Epic Real Estate Investing - Forget Real Estate! Invest in THIS Instead. with Jayson Gaignard | 604

Episode Date: March 7, 2019

Jayson Gaignard came to the show to share why a self-made strategy is a myth and to advise you how to create and maintain those worthwhile relationships that can be of great value to your business. Listen and learn why you should keep your word and invest in relationships, how he runs his business, and why you should focus on the quality rather than quantity of relationships. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terio Media. I go wide in my networking, but I go deep in my nurturing of relationships, and that's a huge focus for me. And that's very, yeah, it's very against the grain as far as, like, what the gospel is in the relationship space, which is just, like, know everybody or have, like, go millimeter deep with 20,000 people. But they don't have any deep and genuine relationships. And for me, at the end of day, it doesn't matter how many friends you can count.

It matters how many friends you can count on. Hey, Matt Terrio here, and it is a hot day today. I got a great episode for you of Thought Leader Thursday right here on the Epic Real Estate Investing Show. All right, so on today's episode of Thought Leader Thursday, I'm joined by a very special individual, one of the more connected people I think I've ever met, but it wasn't always like that. It wasn't too long ago as he was stuck on the entrepreneurial hamster wheel, building a business that he hated to buy things that he didn't need, to impress people that he didn't even like.

And after hitting rock bottom on every front imaginable, he burned the boats in search of something new, something fulfilling. He didn't know what that would be at the time, but if by the end of his first MMT, his mastermind talks event in May of 2013, he knew he had found it. And I think this was fitting. I found this quote on his website. Forget real estate. Forget stocks. Forget cryptocurrencies. Relationships are the ultimate asset. Self-made is a myth, he says. The truth is no one ever does it alone. We need other people to lean on and to learn from. I couldn't agree more. So please help me.

Welcome to the show, Mr. Jason, Garner. Jason, welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. Okay, I couldn't agree more minus the real estate comment. No, it's fitting. We're going to make it all blend eventually, right? So, Jason, I was, you know, we've known each other for a little bit, a little bit. We've never really got to talk, and we just admitted, like, here recording that this is the first time we really had to be an opportunity to talk face to face here. What was it that you were doing that when you're on this entrepreneur,

real hamster wheel. And what was it that caused the crash? Yeah, so it was multiple factors. I mean, for me, I wasn't much of an academic, so I dropped out of high school. And I ventured into kind of entrepreneurship and like, I guess the traditional gospel as far as how you start a business is you build a business based on opportunity and proximity. How can you make the most amount of money as quickly as possible, given your skill set? And I inevitably, I fell into the event ticketing business. So selling and reselling concert tickets online. So similar to like a stub hub, I had a large brand called Tickets Canada, which was a wholesaler, retailer up in Canada. And it was one of those things that made a lot of money. But I don't go to sporting events.

I hate concerts. So it's hard to sell something and, you know, dedicate 80% of your waking day to something that you're not passionate about. So I just was out of alignment. And didn't really understand the importance of being in alignment with the work that you do in the sense that I was just pursuing making money. I didn't have a lot of money as a kid and I saw my father trade, you know, his time for money and that kind of stuff and I didn't want to fall into that same trap. So my only goal when I was young was to make money and make money I did. But I realized as I went along that at one point in time I was earning 22 times a national average income and in most business circles that would be celebrated. But I quickly realized that I wasn't

22 times happier than the average male wasn't 22 times healthier. Actually had kidney complications because of stress at the age of 23. So I realized that money and happiness skill very differently and I was just, that industry that I was in wasn't for me. So again, it forced me to burn the boats, so to speak. Yeah, I like the expression. So essentially, you burned the boats and you mentioned in your bio, you didn't really mention it just now, but you said you hit rock bottom and from spiritually

and emotional. Yeah, well, I mean, how that rock bottom came to be was, again, probably, I guess I'm glad you bring that up because there's a little bit of disconnect. I'm making money hand over a fist and now I'm hitting a rock bottom. So really what happened in that period was for me, I could have positioned that business for sale. But when I realized my heart wasn't in it, I didn't have the eagerness to like stay in the business to, you know, put it for sale, find a buyer, do some transition process like that. to me, that's like an 18-month two-year plan. And I realized I was not in alignment with the business I need to get out. So for me, what the plan was was to scale the business down to zero,

was to remove myself from the business and slowly scale it down to zero. But unfortunately, historically, I wasn't great at hiring eight talent, I guess he could say. So I had B-level players in the business, who had C-level players under them. So when I remove myself from the equation, the business started to implode from the inside. And everybody knew their fate. I mean, they knew that the business was scaling down. So they knew they had to start looking for other opportunities and that kind of stuff. So they weren't all that invested in the business.

