Sometimes you get lucky and amazing people just walk into your life. That’s how we felt when we met Anthony DeGazon and his wife, Rachel. Anthony walked away from corporate Canada to work together with Rachel to build and grow their amazing music studios, go.DeGazonMusic.ca and www.TheLessonGurus.com. On this episode of The Your Life! Your Terms! Show, Anthony takes us behind the scenes and shares how he made some of the biggest decisions of his life and how he thinks about business, family, and life in 2019. Some great insights from a great guy who is living life on his own terms!
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Transcript
Hey everyone, it’s Tom Karadza. And you know who this podcast is brought to you by? It is brought to you by Rock Star Inner Circle and do you know what Rock Star Inner Circle is? Rock Star Inner Circle is the membership that we run, and selfishly I’m going to tell you about it right now. So listen, I quit my job. Nick quit his job out of pure frustration in corporate Canada. And the reason that we quit our jobs is we thought, hey look, why don’t we just try to buy more assets for ourselves? But at the time, trying to buy more assets for ourselves without making more money was difficult because we all run into money. So we thought, hey, we have this real estate license. Why don’t we try to help other people buy real estate properties and we can use this real estate license that we now have that we got on the side because we didn’t really even want to get our real estate license, but we got it anyway?
And we can use this real estate license to go help other people buy properties. We can guide them. We can hold their hands through the process. And when they buy a property, we want you to shake their hand and wave goodbye. When they buy the property, we will stick by their side through their whole journey. And that’s what we decided to do. So we quit our jobs. We started this thing called the Rock Star inner circle. It’s a membership that we run and in that membership, um, all the Rock Star Inner Circle members and there are hundreds of them now, um, that uh, they get a monthly newsletter and audio CD from us and they get coaching from us. And what that means is, before it was Nick and myself, but now there’s a big team of us here at Rock Star. And the way it works is when a new Rock Star Inner Circle member joins, we coach you right through the entire process.
Whether you’re going to invest in condos, student rentals, you’re going to do second suites. If you want to flip our property, we’ll give you the pros and cons on flipping, by the way. If you want to know about rent to own strategies, um, what else is there? Pretty much any type of real estate investing you can think of. We will walk through the entire process. Everybody here at Rock Star does that and we won’t leave you when you buy the property. We will stick by your side until you’re successful with the property and we will suffer through the highs and the lows with you. And part of the reason for that is one of the very first income properties that nick and I purchased, the real estate guy shook our hands and said, hey, good luck with it. Real estate never goes down.
And he walked away and we thought there’s gotta be more to this than just that. So we will help people find tenants and teach them how to find different tenants, whether it’s student rental tenants or regular tenants and properties, manage that whole process together with the investors. So that’s kinda how we work. Rock Star Inner Circle was born out of that and Rock Star real estate as a brokerage was born out of that. So if you want to learn more about the membership and find out all the classes that we have here, all the audios that we have here, how the coaching works here, you can go to Rockstarinner circle.com/member and find out everything that we’re doing here. This was essentially born out of frustration because we couldn’t find anyone who was going to help our hand, uh, help our hand, help our hand, hold our hand through the process as we were investing in properties.
So it was really born out of our frustration working in the corporate world and decided to quit our job and then to use our real estate licenses in a, in a real positive way to try to help other people. And then of course when we do that, we are in a commission here at the brokerage and that kind of is how the wheel turns and that’s kind of how it works. So it’s kind of a beautiful way. This all worked. You can learn more about Rock Star Inner Circle, at RockStarinnercircle.com/member and see all the details there. And the reason I’m bringing that up is that we are on today’s podcast. I can’t speak right now. We’re on today’s podcast. We are bringing on Anthony DeGazon. Anthony has been a Rock Star Inner Circle member for many years now. Great Guy, amazing family.
Wait till you hear about what we talk about here. We kind of cover the map of him in his corporate job, leaving his corporate job, going to work together with his wife Rachael in her business and how they’ve kind of worked together, his family, what he teaches his kids, how, what are his kids are up to. So we kind of walked through his personal journey of living life on his terms and his real estate investing journey. He’s just an all-round fantastic guy. We are blessed to get to work with such amazing people as part of Rock Star Inner Circle. And he is, him and his family are an amazing, perfect example of that. They run a couple of music studios, um, and online music training and it’s called DeGazon Music, that’s the name of their business. You can check out more about DeGazon Music and he mentioned it in the podcast, but if you’re eager, if you’re an eager beaver and you want to go there right now, you can go to godegazonmusic.ca.
DeGazon frustration and corporate Canada. And the reason that we quit our jobs as we thought, hey look, why don’t we just try to buy more assets for ourselves? But at the time trying to buy more assets for ourselves without making more money was difficult because we all run into money. So we thought, hey, we have this real estate license. Why don’t we try to help other people buy real estate properties and we can use this real estate license that we now have that we got on the side because we didn’t really even want to get our real estate license, but we got it anyway. And we can use this real estate license to go help other people buy properties.
We can guide them. We can hold them in their hands through the process. And when they buy a property, we won’t just shake their hand and wave goodbye. When they buy the property, we will stick by their side through their whole journey. And that’s what we decided to do. So we quit our jobs. We started this thing called the Rock Star Inner Circle. It’s a membership that we run. And in that membership, all the Rock Star Inner Circle members and there’s hundreds of them now, um, that uh, they get a monthly newsletter, and audio CD from us and they get coaching from us. And what that means is, before it was Nick and myself, but now there’s a big team of us here at Rock Star. And the way it works is when a new Rock Star inner circle member joins, we coach you right through the entire process.
Whether you’re going to invest in condos, student rentals, you’re going to do second Swedes. If you want to flip our property, we’ll give you the pros and cons on flipping. By the way, if you want to know about rent to own strategies, um, what else is there? Pretty much any type of real estate investing you can think of. We will walk through the entire process. Everybody here at Rock Star does that and we won’t leave you when you buy the property. We will stick by your side until you’re successful with the property and we’ll, we’ll, we will suffer through the highs and the lows with you. And part of the reason for that is one of the very first income properties that nick and I purchased, the real estate guy shook our hands and said, hey, good luck with it. Real estate never goes down. And he walked away and we thought there’s gotta be more to this than just that.
So we will help people find tenants and teach them how to find different tenants, whether it’s student rental tenants or regular tenants and properties, manage that whole process together with the investors. So that’s kind of how we work. Rock Star in our circle was born out of that and rock star real estate as a brokerage was born out of that. So if you want to learn more about the membership and find out all the classes that we have here, all the audios that we have here, how the coaching works here, you can go to rock star, inner circle.com forward slash member and find out everything that we’re doing here. This was essentially born out of frustration because we couldn’t find anyone who was going to help our hand, uh, help our hand, help our hand, hold our hand through the process as we were investing in properties.
So it was really born out of our frustration working in the corporate world and decided to quit our job and then to use our real estate licenses in a, in a real positive way to try to help other people. And then of course when we do that, we are in a commission here at the brokerage and that kind of is how the wheel turns and that’s kind of how it works. So it’s kind of a beautiful way. This all works. You can learn more about Rock Star inner circle at rock star, inner circle.com forward slash member and see all the details there that, and the reason I’m bringing that up is that we are on today’s podcast. I can’t speak right now. We’re on today’s podcast. We are bringing on Anthony to DeGazon. Anthony has been a Rock Star inner circle member for many years now. Great Guy, amazing family.
Wait to hear about what we talked about here. We kind of cover them the, the, the map of him in his corporate job, leaving his corporate job, going to work together with his wife, Rachael in her business and how they’ve kind of worked together, his family, what he teaches his kids, how, what are his kids are up to. So we kind of walked through his personal journey of living life on his terms and his real estate investing journey. He’s just an all-round fantastic guy. We are blessed to get to work with such amazing people as part of Rock Start inner circle and he is, him and his family are an amazing, perfect example of that. They run a couple of music studios, um, and online music training and it’s called the DeGazon music is, that’s the name of their business. You can check out more about the guys on music and he mentioned it in the podcast, but if you’re eager, if you’re an eager beaver and you want to go there right now, you can go to go.
