Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey everyone. It's Adrian. Penoza here with the mortal life real estate investing podcast, where we help you get more to life. So you can start living your dreams through the power of real estate investing episode 29 special guests today, Mr. Gary, hi Hebert. Am I pronouncing it correctly?
Speaker 1 00:00:23 Perfect. Perfect. You got it.
Speaker 0 00:00:27 Gary is a full time real estate investor award rent winning real estate agent, author, and educator. Gary launched smart home choice to allow future investors to make informed decisions in their real estate investing strategies. He also the owner of a private investment company called deep pockets, and most recently has joined in a partnership of ownership in a real estate brokerage, our neighborhood Realty, Gary attributes, his success to his focus on improving, get this one ladies and gents his mindset, rather improving his skills and most, most discovering his he's also dedicated to helping others realize their why, because that is the realization that let Gary to where he is today. So we're happy to have you on the show, Gary, welcome to the mortal life real estate investing podcast, pal.
Speaker 1 00:01:32 Hey, listen, Adrian. Thank you very much for having me here. Um, you know, I've, I've, I've seen some of the things that you've done over the years and working with Sandy and, uh, it's an honor to be here, so I, I, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 0 00:01:44 Yeah. Awesome. Paul. Awesome. Well, you've done just as much and probably a lot more than me in my 10 year career in real estate investing. So to speak, I'm anxious to get all that information outta you in this 30 minute show that we have. Um, so let's get right into it. Let's start right from the basics. Tell us about your journey, how it all started when it started and how you've grown to this space you're in now.
Speaker 1 00:02:11 Yeah, so my journey started back in 2008. Um, it was, uh, I was working at TD bank and what ended up happening was if you remember, the us had gone through was going through the recession or, you know, the, the real estate market was about to crash. And I think a lot of people thought it was gonna come up here and, and it didn't, we, we did a little bit more of a sideways type of a thing with the real estate market. But what did happen was that some of these companies were taking a look at where things may go and started laying people off. And so I went into TD bank one day, mine of my own business, sit in my cubicle and saw one of my friends get called into the office. And I see 'em come out and you can see that look at his face.
Speaker 1 00:02:52 And I was like, he just got, let go. And all day long, they were just letting people go, uh, left right and center. And I was like, man, I can't lose this job because we had just bought our dream home. I got two young kids and, you know, I'm banging away into keyboard thinking, you know, maybe if they see me working really hard, they'll keep me, but I mean, they already had their list already made. Right? End of the day manager comes on. He goes, all right, whoever's left. You guys are safe. And I remember driving home and saying, I never ever want to feel like somebody is in control of my financial freedom or future. And so that really kind of started my journey. I tr I took a look at stock markets for X trading, commodity trading, and a bunch of different things.
Speaker 1 00:03:33 And I was kind of digging myself into a little bit more of a whole. And so I ended up going into the, my, uh, my, my branch. And I said, look, you know what? I need to reconsolidate again, this is the third time I was doing this now. And she's like, yeah, you know what, let me get rid of your lines or credits, let me get rid of your HeLOCK cuz you obviously don't know how to use these things. I'm like, yeah, get rid of it all. I want nothing to do with it. And so this is what really changed. And so she leaves and I look up on the wall and you may have seen this before. They, they have this index chart where it shows you what interest rates have been doing for the last 50 years, what the stock market is doing, you know, um, and, and a number of other things.
Speaker 1 00:04:08 And what I realized and keyed it in that day was inflation. And so when I average it out, you know, inflation was doing sometimes 2%, 18%, but average it out maybe about 5% a year, maybe even say call it four mm-hmm <affirmative>. And the year before I got a raise at TD for a thousand dollars, which is actually pretty good. But when I did the math and compared it to my current income that worked out to like 1.6% and I was like, I get it. I can't outpace inflation by having a job. And I was like, what if I just had one more of these properties? What could that do for me? Because my primary residence had bailed me out three times. And that was really the start of my, my journey at looking at real estate, uh, of, of a way of hedging against inflation. That's what it was.
Speaker 0 00:04:59 Wow. Just like that. Eh,
Speaker 1 00:05:01 Just like that. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:05:02 So when did you make the leap of faith and say, okay, I'm all in, I'm doing this full time or whatnot. Um, and kind of get that mindset.
