Traveling the World with Your Family: Leaving Canada Behind to Live Life on Your Own Terms with Mark Greenidge

Transcript

00:00:00 Hey everyone, it’s Tom Karadza and on this episode we talk with Mark Greenidge who breaks down why he decided to travel the world with his family for a year and do it right when his older son’s about to go into grade nine. His younger son’s about to go into grade seven. They leave their family home in Milton. They rent it out actually to another family while they go and travel the world for a year. He goes with a family of four. He only comes back as a family of three to so he leaves with both his kids, but he only comes back home with one of his kids. So wait till you hear. We actually kick off this episode explaining how that exactly happened. So you’ll hear that story. Just an all around. Great Guy. Mark and I met on his first day of grade one. He came in late to grade one, probably about a month late and when he came into the class he was bawling and crying as his dad dropped him off and I know he just absolutely loves it when I share that story so that everybody in the world can.

00:00:52 The knows that he was crying on his first day of grade one. So I just want to repeat that a few times to make sure everybody knows. Mark Greenidge was crying on his first day of grade one. He’s an absolute good guy. We’re good buddies. We went to grade school together, high school together. Then our ways parted for quite some time actually over 10 years. 13, 14, 15 years until he rings me up one day and says, Hey Tom, I heard you’re into real estate investing and you’re doing this stuff. Can we chat about this? And I get together with them, explain what we’re doing. He rushes off and gets like three properties in the blink of an eye and then he decides he’s going to quit his it job and get his real estate license and work with us. So now for the last several years, he’s been working here at Rock Star, helping other investors buy income properties and rental properties and student rentals and second suites and everything you can imagine and we feel blessed and grateful and honored that someone like him is working here at Rock Star helping other investors.

00:01:43 He has a lot to share. I’m just an all round goodhearted guy and on this episode you hear how he travels the world with his family and goes all over the place from South Africa to Portugal and Croatia and England and Malaysia and Vietnam and Thailand and just some real good stories in there. Loved chatting with Mark at the end. We talk about some real estate investing stuff, but this talk is mostly about why he decided to travel the world, how they did it, where they went, some of the adventures along the way. So hopefully enjoy this and listen. If you are listening to this and you want some real estate investing information, the best thing for yourself perhaps, or if you want to share something with someone else for them to learn about real estate investing is probably the free digital books that we have. We sell these on Amazon, but you can get free books are books for free at Rockstarinhercircle.com/books.

00:02:34 So that’s rockstarinnercircle.com/books. And the one that’s probably been the most popular has been income for life for Canadians. Uh, that book has been downloaded tens of thousands of times. I should actually check. We’re probably getting close, I would imagine to 100,000 times, but it’s been downloaded a whole ton of downloaded, downloaded at work. Yeah, downloaded, downloaded a whole ton. Um, so you can check that out there at Rockstarinnercircle.com/books. You can pass that book onto somebody and they can buy it if they want an Amazon, but you get the free digital copy right off our website, rockstarinnercircle.com. So with that, let’s get on with the show.

00:03:10 Are you ready to live life on your terms? Is it time to take charge business? Building the economy, health and nutrition and more. It’s The Your Life! Your Terms! Show with Tom and Nick Karadza. Are you ready? Let’s go.

00:03:36 Yeah, we’ve been dealing with so much crap this last week. Nothing major. Just stuff internet going down. My Dad’s a denture falling out. I’m just stuff in the office preparing for this event. Just everything, you know, it’s one of those weeks were just battling everything. But I wanted to start this with asking you. So bring the mic nice and close after me. Just telling you to bring the mic. Put the mic nice and close. Mark Greenidge because whenever it nice and close now. There we go. I got to know where is your oldest son today?

00:04:07 He is in Asia, specifically in Thailand.

00:04:11 So he’s in Thailand at this. Uh, okay. So you got to lay out the story for. We’ll get through you. Why you decided to travel around the world. But you go around the world, you get to where, uh, he’s in, you said Thailand, Thailand, Thailand. So how does this work that you go, you traveled around the world, but you don’t come back with one of your sons? Explain this story to me. Yeah, no problem. There’s many moms listening to this who are going to be in shock that this happened.

00:04:35 Yeah. Well, first of all, this was in our intention to go around the world and leave one of our children in a different country on the other side of the world especially. Definitely wasn’t part of the original flying. Uh, yeah. So what happened was, so he, his passion, his soccer, and we told both our boys while we were traveling, every country we went to, you know, it’s on you to go look up opportunities for yourself to play your sport. So for him it’s soccer for his youngest son is volleyball with the intent being just while you’re in that country. Correct. Exactly. Exactly. When you leave to the next country on your world trip here, they come with you. That’s correct. Yeah. That was the plan. Yes. So we ended up going to a Malaysia and while we were in Malaysia, uh, he found some opportunities to play, so there’s an academy there, then invite him to play for the, for that particular academy. And uh, so that family told us that, uh, about some other opportunity because they, we told them we were traveling so they told us that some friends in Vietnam who were resilient or are resilient and they are running at camp there as well, and a foot for him to Vietnam, why don’t you go check them out. So we said, yeah, sure, no problem. So go to Vietnam, go to this camp and you know, so he plays in this camp for a few days and we meet the coaches, a really nice family from Brazil. And then, uh, what happens there, one of the coaches, there was actually a guest coach who actually lives in Thailand, runs his own little soccer camp in Thailand.

00:06:04 So we had been in Thailand yet and he says, well, you know what, when you guys make it to Thailand, you know, give us a buzz and uh, you know, we’ll get together. So when you get to Thailand, we give them a buzz, we go hang out with their family, have dinner, a nice dinner with them and so me and the father hanging out and we’re talking and drinking and uh, he mentioned that, oh, his son is looking to go to this school is a British national school in south Thailand that offer scholarships and his son is the same age as our oldest son. Something is true. This would be Tristan. Tristan, yet he, he would be grade 10 right now. He’d be great 10 right now, right? Yeah. So at the time he was 14. Okay. And uh, so, you know, I’m thinking Texas is now last year, right?

00:06:49 Correct. So this would be while his, while he was in grade nine, this was happened. That’s right. That’s right. So he, uh, so yes. So the father tells me about this, know this British international school that offer scholarship for soccer. And I’m thinking, well that’s interesting because in my mind I only know about scholarships for like at a university, right. And College at the college grade at high school. This is strange. But. So anyway, not thinking too much of it, you know, I tell the next day, I tell Jason about it and talk about just taking immediate action. He went on the computer, started looking up this website, looking up everything you can get that was available on that site and then he comes back to us about maybe an hour later and says, okay, I need two things. I need a referral letter from the principal from, from grade school and his report card.

00:07:40 And you’re thinking, why do you need this for? Well I want to fly like, all right, he already out the application. It was all done. So we did our part and we got him the uh, garden and what he needed and we sent the application in, you know, again, not really thinking much of it, you know, at the time, not thinking that you’re fast forwarding to far ahead thinking that. Yeah. And not realizing you started the path. Your son not coming home with you. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So sometime fast we’re in right now we’re north Thailand. When this is all happening, he sends the application in and this goes actually in south Thailand. So we were planning on south talent anyway, so we end up going to south tyler, did you get from north to Thailand to south Thailand train. Oh, sorry. We took, we took the train from. I have this vision of your family just onto mopeds.

00:08:25 So trained. Sorry. Drain to drain to Bangkok from Bangkok to South Tyler. Complain. So a couple means of transportation. So anyway, we got to Thailand and once we’re there just on a whim, I thought, you know what, I’ll just send an email to the coach and not saying anything about our application and just ask if we can come by, check out the school. Right. And so I do that. Uh, so sending the email and your replies back and says, yeah, sure, come on by, we just need a copy of your passports, uh, s, uh, to get you past security. So when we submit our, when we send our email or passwords to him, he replies back, says, oh my gosh, you guys are the ones that apply you guys, you guys are the Canadians that applied and like, yeah, like he probably see so many Canadians apply that are actually in Thailand ready to try out.

00:09:12 Well, exactly. So we usually happens is either someone, if they’re local, they’re, they’re trying out or they’re sending a video of themselves, right? If you’re living on the other side of the world, like we are right over, right? Um, based on their application coming from Canada. So yeah, we, he says, yeah, well, you know what, if you’re here, why don’t you just, can he come and try out? And Oh my gosh, I felt so bad because Tristan was of all the time that we were away, this was the sickest he was ever on this particular day. And so I went to and I said, son, guess what? You can go try out today. And he’s like, Dad, I can’t do it. And I’m thinking, oh, okay. No problem. And was, would have taken that the way out. Good, perfect. You’re not going home, but I thought, you know what I knew this is.

