Erwin Szeto: Investor. Realtor. Podcaster. Wealth Hacker

Andrew la Fleur:
On today’s episode, we have a very special guest, Erwin Szeto, AKA Mr. Hamilton. Stay tuned.

Announcer:
Welcome to the True Condos Podcast with Andrew la Fleur, the place to get the truth on the Toronto condo market and condo investing in Toronto.

Andrew la Fleur:
Hi. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for tuning in. Andrew la Fleur here, your host, as always. On today’s episode, as I said, we have a very special guest, Erwin Szeto. Erwin is an investor. He’s a realtor. He’s a fellow podcaster. He’s got a great podcast. You should check it out, and, he is organizing a very interesting conference coming up in November 2019, depending on when you’re listening to this, coming up soon. It’s called The Wealth Hacker Conference. We talked about his journey as a real estate investor and all the interesting things he’s up to now, getting more and more into other forms of investing, not just real estate, as he likes to call it wealth hacking.

Andrew la Fleur:
He’s got a cool conference coming up, which if you listen until the end you’ll get a special discount code. Make sure you listen to the end for that if you want to go to this conference coming up. Without further delay, here’s my interview sit down with Erwin Szeto. Enjoy. Erwin, welcome to the show.

Erwin Szeto:
Thank you, Andrew. Thanks for having me on.

Andrew la Fleur:
Awesome to have you here. Fellow podcaster in the real estate world, and fellow real estate agent, and also somebody who works with investors, and does this for a living. Great to have you here. Looking forward to chatting with you.

Erwin Szeto:
Thanks for having me on.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, it’s been a long time coming in many ways. Love to hear your story, Erwin. Tell us about your first real estate purchase. Was it for yourself, or was it an investment. Tell us the story of that.

Erwin Szeto:
The first purchase is actually an interesting story because it wasn’t my idea. I was actually against it. It was my girlfriend at the time. We were fresh graduates, and it was her idea. She had read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I hadn’t read the book yet.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
I was coming straight out of business school, so I had all these ideas that you can make a lot of money in your job, and stock market was the right thing to do. I advised against it. She didn’t listen to me, thank goodness, so we bought a little bungalow in downtown Burlington. Bought it for like $156,000, something like that. Needed a lot of work.

Andrew la Fleur:
$156,000 for a bungalow?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, yeah. Two bedroom, one bath.

Andrew la Fleur:
What was the lot size?

Erwin Szeto:
It wasn’t big. It was a corner lot. It was a small lot. It wasn’t even 30 feet wide.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
Maybe 60 feet deep. It was downtown Burlington, which is a very hot market because you could walk down to the lake. You could walk downtown. We didn’t really know all these things. We didn’t really know anything.

Andrew la Fleur:
What year was this?

Erwin Szeto:
This was, I think, 2005.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
Maybe a little bit earlier. Again, it wasn’t my idea.

Andrew la Fleur:
You were firmly against it.

Erwin Szeto:
I recall saying, “Why not just get a BMW instead?”

Andrew la Fleur:
No.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
You said that?

Erwin Szeto:
No, literally. I literally said that.

Andrew la Fleur:
You were renting at the time?

Erwin Szeto:
I was probably still living at home.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh okay.

Erwin Szeto:
I grew up in Markham.

Andrew la Fleur:
[crosstalk 00:03:31].

Erwin Szeto:
I was still living with my parents. She was still living at home as well, so this was actually for rental purposes.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh really? Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, yeah. Straight out of school. Again, Rich Dad Poor Dad taught houses are liabilities. Buy investment property, so that’s what she did. I’m not a handy person, and I’d never been raised that way. Never done much stuff, and there was a lot of work to do. I remember cutting my hands on these cheap plastic wall tiles in the bathroom as we’re trying to remove them.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
It was not fun.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
For someone who thinks that you can make money sitting down at a computer, just buying and selling stocks, that later proved wrong. Yeah, we rented it out. It was a great experience. Then, we eventually moved into it.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh really?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
How long did you rent it out for?

Erwin Szeto:
We rented it out for a couple years. I think maybe three.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay, was it cash flowing?

Erwin Szeto:
At the time, and even still, that market never drew good rents.

Andrew la Fleur:
You bought a house for $150 Gs, and it didn’t cash flow?

Erwin Szeto:
Nothing reasonable.

Andrew la Fleur:
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Do you remember what the rent was? The first tenant, what were they paying you?

Erwin Szeto:
It’s so long ago. I would guess in the low thousands.

Andrew la Fleur:
Like less than $1,500?

Erwin Szeto:
Oh, not even close to that. Our second house we got, I think we maybe got like $1,300 for, on the same street. I think we probably were getting maybe $1,100.

Andrew la Fleur:
$1,100?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, for fully renovated two bedroom, one bath.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right. Wow. What was your thinking at the … Your thinking at the time was you were not really in favor of it. Your girlfriend was sort of pushing you to do it at the time? What was the moment in time where it first clicked for you, where you’re like, “Hmm, okay. I get this now. I get this real estate investing thing?” Do you remember? Was there a day or a moment when you’re like, “Ah?”

Erwin Szeto:
There was two moments. The first one was, because this was 2004, 2005, and then the credit crisis hit 2007. Then, my genius stock market portfolio of mainly small caps, low capitalization stocks, not very mature companies, that portfolio got completely slaughtered. I had some go to zero, get delisted. I probably lost at least 40 to 60% pretty quickly.

Erwin Szeto:
On the other hand, at that time we probably had about four, five properties with my girlfriend and her family as partners. It was doing great. We’d have a vacancy, and then we’d have three applications. This is how little we knew about real estate investing. We’d actually ask for cash or cash equivalent, with your submission of your tenant application, and people would give it. People would give it.

Erwin Szeto:
If you think back, there was no credit because it was a credit crisis. People still needed a place to live. We have a vacancy. Rent went up, and people would give us money to apply.

Andrew la Fleur:
You would take like an application fee you mean?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
Or, you mean like first month’s …

Erwin Szeto:
We’ve taken $200.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh, $200 cash, just to look at your application?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
People would pay it?

