KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How To Unlock Your Best Life ft. Conor Kelly

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Welcome, everyone. This is Randy Dick here, and I am thrilled to be sharing a great guest with you today on Return on Life podcast. It's not always about the ROI, return on investment. It is about the return on life, the ROL. And today's guest, well, he's not lived a long life yet, but he's lived a full life. I'll say that. We have Connor Kelly with me, or Agent Kelly, and Kelly's been, Kelly. You get that a lot of bet, eh? Yeah, I'm fine with either or. I don't even like my first name, to be honest with you. So Kelly's fine by me. I changed my first name, too, by the way. Didn't you really? I did.

I did. But anyways, Conner, has been selling real estate for two and a half years. He's sold well over 100 homes already in two and a half years. And he's got a real great presence on social. And I'm just really excited to dive into return on life with you today. I love it, man. Thank you for having me. Kelly, Agent Kelly. That's right. So when you decided real estate, let's maybe start back,

just a little bit of background in yourself, before real estate, you were a plumber. Plumber. So I was a red seal plumber. I did that for almost nine years, just shy of nine years. And I just hated it, man. Like the last three years, like even growing up, my dad always tried to get me in the garage, like help him. He's a mechanic. So I always try to get him. me help with cars and stuff. I just had no interest in it. You know what I mean? Like, like I would, I'd buy a fast car and drive the speed limit in that thing. Like, I just have no interest in any of that or working with my hands or any of that. So I didn't have a passion for it. And I just found that like I was working like 50, 60 hours a week, sometimes as high as like 80 or 90.

And then there's travel time and you have to sleep some point. And then, you know, I heard a quote that was like, you know, why are you doing stuff that you hate doing? Like, you have the, you have, you have the control over what you can choose to do in your life and how you want to live your life and you kind of form your own reality and I was like I realized after doing the math I'm like dude I literally hate like almost every single waking moment of my life like why am I doing this right so then I went got into the real estate course and then just hit the ground running so you know we have a lot in common um you start real estate at about 27 28 almost 27 27 I started at 28 but I was a plumber helper in my early 20s. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's funny. And so I mean, I went through a number

of different things in construction, but one of them was that I worked for the school district of Pinscher Creek and I was a plumber's helper there. So anyways, you've got some cool things in common. That's really exciting. So from a plumber, red seal plumber to I'm going to do something that can impact many rather than just a few and working with some pipes and basically. I mean, I found like it's like, like nobody's ever happy to call the plumber. You know what I mean? Like no one's ever like, oh, like the plumber's here. Like, you know what I mean?

Like everyone's pissed. And it's like, it's like every job costs like 500 bucks. And people are like, why does this cost 500 bucks? It's like, well, that's what it costs, right? And then it's like you throw some pipes in the wall. Nobody cares what it looks like. It makes no difference whether or not I do a good job. And like, this is no offense to plumbers or anything.

But like, this is what I personally experienced doing that job was like, it didn't matter if I did a really good job or a really bad job. All people cared about was the price of what I was doing. So I just felt like I didn't have the impact, right? Like if I don't change that broken toilet, somebody else, like, it's going to help you, but it doesn't really impact your life. Like somebody else is going to come change that toilet, right?

So one day I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm going to go into real estate. Why real estate versus maybe many other things that you could have done? Why real estate? So I was kind of always planning to get out of plumbing and my initial plan was buy a bunch of real estate and then eventually retire. I had owned three properties by 25. And again, after doing the math, I realized I was like, dude, I'm going to have to do this for like 20 years before I have enough cash flow where I can leave this job, go do what I actually want to do.

But as I was kind of building that portfolio, I fell in love with real estate. I found out I spending all my past time researching real estate. And then coincidentally, all of the people where I was getting my counsel from started in real estate as real estate. and then they kind of moved up to influencers slash real estate investors. So I just thought that was the natural path. It was like, hey, I'm going to go into real estate so I can, you know, just talk about real estate and do real estate full time because I love it so much. But then eventually maybe move into more of an influencer role because I really liked that

as well, being able to have influence. Like, so many influencers have completely changed the trajectory of my life and I've learned so much. So I kind of wanted to be a part of that too, right? That's interesting. You know, a lot of people go off to school and get. education or there's been people in their lives that mentored them, coach them. And am I, is it fair to say that you got a lot of your influence from social? Pretty much all of it.

Yeah. Yeah. Like I didn't have anybody in my life to kind of show me the, the entrepreneurial path and like becoming your best self type of deal. I learned all that online. Right. So is there one person or a couple of people that you could say, hey, these one or two people really like sent me a different direction brought me into this realm that I'm in today. There was a whole lot of people. I mean, meet Kevin was somebody that I followed. I listened to the Bigger Pockets podcast all the time. In the last two years, I listened to Wes Watson a lot, which he's like big into self-development and all that kind of stuff. So there was a lot of people, Jordan Peterson. I know he's super controversial now and everybody hates him, but, you know, he played a big role in kind of shaping

where I went with my life. So, yeah, Jordan Peterson's shaking some trees right now. He definitely. Definitely is, yeah. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Well, a lonely journey, you know, there's a lot of times that we're excited about the journey that we're on, that we are frustrated with the journey that we're on, that we're pissed off. What keeps you motivated and getting up every morning to go, I'm on this journey, I love this journey, I want to do this journey. Do you have days that are like, totally all the time?

I mean, I think for me it's just be, I want to like become the best version of myself, like the highest version of me that exists. Because then obviously you live with no regrets, right? Like I'd hate to just, you know, not utilize the full potential of what I've been given. I want to see what that looks like. I want to see it play out in order to do that. I have to execute every single day and be consistent and constantly be uncomfortable and et cetera, et cetera, right?

