Laurel: I've heard this little story that, at one point you walked into the bank and what did you give them?
Milena: I gave them the keys to my first investment property. Yep. I physically walked in the bank and gave them the keys. I was like, I can't do this.
Laurel: wow.
Milena: An epic fail. epic fail. I was young. It was before I became a lawyer. I was a law student. Actually, I had no idea what I was doing and yeah. And I failed, but that's okay. Because look at where I'm now.
Laurel: Exactly. Look at where you are now, you fail big and you learn a lot and you move on. Exactly. If you wanna learn more about Milena's story listen to our podcast. Hi everyone. And welcome to another podcast episode from The REITE Club about real estate investing in Canada. I'm Laurel Simmons, a co-founder of the REITE Club and your co-host. And I have with me here tonight, Francois Lanthier. So Francois, we're talking to Milena Cardinal tonight aren't we who is a real estate investor focused lawyer.
Francois: Yes. And an amazing story. I'm gonna not gonna reveal everything, but there's something about being a digital nomad, losing a property having a child at 21 hardship and then huge success as well. And then. I learned from you, Laurel and Milena about harmony, not work life balance, but harmonizing your lifestyle, which is really true.
So we're talking about customizing your life. How can you stay harmonious and not maybe be balanced cuz some days let's face it you're gonna work more than play more. That's okay too. And you just learn to live with it. So I can't wait to hear the interview.
Laurel: Yeah. Milena is inspiring and just her story is I've heard it a number of times and every time I hear her story, I go, wow, just, wow.So enjoy the story. But before we go there, I'm just gonna add please rate us on any of the the platforms that you're listening to Spotify or Apple or whatever it is. If you give us a rating, a good rating, I hope, but it helps us reach other investors, real estate investors, so that we can provide more training and education to people.
And don't forget to join us at thereiteclub.com, where there's lots of content for you, all kinds of information. When you start poking around, you will be amazed at what you'll find there. That's it folks. And it's time for the interview now,
Welcome Milena Cardinal to our podcast. It's coming into the summer now and we're all relaxing or, but I suspect that you're not relaxing are you not that much?
Milena: No, I wish I was, but no, I'm not. we are in incredibly busy right now.
Laurel: So what's going on? Why are you so busy? Come on. You're supposed to be, we're all supposed to be laid back and sitting by the pool and, having a glass of wine or a margarita or sparkling, whatever, and, just chilling. What are you doing?
Milena: Well I'm getting shit done. I don't know if I can say this on the podcast.
Francois: You can actually.
Milena: Cool. I'm getting shit done. I have clients doing amazing things and I'm blessed to be a part of it and to, watch it unfold and keeps me going, keeps me up at night, keeps me getting up in the morning and getting excited for the day. Yeah, very excited to be part of what all my clients are doing.
And and a couple projects of our own coming down the pipe, which we're very excited about as well. And, I think my husband in particular wish that I would slow down and take a breath from time to time. But I don't know that I do that very well. I know I'm a workaholic a little bit.
Francois: You get bored, I guess. There's nothing going on. I need to do something .
Milena: Yep.
Francois: This is great. This, can you take us back then? Maybe to your earlier years? What was your influence? You didn't just wake up and you have this busy law firm and all these properties and things going on. How did this start?
Milena: No, definitely not. My parents are business management consultants or were, they're both retired, but they were business management consultants. , I was raised very much in that environment. They ran a business from home together, which was, inspirational, and at the same time a little bit crazy and both of them went to university after like later in life and actually met in university. And for them, I think for both of them, what they shared was that university was almost like a salvation to the careers that they really didn't enjoy so much before. And so they pushed my brother and I towards university very much and I, not that I have anything against it, I think it was wonderful.
And , I learned so much and I had such wonderful experiences in school and definitely enjoyed every bit of it. I've realized though in the last few years in particular that the most successful people I know are not necessarily people who went to school. And I think watching people operate in the world of real estate, the particular skills that I apply to law are very similar actually, to what people apply to growing a portfolio or to being a mortgage broker or to our real estate agents who are real estate investor focused. I feel like there's a lot of similarities in what we do things in the way that we think.
Laurel: I think that's all relevant because you talked about your parents and cuz everything we do or everything we experience obviously affects what we're doing now. But what was the one thing, what was the trigger for you to get into real estate?
Because you are an investor and you're also a real estate Lawyer who specializes in helping investors. What is it like, what drove you to do that? What was the defining moment or the whatever? Maybe it wasn't a defining moment. Maybe it was a whole bunch of moments.
