E52: Straight Talk with Gerald Sheff

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Foreign.

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Unlimited podcast. Maybe you can hear it in my voice. I am very excited about our guest today. I've been hounding this gentleman and mentor of mine for a little while, and we've got him on. This is Jerry Chef, one of my former bosses, founder of Gluskin Chef, and I would say certainly falls into the category of our let's call it Lessons with Legends series on the Unlimited podcast. So, Jerry, really, really thankful and pleased that we're going to be chatting today, and thank you for joining.

My pleasure.

So. So let me give a quick intro to you. I'll give. I mean, you know, maybe I'll give a quick intro of me meeting Jerry. You know, I went into Gluskin Chef's offices and probably very early, somewhere around 2006, and I met with Ira, and I said, you know, I'd love to speak with Jerry and see if there's an opportunity, and went to Jerry's office, sat down with Jerry and Jeremy Friedman, who later became the CEO of Gleskin Chef. And I could sense right away, right from the beginning, Jerry doesn't, you know, mess around, you know, very direct questions, very straight talker, and sort of learned a lot from Jerry in the way he interacts and deals with people. So I had the pleasure of working with Jerry for five years and in touch with him for much longer. Jerry is a graduate of the School of architecture at McGill University, which was in 1964, and he received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1971. Following this, he joined Cadillac Developments in Toronto, which later became Cadillac Fairview, where he played a number of key roles with that firm. And then in 1984, famously, I guess, he left and with his partner Ira Gluskin, former podcast guest I founded Gluskin Chef, which went on to become one of the most successful investment firms in Canada. Or as Gluskin's mission statement says, you know, the preeminent wealth management firm in Canada serving high net worth investors. And probably in my career there was, aside from starting my own firm, there was few opportunities where I was as excited to join a firm and get a business card as I was when I joined Gluskin Chef. So again Jerry, thanks for joining and we'll dive into a few questions here. So you know, obviously I've given a very short bio that doesn't do you justice at all. Maybe you can just give a little bit of background, you know, where you grew up, how you got or decided you were going to do an architecture degree, and a little bit of your path to where you are today or Gluskin Chaff. And I'll definitely interject with a few questions along the way here.

Sure. I was born in Montreal. I grew up in Montreal in the later years in the Plateau area if you like. It was Mordecai Richter territory at the time and grew up in a family of fairly modest means, the eldest of four children and the primary objective at the time was to develop a profession and the typical professions were doctor, lawyer, accountant, none of which I wanted to be. So by default I didn't know anything about architecture. I thought, well, it's something I don't know anything about. So I didn't know I didn't want to be one. So I thought, well, maybe I'll become one. So somehow or other I ended up being a student at McGill University in architecture. It wasn't through any great passion of mine or any great love or at least not that I was aware of at the time or any great talent. And architecture at the time was a six year course in McGill and I knew even when I was in it, by the time I was in grade three or year three or four of my six year thing, six year adventure there, I knew it didn't feel like really what I wanted to do when I was in and I'm a finisher so I stuck it through with some difficulty and I can't say it was enjoyable or I've said this before, I can't say it was enjoyable, but I did finish and I did become an architect. I moved over to England and I worked for a very famous architect, Sir Basil Spence, who accidentally was commissioned to design the British Pavilion in Montreal while I was living in England and since I was from Montreal. They thought I knew something and I didn't tell them. I didn't. So I became involved in the project and ultimately was invited to go back to be the liaison between the Montreal development of the project, the building of the project, and what happened in London, England. So I was there before Expo and sometime after Expo. And actually that was a very exciting period of time. Expo was amazing and being involved in the British Pavilion was very exciting. And for a moment I had a thought that made the architecture, maybe I can make it work in some fashion, because it was a very exciting time and it was very heady being involved in the way I was. But after Expo, Montreal went off the edge of a cliff for a variety of reasons. First of all, Expo was an artificial high. Quebec separatism was rearing its head again and there was probably a natural recession anyway. And so, you know, it was a wake up call at a moment in the sun here, but the sun was setting pretty rapidly. And so I struggled for a while and had a midlife crisis trying to figure out what was I going to do with my life. Because clearly architecture is a very tough living. And I know a lot of architects, I know, I know a lot of successful architects and some of the, and the most successful ones obviously do do well. But the lavast. It's a highly underpaid profession. Profession compared to many, many other professions. And I was, I was interested in providing wealth for me and my family. And I definitely, you know, aspired to, to make money, put it in crass terms. I was highly motivated by making money. And clearly architecture was not going to be a vehicle to doing that. And I had a need to reinvent myself. So I somehow or other got into the Harvard Business School. And that's a whole other story. But I am, I believe I know I'm the first architect in Canada to ever go to the Harvard Business School. And I was worried about it, but worried about whether I'd be able to be competitive and so on, given the reputation of the place and the difficulty of getting in and the caliber of students that apply, et cetera. But I had a very good experience there. And I realized that my thinking was as good as anybody else's in any area that I chose to think. And, you know, and you don't have to have an opinion on everything. You can be quite Charlotte and say, I don't know, or I have no opinion. But where I had an opinion, I always felt in that competitive environment, mine was as good as anybody else's and I did well in School for the, for the first time in my life, actually I did well because I was a very mediocre student. The rest of the time being more interested in billiards and other things. Right.

