, invest in this and do this one thing one way. But find those people that can give you some of that perspective. So it's not, you're not only reacting emotionally, or looking at to what you were saying with the renegotiating mortgages during the pandemic. Something that I did, I had to renew my mortgage. And I'm really glad I did it for the five years, because I have a finally, a good interest rate, because it was during the pandemic. And it was at the advice of one of the people in my life, who was like "Go do it! Go do it now! "Here's what you're gonna need. "But this is the time to do it, "because the rates are so good." And I probably would not, I didn't have the awareness of how good the rates were at that point, to know that would had been the right time to do it. So it is, having people around you who want to help, and want the best for you. That makes a big difference.
Yeah, yeah. So it's, I think for building that team of trusted advisors around you, super-helpful when you're not sure what questions to ask. But focusing on areas in your finances that you can personally control. So think about what are the questions to ask. What are the things that I can control in my financial life? Like, you control how much I spend. I have some control on how much interest I'm going to pay. And I can control who I can ask information from. So if you don't have a trusted advisor in your life, or trusted team of advisors in your life, an accountant, a mortgage broker, a banker, an advisor, find those people and ask for referrals. And then, control how much debt I have. So those are things you can control. You can also control how you're managing your investments by not panicking, and making again, emotional investment decisions, but rational decisions. Because the reality is, there's always opportunities in every market that's supposed to be horrible. We hear about the opportunity after the market's gone up. That's not how investors make money, right? You don't sell when everybody's selling, and then buy when everybody's buying. Where's the value if you do that? You're looking for opportunities to buy into a discounted market right now. And sell when everybody's like, "Oh, everything is looking so great." That's when you might wanna reshuffle your positions. But you can't rely on the media to give you advice about those things. Again, you need to find those trusted professionals that you can look to. But this might be a good time to have that conversation with your advisor. And then finally, around control. You also wanna control how much you can save. Because we always want to remember the sunny days. But we have just as many rainy days. We just don't always notice them, unless it's raining for a really long time, or we hear lightening and thunder outside. And we're like, "Oh, this might be with us for a little while." So just assume, and this is the advice I given the last time, as well. Prepare for things to go wrong. By looking at your circumstances from as many different angles as you can. What will make you vulnerable in this market? What will make me vulnerable in future markets? How can I expect that, and financially prepare for that? Well, an emergency fund is one. So, for people who's finances were in lockdown, you have a few more dollars in your coffers now than you had before. Hence why I'm saying, I'm not trying to stop anyone from living their best life after being in lockdown for two years. But how much money is your life costing you right now? So get that budget done, and then figure out if all of a sudden you lost your job, or had a big expense come out of somewhere, you'd have enough to cover yourself for three to six months. So have that emergency fund. See how much you have. How much of a fortress you have around you? That if you're in a situation that you don't expect, you've got money to rely on. I think that's a really crucial one. Definitely look for opportunity in the markets now. But also wield yourself a fortress for something, expecting that things will go wrong. We only kind of had a break for a year, right? We had 2020, things are terrible. Now with 2021, hey, things are getting better! And now we're back, this just tells you that you never know when uncertainty is gonna be around the corner. But if you expect it, then you're financially better prepared. And hopefully, that will make you sleep better at night, knowing you're better prepared.
Yeah, and I think that's really important because there's no one easy answer. There's no one quick here like, save exactly this amount of money, and invest exactly this, that doesn't exist. So it would great if someone could make that happen, wonderful for all of us. But since it doesn't exist, it's about really being smart for yourself, and figuring out for yourself what that looks like. People have different expenses, needs, whatever the case may be for that safe. And I think, I love that you mentioned putting money aside into a savings account. Because I think it is so un-sexy and glamorous, and yet still so important to talk about, is having that.
We old school, girl. Kicking it old school. It worked in the past, it's still working.
