Episode 391: How Assumptions Shape Financial Planning Outcomes

This is the Rational Reminder Podcast, a weekly reality check on sensible investing and financial decision making from two Canadians. We are hosted by me, Benjamin Felix, Chief Investment Officer, and Braden Warwick, financial planning product architect at PWL Capital. Welcome to episode 391, kicking off early on in 2026 here. So Braden, this episode really came from a panel that you were invited to speak on and you kind of came back from the panel. You got great feedback, which was awesome, but you came back from the panel and said that it was a great discussion, good enough that you thought it might be a good topic for the podcast.

And so what we ended up doing is just asking all of the other panel members, including the moderator, Aaron, if they would be willing to come on the podcast and do Not necessarily a recreation, but kind of go through a similar progression of the discussion that you guys had in the panel. So why don't you talk about the panel and and the genesis of this episode? I have to give credit to Alexander McQueen who thought of this idea originally, which is to have someone like me with my unique background and technical expertise and financial planning expertise alongside an actuary and alongside a financial planner. to talk at a panel at the FP Canada conference talking about how plan assumptions shape planning outcomes.

So I thought it was a really cool topic that I could bring my unique perspective on, but it was also really interesting to hear the perspective of the co-panelists at the conference because everybody brought something unique to the table. In terms of the audience, for today's episode. I think if you're a planner, it's pretty cool because you get to get content that is effectively behind a paywall at a planning conference and you're getting that for free. Needless to say, if you enjoy the episode today, you should attend the conference next year because there's a lot of great speakers there that are a lot better than I am.

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