Harry James
Sarah: Good evening, everybody. How's everyone doing?
Laurel: Great. I hope everybody else is doing great out there. Beautiful, Sarah?
Sarah: I know. Are you enjoying some wine these days?
Laurel: Yes. That's the only way to put it. Yes.
Sarah: Amazing. What about you guys in the chat? How is everyone doing and also where you are tuning in from? We've got a great guest tonight already. We've got Ken from Ottawa. Nancy's doing great. We've got Hamilton, Windsor.
Laurel: Toronto. Oh great, Vancouver. Welcome from vancouver. It's still nice to see people from all across the country.
Sarah: It's something that we weren't able to do before when we were in person, but now that we're virtual. People can be in their pajamas and enjoying a nice glass of wine or maybe a coffee or if you're that kind of person drinking coffee later in the evening. I do that sometimes. Rachel from Toronto. Hi guys. We've got egg from Kaledin. All right. Got a great event tonight. I'm excited.
I'm excited to see everyone. Again, I'm excited for tonight's events. And for those of you that don't know, I've actually hired today's guest to actually be my own personal coach. So, I'm excited. I'm excited for you guys to meet him and get some insights, tips and strategies. Awesome. All right. So, Laurel, I'm excited. What about you? Are you excited for tonight?
Laurel: I'm really looking forward to this one. I think it's going to be fun. And we're going to talk a lot about the mind and the body and the soul and everything is so important when it comes to real estate investing. So, let's get right to it. And let me introduce our sponsors and then we'll get into our presentation. We would really like to welcome or thank our sponsors because they are so important to us. They are in the business of real estate investing just like you and be sure to reach out to them because they have your best interests at heart, and they've helped a lot of us here at the REITE club.
We have Elevation Realty, Carson Law, Hub International, Mission 35 Mortgages, BDO Canada, The Windrose Group, Blackjack Contracting, Pinnacle Wealth Management, aC.I.S.S Home and Commercial Inspection, King Homes, Legal Second Suites are tax property management, cash flow tribe, and private money for mortgages.
Now, I'm just going to go through our legal disclaimer, because that's an important part of information that you need to know about.
Disclaimer
Laurel: The REITE club does not endorse any particular attendee, participant, speaker, investment, sponsor advertisement, or anything else presented during our meetings, events or on our website or social media platforms.
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Welcome everybody. We are really happy to have Harry James with us. And Sarah, I'm going to hand it over to you.
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. Welcome everybody. I hope everyone's doing wonderfully. So, I'm Sarah Larbi. I'm here with Laurel Simmons. We are going to be the hosts for tonight's evening. The REITE club was founded just a little over three years ago with Alfonso Salemi and Daniel St. Jean.
Laurel: Originally, we were called SOREIT. Cause we were Southern Ontario, but today we are national coast to coast and we are really going to be focusing on delivering you guys amazing content at your fingertips content online. If you haven't checked it out yet, theREITEclub.com, that website is going to.
Many great things and it already, currently has so many great things as well. So, if you haven't registered, it's free to do so please go ahead and do that. If you guys have any questions, if you don't mind putting them into the chats for Harry James, we're going to have a great discussion with him, and it could be any questions about real estate or just about lifestyle or about the topics.
We will also ask today. It's a one hour webinar and we're going to be able to ask you lots of questions. We will be done by eight and at the end of the events we will let you know how to reach Harry, and we will also send the webinar information to everybody that has registered the recording then.
Harry James, if you guys don't know I've hired Harry James as my own personal mentor and coach, he's earned his black belt in successes and failures, that experience resonates with many people, many entrepreneurs that he's spoken to. He's spoken across Canada and they've adopted his vital signs, philosophy of building a business and a life, which is more than just a personal philosophy. It's how he lives every day.
For the next hour here, he will share his experiences, tips, and insights, as well as how he maintains a lifestyle. We all strive to live. It's important to invest in real estate, but it's also why we do it, to create that lifestyle and freedom. Harry has been an entrepreneur for over 30 years. He's a businessman, a strategic consultant and motivator. He's built one of Canada's premier, independent financial planning service boutiques, and he sold it for an amazing price.
His portfolio himself includes three restaurants and natural stone Cory. And over the past 20 years, he's actually orchestrated in excess of a hundred million dollars of real estate deals. Welcome Harry to the show. How are you?
Harry: Great. Thank you. Appreciate you, having me on tonight. It's always great seeing you Sarah.
Sarah: One of the big things, I guess the first question for you is, we're investors, we're investing in real estate where we're likely busy with another full-time job. But we all want to do this for a bigger purpose. And we all want to do it for something more than just saying, I own this brick and mortar, or I own X amount of million of dollars of real estate, but let's talk about lifestyle a little bit and what insights you can provide us on how to build a lifestyle that we all want to be living in, not get into the ruts of just buying and buying and buying and creating another whole entire.
Harry: I think I'm going to maybe bore everybody and take y'all back to public school because everybody asks you, including your favorite uncle. What are you going to be when you grow up? What are you going to be? And then when you go to university, what are you going to be? What are you going to be? And what I'm getting at is that so much of society wraps our value as human beings, around our labels, our titles, what we own, what we amass.
As a result of subliminal messages beaten into us for many years, we tend to make decisions that maybe aren't authentic and true to ourselves, but we're making decisions to please other people. I knew somebody who became an accountant 10 years into it. He said, holy cow, what am I doing? Being an accountant. I want to be a teacher.
I've seen other people take paths and get involved in things that were not true to who they were or what they were interested in. So, life becomes more existing than living. And I think one of the key components, whether it's real estate or any other profession or any other business, you have to ask yourself, what are you doing and why what's your life philosophy?
