The Flourish Feed Podcast

Gillian Stovel Rivers
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A series of curiosity driven deep dives into the nature of flourishing through wealth. If you have already built the financial plan, the question underneath it is the harder one: what are the next thirty years actually for? The Flourish Feed goes after that question the way a wealth advisor would, using the science of attention, longevity and human connection to work out what the money is actually for. Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP®, CEA, is a Senior Wealth Advisor with CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. who has advised Canadian families for over twenty years. Each week she sits down with one coach, researcher or practitioner and tests what they know against what she sees in practice. Guests have included Steven Kotler on flow and adaptive flexibility, and Dr. Jon Beale on measuring flourishing. Wealth here means four things you invest, not one: Time, Energy, Money, and Attention. Made for financially independent women and power couples who want a deep personal understanding of wealth and how to enjoy it at every stage of life. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself. This program was prepared by Gillian Stovel Rivers who is a Senior Wealth Advisor with CI Assante Wealth Management. This is not an official program of CI Assante Wealth Management and the statements and opinions expressed during this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of CI Assante Wealth Management. This show is intended for general information only and may not apply to all listeners or investors; please obtain professional financial advice or contact Gillian at flourishfamilywealth.com to discuss your particular circumstances prior to acting on the information presented.

  1. 6d ago

    It's not too late to protect your brain at 60

    A neuroscientist on why it is not too late to start at 60, how lactate fuels the brain, and the one small daily deposit that adds up over decades. Dr. Jennifer Heisz is a neuroscientist at McMaster University, where she directs the NeuroFit Lab and the Physical Activity Centre of Excellence, holds the Canada Research Chair in Brain Health and Aging, and is interim director of the McCall MacBain Kinesiology and Healthspan Institute. She is the author of Move the Body, Heal the Mind. She joins Gillian Stovel Rivers on The Flourish Feed to talk about health span, the years we get to live well, and why those years build the way money does. Jennifer explains the difference between lifespan and health span, and why she does not want a long life spent waiting for time to pass. She describes what happens in the brain after a workout, why lactate, long treated as a waste product, turns out to fuel the hippocampus, and what her lab saw when sedentary adults over 60 started exercising: real gains in memory within three months. Gillian asks the practical questions. Does intensity matter more than time? Why does the brain push back against getting started? What does a two-minute movement break every 30 minutes do for blood flow to the brain? They talk about strength training for women at midlife, what perimenopause changes in the brain, and why sticking with it is hard when time and energy are already spoken for. For families who already pay themselves first, the idea lands close to home. A few dollars out of every paycheque becomes something large. Jennifer asks what happens when a walk, a workout and a good night of sleep get the same treatment, and what those years are worth when you arrive at 70 able to do what you planned. Chapters: 00:00 Health Span Compounds Like Money 10:50 Can You Start at 60 14:44 What Happens in Your Brain After a Workout 21:38 The Two-Minute Movement Break 28:39 Why Alzheimer's Hits Women Harder 38:32 The Healthspan Institute 52:39 The Question for the Next Guest Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP®, CEA, Senior Wealth Advisor, CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself.  Visit www.assante.com/legal for important legal and regulatory disclosures. Send TFFP your thoughts!

    It's not too late to protect your brain at 60

  2. Oct 8

    A Canadian AI trainer on who really gets access to the AI economy

    An AI trainer on who owns your expertise once a machine has learned it, why women need to be in the room before the strategy is written, and why nobody calls a calculator cheating. Kristina Shea is the founder of WomenUp™ and BlueSky BlueOcean AI. She hosts The Kristina Shea Show and trains Canadian companies and their teams to use AI. Through WomenUp she helps women build the skills and confidence to use it in their work. She joins Gillian Stovel Rivers for Season 4 of The Flourish Feed. It starts with the digital twin and the question Kristina cannot let go of: if a company trains a machine on thirty years of someone's judgment, who owns it when they leave? From there it moves to who sits at the table while AI is being built, why women call using it cheating, and the late mother Kristina would love to hear from one more time. For families thinking about what they pass on, the values matter as much as the assets. This conversation asks what happens when wisdom itself can be kept. Are you an Ontario business? You may qualify for up to fully funded AI training. https://funding.kristinashea.ai/ Chapters: 00:00 Who gets access to AI? 02:30 What a digital twin captures 14:41 Why women need to be at the table 20:20 Who owns your mind? 25:51 Talking to her mother again 39:18 Why women call AI cheating 42:38 Who has access because you had access? This program was prepared by Gillian Stovel Rivers, who is a Senior Wealth Advisor with CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. This is not an official program of CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. and the statements and opinions expressed during this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. This show is intended for general information only and may not apply to all listeners or investors; please obtain professional financial advice or contact Gillian to discuss your particular circumstances prior to acting on the information presented. Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP®, CEA, Senior Wealth Advisor, CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself. Visit www.assante.com/legal for important legal and regulatory disclosures. Send TFFP your thoughts!

