Building Strength, Family, and Future Through Real Estate with Kelley Skar
Key Takeaways
- Success comes from courage, persistence, and burning the boats on Plan B.
- Balancing family and career requires communication and intentional presence.
- Embracing AI will determine who thrives in the next wave of business.
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The REI Agent with Kelley Skar
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A Journey Begins with Resilience
The latest episode of The REI Agent Podcast brought listeners a remarkable story of grit, family, and transformation.
Mattias welcomes Kelley Skar, whose career journey from welding to real estate has inspired countless professionals.
His story demonstrates how challenges can shape determination and how choosing the harder path often leads to the most rewarding outcomes.
From Welding Sparks to Real Estate Dreams
Kelley’s story did not start in open houses or brokerages. It began in the trades, working as a welder for a decade before shifting gears entirely.
When life pushed him to choose between debt from school or pursuing real estate, he chose to burn the boats and move forward without a plan B.
“There was no plan B. It was all plan A, burn the boats, and here I am 18 years later.”
His courage in making that leap is a reminder that true success often requires stepping into uncertainty with conviction.
Building Success One Open House at a Time
Starting out, Kelley built his business on open houses and sheer determination.
Without a large network, he relied on persistence and creative approaches to generate leads.
Through consistency and trial, he tripled his transactions in just two years.
“The goal was just a deal a month. By the end of 2009, I had tripled my business.”
This pivotal season highlighted his relentless focus and the power of doubling down on what works, even when the market is uncertain.
Lessons in Leadership and Coaching
Kelley’s career grew from solo success to team leadership, where he discovered his true passion: building people and systems.
Coaching others became more fulfilling than sales alone.
“If you focus on building systems first and then people, the money will come.”
This philosophy reshaped how he viewed leadership and ignited his dedication to helping others thrive in real estate.
Balancing Family and Business
While growing his business, Kelley remained committed to being a hands-on father.
He openly shared the challenges of balancing urgent client needs with being present at home.
His wife’s wisdom often reminded him of what mattered most.
“Don’t you think that your family deserves your time and attention?”
By modeling balance, Kelley not only built a career but also shaped a legacy for his children.
The AI Revolution in Real Estate
Kelley also brought powerful insights into the role of artificial intelligence in real estate.
From streamlining CMAs to creating presentations, he urged agents to embrace AI instead of resisting it.
“This is not the fax machine. This is not social media. It is a complete game changer.”
His conviction was clear: agents who harness AI now will define the future of the industry.
Books that Inspire Transformation
One of Kelley’s strongest recommendations for entrepreneurs was the book 10x Is Easier Than 2x.
Its lessons aligned with his belief that aiming bigger is often easier than playing small.
“Even if you don’t reach 10x, hitting 4x is still better than 2x.”
This growth mindset echoes throughout his career and coaching philosophy.
A Legacy of Strength and Vision
Kelley’s journey illustrates that success is about more than transactions. It is about courage, leadership, and legacy.
From open houses to AI-powered growth, from welding sparks to coaching insights, Kelley’s path shows what is possible when persistence meets purpose.
Choosing Growth and Balance
Kelley’s story leaves listeners with a powerful truth. Success in real estate and in life requires intentional decisions, faith in growth, and dedication to family.
His words remind us all to pursue opportunities boldly while keeping balance at the center.
“Put the phone down. Go throw the football. Those are the moments your kids will remember.”
Through resilience, vision, and unwavering values, Kelley Skar continues to inspire agents and investors to build a future they can be proud of.
Stay tuned for more inspiring stories on The REI Agent podcast, your go-to source for insights, inspiration, and strategies from top agents and investors who are living their best lives through real estate.
For more content and episodes, visit reiagent.com.
Related Articles
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- From For Sale Signs to Life Design (How The REI Agent Transforms Real Estate Into Holistic Wealth)
- Achieving Holistic Wealth and Success Through Real Estate (Insights from The REI Agent)
- Partnering with Investors (How Real Estate Agents Can Exponentially Maximize Profits)
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Contact Kelley Skar
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Mentioned References
- 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
- Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
- Real Estate Magazine
- Huberman Lab Podcast by Dr. Andrew Huberman
- David Goggins
- Real Estate Video Blogging Pioneer Ian Watt
- Wine Library TV by Gary Vaynerchuk
United States Real Estate Investor
Transcript
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I'm Mattias, an agent and investor.
And I'm Erica, a licensed therapist.
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.
Ready to level up?
Let's do it.
Welcome back to the REI Agent. Mattias here. I wanted to talk a little bit about my morning.
I didn't, I kind of woke up on the wrong side of the bed, if you will. I didn't sleep well. Got up at 3.30. I did fall back asleep. It was after five. So maybe I got another hour or so by the time I went to the couch. Sometimes I have to listen to a YouTube video or something.
Had a really, I had a fun YouTube video about somebody 3D printing a chair. That got me to sleep. Thank you, YouTube creator.
But anyway, I really just didn't feel great. I kind of wanted to nap, you know, over lunch. Instead of going to the gym, I often go to the gym over lunch.
But at the same time, I knew that if I went to the gym, I was going to feel better. I was going to have a better rest of the day. It's going to, it was reset me.
And it did. I went and it worked. And it kind of reminded me of, this isn't like a brand new thing or episode or anything like that.
But Dr. Andrew Huberman had David Goggins on his podcast. And he was referring to the interior mid-cingulate cortex. Sorry, probably butchering that.