And then, and then after hbs, you went into the real estate world. I guess I did.

So by this time I started having a family quite early. So I, by this time I had. My first child was born in London, England where I lived there. The second child was born during Expo and I lived in Montreal at all. And my third child came along in, in Boston where I lived there. Right. So three different countries, three different cities, very complicated. And you know, I wasn't traveling solo at that time, so I had a lot of, a lot of considerations and, and we wanted to come back to Canada. It was, it was a lot of reasons not to stay in. The US at the time was a beacon of Vietnam War activities and all kinds of demonstrations then about the Vietnam War, unrest on campuses and so on. Kent State period, you know, unrest on Harvard campus. Then as there has been more ritual and so we decided to come back to Canada, but I didn't want to go back to Quebec because. Correct. You know, Cleary was not ascending. Okay. And there were refuture for English speaking people was not going to be in Quebec at the time. So Toronto was a natural place to go. It's close to Montreal. We have a lot of family in Montreal. Toronto, you know, had a, had a, had a strong Jewish community, which is most important to me in terms of, you know, from raising my children and so on. And I had a very small number of relatives here, but I had some contact with the city. I didn't really know it. And I basically married my architectural background with my business school training and that became, you know, that gave me the opportunity to join a company like Cadillac at the time, which I didn't know anything about. But like many things in life, some of the best things that happen are just luck. But you know, you have to take it when it comes, but you have to have the luck crossing your path. And, and I knew when I came up for an interview back in. I guess it would have been 1971, when I probably December of 71, when I finished Harvard in 71. December of 70 I came up and I met with Eve diamond, who was the head of Cadillac at the time, which I didn't know anything about. And I thought Cadillac is probably any company, any, anybody who would call themselves Cadillac is probably probably a Chevrolet aspiring to be a Cadillac. It's probably a sloppy Company. Right, but. And it was a small public company at the time. But, but I met these diamond. And I met a guy named Ajira Sheer who's still a friend of mine to this day. And these guys were incredibly impressive. And I knew after the first interview that my life had changed and if they were going to make me an offer, which I felt they would after the first interview, that I was definitely going to take it. And they did and I did. And then, you know, that that company grew very successfully and ultimately merged with, well, two other public real estate companies. One was Serview Corporation, which was the real estate arm of the Rolf and family interest Kemp cemp. And the third was a company called Canadian Equity and Development Corporation, which was a company that was originally E.P. taylor's public real estate company to develop all of Don Mills. And those three companies merged to become Cadillac Fairview. Again, another story. Well, one book written on this and I had a, I had, you know, a terrific 13 year career there. Very enjoyable.

What were you specifically doing there?

Well, my first job was I was working with junior senior as his executive assistant. But very quickly, you know, I assume a lot of respect, responsibility. When we were developing the Aaron Mills project, which was a massive new community in Mississauga, which, you know, there's tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of people probably living in those today. So I was, I was around when the first house was built, you know, like some exception. And it was a, you know, it was one of the larger plant communities in Canada at the time. So I was able to marry my architectural background, you know, with my, with my business experience and whenever I was unhappy at, you know, Cadillac and Turkey emerged in 74 with Canadian emphony. And we had a large, we had a large architectural department or, you know, a half floor of people because they were very active across all areas of real estate. Whenever I was unhappy in my job or had a damn moment, all I had to do to feel better was to walk through the architectural department and look around at all those people over their traffic boards and saying, what have you got to have be unhappy? But look at these guys, right? Oh my gosh.

Unbelievable. Okay. And then somehow you and Ira, your partner, your business partner of decades now, connected cross paths. Tell me the story of Ira and how that evolved to, you know, your namesake firm.

