From Firefighter to Real Estate Magnate: The Dave Seymour Story

Dave Seymour is a former firefighter with an inspiring story to tell. He went from working in the fire hall to real estate mogul and TV personality from A&E’s Flipping Boston. 

In this episode, Dave shares his powerful journey from growing up in England’s council estates to building wealth through real estate, overcoming financial struggles, and redefining what it means to succeed. He opens up about the mindset shifts that changed his life, the importance of mentorship, and the real strategies behind building generational wealth. 

Whether you're an aspiring investor or looking to break free from financial limitations, this episode is packed with motivation, practical advice, and no-nonsense wisdom. 

Listen For

11:21 First Real Estate Deal: The $5,000 ‘Shut-Up Check’
18:02 Overcoming the Lies We Tell Ourselves
22:26 Flipping Boston: How Dave Landed a TV Show
30:25 Generational Wealth: Passive Income & Legacy Building
 

Guest: Dave Seymour

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Contact Nicole Lopez
Real Estate Agent
Royal LePage Credit Valley Real Estate, Brokerage
Email | Website 

Transcript

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Nicole Lopez (00:01):

Welcome to another exciting episode of Real Estate with Nicole, where we delve into the fascinating world of real estate, entrepreneurship and financial empowerment. Today's guest is someone whose remarkable journey from modest beginnings to towering presence in the industry will both inspire and educate. Please join me in welcoming Dave Seymour, a visionary leader, accomplished real estate investor and dynamic CEO. So welcome to this episode of Real Estate with Nicole. Dave,

Dave Seymour (00:56):

Thank you. Every time I tell you, Nicole, every time I hear somebody's introduction to me, whether it's my marketing team might've put a blurb together or somebody does their own research, I consistently look over my shoulder and I'm saying to myself, who are they talking about? Oh, oh, it's me. So I must have done something to warm up my presence on this show with you today. So I appreciate you having me. Thank you.

Nicole Lopez (01:22):

No, we are excited to have you here. I think you have a wealth of knowledge and experience and just energy and enthusiasm to share with us today. So really happy and thrilled to have you as a guest.

Dave Seymour (01:35):

Yeah, yeah, I can tick those boxes for you for sure. Energy, enthusiasm, maybe a little bit of a story worth telling, so

Nicole Lopez (01:43):

We'll see. Oh, I'm sure you do. And I'm going to actually delve right into that story. So you had a journey from humble beginnings to a real estate magnet. So tell us a little bit about that journey, a little bit about that life story.

Dave Seymour (01:59):

Look, everyone's story is unique, right? As far as I'm concerned, nobody has a boring story, nobody. Now, some stories get elevated because of circumstance or consequence or outcome, and we look at somebody else's success and we go, oh, maybe they were lucky, or it was dad's money, whatever the case may be. But I honestly believe that there is value in storytelling, period, no matter who you are. And one of my mentors said to me one time, and I'm quoting somebody else, this is not ego, this is not my opinion, this is somebody else's opinion. He said to me, Dave, your story is biblical in the sense of it was a journey, as you said, from humble beginnings. There's a little bit of a travel in there from one country to another, and I'll unpack it in a sec. And then some challenges, some personal demons to overcome some mental six inches of detrimental thinking that needed to be recalibrated, and then the hard party implementation to create results.

(03:07):

So I am from a very simple background. I'm from, I was born in London. I grew up in Andover, in Hampshire, about 80 miles south of London. It was an older spill community in the sixties where a lot of the London families didn't want to live in the dirt and grime, and they moved into the countryside and they built a lot of communities called Council Estates. Council just means government estate is a nice way of saying projects. So I grew up, grew up in the English version of the projects, not the shoot them up projects that we think of in the States, but we were just blue collar kids in a blue collar world, give me a soccer ball and I'm off to the park. I didn't do well in school. I was bored. It just wasn't my jam. I only excelled in the things that I wanted to do. I think every one of my, I actually found my report cards. My oldest boy found them. How the heck they ever got from England to here? I don't know. But anyway, my report cards had a consistent summary, and the summary was David has a lot of potential. If he just put in more effort, he can do better, right? He can do better. And I was restless, I was irritable.

(04:26):

I dunno what it was, Nicole, I knew there was something different. Anyway, I went from the south of England in my teenage years, I moved up to London and got accepted. You're going to laugh your butt off. I got accepted into a performing arts college. So yeah, I studied at a place called the Weber Douglas Academy of the Performing Arts in South Kensington in London, and big dreams, big aspirations, and they taught me how to do ballet and jazz and Shakespearean acting and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And after a year, I got kicked out. I wasn't committed. I didn't to, oh, no, it was crazy. But anyway, I ended up meeting my first wife who was an American citizen. And at 23 years old, I immigrated to the States and I was following the then love of my life. And it was a really dramatic time because I go from the hustle and bustle of London, England, metropolitan, just that whole cultural feel landed in New York, which was great. But then my wife's family was living in Wheeling by God, West Virginia

(05:43):

I, yeah, right. I ended up in the rust belt, and it was a tough time for me. The first three years in this country were very, very hard for me. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know where I wanted to go. And with my financial illiteracy, that was given to me by my culture, right? Work hard, just trade time for money. That's all you can do. I also bought another cultural norm in my culture, which was alcohol. I was a drinker, I was a drinker, and I medicated myself during that period of time and through a set of circumstances, at 23 years old, I got sober.

