Billy Keels  00:00

Today's conversation is sponsored by first generation Capital Partners. If you're an accredited investor and you want to know about how we're helping other accredited investors keep more of their income, go to firstgencp.com forward slash going long.

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00:12

I have no shame in picking up the phone and just calling a bunch of realtors and asking questions about stuff I don't know about, because that's how I learned when I was 17 1819 years old when I made that purchase. That's how I learned there was no podcast and YouTube was just starting out.

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00:31

You're listening to the going long podcast with Billy keels, the number one podcast for long distance real asset investing.

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Billy Keels  00:40

Welcome to the goldmine podcast, we're back once again to continue to help to educate you so you feel much more comfortable as well as confident investing beyond your backyard. And yes, I'm your host, Billy keels, and I am super excited to welcome you back to another episode. This is awesome. It's another guest episode, this is gonna be really, really cool. And I want to jump right into the episode. I also just want to let everybody know really appreciate you continuing to share across social media with your screenshots tagging us. And all that stuff we really appreciate it continues to attract more and more members of the Gaumont family. And we really appreciate that about you. Also, if you want to, if you want to just leave us an honest written review, as well as rating, we've done that across the you can do that across the apple podcast platform Spotify, we even have a little video that you can check out here, just click the link. And also too for those of you who have wanted to see or listen to some of the previous episodes, any of the episodes and over 260 At this point, just go to first gen cpe.com forward slash podcasts. And you can check out every single episode, get the transcript, all that kind of good stuff. So first gen cpe.com forward slash podcasts, and it will be awesome. So listen, for those of you who have ever had to work through college, get more education, maybe you've gone to college, because your parents wanted you to go to college and you continue to be successful. And you found this alternative asset known as real estate. If you want to find out how you can do that, and even do it in a different country across the country. Today's conversation is when you're really going to enjoy. So we're going to get to that conversation with Matthew applicant. And we're gonna get to that just after this. Are you a busy high paid professional, someone that in the previous two years has earned $200,000 and is expected to earn $200,000 this year. Or maybe if you file jointly, previously, you've earned $300,000 The previous two years and you're also expected to do that this year. Or maybe if not, either individually or jointly, you have a million dollars in net worth not including your primary residence. If you meet any of these criteria, then you're someone that the IRS considers to be an accredited investor, that probably means you're someone like an enterprise software sales executive, you may be an executive in a major corporation, you may be a doctor, you may be a lawyer, maybe a high paid consultant, you may even work for a major sports franchise. And the thing I know you have in common is that you continue to do the hard work like you're doing 100% of the work. And you're only bringing home 50% of the reward because you continue to get crushed by your income taxes. If you're tired of this situation and you're looking for a new solution, then go to first gen cpe.com forward slash going long. When you get there, that's going to help you to start the journey so that you can begin to take back control of your taxes take control of your time. And then also that means you're going to be able to spend more of the time that you want with the people that you love the most. And that is the way that you're going to get the personal freedom that you're looking for. So if you're looking to take back control, go ahead and go to first ncp.com Ford slash going long, and see how we can help you today. So if you've been really, really interested in understanding how putting people first can lead to accelerating your long distance investing success, then guess what? Today's a conversation you're gonna want to listen to until the very last word you know why? Because today's guest not only has superior negotiating skills and understands the importance of supply and demand by being able to Well, he did this by understanding and playing Pokemon and using Pokemon cards. Yes, I did say that. And he's going to tell us a little bit more about that all the way through university, he held multiple part time jobs, to pay for his education. That's something that resonates with me because I did the exact same thing, by the way. And at 19 he invest in his very first real estate deal. And pre construction condos. Really want to hear more about that gives me great pleasure to welcome to today's conversation, the founder and owner of millennial choice group, Mr. Matthew aplican. Matthew, welcome to show man.

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04:27

Hey, Billy, thanks for having me. And kudos to you for creating all this content. It's not easy. And I think we both agree that if we had this earlier, we will be lightyears ahead of where we are now. So for those of you listening and watching this, don't take it with a grain of salt. Absorb it, listen to it more than once. Share it with your friends and family.

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Billy Keels  04:46

Let's go Yeah, love it, Matthew. So let's jump into it man and I really appreciate that and yes, at least listen to today's conversation like three or four times because Matthew knows that well now he's gonna know we're overachievers here in the going long family. So listen, Matthew Just a couple of things. I think you may know this already, but I really, really like to ask every single guest and today, our special guests, at least five questions you're gonna get to in the beginning, you're gonna get three in the end. And you know what? In the middle, you're gonna get a lot of questions. I just don't know what those are, because they're going to be based on your answers. But I want to go along family to get to know you. So help us understand. And I'm going to adapt today's question, help us understand where is it that you live in North America.

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05:24

So we live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. That's why I got the Canadian flag right behind me. And Toronto is basically the place to be in in Canada. It's from it's where Drake is from. We've had a couple of very popular politicians in the news in the last few years. And so Toronto is the place to be if you're going to come to Canada, you got to check out Toronto. All right, fantastic.

