In this special year-end episode, Ben and Cameron turn the spotlight inward for a behind-the-scenes look at the Rational Reminder podcast. They’re joined by the extended team that keeps the show running—from compliance to editing to marketing—to reflect on a landmark year in the podcast’s evolution. We hear from Multimedia Specialist, Matt Gambino, Compliance Reviewer, Ross Brayton, long-time Marketing Lead, Angelica Montagano, and others who share their roles, personal stories, and what the show means to them. Ben and Cameron also discuss the podcast’s growth trajectory, the impact of joining OneDigital, standout market events from 2025, and what’s ahead for 2026. It’s a thoughtful, personal, and often funny conversation that celebrates community, nerdiness, and meaningful work.
Key Points From This Episode:
(0:01:00) Behind the scenes: Why the entire Rational Reminder team joined the mic for this special episode.
(0:01:40) Meet the production crew: From video editing to compliance and marketing.
(0:02:54) From 767 to 334,000: How the podcast grew since August 2018.
(0:04:40) YouTube’s rising role: Now 33% of all podcast consumption.
(0:07:24) AMA evolution: How listener Q&As became a regular series in 2025.
(0:08:45) Bringing in PWL advisors: Sharing real-world financial planning experience on the pod.
(0:10:05) 12,500 members: Rational Reminder Community continues to thrive.
(0:11:30) OneDigital acquisition reflections—one year later, no pressure to cut costs or change values.
(0:14:23) Compliance-free growth: Maintaining service levels while scaling the firm.
(0:15:06) Market surprise of 2025: Canadian small caps up 35%+ year-to-date.
(0:16:55) Real estate rewind: National average home prices down 20% since 2022 peak.
(0:19:24) Rent declines too: Down 7% YoY in Toronto, 4.4% in Vancouver.
(0:20:39) Looking back: A wild year of unexpected returns and market resilience.
(0:21:00) A different kind of year-end episode: No highlight reel—just team storytelling.
(0:23:53) [Matt Gambino] The editor speaks: Role evolution, creative direction, and 200+ episodes later.
(0:28:42) YouTube growth: From 11,000 to 46,000 subs under Matt’s watch.
(0:32:55) Matt on money: What 4 years editing the pod taught him about finance and happiness.
(0:36:54) Defining success: Matt’s answer after years of listening to the show.
(38:40) [Ross Brayton] Compliance from the inside: What Ross listens for, and why disclaimers got longer.
(0:43:05) Ross on investing: From Warren Buffett books to podcast fact-checker.
(0:46:11) Planning life after financial independence: Ross poses a thoughtful challenge.
(0:47:41) [Angelica Montagano] The original marketer: How the podcast started in a hallway.
(0:50:14) Early tech struggles: Mono recordings, brick recorders, and lots of duct tape.
(0:51:53) COVID’s silver lining: Why lockdowns accelerated the pod’s evolution.
(0:54:20) Launching the RR Community: From 100-member goal to 12,500+ and counting.
(0:55:49) Podcast = Brand: How RR became central to PWL’s identity and communication.
(0:57:26) What’s next: Angelica’s dreams for live events and even a coffee table book.
(0:59:10) Angelica on investing: From ex-banker cynicism to believer in behavior and psychology.
(1:00:38) Favorite moment: Hearing real stories of how listeners’ lives have been changed.
(1:01:36) Defining success: Impact, confidence, and financial empowerment.
Read The Transcript:
Ben Felix: This is the Rational Reminder Podcast, a weekly reality check on sensible investing and financial decision making from two Canadians. We're hosted by me, Benjamin Felix, Chief Investment Officer, and Cameron Passmore, Chief Executive Officer at PWL Capital.
Cameron Passmore: Welcome to episode 389, you and me, Ben, and the whole band this week, which is a very interesting idea, a cool way to finish off what's been a remarkable year.
Ben Felix: Yeah, remarkable in many different ways. Last week, we had the whole band of co-hosts. We have four regular-ish co-hosts now.
Cameron Passmore: True. It's a whole different band.
Ben Felix: Yeah, the other band, the back of the house, behind the scenes band. So we had this idea earlier this year that for the end of the year episode, we would do a behind the scenes look at the podcast production by Cameron and I interviewing all the folks or the main folks that work on the show behind the scenes. We talked to Matt Gambino, who's our video producer.
I think his title is multimedia specialist at PWL. He does all the video related stuff. He sits through every recording, as he's doing now, taking down timestamp notes so that he can edit later.
It was super cool to hear from him. We talked to Ross Brayton, who is from the compliance team at OneDigital. Ross started reviewing the show earlier this year so that we would be clear from an SEC perspective for the podcast to be used for marketing on the US side.
Then because turnaround times were a bit long for Ross to wait for the edited episode and then have to review it, we floated the idea of, why don't you just sit in the recording? So now Ross is here listening now, and he sits in on every episode so that he can give it the stamp of compliance approval at the time of recording instead of later. Then we talked to Angelica, who has been with the show since the very beginning.
She currently leads marketing at PWL. Back when the show started, she was more junior, but huge supporter of the show, and she's helped it grow into what it is now. Then we talked to Stephanie Sargento, who joined the team this year.
She described it ties all the different pieces together to make sure everything's working properly. Then lastly, we talked to Easton Doran, who is with The Podcast Consultant, which is an external audio production firm that's been producing the podcast since inception.
Cameron Passmore: I think we got introduced to Easton and The Podcast Consultant and the original founder, Matt Pasey, through Ted Seides, who we got to know from the Capital Allocators Podcast. I think that's where the introduction came from.
Ben Felix: I think that's right. They produce a lot of the big finance podcasts. You made the call basically, Cameron, that if we're going to do this, we're going to do it right.
We hired The Podcast Consultant for our audio production, and they've been great to work with.
Cameron Passmore: Can you imagine we started this whole thing in August of 2018?
Ben Felix: Yeah. I looked back, August 2018, in that month of August 2018, we had 767 audio downloads of the podcast, and we didn't have video. We started posting the audio on YouTube in December of 2018.
Cameron Passmore: That's not a bad number. 767 in a month?
Ben Felix: Yeah.
In the grand scheme of all podcasts? No, that's not a bad number. PWL has a bit of profile.
I had my YouTube channel at the time. I didn't promote it on there, but yeah, we had a bit of a following. That's August 2018.
We get 767 downloads. I think Angelica said the first episode was August 2nd, I believe. We had basically that whole month.
On average in 2025, we had just under 237,000 combined audio downloads and video views on YouTube. That's the monthly average for all of 2025 up until the end of November when we're recording this. Big jump. Pretty crazy.
Cameron Passmore: This last month, October 2025, I believe was an all-time high for downloads in a month of 334,000.
Ben Felix: Yeah. That was our biggest month ever. I made a chart of it that I posted in the Rational Reminder community.
It's pretty crazy. One of the reasons is that there were five episodes in that month, but you go back through the calendar, there are many, many months that do have five episodes. That's not the only reason that it was such a big number, but November is on track to be a little bit below October because there are only four episodes that'll come out, but it's still trending upwards big time relative to past months, which is nice to see.
Cameron Passmore: Do you think it was caused by Dave Chilton repurposing his interview with us on his podcast?
Ben Felix: I don't think that hurt. I know I've talked to several people who found us through me being on Dave Chilton's podcast because we talked about Rational Reminder over there. I know people have found us through that.
I don't know. We've been ranking really high in the podcast charts as well and that helps people find the show. If you're browsing through the podcast apps looking for a show, it will show up.
The other thing is when you look at podcasts, I'll listen to a podcast and you can see the reviews, the number of reviews or stars or whatever. We have a lot, whether it's on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts. When I'm looking for a podcast, if I'm trying to learn about a topic or whatever, looking for a new podcast to listen to, one of the things I always look at is the number of reviews and the average rating to see if it's a show worth checking out.
The numbers are huge compared to most other podcasts out there. Presumably that helps. It helps me when I'm looking for a podcast.
Another interesting observation. We talked about this with our conversation with Matt Gambino as well. I mentioned we've 237,000 combined audio downloads and views was the average in 2025.
The proportion of that that consists of YouTube views as opposed to audio downloads has been increasing consistently since 2019, which was our first full year posting on YouTube. As I mentioned, we posted the audio of episodes on YouTube starting in December 2018. First full year 2019, YouTube views were 13.6% of our total consumption.
Cameron Passmore: Wow.
Ben Felix: Then we started in episode 101, just after Ken French, we started posting video like we do now. I looked at the proportion attributed to YouTube each year and it just pretty incrementally goes up, up, up.
In 2025, as of the end of November, it was 33%. It's an increasingly important part. I'll be very interested to see if that trend continues because it has been every single year.
It's been an incremental increase in the proportion of consumption coming from YouTube. Be interesting to see how that goes in 2026.
