Table of Contents
Podcast Transcription
Georges El Masri [00:00:01] Welcome to the Well Off podcast, where the goal is to motivate, inspire and share success principles. I’m your host. Georges El Masri Thank you for joining me. It’s Georges El Masri, the host of the Wheel Off podcast. And today I interviewed Ara Palladian, who is an investor, an engineer, a father. He was telling me a little bit about his story, so he actually took a job in March of 2020, just before the pandemic really hit here. He said the company would him into taking this position. And literally just two, three weeks later, they fired him. So he was left without a job, which led to him really exploring investing. So he reached out to a colleague of mine who’s been on the show, Marc Loffler, and got the suggestion to start doing duplex conversions as a start. Ever since then he’s been working on that. He’s got a construction company now and with the engineering background he was able to grow and scale and get moving on things. So he’s got a really cool story here. I found that it was very similar to mine, actually. He’s looking to scale up. He got a six plex recently and he’s continuing to grow his portfolio. So yeah, a lot of investing in the Cambridge, Kitchener area. So we touched on that a little bit. I think you guys are going to love hearing the story for anyone who who’s feeling like they’re stuck or maybe they’re working a job they don’t like, maybe you’ll get some inspiration from this. So I hope you’ll enjoy. Make sure to share this with a friend or family member so that we can continue to grow this podcast, continue to share a good, positive message with others. And if you do appreciate it, I would really like it. If you can leave us a five star review on the Apple Podcast platform, and then if you want to connect with me. I’ve got some, some reports that you can download, you can go to well after C forward slash report, one of them talks about why you shouldn’t invest in certain areas like Oakville, Burlington, potentially. So we kind of look at look at some of the rental income you can get in other places and how that compares. So I hope you guys will enjoy the episode. Have a great day. Okay. Okay. I’m here with Ara Palladian. This is the first time we meet, but we’ve been in touch. I know we were part of, like, a mastermind group at one point together. Yeah, so that was. That’s cool. I’m glad that we are having an opportunity to meet here today. And you were telling me a little bit about your story before we started. I like to start off by just asking a little bit about your childhood, where you grew up in maybe one or two things you remember.
Ara Poladian [00:02:29] Yeah. Nice. Really nice to meet you in person finally. Yeah. Um, yeah. A little bit about my childhood. I was born and raised in Cambridge. Uh, my background is Armenian. Both my parents are Armenian. So growing up in a very cultured, cultured home, I had some all my dad, especially very, very old school. Um, so I find that I have some of those, some of those characteristics just from growing up. So yeah, just simple, simple childhood manners, playing sports, you know, trying my best in school and yeah. Then, uh, that led to go to university. Uh, I went to a class of university for structural engineering, which led to a little bit of design work. Just even in school wasn’t my thing that led to construction management working for general contractors in Cambridge, still building apartments and condos. And throughout the entire process I was, um, I was always interested in real estate but didn’t really do much. Um, I bought a, I bought a home from a builder that I actually used to do work for, like did some co-ops with them. So I had my own house. And then while those being built, um, my, my parents actually got a, a rental property, uh, because my wife and I got married pretty young. So we actually rented from my parents while, while our, our house was being built and, uh, and then, you know, the houses built, we moved and everything was great. And then the appreciation from that rental, because my parents kept it just in a, in, in like a year and a half, not even because they bought in like 2016 was a huge eye opener. I’m like, what just happened? Right. Yeah. Um, and I still, I didn’t make any other move since then. Um, and then COVID was the biggest, the biggest eye opener for me. Um, coincidentally, I, I actually started a new job on March 16, 2020. I’ll never forget it so literally right when COVID started. Yeah. And this company, like, wooed me. The, I was a senior in my old job, so I still would have had my job working for them and everything. But because I just started, I was like the second or third one to get laid off. Oh, wow. Yeah, right. And when COVID started, those like, you guys literally brought me here. I left my job. You know, at the time I had my wife and two kids and I was like, I’m not going to let anybody put food on my table. Um, I got to do something myself because, you know, I’m not going to rely on. On one income and you go through that. So I was reading a flipping book at the time. I was actually Mark Loeffler and Ian’s book.
Georges El Masri [00:05:08] Yeah, yeah.