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Billy Keels  05:47

So we can do that. And I guess you probably can help us get a private concert with Drake as well. I'm going to assume well, no pressure, don't answer that. Don't answer that. By the way. I don't want to put extra pressure on you. Now here's the thing also to love to start out with positivity here or continue with positivity. So help us understand what's the most positive thing that's happened to you in the last 24 hours.

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06:06

So the last 24 hours, my wife and I were in the hospital, we were doing a checkup on on her, we had to go to the ER as a follow up and our baby that soon to be do is healthy things are going well. Coming off an unfortunate loss prior to this one. It's doing much, much better than the first time around, and so is the mother. So that's the most positive news I've had in the last 24 hours.

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Billy Keels  06:29

Man, that's absolutely fantastic. I appreciate you sharing your vulnerability with us just to kind of kick things off and, and make the most of every single moment, every single moment. I'm sure you can appreciate that. So thanks for that, Matthew. And listen, man, I also wanted to let you know, I kind of have this Well, I'm a recovering perfectionist, by the way. And what that means is sometimes I do things that are a little bit outlandish things like trying to tell your entire backstory, Matthew in like one and a half seconds, that was never ever going to happen, right? You've done way too much have impacted too many lives. But it's one of the character flaws I have, hey, you know, that's what happens. But here's the thing, I am going to ask you for your help. Because I would love for you to tell your backstory in your own words. And you get to use a lot more than one and a half seconds, I just kind of do that as an intro to get things started. So tell your backstory, in your own words, take as much time as you need. And also one of the things that would be really helpful is if you would also provide us with some of the different decisions that you've made to get to this point in your journey. And then we'll see where you and I take the conversation from there.

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07:32

Sure. So I always share the beginning of my story obviously started with my parents, both of my parents are from Iraq, from the Christian faith. And they were they actually both left Iraq separately, they didn't know each other back home in Iraq, they they left separately, just to start better lives for themselves and their future families. They didn't they didn't have a family at that time. Besides their their parents and their brothers and sisters. So my dad went to Montreal came to Toronto, firstly went to Greece, then Montreal and Toronto, my mom went to Iran, and then to Canada and Toronto. And so they met here at a local church, they had my brother and I I'm the oldest. So we're we're not, you know, first generation Canadians from from, you know, parents who have been established or were coming from someplace that was established, they left everything back home, they burned their family photos, so they could never be identified. And it was just a struggle that they had to experience coming to this country. And they left a socialist communist regime. And so I share that because one of the biggest things immigrants are challenged with or in their case, they were, their status was refugees, or their challenging, their challenge was that their educational credentials didn't transfer over. So they were teachers in Iraq, they could not be teachers here unless they went through the system. They did not know English. And so they became what most immigrants become when they first come to a new country, they became entrepreneurs. And they did so out of pure necessity, not because it was a cool thing to do. Like, in today's day and age, it was out of pure necessity. So on the weekends, my brother and I would be accompanying them to like wholesalers, where they would buy goods like chocolate bars and chips and snacks and laundry detergent, anything and they would sell it in their convenience store for a profit. So I saw this at a very, very early age, we were rewarded when we'd go to these wholesalers were actually rewarded with Pokemon cards leading into the I guess the next potential question. And so we would we will learn the concepts of buying low and sell high at a very early age. Now we didn't we didn't know we were learning that we didn't know how to identify that it was just subconscious. And I would see my parents doing that every single weekend. Fast forward a little bit. We never had a poor childhood. And our parents spoiled us as best as they could. And I'm very, very grateful for that. But growing up we had to pay for almost everything we needed and wanted and so in high school I had to lockers, I was selling Jansport backpacks, I was selling special machines, hair, straighteners, all kinds of stuff out of my locker, and even after school and then thankfully, the teachers never found out or school they didn't find out because God forbid, that a child starts or teenager becomes entrepreneurial. It's not a good thing for the world, apparently. But anyways, I you know, that I get into, I get into university because my parents forced us to go to university and where they're from the heaven education that's from the university that like, like a bachelor or something like that. It's actually respectable, it's not something that's, you know, every every person's getting, and it's useless, and you're getting into so much debt that was actually valuable where they come from, so they forced me to do it, I did it, I had to pay for it. And so I was always trying to find ways to make money or earn more money. And the concept that I learned in university that was that was a paradigm shift for me was that landlords make money while they sleep. And I wanted to learn more about that. And so I was already dabbling in a little bit of mutual funds and quote, unquote, high interest savings accounts at 1%. And that's not high interest at all. And, and that was the next step for me. I said, how do people live off of, you know, $30,000 a year and I was working these two part time jobs from American companies, Johnny Rockets and lucky strikes bowling alley, just to pay for tuition. And so that concept, when I really came across it landlords money, make money while they sleep. I said, How do I get my hands on real estate, and this was 17 years old and 18 years old. And then at 19, I finally pulled the trigger and bought my first pre construction condo. And that reconstruction type of real estate here in Canada works very differently from other parts of the world, especially the states, because we have so much bureaucracy and political red tape here, that if somebody's building a condo project, that's, you know, 24 storeys, it'll take four years to construct after they've sold the building. So for years to construct after sales, and prior to that, it takes years of the developer actually going through the process to get the zoning and getting the approvals and then finally going to sales. So it gave me the opportunity to buy something without a mortgage without the full down payment. And I was getting into the career of real estate, which it bought me time. And as you know, it's all about timing the market, not time, timing the market. So it worked out for me that way.