Yes. But that's the thing. I think that we hear so much about all the sexy, glamorous, they're like, "Buy these, and let's flip properties, let's invest." Poor I'm jumping all over crypto. I'm gonna buy NFTs, and I'm gonna invest this much in crypto and all these things, and it's cool, that's sexy. But if you, first of all, if you're investing money you can't lose, that's a whole other conversation. But if you're doing that without having a savings as a backup in case something happens for your day-to-day life, that's not a balanced approach to planning for the unknown. That's not planning for the unknown. That is living in a dream world, where everything is perfect forever.
A 100%, and I'm gonna take it one step further. Because-
Please.
Because with my retirement clients. So you're somebody, you need a short term emergency fund to pay your bills should something happen. Just assume something bad can happen at any time. So as I said, building that fortress around your finances will mean that you have some level of protection. If you can back that up with having a line of credit, a low-interest line of credit, even better. Which is why, do everything you possibly can to protect your credit, so you can always attract low interest rates, for any personal debt that you have to accumulate, you have to take on. 'Cause you never know when you have to. But I take it one step further with my retirees. And because we never have control of the markets, and we don't wanna have to sell at the wrong time, I highly recommend that if you're a retiree, that you look at having about two years of your expenses saved up in a high-interest account. So you're never reliant on the markets to pay your bills in a year like this. You definitely wanna, we are living longer and longer. So you definitely wanna build a portfolio that's gonna give you an opportunity to continue to grow your wealth well into retirement. Because retirement can be another 40, 45 years, you just never know. Having said that, you don't necessarily want to be relying on the market to pay your bills at times like this. So that's why having that two year wedge to pay your expenses, is a great way to start, to really build that security. So, I'll give you an idea. So at the end of December, last year we were up, I was getting, convincing my retiree clients in particular to sell some of that profit that they made, and put it aside after they took out a year of that fortress, rebuilding it again. It sometimes took some wrangling. But it meant that they sold some of their profits when it was up, and replenished their retirement emergency funds.
Mm-hm. Yeah, because the last thing you wanna do to what you said, let's emphasize this, is sell when the market is down if you don't have to.
Exactly. Go ahead.
No, go ahead.
No, because I was gonna say, because ultimately here's the thing, right? Is again, the markets are gonna do what they're gonna do. And I think the social media age has lead people to become impatient with the market. Because ultimately, we've returned where you're doubling your money. Often, you're not watching it in real time. Compounding happens when you're not looking at it all the time. So somebody who's going into crypto, looking to be an instant millionaire, that's almost a lottery. That's not an investment strategy, right? If you just, you don't have to do anything that sexy to grow your money. If you're investing in investments that pay dividends, that pay capital gains over time, you will on average, see over 10 years, your money double. Not as sexy to our younger people. But you may want to recall that someone like Bill; sorry, not Bill Gates. Warren Buffet became a billionaire in his 60s, after starting investing when he was 10. 10 or 11. That's the power of having money grow over a long period of time. So we just have to remember that these market drops do happen. Look for the opportunity, but protect yourself against short-term headaches where you're forced to sell. And try not to panic.
Yeah, I love that you brought him up. Because he's one of the things this is, I'm not saying that is not well-known about him. But I think it's important to mention that he talks about all the time is investing in the funds, I'm totally, index funds. Investing in index funds, where they, and keeping the money in those index funds for long term periods, not pulling it out. not, you know-
Yeah, because that's how you lose money.
Right. And he's like, "Look, put a bunch of money in index funds. "Let the market gonna do what it's gonna do, "it will all balance out, "and you will make money over the long term." He's very passionate about that as an approach, and yet again, super un-sexy, this is a billionaire telling us this. And yet people are like, "Oh no, "I wanna move it around and do individual things, "and play with all this stuff."
