KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Overcoming the Obstacles of Change with James Hogan

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon or good evening, wherever you may be. This is Randy Dick, Return on Life podcast. And I've got James Hogan with me today. James is out of the Hamptons area, New York. He's an amazing agent there. James, do you want to share a little bit about what you do, where you do it, and how you do it? Yes. So my name is James Hogan.

I work with Daniel Gail Sotheby's International Realty in the Hamptons in New York. I absolutely live and breathe real estate. I love it. I love the game. It's my life's work. It's my calling, you know. So I truly love real estate. It changed my life in such a positive way.

And, you know, I'm honored to be a guest on your podcast. So thank you for having me. Right on. How long have you been selling real estate, James? I've been selling real estate. This is my fifth year, selling. And you say it's your calling. When did you know it was your calling?

Like, did that just come? Or was it something that was brewing? before even thought of being a realtor, was it just in you from day one or share it on that a little bit? That's a great question. So I always instinctively knew that I wanted to work for myself and I didn't want to sit behind a desk from nine to five. So I instinctively knew that. Now, I went to Baruch College, which is a finance school in New York City. And I was planning to be a stockbroker, right? And I had done, I actually had some success with a couple of trades because we had a trading floor. And so I thought I was going to do that. And then I did an internship with a

commercial real estate firm and they owned real estate and they had a brokerage as well. So they'd essentially broker their own stuff and things like that. And the investing is something I'm getting into now as well. That's another, that's something that really fires me up. But yeah, so I was doing this internship. I'm in these awesome buildings in New York City. And I'm from Long Island. I didn't grow up in New York City or anything. But I was just, it was just so glamorous and like the lights and the buildings.

And I just felt this energy. Like this is, this is so cool. This is there's so much opportunity here. You know what I mean? Because I didn't come from a rich family or anything. So I was like, wow, this is, this is really cool. So I'm doing. doing the internship for these guys and they're running me around ragged.

Now, looking back in hindsight, I probably should have been getting paid. But in the moment, I was just so happy because I was like a bartender and stuff like that. I was in college. And so I was just so happy to be wearing a suit every day and showing these commercial properties on Madison Avenue. And I just loved it. You know, so I knew real estate was my calling before I was even selling real estate. I was interning and I was looking at these brokers and they had, you know, like all these nice things.

And they lived. I was like, man, if I could, I remember telling my dad, I was like, if I'm getting the chills right now, I was like, if I could just do this for a living for my work, I would be so happy, you know. And I did, you know, and I did. So, so I hope that answers your question. It does. But, you know, when I think of the stock floor, the floor of the stock market, I think that's more exciting than so in real estate. But you, you chose a different path. And I'm grateful that you

did because it sounds like you're changing people's lives in a positive way. Yeah. Still do the investment side of things, but you're fulfilling their dreams. You're getting their wants and their needs all wrapped up into one. So that's fantastic. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I just had a closing yesterday. And it really was fulfilling because, you know, it was just, you know, you really, it's the American dream. And I know you're Canadian, but, you know, it's all tied in together. It's, it's, you know, it's when you help somebody and they're super grateful for you and you got them that dream home they've been working for for so many years, same for that down payment. It really does feel good. It really does. And, you know, homeownership, it really doesn't matter

where it is. It could be in any part of the world, but you give somebody a set of keys and there's a magical moment when that happens. It doesn't matter what dollar value. It could be $10, $20 million, or 10, 20,000, but when you give a key over to somebody and they get the possession of their house, it's pretty special. It really is. That's, it really is. Yeah. So maybe tell me a little bit of a principle or a rule that you live by daily that could fit into the return on life podcast theme. Is there something that you do on a daily basis that brings you return on life? Return on life. That's another great question. I really so. So, So when I first started, like I said, I come from very humble beginnings, right?

My parents were not rich and they actually struggled a little bit. So I thought that once I started making money, that I would be completely happy. And I remember holding this $17,000 check that I got at a closing. And that would be nothing to me now. But in the time, it was like I could finally breathe a little bit financially. So I remember holding this check and feeling completely empty inside because all I was doing was working. I wasn't going to the gym. I had gained a lot of weight at the time.