Okay, well, that was again, like, again, like all things in life, that was accident, luck, call it what you want. But very shortly after I arrived in Toronto, again, I worked for a company where the principals I was working with gave me Extraordinary exposure. And I'd say very, very quickly, I met Ira, who came into the office. Ira, at the time was a, was a budding real estate. He decided to become a real estate securities analyst. Right. And I think the reason he decided to become that is because there were no real estate securities analysts. So he thought he'd have, he'd have no competition. Smart guy. So, so he followed the very, you know, the. What started known as a limited number of real estate companies. He dabbled a little bit in real, in retail as well. But, you know, with the passage of time, there was, you know, there was Cadillac, there was Fairview, there was New west, there was Dale, and there was Karma, and there was Branallium, there was Jen Stargardt, and he became Ira's Ira, as you know, and as I've said many times, is there, as I joked many times, not having any particular talent, decided to become a character. And he was very successful. He has become a character, although he also has a lot of talents. And so he became the guy in the real estate business and he followed our company and we became friends. And I was always interested in the stock market. Even before I was at business school, before I started architecture. I always, I mean, I never had money, but I dabbled. I knew how to buy and sell a stock through a broker. And Ira was an institutional analyst, an institutional broker, if you like, at Brown Baldwin and. Mr. At the time. And he became my principal, the principal guy I dealt with. And because I was an insider at Cadillac Sergio, I obviously couldn't buy or sell those shares, but I could buy or sell other real estate securities, which I did. Timing is everything. But at the time, I became very friendly with Ira and was always interested in what he was thinking and made some, you know, what were relatively significant and consequential investments at the time, based on his advice that turned out to be, you know, very successful. And, you know, there is a huge element of luck in that. But I also took what were risks that I probably shouldn't have taken, but I had nothing to lose in a sense, other than I had a very good job and a decent income. I had no capital. So I would, you know, I would borrow money to take risks, which is not necessarily a smartest thing to do. But again, with hindsight, luck, it paid off.

Yeah.

And so, so we, we were close over many, many years. And as my career at Cadillac Fairview was coming to an end, and, and I won't bore you with all the details there, but, but, you know, I had a very Successful career there. The company went through various changes and then in 1984, by, by that time, well, 1981, 82, it was a huge recession in real estate companies, was interest rates were 18, 20%, which is, you know, it's almost like a death sentence for, for real estate companies.

Yeah.

And so on. So all of them were under pressure and all of them would take dramatic actions of various guys to write the ship. And Cadillac made a decision on my recommendation that, that, not that other people were not thinking it, but it was a very tough thing to do at the time to get out of the land and housing business. Okay. And, and which, which we did and I was charged with doing that. So I knew about two or two and a half years before I left that I was going to be leading, right. And I started to think about what I was going to do and much to my IRA was one of the people I was speaking with and much to my surprise, I discovered he was not happy where he was. Not that I never approached him and asked him to do it because it never occurred to me that he was unhappy in his situation at Brown. BARBARA yeah, and we had a false start at the beginning because the conversation went like would you consider doing anything with me? I said well, you know, if, if I didn't know you were unhappy, but if you would leave Brown Balm or Nester, you know, we could go into the money management business. If you wouldn't manage the money, I can run the business from the get the money. That was the concept. So you, he went back and told them that he's going to leave and they then said we don't want you to leave and made him president. So he didn't leave and I wasn't ready to leave anyway. This was a longer term plan. And then, and then I don't know, a year later I, we had another conversation and it turns out he wasn't happy to be president of Brown B District.

Right.

Would I still consider doing something? I said sure, I wouldn't, but, but now I was getting post again. It had to be, it had to be real and it turned out to be real. And we developed this concept and you know, the developer's concept of the Ruskin Chef Fund, A million dollar chit, very, you know that which was a lot of money at the time. It's still a lot of money, but it was a huge amount of money in 1983, 84. And so basically if you couldn't write a check for a million dollars, we didn't have the Time to talk to you, because those are the only investors we were interested in. So obviously we had to speak to people who had a lot more than. A lot more than a million if we were to. If they were to consider giving us a million. And that was sort of the genesis. And now who are you going to go to? You're not going to go to strangers. So we, the people we knew were all in the real estate business, notwithstanding the business. The real estate business was under pressure. Many of the people had lots of assets and they themselves were perhaps because of what was happening in real estate, looking to diversify themselves. So we created this structure where we basically said, if you give us a million dollars, you're not even locked in, you can take your money back. We're only investigating publicly traded securities. There was to some degree a real estate bent at the time because they thought that's what we knew something about. IRA in particular, who was investing the money. Although I'd say very quickly after we started, we started to move away from real estate into other areas. And, you know, we were lucky enough to have a very great start, great results, which obviously it's a huge help to have great results out of the gate. And then people started giving us more money. And then of course, 87, the market crashed in October of 87. So again, we were lucky. Lucky. And again, unlucky is a theme here.