Cameron Passmore: Do you think many people listen on YouTube in their cars?
Ben Felix: I don't know about in their cars, but I do know that some people pay for YouTube premiums specifically so that they can listen on YouTube.
Cameron Passmore: I've started doing that just so much nicer. You can get something running and go use other apps on your phone and not lose the feed. That's well worth it in my opinion.
Ben Felix: I usually just listen to podcasts. Now on Spotify, it's video too. I was listening to Meb Faber's podcast the other day and I start referring to charts and you pull your phone out and it's on Spotify on the video.
We're actually going to start posting or we have started posting the back catalog video on Spotify, but it should be in 2026. We'll have video on Spotify, which is going to be, I think, great.
Cameron Passmore: I heard this this morning, there's apps coming to ChatGPT. You get the Spotify app inside ChatGPT. Searches will automatically feed in the app that you can promote your content on.
I don't understand it all, but the way this world of search is going to evolve will be quite fascinating.
Ben Felix: It seems like content is becoming more, not less important from that perspective.
Cameron Passmore: Yeah.
Ben Felix: Just reflecting on the podcast this year, you go through the list and it's just insane, the guests that we had throughout the year.
We're, of course, grateful for everyone who agreed to come on. We've got great guests lined up already for 2026 with some conversations that I'm really looking forward to. We also had our first full year of AMA episodes.
I think it was December 2024 that we did our first AMA and then they've become this regular part of our episodes. 2025, we had, I can't remember how many, 10 AMA episodes, I think, throughout the year. Listeners seem to really like them and we're still inundated with AMA questions from listeners, so we're going to keep on going with AMA episodes in 2026.
This year, we're also joined by some voices from around PWL, which I thought was really cool. Not including today, we have even more voices, but we heard from Louie in a couple of episodes. We had Phil Briggs on.
Of course, Ben Wilson joining the show as well. I love getting our talent. We have some of the best advisors in the country.
I don't just say that, it's objectively true. We have a bunch of people who have won top positions in the CFP exam. We really do have the best financial planners in the country and getting them on to share client cases and how they approach different things I think has been really valuable.
That boots on the ground perspective, so I want to keep that going.
Cameron Passmore: It also helps too when new people reach out to work with an advisor, they get a chance to hear about them and learn them and start to build that relationship ahead of the first meeting.
Ben Felix: 100%. Enough clients listen and prospective clients listen that whenever Phil or Louie or Ben Wilson is on the podcast, they will hear from clients. Hey, I heard you on the podcast, you did great.
I love that for that reason as well. The Rational Minder community, I don't remember what it was at the start of this year. I should have checked, but I remember thinking it'd be crazy if it ever got over 10,000 members.
Angelica talked about when we first launched it, we thought it'd be crazy if it got over 500 members. We blew past that in weeks, but it's currently at the time of recording at 12,500 members. It's got to be one of the most active personal finance forums on the internet.
I know Personal Finance Canada subreddit has around a million users, but they're not super, super active and definitely not as nerdy. Bogleheads is another one that's pretty big and pretty active, but the intensity within the Rational Minder community is pretty significant. The number of page views and posts and replies and all that kind of stuff is pretty staggering.
That's a meta podcast reflection, just thinking about the podcast historically and into this year, or looking back on this year, thinking towards 2026. I also want to reflect on OneDigital. You remember, Cameron, January this year, we announced that we had been acquired.
We talked about it on the podcast and it ruffled all kinds of feathers. We had to spend some time talking people down that this wasn't a bad thing. It has not been a bad thing.
It's been a great experience for us as a firm and for us as individuals so far. It's allowed us to do things like listeners heard from Taylor and Connor and Regina and Trevor and Brett in the Maritimes who joined our team through acquisition, which is something that OneDigital has facilitated for us. We've got more incredible people joining us in 2026 and listeners will hear from them too.
I don't know how to describe it. You talk to these people and there's an immediate connection and affinity and shared values and all that stuff. Maybe I just view things through a podcast lens, but so many of these conversations, we talk to these people about joining PWL and I'm thinking, man, I can't wait to get this person on the podcast and hear their perspectives.
Maybe that's a good sign that they're a good fit. I don't know.
Cameron Passmore: Yeah, it just goes back to the main reason why we chose to partner with OneDigital. It's all about what's possible and they've enabled us to help more people that believe in this philosophy to help more people that deserve this philosophy. It's as simple as that.
We talked about that, our experience meeting people in BC in September. It's amazing to see the impact of something that is just so downright sensible and frankly, once you understand this, obvious in my opinion, to be able to do that with new people in different parts of the country is pretty cool.
Ben Felix: Yeah. I love hearing about how different people arrived at this. We have this model.
The scale that we're doing it at is unique, but it's not a completely unique model of marrying evidence-based, low cost, sensible investing with really high quality financial planning. It's a really good way to run a wealth management business. There are lots of other people doing it, but hearing from a lot of the people that we're talking to about how they arrived at this model, as opposed to the much more common models that exist in wealth management across Canada, that's been super interesting.
That's the kind of thing that I hear from the people and I'm like, wow, I can't wait to get this discussion out on the podcast.
Cameron Passmore: They're better together, working on common problems and challenging each other and doing the best possible thing in financial planning, which when you hear about the chats that go on, on our team's channel here and the face-to-face conversations, digging into questions that come up and when you have the number of clients that we're able to work with, lots of different, complicated, quirky, nerdy questions come up. Yes, we are quirky and yes, we are nerdy, but we believe that matters.
Ben Felix: Yeah, and you have this team of ultimate nerds solving those problems together.
Cameron Passmore: Right. That's very hard to do, I would argue, if you were all by yourself. It's a lot of pressure, which you and I have heard from people who don't work with us.
This is hard to do on your own. It's a lot of pressure.
Ben Felix: It's hard to do it on your own. It's, I would argue, even harder to do surrounded by people who don't agree with the nerdiness, who don't agree that you are nerding out in the right stuff.
Cameron Passmore: Exactly.
Ben Felix: Yeah. A year in at this point, we've had zero pressure to change our fees, which is something people were worried about when we were required to spend less on anything. We're not big spenders as a firm.
We never have been, but there's been no pressure to cut expenses or otherwise do things that would reduce costs or decrease our services to boost profitability, which is what everyone worries about with private equity. We've actually been encouraged in a recent conversation to hire a bit more than we had maybe been planning to previously to keep up service levels as we grow through acquisition. That's another conversation that to us was just like, yeah, these guys care about the right things.
They're not trying to cut costs to jack up profitability. They care about doing the right things for clients, running a great business and the financial success will come from that.
Cameron Passmore: You and I have spent enough time now with leadership of OneDigital. I think we have a great relationship with them to know that it's genuine.
Ben Felix: A hundred percent.
Cameron Passmore: It's not some sleight of hand whatsoever.
Ben Felix: No, not at all. Totally agree with that. Anyway, that's a OneDigital reflection.
Year out, we've got enough experience behind us to say pretty definitively that so far, I mean, of course things can always change, but so far it's been exactly what we hoped for and probably even more than we expected.
Cameron Passmore: Anything can change. We talked about this last January. Status quo could have changed.
Ben Felix: A hundred percent.
Cameron Passmore: There's so much that can happen. There's so much randomness.
Anyway, speaking of randomness, you want to talk about returns. What a year.
Ben Felix: Yeah, so we talked in our episode last week when we had the four of us on, we talked about the returns in 2025 just being way better than anyone expected when the year started and especially in April when returns were negative across the board. Now, Canadian equities this year, we're recording this a month before it releases. This is being recorded November 25th and the episode will be out on December 25th on Christmas.
Canadian equities as of November 25th have been a standout. They've been the best performing asset class as we group them. Canadian equities, international developed emerging markets, US.
Canadian equities have been a standout so far, which is cool, interesting, surprising, all those things, but Canadian small caps, even more so, a lot more so, which again, it's something that people wouldn't have expected and it maybe looked like Canadian small cap value investing was dead as has been discussed in the US. The DFA Canadian Vector Equity Fund was up, again, this is as of November 21st, which is the most recent data on the day that we're recording, was up 35.64% for the year. It's a year to date as of November 21st, compared to the Innocent PTSX Cap Composite ETF, which was up 26.48%. That's a nine percentage point difference, which is a big number for those keeping score. We talked years ago about returns in the US around the tech bubble and how you move forward a month or a year, I can't remember what it was, and all of a sudden, all of the five, 10, 15 year returns flip from being better for growth to being better for value. The returns for Vector for Canadian, Canadian Vector is not exactly small cap value, but it's a heavily tilted Canadian total market fund. It's got a lot more smaller, lower priced, high profitability companies than the market.
It had similarly trailed for the last 10 years, if we looked about a year ago, it had underperformed the Canadian market. Then you go forward in time one year, and all of a sudden, the trailing five, 10 year flips, because this one year was so significant. Now you look at the 10 year and Canadian Vector has outperformed Canadian market by a pretty good margin.
