Steve Lane, Financial Services

Steve Lane could tell you some stories. He’s been in the financial services industry since 1995 and has seen some of the world’s inevitable ups and downs. It’s his job to listen hard, both to his clients and to what’s going on the market. Staying informed and knowing what kinds of risks are right is his forte. It’s how he builds solid and comprehensive financial plans for individuals and families. As Steve says, “Man, you need anything financial, I’m your guy.”

Behind the talk of RRSPs, RESPs, SAGs, RIFs, mutual funds, life insurance products, TFSAs and the like, Steve is incredibly down to earth. He’s a devoted husband and father with a strong faith and close ties to various communities in and around Truro. He grew up playing hockey and golf and fishing with his grandfather. He’s very generous with his time and reflected on some personal and professional matters recently when we met in Truro.

LANE

I’m glad your dad asked you to come. Hopefully I can be an encouragement to other people.

INTERVIEWER

That’s the idea!

LANE

If there’s some way I can help the business grow that’s what we want!

INTERVIEWER

If I could start with growth, where did you grow up?

LANE

I grew up actually in, you know Bible Hill?

INTERVIEWER

Yep.

LANE

That’s where I grew up. I grew up with my grandparents.

INTERVIEWER

And did you do any schooling after high school around the area, or just straight into work?

LANE

Just right into work. Played a lot of sports. I wasn’t hard to find when I was younger. I’d be at the golf course in the summer. There would be three or four of us friends together and we’d get dropped off in the morning at the golf course and picked up in the evening for supper. We’d go home and have supper and then we’d be in the ball league playing ball.

INTERVIEWER

What’s your family look like these days? Kids grown-up?

LANE

Actually my wife and I, we’ve been married nine years as of October 22nd. My wife has two children from her first marriage. They’re 33 and 31. She’s a dedicated woman. No grandchildren on that side yet. I have a daughter and two granddaughters.

INTERVIEWER

Are they nearby?

LANE

Yes, all three are in Truro right now.

INTERVIEWER

The holidays are coming up. Anything happen around family with the holidays?

LANE

This year we’ll be going to my parents’. The whole family will be there. Next year we’ll have it here and we’ll have all of our kids and you know it’s a big family thing that way. I promised my mom we’d go over there this year. She was kind of after me last year. And we’ll be having a big potluck on Christmas Eve with my wife’s side of the family and just some awesome desserts. We’ll have a toddy or two and have a lot of fun. I used to volunteer til a couple years ago at a kitchen, including a big setting at Christmas.

INTERVIEWER

How did you get involved in that?

LANE

I heard somebody talk about a soup kitchen. And I just said oh, there’s a soup kitchen or something and they said yeah we do it in town at one of the churches and you know a few people get together and I said well do you need any help? They yes yeah come on in! We can always use somebody. So I just went in one day and said hi I’m Steve and I’m here to help. And the lady said well okay. And they got to know me a little bit and put me up to greet people. I enjoyed that.

INTERVIEWER

Is the church something that’s part of your life?

LANE

We do go to church, my wife and I. We listen to the Grace Message. It’s encouraging. You know what I mean? Just have fun and live life to the fullest. I think it’s a good message for today.

INTERVIEWER

Cool.

LANE

It’s more about encouraging people to get their footing.

INTERVIEWER

Was it a part of your upbringing with your grandparents?

LANE

No. What I remember growing up is I had an aunt who lived five or six houses down the road who used to take me once in a while to Sunday school. But other than that, that was it for me. Then I was at a stage in my life about ten years ago when I wanted to make some changes. I just kinda started going to church and took a little course and started through that route really. So it wasn’t a big part of my upbringing at all, to be honest, the church wasn’t no. It is a big part of my life now. Everybody seems to be looking for something but I just got to the point in my life where I tried all kinds of stuff and I wanted to try something different. I said well I tried everything else. You know? God if you’re real, this’d be a good time to show yourself and let me know that you’re here and uh, you know, the big guy showed up.

INTERVIEWER

Can I ask if growing up with your grandparents was a good situation?

LANE

My dad and mom were living with my grandparents when I was born. My mom got pregnant and had another son, my brother, he’s a year younger than me. And so the story goes, my mom and dad moved to a house and they said that I got homesick for my grandparents. My grandparents brought me up.

INTERVIEWER

Oh wow.

LANE

So it was pretty sad because my brother and I got separated at a young age. Of course we’re friends today, I mean we grew up together just apart. My grandparents were really nice people. Very very nice people. My granddad and I were really close. Yeah. Really close. He was awesome.

INTERVIEWER

You probably knew him after his working life, but did you ever talk to him about what he did?