Yeah, I'm here, I'm hearing that.

Luck and timing in 87, you know, when the, when the world was going down the drain, literally before, just a few days before October of 87, we had stolen half our security. So don't ask me why we did that. We never did anything like that before or since, but for whatever reason we did that then, which was a. Was a brilliant move at the time. Although, you know, the unbrilliant move was that we didn't jump back in immediately because the market rebounded very quickly. So we didn't catch the downdraft, but we didn't catch the updraft either.

Yeah, Hard to time the markets.

No, you can't, you can't in the market.

Yeah, yeah, the firm obviously grew, was a huge success, but right out of the gate, you know, and I was much younger at the time, but still sort of, you know, new of the firm and watching especially as I went through university and all this sort of stuff, but seemed like a different approach than maybe some of the other wealth management or fund management firms, you know, an irreverent way of communicating this new performance fee sort of Fee structure, which I think was maybe never used before in the country or at least on these types of funds. Like how did you decide what actions you were going to take to. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it wasn't, but it was certainly a different firm than a lot of others out there.

That's not a question. And I think, you know, I think, I mean we decided to be a boutique, a very, very boutique firm and to differentiate ourselves from, from all the big sort of vanilla money management objects existed at the time. So we differentiated ourselves in a variety of ways, one of which is we were the first company in Canada to ever have a performance field in managing money. And now, you know, participation fees were not that uncommon in real estate, you know, real estate joint ventures. So we viewed this as the better we do for you, the better we'll do for ourselves. Right. So we created this performance fee and people accepted it. And our results were, our results in the initial couple of years until October of 87 were terrific. And you know, they enable us to, you know, gave us a, a great boost on the start and you know, how you start a race as an effect. Now we also, you know, we also, because of the unique relationship between Ira and I where basically he was managing the, managing the money, I was doing everything else. You know, not that we didn't have a close collaboration and bounce things off each other, but you know, my job was, was to create sort of a cachet of the company.

Right.

Partly, partly because of my architectural background. I had a very strong, more than partly, I'd say I had a very strong interest in design, in communication, in non written communication, in terms of presentation and so on. So we always tried to differentiate ourselves. You know, very high minimums, a high standard of graphic design of any communication with clients, but noticeably different. So when it crossed your desk, it wasn't just, you know, the Royal Trust coming across or national bank or National Trust or whatever. It was like, who is this? It was more like, you know, their names. Hello, you know, you name any or Louis Von. Okay, back then, okay, so. And you know, you have to have the results as well. And when we created a certain cachet and we did it with our offices, you know, we had, we were able to move into our, into our first real office if you like. We had an architectural competition for the design. Bruce Kobara of JPNB ended up doing them. Our offices were exceptional by, by any standard. Okay. And we had the second highest floor in BCE place at the time. The only people who had a floor above us were vce because it was BCE Place. Right. And in fact, you know, it's because, it's because of our officers. You know, Culabara ended up doing the Goldman Sachs head offices in New York because Goldman Sachs came up to see our offices. I mean, you know, Goldman Sachs coming to see Gluskin Sheff's offices tells you there was something to see. Yeah. Okay. So you know, there was, we, we established a standard.

Yeah, amazing. Yeah, look, I, I, I spent a little bit of time in your, those offices and then you and I together with the help of KPMB and others built the new, the, well, the newer Gluskin Shaft offices.

Yeah, yeah. By the time we built newer shops, the newer Gluskin Shaft offices, again, it was a KPMB thing. But I was already sort of on my way out of the company. Sort of at least dang CEO. And we were taking a lot more space. We were two stories. And so I wasn't driving that at the time. Yeah. And I would say there was just, I had very little to do with it other than KPMB were also the architects. But we, they were not of the same standard as the very first thing we did, which was the first full floor at BCE Place. The second place was two floors at the Bay Adelaide Center. Yeah, they were exceptional, don't get me wrong. But they, you know, we probably spent as much on, on the one floor as we spent on the two floors ten years later or whatever it was. All right, amazing.

So maybe talk a little bit more about, you know, your relationship with Aira, your partnership with Aira. Because I mean, this is a partnership that's gone on now, what, for 40 plus years? Probably more.