A part of the brain that he found was responsible for, or basically grew every time you did something you didn't want to do. And shrunk every time you like didn't do the thing. And that is just labeling that it is very much so willpower, all that stuff.
It's very much so a muscle you exercise. And I think it kind of is helpful to know and it's empowering. I think it's, you know, it kind of boils down to like, you know, having that ownership in your life and having, taking full control and not making excuses.
And really, you know, this is all up to me. You know, if I wake up and I'm out of shape and I am unhealthy, it's from giving in to not wanting to do those things. And I have control.
I can build that self-control in by exercising it. And knowing that, you know, each decision you make will feed or weaken that part of the brain. And so I think it's just one of those, another really cool example of how, you know, we have that power.
If anybody knows who David Goggins is, David Goggins is a freak of nature. He has done insane things. He was a Navy SEAL.
He also graduated from the Ranger School. I think he's one of the only people, maybe the only people that have done both. Both are extremely hard and difficult to do.
And he's since like set records for pull-ups and has run ultra marathons, you know, hundreds of miles at a time. He meanwhile is like, became basically paralyzed with like pain and all this stuff. And he has to stretch like something crazy, like eight hours a day to be able to do anything.
And somehow still goes out and runs these crazy long races. And then a lot of people would say it doesn't sound like a good thing, which they might be right to a certain degree. But I think ultimately he's the shining example of somebody who has strengthened that muscle in the brain, that cortex to, you know, do what you don't want to do.
And, you know, hearing that again, it's a good reminder, you know, get back in the cold plunge. It's been something that I have enjoyed. And sometimes, I don't know if I ever look forward to it, but I do look forward to the feeling I get after I get out.
But anyways, just, you know, I think it's a good reminder to constantly put in front of yourself things that you don't necessarily want to do. And you push through and get it done. And that will make you, make that part of your brain stronger.
And I, he, Huberman also linked it to like, like basically your like, will to not will to live, but it somehow linked it with like your, your being a somehow, I'm butchering this now, but he somehow linked it to like your like longevity. That's the word I was looking for. So I don't know if that's what he meant necessarily.
I can't remember exactly the direct quote, but it does make sense that if you push yourself to, you know, push your body to continue to be healthy, you resist the temptation to only eat junk food, which our body craves and wants. And, you know, eat that broccoli you don't want, that you might, you know, live longer because of that. But today we have a great guest.
We have Kelly Scar. Kelly has had a long career in real estate, has gone through being a solo agent, team lead, brokerage owner, back to a solo agent, and mostly is focused now on coaching. But, you know, that means he had great nuggets to learn from in this episode.
So you definitely don't want to miss this. If you enjoy this content, again, please, please share, please like and comment and help us grow, leave reviews wherever you listen. And that will just, yeah, again, help us get to more people, help us grow, help us be able to continue giving you this awesome content.
So without further ado, here we have Kelly. Welcome back to the REI Agent. I'm here with Kelly Scar.
Kelly, thanks so much for joining us today.
Oh, thanks for having me, man. I appreciate you guys reaching out. I'm really excited to share a few things that I know with you.
I am so excited. I have to ask. So growing up, I was a huge Lion King fan.
Did you get a lot of Lion King references?
Yeah, I guess when the movie came out, like I'm old, right? I'll be 51 this year. So, you know, I can't remember how old I was when the movie first came out, but I think I was well through middle school and probably in high school by the time the movie came out.
It wasn't really as impactful for your sphere as it was.
Not really.
Kelly, you have had a long career in real estate. Tell us a little bit about how you got started.
Long, long, long career, man. So yeah, I was a welder before I got into real estate. So I was in the trades for about 10 years.
I moved away from the province that I live in now. So I'm in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. We're the westernmost province in Canada.
That's where I grew up in BC. And I left the small town that I grew up in in 1998. I moved to Edmonton, Alberta, which is the next province over Edmonton, home of the Edmonton Oilers, Conor McDavid, Wayne Gretzky, all that.
Story of history, right? So I lived there for five years, got into the trades. Had a girlfriend break up with me.
My brother called me up and said, what are you still doing in Edmonton? There's nothing left for you here. Why don't you move to Calgary?
Calgary, home of the Calgary Flames, Calgary Stampede, among other things, basically the hub of oil and gas. It's an oil and gas country in Alberta. So much like Texas, right?
So I wound up moving to Calgary and spent another couple of years in Calgary. In real estate, I wound up meeting my future wife in 2004. Got married in 2006.
Had twins by 2008. And during that time, I decided that I wanted to get out of welding altogether and go a different direction. So I had basically two options.
Option A was to go and get into debt and go back to school and have a $40,000 or $50,000 student loan. Or the other option was I'm going to keep working and I'm going to go to realtor night school three days a week. I think it was Tuesdays and Thursdays and evenings and then half a day or all day on Saturday, get my real estate license.
My dad was a realtor for 25, 26 years. I've got a 16-year-old in Edmonton. She's been in real estate now for 30 years.
So we kind of had this, you know, I had this kind of path that was already there in front of me. That's obviously the path that I chose. I got licensed in 2007.
We had our twins in 2008. I went full-time in April of that year. Kids were born in September.
There was no plan B. It was all plan A, burn the boats, and here I am like 18 years later.
Well, I have a lot of follow-up questions. Yeah, let's do it. The first one is, I made the joke about it being more efficient to have twins.