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Billy Keels  12:22

Fantastic, man. So there's a lot of different things that that we can that we can pull from that. But I guess the one thing that I wanted to just make sure that I understood, so as you were in college, you were studying your degree, and you recognise that you wanted to that you wanted to find out how these people were making money while they slept. And these people are landlords, is that correct?

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12:44

Yeah, I was in my second year. And I saw that I was in one of my courses. And I remember which course I was in. It was like a bird course they called it. And I was just stressed out financially, like I said, I had to pay for my tuition. And I was trying to find ways to do that. So that's, that's the concept that I came across my Bachelor's is in I graduated, I have them behind me actually. And one of them is in law in society. So it was the precursor for law school. And then one of them is from Teacher's College. So I am a certified high school teacher never applied to, to the board to get a job. But I did graduate with those two degrees.

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Billy Keels  13:18

So it's really interesting. So you have two degrees, I have two degrees. In college, I, I worked in the phys ed facility, so I was cleaning wrestling mats right to pay for part of my college, I also had, you know, had grants and some scholarships, grants, and then a bunch of loans, a whole bunch of loans. And, you know, I think a lot of times we we may not think that because I was while I was there, I was only focused on like, I had to get the dream job like to work for a big company. And so it's it's interesting cuz you saw your parents growing up entrepreneurial. You were learning these things without you even recognising you were learning stuff like buy low, sell high, right? For better, for worse, whatever. But you were learning that and within the constructs of a university, right, sometimes you're in this bubble. And I'm just curious, maybe if you can expand a little bit more on that because it's, and the reason I asked about that Matthew's so many of us go down this trick of go to school, you know, go to college get a great job in Papa papa. And and so the fact that you were able to get that clarity while you were in the university or the college bubble, you actually saw something that most people never even pay attention to, which is how do you generate income that's decoupled from the amount of time that you're putting in and seeing that you know, before you're 20 is pretty phenomenal. Can you expand on that a little bit?

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14:41

Yeah, for sure. I hated school. I hated school. From day one. My grade six teacher told me that I was gonna end up begging his wife's groceries at no frills and her makeup at Shoppers Drug Mart, which is like the equivalent of Walgreens in the states and my guidance counsellor in my first year of university told me that, you know, law school was for smart people like There's no point in you applying for it. I hated school. That doesn't mean I wasn't smart. Like, if a lot of people are kind of experiencing those same similar experience, it doesn't mean you're not smart. It just means that's not the right setting for you necessarily. So I didn't do it in a way to please my parents. And nonetheless, I feel like a lot of immigrants and a lot of kids of immigrants, they kind of go through the same thing. But I knew from day one that I wanted to be entrepreneurial. I knew even my major was a law. But I enjoyed ly enjoyed studying criminal law specifically. And I knew that if I was going to go to law school, I was never going to represent criminals. But at the same time, I would never want to work for the government to prosecute the criminals. I wanted to have my own firm. So that wasn't an option for me. I didn't want to do any other form of law. And so yeah, I think early on out of just sheer necessity, meeting income, needing money and saying, How do I go about that? Like, I'm at a ceiling, I can't earn more working at these restaurants, I can't really do much more. And I'm serving, I'm getting tips, and it's fine. But like I said, it's, I have no social life, I'm doing two degrees, two jobs, I have nothing I'm volunteering for Teachers College, I have nothing to really show for it at this time. And I was fed up, I was really, really fed up. I used to look at the ceiling. Every morning, when I'd wake up to go to work, I'd see the popcorn ceiling and I'd say this is the day that nobody hears from me. And it's they're not even getting a Two Weeks Notice I've checked out two years ago. And so I would still show up. I didn't you know, properly leave those jobs and have good relationships with those folks still till this day. But it was out of pure necessity. And when I bought the condo, like like yourself, I hadn't bursaries I had grants, I had some loans. And then at the same time, I had some money saved. So I was able to use that for the first deposit, which was only 15 grand, I had that money. But then shortly thereafter, I was already in the real estate programme, even in university. I got licenced. So I got licenced at a young age, I was 19 years of age. And I graduated university, I think I was taught maybe 23. And so I had a really tough time staying in school, like I hated school, I saw no purpose of it, or for it, I should say for me, but I stayed, I persevered, I got it done. And, you know, hindsight is 2020. And it's had some benefits and some perks to having those degrees. But nonetheless, I'm grateful for where I'm at now. So and

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Billy Keels  17:30

so the fact that you are grateful for where you are now and you've gone through a number of different life occurrences to get here. Is is is fantastic, right, except, and understand how you got here. And then you know, do what you need to do to continue to change the trajectory. But would it be safe to say that you did the the education, the formal education thing that was a parent pleaser thing? Was that was that that was that that was? Okay. Okay. So that was about pleasing parents. So I get that that ticks the box, talk to us about the transition that happened from, okay, you've got the two degrees, you did what you're supposed to do. You started getting this experience and figuring out how people actually make money while they sleep. That was part of even what you studied. But then you were in these jobs stuck about the transition from the jobs, to actually starting to not do things to please other people, but start to live the life that you really want to be living because you curated that early compared to a lot of people.