I was just, I wasn't dating. I wasn't doing anything but working. And I felt completely unfulfilled. So now I try to do as much giving back as I possibly can, helping people, whether that be, helping people who are, you know, who are struggling. I had somebody reach out to me this week about an internship. They're a younger kid in the fraternity that I belong to. So doing stuff like, you know, reaching out, helping people, even, you know, seeing,

you know, seeing somebody outside of 7-Eleven and giving them a dollar, you know, even if, you know, I understand that they're homeless or something like that. So for me, the true fulfillment comes from giving back, helping other people in their career, other people in their personal lives because I had to do a lot of a ton of personal development to get myself to this person who I could be professionally because your professional life is a reflection of your personal life. If you're if you don't have your stuff together, if you're if you're drinking a lot or using drugs or you know or being mean to your family and stuff like that and you try to just turn that off and become this great business person,

it's not going to happen. You have to actually be doing the next right thing in your personal life and then it will start to translate to your business life in my opinion so to get a return on life i try to use my experiences the mistakes i've made to help other people not make them if that makes sense yeah great response great great great response to that question you know it's really about who we are behind the scenes behind the curtain right really um brings out who we really are And if we are not whole, if I can use that word, if we're not really real to ourselves, we can't be real to the client that's sitting in front of us. It quickly unravels and people see who the real person is, who the real Randy, who the real James is right away. So it's really important that we do that.

And I've got a good friend. He's written a fantastic book, The Richest Real Estate Agent, and we think of money. And in his book, he walks through the process that it's not about the money. It's about the lives that you change. It's about how you live your life and how people actually get value from you. You know, they get to leverage you. So when I think of leverage, you know, a lot of people use leverage as a negative word. I think leverage is a powerful, positive word.

Oh, I love that word. Yeah. So how does leverage fit into your business allowing people to leverage everything that you understand and know about real estate or in life. And I know you've done some amazing things, whether it being, you know, traveling world, surfing. Yeah. Around the beach, you're, you know, the giving that you do in your community. So maybe, maybe share a little bit about that. Yeah. Well, um, leverage can mean a lot of things, right. It can mean, you know, uh, having a mortgage to acquire a property. Uh, it can mean, um, having an assistant to leverage to

leverage her for more time or him. You know, it could mean a lot of things. But, you know, in my personal life, I mean, I've just, I mean, I guess I'll, I'll tie it into being a real estate agent. So, you know, I have been living and breathing real estate for five years now and even before that, you know, and even when I'm home, I'm watching YouTube videos and I'm, you know, and I'm really, it's, it's, you know, I have an addictive personality, so I get a little obsessive with it, which can benefit the clients, you know? So the Hamptons is a big secondary market for people. It's their second, third, fifth home, right? Generally, they live in New York City. They live in, you know, Miami, Palm Beach, you know, Vancouver. Maybe they have a house in the Hamptons. So a lot of people lean on

me for knowing what's going on locally. Where's the different submarkets in that market? You know, you could be in Bridge Hampton and you could be one mile here and one mile here on two different sides of a road or train track and it could be two different submarkets. So, you know, you could be two different sub-market. So I would say just people leaning on me for the local expertise, like the call that I just got, people need a local mover, they need a local electrician. I can be that guy for them, you know, I can be a local resource and a referral machine for my friends who live around me. You know what I mean? So it's, so that's, that's a good way that I could use leverage, I would say. Cool. That's often. Awesome. And I think you just shared how people can leverage you as well.

be as agents, we want to be the go-to. Right. Somebody needs a mover. Somebody needs to know the best pizza shop in town. Where to get my tire fixed. They really should be reaching up to you because you're all-knowing in your marketplace. Exactly. That's a great way of leverage.

Right. That's it. You got to be the mayor of your own town. Everyone's got to know you. You got to know, like you could say, look, that pizza shop, eh, you want to go exactly. to go to Vinny's down the road. I'm just using an example. Or, you know, if someone, you know, they need a mechanic, you know, the good guy and say James sent you, you know what I mean? You know, so that is a really good point that you made. Right on. You know, we've been through

kind of a crazy market here in the last three years as we chatted about before we jumped on here. Whoa, roller coaster ride. Roller coaster ride is right. Yeah. What have you learned from the last few years. And well, let me talk about a number of things, but there's been so many lessons in the last few years. What have you learned about people? What have you learned about people in the last few years? That's a great question. And I want to quote the great Ed Milet, who I actually have on my vision board right next to me. You know, I'm going to see Ed in person in a month and a half. Yes. Awesome. Oh, you're going to see Edmyslet? Yeah. That's great. I've got a backstage mask to meet with him. So it's going to be good.

