Start With A Win - Race Cars, Real Estate, and Reality TV with The Bachelor’s Arie Luyendyk Jr.

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Our guest on this episode of the Start with a Win podcast is a man of many talents: Entrepreneur, television celebrity, and Indy racer Arie Luyendyk Jr. Arie has had his real estate license since 2004, but when the market took a turn in 2007, Arie decided to focus on racing and his television career for a few years before jumping back into real estate in 2016. He is very passionate about helping people buy and sell homes in the Scottsdale area and beyond — and he actually finds it a bit easier to find clients than it was for him to sign sponsors on the racetrack. The key tools that Arie uses to find success are having a system for time management and being surrounded by the right team of people. He recognizes that solid relationships are the basis for all aspects of his career and life and he takes every opportunity to network and connect with people. He has a daily routine of expressing gratitude and setting goals for that day and then circling back at night to check in with himself and plan for the next day. His time management recently hit a speed bump with the birth of his daughter, making him want to spend much more time at home with his family than he used to, but he wouldn’t trade that time for the world.Links:https://bestself.co/products/self-journal?variant=18866398068805Connect with Arie:https://global.remax.com/AgentProfile.aspx?AgentID=1006139096https://www.instagram.com/ariejr https://twitter.com/ariejrConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/ https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContos https://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Every day is filled with choices. You're here because you're choosing to Start With A Win. Get ready to be inspired, learn something new, and connect with the win nation. And top of the 12th floor, REMAX World Headquarters. Adam Contos, CEO of Remax here with Start With A Win. Very special guest on the line with us today. We have an amazing television star, race car driver, worldwide known celebrity. We have Ari Leindyke Jr. on the podcast today. How are you doing, Ari? Good. Thanks for having me. Very honored to be on. Hey, we're glad to have you here. Just a little bit about Ari. Ari is a Dutch-American auto racing driver. You competed in the Indy Light Series. You finished second, third, and fourth in the championship. Well done, my friend. That's pretty amazing. You've been a contestant on

The Bachelor. You were also on The Bachelorette before that. I mean, gosh, you've done a lot, haven't you? Yeah, I've definitely lived a full life. I've had a couple of different careers, a lot of satisfying stuff in racing and also in real estate. So yeah, I definitely have had quite a journey so far. Yeah, that's awesome. And you mentioned real estate. You are one of our amazing REMAX agents with REMAX Excalibur out in Scottsdale, Arizona. So ladies and gentlemen, next time you need a real estate agent out in Scottsdale there, Ari's your guy. Hey, Ari, why don't you dig a little deeper? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah. So obviously born in Holland, like you said, we migrated here when I

was really young, three years old. So spent most of my time splitting, being in the States and obviously going back to Holland for vacation every summer. Then started my racing career really early. And then when the economy took a downturn, I really shifted my focus towards racing. And it was interesting, those two don't seem like they parallel very well, but there's a lot of similarities in business between the two as far as raising sponsorships, selling the real estate on a racing car, and transitioning that into the real estate market. So shifted to real estate on a racing car and transitioning that into the real estate market. So shifted to real estate and really have made that my primary focus the last three years. I've done a lot of business. It's been a great experience. I really, really find it really

rewarding to find somebody a home and it's been fun. Now, we have a really amazing group of real estate agents around the world that work under the REMAX banner. We have 128,000 plus in 110 different countries and territories. You work with some unbelievable REMAX agents out there in Scottsdale as well. We kind of like operate as a big team globally. How do you see everything that you've done blending into your worldwide endeavors in real estate? Because your business doesn't just come locally. It comes from all over the place, doesn't it? Of course. I'm no stranger to the fact that I know that there's so much power behind a brand.

When I think about racing and all the brands that I've worked with in the past, there's a real connection for people when they work with a trusted brand. And I think that's something that's carried over in my real estate career. And like you said, I do real estate all over the world because I feel like when you're an agent in Phoenix, you can't just concentrate on Phoenix when you have such a referral network that Remax has. And that's something that I've definitely utilized the last few years coming off of The Bachelor. Obviously, my clientele is not just here in Phoenix, but I feel like I reach a lot further than that because of Remax. Very cool. And we've got, we have listeners around the world on the podcast on Start With A Win here, so they can hear Ari Leyendyk today.