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18:29

Yeah, so I was licenced and 19 years of age in real estate. So I'm still in university. But at the same time, I started these two jobs. Now I got a licence in October. And the two jobs I was working at were in the same location. And we have malls and outlet malls are very, very popular. So it was very close to home. And those two jobs in the winter season know start start to get you know, busier in November and December because of Christmas and stuff. The malls get really, really busy. So it's an opportunity to make a lot more money because you've got lots lots more people in the mall. There's lots more people coming into your store they need to eat, and then they're tipping you so what I did is I got licenced I did my first deal. And it closed first week of December. So I got licenced on mid October, October 20 in 2012. And then I closed my first deal December 6, my condo or my cousin was selling her condo, she bought a home a year prior from the builder. It was pre construction, it was finally getting ready. It was going to be ready very soon, so she needed to sell the condo she was in. So when I first got licenced i All I did was text everybody that I had in my phone doesn't matter if I hadn't spoken with them for how long I just texted every single person. I said, this is what I'm doing now. I'm in real estate, if there's anything I can help you with, let me know and I told them the company that I'm with. It's been around for 40 years. They're backing me up they're helping me supporting me. So if there's anything you need, let me know. My cousin was my first client so I never quit those two part time jobs though. Early on because what I did with is I said, I want to make some money this Christmas season. I'm a manager and both I'm serving at both. So at the time, like even prior to that I was getting much more than minimum wage. I was a manager supervisor, much more than minimum wage, but also I was getting tips. And so I was earning as much as I could with the people that would come into the stores. And I ended up quitting both jobs on a Monday, right after the Christmas season, that it was it dies down. They were they were slow. They were okay with it. I didn't even give two weeks notice on a Monday, I walked into both respectfully and I said, guys, I stayed I helped you guys. I'm out. So a lot of people don't do that. A lot of people don't go cold turkey. They go part time they get their feet wet, but I was balancing. And I won't I don't forget one of them. It was a bar. It was the bowling alley slash bar that was open to like two 3am Sometimes. And I remember going outside when in the middle of my shift, answering phone calls from my cousin's Congo, she was selling, answering phone calls from the realtor. And you know, I ended up closing it right away. So I was fortunate enough that I have that in you know, right away that experience immediately after getting licenced, but quit both jobs, same day, a couple months after I got licenced. And then the rest was history. I was still going to school, I was still trying to, you know, complete my degree. But I'm focused on building my real estate business. I didn't get to be full time because of school until maybe like I said, like three or four years later. But I always knew when I got licenced my buddy who's who's a doctor, and he's still my best friend. Now. He says, Do you remember when you got licenced? You told me you always wanted to open a brokerage. You were never gonna just be a solo agent. I said, I remember telling you that. But, you know, obviously, we're a brokerage now. So I assume it was it was correct.

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Billy Keels  21:44

Yeah. And so you know, as you for your, you know, some in a lot of times, people will remember the things that you save, and when when you forget, right. And as you were on this path, once again, to figuring out how you could decouple your time from generating income. You went into what I would deem because I spent 26 years in client facing roles. The last 21 years, I was in a number of IT companies, but always in client facing roles of sales and sales leadership. And so from a brokerage perspective, we're really responsible for generating interest in generating revenue. At the same time, you happen to have a very strong passion for education, which sometimes people just go into brokerage, and all they care about is the numbers, right? And I know that you have to do that, because you have to generate income. And your teams do that. At the same time. Not everybody has this passion, and desire to continue to educate. I know that that's something that's really big for you, which some people may find ironic, because you didn't like education, right? Formal education. Maybe you could talk to us about maybe that juxtaposition and why you have such a passion of helping to educate others, including investors today.

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22:54

Yeah, so I took that everything I learned from from Teachers College, I took it and I apply it to my sales approach now. And I really don't like the word sales, we're just guiding people to where they want to go. But it's an education based approach to selling. So that means you're gonna give all the information because historically, before the internet, you read, you know, from books like Brian Tracy and and stuff like that, you read that most salespeople would like to withhold information at that time. And then that's how they were seen as the experts, because there wasn't, you know, any ability for consumers to really look up what these people were saying. And so that changed with the Internet. And so the way that I chose to stand out, and I choose to stand out, including now with millennials choice, is we educate and give all the information as much as we can to our audiences. And that we want people because of that to, we want people to say, You know what these guys know what they're talking about. They're the experts, we want to work with them. And so that's been very, very invaluable for me. Because, you know, you can't put an you can't put a number on it. Like you can't put a number on how valuable that is. When people see you as the expert in the field, you just capture more market share, the numbers are the byproducts of all these things that you're doing. And that that'll come I've never budgeted I've never created a business plan ever. And I refuse to because I, I know that if I stick to my guns and I become more valuable as a person in society, and you know, take care of people treat them right. And I'll be I'll be looked after my career is going to be great. I'm fine with that. So we just celebrated 10 years in the in the industry. We've had our best years these these last few years. This congratulations to you. Thank you and including this year this year was a difficult one, because we saw a lot of aggressive rate hikes in Canada and other parts of the world but starting in March of 2022. So fast forward now, you know, seven, eight months, eight months later, you're seeing that the markets kind of stabilising a little bit where we are people are realising that the world's not coming to an end And even though we have a major, major supply issue, we're starting to see more and more activity coming to market. But I've never been a victim, and I'm never gonna say, oh, it's because the economy's bad, that, you know, I'm not doing well, as a realtor, I've never been a victim, I reject that mindset. And so I just built solid foundations and education, again, I stick to it, if the markets a little bit slower, and our volumes are down across the board, which is what happens, then you know what, I'm gonna double down on my podcast, I'm going to double down on going on other people's podcasts, and invest in marketing and capture more market share, because when every buddy is shrinking, including the economy, the government and whatever, then I'm going to do the complete opposite, because I want that contrarian lifestyle in that viewpoint. So that's, that's how we choose to operate our business. And, and yeah, that brings us to where we are today.