What is it you're trying to accomplish? And you want to get away from, or I think stay one way from the one dimensional definition of success, being money, emblems labels those of you that I had the privilege of speaking at one of your events, and probably people will recall me saying it's not lost on me, that I don't own anything.
I just temporarily manage things. Everything I have somebody else that's going to all Monday, hopefully not very soon, but probably pretty soon. So, by having that philosophy, I don't get to attach money as simply a by-product for pursuing a lifestyle. That's important to me, time with my family, time with my grandchildren, experiences, friends, all the stuff that has nothing to do, frankly, with money, but it's wanting to have that freedom, wanting to have that margin that drives me to take risks. That drives me to put things in perspective. And that drives me to do some of the things that I do in business and some of my real estate deals.
Laurel: Harry it's interesting that you said that because I really believe that people like I've always believed that the why is so incredibly important and you know why you're doing it. And like you said, the money is just, it's a by-product. I also refer to it as a fuel. It's a fuel, it's a gas you put in the tank, right of your car.
You can drive anywhere you want, but no point in having a tank full of gas, if you're not going to go anywhere. A lot of people say that's great, but I don't know how to figure out why I've heard. I've heard that question so many times. How do I figure out why I don't get it? I don't know what to do. It's not always an easy answer or an easy question to answer.
Harry: It isn't, and it's the same thing. I do a lot of personal coaching, a lot of advising. And I'll often say to people, look, if I gave you $10 million, how would your life change astoundingly? Most people don't know what we often do in life if we don't take the time to drill down and ask ourselves what we truly want out of life.
We just keep going, keep existing. And I think one of the things that a lot of people look for is that big Eureka moment. They go to Africa to try to find themselves. They go on a backpacking trip to try to find themselves. And actually if they went on a little mini planning session around the corner from where they were, they might actually do a better job finding themselves, but it really boils down to asking some tough questions.
What's important to me, what experiences do I want to have? Do I recognize that time is my most valuable asset? Life is fragile and it's finite. And unfortunately, too many people live their lives. Like they have an unlimited bank account of time and it doesn't totally become 70 or 80 or 90 or something tragic happens where they say that very common.
I wish I didn't take myself so seriously. I wish you would've done more things that outlive me. I wish I would've taken the time to keep in touch with important friendships and relationships. And we know this from our elders, so let's learn from them and not have those types of regrets. We spent too much time in life, looking backwards, regretting yesterday and worrying about tomorrow.
Yesterday's gone and tomorrow hasn't been given yet. And I think one of the keys to sanity is trying to be present, trying to be in the moment and recognizing that time is your most valuable asset. It is very near and dear to me. I live with a deathbed mentality and that's not to be depressing. I recognize on every single moment at 10,000 feet, that health and vitality is everything.
If I'm not hooked up to tubes in a hospital or somebody, I know that's not in the back of an ambulance. It is not defined as anything else that solvable is not a problem. So, with that perspective, I'm able to really try to be present each day and recognize that time is my most valuable asset, which is liberating, because then I don't take deals so seriously. I don't take making a million dollars that seriously, but I also don't take losing a million dollars. That's seriously just going to keep going and put things in practice.
Sarah: Absolutely, that's really well said. And you also mentioned the planning, and I know we talked about this at one point in the past as well that you take some time and you plan out, take three days as an example, and you plan out the rest of the year, you plan out the rest of your goals and that's that's a big thing you were saying, a lot of people just go and go and go, but they don't take the time to say, okay, let's plan.
Harry: Sarah, let me tell you, and if there's a problem, I would probably say this might be the most important thing I think I might have to offer tonight. The rest is probably crap. So, tune it out, but listen, here's the key thing: we, as human beings, are faced with probably hundreds, if not thousands of decisions per day, if you don't take the time to figure out where you've been, where you are and where you're going.
You will tend to make a lot of those decisions based on emotional circumstances, how you're feeling, what energy you have, how much confidence you have. If you take the time to go away and say, what's important in my relationships, what's important in my spirit, where do I get? Meaning what's important in my finances.
What's important in every area of my life. And you actually go through and you have a playbook, a frame of reference of where you truly want to go. Guess what? Now you're making those thousand decisions per day, based on a true vision of where you're going. So, circumstances and emotions are not going to take you down the wrong path.
You're not going to react emotionally. You're going to stay true to where you're actually trying to go for all the right reasons. And I'll tell you about religion for three days. Every year I go away. I look at all the key components, vital signs of my life. And I take a look at where I've been, where I am and where I'm going.
We, as human beings are constantly evolving, we're constantly changing. It's okay to change your goals. It's okay to decide what type of business you want to be in and what type of real estate you want to buy. You want to change horses. That's okay. But just make sure you're doing it for the right reasons, authentic reasons, not because your next door neighbor or your mother-in-law or your uncle is driving you nuts. You want to be true to your journey and your perspective. And that's what that playbook does for you. It keeps you between the guard rails.
Laurel: Absolutely, I think that a lot of people and I know I remember talking with a lot of people. I'll just talk about me because I know me. You're right. It's so easy to get caught up in the little things, but if you, if I. If I do think about what I want and not just, it's not just a casual thought, right? It's it really, it requires some work like, as you were saying, you really have to fake it through. And a lot of people on this webinar know that one of the reasons my husband and I moved down here was because we sat back and said, okay, what is real estate going to give us?
Why are we doing it? And I said, you know what? My passion right now is wine and wine making. And I want to learn all about it. And I want to immerse myself in that world and I want to travel the world and do all this stuff. And so all of a sudden we agree, we do that. All of a sudden everything lined up. Yes, I had to do this and yes, I had to do this and yes, I had to do this, but because we had a vision, the universe does tend to line things up for us, doesn't it?
Harry: It absolutely does. I like what you're saying there, if you want to pursue wine and your investments in real estate, what creates passive income? You could pursue what you're really passionate about and give you that margin and that freedom to live your life. That's absolutely what it's all about. There's just too many of us, as that said that we just put her head down and we do transactions and we keep chasing the next thing.
