{"id":131384,"date":"2025-09-12T03:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T03:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/131384\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T03:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T03:57:13","slug":"this-advisors-business-gumption-comes-from-his-dad-and-the-birth-mother-he-met-later-in-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/131384\/","title":{"rendered":"This advisor\u2019s business gumption comes from his dad and the birth mother he met later in life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Karac Graham, associate investment advisor with Moyle Rowley Wealth Management Group at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth Inc., in Barrie, Ont.Supplied<\/p>\n

In the Behind the Advice series<\/a>, Globe Advisor asks advisors about their relationship with money from a young age, lessons learned over the years and how their experiences influence the advice they give to clients. We\u2019ve also launched a Behind the Advice podcast \u2013 find all the episodes here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Karac Graham, associate investment advisor with Moyle Rowley Wealth Management Group at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth Inc., in Barrie, Ont., talks about his family\u2019s work ethic and money rules and the part-time job in university that inspired him to become an advisor:<\/p>\n

Describe your upbringing<\/p>\n

I was born into private adoption in Ottawa and raised in North Bay, Ont. It was a modest upbringing. My father worked extremely long hours to run a small business, and my mother took on part-time work in addition to her full-time teaching job to support my sister and me. <\/p>\n

Nothing came for free in my household. If I wanted to do something, I had to work for it. I was incentivized with money to get good grades in school. As kids, we had to start working at the age of 14 to support our leisure activities. I worked at my dad\u2019s sporting goods store and then at Future Shop (before it was acquired by Best Buy and I was laid off). <\/p>\n

I learned early on about financial independence and how you can lose a job based on corporate changes.<\/p>\n

What did you want to be growing up, and how did you get into financial services?<\/p>\n

When I was younger, I wanted to be an engineer. As I grew older and watched my dad run his business, I wanted to be a business owner like him. Then, when I was 18, I met my birth mother. She runs her own business in the U.S. I always felt I shared an entrepreneurial mindset with my dad, but when I met my birth mother, it was reinforced. <\/p>\n

I studied business at the University of Guelph, and in my second year, I took on a part-time job as a bank teller during which I encountered wealth advisors and gained a deeper understanding of their roles. It was then that I had my \u2018a ha\u2019 moment and realized that being an advisor was the perfect mix of strategy, technical and interpersonal skills that I was looking for. <\/p>\n

I also loved the stock market. I then declared my major in management economics, and finance. I worked my way up in that bank for years with one target in mind: to break into the wealth management channel, which I eventually did. <\/p>\n

What is the biggest money mistake you\u2019ve made, and what did you learn from it?<\/p>\n

Investing in speculative mining stocks within my TFSA 10 years ago, when I was younger and far less educated than I am now. I lost about 50 per cent of my investment, withdrew the funds, and decreased my TFSA contribution room permanently. <\/p>\n

I learned that the tax-free compound interest over time is the best plan of attack for a TFSA and to leave the speculation to non-registered accounts, in which you can at least claim the losses. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad I made that mistake at a young age when I had more time to make up the losses instead of later in life. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s the hardest piece of money advice for you to follow? <\/p>\n

Having an emergency savings account with three months of expenses is a common and great piece of financial advice. Instead, I have savings in the form of liquid investments. I\u2019m aware that it\u2019s great advice to have those emergency savings as cash, but I am stubborn and love compounding. Nobody is perfect.<\/p>\n

What are you best at when it comes to your own finances? <\/p>\n

I am completely unemotional about the headlines. You must be to manage your money effectively. If I made investment decisions based on news headlines, I\u2019d be in cash 100 per cent of the time.<\/p>\n

What do you see happening in your industry that worries you?<\/p>\n

I worry there are too many people taking the blanket advice from influencers online as gospel. A notable example of this is the low-cost, balanced exchange-traded fund as a portfolio solution, which is amazing advice for some people. <\/p>\n

Risk tolerance and a capacity for risk are different factors for everybody, so the cookie-cutter solution of a 60-40 balanced ETF cannot be the best advice for everyone. It\u2019s not overwhelmingly bad advice, but I prefer bespoke over blanket.<\/p>\n

What advice do you have for someone who wants to enter your business?<\/p>\n

Reach out to people who work in this industry, have coffee chats to learn about their careers, and probe them for opportunities. Once I got my foot in the door at a bank, I worked my way up and approached every advisor team in a 100-kilometre radius for a year and a half until I found the right fit to get started in wealth management. <\/p>\n

Show interest, skills, and a willingness to learn. Keep working at it until somebody says yes. If you want it bad enough, you\u2019ll get it.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Karac Graham, associate investment advisor with Moyle Rowley Wealth Management Group at Wellington-Altus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[59867,14370,61862,84,4176,39721,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-131384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-advisor-noregwall","9":"tag-appwebview","10":"tag-behindtheadvice","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-globe-advisor","14":"tag-personal-finance","15":"tag-personalfinance","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}