Kathleen: Hello and welcome everyone to an exciting interview with the Canadian Young Investors Society. I'm Kathleen Qiao, the Editor-in-Chief for CYIS. Today we have a very special guest who has made a significant impact on the Canadian finance content scene, Adrian, the creator behind Canadian in a T-shirt. Adrian, thank you so much for joining us today.
Adrian: Thank you for having me.
Kathleen: Okay, awesome. Let's jump right into it. So first off, can you briefly cover what inspired you to start Canadian in a T-shirt?
Adrian: Sure. Yeah. So I've always been super passionate about personal finance. And I'm kind of like, I guess you could say I'm a lifelong teacher. I was working as a tutor for about 10 years while I was in school. And even while I was working full-time, I kept tutoring on the side. So teaching has always been a really important part of my life and my journey. But in my last job, where I was working full time as a software engineer and AI, artificial intelligence engineer,
And that job was really cool because I would hire anywhere between 12 and 20 co-op students each semester. And one thing I like to do with my co-op students was lunch and learn sessions. So usually every Thursday we go out to lunch, and I would kind of lead a workshop, kind of teach them through any kind of like life skills, things like how to conduct yourself during a job interview, how to write an effective resume. But another part of the things that I taught was money management. Money skills, money tips, things that they never learned before, how taxes work, how credit cards work, how the stock market works, what an ETF is, what a dividend. And these students, they ate it up because their eyes were glowing. No one had ever taught them this. Their teachers never taught them. Their parents never taught them. Maybe either they didn't know or they just never had the time to pass that information along. So I've noticed that every semester we have a new batch of kids, and this was the content that they really, really just kind of latched onto. And I noticed that there was definitely a big gap there because no one had ever taught them these things. And one thing I noticed was that you know, as the semesters went on, you know, years went on, I would ask, I'm kind of giving the same speech again and again. So instead of just repeating myself, right, why not maybe, you know, film these, make YouTube videos, and kind of like immortalize them so that other students can watch them, you know, or other people, randomly people can watch. And I never intended this to become, what it did, right? I just expected maybe a handful of people to watch, like close family friends, coworkers, co-op students, that kind of thing. But as the months and years went on, it kind of grew traction. My audience grew and grew. And it got to the point where I started making money off of YouTube. And then eventually, fast forward a couple of years later, it became my full-time career. But the most important thing with my whole YouTube channel from the beginning, it was always a passion project. It was always a hobby first, just the desire to kind of, you know, help pass along whatever wisdom or knowledge that I learned over my journey. And I was fortunate enough to say that eventually evolved into something more, into a career. But that's kind of how it started.
Kathleen: That's awesome. I think that's really inspiring. But yeah, moving on to question two, could you share your educational background and would you recommend others just pursue a similar path as yours?
Adrian: Yes. Okay. So there's a lot to break down there. But for the second part, would you recommend other people pursue a similar path to me? I mean, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that my career has been a roller coaster. And that was kind of by design. I had a pretty good foundation right from high school. I kind of knew what I wanted to do. But over the years, the unexpected things will always come up. And what I'm passionate about what really matters to me, and where I see myself for the next couple of years, that can always change, right? And that's certainly happened with my case. So I definitely, you know, one thing I want to encourage, especially younger people, is to have a plan, but also be open-minded. Be willing to kind of roll with the punches and potentially, you know, maybe take a path less travelled or maybe kind of divert from your original path if opportunities come up. because that's certainly what I did and it worked out for me. But also at the same time, you don't want to be reckless. You don't want to be careless. You want to still always have a plan A, a plan B, a plan C because things will, I mean, the only thing you can really count on is that things will not go according to plan, right? And again, my career has been a roller coaster. So if you want to know about, you know, kind of my journey and how I got started, again, I did not, right now my full-time career is a Canadian finance YouTube channel, right? But that's not what I studied. I didn't get a business degree. I didn't study finance, right? I was all self-taught. What I studied in university was mathematical physics. My original career path was to be a quantum physics professor, right? And I loved that. I was super passionate about theoretical physics. But then in third year, like I said earlier, the unexpected happened. My mom got really, really sick. She was in the hospital for about two years. Luckily, she pulled through. And she was basically saved single-handedly by this amazing doctor named Dr. Eng. And when he did that, I mean, he went through multiple hour-long surgeries with my mom to save her life. And at the end of all that, I kind of realized, you know what? I don't know if I want to do theoretical physics