Ara Poladian [00:05:08] And I finished the book during COVID and I just turned to the back and I saw a little brief description, said Mark Loeffler from Hamilton. I was like, Man, I just graduated from Mac. Like, I know Hamilton. This guy is local. I didn’t know and I just researched him on LinkedIn. Yeah. And just see if you had any advice for a new a newbie investor starting and is advice is so simple and so effective is like look into duplex conversions. I was like, okay, here we go. So nonstop. I just went for weeks watching all the YouTube videos I can. I’m just looking at properties, figuring all that because the construction site never scared me with my background. I knew AutoCAD, so I was like, I can get drawings done like myself. None of that is a big deal. So it was just more about the acquisition price points and all that. So honestly, I took the plunge. I jumped in on my first one. I had to borrow private, but I picked up a dude, picked up a bungalow in Cambridge for 456. I did the entire thing beginning to end with myself, obviously hired electrician, electrician, plumber, h-back. But basically I was I was framing, I was drywall, cleaning, painting, though doing flooring, tile, everything I did even did my own drawings, that property. We actually even had to do a minor variance.
Georges El Masri [00:06:28] Yeah.
Ara Poladian [00:06:28] So I got my, I dabbled in a little bit of that dealing with the city and the minor variance was for the most useless thing. It was for the 6040 split for gross floor area. So that passed with flying colors. It’s just a complete waste of time. Yeah. Um, and yeah, so we were all in about one 110 knots with holding cause minor variances and everything.
Georges El Masri [00:06:50] Right.
Ara Poladian [00:06:51] And, uh, yeah. And then we got the property tenanted up and down for 4200. The tenants are actually still in their 4200 plus hydro, so 23 upstairs and 19 downstairs. And I was just like, this is insane. Like, I can’t believe, you know, I did this finished and it got appraised at 705. So even with an 80%, um, refinance, I, it was 100% per that’s crazy.
Georges El Masri [00:07:22] Well, you just touched on a lot of things, but for the first of all, okay, I’m going to go back.
Ara Poladian [00:07:28] Yeah, no, no.
Georges El Masri [00:07:28] I want to touch on something for those that don’t know. So I’m. I’m Lebanese, you’re Armenian. There’s a lot of connections there because like a lot of Armenians ended up in Lebanon. Yeah. So we have that. I, you guys have some awesome food. I’m just going to say like the, the meat pies or. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that yeah. You guys have Buster too, which is like a cured meat, which is so good.
Ara Poladian [00:07:51] You got to watch any of that, though. Yeah, you got a lot to smile about.
Georges El Masri [00:07:56] But anyways, okay, just want to touch on that. But for you to go in with a private loan on your first investment, that takes some serious courage. How did you why did you end up doing that?
Ara Poladian [00:08:06] You know what? It was the only it was the only option I had. And it was it was from people I could trust. It was it was actually from family that I was able to do that. And I had actually my own renovation funds and most of the down payment. I had a line of credit on my house and a little bit of savings. Okay. So I didn’t have to borrow as much. And, you know, the people that I borrowed from, like, they had a lot of trust in me. Yeah, because I was literally like, presenting to them. Like, you know, I figured out what a burr strategy was and all this stuff. So they were intrigued to of what I was doing. So they gave me a shot. And honestly, we saw what happened with real estate. 2016, 2017, 2018. So, I mean, worst case, I always knew I could just hold it right. We can I can always go back and get an engineering job, get a good solid refinance. I was never really worried. It was more about learning the process of the duplex conversion. Yeah. So, yeah. And then beginning of 2021, I did start a job for a wholesale company actually working in their flipping division. I was like a project manager, so I utilized that salary, actually refinanced my first property, pulled out literally all the private money, um, and my renovation money, everything. We pulled everything out. And then that all got translated to my second deal, which again was a bungalow in a nicer area of Cambridge actually, where we picked that one up for 494, needed a lot more work. But again, I was willing to really, you know, grind it out and get involved. Again, it was another different type of learning experience. This one we did the whole main floor. We took out structural walls, load bearing walls. There was a.
Georges El Masri [00:09:50] Stamp your own your own drawings for it.
Ara Poladian [00:09:52] Legally, I can’t because I don’t have like professional insurance.