Pretty crazy, all about staying in your seat, believing in the premiums, all that stuff that we've talked about many times. I need to sit down and do it. I keep thinking about it.
I need to do a video on this. The other areas, Canadian stocks, crazy. Canadian small cap stocks, crazy this year.
Canadian real estate, no one's really talking about this, but national average home prices fell 3.22% in nominal terms for the year. That's as of October. The most recent data is at the time of recording, which is 3.22%, whatever, not a big deal. That brings the total drop since March 2022, when we had a bit of a peak to just over 20% in nominal terms. That brings the national average home price in Canada as of October back to roughly March 2021 levels in nominal terms. If we adjust for inflation, I haven't done the math on that, but it would be much further back, which is again, just super interesting and not something that I'm seeing many people talking about.
In specific markets, the drop from peak to trough is much higher because Vancouver has been pretty resilient. Other Western cities like Calgary, I think actually has positive returns over that period, some of the maritimes as well. You look at Toronto, for example, the drop is substantial.
It's just interesting to look back on because when things were going up, it seemed like they would never come down. Now they've started to come down. The other interesting thing is we did content earlier this year on our 20 year historical analysis of renting versus owning a home.
I haven't run the numbers yet, but when we get year end 2025 data, unless things change materially between now and then, we've had another negative year in the real estate market, as we just talked about, a very, very positive year in the stock market. I think a lot of the cities which were on the fence where owning looked a bit better than renting will have flipped by the end of this year. I think that 21 year period going from 2005 to year end 2025 is going to be much more favorable for renters over that period, just based on how things have played out.
The other thing that's been happening in the housing space is that rents have been falling. That's another thing where there was a time not that long ago where it seemed like rents could never slow down. Asking rents for a two bedroom fell by 7% in Toronto year over year.
As of September 2025, down 4.4% in Vancouver.
Cameron Passmore: That's falling 7% nominally. Add on inflation to that, too.
Ben Felix: That is also true. Yeah. Wage inflation has been even more positive than CPI inflation. You can put these things in terms of CPI and it looks that much crazier.
If you put it in terms of wages, people's incomes have gone up more than inflation has gone up, then it looks even crazier still, or rent looks more affordable still. Home prices have come down more relative to wages. It's fascinating to look back on earlier this year.
It's fascinating to look back on a few years ago, when earlier this year, it seemed like the stock market could not possibly survive all the crazy stuff happening. Then here we are. You look back 2022 when real estate prices were at a peak and people were worried that rents were going to keep going up forever and that they had to buy a home, which is probably one of the reasons home prices kept going up.
Cameron Passmore: Once again, markets work. You can't predict the future and diversification is your buddy and high-quality financial planning matters.
Ben Felix: Good long-term decision-making matters.
Cameron Passmore: Yeah, for sure.
Ben Felix: Yeah, so that's it.
Those are just notes on reflecting on the year, reflecting on the podcast. Cool to have me and you back here, Cameron, hosting a year-end episode.
Cameron Passmore: It is. A little different than past year-end episodes where I would go and cut and splice all kinds of different episodes. I think this is a very good evolution.
Ben Felix: I don't know how you used to do that. You would sit down and focus and you'd get all the transcripts and you'd go through all the episodes. That would be a huge time commitment.
Cameron Passmore: It's kind of absurd now. We'd probably get ChatGPT to do it and be far better. Anyways, it's different evolution.
Anyways, it's been a great year. We're very grateful to all the listeners, all the viewers, our incredible team. Of course, Dan and Ben and Lou and Phil and the new team members have joined us this year.
We've had lots of people join PWLs. We're super grateful for this entire community. It's been an amazing year.
Ben Felix: Yeah, definitely. As I mentioned earlier, this is being released on Christmas day. Merry Christmas to everybody.
I hope everyone's enjoying the holidays. We're, as I mentioned, recording this in late November. Something that we're doing this year that we haven't been great about in past years is we're recording all of our year-end episodes before the end of the year so that we can actually take some time off over the holidays, which that's going to be great.
Cameron Passmore: Yeah. People worked very hard this year. It's been great. All right.
Shout out to you too, Ben. Great work, great content. It's a ton of work, we all know.
Somehow you pulled it off and super happy that your health challenges turned out okay.
Ben Felix: Seems to be fine. I'm feeling pretty good. I've got my oncologist appointment on Friday of the week that we're recording here.
Hopefully, I'm getting more news that all things are clear, but that'll be a year since I was diagnosed, I think. Then I think I've got one more three-month oncology check-in and then it shifts to a six-month cadence.
Cameron Passmore: Right. Talking about perspective, it just shows you without health, none of this matters.
Ben Felix: Yeah.
Cameron Passmore: It's all completely irrelevant.
Ben Felix: That is very true. It changes quick or it can change quick. I don't know, man. It's weird to look back because it all happened quick.
Diagnosis happened quick. There's a lot of uncertainty, but then treatment happened quick. There was not a whole lot of follow-up treatment so far anyway.
It's just a little blip that happened and it's now behind me. Yeah, that was another crazy part of the year. Hey, shout out to you too.
You've been less present on the podcast because you've been grinding being the CEO of what is quickly becoming a much larger company than it was previously.
Cameron Passmore: Yeah, it's been a blast.
Ben Felix: Whole other kind of hustle and a whole other kind of cool stuff you're doing.
Cameron Passmore: Yeah, different game for sure. Super fun. Super fun, super challenging.
It's hard, but it's fun and one of my answers to how I define success is, are you excited to jump out of bed every morning? Absolutely. I can't wait to get to work and then I can't wait to get home to be with Lisa and our family.
Awesome, man. Love it. Cool.
All right. Let's get to our conversations with our incredible team.
Ben Felix: All right. Yeah. Thanks everyone for listening this year and we hope you enjoyed this year-end episode.
Cameron Passmore: And Happy New Year.
Ben Felix: All righty.
Matt Gambino: Matt Gambino, welcome to the Rational Reminder Podcast. Ben, Cameron, it's an absolute honor to be on this side of the camera, but I'm already cringing having to edit my own segment.
Cameron Passmore: It's so funny.
Ben Felix: It felt funny saying welcome to the podcast because you're here for every single episode.
Matt Gambino: True. Yeah.
Ben Felix: But people don't know who you are, Matt, or maybe they do because we've talked about you, but can you explain your role with the podcast?
Matt Gambino: Sure. So my official title with PWL is Multimedia Specialist, which is basically a fancy way of saying video editor, animator, motion graphics artist, etc. Now, with that said, over the past give or take year, my role within the podcast has evolved in quite a few ways to the point where now I basically spearhead the back end of each episode.
Now, what that means is I record each episode in Zoom, I assist in setting up any tech, both virtually or in person, and I troubleshoot any AV issues that may come up before, during or after each recording, which viewers may agree with me on this one is still a work in progress. And finally, I take down any timestamps that may assist both myself and TPC in streamlining the editing process for both audio and video.
Ben Felix: Yeah. TPC being our audio producers who we will hear from later on. And that has been a huge positive change for us, for me and for Cameron and for Dan and Ben Wilson never really had to deal with it.
But back in the day, before we started doing this, Cameron and I would be writing down timestamps and preparing notes to send off to you for post-production. But now you're actually sitting in on the recording, doing all of that. And then when the recording is done, we're done.
So that's been a huge, huge change and time saver for us.
Matt Gambino: It makes it so much easier, for sure.
Ben Felix: So much easier.
Matt Gambino: I should also mention that I'm the disclaimer guy, the guy who reads the disclaimer, and I might be the one who reads the updated disclaimer when it's ready to go. I'm not sure if any of that updates my title, but video editor, multimedia specialist, production admin.
Ben Felix: Disclaimer reader.
Matt Gambino: Yeah. Disclaimer reader.
Ben Felix: We did want people to know that you read the disclaimer so that it's a little bit more familiar. So it's not this mysterious voice that nobody knows.
So that is Matt, who's reading the disclaimer at the end of the episode.
Matt Gambino: Yeah. I'm the infomercial guy.
Cameron Passmore: Pharmaceutical infomercial guy.
Matt Gambino: Exactly.
Cameron Passmore: So how long have you been doing this gig, Matt?
Matt Gambino: So I started with PWL on September the 27th of 2021. So at the time of recording here in the end of November, we're looking at a little over four years. Some of my first handful of tasks, which took place roughly for the first two weeks of my time at the firm, were to take existing Rational Reminder brand assets and put my own spin on them to update the aesthetic of YouTube videos in a sense.
So for those watching, you might be familiar with that animated dot matrix that we often use as a background, that sort of fly through intro that we use at the beginning of each episode and the lower thirds that we sprinkle throughout. So I did all of those right at the beginning. After that, I created a series of layer mockups to better showcase guests on their respective episodes.