Speaker 1 00:05:13 Yeah. So in 2008, I bought my first investment property. Um, knew nothing about joint ventures and uh, a friend of mine had, I told him about that. I want to get into it. And he goes, Hey, look, you know what? My dad's selling his property. They're going through a little bit of a nasty divorce. You know, maybe you could buy it and he can stay there. And I'm like, you know what, let's do it. I had no idea what mortgage is and how it was all gonna work. And I, so I jumped into it, but I, but I did it with him. And so me and him went in together, bought the property. His dad lived upstairs, his sister then ended up moving into basement. And, you know, I had my first two unit property and I was like, Hmm, let me do this again.
Speaker 1 00:05:52 But the second property, I made way more mistakes. And then that was when I realized, oh, this real estate investing game. Isn't that easy. My friends at work were telling me, don't do it because it's too risky. Tenants are gonna ruin your home. They're not gonna pay, you know, you can't get them out, you know, during Christmas or winter or if they have kids, like all these things are myths that you don't know because I wasn't in the game. And so then in 2010, I started investigating it more and I found out there was all these different real estate investment clubs out there, you know, those rockstar real estate that was, um, rain at the time. And so I started going to these events and I just became this sponge of just gathering as much information as I can. And then I started my own club out here in Durham called smart home choice.
Speaker 1 00:06:42 Uh, and from there I realized the power of joint venture for my first property. And then I just started really getting heavily involved in joint ventures, learning how that all worked. And by 2014, I think I was up to about maybe 17 or 18 properties. And I had enough money to cover my mortgage payments. And I was like, okay, at least my mortgage payments are covered. I don't have any money for car payments. I don't have any money for food, but at least I'll have a house <laugh>. And that was when I took that leap of faith and said, you know, we, at least we've kind of, I planned my escape. Let's see if we've got something here that we can build on. And that was 2014.
Speaker 0 00:07:23 Amazing. Amazing. So, um, what's your portfolio like now? Like how much have you grown, um, have you sold any, have you continued to expand your portfolio? Like what's your strategy
Speaker 1 00:07:38 Now? Great question. So, so what I ended up doing after we left, um, is we continued to acquire some more properties. I think I got up to around 19. I think I was just shy of 20 properties and it was actually on my whiteboard. So, but, but what it ended up happening was I started seeing what some of my peers were doing and they were getting into the multifamily space, apartment, building space, you know, 20 units, 30, 50 units. And I'm like, well, this is where I gotta go next. This is where everybody's going. Right. And so we started taking a look at that. I went and took a course, both me and my wife. Um, and then I ended up going out with, uh, you may have heard of, uh, Casey Wong. So Casey Wong is heavily, uh, involved in the, uh, in the apartment space.
Speaker 1 00:08:22 And so he took me out, showed me a couple of his, his properties and I wasn't completely sold on it, but I was like, but this is what I gotta do next. This is how I have to scale. I gotta get to a hundred doors. I gotta get to 200 doors. This is what everybody's doing. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so I ended up going to a Christmas party, um, with, um, uh, we used Dave Butler, Butler mortgages at the time. And so we went to his Christmas party and he was one of my early mentors, somebody that I looked up to and respected very highly. And, and I said, Dave, look, he goes, Gary, what do you, what what's next for you? What, what are you guys doing in 20? I think it was 2017 somewhere around there. And I go, well, you know, I think I'm gonna get into the apartment building space.
Speaker 1 00:09:01 And he goes, I think he saw that I wasn't convinced. And he goes, well, that's one way of doing it. And it just kind of like, Hmm. So I kind of pulled the breaks back and I'm like, well, what do you mean? And so then he started talking to me about private lending and being the bank. And what's kind of the pinnacle of, you know, any kind of society. It's like, it's, it's the banks mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so I really kind of started diving deeper into that. And I'm like, maybe that's what I should do is maybe doing private lending, um, doing more passive because I started building the wealth, you know, how many more doors do I really need? And then it allowed me to focus on what I really enjoy doing, which I love doing the podcast. I like helping beginning investors get into real estate investing.
Speaker 1 00:09:43 Um, and, and that's what I did because I think people get lost and I've, and, and during the, some of the podcasts I've done is you get to this point of like, well, I gotta get to the next level. I gotta get to that next level. I get to the next level, as opposed to saying, what is it that I want to do with my life? How do I design that life? What is it that makes me happy when I wake up in the morning, because at the end of the day, what I figured out was that I don't really like real estate investing. Right. It's I like what it provides for me. I like that I'm able to take time off during the summer and time off during the winter and, and enjoy life because at the end of the day, I think return on time is more important than just return on investment. And so that is what really helped me switch the way that, and that the path that I was going on right.