00:10:00 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it was, it was in the morning right when this was happening, so. And we weren’t going until the afternoon so there’s still some time. Right. So then when the afternoon came, went back to him again, said, hey son, give him a little pat on the back. So I feel right now and not so many words. Basically he decided that he at least take his shoes, his soccer boots. Right. I said okay, that’s one step closer. So he was traveling with his cleat. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Oh Wow. Yeah. He was trying to play and stay fit and do all that good stuff. So yeah, we uh, so we end up going to school and uh, so I just have to know at this point traveling the world, how much luggage are you traveling with? One bag. Two pieces each. Two hitches.

00:10:41 So we have a roller suitcase. No. So we each had a, a backpack, like a, like a big huge bag. The big one, you got it. You usually, for most airplanes they will actually allow you to bring it onboard and you don’t have to actually check it out. Um, but there was a few airlines that unfortunately they said that when fly is it, you’re talking about one when it’s on your back, it’s like at your head and you got here, but you got it. Exactly. Okay. Um, and then another, just kind of a regular backpack, like a school, like kids school backpack. Okay. Right. So that was it. That was our, that was our gear. Seemed to be pretty smart. Yeah. Front and back. He managed to fit his cleats in there. Yeah. He squeezed it in there because you’re taking all that stuff. You had to plan because you’re leaving home in Milton, Ontario for the plan was a year, right?

00:11:24 Yes. Which ended up being just about a year. No. Yeah, eight months. Yeah. We shortened it up given the situation that arose from him getting into the school. Yeah. So yeah, we went to the school and uh, so the, I remember the coach looked at him and said, so are you ready to try it out? Give it a whirl and then I’ll just, there’s like this moment of pause. I didn’t know if he was going to say yes or no. And he’s like, all right. And uh, so he went and it was a good sport was fellow. He was, like I said he was, this was the sickest. Yeah, for the sake of said he’d been the whole trip that a while we were away and uh, and it wasn’t exactly in soccer, fitness shape, right. Obviously a cardio alone. Yeah.

00:12:07 If you’re not practicing two, three times a week, I mean these guys are running basically a marathon a week just in practice.

00:12:13 Yeah. They actually play eight times a week. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, and he’s going from basically doing not too much the last few months. Right. So now he’s going full tilt with these guys and I know he’s right. He survived that day and then you survive the following day. So it was a Thursday and then Friday now. So I guess we were fortunate because what happened was the following week they’re actually having a break. Alright. And unknown to us. They were actually going to make a quick decision because typically what happens is they usually have the kids trough these four days, right? Because it was first, you know, the first two days the kids are kind of just, you know, they got some anxiety exactly. You. So by the second day, third day they’re more comfortable and settled it and whatever. Right. So they give the kids that chance.

00:13:01 Um, but we didn’t know that they, that they had plans to have trial for the two days. And I guess the other factor was because after that one week that we were there, we were taken off to somewhere else. Where was your next stop by the way? We’re going back to Malaysia, actually. Malaysia and so, yeah, I remember just standing there watching them training and then we had met the headmaster the day before and the headmaster. The headmaster? Yes. Uh, and then he walked up to me and he said, yes, we’d like to offer your son a scholarship. And I know I was just don’t know.

00:13:36 Oh, you know what? I’d be thinking your 14 year old son. I mean, I, there was a day when 14 was not that young, right? 14 you had to be a survivor probably 60, 70 years ago, but 14 in 2018 last year is a very different 14. Absolutely. Wow.

00:13:54 Yeah. So yeah. Um, yeah it was, I was blown away when he said that x was totally unexpected. Right. I mean this is Talia that your, you know, your wife, his mom must’ve been just bawling at this point. No, no, no. She was good. You know, she’s, she has been really good throughout, from, from that moment up to even now she’s been really good and she keeps saying I’m doing it for him because she doesn’t want to show, you know, I mean, yeah, she has obviously it’s a first born and to end this, this happened essentially four years sooner than she expected. Right. Fast. And it happened fast. Yes, because this is now when he was trying to think this was now January. All right. And we dropped them off and just add a little bit of salt to the wound here. We actually dropped him off on his birthday and boarding. Yeah, so it’s a birthday she’ll never forget, fortunately. Yup.

00:14:47 And uh, you guys talked to him. So He’s been there now for I about a year now, right? I’m not quite, so. Yeah, actually, no. Yeah, I guess yes. When March 8th was when we dropped them off and.

00:14:57 Oh, as Martha. Oh, you were there in January, but he didn’t go back until March last year because we had to do all the papers and went in Malaysia. We went back to Malaysia, which was obviously, it was excited and said yes right away. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, well, here’s the thing, this is the crazy thing is that, so before we even left for vacation for the, for this trip, I almost said vacation. It was an obligation, uh, before we went for this trip, he actually was looking up opportunities for him to play outside of Canada because he felt that where he was playing here in Canada, this wasn’t the place for him to be, to grow, to grow. Exactly. So he was actually already looking for other opportunities and he found something in, in uh, in England. And so yes, basically a similar idea school, which was a mix of school and soccer.

00:15:47 We’re watching him because my son plays soccer as well and he’s a year older than your son. Your son was playing a year up and uh, I was at the side of some field in Milton and I guess he said Grenage your last name on the back of the Jersey now. Triston probably doesn’t know. Maybe he knows who I am that we know each other, but it probably doesn’t recognize me or whatever. But I go up to the side of the field telling you some dads. I’m like, oh my God. Like I know this kid. I started taking pictures of him to send to you. And some of the dads are like, hey man, like you probably shouldn’t be at the side of a soccer field taking pictures of some, like some kid that obviously it’s not your kid because you know you’re cheering for your. That’s not your last name and you’re taking pictures. It really looks a little sketchy. Note taking. I’ll stop. I’ll stop encroaching on this kid’s like, today’s society. Awkward. Totally awkward moment. But uh, okay. So yeah, he says, yeah, he’s there. He gets dropped off in March. Yes. Uh, you guys fly back to drop him off.

00:16:46 I guess that all the drop off for. Yeah, that’s what we did. So what happened was when to Malaysia got all the paperwork that needs to get done, the money on flights on this around the world trip a while, thankfully has not too bad. Uh, and so it wasn’t too far of a flight between Malaysia and Thailand, so it wasn’t too bad of a hit. Uh, so yeah. Anyway, went back to Thailand to, to drop them off and yeah, we actually stayed there for a few more days before, after dropping off. And it was really cool actually because they had an international day where they, it’s almost like the Olympics, so they get all the students to get together based on your nationality. They got the flag in just up in the traditional gear. They play your anthem and they walked through. So it was really cool just to see the diversity in the school. I think they have representation from about over 60 or 70 different countries. Uh, con con, combination of faculty and the students, which is crazy. I never even heard of this concept, man. I had no idea. Oh yeah. I remember walking around the campus at first day thinking, oh my gosh, I want to that to high school. So did he represent Canada? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he dressed up in the traditional gear of and a tee shirt.

00:17:50 Uh, we put them in some as best we could. Some red and white stuff. We had stuff in a hockey jersey. Yeah. No. Yeah, we didn’t have any hockey uses.

00:17:59 That’s unfortunately where we’re traveling the world. And you need to Toronto, me, belief jersey, because you got to represent somewhere. You don’t have it. You just let me know. Yes. And that will fedex that thing to you overnight as soon as you need it. But the reason I found out, but that you didn’t have or were where I was cluing in because you didn’t tell me that you left the sun behind it where you were visited Croatia. You stayed in our place in Croatia, which was super cool for me that you would go there and stay in our place on the Adriatic coast and I’m telling my cousin, I’m like, you know, it’s a husband and wife and you know, they have two kids and stuff and then you’re there. I’m like, hey Mark, can you take a picture of you guys there for me?

00:18:32 Because like, it’s just so cool that you’re there and send it back to me and I just didn’t see like your whole family altogether. Then I think someone else maybe take a couple pictures and it was only, you know, just your younger son, not just, but your Triston wasn’t there. Quintin was there. And I’m like, I still didn’t connect the dots really. I’m like, I don’t know, maybe not everyone’s just there at that moment, I didn’t realize your son wasn’t with you anymore as you continue to change this trip around the world. So, uh, anyway, I, I wanted to start this by telling everyone why. How did this idea, like, how did you just decide like, is this something you’re like, okay, we’re going to just to experience life in a different way, like what’s the thought process? Because you had to rent out your own, like you left your home. Right. So it’s a pretty big decision. Um, what was the thinking?

