Happy Holidays From Steele Wealth Management – A Recap of Our Year

While we are sure you love to read about finance related topics, we thought that we would keep our December newsletter light. Below each of the Steele Wealth Management team members have shared a bit about how 2022 went for them. This year was a tough year in markets but it is important to take account of the year and in doing so, enjoy the ride, despite some bumps along the way.

We wish you and your family holidays filled with fun and laughter and a prosperous 2023 filled with good health and good times.

Brian Steele

Gratitude is the word that best describes 2022 for me. I am grateful to our team for all their efforts that resulted in a phenomenal year of growth. We grew by welcoming new clients, transferring in additional client investment assets and adding new team members to support you! I am grateful, humbled and proud that our team was recognized on the Report on Business SHOOK list of Canada's Top Wealth Advisors. Ranking as a top team really is independent confirmation of our success and commitment to our clients.

Brian Steele and Liz Kernohan

2022 was a year of transition for the Kernohan-Steele Family. Our son, Webster, moved to Australia with his girlfriend, Katie, and they are having a blast ‘down under’. With Australia being at the other end of the globe, we miss them terribly – thank goodness for FaceTime technology! You can follow along with their adventures by subscribing to their blog https://travelbucketlist.wixsite.com/blog/blank

We are beyond proud of our daughter, Paisley, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science from Brescia and Western University this year. We admire her compassion, grace and caring as she interns as a clinical dietician.

Despite all the family transition, we spent some lovely, sunny days golfing in Arizona – our new favourite place!

Laura Prust

2022 was filled with achievements – one of the kids graduated college and the youngest started uni. So excited for them as they pursue their interests! I bought a paddleboard and explored waterways. I travelled Newfoundland for the first time… and met Mark Critch in a pub!

I ‘finished’ renovating my home, until I think of something else to renovate (it’s addictive!), and I am ready to be more outwardly focused, so I registered for volunteer commitments including fostering bunnies for the KW Humane Society. They are soooo fun! See if you can spot Crackle in the below shot.

I fulfilled a life-long wish to have a hammock in my back yard – hammock time with a good book is heavenly! That was a lot of exclamation marks!! 2022 surprised to the upside in every way except the markets.

Jeannine Campbell

Reflecting on the year of 2022, it felt to me like a year of awakening. It is great to see my co-workers in the office again and our clients coming in person to see us. We felt more comfortable venturing about to visit our family and friends, took in a few concerts, and actually flew again after a couple years to visit family in Alberta. While we knew we missed that contact during the height of the pandemic, seeing everyone again was a reminder of how much it meant.

All in all, I am most grateful to be able to spend time with family and appreciating the joy, laughter and energy that my grandchildren bring to my life.

Happy Holidays and all the very best for the New Year!

Sam Ryder

2022 was full of reconnecting with friends and family in person. We were lucky to celebrate a number of weddings, gatherings with friends, and welcomed my niece to our family. It was wonderful to start seeing clients again in person!

A passion of mine is fishing – specifically fishing in rivers. Two things struck me last weekend as I stood in the middle of the river while the snow came pouring down (not surprisingly – no one else was to be seen), thinking about what I would write for my year in review:

Firstly – look forward with optimism when things are dreary. October is usually the best month of the year for river fishing. When it ends, daylight savings in early November marks the end of the growing season and signals the onset of winter. From the end of daylight savings I am always eagerly awaiting December 21 – the shortest day of the year. I know that once December 21 comes, longer days are coming as the northern hemisphere tilts back towards the sun. Longer days = More sunshine = better fishing. In many senses markets are like this – always looking well ahead, always with a positive bias, and always long on human ingenuity and the sunshine to come. If you can, I encourage you to get out and enjoy the beauty of winter weather and try to keep a positive attitude on dark days.

Secondly, rivers are always moving and changing, yet at the same time they are mean reverting. They swell with the fall rains and they drop during periods of drought. Their temperature rises in the heat of the summer and cools when the frost hits. While the timing may vary slightly from year to year, we know these patterns with good accuracy. Trying to time the water conditions perfectly from day to day; however, is a fool’s errand – you might do it a couple times each season – which is why I so often hear “you should have been here yesterday”. If you’re on the river enough though, doing the right things in the right places, you can be sure it will pay off and you will indeed catch fish. Having a plan and sticking to it increases your chance of success even when things aren’t perfect.

Fishing analogies aside – I am grateful to our clients for putting their trust and confidence in our team, and the magnitude of this is never lost on me. Wishing you all the best in 2023 and beyond!

Matt Bell

2022 was an exciting transition year for our family. After two years of virtual school, the boys went back to in-person school. All is going well and they are enjoying their time with new friends. It’s amazing the amount of energy kids feed off each other, something for us adults to remember as we all get older. If you’re feeling low or a bit drained, seeing an old friend can be invigorating.! My wife Cait started a masters program in Genealogical, Paleographic & Heraldic Studies at the University of Strathclyde, pursuing something that is near and dear to her heart. Almost as near and dear as the work I am lucky enough to do for our wonderful clients as part of Steele Wealth Management.

Our family stayed close to home during the pandemic but this summer we had the opportunity to get a place immediately next to my Dad’s at Pike Lake campground. We spent most weekends there this summer fixing it up, honing our baseball and golf skills, fishing, spending time at the beach and enjoying late-night campfires.

As a kid, we would often go to Benihana to celebrate my birthday and I idolized the teppanyaki chefs. The rapid knife work, launching shrimp tails into their hats and the onion volcanoes were mind-blowing to me. Who knew cooking could be a show! Since then, it has been a dream of mine to attain a hibachi/teppanyaki table. While this isn’t quite the same caliber as Benihana, it does a mighty fine job, and I’m working hard on becoming half as good as those teppanyaki chefs of yore :D

I hope you all enjoy the holiday season and I look forward to seeing you in the New Year!

Kelly Edmonds

In 2022, I returned to Steele Wealth Management full time after welcoming my son, Aidan, in 2021. It’s great to be back with the team and I have really enjoyed reconnecting with clients and meeting new ones. I look forward to celebrating Aidan’s second birthday in the New Year with family and friends as we were not able to for his first birthday due to social gathering limits that were in place at the time. I am also enjoying introducing Aidan to some of our normal holiday traditions, like meeting Santa!

Nudrat Ahsan

My year 2022 has been/was exciting, full of happiness and accomplishments. I visited my home country India, after 4 years, travelled approximately 7,200 miles on a long and tiring non-stop flight of 17 hours. But it was worth spending those hours to see my parents and extended family waiting to welcome and receive us. I won’t forget those smiling faces. It was a short trip but a very refreshing one. My parents accompanied me on my return trip to stay with their grandkids (my three boys) for three months. We all had a fun time together exploring new places, trying some new food, etc. I will always cherish those memories.

During the fall of 2022, I completed my Wealth Management Essentials (WME) courses and exams and fulfilled the requirements for being a licensed Registered Representative at Raymond James. I am looking forward to more accomplishments and successes in the new year.

Here is a pic from my Windsor trip where my kids are trying to pose like a dancing bear.

I wish you all the very best for 2023.

Liam Priestman

My 2022 was a year with lots of new milestones. I joined Steele Wealth Management in February working part-time as I finished school. After graduating at the end of April, I started full-time and couldn’t be happier with where I have ended up. Between studying for certification exams and learning the ropes at SWM, I took a road trip with friends to see a concert we had talked about for the better part of a decade. In September, I officially became licensed to trade securities, and continue to work towards my Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation.

I look forward to spending time with family this holiday season, catching up, watching hockey, and enjoying all the holiday dishes and sweets that come with the season.