Speaker 0 00:10:35 Return on time. Mm-hmm <affirmative> is just as important as return on investment. Yep. I completely agree. And I've never heard that I've heard, we all want time. Freedom. I've heard of that statement, but I've never heard of the statement return on time is just as important as return on investment. And I couldn't agree more because I think we're all in that chase of return on time, because you can, we all have a given amount of time on this earth. Right, right. And sooner, later that time is gonna be up and you can never buy back time. You can always express your mistakes. You can always, you know, buy that other property or, or do another JV or another bur project, or, but you never can buy back the time in your life. So I couldn't agree more. And is that kind of segueing into my next question? Um, I kind of touched upon it in your intro as far as improving your mindset. Um, is that kind of segueing into your mindset? Where can we talk a little bit about mindset and how that shift or, or how your focus on that, um, helped you discover your why?
Speaker 1 00:11:48 Yeah. So one of the things that I did in the beginning and I, and I didn't share this up first was I started, my brother had brought over the secret to me. And the secret was more of like this, this video talking about how you can create this lifestyle. They, they didn't really touch so much on the action piece, but it was more about the goal setting right in down what you want. And if you think about it, you can acquire it. And so I got really big on getting a whiteboard, writing down what I, what it was that I wanted. So every time I bought a property, I Y to it, right? Like this is for my son's education. This is for my daughter's education. This is for vacation. And so that was part of the reasons why we came with the name smart home choice, because when people hear that name, they're like, well, it doesn't sound like a real estate investment company, but because it was more, I was more focused on smart goals.
Speaker 1 00:12:40 So specific, measurable, attainable, realistic time. And the mindset is what really allowed us to be where we are today, because it also ties in with the goal setting. And so here's a great story. I think your audience will like. And so here's what we did when we started the business, we sat down with the kids and we said, look, we're gonna start this company. It's gonna take some time away from you. What do you guys want from it? So we wrote smart home choice in the middle, and then from it, we branched off and said, okay, what do you guys want? Let's get a mascot. Okay, cool. How much money do you guys wanna make a month? A million dollars. All right. Let's do a million. I didn't care how crazy it was. I just wanted them to see and understand what you can potentially accomplish.
Speaker 1 00:13:25 If you just write things down. And then they said, we want two months off every year. And I'm like two months. How about four months? I'm like, okay, cool. Let's do four months. And so then we built this business around it, where now we take July and August off. And then we take December and January off. And that is the importance of the mindset of writing it down, believing that you can accomplish it, listening to podcasts, listening to people that are where you want to be. And the mindset is such an incredible thing, because that is what allows you to, to design a life. It really, and truly does
Speaker 0 00:14:02 The mindset allows you to design a life. It does hundred percent, hundred percent. That's very, very
Speaker 1 00:14:09 Powerful. Yeah. I'll, I'll share something as well, too, I think which will help tie in that mindset piece, because one of the things is I hated public speaking. I hated doing like these type of podcasts or, you know, you asked me questions. I don't even know what the questions were. When I remember when I, first time I did it, somebody wrote gave me all the questions and I wrote down all the answers because I was so nervous. And, uh, and, and I remembered, I I'd had this conversation with, um, with an investor who had seen me speak at the right club. And she reached out to me and she goes, look, Gary, I don't know what I can give back to you, but thank you for allowing me to have a conversation with you and learn from you. What you've learned over the last several years.
Speaker 1 00:14:51 I said, don't, don't worry about it. It's all good. I enjoy doing this. And so at the end of the conversation, she goes, what are you doing this weekend? And I go, you know what, I've got to introduce Les brown, cuz Les brown was coming out to our brokerage to do a talk. And if you know, Les brown is somebody who's well known right across the world, motivational speaker. And I'm like, I gotta introduce him. I am like so nervous. And she goes, Gary, I can help you. And I go, how she goes, the chemicals released in your body when you're nervous or when you're excited is exactly the same thing. So then instead of saying that you're nervous, just go up on stage and say, I can't believe how excited I am to be here. That is a power of mindset. And I'm like, ah, I get it. And so by saying, I'm excited. I'm like, I am so excited to be here. I am so excited. I feel like I'm gonna pass out. So just by changing a simple word can change. Your experience can change. Your outlook can change the project trajectory trajectory of your life. And that's the power of mindset.
