Charlie Liu (00:01.879)

Hello everyone, my name is Charlie Liu and welcome back to the MCC show, Making Cents with Charlie. Thank you for tuning in the past few episodes. Today's conversation is one that I'm particularly personally excited for and we have a very special guest, Owais Khan with us. Let's dive in and make sense with Charlie. Today we have Owais Khan, he is our head of client success at MCC. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in building kind of lasting relationship with clients and also driving insane measurable value for clients on the FP &A finance side. He's the bridge of between complex financial solutions, but also the people who use them every day and the people behind the scenes on his team setting up for clients. I am thrilled to have him here and share his insights in truly what it takes to make every cent count for the client. And it's, it's, this one's also really special for me because I've known Owais for very long time, my friend. It's what four companies now. I started my career with you at profits and then we were at Benet together and you and I were at Onplan together, kind of in the trenches trying to build a software company from scratch. And now we're together at MCC, even have one of swag today.

Building what we want to be the kind of world's best FP &A services consulting firm. I'm sure the audience is dying to learn a bit more about you. Love to please please share some some what's your story my friend?

Owais Khan (01:49.26)

Yeah, no, thank you for having me on MCC, Making Cents with Charlie. I love the name. Yeah, know, seeing Eugene and Peter and other folks on it, was a bit jealous. When is my turn? But yeah, all right. yeah, diving right into it. Yeah, I mean, you said it right. Like, we've known each other for a long time. Actually,

Charlie Liu (02:07.147)

Yeah

Owais Khan (02:16.557)

You missed one it was Prophix that's the first time I met you. sorry you said it, okay, okay, okay, you said it.

Charlie Liu (02:20.717)

Yeah, Profic where we started our career. Yeah, good, we started our career together. That was your first, right?

Owais Khan (02:25.921)

We started together. That was my first, so that was my internship out of school. So I had just returned back from Singapore. That's when I actually did my interview. And yeah, that was my first job while still being in school. And that was my first exposure to this industry. And I have never looked back. I have been in the space since then.

And yeah, enjoyed every bit of it. So yeah, you know, just, I mean, a good segue here. you know, for the audience here, names a ways, I lead professional services here at Monte Carlos and, you know, started my career deep into the weeds of FP &A. like my initial start, initial part of my career was a lot of, you know, building, troubleshooting, figuring things out.

Right. And then slowly started to transition into leading teams, owning delivery. And, you know, at this, at this point in my career, now I'm kind of more focused on building a team that can deliver consistently, making sure projects get done, but they don't just get done. They actually get done for, for the better, for the client. So it actually works in the real world. That's the, that's the key.

Yeah, that's more on the business side, I think it's a good opportunity also for me to just talk a little bit about my personal side as well. So, know, I mean, in this space, as you mentioned, been in this space for a long time. It's actually been almost 13 years now and jumped around a wide variety of roles. And here I am now. But outside of that, what I love most is I love playing volleyball. That's a big part of my life. I also enjoy a lot of other things like playing basketball, but recently I've really gotten into golf. I always feel like, so this one time when I hit the perfect shot, I've just been trying to chase that feeling and still haven't been able to get there. I recognize that I suck at it today.

Owais Khan (04:48.014)

And there's a long way to go for me to improve. But that's the key part that I'm really trying to strive for. Outside of that, have a, I've always mentioned this to you. Like I have a big group of cousins and friends that I hang out with on the weekend. Yeah. Every weekend without a miss Friday night, I'm at my cousin's house, who's a great host. So he has a big heart and he hosts all of us at his house every weekend without a miss. We've been doing this for the last like,

Charlie Liu (05:01.763)

So incredible.

Charlie Liu (05:11.658)

You

Owais Khan (05:18.158)

15, 20 years now. And yeah, know, outside of that, I think this is another thing that you know a lot about me is I'm a big foodie. love, like I live to eat. I live to eat good food. And, you know, I'm always on the hunt for like looking out for the next best spot. And I also always recommend it to you guys as well. you know, wanna, that's one thing I don't wanna give up about my life ever. And yeah, you know, I mean, this is something that everyone likes to say, like everyone likes to talk about how they love traveling. But I truly embody like I really, really like traveling. If I ever want to spend my money on something that's to travel more, that's to learn more about different experiences, different cultures, different cuisines. And would love to continue that with me and my wife.