But we were scaling down. And my goal was to scale down, have a little bit of money left in the bank, have a soft landing and then figure out what I was going to do next. But again, because all the inefficiencies and the lack of care on everybody's part, and more importantly, two specific situations. One was I had a bank called my loan. And then right afterwards, I had my merchant's, services provider put me 100% reserve, meaning that 97% of my transactions took place online

and basically overnight they eliminated all my cash flow. Every single charge I put through would go would be put into a reserve bank account that I couldn't touch unless I close my my merchant services account and waited six months. So it just killed the business. And I was so detached. I was like forget it. I don't care like things are going to happen. how they happen. And then ultimately, in August of 2012 is when the dust settled and I was a quarter million dollars in debt with no business, no cash flow, didn't know I was going to do next. The following month, September 1st, my daughter was turning six months old. September 1st, I got married to my wife in the Bahamas. So there's the same thing that when one door closes,

another one opens, but it sucks to be stuck in the hallway. And that was a very dark hallway for me at the time. So that was, I guess, how I hit that rock bottom, so to speak, after being off a financial high, you know, only a few years prior. Got it. So you're in a position now. You've got to start over, basically. You're not really quite sure what it is, what it's going to be. So how did the idea and the execution, really, of Mastermind Talks come about?

Yeah, I mean, the only thing I was certain of into that transition period was I didn't want to run into the same problem again of building something that didn't light me up. So what happened was in that transition period, somebody, a friend of mine posted a Facebook, that they had an extra ticket and goes, he set goaded in New York. And I've always been a big fan of Setsworths. He's written, God knows how many New York Times bestselling books, but I've never had an opportunity to seem to speak live in person. So I had no other obligations at the time being unemployed, no business in my life. So I said, I'll take the ticket.

So I got that was the first time I ever booked a hostel because I couldn't find much more than that in the budget I was working with and went to this workshop, didn't know what it was about. But it turned out the theme of it was the connection economy and how there's huge value connecting like-minded individuals. And at the time, just being where I was, I didn't build my business at the expense of relationships, but I built them at the expense of investing relationships. Like relationships weren't a focus for me. So I was just very socially isolated at the time. And I came back to Toronto, which is where I'm based out of, and decided to start doing these things called Mastermind Dinners, where I'd invite eight entrepreneurs out for dinner with the core focus of connecting them.

And the first one I did, I almost canceled two hours prior. Because I'm like, nobody's going to see value in this. I think I completely wasted their time. But being two hours of showtime, I couldn't cancel, but some people were already on their way. So out of integrity, I'm like, I have to follow through. And the dinner turned out to be a big success. It lasted.

It lasts like four and a half hours. Conversation didn't skip a beat. And I just got clarity that being in proximity of great people and connecting people was something I wanted to do to some capacity for the rest of my life. And not necessarily as a business because I was paying for these dinners out of pocket. And I didn't know how I was going to pay rent the next month. But I was paying for these dinners. And my reasoning was that I was pretty sure I was going to declare bankruptcy.

I have never declared bankruptcy before. but that was pretty rock bottom for me. And my reasoning was that the bank could take my car, they could take whatever measly assets I have left, but they can't take my relationships. Investing in myself and investing in my relationships, to me, were the safest investments I could make. So I continued on with the dinners,

and then a few months later, Dan named Tim Ferriss, who's a five-time New York Times bestselling author, was coming out with a book called A Four-Hour Chef. Oh, sorry, yeah, four-hour chef. And I've known Tim for years, but many people don't know this, but four-hour Shep was his third book,

his first two books for our work week, for our body, were New York Times bestsellers. And obviously the expectation is that his next book is going to become a New York Times bestselling book as well. Well, unfortunately, what happened was he was banned from all retail distribution. So Barnes & Noble, Walmart, everybody.