Erwin Szeto:
This is who is serious. We didn’t really know what we were doing. We’d get like three on the first day.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, okay.

Erwin Szeto:
Then, we quickly stopped doing it because it was a pain in the ass to return the money.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right. Right.

Erwin Szeto:
It’s cash. We’re not going to deliver it. There was no Uber at the time.

Andrew la Fleur:
No.

Erwin Szeto:
I have my slaughtered stock portfolio, because I didn’t know what I was doing.

Andrew la Fleur:
This is like late 2008 you’re talking?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, this is 2007, 2008. On the other hand, our real estate portfolio was doing wonderfully, even though the …

Andrew la Fleur:
The rents keep going up.

Erwin Szeto:
Rents kept going up.

Andrew la Fleur:
Values?

Erwin Szeto:
We had more [inaudible 00:07:34] applications.

Andrew la Fleur:
[crosstalk 00:07:35] going up.

Erwin Szeto:
During the greatest recession of our time.

Andrew la Fleur:
Than you did before?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, because people still needed a place to live.

Andrew la Fleur:
People stopped buying, yeah. Late 2008, early 2009 everybody stopped buying. There was a six, eight month period there where it was like …

Erwin Szeto:
Right, and our regret is actually we didn’t buy more. We only bought one during that period.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right. Yeah, everybody has the same regret.

Erwin Szeto:
Then, the second [crosstalk 00:08:01]

Andrew la Fleur:
It was such a short window of time, and then …

Erwin Szeto:
It was. It was.

Andrew la Fleur:
Everyone was kind of like holding their breath, and it was so bad in the States, and we were just like … Everyone was kind of surprised at how short it was. It was just that six month period, and then it was like, “Okay, wait. Everything’s revving up again. What’s going on here?”

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, it didn’t last long. You almost didn’t notice it.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah.

Erwin Szeto:
If you weren’t watching prices every day, or every month, or every week. We honestly that sophisticated, and we didn’t watch it that closely. We just knew that our cash flow was improving.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right. You started in like 2005, but you’re saying it wasn’t really until like that 2008 moment that you had your conversion experience, so to speak, into the real estate investing world, and you sort of, “Okay, this whole stock market thing is not working for me, but this real estate thing …?”

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, exactly it. Again, we were still very novice, learning on our own.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
Then, we had a tenant teach us. The story goes, they were desperate. They were just moving to town for work.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
It was bad. Even one of their SIN numbers came back with nothing, so either they gave us the wrong SIN, or they lied, about the SIN number, so we got no credit report period. We thought we’d do them a solid.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay, I don’t like where this is going.

Erwin Szeto:
They didn’t return the favor. Oh no, first and last bounce.

Andrew la Fleur:
This was your first tenant from hell experience?

Erwin Szeto:
Yes. Yes. It wasn’t even really tenant from hell. It’s more …

Andrew la Fleur:
Fraud. Criminal.

Erwin Szeto:
Criminal in that they didn’t pay us. They didn’t cause damage or anything like that, or they stayed.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, that’s criminal. They don’t pay you. All the investors out there listening, if your tenant is not paying you, that is criminal. It’s against the law. That’s called stealing.

Erwin Szeto:
Lesson for anyone is make sure you have the money before you give them keys, because we gave them keys without having proof that the money came through. All these things that we’re being taught by our tenant. We never really saw any money from them again, so we had to go through the process. Being new, we hired a lawyer, so that was expensive as well to represent us at the Landlord and Tenant Board.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
To get the note and … That whole process probably cost us somewhere around $10,000, and the dollars doesn’t even compare to the mental stress.

Andrew la Fleur:
And time.

Erwin Szeto:
And time. We all went. Most of us went to tribunal. My wife, she became my wife. She’s not my ex wife, and my father-in-law. Can you imagine, you’re investing with family, and things are going sideways like this?

Andrew la Fleur:
Not fun times around the dinner table at Thanksgiving?

Erwin Szeto:
No. It wasn’t fun times.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay, now you’re well more than a decade into this journey.

Erwin Szeto:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andrew la Fleur:
What is your, having gone through a very bad situation and probably other situations as well, what’s your main mindset, or your main piece of advice for investors when it comes to avoiding that type of scenario, when it comes to selecting a tenant? What do you tell people today, based on experiences you’ve had?

Erwin Szeto:
Right. The simplest thing to do is just hire a very qualified property manager. Even if you don’t want to go that route, you can go a no frills route. Have a paralegal review the tenant application. Have an actual expert set of eyes look at something.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
Then, a longer solution would be get trained properly. Read everything you can on the subject. Join other networks that teach these sorts of things. Take courses on …

Andrew la Fleur:
Educate yourself bottom line.

Erwin Szeto:
Educate yourself. Myself, because I saw the opportunity for income replacement to grow my wealth, I took this very seriously. I’ve educated myself. I look at all the years I’ve put into formal education, elementary school, high school, university, and that helped me make a good income, but here’s something that’s going to take care of me, and all future generations.

Andrew la Fleur:
Create wealth, yeah.

Erwin Szeto:
Then, I was willing to put that same type of effort into learning that. That’s what I’ve done.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, interesting. Like you said, when you were growing up, you didn’t have a real estate person in your family. You didn’t have an example of a real estate investor. Did you have business people in your lives? Now, you’ve become a very successful investor, and business person. A lot of successful business people, what they have in common is they came from business families and backgrounds. It sounds like you did not.

Erwin Szeto:
I did not. Even though I graduated from business school.

Andrew la Fleur:
You kind of fell into it, almost backwards, reluctantly it sounds like.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
You were kind of pulled into the world, it sounds like. Then, once you fell into it, you said, “Okay, let me educate myself, and get myself up to speed here.”

Erwin Szeto:
I almost arrived …

Andrew la Fleur:
Now, you’re teaching others investing.

Erwin Szeto:
I almost arrived to where I am because other things weren’t working. I graduated right after 9-11 happened, so the job market was …

Andrew la Fleur:
It was crap.

