KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Real Estate without Burnout: Toni Sing's Three Pillars of Success

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

Tony Singh. Tony is an amazing individual. And I've had such a great, great pleasure of spending time with Tony. We've done a podcast together. And her story is so, so rich. You're going to love what she shares. But more importantly for the realtor collective, she's an absolute superstar of the Game by Real Estate.

She's done so much. In fact, she has an incredible brokerage called Bell Air Realty, Vancouver. Her and her family started and she is now the sole owner of this brokerage. She has so much to share, so much wisdom and an incredible story. Come on up, Tony. Welcome here, Tony. Take it away. Thanks so much for having me. You're welcome. Okay. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here to speak with you today. So today, I've been asked to speak to you about three keys to success in real estate and life, even if you don't think you can have it all. So I'm going to start off with a quote today. Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue.

That counts. So who am I? And why should I be speaking to about this? I'm not going to go over these points. These are just examples of what I have done and what I am doing in my career. But who am I'm a mom of two. I'm a business owner. I'm someone who cares deeply about the people that we work with, whether it's our client base or our real estate partners. And today, I'm hoping that we'll really go a little bit deeper in terms of, one, the journey that it took me to get here. And maybe it'll resonate with some of you in terms of what you're going through on your business journey. And throughout the presentation, I would like to be really clear. I don't know if I'm the right person to be speaking to you about this. I definitely don't know it all. And I don't have everything

figured out yet. So let's discover it together. There's three myths in the real estate industry about what is required to be a top producer. And I think that for many of you watching, you can resonate with these. That I need to work. 7, that my relationships need to suffer. And finally, that burnout is required. And I'm here to tell you, for sure, if you bought into these, this is what you're going to get. There is a different way of running your business and running your life where these don't

need to be a necessity. And it really matters on whether or not you buy into these notions and how you're playing it out in life. So the three pillars that I have here for succeeding in life and real estate, I would say life first because that's what matters. We all go through life changes. Can you guys agree? Everybody has them, right? And that can look like different things.

It can be the birth of a new family member, the death of a loved one, the loss of a relationship. There's just so many things in life that make it interesting and sometimes complicated. health. At some point or another, health is always a key component to life. It's what keeps us going. And so if you don't have optimal health, health is essentially wealth, the greatest currency. This can be problematic for all areas of your life. And finally, relationships. We all have them, whether it's with yourself, with friends, or with family, maybe you have kids. I'm going to speak to each of these today. and I'm going to be sharing my journey with you. So you'll have to bear with me

because I haven't looked at some of the photos in a long time. I might be emotional about it. So life changes. We have some examples here of what they are. And I'm going to speak from my experience. For me, I got into real estate in 2010. And at the time to paint the picture of just how important it was for me to get into the business and just crush it, you know?

So 2010 got in. I worked very hard. And I want to be careful because hustle culture is not something that I like to emulate, but this is, I have to explain it this way in terms of you guys understanding the story. And then we can work on creative solutions to not go down that rabbit hole. But essentially, for me, I was working very hard, sometimes 12 to 18 hour days, nonstop, no days off, working holidays. Realtors in the room, have you done this before?

Yes, you're all nodding. You're all nodding. So you all get it. And I think this is true of any entrepreneur wanting to succeed at a very high level. In order to talk about this, we have to go back in time. So in 2014, unexpectedly and quite happily, we found out that we were pregnant. I did not plan for this. I did not plan for this at all. So that meant that I hadn't accounted for how I was going to run my business, what kinds of changes I needed to make, how was I going to support my clients, how was I going to support this baby that was growing inside of me?

And actually, you can see here too, I went door knocking this day. Back then, I very much bought into those myths of you have to work 24-7 in order to succeed. So I hadn't had the discovery yet that other ways of being could be more important and successful to my goal. The second picture there, I was in the office and I was contracting because they sent me out of the hospital. You could see the little bands on my wrist. I hadn't planned properly for this life change. My business, you have to understand, before we got pregnant, it was my baby. I wanted it so bad.

And I'm not actually afraid or ashamed to say that. That was just the reality. And so looking back, it seems ridiculous that I had no scope of reality in terms of how my life was going to change and how that would affect people. And then happily and finally in 2015, my son, Antonio, was born. And it was just the most beautiful thing. But because I had failed to plan and I was afraid of the unknown, I was still taking calls. We're in the hospital here. and I had pre-scheduled listing appointments for the week before,

and I thought I was going to have a natural, healthy labor, and then I would be able to go on the appointments the following week. This is not true. So we stayed in the hospital for quite some time, and I was not able to physically go on the appointments, in which case I had to get team members help and assist me, but had I planned better knowing that these life changes were happening, we wouldn't have had this result, which also impacted my clients, myself, and my new relationship with my son.