Milena: I think it was but there was definitely a clear path that led me here. I was basically a main street, general practice kind of law firm. And I was was doing a bit more real estate but I wasn't real estate investor focused. And then I'm met my husband and my husband is American. And so when he arrived in Canada, he only had a visitor visa until we got his permanent residency.
And so he wasn't allowed to work in Canada. And he's the kind of guy that can't still for a movie. So the idea of getting him to sit still, all day and do nothing was excruciating, frankly. So he needed to do something. So it's why don't we just buy a property and flip it? And that's how we started out is we started doing a few investments because that was allowed of course.
And so we do did a few investments. Low and behold, I fell in love with real estate investing. I loved every aspect of it. , to me, it's like a puzzle. It's almost like I can see it. And it's palpable almost how it structures and how it comes together. And I just completely fell in love with it.
And because we were real estate investors ourselves, I started to attract a clientele of real estate investors and then made a few key connections. Through those connections got introduced to other connections and eventually built a practice around real estate investing. And one thing that I always say is that I feel like there's two degrees of separation between all the real estate investors in Canada.
We're all like a little village, all spread out over Canada, but we all know each other. So once you're in with the real estate investors, it's it just skyrockets from there because it's like a web and you get to meet all of these amazing people and, , I just got so excited to, to get to know all these people and see what they're doing and just learn new ways of doing things . So it was gradual but I think in the end it was very purposeful. It was just figuring out where my heart lies and I didn't expect it, but it lies in real estate investing.
Francois: Very cool story. And I like your influence is your husband and out of a need, a lot of people do real estate cuz they had, I don't know, stocks fall or crash or they don't have a retirement, but this is a very different angle. But I love also that , you join this community and you're right. Two degrees of separation. Yeah. Not six. Definitely not. even worldwide. It's shocking, how many contacts you end up having in other countries and things. Milena, and maybe I'll be a little indiscrete, but I heard something about you spending some time abroad. Maybe you can tell us more about that sounds exciting.
Milena: It was planned. The idea that we had was that we would go to a country. Initially, we didn't know which one we would go to a country for two weeks. And if we loved it, we would go back for about two, two and a half months. But then because everybody was working from home and we felt so secluded in our home working from here. And this was back in September, October of last year.
So we were feeling very cooped up and we were looking at the prospect of another winter feeling cooped up. And the thing is at that point, my practice had become fully virtual. Everybody was working from home anyway. And my husband had stopped working his nine to five to focus fully on our portfolio about a year prior.
So we looked at each other and we said we don't have to stay here. So instead of doing two weeks and then going back in from January to March, we decided to just stay. So ultimately I was in Columbia from the last week of October until February. And then in February, we went to Mexico.
We toured Mexico for about a month. Yucatan peninsula for about a month. We went all kinds of places. And then we spent a few weeks in my husband's family in the states and then came home around early April. So that was quite an adventure and it was fortuitous that the world being the way it is, silver lining, it allowed us to do that.
I don't know that I'll recreate the same experience. I'm hoping to spend time down south in the winters, but not quite as much as last year.
Francois: Talk about customizing your life. So Laurel and The REITE Club, we always talk about customizing your life. So this is a major way of customizing it while working, which is amazing.
Milena: We never stopped operating. I took a few weekends here and there, but that was it. I never really took any vacation per se. I was working the whole time. Except when I was on the airplanes.
Laurel: You really are. Yeah. I was on airplane a week ago and I was working, I just said, oh, for heaven sakes, buy, the wireless, access and I worked, what am I gonna do? It's ridiculous. Actually, it's four hours of solid work time. Sure. You really are the digital nomad. There's just so many ways to work and you don't have to be at your own home if we're all. , as you say, isolated, and for months on end, Really doesn't matter where I'm isolated. Can't, I be isolated in a place where I don't, have snow up to my knees.
Milena: Well, exactly right. It's yeah, it was it was enough layers of complication, I think. And we were just like if we can at least take the cold away.
Laurel: And I think too that if as we move forward from the last couple of years, I think we're gonna find that there's been a kind of a seismic shift in what people realize they can do in terms of that kind of work.
Because as real estate investors, when we always knew that you didn't have to be there, but I think it's really sunk in with people now that no, you do not have to be in that city or that, area or that province or that country to invest. And the same with all our service providers our legal team, our mortgage brokers.
We don't have to be right in like I don't have to be able to drive to see him . Not that I do anyway, but it is a psychological barrier, but I think it's fallen for a lot of people.