Georges El Masri [00:09:55] Okay.
Ara Poladian [00:09:56] But yeah, I have my stamp and everything, but. So it was funny actually going back to the old design firm they used to work for, to do all the designs and everything like that. But my background really did help. So I was happy that I was more comfortable doing that stuff. So we took out load bearing walls, fixed the flooding issue, redid a expand the driveway, redid the shingles, eavesdrops like it was about the property was really, really bad. So. But again, it was in an even nicer area of Cambridge, probably the most desirable. It’s called Hassler in Cambridge. Mm hmm. So I utilized my new salary to purchase that one and then refinance the first one. Yeah. And then. Yeah. Did, did that again. Flipped one house with this company, which gave me a huge passion and love for flipping because it was it was a it was a rough property in Branford. And the transformation we did on this thing, like I was, it was one of the most satisfying projects I’ve ever done. Mm hmm. And it was a it was a big, big, um. It was huge win for literally everybody. My contractors made good money. We made good money. It was just a win. And actually, since then, the people that bought it definitely made money from quickly on their homes, too. So that was I. That was the only one. I flipped with them because I didn’t have enough time to really work on a flipping division. And I really I really wanted to go back on my own. Deep down, I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. So giving that up for mortgage qualifications just didn’t seem like the path I should be taking. Just basically more like follow my dreams and my passions and mortgage qualifications can come up, which is what happened because after, you know, minimum six months, I was able to build the company up and even start getting lenders to look at me now. So it all worked out. In the end. It was all the necessary experiences and just the, you know, the path I needed to take to kind of where I am now.
Georges El Masri [00:11:59] Yeah.
Ara Poladian [00:12:00] So yeah, I mean, it was it’s been an it’s been a really fun journey the last two years, learned a lot, a lot of stressful nights, a lot of work. So three M But I mean, it was all worth it.
Georges El Masri [00:12:10] Yeah, for sure. And you know, you mentioned that you have some kids, so. Yeah. How is what’s that like juggling your work now, doing all this stuff, staying up till three sometimes in the morning and having the kids at home?
Ara Poladian [00:12:22] Yeah, it was tough. It was tough. You just have to. I just learned to, like, cut out anything that doesn’t help me. So I was literally wake up early in the morning, go to a job site, I’d come back for dinner. I never wanted to miss a single dinner with my kids, put them to bed, and then typically do like my project management, like catching up on emails, everything at night or head back to the job site after the kids went to bed. So basically just work life, work life and family life, it was a little bit easier with COVID. It’s not like we had vacations planned and stuff like that, so a little bit easier there, but I had to make sacrifices and the one thing I do regret was I took a big health sacrifice, not watching what I was eating. Um, I was in decent shape for. And then again like 20, £30.
Georges El Masri [00:13:08] Yeah. Through COVID so many people are talking about.
Ara Poladian [00:13:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, I got here, but like, is it worth what happened? And then it’s funny actually I did a complete mindset shift, hired a personal trainer and everything like that and already down like almost £25, uh, this year.
Georges El Masri [00:13:28] Yeah.
Ara Poladian [00:13:29] So it was just something I had to do. I was like, This is crazy. I’ve never been this big before. Like, what’s the point of, you know, having these successful projects and then sacrificing, like, my health where you know what I mean? I don’t feel comfortable, you know, I mean, losing my breath, running around with my kids, it’s like, man, this is this is too much. So it was a big mindset shift there too.
Georges El Masri [00:13:47] I feel like that’s sometimes investing in real estate just like any other thing where it forces you to grow you. You hit these certain walls that it makes you realize, okay, I need to make some changes because it’s not sustainable. And yes, it could be gaining weight, but it could also be stress. Like you said, staying up late some nights. That kind of stuff can take a real toll on your body, on your mind. And you need to you need to just take some time and remember, you need to take care of yourself and maybe take a break once in a while. Go get a massage, do whatever you need to do to make sure you’re healthy so you can continue to grow and.
Ara Poladian [00:14:19] Yeah.
Georges El Masri [00:14:19] Forward.