So it’s g o so there’s no www. It’s go g O. Dot. DeGazon music, d e g d g a zed [inaudible] music.ca to DeGazon music.ca. And if you’re listening to this will put a link in the show notes for this episode at rockstarinnercircle.com/podcast. You’ll find all the episodes there. You can click on this one and there’ll be a link to go.DeGazonmusic.ca. Um, he shares another URL and the episode two, he shares a whole bunch of stuff. Great Chat. Had a good time. We’re going to definitely bring Anthony back again with that. Let’s get on with the show.
Are you ready to live life on your terms? Is it time to take charge business, building the economy, health and nutrition. And it’s the your life, your term show with Tom and Nick Karadza are you ready? Let’s go.
We are live with Anthony DeGazon. Anthony just taught me something. The mix we use here are directional mics. I had no idea. We are using directional mics. I was trying to show him how to speak into the mic and it’s like, yeah, you have directional likes. Yeah. That’s what I call them. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and yeah, so speak closer in. I want people to hear your how’s that? That’s good. Okay. And um, you, uh, you would know that because you own and operate multiple locations of a music school. Yeah. Um, so it makes sense GTA. Yeah. Yeah. In the GTA. So that it would make sense that you know that these are directional mics, but you do, you play instruments are, so I’ve never asked you this. Yup. Yeah, I uh, I started off on the, on the clarinet or k maybe even before that.
You play the clarinet. I, yeah, I did, but I didn’t want the clarinet. I wanted the trumpet. But you know, when they give you at the beginning in grade seven, they kind of say, okay, here’s is a Trump, here’s a clarinet. And I got the Tuba and I got, where did you go to school? I got the recorder. Yeah, I went to Donald’s junior high. Okay. And that’s better than you on mills. It was a great music program. Oh my goodness. Bob Gray. Oh really? Oh he’s awesome. Yeah, I think I got ruined out of music because I got the recorder and I was like, I don’t know. This thing sounds kind of horrible. And you got the little cleaner thing that you put up and down the record and it’s just nasty. I know. But my, my wife went to [inaudible] park in Mississauga. She played like the saxophone it.
Yeah. So I had to, so I, I, it was a lesser, the lesser of the evils I guess. So I picked the clarinet and then with the s the clarinet and it ended up being that, you know, hey, the coolest option and easiest path was the next two to take out and learn the saxophone all. That’s what I see. What I stuck you stuck with the saxophone, tenor saxophone. This is this. You are cooler than I even knew anyone who could play the saxophone is cool then I know it’s a, it’s a stick rate is a greatest. Do you still play? I do. I pull it out. Really. I focused on so many, so many other kinds of things now so that the saxophone, you know, I feel like you’re operating in a bit. You got your up to a lot of stuff for some reason I don’t see you like off in a corner.
Just jamming out some riffs on the saxophone. Yeah, it was pretty impactful in my life. The saxophone. So is music. It’s been great. Yeah. That’s interesting. I’m so non-musical. Might, my son, uh, my whole family makes fun of me because everyone remembers lyrics to all different songs and stuff. And I can, I know I barely can even hear the lyrics. I just hear like a little bit of the lyrics and I kind of hum along and stuff. They just all make fun of me. All the guitar and yeah. I don’t even know what I’m hearing. And then k and then, uh, when they can, they can sing along and they remember the band’s name and all this stuff. I’m just, you like, I know the tragically hip and that’s pretty much it. I to the extent of my music knowledge and ACD sock. Oh yeah. Fender struck that. Yeah. Okay. No Sir. So some older rock, I’ll even be a couple of those things. Yeah. Yeah. Rocky soundtracks right up there, man. And uh, the, uh, um, but now I’m with my son in the car. I’m just listening to hip hop all the time and all the songs sound the same to me. So I feel like an old guy, I’m like, I don’t know. This artist is from Toronto. I’m like a, I dunno, it kinda sounds like all the other artists you’ve been playing me in the hip hop of, I can’t tell. He said, no, this is totally different. I can’t believe you don’t understand it. Anyway. Um, so, uh, I just went to start because you have a cool story. You know, we have this whole thing about living life on your terms and sometimes I think people think we’re just kinda sitting back and like sipping Pina coladas and stuff like that.
And to me, living life on your terms isn’t really that. It’s, it’s more just that you feel like you’re doing your thing right. Whatever that your thing is and you’re able to do it. And you guys together with Rachael, your wife, who I rudely forgot her name, so she ever listened to this. She’s, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no. We gotta leave it in. That was me. I should have remembered it. Um, but, uh, you guys are kind of doing something really cool with your music schools and we had that opportunity once to come up and visit you and shoot a little video. But what you’re doing there. So I just, I’m curious, how did you get to this point? And we were talking briefly, but how did you go to the point, because you were in the corporate world because you can you can you just walk me through this journey to running your own business and then we’ll talk about real estate investing stuff as well.
Sure. So, uh, I went to Waterloo and when I graduated into first place I worked with at IBM and within, it was like within a couple of months, the company that never laid off anybody in their whole career, they never did. They had, they had laid people off. What, you was ahead. This is like, I graduated in [inaudible] nine. It’s crazy in 1990. Okay, got it. Oh, so deep procession. Yeah, it just never happened. Right. And then Microsoft was nipping on the heels above blah, blah, blah. Anyways, so that was kind of a formative thing and said, oh, so companies that can do that, that’s what could happen. So I worked there, I worked at CIVC after that. What were you doing at CABC? Uh, I was a consultant for a software user interface design. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And I studied in university and what I did at IBM.
And so I did that. I was there for a few years, ended up being a director of Internet banking ecommerce span. Cool. For a small business while that was a really, yeah, it was awesome. Yeah. You’re 2000. Yeah, yeah, I remember that panic. Crazy. Yeah. Anyway, so we did that and then, um, they look to restructure the organization that I was in and I had a, uh, you know, someone, you know, someone who’s looking over the four-year career and uh, she, uh, she was their SVP and she said, don’t leave. And the CEO of the Division that I was working in said don’t leave the bank. And I thought, if I don’t leave now, when I need to leave, I’ll be too afraid. That was just this, this message voice of just was in my head. Wow. And then, so how old were you then? So you’re, you’re after the year, 2000, 2002.
So you were at CVC, CVC for like 10 years, maybe five years at IBM and another five years at CNBC. Okay. And that was it. My second child was just, my third child was just being born in the, in the spring of 2000. You had just like voice talking to you that you god’s, you know? Yeah. That’s for me, that’s how that would be similar kind of thing in my head. So if I don’t leave now, then I went like, that was exactly the words fight. If you don’t leave now when you need to, you’ll be too afraid. Wow. So we, you know, I talked to my wife about it and we decided to do that. So I got the package, I got the laptop, they finished paying my for my MBA that they started paying for, which is great. And um, then I went to a new company in Mississauga, so we, um, it’s called Sim core.
So I worked there for a little, for a while. It was great director of product marketing and I learned so much about how do you spreadsheets and business models and all that kind of stuff. It was awesome. And then it started to not be so awesome and then, you know, it’s like, man, I can’t stand working here anymore. I’m going crazy. I heed. And then the restructured that division and it was like great one when August, Friday afternoon, late August, I said, okay, this is your last day. And it was like one of the happiest days. And I left. I packed up my, yeah, it was it. And they said, why are you so happy? I said, you know what it’s done. And so that was it. How long were you not happy for, do you think? It was over a year. Wow. That’s tough to go through.
Yeah. Right. But we had moved to our dream house. We had just renovated it and my kids are there. We have a, where did you move to? What part of the city? Uh, South Mississauga. Like awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Like close to the lake. It’s just a beautiful spot. It’s amazing. Cool. So you know, everything’s perfect. I’m working up the street, I’m living down here and my kids are in everything and, and then it’s like, I can’t be doing this anymore. And it was as an horror, killing it hurts. Kills you. Kills your soul. Yeah. And I’m not that I was ungrateful for what the totally opportunity, but it’s just like this is not working. So, uh, we had to make a change. We made the change. And is that, it’s that point. One of my first mentors was his neighbor, a Basel Gerard.