Okay. First uncomfortable question then. Yeah. One of the things that I've found through life is that people that really don't know who they are, don't love themselves, really struggle with knowing what their journey is. And is that something that you find easy, difficult, that you self-love yourself, that you're okay with who you are, that you offer forgiveness to yourself, so to speak? Because we make a lot of mistakes.

I've made so many mistakes in my life. and if I couldn't live with who I am and I'm not comfortable with who I am, I mean, you just, sometimes you just want to cower in the corner. 100%. I mean, today I love myself. There was a long period where I didn't. And that led to, like, you know, smoking, drinking, doing drugs and all those kinds of things. And then you really just have to start loving yourself.

And then eventually that'll translate into like your okay and your own skin type of thing. And I think a lot of people don't chase their dreams because they're scared if they do. that, it will look to their current friend group that they're being authentic. Like, oh, why is you know, Connor posting all this content and stuff that's not him? He's being inauthentic. He's being fake. He's whatever. In reality, I've grown out of the person that I am right now and I'm scared to go be who I actually am in fear that everybody else will think I'm being fake, even though that's who I actually am. I'm just not being that person. So people kind of live their life being the person who they think everybody else wants them to be instead of just being who they

actually are. And I think that's the story for a lot of people. Wow, that's that's profound that that you're afraid to live or maybe show who you really are. Yeah. Because there's a perception of who you are online. Yeah. People don't want to lose all their friends because their friends know them for who they are right now, even though it's not even who they are. Right. You've grown out of that person. You're not that person anymore, right? But you're stuck being that person because you want to lose all these relationships, even though they're friends with somebody who you're not, you're not even that person. You know what I mean? Like, so let me share this with you. I, I believe that we're not truth tellers. We're social tellers. And, you know, what you share now is, are you, like,

I'm afraid to tell the truth because I can't share what I'm really thinking, because I'm, because of the consequences that come by telling the truth. So I become a social teller. I tell as much as I need to to package it for the next either meeting, moment, time. And, you know, you just gave me confirmation that we even do that on social and in real life as well. 100%. Yeah, you can't tell 100% of the truth all the time. It just doesn't work like that, unfortunately.

So in real estate, you know, we're here to, you know, be agents for people. We have agency. And if we go by the letter of the law, we have to disclose, disclose, disclose. Can we disclose everything and still find our way to the finish line of getting the deal for that individual? I think so 100%. Yeah, absolutely. And like, as a pretend, like, sometimes I won't share my whole opinion on the property. It's just a case-by-case basis.

I mean, some people don't even want your opinion, right? Some people just want reassurance a lot of the time, right? So, you know, with some clients, I share 100% of my opinion. This property, I don't like it for X, Y, Z. And then other people, you know, a lot of the time, maybe they don't want my opinion, and that's the property they want, right? And then now if I'm telling them, hey, that's a bad property, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, they might just go buy that property with another realtor

because that's the property that they want, right? So it's a case-by-case basis, I would say. always disclose, right? 100% like what's wrong with it, et cetera, et cetera. I know, I know, I know. Yeah. And I'm with you on that.

But I'm going to share that there's times that I go, okay, I have to package this in such a way and I can't share everything about this property right now. 100%. Or it won't. And I know this is the best property for them. But if I share it all at once, it's going to be either overwhelming or they're going to not

build a walk through that and actually end up there. Yeah, 100%. So sometimes we have to be social tellers, not always the full on truth teller on day one. Yeah. Or with all that information about that property. Sometimes the best thing for them is just getting them over the finish line. Yes. You know what I mean?

Because it's like some people will never buy property if you say the wrong things. And I mean, like, historically speaking, it's always been the right decision to buy, aside from maybe one or two years in the last couple years. But again, if they hold those properties for the next three or four years, it's going to end up looking pretty good for them, right? So in staying with the theme of truth telling and social telling, we're really communicating. And communication is so, so important.

The better that we can communicate, the better they understand, the better that we convey. And really, communication is probably, one of our biggest tools to be incredible agents. And I don't even mean just real estate agents. I mean change agents in people's lives. You're a great communicator. I appreciate that.

You're a great communicator in person. Most people are saying you're a great communicator socially, but I've spent some time with you and you're really, really good at communicating. Is that a skill that just came to you or have you worked on that? I've had to work on that a lot. Yeah. I mean, to be a great communicator, You have to face confrontation head-on a lot of the time.

You can't properly communicate unless sometimes you're telling people, stuff they don't want to hear and you're having tough conversations, right? So I spent a lot of my life avoiding that confrontation. In real estate, it's unavoidable. Like, you have to avoid that head-on, right? And asking the tough, tough questions. Yes. Even when they're not going to benefit you often comes back later on to be a benefit. Yes.

Yeah, I've been in many of those situations where, you know, if I go here, I'm probably not going to get this deal, not going to get this listing, but long term, it's better because, you know, maybe that property doesn't sell and it comes back to me. Exactly. Because they actually, okay, Randy was really giving us the straight goods. Yeah. Whatever. You've probably been in those situations as well. 100%. I have a couple, like some of my best friends have been through the whole AA, not AA, what's the other one?

N-A program. Something they teach there is like, tell the truth, surrender the consequence. Which is just like you just tell the truth and whatever the consequence or the result of that truth is, you just deal with it later. So, you know, if it loses me a deal, but I'm telling the truth, then so be it. And what drives, I know what drives me in those situations, what drives you in those situations? Just knowing that it's, it'll come back to you if you're just, at the end of the day, like the most important thing in a real estate agent is integrity for the most part.

It's a big purchase. People want to know that you have their best interest in mind. So as long as you live by that, you know, it should come back to you. Yeah. Yeah. Our intent and how we convey our intent is so, so important. And that will always come back to us. Yeah.