And that was three weeks before the book came out. What was the reason for that? The reason was he was the first thing name author to publish through Amazon. And the old traditional kind of publishing arm wants to make an example out of him because Amazon was becoming too big of a player in the space. So Tim is one of the best book marketers I know. And he created these book bundle campaigns that if you bought 10 books, he'd give you these

additional resources. If you bought 50 books, maybe he'd do a webinar with you or something. We had this Hail Mary package that if you bought 4,000 books, he'd do two-speed engagements. And at the time, I was one of the first people to see this opportunity. I thought of a friend of mine named Scott who does these big events. They have nine events a year, a couple thousand people show up to these business events. And I said, dude, this is a great opportunity for you because Tim's never spoken in Canada and he doesn't speak that often. Plus, you can move the books.

And the minute I click send on that email, I said, well, Tim's only offering one package. And there's different ways that, you know, you could manage or leverage this opportunity. So I emailed Tim directly and I said, I'll take the package. The only problem is, is again, I was serious. debt living off gift cards and I had to come up with $84,000 in three days. I just did the math real quick. I had to been about $80,000, right? Yeah, I was. There you go. Yeah, so it's $84,000. But if you had prime shipping, you probably got a good deal, right?

Well, oddly enough. So I bought 4,000 books. I still have $3,200 in Denver, Colorado. So if you ever need books for one of your events, you just love it. Unfortunately, it's the worst book he ever wrote. I'm like, if it was a four-hour work week or something, I could have done something. Yeah, it wasn't what the title wasn't nearly as intriguing as the first two, right? No, there was a lot of mistakes of that one. But ultimately, I bought the books and I mean, how I came up from money. That was the biggest part was in the sense that all my businesses in the past I built on credit cards. I was kind of born and raised with this sense of pride that you don't ask for help from anybody and all that kind of stuff.

So to raise money was a really scary proposition for me. But I reached out to three friends. The first one I called said, sounds awesome. come back to me with some numbers and I'm like I'm not a numbers thinker as an entrepreneur. I just have a gut feeling around things. So I was like, all right, I'll loop back with you, but I don't even know how this industry works. I've never done an event before. Second person I spoke to said, sounds great.

Let's start a business together 50-50. And I said, sounds awesome to me. I have one more person to call. Third person I called said, we were house away, like halfway through the pitch. And he said, yeah, I just come to my office tomorrow morning, pick up a check. I hung up the phone. I didn't keep him on the phone any longer than that. the following morning, I picked up the check first thing and deposited the money.

And that's how we, I got in the event. It gave me goosebumps. Yeah. And then after that, the funny thing about that story is that after that first event, because it was a big success by a lot of people's standards. And one of the core reasons for that is I always say ignorance, confidence, and hard work can go a long way. But I didn't know what I was doing.

The planning of the event was significantly closer to a wedding that was conference. And it still is to this day. but after that event was a success, a couple months later, I reached back out to the sky because we didn't talk about repayment terms. We didn't talk about what was this money, what capacity is this money? Is it a loan? Is it an investment?

What other case may be? Anyways, I reached out a couple months after the event and I said, you know, why did you give me that money? Why did you lend me that money? Because on paper, it's like the worst investment you could make. I'm 27 years old,

a new father, can't make rent, I'm just coming off a failed business. You're handing me an $84,000 check. And I'll never forget. he said, I wasn't investing in the business. I was investing in you. And at that point in time, two things became very clear. One is you never know the value of your network until you really need it.

And two, when you hit rock bottom in life, which we all do at some point in time, you're really left with two things. The first thing is your word, and the second thing is your relationships. So never tarnish your word and always invest in your relationships. And that's why I've been so bullish on relationships for the last six years. Interesting. Fascinating story. Great.

Thanks for sharing that. One thing I've noticed about Mastermind talks, I've never been, but I've seen like who's been on the speakers list over the years. And I think also what's almost equally as impressive is who are the attendees, who are the guests, right? What was the initial attraction for you to, I mean, you started with a Seth Godin speech and then you had probably developed a relationship with Tim out of that, right? Or it got stronger because you knew before. Sure. And, you know, how does that evolve? How does that grow?