Ara Poladian [00:14:20] Yeah, definitely. Delegating was the biggest thing that I had to force myself to do. Yeah. It’s not that I regret doing what I did on my first two properties, like the amount of knowledge that I gained by doing it. I would highly recommend people to spend time on site, especially for their first project. But after that, you know, I realized like, my time is not my time is not spent the best on the job site, you know, framing a wall. Yeah, right. Where I can get, you know, my supervisor, my, my left hand now to do that stuff for me. And I can, I can handle, you know, working on the business and finding time to go to the gym and, you know, weather’s getting nicer, you know, take a. Take an hour break at lunch, and I I’ll take my kids. Well, my two kids are in school, take them to the park and just stuff like this, just kind of recalibrating. And I mean, it just honestly helps with work, right? So ever since I learned how to delegate, I actually think this year has been so far from the most productive year I’ve had. And I haven’t done any of the like actual, like being on the tools because I’ve had, I’ve had more time to network, I’ve had more time to, you know, think about the business more and moving it forward, you know, hiring the right team members and stuff like that.
Georges El Masri [00:15:30] Yeah. Well, let’s talk a little bit about delegating, because I think that’s really important, especially someone like you who is on, say, doing everything from start to finish. How were you able to delegate? How were you able to find the right people that you can count on that you can trust to take care of things?
Ara Poladian [00:15:44] Yeah. So the first thing I knew how to do, we picked up a pretty large project for a real estate investor in Kitchener. He had a 17 unit building. He needed two vacant. There was two vacant units, so one of them completely got renovated. So I knew like, okay, if I take this on, I can’t do this alone. So that’s when the hiring process came. I was like, I need a site super. I need someone to take care of multiple projects at the same time, you know, go to Home Depot instead of me, stuff like that. So like, because you realize how much time you can waste by one. Home Depot. Yeah, right. It’s like two, two and a half hours are going right there. Yeah, right. So I knew I couldn’t afford that stuff anymore, so I hired my site super. Who’s been a huge blessing like the like I hope this guy stays with me forever because the amount of stuff he can do that takes the stress, not the stress, but just the work. The tedious work from me is huge. Just being my eyes and ears on site, being able to work on multi like he multi, he can do multiple trades at the same time. Um, with regards to like obviously not electrical plumbing each back, but he can drywall, he can frame tile flooring paint. So in case we were too busy, let’s say to do painting, I can bring a painting crew, but if we have the time, my guys can handle everything. So that’s kind of the team that I wanted to build. And then on top of that, I hired a lead hand. So a construction lead hand that can work under my side. Super that in the stuff that he doesn’t know my site super can train him and build him up to kind of run the projects as well. So those two guys were just a huge, huge, huge plus. I couldn’t be doing what I did this year without those guys taking care of the projects.
Georges El Masri [00:17:30] So your site Super is basically kind of like a carpenter, handy person contractor. Yeah, that’s overlooking everything, making sure that things are going well. And then you have your plumbers, electricians that come in and do their job. Yep. And then you said you also have the construction lead hand, which basically is kind of eventually probably going to replace the or help assist the site supervisor.
Ara Poladian [00:17:55] Yeah, exactly. And like so my site supervisor, he’s qualified to basically be his own independent contractor. That’s the kind of guy. But instead of him trying to like find jobs and this and that, the stress of running your own business. Yeah, self-employed. He would have preferred to just, you know, if you and I pay him.
Georges El Masri [00:18:10] Well, yeah. Do you pay him by job or do you pay him hourly?
Ara Poladian [00:18:14] Hourly? Yeah. He’s on payroll. Yeah. Both. Both my guys are on payroll.
Georges El Masri [00:18:17] Okay. Yeah.
Ara Poladian [00:18:17] And they’re both hourly. Yeah. So, yeah, he’s qualified to be an independent contractor, but instead chose to work with me. And yeah, it’s been, it’s been a really good combo because the they can handle and the good thing about having two is again a Home Depot trip. Let’s say the site doesn’t shut down if he goes to go grab material. So it doesn’t shut down at all. Um, you know, with, with my like lead hand there, the site can continue.
Georges El Masri [00:18:40] Right, right. Okay, cool. Now what about dealing with your, your people that you’ve got on your team? I’m sure there are moments where they might be frustrated that might be upset. Things aren’t going the way they thought. There was delays, whatever. How do you deal with that? Like, how are you able to maintain good relationships with the people you’re working with.