00:19:22 Well, you know, what was in the. So the motivation to go on this trip wasn’t a single reason. Uh, it was actually a convergence of different thoughts and experiences as I came all together. Um, and this happened over a series of time. So I think one, one of those things or thoughts I came was the book a vagabond. Uh, so that book I found out about through listening to Tim Ferriss for sure. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that book’s just about people at. Has He motivated to travel world?

00:19:51 Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that, so that book, uh, the vagabonds just about longterm travel. So that was, that was definitely one seed that probably started the, the idea of, uh, of doing this crazy world trip and top of that. You know what, when I meet investors on my one on one meetings, you know, obviously we talk about real estate investing, but I usually like to get a deeper understanding of, you know, why, so why is it that they’re here doing real estate investing and a high percentage, let’s say, of investors would say that you’ll travel was something that was high on their list. Right? And then if they had already done some traveling, then we end up talking about, you know, we start sending her stories about traveling. So, and that happened, this was happening pretty much on a monthly basis. Right. So, so that happening as well.

00:20:40 Uh, on top of that, someone told us about this show on Netflix called departures. So if I talk to Canadians that basically pack up and leave their jobs and decided to go travel the world, I’ve heard of it. Yeah, it was a, we found out about it through, I guess when Italian friends and the significance of that show was not so much of the show itself, but actually the fact that it was the one show that our whole family would sit down and watch and, and actually enjoy altogether. They’re going to different places. Kind of like when you watch amazing race.

00:21:14 Okay. What are we now? Where are the exactly. Yeah. And that’s, that’s another show actually, even while we were traveling, even while we were traveling, we were, we were tuned into me guys were living the amazing race and you know what, in the tip of the iceberg, wow. I don’t know if it was two of the iceberg, but another, another significant, um, thought I guess or feeling was just the idea of uncertainty of the future. Um, this impermanence. So I had a friend who st as you and I, you know, in our mid forties, and so this happened a few years ago, goes into the hospital in December, just before Christmas times complaining about some stomach pains, finds out stage four pancreatic cancer. And then a few months later, rose funeral, right. And here’s a guy that lives a healthy lifestyle. Sure. Um, so over man, life is fragile. It can be over in a moment. So you know that for whatever reason, that’s something that was kind of lingering in my, in my head and right, just the, you know, just the unknown of what can happen and you know, just yeah.

00:22:20 Like I said, it wasn’t just one thing, it was kind of convergence of all these different thoughts and experiences and, and uh, so it got to a point where there’s enough pressure and have this idea that I went as far as then asking the principal at my kid’s school, Hey, do you know any of the families that have traveled the world? And he said, actually no, what? I, I knew a couple. So he got me into contact with these two families. And so I reached out to, to both. And one of them I called, it actually wasn’t loose here in Oakville, which is kind of interesting. And a meeting with them after I talked to her on the phone the first time. And when we talked, you know, there was four things that she said in that, in that conversation that I took away, your number one was that it was one of the best decisions that they made in their life. Number two, when they came back, they felt, um,

00:23:07 they were trapped. There were no, well, this is my perio, is my life. Go on a that they actually felt closer as a family. Okay, well that’s nice. Right? Okay, that’s good for positive and then third leave, you know, feeling the kids came back feeling more grateful for what they had. Sure. Right. But the four things is actually was the tipping point for me is crazy. This may sound is. The fourth thing that she said was that when she came back it felt like nothing had changed and that was a positive or a

00:23:45 negative for me. It was, it’s an I would think. Wait, before you answer, nothing had changed. So I would think that’s a negative because you’re looking around thinking, Jesus, this is all life. Is everybody going through the same motions like zombies day in and day out? And trying to get ahead, save a little money and just kind of suffering a slow, monotonous death of life. Um, is that too extreme?

00:24:17 No, no, I wasn’t thinking that way way. Just for the record. I don’t know where that’s coming from, but uh, yeah, so I would think that like, yeah, people are just kind of walking around and not really doing what they want to do. Um, so I would look at it as like a negative. So she’s happy that she went in and did something because nothing’s, nothing’s different here. How often am I? Well, I, I not too far off probably. I mean, I wasn’t thinking all that necessarily were going. No, no, no. I was thinking more of, you know, what, you’re not going to be missing out on anything.

00:24:54 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that was because I’m sure when you told me the first thing that entered my mind when you’re like, Hey Tom, I’m going to travel the world for a year. I’m like, okay, well how well, how do you budget for like, what’s the like how do you budget for that? Even, you know, I’m used to taking vacations, but how do you like, how do you even know how much money you’re going to need on such a thing? That probably wasn’t my first thing. I think my first thought was like his interest in going into high school. I think that was probably my first one. What happens is the grade nine, like I feel like I feel like Mark, if they were in grade school, yeah, screw it. It’s grade school, you know, but grade nine. There’s only four high school years. Like what’s going to happen, you know, Ken does he do these tests and then you had told me that you researched some way where you can travel the year and you basically do homeschooling on the road and then they come back and they have to take a series of exams that is over someone overseas these exams and they get essentially their grade nine.

00:25:50 Correct? Yes. Um, so I was like, okay, that seems like it’s reasonable, but I think I was still kind of scared for you when. I don’t know, are you really going to want to teach math when you’re like somewhere cool doing bungee jumps off some bridge somewhere? Um, but is that what most people told you? Maybe the money. I don’t know if the money aspect came up, but, or education. What were the main objections to you guys going?

00:26:13 We didn’t really get a lot of suggestions necessarily. I think it was more, it was more, it was more you talked behind your back that crazy. Yeah, I mean there obviously there’s that kind of initial shock, like, really, wow, are you seriously? No, no, don’t do that. Yeah. Um, but beyond that, no one really. I mean, yeah, there is the odd person that I would talk about the education side of things, but we had a covered in the sense of, you know, for, for church, and we did our due diligence. We had, we have a few friends that are teachers, high school teachers, so we asked them for their, you know, their advice. Um, so they kind of helped us through that and told us what to focus on and not what to worry about. Um, so we felt more comfortable after having those conversations, uh, with, and is it standardized Ontario type highschool test you take or does every high school have their own tests they give you at the end?

00:27:04 Yeah. So he was taking. So there’s some actual high school courses that you can actually take online know in Ontario? Yeah. Okay. Yep. Um, it’s, it’s not the, it’s not the maths and the sciences. Right. But some credits, some of those credits, right. It’s like a, gosh, I can’t remember the, I can’t remember the, I like business. Intro to business was something that he was able to just do it.

00:27:26 I took intro to business in high school. So did I think, oh my God, didn’t learn anything in that way anyway. I’m sure it’s better than coming into the business stuff anyway. Okay, good.

00:27:36 Yeah. So like intro to business, uh, was one of those classes where you can actually had just had the physical book as long as he did the activities and quizzes, whatever that were in the book, then that was sufficient for passing that particular course. Um, there were some things that you’d have to actually, we had planned, like when he came back, uh, he was going to take some summer courses and then do the exams, like sciencey science was the one that he couldn’t do while traveling. Right. Because you’re doing labs and whatnot. Right. Got It. Okay. So for that one it was something that you have to come back and do and we were able to um, work out, um, have some exams. Proctored actually. So what does that mean? Meaning that we could. So let’s say we’re, we’re in Thailand and he’s ready to now raise exam for math or midterm. Someone, uh, in here, back here in Ontario would send this exam to a person in Thailand. So it’d be like, for example, maybe we went to another school in Thailand and maybe we didn’t administer the test. Exactly. He’s not cheating on the test or what exactly. You’ve got it right. Didn’t know. Yeah. So that never happened. All that, all that found a high school that he joined. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Good for him in. So now he’s getting his high school and he’s getting this soccer on the soccer team. It’s some kind of team. Who did they play?

00:29:01 Well, you know what? Because a lot of competition, let’s say a product with that caliber as well. So they end up having to leave and go play elsewhere. So they’ve already been. So in the short time that he’s been there, he’s already been to Bali, Borneo, Bangkok for, for tournaments.