He said, you know what? I see stuff in Rachael and her personality and her giftings and I see stuff in you and your personality and your giftings that they perfectly complement each other. And it, if you started working together in your business and uh, if you didn’t try to like just, if you’re not just racing after money, but if you’re racing after the life freedom that this can give, it can be a real blessing to your family. Wow. He said, so don’t chase money. If you do a good job, that’ll come. I had Yoda elicit living next door this year. I know pretty closely we’re neighbors. And um, that’s really what he said. So I remembered I remembered those words and saying, don’t chase money, but you know, Deuce, do it, do a good job. And, uh, what will happen is that you will be able to have the life freedom that you want.
You’ll be working hard because you don’t, you know, your w you work right, living your life on your terms. It doesn’t mean you’re not working at all. No. Now you can design your systems and processes so that you can make it way better. And so we’re at a different place now than back at the beginning. But really it ended up being that, so that we, you know, we started building the business back in 2005 and we’ve read still doing that now. And um, we were able to watch our kids at every practice and volunteering Keshon ride and see every morning performance. And you know, it was crazy, Rachael already. So just so I’m clear, when you left then she was already running the music school one location, one location, how many locations do you guys have now? We have, we have two physical locations and we teach in home in, so the first physical location it was in Kleinberg, which is in Vaughan, um, north of the city.
Uh, so we teach, we have a studio there and then we teach in home and in the Kleinberg the area. Okay. Yeah, yeah. That geographic area. Yeah. And then we opened up a second one, um, in south Mississauga, so in Lauren Park and that services a South Mississauga, kind of like around the four, three in, down 14, seven a little bit into tobacco. And then just on the, just on the west side of the four oh three and self hopeful. So that’s kind of where we’re serving. Good spot. Um, yeah, so there’s a studio location there and that we teach in home in the port credit area. Got It. Yeah. Okay. So she had been, she started the music school. So she’s, she was a teacher in Ed Kleinberg public school back in 2009, sorry, 1995. Wow. So she was a teacher and on the side started the music school.
Rachael and I, when we were dating, um, pull the mic a little closer. When we were dating, we would talk a lot, loved, loved to talk and we had dreams and we drank and we talked about what would be black. I left to be like, what did we want it to be like? And um, one of the things that we wanted was that, uh, she wanted to be able to spend time and be at home with our kids. And I thought that was great. And um, that’s how she grew up with her mom and her family. And, um, so that was, that was the plan. So as she was teaching for a couple of years in York region board of Education, um, and we started having our kids one and taking a leave and two and then take these kids. Do you have got three, three now? So, um, it was really neat that, um, families, because she’s such a great dynamic.
Beautiful. I could be talking about this before. She’s beautiful. She’s smart. I don’t know her too well, but a big personality and she’s an amazing, amazing music educator and a business person. So people just, just by her being a teacher and doing her teaching function in the school system, kind of, it kind of, they got that and they said, you know what, please teach our children. Like after she wasn’t teaching music, she was a core grade four teacher. Okay. And then she taught, she started and Oh yes. And, and grade seven and eight music. Okay. That’s what she picked. Got It. Got It. Okay. She has like a music major and a music major in bio, bio major in school. That’s what you came music. I know what the heck man. Yeah, so she’s, yeah, she’s, she’s amazing. So, so families just asked her to please teach and she started teaching some kids privately after school in 1995 and then, and then it just transitioned to I UK.
We’re not going to, she’s not going to go back to school anymore. She decided she didn’t want to do that and then just continued to teach a few more kids, a few more kids, and then we got a space in there and that’s just eventually blossomed to that. We started doing it together in 2005 and that wasn’t always called it the DeGazon music from day one. yeah, DeGazon music studios. Okay. Yeah. Very cool. I love the side hustle aspect of this. It really, that’s exactly what it was. A side hustle and I helped what I could, can do stuff. And then, um, you have a great location in Kleinberg there. Are you guys still there, right? That was, was that the first location? Yeah, it was first thing Kleinberg United Church. Oh, got it. Okay. And then, and then like within a year after we put a proposal together to say, Hey, we want, we’d like to buy this from you.
They sold it to the city. No, I mean, see, I’m just like, Oh, you’re kidding me. So anyway, that’s what we did. So anyway, we built out a commercial space, um, just across the street and you know, it’s a great spot. It is a great spot. Yeah. Yeah. So she ran it out of there. Okay. So then when you decided when, when Yoda, your next door neighbor, neighbor gives you this advice, that’s like a light bulb moment of like maybe we’ll start working together. You’re almost a bit nervous, right? Cause it’s okay when you have, you know, you’re making, uh, it was, it was a nice income. It’s like more than a little side hustle, a nice income that Rachael and Business Rachael, it built, um, great. A great model and you know, just very profitable and all that kind of stuff. Um, but then I had a really, a really nice salary or salary that was now out of the corporate world there and saying, okay, I’m not going to go back to this or can I go back to, should I go back to it?
Sure. But you know, all you want the comfort and the safety of an employee situation and then you realize, wait a sec, but it’s, it’s almost a little bit, it can be a little bit of an illusion thinking that it’s that secure. Right. So, you know, I, it was great. Having a mentor is Great. Having this other voice that knew us, that wanted the best for us and said you and he’s an entrepreneur himself, a serial entrepreneur, CFO with a bunch of different, um, not for profit agencies. A, you know, a bunch of the names that are just very big. So he knows how that worked and you knew what it was like for his family and a great, yeah, this is, I’m glad, I’m glad he was there to support us in the early days. It’s just helpful. Right. Uh, cool. So, so then you left, so then when you left that, that final job then yeah, you went full time to working together.
Was to get, did, did the second location in Mississauga already exist at that point? You know what it did in its very formative stages. It wasn’t, it was very, so she’s very entrepreneurial herself and she’s off. They’re opening that second location that takes guts. It does. We had a certain model, a way to be able to scale it, um, like scale the expenses in a way so that the profitability and the margins were maintained so that, you know, we had a certain way of doing that. So we’ve been able to maintain that approach. Sounds like very smart way. Good for you. And you can, I went used the opposite way. I think when we started in business we just negative. I know that’s you. Yeah, it is more me than nick for sure. Nick went to spend the money, it’ll work out. It’ll go feel the dreams man. Build it, build it. They’ll come. Yeah.
So okay, cool. Good for you guys. So then you start working together and then does that go smoothly at the beginning? Like do you, are you trying to figure out your place in life at this point? Like in the corporate world and then coming into that is can be difficult. It’s tough. I don’t know. Before, you know, they say, Oh guys are like this and I know of when it gets to some extent, you know the, the business card and the name on the card and the court defines your identity or title and all that kind of, so yeah. And I, you know, I remember when I’m walking my kids to school as I’m working kind of full time walking my kids to school and then a neighbor would go say, hey, so like, what do you, what are you doing now? Right? I was like, yeah, I’m doing this. And so like it’s like, it’s almost embarrassing because they think this is a big fail. Totally. Yeah. And it’s sad for you. Yeah. Now you’re mister, I don’t want to, you’re taking care of the kids at home now. Your only thing. And it was like this was the on top of working in the business and building something for our family and it actually ending up well and, and directional even at that time it was moving in the right direction. So we thought there was awesome, awesome. But it was great. As I got to bring my kids to school with my wife when lunchtimes and walking my dog, it’s just like, this is a great, it was great. Yeah, I love the corporate world. Don’t like, it was awesome. I love the experiences but this was awesome. Or if you can say awesome eh, you know, you totally can. I remember, um, when I left and some people looking at me saying what you’re going to go do? Like what? Yeah. And you got your real estate license. Like that just makes people, a lot of people throw up in their mouth right away when they hear like you get your real estate license, you know, and then you’re going to go, now you’re leaving the corporate software kind of world, which was good money. Like there’s good money in that world. Right? And then now you’re going to go do this. And I think people are, I’ll never forget, one person told me, cause I was kind of doing both things for a little bit of time and one person said we had a good, I remember it was a march and it was, we had just started the business and it was march and nick and I were like, wow, that was a good month.