That's phenomenal. So I'm a big fan. I love his podcast every Tuesday. He really juices and talk about, you know, someone who really likes to live their life beyond business, you know, because I think that's a big thing for a lot of us is we get so caught up and making money that we forget about life. And once you start to make it, you start to reflect on what's really important. Yeah. So what I've learned about people is that when you're on pressure, you will lean on your habits, right? So you need to create good habits for yourself. And during a real estate transaction, where we work in commission only, zero salary, you know, you need to have really good habits for yourself and for your clients, because your

clients are making one of the biggest decisions of their life. In a lot of cases, it's their life savings, their home. It's their retirement plan. You are dealing with. their greatest, biggest, multi-million dollar asset. And they're under pressure when it's time to sell it or they're buying something and it's not contingent on the sale of their home. And you need to sell that and they're stressing. So you need to be strong not only for yourself, but for your clients. You know what I mean?

So I've learned that people just are variable. It doesn't matter how rich they are. We are emotional creatures. we are social creatures and they want to lean on you for not only your local expertise on who's the best mechanic around or who's got the who's the best gc but also they they want to lean on you for support to be a rock for them you know you need to be strong you need to have a good attitude have energy you know and that ties back to your own personal good habits of you need to be going to the gym you need to be getting good sleep you need to be eating right because you need to be there for

somebody else also you know well Well said, really well said, James. You know, I think a lot of us just go through life unconsciously doing things. And we're never conscious. So when we're competent and conscious, amazing things happen. So I really appreciate that response. That was a great, great answer. How about fear?

Let's talk a little bit about fear because fear. I love fear. I love fear. So is fear a friend, a foe, or a motivator for you? that is an amazing question. You know, fear ran my life for a long time. Ran my life. Ran it.

You know, and it led to me dealing, you know, dealing with an unhealthy ways, you know. Now, you need to use fear as a motivator for you, as a driver.

You know, fear is on, it's fake. It's all in your head. Once I learned about mindset and started reading all these personal development books, my entire life change. It's not the market. It's not the president. It's not the economy.

It you are in, you are the own driver of your own jet plane, you know, and you control your destiny wherever you want to go. So fear is there, but you, it's, it's fake. You need to break through it. And in this business, action is the name of the game. So if you aren't letting fear stop you from picking up the phone, if you're letting fear stop you from going after that bigger listing, you know, you're too young you haven't hit that market yet you haven't done this if you're letting your fear stop you the next guy's gonna gonna go roll right over you and grab it the only the person you know because courage is not the absence of fear courage is having that fear and still going forward that's what courage is courageous people are not not feeling fear they feel it they just do it

anyway so i try to be a courageous person and to create and to quote another person, a motivational guy, Grant Cardone, very controversial. I love the guy. But he talks about that all the time about courage and about how courage is a muscle you can work on. You could work on courage by making that extra call. Call that person you're scared to call, you know? And then it becomes, you know, I remember when I wanted my first million dollar listing, right? And I was scared. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is an East Hampton caller. I'm scared. I don't, hello, you know, like and um the more you do it now a million dollars that's my bread of butter i don't even it's just another it's just another person now it's the 10 million dollars that that i might say hello but i

you know it's but you still got to do it you know it's it's it's a muscle that can be developed and uh and fear is something that runs so many people's lives and uh you know you have to overcome it you know and you can be courageous or a coward you know and fear you know you how you deal with fear will determine which one you are. Love the response. Love the response. You're gifted in many ways. Thank you.

When did you know that you had gifts that were like special? Like was it a moment? Was it a time? Was it something that you push through, whether it be a fear situation? But we all have gifts. And a lot of us don't recognize them, I think, for the value that they are. but we're all given gifts as a child. When did you recognize that you had some amazing gifts?