00:29:21 Cool man. Good for him. Yeah. Yeah. The life experiences he’s picking up right now. I mean, well you’ll know if it’s the right decision or wrong decision in a few years. Mark. Yep. Yeah, that’s good. I’m joking. I, it’s, I’m sure it’s fantastic. So, uh, that’s cool. Holy smokes. And then how did you pick the spots that you were going to visit? Did you guys go on the map and say hey, we want to go here and we want to go there? Like where did you go first? So we went to England. Actually, I guess this is the theme that cash are you carrying on you at this point? Do you have a lot of cash or is it everything? You’re just visa cards and you’re going to access debit. Everything’s plastic. Yeah. Everything’s got a bit of what you need and that’s it. You know what, for pretty much every country we went to with the exception maybe Cambodia, Cambodia.

00:30:04 It’s a, it’s all about us cash there, whereas pretty much everywhere else we’re good. You’re going to find a bank machine, find a bank machine and take out the local currency and you’re good to go. So you went to were first went to England. We went to watch a man you gain. Oh, I forgot that you did that. Basically went to England and Ireland and in London? No. Did you live in London? Yeah. No one to Gatwick. Yeah. Um, so you basically went to one of the most expensive cities that you can start your trip. Exactly. So they just burn through cash like crazy. Oh yeah. London is not cheap, man. Yeah. You know, we’re in London. We were lending what? Two summers ago I was telling Caroline, I’m like, who can even survive in this freaking city? You know, I, I did, I ended up journaling on this trip and uh, I remember on that second day you’re running my treadmill just thinking, oh my gosh, we’re not going to last.

00:30:52 We’re not going to last. Strip is not gonna. Go Walk me through it. So London and then you go to a further. We went to Portugal. Portugal. Yeah. You met up with our old buddy. I don’t, I don’t even, I, it’s been so long since I’ve talked to Walter. But you met up with him? That’s right. Yeah. Portugal. And then you went to Africa? We’re in Africa. I went to Morocco. Oh cool. Yup. Huh. Um, and then after Morocco, South Africa, South Africa. Holy smokes man. It was a beautiful. Yes. Yeah, very much so. Um, South Africa. And then we’re after that and we jumped over to Asia where we went to Malaysia. Cool. And okay. And then was it the Thailand and then Cambodia. Cambodia, sorry. No, some religion of Vietnam. Cambodia, Thailand, Cambodia, Thailand. And then you went. Where did you come home from? Thailand. No, Portugal from Thailand.

00:31:46 You went back to Portugal from Thailand. We went down to Australia. Oh my God, I forgot about Australia and then after our Australia we went back to Europe, went to, we went to Croatia. Oh my God. Yeah. I’m cutting out a whole bunch. Went to Croatia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah. To go back to your question about how we kind of came to not believe your courage. This frees my mind up because you said you took a day trip to somewhere, an area called Backi was working with my dad was born there in this. Nobody goes there. That’s not like a tourist spot you go to. You’re like, I’m going to drive 30 minutes or no more an hour inland from the coast and check out this area because I don’t know what you would’ve seen that would have brought you there. There’s this, I think they have some lakes or something. Blue Lake and red lake. Yeah, like it’s not really high on the tourist lists, so you must have just found the local tourist attractions, but you really got a good sense of what the inland of Croatia would be like by going to [inaudible] man, you know. That’s how we traveled though. I mean we, we, you know, we talked to the locals and we’d asked, you know, what are some of the things we can see, not necessarily the, the, the, the tourists, all the tourist places I’m looking for other, you know, other less known places to go check out as well. So it was about. Tell us about that.

00:32:58 Oh my God. Holy smokes. Anyway, was he was, was he drunk when you saw him or. No, he was sober. He was sober when you facetime me. Yeah. But then yeah. But then we had a few drinks soon after. I think I probably had todd just to drop off my bags and then I was down having some shots with him after. I definitely have drinks with bucky. But uh, I, it’s funny because when you were going to right before you’re getting integration, I was right here in this office here and I got a plain piece of paper like this and I was drawing this weird looking thing and somebody was asking like, what are you doing? And I’m like, well I’m trying to map. And they’re like, that looks like a door, a map, like you’re drawing this weird looking map to how to get to our condo there in Croatia.

00:33:40 And I was explaining that Mark’s going to the condo and I’m like, can you just not Google maps? I’m like, Eh, really? It’s Kinda tough. The last hundred meters is really sketchy. I don’t think he can google map it. And I drew out this thing. Did I take a picture of that and text it to you or something? I gave you this handwritten map. I think he took a scanned and emailed it to you. It worked out really well. We all trees and a hard left turn and go up to the hill and it’s not a paved road but you’re going to be okay. That’s pretty steep now. I think the biggest tip you gave us was to go during the day. I think it might’ve been a little bit more challenging for you had been there during the nighttime. I mean probably would have eventually found her way.

00:34:20 Yeah, it was super difficult. But uh, yeah, we’ve probably been doing some door knocking or something. Got It. Okay. So Gracious. Sorry. Cratio. Then after Croatia, back to Portugal after that was after Croatia and then Portugal back home.

00:34:33 You got it? Yup. Yup. Yeah. And Yeah, just to go back to how we came up with this plan of where to go. So we took let’s say, well the countries in Europe and all the countries in Africa and all the countries in Asia and we, each, all four of us had all these countries and then we basically just highlighted which ones like privately highlighted, which ones were the favorites and then we kind of brought all of our answers together and then from there we just said, well, if everybody wants to go to Portugal, okay, we’re all going to Portugal, right? If three of the four of us want to go to Thailand, okay, we’re going to tell it. And then that’s really how the framework cane. But as we traveled, you know, things changed. We know there’s some places that we ended up not going to and

00:35:17 yeah, did anything, um, I don’t know any food and like I’m just thinking in Malaysia and like how did the kids do with food and some of the Asian countries, like did you struggle at all there? No, not at all. So yeah. Did you eat any bugs on sticks anywhere? Uh, the kids did. I did not know you didn’t, but I did. We all as a family. Eight snake in Cambodia. How was that?

00:35:39 Nothing special. I’m going to say the most common thing that people say tastes like chicken.

00:35:43 What? We’re. Okay. So what were some of the best memories of the trip? Either location or family moments. Do you have anything that really kind of like, ah, that was worth it?

00:35:53 Oh, 100 percent. The Safari. Oh cool. Yeah. I went on a safari and you saw a lot of animals. We saw a lot of animals, animals that I didn’t even know existed. Yeah, it’s cool, right? Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean we saw, we didn’t see. So when you go on these safaris, he talk about the big five, a lion, leopard, Buffalo, a elephant and Rhino. Yep. So those are the big five we saw. And you never know. You never know if you’re going to see all of them or none of them. I’m Tangi ucm. Maybe one or two at least. So we saw four to five when you get to see a leopard. But it was, it was. Yeah, it was.

00:36:29 Did. This is why you should go to the Disney world safari and you’re guaranteed TC everyday. I tell everyone, you don’t have to call him. He’s just go animal kingdom and Disney world. You get on their safari, right? Have you heard of the safari? Right? I have not. It’s amazing. You go into a big truck, they drive you around with like, you’re on far, you check off all the boxes, you’ve been there, done that. But anyway, you did it the authentic way. Um, so, uh, yeah, that was impressive. A.

00:36:50 Yeah, that was A. Yeah, just it was such a surreal experience just to be in this open jeep and have these elephants and drops or whatever. Just be literally just a few yards away. A stone throw away any lines. Oh yeah. Really? Yeah. There was the lines, uh, sometimes a little bit too close for comfort. No Way. The guys in the jeep with a rifle with, you know, it had no rifle man. So the lines are no threat. They’re not coming to the, the big, the big thing is that when you’re in the jeep, they, the animals just see you as an outline. Huh? Meaning that you just kind of like background. Right? But if someone decides to just kind of stand up and you know, you’re breaking the outline and then that’s what’s going to grab their attention and that’s when you can have some trouble.

00:37:35 Got It. Okay. So you sit your ass down and you do not get up pretty much. Yeah. You know what the. So, um, we were fortunate that there was, at that time, there was what they call a pack of lions and they’re basically running the bush as they were saying. And uh, so when we were out there that first year, it was our first night, um, so we saw basically lions getting ready for the kill. So you saw there was, there’s a group of five of them, right? So at time there I see like three of them and I’d be like, okay, where’s the fourth one? Right. And then eventually you see the fourth one and like they’re coming into like formation and then we saw like, and you saw what I’ve only seen on youtube documentaries or natural geographic.