Erwin Szeto:
It was terrible. Everything, up to that point, was really to train myself to get a good job, and then the job market was destroyed. I was also training to be a good stock person, be a good investor. Got slaughtered, so what’s working? What was working was real estate. Yeah, to your point, I didn’t have that business guidance early on. Even though I went to business school, it was really to train to get a job. There wasn’t enough focus on starting a business.

Erwin Szeto:
Then, even my own family, my father and my mother, I thanked them every day for what they went through to get me here. My dad’s a doctor. He trades his time for money. It’s a good rate, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no talk about starting a business, having a real estate portfolio.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
Even his own portfolio, his investments were very late. I was investing years before he ever invested. It was actually my girlfriend’s dad that introduced business to me, because I saw wow.

Andrew la Fleur:
This is sounding like a real life Rich Dad Poor Dad situation?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah. He’s a plumber.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh wow. This is awesome.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
This is a movie script. Your dad’s the doctor, like you said, who’s trading his time for a very good rate, but yet, investing side, just not part of the mindset. Then, your girlfriend’s dad is a plumber, trading his time for a much lower rate, but he’s got the investor mindset.

Erwin Szeto:
Investor mindset, and also he had an entrepreneur mindset as well because he had plumbers working for him, so he was able to scale that way, and he lived a very nice lifestyle. Wow, I didn’t know this because when you’re growing up, especially an immigrant family, you’re not told to go get a trade, to learn a trade, to make lots of money. Here we are. I have a living example of a tradesperson who is doing very well for himself. Yeah, Rich Dad Poor Dad, not that my dad’s poor by any means.

Andrew la Fleur:
No, of course. We’re talking about mindset. We’re talking about philosophy, and approach, and like you said, the trading your time for money approach versus the, how do you describe it, the leveraged life, the business, how do you talk about it?

Erwin Szeto:
The way I talk about it is if you want to be successful without going to med school, or going to become a lawyer, those sorts of things, there’s three pillars to becoming very wealthy. One is business. I don’t need to talk to you about that. You have a business. One is real estate, which has done well for both of us and our clientele.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yep.

Erwin Szeto:
Then there’s stocks, if done properly. This whole world of building business, and having employees was quite foreign to me until I read Rich Dad Poor Dad myself. I always had the employee mindset for like up to the age of 25, roughly. Then, it’s pretty funny how quickly that switch happened where I quickly became unemployable in my opinion. Even though I was an employee, everything I was doing was figuring my way out of employment. Even though I’m …

Andrew la Fleur:
It’s not somebody that you want to hire.

Erwin Szeto:
No.

Andrew la Fleur:
This guy wants to figure out how to get out of here. Should we hire him, or not?

Erwin Szeto:
There are parts to that though. For the people that want to jump ship and like go, I want to quit my job today, and be a full-time investor, I honestly haven’t seen that happen that often, and I knew that wasn’t me either. My plan was create as much value as possible in my work in order to receive the most income possible, so then I could get more mortgages for more properties.

Erwin Szeto:
Even though I was figuring my way out, I was still ethically responsible, and also I needed the income in order to get the future I wanted.

Andrew la Fleur:
When did you transition from like the world as an employee into being on your own in your own business doing this full-time?

Erwin Szeto:
It was 2010. I could no longer work with the real estate agent/broker/owner I was working with to do investments. He actually gave me advice that actually probably cost me quite a bit of money. He honestly said, “Oh, you make money in real estate. You buy something and it goes up. All real estate goes up.” I said to him, “There’s some research here that if I buy near this new highway, it’ll help the value go up for the property, specifically the Red Hill Valley Parkway in Hamilton.”

Erwin Szeto:
He said, “Oh, well that’s not true. It’s already priced in.” If anyone wants to go look back at what the prices were in 2010, compared to what they are today, compared to other area values, he was very wrong. It was at that point that we didn’t understand each other.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay. When did you get your real estate license?

Erwin Szeto:
It was then because …

Andrew la Fleur:
You didn’t get your license until around 2010?

Erwin Szeto:
Yes.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay, so you were investing for about five years. You went through the recession period, but you were still working the whole time as an employee?

Erwin Szeto:
Yes.

Andrew la Fleur:
Doing your thing. Then, around 2010, that’s when you shifted over?

Erwin Szeto:
Probably a little bit before that because I did a phased approach, being a pragmatist, conservative person. The license was actually just to do our own portfolio.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right, because you’re just buying and selling a lot of stuff, so …

Erwin Szeto:
Not a lot of stuff, but …

Andrew la Fleur:
A lot of people, investors, say, “Let me just get my real estate license because I’d rather just do it myself if I’m doing a bunch of properties.”

Erwin Szeto:
Before that decision was made though, I was looking for an agent because I was doing well at work. I wasn’t as ambitious back then as I am now today. I looked for an agent. Couldn’t find someone that was specific to what I was looking for, so then I got my license to trade our own portfolio. I belonged to a network. My friends were there, and they knew what I was up to, and they asked, “Can you help me because I’m no different than you. I can’t find the help I need, that understands economic fundamentals, who understands how to run this like a business.”

Erwin Szeto:
Then, I started servicing friends who were all real estate investors already. I was coming to the realization this is a better everything for me. I can make more money. I’m not tied to a desk. I don’t have to commute an hour for each way. I can help more people versus the job I had where I worked for a company nicknamed Big Blue. I think most people can guess who that was. I could create more change for people. I could give more value if I was servicing investor clients. That was how I made the switch.

Andrew la Fleur:
Interesting.

Erwin Szeto:
I actually took a sabbatical. I’m only sharing this because I think people tend to jump into things too quickly, so I took a sabbatical to see if I could actually make a run out of this. Again, conservative approach, see if I liked it before I quit my job. Then, when I came back, I resigned.

Andrew la Fleur:
Wow. How long was the sabbatical?

Erwin Szeto:
Just four weeks.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh, four? That was a quick one.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah. I resigned.

Andrew la Fleur:
In Europe, that’s called a long weekend.