Once a year, always end up, like, so I've traveled to like 15 plus countries so far. Once a year, we Owais somehow end up in Cancun. That part of me is never going away. Both me and my wife, both are like really, like we love being next to the beach. Love being in the water. I am a licensed scuba diver. So, you I love going scuba diving as well.

Charlie Liu (06:38.477)

Where did you learn that? Was this when you were in Singapore? Where did you get it?

Owais Khan (06:42.092)

Yes, yes, I did. So in Singapore, we actually went to this interesting place in Malaysia called Perentian Island. And I was there for roughly four days where I did my entire course. did the so we do the pool training, then we go out in the open water, you know, so did the entire course there. And since then, any time I travel, I try to at least get a dive in.

Charlie Liu (07:09.283)

I'm gotta get my- I paid for a long time ago when I was in Australia. This was my exchange dates as well, but I got distracted by all the stuff I never finished. I- Go ahead.

Owais Khan (07:23.192)

No, was gonna say this is the time when you were... I think you did a good chunk of Australia in a campervan.

Charlie Liu (07:30.563)

Yeah, I mean, this was, I would say 16 years ago, this was like, mean, that's funny because you started Profic after internship. I started Profic roughly after my exchange program. It a very similar journey. We both went to Mac. We both went to exchange. You were in Singapore. I was in Australia. Roughly the same geography. And then we both ended up Profic. It's insane how similar the path looks like.

Owais Khan (07:55.97)

Yes.

Charlie Liu (07:59.843)

And yeah, you're right. I lived in Australia for close to, I want to say eight months. I lived in and out of a van for a while, kind of striving, no matty. I'm living from the peak north, Cairns, all the way down south to Melbourne. Something I got to get back to. But one of the reasons why I didn't, paid for the school, but I didn't course, but then I found that trip. found that van.

I can't stay in the city for a week to do the trip.

Owais Khan (08:34.486)

And do you feel like that's that is that something that's kind of shaped your your your your current life and how you love you still love to travel for a good chunk of your time, you know, for a good chunk when you were at on plan, you were kind of living the nomadic life, you know, where you were just moving from country to country, city to city, exploring different places is that you

Charlie Liu (08:58.433)

Yeah, I mean, I think that trip, that one exchange really shaped up why.

Charlie Liu (09:11.235)

It's funny, I moved around a lot as a child, but I didn't really enjoy traveling back then. My dad moved us around from China to Japan to Canada, back to China, back to Canada. But I don't remember liking any of the trips I did back then. But then after that trip, I realized that was who I am. I don't feel great staying in one place for too long. It's funny, the apple doesn't fall too far.

I think one of the learnings I had in my early 30s is accept who you are. God, accept who you are. I spent way too much of my life trying to be something else, trying to conform to kind of typical societal path or recommendations or guidance, especially us being immigrants and Canadians, South Asians. There's almost like a, is the right thing to do? And I think the more conformed I

Thanks

Do you more?

fractalized, that's not a word, the more friction I had being who I was, the more disappointed I was. I think in the, a couple years ago, like I had a true realization that time is limited. only have so much time, at least for me, I think we only live once, you know, right? And I think it all comes down to, the way I see life now is, live a life where

Owais Khan (10:32.021)

Mm-hmm.

Charlie Liu (10:46.467)

Think you'd be proud of it in your final moments.

Owais Khan (10:49.686)

Absolutely. You don't want to have those regrets on your deathbed.

Charlie Liu (10:54.157)

Yeah, absolutely. The way I live now, to me, no one judges me but me on that bed. So I constantly think about, I doing the right decisions? Am I doing the right things so that can make that future great, Charlie? Satisfied, content, can't Owais be happy, but least content with the path I took. Great question, great segue.

How about you? So what shape do you?

Owais Khan (11:29.752)

So,

Honestly, like I don't want to steal what you said, but I will say that my experience of going on exchange was truly a life-changing experience as well. That was my first time. Well, like, I mean, I was living at school. So just for the audience, I am originally from, like I used to live in Mississauga, but then I was going to school in Hamilton. So that was my first ever experience living away from home.