Nicole Lopez (06:24):

Awesome.

Dave Seymour (06:24):

I just picked up, yeah, I picked up 35 years of sobriety last month.

Nicole Lopez (06:29):

Congratulations.

Dave Seymour (06:30):

And look, it's not me. I think it's the big guy upstairs and the men and women that they put in your life.

(06:36):

I give glory to God, not to me. I'm just a six, put one foot in front of the other. But anyway, it started there that things changed in my life, like the commonalities and the instant reactions of human nature that I had been given were being broken down culturally because I was in a different country, but also I was no longer relying on any substances for medication, messed around a little bit longer, got divorced, I got remarried, and I ended up here in New England and up here, friend of mine from the non-drinking club, he said to me, he said, why don't you get one of those good government jobs, Dave? I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, police, firefighter, postal worker. You can't get fired from a government job. They'll tell you La Musk that. But back then you couldn't get fired from a government job.

(07:38):

And I landed a fantastic career. I landed a job as a firefighter and a paramedic. I worked in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. And while we were there, it's weird. It's really weird to go back and relive a lot of this stuff. When I was working in the fire department, I was spending money, right, spending more money than I earned, because it's America. You could do that. I've got financial illiteracy in my foundation, MasterCard and Visa were my very best friends. And I racked up about $75,000 in unsecured debt and needed to get a second job and then a third job. And I'm working about 120 hours a week, and I'm paying the price for that. I really am. I'm paying the price for that lifestyle. And it was a dark time. It was going into the crash, and I was losing my house, and it was tough, Nicole.

(08:46):

It was a tough time. It was a time where everything that around me was dark. I remember praying and I'm like, help me out. What am I supposed to do? And I was sitting in my pickup truck and I'm wrestling with the big guy. I've done everything. My father told me, don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal. Work hard. Be a man among men or work among workers. Do the right thing, son. All of that stuff and all good information, but not good for wealth creation. And I'm shouting at God and I'm like, show me the way. What am I supposed to do? I'm losing my house. And it was a dark time, and I heard nothing. I'm the man of faith, but I heard nothing. And I turned the ignition on in the truck and there was a commercial on the radio at that moment in time, and the commercial was Teach me foreclosures, a free one and a half hour seminar coming to your neck of the woods.

(09:42):

And I'm like, thank you, God. That's it. I'm going to be a real estate guy. I scream home in the truck. I walk in the door and I said to my wife, Mary Beth, I said, I got the answers. We're going to be real estate investors. She looked to me like I was crazy. We were in a pre foreclosure environment in our own home. See, my financial ignorance, my lack of intelligence around finance had a really dramatic impact on me, the ability to be in my home, to take care of my kids. It was a driver. And we went to this seminar, and I don't know if any of your listeners or yourself have ever experienced that moment where a new message just gets through. And the guy that was teaching this three day class was he told a story of his own challenges and how real estate and real estate transactions and the ability to understand the fundamentals and the mechanics of a real estate transaction changed his life.

(10:46):

And I'm like, if that guy can do it, I know I can do it. I talked to a few investors when I was working construction over the years, and I'm like, these people aren't that smart. What are they doing? I'm digging a ditch in January in Boston, and these guys are sipping a latte in a Mercedes-Benz in clean clothes. But that was it. That was the incipient moment, as we call it in the fire service incipient. The beginning, the beginning of the fire burning, the beginning of the business growing. And I did a real estate transaction, and it was for $5,000. It was a wholesale gig.

(11:21):

And I remember, I remember I had this check in my hand, and it was almost like a scene in a movie, Nicole, because I look at that check for $5,000, and then I started thinking about the amount of hours I had spent in my life to earn $5,000, praying that the phone would ring for an overtime in the firehouse so I can make an extra 200 bucks and give away another 14 hours of my life. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I got to check for five, fuck check for five grand. I'm like, Hercules, Hercules, Hercules. This is going to be it. And I never looked back. I never looked back, and I became one of the most prolific and consistent distressed asset investors in my area. And then that led to being recognized by A and e Network. And next thing you know, I'm on a TV show. So anyway, I hope that wasn't too long, but that's the journey. There's a lot that goes on in that period of time.

Nicole Lopez (12:28):

No, I think it's important to really share your journey so people understand the nuances, really understand those challenges, and as you said, the incipient, those points that put the fire to it, and then, okay, this is how it all went. It's not easy peasy because sometimes people think, oh, this person just was here by the flip of the envelope and Oh, I'm doing this. It's not, it's hard.