So, I mean, going back in time, we all want to have a crystal ball and everything, right? Would I have done it that way? No, absolutely not. And just, I don't know if these would work for you guys. They work for me now because I question these things. In this scenario when I was pregnant, I probably would have said, okay, what's the intention here? at the time looking back what I would have done is I wanted to honor the time that I had with my newborn son and I wanted to make sure that the business had no interruptions because ultimately that would impact the client but I wasn't coming from that place and I wasn't able to reach it so that's not what happened but setting an

attention can work very well at the time because I was still doing business the same way and I wasn't accounting for things like feeding schedules change in the diaper cluster feeding the women in the background are laughed because they know exactly what I mean, but evaluating what's not working. Maybe Tony needed more sleep that day. She was not sleeping. Maybe I could have used a walk that day. It would have been amazing for my health.

I did none of those things. And I am embarrassed to say it, but we're going to keep it real during this presentation today. And then identifying daily non-negotiables. So now, I mean, if I were to get pregnant again, I would probably set a time range for myself, maybe 10, 15 minutes, whatever that looks like, to just have time to myself. I think that that would have worked wonders.

So the second pillar is health. And for me, I'm going to speak to you from the place of my personal experience. And I am really going to share with you guys what happened during this time. So don't forget, I was new to the business in 2010, working very hard, surprisingly got pregnant 2014, had my son in 2015. Now, at the time, career-wise, because I was finally starting to see all of the benefits and the hard work that I had put in. And I was not willing to give it up. And so that's one of the reasons why, I guess I was just so attached to the old plan, you know. I wanted my business to succeed. I wanted to spend time with my son,

but I just didn't plan properly. So three ways that health can go wrong. Scarcity mindset, not being enough and expectations from others. And let me tell you, from being a non-perfect person, I suspect that these all came into play for me as to why I didn't make the decisions to put myself first and I experienced very, very poor health. And it can show up in the ways, you know,

you think sometimes it might show up in a small, minuscule way, but these things go into bigger things. So it can show up by overworking. Maybe you're not sleeping. You're starting to skip meals because there's so many appointments. There's no time for rest. For me, I felt guilty being at home with my son when I was breastfeeding him. And then I felt guilty being at the office or in front of clients when I wasn't with him.

So it was an internal struggle, absolutely. I should have given myself a bit more room, but that's just how it happened at the time. So two years after, I was running my business that way. And for two years, I was prospecting, growing the business, trying to spend time with my son, but I was ultimately failing at everything. And in 2017 to 2018, it was probably,

a bit longer. I encountered some really difficult health problems. And in this picture, you can still kind of see, I mean, it looks like I'm okay, I'm hooked up to a machine, but there's definitely still some ego there. Like, I can do this. I can just work harder. I can just do more. And I'm going to have the results that I want in my business and with my family. So for me, it looked like hustle with no finish line. Um, lack of nutrition. And you can see in the last picture here the difference in my face, right? I was exhausted.

And when I put this presentation together for you, it was really difficult for me to go back and look at these photos because I purposely tried to forget this time in my life. And I think it was around, yeah, a year and a half with one relapse. So what ended up happening was from running my body that way, and my business that way and not doing the things that I needed to do to nourish myself. I ended up, the Lyme disease ended up coming out and autoimmune conditions, which were really, really awful.

I was in treatment. It was around on average six days a week, almost for a year. And I was still fielding client calls. So what ended up happening was the health got so bad and the treatment actually made, things worse before it gets better. I've heard that that can happen with a lot of people. And so there were days where, and I didn't realize this, I only say this illustratively so you guys could see how much of a slow learner that I am and how terrible that it actually was. I didn't want clients to know that I was sick. So it took additional energy to sound, upbeat,

and get things done. I was just too exhausted. My husband was concerned. He didn't share this with me until last year actually. He thought that I was going to die and he took time off of work because he didn't want me alone with our baby. He was two at the time because he thought I was going to pass out. So this is only new information. It was it was really that bad. But eventually I started doing things a little bit differently and slowly but surely came out of that darkness. So knowing when to saying no. The most important thing, right? Creating boundaries. Oh, so important. And what had happened in this scenario was the nurse actually said to me, she said, you're never going to get better. If you keep talking on your phone and messaging people while you're in treatment, you're just getting