If we don't drill down and ask why, if we don't have that perspective, we'll definitely get lost at some point in the journey, maybe get cynical and maybe frankly, make big stakes mistakes. Absolutely stepping back and taking a look at where you want to go and why, and having those experiences.
The thing for me is I think the passion, the desire has to be much, the desire has to be much bigger than the discipline required to get there. So, a salesperson might say, I hate making calls, but if I hate not having the lifestyle, it is bigger. You'll make the calls. In other words, the price of doing what he has to do is a smaller price than missing out on what they really want.
I think that's true for all of us. We have to have that desire. If we don't have the desire, we often don't have the discipline to do the things we have to do to achieve. And again, mental health and addictions, 70, 80% of people have issues with mental health and addictions desire without discipline leads to depression, whether it's in your financial life, in relationships, health, and vitality, if you don't put the guard rails in place, if you don't create the habits to achieve, what's important to you, you will self-sabotage mask it with drugs, sex, and rock and roll, or having your head in the sand and not living the authentic life that you probably.
Sarah: I like that saying as well. We should type that in. It's a great thing. So, do you think that's why some investors are more successful than others? Or do you think there's other additional reasons why you might see somebody that looks successful? Obviously until you are them. Are you seeing everything that they're doing, but somebody could appear to be really successful and somebody can be struggling. What do you think is the biggest difference?
Harry: I think the difference is the neighborhood between our ears. That's our thoughts. I'm a big fan and I believe this strong attitude is everything. Attitude, gratitude and generosity, I believe are the three key components of anybody that's successful or anybody that's leaving human beings on the earth better than they found it. You'll find a common denominator in gratitude, attitude, and generosity, but here's what we do to ourselves.
I'm going to go back to being a little child. I don't have a degree, therefore, I can't be successful. My mother or father insinuated. That was the dumb one. The smart ones over there. A teacher said this, a coworker said that while to have that kind of life, you have to be special. So, what happens if we don't feel worthy of what we're pursuing?
We will subliminally sabotage ourselves, even if the same opportunities are there for every single human being when it comes to big deals, that's just experience. When I did my first deal, that was a big deal because it was my first deal. I was scared to death. I didn't know what was going to happen.
I didn't understand closing lawyers, costs and expenses. I thought if you bought something for a hundred grand, you put 10 grand, 10,000 down that was all it was needed. I didn't know you needed 20,000 down because there was something called land transfer tax, legal fees and all that. But as you go through the experience again, you might remember this analogy from your conference. Too many people in life will say, you know what? I'm going to get involved, but I'm going to wait for all the lights up the street to turn green. Before I pushed the gas pedal, I believe growing and expanding as an entrepreneur is just basically, experience.
You do your first deal for 300 grand. It works out. Now, it becomes easy. You're managing, it's comfortable. Then you do your next deal for 600. Then you do one deal for 1.5 million or a multi residential. And you start to realize it's the same components. It's just a different number. As a matter of fact, I would argue very strongly. Sometimes it's easier to do a $3 million deal in a $300,000 deal. But the neighborhood between her ears will say, oh no, 3 million.
You must have to be really sophisticated. You must have to know people. You must have to be worth a billion dollars. So, a lot of the stuff we're doing to ourselves, that's why you have to be very careful. And I talk about the inner circle of the company. You keep. If you've got two or three people in your life, they're cheering you on, love you on conditioning with all your warts, believe in you and are going to encourage you. That's who you want to fuel yourself with.
There's always toxic relationships, people that want to pull you down. People that are jealous people that don't want to see you do well. People are sending. You want to do your best to build a fence 10 miles away so they can't get over it because that's going to detract from what it is you're trying to achieve in the quality of life that you're trying to live.
Laurel: I think Harry you've touched on something that I like to think about. I've had a lot of conversations with people and it's about, it's not so much about the fear of failure. It's about the fear of success, right? Because so many people are afraid of being successful because of a lot of those things, you just mentioned, the jealousy that their lives will change. You bet your life will change if you're successful. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like how do people deal with that fear of success?
Harry: I think a fear of success is an underlying issue there. I don't know if there's any fans of Jerry Seinfeld on the line here. Maybe I'm showing my age a little bit, but he's a great comedian. Had a great time. And he does a standup bit and he says, the number one fear for most people is public speaking, which means if you were asked to speak at a funeral, you'd prefer to be in the box and the person behind the microphone.
There's a tremendous amount of truth in that a lot of people want to be. They want to blend in with wallpaper. They want to wear what everybody else is wearing. They don't want to have too strong an opinion that differs too much from it. Many people will adopt other people's opinions whatever, even thinking through why you blend in with the wallpaper.
When will you become successful? When you come in at 2, 3, 4, 5%? You are now standing out, you're a male doing the speech at the funeral. It may not be a literal speech, but you're standing out from the crowd. Now you have to justify that. Am I a fraud? Do I really deserve this? Am I worthy of this? Are people gonna want to borrow money from me? Do I feel guilty because I have more money than my brother-in-law is living in the basement apartment. And he can't keep a job. There's all these things going around your head, that's sabotage, what's easier.
You know what? I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. Blending with the wallpaper, going to the pub, having a couple of fights and going to bed. That's the easier route. Is that the right route? Is it the route that's going to give you what you want? Probably not. Is it the route that's probably going to cause you to have regrets when you get to 70, 89 years old.
We have to step out. If you're going to walk your definition of success, if you're going to truly pursue in your gut, everything's important to you. You've got to get used to the fact you can't blend in with wallpaper. And if you know what, and if not comfortable with that, fake it, take an acting class, but you've got to be comfortable with standing out and being different.
