Not a resume. A story about building.

I got my entrepreneurial spirit from both of my parents, who each started businesses. My father owned a hardware store in northern Manitoba. He died unexpectedly at 46, when I was 19.

My father's advisor was the person who delivered his life insurance cheque. He also introduced me to this industry. I later became his business partner and eventually bought him out when his long-term disability triggered our buy-sell agreement.

I started as an advisor in 1999 in Thompson, a small town in northern Manitoba. The office was one of the top performing financial centres in Canada, up against Toronto and Vancouver, and I didn't know any better. I just thought that was normal.

We were each other's biggest competition, and we were also the first to share each other's successes, failures and ideas. That collaboration shaped how I work. Now I get to give a little of it back by sharing what's working for us.

I founded Insight Planning and built a 150-household, approximately $200-million advisory practice. Along the way we made four acquisitions and one spin-off. Then I hit the ceiling every founder-led practice hits: the firm worked because I was in the room.

A couple of years ago I set out to turn the practice into a system, one that depends a lot less on me being in every meeting and every decision. Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time made the biggest difference. You can see it in every part of my life now.

Growth stopped meaning more. When we made our latest acquisition, I was willing to pay more for a book of engaged, loyal clients, because they were exactly the kind of clients who fit our planning-first culture. I've since passed a segment of the practice to a younger associate.

The capacity that good systems free up doesn't go to more clients. It goes to deeper relationships with the ones we have.

Home is Kelowna and Okanagan Lake. As I get older I crave simplicity and minimalism. I run the big decisions, personal and professional, through a short set of first principles, and it keeps me honest about what actually matters.