Milena: Yeah, and and it was the right decision for us as a family, but it was also individually a really good decision there were all kinds of layers of advantages that I didn't factor in like health. I was so much healthier down there that I normally am in the winter. Like normally in the winter, it's very dry. I have My skin has is different. My breathing is different. My ability, my eyes get tired, more easily.
My hands tend to get really cracked just because of how much I work during the day. I have rheumatoid arthritis, so I had a lot of pain, but by being away for the winter, I was actually extremely healthy. So I know it's a bit ironic, but I was a lot more productive spending those months down south than I was here. So it was absolutely amazing. And I think, it was a strange thing because it angered some people, but it inspired most of the clients that I would say, or the kind of clients that I love to have. It was almost inspirational. And I was like, whoa, like I did not anticipate that wonderful fringe benefit.
Francois: Yes. So what drives you to do what you do? And I think you touched on that is that the nice people and the creativity, but I'll let you answer the question.
Milena: Sure. I think maybe just to take a bit of a step back, I come from relatively humble beginnings.
I wasn't wanting for anything when I was growing up, but I had a child at 21 and my parents were very clear that they did not expect to be taking care of me now that I was a mother. And it was a great gift that they gave me. That forced me to take responsibility, but I was actually on welfare for the first two years of my daughter's life and, and then went back to school and figured it out.
And then eventually started my practice. And I guess I have a deep appreciation for the hustle. And when my clients are like stretch thin and working on trying to put together a deal and it's gruesome sometimes , it's excruciating. Cause you're like, I put so much work into this and we're almost at the finish line and it's like just a little bit, just a little bit more, a little bit more.
And so I have a deep appreciation for that. And I think that it's very inspirational for me to be a part of those deals, those transactions the paths that my clients are on I've made so many friends from those relationships as well, which led to our own portfolio growing as well. It's all linked. And yeah, I think what drives me yes is the creativity that comes with real estate. The fact that it's like a puzzle. I like when it's a big mess, when clients are like, oh, I have this really complicated situation and I don't know how to fix it.
And I can almost like palpable. I can just see it in front of me and be like, oh, this is the solution. This is how we deal with. Oh, okay. That sense of accomplishment that I feel from having the ability to help is massive for me.
Laurel: So I wanna go back to a comment you just made, which really peaked my interest. And you said that some people were angry with you because you weren't working here. Why? Like what was going on with that?
Milena: I'm not sure I could have really understand. It was only a few and it wasn't necessarily real estate investors or the kind of clients that I'm very passionate about working with.
But there were definitely a few clients that I could feel were upset. It's almost like they felt abandoned that I had left the country and I'm like, but I'm still working. I'm still working just as much as I was, if not before, if not more than before. I'm not sure why.
Laurel: Just an odd anyway, but you know what, as you said, you are narrowing the feel of the people whom you wanna work with and we all do that , in our investing lives. And in anything else, you wanna work with other investors , whom you have similar values and ethics and all the rest of it.
And I'm sure you want those. The clients that match up that align with your values and ethics and so , that makes sense. So Milena where do you invest? Like you personally, you and your husband, what areas do you invest in?
Milena: Let's see. We have 25 doors of our own, which are mostly in the Cornwall area and some in a small town outside of Ottawa .
But in the last few years, we've really tried to hone in on what we're really passionate about and what we really love to do. And we're actually working with a coach now, which is very exciting next step. And one of the things That was the most revealing for me to come to that conclusion was that I love relationships. I love partnerships. And so for me, it's not so much about the deal itself, as much as the person that I'm joined venturing with and their passion for the deal. And I love being in a more supportive role to a joint venture partner. And so now we've invested in a large multiplex in Shawinigan in Quebec.
We're also working on a flip in Smiths falls and we have a few investments elsewhere, including in Nova Scotia. Thanks to you guys.
Laurel: Wow. Quebec. That's a whole different ballgame because now you're into different legal. Oh my goodness.
I remember way back in the day when we, Daniel and I were doing some stuff in in Gatineau. Cause we were living in Ottawa at the time and we had some rent to own. And I remember the lease option agreement, all stuff that you have to place, we sent it to a notary in Quebec and it came back.. It was like a book. I swear it was a book. We sent maybe, I don't know, 10 pages and what came back had to be at least 35 or 40. And I just looked at Daniel and I said, what?
Milena: So many investors are writing out Quebec. Like they just write it off. They're like, I'm just not touching Quebec for that reason. And it was Thursday. It was when , we went to the pop event in Ottawa , when I was speaking and everybody was talking about Quebec and oh my God, this is a minefield. And then the next day we met up with , joint venture partners who are we're doing the deal in Shawinigan with.