It was a super cool process and both Ben and Angelica gave me creative freedom to experiment with whatever I thought might look cool. And the result is largely what you see today. Also, a little bit of my lore, but also a little bit of Rational Reminder lore is the first episode that I ever edited from start to finish was the Cam Harvey one, episode 171.
Cameron Passmore: Wow. The long one.
Matt Gambino: Yeah. So including the crypto mini series and at the time of recording this episode, I've worked on Rational Reminder for a little over four years and have directly edited close to 200 episodes.
Ben Felix: Wow.
Matt Gambino: Time just flies. It really does.
Ben Felix: Crazy, man. And it's not that long ago, but also super long ago. And it's a huge portion of the podcast life that you've been working on.
It's crazy. And the video, you made so many improvements to our video, which have been awesome. And as we talked about in the beginning of this episode, the YouTube viewership as a component of our total downloads and views has become increasingly important over time.
You haven't heard this, Matt, because we're going to say it in the beginning part of this episode, but it's 13.6% of our total views and downloads came from YouTube back in 2019, which was the first full year that we were posting on YouTube. And as of the end of November, 2025, it's about a third of our total consumption is coming from YouTube.
Matt Gambino: Wow. So on top of that, I also know that the subscriber count has followed a similar trend. So at the time I started, the channel was sitting at about 11,000 subs.
And as of now, we're hovering just around the 46,000 mark. So not only is that super cool, but I'm also hoping that we can continue this upward trend for both metrics going forward into the future. It's just so cool.
Ben Felix: For sure. We have to get it to 100,000 so that you can get a plaque from YouTube.
Matt Gambino: Yes. I will have made it at that point. I will have made it.
Ben Felix: How much time do you figure it takes you to do an episode beginning to end?
Matt Gambino: So it definitely varies. When I first started out with PWL, I wasn't at all used to the cadence of editing a weekly podcast and was an absolute newb when it came to the software. But with that said, at the beginning, I'd say it took a couple of days, two to three days to get everything sorted.
But thankfully, as time passed, I've learned so much more when it comes to little tricks and shortcuts that have helped me streamline the process. And ultimately, this has helped speed up the editing process dramatically. Now, when there are a lot of moving parts in an episode, there are any animations that need to be created or modified and eventually rendered, or there are far more cuts and trims than the average rational reminder requires, that can increase the time by varying lengths.
I should also mention that rendering time is not being factored into this whole thing. That is an entirely separate process. And as bad as it is to say, it could take upwards of two or more hours, depending on the scope of the episode.
Now, some may not know this, but some of the video content can also reach upwards of 40 gigabytes in size, which can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to download.
Ben Felix: Oh, wow.
Cameron Passmore: Wow.
Matt Gambino: Depending on how big the file is and how cooperative my internet feels like being that day. In any event, I'd say that if I were to quantify the time it takes to edit a video from importing all of the files into Premiere Pro to hitting render and letting Premiere work its magic, I'd say it takes roughly half the day, three to four hours. Now, I should also mention that that is specifically within Premiere Pro.
That doesn't include any of the variables that I mentioned before. When I say the entire process, that includes everything that I mentioned and possibly more, this could take upwards of two days, depending on a number of variables, but I've worked it down to a science where I can probably get it done in a day or maybe a smidge more.
Cameron Passmore: Let's take a look at your creative side and talk to us about what sort of production related enhancements you're thinking about for next year.
Matt Gambino: Yeah, totally. So I have quite a few ideas for enhancing the visuals on YouTube and making each video all the more engaging for viewers. But having said that, these are just ideas at the moment and they are swirling around the marketing team in content touch points and our Monday morning meetings.
So I won't go into crazy detail about those right now. What I can safely say though, is that we are working on a bunch of things behind the scenes. And if the consensus is that everyone likes the graphics, animations or whatever, and the direction that they're taking vibes with PWL and the Rational Reminder Podcast, then we'll likely be implementing them in the near future.
And I should also say that this whole creative process extends beyond just me, since we have fantastic graphic designers on the team in both Abby Jane and Claire, who helped me create assets for animating when I just don't have the illustrative technical wizardry under my belt. In terms of what we do right now, I think adding visual aids, be it papers, graphs, tables or anything of the nature, has been great for adding context to the points being made in each moment and can help viewers follow along better than if they didn't have those present. Now, I'm not super hip to the finance scene, so having those visual aids definitely helps me follow along, so I feel like I might be able to speak for viewers as well.
On top of that, I've really enjoyed adding memes and little flares of humor into certain episodes. Like, I think back to the episode where Ben references the Fugu bit from The Simpsons.
Ben Felix: Oh yeah.
Matt Gambino: Since I feel like it probably catches viewers off guard, given that one minute it's a point about index investing or the factor premium or something, and all of a sudden there's a family guy meme on screen where Peter's talking about four Qs and the Batman symbol or something like that, I just think that it adds a nice little creative flare to the videos.
Ben Felix: Makes sense. You said you're not hip with the finance scene.
Matt Gambino: Not at all.
Ben Felix: But you have listened to or watched in full hundreds and hundreds of hours of this podcast. Can you talk about how working on this podcast has changed your views on money and investing?
Matt Gambino: Yeah, sure. So I'll start by saying that it's definitely not just the podcast that has helped shape my views and help me learn. There are quite a few videos and pieces of content that I refer to whenever I have an oh my, what are these guys talking about moment while we're recording.
So specifically, those are the two investing 101 videos from both Rational Reminder as well as Ben's YouTube channel, as well as the investing 101 webinar that was hosted by Phil and Melissa on the PWL YouTube channel back in December of 2023. All three of these are fantastic starting points for anyone looking to get their feet wet, and I can't recommend them enough. Beyond that, I've learned a lot about index investing and how markets work, but I think most importantly that there is a significant psychological aspect behind the human side of investing and that impulsive decisions based on short-term events and possible gains can lead to worse overall outcomes when compared to staying the course or making low-risk adjustments geared for the long term.
I will also say that I'm partially on Ben's side when it comes to the whole rent versus buy agreement. Although I don't exactly regret buying my house, though I can definitely do without things consistently and constantly breaking. It's the worst.
But lastly, I've learned a lot about the intricate relationship between the financial side of life and things like happiness and health. I've read Finding and Funding a Good Life a couple of times now, as well as watched and edited all of the Rational Reminder content on happiness and health. And it was super, super eye-opening to me to see just how close all of these things are to one another.
I wasn't expecting it, but it was a nice little learning experience for me.
Ben Felix: What's your favorite part about working on the show?
Matt Gambino: Ooh, I might get in trouble for saying this one.
Lately, it's been Ben Wilson roasting Ben. So for those who don't know, when I record these episodes on Zoom, I obviously hide my camera, but I also mute myself both digitally in Zoom as well as physically on my mic. I see this as a failsafe of sorts, just in case my cat decides to wake up and do something destructive behind me mid-recording.
But it also works when Ben Wilson brings up Ben's funky diets and all of the fun stuff that come with it. So listeners and viewers are not treated to a random dude just cackling from nowhere while they listen to the episode. In all seriousness, and besides that, honestly, my favorite bit has been seeing and hearing about the impact the show has made on people and anyone who comes into contact with it.
I've obviously heard anecdotes from Ben, as well as others, about how interacting with the podcast has really impacted people's lives. And these have taken place at conferences, meetups, what have you. And we've also even had some guests who've come on the show and how they will mention how important the show is with the message and lessons that it puts out on a weekly basis.
Specifically for me, I've actually even had moments where people have discussed with me the impact the show has had on them. So specifically, I remember being at one of the Toronto meetups, and after explaining to some of the attendees who I was, what I did, and that no, I did not understand as much about finance as they did, they'd go off about how the Rational Reminder podcast and PWL as a whole has helped shape their investment strategy, their financial decision making, and even things like how some pieces of content have helped shape their day-to-day lives to be happier and more fulfilled. I think it goes without saying, I'm just the video guy, but it's so, so super cool and pretty humbling to be a part of something that has a genuinely positive effect on the people that interact with it. And I'm super grateful that I have the opportunity to be able to be a part of something so important and so fundamental to living a good life.
Ben Felix: I agree with all that. It is super humbling to hear the impact it has on people. Final question for you, Matt.
How do you define success in your life?
Matt Gambino: So I've watched or listened to almost every episode, and I've had four years at this point to think about this question, and I still struggle to find an answer that isn't just incoherent rambling. What I did manage to come up with, though, boils down to two things, happiness and health. I don't need a billion dollars, I don't need a fancy car to keep my other fancy car company, and I don't need a castle in the south of France as any sort of metric for how successful I might be.