Yeah, I mean we have, yeah, it's, well, 84. I mean again, I met Ira in 71. So what's that? 29 and 25. It's, it's a long time. It's 54 year relationship.

Yeah.

And we've been in business for, for, for what, what is it? 84 to 24. So that's 40 years. 40 years. 40 years since we started. Now we still, we still share an office today and you know, we have a, a Coleman family office.

So what's the secret to the success of this partnership? Because I often, you know, talk to folks about you and Ira as, you know, an example of a spectacular business partnership. You know, How'd you do it?

Well, you know, I think again, there's always an element of luck. Okay. And you take it when it comes your way. But you know, but I would say And I have no idea. You had a discussion with Ira Angle on another podcast. I don't remember what he said. I probably listened to it. But. I would say trust is the most important thing. Okay. Like, we've been 50, 50 from day one, and there has been complete trust. Okay. And Ira has joked about this. He has actually said this is. Right. He says he's honest, I think, but so, so, but it's, it's, you know, he.

And.

And stay in your own lane. And so he has stayed in his lane of investing, and he doesn't come into my lane unless I ask for his opinion. And most of the time, he's quite reluctant even express it. But if he does, I take into consideration, obviously, and vice versa. I mean, I stay out of his lane, he stays out of my lane. And it's interesting. Goskin Sheff had. We were there for a long time, and the company went public, and we had publicly reported financial statements. And in all the years we were a private company and even when we were a public company, Ira, who spent his life analyzing financial statements, I don't think ever looked at a Glasgow financial statement. Okay. That was my department. That is department. So.

Right.

He just assumed it was all being looked after and it worked.

Amazing. So you talked about that. Now you run a family office, or collectively, you and I are together. So what's. What's been the change from running a wealth management firm to managing other people's money to now your family office where you're focused on your own and I guess your family's. What's the philosophy? What's the approach? Has something changed in the way, you know, you think about managing assets?

Well, lots of things have changed, of course. I mean, so first of all, I mean, Ira and I actually, you know, don't really run the family office. A young man by the name of Jamie Grundman sure runs the family office.

Very smart guy. Very smart. And I'm sure he's going to hear us this on the podcast. Very smart guy.

He probably will. But Jamie, Jamie is an exceptional young man, in my opinion, and he's got actually, Jamie. I won't go into all history with Jamie, but Ira invented Jamie while he was still at Gluskin Shaft, while Ira was still at Glasgow. Jamie never worked for Gluskin Shafts. But Ira, Ira, Jamie reached out to Iraq. Ira became friendly with Jamie. Jamie was eager to learn whatever he can learn from Ira. And so he and Ira would invite us to a lot of meetings and Jamie would be hanging around. Nobody knew who Jamie Was. Or what he was doing was very curious. So when we were leaving, when Ira were finally leaving Buskin Shaft to move into our own offices, Ira suggested that reach. I didn't really know Jay. I suggested this guy, you know, would probably be ready to leave the bank. I think in the tongue. He was cibc, if I'm not mistaken. But you should talk to him. You know, we need him or we can use them or be an advantage or whatever. And I, I have to say I was reluctant. Okay, I. I was reluctant, but I spent some time with Jamie and I was very impressed. And we did bring Jamie on. And now it's, you know, eight, nine, ten years later. And Jay is, you know, basically the backbone of the office. And he's, he's, you know, he's got a couple of things going for him. You know, he's. He's young, which has a huge advantage in life. And he is very mature and he's got good judgment and he's wise beyond his years. Those are his trustworthy.

Yeah,

it's fast worthy, I think.

And so how do you guys think about investing your wealth now? You know, you could go. If you didn't have Jamie, you didn't have your family office, you could. Well, you can come to us and we can help you look after everything, as you know. But you could go to many other firms. You can invest in public private, real estate, alternative, all this business. Do you have a philosophy and an approach now, having been on the other side for run the firm? You know,