worse. And she was the smartest lady. You know, at the time, I didn't take it at face value, but I remember this client calling me and saying, Tony, can you? you take on this listing and help us find our dream home. And finally at that time, because I truly was coming from a place of I physically couldn't do it, I'm not going to be able to service the client in the way that they need. I had to say no. And that was the very first time in saying no to somebody. I never said no to clients. That actually, it provided me the space and the healing for all of that to transpire and occur. And then obviously, brass and self-care, that's self-explanatory. But the final component to really having a

fulfilling and abundant life and business, real estate sales business is what we're talking about today, has to do with relationships. So all of these years leading up to this, you can see that I had very negative and detrimental behaviors and they just didn't serve me well. But for myself, as a new mom at the time and a business owner, I was constantly prioritizing everybody else's needs. And I was still coming from a place of not enoughness. I felt that I was a bad mom, a bad wife, not a good business owner, not a good enough realtor.

It was a really awful place to live. So you can see in this picture here, these are some of my relationships. and there were really too many pictures. I couldn't include all of them with other people that are really important to me, but this should give you the visionary example of where I'm coming from. So in the corner there, that was when I gave birth to our second baby, Stevie. And yeah, it was challenging, too.

I took a little bit more time for myself, but you can see I do have my folder there, the computer there, and I think I was in between breastfeeding her there. But I was doing a bit better. You know, I told you I still don't have everything. figured out. The bottom corner, all of our, we had a client appreciation party, but all of these relationships and all of these people, they're important to me. And so what was happening was I was constantly sending energy elsewhere, but still I wasn't taking care of myself, which is where the health stuff had happened, right? My real estate team here, very important to be there for the

people that you have in your life. And then here's a picture of my family, that's my brother up there, and we're celebrating my husband's birthday in the corner. But do you guys notice something that's missing from this? Like, what is missing? Still didn't have a relationship with myself. Still putting everybody else first. And it really did feel like an internal pull in every direction. So my realization in this was that relationship with yourself is key,

and it seemed so self-explanatory. It seems like a no-brainer. And I think when you put it into practice, or actually putting into practice, it doesn't always happen so easily. So this is really what I do now, and it's helpful and immensely. I've heard many other entrepreneurs

stick to very strong routines of things that are important to them for self-care. But for me, I need time alone. I need time alone in the mornings and at night, whether it's 10 or 15 minutes of meditation or setting my intention for the day, when I do that, I just feel so fulfilled and the day goes exactly as I want it to. Claiming joy. That's an interesting thing to say, but, you know, I noticed the more that I focused on

interests and hobbies that were not work-related, the more business ended up flowing to me. And I think it's just because I was happier and I was prioritizing the things that I wanted to do. that weren't related to anything else external. And then finally, this is just, I don't know if any of you guys do this, but for me, and it could be because I'm actually an introvert, I like to take a think day and not talk to anybody.

And I realize that it's actually not selfish to do so because this allows me to show up for everyone in my life, myself, right, got to put the life best on, my kids, my husband, my parents, other family, friends, real estate team, like I can't give from a place of being exhausted. Okay. So in summary, because I don't know if my time's up,

if I could give you one recommendation today, I would urge you to write down just one, one, non-negotiable. And you'll be amazed at how it'll transform your life. I don't know who said it, but someone had said the way we do one thing is how we do everything. So the one thing, and you'll just see the magical results. For me, it went back to my values and what was important to me. And this reigns through with all of the relationships in my life, including myself.

So it's relationships with myself and others, keeping the integrity in those relationships. And integrity can also look like your word to yourself, right? If you don't have that and you can't keep your word to yourself, you're not able to keep your word to other people. And I surround myself with quality humans. And this has brought me the best joy of all. So in summary, life happens. What matters is that you show up with integrity in your life, in your business, and for yourself. And I said this.

This is not a quote from anybody else. I don't have anything to sell you guys today. And I'm not a coach. But I also realize fully that we all go through hard times. And that's not what defines us. Getting through that difficult time and coming out on the other side is where the true magic happens. So if you are experiencing anything in your business and life, where you think maybe you need a little bit of help or a sounding board, get in touch with me. we'll set up a call. I'm happy to give back.

Wow, that was so, so awesome. Thanks, Randy. Thank you for sharing. You know, you touched me in so many ways with what you shared. And we've done this at my podcast. You have a podcast as well. Yeah. But really, you know, life is about trusting yourself. Yeah. And that's what I think you've found. You found how to trust yourself, take time for yourself, and know who you are and not let anybody else tell who you are. I'm still evolving. So we'll see where I end up in a few years. Yeah. That was fantastic.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, Randy. Awesome.