Although I will go out there and say, if anyone happens to be giving those things away, feel free to call me up. Jokes aside, at the end of the day, I'm a super simple guy who enjoys the calm and quiet in life. And if I'm happy, my dogs are happy, my cat is happy, my wife is happy, the people in my life who I care about are happy, both friends, family, and anyone else, and we're all pushing toward a lifetime of good health, I think that when I begin to sunset years and years and hopefully more years down the line, I can safely say that I found some level of success and will have no regrets along the way. That might sound super cheesy, but it's what I could come up with. I wasn't about to go to ChatGPT and ask for an answer. So this is the real me.
Ben Felix: That's a great answer. That was awesome, Matt. Thanks for coming on.
And you're going to be sticking around in the background as we record the rest of these conversations.
Matt Gambino: Yeah, I'm about to go hide.
Cameron Passmore: Thanks for being part of the team.
Matt Gambino: It's an honor. I live and breathe this podcast. It means so much to me.
Even just from the video standpoint, it's something so important. So I'm just so grateful to be able to work on it.
Cameron Passmore: Very cool.
Ben Felix: Ross Brayton, welcome to the Rational Reminder podcast.
Ross Brayton: Thanks for having me. It's fun to be here.
Ben Felix: How long have you been working on the show now?
Ross Brayton: So officially, six months would be about right. Unofficially, behind the scenes, Angelica and I were working through how do we make this happen to where it's a cross-border type of podcast where clients from both the U.S. and Canada have an opportunity to work with somebody should they desire after they've listened to the podcast and want to reach out to someone. So you listen in to every episode.
Ben Felix: Can you describe what your role is?
Ross Brayton: Easiest way for me to describe my role, I always say that I'm part educator, part client advocate, and part fact checker. So a big part of what I do is review to make sure that there's nothing that we've said we're misleading clients.
Obviously, with this crew, I don't think that's a big issue. It's more of the unintentional misleading. You said something, but you left out maybe a supporting fact or something to that extent.
And I think we all do that in conversation sometimes. You just make a generalization without thinking about, oh, somebody might take that away and think of it as just a hard, cold fact.
Ben Felix: So far, we haven't actually had to change anything based on your reviews, but there have been a couple of times where you've said that we need to document the supporting evidence of that statement.
Ross Brayton: Exactly, yeah.
Ben Felix: So we'll then either put it in the video, whether it's a chart or whatever, or there have been a few cases where it was a simple analysis that I used for an example.
Ross Brayton: Exactly.
Ben Felix: You're like, we need to keep the Excel file or whatever accessible for future reference.
Ross Brayton: I think the Canadian listeners may not realize the big differences between the Canadian regulators and the SCC. The SCC is very big on the supporting documentation and making sure we have those records available on demand if somebody requests it.
Ben Felix: I kind of like it, honestly.
Ross Brayton: Yeah, it's good and transparent.
Cameron Passmore: So absolutely. That's what I wanted to ask you, Ross. You dig in a bit more on what you're actually looking for from a compliance standpoint?
Ross Brayton: So key things that you dig into oftentimes, if somebody's quoting a statistic of some sort, it's like, okay, make sure you can support that statistic. That's often that. Beyond that, I would say it's just making sure that the message is fair and balanced.
We have a podcast where we have a message around indexing. It goes deeper than that, but just keeping it as simple as possible. So somebody could easily say there's a bias there.
So how do we make sure we're presenting our bias, but at the same time, not disparaging somebody else who may have a legitimate and valid reasons for why they invest the way they do? Just trying to keep that fair and balanced message is, I think, the key thing that I'm looking for. That doesn't mean we can't have opinions.
It just means when we share them, we need to make sure we're distinguishing what's an opinion versus what's a fact.
Ben Felix: Yeah, and again, I love that. I hear you saying this is what we have to do, and I'm like, yes, I love it.
Ross Brayton: Thank you.
Ben Felix: Okay. Now, the question that I know every listener is wondering, Ross, why is the disclaimer at the end of the episode that we've had to add for SEC reasons so long?
Ross Brayton: Yeah, love it. It's a combination of two factors. One is obviously the cross-country component.
So that very first part of the disclosure. I'm going to go on the record here officially to tell you all that my actual rule of thumb is I don't like excessive disclosures. My rule is let's build it into the content and avoid having to add disclosures if we can.
But that being said, when you're talking about a podcast where the turnaround time, I don't know how much people realize it, but behind the scenes, my time to review it, if I'm not here and present, maybe a couple hours. And then I got to make a decision to try and come back and say, Hey, edit this and add this disclosure or do this or do that. So the best thing I did was just sit down ahead of the first podcast that we did with that disclosure to say, what are the types of topics that are regularly being talked about?
And so the first part is just that business relationship disclosure that says, this is who you're doing business with in Canada. This is who you're doing business with in the US. And the secondary part is it gives you the freedom by having those disclosures there to speak your mind about the things that you need to speak to for your audience, because we're hitting all those key points that you would normally probably butt up against from a regulatory perspective.
So as long as it's there, it protects you and can to be able to do what you need to do.
Ben Felix: Makes sense. And we did have Dan draft up. Dan's a very good writer.
He drafted up a funny version of the disclaimer that has been approved. And so I think in this episode, since we have everybody here to talk about it, in this episode, we're going to roll out the new funny disclaimer, which will be the disclaimer going forward.
Ross Brayton: Works for me.
Ben Felix: So I know it's only been six months that you've been reviewing the show. How has or has working on the podcast changed your views on money and investing?
Ross Brayton: At this point, I'm not sure I would say it's changed my views, but it certainly informs my views. We talked a little of this behind the scenes, but my background is one where I'm an investment nerd by default. When I say that as an example, I once read that Warren Buffett went out and bought those S&P stock books.
I don't know if you remember them, but they were telephone books for anybody who remembers having telephone books. And so I bought the entire volume. There's 10 of these things.
And I read every single one cover to cover. And I was looking for patterns and trends and information that might help me become a better investor. So that was one of my big first forays into investing was learning everything that I could consume.
And so you kind of reach a point, I think, where I don't want to say you know everything, but you start to become a little bit more firm in your views. I constantly try and challenge my views. So I'm happy to sit there and listen to people talk about different ideas and strategies, et cetera, and try and say, okay, that makes sense.
That's logical. You know, I've been thinking about that the wrong way. So that's a big part of, I think, what I enjoy listening to the show and all the different kind of perspectives that have been brought forward since listening to the show.
Cameron Passmore: What's your favorite part about working on the show or is that it?
Ross Brayton: I think that's it. Especially when you consider my last job before coming here, I was in the equity research department, equity and fixed income. So I actually reviewed and approved all the investment reports.
And so this reconnects me to the market and the investing side when you're on the compliance end. You're not following the market as closely. I'm more like our typical client these days where it's like I'm less connected to the market than I've ever been in my entire career. So it helps bring me back.
Cameron Passmore: Nice.
Ben Felix: Last question for you, Ross, how do you define success in your life?
Ross Brayton: There's two parts to this. First part, I would say for me is family, friends, jokingly, Sam, a beach bum at heart. I grew up on the water.
I don't think that'll ever leave me. So as long as I have financial security and my friends and family, yeah, I'm good. I don't think anybody needs any more than that.
Now part two is where I was actually going to, I don't know if I call it position a challenge to this crew, but I'm in a transitionary phase. My son is graduating college soon in a year and a half. He's already in a good place in terms of finance.
He's not going to have any debt financially. He's ready to launch and mentally and emotionally as well. Married for 23 years to my wife, as close as we've ever been.
Even today, I don't really have any worries about retirement anymore. My financial picture is pretty well locked down. Those were my big goals.
And I'm 49 years old and I'm like, well, now what am I doing at 49 years old? My life has shifted a little bit. Now I think about time.
If you're statistically minded and financially minded, I think you get this. My parents are elderly. What's their life expectancy goes through you.
If you only go to visit once a year, how many more times do I see my mom and dad? So those are the types of things where I'm trying to think of, how do I plan for this back end of my life? And I haven't figured that out yet.
So that's my challenge. I haven't seen or read enough and listened to enough of the podcast to be able to say for sure, you guys have covered this topic before, but I think I would love to hear perspectives on what's the best way to plan for the back half of your life.
Ben Felix: That is a great challenge for an episode. We did one episode with Cassie Holmes, episode 222. And she actually talks specifically about that exercise that you do with visiting your parents.
She called it the counting the times left exercise, where you think about stuff that you do in your life that you enjoy or that you don't enjoy. And you position it as how many more times will I do this in my life? And in a lot of cases, what she described it as is it'll really make very clear how you should prioritize your time.
She used the example of going to a cafe with her daughter, if I remember correctly. There's only 50 times in my life that I'm going to be able to do this while she's a kid. And so then you prioritize that thing because there's not very many times left.
So anyway, back in 2022, I think it was, we had a pretty good run of guests on time use, happiness, wellbeing, all that kind of stuff.