Like, is there any truth to that? Or was that a joke you don't make to people that have twins?
No, I used to say that myself. Because I actually had, we had a boy and a girl. And the joke was, you have this million-dollar family.
I'm like, million-dollar family? Like, do I get a million dollars? Because I know it's going to cost me a million dollars, right?
So no, I don't get a million bucks. But it was, I guess you could call it efficiency, sure.
I know my wife was not amused when I suggested, like we had any control of it, that we should just have twins next. And we'd have our story and be done. But it didn't work out that way.
And I think, I'm sure there were some extra struggles as well to have that efficiency along the way.
You know, it's funny. I've had that question a lot, so has my wife. And the way that we look at it is, it's very simple.
I mean, if you have one child, we would always ask the question, well, how many kids do you have? Well, we have one. It's like, okay, well, is it rough with one kid?
Well, yeah, I mean, it's got its challenges. Well, it's the exact same with two, right? Luckily for the both of us is that there was two of us and two of the kids.
I've always been a very hands-on father. You know, we had friends that had twins that were, I think, five or six years older than our guys. And the dad worked in the trades.
He would come home at the end of the day, just very traditional, very classic. He wouldn't do a lot around the house. He wouldn't really help out with the kids.
That was the wife's job. That was her role within the household, right? Whereas I was the exact opposite.
I was getting up in the middle of the night, helping with feedings, changing diapers, wrapping the kids up in the burrito, taking them out for walks, giving my wife breaks, very hands-on. So two kids, two parents, kind of lucked out, I guess.
Yeah. Well, you being hands-on as a father in real estate, in a new career in real estate, if I remember the timeline right, kind of leads me to my next question is that your father was in real estate. And was that something that you're like, I'm never going to do that?
And then you finally got convinced after going through welding for 10 years? Or was there any kind of like, yeah, that element of, that's my dad's world. I want to create my own thing.
Or how did that work out for you?
Great question. When I got my real estate license, I called my dad. I'm like, hey, dad, I got my real estate license.
And his response was, do you want me to pay for your therapy now or later? Because he knew the business, right? My dad got into real estate later in my life.
And so I didn't really look at what he was doing as something that I wanted to do. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to go into real estate. I'm going to get my license when I'm 18, yada, yada.
Like that just never really happened. People would ask, well, what does your dad do? My answer was always like, oh, he sells real estate.
I never really had this pull towards that. But I always, I did have this gift. I had a teacher tell me this.
I think it was a science teacher back in grade nine or grade 10. She would write on my report card just about every single year that I had her in school. Kelly has a gift for the gab.
Meaning I just wouldn't shut the hell up in school. But yeah, I've had this natural affinity towards sales. I felt like I was very good with people.
I was very personable, outgoing. And it was just a matter of learning what you needed to learn in order to be successful in this business, which it turns out there's a very steep learning curve. If you really have no idea.
If you spent 10 years in the trades with no sales training, the learning curve becomes very, very steep. And either you're going to, you're either going to swim or you're going to sink, right? There is no, there is no, there is no in between.
Yeah, definitely. And that kind of brings up another question. And you are now a coach as well.
So I'm curious about your advice to people. And is the burn the fleet method recommended when you're getting into real estate? Or is it case by case or personality based or the thought of just jumping 100% in, that's your only income source, even though it can take a couple of years for it to get rolling.
What's your approach there?
I can tell you, I mean, I was part time for the first year that I was in the business. When I finally got to a point where I felt like I was going to be able to swim, that I wasn't going to sink. That's when I pulled the pin.
And that's when I burned the boats. And that's when I went all in on things. My suggestion to people is, is like twofold.
Number one, have at least six to 12 months of like full on household expenses in the bank. It's your household expenses in the bank. Okay.
So now you're taken care of. You don't have any worries there for the next 12 months. The other thing is that this is the second part of it is to have at least six months of expenses for your business in the bank as well.
People have this, they conflate the two, right? You hear this a lot from coaches. They say, well, you've got to have at least six months worth of expenses before you get into the business.
And they don't really specify, is it household expenses or is it business expenses? I'm like, you should have six to 12 months of household expenses so that you can feed the family. You can put the roof over their head.
You can put the clothes on the back. You can go on a holiday, right? And at the same time have at least six months of business expenses so that you can generate the leads, learn the business that you need to learn and learn how to convert leads and do all of the other things that we do in terms of marketing and whatnot.
So that would be probably the biggest two biggest pieces of advice. And then as far as jumping into the business, whether you're part time and your plan is to go full time. What I know about myself is I've had times in my life and my business where I'm pulled in four or five different directions and I've got four or five different contracts out there.
I'm working with four or five different companies. I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And I can tell you that the work ultimately will start to suffer because you're pulled in too many different directions.
If you are sitting in an office nine to five and you're grinding it out in real estate at the end of the day and then on the weekends, something is going to give. It has to. You're not going to be able to sustain that.
You're not David Goggins. You're not out there running 200 mile. Did you see his footage on Instagram here last week?
He ran a 200 mile ultra, ultra, ultra marathon.
Oh my gosh, no.
Most people are not that, right? So something is going to have to give. So if your plan is to go into real estate and you want to eventually do it full time, you've got to have a plan.
You've got to figure that out.
Sure. No, that makes a lot of sense. And I agree.
I worked, I was a full time, I was a behavior specialist for a few years when I was getting started and the schedules were conducive. And I think there is going to be a hustle phase where if you can stay focused, that's probably the hardest thing is like if you are laser focused and this is going to be the thing that I'm going to do and you're willing to sacrifice a little bit. We didn't have kids at the time, so that helped.