Speaker 0 00:15:56 Wow. Yeah, absolutely. Let's touch upon. So break it down for us. Um, smart home choice.
Speaker 1 00:16:06 Yes.
Speaker 0 00:16:06 How does that work? Tell us about that company. How do you make it all happen?
Speaker 1 00:16:11 Yeah. So smart home choice is a real estate investment education company. Uh, and so what we do is we educate brand new investors that are coming into the game, how real estate works. The very first thing that we do is we teach them how to run the numbers. I think people get into real estate investing and not understanding the numbers, not understanding cash flow, um, the, the expenses, the revenues and soft costs. So that's the very first thing because once they understand that, well then now they can actually take a look at a property and say, oh, these numbers are gonna work as a single family as a two unit or as a triplex or whatever it may be. Right. Then the other thing as well too, is that we surrounded ourselves with, uh, with experts, the lawyers, accountants, contractors, um, you know, home inspectors, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1 00:16:58 Because when I first started, I had a difficult time trying to find these, these, uh, uh, industry experts. And so now we created this one stop shop. So you don't have to go out and try and figure this out on your own. You can come to us and we have everything that you need. And then every month, uh, we, we do webinars. We do well, a lot of zoom calls now with, with COVID and everything that that happened over the last couple of years, um, we would do, uh, in person live events. We actually just did one, uh, last week, which was fantastic. The very first class that we've had B live and we focus on mindset. That's how important that was to me. So we had two great speakers out there. Um, and, um, and you get your own personal culture, either myself or, uh, I have a couple other agents that work with me and they take them out and show them the right properties to buy.
Speaker 1 00:17:48 If this is a good one, no, this is not a good one. And we do property tours. And so it's just an education company so that we are there from beginning to end to hold your hands, to make sure that things go as smoothly as possible, but it's not gonna go perfect. And if anybody tells you that this is a, a, you know, I can help you make this thing go perfect. It's it's not, but I will assure you that we will be there to help guide you and help you through that process. And that's, that's, that's what smart home choice is all about.
Speaker 0 00:18:19 And how long have you been in that business now?
Speaker 1 00:18:22 Smart home choice has been around since 2010. Oh, wow. Yeah. 2010, not a huge club by any means. We got about 85 members. We always kind of had a goal to, to help a hundred people find financial freedom. Yeah. Uh, and, and, and that's what we're doing. We're not trying to be the biggest in, in, in the country, but we just really wanted to create this family feel. And so it was really good again, like when I talked about last week, when we had that in person event, it was great to see the members come out and also new investors come out, but with seeing the members to hug each other again, because they haven't seen each other for so long, that was the feel that I wanted. I wanted that family feel, I wanted that connection and I wanted to create something where it felt like we were moving in a direction together. And not to say that I knew it all or, or, or my, or, or my agents, but we can learn together. And that's, that's, that's the whole essence of, of a mastermind, right. Is all these minds coming together to create this one mind, to learn and move together in the right direction.
Speaker 0 00:19:26 Awesome. Uh, do you do most of your business? Um, in Durham region,
Speaker 1 00:19:32 We did a lot in Durham in the beginning. I mean, when we were buying town homes in Whitby for two 50, you know, those days are <laugh> long gone and then we, and then we started slowly moving out into ASWA. Then we moved to Curtis in Bowmanville. I mean, I remember when we went to Curtis in Bowmanville back in 2012, 13, people were like, where is that? That wasn't even a name. Anybody really talked about if you're out in Toronto or the, or the west side of the city. Um, and then we've moved into Peterborough. We did that around 2017. And I remember saying like, people were like, well, what's in Peterborough, there's nothing there. And so one of the things that I always try to do is try to stay a little bit ahead of the curve is where is the market moving to going down, sitting with the city, having conversations with them, um, understanding some of the pain points that they have and then how can we work together with them?
Speaker 1 00:20:23 Right. Because I think people get fearful sometimes and like, oh, well, I don't know if I wanna work with the city or talk to them because they're gonna slow things down or, you know, work with the city, they're there to help you. They they've seen things that you may not have seen before and they're there to try and make things work. And, and so if you, if you do that, uh, you can go so much further. And so we, so we do a lot in Peterborough and then we've also expanded into the COHA lake region as well, too. Um, and so we're happy with that area and I love it so much that I actually ended up buying a cottage out there, uh, in 2017. And I can tell you this, it's the best thing that I've found to slow time down. And so I'm super excited, you know, June 23rd is our last event.