Well, thank you for saying that. I do appreciate that. It sounds weird to say this, but I always knew I was special. Even though I did deal with a lot of insecurity, like some deep insecurity, I always knew that I was special. And I guess it really started with just playing sports. You know, I used to love baseball, and I would wake my brother up from the moment the sun went up. and he would pitch to me and I would pitch to him and we would play in the neighborhood all day long, all day. And then I got really good.

Why? Because I was practicing a lot and living and breathing it. You know, anything you do at that level, you will get good at. So I knew from a young age and even as I, you know, and even like you said, I don't even recognize it sometimes. I was, you know, I had a bad day on Monday and I called my buddy and I was like, man, I just, you know, I lost my temper on this. They wouldn't pass to me on the basketball court. I was about to walk off about, you know what I mean? and sometimes you don't even recognize it yourself, you know,

but I always kind of knew that I had it, you know, from a young age, just really sports. Sports was great. And, you know, and I've overcome a lot, man. You know, I won't get into it on a deep, too personal level, but, you know, I'm a year sober, you know what I mean? So a lot of times I dealt with that in very unhealthy ways. And I was making a lot of money and drinking a lot, you know,

and I was doing a lot of that. that stuff. And, you know, I left home at a very young age and I've been on, I mean, all I know is being on my own, you know what I mean? So I was, you know, I always knew I'd offend for myself and things like that. So, and, and a big thing how you really start to trust yourself is just if you can, and it's, it's, you need to get used to delayed gratification, you know, you need to be consistently putting in work, even when you can't grab that thing you want. You need to trust the process and, you know, listen to the guys like Edm, my light, who have been. done it and Grant Cardone who have done it so you know it is possible for yourself and keep

pushing and I'm nowhere yet but I'm getting I'm really rolling now and it's just you got to just keep keep it pushing and I went on a little tangent but I hope that answers your question a little bit I like the tangent I love the tangent yeah what you said is you know sometimes we don't know our own gifts we don't know our own superpower so to speak and it's the people around us that see it so clearly. So, you know, we have to be, I guess, reaching out to others to really have them help us through that. Absolutely. You're a good friend that talks about our ego and our ego is really important for our success, but we can't, we can't lean on our amigo. I mean, our ego is our amigo. Yeah. Your ego is a funny thing. Yeah. Yeah, ego's a funny thing, you know,

especially as a real estate broker, you want to be a little confident, right? You want to, you want to have, because people have to trust you, you know. So you need to be confident in what you're doing. But especially me now with what I'm doing with, like I have a meeting at 3 o'clock with the private equity company raising capital to buy buildings to buy, you know, value add, multifamily real estate. And if I was sitting here, full of fear and, you know, and not confident with, you know, And I hate to say, because, you know, sometimes your ego is not your am ego, but if I didn't act like I didn't know what the heck I was talking about, you're going to say, look, man, I'm not giving you a dollar, you know.

So you need to really, you need to know your stuff and you need to, you need to have a little juice in this business. You know what I mean? You can't be, you can't be just, you know, like, like super, you need to have a little, like you have it. You're very polished, well spoken. Obviously, you know, talking about ego and fear and stuff like that. obviously you're into personal development. And that's the people who do the best in this business are always all about that. So yeah.

Right on. I'm going to go back to baseball, your childhood passion. And I think there's so much we can learn from childlike thoughts, childlike experiences, the way we were as a child in business. Because when you think about who we were, we're so pure. so innocent and so real as children. And what are the two gifts that we were given as a child, curiosity and imagination? I'm writing that down.

Curiosity and imagination. Yet as we grow older, curiosity and imagination get pushed out of the way. And the busyness of life steps in. But when you think of curiosity and imagination, obviously you go back to things in your childhood. And if you think back into your childhood, I mean, you could have been anything you wanted. When you're a child, you thought you could do anything. Right. You probably thought you're going to be a professional baseball player at one point. I did. That's exactly what I thought. Right. Yes. Yeah, we, why do we push that? We put it in a drawer. We don't bring it out. So,

you know, this podcast is on return on life. And so I think a lot of us, if we could go back into our childhood and remember what that was like, I think we would find that we're, we could really live a more productive life through our childhood, dreams, thoughts, curiosity, imagination. Absolutely. You know, you are, let me tell you something, you are a gifted interviewer,

you're much better than I am, and I have a podcast. You're asking very good questions. You know, society, as we grow older, and we enter high school and, you know, and, you know, as you're in grade nine, right? And it starts to happen. Society tries to put you in a box. They say, you don't say that.