Sarah: Absolutely, that's why we are where we are today. And you probably look at your surroundings and you're different from everybody else. And guys, just as a reminder, if you have any questions for Harry, put it in the chat here, he is here for an hour with us. I want to switch it up a little bit.
One of the biggest fears for many newer investors is going from that smaller deal into a much larger deal. What would you give us as advice for taking that next leap or scaling up or a bigger deal that's not typical of the other things that somebody has bought before?
Harry: I've done it many times. I've been scared and I've had to fake it and just go ahead and again, do it on my deathbed mentality. What's the worst that's going to happen? The worst is it doesn't work out and I have to sell it or bring in partners or get creative. But I think the key is to have that vision.
For me, if this makes any sense, I'm 59 years old now. I started my journey when I was 18 and I got married, very young, my wife and we've been together 36 years. We were both working when we started out and we decided to have children. I have four children and we had a discussion in the early eighties and we decided as a couple that it would be nice.
If Lynn could be home for a few years to raise the children. That means that I had to replace an income and we both committed to that. We committed that we would do whatever was necessary to create that scenario, because that is what was important to us at the time. Now, that became my driving force, replacing an income.
The desire to replace that income was very strong. Frankly, very real since Lynn quit her job. Failing really wasn't an option. I've got to figure out how to replace that income. I would do a deal that was maybe outside my comfort zone, do the due diligence, do the analysis, but the compelling reason for doing that deal, Sarah. It wasn't that I was really comfortable or I was a hot shot now, or I was really confident and I knew what I was doing.
It was the by-product of doing that deal that was a goal over here. That was much more important than that. Yes, I made some mistakes and yes, I had some failures, but that desire really got me to dig down deep, read the books, talk to people. I have zero pride. I'll ask anybody anything about anything at all to learn and to grow, not to pretend that I know at all. That desire that really fueled me.
What happens is even when I bought the town hall, now that I'm sitting in today. It was listed for 899. Your years can look it up in 1996, I offered 500 cause that's all I could afford. A year later, somehow I bought it for 500 and when they said, yes, you can have it for 500. It occurred to me that I didn't have a down payment. It goes from there but the point is at that time, buying a town hall was very intimidating. It was dilapidated.
There were three very old $75,000 heating air conditioning units. I broke it down into bite sized pieces and I said, okay, If I just get into the main floor, stabilize myself there, I'll pretend I don't own the other two floors. Just bored those up until I can figure out how to pay my bills. That's literally how I got into the channel hall in 1996, but I was scared. I remember somebody pulling me aside saying it's not as intimidating. It's not as bad as you think it is. It was somebody older than me. It just spoke a little bit of words of encouragement, I thought, okay.
Sure enough through the years, the town hall and now today would be a deal that would be something that I wouldn't view as intimidating, but it was by stretching by going. It's almost if you go to the gym and you try something you're intimidated by or you go skydiving, you do something and you stretch, you become much more pliable.
You start to believe in yourself a little bit more. I think the real seat journey is exactly the same. Frankly, I don't know if you'd agree with me, but I think if you did a $3 million deal with 20 units, it's a much safer deal than a $500,000 deal with 2 units. I don't care how big the number is. I'm just more concerned about the diversification and how I'm going to pay my bills when I do the deal. But that's where I go back to the inner circle.
You go to your friends that have got nine to five jobs, nothing wrong with that. They're working, they see $60,000 is a lot of money and you're having a cocktail and going, yeah, I just paid $3 million. They won't have you committing suicide by the end of the night because it's going to go bad and you're crazy, don't this happens and that happens to somebody who's going to raise chinchillas and someone else is going to have a pot house and somebody else is going to be a hoarder. You're going to be home shaking all night long. You gotta be very careful who you let into your head space when you're doing things that are special.
Laurel: We just got a question and it just ties right into what you said. Hillary has said, yes to the supportive, kind and positive people in your circle, but how do you deal with those people who are self-sabotaging and the people who are around you, who are sabotaging themselves, sabotaging you, dragging you down.
They see themselves as victims and they're only happy when you're a victim. How do you deal with them ? You don't want to make those people miserable, but at the same time, you gotta take care of number one first. Cause if you don't do that, nothing else matters.
Harry: That's a great question. I've had a tougher question that I've actually had. What do I do when this cynical undermining person I'm married to? I've had that question and here's the reality that my advice to that individual was, I'm not the last thing I'd be doing is giving anybody relationship advice. But I say, listen, don't engage in the things that are important to you. If they're negative on real estate, and this was this person. They wanted nine to five, buy everything cash, play it safe and have on your tombstone where lies. All their potential is still intact.
That's what they wanted to do with their lives. This individual wanted to grow and to try new things, wanted to be creative, wanted to build a bigger net worth one, to get outside the salary and really create some special things. I said, listen, you know where they're coming from? You're not going to change their perspective. Don't try to change somebody, just take the high road. Don't engage in negative conversations. Don't take the bait.
When they try to engage you in negative conversations, insulate yourself, change the subject, go to an area where you don't have any conflict with them. If you're going to try to have a positive influence on, have the positive influence by working on the person in the mirror.
Get in better shape, have better energy, go out and do a deal and make something happen. Bring in positive people into the household and let that energy flow but don't attack the individual. It'll just make things worse. Don't try to change them or hit them over the head with thinking and grow rich or something like that.
All it's going to do is annoy them. All you can control as the person in the mirror, you want to invest in the person in the mirror and be the best version of yourself that you can. But when you've got toxic people in your inner circle or you're related to them, you've got to be very creative, but you still have to build a friend. You still have to build a fence because you can't allow somebody to sabotage your happiness and your journey. Life's way too short.
Laurel: I think also Harry, you have to understand that the person in the mirror is not responsible for how the other person feels. That is not your responsibility. Me, I'm looking at myself in the mirror. I'm responsible for how I feel about being ethical for living up to my values and my beliefs, but I am not responsible for what somebody else believes or values.