    A Canadian AI trainer on who really gets access to the AI economy

  3. Sep 24

    20 years taking Canadians to Kenya: good intentions aren't good outcomes.

    A five-time Canadian long drive champion on why a contact is not a relationship, why she refuses the phrase giving back, and the question she leaves behind: who has access because you had access? Fareen Samji, Far to everyone who knows her, grew up in Mombasa, Kenya, won the Canadian Women's Long Drive Championship five times, and now runs Smashing Nines, a nine hole scramble series for women where nobody keeps score. She joins Gillian Stovel Rivers for Season 4 of The Flourish Feed. Golf, she says, is the vehicle and connection is the objective. At corporate tournaments she counted 140 men and four women, and the women were the ones selling raffle tickets. Her programmes give them somewhere to be a beginner first. Then the harder half: why she refuses the phrase giving back, why her Kenya trips are called knowledge shares, and what her father the Rotarian said when she asked how to help everybody. Her own test is blunt: am I creating change, or doing something that makes me feel good? Underneath it is the question Gillian keeps asking this season, what counts as wealth. Far's answer is that relationships are among the most valuable forms she owns, time is another, and for anyone with money to direct the question is where it goes rather than how much is given. Who you hire, who you buy from, who you introduce, where you create opportunity. Chapters: 00:00 The returns you cannot calculate 03:34 Golf is the vehicle 12:55 Vulnerability creates connection 15:15 A contact is not a relationship 23:46 The problem with giving back 36:50 Where your money actually goes 53:00 Which way does the pendulum swing? Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP®, CEA, Senior Wealth Advisor, CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself. Visit www.assante.com/legal for important legal and regulatory disclosures. Send TFFP your thoughts!

    20 years taking Canadians to Kenya: good intentions aren't good outcomes.

  4. Sep 10

    Two-Time Chief Investment Officer: Lead With Profit and I Won't Fund You

    A two-time Chief Investment Officer on why capitalism fails, why he walks out of profit pitches, and why a gated community is proof something already broke.  Peter Hofstra spent 24 years running institutional money, twice as Chief Investment Officer, after helping build a technology company that went public. He opens Season 4 of The Flourish Feed with Gillian Stovel Rivers.  He explains why he has never owned a tobacco stock, why capitalism is a tool and not an answer, and what a founder gets wrong by opening with the money. Then the harder question: we price financial appreciation to the decimal and have no line for the coach who produces a generation of athletes or the parent who stays home and holds a neighbourhood together. His answer is that we have fit the world to the math instead of bringing the math to the world. Universal basic income, why the happiest countries got their desperate to zero, and why gated communities are a symptom follow.  For families with more money than one purpose needs: not every dollar has to do the same job. Some of it is meant to compound. Some of it is meant to fund a skating program.  Chapters:  00:00 Humanity Does Not Lack Capital  10:17 The Stock He Has Never Owned  12:29 Capitalism Is a Tool  32:03 What Money Cannot Count  43:39 Not Every Dollar Has the Same Job  49:22 AI Is Infrastructure  57:49 Bryan Johnson, Human Lab Rat  Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP®, CEA, Senior Wealth Advisor, CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself.  Visit www.assante.com/legal for important legal and regulatory disclosures.  Send TFFP your thoughts!

    Two-Time Chief Investment Officer: Lead With Profit and I Won't Fund You

  5. Jun 25

    #39 - The Science of Staying Rad (Forever)