Speaker 1 00:21:04 And, and then I'm like, I'm out, you're gone later. I'm gone until, you know, beginning of September, I've prerecorded. Most of my podcasts, the events are no longer happening. I mean, we're still there to take clients out if they need to go out and look at properties. Yeah. Um, but, but it's the best way I've figured out how to do the four hour work week <laugh> that's it it's. And so those are many retirements that we take and by taking those many retirements, um, I can tell you this, by the end of August, my body can't take anymore drinking a party. Can't take anymore body. Can't take anymore partying. I'm ready to come back and, and work on my passion, what I love to do. And so that's what we do. So now I don't have to ever worry about, well, I'm gonna retire at 65 because if I'm doing what I love, well, then why I just do it for the rest of my life.
Speaker 0 00:21:53 Couldn't have said it better, bud couldn't have said it better. That's awesome. Um, so now obviously you mentioned this a couple of times, uh, you're running your own podcast. Yep. Um, so you're a podcast, host, a mentor and an author providing educational help to those, looking, to get into the industry. What's the biggest asset that you can provide our listeners, the biggest asset, the best advice, getting into this game that you and I have been in for the last 11 years or whatnot, what's the best, biggest advice asset you can give them.
Speaker 1 00:22:27 Don't be scared to fail. That is where you, you do not learn from being successful because, and I mean that it, it worked at how you expected it to you learn from failing. And so anytime I'm doing a talk or in front of a group of people, the one thing that I'll always say is only the difference between you sit in the seat and where I am right now. And what we're talking about today is I just failed more times than you at this particular topic. That's it? And so I've, I'm getting better at failing I'm <laugh>, you know, and taking that failure and then moving forward and learning from it. So you gotta learn from it as well, too, obviously. Yeah. But don't be scared to fail. Right? Listen, I, I have the same fears as most cause I'm human as well, too. We all have the same fears.
Speaker 1 00:23:08 We all, you know, wanna succeed. We, we don't want to fail. We, we, we don't want to, you know, uh, be embarrassed in front of other people. I get all that. I understand that. But you, you have to be comfortable with, with failing and knowing that you might make some mistakes along the way. That is where success is. Right. And they say, it's, you know, a lot of times it's darkest before Dawn. And so when you're just about to give up, just push through, just give that extra. Um, and you know, that, that is where, where success is. That is where the fun is. Right. Here's a great analogy. I heard this from Jim RO is he said, you know, can you call a touchdown, a touchdown if there's no linebackers. So you gotta be willing to play in the game and, and know that you're gonna get knocked down or get the wind taken outta you. It's okay. That's what happens. Right. Cause imagine you're running across the field with nobody there and then you're gonna spike the football. So fun in that
Speaker 0 00:24:05 <laugh> right. Yeah. Evangelistic either it'll never happen. So amazing. I love that advice. My business coach actually had the same, almost the same answer to that question when I talked to her and uh, she said, you know, the advice I can give people what's that she said, be excited to fail, be excited to fail. Cause if you're failing, you're growing, you're learning yada yada yada. So that's right in line with your advice. So that's amazing. Yeah. Touched upon your private investment firm. Let's talk a little bit about that deep pockets. Yes. Tell us a little bit about how that works.
Speaker 1 00:24:47 Yeah. So it's a private lending company. Uh, we do first and second mortgages. Here's the interesting thing about it is I know very little about it. And so my wife and I have another partner that runs it. Uh, my wife used to be a mortgage agent, my other partner's a mortgage agent. Um, and because we have this, uh, this, this pool of investors, it gives them an option of maybe not only just investing in real estate cuz not everybody wants to invest in real estate, but also gives 'em an option to also lend their money out as well too. And so that's, that's what deep pockets is. And so the funny thing with that is that, um, when we came up with the name, it was actually our lawyer. Could we created this Ontario Inc company mm-hmm <affirmative> and I go, well, can, when can we, you know, create the name?