Harry: A hundred percent. I think the more that we work on the person in the mirror, we all have areas in our lives to grow. As a businessman, as an investor, as I'm a partner with my son and employee benefits company, I'm always trying to be better at my craft. I'm always trying to be better at servicing. I'm always trying to leave people better than I found them as human beings. I've shared this with Sarah and I'll share it with your audience.
I live by something called vital signs, and I believe this is the key component for every human being on the planet. These are the things in my opinion, that will determine whether or not you reach your Heights. Whether you can have optimum performance. There's four curiosities in our life as human beings that have to be addressed daily and adjusted daily.
Number one, relationships. You have to love unconditionally and forgive unconditionally the person in the mirror. If you don't, you will sabotage yourself and you will not feel worthy of the life you truly want. You have to do that. Of course in your inner circle of two, three people, you've got to make sure that you don't have unresolved conflict.
When I was younger, if I had a big fight with my wife, I would shut the door and say, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going out there to build a lifestyle for us. If I don't have my fuel, I can't do it. That was more important to me than walking out the door and going to work. Then there is the spiritual aspect of all of our lives, and I'm not talking about any particular religion, I'm talking about me.
We all have a finite time on planet earth. That's a fact, one of the worst things that happens to many people is they get everything they always wanted and they're not fulfilled. They get everything they always wanted and it isn't everything they thought it was gonna be. It's one of the saddest days of their lives. We can all avoid that by coming up with what's meaningful in our lives. What do we want to do? Outlives us? Where do we want to give back in a meaningful way and incorporate that into our lives on a regular basis?
The third area is physical. Our bodies don't understand aging. This is exciting. They only understand it if it's needed or not. We can be as healthy and vibrant in our eighties and nineties as we were in our thirties and forties. If we challenge ourselves physically and mentally the body every single day. That's the physiological fact. Of course there's the financial side of things. If your financial house is a wreck, you can be physically in the backyard with your spouse or your children, but you're mentally not there. You're missing the moment.
You've got to take the time to get your financial house in order. I rate relationships, spiritual, physical, and financial every single day between 1 and 10. I'll tell you right now, if anything is seven, I have to address it at that moment because it will affect me. I believe and I had the privilege of dealing with thousands of people for over 30 years now. It's been a common denominator. If I have somebody sitting in front of me and they're dealing with poor performance, bad health, or something going on in their lives, I do a quick read of their vital signs.
We can see you very quickly on what needs to be addressed. Now, people think that's a counterintuitive area. What's that got to do with what it has everything to do with everything you can't perform at a high level, unless you take care of the human being in the mirror. You cannot be at optimum performance unless you address the key components of your life.
If you don't do that, you can fake it. You'll have anxiety, you'll have stress. You'll constantly feel like you're juggling balls and you're going to be a different person every day, depending on how you're feeling. It's just not a very relaxed way to live.
Sarah: Can you give us some examples that are concrete of what you do with your lifestyle? Day-to-day, when you wake up, like how you work it out, like just an idea, because I think part of it is. We're thinking about real estate and many of us are going at some point. This is one of the reasons I wanted to bring you in.
You've done over a hundred million dollars of real estate. You're still doing real estate. As we speak, you're still adding opportunity. You're building, you're developing, or you're still doing it and you're actively doing it, but you're still able to have that whole lifestyle and balance in your life. Give us an example of what you do specifically.
Harry: Maybe to add a little credibility to that cause I sometimes think people get a little bit older and while you've already done it, you're taking it easy. Now, I'm not taking it easy. We're renovating 14 luxury apartments in Lakefield. We just sold 10 brand new triplexes in Cobourg which is a $10 million deal. We just bought another. In Cobourg with retail and residential. In addition, I'm a partner with my son and the employee benefit business. We have a pension presentation today. I also do personal coaching and speaking, and we also manage a pretty significant portfolio of properties that everyday something is happening, all that to say if you want time, you take it.
If you want money, give it away. It really is that simple. The more you cling onto things, the more you pursue things and where you attach ownership, you repel it. The more that you don't plan and take the time. Some of the most successful people in the world, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Richard Branson. If you look at their schedule, Monday is not filled with 52 appointments. What I do every single day is workout. I did cardio this morning. I've got weights Tuesday. I've got Wednesday weights running. I do high-intensity training on Friday. In addition, walk five kilometers per night with my wife when we get caught up and make sure that we're still dating and focused on the same things that are important to us.
If I've done something to upset my three girls, because I generally always have one of them mad at me at some point in time, we'll talk that through, but all the things that are important, all the things that give me optimal performance, all things to fuel me. On a regular basis daily, I read it could be a podcast, Tim Ferriss. I was listening to Tony Robbins the other day. I read up on real estate deals. I read up on fitness and that type of thing as well, psychology.
All the things that interest me that I want to either pass on to other people or help improve my life. I do that on a regular basis. I make sure I date key friends. I take my 88 year old mama for a cup of tea at least once a week. Cause if I don't do it, that's on the back of my mind. She's very important to me. As a matter of fact, she's one of my heroes. All the things that are important to me are in my schedule at the beginning of the week.
I fit in real estate. I fit in our employee benefit plans. I fit in transactions and deals and ironically this is the counterintuitive because I take care of my vital signs, my key relationships, my health and vitality. I'm a better husband, better father. I'm not saying this to be, I guess maybe I am being somewhat if that's the word, but I'll often sit in my office here.