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Billy Keels  25:47

Yeah, so and I think having that focus in, you know, one, being able to, to, hey, listen, even though you didn't like that formal kind of education, you understand the importance of being able to continue to educate, and there's lots of different forms of education, right. And I agree with you not necessarily just because you sit in the classroom and watch a teacher all day, that that's the best way for you to to learn knowledge, I prefer to actually learn by doing. But when you are able to help to educate others, and also recognise what's happening in the environment, whether it be micro or macro, then you also are able to pivot, making sure that you're always doing the things that you can to add value to others. So it makes a huge amount of sense. Trust, trusting that you're enjoying today's conversation. And you know, if you're tired of getting crushed by taxes, and you're looking for greater freedom, to be able to choose what you want to do when you want to do it, make sure that you go to first ncp.com forward slash going long, and see how we can help you today. Let's get back to the conversation. You one of the other things I was going to ask you, right is very similar to the, to the education to the real estate, I happen to know that or at least I understand that you're not necessarily just focused exclusively on in one location in Canada, that you have a network and you're helping to educate throughout Canada as a geography. And so the reason I asked that is, to me that seems pretty contrarian. Because as we both know that, especially in the guy, like real assets in general, but in real estate, like markets and locations are super, hyper, local. And at the same time, I'm a guy who lives in Europe, and I, exclusively in multiple locations back in the United States. Like that's what I choose to do. But I also recognise Matthew, and you too, right? That's contrarian, like a lot of people just say like, don't go more than an hour from your home. So help us understand what is it that has allowed you like, the mental fortitude to say, hey, look, I'm not gonna just be like, stuck to one specific location that's here, and really helped to create value throughout Canada, as least as I've understood it. So and if I've misunderstood it, please correct me.

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27:59

No, no, you got it. Right, Billy. So So there's two hats that I wear to answer this question. The first side is as a real estate, real estate agent, broker, realtor, there's always that idea of, you know, you should pick a few streets, couple of streets and farm them. There's this idea of farming. And I'm like, why can't we do so early in my career? So why can't we farm the country like that was? That was the mindset that I had? Why can't we farm in the province? Why can't we farm all of the city or whatever the case may be, and then the company that I joined, had, and the reason why I joined them is because I bought my condo from them in the first place. They had a lot of builders that they would represent as their agents. So they would sell the project for the built. And that's where I wanted to be in that pre construction world and get a bunch of experience from from them. So you know, you have a builder that's opening up in, I want to give you an example, like let's say, Brooklyn, and then you have another builder opening up in Manhattan. And the same company represents both builders. So how is it that I as an agent that works for that company should only focus on two streets, then the product that that company is offering that we have an inside scoop on? I can't really offer it to my client, because I'm not educated in the Brooklyn market. Now, that's the example I'm giving because that's what it was here. So you have a project that's about half an hour away from where we are now today. And then another one that's five minutes down the road, and then one that's an hour and a half. But we have all this inventory. I shouldn't be knowledgeable in all of these projects. Why Why can't I be knowledgeable and all these budgets. So that's really the mindset that I had. And, you know, it's proven to be extremely valuable because now when we go to another province like Alberta, and we look at the Calgary or Edmonton market, we're able to gauge now that market because everything is online, if I want to find information on something, everything is now online. And I have no shame in picking up the phone and just calling a bunch of realtors and asking questions about stuff at Note though, because that's how I learned when I was 17 1819 years old when I made that purchase. That's how I learned there was no podcast and YouTube was just starting out, you know, I'm turning 31. Now. So if you look back, that's 1314. year, there was no YouTube, really. So that's that was the whole point of me wanting to grow bigger. Now, as an investor, if you put the investor hat on, well, what's the one of the biggest complaints you hear from investors, at least that I hear is there's not enough deals, or there's no good deals or whatever. And there's an abundance of deals, all of the people you hear that have that mindset that are doing well, at our investors will always tell you, there's been an abundance of deals. I mean, there's off market deals, there's sales, the sales by the owner deals, there's so many precut, there's precaster, there's so many stuff, but it's about who you know, not necessarily what you know, sometimes, and that's what I share with my clients, you gotta look after the people looking after you. This isn't a typical real estate brokerage, or real estate sales that we operate, we offer people deals, and over the last 10 years, a lot of the off market stuff that I've done, a lot of the stuff I've done exclusively with a big developer or builder has made people millions of dollars, including myself. And that's not only increased my net worth, I earn that as income. And that goes back to becoming more valuable to people and not as a person. We're all we're all equal in the eyes of God, I believe, and we're all equal as human beings, but in terms of economics, and you know, being more valuable to the economy by what you can offer. And I think that's a lot of our generation, the millennials, Gen Z's think we're those of you listening might be lacking that, you know, a lot lacking that accountability, and hoping that the government or someone is going to come by and just take care of you. So no, I don't subscribe to that. And I said to myself, we can do it. There's all these programmes, there's all these things where we can go to another province, we can offer financing in another province, which we've done. And so I just wanted to become, you know, bigger and bigger if I was going to be limited to the geographic location where I'm living now. I mean, how am I any different than the other Toronto realtors or brokerages that are doing something similar to what I'm doing?