So it's Friday night, Saturday evening, Sunday afternoon, Saturday evening. Who is Connor in the quiet? There's nothing else to do. There's no social media. Who's Connor? in the quiet. I'm either watching Netflix with the fiancé or just watching YouTube videos. That's it.

Like, I don't drink, party. I don't really have fun, to be honest with you. Like, this is fun to me. Like, shooting this podcast is fun. Doing business is fun. I like watching YouTube videos. That's fun to me. Like, you know, if I wasn't with my fiance and I was single, I'd probably be sitting

on the couch, like not even watching Netflix, just watching YouTube videos, to be honest. Well, this podcast is about return on life. And that can mean so many different things to so many people. You know, there's people that say, well, return on life is sitting on a beach with a Mai Tai and doing that day after day after day. And you just shared, hey, for me, fun is being on YouTube and opening my mind to other concepts, ideas. It's progression. Progression is fun.

Not progressing. It's like I found that's when I've been the most depressed in my life is when I'm stagnant. we're going backwards. And I think if you're just going to sit on a beach all day and drink margaritas, you're going backwards. So that's not very fun for me. No, that isn't. Yeah.

So perfect world, return on life. What does that look like for Connor? If you could, I mean, we're always in some state of trying to make it different. But if you could say, hey, if I could do this today, this would be my ideal return on life at 28. because obviously we're always changing, which we'll get into in a bit, but what would that look like today for you? I want to be doing a business that doesn't require so much paperwork, which is what real estate is right now for me.

It's hours of paperwork. So eventually I want to level up to some type of influencer role, maybe like yourself where I get into agent attraction or coaching or something like that, where I have a little bit more control over my daily schedule and just have more impact, grow the following, get more eyeballs, and just, yeah, impact more lives and stuff like that. Just travel, but travel for business, right? Travel to somewhere in the States for a convention, speak somewhere, go on some podcast, whatever, and do that kind of stuff. Cool. So rather than just influencing a few, influence many. Yeah. And yeah, real estate has become a paper

machine. Yeah. It is just ridiculous. And really, that's not what we are, that's not where our gift is. No. Of course, you know, good fences keep for good neighbors and good paperwork keeps for good contracts and good deals. It's necessary, but it's crazy. It really is crazy. Um, well, so that, that then would bring me to maybe what is your why. You kind of talked a little bit about your why with your return on life thoughts. Um, um, And my why has changed significantly over the years. Is it safe to say your why is how many people can I impact in a positive way? So I would say this is my why.

It's going to get a little bit deep. I'd say this. I think, and what I've learned from my mentor, is the purpose of life is to create the version of yourself that you admire. and give that person to the world, right? So I'm constantly just trying to find ways to become better. And then obviously with the social media and give that person to the world. So my why is just constantly getting better.

That's it. That's all it is. It's just progression. Because at the end of the day, it's like money, cars, house, all this stuff is like once you get it, it's like, then what? Right. So it's like you've got to be chasing something bigger, I would say. Right.

What I heard there is that your why is to create a version of Hugh that you would love to be with. Yes. Yeah. And I like that. I like that. I always say to myself, hey,

Randy, what's your why or somebody? I asked them what their why is, and a lot of people don't know. It's just like, there's this glazed look. I don't know what that means. And I kind of simplify it by just saying,

well, what makes you come alive every morning? How are you tapping into your superpowers? I can see this in you. Yeah. Are you bringing great, value to others and then what's the story that you're leaving behind which is really are you leaving an incredible version in the world that you would like to hang with yeah i mean like the reality is it's

like if you're not creating the best version of yourself you can't have impact because nobody's going to listen to you right so it's like if you're not like you're not going to listen to somebody out of shape for workout advice right so first before you can help somebody and guide them down that path, you need to be in shape, right? Before I can guide somebody on how to improve their business or be good on social media or any of these things, I have to do that myself. Right. So, I mean, it just comes from that. It's like if I want to impact more people, the first step to that is making me better, right? You know, I've been challenged on that, though, because I thought the same way, why would I take advice from somebody that's only sold, you know, a couple hundred homes in their

career when I've got close to 8,000 under my belt through the team? Yeah. And somebody challenged me on that and said, well, listen, you know, Wayne Gretzky was an incredible hockey player. He was an awful, awful coach. Yeah. And then some of the best coaches didn't even really play the game. And so, you know, I went, oh, okay, maybe, but I'm still with you on that.

Like, I want to see the proof as in the pudding. Tell me what you've done. Okay. Yeah. I'll follow you. Well, I think the outlier doesn't disprove the rule, right? Like regardless whether or not Wayne Gretzky was a good coach, if you play hockey, you're going to listen to what Wayne Gretzky has to say about playing hockey, right? So it's just, it's a lot easier to have influence when you yourself are walking that path or have already walked that path, right?

Yeah. So what is, you know, if we're talking about why and superpowers and gifts, what do you think your greatest gift is? I think I'm really good at getting attention. I think that's probably been all like my gift ever since I was pretty young. I'm pretty good at being able to get people's attention and keep it. Hmm. Well, and I think that's probably more that you're a good communicator. Yeah, I mean, you know, if you, I mean, you can get attention a number of different ways,

but people won't sit there and listen to you unless you can communicate that well. Yes, exactly. I think you're really good at getting attention. through communication as well. I appreciate that. Yeah. So all your life you've been able to get attention. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the teachers freaking hated me when I was in high school. Because you're what? A class clown? I was a class clown. Okay. You know, I'm really happy for you. I mean this because a lot of class clowns end up not doing much. Totally.