Erwin Szeto:
I resigned, but then we negotiated. I didn’t want to leave them high and dry because I’m not like that. My boss was wonderful. I had a really good job, a highly respected job.

Andrew la Fleur:
Nice. It wasn’t like you hated your job, you hated your life.

Erwin Szeto:
No.

Andrew la Fleur:
That was good.

Erwin Szeto:
No, as far as jobs and lifestyles go, I had it pretty good.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah.

Erwin Szeto:
A lot of people said, “Don’t do this.”

Andrew la Fleur:
Right. Right.

Erwin Szeto:
It was a phased approach. I said I’d do two days. They asked for three, I said two days. Then, it was getting painful to be there at the realization of just easy math. It’s costing me money to be here.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
I went down to one, and then eventually left completely.

Andrew la Fleur:
Talk to me about your philosophy in terms of what you’re buying now, and what you’re looking for now, in terms of where you’re at in your own portfolio of investments, and sort of how it’s changed over your career. It’s an evolution that we all go through as investors. You start somewhere, and you go somewhere, and you end up somewhere else. The way that you approach it, and the way you think about deals, it changes. For a while, you were, obviously, heavily branded and known as Mr. Hamilton. I think I saw on your license plate when you rolled in, it says, “Mr. Hamilton,” which is awesome.

Andrew la Fleur:
I think now, as I observe you from the outside, it seems like you’re moving away from being known as Mr. Hamilton, and focusing on Hamilton Investments, and to other stuff as well. I guess to summarize, what are you looking to buy right now in your portfolio, and how did you get there? How did it evolve over the years for you personally?

Erwin Szeto:
The beginning being amateurs, we’d almost offer on anything we saw for sale.

Andrew la Fleur:
Just throwing out offers all over the place kind of thing, looking for deals? That was the approach?

Erwin Szeto:
We were more serious. We were looking to win. As beginners though, you don’t have context. By context, I mean if you’re doing our strategy, we ended up buying a house from the 1880s, with a log foundation. I mentioned earlier, I got divorced, and that was the happiest house to give up in the divorce. That was a money pit. Then, as you mature as an investor, you see more properties, you have more context, right?

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
You see 20 properties, you don’t know really what good property looks like. As I saw more properties, I was like, “Okay, this is the style I like.” I like less old properties, not from the 1880s. I invest primarily … My preferred properties usually aged 1950, 1960 because they often have basements that I can turn into legal apartments. That’s not the only strategy. The last property I bought was a student rental. As someone who’s a bit experienced, if a good deal comes to me, I’ll evaluate it as to what the best thing to do with it is.

Erwin Szeto:
For example, I have another property that I’m going to rent out by the room for like $800 a room in a furnished house. I’m going to generate like $3,200 a month on a property I paid $320,000 for years ago, years ago.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yes.

Erwin Szeto:
For our clientele, mostly it’s legal basement suites. It’s an easier strategy in terms of the ongoing management because not everyone’s fit to handle students or renting out by the room.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right, so what areas are you looking to buy now? What towns or pockets? Are you agnostic on location? It’s really about the property? Where are you looking now?

Erwin Szeto:
I believe, for myself, I like to invest close.

Andrew la Fleur:
To?

Erwin Szeto:
To where I live.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
And also where I have resources that can deal with my ongoing management.

Andrew la Fleur:
You’re pretty hands-on? You like to be hands-on with your stuff?

Erwin Szeto:
Yes, no. I try to be less and less, but I believe that say the basement’s flooding, I can be there in an hour to shut off the water if I have to.

Andrew la Fleur:
Have you ever dealt with a basement flood?

Erwin Szeto:
Yes.

Andrew la Fleur:
Ouch. More than one?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, two.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh wow, okay.

Erwin Szeto:
I have a couple of properties, so it’s bound to [crosstalk 00:25:58].

Andrew la Fleur:
This is why I like condos by the way. Plug for condos everybody. You know that if you listen to the podcast. You like to be close proximity to where you are? What’s the most recent property that you’ve purchased, and why did you buy it?

Erwin Szeto:
The last one, it came to me from a wholesaler. The last property I bought was actually very close to McMaster University.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
That’s the one I mentioned, a couple of student rental properties. I rented to eight students.

Andrew la Fleur:
Eight students?

Erwin Szeto:
Sorry. I don’t know where eight came from. There’s four students.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
Sorry. I don’t know where eight … I probably have the $800 number in my head from before. I rent the rooms for $650 a room. Then, if you’re a parent, can you imagine that? You’re paying over $7,000 for rent a year.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right, which is cheap actually compared to houses.

Erwin Szeto:
[crosstalk 00:26:54]. Yeah. This is just a room though too.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, but obviously if you’re a student in downtown Toronto, you’re never going to find anything for $650. You’re paying way, way more than that.

Erwin Szeto:
Oh yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, back in the day when we were at university, $400 for a room was, at least for me, that was like a high number, but now $650 is probably a low number, I’m guessing, even at Mac.

Erwin Szeto:
No, it’s a pretty high number.

Andrew la Fleur:
Is it?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah. It’s a pretty high number. I don’t know many people that get over $600. Then also, my wealth is largely created because of my real estate portfolio. I think that’s true for almost all investors, and a lot of rich people in the world. I’m very overweighted in real estate. More recently, I’m selling stock options as well. It’s something completely different.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay, so you’re going back in time to your former life in a way?

Erwin Szeto:
It’s a little bit different in that … That’s why I specified I was doing small caps stocks back then, hoping that they’ll run good businesses, and someday become like a Microsoft.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
It didn’t happen. It didn’t work out. Now, actually, instead I will actually invest in companies like Microsoft. The most simple way to put it is that I’m paid to buy blue chip companies like Microsoft, that Microsoft pays a dividend, and I can do it at prices that I want. The worst case is I’m owning shares of Microsoft. Then, even more simple, like I’ve been doing TD, like TD Bank, and Bank of Nova Scotia, so I’m not recommending anyone do these things, I’m just explaining what I do.