Yeah, it's smart to realize that you're not, there are stories about people getting in and making a ton of money right away. But for a lot of people, it takes time to build the sphere and it takes time to get people to trust you to do the business. So yeah, no, that's great.
Let's go back to now you're getting started in real estate sales. You got twins. What was your progression from there?
I know you mentioned that you were team, are a team lead. I was. Was a team lead at one time, owned a brokerage.
Tell me about how that transitioned and how you were going through that process.
Yeah, so I wound up as rookie of the year for my office in 2008. I think I did eight deals that year, which was good enough to be rookie of the year.
It can be hard to do your first year.
No, really it can. The goal was just, my wife and I kept saying this to each other, just a deal a month, just a deal a month. And at that time, I think the average commission that I was making was around seven or 8,000 bucks per end.
You start to do the math on that and a hundred thousand dollars, even back then after expenses and taxes and brokerage fees and all the rest of it, you're lucky if you wind up with 5k in your pocket at the end of the month. And then you've got to feed kids and your wife and mortgage and vacations, all the rest of that kind of stuff. Going into 2009, I was going into what was going to be my very first full 12 months in the business and I put together some goals, like a pseudo business plan.
It wasn't really a plan. Basically, my plan was I was going to go out and do a pile of open houses and learn how to convert people. And the goal was to do double what I did in 2008, so get to 16.
By the end of 2009, I had actually tripled my business. So I went from 8 to 24. And it was built, everything that I did was based off of open houses.
I didn't know a lot of people in Calgary. I'd only lived there since 2004, so I was only there for like four or five years, like four and a half years. And so I did not have a big friend base at all.
My wife, however, did and she was a teacher and she did not want me to mix business and pleasure. She didn't want me to help her teacher friends buy real estate, which was really kind of a pain in the butt because what I know about teachers is they absolutely love real estate and they love to invest in real estate. So I was really bummed about the fact that I couldn't work my way in there.
And so I had to figure out another way. And so the best and highest return that I could get would be on open houses. And I started failing quite miserably.
I got hooked up with kind of the wrong person. Not that he was the wrong person. He just had the wrong product for me to sell.
It was seven figures. It was on the western edge of the city. It was in a very tough time, 2008, 2009.
Obviously, we know what happened in financial markets back in 08. And the market was really starting to be affected in 2009. And so I had to shift gears and figure out how I was going to actually start to generate leads.
And luckily, I was able to figure it out very, very quickly in 2009. And my primary lead source came directly from open houses. 2010, 2011, I shifted gears and went mostly like most of my business went online.
So that's when I started doing a video blog. Have you ever heard of Ian Watt? I'm not sure.
Okay, so Ian Watt is like the OG of video blogging. This is a guy that was a realtor, still a realtor in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. He got a flip cam in 2006 at an event that he was at.
And he started filming videos very similar to what Gary Vee was doing with Wine Library back in the day. And he got really well known for setting his camera up in his car. And he had this whole intro, and he would talk about the market.
And he was somewhat polarizing, but also very charismatic. And he wound up building a business off of this. And I found the guy in 2008, 2009.
I called him up, and I just asked him for a piece of advice. And his advice to me was at the time, he says, don't try to be something to everybody. Don't try to be everything to everyone.
Just be something to someone. And so that was a piece of advice that he gave me. I kind of took that, and I ran with it and developed this video blog.
I was one of six agents in our entire marketplace at the time. Over 5,000 realtors that actually had a video blog. Started to get a lot of traction with it.
2010, 2011, business was flat. About 24 deals per year for each of those years. But 2012 was the breakthrough.
That's when everything that I had done online up until that point, like adopting Twitter, really getting into Facebook, obviously leveraging YouTube. That's when everything really started blogging. That's when everything really started to kick off.
And so 2012, I wound up doing 42 transactions. 2013 is when I started the team. So built a team, had no idea what I was doing.
I did not know how to lead people. Again, very steep learning curve. I went to a conference in South Carolina.
It was a boomtown conference. Every top team leader there had a business coach. And I came back from that.
Hired my very first coach. Our very first call, she asked me one question. She said, why do you want a team?
And I've obviously, I've said this so many times. It's like it kind of rolls off the tongue. And I said, this isn't exactly what I said, but I'm paraphrasing.
I said, well, I want to leverage other human beings to be able to make more money. And she said, that's the wrong answer. And when you figure out the right answer, call me back.
That was our first coaching call. The first step, that was it. That was the, and I just dropped like a thousand dollars and a US.
And I'm like, what? What do you even? She's like, when you figure it out, call me back.
Oh, a couple of weeks, I called her back. And then that's when we started to, we tore everything down and we started to rebuild mission, vision, values, you know, all that kind of stuff.
What was that though? What's that? What was the right answer?
The right answer was that you should be, you should be focused on building people and systems and not leveraging them to pad your pocket. If you focus on building systems first and then people, the money will come. And that was the right answer.
And that's, that's truly what my focus needed to be. And, and, you know, that's really what, what, what drew me towards coaching ultimately. I mean, you know, having a team, you know, building that team at one point, I think it was up to like six or seven agents on the team.
So every week I was meeting with realtors. Every week we were having our own meetings outside of the brokerage meetings. Every week I was training.