But even that wasn't the same. Like I would still come back on the weekends. I was still supported by my family. My mom would cook for me and send food for me. You know, I'd come back to a comfortable bed every weekend, not having to worry about much. But then moving to Singapore was the first time ever I kind of lived on my own. And that taught me a lot of valuable lessons, especially like just being

First, arriving to a country which you know nothing about.

Charlie Liu (12:35.949)

What was the first thing you remember from landing?

Owais Khan (12:40.344)

So one thing was I went from, I'd it was December here when I went to Singapore. So the weather was phenomenal. It was extremely humid, but you don't have snow around you. So I'll take that any day.

Charlie Liu (12:55.245)

What was the first kind of thing you were like, fuck, I'm in Singapore. Like, what is the-

Owais Khan (13:03.118)

Yeah, it's hard. Okay, so now that I think about it, think it would have been definitely like the fact that I'm so far away from home. I'm in a country that I know nothing about. That definitely shook me. But I think the part that was a bit comforting is Singapore is a country in the middle of Asia that's still an English speaking country.

So that part was a bit more comforting, but I think outside of that, just the whole, like the shock of being somewhere in your early, early 20s, not having left home for a prolonged period and arriving to another country where, because I didn't have accommodation decided at that time. I went to a hostel, stayed there for a week before I figured out where I'm going to be staying.

So that whole experience was definitely very overwhelming at the time. But also, I just got thrown in the fire and I just figured it out. So that was something that really taught me resilience. This is what you're dealt with and you've got to figure out what comes next.

Charlie Liu (14:21.443)

Dude, you're my type of guy, man. Like, you'd never hear this. I landed in Sydney without accommodations either. Dude, I didn't even know what hostels were. I remember the night before thinking like, what am I going to do? I hotels are really expensive. And I was like, I will figure it out once I get it.

Owais Khan (14:30.274)

Hahaha!

Owais Khan (14:45.766)

And exactly, right? And honestly, like, obviously, like now we've we're a lot older, we're kind of, we're kind of getting used to have like the finer things in life too, you know, as we get older. But I'd still take it like I still take that experience, I would. I don't know, like I if it wasn't for the comfort of my wife, like I would go stay at a hostel

meet new people, be... Exactly. I will still take that. don't mind. I don't mind.

Charlie Liu (15:17.379)

We're gonna do a trip so fast. I'm bored to figure out where we go.

Charlie Liu (15:28.019)

I wanna drop the next, I was thinking back to my trip and it's hilarious when it happens. So I remember getting to Sydney, I didn't know where to go, I did zero research and I was looking up the subway and the subway is a central station or something like that. I was like, I think I should go downtown, I go to central station. Like most cities, central station is usually downtown.

Most downtowns are around Chinatown. I don't know why but my people are really good at finding the right place for establishing Chinatown I remember I came out of a central station or whatever it's called now or whatever it's supposed to be. Don't remember. I came down. This is a big Chinese site. It's in Chinatown. I remember being extremely confused that at this point probably flew 24 hours. I got out of the subway station and it looked like

it looked like china i was like am i am i in the right country

Owais Khan (16:25.034)

Hahaha!

Owais Khan (16:30.975)

That's hilarious.

Charlie Liu (16:33.111)

But you learn so much of these. I'm glad we brought this up. What made you do the trip?

Owais Khan (16:42.435)

My god, I... Man, there's this... It's so funny, like I don't even know where to start this. There's this Bollywood movie that me and my friends watched.

Owais Khan (16:56.114)

So for folks who watch Bollywood, there's this movie called Zindagi Na Mulegi Dubara. It's basically about three guys. One of the guys is about to get married and they go on a bachelor trip and they go to Spain. And they get taught with a lot of life lessons, how they should be living life. It's a very male-centric movie, by the way. As I'm getting older, I realize that.

But that talked about, you just so the what the the phrase that I said it translates to you only get life once.

Charlie Liu (17:31.572)

Can you say that once more?