And on my last day, uh, the software job I was in, I said I’m quitting this March was, you know, kind of proved the model of the business to me. And he looked up and said, well you know, do you think that can be sustained? And I remember thinking, I’m not even, I have no doubt in my mind. Like I was so sold that I was going down this path. Like he was obviously concerned, but I was so like of course like I don’t understand why. Like why, why would you even ask such a silly question? Like, you know, and then in June it all came crumbling down where we didn’t help any investors buy any properties. Cause Nick and I had rented a lot of people talk to us about our businesses and they’re like, I don’t understand guys, you guys are obviously rich. Why don’t you just keep buying all the properties?
And we’re like, well first of all, we’re not rich and we’re just starting, you know, we have some properties and it’s doing well, but we have mortgages to pay for instance, and we have families and stuff and we can’t keep buying properties. We’re actually out of money. Yeah. You know, this whole business model is a mechanism for us to make more money to hopefully pay for the business, pay our mortgage on a family home with two young kids and hopefully save up some more money to buy more properties for ourselves. Right. So when you have people kind of look at you and that way that those neighbors do. And then some of my, some of my own conduct colleagues and stuff look at me and kind of like pat you on the head a little bit like, well good luck with that and kind of send you off.
You’re just like, Ugh, I hope, I hope this kind of, you know, hope this kind of work. You do want it to work. You do. And, and, but when you, when you start, you know, there’s a little bit of magic, I don’t know if it’s not mysticism or anything, but there is something I, and I, I really, I remember sitting in my office, my Home Office, and it hit me and I said, there is magic when you create some kind of value for your client to some of the value that they’re looking for, you create the value. And they say, Yup, and they give you some money because they want the value you create. And it’s like, it just got, it’s a, that’s magic. It’s, I don’t know that it’s a simple thing, but it makes the world turn. Yes it does. And it’s beautiful that you can be a part of that.
You know, that weekend. And I think you’re hitting on a big point here, a lot of people in business in general, and you’re obviously not this, this way in Rachael’s obviously not this way. And I would, when I was younger, I was this way, you focus on the money, you’re like, well, I’m just going to go and try and make some money, you know? And then that way you’re not really focusing on the value in what you bring to the table and how you help people. And it, for a long time I kind of couldn’t understand the books. I was reading quotes by Zig Ziglar and stuff saying, you know, give people what they, uh, what they need, right? And, and I, I just, I never understood like help people what they want to get. And you will have everything that you have, everything that you want yourself.
Right? And I never could quite grasp it. I’m like, well, how do I give people what they want? And now it’s just very clear to me, you know, focus out who your customer is, right? Think about what’s going on in the mind of your customer and then provide the value solution to that problem that they’re thinking about. Right? They will exchange that solution for money and the world works, I think. And, I mean, you’ve honestly, you’d been, I’ve got a list of some of my mentors that have been here that have been there here over the time, right? I started with Basel, but, um, Sam Bedford for a music school business and um, get in a car to, you know, for cool marketing and consulting like are getting your message out in the media and stuff like that. But you guys have been so helpful to me. Tom, Nick and, and Paul. That’s been awesome. So, um, one of the things that you helped me think about is really about how do you articulate your value to your client, your client? Like who, why, what, what do you do? Right. So our business is centered around we’re a music, we’re a music education company, that’s just what we are. Okay. We know exactly who they were looking for. We’re looking for families who have, um, um, a very clear outcome that they’re looking for. And what they’re looking for is to enhance their child’s development. Okay. So for different families, they ask different questions when they say that, you know, how do we do this? How do we do that? But they’re asking questions like, how do I increase their confidence? How do I reduce the face time on the computer electronics on the screen? How do I get them to be successful off the field? You know, how do I, um, how do I get them to be more resilient? You know, these are the things that families like yours as a great question. No, but these are great questions, right? Yeah. So you know, people who are in really intentional about wanting to be the best parent and have dreams for their kids, they asked these kinds of questions and you’re looking for the vehicles that help them to get those kinds of outcomes.
A couple of, you know, if you, it wasn’t a couple years ago, but a few years ago and I sat and it just, it Kinda, it kinda started to come up and crystallize that. You know, we are at, we are a great music education company. We are our, our students, they, they become wonderful musicians. Some go off to universities and go off to these art schools. But for us, um, we see ourselves as more than, uh, more than being about music, music and music lessons in that. I know that sounds a little counterintuitive, but really we’re here to help families, help families achieve that goal of being able to enhance the Ehrenreich. They’re kind of development. So how do you, how does that happen? So, you know, opportunities for, um, opportunities to stand out. You know, I remember when I was playing, you know, you get the solo, my kids when they were playing because they took music lessons, they get to do the thing, you know, on at the, um, you know, the presentations at schools, right.
We see our students doing and that sort of thing. It’s great. This one, now this one comes out of left field and I hope you know it’s true, but I’ll tell you the story. Um, music, learning music and learning to play the saxophone for me helped me get the girl. Yeah. Oh, I’m sure they don’t question it. When I was only one year old, I used to do it and it was Rachael. I sat in a boat, knee deep snow in the, in the winter months in her backyard and about nine, nine 30 10 so it was pitch black. I had a tie and a suit on and I’m playing my saxophone that Miss Nuno. Yeah, Bob, great team. You’re obviously a romantic, I know I’m playing summertime and I got a little engagement ring and it’s burning a hot pocket and so she’s living at home with her parents? she’s Living at home and her parents and she’s in the up.
She’s like no way. And there I am and I’m playing with her parents didn’t come out chasing you out of the bag now but she had a little sister who was still at home and she’s like Oh giggling, Ooh, Ooh this is so exciting and romantic and that’s how, that’s how I proposed to Rachael and I got the girl and it’s all because I played the saxophone in such a cool story. Right. So you know it’s more than music lessons, right? It’s about the things like executive functioning. How do, how do kids become more resilient? How do they learn to problem solve, self regulate, these kinds of things are, um, these things are just so essential for us as we, you know, as we try to be successful in our lives as students. And you think music helps on that in one facet?
One reason the music helps with some of that you think? Is it just, um, exercises, different parts of the brain or the process of learning music and failing and then, and then getting back up and trying again that teaches them some skills or I guess it’s all of that by the way. You’re nodding yes. And you’re saying at all? I don’t know. What did you read? Did you read the memo before we came? Yeah, no, no, I’m just trying to think like that’s exactly it. Right? So I’m trying to think why I didn’t go to, to having it, why I don’t have any music sales, all my lack in life now I can kind of just point to like, I have no music skills and know, imagine if you had been a musician going forward is Dennis. But anyway, you know, but that’s, that’s it.
So that’s how we see ourselves, right? How we see ourselves helping, helping parents get what they want for their kids and help them fulfill the dreams as parents for their children. And you know, it’s cool hearing you say that because your body language change and you start smiling when you’re describing this whole thing. So it’s very cool to see how they, okay, how you believe in this so much that you’re… Absolutely. You know it’s so, it’s so true. And it was true for us. And so did the business hell. So when you went to start working with, with Rachael, I guess you weren’t, these are some advanced thoughts you’re having about how to articulate the message of your business and stuff. Right? When you started with her, was it just at a survival point? Like how do we get new, you know, new customers again, Rachael had created something beautiful.
A wonderful offering. And so for me, coming out of like ecommerce and you know, NBA businessy stuff and corporate world, I had all these understanding of systems and how do you scale things and how do you count this? And how do you count that? So really I was trying to give, um, system and structure to help her scale because we’re a good match. Okay. So you came in and just try to organize what was going on. Super Value make it so we could, we could actually get to deliver this, this benefit to more families in a sustainable way for us. And okay, that’s a key point, sustainable way. Did you ever get to a point where it wasn’t looking like it was sustainable and you weren’t going to make a mortgage? Well, a life payment of some sort, mortgage groceries, steaks for the barbecue, whatever.