Ara Poladian [00:18:59] For trades that we hire? I use the same guys for everything, so I build that. I’m a big loyalty guy. Um, like I use the same electrician, same plumber, same age guy. There, they know, like, they’re not, they know they’re not coding on my jobs. And I have a good sense of how much a job should cost that if they were ever like, you know, trying to really push their kind of take advantage of me, I would know so and I just feel like that works out better because like they know with that relationship if something happens and I knew my electrician like tomorrow, you know, to fix something really quickly for me, not every time, but like they were willing to more pull some strings for me because of, you know, my loyalty and all that stuff. And then with my own guys, honestly, from day one, I just showed trust in them. That was my biggest thing. I should’ve told them like, I have no reason to trust you guys. I’m sorry. I have no reason to not trust you guys. Like, my site’s super. He had a company visa, like, basically his first week, right? Not a huge. It’s not like there’s a huge limit on there, anything like that. But. I just kind of gave him the Hey, look, this is your site. You know, when you need materials, you go get the materials, just keep your seats, right? What you bought on it. And I obviously have the master budget and everything like that. I know what you need. So you’re not just, you know, buying random stuff. And if you need if we needed like tools or something like that or over like 100 bucks, you he calls me and says, Hey, look, should we get this or do you have one? Whatever. So it was just building that trust and then same like finding good tenants. Like me. I interviewed these people myself. I found that that was a good use of my time because these people are a huge investment in my business. So I interviewed them myself and I had multiple interviews with them and I just they needed to pass that, you know, that gut check, you know what I mean? Where you have that good feeling about them. Yeah. And, you know, I’m blessed that, you know, both hires have been good so far. But I knew like in my head I knew, you know, this might not work out. I went out to find these guys and find new people. But until they show me that, you know, they’re not good people or not good employees, then I had no reason to think otherwise. So I think that was the biggest thing, just showing them that trust really, really, you know, had that mutual respect for each other.
Georges El Masri [00:21:07] That’s a good idea. What the company card. I haven’t thought about that. But right now, what the contractors do that I work with, they’ll just buy it themselves and then keep the receipts and then I’ll just pay for it later. Right. But yeah, I like that idea.
Ara Poladian [00:21:20] Yeah. A lot of like a lot of my jobs I do supply and install, um, just to kind of take away the amount of invoicing to my clients and that kind of stuff. Um, I just include that in my, in my budgets and then, so I can just handle the receipts internally and then, you know, he knows he just has his monthly draws or however the payment schedule is and you don’t have to worry about any of that.
Georges El Masri [00:21:41] So what’s the game plan for you? What are you aiming what are you trying to accomplish? Do you have a certain number in mind, number of properties? Do you have a cash flow number or something like that?
Ara Poladian [00:21:50] Yeah, cash flow is a big thing for me. Um, my wife’s a stay at home mom. So the biggest thing with everything I was to generate multiple income streams to support her as well. Um, because, you know, she, she is like, she wasn’t for, like, yeah, she can go to work and their kids can, we can put them in babysitters or whatever daycares. But you know, they’re only this age once. And she was really passionate about being there for the kids at this age, you know. So I said, Yeah, I’m going to step up and provide for the family. So cashflow was big. I don’t really care about a number of properties. I just I do want to scale though. We acquired a six plex. That’s our biggest project so far. I did cash for keys for one unit, so that really got my foot in the door in multifamily. So that’s probably where we’re going moving forward with the buy and holds. Um, just Maltese, um, we’re working on a duplex conversion right now and then we’re going to start dabbling with garden suites because they actually got passed yesterday in Cambridge. So, you know, JV partners, you know, approached me and they want, they want to do duplex and version, stuff like that. We’re more than happy or just if investors have duplex conversion projects that they want us to take or take care of more than happy. But yeah, I’m really, really focusing on, on the Maltese for the buy and hold and the odd duplex conversion if they come up, you know. Sure. But yeah, the Maltese have been a huge passion of our as well. And then actively we have basically two streams. One is working for investors doing the projects and the other one are really ramping up this year is finding our own flips to do because that that love for flips in uh, in 2021 hasn’t gone away. Yeah. And uh, actually my wife is our designer. She’s our, she went to school for interior decorating. So all the finishes you see in any of my projects is it’s from her unless the clients have their own designer. But so with that kind of tag team combo, I mean this the flips, we can really, really take that to the next level. So that’s what we’re really looking to do this year. Um, start flipping, keep helping investors and keep growing our portfolio.