Owais Khan (17:33.944)

So in Urdu or Hindi it says, Zindagi na milegi dobara meaning you only get life once or you only live once. And the whole concept is, you know, be true to yourself, explore, live life, get in touch with your own personality, understand what things you like, what things you don't like. And that really inspired us. This is like a bunch of like

20 year olds sitting in a dorm room watching a movie on a tiny screen and getting inspired by it and we're like, you know what? I think we got to travel. This is a Mac. This is a Mac in our.

Owais Khan (18:20.174)

And then we decided, you know what, we should go on exchange. We should go live somewhere else for a bit. So that's how this whole thing started. I applied for it and somehow like, I remember like I was applying for exchange. And then at some point I got, I was almost like demotivated to go because I was like, you know what, like how am going to go to a different country and figure out like living, like my living situation, going to a different school where I don't know people.

All of that was uncharted territory for me. So I kind of almost got demotivated at one point and I stopped applying. And I remember like, I had almost missed the deadline too actually. And I got an automated email, sorry, it might not have been an automated, I got an email from the faculty saying like, you were in the process of applying. You know, you get those emails today, like even from like, know, applying or like, you know, enrolling yourself for a software or whatever.

I got that email and I was like, okay, you know what? Like even though I may have missed the deadline, I think there's the opportunity still there. And when I had a chat with my friends and next thing I know, like I finished the process, I got accepted and yeah, the rest was history.

Charlie Liu (19:33.719)

love it. you're friends that watched the movie with you girl. is it just you? All Singapore?

Owais Khan (19:38.422)

No, there was three of us who went. All went to Singapore, yes. All three of us went to Singapore together.

Charlie Liu (19:45.751)

Why Singapore?

Owais Khan (19:48.778)

Asia was just unexplored. I feel like we always think about Europe or like South America for instance. It just feels close enough that you can go anytime. Asia always felt like a far distant place that you would never think of visiting. So that's why we're like you know what it has to be something truly different.

Charlie Liu (20:13.687)

My brother went to Singapore. I remember I had a similar reason. I actually got into Norway first and I backed out because I wasn't going to leave Canada in winter. I think it's December for an even colder place. So that's why I last minute switched to Australia. The reason why I chose it was I wanted someplace as far as possible to see what the world was like. Turns out there's actually not that much culture shock between Canada and Australia.

Owais Khan (20:42.69)

Hahaha

Charlie Liu (20:43.139)

Very very similar purpose and goals behind us, but I'm so glad you did it because I think so many people Have these desires goals intentions, but they don't actually execute the site on it It's like as they start doing this process Things in life happens and they're like there's just a million excuses not to do it. It's hard It's a new place. You don't know anyone the ones you mentioned and you remember the ones I faced was

Should I be doing this? Should I be, or should I start thinking about, back then I was on the accounting path, I'm like, should I spend more time getting my CPA credits? Should I try to go network and get a job? I'm so glad I didn't listen to the logical brain, which at like 20 is not even that developed.

Owais Khan (21:28.748)

Yes, absolutely.

Charlie Liu (21:31.401)

Such such a good thing. It's hallway there for a year.

Owais Khan (21:34.71)

No, no, was just five months. Yes.

Charlie Liu (21:37.059)

Are you still in touch with any friends that you made back then?

Owais Khan (21:43.148)

I am, yes. don't, I mean, not like, so the friends I went with, those are like my close friends. I talk to them every day. But the ones that I met there, I mean, we will maybe chat once a year sort of thing, but not really, no. It's been grown too apart.

Charlie Liu (21:49.517)

Yeah. Yes.

Charlie Liu (22:04.195)

I mean, life, you can Owais get back together. You never know, right? I Owais see life as just, we're all walking different paths. Sometimes they're in parallel, like your friends and you, they're literally in parallel going from Mac to Singapore. Sometimes you have a crisscross, things like that.

Owais Khan (22:19.938)

Yeah. What was interesting though is I, as you know, I, in January, I was actually in Singapore and that was after 13 years that I visited. My goodness. mean, nostalgia was everywhere. Just, I could just see us like three young boys in Singapore sitting on those, on those steps.

Charlie Liu (22:33.324)

How was it?

Owais Khan (22:49.432)

having a great time and life happens. And now you have so many responsibilities on your head. So it was just kind of reminiscing to just see that there was a time when all we cared about was having a good time. And yeah, it was a good experience overall. was good seeing yourself grow and just seeing where things are now.