Yeah. And so good on you for, you know, turning it into something that gives you a lot of value. Yeah. Yeah. Can I go deep here? Sure, yeah, please. So, I mean, we do things throughout our lives because of external things coming at us.

I've done things out of I have fear about something, so then I react a different way. Being the class clown, what drew you to being there? Do you have some attention one day that just helped to find some worth and then you kept doing that? I think I was always able to make people laugh. And then I liked that validation. And then I always just had so much energy. It was really tough for me to sit in class and sit at a desk. I mean, doodling and screwing around all the time.

And then when cell phones came out, that was it, dude. I was like C minus Ds in every class, like barely past high school. Like it was, yeah, but I think I think I think I just do have a lot of comment. I flunked great 12. Oh, no way. But, but yeah, I think I just like the validation. It was what it was, honestly. Yeah.

Yeah. Awesome. Does fear play any factor in who you are? And fear can be many things. It can motivate. It can be a foe. It can be a friend. Yeah.

I'm constantly paranoid. I'm like the most paranoid dude ever, man. Like I, like this is why I literally. haven't missed a day of posting on social media in two and a half years because I'm so worried that if I miss one day that like the whole house of cards comes crumbling down like I'm out of the algorithm everybody forgets about me they'll never find my videos again I'm completely done so it's just like for me it's like I'm constantly paranoid and worried about everything and that's why I'm just like go go go every single day right well um yeah fear is a powerful motivator 100% powerful powerful

motivator. It's motivated me in a lot of things in my life as well. I think what you'll find those as you age, it become more of a friend. You become a friend with fear rather than just like it's behind me and it's going to get me and I better better run a little faster. But I think over time that will mature into, hey, you can come alongside, be my friend, buddy. Let's go. Yeah. And I mean like for me too, like, you know, coming from a construction background, I saw a lot of guys in their 40s and 50s, divorced, alcoholics, smoking, like renting a basement suite and stuff like that.

And I saw what happened to people, like, being in that. And like, this isn't a one shoe size fits all. I mean, there's tons of successful plumbers, business owners that are happy doing very well. But I saw for a lot of people, like, they would get more and more miserable, like the older they got, right? And like most of the people I knew in that industry

in their 40s were all just miserable. and everyone's like so like Monday, Tuesday, their frequency is like bottom. And then as you get into Thursday, everyone's getting a little bit happier because they're getting close to the weekend and then Friday's freaking whew! Right? And that's just because they hate what they're doing, right? They can't wait to get away from it for like two days. And I just didn't want to end up in that same place.

Wow. Yeah. Crucibles. Yeah. Things that have happened in our lives. I mean, you've got a short life. It's only 28 at this point. But were there anything that were majors that just shook you, changed who you are,

took you a different direction? You know, you talked about leaving plumbing and you just didn't want to. But was there something that was monumental that changed that for you? Yes. There was one night. My fiancé was like in Kelowna with her friends or something like that. So I had the whole house myself. So I was just watching YouTube videos.

And again, Back to YouTube. Back to YouTube. Jordan Peterson, everybody hates them, right? I have a pretty neutral opinion on the guy,

but he said a lot of things that have changed the trajectory in my life. I was watching one of these YouTube videos where it's like, people will edit, like, a bunch of,

like, influencers saying stuff with like a bunch of B-roll and like motivational music. I never watched these videos. I don't know how I ended up on this side of YouTube, but Jordan Peterson said this one line,

and he was like, stop doing all the stupid shit you know you shouldn't be doing. Imagine where your life would be if you just, stop doing that. And I thought about it at that time. I was like, holy crap, I'm doing a lot of stupid shit right now. I'm like, what would happen if I just stopped doing all this? And then like literally a couple of days later, I quit smoking, drinking, everything. That was May 9th,

2020. And then since then my life just literally took off like a rocket. Because I'm fully focused, don't have any distractions, right? So one moment, one YouTube changed all that. Yeah. Did you write down all your shit that you were doing? Or did you just mentally, know these are the things I need to cut out. Well, it's like everybody knows they're doing stuff they shouldn't be doing. Everyone knows, right? So it's like when I heard that, I was just like, it's so simple. I'm just like, what if I just took that advice and just didn't do it? Like, what would happen? And that's why I love creating content too, is because it's like, I know for me, all it takes is that one sentence at the right time and that can completely change the trajectory of

somebody's life, right? That can completely change the lens and the perspective through which somebody is looking at their life. Just one sentence and then their whole life changes because that's what it did to me. I know it can because that's what it did to me, right? I put out a video like eight months ago. It was about smoking and why you shouldn't smoke. This video went super violent by like 800,000 views. And I was like sitting there thinking, I was just like, what impact? Because I know one sentence changed my life. I'm like, what impact does a video like this have? So I started looking at the statistics.

It's like 67.5% of people in the U.S. or no, 11.5% of people in the U.S. smoke. 67% will eventually die due to smoking-related causes. So of that 800K, 50,000 people will die from smoking. It is literally like problematically impossible that that video didn't save somebody's life, which is insane to think about. Right. That is crazy. Yeah, when you think about that. You know, I get this all the time. Hey, Randy, five years ago, 10 years ago, you said this. I have no idea. In fact, some of these people I don't even know that come up to me and say, 10 years ago, you said this to me, and I have no idea who they are. Because you meet so many people. You don't even remember. And they say, you changed my life.

And I go, how did I change your life? You said this or that? And I changed your direction. And it's like, oh, my goodness, the responsibility that we have as individuals, the responsibility that you have as an influencer. It's crazy. Yeah, you have the potential to either tear somebody's life down or build it up. It's a big responsibility.