I can get done in six hours. What I think sometimes would take some people six days and it's just the focus, the energy, the clarity. And it's because I truly enjoy and look forward to my days in my week. I'm not dreading it. I'm not booking things that are dragging me down. It really energizes me. Thankfully, I've got, I should also say I have an amazing team. People that love what they do, cheer us on all on their own and take accountability responsibility for their part of the game. It is to us a game. We won. We take our craft seriously, but we know, and I was telling my team this every day, everything outside the doors of town hall is 10 times more important than this monopoly.
Your spouses, your children, your health, your vitality. You make that number one, because if you make that number one, you will come back to the town hall and get Harry James' enterprise your best. I always encourage our people to take care of themselves, their families, or health or vitality first, and they'll give me their best. When they come into the office. I have a board.
Laurel: You're taking care of yourself. Your framework for your day for your life, but let's just work on a day except today. It's your physical, mental, social, and spiritual wellbeing. That is the framework of your day. Within that you wait, we plan, we all plan. Like I want to get this accomplished. And so now, but aside from just the framework, you've set up for yourself, you're now you've set up people around you who really feed into that framework.
You're not going to bring in people who don't support that framework and that you're also building systems so that they are supported. It's very much an upward cycle. Everybody is supporting and I don't mean it to sound like a fantasy world cause it's not. I can tell just from who you are, this is how you live your life.
We all have choices, right? We can choose to live that way or we can choose to live afraid of everything and what person A is going to say around the corner or my best friend. I've had someone ask me to say I'm afraid of what my best friend will say because she or he's not going to like it. I'm going to say, you know what? That person is not your best friend, because your best friend doesn't do that. Like it's those kinds of things we have to deal with, to set things up.
Harry: I'm sure there's some people right now who said, come on. This is too good to be true. How in the hell do you do all that mobile? I can tell you how. When I was in my early twenties I bought an old century home and that was another real estate deal I did. I couldn't afford it, so I sold a house for 275. I bought one for 400,000. The only way I could pay for it was $600 a month. I couldn't rent it for two months.
I remember sitting on the back porch of my wife crying, because I thought I'd screwed up our lives. Anyways, I eventually rented it. When I lived in that house. My kids were two and four at the time. I've got four of them. There were two and four and on Saturdays I spent six hours weeding this little tiny garden. Number one, I hate gardening. Number two, I remember looking over at my kids and they were playing and I'm looking at the weeds and the thing, where would I rather be? At that point I could afford it like a hole in the head.
I hired somebody to take care of my property. I think it cost me 300 bucks a month. I remember the neighbors walking, oh, big shot the guy with the gardener. Oh, it must be nice. I was thinking, you know what, screw you. I gotta live my life. I don't get to have a two and four year old again. I want to spend time with them and I want to watch them grow up. I want to go through walks and take them for ice cream and take them to the park and coach their teams. That's exactly what I did.
I think I don't want money. I can make more off time. I don't get back. You take that one example. I've done that my whole life tomorrow. Here's my schedule for tomorrow. I got my workout at 10 o'clock. I'm taking my daughter, my 23 year old who's going back to school to be a forensic scientist. I'm taking her to the mall to get a computer. I'm tied up until one o'clock for stuff that's most important to me tomorrow. I'm the type of individual I will choose to live on $250,000 a year and delegate everything under the sun.
I have a lifestyle and freedom and I can live my definition of success as opposed to having a cell phone duct tape to my head making 2 million. I know this is a success. Yeah. I got to give him like, that's not success to me. That's enslaved to something. I want a business and to me, the definition of a true business, the further you can move away from it and it doesn't require you to run it, the more successful, more valuable it is.
I've built infrastructure. I've got a great president and I've got a great administrator. I've got a great accountant, a great lawyer, and I pay them very well because they do a great job. But Harry James does what Harry James thinks he's pretty good at. I delegate everything else. I'm happy to pay for it, but it gives me, it protects my most precious asset called time.
I don't know if Sarah does that because I'm trying to find out the name of her cook. There's little things in life, but most women will go, oh, I wouldn't pay for that. Why'd you pay $5 here? It could have been $3 over there and people were running around to save money. Let them line up at a gas station for an hour to save 2 cents. What happened to these?
Why would you do that? Like I pay 50 bucks just to get through the line quicker so I can move on with my life. 407 best thing ever invented. I hate traffic. There's things that I'm happy to pay for in my life because they protect my lifestyle and they protect my most important asset, "time".
Sarah: I hundred percent agree with the delegation because then it allows you to work. Like you said, on the important stuff, the stuff that is going to be well, other than your lifestyle and your family, you can focus on the top part of your business. You can work on the business, not in the business. That's probably how you've been able to grow your likely, the most successful real estate investor that I know. You are still actively buying and you're still actively doing deals. I think it's amazing.
There was a question that I do want to go back to that was asked earlier because of the times that we're going into, are you doing anything differently A with the way that your outlook, your mindset but B from just a tactical point of view, or are you shifting some of the purchases or the strategies or any of that?
Harry: Yes, I am, and that's a great question. Sarah, I've been in business since I was 18. I started in banking. I've been in insurance and finance for 35 years. I'm a chartered financial consultant. I'm a chartered life underwriter. I made my income from that. I made my wealth from investing in real estate, and that's the path that I'm still on.
I don't understand the stock market right now. It makes no sense to me. I don't think we've seen the impact of COVID. I don't think we've seen it in the real estate market. I don't think we've seen it in the stock market. I think people have been trained like white laboratory rats when the market's down, jump in cause everything's good. While this is one of the few times that we can't look back to see where we're going.
This is a pandemic, this was one or a hundred years ago. I've got clients that had 80 employees that are down to two. We haven't seen that yet. They're not selling their building yet. They're not selling their house yet. I had the privilege of interviewing Ken Fowler and real estate people will remember Ken Fowler, Red Leaves, Ellis Facility, Bamford Springs Hotel, West 49, great guy, humble, never wrote a book. Didn't go on the speaking tour. I had the privilege of getting to know them. I had lunch with him. He was pivotal at a key point in my life where I was making some changes.