anymore. Like, I feel like doing what Dr. Eng did, to have the kind of mental fortitude and that mental capacity to do what he did, I felt like, you know what? Maybe I could do that. So maybe I should kind of apply myself into more of a medical field. And that's what I did. So after my third year, I kind of switched from a purely theoretical physics background into a minor in biophysics. But then I graduated. I had to earn some money. So I worked for two years as a software architect, and software developer. Great job. I love doing what I did. I was proud of what I built. But that itch, that kind of burning desire to go back towards the medical field, that was always there. So after two years of working full-time, I went back to school to pursue a second degree in bioinformatics and to pursue medical school with the new dream of becoming a cardiac surgeon. So I did that for about two years. Again, I loved it, learned a lot of great things, and did a lot of cool research. But one thing I realized was that I love medicine. And I love a lot about biology. I love molecular biology. I love genetics. But the one thing I just couldn't wrap my brain around was biochemistry. It was, for me at least, I hated myself in those classes. I hated studying it. I hated memorizing all those macromolecules. For me, I'm more of a problem solver. I love, yes, a little bit of memorizing, but more so applying what I've learned to kind of come up with creative solutions to solve a problem. With biochemistry, that just didn't jive with me. It didn't really fit with my personality. And I kind of had to make a difficult decision. Am I willing to kind of subject myself to years and years and years of medical school and specialization where biochemistry is going to be an integral part of that? And I'm going to be miserable, right? Can I do it? Maybe. But do I want to do it? I don't know. So I made a difficult decision to abandon medical school and abandon that kind of my second career path at that point. And then I went back to the workforce. But I was able to find a job which kind of fused all of my passions together. I was a software engineer, particularly an AI, artificial intelligence engineer, but in the medical, working on medical applications. So that was, again, that wasn't what I initially intended, but I loved that job. And I worked at that job for over three years. That was a job where I kind of started doing those lesson-learned sessions for the co-op students. And again, because of that job and the kind of camaraderie and mentorship I had with my, by managing multiple co-op students, that eventually translated into starting a YouTube channel, which became what my career is now, Reddit being a full-time YouTuber. So again, my career has been an absolute roller coaster. Do I think that everyone should pursue the same path I did? I mean, not to the T. I mean, I don't think anyone should set out to be a content creator or to be a full-time YouTuber, but be open to possibilities. And be willing to maybe find your own path. When you get to a fork in the road, yes, the traditional path is maybe to keep going forward. Maybe that's what your parents are telling you. Maybe that's what your siblings are telling you, what your teachers are telling you. But if there is an interesting opportunity, and especially while you're young, you know what? Try something new. Try something out. Worst case scenario, if it doesn't work out, you can always revert back to your original plan. And again, that kind of luxury of trying new things, taking those risks, you can only really take advantage of that when you're young when you're in your early 20s. Once you get in your 30s, 40s, once you have a family and kids depending on you, you don't have that option anymore. You can't just quit your job on a whim, right? So I would say, especially for young people, have a good plan, be careful, don't make reckless decisions, but be open and open-minded to interesting possibilities. You never know how your career is going to unfold. I certainly didn't.
Kathleen: Yeah, I think that's really funny. I guess it really shows, like, you never really know what, like, life really brings you. But moving on to question three. So how do you determine what topics you want to focus on, you know, on your YouTube channel, and what research process do you typically use?
Adrian: Yeah, so, I mean, maybe this is just my personality, but it's funny. Like, I'm not... I'm not a traditionally artistic or creative type. I can't draw. I can't paint. I play piano, but I can't make my own music. I can only play what's on the sheet in front of me. So I've never really been artistically creative in that regard. But I definitely have a creative spirit in the sense that whenever I'm driving or sitting on a subway or whatever, just sitting on my own, even going for a run, my brain is always thinking about ideas. I'm kind of like you know, a musical artist or like Taylor Swift or like Kanye West, they're always writing lyrics. They always have a pen and a notepad writing down lyrics as they come up. It's kind of the same with me where my brain will just go to ideas and I'll kind of think about interesting topics. And I immediately take a, you know, pull my phone out and write them down. And what's really kind of, I guess for my job of being, I'm a YouTuber, but what I really like to think of myself is I'm an online teacher, right? I really want to focus on making self-contained lessons. And yes, I'm a huge nerd when it comes to finances and investing and taxes. If you put a microphone in my hand, I could literally go off for four hours, nonstop, no breaths, just talking nonstop, right? But the problem with that is that I'd be really scatterbrained. I'd kind of be jumping between topics and getting really excited and stuff, right?