Charlie Liu (23:15.693)

I remember you telling me about it and I was envious, just so jealous. I was like, I gotta go back ASAP. I can't wait, hopefully in the not too distant future, get back to Australia, go to Warlock and all where I was at and just how much has changed. Did any of that kind of push you into kind of the career path you took or was that completely random?

Owais Khan (23:32.6)

Totally should.

Owais Khan (23:44.46)

The career path was, so at the time when I actually first applied for Profic, I was just trying to get a job, let's be real. I applied to several places, interviewed at several places. Profic struck out to me because I knew someone at Profic who had said really good things about the culture and about the type of work they did at Profic.

That was kind of the... So if I was to choose between couple of different jobs, like I chose Profex for that reason, because I knew some people, I thought it would be helpful for me to step in an industry where I have some allies, I can learn more from them. But once I did my internship, it was very clear to me that I really enjoyed doing CPM. So it gave me the flavor of business and technology at the same time. And I was really just starting to...

get my feet wet with technology. I knew nothing about it when I first started. I had no idea what SQL was, how to even use Excel, things like that. This is all learnings from Profic and from this industry. So I'm truly grateful I picked it and I'm truly grateful I'm still in it. I think my learning just accelerated from that point on.

Charlie Liu (25:09.379)

Today we've largely moved on from our days in prospects. Now we're primarily a data partner, but I know you and I have gone through multiple of these tools. And a lot of folks listening, they may be in finance, they may be in our space, they may be looking into getting into our space. What is Seeker? What is our space? If you want to explain to others, what do we do?

Owais Khan (25:37.122)

Right, so what I'll say is our space allows finance users, finance folks, to plan better, to analyze their data better, to make more insightful decisions because they don't have to go and do all the grunt work that they needed to do before we came into the picture.

So what that looks like is previously you would have had to crunch numbers in Excel, build models before you can even make something of the information you have at hand. With what we offer, you don't have to do much of that. All you can do is focus your time on just making better analytical decisions. So that's the crux of what we do if I was to just put it in a nutshell.

Charlie Liu (26:35.971)

You mentioned earlier, and I agree with all this, I saw it firsthand as well. I remember when I first started my career, I was like, what is, what do we do Excel? was trial by fire. Basically what you and I went through doing an exchange program, but now we're doing it on a career level. You've been in this space for long time. You and I got, it's really all we know in and out, right? FPNA, FPNA systems, data.

How have you seen a change over the years? How are you seeing a change in now? And what has changed for you between the time that you were in I.C.? And it's pretty cool because you went from the customer success side into the actual delivery side. Now you run this whole department at MCC. How have you seen a change over the years for yourself, but also broadly the whole space?

Owais Khan (27:32.046)

Honestly, the most drastic changes have come very recently. And what I mean by that is, and honestly, this isn't like a promotional talk about just Vena itself, but this is just reality. I think Vena is by far the best positioned tool out there for the developments that we're seeing in AI today. And what I mean by that is if you just pick up,

all the platforms that are out there. Like for instance, if you talk about like Clot for Excel or Copilot, these tools are positioned in a way to be able to do a lot of model building that natively, like if you look at other tools out there, they are trying to productize all of these things, but it may not fit everyone's needs.

Whereas with Venna, you can actually build a bespoke model, still powered by a database, where you can still store data, slice and dice data, but with the power of Excel. Meaning you can build these models very quickly with these next-gen AI tools. And I say that because this is the most drastic change I've seen in our recent times.

And that's just changing this space entirely.

Charlie Liu (29:01.119)

I'm fully aligned, it's... the change we're seeing here is insane.

I remember, I don't remember when GPD just came out. It couldn't do math. You asked a serious question and it was just off, but it was really good explaining to you why one plus one equals three, right? Because back then they didn't say no, but they had all the kind of, it's been trained on the, all the written language and books of humanities. It really good explaining things to you even if it's false. But now I was able to build these complicated equations, I was able solve them, I was to build full models and I'm fully alive with you my friend.