Um, you, you often wonder about that kind of stuff because you don’t want to be, and the reason I’m asking you is a lot of people ask us who are in the corporate world, they’re like, well, Tom, I’m scared because I don’t know if I’ll make my mortgage payment for my family. Like it holds a lot of people back and I get that question a lot. So I’m just wondering, did you hit that point? I think the thing that’s neat about entrepreneurship is that there’s that idea that you must make this work so that things work out right. And there’s a thing about that, but the, the, there’s like this crawlery to that concept is that you get to focus on what you think must be focused on to make it work. You choose. And there’s wonder that’s, that’s uh, a lot of power.
There’s a lot of power in that and uh, it’s invigorating and rewarding to be able to think this is what needs to be done. Go do it or don’t. But if you go do it then then do you, you’ll probably get the outcome that you want. So I love that. That’s like a big risk mitigation strategy, right? So I thought you were going a different way and this is really more what we tended to experience though. It was at the way we, we had to evolve the way we ran our business to continue to be able to scale it so that the business didn’t suffer from us. So your normal, they are non technology systems, you know, tools and stuff like that. So there were points, you know, these kind of hurdles where as we grew and grew a year, you and I had to drink or you’re going to break in a blue, you’re blue in our brains as you know, raise and right.
So that’s I find in business you just, you grow a little bit. I had a once an accountant tell me saying, hey look, you from years of working with business owners, you grow a little bit and then you kind of plateau a little bit as you’re putting in new systems or new marketing or new processes, then you grow a little bit again and each one of those growth periods can possibly break you. And that’s what nick and I have found. Just there’s different periods that it’s like everything seems to be running well and then all of a sudden something happens and you’re like out of control again a little bit until you get some more processes and more stuff in place. And uh, it’s, uh, it’s challenging. It can test. You can test your relationship between you and Rachael as well. Well yeah, because this was her.
Yeah. This was her thing. And here’s, here’s Mr Corporate ex-IBM Banker did the fancy id. Yeah, I know. Yeah. You know what, I have to take my hat off to her. She was incredibly gracious. Um, I know it wasn’t easy because I’m not, I’m not, I’m not particularly easy. I think at times I know that to be true. Um, but we were, you know, at the end of the day we were on the same page and um, we were both trying to make the business better, to serve more families, to get the benefit that we got are as ourselves as we were when we were kids growing up with music and what we were able to give to our own family and our three kids with me because I feel like all your, all your kids are in sports. No, I feel like they all are, they are like high level sports know, become very good musicians, a good app able.
So you’re, you’re juggling, what are their ages now? So my eldest is 21. Wow. Yeah. So he’s finishing the university right now and he played varsity football. They’re awesome. Oh, he went to Waterloo, look at, you know, I know. Wow. I don’t know if next generation Waterloo, I don’t know. But then he went, so that’s pretty cool. Um, and so he’s finishing school this year and he’s just working with an Internet startup marketing firm. Awesome. Getting Waterloo. So that’s him. His little brother, he’s 19. He plays junior hockey. He graduated last year and he’s been working and playing hockey and got, just got accepted into a bunch of schools. Waterloo saluted. Very cool. Cool. So he, he may go to in Canada this year or maybe in the states. We’ll see how all that works out. Um, and our third daughter, I have our third child.
My daughter, she’s going to be 17 and right now she and Rachael are in Vegas. Oh Man. I know you mentioned Rachael. I didn’t know they were together on where Rachael’s not here cause they’re in Vegas right now. So that if they’re at North America’s largest rugby comp, a rugby tournament. Oh my gosh. Cause your daughter’s in this rugby team? Yeah, she made provincials forgot about it because one year she’s, it’s crazy. She never played rugby before. She just played, she played one year at school cause she played soccer playing soccer the same. Yeah, same field back in the box sort of thing. And um, yeah, so she made the switch to rugby cause her, some of her friends were in that and she’s just taken off with, she loves it. I’m terrified of rugby. Rugby, at least with hockey You’ve got equipment all over years and things.
I, you know, any, she, she loves it and she’s doing great. Good for her. Oh awesome. And what a great mom. Daughter trip. I smoked so much fun. So they were at the Vegas Knights game last, last night. No Way. I didn’t even stay, I couldn’t, I wanted to watch it while they were watching to kind of share the experience past my bedtime. But that’s what happened. It’s like okay, if it’s not, they’re not winning, I’m, I’ve got to go to bed. Even if it’s the leafs playing on the west coast after the second period, I’m like, okay, you know what? I’m just going to crash. It’s not a playoff game here. I just can’t do it anymore. It’s sad. I know I fall asleep on Saturday nights at about nine 30 when the game on the kids laugh at it. That’s like a dream. If we have a gold for a great meal on Saturday, have a couple glasses of wine, maybe come home, have a glass of wine, watch a bit of the leaf game and fall asleep like I’m in like this has happened.
But usually it doesn’t happen. Usually I’ll, I’ll, I’ll watch the leaf game in and we’ll watch a movie or something and then I’ll fall asleep with the family. I don’t think I can get through second period. Then I’ll wait and no, kind of watch it. Yeah, it’s a bit embarrassing. Yeah, no, it’s totally good. It’s totally good. So they were in school playing high level sports and music lessons at the same time. They played different instruments that manage the homework and the school that’s there. So they were, they’re focused. It’s quite a, it’s quite a bit. It’s not, it’s not easy. Right? Yeah. But again, we, you know, school, um, you know, spirituality and sport, high level sport. That’s what we did as kids and we wanted that for our family. And um, it’s just, you get so much from it. If the relationship’s a challenges, experiences, the memories that you, the ups and downs cause it’s kind of, you know, it’s not all, some are all better roses not all roses.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. So then how does the transition come to you? You’re in the business and then at some point you decide to think about real estate investing. Is that, this is another crazy idea. I know. It is cause it real estate investing is not a normal idea for the masses of Canada. Right. You know, one mortgage broker when somebody’s a high level, the guy does a lot of volume. And I don’t know if the stats change has been a few years ago, he said 4% of all mortgages in Canada are real estate investors. Okay. And every investor I’ve ever met owns usually more than one property. So it’s like that proper sense like is it, is that like a one or 2% kind of thing or even less. But, um, and again, the stat might be different right now, but it’s a, it’s a fairly kind of crazy adventure.
Before you met us, I don’t even know, before you met us, had you already gone into the real estate investing world? So when, um, just before I got, we got married in 1994 I moved out because I was working on another master’s degree and those at a, at IBM found a basement apartment in Willowdale. Okay. And I, it was this older, the older Italian lady, she was about four foot something and her and her daughter, they were wonderful people. They rented their basement apartment. It was a beautiful and clean basement apartment in Willowdale at like, I think it was five 50 a month and they didn’t work. And they had, they had other properties and I, I just, that just struck me. I said, okay, so you’re not working and you are renting your basement apartment and do seem to be living okay.
Not Lavish but comfortable. And I made a mental note of that. I said, you know, Rach when we get our first house, we’re going to get a house that can have a basement apartment to help us like accelerate through our mortgage. So our first house in Thornhill we had for you guys a bungalow and I put a basement apartment in there is like, I don’t know how I did what that stuff, but man, we’re going to do it. So we did it and we had a bunch of Nice, really nice couples kind of coming federal, starting out themselves and lived in our basement apartment. And um, there was noise, an issue ever. It was. So then when we moved, yeah, use it or we have three little kids, I boys, my boys were like, junk been balls on the floor, she can’t do it.
Right. So if we said, okay, we want to do this again, um, when we move to our next place, we have to have a different setup. But God, please help us find him. A House that has an apartment that’s not in the basement. So we found the place that we’re living in right now. So I was our kind of our first separate rental, but it’s a separate building on our existing home and Oh, no way for credit. So, oh, so cool. So it’s great. So the kids can drop whatever they want on the floor. We can bounce around and they’ve got Fonzie, Fonzie in the backyard. That’s how old I am. I just think of that. I’m like Fonz, he’s in the back. Exactly. Our Fonz, he’s named Judy. Oh, okay. She’s, she’s about 70 so, okay. A different type of Fonzie. Yeah. But it’s great.
