ADVISOR EXPERIENCES

ADRIENNE POWER Advisor and Retired Professional Track-and-Field Athlete

Adrienne Power, financial advisor with Edward Jones in Halifax, achieved tremendous success as a track-and-field athlete. A 10-time Canadian champion, she won bronze in the 200-metre sprint and silver in the 4x400-metre relay at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. She was a member of Team Canada from 2003 to 2013 and also competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

As a finance and international business major at Dalhousie University, Power became a highly decorated varsity athlete. In 2005, she won overall Female Athlete of the Year across all Canadian universities. Since she graduated in 2005, she has worked in the finance sector, aside from the six years when she was a professional athlete. Even then, she drew on her financial skills, becoming very involved in corporate partnerships and business development.

“I had to become effective at partnering with organizations, because in Canada it is difficult to make a living and meet all needs en route to international athletic success. I was fortunate to partner with 17 sponsors during my career as a high-performance athlete,” she explains.

Power retired from professional sports in 2013, and in 2019 dedicated herself to a career as a financial advisor, joining Edward Jones because it fit her passion of helping people in her community. “It just came down to how am I really supporting the community of Nova Scotia? How can I really be impactful to individuals and help them have a better life?”

Power, 41, says the effect her parents’ divorce had on the family’s finances showed her how important it was to have financial security, and being an advisor was a way to help others achieve this. Now she specializes in helping business owners and families with wealth transfer and estate planning.

She credits her success in sport and business to her ability to continuously adapt and focus on all the small things that go into achieving the big things. As an athlete, that meant mastering her training program, recovery, and diet, and also incorporating downtime with family and friends. There are parallels balancing work and life in her current role, and sport has given her the tools to partner with clients for financial freedom.

“It’s the relentless effort toward achievement and being uncompromising toward our goals. That has not changed. It’s the exact same thing. No matter if it is as an athlete or as a financial advisor.”

ROSS FERRIER Advisor and Retired Minor League Baseball Player

Ross Ferrier, CIM, FCSI, PFP, branch manager and investment advisor with CIBC Wood Gundy in Thornhill, Ont., was drafted by the New York Mets as a University of Waterloo student, and played outfield in the minor leagues. But after three seasons he decided to try a new career, and came back to Canada to be an advisor. Twentyfive years later, he’s very happy with his choice.

“Looking back, I made the best decision in my life. I’m doing something that I truly, truly love — I’m helping people. I had a great experience playing baseball and I left on my own terms,” he says. “I’ve been very blessed. Because my focus is the same as it was when I played sports. I’m very competitive with myself and always want more of myself.”

Ferrier, 52, notes that playing professional baseball offered several lessons that have helped him in his current career. It taught him how to deal with people who have different belief systems or difficult personalities. It also gave him the confidence to introduce himself to new clients, a strength developed at media days when players went out to chat with the press and fans. Those experiences came in handy when he was doing cold calls to build up his book.

However, Ferrier, who now works with highnet-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients, doesn’t credit sports for all of his success.

“There’s a lot of other people in my industry who have been very successful at other endeavours, whether it’s sports or the arts. The real common thread is that those are people who have high standards for themselves in terms of their personal accomplishments and what they want to achieve. And they generally are people who are willing to challenge themselves and put themselves in positions that make them vulnerable, where there might be a degree of fear,” he says.

“I think to myself, even to this day, Ross, if you’re not having a bit of fear, then you’re probably not challenging yourself to grow.”

ALIREZA FADAIE Advisor and Martial Arts Practitioner

Alireza Fadaie, PFP, CHS, QAFP, and president of Westlife Financial Services, Coquitlam, B.C., has been involved with martial arts since he was six years old. “I used to go to karate class with my dad, who was a green belt at the time,” he says. But Fadaie, 45, started training seriously when he turned 18. That work has paid off in a number of ways.

Fadaie, who immigrated to Canada from Iran in 2003 and specializes in Kyokushin karate and kickboxing, won a silver medal for Canada at the 2008 and 2012 World Organization of Martial Arts Athletes’s World Martial Games.

But aside from this recognition, martial arts helped him in his financial-world career, in part because of the attitude it helps cultivate. “Martial arts keeps you healthy. It keeps you humble. It gives you resilience, a fighting spirit, and selfconfidence, for sure,” he says.

The latter was key for Fadaie, who says he was quite shy and lacked confidence growing up. Having this type of training also helped him develop the discipline to keep at things even when they are tough, he notes. For example, he joined Investors Group (now IG Wealth Management) as an advisor right before the Great Recession hit in 2008, and he had to transition to working on commission versus getting a paycheque.

“It’s not easy at all,” he says. “I mean, you don’t know when your next paycheque is coming, right? So it took me many years, but I got better at it by not giving up.”

Fadaie launched his own firm, Westlife, in 2017. Since then, he’s used martial arts in his branding and has written two books that incorporate martial arts metaphors to teach personal finance (Personal Finance Mastery: How to get a black belt in managing your money and Black Belt Money Management: A practical guide to personal finance for Canadians). He even trademarked the term “Financial Sensei” in Canada.

“Creating a unique message has definitely helped me to differentiate myself from other people who are in the industry,” he says.