Andrew la Fleur:
Disclaimer. Disclaimer.

Erwin Szeto:
Disclaimer. Disclaimer. Then, for people on the outside looking in, I know you’re thinking, “Oh, he could lose lots of money.” I’m thinking, “If I lose a lot of money on companies like TD and Bank of Nova Scotia, the world is probably ending.”

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
You should get on social media with me, and go get some supplies from the grocery store.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, it’s probably a major recession, and half of us are on the street at that point, if those stocks are going down.

Erwin Szeto:
The neat thing about this is, because I met this gentleman, his name is Omar and his friend Matthew.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
I always like to learn from successful people.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yep.

Erwin Szeto:
These are some of the most successful people I’ve met. Omar owns over 30 properties with 100 plus stores. He doesn’t have a day job. He’s the one teaching me to do this.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
I didn’t believe him at first. I believed that he was doing it. I didn’t believe him at first. I believed that he was doing it. I didn’t believe I could do it. Then, we ran into each other, and this was like back in April. He was telling me again to do this. He was just telling me to do this because it’s made such a massive difference in his life and 50 other people he’s taught how to do this.

Erwin Szeto:
He’s just trying to give back. He’s so grateful for this. He’s trying to tell everyone in the world to do this. The challenge is that many people don’t think they can do it. What Omar says to me is, “You know, Adriano?” I go, “Yeah, [Paisan 00:30:14]. He’s my electrician.” He rewired my house, the house I mentioned I’m renting out by the room for $800. He goes, “Right, he’s my electrician too. I taught him too. He’s made $120,000 in the last 12 months.” I’m like, “Okay, you have my attention now.”

Erwin Szeto:
The stupid thing is, this is the stupidest thing is, he told me about this two years ago, and I believed him. He’s like, “Go read these two books.” I read the two books, and then did nothing.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay, might as well tell everybody, what are the two books?

Erwin Szeto:
The first one is called Money for Nothing by Derek Foster, and the second book is called Get Rich With Options by Les something, Les Thompson. I can look it up later.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
If you just go to Amazon, Get Rich With Options, Lee Lowell, Lee Lowell.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
Again, we know lots of people who have read these books, and the information has been out there forever, it’s just the tweak of the strategy that’s the difference.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right. It’s the same thing in anything. It’s like real estate investing. A lot of people that are listening to this podcast right now, they’ve been listening to this podcast and podcasts like this for months, and some cases years, but they’ve not done anything yet. They haven’t bought any real estate. They haven’t taken any action. Knowledge and information is not the problem at all. In 2019, you can find out how to do anything and everything for free on the internet.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, because you’re sharing your own investments, so if you don’t know what you’re doing, do what Andrew does. You’ll probably end up all right.

Andrew la Fleur:
Or a lot better than all right, but let’s talk about mindset in that respect, and what is it that’s stopping people, and how do people get past that barrier, going again, back to talking about real estate investing specifically. What holds people back, and in your opinion, what is the thing that gets people to move forward and to make progress?

Erwin Szeto:
If I could answer that, I think I’d be a lot richer. It’s bonkers.

Andrew la Fleur:
We both would be. We both would be. That’s what we do. Both of us, we talk to people every single day for our sort of “day job” about investing. Some of them take action, and many of them do not.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah. I’ll give you an example. Most of my family have no real estate investments.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right. Yep, same here.

Erwin Szeto:
They have very easy access to me.

Andrew la Fleur:
They got your number.

Erwin Szeto:
They have my number.

Andrew la Fleur:
They know your website.

Erwin Szeto:
Right.

Andrew la Fleur:
They’re friends with you on Facebook.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah. I’m not hard to find. I’ll have frank conversations with my family and say … I can’t talk to clients this way. It’ll be very colorful language. My cousin for example, I’ll say, “Do you really think I can’t make you successful tomorrow or get a property? It’ll be the exact same stuff I buy. You can use the same property manager I use, same mortgage person I use, same everything. It’ll be like a street over from my home property. Do you really think you won’t be successful doing it?”

Erwin Szeto:
They won’t take me up on my offer. I don’t really know. I just think it’s the individual, how much pain they’re willing to tolerate because this is a tough world, and it’s getting only worse for everyone financially. Even if you don’t rent today, there’s a good chance that your kids might rent, or your parents might rent, or they want to downsize. Rents are atrocious. My cousin rented out a one plus one, his condo in King Street West, just west of Spadina, for $2,600. I don’t know. Every time I hear these things, it eats at me, like good God. I can’t afford that.

Andrew la Fleur:
Here you were, in 2005, renting a whole house, a detached house, for like $1,000 a month. It’s just going to continue. Rents are just going to continue to rise.

Erwin Szeto:
With the way immigration is going, I have lots of builder friends, and the development charges are going up across the map. There’s not exactly more land.

Andrew la Fleur:
No.

Erwin Szeto:
You monitor this market closer than I do, but I remember there was like a freeze for like Midtown Toronto because there wasn’t enough sewer capacity for new projects. There’s all these things obstructing more supply coming online, and just the fact that we live where we live, between a lake and a green belt, that restricts us all from building. People only drive so far because traffic is atrocious in the city.

Andrew la Fleur:
It’s so much worse. You alluded to your one hour commute back in the day from what Burlington to downtown?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, I hated it.

Andrew la Fleur:
What would that commute be today?

Erwin Szeto:
Oh I seen the GO train.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh okay, so the GO train would both be the same, but the driving commutes, today versus 10 years ago, way, way worse. Way worse.

Erwin Szeto:
[crosstalk 00:35:34].

Andrew la Fleur:
Double in many cases.

Erwin Szeto:
When you get a cancellation of a GO train, especially in the winter, what do you do? I already pre-booked friends, like dude, if there’s no train, I am crashing at your place, okay? I’ve been on trains, and then we have to get off at a stop, for whatever reason. You’ve lost control.

Andrew la Fleur:
What’s the biggest challenge that you’d say you’re facing as an investor, like as you’re looking to grow your portfolio today, and increase your wealth, and exponentially turn your existing portfolio into more and more, what’s the biggest challenge that you see in front of you to doing that?