again, I have a philosophy. IRA has a philosophy. We don't have the same philosophy. That's. We do many of the same things, but we do a lot of things that are different. IRA has a much higher proportion and a much broader diversity of private investments of one kind or another. I personally always had a bias in favor of public investing. Not that I changed my mind that often, but I like the idea of being able to sell your shares or liquefy your investment. Having a conversation with a lawyer or a joint venture partner to get in or out of the ability to just pick up the phone until you sell it. Yeah, Whether it's up a dollar, down a dollar is less important than when you want to get out of something private. It's often the wrong time. There's all kinds of complexities, but, you know, it is what it is. But I have very few private investments, and I'd say I'm inclined to have fewer and fewer going forward because of my age and estate planning. I'm a huge Believer in leaving a tidy, carefree estate that can be wound up and dealt with in an orderly way. And public securities are the greatest way of doing that. Private investments are, let's say, more challenging. They just require a lot of onboard custodianship to. To deal with. To deal with. We have three, three things we do. First of all, we deal with a variety of money managers both in Canada and the United States. And not many, but again, I deal with probably fewer than IR deals with. I tend to be quite concentrators. We have, in an Irish case, more private investments. In my case, very, very few. Some of the real estate. And we manage. I think we, you know, we being Jamie, it started out being ira. It still is IRA to some degree, but, you know, Jamie and. Or Ira. Ira and or Jamie. We managed some money for ourselves. Okay. And concentrated, secure, you know, fairly concentrated portfolio. The very limited number of names and there's not much I do, you know, to a degree. I mean, I'm, you know, one of the utilities of having your own office and having no clients other than yourself. You don't have to account to anybody, right? No matter, you know, the market can have a heart attack, you know, okay, so you don't feel very good about it, but the phone's not ringing because you can't call yourself. But we've been very fortunate and things are going well and a pretty happy guy. About the only call that I've made just again, it's a lucky call. Okay, Because I'm at the stage of life, but I'm at. Because I don't believe in. And having debt. I believe the only people who should borrow money are people who have no money. If you have money, you shouldn't borrow money. So the one call I made, this turned out to be accidentally. Again, it's an accidental fall. Probably 25% of my portfolio has been in gold of one kind or another. The precious metals, gold and silver, one kind or another. And clearly that's been a great place to be through this period. And the other call, probably more as her office than mine. More. Jamie is predominantly. My investments have been predominantly US dollar denominated. And that's been the right place to be. It may not be the right place to be equal expert in this oil. That's something we're thinking about.

Yeah, well, yeah, we'll talk about the state of the world in a second. For a moment, circle back to the architecture thing because, you know, the theme I'm hearing from you right from the beginning was, you know, it wasn't really what you wanted to do and I think you even said in an interview you don't even think you were a good architect since I've known you. I mean it's really to me been a part of your character as you say, the offices, the stationary, the look and feel at your homes, your cottage etc like it's, it's a, everything you've done is at such a high standard and in particular with this touch of architecture, art etc so you know, and it sounds like that actually it's sort of like Steve Jobs and his, you know, knowledge of calligraphy was what helped design Apple's design and fonts and all this stuff like there's something there maybe for fun. I, you know, I know at your cottage you have a like you know, this you know, famous tree house and there was a big contest, you had to have architecture design the tree house. You know, is that a story you can share with us? Like it just seems pretty interesting.

Well I mean I can but if I can but just talk about a little more background on the architecture side. So I mean again I believe I have developed a great appreciation for architecture, for great architecture and in particular for architectural talents. There's a very huge difference between being, you know, appreciating art and being able to produce art.

Yeah.

So I appreciate, I appreciate architecture but I can't produce great architecture. But I've been fortunate because of, because of my financial success basically that I can indulge myself in working with very, very talented people. So you know we had a home in Toronto in Rosedale that we had an architectural competition on two and Bruce Kolbara, the guy who did our offices, the offices were long finished by that time, did our home, that was a very art, sexually consequential home. And then Shim Sutleff and associates who are, you know have an international reputation, they've done work, you know, around the world but not a lot of work but very significant work and many and a lot of it in the housing area or a single modest building area. They don't do big high rise office or apartment buildings and they are exceptional by I'd say on a world standard they've won dozens of Governor General's award for their work. I mean almost by definition everything they do is a, is award winning. So they end up, they were one of the competitors on our house in Toronto and were not successful at the time because I didn't think they'd had enough, they had enough experience to do something of the scale so they ended up Doing as a consolation prize, I say a Bodos we did at our cottage property in Muskoka and that turned into a 25 year relationship where they've done several, you know, three other buildings on the property, plus all the landscaping and, and the production of a book on our whole journey, et cetera, et cetera.

I have it, I love it.