You made some interesting transitions. You know, tell me about this. How, has it been hard to go from, you know, television celebrity to real estate agent or easier? I mean, what does that look like? I mean, it's definitely interesting. When you hold an open house and someone walks in and they're like, wait, aren't you? Then it's an icebreaker for sure. I think it's definitely helped my business. It's hard to juggle things. I think time management is one of the biggest things that I try to work on. I love to do a lot. I love to still race a little bit. I obviously am heavily involved in real estate. I do a lot of my own new construction and fix and flips as well with my wife. And then I have, you know, the TV side of things where, you know,

we just shot an episode of international house hunters. That's real estate based, um, long Island Medium, The Bachelor. So I'm kind of always trying to do a lot of things at once. So I think for me, the most important part is the people behind me that help me do all this and accomplish everything that I want to accomplish. It's been quite the challenge, but also a really great challenge. It's amazing. You touched on it a couple times. This is a people business, and it's so neat to hear you talk about the clients and how your team and the people behind

you make such a big difference because it is also a very selfless business, just like what you did racing cars. You're not just racing for yourself. You're racing for a team, for a sponsor, things like that. And I love how you've continued to transition this on and on and on. So let's kind of take another step back into your racing background. That seems like a pretty frightening thing. I mean, I've been around the track a few times, but never at the speeds or in the open wheel cars or anything like that. Like, I got to tell you, man, you got some guts. How do you get into a car like that and go, I'm going to keep my foot into it until deep in this corner knowing if gravity is not my friend right now, I'm going to end up in that wall. How does that happen?

And then you get out and you go sell a house. I mean, where does that transition occur? You know, for me, I think the biggest part of being a driver other than the driving itself is working with your team and finding brands to partner with you. So you're able to do that one thing that very little or very few get to do. So driving in the Indy 500, I always say there's less than 800 people that have driven in the Indy 500 since the first race in 1911. So you're talking over 100 years, only 800 people have done that. So if you look at the NFL, I think in any given season, I think there's over 1500 players that compete in one season of the NFL. So it's an extremely elite group of individuals.

I get to race that race, but there's so many people behind that one individual to make it happen. The business side of racing is something that was always really interesting to me. And I've carried that over to real estate. And I think that is the one thing that has helped me in my business. I think like you said, there's so many people behind you to make you successful. And it's all about building relationships and networking. And I think that is something that most new agents really need to hone in on is that it's not what you know, it's who you know. It's about starting conversations, about talking to as many people about real estate as you can a day, and really connecting as many people as you can in your network.

Is that something that you saw? I love the idea of, hey, it's not me, it's the business, and I want to connect with you to see what I can do to help you. I look at race car drivers and celebrities, you're business people, you're in front of the camera or whatever it is, but you're a business person because you're trying to connect with people on the other side of that. When you realize that as a race car driver, and you grew up with this, your dad won the Indy 500 twice, right? Yeah. He won the Indy 500 twice, once in 1990 and once in 97. He's still heavily involved in IndyCar. And I think growing up in that environment, I saw that very early on that talent is extremely important, but more importantly, you have to know how to connect and get sponsorship to be able to use that talent is extremely important, but more importantly, you have to know how to

connect and get sponsorship to be able to use that talent. So I think it was all about the business side of it that really interested me. The racing was an added bonus. That's the stuff that we love to do and we get to do and we're privileged to do. But I saw that early on and selling a sponsorship on a race car is extremely difficult. Selling a house to somebody who wants that house, that was quite easy at first. So more about finding the right people around you than really selling something. Not trying to be cliche, but I know there's a lot of discipline in driving a race car. And you talk about drive as a driver and the intensity and the focus and the discipline

and things like that. How do you find you've transitioned that into the entrepreneurial space? Because being an entrepreneur is hard. Let's call it what it is. It is not an easy lifestyle. You got to be focused. You got to have that fire in the belly and be willing to grind every single day in order to grow your business. Because if you don't, there's no food on the table. So exactly. Yeah. How have you taken that discipline and transition that over? And what advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?

I think setting up a structure for yourself is really important. What I do every morning, I have this book that's called The Best Self Book. And it's essentially a goal book. It's not really like a planner, but more or less, what are you grateful for in the morning? Then you schedule your day. At the end of the day, you write down your wins for the day. So what did I accomplish? Because I think as an entrepreneur, as a real estate agent, you think to yourself, oh, I'm not doing enough. You're very hard on yourself if you're goal-driven like most of the good agents are.

But it's also really important to remind yourself what did i do right and what did i accomplish today kind of feeds the positivity and gives you sort of a little light at the end of the tunnel that you're reaching your goals every day so i start my day with that and then i try to fill my day all the way up until 8 p.m i try to schedule out it sounds crazy because I'm very type A. I try and schedule out literally every 15 minutes of my day. If I don't get to all of it, great. But at least, you know, I shot for the moon and landed somewhere in between, you know? I love that. And it just so happens that I also have one of the best self journals. We're singing from the same sheet of music here. So that's awesome.