And it'd be hard to kind of follow along. What really separates me and my other YouTuber friends and the ones who kind of don't make it is that we're able to really take these large, complex topics and really break them down into self-contained, accessible, easy-to-digest lessons, right? And whether that topic might be a 15-minute video, it might be a series of like three or four videos in a playlist, or it might just be a 60-second TikTok or Instagram reel. Finding those topics and kind of breaking them down into those different bite-sized lessons, that's the real challenge. Right. That's where the real creativity comes from with this kind of a job. And in terms of like how the criteria I use to kind of select topics, it's really just the kind of questions that I had when I was learning these things. Right. Because when I started investing, I mean, this was over 10 years ago now. There were no YouTube channels about investing. There were very few online resources.
Yes, there were a few books that I read, some old classics like, you know, Intelligent Investor. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Wealthy Barber. Those are kind of the classic books. But other than that, there wasn't a lot of resources out there, especially online. So I had to learn a lot kind of just by reading the Canadian tax code, doing a lot of trial and error, talking to like my bosses and people and my kind of mentors, right? And kind of picking their brains. And a lot of times they gave me, to be brutally honest, they gave me the wrong advice, but that's just what they knew, right? So it's definitely been like, for me, it was a lot of, I had to learn the hard way. I made a lot of mistakes, but I always kind of learned from them. So when I'm making these topics, I'm kind of, when I'm talking to the camera, I'm kind of talking to the teenage version of myself, right? I'm talking to the Adrian who was in high school or first-year university, kind of struggling to learn these things on their own, on my own, and kind of try to figure out how would I like to have been taught this lesson? How would I have liked someone to break this down step by step?
And that's really the kind of mindset that I go into when I'm writing these scripts and making these videos. And luckily for me, it's definitely resonated with my audience. And a lot of them have appreciated that. The fact that I do kind of, you know, I don't use fancy words. I don't try to, you know, intimidate my audience with fancy acronyms and multi-syllable words. No, I keep it simple, right? Like, it's not about me. It's not an ego trip. It's not about me, you know, showing off. Oh, I'm so smart. And this is, and here I'm kind of like lecturing to you. It's more, no, no, no, I learned, I learned this with like, I went through the same journey you did. I want to make it a little bit easier. I want to kind of guide you and make it a little bit more accessible. So you don't have to struggle the way I did. That's kind of the way I break down my lessons. And I'm lucky that, you know, it's, it's, it's worked and people have found that my method is effective. So, um,
Yeah, I hope that answers your question. I know it kind of went off a lot there.
Kathleen: Yeah, it answers it amazingly. I think your method is amazing. But yeah, so moving on to the next question. What advice would you give students looking to start investing but have limited funds? Are there any particular investment vehicles or techniques you would recommend to beginners?
Adrian: Yes. So here's the question. So your audience, are we talking about high school students?
Kathleen: Yes, high school, university, just like younger students in general.
Adrian: Gotcha. And are we in Ontario or all across Canada?
Kathleen: I'd say Ontario, but you could also speak briefly just like all across Canada as well.
