David Carley on Resourcefulness, Travel and Lifelong Learning

01:01
Erin
For example, a sense of agency, resilience, grit, and constructive problem solving. These are skills and competencies that we can all benefit from growing whether we choose to be an entrepreneur or not. Today, I am so excited to welcome longtime entrepreneur and friend of mine, Dave Carley. Dave has spent his career building two incredible businesses worth more than almost anyone else I know. And yet what I love most about Dave is that he is just so authentically himself. He is one of the most down to Earth people I have ever met. My God, is he scrappy. By that I mean resourceful. With Dave, where there’s a will, there’s a way. 

01:45
Erin
I heard about this show on TLC where they take a billionaire and set them up in some small town with nothing but $100 and a vehicle and then they see if that person can build a million dollar business in 90 days. If I was in charge of casting for that show, I would put Dave on because I have no doubt he could do it. He’s that dang scrappy. In addition to his businesses, Dave has built a strong real estate portfolio and does a ton of what I call life travel. He is an inspiration and I’m excited to learn from him. Welcome, Dave. 

02:19
Dave
Thanks, Erin. Thanks. Yeah, the Grant Cardone series. That’s funny. The problem is I’d probably take 900 days, not 90 days to get to. 

02:28
Erin
Oh, I don’t think so. 

02:29
Dave
You. 

02:29
Erin
You’d do it. Thank you so much for being here. So in the intro I referred to you as scrappy. Do you relate to that? 

02:38
Dave
Stubborn. I guess. It looks scrappy. So yeah, that’s a good one. 

02:45
Erin
I. I mean it like resourceful. Like some of the skills I’ve noticed that are common in entrepreneurs that I know is that they are just like they dig, dig, dig, and they persevere and, you know, they just, like, figure stuff out. Do you relate to that when I describe it that way? 

03:08
Dave
Definitely. Like the MacGyver show in the 80s, you just got to figure it out with whatever you have in front of you. And ironically, it sometimes acts as a negative because people say, well, you didn’t really fully describe the scope of work when you laid it out. No, that’s because I didn’t know. But if I was there, you just sort of roll with it and figure it out along the way. And I’ve learned later years that’s actually a skill that not everybody has. There are a lot of people that are a lot more talented than I am, but if they have the complete scope of work laid out for them. So, yeah, there is scrappy or stubbornness, stupidity. I don’t know what it is. But you just got to keep going, burn the boats and figure it out. 

03:49
Erin
Where do you think that comes from? Like, were you always that way? 

03:55
Dave
You know what? Early, I grew up beside a roller rink, as a teenager. So I went roller skating every day, and I ended up going to a competition, like roller figure skating. And when you’re in sports, it teaches you not only how to belong to a team, but how to lose, how to win, how to work hard, how to practice. There’s so much dedication, especially in figure skating, like hours and hours. So I, I, I guess it was a good foundation. So when I go to work, if things don’t go so well, you just got to keep, you know, maybe put in a few extra hours at the end of the week. I get the same pay as everybody else, but over the years, that’s accumulated benefited me a lot, I guess is good way to say the perseverance. 

04:42
Erin
Yeah, I want to dig into those a little bit more. And before we go too far, I, I did want to acknowledge that when I was chatting with you before, you identified three things that are most important to you. Do you remember what those were? 

04:58
Dave
No, no. 

04:59
Erin
You had said travel, work, and physical fitness. 

05:04
Dave
Yes, that’s great. 

05:06
Erin
Yes. So this is going to be theme of our conversation today. We are going to talk about work, and I’m going to dig into what those natural skills are that you have, because it just comes naturally to you. And we had this good conversation where you’ll have to correct me if I’m getting this wrong. But, but you were kind of like, I don’t think this can be taught. And I was like, I’m not sure. So we’re going to explore that because I want to see, like, if I can actually tease out some of the things that you do and turn them into tactics or learning opportunities that those of us who maybe weren’t born with those kinds of skills can start to adopt and practice and flex. And then I definitely want to talk about travel stuff. 

05:58
Erin
And maybe before we get into any of that, the physical fitness. For anyone who’s watching right now, your head is bobbing. What are you doing? 

06:08
Dave
I’m on a treadmill. 

06:10
Erin
You’re on a treadmill? 

06:11
Dave
One of those desk walking treadmills. So you can raise your desk a little bit, walk, put your stomach right up against it. 

06:18
Erin
I love this. You are the first guest I’ve had that has done a walking treadmill while we’ve recorded the podcast. So this is super fun. But I, I love it because it really embodies what you talk about as, you know, one of your three most important things. 

06:36
Dave
Yeah. And it’s surprising. One of the frustrating things is we say talk about it. Because I do talk about it to a lot of my friends. A lot of my friends are similar in the fall of their life and exercise weight training are just not part of their day to day life. And I found even when I was younger going through things like buying properties, people would say, yeah, that’s a really good idea, but I don’t think I can do it. And years go by and you look back and then they say, well, that’s easy for you. You’ve got all these properties. Okay. But it’s just do it. And same with physical fitness. You just got to put it into your schedule and do it. And I know, I love my meetings with my doctor now. They’re very. 

07:16
Dave
Because things are going so well.

07:19
Erin
Feel like you have every excuse in the world to not have time for physical fitness, but you’ve clearly made it a priority. How do you tactically work that into your week? 

07:34
Dave
Well, you pay for it. So schedule a personal trainer. And I’ve even told him if I miss this, you have to charge me. And he typically doesn’t. But he said, okay, I’m good with that. I said, I’m going to call it in my mind, I’m reserving the spot. And also it’s going to make me come. And I do. I, I’m doing it probably four years now with the same guy. And I, the only time I miss is when I’m traveling. I’ll. Even if I’m within two hours I’ll leave where I am, come back, do the workout and then go back to the vacation or wherever I am. It’s a bit obsession, but it just really works well. So yeah, paying for it really helps out a lot. 

08:11
Dave
And then, I don’t know, just you have how many months, how many years you have left, you want to really be able to do everything you can. You know, it doesn’t work well to travel in your 70s if you haven’t done anything up till then because you’re not going to travel. Well, I’m already getting friends that they just can’t because it’s too long of a walk at the airport. Are you serious? That’s an excuse for not traveling. But you know, I guess if you haven’t been doing anything for 30 years, then it’s a good excuse. 