    The real bottleneck in the age of AI is the human brain. It is a prehistoric brain trying to run in a world of endless information.  Steven Kotler is a bestselling author who has spent his career writing about flow. He thinks the fear around AI is overhyped. The harder problem is older: an ancient nervous system that now has to handle unlimited input.  He makes the case that creativity, focus, meaning making and resilience are now the hard skills of the 21st century. The people who do well will be the ones who can keep reinventing themselves.  He talks plainly about jobs and AI, and about using the tools to build new skills. Flow is his answer for younger generations. Adaptive flexibility is the one tool he says you can reach for in every crisis.  For anyone uneasy about where work is going, and for parents raising kids who will grow up inside it.  Chapters:  00:00 The crisis of human alignment  01:50 What AI actually is and does  09:08 Job displacement, honestly  17:07 Prehistoric brains, modern problems  26:25 Flow in an age of abundance  31:06 What cooperation costs  32:07 COVID as a cooperation catalyst  33:59 Group flow  36:14 The AI job market  38:03 Using AI to build skills  40:16 Flow for younger generations  47:50 Meaning in an abundant world  56:00 Adaptive flexibility    Steven's work is at https://www.stevenkotler.com, the Flow Research Collective at https://www.flowresearchcollective.com and Syneurgy at https://www.syneurgy.com/  Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP(R), CEA, Senior Wealth Advisor, CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself.  Visit www.assante.com/legal for important legal and regulatory disclosures.  Connect with Gillian:  https://ca.linkedin.com/in/gillian-stovel-rivers  https://x.com/GillianStovelR  https://www.instagram.com/gillianstovelofficial  https://flourishfamilywealth.com/  #TheFlourishFeed #wealth #KnowThyWealthKnowThyself  Send TFFP your thoughts!

    #39 - The Science of Staying Rad (Forever)

  6. Jun 18

    #38 - The Biology of Synchrony

    The thing that predicts trust, learning and performance is not found inside a single brain. It is found between brains. Dr. Michael Mannino is a neuroscientist, an AI strategist and Chief Science Officer at the Flow Research Collective. His field is interpersonal synchrony, and the finding is literal rather than poetic: when people are genuinely connected, their brains, bodies and behaviour align in measurable ways, and that alignment predicts cooperation, creativity and results. He has watched it in classrooms, boardrooms, elite esports teams and therapy rooms, using hyperscanning to record more than one brain at once. Which leads somewhere useful for teams: synchrony is not sameness, and a group needs enough diversity to stay intelligent while staying aligned enough to move. The physiology is the surprise. The vagus nerve, gut health and the brain as a prediction engine all turn out to sit underneath what we experience as intuition and rapport, which means connection is a bodily state before it is a social one. And the question the whole conversation bends towards. As machines get more capable, what gets more valuable is not raw intelligence, it is the ability to connect, coordinate and make meaning together. In a culture obsessed with optimising the individual, the next gain is between people. Chapters: 00:00 Alignment and performance 03:14 Finding the neuromarkers of synchrony 06:18 How hyperscanning developed 10:32 Physical, cognitive and relational performance as one thing 14:47 Synchrony against diversity in a team 20:23 Context and dopamine 23:55 The brain as a prediction engine 26:35 The vagus nerve 28:49 Gut health and synchrony 29:41 Team flow and collective ambition 31:15 Synchrony in team dynamics 32:57 Why it feels so good 34:31 The brain state of team flow 36:50 Competition against collaboration 39:29 Why it decides performance 40:50 Synergy, and AI in team synchrony 43:13 What COVID did to teams 46:41 Building human connection deliberately Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP®, CEA, Senior Wealth Advisor, CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself. Visit www.assante.com/legal for important legal and regulatory disclosures. Connect with Gillian: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/gillian-stovel-rivers https://x.com/GillianStovelR https://www.instagram.com/gillianstovelofficial https://flourishfamilywealth.com/ #flourish #wealth #wealthmanagement #investing #advisor #KnowThyWealthKnowThyself Send TFFP your thoughts!