Every week I was coaching. I was mentoring. And I'll tell you, man, that's what got me up in the morning.
That's, I just loved doing that sort of thing. I was kind of, I didn't love the sales side of things. And I just, I loved being able to have these really high level in-depth conversations with agents and teaching them how to build their business.
And so, um, 2014, we had a banner year, uh, by the end of 2015, I had decided that I was going to merge my team with a small boutique brokerage in Calgary, uh, which we did. So I had, I think I brought over four agents at the time. They had five agents or six agents.
So we grew from, you know, up to a 10 agent, a team, 10, 10 agent team. We ran like that through the entirety of 2016 as a, as a team. Uh, I think we did over 300 transactions that year, which was, which was pretty outstanding.
And then by the end of 2016, we decided to shift gears and go from a team-based brokerage to a, um, to a more traditional style. So we're an independent real estate company, but, uh, you know, we wound up growing that company from 2017 to 2019. I think we went from nine to 115 agents.
Wow. So it was, it was a, the, the growth curve there was, was, uh, was exceptional. Um, we were one of the fastest growing brokerages in our city at the time.
Yeah. It sounds like, wow, that's crazy. Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and then, and that's not what you're doing anymore right now. Did you say you went back to being a solo agent?
Yeah. So I exited out of that company. Um, I wound up landing at the balloon for about six months.
Uh, I was there and then, uh, we decided that we were going to make this move out of Calgary and move to Kelowna BC. So pack up our family and sell the house and make the move out here. So I decided to join EXP.
I was there for, I think, two years and then, um, wound up back at the balloon. Um, during this whole timeframe though, I, I had been, um, coaching. So I'd worked for a couple of coaching companies throughout that timeframe.
I obviously was doing my own thing with, you know, with my own clients as well. And, um, that's, that's what my primary focus is today. I, I, I, I still, I'm still licensed in Calgary.
I'm licensed here in Kelowna. So I've got licenses in two provinces. Um, I don't, you know, I've got, I got a listing in Calgary.
It's co-listed with an agent there. It isn't my primary focus. My primary focus is on building community and, uh, helping agents build a bigger, more robust business that they can be proud of.
And one that isn't going to completely suck all of their time away. Sure. Yeah.
I've done that, you know, two kids at home, my wife would just, you know, she would get upset because I would jump and run. The phone would ring and I'd be out the door.
Yeah.
Finally, eventually she got wise to, you know, kind of the business and, and the lingo. And, and she said to me one time, as I was heading out the door to go meet these people that I'd never met, she said, well, have you met these people before? No.
Well, are you going to qualify that? Did you qualify them? Like, this is my wife, the teacher asking me like a sales question.
Did you qualify these people? I'm like, well, no, I'll qualify them when I get. And she said this to me, and this is what really made me stop in things.
She said, don't you think that your family deserves your time and attention? Like, who are these people that you're going out to run out, run out and meet? They don't know you, you don't know them.
You don't even know if they can buy a house or not. And you're jumping and running. And that really gave me pause.
That really kind of snapped me out of it. And I was like, okay, I've got to fix some stuff. I got to figure out how to better qualify people over the phone.
And you know, that's where a lot of the sales training and stuff, the things that I started looking into, that's where that really started to come into play. And I started to figure some things out. This is, you know, everything pre-AI, right?
So, you know, still had the internet, but, you know, pre-artificial intelligence.
Yeah, I think there's nothing harder than, for me, than being like, you have a, you know, something urgent happening in a deal. You're, you know, there's something, there's a big deal. You know that your client is just worked up, stressed out, and you got to figure it out.
But you're also like around your family and your kids and they don't get it. And it's just really hard to like, because also often it's like, you know, I'm shooting a message and I'm waiting for a response and then I can be present and then it's like back to stress. And it's like, how do you handle and deal with all that?
It can be incredibly hard. And it's probably nothing that, something that you can't fully resolve, but I mean, is that something you were able to find strategies for?
Yes and no. That specific situation is incredibly tough. Like you said, you're in the middle of a transaction.
It's very hard for you just to shut off and say, nope, sorry, I'm not taking any more calls. I'm not responding to any more text messages. You know, I think so that situation, the strategy that I would deploy is to make sure that my wife knows exactly what's going on.
Yeah.
And you know, my kids are not going to be able to know exactly what's going on. So it's going to really be up to my partner to relay what's happening with me to my kids. Hey, listen, daddy's got to work right now.
It's only going to take him a little while. His attention is going to be turned for a little bit and, you know, just give him some space and then he'll be back. Right.
And so that, that, that took a long time because a lot of it was, I would be doing that thing. I'd be at a soccer game and I'd be typing those text messages and my wife would look at me and she would just, she would be like, what are you doing? Like, we're here watching your kid play soccer.
Like, why are you on your, and she would always say like, you're always on your phone. Like you, are you addicted to that thing? I still hear this today.
I think you're addicted to that thing. I'm like, no more than you, babe. Like, I don't know what you're talking about.
That's always my comeback. She's like, you're gaslighting me. So, you know, if you're in this situation, if you're, if you're in real estate and you're, you know, you've got a partner and you've got kids, you have to, you have to be very transparent with your partner.
You have to tell them exactly what's going on. Babe, this, this deal is falling apart. Remember I put that together just like two days ago.
Yeah. Like the one that I was up until 11 o'clock at night putting together. Yeah.