And so that you know that. And we're currently engaged with them on an apartment that we're renovating here in Toronto, which is a storied apartment that has had some Philip Johnson connection in the past and was owned by a guy by the name of Renola Torno. It's a whole story in and of itself. And now the trio story is just. I'll pick it up. But so the point I'm making is I've had a lot of architectural involvement over the years. I've been a director for many years of the Canadian center for Architecture in Montreal. I've been engaged in architectural things and I love architecture and love when we travel to go visit architecture, et cetera. And I have a, have a great appreciation, read lots of books on architecture, lots of books on architects and so on. And I've had the privilege of meeting and getting to know some very, very talented people. So along the way at the cottage, somewhere in there a treehouse seemed like a bit of a folly. And so we engaged with the University of Toronto and sponsored a competition with the School of Architecture over the course of a weekend where any students, individually or in combinations could compete. And we had a jury. I was not on the jury, my wife was and some university professors were. And we had a site at a cottage in the forest. And the idea was that the winning entry student would have the opportunity of coming up and to Muskoko for the summer and working with a local contractor to build the treehouse. That was the winner. Yeah, and that's what happened. And the young man who won the competition, the name escapes me at the moment, that's unfortunate. But anyway, but he ended up going on. He ended up working for Frank Gary after he graduated and ended up working at Hong Kong. I think he's originally from Poland, now he's in Calgary. And so he came up and, you know, lived at the property for the summer. And there's this amazing three story trios that has been published all around the world, literally in. It's probably been published in 25 countries. And now unfortunately we've allotted to become a little bit derelict and all these things require a tremendous amount of maintenance because the trees Grow and they move.

Yeah.

And this treehouse needs. It needs some life and attention and

it's time for another contest.

We'll get to it. We'll get to it.

So, I mean, that's a nice way of bringing in students or put it in the category of giving back and supporting young minds, etc. You know, obviously you've had a lot of success. You've talked about some of that over the last almost hour here. But there's a huge giving back element to what you and you and Shanifa do collectively at camh, where you have an emergency department in your name at the, you know, the Sheff Family building at the Sherman Campus, at JCC on Bathurst. What's your been your philosophy around giving back and charity and what's the legacy you want to leave? I know your family and your children are very involved as well. How do you think about that?

Well, I think, I think, you know, philanthropy, it's a high word, but I think it's, I mean, you know, it's a huge privilege to be in a position to be able to support community in a whole variety of ways and to be able to contribute to the, you know, to assisting in the support of others in, in whether it's in health, whether it's in social services, whether it's in schools, hospitals, education, whatever. Okay. And we are very privileged that we can do that. And, and you know, my wife and I are on the same wavelength. We. You're only. Somehow or other we both got it from. Again, you have to be lucky. You have to grow up in families where, where those values are, are present and you have to be in a position where you can do it and you have to want to do it and you have to become comfortable. Yeah. And so, you know, we're in that stage where we have been for a while where we're been fortunate to be able to do it. And we. I hope, I hope to be able to do it as long as I'm around.

Okay, good. So, you know, one. One thing that I remember, work. I'm sort of shifting the conversation a little bit here and I, I know we're getting a little bit. I'm taking a lot of your time, so we'll shift.

I've got nothing to do. Okay, good. Good.

Then I'm going to slow down. One of the things I remember most about working with you, whether you know it or not, was, you know, you had this phrase that you used a lot as we went through, you know, decisions and challenges and, you know, strategy and whatever at Glasgow Chef. And it was upgrade my thinking. And it allowed you to basically change your mind, you know, or chart a different course. You'd say, you know, I've upgraded my thinking and we're going to do this or that, and basically was a way for you to graciously, you know, give someone some credit for coming up with a good idea, maybe not the same idea as yours, and then moving forward and, you know, hopefully achieving the right objective there. Can you. I don't know if that, if that even resonates or is, you know, something that you think about or do consciously, but it certainly stuck with me as someone who worked for you. How did that come about? How's that sort of philosophy come about? Or maybe more specifically, if that wasn't sort of a conscious effort. Any examples of how you sort of upgraded your thinking, changed your mind that you think had a meaningful impact on a direction of something you took?

Well, I mean, I don't know that I can come up with an example at the moment. Something might come up while we speak, but I think intelligent people should be open to changing their mind. I mean, if you can't change your mind, I mean, it means by definition, you're not thinking. Things are changing, new information is coming in, people are talking to you. You don't have all the information. You always have to be open to upgrading your thinking. That doesn't mean you don't have an opinion, but your opinion, or that you don't have a thought. But you should always be capable of modifying your thought, changing your thoughts, reversing 180 degrees. Now, I don't mean doing this on a Trumpian level where no thought is permanent for more than 60 seconds and you're bouncing around all over the place, which is, to me, that's not thinking. That's something different. That's right. You know, that's, that's a whole other different process. But I think anytime you get whatever the issue is, you should be, you know, you got to have a. It does. You got to have a very strong point of view. But you should always have an open mind, right? To if somebody says something and says, well, you know, you got a strong point of view, but have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? Have you? Okay. Or you're wrong. You're dead wrong. Okay? And here's why you're wrong. You know what? You're right. I am wrong.