00:38:15 Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It was crazy because then that, then we saw some impala which is essentially deer here. And we thought, Oh boy, here we go. This is going to see when you see some live kill right now. Right. But nothing happened. So then Paul is, they made this sound and that was kind of their warning sound and they took off and literally those lines then realize that they took off. So let’s go to new locations and they leery just walked right across her jeep and they didn’t even know us. He didn’t even look at us. Right. Wow. So I thought, okay, that’s cool. No problem. That was pretty cool. Right? And then, but the next night with a little bit different for whatever reason. So then we, we, we went out and we saw the group of lines again and I remember so many interests in her in the back and there’s this one line that was lily walking behind us and it was, his head was pointed and looking at our direction and the way he was walking it was like, I’m coming for you.

00:39:09 Like, that’s, that’s what I felt. Right. And at this time the jeep is, you know, the engine’s turned off again. This is typically what they do, right? We turn off the jeep Kansas spot and this, we kind of sit and watch. Right. But this time was different. They started the jeep and moved to afford a little bit. Right. So he didn’t say anything. He didn’t know if the guides, but he didn’t say anything to us because I think he didn’t want to put any fear into us, but I think he did that because he knew that he sends something was a little bit off with that line that was walking behind us and then the line kept going and then just kept going. How do you check the reviews of the safari? Uh, no one has been murdered or mangled by ally and because you’re not going to get the zero start because the person’s freaking dead.

00:39:50 Yeah, exactly. So, uh, Geez man. Yeah. So that was, that was. Yeah, that was crazy. That was crazy. It’s crazy. Awesome. But for Real, how did you find out the safari that you felt comfortable going with? You? Just ask the locals when you’re laying there like this. This was actually interesting. This tracked it down. Yeah. I’m online. So you guys were doing online everything. Pretty much, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, and this is, this is why we felt comfortable. Like some people have asked like, wow, when we talked to some families who have kids, like I could never let my lead my lead my child, you know, in a different country, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah. And you know, one of the reasons that we were very comfortable with doing it is because what we saw interest in while we were traveling was just unreal. He was, he was always in leading.

00:40:35 He was always in the front, you know, giving us directions on where to go. Not like we needed it, but he was, he just took orange. I’ve driven with you. You needed a dude going to myrtle beach and high school together and get logged in. Isn’t it supposed to be an 18 hour drive to myrtle beach or. No? What is the 18th 10 tickets? Twenty. I didn’t try too much, I don’t think. I think I just sat back and let you were holding them back. Okay, now let’s go on. Yeah. No. So yeah, he um, in my mind you were holding the map for the record. Okay.

00:41:03 We can agree to disagree. You have that? Oh yeah, no, he just, he just took ownership. He took ownership and then uh, you know, when we’re looking for accommodations, you know, he found a lot of our accommodations, uh, online. He did the flight when you will go to the airports, he was the one we need to go here, you need to go there, Dah, Dah, Dah. So I felt very comfortable with just, you know, he was good. I felt like, you know what dude, you’re good man. You go do your thing. Did you realize you could spend less money than you had anticipated in some of these countries and really have a good time.

00:41:34 You know, if you go have a one week vacation, you’re going to sum all inclusive or you’re going on some trip and you’re really going all out, like you’re spending the most you could possibly spend typically in a week or two weeks or three weeks or even a month. But when you go like that and you kind of living like the locals and staying at some place that you can, you don’t really need to spend that much. True. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m sure that book vagabonding really kind of drove that home to. Exactly. Yeah. Yup. Um, okay. What I’m curious what country stood out the most for you just for their beauty. I asked you this before. I think I remember the, the answers are like, what countries shocked you? The most?

00:42:10 Cambodia shocked me. The most. Poverty so much, so much for poverty. Just uh, it shocked me the most in that we initially were not going to go there, let’s put it that way. It was, it wasn’t on our list. It was a last minute decision to go there based on conversation we had with people we met while we were traveling. So we just had no idea what to really expect when we went about it. But everyone was saying, you got to go exactly what it was. Beautiful. Yeah. So they said, well, in terms of beauty, I wouldn’t say it was beautiful. Um, in terms of beautiful, I would say Vietnam, I would say actually Croatia, you know, what we had Croatia was just.

00:42:55 Yeah, you said that. And I’m always shocked to hear that I’m in Croatia is beautiful. And just shocked for someone who’s gone around the world seeing that many places, that it stands out that high. Yeah. I guess because I’ve gone there as a kid every year I’m used to the coastline. I’m used to the islands. I’m so used to it all, you know. Um,

00:43:10 I think every country, every country did have its habits, but. Sure, of course. Right? Yeah. Uh, but yeah, in Croatia for whatever reason, for us, it just, uh, had really hit home in terms of just being very, uh, you know, tranquil. And yeah, it was a, how are the people you will find the people because I find it funny. It’s like a harsh person there. They were welcoming to you guys. Oh yeah, yeah. No, we didn’t harsh in a bad way. I just mean that’s their way. Yeah, no loud spoken, harsh tattoo questions, talking to each other. You could think they’re arguing, but they’re really just best buddies now. It was all good. Yeah. No, we didn’t have A. Okay. So Gracious. And then Vietnam was the other one, correct? Yep. For its coastline. But uh, you know, what we went to, again, this is one of those places we went to a place called [inaudible], which is basically a town on the mountain and uh, I mean it was weather wise, it wasn’t the greatest, but uh, you know, it was very, very scenic in terms of the rice fields in a. So we found that to be something we’ll see all the time.

00:44:18 Right. So that was something different that we found some beauty and seeing that. Um, but like I said, you know what, there’s a pretty much in every country we went to, I can honestly say there was something beautiful about. Makes Sense. Yeah.

00:44:32 Everywhere he went. What surprised you about the food? Which place has the best food? Best food. When you say South Africa. Huh? But you know what, I say that just because, you know, there was such a variety of different food options in South Africa. So we got to. So we didn’t meet everybody happy, let’s put it that way. In terms of the family made everybody happy. Whereas in some places, you know, maybe with my wife, Talia wasn’t so warm and fuzzy about eating certain foods, so.

00:45:06 Okay, got it. So you’re more of the adventure. You’re telling me that South Africa was also the most dangerous spot or the time you felt the most unsafe was that South Africa are no different countries.

00:45:16 Yeah. You know what is interesting? Well, South Africa is just the very blatantly obvious gap between the haves and have nots.

00:45:25 I mean, I always hear about it, but I’ve never actually been there. Right?

00:45:28 Yeah. So just imagine where you live right now and now you have a, let’s say maybe a seven foot eight foot fence around your whole house and then on top of that fence and it’s. And it’s brick. Okay. And you have barbed wire on top of that fence. Um, obviously have your gate to get through and then to get to your front door you have another gates that you’re unlocking before you even get to your front door. And then all your windows have, um, have metal bars. Got It. You’re living in lockdown. Yeah. So that’s pretty much where we were in Cape Town. Um, yeah, that was pretty much the norm of what you saw and you could feel it like you didn’t feel exactly safe, you know what we were. Okay. Um, because, I don’t know, I guess after now traveling for a bit, you know, we get comfortable. Exactly, exactly. I mean that being said, were we out there at nighttime too often? No, maybe. I think it was maybe one or two nights. We were, at least when we were in Cape Town, they were out at night. Um, yeah, we try to be smart obviously when we’re traveling, especially traveling as a family. Right.

00:46:40 And so, and some countries that didn’t come up on your list where I didn’t hear Argentina, right? Yeah, we didn’t do, we didn’t do South America at all. Right. Now we need to do another trip in. You feel like you could make a whole year to South America? Yes, we have. Yeah, we have unfinished business. Um, and then, uh, what, what did you go when you guys came back home? First of all, how’s the reaction when you land back home? And get into kind of North American way of life in Canada. What’s that transition like? And the reason I ask is because the first time I went on a longer trip to Europe, when I came back here, I thought, what’s everyone’s problem? Is everyone rushing around all over the place. Why is it went freaking about everything? Everybody just take a step down, chill out. It’s going to be okay.