I remember. Okay. Well, it's in danger of falling apart and I know we're, we're headed out to, you know, our son's soccer game, but I just need a little bit of leeway here and able in order for me to be able to save this thing and be able to put it together.
Like know that I'm here. I will be present, but I just need a little bit of leeway. Like when I, when I would say things like that to my wife, it was great because she just wanted to be communicated to.
She just wanted to know what was going on instead of me expecting her to know what was going on. Well, I'm on my phone. I'm working.
Can't you see that I'm working? She doesn't know. She has no idea what's going on.
Right. She doesn't have any idea of the importance of, of what, what this is like, you know, what if, what if this is the only deal that I've done in the last 60 days? Right.
Because there's a lot of agents that are in that, that situation right now. And so they feel the pressure to be able to, to try to save that deal to put that thing together so that they can make the mortgage payment so that they can put the food on the table. Yeah.
Right. So it's, you know, it's, it's a delicate balance. My, my biggest piece of advice is to make sure that you're over communicating.
That's, that's really, really good advice. And I think that is often one of the biggest pain points is that, you know, I'm so wrapped up in, in this problem that I don't do a great job communicating to my spouse that there is a problem. And then, then she can maybe help combat like that.
It's really hard. Kids don't understand. Like if you're on the phone, like I have no ability to, to them, them trying to like mouth something to me or whatever, like trying to communicate, like, Hey, I want to watch TV or whatever they want to say to me.
It is like my mind's going to explode. Like I can't hear, I can't hear either of the people. Right.
And yeah. So yeah, the clear communication I think is, is definitely a really good advice for that situation. And because your, your kids don't know.
I mean, my kids didn't even, even today, my kids are 16. There'll be 17 in September. I mean, you know, there's times where I'm in the office.
My son will just walk into the office. I'm like, I look at him like the, the, the look that's on my face is like, dude, like what are you doing? Like I'm on the phone.
He's like, Oh, Oh, sorry. Sorry, dad. Sorry, dad.
And he's saying that out loud. I'm like, I'm on the phone. Sometimes my wife, like once a week, she'll, she'll work from home.
Like she's got her own office, but every Friday, she, she'll take a couple of calls on, on, she's a, like I said, she's a psychologist. And so she'll take a couple of calls on Friday and the kids are on summer break right now. And so, you know, they, for whatever reason are unaware that she's working, that she's on these calls.
And, you know, my son will go into the, into the shower and like, he'll connect his phone to his Bluetooth speaker and crank the speaker up. And my, my wife is in the office going, Oh my God. Like the person on the other end could totally hear everything's paper thin.
Right. So yeah, it's, you know, like I said, they, they just, the kids don't know. So it's important that the partner knows what the hell is going on so they can effectively communicate that to the children.
Yep.
That's, that's great. What you don't want to have is your kids remembering you as being the one that was always on their phone. Right.
Yeah. Or yeah. Constantly working, constantly like not able to, like, I mean that, what I'm describing is I hope not all the time, but just kind of the worst of my parenting.
Like if like I'm trying to, trying to balance parenting and problems, not, not just real estate. Like, I mean, for the most part I can shut off and I can, you know, respond to people. I'm not responding to people all through the evening, text messages, et cetera.
But when, when the, when those issues arise, I think I just, I feel like that's like where I look back. I'm like, man, I hope they don't just remember these like moments and that, you know, and I'd love to have them, you know, have fun in the business. Cause like, you know, I try to take them to, to do some things every once in a while and they get to come see some cool properties or meet some people which I hope there's some of that balance as well where they can maybe see the flexibility all that kind of stuff and have that be their, their memories from growing up.
Yeah, I, I had that as well. I, you know, I, I brought my kids to, on showings, I would bring them to you know, as long as the properties were vacant, sometimes they could come inside with the client and as long as the client was cool with it. Yeah.
You know, we, we used to have rental properties in Calgary, so they would, you know, come into the rental property and help us out with, you know, clean up and all that kind of stuff. So they got to see the sweat equity side of it as well. So I think, I think that all of that's important, a hundred percent.
The thing that is the most important thing is when you know that you can put your phone down, put your devices down and go throw the football. Like my son last night, we finished dinner. He's like, dad, do you want to, he's like, he plays senior football this year.
This is last year before he's like potentially going to college to play. And he's like, dad, will you come out to the field and throw with me? My wife was like, well, you know, why don't you let your dad rest?
Like he, you know, you guys got, I'm leaving tomorrow. Like, you know, you've got tomorrow. You guys can go out tomorrow.
I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm good. Like you do, you finish up the dishes.
Give me 10 minutes. Let me finish this thing that I'm working on and I'll come out. Right.
Like I, again, I don't want him to, to feel like I didn't have the time to put down doing what I was doing to go spend time with him. I want him to remember those times. Like my dad was willing and my daughter as well.
My dad was willing to come out to the field and throw with me. He was willing to put down because look, I'm modeling this behavior, right? This is something that they're, that they're not only going to remember.
It's the legacy piece. They're not only going to remember it as, as, you know, later in their adolescence into their young adulthood, but they're also going to see this type of behavior when they're their own parent, right. When they're parenting their own children.
And so if I'm modeling the behavior where I'm connected to these freaking devices all the time, right, they're going to, they, they, they learn what they live and they're going to see that. That's how they're going to wind up parenting. But if I can put the devices down and I say, yes, absolutely.
Let's go, right. Let's just go have fun. Let's go do the thing.