LANE

Worked in the woods. Stuff like that. He was also a police officer in Halifax during the Halifax Explosion. I remember I’d go to elementary school and I’d say Pop could we go fishing later? And I’d tear out of that school, as soon as the bell rung I was gone. He’d be sitting in the old truck with the fishing rods and the worms dug and I’d throw my stuff in and we were gone. Those are good memories. He used to take me to the rink at six in the morning too. I used to play a lot of hockey. I played rep hockey. We had a really strong team in Truro back in midget. None of them ever made the NHL but a few of them went up to try out for the OHA like the Ontario Major Junior. My brother was a year younger but he was a goalie so every second year in rep we got to play together.

INTERVIEWER

Nice.

LANE

That midget year was big for us. Actually that year Antigonish had a good team. Yeah, they never beat us but they had a good team! We beat them 2-1 a couple times or something like that but they were strong that year.

INTERVIEWER

My brother Aneill’s played the most hockey in our family.

LANE

I’ve heard that!

INTERVIEWER

So how did you get into financial services? What was that path?

LANE

Well I was playing golf in Truro one day and there was a guy there who used to work at the Bank of Nova Scotia but he’d gone to Investor’s Group. I was working for Irving Oil at the time, but I used to sell cars, mostly Hondas and Hyundais. Anyway we used to do our own bank contracts for financing when we sold cars and I used to put them through this guy and we became friends. And he said that day at the golf course, Steve have you ever given any thought to the investment business? He said you like to work with people and I said nah never really thought of that. He said well give it some thought. So I did. And I called him up and I said, I’ve given that some thought. I said you know what, I think it’s time for a change. I said I want a career change. He said, well let me talk to my boss at Investors Group. So he did and they called me up and told me to come on in for an interview. They decided that if I took my course and passed the exam for the Investment Fund Institute of Canada that they would hire me, they would sponsor me. So I did. I studied and studied and studied. And I went down to Dal and I wrote the exam and I passed it. That was in the fall, a few years back now you know. [laughs] I started in January of 1994 with Investors Group. I stayed there a couple of years and got some really good training. They give excellent training. And I wrote my life license and I got dually licensed. After a while I ended up moving from Investor’s Group to a firm out of Halifax. Eventually I moved my book to Investia in Truro so I could deal locally and in the surrounding area. And that’s how I met Irwin [Claener], through the Investia connection, and then the opportunity came up with A.A. Munro and AAM Financial. That’s how I got into the investment business.

INTERVIEWER

You have a good memory!

LANE

I didn’t have a lot of financial background. A lot of it was hands on training, sitting in front of clients with my manager. And of course reading. You can read all you want, but in this business it’s also nice to have somebody to work with you, to help you along in certain areas. Once you’re out there sitting in front of people it’s a whole different story than reading a book. You’re dealing with their finances and their goals and really important things like life and critical illness insurance. I like to sit with clients and I’ll say you’re going to begin to understand investments because when I talk to you and explain it, it’s going to be in understandable terms. And you will begin to understand how they work. Because we’re a team. Really. When I have a client we’re a team. I’m a coach. The way I approach my clients is hey we’re a team if you hire me I’m part of your team. And I’m not looking at this team to be a two year deal. We’re going to be a team for a long time. Because things in your life are going to change. And that’s why we have to keep updating once in a while to make sure things are on track.

INTERVIEWER

Has anything ever happened that you thought at first was really bad and then turned out to be really good?

LANE

In financial services?

INTERVIEWER

Yeah, with a client or anywhere along your career path?

LANE

Well I could say as far as that goes is market correction. I’ve been though a few of them. When a client gets a statement …

INTERVIEWER

And it’s …

LANE

And it’s not looking good. And you just say hang in there. You say remember we looked at the chart and I showed you those lines, how they go up and down, let’s just stick with it. And remember the long term plan. Don’t look at this little blip because there are going to be ups and down in the economy, just hang in there. And you say you know we’re going to get through this and we’ll be fine. You’ll be fine just don’t panic and don’t do anything out of context. Just remember what we’ve spoken about and what I’ve showed you and that this is one of those times that we’re going through. So just hang in there. And you know, a year later they’ll say wow, I’m glad I listened to you, you know. A lot of people in 2008 panicked. They moved their money into GICs. I still come across people today that are back there and haven’t come out of that mentality. I bump into them from time to time. I’d say that when you have clients complaining about a statement, it’s part of the client growing too because when that does happen that’s when they may need a reminder. Ups and downs are not going to go away. There are still good companies and they still got lots of money, maybe their stock’s just undervalued right now. Let them go through the cycle. Part of the work with clients is when they get a statement and they’re watching too much news and TV and the world’s ending. Fortunately I haven’t had a lot of people over the years call me about that kind of stuff. Because I really try to teach them. I’ll pull out a chart and I’ll say let’s have a look: this is the stock market, but look at some of the ups and downs in this over the years. So we’re going to have some blips in the economy, but long term we’re going to do just fine. Sometimes I’ll draw lines or I’ll grab a piece of paper and I’ll show them you know this is a GIC, this is how a bond fund works, this would be a balanced fund and this is your equity fund. So I’ll say you can see there’s more volatility in equity. But I’ll show them, I’ll say there will be some bouncing up and down in the market, which is going to affect you. So we want to make sure we choose investments that fit your risk profile. I let the client know and I school them because it takes a lot of the the element of surprise off the table. You can go back and see the client in a down market and say oh yeah you know on paper your money’s down a bit but remember we talked about that. And they’ll say yeah you did show us that. And I keep notes in my files, you know that we’ve talked about volatility already.