Is it just one person at a time and methodically doing that? No, I mean, listen, I would love to, yeah, my ego would love to say it's all hard work. But it's not. I mean, a lot of success has to do with timing and lucky breaks. And I'm just smart enough to leverage those lucky breaks and see, you know, trends and really jump on them. So really for us, first things first, Tim had quite a big influence back then. I didn't have money to pay speakers. and nothing

forces you to be creative more than crushing debt. So I didn't have money and base speakers at the time. So what I did was I took a page out of the XPRIZ model, which was I created a prize for the best talkers voted by the audience.

And so I did this $25,000 dollar prize. And then I had Tim as the main speaker initially. He was the first speaker I got. So I actually took a page out of, I guess the real estate playbook, so to speak, and used them almost like an anchor tenant. So I knew I could get people who wanted to be connected to Tim to speak at the event for free or people who are already friends with Tim but they're never at the same place at the same time.

So similar to if you have a mall that's flailing or that kind of stuff, you have a Nordstrom that comes in as a tenant, most likely that'll bring another, you know, A level tenant like an Apple store and an Apple store or bring somebody else and that kind of stuff. So that was kind of the thing with Tim is I had this big name, you know, speaker in Tim and then I can bring in other people and that's ultimately what happened. So I got a bunch of like TED speakers to speak. Lewis House was there, Mark Echo from Echo Clothing, Ryan Holiday, all these people. And that's how we built that first event.

The byproduct of bringing all of his friends together was, and this again is just a testament to like seeing things that are working and leveraging them. Usually when you go to an event, a speaker comes out from behind a set of curtains, does their talk and then leaves. Well, because it was all his friends, he stayed the entire two days of the event. and all the speakers stayed the entire two days of the event. They sat in the audience like everybody else and participated like everybody else. So that changed the dynamic of the event really, really quickly. Also, because of the caliber of people in that curation, because we have 4,200 entrepreneurs applied for that first event.

Because of that curation, we had 15 speakers that year. 10 of them came back as paid attendees the following year. And then the icing on the cake, I guess you could say, is because we had this competition model. We had these big-name speakers. Like Tim is a friend, he charges a $100,000 keynote fee oftentimes. So we have these big name speakers. The funny thing that happened to year one and happened every year since was that first year, the first place winner, second place winner, and the four people tied for third.

None of them were the big names. They were all the unknowns. The names were like eight, 12, that kind of stuff. So from a brand equity perspective, people realized it didn't matter who was on the stage. From a big name perspective, they knew we were going to pick the right people. And also people got a good understanding that the quality of the event was really the quality of people in the room. So every year we pivoted more to this peer to peer model. And now our three and a half day event, well, I think we had one or two speakers last year in Park City.

So it's not, to me, the best learning doesn't happen in conference room. It happens in conversation. It happens in conversation over yoga in the morning, over breakfast, over drinks after dinner. Right. That's really, if I could boil down the essence of master my thoughts to anything, it's great people, great food, great experiences. in a beautiful setting with learning intertwined throughout the event. For those that are just meeting you for the very first time, you can just kind of explain to what the format is and what it actually is.

Yeah, so basically, since our inception in 2013, we've had just over 18,000 entrepreneurs apply for a community that's capped at 150 people annually. 18,000 have applied. You allow 150 at a time. 150 every year, yeah. Right, okay. And usually when you have success in this industry, the common strategy to scale is more events or bigger events. That's what everybody was.

For us, instead of scaling in size every year, we scale by raising the price and by raising the caliber of people in attendance. So our first event was $1,000. Our last event was $10,000. Our next event is $12,000. So it's gone up every year. And just because we're allowed last year doesn't mean you're necessarily allowed back. But we had the old, like, the Jack Welch model of like we would only allow a third of the people. people to come back for the first couple years and we'd knock out the bottom two-third.

But then after a few years, I'm like, well, how much of a community is it if you're knocking out two-thirds? So we changed it to like a 50-50 model, which has been working well for us. But ultimately, yeah, it's almost like a one-year community, I guess you could say, which kicks off with this three-day live experience. And these live events take place all across kind of North America. Our last event was in Park City. Then prior to that was Carmel. Ohio, California. Our next one's in Cabo. And yeah, it's just, it's become a beautiful collection of people.

