Financial Planning

By Vickram Agarwal on February 4, 2026
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

By Vickram Agarwal on February 4, 2026
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Five platitudes you should never simply accept from your financial advisor.

My family and I moved to Canada in the summer of 2019, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We were willing to do everything it took to make the move a success. I knew that finding a job right away was unlikely and also sensed that landing a position at the same level as I had in Dubai was out of the question. I had no ego about it and was ready to put in the time and the work.

I found my first gig in February 2020, just weeks before the COVID‑19 pandemic swept through Canada and the world. I was lucky—the job gave me an opportunity to flex my entrepreneurial muscles inside an organization that needed exactly that.

One of my earliest memories from my interactions was a monthly ritual: a colleague would open a letter from his financial institution and either sigh with huge relief or with quiet frustration. It was his registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) statement. He was a few years from retirement and would openly share the ups and downs of his investments, depending on how the market had performed that month.

What struck me most was not the gains or losses, it was how disconnected he was from the process. At some point, he had outsourced his financial future to an advisor. He had taken his foot off the gas, hoping that trust and time would carry him into retirement.

Another conversation I remember vividly was over lunch with a friend. I’d mentioned recently learning about the benefits of maxing out my RRSP. She laughed, not out of humour but disbelief. She........

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