I also brought him up to the live real factory here and I interviewed him. We interview Harry, James, we interview business people. What was your high? What was your law and how'd you get started? How'd you overcome really bad things and that type of stuff? The human side of things, because we always get the impression that everybody's always got it together.
The truth is everybody's flawed, everybody's scared, everybody feels like a fraud. At some point I interviewed Ken and this guy was just a phenomenon. If you look it up, it's actually on YouTube. Ken Fowler, Harry James. It's an interview. It's about an hour long. People lined up to talk and he was nine years old, still doing deals, Sarah. He was on his way to do a deal. Now use all, they lined up to talk to him like he was a rockstar, but you will see if you watch that interview with ken Fowler.
I say, Ken, what's the secret with real estate. What's the one thing that's been critical for you? You said Harry, in real estate, you have to have staying power. You have to have staying power. When things get bad, you have to have staying power. When your tenants can't pay, you have to have staying power when a catastrophic event occurs. Ken's voice has been ringing in my head. I don't know what Doug Ford's coming from. I don't know what he's smoking, but landlords today don't own thousands of acres and we don't have crowns.
I'm running a business. I don't have 25% to give to people. I think you're sitting here Mr. Ford, like I'm sitting with tons of money and it's okay. I can just give 25% discounts and that's okay. That's not reality. You have to have staying power. I think what's going to happen is when things get tough you're going to have creative ways to see yourself through, but you also want to have some opportunity funds.
I think there's going to be some opportunities that are going to present themselves. This period right now, I think there's a false market. In my opinion, I think there was pent up demand for real estate pre COVID. We've got the lowest interest rates in a hundred years. People are lining up in a frenzy to buy the stuff. Everything is cyclical.
I believe there's going to be a downturn. I believe there's going to be a downturn in the stock market. I believe there's gonna be a downturn in the real estate market. Some people are already talking about recession. We are moving with haste. If we're doing deals, we're closing them quickly. If we're selling quickly. It's not that I don't believe in the product, I buy one of everything I sell. It's just that human beings can be fickle. They can make a commitment, but if the wind blows the wrong way, or see a headline, they can head for the Hills, same with tenants. We're moving with Hayes. We're moving with urgency, we're batting it down.
The hatches were really clean and efficient. We're shopping our insurance system, making sure we're getting the best quotes. We're looking at the maintenance and everything we're doing. We're making sure we don't have any major surprises looming. I hope I'm wrong and I may very well be wrong, but I'm taking a very proactive approach. Assuming that things are going to get ugly before they get better.
Sarah: Thanks for the insight. It is going to be interesting to see what happens with the unemployment, the supply and demand borders. Second wave, not a second wave. Nobody has a crystal ball but I do what you said, right? Plan for the worst, have a contingency, but also have some opportunity money or funds to be able to. Get some amazing deals and wealth, as when you look back at 08 and you listened to some of the American podcasts and a lot of wealth was created in that downturn.
I think there's going to be some great opportunities. Just make sure that you don't want speculators that fall off. Unfortunately, welfare created the highest degree of pessimism, but I will say this, and this is a mandatory comment. I don't mean to upset anybody. I'm not cavalier about COVID. I know what's real. I wore a mask when I picked up my 80 year old mother, the other day, I washed my hands. My social distance. I will say this however, 700,000 people out of 8 million have died. It doesn't even register as a percentage point. Most people that get it, aren't going to die and are going to recover.
Harry: What we're missing out on is COVID will pale in comparison to heart attacks, mental health, diabetes, obesity, you name it. Those things haven't manifested and I'm not being flippant here, but I'll tell you guys my age. I know a bunch of them that have put on 1520 pounds while you don't want guys my age to put on 1520 pounds and they're under a lot of stress. That's not good and it's not easy to rectify. I think COVID is here to stay and we need to stop talking about it.
Be responsible, but just integrate it into your life. You have to have a mask, you have to be responsible, but my goodness, let's stop talking about COVID and start living. Let's just adjust ourselves to let COVID in because it's here and it's not going to be eradicated tomorrow and they're not going to have a fancy buyer.
Some type of shot in two weeks. It's not gonna happen, so accept it. Be happy that it's not killing most of us. Integrate it into your life and get excited about the future. Get excited about the windshield. Forget about the rear view mirror. There's nothing we can do about COVID, but look forward and get excited about making things happen. There's lots of stuff that you can do that COVID can't get in the way. There's lots of stuff that you can do that COVID, can't undermine,
Laurel: One of the things Harry that I think though, is that I agree with you. People are so focused on the sky falling, They call it cold. It is coming and I think throughout the millennia, there have been wars. There've been two major world wars. The last century for heaven sake, the great depression. The 1918 flu pandemic. We have been as a society through stuff before. It's just that our societal memory is short, especially for people who haven't even really understood the influence of a 2008, 2009 situation, because there's a lot of investors just coming up.
I sometimes laugh, not laugh, that's not fair, but I listened to people and they say, oh, this is horrible. Things are falling apart and going, but you know what, if you look at it, there's been recessions. Like it's a cycle in our economy and our society. It's a cycle. This is probably going to be a pretty bad one, but it's not world war II.
Harry: There's not one person on this line that will not, this will not resonate with. I don't mean to be a downer because this was one of those things. Again, that fuels me, causes me to live with a sense of urgency. I just lost a very dear friend in her early sixties. She was fine a year ago. She's taken out by cancer. One of my business partners, one of my closest friends, is battling hard. Chemo is not working. He's using the power of the mind and positive attitude to keep going. But he's been in the hospital a week per month for the last six months. He's battling cancer. We've just gotten used to cancer. We've just integrated cancer.