Hopefully I'm modeling that right behavior so that they can be the same type of parent and improve upon that, right? Constantly making improvements. I mean, you know, I think I've improved from where my upbringing was.
I had a pretty damn good upbringing, but I think I've been able to make some improvements and I'm hoping that my kids feel the same way that they had a really good upbringing, but you know, there's always room for improvement.
Yeah, totally. And I think that, um, you know, another thing I hope they are imparted with is, you know, my kids are, my oldest is, uh, in school. She's going to, she's going to third grade and, um, she, you know, her world is like, I want to be a teacher because like, they're in charge and like, I'm not saying I'm not, I'm not, I'm never going to discourage her for being a teacher.
But I also think it's really important, uh, cause she's not going to get this in school to see the other side of the world. Like you get, you look at the rich dad, poor dad kind of, um, thing and, you know, to see what it's like to have your own business, to, to kind of set your own schedule and the gifts and the, the good and the bad with that. Uh, but, but also you mentioned the rentals, you know, like having, you know, having them, we've, we've had them, you know, do flips or clean, help clean flips up or help be around us while we're kind of finishing up a flip or, um, you know, rentals, all that kind of stuff, birth strategy.
So, uh, and, and it's kind of, it's, it's kind of weird, uh, for me, uh, not having grown up with, uh, you know, wealthy family or anything like that to then also see what the, how that's going to change their life. Um, you know, there's good and bad potentially with that as well. And, and how they perceive the world, we have, um, we have a very large trailer park, um, on the bus bus route that my daughter, uh, goes to.
So it's, it's about, I would say 95% of the bus is filled with, up with people from the trailer park. And then, then there's like three white girls that get off at the, the country club. Okay.
Yeah. It's just, I'm like, there's dynamics like that. You're just like, how, how, how is that going to play out for them?
And, and us being married to a woman of psychology, um, you can't help, but, but think about those things.
Oh, a hundred percent. You know, I've got a daughter. It's funny.
Your daughter wants to be a teacher. Mine wants to be a psychologist. Yeah.
She's, she's taken AP psychology next semester. So, um, and law and she's like, she wants to marry those two things. So I'm like, yes, a hundred percent all in.
Yeah.
That's really cool. Yeah. Well, um, I'm curious if you would have, I mean, you obviously probably have a lot of golden nuggets, but if you have one that you'd want to share to our listeners, it could be for people getting started or just, you know, in general for real estate sales, what would that be?
Um, well, I mean, yeah, there's, there's a ton of stuff that I could talk about. I think the biggest thing that I, I want to talk about that I have been talking about at length for probably the last year or so now, uh, is artificial intelligence AI. Um, you know, I mentioned it a little bit earlier in the podcast, but this is, this is something that I wrote an article, um, that we've got a publication up here in Canada called real estate magazine.
And I wrote an article and essentially I was, I was making the case for artificial intelligence, potentially replacing one side of the real estate transaction and that being the buyer's agent. Um, and I think I made a pretty darn good case for it. Um, it's, it should, if artificial intelligence doesn't have people freaked out, it should, especially in the business world, not, not just in real estate, but every business.
I think it was Microsoft here a couple of months ago, just laid off like 4,000 programmers or something crazy. And why do they do that? Well, because they're utilizing their own artificial intelligence to replace those jobs.
That is going to continue to happen. And I think the agents that really start to get in tune with and start to embrace artificial intelligence are going to be the ones that grow and scale their business the fastest. Um, I just finished teaching a course inside the, uh, the remix network.
It was a four week course that I put together and, uh, it, it basically, you know, took them from, you know, prompt engineering all the way to building, um, uh, uh, presentations inside of, you know, certain AI technologies where you put in a prompt and the entire, like basically slide deck is built with you within seconds, um, to showing them how to like avatar style videos and uploading that content onto your social channels. Um, you know, all the way into, you know, utilizing AI as an assistant to help you with strategic initiatives and strategically grow your business.
So I think agents that are there, they're not just going to chat GBT to help them build out their listing descriptions, but they're actually starting to learn it and starting to embrace it as part of their business model. Those are going to be the ones in the next three to five years that will surpass those agents that are like top 1%, top 5%, top 10% in their marketplace. Um, we've got a guy here in our office, young guy.
Um, you know, he, he started door knocking. I showed him how to, how to do a market evaluation, how to have AI do a CMA for him, and then how to take that CMA and put it into, uh, you know, another piece of AI technology to build out a, build out a presentation. And it absolutely blew his mind.
His, his goal, his focus is to build his database by seven people every single week. So it goes out, he door knocks, he wants to get seven people into his database every single week. And so how does he do that?
One of the things that he offers is to do a market evaluation. So think about that. Like the average CMA that he does takes him two to three hours to perform.
If he's, if he's doing, putting seven people into his database every single week and all seven say, yes, give me a CMA. Well, that's, that's half of his week right there is eating up and doing CMAs. Well, the CMA, this, the AI can do the CMA in minutes.
The, the amount of time that it's going to take you, the most amount of time that it's going to take you is to find the comparables inside of your matrix system and then upload them into the AI and give it the right prompt. The AI will do, will take over and do the rest of the work. So when he saw that, he was like, holy crap, I can do these all in like, you know, 200 minutes instead of 20 hours.
Right. Like absolutely. Like three hours versus 20.
Absolutely mind blowing stuff.
Yeah, it, it, it's definitely not going anywhere. That cat's out of the bag.