Charlie Liu (29:51.127)

Better system Excel, and it allows all the LLMs and AI companies, they're all trying to figure out how to get better with Excel, because the time is that big, right? A billion people use Excel today. None of them are focused on actually getting better with a specific niche tool. And I think that is where we're seeing the biggest leverage. I you and I talked about this a time, my job being the head of MCC is to try to figure out how we navigate through all this. But I see this in a world where a year or two years from now, a lot of the modeling aspect of people.

That's going to largely disappear.

It's interesting because a lot of people love Excel, a lot of people don't like Excel. To me it's really fascinating because if people love Excel, it's great, it's going make it easier. If people don't love Excel, well, they usually don't like it because the formulas, the references, well, the AIs don't take care of that for you. And then having that kind of parallel behind the scenes, you connect the full picture. And I don't know what future looks like. You and I talk about this all the time.

Charlie Liu (31:16.771)

What's your take? Let's say two years from now, a click of a button, the model is fully functioning. In that case, what does the head of PS with client experience, what does that responsibility look like, do you think? What does the team look like? What does the full client experience look like?

Owais Khan (31:43.006)

Right, you said it spot on. I think we're not that far from...

being able to just click a button and have something readily built for you. So what that means for us is, so what makes us good today, right? What makes MCC attractive for a customer? We are very good at asking questions and understanding requirements. Something's...

Like even if you so, you know, sometimes I talk to one of our one of our life coach, one of our life coaches that you also talk to. you know, what he helps us do is just ask us ask yourself the right questions a lot of times. Sometimes people just don't know how to ask the right questions. They may have something in their mind that it's not able to translate it. So I think that's what we're really good at.

And that's something that we will continue to add value on. And that's where I see the biggest shift. It's moving from us building stuff to just becoming really good at asking questions and helping people understand what their gaps might be. That's the first thing. Second thing is, as the head of professional services at MCC, think for us, for us as operationally, what

If let's say like the whole area of what we used to call building starts to fade away, what is the next thing that really makes us valuable? So that part is being able to, like, so if I was to just paint the full picture is being able to understand the requirements, being able to translate those requirements to a functional model. So now instead of us actually building a solution design, this may just turn into prompting, right?

Owais Khan (33:38.392)

Then the second piece to that is the client needs to feel heard. The client needs to feel that they are understood. They are getting the outcomes that they expect. So that is the part of project management and client management.

Charlie Liu (33:53.283)

you say it makes it more? Would you say the human aspect grows? It's funny, the AI aspect is making us become better humans. Instead of spending the majority of your time building, you're from what you're talking about. It's the other aspect. It's the client management, asking the right questions, strategizing together what we should have in the solution. It's the coaching around that.

Owais Khan (34:24.014)

Absolutely. think it's as funny as it sounds like just human interaction, human touch, human feedback is starting to become a lot more novel than it used to be. Like, I don't know, at some point you're going to see a lot more coffee vending machines, but I would still prefer to go to a coffee shop and talk to a person to have my coffee served to me.

Charlie Liu (34:53.283)

Yeah, I mean, I remember when I was younger, everyone's outside playing. Now I look at kids and they're just not the same anymore. And even if you're seeing kids together and they stop, you shut the sit in there next to each other, texting each other. But maybe there's a world where actually the AI forces us to actually to have more human interactions again, especially, at least in this state, this

Owais Khan (35:10.339)

Yes.

Charlie Liu (35:23.299)

this piece where we're talking about work, right? Because the actual build, that's largely disappearing. It's the coaching or I think about maybe being a coach or a doctor, right? Like the doctor's not making the medicine, really the vast majority of them aren't, right? But they're asking questions, diagnosing you, they're testing treatment.

Owais Khan (35:41.859)

Mm-hmm.

Charlie Liu (35:50.947)

seeing how you perform, monitoring you, coaching you, if you think about all your physiotherapists, they'll teach you how to get back in your feet, they'll teach you how to walk better. That's almost kind of the shift mentality towards our future for us.

Owais Khan (36:08.087)

Absolutely.

Charlie Liu (36:10.145)

What are you the most excited about for the future?

Owais Khan (36:17.899)

That's a tough one.

Owais Khan (36:24.6)

So as...