Well the thing is, he also believes in stocks, as well. There's different ways to make money, there's index funds, there's stocks, there's different types of stocks. There's funds. It just really is the strategy is, do your research again, ahead of time. Look at how that investment is gonna grow. Look at also how it's gonna drop. That's why we spend so much time in our industry talking about risks. Because people feel the pain of losing money, more than they feel the excitement of making money. And as I said, money, if you leave it alone, will silently grow and compound. And you'll benefit from that magic of compound. If you do all your research, do all your homework, see how your investments have the opportunity to grow, based on historic numbers, how they've grown in the past, you're gonna give yourself and your returns a fighting chance. More than if you're selling and buying, and trying to time the market. That's not how Warren Buffet's made money. He's become a billionaire because he's investing for a really long time. Especially in the markets. That's where you're likely to get your best returns. Is the place where you're probably gonna feel the most amount of risks. So have those really deep conversations with yourself. Deep conversation with your advisors about how much risk you wanna take. Because not everybody is suited for index funds. It just depends on the risk tolerance. But the reality is understand what you're investing in. Understand the potential to make money. And then, let it do its thing. I find this time of the year, when the markets are down, I'm doing the most hand-holding with clients. Reminding them why they bought what they bought. Showing them what the investment does over time. So that they stay invested. This is actually why you might wanna consider having an advisor in your life. To help keep you on track. Because sometimes it's hard not to go to that unhappy place, where your emotions and your fears live, right?
Absolutely. And the truth is that, you have a lens on the market, and the way money works. That is, it's your area of expertise, Jackie. This is one of many things. But this is one of the things that you are an expert in. So you have a lens and an ability to reflect on longer term things, that when I lose $10,000 in an investment, and I'm panicked- Losing, dropped. It still, it could be temporarily, but it feels like a loss, even though I didn't really have that money in front of me, which is a whole other thing right there, but it's real. You have a lens on it, that I in the moment, even if I'm trying to be as rational as possible, and I know I can lose that money, it's not the end of the world, I still don't have that perspective.
No, it's hard. You just need to find someone with who you click and connect with. That you have that chemistry with. That can, if you're in that situation, talk you off the ledge. So sometimes my clients will say, "Jackie, I need for you to talk me off the ledge right now." Let's go through that exercise of why we bought the things we bought. I actually love playing a game with them to say we've only had this investment for five years. This investment has been around for 20 years. If you put $10,000 today, what's it worth now? And we do this guess game to remind them how much, how silently, and how powerfully money can grow if it's left to do its thing.
Yeah. And again, not the sexiest thing to want to think about when it comes to money. But really important, because while we might be at the precipice of a crisis in this world right, in this way right now. I think there's some people who are screaming crisis, and feel like we're at the bottom of whatever that, whatever is gonna hit, is gonna hit. They're screaming about it. And there's other people who are 16 miles back from that precipice going, "Oh, it's probably fine, it's all gonna work out."
Yeah, it may well. And I think both of things. There's nothing wrong with understanding that there may be a crisis, and looking for the most important thing you can do, is look for what does it mean for your personal financial circumstances? Will it mean that you're not gonna be able to be sustainable if you continue on this path? This is the time to do that deep dive, and look much more closely at your finances. This isn't the time to tune out what your personal financial circumstances look like. It may be the time to not look at your investment statements. It's going to give you a whole lot of panic. But I would definitely book a conversation with your advisor if you have one. And if you're panicked about how you're investing right now. You're panicked about your state of investments, reach out to a trusted advisor, ask for referrals. Again, find someone you click with. Because in every crisis, there's always opportunity. So look for the opportunity, and expect that bad things will happen, by building a fortress around your finances as much as you can. So what does that building a fortress around your finances mean for you? Look at ways you can shore up that emergency fund. Reduce the amount of debt that you're currently paying on things. And really also looking at how you can organize your finances in the future, so that you're in a better position should something happen.
Yeah. And I think that there are, I think it's easier, not easy, to see crisis that don't involve our personal finances. To see the opportunity in crisis that don't involve our personal finances, or money, our money, my money specifically, right?