And it's really what makes it different than most, I guess, events is that it really is a community. In the sense that, like, 95% of my own personal social time is with these people. We just did a Disney cruise with, like, 80 people in their families, you know, last week. We do, like, at the end of the month, we're going to L.A. where a bunch of us, probably about 40 of us, are doing a coaching and mentorship day at current correctional facility to help men transition out of the prison system. So we're always doing stuff like that. So that's what really makes it different than any, the majority of the other entrepreneur

events and, you know, organizations and that kind of stuff. You know what? You just brought that up. I think my wife is going to be there through the EO organization. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. So I'll have her seek you out. That's awesome.

volunteered for that a few weeks ago, so good. That is a beautiful experience. Yeah, she's really looking forward to it. She's, like, actually kind of giddy about it. So I can't wait to hear what the experience is like. And then the last thing about this real quickly. So we talked about, we're coming up on six years now, right? I just saw the date.

I guess May is next month, I guess, or two months away, right? So 2013 to 2019. That's true. It is going to be six years. Yeah, I just did the math right here while I was talking to you. And you mentioned a few of the people that were there to set it off in the beginning, just to give people an idea of the magnitude. Who are some of the other people that have come through over the years?

Well, Tim Ferriss has come back as an attendee since. Brian Scudamore was there this year. He owns $1,800 a junk. They do $440 million a year. Adam Franklin who owns Franklin for like the base, but they make baseball in sportswear. So the baseball meets and that kind of stuff. So if you ever seen here at the baseball, Franklin is a well-known brand. Definitely.

Dave Asprey from Bulletproof has been for the last two to four years. I'm trying to think who else. Esther Perel is a well-known TED speaker. Yeah, probably one of the most well-known TED speaker, especially when it comes to relationships

and that kind of jazz. I only share that because, like, what excites me most is the up-and-combers. Like, the Dave Asprey, when Dave Asprey joined MMT, they were doing like a couple million dollars a year. Now they're doing well into the nine figures. But when he joined,

it was a couple million dollars. always a year. Like that to me is far more exciting than bigger names. And so a lot of people in our community, it's just, I'm excited to see where they're going to be in like three years, five years, ten years, right? I'm from that amazing people become increasingly amazing over time. So whenever I'm faced with the opportunity from a curation process to have like somebody who's already a big name, but maybe on the cusp of kind of plateauing versus somebody who's an up-and-comer who's hungry and really eager to learn and play full out during the live experience, and that kind of stuff, I want you go for that person instead.

Got it. So with all these conversations that you have, because it's really your whole business is conversation. Sure. What do you wish you could talk about more that you don't get the opportunity to? The people that we have, again, in the community are my closest. We have 150 people on Mastermind talks. I'd have 135 or 140 of them to my wedding.

So, like, nothing is off limits. We talk about our woes in relationships and parenting and all that kind. stuff. So in that context, you know, I'm, I can always talk about all those kind of things. For me, like a personal brand perspective, like speaking on stages, I talk a lot about, you know, relationships and networking. I only talk about things I know well. So there's only one or two areas, really. Anything outside of that I don't feel comfortable talking about. So, yeah, I'm very blessed to have a lot of opportunities to kind of speak my mind and share my voice. And I, I definitely do that when given the opportunity.

Great. Well, on that note, let me see if I can make you a little uncomfortable. I'm all for it. I like to play a game with my guess. And because, and this is all based on the premise that I've learned so much about my own real estate investing business from people not in real estate investing and kind of, you know, paying attention to their superpowers or what makes their business work or what makes them go and what gets them, what motivates them, right? So let's play a game. You are a real estate investor, Jason. And with all of your, superpowers, you're looking for discounted real estate. So with the superpowers that you have, how would you go about finding discounted real estate? Well, it's funny. So even given that statement at the beginning of this episode, I actually love real estate. I haven't got into it. But I follow, we have MLS up here, which is like our realtor, I guess, dot com. You'd have in the states. I check that every single day religiously for the last five, six years. I love real estate. So I'm just waiting for the opportunity to get into it and learn from a fine gentleman like you.