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Billy Keels  32:13

And know and that is, you know, being able to differentiate yourself and the ways in which you add value to others. Being able to to be a valuable individual to other people, whether through whatever type of exchange you can have, I think is always something that's always really, really important, I appreciate you also giving us more of the context, in terms of why you also are interested in continuing to be able to look just beyond your backyard in terms of the value that you're adding. One of the things that I did forget to mention, and I want us to get into going long, final three, but you also recently have written a book. And so I know that maybe you can talk to us a little bit about that. Because anytime I have a have an author here, or someone who has been a part of a book, maybe you could talk to us a little bit about the book and also to what was the inspiration for you of being able to want to do something like that.

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33:06

So the mechanism of millennials choices as follows. This was the thing I told myself, I'm 19 I'm going to earn commissions, and I'm gonna buy more property. And I've done that every single year. And so Millennials choice is just growing that from an individual Matthew Abla can realtor to now this organisation that one day I could probably sell. And so I do a lot of things to try to stand out from the crowd. And I learned that in Teachers College, we had an abundance of teachers here, where you couldn't even find a job if you're a new teacher. So I had an old mentor of mine say, while while I was in university saying to me, you got to stand out do something to stand out work with at risk youth work with, you know, groups that most teachers don't want to work in. And so I took that and applied it to real estate. So millennials choice, we do a lot of things that are different from marketing and branding. And over the last couple of years. I wrote a book, co authored a book with Kevin Harrington and Robert G. Allen. And I read every single day and one of the one of the game changing moments for me, was right outside of university, the first condo is built. I'm living in that condo, and I go to I go to a MLM multi level marketing event which had a bunch of speakers like Donald Trump was there, like Darren Hardy was there and Darren Hardy. The first time I learned about him and heard him he was talking about he was promoting his book, The compound effect. And I had not read a book, I don't think I had outside of high school that, you know, really spoke to me and it was about personal development, and it wasn't school related. I had not read a book outside of high school that had to do with any of that stuff. So now 2324 I'm starting to really find myself and find my groove and then dealing with problems with my parents dealing with all kinds of issues that just I was very unhappy. And then all of a sudden Darren Hardy is telling a story about how his father, we can never please, you know, just this Tim when he was walking him through this new house he bought in California on the hills. And then he realised that he could never make his dad really proud. It's really up to his dad to make himself proud. And so that kind of really resonated with me, I bought the book, read, absorbed it, read it. And then that year, I read so many books, personal development was something I was introduced to a concept that finally I can I can frame and say, Okay, this is what personal development means. And that's, you know, the rest is history. So I said, I've never stopped reading since then I read every single day. And I said, I want to write this book, I want to talk about my first four properties. And you know, how it got me there and my journey, getting licenced, and a little bit background about my parents and things like that. And I want to gift it to obviously, whoever wants it, whoever's listening and watching, they can get the free ebook version, if they're ever in Toronto, happily, give them a hard copy. And now this for the realtors in the room or listening and the mortgage agents on this is now Billy my new my new business card. So I have a virtual background hard to see. But that's my new business card, when I walk into a meeting, we don't sell these books, these are always free. I always give it to whoever I'm meeting with, whether that's a builder, whether that's a politician, whether that's whoever I always give them books. So that's how we stand out one of the ways we stand out now.

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Billy Keels  36:29

Fantastic. So you know having that effect on yourself and then that giving you the the vision and the in the motivation that drive to actually be able to go out and share your thoughts with others. And, you know, you've replaced your business card with your with your book. And so, yeah, we'll definitely give you an opportunity to talk more about how the Golang family can pick that up. And you know, what, kind of gotta get into going long final three, Matthew, because that's kind of where we are right now in the in the in the conversation, but the thing is, I never asked any of our special guests today, you're our special guest to go along final three and unless you tell me that you're ready, so are you ready? I'm ready. You were born ready, man? No doubt. Absolutely. No doubt. No, here we go. So we started with you over in Toronto. And I'd like to bring things back over to this side of the pond now because you know, I'm although I'm originally from Columbus, Ohio. This is now my adopted side of the pond so helped me in the entire go along family understand Matthew, what is your favourite European city that you've either visited or still on your bucket list to visit?

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37:29

So I've only visited Portugal with my wife is Portuguese. We've only been to Europe once

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Billy Keels  37:35

Hang on, hang on. Hang on. Hang on a second. No, you've only been no, you visited Portugal. I think that's awesome. Don't say Oh.