And they said, it's like this abyss, right? And you send the deal to the notary in Quebec and it falls in this abyss. And then at some point it closes and you have no idea in between what's going on. And I was like, it's only been two, three days now. So give me a little bit of time, but I can't imagine there isn't one notary out there that's doing it differently. I am making it my mission to find this notary and to work with them so that I can transition at least clients towards a setup that makes sense because it's still like a service based business and I have to be able to find a notary. That's gonna be able to assist these clients and to investing in that beautiful province. I don't understand why it has to be that way.
Laurel: Okay. So here we go. Anyone who's listening. Please, we are putting the plea out. We're sending it out into the universe. If you know of a really great notary to work with in Quebec and who specializes in real estate, not just real estate law, but real estate investors. Cuz they are different. You have to know both, but. Real estate investing it's really important. That distinction, please let us know.
Like just let us know. And we'll get that information out because yes, you are not the only person who is invested in Quebec or who has invested or who will invest. Cause there's a lot of potential there. Absolutely.
Milena: Yeah. And I think the key element is working collaboratively because if I can find it for instance, I had a client who was investing through Olympia Trust. So he was a private lender investing through Olympia Trust and self-directed RSPC FSAs, etc. And he wanted to invest in Quebec and we had done a deal together. So he asked me, are you able to work in Quebec? And I was like, sadly, no I can't. But so he went to a notary in Quebec and it was a disaster. Like it was like six months to close this deal. And I was like, but it takes two days really to get all the documents necessary for Olympia Trust. And I could have done that. I can't actually register the deed or the charge or whatever in Quebec, but I can certainly help organize the documents.
And I kept offering my help, not once did this notary even return an email. I must have emailed them 10 times and been like, look, I will fill out the forms and send them to you. I know exactly what Olympia Trust wants, but I couldn't get them to give back to me. And I don't know why.
I really don't understand that. So a notary that works collaboratively and is willing to learn could get so much business from our group of investors that just want to invest in Quebec. They just want someone who's gonna be communicative. That's it. And collaborative. .
Francois: Well, Milena, we need to talk offline after this. There are some great investor clubs, and I know quite a few people in Quebec that do invest creatively with registered funds and all of that. So I'm sure I can connect you. There you go. You threw it out in the universe. I know people that will know people, guaranteed. So let's have a chat, any listeners as well in Quebec, let us know and we can absolutely help you out.
So our next question is how do you juggle work life balance? Cuz this sounds like quite a busy lifestyle. You got a portfolio, you have a husband, you have to keep busy and then you have a like a big practice. That's booming. Virtual. How do you balance all this?
Milena: I don't know that I do that great of a job if I'm being honest and I think part of it is the volume of work that we do, but part of it is just who I am. I think I'm a workaholic, and I get so much joy and so much energy from the work that I do. That's not always fair to my family, unfortunately and I try to carve out some time where I'm completely devoted to my family, but realistically I'm not the best at having a good work life balance, but I'm working on it. I am working on it.
Laurel: Really interesting you say that because I talked to a number of people about work life balance and I think I was doing another podcast fairly recently. And I said, oh my goodness, somebody talks to me about work life balance my eyes roll so hard in my head. It's like they fall outta my head because there is no such thing.
And I think we do ourselves such a disservice to talk about worklife balance. There really isn't any worklife balance. There is none. There's no balance in the universe. There's not as much there just isn't there is not, but there's harmony what I call harmony. You can set your life up so that it works smoothly.
Forget the balance. It just, it doesn't exist and it never will. And so I like, so you're working on harmony and, look that works for me.
Milena: Yeah, so I would say that's true for me too.
Laurel: See, there you go. There you go. I got the message out again. Yay, Laurel! All right, so we're gonna go to the lightning round.
So you know, this works. We're gonna just ask you a quick question. And you just respond any way you want and so I'll start Milena, knowing what you know now, what would you say to your 21 year old self about circumventing the process and moving ahead, even faster. What advice would you give yourself?
Milena: I would say, just do it. Like just start investing early, figure out a way that works for you and do it. Don't be afraid to jump because I feel like a lot of investors think they need to have it all figured out before doing their first investment. And sometimes you just gotta go for it. I'm not saying going at Willy nilly and cavalierly, but yeah, like just do it.
Francois: So you mentioned joint ventures. How do you pick partners? That's a big one in 30 seconds.
Milena: I think I go by gut instinct, the joint venture partners that we're investing with in Shawinigan they were clients . They were so amazing with me. And I kept thinking all of their suppliers must love working with them and I was like, I wanna joint venture with them.