INTERVIEWER

You’re keeping the longer term context in mind.

LANE

I’d say that in this line of business, when it comes to the investment side, one of the big things is to be careful that people don’t get caught up in fear. Because when people get caught up in fear, which is false expectations appearing real, they tend to make rash decisions that they normally wouldn’t make.

INTERVIEWER

How do you feel about the overall financial literacy of Nova Scotians? Is it growing?

LANE

From what I’m seeing out there?

INTERVIEWER

Or are people coming to you with the same questions they did ten years ago?

LANE

What I’m seeing? Most of the people I sit in front of still today don’t know what a tax free savings account is or how it works. They’ve heard about it, but they don’t know what it is. I’d say maybe out of the hundred percent, maybe twenty to twenty-five percent of them might have a better idea of what a tax free savings account is. You know they’ve heard of it or they have one, but they don’t really understand how it works. They would have a GIC in there or have it set up as a saving account. They don’t understand that the tax free savings account is more for investments, where interest income, capital gains and dividends are all tax free.

INTERVIEWER

What about RRSPs?

LANE

I still find that some people don’t understand the full benefits of RRSPs. I sit down and take the time to explain it to them, and then we begin the planning process. Right?

INTERVIEWER

Yeah!

LANE

So I still think there’s a lot of illiteracy out there in the financial services side. I find that people don’t have the time in today’s world to study investments and build a financial plan on their own, so they tend to bring somebody in to work with and help build a plan. You also see a lot of confusion over the benefits of life insurance versus mortgage insurance. But it starts with building relationships.

INTERVIEWER

How do you explain what you do to your own family?

LANE

My family knows that I’ve been in financial services for years and that I’m a financial guy.

INTERVIEWER

Is that the word you use, “guy”? Because I sometimes tell people oh I’m a social media guy. Right? I find that word helps make sense of some abstract stuff.

LANE

Yeah, I’m the financial guy!

INTERVIEWER

Or the IT guy.

LANE

Man you need anything financial I’m your guy.

INTERVIEWER

Yeah!

LANE

No really. I find if you build it up, it’s not the right thing to do. Because we want to be part of their lives. We want to be part of their lives because you’re looking at generations.

INTERVIEWER

Yeah, ultimately.

LANE

Really. I mean you want their kids to work with you at some point in their lives. That the parents would have enough trust in us that they’ll eventually see to it that their children are dealing with us at some point in their lives. That’s what happened last night. I’ve got a husband and wife, been working with them for years, they have a local business in Truro and they called me up last week. So I went over to see them last night. And they have two kids now in university and two of them coming up through that will be, and they bring them out and sit them right down. They say, come out here, Steve’s got your RESP, I want you to sit with him and have a look at it. So we look at it and look at the investments, go through it with the kids. The idea is down the road, you know if they’re around, hopefully, but even if they’re out of province or wherever they are maybe at some point they’ll be doing business with us.

INTERVIEWER

So talking about generations and moving from clients’ business to their kids’ business, I’d like to ask more of a reflective question: If you could be any age for a week, what age would you be?

LANE

Wow. What a good question. Let me think. There are so many different ages I’d like to go back to. Just let me kind of put that one in. I would say probably, if I could, I would probably go back believe it or not to when I was maybe eighteen.

INTERVIEWER

Yeah?

LANE

Yeah. Really. That’s probably where I’d want to go back to. Because I would have did some things differently back then. I probably would have went on to play junior hockey, which I could have.

INTERVIEWER

How about these days? Is there anywhere you like to go on vacation to get away for a while?

LANE

My wife and I love going South. Florida, Dominican, Cuba. I like Florida because you can go down and rent a car and do some different things and go to the beach and play golf and shop. She’s more of the go to the resort, don’t have to make the bed, don’t have to cook, you know, don’t have to do nothing or lift a finger. She usually wins! [laughs]

INTERVIEWER

Are you swimmers? Or just enjoy the heat and the sun?

LANE

Well I enjoy the water.