Adrian: Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. So the best advice for students or any kind of young new investors is really to just get started, right? The hardest part about investing is, you know, paralysis by analysis, right? Where there's so much to learn and you'll, And it's easy to kind of get caught up in the excitement, but it's also easy to kind of like scare yourself and intimidate yourself. You're like, oh my God, there's so many words here. There's so many tax accounts. I don't know what an ETF is. I don't know what a dividend stock is. I don't know, should I buy this stock or this stock? Should I buy today or should I wait until next week? Should I wait for the interest rates to drop? Should I wait for the recession? Is the market gonna crash tomorrow? There's a million questions you're always asking yourself. And as an investor, you should be asking yourself those questions. But when you're a beginner, like, There's so much noise and mixed emotions out there. Like if you open up social media or you open up Google News or, you know, BNN or Bloomberg or whatever, wherever you get your news from, there's always high emotions across the board. Oh, my God, the bubble's about to burst. We're about to face a recession. We're going to have a crash. Pull out now. Sell now. Buy now. People are always kind of trying to rile up your emotions to kind of get that emotional response because that's kind of what generates – attention and clicks. Really for an investor, the most important part about investing is keeping calm, keeping that discipline and not letting your emotions get the better of you, right? And a big part of that is literally just starting as soon as you can. Buy quality ETFs. So if your audience don't know what ETFs are, those are exchange-traded funds. What that means is instead of buying one or two stocks, trying to pick, oh, what is the best stock? Should I buy, Microsoft or Apple or Tesla? I don't know. How do I find the best one? No, don't even try to find the best stock. Buy an ETF. It's literally a bundle of all the stocks all at once. So you're not trying to beat the market or find the best stocks within the market. No, you're literally buying the entire market, right? So in that sense, yes, some of those stocks within that ETF, within that bundle, some stocks might go down, but more of them will go up. So overall, in the long term, the market, generally speaking, uh, grows in value by an order by an average of about 10% a year. Right. So that's kind of my advice for investors. Just get started. Try to like, uh, just, just can't ignore the noise, stick to the fundamentals and invest in a diversified portfolio. Don't try to find the needle in the haystack. Don't try to find the next Nvidia stock or the next Netflix stock. That's going to be 10 X overnight. You're not going to find it. Like the odd, like the odds are, you're more likely to win the lottery, honestly, right? And think about this, like, do you really think that you as a, you know, whatever, 22-year-old person on your own, on your laptop, you're gonna beat Wall Street with literally an army of analysts and computer programs and AI models, right? You can't, you're not gonna outsmart those guys. So don't even try. Just invest in a broad diversified portfolio that tracks the Canadian market, tracks the US market.
You don't need to be a genius to invest, just literally invest in a low-risk diversified index fund, right? Something like, well, I'm not going to give names because I want to give financial advice, but just buy an ETF that tracks the broad market. And that way, yes, some of those stocks within that ETF, some will go down, some will go up. But overall, over the long term, over years and years, you can expect reliable growth. And another big kind of fundamental pillar of my investing strategy is that it's not about timing the market, it's about time in the market. So the earlier you can get started and the more consistent you can invest, if you can develop a habit of every paycheck, every month, I'm gonna invest whatever I can, even if it's 50 bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month, whatever, if you can make that a habit and keep that consistent, you, I mean, that's your retirement right there. Like it will grow and grow and your money will compound. And it gets to the point, I know it's hard to believe, but it's true exponential growth. The longer you invest for, and therefore the earlier you start, the better off you're going to be. And you're going to get to the point, I'm telling you, in a matter of 15, 20, maybe even longer, 20 years, where the profits you make from your investments will far outgrow the money you put in. So when your money's working for itself, it becomes like a self-fulfilling machine. It just, it's unbeatable. So that's why you really want to take advantage of time, especially while you're young. Time is your greatest ally. So invest whatever you can, but don't be, obviously don't be, uh, careless with that. You, you definitely want to also have an emergency savings fund. You want to have money set aside to cover all of your expenses, to cover your rent, your, your credit card bills, all that kind of stuff. But whatever you can put aside, even if it's, you know, uh, 10% of your paycheck, even if it's 50 bucks, 100 bucks, whatever you can, if you can make that a habit of investing that amount of money every single month, whether the market is up or down, still invest. That's the key to building long-term wealth.
Kathleen: I think that's amazing because it kind of reminds me of like what I did a few months ago where I was like talking to students younger than me as well. And I was talking about the 50-30-20 rule. It's like 50% to needs, 30 to wants and 20 to savings. Just like every single paycheck, like using 50, 30, 20 rules, save at least like 20% for saving. That was exactly what I was talking about. So it's great also to hear from you. We have the same exact advice. That's honestly amazing.