00:47:18 Like I really had. And I think that was only for like I had gone to Europe as a kid for multiple months at a time in the summer, but then, you know, probably from the age 15 or so to write until uh, you know, I guess early Thirties I was only going on quick little trips in and out. I’d never been there for any length of time. So, uh, then when I had gone I think for just about a month and then coming back here and getting into the way of life there and the speed of things coming back to Canada was like being hit in the face. You know, I felt like what’s everyone’s problem here? Like everyone’s rushing around and like, for what, just slow down, you know? Um, I really had a tough adjustment period. We had already started Rock Star at that time and I remember it was really early on, but I remember telling nick and I just really had a few weeks of battling getting back into the way of things here. It just didn’t feel like the way we should live, you know, and then you kind of get back into the norm and stuff. But I just thought that everyone had lost their minds here a little bit.

00:48:16 Yeah. I think, you know, from what I remember, I was only a few months ago, but my psyche was that, um, you know what, I, I wouldn’t say that, uh, I was still back, you know, traveling and you know what, when it came back it was, I just felt like I’m back doing my thing. Right. Nothing had changed. Nothing had changed. Right, because I mean, one of your sons. Yeah. Yeah. We were just a family. Four of your family of three. Yeah. No, because when we came back we came back and actually we couldn’t go back into our, uh, our home yet because, you know, we had tenants there and so we were actually one of our rental properties for a little bit until we can move back. So that was honestly probably the beauty of owning some real estate. Right. You can live in different places. Yeah. That was a bonus.

00:49:04 You know what? Yeah, in terms of my psyche, I think, I think it hit home, I think for Italia was little more difficult than for me and maybe I was ready to come back and maybe that’s why I felt that I settled back in probably a lot easier than the Italian. Okay. After eight months you were ready to come back. That could change your mindset. I can totally see that. And to be honest with you, once Triston gone into the school, you know, I felt that the Mojo of the, of the, of the whole experience had changed.

00:49:34 Good point. You’re now the family unit anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Got It.

00:49:37 So once that happened I did feel a bit of a change and at that point, honestly I think that’s when I just started counting down to coming back and so that, that would have been march. Right. And we came back beginning of March and we came back, actually, we came back three months later. Come back immediately. But yeah, I got it. Okay. The energy of the experience, it changed on you guys. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

00:50:05 Yeah. That’s interesting. That makes sense. So you’re ready to come back? Exactly. Okay.

00:50:10 Yeah. And you know what I was, I, I’m, I’m, I do like routine. Um, so it was, you know, it was nice to kind of come back and get back into the routine of some things. So that, uh, that was, that was welcoming alchemy.

00:50:25 What would you a. So someone who calls you now, you call it to other people asking about traveling around the world. If you were to someone who was going to ask you about like, Hey, you know, what, what can I expect? Or what lessons or whatever. You ask that person that you were speaking to you, what, what could you share with someone on like, what to think about before you planned a trip like this? You know, what, um, be, be flexible. That’s number one, you know, that uh, because you know, our from our original plan of all the countries that we’re going to visit and how we are going to visit those countries. It was changing on the fly, you know, had we had situations like for example, when uh, before going to South Africa, we found out actually from, from Walter because Walter and his family had gone to South Africa probably two or three months before and they said they had asked us if we had our long form birth certificates for the kids and we said no.

00:51:20 And now most of us don’t even know we have a long form birth certificate here. Yeah, exactly right. And like, well why do we need that for? I said, well you need to get into South Africa. And then sure enough we go and Google and and we hear about the horror stories that people go in there and having been having to come back because they didn’t have the long form birth certificates, so we ended up having to stay in Marrakesh, part of Morocco for I think three or four weeks because we were away. We need to stay in one single place for us to have a place for us to receive the long form birth certificates. Right. If we weren’t planning on staying in America for that long, we were actually planning on going to different parts of Morocco. Wonder why he needed that though. You had a passport?

00:52:00 A child child trafficking, Huh? Yeah. What is the long form birth certificate I have to do with child trafficking. Apparently it’s, I guess it’s an extra layer that they feel helps them control that. Got It. The fact that this is even a think we’re so blessed and candidate growing up in here, you don’t mean like. Did you growing up overthink about child trafficking is a threat to your young young existence? No. Holy crap and it all. But I can tell you, even when we were in South Africa, Africa, and we’d be out grocery shopping, you know, sometimes the kids would go to another aisle to look for something, whatever. Right. You’re gonna be like a, where are you going? Get back over here. You got a different leash. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay. So be flexible. What else? How about the family dynamic? There must’ve been some battles or something.

00:52:52 Disagreements. Did you get along better than you thought you would towards the beginning, towards the end? Any of that kind of stuff? You know what, we definitely, definitely connected more as a family because just imagine like we’re pretty much with each other 24 slash seven. Um, it was, and this will tell you mrs a lot is, you know, we were eating all three meals together. Right? It’s having those conversations at the, at the breakfast, lunch and dinner table. Right. Which, you know, as soon as we get back here, you’re not doing that as much if at all. I feel so fortunate. Like every morning I’ll get up with the family, make breakfast, be involved, and just that kind of little moment before everyone kind of starts their day. I feel so blessed that I get to do that because when I was working in the corporate world, I never got to do that. I had to get up to be traffic because I was one of those guys that was at the office early before everybody else. And so I would leave really early and it didn’t necessarily mean it was coming home early. Either I would stay late and that kind of missed all that and I just feel so blessed that I get to kind of listen to those conversations about school and their tests and they forget their lunch or their water bottle, which might all sound ridiculous but to these are, these are the moments of life and I love him, you know? So that’s cool.

00:54:00 I could see that. Yeah. And you know, and I’ll repeat the same things that the, that same parent told me. Right. You know what I’m, it’s one of the best decisions that we’ve made in our life and our family came closer together. The kids are definitely 100 percent. Definitely grateful for what they have here in Canada. 100, but that’s a whole other thing when they come back to Canada and you come back to Milton, Ontario and you just realize, I think we live in Disney world, you know, like think about how great it is here. We drive up to these malls with starbucks and a safe banking system and multiple grocery stores where we can get foods from all around the world. I’ll never forget last summer, no two summers ago here in Croatia in my mother in law was with us and she’s going into all the gorilla grocery stores there and asking for Polish, like Cabasa.

00:54:46 Right. And because she’s used to being here in Canada where we can get any food, like at anywhere you can get Italian food, Polish food, Chinese food, like literally any food. Right. But they are, you can’t, they don’t have like Polish Kobasa in Croatia. They have their meat cuts, you know, they don’t sell it like that and she was just mystified by it. I’m like Canada, so beautiful man. We are spoiled in so many ways just because we can get our co Polish Kobasa anywhere we want it, you know, but uh, and yeah, and it’s just, you know, what it gives you perspective, right. I mean we went into groceries that were literally just like one aisle, right. And like a small aisle and that’s it. And you come here and go to your super loblaw superstore and it’s just, and you can at times and it’s.

00:55:30 Yeah, I mean, so yeah. And you know, and, and for the kids, um, yeah, just gives them a different perspective on things and we hope that a lot of takeaways from their experience that they have going to parlay. How often you talking to Tristan now? Is it through, I guess just face time on the computer or whatever? Exactly. Yeah. Once a week. Well we were Italian wants it to be daily. Yes. Uh, but yeah, you know what, he has a couple of days of the week where he has to wake up really early in the morning to for training. So right now it’s, I’d say it’s about three or four times a week and he’s going to finish that high school with are recognizable I guess high school diploma from a British type school in the country of Thailand. Correct. That will be recognized if he did want to come back here and go to university. I guess he can use that just as any other high school diploma. Exactly. So he can pretty much go anywhere in the world with that, with that diploma and his life perspective now it does. Quintin wish he was doing something like this because he’s now in grade. What grade? Eight? Using great now. Okay. So he missed grade seven threat. Okay. Um, how does he feel about that? About his brother being a weight as he wanted to do something like that?

00:56:41 Well, when we were at the school that your going to. He did, he did save that he was jealous and that so and so that implied that he could or would maybe want to go to that school if they did have a volleyball option. Yeah, he probably would have went. Now. Does that necessarily mean that he’s actively looking for opportunities? Sandwiches, brother? No, no. You know, just in. I mean, as you know, if you having two kids and pretty much every family, they know how to kids. The kids are different and Quinten quinten is different in, in, in respect to. And we’re trying as parents not to. It’s, it’s challenging at times. We’re trying not to put what Tristan has done as now the benchmark of what he should quintin Chanel do. Right. You know, we want.