Right. So here's why we need to not be ordinary, because ordinary gets you nowhere. ordinary. I heard this stat the other day. Hey, you want to be ordinary? Well, all the, most Americans, they live in ordinary life. Most of them are obese. Yeah. You know, they're fat and obese. Most of them are divorced, and most of them only have $1,000 in the bank. So if you think that's safe and secure, just live ordinary. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And you've done anything but that. You've done anything but that since firing up your real estate career and going crazy. So that influence is a major, major piece that's influenced you, just watching one video.

That's it. And that's why I think everybody should put out content. Everybody's got a story to tell. That's the thing, right? Everybody. And even like you've been doing the content thing now, I think it's amazing. I talk to a lot of realtors, guys that are doing like a million bucks, 800K and they're like, why do I need to put out content? I'm already, my business is good. I'm repeat referral. I don't need new clients and blah, blah, but it's not about new clients, dude. Like, it's about impact, right? Like, the purpose of life is to create the best version of yourself and give that person to the world. You've already created the best version of you, right? You're in the shoes that millions of people want to be in. Tell them how to do it,

right? Yeah. Hey, thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Yeah. That's big. That's big. So you are self-made, that what you're doing, which is awesome. Most of us in life are self-made. Not many of us had the lucky sperm bank opportunity to the trust fund sperm bank that he came from. I had a few people help me along the way, but it was mostly me, myself, and I and my wife just gotten it out. And I don't think you'd want it any other way. am I right? No, I wouldn't want any help like that.

No, it just takes away from, I think it takes away from what you've accomplished. And I think people will look at it that way. So I'd rather have it the way that it's been. But along the way, because you're hard at it, you're going to be in the right rooms of the right people because you're invited into rooms because they see your effort, right? So you've, I'm sure, been invited into some rooms that you thought, oh my goodness.

Yeah. I'm in this room? Yeah. I remember the first time I went to the Vancouver Club. But it's like, I can't believe people actually do this. I thought it was like a stereotype. Like I thought this was like some Wolf of the Wall Street freaking thing, right? It was like people in tuxedo smoking cigars and stuff like that.

I'm like, where the hell am I? And I was like a plumber like eight months ago. It was like crazy 180, right? What was going through your mind at that point? Like was it just a disbelief? Was it like really? Like what did you feel? Because it was just so like, it was unbelievable.

It just felt like I was in like one of those movies like one of those Wall Street investment banker movies and like I just couldn't believe that like people actually live like this like this is crazy Yeah Do you want to be in those rooms? Yeah 100% Do you think you deserve to be in those rooms? 100% Good answer absolutely What's um At 28, 29, you haven't lived a lot of life yet, but I'm sure in the last couple years you've come up with some thoughts, some ideas that,

man, maybe I should do this or what if I could do that? Is there anything there, a big idea that you want to share with the audience? I recently had one. I lost a couple listings back in summer to realtors who I knew weren't going to do a better job than me. freaking piss me off. Piss me off a lot, man. Been there. Yeah. And from that moment on, I was like, I am going to be the best marketer. That's going to be my unique selling proposition. I'm going to be the best marketer in this market. And then that's completely changed my social media following everything. And now I'm just focused on that. And it's getting, it's to the point now

where I'm like, hey, if you don't want to use me as your realtor, marketing isn't what's important to you, right? You want somebody who knows the area better. or they've been in the business longer or whatever. But if you want marketing and you choose somebody else, you made the wrong decision. Right. That's what it's going to come down to. What's your version of marketing? Eyeballs.

Like everybody's got somebody, it's eyeballs. Eyeballs. Okay. That's all it is. That's basically all it is. Yeah. See, others would say it's something else. It's my brand.

It's the colors I use. It's this. But it's just eyeballs. It's all it is. It can be, it can look like shit. Yeah. But if you got millions and millions of eyeballs, it that's all that matters right it's all that matters I mean obviously like take some good

pictures yes of course and like you know right highlight the good things about the home but at the end of the day that's all secondary to getting the eyeballs on the home so true yeah it's about eyeballs yeah ambitions what's what's beyond real estate have you thought about what's beyond real estate yeah I just want to be a content creator at some point and just like I said just pack people and maybe make money through sponsorships and blah, blah, blah and stuff like that. So today it's real estate, but I mean, the big influencers, they're doing everything. A lot of its mindset, a lot of it is helping people find who they are.

Is that a direction you want to go? 100%. Yeah. I mean, that's mainly what I want to do, right? Because I went through that myself where I hated my life. I hated who I was. I hated freaking everything and I was miserable. And then people get into that downward spiral where it's like escapism, right?

Where you're just escaping from your life every weekend by drinking and blah, blah, blah, and you go back to Monday. And then it's just like the process just repeats and repeats and repeats. So again, it's just saying the right things to change somebody's perspective on the way they're living their life. And not everyone's going to be open to it, unfortunately. Right? There's a very small select group of people.

But if somebody's open to it, yeah, you have the power to change your life just by one sentence. Is there a hack that you have that could help somebody today as they're listening and they're just struggling. They're struggling in real estate, struggling in life, struggling with themselves, knowing who they are. Is there a hack that you could share with our audience? Yeah, nobody ever listens to it though. It's stop drinking, smoking and doing all the stupid shit, you know, you shouldn't be doing. It's that simple, right? Nobody ever does it. I've given that advice to so many agents, they go, oh, yeah, that's good. And then I say, see them at Cactus Club having a margarita on their story, right? But yeah, I mean, like,

you think it's so, you think it's so incredibly profound that it's just, it's that simple. Smoking, drinking, doing stupid shit. What's the stupid shit? Just drinking alone is like, okay, do it later on. You know what I mean? When you're, you're there, right? But, well, but everybody says that. I'll do it when I'm there, but they never get there. Yeah, it's because drinking. Right. So, you know, people never get there. When I get there, I'll be, I'll give to this charity. When I get there, I will do this. Well, no, no, they never get there. Yeah. They never get there. Well, I hope they don't, right? Like, that's, that's, that, that was for me, right? I'm going to quit drinking until I get X, Y, Z. But then you realize,

as you start accomplishing stuff, the goalposts are constantly moving further. And that's why I haven't drank, right? Because the goalpost keeps moving further. I notice once I stop how much more productive, how clear I think I'm always able to find the word I'm looking for, which I never had before. Interesting. And like, everybody always thinks like, oh, what do I need to do to be successful? What do I need to do? It's not success is a subtractive process. It's not what do you need to do? It's what do you need to stop doing? Nobody ever thinks about what are you already doing now that you should just stop, right? Even in real estate, right? How many new agents have 15 methods of prospecting? Stop 14 of them. Do one and do it consistently, right? It's not what do I need to do.