Have you found this, you know, you've got a beautiful family, a young baby. Has this discipline helped you with your family relationship, you know, caring for those around you? It has, you know, it's, you know, I've been a little less productive, I gotta say, on the business side of things. But it's been super rewarding, you know, having a daughter is like, it changes everything. I'm sure that all the parents listening know that. Finding this family and work balance is always difficult, but we make sure to make time for the family and then also make time for business throughout the day. But it's been really rewarding. It's been a transition for sure. But my wife is amazing. She and I work a lot together on our new construction business. We're doing a lot here in Phoenix, doing a lot of

infill, doing a lot of fix and flips, and she's my interior designer. So it's been really fun to work with her on a lot of projects. And we have a few that are coming on the market in January. So we're really excited to promote those as well. Awesome. Sounds like a lot of fun working with an amazing human being that you get to see whenever you want. That's fantastic. Changing channels here just a little bit. We all face big challenges in life. What's a big key challenge that you found a great learning opportunity and that you can share with everybody? I mean, I think there's a few. I think time management, we hit on that. That's a challenge that I face every day. So that's why I use that book in the morning to kind of schedule my day.

Another one is just the market constantly changing. You know, we have so many different things throughout my career. I've been licensed since 2004. You know, we had the recession. So I had to completely change the way I did business. And then also now we have the iBuyers moving in a little bit. So how to sort of corner your area of the market, make yourself different than other agents, getting creative. That is the challenge for me is being adaptable and seeing things coming and trying to make some moves to maybe

put yourself in a better position. Awesome. You mentioned changes in the market, things like that. Do you have any specific advice in this day and age, first part of 2020, new decade, things like that? Any advice for buyers and sellers? I'd say just do your homework, go with an agent that you feel is different than the rest. I think that that's the biggest thing for me as an agent is just to set myself apart from other people, whether it's being on TV, whether it's having a passion with cars. I think before the Bachelor thing, my thing was I loved buyers and sellers who were into cars. I really focused in on that. And that was my thing because I was from racing. Now that I've done TV, it's a little bit different. I think my audience is a little broader. So I've kind of shifted my focus a little bit. But if you're an

agent out there, then I think that set yourself apart. And if you're a buyer or seller, go with someone that has similar tastes to you and similar interests, because you're gonna be spending a lot of time with that person. And I think that's an important part of our business. Awesome. Great advice here, Ari. So I've got a few questions that I'd like to ask some of our guests here on the show. One of which is, do you have a favorite book and why is that your favorite book? I would like to say that I'm a big reader, but I'm honestly not.

I feel like I have a really short attention span. So for me, I'm more of a guy who cruises the internet and reads up on news. So I have to say, I don't have a favorite book, but I will say I read the business journal, the Phoenix Business Journal every day, just to know what's happening in my area and in my neighborhood. So that is my guilty pleasure, I guess, in the morning. Seeker of knowledge. I love it. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Do you have a favorite quote? I would say I have this on my business cards. You don't get what you deserve,

you get what you negotiate. And I think that that's a big part of my business. I feel like the negotiation side of things is where I strive to be better than the rest at. So I work with a lot of buyers and try to get them the best deal. And obviously, that's a quote that's always stuck with me. Awesome. Here's one that I don't get to ask very many people, but you've done so much. So I think this one's really important. Who inspires you? My wife always says that I should be the one that inspires you. But I think it's my father. He was obviously super talented, but also very caring. Never really had bad days. He always seeked positivity and everything. And I think that was something that I grew up around. When I was

having a bad day, he really sort of helped me get through that and really allowed me to see that the glass is always half full. So I'd say my dad. Awesome. Great answer. I mean, he's just an amazing human being. I've read so much about him and his accomplishments in racing and just in society. So great answer.

And the final one that everybody always answers here, a real good one, but I can't wait to hear your answer on this. How do you define starting your day with a win? I would say I define starting my day with a win by asking myself what I'm grateful for. I think that's something that's super important to sort of wake up in the morning and think, okay, what's the positivity in my life? What am I grateful for this morning?

And I think that sort of sets the day off right. It gets you in the right mindset to be able to have some positivity throughout the day. I love that. You got to get your mind right. Gratitude is an excellent way of doing that. I'm a huge believer in that. So thanks for sharing that with us. Ladies and gentlemen, Ari Leyendijk Jr. on Start With A Win. It's been a pleasure to have you here and it's great to see you today. Thanks for sharing that with us. Ladies and gentlemen, Ari Leyendak Jr. on Start With a Win.

It's been a pleasure to have you here, and it's great to see you today. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Very nice meeting you. Awesome. And ladies and gentlemen, don't forget, check us out on social media. You can find me at Adam Contos, CEO, or Remax Adam Contos on all your favorite social channels. And don't forget, start with a win.

Thank you so much for listening to Start With A Win. If you'd like to ask Adam a question and potentially be on our next episode, give us a call and leave us a message at 888-581-4430. Don't forget to go on iTunes and subscribe, write a review and rate the show. For more great content, follow Adam on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And remember, start with a win.