    #38 - The Biology of Synchrony

  7. Jun 11

    #37 - The Wisdom of Leadership

    Leadership built for scarcity does not work in abundance, and most leaders are still running the old operating system. Andrew Cohn runs Lighthouse Consulting and arrives with an unusual combination behind him: law, leadership consulting, higher education and spiritual psychology. He has coached inside Fortune 500 companies and mission driven nonprofits, which is why the conversation moves between stakeholder capitalism and the internal state of the person leading without either one sounding like a digression. His claim is that presence and internal clarity are leadership assets rather than personal indulgences. A leader who cannot pause cannot ask the question that changes the room, and the impactful question is most of the job. Group flow and psychological safety follow from the same place. The rift he names is worth sitting with. Organisations invest heavily in external capability and almost nothing in internal development, then wonder why capable people come apart in transition. Identity is what is actually under pressure at those moments, not competence. For anyone leading through a change they did not choose, and for anyone whose achievement has stopped meaning anything. Chapters: 00:00 The human operating system in abundance 03:53 What makes leadership hard now 07:30 Shareholder to stakeholder capitalism 11:36 The impactful question 15:18 Group flow and psychological safety 19:35 Internal against external development 24:13 Identity in transition 28:07 The power of the pause 33:50 The emotional environment a leader creates 36:16 Where AI fits Andrew's work is at https://lighthouseconsultingllc.com and he hosts the Spirituality and Leadership podcast. Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP®, CEA, Senior Wealth Advisor, CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself. Visit www.assante.com/legal for important legal and regulatory disclosures. Connect with Gillian: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/gillian-stovel-rivers https://x.com/GillianStovelR https://www.instagram.com/gillianstovelofficial https://flourishfamilywealth.com/ #flourish #wealth #wealthmanagement #investing #advisor #KnowThyWealthKnowThyself Send TFFP your thoughts!

    #37 - The Wisdom of Leadership

  8. Jun 4

    #36 - The Metabolic Cost of Everything

    Success is a debit. We treat only losses that way, and miss that achievement costs enormous energy on the way to being worth it. Dr. Sarah Sarkis is a clinical psychologist turned executive coach, and her frame is the metabolic budget. Energy is finite and it is spent across every domain of a life at once, so ambition in one place is quietly withdrawn from somewhere else whether or not anyone accounts for it. Overspend and the system corrects without asking. Her phrase for it is regressing to the average of your best habits, which is what burnout actually looks like from the inside before anyone calls it that. The fix is not more discipline. It is oscillation, moving deliberately between flow and recovery rather than trying to hold one state. She maps five autonomic response patterns, urgency, withdrawal, control, overconnection to threat, and regulation, and the value is in recognising which one you default to under pressure. On a team it matters more than individual capacity, because a team can only move as fast as the person who withdraws the most. And the line to keep for a world that is not getting simpler. Anybody who says stress can be eliminated is selling something. It cannot. You adapt to it. So be careful what you allow to become normal. Chapters: 00:00 Energy as wealth in uncertain times 02:20 The metabolic budget 04:00 What ambition costs 06:40 Overspending, and regression to the mean 08:00 Five factors of flourishing and their price 10:00 Undoing an imbalance 12:00 Balanced against burnt out 14:00 Oscillating between flow and recovery 16:00 Small consistent experiments 20:00 The neurochemistry of flow 24:00 Persistent stress and the intentional pause 30:00 The myth of an optimal state 35:00 Urgency and withdrawal 40:00 Control, threat and regulation Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP®, CEA, Senior Wealth Advisor, CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself. Visit www.assante.com/legal for important legal and regulatory disclosures. Connect with Gillian: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/gillian-stovel-rivers https://x.com/GillianStovelR https://www.instagram.com/gillianstovelofficial https://flourishfamilywealth.com/ #flourish #wealth #wealthmanagement #investing #advisor #KnowThyWealthKnowThyself Send TFFP your thoughts!

    #36 - The Metabolic Cost of Everything
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About

A series of curiosity driven deep dives into the nature of flourishing through wealth. If you have already built the financial plan, the question underneath it is the harder one: what are the next thirty years actually for? The Flourish Feed goes after that question the way a wealth advisor would, using the science of attention, longevity and human connection to work out what the money is actually for. Gillian Stovel Rivers, MA, CFP®, CEA, is a Senior Wealth Advisor with CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. who has advised Canadian families for over twenty years. Each week she sits down with one coach, researcher or practitioner and tests what they know against what she sees in practice. Guests have included Steven Kotler on flow and adaptive flexibility, and Dr. Jon Beale on measuring flourishing. Wealth here means four things you invest, not one: Time, Energy, Money, and Attention. Made for financially independent women and power couples who want a deep personal understanding of wealth and how to enjoy it at every stage of life. Know Thy Wealth, Know Thyself. This program was prepared by Gillian Stovel Rivers who is a Senior Wealth Advisor with CI Assante Wealth Management. This is not an official program of CI Assante Wealth Management and the statements and opinions expressed during this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of CI Assante Wealth Management. This show is intended for general information only and may not apply to all listeners or investors; please obtain professional financial advice or contact Gillian at flourishfamilywealth.com to discuss your particular circumstances prior to acting on the information presented.

Information

  • Creator
    Gillian Stovel Rivers
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    44
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Flourish Feed Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Flourish Feed Podcast