So she has her own space, own front door. There’s, it’s self contained. It’s like, yeah, that’s base as good as you get. Some amazing. So yeah. So we’ve been, I guess quote unquote landlord since 96, 97 maybe, I guess in that format. But I mean your, your question’s a great one. So like why did we get this? We’ve always liked real estate on some level, but it would be just our houses, our families weren’t entrepreneurs. Our families didn’t have more than their house. Maybe a cottage. Rachael’s parents had a cottage at one. Got It. Okay. So this was groundbreaking for both of you guys was and scary for us and scary for the family. Sure. Around us. It’s normal. What are you guys doing? Right? But I know I’m being entrepreneurs. We didn’t have, we didn’t have a retirement plan, right it just whatever we do.
So it was I guess in 2014 I looked to the future and I said, oh my goodness, if we don’t do something, what are we going to do? I want to live in this house if I want to. I don’t want to sell it and then live by want to live in this house. So we started doing some research and like everybody says the same thing. You can search online and blah, blah blah. You go, Dominic, we found you exactly. Hello. He sucked into the marketing vortex. Damn. Yeah, exactly what? That’s what it was. Once we get our hands on the email and my address and I started getting all this stuff. I still have all your marketing collateral and and all state. I said man these guys know how to do it. I’m so wanting to find out more. And then so it took me a few months but once I got I that’s actually a pretty good many people take few years to come a few months.
And then you know I met you guys and your set me up with, you know you actually met Paul and then we bought our first property and it’s like Okay Great. Now I can model this out with what I learned at some core about business modeling and our business say great, this is if we do this and if we do that then this will be a nice sizeable chunk of cash flow for our retirement. So you actually extrapolate it out into the future. Yeah cause I have a few people do that. Even real estate investors. I’m shocked that you do that. That’s amazing. I but I see, I see. I was looking into the future. This is not going to be what I want. So I said, okay, how can I, how can I create something that will just give us some money? Now, you know, every, you can’t make the future happen, but what you can do is increase the likelihood that it’ll have totally just because it’s on a spreadsheet just to make it so, right.
No, the numbers can change and they do change. However, I just said, okay, I need, what I need to do is be able to put something in place. If we can, Rachael, we’ll put something in place so that you know, if this works out and we managed to it, you know what, come close to something like that. And that’s what the plan was. So that’s what we did. And we said, okay, what kind of property would we think make it easiest for us to do that? And you know, that’s why we ended up doing the multifamilies. Yeah. And that’s still your preference, right? Multifamily stuff. Yeah. I guess it’s like when do you, for us it’s like, okay, when do you need the money? When do you know? Right. The money. Do you need? How many places do you want to actually get up the emotional stuff off to go and buy and to go?
And like for me it’s like I like efficiencies, right? I learned that that’s kind of what I am. So for me and our family, it’s like, okay, yeah, if I can, if I can have, you know, three, four buying in bulk baseball, put them onto a two or three rooms and in a couple of different locations and that, that makes sense for me. So that’s the way we’ve done, I find people coming from a corporate background often are really stock market people because you know, in the, you know, when I was in the corporate world it was like matching contributions to the stock market and you invest in your RRSP was matched, I forget what I think I gave 3% they match 3% I forget what it was. So that just naturally got you to be a believer in the stock market and all your investing was in the stock market. Right? It never really worked out that way for me. But was that not the allure for you? Did you, you know, like why, why did you even evaluate real estate? Was it just because you had done it for so long? It felt natural? Well, um, well we had been landlords. Yeah. So that’s what it was all the fears of like, okay, what they’re going to do is they’re going to come in and burn down your house in the inner to do this and they’re going to blow. They didn’t examine and all that kind of stuff and they’ll never pay the rent and all that kind of, okay, well you’re doing a good job. You’re not doing a good job of summarizing all them absolutely sings.
It’s like, yes, they could do all of those things, but, and maybe they do some of those things. Yeah. Yeah. But you’re managing it and you’re around and you’re trying to be active and you’re trying to create a blessing for people who want to receive the blessing from you by being in your properties and you tried it. It works out well. When it works out, it works out so well. And then when it doesn’t work out so well, you over time you build up confidence and a little bit of resilience in yourself. Belief that, okay, this is going to work. It’s not going to kill us and it’s going to work through. Yeah. And I, it’s kind of why I like what you’re doing with kids, with your spouse, with your kids, sports and music. I mean I think we all need to teach everyone that you need resiliency and if you have it, you can go invest in real estate and you are going to get punched around.
Sometimes there is going to be a tenant who doesn’t leave or doesn’t pay or there’s going to be an unexpected furnace repair or an unexpected flood wipes out. Yeah. One of my units. Yeah. The whole thing. And if you can, but if you can handle that stuff and survive, the payouts are, the benefits of it are massive. Right. Cause then you get to stay. Yeah. Could Start and then you get to stay and continue to stay in the game. Right. You know, uh, many times nick and I’ve wanted to tap out on some properties, you know, there’s been a property or two or both of us have had the conversation of like, just sell this piece of shit right now, right? This property, just get rid of this, this property. But every once in a while, but it’s usually the other one that says, you know what?
Let’s just take a breath. We’re a little emotional right now. Let’s just stay in the game. We’ll fix it up. We know what to do. And it’s always been the right move. And sometimes we laugh looking back like, can you believe we almost sold that property? Wouldn’t have that been the biggest mistake we ever made. And we’re not trying to characterize it like this is all easy path. No, we have no fear. No, it’s not like that. No. Like the panic and stressful, it’s like you better fix it or whatever. It’s like, oh my goodness, your lawyers. It’s right. This is all part of it. So it’s all part of it. It’s just like, okay, this is kind of how it comes. And I guess you kind of learned to just deal, it becomes a little bit normal. Right? And as you grow a little bit, but not totally, you know, your rights know, right.
Um, eventually your network builds as well, which makes it a little easier, you know, some heating guys and you know, some handyman and you know, some people and you just lawyers, you know, a great lawyer joining the team and you guys help us. You help us with that. Thank you. Yeah, right. You, your coach helps you. You guys help, um, the, you know, the people in the VIP group and that’s been wonderful to bounce off business. Yeah. You guys are good. It’s a good group giving the opportunities for that. So it’s all that makes it easier for you to manage through the thing that you wouldn’t want to necessarily do all by yourself and carry the whole weight by yourself. That’s sometimes, that could be maybe a little bit longer for it to do. Totally. I remember when I first started flipping properties and I was flipping one with somebody on the team here.
And uh, it was, it was Reuben, this one particular property. And I told my wife, we’re going to make a hundred thousand bucks easy on this property, like, Carol, this is going to be easy. This I don’t understand. I’m surprised that more people aren’t doing this. And, uh, it was a horror show for like almost a year. And we finally flipped and sold it and we did profit. It was about 40 grand and we split it. And I just realized, oh my gosh, this is, you know, when we couldn’t sell the property, and then we had to invest more into this particular property, um, to, to put in some granite counters and stuff. And I remember driving home and telling my wife, hey, we got to take more money that way. So we’re paying the monthly mortgage. It was mortgage, property tax, insurance, and then we’re taking more money to put into this, to try and bring it a money pit.
Yeah. You know, and I remember thinking, Huh, maybe I’m not so smart at this thing anyway. But anyway, you work it out and stuff. But what’s interesting is my son is now working as a produce clerk in a grocery store here in Oakville and he has multiple bank accounts and he’s saving up for his first property. And I’m not pushing this on him at all. I did maybe a Kinda sorta forced him to read Rich Dad, poor dad when I was about 12 or 13 kids. All of them had cashflow cashflow quadrant to legendary again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So he now has a separate bank account and he’s like, why do I have this bank account again? But now he gets it. Now he’s talking about he wants to beat his uncle. He’s like, when did uncle nick by this first property?