Georges El Masri [00:24:01] Cool. So you have basically your own portfolio and you also kind of have a construction company where you work for others as well. Are you working only in the Cambridge kitchen or area or are you in other areas as well?
Ara Poladian [00:24:12] No, we work anywhere within 45 minutes of Cambridge and then, you know, you’re getting into like four or seven costs and mileage and all that stuff for my guys. So within 45 minutes is pretty good, which actually covers a lot from Cambridge because, you know, we can go to Hamilton Branford, Woodstock, Stratford, obviously, Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo, Wealth, Milton, like, you know what I mean? Like it’s a pretty wide radius, but yeah, that’s kind of our sweet spot within 45 minutes.
Georges El Masri [00:24:41] So, okay, so moving forward, you’re going to be focusing more on larger projects, larger multi as you said, you got into your first six plex recommendations. Are you are you looking for bigger than that? So what’s the goal.
Ara Poladian [00:24:52] Yeah, yeah, of course. It’d be nice to just keep scaling up. Start with the duplexes. And then now six flexes. So, you know, God willing, that can become, you know, 12, 18, whatever the case may be. So I’m just in the process of networking, you know, joining real estate groups and just networking with other people. And it’s just been a fun journey. Yeah, it’s been a really fun journey.
Georges El Masri [00:25:13] Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Tell me a bit about Marc Loffler because I know I’ve had him on the show a couple of times. What I’ve had also, you know, when I was starting, I did the same thing as you. I reached out to people and wanted to learn and a lot of people turned me down. But I remember one person was nice enough to sit down with me and talk me through it. What did it mean to you to have somebody to ask questions and figure things out and kind of lead you on to the path you’re on?
Ara Poladian [00:25:39] Yeah, yeah. Big, big show to mark, by the way. Honestly, I words can’t describe my gratefulness to the advice he gave me because not only did he just tell me to do duplex conversions, he actually had me on his YouTube channel early, early on when he just started, and it was kind of like a Q&A session, you know, just picking his brain and he was giving me advice. And then funny enough, a year later, I went back on his YouTube channel to kind of just shown what’s happened with simple advice, you know, from a mentor type person in only a year. So yeah, the I don’t know where it’d be honestly, if it wasn’t for that, you know, April, May of 2020 after that advice, just kind of diving right in.
Georges El Masri [00:26:24] I was just thinking about that earlier too. I forgot to mention this, but the fact that you switched to a new job and got fired, you said two days later basically or.
Ara Poladian [00:26:33] No, I started in March. I still remember the dates. I started March 16 and by April six or before Easter, I got laid off. Yeah.
Georges El Masri [00:26:41] Yeah. For that to happen at that time, you were probably thinking like, How unlucky could I be? How? Yeah, why is this happening? This isn’t fair or whatever. But then look at what path they brought you on. So it’s pretty cool how things work out when you look back, right?
Ara Poladian [00:26:54] No, 100% because even I was like I was talking to my father about should I take this job? Because it was a big pay raise too. Like that was one of the ways they’re doing me over. They’re telling me, you’re going to be a project manager very shortly. And I was even I was telling my father in law, you know, should I take this job, this and that? And I don’t know what it was. And, you know, at the end of it was like, okay, fine, I’ll take it. And then, boom, COVID hit. So honestly, it was so weird because like being fired, like know all the stuff with COVID, just kind of what happened at that time was as weird as to say it was like the best thing to kind of happen to me, right? So and at the end of day two, I’m just, I, I’m very grateful for kind of all the steps I take. I come from a Christian family as well. So, you know, I truly believe that God has a path for everybody. And even when you think it’s not a good path and, you know, bad things are happening like you’re getting fired at the end of the day, if you just kind of have that trust that, you know, if I keep working, my true path is going to be revealed. And, you know, it’s only for the better than, you know, your goal.