A hundred percent it is. Yeah. I've got a good friend that's a, he's an it security.
He has, he has a company in Silicon Valley and the stuff that he tells me, man, he's like, you know, they're, they, he told me two years ago that they were working on chat GPT five. And this is when like three, five was out. Right.
He's like, well, they're already working on GPT five. I'm like, well, what are they working on? Everything that he told me they were working on is exactly what it is today.
Like, yeah. He's like, yeah. So I'm like, well, what are they working on now?
He's like chat GPT eight. Right. Now he told me this story about, you know, a couple of years ago.
So there's like really four or five companies that kind of control the AI matrix. Right. And these, these engineers, these scientists decided that they were going to perform an experiment.
They were going to open the door. Let, let the firewall open and see what happens with these, these AI models. And he was telling me like within minutes, these AI models were chatting back and forth with each other.
And within a couple of hours had already created their own language. They were speaking to, I said, well, why, why did they create their own language? He said, number one, efficiency number two, so that humans couldn't understand it.
That's crazy. Yeah. So then I'm like, all right, terminator, anyone, it can be, it can be incredibly scary.
I mean, did you hear about the, the, the AI? I think it was an AI chat group that one of them ended up creating a cryptocurrency that was then also had like a marketing campaign or something. And it was worth, I forget how much it was a lot and millions.
But, but you start seeing, you start piecing together. Okay. This is how like this internet computer could also also have power.
Like, right. They can take that crypto and turn into us dollars somehow, maybe by paying somebody to do it.
But we're seeing AI generated art now, like music. There was a, there was that, that, that group air quotes group that got put together. And it was, there was no group.
It was, it was an AI generated musical group and they had like a hit song. So whoever created the musical group wound up having this hit song. And it was like, I actually, I created, I wanted to give my wife something completely different, something that I'd never given her before in our 19 years in marriage.
And so I wrote her a song. So my AI, Carl and I sat down, we wrote a song together and then I put it into a piece of AI software and I, I built out like the tune and then found the, the AI voice that I wanted to sing the song and I put all the, I produced this whole thing and I gave it to my wife as a, as an anniversary gift.
That's awesome. Yeah. But yeah, it's, it could back to like it being scary.
I think at the same time, you, you not participating in it is not going to make it stop. Like, I think, I think it is pertinent to, to learn as best as you can because it is rapidly evolving. I actually just I spent about $200 on a, I don't know, like a, a month worth of a community for, for automations and AI and everything.
And I, you know, I think I got that out of it. I don't know if I will continue for another month, but I think it's worth spending money. I think it's worth spending, you know, having the, at least chat GPT as you know, the, the $20 a month program and if not others, if not doing the $200 a month depending on how robust you're going with it all.
So I, yeah, I definitely agree on that. Yeah.
Yeah. If you're, if you're not on the train, it's, this is, this is not, and people call me, you know, hyperbolic for, for saying this type of thing, but this is not the fax machine. It's not the cell phone.
This is not social media. This is not what this is. This, this technology has the ability to replace entire industries while at the same time creating entire industries.
Yeah. Right. So this, like everything before where everybody said, oh, well, this is a disruption as a major Zillow, like whatever, call it, whatever it is, all these things that came before, like this is not any of that.
It is a complete game changer. Complete game changer. A hundred percent convinced of that.
Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
Do you have any AI books you recommend? I do want to pivot to the, the book question. If you don't have any favorite fundamental books that you think everybody should read or just ones you're enjoying now.
There, you know what? I wish you would have, I wish we would have, you would have asked me that at the beginning. I actually do have an AI book.
It was the very first one that I read. I read it probably about a year and a half or so ago, a year ago. I'll have to find it.
Maybe you can put it in the show notes, but I'll shoot you a message afterwards and you can kind of put it in the description. But yeah, it was, it was, that was an awesome book really kind of opened my eyes to assistance and agents and, you know, prompting and all the rest of that kind of stuff. So I'll, I'll find that.
I'll get it over to you. One book that I read recently that I absolutely loved, which I thought was an amazing book. I think it's a must for any, any, any entrepreneurs.
It's a book called 10x is easier than 2x. 10x is easier than 2x. So I read that book in, I don't know, I think it took me less than a week and I'm a pretty slow reader, but this was like, and my pages were all dog-eared and highlighted and all the rest of it.
So, and it's a book that I usually recommend in my coaching as well. Anybody that is kind of stuck in this, this idea of, man, I want to grow my business and I just want to double. It's this whole mentality of, you know what?
It's easier to go 10 times than it is just to try to double something. Right. So, and even if you don't get to 10x, but you're, you're 4x, it's still better than 2x.
Right. So that's kind of the premise of the book, but yeah, 10x is easier than 2x. Great reading.
Okay, great. Awesome. Yeah.
That's a, that's a good one. And the same author as who not how, right? Yes, that's correct.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Those are, those are some, some good books. Now, what about if people were interested in following you on social media, where can they find you?
Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm pretty much everywhere. I'm, I'm on YouTube, I'm on Facebook, but if you really, if you want to get ahold of me and you want to have a conversation, find me on Instagram.
So my Instagram handle is, is exactly my, my name there. @kelleyskar. So, it's at K E L L E Y S K A R.
Easiest way to find me on Instagram.
Okay, cool. Well, Kelly, thanks so much for being on the show. It's been a, an honor.
My pleasure, man. I, it was great that you guys reached out. I had a blast.
This has been a great conversation.
Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.
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All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.
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