00:57:36 Quintin makes sense. You want to build that up like, oh my gosh, look at him. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

00:57:41 So we want quinten to kind of find his own. His own destiny is on future in terms of what he wants to do and if it doesn’t have to be what his brother is doing and we hope that irresponsible, responsible your son, you look over, look at when we were there, just a little bit older than your kids. Now we drove down to myrtle beach and caused chaos. I won’t say which one it was neither of us, but which one of us went in jail and that it wasn’t me by the way. It might have been the person who visited in Portugal and we had to get him out of jail, but we were all. He was just a disaster, but trip. Looking at that and seeing some of the life experiences that your kids have all underneath their belt already. Just to me, you’re really living life on your terms when you’ve done what you’ve done right now, traveled the world. Come back. Your son’s over there. I credit my whole world perspective on the ability to see other cultures and going to Europe as a kid and living in a small village on the farm and seeing how other people live and then coming back here and recognizing that the hard work I’m doing is nothing compared to living their everyday in the middle of winter, going out to feed animals when it’s freezing cold and you have to do it.

00:58:48 There’s no like, I don’t want to do that today, or I’m gonna like not do that today. You have to do that every day. And then coming back here and realizing, wow, this is such a great country. So lucky to be born here with all the opportunities as we said that we have. Absolutely. So yeah, to see you go through this man. It’s a big deal. I do. Who knew who knew you were going to do this and when we met, I still remember. Do you remember when we. I remember when we met and you said, I guess you were working on it still at the time. This would be, I don’t know, when did you buy the first income property? Two thousand nine. Two thousand nine. So I guess it would be 2008 maybe. We had just started this and you’re like, Hey Tommy here, you’re doing some real estate stuff.

00:59:25 Can I take you out for lunch? And we went over for lunch and I say no to pretty much everyone, but we’ve known each other since grade one the day you came crying into the classroom with your dad standing at the door and you’re sitting down and you were a good soccer player right out of the gates. I’ll never forget. I remember thinking, man, I wish I could play as good as Mark. Uh, but uh, but we were on the same team. I managed to be, I managed to play on some of the same select or rep team with select teams. Uh, like you were like the talent. I was the guy that they just needed another body in there. So I managed to get a scrape my way onto these thieves. But um, yeah, just growing up. But uh, I lost my train of thought now. But just seeing, seeing you and knowing you for so long. Yeah. And sorry, in 2008 when we went out for lunch, you buy, you’re working in the IT industry. You bought your first income property than a few years know. Then within a year you buy a couple more. I feel like in the first year, I don’t know. You went out of the gates on fire?

01:00:17 Yeah. We ended up closing on three properties within eight weeks.

01:00:21 Is that what it was? Oh my gosh. So three properties in eight weeks. We really tricked you. Pretty good. Didn’t we? A three properties in eight weeks. And I remember being scared for you. I think I even had a car.

01:00:33 No, you called me. Yeah, he did call me.

01:00:35 Yeah, cause I mean we’d want people to do this kind of stuff because we believe so much in owning assets in your life, whether it’s real estate or building your own assets, but when someone like you goes and does three properties closing in eight months and eight weeks. And I think one of them was a little bit of a trickier, more complicated situation. Um, I remember thinking, man, we’re here for you, dude, we got your back, but please go in eyes wide open here. You know, real estate is a dangerous game, like a high rewards, but you need to know what you’re doing with it.

01:01:03 You know, what, once we found out that we were uh, you know, approved to get multiple properties, you know, I mean, was the goal to get them in that short of a period? No, in terms of the closing now, but just opportunities to present themselves. Right? And we didn’t want to delay because, you know, things can change, right? Um, whether it’s mortgage rule changes or something changes with us in terms of our employment, right? So we knew that we use that as urgency, right? To take action. And so yeah, we ended up getting these three properties within eight weeks of closing each other and that wasn’t the plan by any means. I mean, I’m the first property we got and then the second, uh, after we got that first one, we’re still on the hunt looking for another property. And then we’ve gone to multiple offers.

01:01:51 And so the seller came back and said, you know, are you guys flexible with the closing date? And we’re like, yeah, sure, you pick any date you want. And then they came back and it was actually two weeks after closing on the first one. And I’m like, Oh man, this is going to be tough. But you know what we thought, well, because they, both houses are pretty close to each other. So we just leveraged the marketing, right? So we’d show one property at, let’s say 1:00 and then if they didn’t like it, I say, hey listen, we’re doing another showing at this other property just down the street, you know, at 3:00, you know, feel free to come by. Right. Um, and I think we were fortunate to that, you know, the second property, uh, on that first show, we got somebody right. The first property took about five, six weeks to get someone.

01:02:31 And actually the third property came from the marketing on the first one. So it was actually an owner of a property calling saying that you know, they, they were in such basically in short, they wanted to get the equity out of their house, but at the same time they didn’t want to move. Right. So family and she had three kids and Duh Duh. And just this is before I even got my real estate license and really knew much about real estate, to be honest with you. I said, well, you know what, how about we buy your property and then you could rent to own. And she said you can do that. And like, yeah, yeah, for sure. Meanwhile not knowing that I could. Okay.

01:03:07 Right. So I hope that, I hope it works for both of us. Let’s figure this out. So I grabbed the phone and then I called my coach j hunt at the time, like, jp, this is what I told this person, can I actually do this?

01:03:20 Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. We can make that happen. And so we just picked a date and it ended up being just a few weeks after closing on the second one. But in hindsight I’m like, Damn, I should’ve made it like closer to the closing, the closing closer to that second property and that could have said we were closing three properties in like three weeks, something like that. But yeah, sitting there talking about at that lunch, describing what we were doing and then for you just to jump right in. And I think then maybe a few months later, I can’t remember it. You were like, Tom, can I meet with you again? And this time I think we met at a starbucks and you were like, ah, now I want to get my real estate license, start working with you guys. And I think I was like, well, again, I think it was like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, whoa, Whoa, whoa. The only, you’re got a good career. I quit my job and did all this crazy stuff. I don’t know if I’m going to protect you, man. You better know what you’re getting into. Um, because I think I was at a point in my life where it’s just, I didn’t care like I was going to make it work.

01:04:14 I was gone from the corporate world. Right. And I didn’t know what that would mean for you. Like I don’t know what’s going to work for Mark. I used to, I don’t know, I guess at that time yet you had family. Yeah, of course. So a scary. Anyway, you did it. You didn’t listen to me. You did it. And uh, and now you’ve helped, I don’t know how many a Rock Star members and festers and stuff. Um, so it’s weird because we knew each other in grade school and high school and then throughout the next few years, but then our lives kind of went different ways for a little bit and now they’ve kind of smashed back together. We’ve been crossing paths like this and it’s a, it’s cool man. So to see you do this and then do a trip around the world with your family and we talk about living your life on your terms, for you to be doing that and then to visit where we go in Croatia and stay in our place.

01:05:01 I know that’s just a special thing for me. Really special. So, uh, yeah, so thanks for sharing your story man, and a, if anyone has questions, I guess the best way is just to look you up on the Rock Star brokerage website. Yep. Rockstarbrokerage.com. You could find Mark granted she could track them down there. I’m sure addresses on there. So you find our office and you can track down Mark, but to anything else to about that trip that you wanted to get in before we wrap up. Uh, actually, you know what, when you said your life, your terms, you meant. So going back to the beginning of, of our conversation here and in terms of the reason for why we end up doing this world trip. And I mentioned a few of them and I said I had multiple thoughts and experiences and so when those other thoughts was to haul your life, your terms.

01:05:44 Right. That was also something that I see pretty much every day. Right. So within the emails and the conversations and so that again, was one of the other thoughts and experiences that converged to lead us to this world trip. And so yeah, it’s been, you know, uh, I have to say like that, that are meeting up again. Um, I don’t know how it is that we planned and I tell people that we’ve, we’ve worked at three different jobs now which is people like really, and I was like scratching my head like, yeah, I’m not too sure why this has happened or how it’s happened, but it just has. And basically got me the bank teller job at CABC. That was a great job. That was followed you into customs because did I meet you and that customer service when we were, I, that that was just.

01:06:34 Yeah, we just came from two different directions. Yeah, we came from two different directions. You definitely got me in at CABC. But yeah, because you were at Mac then I was at u of t and we both applied to that. One of those federal summer school programs. Exactly. Students, if you’re wondering what we’re doing, we were student customs officers, so we were the people that greeted you when you come up. A plain old terminal. One last few questions, but I ended up going to court over that because I caught a few people with drugs. I don’t know if you ever went to court. I did not. Oh, I had to bring my little book and they made some plea bargain before. So I sat in court all day but then they just dismissed me so I didn’t actually have to go on the stand, but they were prepping me to go on the stand because one of the people I caught, it was this lady coming through customs and she said, I said, where are you coming from?

