This advisor tried working in New York’s fashion industry before moving to Toronto and landing in finance

BEHIND THE ADVICE This advisor tried working in New York’s fashion industry before moving to Toronto and landing in finance BRENDA BOUW SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL PUBLISHED 2 HOURS AGO Open this photo in gallery: Micha Choi, vice-president and portfolio manager for Guardian Capital Advisors. SUPPLIED COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Listen to this article Learn more about audio Log in or create a free account to listen to this article. In the Behind the Advice series, Globe Advisor asks advisors about their relationship with money from a young age, the lessons they’ve learned over the years, and how those experiences shape the advice they give clients. Behind the Advice is also a podcast: You can find episodes from all four seasons here. Stay tuned for Season Five coming in late September. Micha Choi, vice-president and portfolio manager for Guardian Capital Advisors, talks about learning to budget by doing bookkeeping for her immigrant parents’ small businesses, how she got into finance and why she thinks Mrs. Doubtfire would make a good advisor: Describe your upbringing and how it influenced your views about money. I grew up in Seoul, Korea during the 1980s when it was a poor country. Before my younger brother was born, my parents and I lived in a very tiny room with no heating, kitchen or bathroom. Then Korea went through a significant economic boom. My parents started taking out loans, investing in buildings (which we moved into) and taking on tenants. My dad used to stop me in the middle of a bustling Seoul street to watch people buy and sell goods, or what he described as ‘watching money move.’ That’s when I first started to think about money and the economy. When did you come to Canada, and what was that experience like? When I was 13, my dad read an article saying Vancouver was closest to heaven, so he sold the buildings in Korea and we moved to Langley, B.C., a suburb of Vancouver. They chose Langley because they said there were very few immigrants there and thought it would force me to learn English faster. Because they didn’t speak English, my parents couldn’t find work in Canada, so they ended up running small businesses, starting with a sandwich shop and later a coin laundry before expanding into other businesses. As a teenager, along with peeling potatoes, making salads and sandwiches, folding laundry and cleaning lint out of dryers, my dad made me do the bookkeeping for each business. That’s when I first learned about…