Erwin Szeto:
No different than everybody else. The lack of affordability. I mentioned bought our first house for $154, $156,000 in downtown Burlington. We didn’t continue investing in Burlington.

Andrew la Fleur:
You probably put like 5% down as well.

Erwin Szeto:
Probably. Probably. The fun thing …

Andrew la Fleur:
Remember those days, right?

Erwin Szeto:
I was actually mortgage free before 30.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh really? Wow.

Erwin Szeto:
It’s so little money.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right, right.

Erwin Szeto:
Who’s mortgage free before 30 today?

Andrew la Fleur:
No.

Erwin Szeto:
It doesn’t happen.

Andrew la Fleur:
There’s a couple guys in Windsor, I think. Two guys, there’s a Mike and there’s a Frank.

Erwin Szeto:
It doesn’t happen anymore. We didn’t invest in Burlington very long because the market went up. We couldn’t cash flow. Then, we’re investing in a place called Waterdown, a Suburb of Hamilton. The prices went up. Couldn’t make new numbers work. Moved down to Hamilton. Then, we were doing single families, and then again, rents could no longer work, so then we had to force rents by doing things like student rentals, and legal duplexes. Those were capital intensive and also more property management, all sorts of fun thing.

Andrew la Fleur:
The basements flood.

Erwin Szeto:
The basements would flood. More density. More density as in more people in a property usually means more problems.

Andrew la Fleur:
Parking and everything else.

Erwin Szeto:
Parking, and even just interpersonal issues, noise, pets, all those sorts of fun things. We’ve always continued to move further west, or be more aggressive with the individual property, in terms of our strategy. If you remember like five years ago, people could do quite well, like cash flow wise, even for instance the GTA. How I see people picking up their families, and moving to like Windsor in order to get enough yield. I still believe that real estate is the best place to create wealth. The yield isn’t there anymore as it used to be. The cash flow.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah. I think everybody listening would agree with you. Big question we’re all wondering, and what’s your opinion on it, where do we go from here? Where do you see the Golden Horseshoe region? Where does this end? That’s how people like to ask. It’s not going to end, but where do you see things going? Are we just becoming more like the Manhattan Theory, where we’re just becoming a big, big world city, and like other big, big world cities, Manhattan, Hong Kong, London, like you said, there’s no yield. The yield days are over. Do you just keep going further and further out? Do you change your strategy? What do you think?

Erwin Szeto:
I think interest rates are on their way down with the way the world’s going. The European Central Bank, they’re overnight lending rate is like negative .5 and Trump is saying he wants to cut by a whole percentage point.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yep.

Erwin Szeto:
Then Canada usually follows suit, so cheaper interest rates usually mean cheaper mortgages. Cheaper mortgages usually spurs the housing market. I don’t know where the end is. My crystal ball is no better than anybody else. Myself, I will invest in more real estate. It’s just my expectations for yield have to change. I was talking to someone just this week about how they sold a triplex, a friend of theirs sold a triplex for $2 million in the East side of Toronto. I go, “What was that cash flow?” He goes, “Oh, negative. Way negative.” A $2 million triplex is negative cash flow? Okay.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, exactly. Like you said …

Erwin Szeto:
Someone bought it.

Andrew la Fleur:
You used to be able to buy single family homes that would cash flow, and then okay, we’ve got to do a duplex to get this thing to cash flow, and now we got triplexes that are not even cash flowing. That’s right across the Golden Horseshoe.

Erwin Szeto:
What’s the alternative for investing?

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
The alternative for investing is I’m trying to earn yield by selling options primarily to sell naked puts for anyone who knows a bit more about finance. With this naked puts selling stuff, I haven’t been this excited since like 2008 for an income replacement opportunity.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh really? Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
I’m not recommending anything. This is my own … This is me.

Andrew la Fleur:
You’re having fun with this new …

Erwin Szeto:
I’m not just having fun.

Andrew la Fleur:
… stream, and you’re making money.

Erwin Szeto:
I’ve collected 6% in cash in my first month, and my returns are like 3.3% as an absolute beginner.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
I can’t say I know this like I know my real estate, but personally, my plans is this is where I’ll earn my yield.

Andrew la Fleur:
Interesting. Okay. You’ll continue to invest in real estate?

Erwin Szeto:
Oh yeah. I’m not selling everything, if anything I’m buying more.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, but your expectation has changed I guess.

Erwin Szeto:
My expectation [crosstalk 00:41:35].

Andrew la Fleur:
Whereas before, you were all about yields, and cash flow, and how much is this thing paying me on an ongoing basis every month, now your approach is? How would you describe your with real estate? If it pays for itself, I’m good?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
That’s it kind of thing?

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
Buy and hold, pay for itself, forget about cash flow. I’m okay with break even? Is that basically what you’re saying?

Erwin Szeto:
There is another option because I don’t really want to choose a different city to invest in. My teams for my properties are in St. Catherines and Hamilton primarily. I don’t …

Andrew la Fleur:
Chase the yield to further and further markets away.

Erwin Szeto:
I don’t want to chase the yield because that now becomes more active.

Andrew la Fleur:
Especially the type of properties that you’re buying, which like you said, you’re forcing a lot of appreciation. You’re doing renovations. You’re dealing with multiple tenants in a single place. It makes a lot of sense for those properties to be close to you.

Erwin Szeto:
I have property managers, but still …

Andrew la Fleur:
You have to manage the managers.

Erwin Szeto:
You’ve got to manage the managers, you’ve got to manage the handymen, and you’ve got to manage the renovations. The old rule still applies. You should be on-site once a week for your renovations.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
I am pretty stretched. If you just now realized that, I’m pretty stretched versus the stock stuff. I could do it from my Smartphone, 30 minutes a day.

Andrew la Fleur:
Interesting.

Erwin Szeto:
To earn yield.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah.

Erwin Szeto:
I’m not an accountant. I married one.

Andrew la Fleur:
That’s good. That helps.