Right. Well, I would like to see Trump maybe upgrade his thinking on some of the actions he's taking. Tariffs and Otherwise. So actually that's a good question for you as well. You know, I'm absolutely not going to ask you what is the prediction for what's going to happen? This and that. Because data, you can, you can ask

me, but I don't know.

No, you don't know. I don't know and nobody knows, to be honest. But what I do know is you've lived through lots of this stuff. You've managed through. You've been responsible for other people's money and wealth for many decades. Based on your past experience of seeing, you know, lots of volatility, uncertainty leaders making decisions however they make them, what's your best advice for folks to do? What are you doing right now? And maybe what's your best advice to folks, what they should be doing as they think about, let's say the wealth management side. But maybe anything, any advice you have.

Well, I mean, I think doing nothing is often the best thing to do. Right? Because if you do something, you have to do it right twice. You know, it's like it gets back to the story. It's, you know, like it's market, the market timing story we discussed originally in terms of October of 87. It's like trying to be a smart guy or a woman to say, okay, well, I better get out because there's a tariff problem. I'll get out. Well, first of all, you don't know that the market's going down. Okay? You don't know that it may not already be priced into the market, but you gotta make two decisions. You have to know when to get back here. And if you make the decision to get out, which could be a bad decision in terms of timing, you're never gonna get out at the bottom. It may go lower the more you get out, but now it's on its way up. Do I jump back in now? I mean, it's impossible. It's. If you, it's impossible to know what to do on a macroeconomic level, coming in and going out. So just ignore the noise.

Get a plan in place and ignore the noise.

Now, again, I don't think people should be borrowing money to invest in the stock market. Okay. I think, you know, I think if you're leveraged, that's another story. But if it's long term capital, it's invested in the right way, everything will be okay in the long term. Or if it's not, it won't matter what you did anyway.

Okay, So I could ask you one more question. And we asked all our guests this and you know, you've given again back to the theme of architecture. You thought you were going to do that, then you realized you didn't like it, then you ran a very successful money management firm, etc. But you may know our theme over here at Gensler, wealth is your wealth. Unlimited. The name of the podcast is Unlimited. And so we ask our guests all the time think of the world as being unlimited. You could have done anything. You could do anything, you know, if you weren't an architect, if you weren't a CEO of Glass can shop, if you could do anything in the world you wanted to do either back then, now, whatever the options are unlimited, what would you have done or what would you be doing?

I'm very happy doing exactly what I'm doing. And, you know, I'm very fortunate because, you know, I, I look back at my, you know, I'm looking back at it from the vantage point of somebody who's. Who's almost 85.

Yeah.

You know, and I say it's, it's the sum total of everything that preceded where I am at this moment that put me in the place I'm in. So if I'm okay. Where I am. Yeah. Everything that preceded it brought me here. The good, the bad, the ugly.

Yeah. Yeah.

So if any of it would have been different, this would be different right here and there.

Yeah.

So, you know, you know, it's, it's just the way it is. I'm not big on sort of analyzing or, or losing any sleep over the would haves, could haves, or should haves of my life. Okay. It's. It's taken the path that it's taken, and I'm in a very good place now. It was a generality. And if I'm in a good place now, everything that came before brought me to this good place. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

That's a beautiful summary and we'll leave it at that. So listen, Jerry, once again, thank you so much, first of all, for the mentorship over the years and the time we spent directly together day to day at Gluskin Chef and, and your time and support of me ever since. And thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story and your wisdom.

Brian, it's a pleasure and thank you for including me in this, in this adventure. You said, I think you said off camera at the beginning, this is the 51st or 52nd of these broadcasts. Yeah. And I'm sorry it's taken me so long to agree to do this because it was, it was very pleasant experience. Very good.

Okay, Wish you all the best and we will talk to you soon.

Okay, thanks. Bye. Bye.

The unlimited podcast is hosted and produced

by Brian Ginsler and is edited and mixed by myself, David McMillan.

This podcast is not to be taken as investment advice.

If you like what you heard, don't forget to rate the podcast and follow us on social media at Gensler Wealth. Thanks for listening and see you next time. That is Ira Glostin calling me right now and I just declined the call. I could. I could have patched him in, actually.

That would have been great.

No, it would have been a bahoot, a bit of a hoot. But anyway, that was. I just declined out in SC.