You don't think that. It doesn't try it. It does put you in the box. Society puts you in this box that says, get your degree, get married, have kids, work a nine to five, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you give up on your own dreams. Your curiosity, your imagination gets thrown out the window. They say don't think like that.

Even when you start, I'm sure when you became a real estate agent, you know, people will say, you know, don't do that. It's too risky. Go get a job. Who's going to pay your salary? Right. And they try to, again, shove you back in the box and say, just be happy, you know, be grateful that you have dinner on your table tonight.

And I am. But they try to shove, you know, you're going to get a lot of negative feedback, especially when you're an entrepreneur, when you try to escape that box. when you can keep those childhood dreams alive and start to do it. And I think, again, back to personal development, it is so important that you are reading books about people who are actually successful because they're going to tell you you can do it. You know, do you think Steve Jobs stayed inside the box? No. He was a lunatic, frankly.

You know what I mean? But he was crazy enough to think that he could do it. And he did it. I mean, I mean, I just bought the new iPhone 14 Pro Max yesterday. You know, he, he did it. So I think as we get old, and one thing that I always believe is, you know, I was like, you know, when I left home at a young age, right, I was bartending. I was putting myself through college. I was in a tremendous.

I was buying BMWs, making all kinds of stupid decisions, right? You know, I had no direction and really no one to lean on at that time. And, but I always believed I had something. And then as I started to, when I did that internship for real estate, I was like the light clicked on. I was like, wow, I can really make something on myself with this. I don't know how, but I want to be like these guys with the houses in the Hamptons who own the buildings in New York City and own the real estate. And I want to do what they did. And then I started to read these books by Grant Cardone that talks about, you know, all these people have kept like the Burr method.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Burr method with real estate investing. they've kept that so tight to the chest and I said well wait I could probably do that and I didn't know how but I was like I will own buildings one day and then so I you know and now I have a call with with private equity people to raise capital I have a coach a real estate investment coach that I you know I paid almost 10 grand to have you know just because it's if you just believe it's possible for yourself you can do it and then somehow some way the universe will conspire to get to give you you what you want. But it takes a long time. It takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice, but you can do anything you believe you can. Amen. I love that. Amen. So let's talk a little bit about vision board, but I'm going to actually tap into your imagination for this because our imagination, awesome. Yeah. Our imagination is the most powerful vision board we could ever create because it can create anything that we wanted to do. However, we allow our memory to blur our imagination vision board.

We allow our past to come into it and disrupt all that amazing stuff. But when you think of the imagination, the imagination is anything it wants it to be or what we want to make it to be. So I know you've got a vision board. sure a little bit about your imagination vision board what's going on what would you like to create in your world in your life in the next one three five years so in the next second to the return on life piece yeah so it's not always about doing the deals it's about creating a life that is so amazing that you're getting this r o i the r o i on life so i'm building my real estate investment

business so I have complete passive income coming in so I don't have to stress about, you know, always being on the hamster wheel of where's my next deal coming from, although I do love that game, you know. So that would open me up to a life where I could, you know, and entrepreneurship, like, I'm taking a bike ride at 2 o'clock and I love that freedom. You know what I mean? I love the fact that I could just do that, you know? So as far as life, what's on my vision board, you know? act like the leader you want to be, right? I'm working, you know, I'm not a perfect person. Obviously, I disclose a couple of things about myself. So I'm trying to shift and actually become that person I always knew I could be, you know, not. And that goes to my own thoughts, to the jokes that I tell

my closest friends, you know, it's just getting away from some of the immature things and really becoming the leader I always wanted to be. So that's a big personal goal of mine. Um, obviously, owning owning a condo in Manhattan and the house on the ocean in the in the Hamptons and the black range rover and stuff like that stuff's all great I could probably do that right now but you know I would like to have a family one day you know I'd like to have a nice beautiful family and stuff like that and you know watching my parents struggle so much financially and then watching them split up honestly as a result of that you know I always wanted to, I always had that bug in me to become successful because I know that, you know,

financial pressures can put a lot of pressure on families. So I want to be a provider for my family. And I want to be healthy. You know, I want to be as healthy as possible. You know, I love riding my bike. I love playing basketball, pick up basketball. I can really get my competitive juices out there. So I just want to be healthy, happy, and have the income coming in where I don't stress about anything. The only thing I'm worried about is helping the next guy get here and showing them, hey, this is possible. Grab my hand. Let's ride. We're going. You know? Awesome. Hashtag, ROL. There it is. Hashtag ROL. I love it. Hashtag I'm writing that down. Yeah, you have something here, man. Right on. Hey, a couple quick questions as we close out here.