There is so much hurt and so many things that we have to deal with as human beings. We have to learn how to compartmentalize. We have to learn how to put things in perspective. We have to learn how to function and be the best versions of ourselves, even when things aren't going well. COVID has somehow gotten the whole spotlight because the news talks about it 24/7. I've never seen so much freaking grand standing in my whole life, everybody looking for their prize. The reality is COVID pales in comparison to cancer, heart disease and mental health and addictions is its effects. It's one of our passions, 70% of the population with some stats, 70%.
How do we become well-rounded human beings in functioning at an optimal level with all of this that we deal with? It's by focusing on the stuff that we can control and adopting a perspective and an attitude that will allow us to live the best version of our lives that we can and leave the people that we have the privilege of interacting with better than we found them.
Sarah: That's really well said, Harry. We can keep talking about so many things. You've got probably one of the best mindsets I've ever seen and you are just absolutely entertaining, but also you provide so much insight and so much knowledge. What's one key takeaway that you would like to leave the audience today with?
Harry: I think I've probably said it over and over again. I've had the privilege of working with and encouraging some people and I guess I would just repeat myself by saying this because I think it's the most important thing that needs to be said. Have the courage to push the pause button, look in the mirror and ask yourself, are you being authentic? Are you living your definition of success or are you doing too many things for other people's reasons? Cause if you are, it will be eating away at your soul.
Ask yourself if you're having a conversation with your 90 year old self in the mirror, and you're looking back to today, ask yourself what you regret. What did you dwell on? What did you manufacture? Most of us manage facture problems in our minds that don't even exist. What are you manufacturing right now? That's undermining your life. The very last point, I think the key point is all of the money in the world. Sarah, you can sell all of your real estate. It won't buy you 30 seconds more of life. This is just monopoly folks.
Time is your most incredibly important asset. Don't let people steal it. Don't give it away. Don't waste it. Don't squander it, make every single day count. There's nothing you can do about yesterday. It's arrogant to spend tomorrow. You haven't been given it yet. We always are projecting ourselves. At some point in the future. Everything will be key once I sell this deal and want to get rid of this debt. Once I get rid of this human being, we'll say, you know what? As long as you're alive, there will always be things done. As long as you're alive, there will always be conflict. As long as you're alive, there will always be anxieties and worries. As long as you're alive, there's always going to be amazing opportunities and things you can celebrate. We go to the gym and exercise, right? But the most powerful thing on the planet we spend very little time on is our brains and controlling our thoughts.
When I say the neighborhood between the years, everybody would benefit from doing everything they can to learn how to control their thoughts and feed their mind with positive things, whether it's through meditation or what you watch or what you read or what you hang with, because that is the key component of a healthy well-balanced life.
Sarah: Well said, Harry, thank you so much for being a guest on today's webinar. It's been a pleasure talking to you as always. If anybody is interested in reaching out to Harry, we're going to have your information here so that people can reach out. I know there were additional questions.
Harry: Sarah, about Harry James Live Real cause I got seven followers. I want to get up to 10. I do little 62nd entrepreneurial thoughts, perspectives based on my 40 year journey. If anybody wants to see a few of those that said the Harry James Live Real on Instagram.
Sarah: Thank you so much, Harry. It was a pleasure having you on and you'll hear more from Harry when we're going to talk about what's coming up next, but Harry, thanks so much for being on the show.
Harry: It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Laurel: Sarah, what's your biggest takeaway for this?
Sarah: Mindset, what's in between here is everything. I'll tell you about living in the present and not focusing on the past, not focusing in the future, but living in the present. Like Harry said, 30 seconds, more or 30 seconds less. Time is going to be the most important thing, more so than real estate, more so than any amount of money. You've got to cherish what's truly important. You don't get any more time. What about you, Laurel?
Laurel: What was most important to me was simply that your passion has to be bigger than the discipline you need to get there because if your passion isn't there, it doesn't matter what you do. Doesn't matter what you spend your time on. It just doesn't because all about the time you have, so why are you wasting time on something that's such passion?
Sarah: Absolutely and folks Harry James hjgroup.com. You can reach out to Harry, that way as well, or check him out on LinkedIn.
Laurel: We have podcasts coming up episode 84. Check every Friday we have new podcasts. We have Tony Miller and guess what? Episode 85 is Harry James on a podcast. If you enjoyed this call, listen to that, we'll actually go listen to all of the world. We want to listen to all of them and please share if you liked what we've done then then let other people know, because that's the way we can reach more people on Wednesday, September 2nd, we have a webinar coming up and then on which is we will be social, real estate investing in all kinds of fun stuff.
They come on. It's the last week of the summer before school starts. We'll just have fun kicking back and enjoy it on Wednesday, September 16th. Please join us because we will be talking about what's coming up in our online community and our silver membership unveiling. That's really fun and there's so much coming up with our website Saturday, September 19th and 20th we have additional dwelling unit virtual workshops.
Sarah: Ken Bekendam, if you guys know he is so inspiring, he's done so many of these and he helps a lot of investors create a second suite. It definitely is going to be an amazing workshop.
Laurel: On Wednesday, September 30th it's a two hour event and we're talking about financing and taking back control. That would be a great one too. Our online community, if you haven't joined us, go check it out there. This slide is up, but it's thereiteclub.com. We would love to see you there. It's free to join and get in there and participate in our forums. Meet people, make connections, there's all kinds of stuff. You can watch webinars, videos, and we have all kinds of stuff and we're adding more and more all the time. We'd love to see you there. And you know what, Sarah, I think we're pretty much finished for the evening. Thanks everybody for attending and participating. It was really great. Sarah, have a wonderful evening.
Sarah: Thanks very much guys, hjames@hjgroup.com is Harry's email. Katherine just posted it in the chat. Harry, thanks so much. Laurel, thanks so much and REITE club nation. See you very shortly. Bye guys.
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