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(Adam) Thanks Ian, thanks for coming. Thanks everybody for coming today.
Again, my name is Adam Usprech
um, and I'm here to talk to you today about the Registered Disabilities Savings Plan
[microphone static hisses] and it's a phenomenal way, a great way to save
for individuals with disabilities to ensure their financial future.
Now, there are many products out there that a lot of us are familiar with:
there's the RRSP, the RRIF, there's... and then of course now we have the RDSP
Now a lot of products out there people think of as "nice to have"
There are a lot of products out there that... it's "nice to have" an RRSP, it's "nice to have" a RRIF.
The RDSP is not a product that's "nice to have",
it's a "need to have" product for people with disabilities... and also for their families.
[papers ruffling]
Now, before I get into the RDSP, I want to give you a little a bit of background
as to why I'm talking about this particularly,
why I'm the guy who's speaking to you today about the Registered Disability Savings Plan.
This is a very personal product to me because as Steven alluded to:
not only am I telling you about this, I actually have one.
and the reason I have one is 'cause I had an injury back in the summer of 1991
where I was hit by a car riding a bike home from work.
Uh, I was just 18 at the time, and I was coming home from work in the summer....
In the summer, uh, I was a lifeguard...
...riding home from work, and some [pause] individual crossed the road
and me and the bike went over the car: front bumper, the hood, the roof, the back windshield, the back bumper and the ground...
before I was scooped up by the ambulance, taken the the hospital there in Banff,
I was stabilized,
I was tak- I was tranferred to the hospital in Calgary, where I was in a coma for 11 days.
In hospital for a month in total, where I had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat, etc.
Um... the reason this is: I had a bunch of physical injuries, which for me, fortunately, weren't a huge impediment.
I had numerous fractures, which were stable. I had massive nerve damage, which was manageable.
Uh... Muscle-wasting nerve damage, that type of stuff, which was manageable for me.
The focal point for me, as to why I qualified for the RDSP, is because I had a "massive diffuse closed-head injury".
I had a massive traumatic brain injury.
So that kind of threw a wrench in my plans of going to school in that fall of '91.
I was planning on going to the University of Guelph and become a veteranarian.
Instead of doing that, in that I was in the hospital for a month,
and when I was back home for 2 weeks in Toronto, I had spend my time to focusing on getting better.
Focusing on remembering how to remember, and how to learn.
Because when I woke up, I thought I was in fact 9 years old
as I was when I, uh was recovering from a- a- uh- b- bone disease, when I was 9.
I had to learn to walk, talk and eat. Sorry. [chuckles, "haha"]
When I was 9 I had to learn to walk again, which was fortunate for me
and part of the reason I attribute to my recovery.
That was when I was 9, and when I was 18 I got my brain injury.
So, after I got in the hospital, I spent my first year doing intensive cognitive and physical therapies.
Where I spent 3 days a week, each,
doing cognitive therapies with my team of neuropsychologists and their psychometrists
and I also spent 3 days a week, 1 day overlapping, doing physio where my physiotherapist worked on my injuries,
and then I went to the gym for 3 and a half hours, and then I swam for an hour.
I had to rebuild myself
because after being in a coma for 11 days, I was "weaker than a puppy".
That's what I used to say.
So I had to rebuild myself physically, fortunately it was not an insurmountable challenge
The cognitive one proved to be more of a challenge through all.
Uh, anyways I persevered through that first year doing intensive therapies
and then, the next year, I followed through by forcing myself to go to university
where I did university with my physical therapy and occupational therapy,
which turned into cognitive therapy,
and I did a modified course load over the next 9 years
and at the end of 9 years, i graduated with an undergraduate degree
and I was also hungry for more, after that I did my MBA.
Now, at that time and ongoing for me as is for many of my peers with disabilities,
we can relate that the challenges of having a disability are ongoing.
Everyday, I know that I have this... uniqueness about myself:
everyday, there's something that I say:
"Oh I dropped that" ... "I forgot that" That's part of my injury and I understand that.
It's very ongoing, it's very dynamic and it was dynamic for me,
both going through school: negotiating with faculty, as I present... most people say "normally".
I don't have something that's an obvious disability.
But that was a rather fixed setting. [pauses] Excuse me.
Um, and then I had to do the same thing when I started the work world.
When I went to the work world, I had my education.
I have an undergraduate degree, as I said, and I have an MBA.
The problem is, when I go into the work world, into a normal job. "A Normal Job".
People assume that, because I have my education, I can do it. Which I can.
Unfortunately, to be successful in any role, I need certain accommodations
and that's where challenges come into play.
When I started out in banking... and finance... trying a couple of different roles,
a couple of different places, there were challenges and whatnot along the way.
But then I evolved into the opportunity to become a financial advisor
and then out came this product called: "The Registered Disability Savings Plan"
and I thought "wow!". Here I am, an individual with a disability
as a financial advisor, what a great fit. I can make this my career focus.
So that was kind of the angle I took, and my passion was investments and insurance.
It still is investments and insurance because they're a part of it,
a very big part of it
with the insurance as well as the investments as well as, of course, now the RDSP.
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