08:42
Erin
What kinds of things do you do in your week around physical fitness? 

08:47
Dave
I try to get some yoga, some spinning, obviously on the treadmill and walking the dog a lot. And then weight training. Those are the main. There’s a bike club that I try to join when they go on long rides, but I don’t do that as much anymore, just schedule wise. That’s why fitting in a treadmill right into your office, I mean, it just doesn’t get any easier. 

09:14
Erin
Yeah, I love that. What a great idea. So let’s go back then to some of these pieces around entrepreneurship and some of the skills that you have. Can you take me back to your first business endeavor? How old were you? 

09:32
Dave
22 years old. There was a recession, I couldn’t get a job, so I started my own business. Ironically, I turned to my father and I said, what is it you do again? You know, because who pays attention to their day to day activities when you’re in your teenage years? And he had a sign business, it was a signed service business. He said, I think I can help you. If I go out and I get some business, would you work with me? He said, sure. That lasted a few months and then I kind of got impatient. He was a much slower, you know, I said, dad, I got a mortgage, I gotta do this. So I’m gonna go. I’ve been watching you. It doesn’t look that hard. I’m gonna do this. And then if I need your help, I’ll pay you, I’ll hire you. 

10:16
Dave
So kind of chuckled at that, but that was 1982. And then here we are 40 years later and we’re still building signs right across Canada, some large name, large brands that we do business with. It’s working well. 

10:35
Erin
Yeah. You guys put the Sam the Record man sign back up in Toronto? 

10:39
Dave
We did. That was a nice feather too. Yeah, Meat Burger’s the one they took down and put it up in Dundas Square in Toronto. 

10:46
Erin
Amazing. So did you end up hiring your dad? 

10:50
Dave
Quite a bit, actually. He came, he became a regular when I got a little shop, like I said about burn the boats. Once you get in real debt as you become an entrepreneur, you can’t stop. So he was coming to work right up until he passed. 

11:05
Erin
Wow, that’s crazy. The short amount of time between you stepping in and like, okay, dad, let me learn from you and then, okay, I’ll let you know if I have a gig for you. So when, how old were you when you started looking at properties? Because you also, you have your sign businesses and then. But you also have been actively involved in real estate investment for a long time. 

11:33
Dave
So I was in my early 40s, it was a couple 20 years ago. And I went down to Ellicottville. It’s a ski place. Ski. Ski town in New York. And because it’s a ski town, there’s an attraction for weekend people to come up just for the weekends. And they don’t have big hotels, so there’s a market for owning a home and then renting it out short term. Well, now that’s not a big deal. Everybody does it. It’s like Airbnb and Vrbo. This was long before that. So I bought a place and I would start to rent it out on weekends, and then the weekends that didn’t rent, I would bring my family in and I would describe what I’m doing to my friends and they would be appalled, do you have people staying at your house? I’m like, yeah. 

12:16
Dave
And then cleaners come in and clean it up. And then I show up after that. I mean, it’s. They just couldn’t get their head around it. And it’s a great way. And then one place, then it goes up in equity as well as you get the revenue to pay off the mortgage. And then I leveraged that and bought another one. And now I got four down there. I’m in partners with one of them with my sister. And it’s a great partnership we have. Works out really well. She helps with a lot of paperwork and I’m down on the eyes on the boots in the ground, so to speak. So we have a good gig. 

12:52
Erin
What are some of the concerns you think people would have, as they’re exploring, getting into doing what you’re doing. I mean, you’ve expressed one already. Like people kind of have to get over the idea that there are others in their house. 

13:07
Dave
Sometimes you have to have the capability to handle stress. Okay, when you’re renting out something and there’s parties or you’re getting phone calls with, you know, Godzilla brides that have rented out your house as part of their wedding function and the, the toilet’s backed up and they, oh my. It’s just horrible. So you really have to have an ability to calm down, manage the stress and deal with the problems. You have to have a good relationship with your bank. A couple times my bank would say no, and I would walk in there and I would say, you have to explain to me what I need to fit in your box. Because I’m not taking no as answer. Well, you’ve got this and this, and you got. Okay, if I do that, then will I get the mortgage? 

13:56
Dave
And I find a lot of mortgage brokers help a lot. People don’t go to multiple mortgage brokers. They just go to a bank. And I don’t think that’s a good plan. And they also take the first. No, I don’t think that’s a good thing either. I think renting properties is really. How can you make that kind of money? By working every day? It’s physically impossible. 

14:18
Erin
You got a no from a mortgage or maybe it was a bank for your very first home, didn’t you? 

14:26
Dave
Actually, ironically, my very first one, I, I got a no. So I went and I found somebody to co sign. And then they came to me two years later and they said, I’m going to go off the title because it’s not really going up in value because it was a horrible real estate time in real estate. So he pulled the plug on the deal two years after me being there for two years, then the mortgage, and I was too young to fight. Then the bank comes back and says, we’re not renewing your mortgage. So then the realtor that I tried to list with bought the house and then flipped it for 30,000 more like two months later. So that was a horrible experience. 

15:03
Dave
But I, I learned that you can’t even when the bank wants to give you a hard time after you’re already in the house. You have so much more power than you realize and you can’t just cave and say, okay, the bank is turning me down. One of the bigger properties I have yeah, the bank did say no. So I said, well, if I can buy it with the vendor, take back and then prove to you that it’s positive cash flow, would you then finance it? And they said yes. So we did that. Went back to the person selling the property, said, no one else is going to buy it. It’s too big. So let me buy it. You hold the paper, I’ll give you the deposit, and then in two years, I’ll give you the rest of the book. And he didn’t. It worked. 

15:43
Dave
It was great. 

15:44
Erin
Oh, my gosh. What skills have you noticed are common between. When you think back to your early days as an entrepreneur or you reflect on, you know, early ventures into owning properties? Are they the same skill set that you were leveraging as you started those two things, or is it different? 

16:11
Dave
No, I think actually they are similar. Like I said, ability to handle stress. Some people, they just snap. You can’t. You have to deal with the problems. So that’s a common thing, a hard work. Honestly, Erin, it’s ridiculous. I would have gone to school for a lot longer if I could do it over because I worked way too long and way too hard to get where I am. So a lot of hard work, ability to handle stress, and I guess the MacGyver being able to figure out things really quick. Yeah, that’s kind of important. 

16:48
Erin
How do you handle stress? 

16:50
Dave
Try to break it down. Okay, so things are overwhelming. And then I just try. Okay, let’s just break it down. What do we need to do today? Like. Like, it’s a big problem, but let’s. Let’s. What do I do today? And it’s only one thing or two things. So let’s get those out of the way and then go home and then try to figure out tomorrow. Anything. 

17:08
Erin
Just breaking things down and not looking too far ahead. It sounds like it’s overwhelming, right? Like, what’s the next immediate thing to problem solve? 

17:17
Dave
Yes. 

17:18
Erin
Yeah. Oh, interesting. And you told me a story once about. And this is kind of what I was asking about with your first mortgage, I think you’d gone to the bank and they had said no, and you were like, what do I need? Like. And you kind of like, I don’t know, you just, like, made it work. Like, what should have so obviously been a no, and you turn away and that’s the end of that. Like, you don’t. Do you ever accept a no? 

17:47
Dave
Well, if I can see that it’s a really good thing on paper and it’s going to work. And once you become passionate about something, you just have to share that passion with the person that’s trying. You’re trying to get to become your partner or buy into it. In this case, a bank. I really don’t understand, but I. I guess I do understand that they have to. Have to have people to fit in a box. Like, I kind of get that rule. But say, for instance, you own three or four properties now. They say, well, you’re no longer like a home buyer. Now you’re like a. Now you’re a landlord that has multiple properties. So that’s a different box. Now we got different rules. Okay, now teach me the rules and what are the rules? 

18:23
Dave
So I guess getting into anything that I’m not too familiar with, you got to learn the rules real quick, or it’ll cost you a lot of money if you don’t play what if? Because you don’t even know the rules. 

18:36
Erin
How do you learn the rules? 

18:38
Dave
I usually go to someone else who’s already been doing it. 

18:42
Erin
Okay. 

18:42
Dave
We were a smaller sign company, and I knew we wanted to be around 10 million. I drove my car to another company that was 10 million so I could physically get out of the car, look at the property, look how big it is. Look how many employees they have. Talk to the owner, walk around, buy him lunch. And then when I drove away, you know, you can ask yourself, is that what I really want? Because it’s nice on paper. You go, well, bigger is better. This is what I should do. But what does it really look like? So it’s funny, I’m in a retirement age. I’m in my early 60s, so what do I do? I got to read books on retirement. It’s the same with everything. You just got to learn by other people that have already gone through it. 

19:23
Erin
And we talked a little bit about, like, I want to talk a little bit about rewiring your brain. And I think one of the things that you were sharing with me is that there’s this expectation at a certain age to retire. Tell me more about what you’re experiencing at your stage in life, and you know how you’re thinking about that. 

19:49
Dave
So that. That’s a good question, because you’re right. When you’re in your 20s, everybody’s asking you, so when are you getting married? When are you getting married? Now, in my 60s, everybody asks me, when are you retiring? When are you retiring. Like, you must be able to retire by now. And at first I would just say never. And. And now I’m seeing my perception of retirement is going to be different than yours. And I think all of us have a different formula for retirement. Especially life is pretty good now. I mean, everybody does okay financially. But yeah, why do we continuously work? It’s not like you get a do over. You know, I can’t turn 70 and look back and go, you know what, I really should have slowed down at 60. Like that’s it, you’re 70. 

20:33
Dave
So I’m trying very hard right now to educate myself to make sure that I am maximizing my personal purpose or joy or whatever it is. And if that’s work, that’s okay. Trying to make decisions that don’t relate to money, they relate to what I really want. And if that means I get up every day and I work for two hours, that’s okay. If it means I don’t work for a whole month, a year or whatever it is, that, I mean, that’s not me. I kind of like to get up and at least have a purpose. Every week. Yeah, every day, but every week. So I have to be, and I like to not be task oriented. I’d rather be design. Like here’s a workflow. Can you take a look at it and give me your opinion on maybe improving it? 

21:23
Dave
To me that’s, I guess that’s still a task, but it’s using my brain to improve something. Right now coming up with the best formula on retirement is just doing the most of what I want and work will be part of that. 

21:43
Erin
It sounds like you really educate and spend a lot of time researching things. You’re interested in. 

21:52
Dave
A lot of books. My dog loves it that I love books. 

21:55
Erin
Yeah. 

21:55
Dave
Long walks. 

21:57
Erin
Oh, you do audiobook? 

21:58
Dave
Yes, yes. 

22:00
Erin
Neat. Oh, that’s fun. Well, and that’s good for your physical fitness piece too. That’s great. 

22:06
Dave
Every once in a while I lose my AirPods and it’s like, what do people do when they go on these walks? 

22:14
Erin
They think! I don’t know. 

22:16
Dave
Yes. 

22:18
Erin
That’s funny. You made a comment earlier about if you could go back, you would stay in school longer. I’m surprised to hear that. Tell me more about what your thinking is there. 

22:29
Dave
Well, your brain is a sponge when you’re young and if you don’t believe that, try to learn a language when you’re in your 60s. It’s brutal. And also school is to develop your mind and a well developed mind gets a good job. I don’t think you go to school to get a job. It’s sort of the outcome of attending school. And I didn’t really have the proper guidance, I think, when I was younger, to teach me to stay in school as long as you can, and then jobs will find you. I thought when somebody offered me a job that I’m out from school because I got a job, and I. I just struggle a little bit harder throughout life had I not had a longer education. 

23:15
Erin
It seems like you never stopped learning, though. 

23:18
Dave
True. Continuous learning is very important. 

23:21
Erin
Yeah. You’ve done it on your own. Yeah. 

23:26
Dave
Physical fitness, it’s really. You’re on your own. That’s your own thing. And when you finish high school, you don’t just stop. You got to keep going to the gym. 

23:35
Erin
Yeah. Yeah. It. It seems like while you may not have had that formal schooling, you have built a habit of learning that has served you through your whole life. Certainly not everybody. But, you know, sometimes people can go to school, and then when school’s done, they’re like, well, I’m done learning. 

24:00
Dave
Right. 

24:00
Erin
But that’s. It seems very opposite to how you operate. 

24:05
Dave
Yes, definitely. And opposite to what I believe in. I think experiences are also like another university degree, traveling. I mean, you learn so much by going to foreign countries. I traveled a lot in my teens because of sports. And again, you’re subjected to such a different way of life. When you come home, you really appreciate what Canada has. 

24:26
Erin
What are some of the things that you have learned in your travels? And maybe you can kind of describe some of the places you’ve been and the kind of traveling you do. 

24:35
Dave
What I’ve learned that my world is not the real world. My. Like, your circle is not everyone’s circle. So, you know, you. You go to do things and you find out, okay, if the majority of people are like, you know, like you are, but. But then you go to another. Another part of the world, and you realize we are not. We are so different. Like, he’s like, you know, the joy of Kolkata, and people just. They just live so differently than we do. So, again, you appreciate so much when you get home, and I hear so many complaints. I’m a very positive person, and I get a little bit frustrated when I hear people that have everything they could possibly want for complaining about something that’s not on Netflix or whatever. It’s just. It’s. I think that’s the biggest thing you learn and appreciate. 

25:24
Erin
Did you build that positive attitude, Dave? Like, I. I want to get back to travel, but I have. I can’t stop myself from just, like, digging into this for a minute. I mean, it. Has your success been a result of your attitude. Did you practice this attitude? How did this come about? 

25:41
Dave
That has got to be genetic. 

25:43
Erin
Okay. 

25:43
Dave
That’s just my. There’s just no way. I do not ever remember coming home going, I think I got to work on that. Like, I just never did. And yet I see so much opposite. And I’ll. I will go home. And I’m like, what is that person? Why are they so dark? Why are they so negative? So I. I think it’s a genetic thing. 

26:03
Erin
Yeah, well. 

26:06
Dave
I was lucky. 

26:07
Erin
The. The growth mindset. Belief in me says that it can be learned, but I think that, like anything, there’s. You know, maybe some people start with a privilege or an advantage in that area, and other people would have to work a lot harder to get to the same starting point. 

26:24
Dave
Yeah, I. I like that, too. 

26:27
Erin
Yeah. Actually, I wanted to come back to the travel. Okay, so this. This location freedom. 

26:34
Dave
Yes. 

26:34
Erin
What does that like? You’ve been focused on that a lot recently. Have you always had that as part of your life, or is that something that’s become more important to you in the last number of years? 

26:50
Dave
Probably the last 10 years. 

26:51
Erin
Okay. 

26:52
Dave
Now I’m at a point where I take one day a week for travel, one week a month and one month a year. Oh. And I purposely got a big calendar, and it’s color coded, and I make sure that I follow at least that. That process. And about 10 years ago, I was at a relative’s house, and there was a lot of talk about a lot of places that him and his wife had been like, yeah, we really don’t do anything. He’s like, you got to work on that. And I thought, yeah, why am I not working on that? So it was just a pivotal moment. We started working on it, and now it’s good. Like, I’m now planning. We take the whole month of April and just go to a different country and work from that country in an Airbnb. 

27:37
Dave
And every week we’re trying to. I’m sorry, Every month we’re trying to find a place to go for a week, like in an RV or on a ski holiday or something. And it’s. And then I take at least one day a week off. 

27:51
Erin
And what does the one day a week look like? 

27:54
Dave
Day trips or. Right now I’ve got Tuesdays with my mother. 

27:58
Erin
Okay. 

27:59
Dave
She’s 81, and it’s good. I go to the gym. Then on the way back, I just stop by and I get my honey-do list, run around and fix things for her and take her on doctor’s appointments or whatever. We just spend the whole day together, usually till about 9:00. That’s really good. And then as well, I try to take maybe a Friday off to go to the cottage for a long weekend. 

28:23
Erin
Your mother must have been a baby when she had her children. 

28:28
Dave
Yes, she was. She was 17. 

28:33
Erin
And so what had. What did that mean for your upbringing? 

28:37
Dave
I. I think part of my scrappy attitude came from the upbringing because it was a reasonably rough upbringing as far as not really having anything given to you by far. So I remember one time I turned to my father when I was in my 20s and I said, you have taught me to be so dependent upon nobody. And I said, I’ll never forgive you for that. But it did teach me to become a very independent person. You know, I feel like I’m the person who has to make it rain. I’m the person who has to take care of myself as well as anyone around me. And that it’s a burden, but it also creates a very strong personality. 

29:22
Erin
What do you feel like you took away from an upbringing where you had to look after yourself so much. 

29:32
Dave
On that you really don’t trust many people. You make sure that you’re going to take care of yourself. Yeah, that’s probably the biggest thing. 

29:44
Erin
Has that been helpful in your life or. 

29:48
Dave
So I don’t get in trouble because I really make sure that I’m taken care of. 

29:52
Erin
Yeah. 

29:53
Dave
Like, I really make sure I always have a job, you know, when I was younger. 

29:58
Erin
It’s funny, it seems like for a lot of the entrepreneurs I’ve spoken with, there does seem to be a thread with a story similar to yours with respect to their upbringing. Not always, but more often than not. And as somebody with children, I’m interested in how we can teach skills around getting through hardship, being faced with adversity, being resilient without necessarily the emotional and, you know, just complete upheaval that comes with the kinds of, like those kinds of challenging childhood experiences. 

30:48
Dave
That’s a very tough task as a parent, to be a parent who has what they need, can provide everything, and still teach a child the things that they need to learn. That’s a very difficult task. And I. I’ve seen some people where. Some families where they just. They’re not helicopter parents, they’re the opposite. And, and the parents, the kids sometimes blame the parents. You’re never around. And I think to myself, you got to spin that narrative. They are allowing you to develop into an adult by real life experience. And the only way to do that is to actually, unfortunately throw you out of the nest or throw you out of the boat. When you figure it out on the swim, I mean, you got to be there. But it’s very difficult for parents. 

31:37
Dave
And then when they go to a bit of therapy, the kids, and they turn around and say to the parents, it’s your fault. I get so frustrated. You know, like, you’re a very capable human being because your parent did what they did. As opposed to your whatever it is. When you go to therapy, you’re as opposed to troubled. I don’t know. I, I, I do hear those from some of the younger kids, and I do try to get them to rewrite the narrative. Don’t look at it like that. Look at all the positive things that you have because your parents did let you do some things by not hovering over you. 

32:09
Erin
Yeah, well. And you’ve raised kids too, man. Is it hard as a parent to watch your kid fail? 

32:16
Dave
Yeah. 

32:16
Erin
Oh, that’s hard. 

32:18
Dave
Yeah, that is. 

32:20
Erin
We talked a little bit before about figuring things out and showing up, and I love how you keep coming back to that positive attitude. We talked a little bit as well about courage and confidence. Can you tell me more about that? How has that played a role in your life? 

32:40
Dave
I think people with confidence get things given to them. It’s just, they make it happen. You know, someone walks into a room and they own the room, and people just turn to them. It’s because they’re so confident. People love talking to confident people. They love being with confident people. So when you walk into a bank or wherever, just be confident in everything and everywhere you go. I wish I could do my teen years again because it just would be so much easier knowing this. 

33:10
Erin
You’d get all the girls. 

33:15
Dave
But I just find that in, even in phone sales. There was a girl that called the other day and she’s selling the natural gas resale, which is about the last thing I need. And she’s selling electricity resale. I’m getting a solar system on my roof. She goes, why don’t you just meet with my boss? It’s blah. It’s only 15 minutes. They’ll do an assessment. And she just had that bubbly. I’m like, okay. And then when I’m meeting with this guy, I said to him, you know what? I really don’t have a need for this, but how is that phone sales working for you? He goes, it works really good. We get a lot of appointments. And he even said, the girl that I have, she doesn’t even have to have the right script. She just has to have excitement, confidence, energy. 

33:55
Dave
And it comes through the phone, and next thing you know, she’s booking appointments. I just think that was awesome. 

34:03
Erin
I love that. Excitement, confidence, energy. When in your business career, have you had to draw on courage? 

34:12
Dave
Usually when you draw on courage, first of all, you have to. Before you do something really big, you have to believe in it. And then when it tests you and it will, and you’re lying in bed at night, you know, all stressed out, that’s when you need the courage to keep pushing through. You know, they say, have a business plan and stick to it. And sometimes things aren’t going well, the profit loss isn’t there. Where the loss is there’s no profit. And. And I’ll look at the business plan again and again. I’m like, no, this will work. That’s when I need courage to not give up. When you’re about to buy a big house or a big factory and it’s tons of money that you’ve never. Way more than you’ve ever had to spend. Those are. 

34:57
Dave
That’s a tough week leading up to closing day. I don’t know how other people get through it. You just keep plugging along. And I guess, like I said, I use the word stubborn. I don’t want to prove to anybody I’m not right. 

35:13
Erin
Yeah, you don’t want to quit. 

35:14
Dave
Yeah. 

35:15
Erin
But it sounds like it’s more than that, Dave, because you’re saying that you go back to your, you know, your logic, your analysis, whatever is telling you that this is going to work. That’s what you’re drawing on when you need those moments of courage. Is that ever intuitive? Is it ever more than data and analysis? 

35:39
Dave
Well, data analysis are always great when you have a bad gut feeling. But no, I don’t. Let me reword that. I guess data and analysis like, okay, I got a good. So the other day, the Airbnbs, they, the. The bank account itself wasn’t very liquid, and I was getting an assessment on some driveway repairs and things and that. So I just didn’t have the cash. So I sort of said to myself, I started questioning the whole gig. I’m like, is this. Am I just thinking of making money here? So I had to quickly do some data analysis. And then I spent. It’s only a couple of hours. And I went, nope, I’m good. It’s like, it’s good it’s making money. I just don’t have any cash right now for whatever reason. 

36:27
Dave
Sometimes, you know, everybody rents in the winter and they don’t rent as much in the summer. Whatever you got cashed on. Cash flow is totally different than profit, though. I just want to make sure that we had a lot of profit. So I needed the data and analysis at a time when I was starting to question myself. 

36:41
Erin
Right. 

36:42
Dave
Does that relate to courage? I don’t know. Just. 

36:48
Erin
Well, and it’s. I guess it’s a question of intuition. Like, do you draw on intuition in your life, either business or personal? 

37:00
Dave
You know, it’s funny. There are people that come to me with business ideas, and I’ll think that’s the stupidest business idea I’ve ever heard. You know, like, why would you have a computer store within a computer store? Like, you know, this geek squad. 

37:11
Erin
Okay. 

37:12
Dave
Yet it became the huge, big hit. Phenomenal. That you can’t even book it. Like, they’re so booked out for weeks. Right. So I wasn’t right on that one. But there are other things where people think they can make a lot of money and they’re living by their heart and really not their head. And, you know, I just. I just think to myself, well, you better have an alternative source of revenue as well, because I can’t. I can’t see that. I guess that’s when I’m using my intuition, but not always, Right? 

37:46
Erin
Yeah. So it sounds like you really do draw on wherever possible, like data. We’ve touched on attitude. And I wanted to ask, is attitude enough to get you through the lows? I mean, entrepreneurship is highs and lows, as is life. Right? 

38:07
Dave
Yeah. You see, attitude, I mean, you have to have a good attitude every day, all the time. But you really need confidence when things aren’t going well or when there’s people around you that don’t believe in you. I try now to have people around me that are positive and confident. Surprisingly, it’s a difficult. Like, not everybody has that. 

38:34
Erin
What gets you through rough times. 

38:36
Dave
I’m kind of lucky these days. I haven’t experienced that for a long time. Early on, I would go home and sit in the hot tub. It was like, I just gotta get out of here. Go in the hot tub and just think things through. Because there’s lots of bubbly noise around you. So there’s no outside noise other than that. Quite nice. And that worked actually really well. 

39:01
Erin
Neat. 

39:01
Dave
That worked really well. Go to my quiet space. 

39:05
Erin
I think you told me once as well, something about focusing on the why. 

39:09
Dave
Actually, that. Thanks for reminding me. That’s so important. So if you don’t have a really strong why, any time something goes wrong, you’re going to revert back to the old way. And I think that’s with everything. You know, like when you’re running, training for a marathon, halfway into it, you’re like, what am I doing this for? And if you don’t have a strong why, you just did it because you were having a beer one day and thought, I could do this, you’re probably going to fail. So actually, it’s been just over a year where I stopped drinking altogether. Any alcohol, and it took. I probably had a file on my computer for five years that every time I thought of a good why, I would pull out that note and add a why. Like a specific situation where maybe I wasn’t my best. 

39:55
Dave
When we’ve all had them. 

39:56
Erin
Right. 

39:57
Dave
And I thought, if ever I do actually stop drinking, I’m going to pull out that notepad when I question why. And it’s great. It does help you get through that. It’s like, oh, yeah, that was. That wasn’t good. That’s a good why. And I guess if you were going to jump into business and basically risk everything you have, including your house, your kids school, money, everything, you better have a really good why. And then when you do go through trouble, like, the phone stops ringing and it won’t. It will stop ringing at one time. You just kind of pull out those reasons and read them and get up the next morning and get through it, because once you get through it, you’re that much stronger. 

40:40
Erin
I love that you keep a living document. That’s such a wonderful, tactical idea that anybody can use for anything in their life when it comes to, you know, creating that why. I think sometimes there’s a lot of pressure to kind of come up with something monumental and, like this one sentence. And you’ve made it easy, in your example, to just have a notepad open. And when those thoughts come to you just add to it. It doesn’t have to be succinct or perfect, but you’re creating a living document around your why. 

41:11
Dave
Yes. 

41:12
Erin
Okay. Before we build the equation, I also just wanted to talk about looking forward. I know that you have really connected with this idea of thinking about your future self, and I think. I think it was you who recommended to Josh and I that we read the book. Is it. Yeah. Is it Benjamin Hardy, Be Your Future Self Now? 

41:32
Dave
Yeah. 

41:33
Erin
Yeah. 

41:34
Dave
So I love it. 

41:36
Erin
How has that worked for you. And you know, kind of what do you find so valuable about doing that forward thinking?

41:45
Dave
So what I believe or what Ben Hardy teaches and what I really, truly believe now is first of all, you rewrite your narrative from your past. You don’t really like you don’t try to rewrite what’s happened, but you just, you look back and say, what did I gain out of that, out of whatever happened in the past? What are all the things, there’s a lot of good things that have happened out of your experiences, that it made you who you are today. And then what do I really want in the future? And sometimes I found it was very difficult for me to think ten years in ahead. 

42:17
Dave
And the best exercise I went through was I looked back 10 years and said, where was I then wrote a bunch of things down, compared it to where we are now, and it’s like, well, that’s a big difference. 

42:27
Erin
Yeah. 

42:28
Dave
Went off in its career. Different career, different home. You know, kids were two and now they’re 12 or just big difference. So now it makes it a little bit easier. Now look forward. What do you want to see? And don’t make it just bigger than what you are now or better than what you are now, but make it different as well. And you come up with these visions and then you actually gravitate and you become those visions. So you don’t just sort of sit here waiting aggressively for your life to get to happen. You’ve actually planned it out. Like, you know, I said earlier, a month, a year. We’re going to be in a different country. 

43:04
Erin
Right? 

43:05
Dave
Like, I know that’s going to happen. So it does happen. Now, five years from now, is that going to be different? Is it going to be maybe six months? A year? You know, and we’ve talked about that. Said, do you want to be away from the family for that long? I mean, it’s exciting being away for six months, but can we maybe get a place big enough to bring the kids to visit us while we’re away or, you know, whatever. So when you plan your future, you automatically your future becomes almost your present. So a little more complicated, but your present is actually not now, but it’s being drawn from your future that you’ve already planned. So you plan the future and then it becomes a present because you get up the next day and you start into your future. 

43:45
Erin
It’s the closest thing to time travel I’ve ever heard of. That’s awesome. And there seems to be such a mindset piece to that as well. I feel like all of my conversations or many of them keep coming back to mindset attitude. And if I’m listening, my question is probably going to be, how do I get that mindset? How do I adopt that? I mean, I actually was lucky enough to have Alexandra Eidens on the podcast. She has a business around growth mindset and providing education and materials for kids. And now there’s stuff that she’s provided for adults as well. So there’s, like, things you can practice, but even just, you know, being aware of your thoughts and catching the negative ones and flipping them around. Like, let’s just role play this for a minute, Dave. 

44:40
Dave
Okay. 

44:40
Erin
Because I think this could be a good learning. Put on that negative hat and then. And tell me about your childhood or tell me about, you know, kind of your experience growing up, and then put on your positive hat or, you know, when you talk about, through this future self, now work, looking back and reclaiming your story, rewriting your story, what does that look like? How does it compare to the negative mindset? 

45:07
Dave
Huge difference. Yeah, I. I don’t know how to answer that, but I know if you look back on anything, you can really find a lot of negative. I mean, is it 30 chance of rain or 70% chance it’s not going to rain? I. I always kind of flip that around and get a kick out of it. You just got to find the positive narrative of everything, even bankruptcy or even divorce. Going through things like that, you’re now experiencing that. And, and that alone is. is a positive if you have some experience. I mean, it’s. It’s horrible to wish it upon somebody, but the one good thing is they’ve now got experience in it. They know now what not to do. 

45:46
Erin
Yeah. All right, let’s build your equation. 

45:50
Dave
Okay. 

45:52
Erin
So to start, we’re just going to identify the ways that you like to spend your time, the ways that you need to spend your time within a particular week. So, I mean, clearly we’ve got exercise here, because I’m watching you walk on the treadmill as we speak. 

46:09
Dave
I know. I think formal exercise, I would say it’s about three quarters of an hour a day. 

46:13
Erin
Okay. We’ll go straight to quantifying. Let’s do it all in one shot. And is that seven days a week? 

46:18
Dave
Yeah, like, I would do. Wouldn’t do it seven days a week, but I. If you average it out, it’s about three quarters of an hour or say an hour five days a week. 

46:26
Erin
Okay. So we’ll give you five blocks for exercise. What else is in your week? 

46:33
Dave
And then I’m usually four to six hours a day at work. 

46:36
Erin
Okay, and is that five days a week? 

46:39
Dave
Yes. Well, let’s say four, because I again, I’m Tuesdays in with mother dear. And then again I got that other like the week and the month. 

46:50
Erin
Right. 

46:50
Dave
Not always working. 

46:51
Erin
Oh, yeah. Okay. And I’m just going to give you a big block for that. So I’ll just give you four big block of work. Okay. 

47:00
Dave
Continuous education. Oh, I think that’s, that’s a daily thing. I would say a full hour a day. Sometimes it’s working on things with the. At work as far as trying to become a better person at work. Sometimes it’s listening to books about figuring out retirement. 

47:20
Erin
Yeah. 

47:21
Dave
Constant continuous education. Online reading, online courses. Actually, I’m looking into QuickBooks now. 

47:28
Erin
Is that seven days a week? 

47:30
Dave
That’s seven days a week for sure. 

47:31
Erin
Okay. What else? 

47:34
Dave
Travel. Yeah, I, I think I average two days away. Like two days of the seventh. 

47:41
Erin
Yeah. 

47:42
Dave
Be it, you know, I mean, the weekend’s part of it. 

47:45
Erin
Amazing. 

47:45
Dave
I don’t stay at home very much on the weekend. And then pretty much every day from 7 to 11 at night is family time, you know, cooking dinner, walking the dog, tv. 

47:59
Erin
I’m going to give those big blocks as well. So seven days a week on that. 

48:04
Dave
Yeah, I would do seven. 

48:06
Erin
Okay. All right. So we’ve got five blocks of. Or I’ll actually rearrange them with the big blocks first. So we’ve got four big blocks of work, seven big blocks of family, and then five exercise, seven continuous education and two travel. Is there anything we missed? 

48:26
Dave
Nope. That’s good. That covers it. 

48:28
Erin
Wow. I think you win the award for fastest development of an equation. 

48:33
Dave
I know. Well, I feel busy, but I really, when I break it down, it’s. It’s all kind of the same all the time. I mean, travel is a big. People say whenever they bump into me, like, you’re all over the place. I’m watching your feed. But it’s still like the same. It’s two days a week of this and, you know, four hours of that. So, yeah, it’s all the same. 

48:53
Erin
I think you make a good point too, though. I mean, I’ve. I haven’t thought about this being one of the benefits, but I think that one of the reasons that the fulfillment equation thought process is helpful is because we’re all busy. Like, there’s a lot of noise in our day and that’s fine, that’s just living. But if you can stay grounded in the idea of focusing on a certain thing for a certain period of time, then it doesn’t mean that every minute of that block of time has to be related to that thing that you’ve labeled it. Because obviously there’s more than the five things that you’ve given me. There’s more complexity there. But you’ve simplified it in such a way that you can, you know at any point in your week, your feet are firmly planted in one of those five camps. 

49:50
Erin
To me, that’s really liberating. 

49:53
Dave
I, I just had a one on one with somebody at work here and one of the topics we cover is career development or. And I’m surprised that people that don’t put that as a daily or a weekly thing like what are you working on? And I was hoping to get an excited response. Well, I’ve got this app on the go and I’m just trying to figure this out. That has nothing to do with work, it’s just career development. Right. So I, I try to promote that to everyone else as well. Continuing education. And, and like I said, if I’m doing an hour a day, that’s a lot. 

50:27
Erin
Yeah. 

50:28
Dave
Can you do half an hour a week? That’s a start. And then you’ll find that it just pulls you in more and more. Before you know it, you’re doing it every day. You know, you’re reading, cooking classes or. Actually I started cooking about two years ago, but it’s kind of fun, neat, you know, and it’s just getting recipes and I enjoy shopping, so going to the store and learning where everything is. Yeah, it’s kind of fun. 

50:55
Erin
Should we add cooking in your equation? 

50:57
Dave
That’s part of the family. 

50:58
Erin
Got it. Okay, nice. So I want to just take a moment to link the discussion we had about future self to the equation that we’ve developed. So what is a dream that you have for yourself in five to 10 years? And how do you trace that back to what’s in your equation today? 

51:20
Dave
Well, you call it Fulfillment Equation. So in five years, hopefully there’ll be something different that fulfills me like a little bit less work. I’ve got four to six hours a day. I’m not proud of that. I wish it was two to three or even one to two hour a day. So in five years it will be one to two hours a day. Travel will be still the same. Continuing, hopefully more exercise. I think as we get older we have to actually exercise more just to keep a baseline and just more enjoying family time. So I have to fill that three to five hours that I’m now currently working. If I remove those three to five hours and one of them is finding something that I really like to do that would be considered giving back. 

52:09
Dave
I think we, or I have to get better at that. I do know what I like and I don’t know why I can’t find some way to relate what I like to giving back. But I’ll work on that over the next few years. Yeah, but I find in all things, if you don’t fill that bucket quick, you’re just going to come back to work anyway. 

52:32
Erin
Yeah. 

52:32
Dave
So this is where I have to find another thing, another purpose to get up every day and to fill that gap of two, three hours a day. And I will, I’ll figure it out. 

52:44
Erin
What are you doing in your life today that you think will lead you to discovering those pieces that down the line, fill in some of the time that work leaves behind? 

52:58
Dave
Well, just studying, reading books and you know, like right now, trying to come to grips with what retirement looks like. So once I’ve kind of mapped that out, laid it out, say, okay, this is what we agree on. You know, myself then, now how are we going to fill that gap? So now let’s start looking around, finding things in the area, in the community that would be fun. I don’t want to just show up and be, you know, okay, you do, you know, work at a soup kitchen. I mean, maybe I’ll try that. And if I find I love it, then that’ll be it. That’ll be my, you know, my gap. 

53:29
Erin
Right. 

53:30
Dave
I just don’t know yet. So it’s combination errand of reading the local paper, asking around. 

53:39
Erin
Yeah. So it’s almost in that continuous education. 

53:43
Dave
Yes. 

53:44
Erin
Block that you’re exploring what that might look like. That’s neat. Very cool. All right, we’re just going to finish up with a few rapid fire questions. All right, here we go. Finish the sentence. 

53:58
Dave
Fulfillment is, fulfillment is, I would say, being financially independent where you can make decisions that do not have money as part of the equation. You know, like simple things. And, and, you know, we work so hard for so many years and then in our latter years we still habitually look at the menu and don’t really always check what we want. And I, I, I think lately I’m trying so hard to book vacations based on what I want to do, not on what the value is. You know, like I just said to Claudia, I want to go to Colorado. I want to go down the Whitewater. Rapping down the. Not Colorado to the Grand Canyon. Oo. She’s like, I’m in. Like, I’ll be 65. I want to celebrate my 65th. I thought it’d be a cool way. And I don’t want to look. 

54:52
Dave
I just want to look at the experience itself and pick the best one that suits us. Is it fulfillment? 

54:58
Erin
Wow, that certainly sounds like fulfillment or freedom to me. And, you know, I think that’s so fascinating, Dave. It’s crazy to me that you would still go into a restaurant and do analysis on what to order. And that’s not a criticism. I think that that’s fascinating. I think it’s something that, like, we almost need to keep in mind, like, when’s enough for any of us. Right. But then also, I think where that comes from is probably from skills that have served you really well in life as well. Right. 

55:41
Dave
Yeah, you’re right. 

55:43
Erin
I love that you’re going to pick a vacation and not look at the price tag. 

55:48
Dave
Exactly. 

55:48
Erin
You deserve that. Number two, give me an example of a small moment of joy you had in the last 24 hours. 

55:57
Dave
Actually, yesterday I was at. The weather was nice, and Claudia and I went out for a walk, bumped into neighbors, and then bumped into more neighbors kind of along the waterfront in Grimsby. And that was. I’m looking around going, this is great. Like, springtime is such a great time. And having people around, like living in an environment where there’s a lot of friends. 

56:19
Erin
Yeah. 

56:20
Dave
Especially in the latter part of life, it’s just super important. And I just thought, we’re really lucky to be where we are. 

56:27
Erin
What is a book you read or a podcast you listen to that changed the way you think? 

56:33
Dave
When I was in my 20s, I read a very simple book David Chilton called the Wealthy Barber. It’s kind of novel. I don’t know if you read it, but it’s about becoming financially independent. And I look back now, 40 years later or 30 years later, and I just can’t believe how that influenced my entire life. 

56:52
Erin
I. I have not read that one specifically, but I know it as a classic for, you know, financial independence. And I’m going to have to take a look at it.

57:00
Dave

And you got to read it when you’re young because it’s like you can’t read it when you’re old. It doesn’t. 

57:04
Erin
Yeah, right. Sounds like it sounds like a good graduation gift. 

57:08
Dave
Yeah, I know. 

57:09
Erin
Yeah. 

57:10
Dave
I try to Push books on my kids and step kids. 

57:13
Erin
And I do my best to varying degrees of success. 

57:17
Dave
Yes. Minimal. 

57:21
Erin
Oh, consistent degrees of minimal success. 

57:23
Dave
Yes. 

57:26
Erin
In one sentence. What does freedom look like to you? 

57:31
Dave
Freedom. Yeah, maybe that’s actually answered fulfillment. 

57:36
Erin
Right. Okay, so let’s answer it for this and we’ll go back. 

57:39
Dave
Okay. So freedom would be definitely financial independence. Again, it’s making decisions without any financial part of the equation. 

57:51
Erin
So I’m going to ask you the first one again. 

57:53
Dave
Fulfillment is, Fulfillment is waking up every day with a purpose. I’m studying a lot about retirement lately and I, I, I’m seeing that as a common thread in the books that people that have been really busy all their lives, they can’t just turn it off. And I definitely can relate to that. And I need to get up every day with a purpose. And then to me I think that would be a very fulfilling feeling. You know, maybe I’m not going to be the fastest runner that day on the beach, but I’m hopefully going to be one of the happiest ones because I really have a strong purpose. 

58:36
Erin
What is the coolest place you’ve visited or a place you visited that exceeded your expectations? 

58:43
Dave
I’ve been to Hawaii a couple times and one time I went, we actually went on a hike at night. So you leave at dusk and by the time you get to the volcano, this is actually a live volcano and it’s pouring spewing lava into the ocean. It’s completely dark. So it’s like say 10 o’clock at night and just amazing to see, like, and as I’m walking back, I can see lava underneath. So we’re actually walking on what used to be a flowing lava that’s now hardened and then. 

59:19
Erin
Oh my gosh. 

59:20
Dave
I know, it’s just bizarre. So I’m seeing this yellow orange glow underneath my feet as I’m walking back to the car. And it was like a two hour walk. It wasn’t like, it wasn’t a little two minute thing. It was, it was really far with the flashlight. Anyway. That was great experience. Also in Hawaii we did the helicopter tour with the doors off. You know, you’re like a mash unit. You’re just flying around. That was really exciting. Scary. Really exciting. Wow. 

59:48
Erin
What is something you do regularly to fill your own cup? 

59:52
Dave
I get excited when I go to bed and I’ve checked off things on my list and I don’t mean like tasks because we all have this list. Well, I do. Anyway, when I get up I have a, even if it’s a mental list of what I want to get done that day. But there’s always something there. A difficult conversation maybe they you keep putting off or something that’s really difficult to do. So you got, you know, five things on your list, and you do the four easy ones. And I’m trying really hard to, you know that book Eat the frog? Yeah. I’m like, okay, I. I will pace around this office if I have to have a difficult conversation, but before I get busy, because it’s really easy to get busy, I’ll go down and have that difficult conversation. 

01:00:34
Dave
And when I go to bed at night, I just feel so good about myself because I think that it’s really easy to put those things off and sweep them under the rug. And, you know, and. And it’s not always conversations. It’s just difficult things. You know, maybe you got to visit somebody at a hospital and you just keep putting it off or write that email that you really don’t want to write. That really fills my cup when I go to bed at night and I’ve done two or three things that are gonna make a difference. 

01:01:04
Erin
Done the hard things, but the important things, Absolutely. Yeah. Dave, thank you so much for joining me. This was awesome. You are full of wisdom. How. How many steps have you got? 

01:01:17
Dave
Not gonna count. I gotta see. Yeah, I was at 1300 when I started, and now I’m at 7564, so. Oh, 82, actually. So we did about 6900 steps. 

01:01:30
Erin
Amazing. 

01:01:31
Dave
Awesome. 

01:01:32
Erin
We’ve had a great conversation. We’ve bonded. I’ve learned a ton from you, and you got your steps in. This has felt like an hour well spent together. 

01:01:42
Dave
Thanks, Erin. 

01:01:44
Erin
Thanks so much, Dave. Have a good evening. 

01:01:46
Dave
Okay, you too. 

01:01:49
Erin
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