Erwin Szeto:
But because it’s a small part of my income, it’s capital gains.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right, okay.

Erwin Szeto:
My plan is to be no different than my electrician, within 12 months, I want to be making the same money he does.

Andrew la Fleur:
Nice little six figure side business.

Erwin Szeto:
Exactly. Thirty minutes a day from my Smartphone.

Andrew la Fleur:
We’ll check in in a year, and we’ll see …

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, be happy to.

Andrew la Fleur:
We’ll see if you hit it. Big reason why you’re here as well, and why we’re having this conversation this time, of course, is you’ve got a very exciting project that you’re working on as well, speaking of one of the other many things that you’re involved with. You’ve got something coming up that you really are excited to tell everybody who’s listening about that they can also participate in, so what is it, when is it? Hit us with the details on this.

Erwin Szeto:
It’s called Wealth Hacker Conference. Like I mentioned earlier, there’s three pillars to building wealth. This is a one day, master class on teaching those things. For example, our business building experts, Tom and Nick Karadza, they built their eight-figure business starting from the floor of their garage. Literally from nothing to an eight-figure business, and they’ve been named Top 500 fastest growing companies in Canada. They’ve been named that three years in a row. There’s pretty much no one better to teach this in Canada.

Erwin Szeto:
Of course, you know I’m talking about real estate investing because it still is the best place to invest and build wealth. It may not yield as much as it used to, so we have people like Russell Westcott, who owns over 100 properties with almost none of his own money in it. He’s raised that money, so if anyone’s concerned about not having down payments, here’s a gentleman who’s very good at raising money.

Erwin Szeto:
We have Pierre-Paul Turgeon. Again, for people chasing maybe more yield, I hear investors saying, “I wish I did commercial real estate sooner.” Pierre-Paul’s going to be there. My wife’s a real estate accountant. She’s actually small business accountant. She’s really, really popular. She’s actually way more popular than I am. If you’d like to have her on the show, I might be able to pull some strings with her.

Andrew la Fleur:
Okay.

Erwin Szeto:
No honestly, she …

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, I did have her on the show.

Erwin Szeto:
Oh, right.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, a while back. We’ll include a link to the episode with Cherry on this podcast for sure, but who else is going to be at the conference?

Erwin Szeto:
Then, my friends Omar and Matthew. Omar and Matthew are the … We didn’t want to scare people with how much money they make. The thing is if I tell people, “Adriano made, an electrician with no financial background, he made $120,000 in his first 12 months.” People can believe that, right? They can believe that, but Omar and Matthew, they make thousands of dollars a week from their Smartphone. Those bastards are in Portugal right now and doing deals.

Andrew la Fleur:
Nice, yeah.

Erwin Szeto:
They’ve taught over 50 of their friends. They’ve been doing stock options for 12 years. It’s a really simple thing to do, that anyone can honestly do. My friend, who’s a jazz guitarist, is doing this as well, earning 3% a month, with no financial background. You just have to be willing to learn. They’ll be sharing this as well. Honest to goodness, everything that we’re teaching is what I want to share with the world. My podcast tells the truth about real estate. There’s so much BS out there. People teaching like flipping.

Erwin Szeto:
My favorite is when, I’m not disparaging Americans, but I don’t get when American investors come up here to teach us how to flip in Toronto.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, right.

Erwin Szeto:
It’s a little bit different.

Andrew la Fleur:
It’s a little bit different than Texas or whatever.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, exactly. They’ll tell you …

Andrew la Fleur:
We don’t have $45,000 houses here.

Erwin Szeto:
No. The $2 million triplex was a flip. What kind of money do you need for that? A lot.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah.

Erwin Szeto:
That was like a $1.1 million purchase.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah.

Erwin Szeto:
Again, this is the conference I’ve always wanted to give because it’s what I would have wanted to see when I was 20 years old. Honest to goodness, this will help anybody.

Andrew la Fleur:
I love it. Yeah, so you’re producing the conference that you wish you had when you were 20 years old.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
I love it. That should be your tag line, if it isn’t already. You have a very special guest as well coming.

Erwin Szeto:
Oh yeah.

Andrew la Fleur:
Who is, drum roll.

Erwin Szeto:
His name is Grant Cardone.

Andrew la Fleur:
Grant Cardone.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah, he’s written five books. I think two or three are New York Times best selling books. He’s the leader of the 10 X movement. He’s got combine YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, probably around 15 million followers. His businesses combined for about … He posted just on Instagram. He’s showy, trying to get attention, but he posted on Instagram $117 million, I think is what his company is bringing annually.

Andrew la Fleur:
Wow.

Erwin Szeto:
That’s US dollars. He’s a sales marketing genius. His own real estate business has $1.2 billion assets under management.

Andrew la Fleur:
Wow.

Erwin Szeto:
He’s for real. When we polled people, who would get off their couch and go buy tickets to go see, he pulled the highest.

Andrew la Fleur:
Awesome.

Erwin Szeto:
We’re fans of his work as well. We were in Miami for the growth conference.

Andrew la Fleur:
I was going to say, you’ve been to his conferences. You’ve, I guess, learned a lot from him personally, in terms of investing and mindset.

Erwin Szeto:
Yeah. The 10 X mindset, you were asking me about mindset, first people have to be willing to adopt mindsets. What I love with the 10 X mindset is it’s really simple. For anyone who wants to do some simple mindset exercises, think about what you want, and then times that by 10. Say you want to buy one investment property, two investment properties. Now think about what 10 or 20 looks like. How do you have to get there? What model do you have to follow? What people do you have to know? How much money do you need to make? How much down payment money you have to make? How are you going to raise that money?

Erwin Szeto:
Maybe you end up with five properties, but it’s better than one or two. At least you stretched your mind to reach further because that’s the first step. You have to reach further in order to get anywhere. If you plan to travel around the world, if you end up in like say France, that’s still pretty good.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
Maybe you didn’t achieve your goal, but at least you’ve gotten a lot further than you would have if you just versus sticking with your original mindset.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
When I was young, when I was learning about real estate, “Ah, I want 100 properties.” I’d end up with 10. It’s pretty good to own 10 properties.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome. Wealth Hacker Conference is the name of it. The website is …

Erwin Szeto:
Wealthhacker.ca.