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37:46

First of all problems, right. Portugal was amazing. I love the lifestyle of it. I love that European lifestyle. And Portugal really, you know, showed a lot of that and, and, you know, the city that I love the most it's more of the tourist side of it. But Algarve in Portugal is

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Billy Keels  38:04

beautiful, beautiful. But

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38:06

one of the cities that I would love to visit that that's on the bucket list in Europe is I definitely wanted to build it's not a city, but it's a country, Italy. I've always wanted to go to Italy and check that out.

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Billy Keels  38:16

Yeah, it's beautiful. I lived there. Probably wouldn't talk about that later on. But cool. So well, you have to but so would you say like, would you Are you like more of a South, so maybe some more like a Naples or maybe like Rome or somewhere up north? Milan.

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38:35

You know, Rome is Rome is obviously you know, I want to go see the Vatican and all these different kinds of, you know, monuments, I love that I love. I'm a history guy I love. I love learning about history, but definitely places like Naples, I want to go to like be authentic places. That's what I like to

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Billy Keels  38:51

do. Yeah. So we're gonna add it as Naples. Yeah. All right. Cool. Awesome. Awesome. All right, cool. So here's the other thing, Matthew, this has a lot to do with the experience that I've seen with people that are really successful. And, you know, I would consider you as someone who's very successful early on, you had the vision that the things you wanted to do, and you've taken consistent, massive action to be able to do that you've impacted lives, you know, across the globe, I'm not gonna I'm gonna go and dare to say beyond Canada. And so, one of the things that, you know, just because I've been exposed to a lot of really successful people, and hopefully you will also agree with me, Matthew, that, you know, one of the things that separates people that are really successful apart from everybody else is that they unlike most people when they are, you know, when you set your mind to something as someone who's successful, you go out you build a plan, and execute the plan perfectly the very first time, which allows you to go much faster than most people in terms. I think I just made a mistake. Matthew, sorry about that. Let's repeat it. I'm just kidding. It's a joke. Where are we going with this? Matthew, you're so cool, calm and collected. And I love it. This is just very cool. Now this is like, I like to have fun, I like to have fun. So in this entire gun lock, they know that about me already. Of course, most people that are really, really successful, Matthew, and you know this, and I appreciate you not like blowing the whole thing up. But most of the times, we don't get things right, they don't get things right the first time. Or the second time or the 18th time, many times those people that are successful, you know, because they're trying so many different things. So often, they usually make more mistakes than most people like 20 to 50 times more mistakes all the time, right. So and this is no joke, the first part was kind of a joke. And it's just like my little inside joke. And I like that funny. But the reality is, those people that are successful, every single time they make a relevant mistake, this is this is real. When the mistake is irrelevant, every single time, I've seen they stopped without fail. They learn from the mistake, or the learning opportunity, or however you want to call it. And then without a doubt every single time they put different strategies, tactics and actions in place to minimise the probability of that exact same thing happening again today. So I don't really want you to dwell on the problem, or the mistake or the learning opportunity that you had. But what was the lesson? Like? What was the one lesson that you know that you learned that someone today in the going long family needs to hear so that they can minimise the probability of that exact same thing happening to them?

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41:40

Yeah, for sure. And sometimes, even the 18th, time is not enough, and you never figure it out. I was like, this guy doesn't make any mistakes. And he goes,

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Billy Keels  41:52

who is this dude? What's the

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41:54

I gotta drink. You know, one of the concepts that I learned these last couple of years, not that I learned it, it wasn't something new. But that really stuck with me after making a really big mistake, a massive mistake, massive setback was you got to bet on yourself. And one of the things that, you know, we get we get impacted by is just the opinion of others. Now, sometimes people I hear them say, like, even myself, I see this all the time. I don't I don't care what people think. And that's fine. Maybe you don't. But you know, are you are you listening to the right? News? Are you? Are you watching the right people. And when I say news, you know, to me, this podcast is news. You know, not not CNN, not these other places. So who's really in your ear, and influencing really how you think because that's what it comes down to. And then how you think will control how you feel, which controls how you act. So I made a decision, it was a wrong decision, setback, failure, lesson learned, won't be repeated again. But the concept that I got from that was just bet on yourself, you've already proven to yourself that you can achieve what it is you want to achieve massive action, you're creating companies, you're you're investing, creating millionaires, you're doing all this stuff, you just keep betting on yourself. And maybe, you know, you're still waking up sometimes. And you're looking at the popcorn ceiling and saying, This is not where I want to go today. Not what I want to do today. But it's leading you to where you want to go, your final destination, or the desired destination or desired person that you're going to become. So I would say just bet on yourself really bet big. There's nothing there's nothing outside of your ability and your scope. If you need to learn something, it's all online. And we have, you know, Professor Google at our fingertips now. And it's just, it's just about being competent. And being and being able to bet on yourself. Don't wait for other people to come by and do something for you or give you the right advice or whatnot, everything is available. You got to learn, you got to understand knowledge is the potential of power. Surround yourself with the right people. And then rinse and repeat and learn from your mistakes.