So I'll probably have to sign up for one of your programs. But for me, because I love real estate, I wanted to get plugged into what's going on real estate wise locally. And what I started to do was invite people in the real estate space and just fly on the wall. So I invite them for lunch, four people. I wouldn't say a damn word. I just bring them all together, let them talk shop, find out all the full. fascinating things that are going on locally, what their predictions, all that kind of stuff,

and just sit there and absorb it. I've done that before, and it's amazing. Like, it's an NBA in like 90 minutes. And I pick up the tab. And they're all grateful for it. I'm like, dude, you don't know what you guys just left me with. So for me, the relationship component, like, I don't know. You obviously know a space better than me, but like I live in a smaller city, like an up-income

city, which is like a tech hub. There's only a few players that like own the city. So getting connected with them, getting connected with. some of those top agents and that kind of stuff is definitely an area of focus. So to me, it's just a relationship play. It's doing what I do in the business world, taking that skill set and applying it simply with the lens of wanting to connect with real estate people. And like I said, I've done a little bit of that hosting lunches and that kind of stuff

where I know nothing about real estate, but I bring together people who do, and I'm just to fly on the ball. Perfect. That's exactly what I was looking for. That's great. You know, it's such a people business. And I think the audience, that they kind of, I don't know, sometimes you get so involved in the technology and all the new tricks and gimmicks and tactics out there for finding real estate deals that you forget that every piece of real estate you buy or sell is going to be from or to another person, right? So, well, that's the one thing about Canada is we're a little further behind from the tech side.

So because of that, it's still even more relationship focused. And like I know general rule of thumb, at least where we are commercial real estate, which I've been looking into. to a lot. Like, anytime commercial hits, like the open markets, it's because it's a bad deal. Like,

good deals happen behind the seats, right? They happen before it hits those open markets. So to me, it's very relationship focused. So, so yeah. 100%.

What commonly held truth do you disagree with? We might have opened up the show with it. Self-made is a myth. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely one of them for sure.

I mean, the whole notion of being self-made. And I get it. Listen, I understand. You do, like you put in your hard work and all that kind of stuff and you want to take credit. And there's a balance there. But again, the amount of opportunities I've been given and that kind of stuff, again, nothing is self-made. Any, any, most of the clients that I have and all that kind of stuff have always come through an introduction or something like that.

So that would be one of them. And I think also in the context of relationship or relationships, the amount of people that focus on on quantity versus quality. So, you know, the amount of people that pat themselves on the back when they hit 20,000 LinkedIn contacts or that kind of stuff, right? It's like to me, I go wide in my networking, but I go deep at my nurturing of relationships. And that's a huge focus for me. And that's very, yeah, very against the grain as far as like what the gospel is in the relationship space, which is just like know everybody or have like go a millimeter deep with 20,000 people. But they don't have any deep and genuine relationships. And for me, at the end of day, it doesn't matter how many friends you can count.

It matters how many friends you can count on. And if I didn't have that friend five, six years ago, land me that 84K, I have no clue where I'd be right now. It would it be, right? It would be, right? It would be, right? Gosh, if that didn't happen, where would I be today, right? 100%. Absolutely.

You've got your own podcast community made. You've completed two seasons. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Two seasons. I loved it. I listened to the first one. I did not catch the second season, but I will.

Let me ask you, what are your three guiding principles for your success? If you had three of those, what would they be? So there's a few, like, almost quotes that come top of mind. So hopefully this is helpful and this is where you want it to go. Like one of them is business like life is all about how you make people feel. It's that simple and it's that hard. It's called by Danny Meyer, who owns Shake Shack and a bunch of other restaurant properties and that kind of stuff.

And that I put it at the bottom of my email signature. That's something I always try to keep at the forefront. on some level that, that, yeah, I mean, it's easy to get wrapped up in the whole notion of like, you know, oh, I'm B to B, so it's not relationship focus or, you know, it's all about numbers. It's really not. Like, we make decisions emotionally and then we justify it logically after. You know, and the work that I do, it's just a great example of us.