Right, right.
It's a lot easier to say, "Oh, I can see an opportunity in this crisis "that does not effect me, personally, "and my money, personally." And I think when our money and our finances and our financial future is involved, it is so much harder for us to see the opportunity that might be there. And I think it's a really important reminder for people that it might not feel that way right now. And we might be super-focused on the crisis, because it could personally effect us, or is personally effecting us, or whatever the circumstances are. And there will always be an opportunity in it. There's, in every recession that has happened in the past, there are people who have come out on top at the end of it.
Multi-millionaires, multi-millionaires.
Not necessarily with the idea, someone said to me once, that's because they were taking advantage. No, not just because they were taking, because they invested in specific ways because they held their ground in the market, because they had put more money into the market when it was down and it was inexpensive. There is opportunity, and the returns can be huge. So it's important to not make it the personal panic moment.
Yeah, don't hit the panic button. There's nothing in it for you to hit the panic button, and make decisions when you're so emotionally heightened. I know it doesn't feel good. I often have those conversations with clients. I say, "It doesn't feel so good." Like there's something to be said when you go to a store and buy a consumer good with zero depreciation, like depreciation is gonna be 100%, and we get a deal, we get a discount. That feels good. Getting a discount in the market somehow, does not feel good. But it doesn't need to feel good to make sense. Feelings are not facts. We really wanna base our decisions on facts and not feelings. So what are the personal facts to us that we need to be considering? Really gather that trusted team of advisors that you rely on to make decisions. If you are really emotionally feeling this right now, and you're in your feelings, talk to someone who could again, can talk you off a ledge, help you to make those rational decisions. Find the opportunity. Protect your potential, your current personal financial situation. That would really be the key steps you can take right now. And then you know what? Try to keep your optimism higher by potentially staying off those news channels that feed us this daily dose of negative news. There's no shortage of negative news right now. And if it's gonna effect your mental health, I'd probably say avoid it as much as you can. And focus on the abundance you currently have in your life. That's a really important mindset.
Yeah, amen to all of that. And if you do not have a financial advisor, and you are in Canada/Ontario, the lovely Jackie Porter is someone I highly recommend reaching out to. And Jackie, your website will be in the show notes. But do you wanna just say it out loud for anyone who might be listening?
Sure. It's AskJackie@cartwm.com A-S-K-J-A-C-K-I-E @carte, C-A-R-T-E-W-M dot com. Feel free to reach out to us, we have a person on our team who could give you a 30 minute financial IQ if you're looking for some tips on how you can currently build your financial IQ in this current economic climate. We certainly have that service available to you. And definitely if you can, check out our website. We got lots of resources on there, on dealing with financial pressures, dealing with the recession. There's lot of resources if you're trying just to become more, you really wanna become more educated about your financial circumstances.
Yeah and you know I adore you, Jackie. But for anyone who's listening or watching, I adore Jackie for a reason. And she is truly an expert in this area. And I highly, highly recommend that you reach out to her and check out her website for those resources, if nothing else. But really it should be more than that. Because she is incredible. And thank you for coming on and talking about this with me. I think it's an important conversation that this maybe crisis, not crisis time, and then people are unsure about. But I think it's really important to have these conversations, and to remind people that this is a moment of leading through crisis, that is happening, even if we don't necessarily wanna acknowledge it's happening yet.
Yeah, yeah. The ground is definitely shifting. And sometimes things happen when you are least expecting it, or not necessarily seeing it in real time. So yeah, definitely look out, look beyond the look out for things changing. But most importantly, be on the lookout, make sure that you have a plan for how to deal with whatever change you're gonna face now, or in the future, in terms of guidance.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Jackie, it was lovely to have you on, and to speak to you again.
It's always a pleasure, any time.
[Celine] Thanks for joining me today on the "Leading Through Crisis Podcast." If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to write and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca