Table of Contents
Podcast Transcription
Erwin Szeto [00:00:10] This episode is brought to you by the real estate investment network or Rain for short. I’ve personally been a rain member since 2008 and in Toronto on April 21st, the 23rd is the well-renowned acre program. Acre stands for authentic Canadian real estate and is the best weekend of real estate investing training. I’ve attended and it’s not thousands of dollars like the other similar events that are out there. I like it here. We can so much that this will be my 10th time in attendance. The attention the education is valued and the networking is even better as a special gift to our listeners. Founding partner of Raine Don Campbell has provided you all a discount code to save $300 off the public space at six hundred and eighty seven dollars, which is already fantastic value. So you listeners only pay three hundred eighty seven dollars by entering the discount code Erwin. Guest No punctuation marks just RW Erwin as guest when you purchase tickets from Rain Canada dot com REIT in Canada dot com. Again, that’s April 21st 23rd for the best weekend in real estate investment training for only $387. I’ll be there and I’ll post the discount code and link to the show notes. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, investors from across Canada this week we have a special guest and an old friend, Oliver Manlese. I’ve known Oliver for many years dating back to my first year at Raine in 2008, and he no longer invests in real estate. Just to confirm you are indeed listening to the truth about real estate investing show and one of the truth of the real estate investment business is it’s not for everyone. In Oliver’s case, he built a successful business, made a bunch of money doing so and later decided to change directions. Since 2012, over mainly is a breakthrough coach. He coaches consults and trains creative leaders in a process of a of aligned reinvention through breakthrough insights. Intuitive guidance and transformational tools. His clients create lives and businesses that reflect their deepest purpose on this planet. His work is based in ontology. Simply put, he looks at the different ways we are being and how it determines our reality of what is possible and not possible in today’s culture of hustle over work and never enough being is the key component that’s missing. Returning to being is what translates into a greater sense of presence, flow and trust in our unfolding of our unique process. In this episode, we talk about a variety of topics, as you can tell already. Ourrent own works how Oliver raised capital as a 22 year old with limited startup capital, how real estate taught him about entrepreneurship, the importance of personal development and growth. He was so good at business. Other investors started Oliver to hire him to be their investing coach. This led to Oliver’s aha moment of wanting to help people in a more fulfilling way as a full time breakthrough coach that he is today. Apparently, it’s working as for both personal and professional projects. Oliver’s clients report having a greater sense of inner peace, satisfaction, confidence, joy in abundance. So without further ado, I introduce to you. Oliver Manlese So yeah, what’s keeping you busy these days?
Oliver Manlese [00:03:07] What’s keeping me busy these days, I I’m working with a lot of different kinds of people, entrepreneurs, leaders, people who are in transition, supporting them and just finding their growth edge and more. More recently, it’s adding to the chaos of my life is the podcast, which is super, super enjoyable, as I’m sure you know and understand. But as well, it just added a whole other element of time and energy being directed somewhere else. So it’s been about me trying to find a new rhythm of how do I, how do I incorporate this and integrate this into the rest of my, my life and my projects and still get everything else necessarily done? But just keep things moving forward because I mean, as you know, as an entrepreneur, you can get your head wrapped around marketing and social media and your email list and your podcasts and making videos and content and working with customers and putting out fires like there’s. There’s so many things to deal with, and it’s been just this new kind of thing to juggle in my life, which it’s bringing a lot of joy, but also just trying to figure out how do they balance that out with everything else?
Erwin Szeto [00:04:28] Death stuff like too much this morning I supposed to. I scheduled production for the last podcast episode I was. I did, and I didn’t finish because some charity stuff popped up for our charity. So, you know, you can appreciate, you know, the shiny thing popped up now to take care of it.
Oliver Manlese [00:04:49] And it’s not even just the shiny stuff, but it just stuff in general. But I like that you do it first thing. I mean, I have the same thing scheduled for tomorrow morning and will it get done? Well, we’ll see, but I always try to make it a priority. But as well, there’s so many things, there’s opportunities that come up, there’s calls, there’s just life in general. And yeah, but you tend to be kind of on the right track. I at least I feel from my experience just having it as one of those things. OK, first thing in the morning, I’m going to do this high, high value, high priority. Yeah, to do it item, right?
Erwin Szeto [00:05:28] OK. And we’re going to get back to that for our listeners. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Oliver Manlese [00:05:35] Sure. So my name is Oliver Manolis, I am a breakthrough coach, and I work with people in a process called aligned reinvention, so all that means is I support people in having their life work and their relationships become more of a reflection of their true essence, of their truth, of their core values and a part of that part of that work. It became really, really important to me because I’ve just my, my own journey, my own process. For the last, I’d say, more than a decade of getting into real estate, real estate investing, becoming an entrepreneur and how important personal growth and personal development is in your business growth and your business developments. And yeah, just I found a lot of power in having that type of support and b and utilizing some of those tools to, you know, rediscover myself or even just reinvent myself. And it kind of led me on this path where I just discovered that this is something that I feel like I can be really great at. And now it’s been the walk that I have. I get to do for the last five years. Mm-Hmm.
Erwin Szeto [00:06:50] OK, let’s take it a step back. I met you at a real estate. We just happened to sit next to each other at a real estate investment network meeting.
Oliver Manlese [00:06:59] You have a better memory than me.
Oliver Manlese [00:07:01] I remember it well.
Erwin Szeto [00:07:04] You were much younger then. So was I.
Oliver Manlese [00:07:06] All right. Time flies.
Erwin Szeto [00:07:09] I think it was eight years ago that I met you. And all of it back then, as I correct, if I’m wrong, but Oliver back then like, you know, I was in the same boat in a I’m going to own a hundred properties.
Oliver Manlese [00:07:25] I think if
Oliver Manlese [00:07:26] it was eight years ago, then I was probably filled with piss and vinegar. Oh yeah, you don’t
Erwin Szeto [00:07:31] ever think you’re I think you were twenty four at the time, and I’m guessing, right?
Oliver Manlese [00:07:35] It was eight years ago then. Yeah, I was like twenty two, maybe twenty three.
Erwin Szeto [00:07:39] Yeah, yeah. There’s tons of energy. You’re totally going to do it.
Oliver Manlese [00:07:44] And I was super excited. And yeah, everything was so it was new is opening up my eyes and I was in. I was in sales working for another company and I was I had my eyes locked on stepping into full time real estate investing at that time.
Erwin Szeto [00:08:02] Hmm. And to provide some context for our listeners, this episode will be a little bit different than other episodes because Oliver has gone on a different path since having a successful real estate business. And we’re going to delve into that. Again, I repeat this every episode. It’s like my thing is like Star Wars thing, where they always say, I don’t have a good feeling about this or whatever it is like. My thing is, I always repeat the name of the podcast. So you’re the best real estate investing is not. This isn’t right for everyone. And Oliver had been on a path of real estate investing for several years. Like you ran your business for several years, right?
Oliver Manlese [00:08:44] Yeah, almost my whole. My whole twenties.
Erwin Szeto [00:08:47] Right? So, yeah, so a long time and then he’s no longer doing it. And so we’re going to get into that Oliver’s business because he was pretty good at it. And then he just chose to shut down for some reason.
Oliver Manlese [00:08:59] Thanks.
Oliver Manlese [00:09:00] I appreciate that.
Erwin Szeto [00:09:02] So, so let’s go back like your remember you started, you started a business. Can you tell us about your business? That was a real estate related.
Oliver Manlese [00:09:13] Yeah, I had a lot of support from the real estate investment network. I got so many powerful tools from them. But most importantly of all, I got just a great, great group of people around me, people like yourself who were inspirational, who empowered me, who kind of help me to a high standard. And that was that was fairly new for me. And I just remember, like month after month coming back to the meetings and just noticing how people were getting things done. And I wasn’t like, I was so obsessed with the information and I wasn’t actually executing it. I was kind of like playing around all learn, learn more about property management or flipping or whatever, as opposed to fully executing. But I really thought my I was like salivating over the idea of rent to own at the time because I’m just like, Oh, this is perfect, because like I was, I was young. So I’m starting out with pretty much nothing and like, here’s an opportunity where I can create something out of nothing, which I felt like it could be a win if I work with. If I find people who cannot get a mortgage with the traditional sense, but they can still afford it. And maybe they have like a couple of years away from home ownership and then partner them up with the right investor who wants to kind of be treated almost like, like a private lender who would kind of like a guardian, someone who would own the house for that little bit. And then I can make money as a result of putting those two puzzle pieces together. Then I felt like I’m creating a win situation, you know, I get to create an income. Some of those deals we were able to partner in this, you know, a lot of the tenants became owners and the investors were able to make a return on investment. I felt like this might be a great way for me to get into real estate full time. So that was my primary focus on my real estate business was that was the rent to own strategy, the lease option strategy.
Erwin Szeto [00:11:15] And what was the name of the business in case called? Because some of the people know it, they may not know it was you, though.
Oliver Manlese [00:11:22] Oh yeah.
Oliver Manlese [00:11:23] It was called the rent busters. Mm-Hmm. Got so weird to actually say it out loud because it feels like eons ago now. It feels like ages and ages ago, like in whole, like a whole other lifetime.
Erwin Szeto [00:11:35] Right? Because I remember being at a at a new development show home and they dropped your name. Wow, Oliver’s been out here.
Oliver Manlese [00:11:44] This is out.
Erwin Szeto [00:11:46] It was west of Berry. I forget the name of it. Yeah. So you were there?
Oliver Manlese [00:11:53] Yeah. Yeah, I
Oliver Manlese [00:11:54] felt like we were doing. We started to do really well with marketing and getting and getting the word out and being in a relationship with a lot of people. So, yeah, I think around maybe two or three years into the business, we had some at least just a little bit of a recognition where there is like familiarity with our name, which. Was it being amazing accomplishment to have worse, just like, oh, people, people know who we are? That was that was really cool.
Erwin Szeto [00:12:18] Can you, OK? So for that, for the listeners benefit for anyone who is interested in rent to own like you, you were your company was very good at the marketing. Like, I know we won’t spend too much time on this, but we’ll get it because I want to get into like what you’re up to now.
Oliver Manlese [00:12:31] Yeah, whatever. A lot of value, man.
Erwin Szeto [00:12:32] But yeah, like I said, like you have like you won one of the few companies that did the 10 first strategy very well. You know, most people do take the easy route and it’s like postcard guy and like post stuff on Facebook. They have a website, right? But you were actually out there pounding the pavement. Can you elaborate on what it was you were doing while pounding the pavement as you were out there? You’re getting in front of people like people that were there. They would send you leads.
Oliver Manlese [00:13:04] Yeah, I don’t. I honestly, I’ve been so out of touch with if rent to own doing it, the tenant first strategy still works. But I can kind of share like what my experience was during that time, and I’m sure some of it will still apply. But the way we were pounding the pavement first, it started off like we would literally put signs out on the road and say, Call us if you can’t get a mortgage, essentially like, like no mortgage, no problem kind of thing. That was anchor ads and stuff like that and looking for tenants. But that was a lot of time consumed and not many results. But, you know, we really, we really cared about getting the right people in place because it’s literally you have to be like just on the cusp of not being able to get a home like a traditional lender is saying you need more down payment or you need more time to repair your credit or you need more history. Self-employed income history or something like that. And they were like two, three, maybe four years max away from home ownership. And we really wanted to take care of them. But the real switch in the business happened when we were like, OK, so we’re going after these people who are applying for mortgages and can’t get mortgages, why are we trying to go after them? Because there’s already people out there who are talking to these types of people already, and they’re finding out information about them and finding out if they are good candidates for this type of program. And who are those people? If we if we connect with them, those are mortgage agents or their mortgage brokers, their lenders or bankers, people who are in touch with people who are applying to become homeowners. So we, you know, if you are in the red zone business, you’ll realize that there’s so many customers. That’s why it gets a little tricky because your customer is not only just the tenant and then it can be the sources of your leads, and it definitely is the investor if you’re not the investor yourself. So there’s a lot of people to please. But yeah, we started connecting with mortgage agents and just started to understand what language they were speaking, and I’m not sure if too many people were doing it at that time where they were positioning it this way. But we had our program set up so that mortgage agents and mortgage brokers would understand how this would benefit so many people. And yeah, that’s how we got the word out. We built very, very strong relationships with mortgage agents, mainly across Ontario, to be able to, you know, offer this and propose this and invite people into this kind of program. So they would do a lot of that prescreening for us. And we got to the point by near the near the end before we close the business, like we would have like full packaged up applicants with all their documentation, all their information, all the numbers crunch, everything done and we would get it and we would literally take us maybe 15 minutes, maybe 60 minutes to analyze and confirm and do reference checks and things like that. But beyond that, we really enrolled the people who were working with to take a leadership role in it because there was such a huge win for them on both ends on the beginning, as well as at the end when they finished the RedZone program.
Erwin Szeto [00:16:21] Right, right. Well, on the beginning, like the mortgage, agents are actually able to do a deal versus they had a lead that was useless.
Oliver Manlese [00:16:29] Yeah, we were really marketing like, you know, bring your dead leads back to life. Like if you have applications who are getting rejected from banks and and things like that and you’re and you feel very passionate about them and you think they’re good quality, maybe this is an opportunity for you to explore this alternative, which is which is red own right?
Erwin Szeto [00:16:49] Yeah. And in that case, it was a win as well. Like your mortgage, it’s happy. The Realtors happy because you can do a deal, right? And oh yeah,
Oliver Manlese [00:16:58] yeah, there’s you know, and that’s why I loved looking at it that way. Like you’re saying, there’s, you know, there’s a win there where some people may not have seen it, which I feel like that’s the job of an entrepreneur. It’s to see value where other people might. Not necessarily see if there’s real terrorists who will show houses and spend lots of time and then begin to build a relationship or rapport with people and then feel really let down that unfortunately they can’t get a mortgage. So it’s like the realtor, the mortgage agent, the home inspector, you know, the lawyer evidence there’s a little micro economy in each real estate transaction where a lot of people get to be a part of it. And we felt like we were doing a lot of good to be able to create a solution where there wasn’t a solution that was very well known at the time,
Erwin Szeto [00:17:49] and we’re helping the bank make more money too.
Oliver Manlese [00:17:53] Yeah, I mean, really, we’re turning them.
Oliver Manlese [00:17:54] We’re turning people into customers where they originally thought they weren’t customers, right? We’re like, Hey, let’s train people to be your customers. A few years from now, would you be happy with that? They’re like, OK, cool. So I mean, I have a lot of I remember just in the last 12 or 18 months, some of the investors were like, Yeah, we’re really happy and lot of deals have closed. And yeah, it’s just it was really cool little time in my life.
Erwin Szeto [00:18:19] And you were you’re so good at the business. We have a mutual friend that hired you to coach him, and then he was killing it as well.
Oliver Manlese [00:18:27] Yeah, and that’s kind of I’m not sure which mutual friend because I feel like there’s two, but there was one who kind of really woke me up to the mentoring and the coaching where I just threw it out there. I just talked about how this was a new income stream that I created for myself, and we’ve been doing it for a little while. And I would love the opportunity to spread the wealth in a way to pay it forward and share some of these ideas with somebody. And that that gentleman was essentially my first paid coaching client a few years later, when he was my first person that I mentored. And within the first six sessions, like the first six weeks, he did his first rent-to-own deal, then it did another one. They did another one. And I think was 13 months later, he quit a high paying banking job that he could become a full time entrepreneur, which was, I was just like, blown away. And it was, I think, a month or two after he quit. That job is when I officially started taking, paying, coaching clients, which was I was just like, Oh, I was reminded of how, how incredible and fulfilling it felt to be able to do that with somebody, right?
Erwin Szeto [00:19:32] So that’s a that’s a I guess it’s a natural Segway. Was that the tipping point? Then that got you like, OK, so and I’ll let you and I’ll let you go. Like, like, why did decision to start this business to discontinue the business?
Oliver Manlese [00:19:50] There was a there’s a lot and I talk about it on my website, but not many people know about this, but there is there is a time where we were getting just a little bit of recognition, like you were saying and we would be interviewed on television, just Rogers TV, local television and just kind of spread the word that way as well. We were really proud of the fact that we were as transparent as possible because I feel like at that time, you know, blogging and people making so much content wasn’t as prominent as you would notice it today. During that time, we were just like, Hey, what don’t we just share everything with everybody? Like the real pitfalls, the real risks, the real rewards, how everyone gets paid, how this is a benefit to everybody. Let’s just be a completely open book and just trust that if we’re open like that, then you know, people will build would build trust in us. And it did. It really did build trust in us because we were pretty transparent and open, and we did a lot of work to make sure everyone’s bots recovered. And so this is this is the situation that arose. I was also a realtor during this time, and the Real Estate Council of Ontario saw a video that I did a video interview that I did, and they didn’t like what I was talking about and believed that I was putting people at risk. They thought I was putting tenants at risk. And so I get this complaint and I’m just like, what? Like and I’m already afraid of authority figures and I see this this complaint listed with like seven things that they’re there. They’re maybe, you know, believing that I might have broken these rules that I may have broken. And they had like a photocopy of every single page of my website. You’re pointing things out and asking questions about it. And I’m just like, Whoa, what is going on like? I feel like I’m the good guy and I’m sharing publicly everything that’s going on, and I see a lot of people doing the strategy where they weren’t on the on the up and up, and they were kind of maybe they didn’t realize it, but they are setting up a lot of people for failure. And I’m like, I’m not one of those people who say, Look, I like to believe that I wasn’t. And eventually, yeah, so I was I had this complaint against me and everything got torn open. I was like, I’ve met with an investigator, my whole, my whole process. I had to divulge. I put these people in contact with everyone we’ve done business with, assured all her paperwork, all this stuff. And it was like this really violating invasive experience where I felt like I was being audited. I felt like I was being looked like I was. I was. I was an enemy or I was a bad guy or something like that, and I just felt freakin awful. I felt I was scared, you know, I didn’t want to get. I didn’t want to be in trouble. And it’s like, it’s not even the fact, like if I got fined or something like that or whatever it is, it’s more just like my personal integrity. I’m just like, you were telling me, like, you’re telling me that I might be a bad guy, and I know that I’m in the fullest integrity that I could possibly be in because a lot of people who I was, who I’ve learned from, like they’re doing really well and do much more volume than me, and I’m pretty much improving on what they’ve done. But my mentality was, if you think I’m doing something wrong, I will pause my operation.
Erwin Szeto [00:23:15] I’m going to see whether the license isn’t
Oliver Manlese [00:23:19] it’s it is it added a whole dynamic. But you know what? In the end, they didn’t find anything like it’s definitely easier to do it without a license. It added complication to do with the license because you have this huge governing body. But what it did was they had no idea about your business. Exactly. You know, rent to own was kind of like, you know, if you’re doing it completely independently, it’s very, very different, obviously. But I was just like, if I’m doing something wrong, if someone thinks I’m doing something wrong, then I’m going to stop everything. Make sure everything is combed through, like, really, really fine tuned. And then we will start operations again once we get everything approved because I don’t want to be doing anything wrong. I want to do everything as pristine and as clear as possible where whatever document you need, sign whatever piece of paper, whatever, check whatever balance. I want to get that done. But that was like that was that was an executive decision to make deposit because that was like telling our investors which we had so many who were like waiting for waiting for more deals are the mortgage agents the applicant saying we are pausing due to this reason, which was it was embarrassing, obviously right, to tell people that, you know, we’re there, that it was against us. We want and we want to clear it. That’s kind of a messy situation. But what it did was it gave me this a lot of space to like really to think and I did all this work. And I’m just like, You know what, if I have to go and jump through all these hoops, like, is this really what I’m here to do? Like, is this really what? What enjoy what? I enjoy what excites me. But eventually, it kind of helped me tune in to the fact that for maybe the final year of that business I was creating, I was building a resentment towards it because it was like this thing I needed to feed. I was like, I was still, you know, 26 at the time, and I’m like, I’m like, This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And I was continually just chasing more investors, chasing more deals. But I wasn’t kind of filling in that gap of can I be creative and explore and be passionate and do something on the innovative edge and things like that that was not as important. But it was like making more and more money and doing more and more deals, which, you know, for someone like me, that doesn’t necessarily motivate me, and I just felt like I had this incredible responsibility to other people to perform, and it had nothing to do with me building something for myself anymore, something that made me feel gratified in any way. And I was just finding I was just wondering, why am I so down? Why am I so depressed? And I just I was journaling one day and I was writing and just pure stream of consciousness. And one day I just wrote, I maybe I just don’t give a shit about this business. Hmm. And that was like a huge like, I just had this vibration through my body. Like, this was like the first authentic and genuine thing I’ve ever let myself say or write to myself for a very long time. And it was, you know, you talk about the truth about real estate at that moment. That was my truth, and I couldn’t go back and continue, even though we had the green light way before this happened to keep going and start operations again. And we were, you know, we were about to get to hit the ground running once again. Once I faced the truth, I couldn’t go back to living a lie. I was like, This is done. I have to have to close this thing up and within. Within about a week, everything I had, everything stopped everything because everything closed down.
Oliver Manlese [00:27:00] Oh, there’s so much to ask. I have so little question. I have some
Erwin Szeto [00:27:07] check mark, tick, tick box questions I need to ask. And we’ll go through. We’ll continue on with this path. So you were young. What was the source of your first down payment? The joint venture partner, okay.
Oliver Manlese [00:27:25] And so there’s a saying in real estate that you hear where they say there’s a good deal, the investors will come, and I kept hearing that over and over and over again. I’m like, P.S. No.
Erwin Szeto [00:27:35] Oh yeah, people jump on our toes all the time.
Oliver Manlese [00:27:39] And then it actually did happen. I said we set up one of these. We set up one of these deals and it was within the first maybe two or three months of us being full time in this business. I was like, Hmm. Like how much? How much balls do I actually have? Let’s take. Let’s take a risk here. And I said, we can partner with you and we’ll manage this and we’ll see this through to the end. Make sure the deal is closed for a for a percentage of a percentage of the profit and a percentage of the cash flow. And we did it again and we did it again and we did it again. And it was just yeah, to know, to know by experience that that is possible with not just real estate, with anything that’s I feel like that’s possible, and I truly believe that that’s possible with anything that you can create something out of nothing. If you’re a true entrepreneur, you can create value where other people don’t see it. And if you can do that and help people see that vision, people will buy into it. So in essence, it’s true. If you have a good deal, the money will come, the investors will come. And so that’s that was the beginning for us.
Erwin Szeto [00:28:47] The values there, because what you had was unique. You did all the hustle upfront to put the deal together.
Oliver Manlese [00:28:53] Yeah, we wanted to do it so, so well versus like completely on a platter. It’s like everything is done. Don’t have to do anything. Pages and pages and pages and pages and pages of information.
Erwin Szeto [00:29:07] Do you still need real estate today?
Oliver Manlese [00:29:10] No, the last one got sold. Maybe a year and a half ago. And that one was that one was really cool because it was just it was literally just an actually, you know? And also funny. That was the first mentoring that I did, and I said, I will mentor you on rent to own and I’ll do it for free. But if you create a result, I want a piece of it. Mm-Hmm. And so the and so that’s what happened. It was it was twenty five, I think was like maybe 20. I think it’s twenty five percent of the cash flow and the profit overall. And we sold out in about a year and a half ago. I think it was so and so there. There you go, that like I was mentoring somebody and I just said, I’ll mentor you and I’ll coach and training. I’ll give you my process, everything but I want. I want a piece of this. Hmm. An exchange. And we got cash flow and we got we got money for. I think it was like three or four years. And it also funny the person, the person who bought the tenant who bought that from us, they ended up needing to move or wanting to move to Nova Scotia. And they sold right after and they made $60000. Like so, so the price that we said, you know, to sell it to them for it was it was good for us, but it was also good for them because only a few months later, they saw the sixty thousand dollars and brought their money over to Nova Scotia, where they’re living a great life. Affordability is much different out there.
Erwin Szeto [00:30:40] Just as a quick disclaimer to our listeners, getting into an auto as the tenant is not a good idea for flipping out well for a lot of people in this market.
Oliver Manlese [00:30:54] Yeah, these are. These are just, you know, one off stories. I mean, there’s many, many stories, but like, yeah, I feel on the tenant side, it’s more do you want to own? Do you want to become the owner of this place and have a program to follow that will get you that will get you from A to Z? That’s really what it’s about to turn it into a profit or a business from the tenant side.
Erwin Szeto [00:31:16] Definitely not now for investors. Do you think real estate is still a valid investment vehicle?
Oliver Manlese [00:31:26] I think so. We were talking about this, I think, at lunch and on the phone while back. But I think real estate is a powerful vehicle for investing. And I think the I think I think the main thing. So first of all, this is what I would say. I love that you say it’s a vehicle and how it’s and it’s the perspective is it is a vehicle, but you’ve got to be a really great driver. Mm-Hmm. So the example that I give is if you don’t know how to drive or don’t even know how to drive, stick and I and I give you like a Lamborghini on your drive, which by the way, I do not have a Lamborghini. But if you had a Lamborghini and it was, you know, it was manual transmission and it was on your driveway, give you the keys left for a week. What would you do that car? It’s either you let the car sit because you can’t drive it or you would take it out and you would just grind, you know, grind it out or you would stall it and you would just you would ruin it. You wouldn’t get the fullest experience of that vehicle. So I think when it comes to any vehicle that you’re investing in, you’ve got to invest in yourself first to be a really great driver of whatever vehicle you do. And that’s why it’s important to have someone like yourself on there on their side, someone who is an expert or someone who has an information advantage have a network of people around you who can, who can show you the ropes, who can show you from their experience and educate yourself as well. Like read a lot of books take a lot, of course, is just so that you have enough information on your side and then you feel comfortable and feel confident. Also, you know, that know what you’re exactly trying to accomplish with this vehicle because a vehicle is just to get from A to Z. So if you want to get from one point to the next, what’s the next point? Are you going to sell when the market hits a certain number? Or are you going to hold on for the rest of your life or a certain period? Or like what’s going to be what’s going to help you decide if you’re going to sell or hold or whatever it is? So I think that’s the first thing. But the second thing is it’s I think when you look at real estate as an opportunity to invest as it is right now, I think I’m like, I’m kind of out of the loop with it. It’s really, really hot. So some people are just getting in and banking on the fact that it’s hot and then the prices will go up. I don’t believe that that is the same edge as someone like yourself possesses, where you can see value, where other people can’t see it if you have the edge in. I know how to manage property really well. I know how to increase my rents really well. I know I know that in this area, there’s improvements in transportation orders, new jobs coming in. So there’s going to be a huge uptick in the next five, three or five years or 10 years, whatever it is. If you have that edge, then definitely, I believe real estate is a is a. Powerful investment.
Erwin Szeto [00:34:18] So I appreciate the plug. Hey, E.M.T, that 50 bucks, oh, you
Oliver Manlese [00:34:26] mentioned, I just know that I know that you’re doing great work and I know you take you really take care of people. So yeah, any time.
Erwin Szeto [00:34:35] That’s great advice. You mentioned they have an information advantage, and if you don’t have an information advantage, make sure your team has an information advantage. Now, can you? You mentioned books. I think you mentioned training. Is there anything you recommend to people? Hmm. You don’t either books or training networks.
Oliver Manlese [00:34:59] Definitely. I mean, I haven’t been a rain member for a long time. I don’t know what it’s like. I. So I know people who still get value from rain. I know people who get a ton of value from rock stars will give you another plug. I know a lot of people get a lot of value from working with you. But when it comes to books, I don’t. I would say if you were going to look at just your own basic psychology because it’s not necessarily about real estate, but there’s two books I really love, and I read them at least once a year thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which I believe is a super powerful tool, as well as psycho cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.
Erwin Szeto [00:35:46] Oh, I’ve heard that one. And for the listeners all linked to all these things, terrain to rocky start thinking, and what was the last one?
Oliver Manlese [00:35:52] Maxwell Mouse’s psycho cybernetics, which is really cool because it just talks about how what you think, what you believe to be true like in terms of the way you look at yourself, your self-image is going to determine exactly what course of actions you’re going to take and exactly what you believe is possible and not possible. So if you begin to shift that to your own self-image, just like Philip McKernan is one of my coaches, he says, we give ourselves what we feel we deserve. So if you don’t feel deep down to your core that you deserve a certain thing, you can try it. Every strategy that you want. That level of belief inside of you, that doesn’t believe it. It’s just not going to make it happen. So I feel like this so that that aspect is important to explore, right?
Erwin Szeto [00:36:40] I think it’s funny when you say that the first thing that came to my mind was create so much value you’ll get, so you’ll get value back. Just it’s that. Yeah, that could be the flip side of it as well as if you do both.
Oliver Manlese [00:36:56] Well, yeah, you do it. You can. You can do both. Yeah, that’s I think that’s the whole thing. And that’s the challenge that we have is can you just continue to plug away in multiple different areas because most people will think that their lives are they can be compartmentalized. Most people that I work with, they try to achieve in spite of themselves. So let’s have a lot of business success, and I’m really good at making money and building my business. But I can. I can totally not and don’t need to invest in my physical body, my physical well-being or my relationships or anything like that. And that is not going to spill over into other areas. They don’t realize that human beings are a cohesive unit. We are a complete system. So if you are dissatisfied, let’s say in your in your relationship, that will definitely find its way in your business. Don’t kid yourself like there will be limitations in your ability to express yourself and your ability to connect and your ability to take risks and vice versa. All your business challenges and problems all think that you can just leave that at the desk, at the office. That’s going to find its way and how you spend time with your family, with your kids. So it’s not to crap on everybody, but just to realize that we are. We are thinking that we can get away with being disintegrated in our lives. And we think that these are all separate areas when really every single one thing leaks into and out of the other. So it’s super important to look at it that way.
Erwin Szeto [00:38:26] Yeah, it is just to add to that. What I’ve seen with working with clients is when the partners don’t agree. So say one partner all in, they want to buy, you know, two or three properties in the next year. And then their partners like, that’s taking too many risks putting all your eggs in one basket, you’re going to fail. That will not work out, even if partner one is successful in buying good properties that cash that that appreciate and do well. Like, as soon as anything goes wrong, like, you know, like the front door gets broken or the tenants moving out, the other partners all over them and they they’re like overexaggerate, really like a broken door. Who cares? Like, you know, I’m cash flowing. Like, so your cash box and your mortgage payments for five hundred dollars and you’re your property depreciated $10000. Big deal. Broken door. Right, right. But that’s not what it’s. Things are going to fall apart. I’ve seen it too many times, and so I always warn clients like, Yeah.
Oliver Manlese [00:39:27] So for those
Erwin Szeto [00:39:28] of you out there picking partners, make sure that whoever you pick is supports what you’re doing.
Oliver Manlese [00:39:33] So I think that’s an important point. It doesn’t matter like what it is. I feel like if it’s a real estate, if it’s a property, you’re getting it, you’re getting in bed with that property. Yeah. But you know, all the ins and outs and all the deep, dark and shiniest aspects of it you’re getting in bed with. So you’re getting married to that property. So imagine if you have a partner involved in now, whether it’s a spouse or just an investment partner, like you’re getting in bed with them to all their fears. And that’s the thing. Two people together who are both operating fear does not work. So if one person has to at least be coming from their absence, coming from their power because two people who are who are coming from fear, they’re completely close, they’re coming from survival. And yeah, you’re going to be in partnership in a marriage with their partner and you’re going to be in a marriage together with that property. And some people, if you don’t treat it that way, that type of care, then I feel like that’s where you’ll have extra chaos and extra levels of suffering where it doesn’t need to be. So spend a lot of time before, you know, choosing and investing and tying yourself up that way.
Erwin Szeto [00:40:47] And it’s not just investing, it’s like if you’re starting a business or even if you’re doing a job, right? So your job requires you to travel to your partners. So like if your partners are into you being away a week of one week each month, you know it’s not going to work out. Yeah, yeah. So let’s get into your business and your clients. I imagine when someone seeks out a coach, something’s gone wrong. Right? Am I right?
Oliver Manlese [00:41:19] I, I, I would.
Oliver Manlese [00:41:21] I get where that comes from, but it’s not. It’s less often than you think.
Erwin Szeto [00:41:25] Really? So people are just trying to optimize as well. You know, I’m already running at like ninety five percent. I won’t be 99 percent and you’ll find all of her.
Oliver Manlese [00:41:33] Yeah. You know what? It’s the people that I have the privilege of working with. They’re doing well and they’re successful in their own right and they’ve reached the limitation of doing things completely on their own. Right, right. Sometimes, you know, some of the people that I get to work with, they look around and all they see is one hundred percent. Yeah, everything’s great. Everything was good and just pure kind of. Yes, you know, like, yes, man. Yes, ma’am. And you know, like, there’s this one woman that I that I worked with, and she’s super powerful. She’s also in there and like, kind of like a finance and whatever industry they want to do deals dealing with lots of people’s investments or lots of responsibilities has people working for her and things like that. And she just she let her ability to be in tune with what is happening in a relationship and a conversation is just, it’s not there. And she keeps talking and talking and talking. And we’re like, ten fifteen minutes in a conversation. And I couldn’t get a word in and I said, Hold on a second, can I stop you? And we just take it. Take a moment to like, breathe. And I said, listening to you is like trying to swallow a waterfall. And she’s like, She’s like, what? And I’m like listening to you is like trying to swallow a waterfall. This is not a station. You’re just speaking at me. And we just started to go over why she is so challenged in in terms of her life as well as her business. It’s because there is nobody around her to ever call B.S. on her or ever call her out or ever just have her check herself. Hmm. So we have a limitation when we are working, when we’re working for ourselves or have people working for us. If you look at some of the most successful people in sports or business or whatever it is, they have a level of humility to say, OK, I got to ask for help now, like I’ve gone as far as I can on my own in this area. I need other schools, other skills, other tools, other perspectives. I need and I need someone from the outside to look at me while I’m playing on the field and tell me you have more energy. Keep pushing or come on to the bench. You need to take a breather. They need to be someone out there. So, yeah, a lot of the people, they’re successful, but they’re waiting for that last. You know, they’re trying to find out, how do we get to the last 10 percent, the last five percent, like you were saying?
Erwin Szeto [00:44:03] Hmm, that’s interesting. She so she was successful. Yet she’s someone that just talks about people.
Oliver Manlese [00:44:10] Yeah, she’s it’s interesting that she’s successful and I feel like she’s successful because she’s so passionate and so energetic, and she just she can really talk at people. But the conversation, the work that we did together was about deepening her listening, her deepening, her ability to be with other people and have more genuine connections, which leads to longer lasting relationships, as opposed to because she’s so challenging to actually be with because it’s like swallowing a waterfall. I’ll work with her, but I might avoid her in the future. You know, just because it’s hard for me to do things, I’m just going to be sold. Whatever it is, there’s going to be sold as opposed to being listened. To and feel acknowledged and heard
Erwin Szeto [00:44:53] right now as you’re ran into someone with a similar problem. I’m on my first call sales call like he’s selling me something cruel and he cut me off. I was introducing myself and then just start blabbing like, I’m not. I’m not easily offended, but it is rude, and you can’t begin to advise someone to consult someone without knowing anything about them. So what? So what were some exercises or advice that my listeners can take away from? Like, what did you have your client do to improve on the situation?
Oliver Manlese [00:45:35] Yeah, you know, and I find that with this type of situation, you will you’ll come across it because, you know, we live in a culture where everyone’s I mean, you hear this all the time where people are waiting for what they’re going to say next or just waiting for that opening so they can say something as opposed to actually fully being engaged in a conversation. And for this person, what we did was so, so the work that I do, I’m so I’m not as interested in just the contents of your life because the content of your life, it just shows up as, OK, if you just talk so much, right? You just talk a lot and nonstop and doesn’t let anybody to get a word in. I’m interested in the context behind it because the context is very decisive. If you’re coming from a specific context, it’ll immediately direct what the content of your life looks like. So I’m interested in what happened for her to be this way. Where did you learn that from? What was the example of it? How does that shape her worldview, how she sees herself, how she sees herself fitting in with the world? And what we’ve got down to is that this is a strategy that has allowed her to win in her life because this is how she gets to prove she’s worth something. Hey, look at me, I’m valuable because I have all these things to say, Hey, look at me, I’m worth something because I have all these ideas and all these opinions and all these things. And I’m not that I’m up to them thinking about all this stuff, and it’s and it’s like it becomes this overcompensating. So it’s like she’s over inflating and manufacturing her significance and for worse, when really, she doesn’t need to do that because people who are spending time with her already value her. She literally doesn’t need to say a word. There’s already value in her experience and in her and just her in her essence. So some of my suggestions were to have her be generously listening to people to, you know, one of the things that I that I ask people is Who are you without all the doing? So many people look at their identity and their self-worth as they have to do stuff they have to accomplish, they have to create results. And if they’re not, then they’re not worth anything. They’re worthless, they’re useless. And who are you without doing what happens if you stop and you return to being what happens when you just return to being? Is that enough? This is a value. Yeah. And so for some, for her, it was for her to learn and accept the fact that her presence and giving people. So there’s five things that people need. People need to be seen. They need to be heard, loved, acknowledged and understood. So if you’re really, really good at what you do, it doesn’t matter what, what role and terms, if it’s family or business or service or whatever it is, if you can give people those things, that is a ton of value and a lot of that has to just be sitting back, listening to somebody, reflecting back what you hear from them and making sure you’re both sharing to set the context of relatedness. Yeah. Hey, this is what I heard you say. Is this what you mean? Why is that important to you? If you accomplish that, what would that do for you? What does that say about you? How does that affect your relationships like really seeking to understand? So it has her become come from a question as opposed to always having the answers. So it’s like being willing to say, I don’t know, being willing to ask the questions and being willing to actually sit back and allow a couple of breaths like some silence in between. And to just really take in like, listen, listen from your from your head, your heart and your body at the same time.
Erwin Szeto [00:49:23] For some of the listeners, I’m sure this sounds easy, that’s not easy. And I’ve met the people like your client where you’ll say something and then when they ban them, when it’s their turn to respond, whatever they say has nothing to do with you told them.
Oliver Manlese [00:49:44] Yeah. We have these great oranges.
Oliver Manlese [00:49:49] That was the first problem that I saw with her was I would ask a question, a very simple question like what’s working in your life? And then it would just go on and on, like, so like, Oh yeah, yeah. So this happened and I had to get a new car and then this happened and then had to go over here. And this person called me about a project, a new opportunity, and I’m going to be running this event and I’m like, OK. And I asked you what’s working? So it almost turned into, OK, we need to stop. And these are the new rules. I ask a question, then you answer, I ask you a question, then you answer. And that was like the only way to proceed. That was the best way for us to actually get stuff done. Otherwise she could. I could. I could put the phone down, walk away, and she would. She would fill the whole hour. Hmm.
Erwin Szeto [00:50:30] No. Easy control. Easy, easy money.
Oliver Manlese [00:50:36] But wouldn’t it be?
Erwin Szeto [00:50:38] So what are some other problems that people approach you with? Are they need solving?
Oliver Manlese [00:50:43] I think one of the most common ones that I’ve done I have been noticing in people is just a general sense that something is missing. Like there, there is not a lot of there’s something wrong, but that there’s something missing and typically it’s just a lack of alignment. So there’s so there’s a couple of exercises that I do with people to help them discover what is your essence? So like you, Erwin when you walk in, when you walk into a room, you have an essence. I don’t even need to hear you say a word. You don’t need to look at me. You don’t even need to make a facial expression. Whatever it is, you walk into a room and there it is. Your essence is there and for you from you. I get a calmness, a wisdom and a grounded level of power. And I’m sure if people listening to this know who you are and have been listening to you for a while, they’ll see that when you’re doing your best work, they’ll see the essence that I get to see, which is there’s a grounded power. There’s that calmness. You know what I mean? So I wanted
Erwin Szeto [00:51:55] her to listen to the early episodes of the podcast. But yeah, go on.
Oliver Manlese [00:52:00] Yes.
Oliver Manlese [00:52:00] As you got probably more comfortable when you got more effortless with it, it definitely starts showing. So, so we all have we all have this essential nature that we come from and when we’re doing our best work as well. On the flip side of that is understanding what our survival mechanism is, which is a large part we created when we were younger. But it also has created us and this is we created these aspects of ourselves, these characteristics to survive unsurvivable situations. So when you are when you are understanding and clear of what your survival mechanism is like for me, I know I’m coming from survival and coming from this place of fear. If I’m being ungrateful, if I’m being selfish, if I’m slacking and things like that. So I could actually identify moment to moment in real time. Oh, I’m in my survival right now. I’m actually in survival mechanism, so it’s like you’re constantly able to just check yourself. So it’s understanding your essence, your survival mechanism. We get down to what your core values are. So what are what are the values that you operate by and when these things are missing? This is what life is going to be a drag. This is what it’s going to be. Super, super exhausting. So when you find out what you are, when you find out these aspects you can start looking at, OK, is my life, my work, my relationships, my hobbies, how I use my time, my intellect, my energy. Are those things reflecting my assets? My values? My truth? And if they’re not, then you’ve got to turn that into action. OK. What action do? Because awareness is not enough, awareness without action is completely bankrupt to me. So I almost every single client will say, but I know the stuff, but I know this already, but I know it. OK, but what are you doing and what are you doing with it? And most of them, they have no answer for that. So it’s like, Yeah, that’s true. So you got to turn knowledge into wisdom by taking action. When you fully know it and have that wisdom and you start living it, then you will have insight. So, yeah, you find out what the next action is. So if I have this core value of exploration, more exploration in my life and it’s not there, you’re going to feel like something is lacking, something is missing. So until you until you satisfy and find ways to support yourself in that area of, I need more exploration, whether that’s learning something new or traveling again, that’s why the context is so important. Your context might be exploration, and I might end up looking at travel, whereas somebody else might have the content of travel. But their context is coming from I need to escape my life. Hmm. Right. So it’s going to be the context for everybody shapes how we, you know, how we decide and how we act. But yeah, that’s usually the biggest thing. It’s can I can I support them in having their life be more aligned? And really, so really, I call it reinvention, but it’s more of them just becoming more of who they are and performing. They’re performing at their greatest level of power and accessing more possible possibility by being more who they are.
Erwin Szeto [00:55:11] Most fascinating. So what else, what else are you seen holding people back from being? Who they are? Is this unfortunate when they’re younger? Is it negative partners or? Because I see it all the time, I think we all see it all the time where people’s dream is not to do the job they’re doing. The dream is something else.
Oliver Manlese [00:55:40] Yeah. You know, it’s there’s a lot I would say. Probably the biggest thing that holds people back is thinking that things should be or shouldn’t be a certain way. So there’s this great quote by a woman named Tracy Goss, and she says life doesn’t happen the way it should. Life doesn’t happen the way it should, and life happens the way it does. So whether you got the deal, you got the client or you didn’t or you got the day off, you got the girl, you got the guy or whatever it is, you know, there’s going to be this constant conversation in our head of it should be this way. I should have got the girl or I shouldn’t have or that shouldn’t have happened to me. I shouldn’t of like, like for me, I shouldn’t have been investigated, you know, like I should. I should have been more successful. I should have done more. There’s this constant conversation that we should be or shouldn’t be exactly where we are. And I feel like that is the source and cause of so much of people’s turmoil and suffering. We do it to ourselves by thinking that it needs to be a certain way when it when it isn’t. So, so much of it is like, can you surrender and accept that for the rest of your life, there will always be this. This tape in your head, you know you’re like, literally, you will. You will go and you will die. You will be on your deathbed. And there’s going to be things that you feel like should have happened and shouldn’t have happened. So might as well just do whatever you, whatever you believe is important to you might as well go after it. There’s literally nothing left. There’s nothing to lose because even by the end of your life, you all have things that you’re satisfied by and not satisfied, satisfied by. You will feel like there’s things that should be and shouldn’t be that will be forever. So quit letting yourself get drowned down or bogged down by the worry and the stress and the suffering of that. And just realize that’s just human nature. We have this this universal conversation that we all have about this should be and shouldn’t be and just accept it that it’s going to happen and then just go for it. Like whatever it is, just go for it anyways, because that’s just going to be a constant.
Erwin Szeto [00:57:53] Right. One of the things I live my life by is I don’t want to have any regrets. And I give a quick, small example. I was walking on Queen Street in Toronto and there’s a guy dressed kind of loud. And it was early because I was on my way to work, so it was like eight a.m. in the morning is pushing a stroller like big, big sunglasses. It is run like a snake looks. It looks like snakeskin jacket and designer jeans. And I think that’s Doug Gilmore. So for the hockey people who don’t know hockey, he’s like, Oh, he’s like my favorite captain. Dubeau believes it’s area with his kid. So don’t really want to bother him. There’s nobody else on Queen Street. So even if I do bother him, no one else is going to bother him and I. But I’m not sure because he’s dressed like the way stressed the way he is wearing big sunglasses. Not positive. It’s him. So I keep walking past him. And I think I’m going to regret this if I don’t say something. So that is exactly the thought in my head, and so I went back to him and are you, Doug Gilman? Yes, I am. Can I do a selfie with you? Yeah, clearly, Doug, you’re my favorite captain of all time.
Oliver Manlese [00:59:09] And how did you be afraid? Did you have like nervousness
Erwin Szeto [00:59:12] because he’s a celebrity? He’s like a god in this city? But is that now my being silly? Is that being that something that even something advisable to people don’t live life with regret?
Oliver Manlese [00:59:25] You know, I’m not sure how much more, how much time we have, but
Erwin Szeto [00:59:29] there’s a really important few. But I know I promised you an hour and this has been like the fastest interview we’ve ever done.
Oliver Manlese [00:59:35] I’m sure it’s blowing my mind how fast it’s going, but I have a very simple exercise. If you want to know what your core values are. This is this is what I would do, what you’re talking about, the regrets. I love sharing this with people because it’s so simple, but it’s so powerful. So if you if you imagine like. So I have a very quick example. I went to do some Santa photos with my brother and my sister at the mall in Square one in Mississauga. We do that every single year. If we want to send this cute picture of these grown up punk kids to our parents every Christmas and at the mall, there’s this. There’s this guy that I know works at the tuxedo store. We rent tuxedos, you know, every couple of weddings. I will read some tuxedos from him and I know he’s there. He helped me by my first suit when I first got to real estate and I was looking for him and he wasn’t there. And I’m like, OK, I didn’t think nothing of it. Christmas passes New Year’s passes a few weeks later into January. I open a Facebook and it says R.I.P. R.I.P. with this guy’s name and I’m like, Holy smokes, this guy’s two years older than me. I was just thinking about him like nothing. And now, now he’s gone. Like, What the heck, right? And at that moment, it made me think about, OK, like, tomorrow is not guaranteed to anybody. If I was going to die tomorrow, what needs to happen? Or what if I if I died in the year, what would need to happen for me to live? I feel like I lived an awesome life for a soul. Very simple exercise that your listeners can do to find out what your core values are is to look at. If you only had five years left to live, like from 2017, now you’re going to die in 2022. And that’s it. Like, that’s all the time you get. What needs to happen for you to be able to die with no regrets for you to be able to say life was incredible, life was amazing. So these are experiences, achievements, accomplishments, things that you never gave yourself or gave you yourself permission to have. Whatever those things are, there might be four or five or six of them, and you’re going to write down so many different things like, you know, become an entrepreneur or have 10 investment properties or travel with my family or you’re gonna have a bunch of different things. And if you know, like I said in this conversation, it’s not so much about the content, so I’m not as interested in both the content. So you might say travel, and I might say what’s important about travel is I get to explore and then someone else might say escape, and someone else might say education. Someone else might say adventure. So the context is different for everybody. So I would go through each one of those, those accomplishments or achievements, those experiences and look at why is this important? What would it do for me? And can I sum it up in one word, like a theme that represents it like a bigger overarching value that this fits inside of? Because if exploration is my value, then I’ll find other ways to satisfy exploration beyond just the travel. So, you know, with each one and you’ll have these very big, powerful statements and words, and I can guarantee you when you look at them, you’ll know it to be true. Those five things are your core values and you were born with them. You were, you were just born with them. And if all of them are running, you will feel effortless. You are in flow. If you have two or three missing, you will feel like something is completely missing. Yes, you have maybe 20 values or 10 values, but these are your core values. So what I would do is write down each of those words, put it up on the wall and start and start reminding yourself, these are my core values. These are the things that are important to me. Can I begin to have my life be more of a reflection of these things?
Erwin Szeto [01:03:20] Right, right. And then and then so the investor meetings, you know, core value is my family. So like, yeah, if I go there, well, setup and for anyone who feels the same, I hope that you have the same, you know, because I’ve got a fair amount of portfolio, I’ve got plenty of insurance. They they’ll be fine. And that makes me happy and it makes me happy, makes you happy.
Oliver Manlese [01:03:50] And yeah, I think it makes you. It makes you happy. It makes you satisfied because. It’s like, here’s a value, you’re so all value is this is a priority for you. So you have a priority and then now you have taken action steps to make sure that you are actually treating those things as priority. Yeah, yeah. Right? And so some people, like many of like many of us, we will have things that we believe our priority, but we are actually doing things or taking steps to actually have those things fulfilled. So it’s important to look at that and you might have five values. You might have six that are that are priority to you and you’ll see that there’s a gap. There’s maybe one, two or three of them that could use a little bit more attention because you might be like, Wow, this is a priority and haven’t been doing anything about it. So that’s why it’s super powerful to consider that question.
Erwin Szeto [01:04:39] Crazy. Can you share one of your core values are when your top two and then what are you doing about it?
Oliver Manlese [01:04:45] Yeah. So I have my core values listed on the wall just as a reminder. And I have, you know, I know
Oliver Manlese [01:04:55] I have love. And that to me is what’s important is that I take time for self-love as well as connection with my woman, as well as just relationships. So that also translates to connection being in relationship with people. So I spent a lot of time every single week, a loving and caring for people. That’s actually I view my how do I fill my calendar? Who am I going to? This is what I ask myself. Who am I going to love and care for this week? That’s literally what I do.
Erwin Szeto [01:05:22] Susan Partner Yoga next week.
Oliver Manlese [01:05:24] Oh, good.
Oliver Manlese [01:05:26] Yeah, me and Janet just did some partner yoga. Oh my god, it didn’t ask. You don’t realize, even if you’re at the bottom and you’re balancing your partner on top of you, it’s actually it. It ends up being a lot of work. They don’t look like much, but holy smokes, you can be them.
Oliver Manlese [01:05:41] I know you’re bigger than me, man. I was a bit slow mean to grow. Plus, I have growth,
Oliver Manlese [01:05:48] so growth for me is like it’s constantly learning, constantly learning, as well as establishing insight. So I tend to read books a half a dozen times or even more that I read them. Like once a year. There’s a set of books that I read every single year so that I could make sure that I’m in practice of these things, of implementing them and also noticing the things that I’ve that I haven’t been implementing. So I will read those books again and just notice, Oh yeah, there’s an inside, and I haven’t been leveraging that. I haven’t been making use of it. So those are those are the first two. I also have exploration, legacy service and creativity, where creativity definitely it’s at the bottom, I feel, because it’s like, that’s the foundation I’m so interested in, in creating value, creating a body of work with, you know, the podcast with my writing, with videos and things like that and just exploring new ideas. So yeah, I have those listen. I look at them. I reflect on them every once in a while, I consider, am I am I living in alignment with these? And even another powerful exercise would be if you do the exercise to just rate yourself, give yourself an honest one to one being the lowest, 10 being the highest once it’s held, once a 10 rating on each item and then add it all up and then create a percentage. I know you’ve probably calculated cash one hour. Why this is simpler for you. You can write right so you can score it out. And you know, this morning I had a woman and she did her core values with me, and she was at thirty eight percent and I was like, Wow, what’s it like to be thirty eight percent of the woman that you could be? And it was like a punch in the soul. Right. Ouch. And so there’s a lot that comes along with that we get to be a certain way to have 38 percent, but it also costs us to have that 38 percent life. So that’s a that’s a very important thing to understand. You know, you do you do a statement of your cash, your income and your expenses and your assets and liabilities. And then you do that, you’re like, Oh, I’m here. This is exactly where I am. But people don’t do that with their life. You know, it’s that you are here, sign of your life. When you do your core values and you rate yourself and you find out, well, I’m only a 30 percent alignment with my life. That’s just a big fat. You are here, sign of where you are and then you start looking at where do I want to be? And then you start. You start to get an idea of how do you close that gap? How do you move in that direction?
Erwin Szeto [01:08:20] Do you know your percentage offhand?
Oliver Manlese [01:08:23] I haven’t, I honestly haven’t done it in a while. Okay, thanks.
Erwin Szeto [01:08:26] So for the listeners, like a lot of these questions were prepared. A lot of them were, though, which allows me to listen.
Oliver Manlese [01:08:36] Yeah.
Erwin Szeto [01:08:36] To be honest, like maybe a third of them were
Oliver Manlese [01:08:38] prepared for or you
Oliver Manlese [01:08:41] mentioned before talking, thinking, being interviewed and it’s not like talking nonstop makes me feel like a hypocrite for what we were talking about. I’m the waterfall today.
Erwin Szeto [01:08:51] Yeah, but our listeners can’t learn if you’re the one listening.
Oliver Manlese [01:08:54] I know,
Oliver Manlese [01:08:55] I know, I know all of you. You’re constantly interrupted.
Erwin Szeto [01:09:00] Can you give us the top three? Like the ones that you mentioned that you’re reading several times a year.
Oliver Manlese [01:09:08] Yes. I already mentioned Maxwell Moses psycho cybernetics. I read that once a year. Think and grow rich. I read that at least once a year. Wow. Some very, very powerful resources. The way of the superior man by David Data. I read that about twice, like I literally finished the last page and I started reading right away, like the beginning again. That is such a super powerful tool, whether you are a man or a woman. The War of Art by Stephen Press Field, I think that’s incredibly important. It talks about fear. It talks about fear showing up as a resistance when you want to show up and do your work. There’s that. There’s an aspect of yourself that’s just like holding you back and limiting you. And I think it’s important whether you are a creative, an entrepreneur, a thinker, an investor doesn’t. It really doesn’t matter. Everyone has a specific craft and can benefit from the war of art. So I would say those are some pretty decent, decent wants to work with, but the probably the most monumental book I would say, and I do not say that lightly because I read so many books and reread a lot of them. Last word on power by Tracy Goss. I would say that’s probably one of the most powerful resources.
Erwin Szeto [01:10:34] So I’m just writing it down. I’ve been running a lot and actually I was. And, you know, listeners like if you’re driving, don’t worry this all up in the show notes on my website, Mr. Hamilton, don’t. So Oliver, where’s your podcast? Where can people find it?
Oliver Manlese [01:10:52] They can find it. It’s called the Oliver Manley Show, and you can find it on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, SoundCloud. If you want to go straight to all the episodes on my website, it’s Oliver Manoli WSJ.com slash show. All right now, so I’ve been interviewing so and here’s a premise for the new listeners, I’m interested in people who’ve inspired me who I find influential, I find to be influential as well as influential to many others. So people that that that are admired. But I want to get into what is the struggle, the challenge, the breakdown behind the scenes that they are going through in a way to humanize them to for us to realize that the people we view as our heroes, they are just human beings just like us. And if they can do it, we can do it. And the way that they show up in the face of breakdowns and rock bottoms, it can give us a little bit of insight as to how we can approach and how we can show up when we face the inevitable breakdown. And what can we put into place so that we actually can break through and reinvent and take ourselves to a to a new level? So that’s been that’s been the main premise of the show, so if you listen to the first episode, a couple of episodes, the first, the first and second episode are about me and my breakdown. So I go a little bit in-depth to what happened during that breakdown of what after I wrote that journal entry of like, maybe I don’t care about this business anymore because I had a huge rock bottom afterwards and I had a like an identity crisis, an existential crisis to deal with. So I share a little bit about that, right in the beginning. Mm-Hmm.
Erwin Szeto [01:12:37] Oliver, and we’re over time, so I apologize, but this has been awesome.
Oliver Manlese [01:12:42] No problem. This is this is really, really fun. I really, I want to acknowledge you for. For doing this, for spreading a message about the truth about real estate and you know, for creating so much value for the people around you. It really shows the people who know you and people who are in relationship with you. And even when we were at lunch and someone recognizes you and be thanked you in person like, Hey, are you? Are you the truth about real estate guy? Like, Are you? Are you Erwin? And you can see from his eyes like, you might not know who they are, but they know so much about you and they’ve got a ton of value from you. So in so many ways, I look up to you when it comes to a business to health to, you know, now starting my own podcast and things like that. So you and you were part of the catalyst, like you were the person that I spoke to at least two or three times right before. I’m like, OK, this is this is happening. I’m going to do this right now, like you were part of the impetus Mansell. So thank you for that and thank you for having me on.
Erwin Szeto [01:13:41] Thank you for the kind words. And you know, as someone, you’re someone who coaches people like you can say, you can teach people as much as you want. It’s the select few that actually take action. So, you know, I’m just happy to be there for you. And it’s an honor when you take advice and you put it into action. So we give yourself a pat on the back for that.
Oliver Manlese [01:14:08] I appreciate it, man. I mean, I feel like that’s the that’s the only way to honor the fact that you that you had spent some time with me and sharing your ideas and what you see as possible. The only way to honor it for me is for me to actually go execute on it and explore what happens. And it’s been really great so far.
Erwin Szeto [01:14:30] All of this was awesome. I can’t say it enough for anyone who wants to follow up with you. How should how is that best to be done? Are you on social media, Snapchat, Instagram?
Oliver Manlese [01:14:41] I’m pretty. Yeah, I’m active enough on Facebook and Instagram. You can find me just under my full name to Facebook dot com slash all of our analysts and the same thing on Instagram. And yeah, if you are in transition and you are interested in having your life, your work, your relationships, be a reflection of your essence. I would love to support you in any way that I can offer complimentary sessions so that you can actually fully experience what the work is like. It’s not some little taster, it’s like a full deep dove and it could be, you know, several sessions. Yeah, and you can get some more information about that and apply it all over. Mentally scarred.
Erwin Szeto [01:15:23] Super awesome. Again, folks, don’t worry, I’ll this a lot in the show, notes Oliver. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time out for us. That’s been awesome.
Oliver Manlese [01:15:33] Yeah, it was awesome. Thanks, Erwin.
Erwin Szeto [01:15:35] All right. I’ll talk to you soon, man. Face by. Before you go, if you were like other investors, you enjoy hanging out with likeminded people. But where do you go? When I started out, it felt lonely being a real estate investor because my friends, coworkers and family were not much help. And what they had to share was often negatives, such as you’ll be a slumlord, or they estimate questions like one of the bubble bursts. So I went to meet us but stopped soon after as attendees didn’t take things seriously enough or lack experience to share. It was like the blind leading the blind. Later, I started these monthly networking meetings in Oakville, Ontario, called the Mr. Hamilton Inner Circle, where we have an incredible guest speakers like the ones on this podcast, I share the latest economic fundamentals that apply to our investing and best practice lessons. You can only learn from being an investor. If you want to be a real estate insider, these meetings are for you. So if you want to come, learn and share, go to you w WW Dot Mr Hamilton Dossier Slash Inner Circle Register soon as I kid you not. We have a waitlist each month for these meetings. Thank you for listening and I hope to meet you, sir.
Oliver Manlese [01:17:02] You.