I’m like 21 he’s like, I’m going to beat him. So, uh, I will see how it goes. I don’t necessarily want to push them into that, but I’m happy he’s thinking along those lines. And I, and I try to give them the information that he can decide. Right. He’s young, you know, the male brain I don’t think is fully developed. You said like 20, he’s turning 17 this year and crazy. He’s driving his own car now and listen to this. We, uh, so Nick’s wife got a new car. We buy her old car, which is a Kia Sportage, a white Kia Sportage. Definitely not the young kid and a young guy’s dream mobile. But that’s what, that’s what he’s driving his friends, just nickname. I just discovered this nickname, the car, the cow, because it’s white, but it’s got like black, kind of like black, like a side mirrors, black light grill, you know.
So it’s Kinda got like that body cat. Yeah. So they call it the cow. So he’s like, yeah, I’m going to take the cow. And I’m like, what’s the cow? He’s like, oh, that’s the nickname for my car, you know? So, uh, um, yeah, it at this age and the years are this age and older. So you’ve been through this, but to see him start going out and driving around and yeah, it’s crazy. It is crazy. I can’t believe this is what’s happening. It totally freaks me out. It freaks and I’m used to driving him everywhere and I like those times. Like I genuinely like that time drive to the practice. Love is done. Yeah. Rachael and Rachael’s the one who drives Elliot mostly to her rugby pocket. So I get to go and do some of it too, but all the hockey practices, soccer practice does.
They’re such a great time. Like I complained a lot about it. I’m not going to kid you. Sometimes I was tired, but I can, but I did appreciate every moment of it and I still still some of his soccer stuff that’s further away in the winter now we’re still driving him and I cherish those moments together. Oh, it’s too stormy. You can’t drive the car by yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I want to bring you want to hang out. Yeah, I’d tell eating. I’m like, you know what, I ain’t really gonna miss these chats and you don’t know this now, but I’m really upset that you’re going to drive your dad’s a sabbath man. No, I’m telling him the same thing. I’m like, Dude, your dad’s a PSAP. I’m totally going to miss all these conversations. Same. Totally, totally. So, uh, any of your, so you forced them to read or you talk about cashflow quadrant.
No, and it was like, okay, and now here’s a chapter of, then let’s talk. What did you learn at 1.1 summer I made Aiden and do a presentation. I’m like, take the top three points you like from the book and now you’re going to verbally present them back to us. Cause I want you to learn how to speak in front of people and stuff like that. And uh, it was just ridiculous. But I personally just got a lot of satisfaction out of doing that. I once read a book that said, you know, kids will, your kids will listen to you really intently until there were about 13. And then depending on every different child, they’ll start to lose it at that point forward. And Aiden, uh, my daughter’s still turning 13 this year, um, and my son is now turning 17. And as we mentioned, but he’s been really good.
I think he’s continued to listen to me so far. Now I can tell his friends are taking priorities on certain things, but he’s such a good guy. I’m so blessed at the event. Sometimes it’s like, yeah, it’s cool. I feel really, really blessed and my daughter, uh, is so fantastic. So the whole journey. So you with three kids, it’s just a, it’s a fun, it’s a fun journey you’re on. It’s been wonderful to be able to be around it, to kind of really feel like, I can’t honestly say. Yeah, but you’ve seen a lot of it because you’ve left the corporate jobs. That’s exactly, you are living life on your terms and, and although it’s stressed with properties and your business and stuff, it’s not doing what you want to do trade. It would not trade. It would not treat it. I’m, it’s been awesome.
I’m just fascinated about when you had that voice in your head saying, if I don’t quit now, when would I quit? I would rate, I’ll be afraid to be afraid to, I’m fascinated to trying to figure out where that comes from. Yeah. You know, like, like I said, for our kids, um, it’s really, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s sports, there’s music, academics, and I guess the fourth pillar would be at the spiritual aspect. Yeah. That’s part of course important to Rachael and I. Yeah. Um, we tried to model that and help our kids understand that. And so, um, as much as we have teams and I, we bring in mentors, some of that we pay for mentors or they sometimes just want to help us and to give back. Um,we also have that other spiritual guide that’s in our lives, God’s in our lives. And I, you know why I brought my book here that I got my, your life, your terms, notes, and also my things that it’s like before God, what is it that I, is it okay to pursue this? How would I think formulate that? What about this? And so it was my wife, it was my first title. This is my first investment property. It’s, you know, you know, what’s this next visit business venture that we’re thinking about doing, you know, in the next year or two. Like how’s that going to be formulated? It’s all, it’s all in these kinds of roles. Yeah. Cool. So before I ask you more about your business, again, just your kids, do you think any of them showed any, are they any of them ask questions about business or real estate yet or is they, they’re like, that’s your stuff.
I’m on my own journey. So I guess my eldest one has been in, he’s older, he’s been very much more interested in, in the process. I mean, they’ve worked, they did you know that Demo Day ever watch that? [inaudible] Yay. Oh yeah, no, no, it’s, it’s called it the husband and wife thing. Yeah. And they go and rip down different houses and watching those like 10 years ago, I know all the types of shows you’re talking about. Yeah, we did. We took the boys out to do demo day. We’ll one of our properties fund just terrible art. The basement, you know when we’re doing the right there, um, they’ve done work at the properties and stuff like that. Just kind of say this is kind of what we do. It’s not, it’s we, we, we, we farm out lots of this stuff. But some of it you just be involved in the process.
So they see that. Um, certainly we’ve had lots of conversations about entrepreneurship and the pros and cons and a corporate, the corporate world and why my heart is for them to be entrepreneurs, not for me, but for, for them to be able to enjoy the benefits around family and to be able to try and control your income if you want to. [inaudible] that’s a, those are nice benefits. Those are nice blessings for the, I thought it was great for me and I said, you know, guys, we’d love this to be for you. So my eldest one, he’s finishing school, he’s just start, he’s like kind of the number two person in a m s an internet marketing startup in Waterloo. Awesome. Lead bungee. There you go. So there’s your plug guys. Cool. Um, so he’s just doing that online marketing and copywriting and funnel building and all that kind of stuff.
He’s just so interested in that and wants to, you can’t wait to, you can’t, I almost have to hold them back. It’s like where’s he learning about funnel building and copyright is I from me because I had to learn this stuff from you guys. You suck me into the board. Yeah. Not Everybody knows about the show. We’ve had this conversation for years. I said, Tom, you know I’m here not just for the real estate but because of the business. Right. Yeah, totally. Of course. More and more people have been telling us that actually. I know. And it’s, and it’s a good thing, right? Cause you, you’re doing some neat things and you’re sharing your open handed about that. So anyway, so he’s been very engaged with that. Um, what was the name, what was that, the name of that Info? Uh, that two of the info website tool. Which one? The, um, you made me just think about infomercials for a second job or something. The one that you built out your first year or the real estate renegades. Yeah, that works. Site built. It is a tool I use. I had a project for a second one two or three years ago said, look, you’re playing hockey. Okay, no problem. You’re doing all this development but you don’t have a summer job. When I was 16 or 15, I worked at Canada’s wonderland and you’re not just going to be sleeping no all day, every day. So it’s basically for the summer he had to build out and focus on operating. No, but you just understand that you understand the principles. Yeah. So now figuring out your target market and now you’re going to figure it out the content and this is how this works. We hit to go through that and build that a little bit of a site, that site built what the guide is probably the best piece of education you would give someone. Yeah. So we did that for the lessongurus.com and you know, we’ve done that ourselves for our own business, but I wanted him to have an understanding of that as well.
And then, um, so for, for Elliot, you know, same ellia she has the same, goes through the same process. You can see that I get this little look in my eye and the in their eyes is bug up and they go, oh no. And I said, come on over. And I just happened to stand beside me and then we have wrestled a little, it’s funny, I’ve made Aiden do the same stuff. Yeah. I’m waiting now for and she’s about do to get that stuff as well. He said 13 [inaudible] I know, I know, I know. Yeah. Yeah. Dropping the ball here and I expect a very cool, I know. So, yeah. So I, you know, I want them to understand it just like just like my friends or families or business people that I want to share what we’ve learned because you guys just shared what you’ve learned.