Owais Khan (36:28.876)

have to really think deep about what I'm most excited about from just from an industry and from my own professional work standpoint. But I think if you just talk about from a humanity standpoint, I think I'm most excited about the developments that come that cure diseases that we haven't been able to cure. You know, making

making help more accessible for people that weren't able to access it before and it used to cost an arm and a leg.

I think that's the most I'm excited about the most. Just seeing this world become a better place and more accessible for people, even if they can't afford it.

Charlie Liu (37:22.179)

Yeah, I think it's really exciting. It's a lot of this being more democratized. And if you think about it, photography was meant for the rich. Now every single one of us have one in our pocket. Right now it's like, how do we have better service, better treatment, better diagnosis? I mean, we live in Canada, we're lucky, but there's a of business going, but...

I'm seeing more and more options now where can get a full diagnosis, full scan of blood works.

Charlie Liu (38:00.427)

still decently amount, but it's not unreachable. For a small, small vacation, you can now get a full diagnosis. Compared to before, maybe a lot more. And it's largely going to impact the leaps in technology. Now, I know we're coming to an end today. This was a lot of fun. We'll definitely have more of these. We can reminisce.

Owais Khan (38:04.642)

Exactly.

Charlie Liu (38:27.533)

think about our past together, we definitely have a trip together. The show is called Making Cents with Charlie, so we Owais like to end it with our two cents advice. So for you, what's your two cents advice? For the audience.

Owais Khan (38:43.394)

Yeah, absolutely. I think it resonates with a lot of what we've already been talking about. So I think what I've realized is that the deepest learning really comes from stepping into the unknown.

Owais Khan (39:02.368)

It's largely, it's very uncomfortable for people when they are stepping into something they don't know about, they resist it. But if you can shift your mindset from fear to curiosity, I think that's where the real growth happens.

Charlie Liu (39:19.587)

You

Owais Khan (39:24.172)

And I think this also like really aligns closely with how we think at MCC, right? Like this is something that you Owais say and it's Owais really stuck with me that no one can really take your skills or what you know away from

So if you just keep investing and learning and pushing yourself into the unknown, the more you expand, this expands your opportunities in life that will come your way. Ultimately, you'll increase what you Owais say your earning potential.

Charlie Liu (40:00.163)

Thanks for highlighting me. I completely align with that, I think.

Charlie Liu (40:08.279)

I think the fastest way to learn is through experience.

That's funny,

To experiment and to experience are two different words in Spanish. In English, but in Spanish, they're actually one word. Experimentar. It's to experience the unknown. It's to also experiment with something new. And that's where you have kind of the highest leverage in terms of learning opportunities and growth. I think for many of us, if you just focus on that, you set a spot on to just be curious. Right? You see a hardship.

I'm trying to hear you.

Owais Khan (40:50.702)

Thank

Charlie Liu (40:51.075)

You can mindset, right? How can I learn to do this better? This is an opportunity for me to learn about this. Things like that.

Thank you, that's a good one.

Now, we usually generally try to wrap it up, which is a series of kind of rapid fires. So I've got a bunch of questions for you. I'm kind of a first one, which relates to what you were saying earlier. What's your favorite food spot?

Owais Khan (41:09.603)

Mm-hmm.

Owais Khan (41:19.086)

This one's a funny one. You've been there before. It's this infamous Ridgeway Plaza. A lot of the GTA Greater Toronto area folks know about it. Actually, I wouldn't just call it GTA folks. I think this place has become so popular that I've seen cars from New York, License Place, Illinois, Texas even. So it's for those who don't know, this is like the... This is like

I would call it the biggest food plaza in all of, biggest food halal ethnic food plaza in all of North America. It's not that far from me, it's like 15 minutes, so I go there pretty often and you can find like all sorts of things there like shawarmas or like know like daisy food. Anything halal you can think of, you'll find it there.

Charlie Liu (42:16.675)

Best Halima I've had in my life was the original. Oh my god, those... If anyone doesn't know, Halima is a Pakistani, also Indian dish. It's a little bit different on different sides of the border. It's cooked down with, I think it's beef or mutton. It's like a stew cooked down with lentils. It's glorious. It's so good. It's so heavy.

Owais Khan (42:18.882)

Absolutely.