Ross Brayton: Okay. I'll go back and check them out. Yeah.
To me, that's kind of the big thing is you realize that's the component that I left out with all my financial planning was what am I going to do with the rest of my time?
Ben Felix: That was a great answer, man. Great answer to the question.
Ross Brayton: Thank you.
Ben Felix: Awesome. Well, Ross, it was very good to have you on the podcast. You like Matt, listen to every episode as we record.
So you're the ultimate behind the scenes person along with Matt. But great to have you on the show and great for listeners to get to meet you.
Ross Brayton: Pleasure to be here.
Ben Felix: Thank you. Thanks, Ross. Angelica Montagano, welcome to the Rational Reminder Podcast.
Angelica Montagano: Thanks, guys. Fun being on this side of the mic.
Cameron Passmore: No kidding.
Ben Felix: Pretty cool. Angelica, how long have you been working on the show?
Angelica Montagano: I have been working on the show since the very start. I started at PWL in May of 2018 and maybe a month later, it was decided, hey, we're going to do a podcast. It's just, okay, we're going to run with that.
Ben Felix: How did that happen?
Cameron Passmore: It was right here behind my desk in this hallway. I can remember it because your office is over there, Ben. And we were walking along the hallway here, 15 feet behind me is where it all happened.
Angelica Montagano: Yeah, it was just a thing.
Ben Felix: And we just said, let's do a podcast.
Cameron Passmore: You were encouraging Ben because you had started your YouTube at that point.
Ben Felix: Yeah, the YouTube existed.
Angelica Montagano: YouTube was around. When I started your YouTube channel. I don't know if you remember, it was under 3,000 subscribers. So we were thinking, okay, we're going to build a channel there.
And then, well, what's the next thing? And then podcast was being thrown around. And then it just started. It just popped out of nowhere.
Ben Felix: I think Cameron and I were like, let's do a podcast. And then we were like, cool. Did we record the first episode and then tell you we were going to do a podcast? Or did we tell you first?
Angelica Montagano: As per Ben's style, I got a message saying, hey, we recorded two episodes. What do we do with this? And it was like, okay, we're doing podcast marketing. Giddy up.
Cameron Passmore: You asked us to do it, right?
Angelica Montagano: Yeah, it was kind of like, let's explore it.
Cameron Passmore: Then when they got some equipment, we sat down and then we recorded it. Yeah. We didn't know that it was recording in mono.
So we chucked the first one and re-recorded it.
Angelica Montagano: Remember that?
Cameron Passmore: And we thought it was going to be stereo. It was mono again. And of course, it was recorded in mono, which we didn't know.
Angelica Montagano: Yeah, yeah.
Cameron Passmore: Then we called you.
Angelica Montagano: Gosh, yeah.
Cameron Passmore: You called her, Ben.
Angelica Montagano: Yeah.
Cameron Passmore: Crazy.
Angelica Montagano: No, I think you guys sent it to me and I wrote back and I'm like, how did you record this? I think this is my question. It was a fun experimental learning journey, for sure.
Cameron Passmore: And do you remember when you came up with the name, Ben?
Ben Felix: Oh, yeah. So a friend of mine, Aaron, who's a nerd, he says that I nerd sniped him with this, but I texted him and I was like, we're gonna do a podcast. What should we call it?
And we texted back and forth for, I don't know, 45 minutes and then landed on Rational Reminder.
Angelica Montagano: It's almost a decade that the podcast is out. Next year will be eight years. August 2nd, 2018 was our first episode.
Cameron Passmore: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So what was it like to produce the show back when it started?
Angelica Montagano: I don't think a lot of people remember or understand that podcasting was not a thing in 2018. It wasn't like today where everyone and their mother has a podcast. It was really a niche thing to do.
Finding equipment, getting advice on how to produce this thing was a really trial and error situation. I think we started with just microphones that we had in the office with the H3 Zoom recorder. I don't know if you remember that brick thing that required batteries. H6.
Ben Felix: Zoom H6. Yeah.
Angelica Montagano: Cameron, I think you even took that down to New York to interview someone and it had its own suitcase.
Cameron Passmore: We sure did. We took it to New York to interview Barry. I took it to California to interview Dave Getsch. I lugged two of those bricks.
Ben Felix: We did three episodes.
Cameron Passmore: Yeah.
Ben Felix: Remember in New York, we did Barry, David Blitzer.
Cameron Passmore: Blitzer and Jonathan Clements.
Ben Felix: Jonathan Clements, that's right.
Angelica Montagano: Yeah. It was something totally new that no one did before. Whereas now if you go like on Amazon or something and you type in podcast equipment, it's going to give you a whole list of what to buy.
Whereas before, I remember spending days on YouTube watching music producers compare microphones and lighting and learning about that whole thing. So producing it at the beginning was really the Wild West. It wasn't something like today where people, when they dive into content, they actually start with podcasting.
Whereas before, I think we were really the outliers. We've always been the outliers though when it came to content. Also, it was the three of us Frankensteining this thing together.
And now as people will see, it's a whole team that has developed out of this amazing thing that we created.
Ben Felix: How do you think COVID changed the trajectory of the show?
Angelica Montagano: It changed it a lot. So March 13, 2020, the world ended, at least in Canada. And I still have a content calendar from that at the office, like a little memory thing.
So we just released episode 89 the day before. Then your YouTube channel, I think we were about to release episode 74, video 74. So think about now we're almost at episode 400.
It's just a different world. When COVID hit, the world shut down. But a couple months before that, we were already thinking of introducing video.
And going on to YouTube, I was really trying to put you guys in that direction. I mean, we're already uploading our audio there. But I think looking at larger podcasts, we saw that video was going to make a big difference.
So we were playing around and thinking about signing a studio space. I don't know if you guys remember.
Cameron Passmore: Oh, yeah.
Angelica Montagano: But February, the week before my birthday, 2020, I was in Ottawa and we were touring a space. And it was not a turnkey solution. I don't want anyone listening to this thinking, oh, it's a podcast space that you can just get anywhere.
It was an empty office.
Cameron Passmore: It's a raw space.
Angelica Montagano: With a shower for some reason in a corner. It was like the weirdest thing. And I've never built a studio before.
And I remember measuring stuff and thinking, okay, we're going to buy these thick curtains to soundproof an area. What's the lighting going to look like? And I'm not an expert at that.
But then luckily, we didn't sign that. COVID hit. We all went home and we still entered video, but with fuzzy webcams.
I just went to episode 101 today to like back and we could barely make out your faces from the webcams that you guys had. It was such a throwback. But the way that benefited us was previously when we wanted to interview a guest, it was in person with the brick and we would have to make sure our guests came to us or we went to them.
So it limited the pool. But outside of the global pandemic completely transforming how we live, the silver lining was it completely opened the guest pool now. So Zoom became a thing.
We're able to virtually record. And 2021 and 2022 were some of the best years in terms of numbers for the podcast because our audience just grew too. So COVID was a pretty big thing for us in terms of the podcast.
Cameron Passmore: Why did we decide to launch the RR Community?
Angelica Montagano: So the RR Community officially launched October 2020. And we launched it because the underlying strategy of everything we do in content at PWL is to create an online community and that feel of community. And we were seeing that with the videos we were uploading on YouTube in the comments.
And Ben is like, oh, we should have a comment section on our episode pages on the website. So like, great idea. But instead of feedback, we were seeing discussions happen within the comments.
So Ben and I were like, well, why don't we just start an online community? Wouldn't that be cool?
Ben Felix: We use a thing called Commento.
Angelica Montagano: That's right.
Ben Felix: Which was a really nice visual nested reply comment platform for blogs and stuff like that. But we had these comment sections that were just massive. It just became unwieldy to keep doing it that way.
And so, OK, we clearly need something more than a comment section.
Angelica Montagano: Yeah. And I remember my goal was 100 members. And then you and I were joking, like, imagine we got to 500.
How crazy would that be? What a wild idea. Well, 500 was easily surpassed within the first three months.
And now we're at 12,500 members. I think something like that. So the community really blossomed into its own thing online.
And I think our members really enjoy the space we carved out for them there.
Ben Felix: Yeah, super cool. How does the podcast fit into PWL's overall just marketing and communication strategy?
Angelica Montagano: So when we started the podcast, the main mission was to help answer questions that we got from clients and prospects, which was great to create this marketing asset for them. And then it transformed into a chance to educate and share knowledge to a wider audience, similar to your YouTube channel, Ben, where it's a chance to show investors, hey, there's another way. It's not just the way that the big five are telling us.
I think now the podcast has really become married to the PWL brand. And it's really our social proof and our champion out there saying, hey, this is what we can do. And this is how we can help Canadians.
And I think it's a main part of our obviously lead source. But it's just become a thing on its own. And it's really become its own brand.