It's always kind of keeping that top of mind that we're all in the human to human business, no matter, you know, Starbucks, obviously, or even in a B to B model. So that's one. Another one would be a quote by John Paul DeGioria, who is the founder of Patron Tequila. He's worth a couple, I think three billion dollars or something like that. He has a philosophy that I don't want to be in the order business. I want to be in the reorder business. And to me, this is just a beautiful kind of mantra in the sense that we live in a world

where people just worried about more leads and more email opt-ins and all this kind of stuff. And it's like pouring water in a strainer, right? There's a philosophy around like a business without profit is like eating soup with a fork. You stay busy, but you stay hungry. Right. So it's the kind of thing. Right. For us with MMT, we've had 18,000 people apply or that kind of stuff.

But our retention rate is really all I care about. Like how many people want to come back year over year? And that's anywhere between like 82 to 87% every year. So like that's what I really focus my energy on instead of focusing on trying to generate more leads and all that kind of stuff, focus on the existing clientele I have, offering an incredible customer experience, and then it will be the biggest brand advocates you can have. And that's how we've grown.

We haven't been open, we haven't opened up our events to applications for the last three, four years. It's only been through word of mouth. You have to be nominated. Now, those will be two mantras off the top of my head. I'm trying to think of, another one would be by the good old Gandhi. he has a philosophy. There's more to life than increasing its speed.

That's one. And to me, that's been a really important one to keep in the back of my head because it's easy to get on the trap of like wanting to do more deals and all that kind of stuff and not, you know, forgetting to live, forgetting any more things. My daughter just turned seven. I mean, kids grow fast, man. And she's at a point out of that I'm really glad I focused on family for the first handful of years of her life. When she gets in her team, she probably won't care about me. I'll be able to focus

on business again at that point in time. But just the whole notion of like there's more to life than increasing its speed is just a, to me, it's just a beautiful mantra. Yeah, no, I like it. The concept here really that this whole show, it revolves around is the concept of creating a stream of cash rather than saving a pile of cash. And it's such a, it's not as an exciting path that, you know, that we see from the outside looking in, but it's a much faster. one, but the thing to your point is because it's a faster path just to get to a place where you can enjoy life rather than saving and working and sacrificing for some place, this place called retirement way out in the future, where two thirds of your life are gone by the time you reach it,

if you even did it right, right? What's something that a few people know about you, that you wish more people did? Well, it's funny because I just came off an interview. A friend of mine flew in from Australia to interview me in person. And he kept on giving off this vibe that I have every, I don't deal with imposter syndrome. I'm, you know, I've, it just gave off this vibe that I'm perfect. And that was bothersome to me.

I definitely don't try to give off that illusion. I try, you know, being in the thought leadership space, not me personally, but was surrounding myself with so many thought leaders. Unfortunately, it's sad to see how many people preach one thing to the stage and then practice one thing, like completely the opposite. behind the scene. So for me, I always see it as my responsibility to be overly transparent

and overly vulnerable about my flaws and that kind of stuff. And that's just the one thing that is inevitable is that, you know, sometimes people put you on a pedestal and think you don't have any flaws and you don't deal with any fears or any self-worth issues and that kind of stuff. And a lot of those voices in the back my head have like subsided over the years, but they're not gone completely. So, yeah, understanding that those on a pedestal, are still human and still have faults and still working through things, I think is something I'd love to articulate to everybody. No, that's great.

I mean, I think authenticity, that's the word that comes to mind when you're saying that. And I think that's why you're so loved and you're talked about so highly. And I really appreciate you coming here on the Thought Leader Thursday episode of Epic Real Estate Investing. If someone wanted to get in touch with you, Jason, what would be the best way for them to do that? I mean, most of the social channels, yeah, Instagram. I've been leaning into Instagram lately. I feel like an old man.

It took me like forever. But two months ago, I'm like, this is actually a pretty cool platform. So Instagram, Facebook, any of those platforms, I'm pretty accessible. Super. Well, it's been a pleasure. Let's stay in touch. I think I'm going to see you really soon anyway. And then 48 hours from now, yeah.

Yeah, right? That's great. Yeah, by the time this airs, we will probably be sitting in the same room. There we go. Very good. Well, thanks, Jason. I really appreciate it. I will see you in a couple days.

And we'll go from there. All right, brother. Thanks for the opportunity. You bet. Take care. All righty. So God bless to your success. I'm Matt Jario here on Thought Leader Thursday. I'll see you next week on another episode of this, Thought Leader Thursday, right here on the Epic Real Estate Investing Show. Take care. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.