I want to share what we, just to make it better and easier for them. It’s totally, that’s just in my heart, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think if we’re all doing that, that stuff together, it helps us all helps the community. It helps us all have a good thing together. Why not? Yeah. It’s not going to take from you. Agreed. I almost feel like why aren’t the, why has nobody started teaching some of these business building but specific for small, like for a business to get off the ground and grow. Why are we not teaching these things? The stuff I learned in university around business was so generic, it couldn’t really apply it very well to getting a career in high school and university both. And for me, uh, my high school was, nobody took the business courses. I took one and I discovered the teacher was using the chapter of use it as a third question of every chapter of your question was the test.
I figured this out. I got a 97% in that class figuring out the system. Best class yet. But, uh, anyway, um, yeah, the, my university stuff wasn’t too helpful. It sounds like yours might have been a bit better. It was helpful because it was helpful more in the corporate setting cause yeah, absolutely. On the table if the managers absolutely. Absolutely. I agree with that 100% and I took a lot of value from the corporate world. Like when I was at, uh, at Oracle and the NetSuite, I learned a lot of stuff. I met great, amazing, fantastic people and I learned how these businesses grow. I could see it from the inside, right. They trained, they invest in, trained us a lot as well. So yeah, I took a lot of skill away from that. Invaluable. Absolutely. So what’s next for the DeGazon music and your school? Where, where are you guys? What’s the, is there a next thing or to continue doing what you’re doing at work? Continued to do what you’re doing? I mean, over the last three years, you know, over the last three years we’ve been trying to create, um, an online marketing system that was sustainable, creating leads and your ricotta holy grail. So over the last six months that’s been locked down. It’s month to month to month to month. And it’s cool. So we’re, we’re blowing up the doors on certain things. That’s, that’s has been wonderful from our business standpoint and it’s like, okay, so what, what would be the next approach to, um, to kind of scaling the business and getting it out to others? So we’re investigating that now. So we have some, we have different, um, uh, I guess the different consultants that we’re working with to help us say, okay, what’s the best way to structure this? And basically it’s piggybacking on something you’re always saying, you know, building an asset. We have an asset in our business, but we have a business with processes that that is an asset that can be totally replicated for others to benefit other people too.
So that’s what we’re looking at right now. Very cool. Also, how do we license those models? How do we, you know, that it would be great. That’s the business within the business that’s very, very close. Yeah. And it’s kind of like up the value ladder, the road. So that’s what we’d like to do because it’s been such a wonderful thing for us. Maybe for specifically for other music school owners who would want to use some of the systems that have been successful for you. Yeah, because what we’ve seen over, we’ve seen over the years, um, that it’s, it is a bit of a struggle for people. Like if you’re only working, if you’re teaching all the lessons and you’re doing all the administration and all that kind of stuff, it’s great because okay, maybe you have lower costs on some levels, but you are actually going crazy doing it all yourself and you don’t have, you haven’t built a lifestyle business and it’s not scalable.
It just too much, right? You’re, you are the business and you’re freaking out and breaking down. Right? And so that, that actually is, it actually hurts the business and it doesn’t grow and sometimes it fails. So we’ve seen that, we’ve seen it with some friends who had the businesses. We’ve seen it just with a competitors who have those businesses. And it’s like, you know what? We have figured out a way for our business to be a best, a blessing to our family. And it’s like, it’s documented. It’s, it’s been repeatable. It’s been this way for years. It’s like, okay, great. Let’s, how do we, how do we put that in a bit of a box and then how do we get it out to the market? So we’re trying, we’re, we’re trying to work through that right now saying, okay, how do, how would we do that?
It’d be great to help other existing businesses, music schools, and then other people who are saying, you know what, I’m a music teacher or I’m a budding entrepreneur. I’d like to do this. But what I’d like to do is find something as find a, uh, a business opportunity that I, if I follow the principles and if I follow the systems and I learned them open, that I’ve really, I significantly increase my chances of success and, and doing and experiencing what they’re experiencing, but just like us and our F in our Munich studious. Very cool. That’s awesome. Yes, sir. Um, you know, fingers crossed, it’s, you know, we’ve been working on this for a little while and um, so, uh, love to be able to say, yeah, it’s launched and in the next little while, people that are interested, you know, reach out to us. Cool. Well, you know, in a little while we’ll have you back talk about stuff. Maybe you and
Rachael and you know, um, you anything, I just want to say something, you know, we feel blessed to be able to cross paths with someone like yourself and your family. You guys are such amazing people. So here at rock star to be able to work with you. I mean, it makes it all worth it went for us because real estate as we talked about and now that we run Rock Stars, a brokerage and that kind of stuff, it’s very painful sometimes and it’s not always, you know, feeling like it’s living life on your terms. But um, the overall benefit of being able to kind of play a small role and working together with you, the way we have interacted over the years, it really means a lot to us. So this is a two way street, so that’s great. Yeah, I just want you to know that like it, we kind of, nick and I sometimes can’t believe on the quality of people that we get to work with.
So just thank you for trusting us and uh, buying properties is a big deal. So putting trust in a couple crazy guys with their team and their coaches and stuff like that from Mississauga. Right. We’re born, born in Toronto, raised in Mississauga. Well that’s gay. Yeah, I was, I was born in dawn mills are born in Ottawa. Yeah. Now loving it. It’s so bad. So there’s something happening. It’s okay. There’s some kind of a connection, but certainly it’s absolutely felt and shared like from RF perspective to you guys. It’s been a wonderful experience and I appreciate all that you shared and I’m very cool. Very cool. So to DeGazon music, uh, is the website, can you spell it out? Let’s get it cleared. B, go dotted to DeGazon music dot CA’s. So that’s g O. Dot. D G A zed o n music.ca. That’s our landing page.
If you’re just looking for, uh, um, when a candidate is best informational resources for parents looking into music lessons, that would be to go to the lesson groos.com the lesson gurus.com. It’s an information based website and a lot of great information for people just to try and get their heads around. What is music lessons? How do you approach it? How do you find a good school? Um, yeah, so I’ll link. So if you’re listening to this, I’ll link off in the show notes. If you go to Rock Star inner circle.com forward slash podcast, the this episode will be there. If you click on it, you can get to the two year olds, which is go.to DeGazon music.ca or www.thelessongurus.com but I’ll link in them on the, on the page notes as well. Anthony, thank you so much, much fun. I’ve been so excited and I got to see the silver.
Yeah, you saw my silver skull. I’m going to just watch that. You don’t steal my stuff. Nothing. You’re the type to steal anything. It’s a silvery sculpting. The silver skull gets a lot of attention or in front of me. You know what, you can’t, no one can see this, but I have the silver skull. Um, one of the home inspectors we use also made us a one ounce silver coin with the rock star logo on it and he made us a monopoly house set of silver as well. So, uh, this is what I get a kick out of. Next time I’m going to talk to you about gold and silver and you’re going to be sucked into that. I’m going to force you to talk about that stuff. Okay. Anthony, thank you so much man. Thank you. Hey everyone, it’s Tom grabs this, hopefully enjoyed that chat.
Anthony’s a great guy. As we wrapped up, I was showing him different bits of silver I have here in my office and we took some pictures, uh, good times. And the URL to go to again to check out more about the DeGazon music are go.to DeGazon music.ca or www.thelessongurus.com. So it’s www dot the lesson, gurus.com if you’re listening to this and you want to become a Rock Star nurse circle member and work together to buy assets, and the whole idea is to try to the best of our ability to help anyone who wants you to live life on their terms. You can learn more about the Rock Star inner circle membership@ www.Rock Starinnercircle.com/member that’s Rock Starinnercircle.com forward slash member. Who knows? One day maybe you’ll be bumping into Anthony DeGazon and you can tell him that you heard his voice on this podcast. I think that’s it for now. Until next time, your life, your terms.