And I treat it as such. There's the PWL brand when we think of our marketing strategy. And then there's a whole separate strategy for the podcast as a sub brand.
Cameron Passmore: How do you think about the big goals for this show for the next few years?
Angelica Montagano: So I think the goal will always be the same, educating people and getting our message out there. But I have big ideas on what I'd love to do, definitely. But it's putting it out there.
And are people going to be into this? Every time we launch something, we're hesitant about it. But then it turns out to be something great, like our merchandise.
People love our hoodies. My gosh, I get so many emails about our hoodies. So people love it.
Ben Felix: And the premium T-shirts.
Angelica Montagano: Premium T-shirt. Yeah, that was a big one.
Ben Felix: How many times did we sell out of the premium T-shirts before?
Angelica Montagano: Three times. It was supposed to be a limited run. And then I told the team, I'm like, just order a bunch.
We're just going to have them out there. Big fan favorite.
Cameron Passmore: But give us one idea you want to do. You got to give us some tea.
Angelica Montagano: Here's something to throw out to the audience. You tell me if you'd like it. I would love to do a Rational Reminder day or conference, an in-person thing where speakers can come, speak to the audience, listen to you and Ben talk.
An overall day. I know a lot of podcasts do that. Something I'd love to do for years, I've been begging you guys to do, is a live podcast recording.
And that I know is a lot of planning, but that's definitely something I'd love to do. But the big idea would be that conference thing. And do you remember we had a big idea, Cameron?
I think it was 21. We wanted to do a Rational Reminder coffee book. And it was how everyone answered the, how you define success.
I still think of that idea today. I think that would be such a fun, tangible thing that people could feel and touch when it comes to the Rational Reminder.
Ben Felix: We talked about that earlier. Cameron and I were like, didn't we have that idea?
Angelica Montagano: We were coming down to the wire to speak into a publisher. I was even in talks with the publisher, but then I think other priorities came out and we just had to put that aside for now.
Ben Felix: We did one live episode in Toronto at the CFA Toronto Wealth Management Day or something like that. We did one at Future Proof. Is that it? Just those two?
Cameron Passmore: I think that's it.
Angelica Montagano: Yeah. But it'd be great to have an audience of our listeners there.
Ben Felix: A Rational Reminder event instead of somebody else's event. That would be cool.
Angelica Montagano: Yeah.
Ben Felix: We've done the meetups too. You could probably do a meetup. When we were in Vancouver recently, we had probably over 100 people out at a restaurant.
You could probably do a meetup like that. Get all that same number of people out, but do a live recording of an episode. That'd be super cool.
That's probably more what you're thinking about.
Angelica Montagano: Yeah, exactly.
Ben Felix: I like that. You've been even with us since inception of the show. How has working on the podcast changed your views on money and investing?
Angelica Montagano: A lot of people might not know, but I'm an ex-banker. I worked at the bank for 10 years. I did everything from part-time to full-time, front office, back office.
Coming into this, my view of investing in money was not positive because I got told that I was essentially a salesperson. You don't get taught about investing or things like that. When I first came here and heard you guys talk about investing in money, I was like, okay, I get it.
I get the gist. You're just another salesman. But through this whole process, I realized, no, PWL, The Rational Reminder, everything we stand for is so much more than just selling.
So there's that part of it. The other part of it that has really changed it was that I always had this view that it had to be a numbers game when it came to investing. Through all the nuggets and the episodes that we've produced, I realized, no, it's actually more qualitative than that.
When we think about goals, when we think about how to approach retirement, it's not just about the end dollar amount. It's actually about how you feel. There's a lot of psychology behind it, which made it less intimidating when I had to approach investing.
So it's really given me the confidence to approach money situations, even though I know when I compare myself to Ben Felix, I obviously don't know anything about investing, but you give me the confidence by listening to the episodes to approach any situation with an open mind.
Cameron Passmore: Very cool. What's your favorite part about working on the show?
Angelica Montagano: I thought about this question. There's a lot of fun memories that came up, but there's only one thing over and over that makes me smile, and that's hearing the stories from our audience on how we've impacted their lives. When I go to the meetups and I'm meeting people, you see it in their face, the genuine thanks that they have.
And, oh my God, you're Angelica? I've heard of you. They just start thanking us for the podcast and how we've helped their friends, their family, their situation, how we've shown them a different way, how we've helped them in a situation they didn't know that they needed help with.
It makes me feel so good that this was all worth it. I've never had that feeling in a job before, feeling fulfilled where I'm making a difference in someone's life. I feel like sometimes we work in our bubbles, we're remote, we're focused on our tasks, but these meetups give me a chance to see the wider view of, oh no, there is a ripple effect.
We are making a difference with the content we're creating.
Ben Felix: Awesome. Last question for you, Angelica. How do you define success in your life?
Angelica Montagano: I think people approach success with this end goal. And I approach success more through gratitude. So every day I'll write down three things I'm grateful for.
And every day they have to be three different things. But it puts things in perspective how every day is a successful day. And it could be grateful for a big thing like have a roof over my head to the rug in my living room really ties the room together.
I'm grateful for that. That's taking a page out of Chris Hadfield's book. And if no one has heard that episode, I beg you go listen to it.
It's such a good episode. It's only 48 minutes long. And he talks about how every day you just pay attention to your little wins and you're just going to feel successful 100 times a day versus that one big milestone that you might get in your life.
Ben Felix: That's a great answer. Gratitude journaling is a very evidence-based real thing that makes people happier and more fulfilled. I don't do it. Maybe I should.
Cameron Passmore: And that was a great episode. One of my favorites.
Angelica Montagano: Amazing episode.
Ben Felix: Cool. Well, great answer to the last question, Angelica. And very cool to hear your perspectives on the show.
And I think it's cool for listeners to hear bits of your lore and your connection to the show since its inception back in 2018. Very cool.
Angelica Montagano: Yeah.
Ben Felix: Come a long way.
Angelica Montagano: Thanks for the chance.
Ben Felix: Thanks. Stephanie Sargento, welcome to the Rational Reminder Podcast.
Stephanie Sargento: Thanks, Ben. Happy to be on the show.
Ben Felix: Stephanie, how long have you been working on the show now?
Stephanie Sargento: I've been part of the show since end of February since I joined PWL. So it's been about nine months. I'm the newbie here.
And this is actually my first time working on a podcast. So it's been really exciting to be working on a show that has a lot of avid and dedicated viewers.
Cameron Passmore: What exactly is your role in the show's production?
Stephanie Sargento: I manage the production by working closely with the hosts. So you, Ben, Cam, Dan, and also Ben Wilson, Matt, Angelica, of course, compliance and our guests. So you could say I'm like the bridge connecting all of the moving parts that make the show run smoothly and makes the show what it is.
I also make sure the episode is uploaded on time and I post episode discussions. So when Thursday 5.30am rolls around, everyone who tunes into the show sees it up there. Lastly, I handle the social media.
So all the posts that you see on there is me. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to go viral, though. Yeah.
Ben Felix: When people see the posts in the Rational Reminder community posted by Stephanie, that is you.
Stephanie Sargento: Yes, exactly.
Ben Felix: And the other thing that you have started doing this year that has been another huge time saver, we talked about how Matt coming into the episodes and doing all the production notes during the episode instead of me doing it after recording. That's been a huge time saver. You being able to book the guests.
So when I email with a guest, they agree like, yeah, I want to come on the show. I say, awesome, Stephanie, we'll find a time. I used to find the time, which was a time suck.
So you taking that over has been a huge efficiency. You also follow up with the guests and send them the episode and thank them for coming on. That's also been awesome.
So I think the whole process and the way that you do tie things together has been huge additions to the whole production process.
Stephanie Sargento: I'm glad I'm able to contribute or make the process more efficient for the team.
Ben Felix: Yeah, totally. So I know it's only been nine months, but how has the podcast changed your views on money and investing?
Stephanie Sargento: Working on the podcast, it's really opened my eyes to how multifaceted money and investing can be. One thing that I hear a lot on the show is the importance of diversification and it's a concept that I've come to really believe in. Also, I'm relatively young, but I realized that I'm not the type to go and chase something that's too high of a risk or volatility.
So the more that I listen and learn, the more that I discover what kind of investor that I want to be and how I want to manage my finances.
Cameron Passmore: Very cool. And what's your favorite part about working on the show?
Stephanie Sargento: It's a two-part answer. The first is I definitely love working for a show or production. And again, it's been really rewarding to work behind the scenes on just one of the top finance podcasts out there.
And now that I'm contributing to it in my own way, the second part is definitely learning about finance. So I didn't really have a background in it before, but the show has been an amazing learning resource. The conversations are definitely super fascinating.
The guests, they have unique perspectives. And I know most of the topics go way over my head, but that just shows me where I can keep learning and growing. And honestly, I aspire to be, as you guys say, more of a finance nerd in the near future.