Owais Khan (42:41.038)

It's so funny, like it's one of the most uncommon things. Sorry, I wouldn't call it the most uncommon, but it's not as common as like, you know, the other like staples, the year of like, like biryani or whatever. So when you first told me about it, I was really shocked. I was like, how do you even know about this?

Charlie Liu (42:58.721)

I lived in Saugat. My favorite food spot was this... South Asia mall of... Dandas and… to Ontario, there's a mall there and they have a food court, they used to go there for food and they allowed me to try a bunch of stuff. But we have a few more questions. What's a combo or match made in heaven? What are the things like no cereal, those things go hand in hand.

Owais Khan (43:32.714)

Sorry, what's a match made in heaven? that your question?

Charlie Liu (43:35.139)

Yeah, what's what's a day month right so think about milk and cereal

Owais Khan (43:41.742)

Oh yeah, mean, yeah, like peanut butter and jelly.

Charlie Liu (43:45.947)

Okay, I do. love it. Some people outside of North America cannot stand it. love it. Angry, Klein, or silent?

Owais Khan (44:00.002)

I think angry Klein. Cause at least you know what's on their mind.

Silent client just means that they've they don't care what you say they've checked out

Charlie Liu (44:14.819)

I think almost any relationship right anger means they want to be heard There's an opportunity here, but if they're gone Nothing can do that

Owais Khan (44:21.72)

Mm-hmm.

Owais Khan (44:26.796)

Exactly.

Charlie Liu (44:28.631)

When talking to clients, emojis or no emojis?

Owais Khan (44:32.366)

That's a good one. I'm actually pretty old school still. I'm not that old, I think this is where I kind of draw the line. I do know emojis. I like to keep it professional in my emails.

Charlie Liu (44:48.131)

So different aspect. I've Owais used more to that. I remember when I was like...

Early in my days, I would ask a client for stuff and if they don't send it, I'd follow up and the second time I'd put a happy face. And then I'd go in the car and go, hey, remember that happy face? You owe me this. And it usually cracks a laugh and usually gets me what I need to move the project forward. What is your go-to pump-me-up song?

Owais Khan (45:00.962)

Hahaha

Owais Khan (45:12.022)

Interesting, interesting tape.

Owais Khan (45:20.238)

Oh, that's a good one. I think my favorite one that I still actually I've butchered like I've overplayed this song. I've abused this song. It's called Still Dre by Dr. Dre and Stoop Dogs. You know, when the piano hits, you know, I feel like I'm about to walk into a deal that I haven't even closed yet.

Charlie Liu (45:36.397)

Yes.

Charlie Liu (45:42.307)

Love it.

I think the final one is if you're not doing CPM, what would someone usually catch you doing on a weekday?

Owais Khan (46:00.184)

Yes, so like I mentioned, like I'm a big foodie. Like I love, I love trying different things. love, I wouldn't, sorry, I wouldn't call it, I think I'm specific about what I eat. Like I love good food and I have very, like I have a criteria for it, but I would a hundred percent be like a food vlogger or something. Like I would have been either like reviewing different restaurants and trying them out and putting my reviews out for people.

Or I would just be making my like I would I would be cooking something on my own. I would be watching like five different recipe videos and tweaking my own ingredients, making sure it comes out the right way. And also, I wanted to add there actually to a interesting point. I am a Google local guide level six. So I do a lot of food reviews. And yeah, like, you know, I.

I came to a point in realization, like I was actually thinking about it the other day. If I wasn't doing this, I would definitely be just recording videos on food.

Charlie Liu (47:03.795)

We should start. think we should start. Ridgeway with Oasis. We should just invite folks and we'll have a link together. You might gain a lot of weight. That would be a lot of fun. Oasis is a lot of fun. Lots of energy. The camera shoot is great. Thank you so much for being here and for all the folks listening. Thank you so much for tuning in and I look forward for our next session together.

Owais Khan (47:10.634)

Absolutely.

Owais Khan (47:16.821)

Hahaha

Charlie Liu (47:33.507)

Thank you Owais.

Owais Khan (47:34.606)

Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate that.

Charlie Liu (47:40.801)

Awesome dude, is, you're great on camera.