Georges El Masri [00:27:54] Yeah, for sure. I had something similar happen to me. I was working for a tech company this was years ago, and I was working with them throughout university. And then when I graduated, I took on a full time job with them. I probably shared the story before, so people maybe bought it. But yeah, I got fired from my job too, and then I was just lost. I didn’t know what I wanted and it led to me becoming a real estate agent. And my whole intention was to become an investor. And it’s just amazing when you look back and like, if I didn’t get fired, I don’t know where I’d be right now. I might still be working that job that I didn’t like 100%.
Ara Poladian [00:28:26] And like my wife will tell anybody, I literally didn’t like a single day of any of my jobs since I graduated, because in my back of my mind, I knew like my dad used to tell me as a kid, he’s like, Hey, you want to, you know, be your own boss one day because he’s an entrepreneur as well. So he would give me that advice as a kid. And just as a kid, I would do like simple things, like buy things off Kijiji, like iPads and stuff like that, and then flip them on Kijiji. Just little entrepreneurial things. I had like 13 years old, so in my mind I was like, Man, this isn’t for me. Like, I want to start my own business. My dad is big role model and he would tell me like, you know, calm down, like you’re in your twenties. Like you can find a business eventually. Just keep working, keep working. And to finally get that, it’s just it’s been it’s been amazing.
Georges El Masri [00:29:08] Yeah. So things always end up working out just the way they should. So for any of the investors that are listing right now, what advice do you have for somebody who is maybe just looking to get started or maybe they have one or two and they want to scale and maybe they’re working, they kind of are in a similar situation.
Ara Poladian [00:29:24] Yeah. I mean, the most common, you know, advice everyone says is take action. But at the end of the day, don’t be afraid to reach out to people. Right? Even if it’s, you know, paying for their time for a coaching session or just reaching out to them on Instagram, just saying like, you know, if you see somebody on a podcast or something, just tell them thanks. You know, their podcast was amazing. They learned so much. And don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. And, you know, the worst that’s going to happen. Someone’s gonna say, like, I don’t have time for you, right? But the best thing that’s going to happen is someone’s going to give you advice like Mark did for me, that was going to be a life changer. So. That’s my biggest thing is yeah.
Georges El Masri [00:29:59] I was just going to say, I feel like there’s so many similarities in our stories because the person that was my mark was the person at this office, Sandy, who like told me about the birth strategy and I had no idea what it was. And well, when he did tell me, I think within a few months I bought my first property and I did the birth strategy on it. So yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s why it’s always good. Like if anyone ever reaches out to me, I try to be a resource. I try to help out because I know people have helped me. So I think you’re able to do the same and big time. You always pay it forward and good things happen.
Ara Poladian [00:30:31] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. If anybody like people reach out sometimes, I’m always willing to give them my time.
Georges El Masri [00:30:37] Yeah. Okay. Um, I think we touched on a lot of things. Is there anything you feel like we. We missed out on. Anything that we didn’t talk about?
Ara Poladian [00:30:46] No, no, we. We basically covered everything. Um, if. If, you know, people are interested, want to reach out, want to partner on deals, need reliable contractors, you know, always feel free to reach out. We’re. We’re always there to pick up the phone.
Georges El Masri [00:31:00] Cool. Do you have a website or somewhere that.
Ara Poladian [00:31:02] Yeah.
Georges El Masri [00:31:03] For people to contact.
Ara Poladian [00:31:04] Websites actually being built right now. I have a web designer on it right now. So everything has been on Instagram. We try to showcase everything on Instagram. All my past projects, current projects, it’s all there. So you can do me on Instagram and, you know, give what’s.
Georges El Masri [00:31:19] Your what’s your thing, whatever it’s called the handle.
Ara Poladian [00:31:22] Yeah, it’s my company, Palladian Construction. Yeah. And then if anybody wants to email me, it’s just Palladian construction at gmail.com. Perfect. And. Yeah.
Georges El Masri [00:31:31] Sounds good. Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it. And I’m sure we’ll be in touch again.
Ara Poladian [00:31:36] Yeah. Thank you so much.
Georges El Masri [00:31:38] Thanks for listening to this episode. Your support is truly appreciated and if you can share this with a friend or family member, that might benefit from the information. Remember, our goal is to motivate and inspire others to take action and to build wealth and to become well-off. Enjoy the rest of your day.