Adrian: One thing I want to add to that 50, 30, 20 rules. So yes, it's especially when you're getting started, right? You need that 20% savings, right? I mean, or whatever you can, right? It's not necessarily written in stone, But try your best to put aside 20% of your income into savings. Eventually, you're going to get to the point where you have a lot of savings built up, right? At that point, you don't want to keep saving, right? You want to have an emergency savings fund. And what does that do? It's there to protect you in case of an emergency. If your car breaks down or your dog needs to go to the vet, you need to have that whatever. thousand dollars or whatever you need ready to go to handle those emergencies but once you have I would say anywhere between three to five months of living expenses saved up in an emergency savings fund then you don't really need to add to savings anymore unless you have some kind of a goal that you're saving for like tuition or a down payment a house but the point being is that once you have three to five months of living expenses saved up now that 20 no longer goes into savings now that 20% can go entirely into investing. And that's where you really start building long-term wealth, right? So there's definitely gonna be a bit of a balancing act. And sometimes you're gonna have to pull from savings and then reduce your investing rate and increase your savings rate and so on and so forth. But the key is you definitely wanna have that emergency savings fund locked in and ready to go. Once that's kind of topped up, then prioritize investing instead.
Kathleen: Awesome. So we do only have 10 minutes left. I want to go over one or maybe two questions and then we'll just kind of conclude everything. I'll give you some time to talk about your YouTube channel as well. But yeah, so next question is, given your success with Canadian in a t-shirt, what advice would you give to high school students interested in starting their own content creation journey, particularly in the finance niche?
Adrian: Yeah, so it's funny because again, I never intended to be a YouTuber, of course.
YouTuber right, it just kind of started as a hobby started as a passion project and then evolved into a career and maybe that was the key to my success right in that I didn't start this with the intention of building a business or making money off of it right you really have to if you're going to start a TikTok channel or or or content creation of any platform you really have to love it you it really has to come from the heart right and if you're starting a youtube channel just because you want to make money I'm gonna stop you right there like don't do it. Because you're not gonna make money overnight like I was doing that I worked, I was working like, took about a year and a half on my YouTube channel before I earned a single dollar on YouTube, right? For that year and a half, it was still you know 20 plus hours a week of creating content you know responding to my comments doing constantly working, working, working with zero income. And I still had expenses, I had to buy a camera, I had to buy lighting equipment, all that kind of stuff. So it was not like starting a YouTube channel is not a way to make money quick. It's gonna take years before you see any amount of money. And even when you did, like my first paycheck from Google, from YouTube, I remember I got that check in the mail. It was like $35, right? Like it wasn't a lot, like it was cool getting a letter from Google with my name on it, right? But it's $35, right? Then the next month I got like $85. The next month I got like $150. It started to grow and grow and grow. but it took years to get to that point, right? So the most important thing I would say is to make sure that this is something you genuinely love. You have to love the topic because you're going to be living, breathing, talking about it nonstop, right? It has to be something that you'd love to talk about. You know a lot about it. You have a certain level of authority in and you genuinely like you get excited and you light up when people ask you questions about this. that's not you, then you either have to pick another topic or maybe just maybe you don't need maybe content creation is not for you. Right. The second part of the question is, what's advice for if you're starting out in the financial niche? I would say, you know, when I started YouTube, there were only maybe three other Canadian-focused finance YouTube channels. There was Brandon Beavis, who's actually a good friend of mine, Griffin Milks and Daniel Prock, as well as, I guess, Plain Bagel and Ben Felix, but they weren't necessarily Canadian-focused. Out of the Canadian side, it was really us four, me, Brandon, Griffin, and Daniel Fromm, at least that I knew of, right? So there wasn't a whole lot of competition. It definitely was a pretty untapped resource, which was great for me because, at that point, most of the big YouTubers in the finance space were all on the US side. Think of the Graham Steffens, the Meet Kevins, Investing with Jeremy, Andrew Jakes, those kinds of guys, right? all on the US side, but on the Canadian side, there wasn't a lot. And all the ones that work were pretty small, right? So I got started at a point where it was pretty, you know, we all kind of grew together. There wasn't a whole lot of competition and we all became friends. We all kind of like help each other grow. So I was very lucky in that regard. If you're gonna start today, it's a much more saturated market. That doesn't mean you can't succeed, but I mean, what you can't do is you can't make the same video I would make and then be disappointed that you don't get views, right? Like