Laurel: Okay. That's a really good tip, actually, and you're right, you can look at numbers and numbers can say a lot, but it never gives the entire picture. Never ever. Okay.
Question number three. If you had your druthers, where would you like to spend a week long holiday?
Milena: Thailand
Laurel: ooh, Thailand. Why?
Milena: I wanna see the world, I wanna see everything, but there's always been something about Thailand and I've never been to Asia, so it's definitely on the bucket list, but I do expect that it's gonna be a long trip. So I don't think I can afford to do that for the next few years anyway. But yes, I'm very excited about seeing Asia, but for some reason Thailand's always been , top of the list for me.
Francois: And the fourth question at continuing with this is how do you become a digital nomad as a lawyer? I never thought I'd like, usually it's more customer service or graphic artist or something, but now you're the head of a law firm and you're a digital nomad.
I love it. I really love it. But you have one big tip how to prepare to do such a thing.
Milena: I think it's a couple of things. I wish I had one, but I think it's a handful of things. And top of it would be the fact that we've always been innovative. We've always looked for the better way of doing things, the easier way of doing things, the faster way of doing things. And efficiency was always top of the list for me. At one point we ran out of storage space in the building that we are in. And I said, okay, that's it, we're going paperless because there's no way I'm going to an offsite storage every time we need a document. So we went paperless about five years ago, although it took two years to get there. So that was a big factor, I think. And then another huge factor is I have a phenomenal team and they were extremely supportive and they assisted every way they could, even though it made their life a lot harder for a while when they adapted to me not being physically present in Canada. So it was amazing, the support that I got from my team , and that allowed me to do that.
Laurel: All right. There you go. Like just have the team, have the support and have the systems. Oh, I think that's my mantra.
Have the team have the support, have the systems and if they're good, they'll support you no matter where you are, it doesn't matter.
Francois: And then drink wine.
Milena: For what it's worth, I do my best to support them as well. I know really support, beneficial relationship, but my point is like having a team , I treat them like they're gold and then they give it back.
Laurel: And that's how we all wanna be treated. And that's that works. It works for everyone. Everybody wins. Okay. Milena how come people reach you?
Milena: I believe you guys have my contact information. It's gonna be put in the notes, but do you want me to say it out loud as well?
Laurel: It'll be in the show notes, but what's the best way. Should they email you? Should they go to your website? Like what?
Milena: I think email is a phenomenal way of reaching me info@cardinallaw , info@cardinallaw.ca is probably the best way. , and then we send a link and you book a consultation.
Laurel: All right. There we go. Yeah. Thank you very much. Milena. We will see you at other popup events. I'm sure. And we'll see you on the webinars that we do and we'll just see you.
Milena: I look forward to it.
Laurel: Okay. Thank you.
Milena: You too. Have a good night.
Francois: Hey, Laurel. Wow. How was that? That was so inspirational. I just loved some of the comments that Milena had to share with us. Some of the stories spending the winter as a digital nomad lawyer, which I never expected and so many good tips and tricks. So what was your top takeaway.
Laurel: I think for me, it was simply that she was able to go away for many months and with, without a blip that there's just today, in this day and age and with the technology we have, there's just really If you that's what you wanna do then do it.
Don't let I don't know how to do it or I don't know if it can be done, let them don't let questions stop you. Of course they can be done. So figure it out and go and enjoy your life. Cuz we only go around once.
Francois: That's it. So let's start customizing our lives right now and do Milena just do it. And then of course plan and everything and learn. But do it as well. Don't hesitate cuz time goes, yeah,
Laurel: exactly. Customizing your life. That's her model. She's really doing it. So anyway. Until the next time have a great evening, a great day whenever you're listening to this. And we'll see you online.
We'll see you in a live event. And we'll I guess see you, listen to you. Talk to you on a podcast,
Francois: all the best take care.
Laurel: Milena we are just talking about some really cool investing that you're doing, in Quebec, right?
Milena: Yep. I'm investing in multiplex in Shawinigan.
Laurel: I know that Francois and I know Daniel and I, and a lot of other people, when we go to Quebec, we run into a whole different I don't wanna say barrier, but it is a barrier in a sense it's a separate language and it's a different legal code. It's a civil code.
Milena: A lot of investors are talking about Quebec. It's , this no man's land that nobody should touch because it's so complicated out there. And I find that so unfortunate, cuz there's some beautiful deals to be made out there. And so I am on a mission to find a notary that I can work with that would be collaborative and communicative and just really good at what they do and real estate investor focused. There's gotta be one out there. So that I can begin this beautiful relationship and encourage people all over Canada and maybe beyond to invest to Quebec.
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