Speaker 1 00:25:31 He goes, oh, you could do it, you know, a year from now or two years from now just, you know, create the company. And if you want to, you can just call it deep pockets and I'm like deep pockets. Hmm. That's an interesting name. <laugh> you know? And so it actually stuck as though when we were ready to, to actually start it. We, we decided to go with it. I was a little hesitant at first because it kind of comes off a little cocky, but, but you know what, it, it, it, it works well, people like it and, uh, it has a little nice ring to it. And, and then that's what, yeah, it's just another addition to, to what we do with the real estate investing. Right.
Speaker 0 00:26:07 You put an emphasis on goal setting and we, we touched upon this briefly there, uh, a few minutes back. Yep. As it has allowed you to have something to aim towards when working in this industry of real estate
Speaker 1 00:26:21 Investing.
Speaker 0 00:26:22 Yeah. Um, what are some of your goals let's say in the next two to three years,
Speaker 1 00:26:30 Um,
Speaker 0 00:26:31 That you're willing to share with us.
Speaker 1 00:26:32 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, so some of the goals that I have, I would say in the next two to three years is geographical freedom. Um, so you know, we we've gotten the financial freedom. We've gotten that, that time freedom, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative> at certain times of the year and uh, and now we're looking at geographical freedom. I think that's a big one to being able to now work in different parts of the world, but still in, still be able to work and also enjoy and see other other places. And I think that's kind of what our big focus is on that time, at this particular time. So that I don't actually physically have to be here in Canada to allow my company to continue to move forward or to help clients.
Speaker 0 00:27:21 We have a lot in common <laugh> we have a lot in common. How old are you by the way? Just outta curiosity.
Speaker 1 00:27:26 Uh, yeah, I just turned, uh, 48. So got a couple more years. Yeah. A couple more years before I did that. Big five. Oh
Speaker 0 00:27:36 Yeah. We're the same age. And you know what, Gary, I, I, I actually said the same thing. A lot of people have asked me in the past too, cuz we're up to 375 doors now in our company. Wow. And just over 70 properties that we own. And a lot of people say have asked me the same thing, you know, Adrian, when is enough enough? Like when are you done? Like where where's your end goal and stuff like that, or what's your vision? And I've said the same thing, you know, by the time I'm 50, I want to have that geographical freedom.
Speaker 1 00:28:11 Yep.
Speaker 0 00:28:14 Where, what you said will and still have your companies and, and grow or, or do whatever you want accompanied with that financial freedom and time freedom. But yes, geographical freedom. I think we have that same definitely that same goal. For sure. So yeah.
Speaker 1 00:28:33 Yeah. I, I want to have different experiences in life. I wanna see different things. I, I want to, at the, whenever I take that last breath to say that I didn't, you know, I, I didn't, uh, just sit around and hope for things to, to work out that I actually did things that I wanted to do in my life. And you can't see it here, but I've got a whiteboard, uh, behind me where my wife and I, every single year write down everything that we want to accomplish for that particular year. Uh, whether it be personal goals, business goals, how much income we wanna make, you know, are there any properties that we wanna purchase in another part of the world, whatever it is, it's all in that whiteboard. And all it is is really is just replacing our order to the universe. I don't know how it works. And then it's really, you know, it's none my business, you know, so that, and they say that as well too. The, how is none of your business? It's it's to what, what do you want? Don't worry about the, how.
Speaker 0 00:29:34 Absolutely.
Speaker 1 00:29:35 And I've seen it time and time again, you know, and, and, and the other interesting thing too, is at the end of the year, take a picture of it. We'll check off what we accomplish. We'll follow it away. We put it in the folder. So I've been doing this since 2010 and every few years we'll go back and take a look at it. We'll like, holy, there's a few more. So we've already placed it. And it's just, it's still working in the background. Sometimes you forget that you actually put it there. I remember we wrote the cottage on there, you know, three years before we actually put it on there. We were going back. We're like, I forgot. I wrote a cottage on here. This is crazy. And so it's, it's, it's an incredible thing. And, and I'll share this with you as well, too, where I work with investors and they buy two or three properties and then they reached out to me and they're like, Gary, I'm stuck.
