Remember a few years ago, Manulife Financial was the apple in everyone's eye. The stock price was doing well, investors were happy, the CEO was rated one of the top CEOs in the world. Now, not so much. The company just posted a $2.4 billion loss, its share price is as low as it has been in more than a year, and it has lost its coveted Triple A credit status. Does this sound like a company that people want to invest in? Manulife's CEO, Don Guloien, stated that results would have been better if interest rates and the stock market had performed better. No kidding. Not exactly what I want to hear if I am a serious investor. We would all be in much better shape if the stock market had risen higher.

I think the point here is that, although Manulife has stated that they have been working on reducing exposure and risk, they are still very susceptible to market changes, just like we all are. I think the lesson here is about diversity in investing, both from a personal and professional perspective. Understanding what your comfort level is for risk, understanding your investors (which may be your family) and their appetite for risk, and then setting up a portfolio accordingly. You want to ensure that you are able to take advantage of the good times without losing your shirt in the bad times.

I am confident that Manulife will bounce back, and it will be interesting to see if Guloien gets blamed for these poor results since he has only been in the job 16 months and claims he is trying to right the ship (more like the Titanic). How much if this did he cause and how much did he inherit from his predecessor, Dominic D'Alessandro? We will soon find out.

My son is three (almost four) years old and I am amazed each day what I can learn from him. Today I learned the art of listening. This morning, we were at my wife’s convocation (she graduated from Teacher’s College) and as the President of the university was speaking, I started to zone out. About every third word, my son would ask “what does that mean?” or “what did he say?” He was picking up every word so I was forced to listen to the speech. It ended up being a terrific speech. It was about how teachers are challenged today more than ever because of the diverse cultures and backgrounds of the students, the constant budgetary pressures schools face and the current lack of teaching positions as older teachers stay on past retirement.

I walked out feeling very proud of my wife for her accomplishment, feeling energized and inspired about how to be successful in today’s world, and dumbfounded that it took  a three-year old kid to open my eyes to all of this. You never know where your inspiration will come from, so take it all in and make every life situation an opportunity.