Andrew la Fleur:
Very simple, wealthhacker.ca. The date is?

Erwin Szeto:
November 9th at the Toronto Congress Center. It’s a big facility. Again, November 9th, this year, 2019.

Andrew la Fleur:
2019, November 9th, Toronto Congress Center, and you’ve been very gracious. You have a special offer for True Condos listeners, and what is that?

Erwin Szeto:
The promo code if you go to wealthhacker.ca, we have a promo code for fans of this show because I’ve known you for years. This has been a long time coming. You’re coming on my show after the event, when I’m less …

Andrew la Fleur:
When you have some time.

Erwin Szeto:
When I have some time. I’m sorry, not to delay, the promo code is true condos. That’s plural.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, true condos, so just enter in the promo code true condos@wealthhacker.ca to get your tickets.

Erwin Szeto:
Wealthhacker.ca will bring you to Event Bright, which is our ticketing application, and within Event Bright, you’ll usually see at the top a little hyperlink for enter promo code. That’s where you enter true condos.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
I provide you a link as well for anyone looking for it in the show notes.

Andrew la Fleur:
Awesome. They’re getting … If they do that, what do they get?

Erwin Szeto:
They get 10% off the ticket price.

Andrew la Fleur:
Oh okay, nice, 10%, awesome. Just to be clear, everybody listening, I don’t get anything from this. This is purely just Erwin being generous, and offering you guys listening. If you’re interested in this conference, Wealth Hacker Conference, November 9th, Toronto Congress Center, wealthhacker.ca, enter in the code true condos for a 10% discount on your tickets.

Andrew la Fleur:
Erwin, anything else that you want to … Where else can people find you, reach you? Obviously, you’ve got a podcast as well. What’s the best place for people to go to get to know you better, and to hear from you more?

Erwin Szeto:
I’ve got a lot of things going on. My podcast is a good place to start, truthaboutrealestateinvesting.ca, that’s the website for my podcast. I also have a charity my wife and I started. We have our own registered charity since 2014. Everything that we do, I’ve been put on this planet to, I think, to help people. If we have time, can I share a mindset thing?

Andrew la Fleur:
Absolutely.

Erwin Szeto:
One of my earliest mentors was Brian Tracy, introduced to me by my ex’s father, my ex father-in-law. In his book, The Psychology of Success, he walks you through this exercise. Go somewhere quiet, forget all the BS that you tell yourself, forget all the BS anyone else has told you. What are you capable of? Then, how many people would you help if you achieved those levels?

Erwin Szeto:
In my mind, I was like, “Okay, I can help a good number of people.” Like Bill Gates for example, he writes a check for $300 million. He’s going to wipe out Polio. I can’t do that, but that’s my mindset though. I can donate a lot. I can make a lot of money to donate a lot of money. Then, Brian Tracy takes it all away. What if you don’t do this? Then, all those awful things that happen are your fault. If Bill Gates never happens, we don’t wipe out Polio.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
Then, for everyone listening, think of all the good things you do. Some people said money is the root of all evil. Money really amplifies who you really are. With more money, I can do more charity. That’s who I am, but what if I don’t? My dream is, one of my early visions is I’ll leave $5 million behind to my charity to start a foundation. I’m hoping Omar and Matthew, the stock option guys, will trade that account for me when I’m gone to earn 10%, so $500,000 offering budget. I can feed a lot of families with $500,000 offering budget. Then I take it all away. What if I don’t do it? All those people don’t eat because of me.

Andrew la Fleur:
Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, that’s definitely a powerful mindset approach.

Erwin Szeto:
It is hard though, because you’re taking a lot of responsibility.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, it obviously puts things in perspective, puts a lot of weight on you, but I guess you’re saying for you, it’s helped you get off your butt, so to speak, get out of the chair, and get doing stuff.

Erwin Szeto:
Understand this, this is bigger than me. My basement floods, I’ll get by because the bigger mission is more important than my basement flooding. Then, even just simply, I have a vivid imagination. You have kids. I have kids. A lot of people listening probably have kids. I think positive things too. I’m not just a negative person. I’ve had those visions in my head of my kids not being able to eat.

Andrew la Fleur:
That’s heavy.

Erwin Szeto:
Heavy. Then I get angry. When I’m angry, I get motivated.

Andrew la Fleur:
Nice.

Erwin Szeto:
I have positive sides as well.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, good. Yeah, well it goes to, like you said, it goes to mindset. It goes to motivation. We all have goals. We all have dreams. We all have ambitions. It’s how do we get there? How do we achieve them?

Erwin Szeto:
I say do whatever it takes. Whatever mindset works for you. If you don’t have that mindset, try something else.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right. Right.

Erwin Szeto:
There’s no different than exercise. What’s your favorite exercise? Do you cycle? Do you like to run?

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah, I mean I have four kids, zero time, so exercise is one of my ambitions to have.

Erwin Szeto:
Right, but you’re trim.

Andrew la Fleur:
Yeah.

Erwin Szeto:
Whatever you’re doing is working for you. That won’t work for everyone. When I’m not doing events, I do Jujitsu and cross fit. It’s not for everyone.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
Some people like to go running. I don’t like running. Some people like to go swimming. I don’t like swimming. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. Do whatever it takes to get you closer to your goal.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right.

Erwin Szeto:
Right.

Andrew la Fleur:
Right. Awesome.

Erwin Szeto:
Then if people want more wealth in their lives, wealthhacker.ca.

Andrew la Fleur:
Awesome. Wealthhacker.ca conference coming up, and we’ll definitely include a link in the show notes to that, and to Erwin’s podcast, and everything else we talked about on the show. Thank you so much, Erwin, for being here today, and all the best with the conference coming up.

Erwin Szeto:
Thank you. Honor to be on the show. Long time coming.

Andrew la Fleur:
Awesome. Talk to you soon.

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