It's what are you already doing that you could stop doing, right? So when you stop drinking, it improves your mental clarity, your energy, you get better sleep. And then you're also not distracted because what people end up doing instead of focusing on work, they're thinking about going to the pub and they're thinking about drinking on the weekend and they have all these mental distractions as opposed to like when you remove all that stuff, now you're just thinking about the work, right? I don't want to walk over this. You said something so profound there.

Success is a game of subtraction. Yes, yeah. Not addition. It's a subtractive process. Yes. Subtraction. Yeah. That is so good.

And real estate, I see that all the time. You know, people have, like you said, 15 different prospecting methods and channels they're in, and they should be in one or two. Exactly. Three max, like three max. max. 100%.

Even if they just did one really well, they'd be fine. Kill one and then add one. Exactly. Yeah. Wow. That's profound. What do you think is, it's probably this. The biggest challenge for real estate agents is that they just don't know how to prospect

or they're trying to do too many different prospecting channels. Is that probably the biggest channel or challenge for real estate agents? I think it's all about perspective. People just don't have the might. Like the mindset comes from the perspective, right? So like the way you view how you're going to see success is what forms the mindset. Right. So like if I understand that it might take 10 years to see success, then I'm going to develop

a mindset that's congruent with me seeing success in 10 years. If I, if I'm looking at this like, I should have success after seven videos, then like I don't have the proper mindset to see success. So like the whole thing is understand like having the proper perspective when you get into the industry and then you'll formulate that mindset from the lens you're viewing where you're going, so to speak, right? Okay. So the future as we move forward, what does the future of real estate look like for the agent? Yeah, I think social media is going to get a lot tougher in the next five years. I still think it's by far the best method of getting business. And it's just going to get tougher and tougher. Like, I got agents on my team who get 200 views on a video,

and they're absolutely choked that they only got 200 views. And I'm like, dude, like in 2003, if you wanted 200 people to see, to hear what you had to say, you had to, like, post a newspaper ad and put flyers on people's car windows and rent out an event center and buy everybody lunch just to get them to listen to you talk. Now you can just post a video for free and get 200 views. Well, I think in five years from now, people are going to be complaining about getting 50 views.

You know what I mean? Because it's just going to get more and more and more and more competitive. So I think for the real estate agent right now, the sooner you're on social media and creating content and building that personal brand, the better. Which platform is the best to be on when it comes to real estate? Yeah. See, I've seen all my success on Instagram and TikTok,

but I think the best is actually YouTube. Hmm. Yeah. And are you pressing on YouTube right now? Are you, are you? I am. I only have like 1,400 subs on there, though, so I haven't really found my stride on it. But I do think it's the best platform to be on. It just takes years, takes years to build a following. You know, it's interesting. At the last Realtor Collective, we had two agents that were getting a fair bit of business from social. One had It was ridiculous

70,000 subscribers or something like that And the other one only had 2,000 And in fact, she even said, Hey, everybody in the audience right now, if you could just go to Instagram and friend me And I'll get over to 2000 But the amount of business that The agent that only had 2,000 friends on Instagram

was about the same. same as the other agent that had thousands, hundreds of thousands. And it was the engagement that she was getting. 100%. How do you get engagement? How do you think, how do you get engagement? How do you think as a listener is looking at doing social, how would they get engagement? Yeah. So like my social media rhetoric and what I teach is a little bit different and it's more long-term thinking. I even see a lot of agents today. They're doing everything right.

The content quality is amazing. They're putting out the right content. They have hooks. They've structured the video properly. Everything looks great. But they're not closing a lot of business off of it. And I think it's because you have to have a strong personal brand to be able to have influence over people, right?

So people will buy from brands, right? So if I have a strong personal brand, people who connect with the brand will buy from me, right? Just because the content is good and the editing's there and it's all right doesn't mean that I have influence over the viewer. And the way you get influence is by improving the brand. And oddly enough, if the brand is a personal brand, the brand is you. So the way you have influence is improving you, right? So a lot of advice that I would give to people is like you're doing everything right on the content side.

You need to fix you, right? Like go to the gym, get a different haircut, whatever. Whatever you can do to make yourself more confident. Because it sounds like, what's the word I'm working for? Like shallow. But the reality of it is, is that the better you look, it's a pattern disruptor on somebody's feed. Right. So like I have a very unconventional look.