Ben Felix: Awesome. Last question for you, Stephanie, how do you define success in your life?
Stephanie Sargento: There's this line from one of my favorite sitcoms. It's called How I Met Your Mother. And there's this character, Barney Stinson, and he says, whatever you do in this life, it's not legendary unless your friends are there to see it.
And that really resonated with me. I also don't think that means that success or happiness should hinge on other people. To me, it just means that success isn't about personal achievements.
I believe that you're truly successful when you find happiness in what you do and you share that happiness or that joy with great people around you. So true success is being fulfilled and also having great people to experience that journey with.
Ben Felix: Great answer.
Cameron Passmore: Sure was. Great to have you on, Stephanie, and part of the team.
Stephanie Sargento: Of course. Thank you guys for having me.
Ben Felix: Easton Doran, welcome to the Rational Reminder Podcast. Thank you for having me. How long have you been working on the show?
Easton Doran: I started editing with the podcast consultant in fall 2021. But I've been full-time production and management since basically the start of 2023. So a couple of years plus a couple of years.
Ben Felix: Cool.
Cameron Passmore: So production, what's your role in the production process?
Easton Doran: I'm the production manager. So I'm in charge of managing editors, producers, operations, the ins and outs of the day-to-day life for the team. But I like to also hop in and help out when I can with editing and actually processing things and doing revisions and that sort of thing.
Ben Felix: So this is maybe something we should explain to listeners. Most of the people we've talked to have been PWL employees. Ross is a OneDigital employee.
You're with an external firm that we contract for production. Can you talk about how big your team is? What is The Podcast Consultant?
Easton Doran: Yeah. The podcast consultants, we're a decentralized company, just all remote. The owners bought it from Matthew Passy, who's the founder.
So we owe a lot to him. And Karl, one of the new owners, is based in Chicago. And then Manny, the other new owner, is based in Vienna, Austria.
That's the structure up top. And there's me and a couple other managers and then producers, editors, and some other freelancers below. So there's about 25 of us that I interact with regularly.
Ben Felix: Wow.
Cameron Passmore: And you're in Canada, right?
Easton Doran: I am. I am in Courtney, BC.
Ben Felix: Is that just luck that you happen to be a Canadian working on the show?
Easton Doran: Yeah. So there's a bit of a flow to that. So Matthew, the founder, like I said, found Quinn.
And you guys are familiar with Quinn as well. He's been working with TPC for probably five years, maybe six. And he's still with us.
He's now in Edmonton. And working a little bit less involved, but still working for TPC. And he just knows a lot of people, music scene connections, that sort of thing.
People that know their way around a computer and a DAW, as it were, and audio and video editing. So he found me and a bunch of others that just were in Western Canada. I don't actually know how he found Matthew in the first place, but he worked for a few agencies before.
So yeah, we got myself out on the island. And we got Fraser and Caleb in Vancouver. And Caleb actually, Matthew just found on his own.
I don't know. He's just got a thing for Canadians, I guess. And then we have Edmonton, Calgary, Kelowna, a few there.
And then actually our account executive, Josh, he's immigrating from Arizona to Ottawa.
Ben Felix: That's crazy, man. I didn't realize you were on the island. I don't know if you know from listening to episodes, that's where I grew up.
Easton Doran: Okay. You know what? I might've missed that.
I think I knew that Mark's living in Squamish or something.
Ben Felix: Yeah.
Easton Doran: But yeah, whereabouts?
Ben Felix: I grew up in Mill Bay on the island. Oh, nice. Right in between Nanaimo and Victoria.
Easton Doran: Oh, very cool. I'll have to chat later. I got a family member there that was a pro hockey player and stuff.
So maybe we'll know some of the same people.
Ben Felix: Yeah. Crazy, man. I knew you were in Canada.
I didn't realize you're on the island. But yeah, just funny how The Podcast Consultant started by Matt Passy, who's an American. We started working with TPC because it was just a place where a lot of people were working with.
And we ended up working with you, who's in Canada. And we're obviously Canadian. Kind of cool.
Easton Doran: Yeah, totally.
Cameron Passmore: How many other podcasts do you guys produce?
Easton Doran: Yeah. I looked into this. I think it's about 80 clients that we have concurrently.
Cameron Passmore: Wow.
Easton Doran: But it goes down from there. So probably 60 of those are regular. Maybe 40 of those are more or less weekly.
So some of them will be monthly or less regular. Some of them are even quarterly. All different sizes and different niches.
Everything from brand new episode one startup, launching a podcast to we work with Capital Allocators, Invest Like The Best. And obviously you guys on the bigger end as well.
Ben Felix: I'd be actually really interested in your thoughts on that podcast. That is pretty hard to come by. It's not public usually based on what you know about the podcast space and what you see.
How do our stats compare to, I don't know, a typical finance podcast?
Easton Doran: Definitely one of the bigger finance podcasts that we deal with in general. And I'm sure you're in 0.1% globally because there are just so many podcasts out there. Probably the most popular that we work on, that's run directly by an advisory company.
Ben Felix: Okay, wow.
Easton Doran: If that makes sense. So a lot of these are podcasting for podcast sake.
And yours is too, I would say at this point. But it's also tied to PWL, which is a bit different than what we usually see. Like Invest Like The Best.
It's just its own thing. It's not tied to his company. One of the few shows out there that's for advisors by advisors.
So it gets into the nerdy stuff, but it also is accessible to noobs like me.
Cameron Passmore: Has working on the podcast changed your views on money and investing?
Easton Doran: So I got two answers for this because I barely edit shows anymore. I haven't learned as much as I should from the show. But obviously for me, it's Canadian.
It's relevant. So I do learn tidbits here and there that I can apply to my personal finances. I really also like sometimes when you guys focus on behavioral finance and psychology, those guests and those episodes, I've just really enjoyed.
I come from a psych background in school. So those are always interesting. And then I'm going to read Alex's answer.
So Alex is one of our editors that has worked on probably over 100 episodes. Working on Rational Reminder has expanded my views on money and investing by reinforcing good decision-making doctrine and consistently reminding me to stay long-term focused while avoiding short-term market noise and media headlines designed to induce panic. Prior to working on slash listening to the Rational Reminder podcast, I would have fallen victim to the individual stock picking and the idea that somehow I had more information than the market on any given security because of reading a handful of investing articles.
Thanks to Rational Reminder and their data-driven approach to analysis, it's easy to see how individual stock selection and market timing are a fool's errand. Now I'm on team by XEQT, that's how it's pronounced, or any other broadly diversified all-in-one approach. That's from Alex.
Ben Felix: Alex sounds very sharp. I love it.
Easton Doran: He's got it going on for sure. He's a little more savvy than I am.
Ben Felix: Yeah. What's your favorite part about working on the show?
Easton Doran: To me, we have a lot of American clients as well. So if I get to listen to a bit of it, it's a breath of fresh air with some Canadian accents. It feels like home.
Ben Felix: Nice.
Easton Doran: Yeah.
Cameron Passmore: And the last question, how do you define success in your life?
Easton Doran: For me, it's pretty much being able to do more of the things I love on a day-to-day moment-to-moment basis without being overly worried about financial security throughout that time. So whether that's mountain biking, music, hanging with the kid and the wife, travel, creative things on the computer, whatever it may be.
Ben Felix: Awesome. Great answer. Cool, man.
Thanks for coming on the show. We've never talked before. We've emailed lots, but good to meet you on video.
Easton Doran: That's right. Thanks for having me.
Cameron Passmore: Great to have a fellow Canadian on. It's great to see you.
Disclosure:
Portfolio management and brokerage services in Canada are offered exclusively by PWL Capital, Inc. (“PWL Capital”) which is regulated by the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). Investment advisory services in the United States of America are offered exclusively by OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC (“OneDigital”). OneDigital and PWL Capital are affiliated entities, however, each company has financial responsibility for only its own products and services.
Nothing herein constitutes an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security. This communication is distributed for informational purposes only; the information contained herein has been derived from sources believed to be accurate, but no guarantee as to its accuracy or completeness can be made. Furthermore, nothing herein should be construed as investment, tax or legal advice and/or used to make any investment decisions. Different types of investments and investment strategies have varying degrees of risk and are not suitable for all investors. You should consult with a professional adviser to see how the information contained herein may apply to your individual circumstances. All market indices discussed are unmanaged, do not incur management fees, and cannot be invested in directly. All investing involves risk of loss and nothing herein should be construed as a guarantee of any specific outcome or profit. Past performance is not indicative of or a guarantee of future results. All statements and opinions presented herein are those of the individual hosts and/or guests, are current only as of this communication’s original publication date and are subject to change without notice. Neither OneDigital nor PWL Capital has any obligation to provide revised statements and/or opinions in the event of changed circumstances.
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