if you make a video, I mean, just think about how the algorithm works. I've been doing YouTube for five years. I have about 170,000 subscribers now, and I have literally 10 million views, right, overall, right? So if I make a video called, you know, TFSA explained, right? Or how to invest in a tax-free savings account, and you just started this YouTube channel last week, and you make the exact same video with the exact same title, There's no way your video is going to compete with mine. It won't even show up in the search results, right? So don't take that personally, but also don't even have that expectation. You're never going to compete with the more established channels and influencers like me and my friends, right? Because we've been doing it for years and years and years. Instead, try to find a specific gap in our content. Try to find a specific gap kind of spin that only you could provide or maybe only you've even thought of, right? And then that video, even though it might be a little bit more specialized and not as like, I guess, universal, at least a few people will search for that and they'll find that video because your video is literally the only one out there that answers that question, right? So that's kind of the most, I think the best advice, if I were starting today, that's what I would do. I would look at the current landscape I would definitely kind of take inspiration from people like myself, Brandon Beavis, Joey Yang, all the kind of the big Canadian finance content creators, but also kind of analyze them and kind of look at what are they missing? What kind of things would I like to learn and I would benefit from that they're not talking about, that they haven't covered yet? Or maybe they have covered it, but I disagree with them. I'm going to kind of make a little bit more of a contrarian argument or be like, Hey, I respect this person, but I respectfully disagree on their take. That's a much more interesting video rather than just literally copying what I say, right? So try to find those kind of gaps in the current content space. And if you can kind of satisfy that itch, I guarantee you there's going to be an audience out there who have the same curiosity as you do, and they want answers to those questions. So find those questions that need answers.
Kathleen: Thank you so much for sharing all of your insights today. We really did learn a lot. Um, but I know we have like a lot of listeners who are very interested in investments and like content creation, like things like that. So all of your tips are really greatly appreciated. But before we let you go today, we want to give you an opportunity to talk about your YouTube channel because a lot of fans as a part of that are a part of the CYIS journal. Um, so take it away.
Adrian: Absolutely. No, thank you. I appreciate that. Uh, yeah. So my YouTube channel is called Canadian in a T-Shirt. It's I called it that because one I'm Canadian and two I'm just a guy, I'm just an average guy wearing a t-shirt. I'm not some, you know, I'm not wearing a fancy suit. I'm not sitting on some, you know, snazzy office on the 30th floor right I didn't get no I'm not like, I don't have a law degree or I didn't get an MBA. I'm just an average guy who taught myself everything I know about Canadian taxes, investing, starting a business, credit cards, all that kind of stuff, so I think that what kind of makes my content resonate with my audience
is that I'm able to really break down these complex financial investing topics into like bite-sized digestible and accessible lessons, right? I don't use fancy terminology. I don't use complicated acronyms. I use simple everyday language that I hope everyone can understand and appreciate. And that's kind of where, that's kind of been the driving force of my YouTube channel from the beginning, right? Trying to really teach myself the lessons that I wish someone had taught me, you know, 15 years ago. And yeah, so if you wanna check out my YouTube channel, it's called Canadian in a T-shirt. I cover all different range of topics. And one thing I'll point out is that I have kind of, I designed my content into a specific playlist where I place those videos in a specific order so that each lesson kind of flows into the next. And one thing you'll notice on my YouTube videos is that all my thumbnails are color-coded.
to kind of help organize you and kind of make it really clear which video fits in which playlist or which kind of category. So as an example, my green videos are my investing fundamentals. My silver-gray videos are Canadian taxes. Orange videos are credit cards. Purple videos are my business guide, to how to start a business in Canada. What else am I missing? Dark green are investing tutorials, like a step-by-step walkthrough on how to buy stocks, how to make transfers, that kind of thing. And then my red videos are my real estate series, which is a new one. I'm working more on that in the next couple of months. So that's kind of my introduction to my YouTube channel, Canadian in a T-shirt. Follow me on YouTube, Instagram. I am on TikTok as well, but really YouTube is the main platform. Instagram kind of more of a side project, but that's where you can find me.
Kathleen: Awesome. I think that's really awesome that all your videos are colour-coded. I'll definitely have to look into that real estate video, those real estate videos. But all right. Thank you so much. We all learned so much from you today. It was genuinely so amazing talking to you today. And thank you so much for joining us for this time for the CYIS Journal. But yeah, thank you so much.
Adrian: My pleasure. Thanks, Kathleen.
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