I have tattoos and I'm loud and whatever. But that's a pattern disruptor. Right. I also have influence over people because there's people who like maybe want to look like that. Maybe they want tattoos, whatever, whatever. There's something there that people can connect. with. So for a lot of people, it's just like, hey, your content will improve if you just improve. That's the easiest thing, right? Like, you know for sure if you improve, the content

instantly gets better because that's the personal brand. You don't have to worry about, like, oh, is the algorithm going to, is this hook going to work? And, oh, I don't know about this hashtag. And it's like, dude, just make you better. The content will be better, right? Brand is important. A lot of people would say that it's the brand, it's the brokerage brand that's most important, but it's not about the brokerage. Not at all. In fact, it's actually the personal brands associated with the brokerage that gives the brokerage the brand. True. Right. So when you think EXP here in B.C, I think Randy Dick and I think John Sy. I don't think EXP. Interesting. If I think Royal LePage, I think Ty Corsey, right? It's US, and like even like something

like Nike, right, people don't care about Nike's brand. Nike grew their brand by sponsoring personal brands like Serena Williams and Michael Jordan and LeBron James and blah, blah, blah, the personal brands grew the company's brand, right? So it's the personal brands that are attached with that brokerage that actually grow the brokerage. So true. Yeah, so true. And with that, when you create your own personal brand, see, I think this is a problem in sales period, just in sales period. We can talk real estate, but in all sales is that most people, that are in sales go and hunt rather than being hunted. And so when you're hunting, you have to open up that conversation.

You have to start that conversation. You basically are causing some deception story to get them interested enough that they'll actually sit down and listen to you. Right. Versus when you are hunted, the conversation is significantly different. 100%. It's at such a high level of rate because they're coming with their fears, their questions, whatever they're desiring and bringing it to you.

And now you can start at, you know, if we scale the selling process from 1 to 10, they're already at an 8 and they just need 9, 10. They just need reassurance. They're already sold on you. Right. They just need reassurance on like the buying process or the selling process, essentially. Where if I'm out hunting, I'm finding them at two or three, and I have to take them all the way seven levels to 10 to get them to say yes. And along the way, eight or nine out of those 10 aren't even interested.

Yeah, 100%. So what you're doing is you're getting them to seek out you. They're hunting you versus you hunting them. It's a traction. It's brilliant. Yeah. Social media is all attraction, right? And people can be attracted for a lot of different ways, right?

the way you speak, the way you look, the way you present yourself, the things you talk about, and it's just finding that perfect formula. Do you have a specific avatar that you're targeting when you're doing your social? No, here's the thing, right? So this is old, in my opinion, old marketing rhetoric. It's like find an avatar and cater to that avatar. My whole thing is like, you're the niche. And people who maybe used to be in your shoes or have.

some type of connection to you are the avatar. And just by you being you on camera, you will attract your avatar. Because at the end of the day, you just want to work with people that are like you. So just be you and those people will gravitate towards you. Right? Yeah. I agree with that. I think you still need to have a little bit of a message that's really saying, hey, this is who I really want to serve. Yeah. Touching some pain points that they would have potentially. So the way I cultivate that message, the pain points that I'm pressing on are pain points that I've already overcome in my life. Right? So the pain points are me talking about used to being a plumber, me talking about drinking, smoking, me talking about all the pain points that I've already

experienced or me investing in real estate and all the problems that I've already overcome, those are the pain points that I'm pressing on, but it's still me. It's still specific to just me, right? That's awesome. That's really, really good. What are some of the limitations that maybe you've faced or that you think you may face or that is in front of you today? Any limitations that you have to fight through and overcome?

Limitations. Anything that you go, man, I wish I could just break through that. I wish I could break through this. I wouldn't say necessarily their limitations. But as the eyeballs grow, so does the scrutiny and the daily level of, of, what's the word I'm looking for? Criticism. The daily level of criticism grows with that.

So it is very scary. What do you do with that? What do you do? I mean, I've experienced a little bit of that too, and I just kind of, you know, I'm now 60 at my age, whatever. But at 28, I would have probably struggled with that. In fact, you know, I did have somebody personally come and talk to me about something the other day, and it bothered me that they would think that of me.

I mean, it's tough. Like, nobody tells you how to deal with it. There's no course on how to deal with scrutiny on social media. And there's very few people that have done it at a level where they've experienced a lot of scrutiny to be able to teach about the scrutiny you experience. And I think the worst part about it is, like, people just automatically assume that you've accepted

the responsibility of getting scrutinized once you start posting on social media but you really haven't. You're just like them. You're just posting videos. Right? So that's something that's pretty scary that comes with it.

Yeah. You know, it's a new field. It's just in an infancy, really. Yeah. I think we could probably go to, you know, the sports field where, you know, people involved in sports have been criticized and scrutinized for years and years and years

and we probably could learn something from how they dealt with it, maybe at a different level. But when it's online, people can be anybody. Yeah. They just love. They can just say whatever they want. Yeah, throwing whatever at you.

Yeah. Yeah. In person, they would never say that to your face. Never. Nobody would ever just openly be a dick like that to your face. Like, never. Right. Even if they absolutely hated your guts,

they would never walk up to you and say that stuff. You know what I mean? And it's not about like, oh, I got, oh, I'd kick your ass. It's just like, you just wouldn't do that. It's just not socially acceptable to do that, you know? Yeah, because we're social tellers, not truth tellers. Exactly. Exactly.

Oh, geez. Well, who's the best that you know of that does your job? Who would you say, man, if I could just be there, who's the best in the industry, whether it be social, real estate, the combination of that? Who's the best that you go, gosh, if I could just get there? There's a lot. it's hard to name and everybody does it a little bit differently in their own way right you know obviously tie course he's really good at what he does um

uzer Muhammad I'd say is like the pre-sail king um I mean there's a John Syde does really well with the coaching thing um there's a lot of guys that I take bits and pieces from right it's hard to say like that's the guy that I want to model 110% everything off of I just take bits and pieces from everybody I'm going to challenge you to look out of our area. You mentioned people that we know. Yeah. Find a few people from outside that you can use as your measuring stick. Yeah. Because you have a ton of potential. Hmm. Tond of potential. So I'm just going to encourage you to look elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's tough because I don't know, like, I don't know how they operate their real estate business when they're not in our market.