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Billy Keels  44:14

Rinse and repeat. I love that. Learn from the mistakes and most importantly bet on yourself. So I appreciate that lesson that you learned that you paid full price for and you're helping to pass that along to someone else at a discount. So And lastly is really and we talked about earlier, your book and so you're gonna give us a way to find out more about achieved excuse me achieved volume two. And one of the things that, you know, I always like to kind of wrap things up with is also helping us in you're someone who's an avid reader, you mentioned just a little bit ago, but what is the one book that you would recommend to us as we go away today with question number three, what's that one book you'd recommend to the growing family?

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44:52

There's a lot of good ones. I have my bookshelf to my left. I have another bookshelf at home. But one thing that I would definitely just say One book that I would recommend is, is acres of diamond. I don't know if you heard of that one. But basically, the story in a nutshell is a very short read. And the story in a nutshell is the gentleman has, you know, this land these acres of diamonds he doesn't know about. He doesn't know that there's diamonds underneath his land, but he hears about diamonds being relatively available where he lives. So he sells his lead, goes off on this mission to find diamonds never ends up finding them. Person who buys his land, finds them. And so this guy lives with eternal regret and all that stuff. But the point is, is that you're already standing on top of your acres of diamonds. And that's what I mean by betting on yourself. Everything you need is already with you, it's already within you, it's with you, you just got to do it. And like Jim Rohn says the things that are easy to do, are also easy not to do. So getting up and exercising, it's easy to do, you're not going to do something that you're not going to lift a certain weight that you can't live. But it's also easy to say I'm going to skip it today. So that's, that's, that's a book I would recommend.

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Billy Keels  46:07

Okay, acres of diamonds, and we're include that as well in the in the show notes. So really appreciate that. And, you know, I'm just going to the beginning of the conversation, Matthew, I'm thinking you know, you're you're telling us a story, your parents and you know, each on their own at different times, leave the Iraq trim turrets from different places, different countries, and both eventually meet. In Canada, you and your brother, as you mentioned before, both born in Canada, you recognised Hey, listen, even early on in life, you had an opportunity, even before you really knew it, because of what your parents were doing as entrepreneurs, right? As recently arrived, entrepreneurs, Hey, sit and listen, we're gonna have to, we're gonna go out, we're gonna create the life we're not just for ourselves, but for our children, and you watched by osmosis to buy low, sell high, you got to play with the Pokemon cards, you also recognise like, Hey, listen, because you were inspired by your parents to go out and get the education even though you weren't necessarily really all gung ho about going out to get the formal quote, unquote, sit in the school and learn all that from front of a chalkboard. Well, eventually, you realise that, hey, listen, you wanted to go through, you got your two different degrees. But somewhere along the way, there was somebody that's really recognise that hang on a second, this person is actually making money while they sleep, I gotta find out more about that. And so even during your college, you decided, hey, listen, you're gonna go out, you're going to learn about this, the theory, but then you put it into practice. 19 years old, you're already out buying your very first investment property and getting your licence and decided that, hey, listen, you're gonna continue to go that way. And now it's gone from just something that you are interested in to something that you're actually living, you're helping people all across Canada. And like I said before, I would dare say even across the globe, continuing to help to raise their level of education, helping them move from theory into practice. And you're doing that all under the constructs of millennials choice group. And so I know that so many people are like, yeah, Billy, but just ask the most important question. So I'm going to ask it help us understand what is the best way for the Greenlawn family to find out more about what you're doing Matthew more about what you have going on as well at millennials group, millennials choice group, so that we can get you in touch with one another.

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48:08

Yeah, so I manage my own social accounts. The company has its own social accounts that are managed by somebody else. But if you guys want to connect with me, the most active account that I use is my instagram at Matthew applicaton. First and Last Name. And if you guys want a copy of the book, you can visit financial freedom club.ca forward slash ebook, ebook is just one word, no hyphen. And, Billy, I'll share that link with you later on. But yeah, connect with me on Instagram. Send me a DM let me know you heard me on the going long podcast.

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Billy Keels  48:38

All right, fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. So Matthew, Listen, man, on behalf of the entire Golang family, I just want to say thank you very much for deciding to join me here and invest your time with me and share a bit more of your story. So thank you very much.

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48:51

And thanks for having me. Hopefully, I'll be back on soon. All right.

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Billy Keels  48:53

Sounds great. Matthew, give me just a couple seconds, I'm gonna wrap things up and then give you a time back. So going on family, listen, Matthew left it all here. He shared it. He didn't No holds barred. He gave you everything you wanted to know he even has given you the chance to pick up his book. Absolutely. For free. We're going to include a link in the show notes. But most importantly, don't let this just be a conversation. As we said in the beginning, listen to it a couple times, invite family invite friends talk about the concepts that Matthew shared, you know, maybe your first generation in either an accredited investor or maybe first generation living in a country and you have certain things that this episode brought out, talk about it, make it a reality. And while you're doing that, going from theory to practice, I'll be here preparing for the next conversation. So until then, gotta make it a great day. And thank you very much. Trust that you enjoy today's conversation. And once again, today's conversation was sponsored by first generation Capital Partners. If you're an accredited investor want to find out more about how we're helping accredited investors to gain their personal freedom even faster. Go to firstgencp.com forward slash going long.

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