Speaker 1 00:30:21 I don't know, like, I'll come as this. I come, I can't get to that fourth property. That fifth property what's happening. I'm like, no problem. Just jumping a zoom call. Let's figure this out. Or we'll go school, grab a coffee. And I'm like, okay, cool. What's on your whiteboard. Uh, I didn't write anything down this year. Well, there you go. Just write it down, write it down. Yeah. You gotta write it down. You'd be surprised with what it can do for you, right? Absolutely. Yeah, because here's what it does as well, too. When you do that, it also allows you to say no to things that come into your life. Cuz maybe you didn't ask for it yet as opposed to now, cause now you have direction. This is what I say. I'm gonna do this year and I'm gonna focus on this as opposed to that shiny stone syndrome, right? Like, oh, look at this over here. Oh maybe I should follow this. Oh, maybe I should do this strategy. Oh maybe I should buy over here, write it down now, you know exactly what you wanna accomplish for the year. And now you can say yes to the things that come into your life and no to the things that you didn't order.
Speaker 0 00:31:18 Bingo. Bingo. Awesome. All right. I have um, uh, two quick questions as we wrap up here. We're just over 30 minutes. Yeah. Um, what is, um, what is your, why Gary? What is your, why?
Speaker 1 00:31:41 My, why? My biggest, why is my wife and my kids? Yeah, it that's, that's the biggest why? Um, because my wife is not only just my business partner, but my life partner and uh, and best friend, you know? Um, and you know, obviously we've had the ups and downs, like any other relationship, but I, I, I think if you're with your best friend, you can really kind of navigate the, the world that we live in today and that's what we try to do. Right. And, and I think also too, by writing down what you want, you're on the same path. You can, you, you know, you're talking about what you want to accomplish together. Um, and then obviously the other one are, are my kids, you know, they're, they're an extension of me and there, there's nothing more amazing than seeing, uh, what you bring into this world and, and, and what they can now potentially accomplish. And, and, and hopefully they, they could even do even, or even more than you. Uh, but, but to me, it's just whatever makes them happy. That's what I want.
Speaker 0 00:32:46 Awesome.
Speaker 1 00:32:47 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:32:47 All right. So last one. Um, you're very successful now, Gary, and we say that relative to how the world views success. Do you think there's still more to life for Gary and when you picture more to life, what do you see for Gary?
Speaker 1 00:33:09 Um, I think for me, there's 100% more to life. 100%. Um,
Speaker 1 00:33:17 I think I, I want to be in, you know, people's testimonials saying, you know, what, if, if it wasn't for Gary, I wouldn't be where I am today to help as many people as I can. You know, it's a great quote from Jim, Ron, it says help as many people get what they want and you can have ever, and anything that you want. And that's what it is. It's always about giving back. Um, you know, there's also in the Bible as well, too, right? It says, given you shall receive. And that's what it's always about. It's about giving it's about, um, um, helping your community and, and giving back to people that are looking for that help and need that help and that guidance because then also too, what it does is not only are you helping other people, you're also helping yourself as well too, because what I've learned I pass on, but it also then allows me to, to remember it, to know it better as well, too. So yeah, it's, it's, it's creating, it's creating. Yeah. It's creating that community around, around yourself.
Speaker 0 00:34:20 Powerful, amazing. Gary, it's been a pleasure having you, man. It was, uh, definitely very, very powerful words there throughout our whole interview. And I, I can't thank you enough people out there. Our listeners are guaranteed. You wanna contact you if nothing else, even just to maybe utilize your services in, in the whole, um, mentoring or coaching getting started and helping them on their path to success. How do, how do people find you and get ahold of you, Gary?
Speaker 1 00:34:52 Yeah, I mean the best way they can get ahold of me. Uh I'm on social media, Instagram or Facebook, just Gary Hubbert. Um, they can email
[email protected] um, or my personal website, Gary hubbert.ca
Speaker 0 00:35:08 Amazing. Yeah, yeah. For all our listeners out there, obviously a ton of knowledge he's been in the game 11, 10, 12 years.
Speaker 1 00:35:16 She's yeah. 14. Yeah. Almost 14 years.
Speaker 0 00:35:20 Almost 14. So yeah, he comes with abundance of experience and obviously very reputable, um, reach out to Gary him, get you in the game. Or even if maybe you're looking to get him, if you're looking maybe to get to that next property that you're stuck on and you, you want to go to four to five. He's the men. So Gary, thanks again. Scorching hot day, May 31st, uh, 2022. And may you enjoy the summer at your cottage and keep checking off that stuff on your whiteboard? My friend.
Speaker 1 00:35:54 Listen, thank you very much. I, I appreciate you having me here and, uh, allowing me to share my story with your, with your listeners and followers. So thank you.
Speaker 0 00:36:03 Cheers.
Speaker 1 00:36:04 Take care.