What do you do to let your hair down? What do you do? It sounds like you're going for a bike ride this afternoon. But what is you just to say, I'm just letting my hair down today? That's a great question. I have a bit of a problem letting my hair down sometimes. Even my manager at work was like, James, it's about work hard, play hard, right? You got to play hard too. I, you know, it's, you know, I just, I like to blow off steam by take, you know, doing, I love basketball. I really love sports. So, you know, I'll play basketball. I'll sometimes put some money on a basketball game. It's legal in New York. So I'll throw 100. on a college basketball game and get some junk food.

You know what I mean? Like that's what I'll do to let my hair down a little bit. I like trying new restaurants. I like going to like new towns. I like doing podcasts and stuff like this too. Like I just brought with my podcast, we got. Give me a plug. What's your podcast?

Give me a plug. What's your podcast? It's called the college dropout podcast. And we have some really like celebrity guests coming on, which is pretty cool. But so we like this weekend, we, me, my partner on the podcast, Mike, and then our videographer Gary, who's our boy, has been doing our photos for five years, and we decided to build this team and do this podcast.

And we took, we went on the ferry from Port Jefferson to Connecticut, and we went to this guy's gym. They built this huge viral, like, Instagram following through these workout videos and stuff. So we had them, like, I love doing stuff like that. I really love being an entrepreneur, you know. But I guess letting my hair down would be just, you know, you know, trying a new restaurant, you know, really having a great game of basketball. You know, it's something that I personally don't do that often, you know, because I really love the game of entrepreneurship.

But it's, yeah, what do you do? What do I do? A kite surf. Tite surf. There you go. Kite surf. I like to date my wife. We've been married 36 years.

Oh, congratulations. Congratulations. That's all right. Hang out with my kids and my. Yeah. How about a favorite band? What's a favorite band of yours? Favorite band. I love Nirvana talking about the Northwest. I love Nirvana, even though they're a little depressing, but they get me fired up. I like Pearl Jam. You know, I've been really into country music lately, too. So Morgan Wallin, this guy, Tyler Childser. Countries, country's got some game right now. It definitely does. It's good. And I can relate to that, you know, nothing's going right whiskey drinking blah blah blah woman you know all that stuff you know i can definitely you know that's a part of me that's gone but it's it's definitely something that i can hear the music and the pain in that and i and i really can you know it really get it touches my soul a little bit you know so it's cool last question this is a bit of a tricky question sure you're a scratch and sniff

sticker a scratch and sniff sticker what would you be and i'll i'll go first just so So you got a little bit time to think about this because it's a bit, it's a bit different. Yeah. I would love to be a scratch and sniff sticker, which would be like a pinocalada with the ocean scent because I love being at the beach. Yeah. My girl and kite surfing or just taking the pinocalada and beach. Yeah. What would be your scratch and sniff sticker?

You know, that sounds awesome what you just said. You know, I'm just. I got, it would probably be, you know, a mysterious scent. Like, like, you know, this is going to sound crazy, but like, maybe like some like sand and dirt, you know, on the, you know, checking out the pyramids in Egypt and like, you know, and like walking and like, or maybe like in like Jerusalem walking where Jesus walked or something like that. Like I would love to, you know, I'm a little gritty. So I would like to do something along those lines.

probably. So that would probably be my answer. Like some like fresh like football dirt. You know, you know the smell like a football field and when the dirt kicks up and you can smell it? Probably something like that. Yeah. Cool. That's a great response. Yeah.

Awesome. James. Thanks for being a guest on Return on Life podcast. This has been fantastic. Great answers. Really interesting how you shared with us. So thank you, James. Hey, man. My pleasure. I love the podcast. hashtag ROL baby run it up okay take it all right take care