INTERVIEWER

Yeah?

LANE

Yeah. I like it. And my folks have a cottage over in the Tatamagouche area. I’m the kind of guy when I’m at the beach on a hot day man I’m in and out of the water all the time. I just love it. I love to get in the water and get under the water and just you know, just hard to get me out of it. But my wife just likes to go in and get wet, kind of thing, and cool down a bit. Her side of the family has a cottage on the Minas Basin. So we go down there in the summer and do some bass fishing. It’s on the beach. It’s almost two different worlds. Two cottages. Major differences. It’s hard to believe. Because they’re only well they’re only maybe an hour apart. But it’s two different worlds. The Minas Basin to the Northumberland Strait. It’s incredible. It really is.

INTERVIEWER

You’re in pretty good shape these days, how do you keep in shape?

STEVE

I got back into golfing recently. I love meeting people on the course. For exercise normally I have, down in my basement, we have a treadmill, got a bow flex, got an ab machine. The last couple months I bumped into a little medical problem though. And I had to stay away from it.

INTERVIEWER

Sorry to hear that.

LANE

But just for another couple weeks I think. And I should be okay to get back down there. I used to go to the gym and I thought well I don’t really want to do this. I’d just as soon have something in my basement. And then I can go down in the morning or I can go down at night or whenever I wanna go and just go. So that’s what we did. That bow flex was a real good investment. Treadmill too, but the bow flex was really good. Because you can go down and work on a bow flex for twenty minutes/half hour and I mean you get a nice workout.

INTERVIEWER

Does your wife like the home gym too? Is she able to use the machines and everything?

LANE

Yeah. She also likes to walk. We do walks together, but she walks more than me. I think as we get older it’s more important to do a little weights here and there and make a commitment to that. I believe that we really have to make time in our lives for exercise. I really do. And I’m not an overly healthy eater but in the mornings I have my breakfast and I have blueberries in my dish. I buy them by the box. I have a supplier that I know, I buy five boxes at a time.

INTERVIEWER

And keep them frozen?

LANE

Yeah in the freezer. I get them for a really good price and they’re the ones that aren’t sprayed.

INTERVIEWER

Nice.

LANE

So I put my berries in, usually with raspberries, granola, and flax seed. I put that in and I put in some yogurt just to mix it up and that’s my breakfast. If I don’t do that I’ll blend something. What I like about the breakfast is just you get instant energy. As soon as I eat it it’s like whoo! I’m ready to go man, you know, for the day.

INTERVIEWER

Yeah!

LANE

Yeah, so I try to get the morning going good. And I read in the morning.

INTERVIEWER

Oh yeah?

LANE

Oh yeah. Every morning. I’ll read a bit and then when I come in the office and start my day, throughout the day you know sometimes I’ll grab a magazine, Advisor’s Edge or something like that, and just have a look and see what’s going on out there. And I have access to a site that breaks down all the different investments and it explains them out all in a one pager. It’s great for clients.

INTERVIEWER

And your wife’s hard at work too?

LANE

She was eighteen years with the Victoria Order of Nurses in the admin side. Eventually she was doing finance. And she was looking after fifteen hundred people in the Atlantic region.

INTERVIEWER

Oh wow.

LANE

Pension and benefits. And all that stuff. She’d do the spreadsheets and put all the formulas and calculations together, all this kind of stuff. When she left they couldn’t believe it. They had to hire four people to do what she was doing! Four of them to do that one job she was doing. And they’re still across Canada today using some of those spreadsheets and stuff that she put together. She’s been interviewing for a new job and looking after a couple of properties we own. She’s a really good woman. She’s been a real good influence in my life.

INTERVIEWER

How did the two of you meet?

LANE

We met in church, if you can believe that. But I’ll tell you something, it’s funny the way things go. We actually met the first time when we were teenagers. I remember meeting her briefly one day through my brother’s friend. And I remember saying to my brother, who’s that girl? I said she’s really pretty. But that’s the last I saw her until one day years later I see her at church. We married three months later. Yeah, we were just bang. We got married. It didn’t take long and we’ve really grown in our relationship. And she puts up with me. [laughs]

INTERVIEWER

Do you help out around the house at least? [laughs]

LANE

I do! I chip in. I chip in and help out a bit. I’ll throw the blue jeans in the wash or something simple to help. I’ll cook a little. I keep the office in order. I mean she’s really very organized. She doesn’t like a mess. If she works, she cleans her office up at the end of the day. She tries to keep me grounded. She really has some good talents and gifts that way. I could talk about her all day. I just feel that I might be a bit boring talking about myself. [laughs]

INTERVIEWER

Not at all. Thanks for opening up with me today Steve. We talked about a lot of stuff.

LANE

We sure did. It’s been my pleasure. Thank you.