When they're here, I can see it firsthand. Right. I see what agents are doing on social media and yeah i've taken bits and pieces from everybody even like mike charard and stuff like that on the coaching end um but you know yeah i it's it's tough to say for me to just be like yeah you know this guy right it's like i've taken a little bit from everybody what do you think of ryan surhand yeah you know what i forgot about him he's he's somebody that i definitely i think i've kind of lately been modeling some of my marketing off of just like high energy listing video property tours type of thing, high frequency, make people feel something when they watch the video. I've kind of been modeling a lot of what he's done lately for sure. Do you have a book in

you? A book? A book. My favorite book. Well, okay, we'll get there. But do you think at some point in your life you're going to write a book? I do. Yeah, yeah, I think I've got one. I know you've got one here. I think I'll call it overnight success. But not because I was an overnight success. It's actually not really a play on words. It's the exact opposite. I had somebody leave a comment on one of my videos saying, basically that's what he said. You're an overnight success.

But they didn't see the nine years of struggling in crime before. Because a lot of people were like, oh, how did you do that in your first year? You're so lucky? Yeah, right? Well, how did you do that your first year in real estate? I'm like, well, it's not really my first year in real estate. I've been learning all this crap for the last eight years. I just got licensed a year ago.

You know what I mean? Yeah, you know, everybody thinks you're lucky when you're good, you're lucky, you know. Yeah. The puck just finds your stick or the ball comes to you or whatever, but it's all those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours. Like Steph Curry, you know, shoots 500 shots every day. Every day he shoots 500. So when he does take that shot, he can shoot it. He doesn't even look.

He knows it's in. Yeah. He just turns and runs back, right? It plays defense. And so when you've done something over. and over and over again. It's the muscle that just is there for you. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, hey, this has been really, really great. Let's go into some speed round stuff. Sure. And so just a few questions to finish it off here. So fine dining, takeout, Uber Eats, or stay-at-home, home-cooked meal? Fine dining. Fine dining.

Yeah. Okay. Awesome. What do you do to unwind? What's your happy place just to unwind? You mentioned YouTube. Yeah. It's probably YouTube, man, I would say. I mean, I haven't gone on a lot of vacations, so that might change in the future, but for now it's probably YouTube. Okay, I want this to be a speed run, but I've got to dig into this a little bit. So you jump on YouTube, where do you start, and where do you end? Because it just could go on and on and on.

So do you start in personal development? Do you start in, hey, that looks like a really cool video. Like what gets you started on YouTube and you spend the next two hours doing YouTube? I watch whatever's on the feed. I actually watch a lot of stuff on the stock market. I pay very close attention to the stock market, a lot of personal development. a lot of personal development. Alex Ramosi's come out of nowhere.

I watch a lot of his stuff too. Wes Watson. Like whatever's on the feed at that day, whenever I log in, I just like, whatever I'm interested in, click and it usually leads to another thing. The algorithms, they know what I want. Let them decide.

Yeah, exactly. Awesome. And so a good evening of YouTube would be, what, a couple hours, three hours? Yeah, sometimes I might rock like a three-hour session on YouTube, right? It just depends. Depends on the night.

Depends how much time I have. have lately I haven't had a lot of time but if I do have some time you know I might spend two three hours just watch some YouTube and having like a fake freaking Moscow mule or something like that non-alcoholic yeah does does mr. algorithm ever bring up randy not on YouTube not yet yeah hopefully soon got some work to you yeah got some work to do you shoot um hey what's your favorite band or musician my favorite musician all time is Kevin Gates he's a rapper you wouldn't know about. I don't know Kevin Gates. No. And then second to that, probably Rod Wave. Another guy you probably wouldn't know. Um, I'm, I, all, everything I listen to is

rap for the most part. I don't really have any like country or rock or anything in my playlist. What drives you to rap? What brings you to rap? I don't know. I think it's just the way I grew up. Yeah. I guess. I grew up with older brothers. The story is profound in rap. Yeah. Like, there's a story. Yeah. Like, so much of music has, there's nothing there. It's just, you know, five words. They sing over and over and over again. Yeah. I love you. I love you. I love you. And the song's over. I think it's because rap is, it's egotistical, right? And I'm not an egotistical guy, but it's uplifting for confidence. I think. Most of rap is very egotistical, right? It's my got this car. I got this watch. I'm dope, right? Like, I like listening to that, right?

And it's just the way I grew up and influences I had when I was young, right? Cool. communication text voice chat what's your i hate texting okay call call yeah that's awesome i'm surprised actually in some ways yeah it's just it's just inefficient but nothing surprises me about you yeah but uh yeah there's nothing like hearing somebody's voice and really knowing where to take that conversation that's communication it's just that's communication yeah absolutely um last question if you were a scratch and Sniff sticker. So you're a scratch and sniff sticker. We scratched you. What would we smell from the scratch and sniff sticker? Who is Connor when we smell you?

Pine tree. A pine tree. Breath of fresh air, man. I don't know. I also like those candles that are like, they're like, like, almost like a caramel kind of smell. Like they're almost always called like brown sugar or something. Like I like those candles. Awesome. Awesome. I like the first answer better. Yeah. Yeah. Breath and Fresh Air. And you are a breath of fresh air. I appreciate that.

Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Yeah, no, my pleasure, man. Awesome. Yeah. I now know that it's not always about the ROI with you, the return on investment, but about life, return on life. And your life is still young. You've got an amazing long life, but I can just see great things.

I appreciate that. In your future, Connor. 100%. And I agree with the name of the podcast wholeheartedly. Return on life. man just sculpting that the life that you want to live not based around money but the life you actually want to live so awesome thanks for being here of course