01:07:18 And she like, you know how we were trained to look at those tickets and say if they had, if they had bought the ticket cash and if they bought it like a day before they left the old tickets. So you could. I saw that she bought it cash the day before she left, which was like a sign that you’re not there on vacation. And then she started giggling like she was at somebody’s funeral, but she was kind of laughing that nervous laugh. So I don’t think I was any double o seven, dude, I don’t know. Something’s not adding up here. I put her into the secondary to be searched and they caught her with stuff and I ended up having to go to court over it. But they plea bargain I think or something. I think our life was threatened here if she was going to go on the stand or something, I forget, but I didn’t have to go and, and uh, and actually testify.

01:07:59 But I think that’s the most. Remember when we were in that job together, I’ll never forget it. And if for anyone listening, just to the biggest warning you can give any of your children traveling out of this country, how many times would we see situations working at that job where young girls would travel somewhere down south and they would be tricked into carrying a package back into Canada that happened to be full of drugs. Not knowing that we have drug dogs in this stuff to find it here and they would get caught. This is like a federal offense bringing in illegal narcotics into the country and their whole lives. Can be ruined because they were like, totally, hey, I’ll give you 500 bucks. Carry this bag back in the country. For me, it’s always just devastated me to see that kind of situation. If you have any children traveling, just tell them to never take a freaking package from someone you don’t know and bring it back into this country. Holy smokes.

01:08:48 And if you do see any luggage and that’s just hanging around in the airport, just leave it. Just tell somebody. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a big no, no. To pick it up. Yeah, yeah. Geez. Yeah. So, but I can’t believe that was by chance. So that job was by chance and we both have other stories real quick. One year with the, you mentioned the drug dog, so you remember what you remember when the frt group would come out and then the drug dog would do its thing and you remember how we would detect that it had drugs. Do you remember that? I’m holding the little ball in my pocket of like whatever drugs, but I don’t remember. So what it would do, it was, it would, you know, remember picture the whole lineup of passengers, right? It would sit, wouldn’t say exactly. Exactly. So it would run like super fast, right?

01:09:29 Like I, I just, I’d be just blown away how fastest always raining and people are getting scared. Dog is like, come on, yeah, it’s going to be full tilt. Right. And it’s going through all the different lines of people. Right. And yet you’re right, that’s exactly what to do. It would just sit down if it detected some contraband. Right. So remember, I think it was a flight from La, doesn’t matter where it came from, but anyway, so I see that the dog’s doing its thing in my life and then all of a sudden it sits down. I’m like, damn, like something. Oh here we go. I’m already fast forwarding to go into court. Right. And then the little passenger says to me, when she comes up to me, just, Oh, dogs just love me no more.

01:10:09 And I’m thinking, oh that’s her, that’s the best thing. She figured out how she was going to cover up the fact that she knew would drug dogs there sat next door to flager dogs love me. Oh, but you know what? Nothing came of it like I sent her in and she. Yeah, it was legit. She was. Oh my gosh. She got. She was a dog whisperer or something. One of my favorites was one guy comes off a flight. Do you remember those old adidas final bags like blue with the red guy comes running off a flight mark. I forget where this. I forget where the flight was from. Amsterdam. One of the Caribbean. I, I honestly, I forget. He comes running into the hall. First guy off the plane. First guy and I don’t know. I think because I smiled a lot and stuff. I get a lot of these crazies and they would write. He was hugging the back like on his side. Any rain right towards me and he has a. He claimed some stuff and I can tell us ticket was bought, you know, all the signs were there. I send him into get searched cocaine laced in the bottom of dvds, but you know, the hard shell at the bottom of the bowl. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn’t all cocaine. You got one. You don’t remember when, if you send somebody up and they would call you, they say your stamp number. So, and so come up to secondary like, oh my God, what happened in most of the times it was like nothing or you did something wrong. Uh, but uh, yeah. Got This guy

01:11:27 and I, I kinda felt bad, you know, the whole thing. One time I had to go to remember when [inaudible] would come around. Are we allowed to be talking about some of this now? Uh, I think it’s too late now too late thesis would come around and say, hey, here’s a picture of the thesis for if you’re listening, you don’t know. CCS. CCS is basically like our FBI. Um, they would come around and show pictures and they were all always in plain clothes. Those guys. And they would say, hey, if this guy’s coming. And it would always be like a flight from Amsterdam, some international location. And like, here is this a picture of this guy we’re looking for beyond the lookup forum? I don’t know. That’s what they told me. Anyway. I never kind of caught these guys. But one time this guy takes me to terminal to, um, to say, hey, you got to pick up, you’re going to, we’re going to go help me out. And I figured we’re going to a top secret mission if I told you this before. No, first I’m here. He goes through it, we go to terminal two and he goes, hey, to tell him you here to pick up the juice. And I’m like, the juice. Uh, okay. This sounds amazing. Uh, yeah. So if I go into the terminal to, he tries me and is like for tourists, just like a regular car, which I already think is Kinda cool because I’m like, we’re totally different covered even though I’m in full uniform keys, the keys, we’d go into a, we go into a terminal two and he says, uh, he says, uh, the guy, you’re here for the juice. So I go into the terminal to customs, I’m like, Hey, I’m with so and so from CSUS and I’m here for the Jews. And the guy goes, oh, you’re here for the juice and go, yeah, I’m here for the juice and a, I’m like so excited and the guy gets a cardboard box and he pushes it to me and he goes, okay, here’s the juice and I look inside and it’s a bunch of juice boxes.

01:12:56 Well, what I thought was on time, sometimes you mentioned, but listen to this, I didn’t understand that whole story. So I get the juice and juice boxes and like a couple of cokes or I don’t know which brand of pop it was. I think it was coke. And uh, we go back to Terminal One and they’re like, hey, we have a couple of guys in, um, in the secondary and we’re holding them, you know, customs could hold people for 24 hours with no warranty or whatever. Um, they’re holding people in those things where these little holding cell kind of things are like, Hey, we got them pizza. Given them like the juice, I still don’t even know if I’m supposed to be sharing this kind of stuff. Anyway. Uh, I find out that juice is laced with laxatives. They’re trying to make people got it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I was like, wow, this is fascinating. Like I didn’t know that they did this kind of stuff. I feel like maybe we’re not supposed to be talking about this stuff. All I’m sure it’s changed things differently. Yeah. Uh, that was, uh, that was a cool job, man. That was cool. So that was random and then we. And then we got together now here at Rock Star. That’s freaky man. Circle full circle. Total Times. Totally. Mark. Thank you for this man. Appreciate you sharing everything. The opportunity. Yeah, we’ll talk again. Alright, cool. Hey everyone. So enjoyed that chat. There was a lot in there. I love hearing when other people are doing crazy stuff and I think when you’re, when you’re, you’re kids are going into grade nine and grade seven respectively and you decide to leave the country for a year with your family. That’s living life on your terms. So really just blessed and grateful that we work together and that our paths have crossed again like they have and that Mark is so open to share his story, so hopefully you took something away from that. Thank you for everyone who is giving us feedback on the podcast.

01:14:38 Really, really appreciate it. If you’re listening to this and you want some real estate information for yourself or education about real estate investing for yourself or for someone else, you can come up to one of our classes. That’s probably the best way for beginner investors or experienced investors who want to understand the way we’re doing real estate investing with everyone here at Rock Star. You can register for that at Canadianrealestatetraining.com. So that’s Canadian real estate training.com. We do a class here at Rock Star Nick and I deliver that class. We stick around after the class to answer any and all questions that you might have about any topic, mortgages, types of property strategies. At this point we’ve seen it all and pretty much I think done it all. We and we share our mistakes where we’ve made the most massive mistakes in real estate, investing in some successes obviously as well. So you can register for that and the reason you need to register is it’s always packed that class, so it really helps us kind of manage the class. Um, you can register for that class at Canadianrealestatetraining.com. So it’s www.Canadianrealestatetraining.com. Jenny or Angelina from our office will call you, confirm your spot, give you all the details and go from there. Thanks for all the feedback on the podcast, everyone. We’re really enjoying doing this. That’s it for now. Until next time, your life, your terms.