Dave Seymour (12:55):

When I got that check for five grand, appropriate, inappropriate, don't care. I tell the truth anyway. I called it a shut up check, and I took it to everybody who said I couldn't do this business, and I showed her the check. I'm just like, Hey, shut out. You know what I mean? Down south here in America, they call it a bless your heart check. They're just a little more polite. But there were guys in the firehouse, guys that I loved without getting too dramatic guys that I would die for and they would die for me in some of the circumstances that we found ourselves, and they became separators from what I was seeing. I began to see something different. I could see a path and a journey. I remember listening to Jack Canfield. He had a lot of fixing the mind stuff. Jack Canfield was one of the guys on the movie The Secret, I dunno if you read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. It's about using the law of attraction and understanding that what you think about you bring about and it resets the mind.

(14:03):

Jack Canfield was one of the authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul. So that's probably what he's well known for. But he had some teachings and it was Secrets of Success and implementation. And how do you react to circumstances? Do you just lay down and give up? Do you stand up? Do you lean in? Who are you as an operator? And if you're not proficient in certain areas, either get enough knowledge to be able to delegate to somebody who is proficient. So listen to the words I'm using right now rather than are we watching the Bruins or are we going to watch the Pats? Right? Did you see that poor son of a gun that we scraped up off the floor yesterday, different language, and not to demean my brothers in the firehouse, I love them. Just different. Not right or wrong, just different. And I remember one guy saying to me, we get the TV show and I'm on a different trajectory.

(14:57):

It costs too much money to work in the firehouse now. And I remember one of the guys saying to me, he said, Hey, I always knew. I always knew you'd make it Sea bar. You got lucky. You got lucky. And I felt like punching him at the side of his head, because it's not luck, right? The definition of luck is when opportunity meets preparedness, are you prepared? And I'm learning this from my mentors, David, are you prepared when the opportunity shows up? Do you have a strategy? What's in your toolbox right now? Dude? What's in your tool belt? Do you need a screwdriver? Do you need a jackhammer? Do you need a chop saw? What do you need for that particular strategy? And when it was given to me in simplistic ways like that, I was able to implement them. I didn't have to second guess it. And if I was following people who had already achieved what it was that I was looking to achieve, I learned something really powerful. I don't have to make 20,000, $30,000 mistakes.

(15:59):

Can buy somebody else's mistakes for $10,000, and that's a hard concept for some people to get their head around, but it just gave me a trajectory. It put me in a different sphere with different people, marketers, entrepreneurs, business people, and it was just a different game altogether. It really was.

Nicole Lopez (16:20):

Wow.

Dave Seymour (16:21):

Yeah,

Nicole Lopez (16:22):

Honestly, that's awesome. I think you touched on so many things that I love here, and one of them is mindset. It's one of the things I like to talk about on a podcast is that having the appropriate mindset, and I just wanted to know if you could delve in a little bit more in terms of developing that mindset and also understanding what you think about is what you act on oftentimes.

Dave Seymour (16:51):

Yeah. Yeah. Look, we're not therapists, right? We're not psychologists, but there is an absolute, science is an absolute science to this thing in here. We know so little about the power of the human brain, and basically what I learned over my career was is that as I stand right now, today, I am a product of my past. Now, if you take me back 15 years and you say, Dave, 15 years ago, 18 years ago, that David was a product of his past up until that point. So I think what a lot of people tend to miss are those moments of it. It's not goosebumps is God bumps, right? It's a God wink we call it, or a little tap on the shoulder. And it's to fight the internal dialogue, which has been given to me. What people don't realize is, is that they are lied to probably a thousand or more times a day in their own voice.

(18:02):

Think about that for a second. I am lied to. You're not good enough, you're too fat, you're too black, you're too white, you're too rich, you're too poor, you're too smart, you're too dumb, you're too this, you're too that. And that internal dialogue keeps everything where it is. And yet we as human beings say, I want to strive for more. I want to do more. I want to be more. I want to give more. I want my children's life to be different than my life, or I want it to be the same as my life, whatever the case may be. And yet, the internal dialogue consistently looks for status quo. To my point, the guys at the firehouse, they were just pulling down. They were pulling down because they were losing a brother. They were looking at their own selves maybe and saying what he's going, where he's who.

(18:56):

So mindset is a decision to not believe everything your own head tells you. So great, Dave, thanks for the advice. How do I change that? Well, it's input, it's input, input, input. When the guys were watching the New England Patriots win consistently week after week after week, sorry, I got to throw that in there. And they were watching the password every week. I wasn't watching the game with the guys. If I was in the firehouse or at home, I was listening to podcasts, I was reading, that's a lie, listening to books. I was following marketers and mentors and real estate investors, and I was learning what was good, bad, and ugly out there. And then I was able to bring my moral fiber into it and say, okay, that's right or wrong, good or bad. Just because something is legal, it doesn't mean it's moral.

(19:52):

And I found my own platform from which to work. And then every time fear showed up, false evidence appearing real. That's what fear stands for. False evidence appearing real. You can't. You won't. It won't. Every time that showed up, I would have an internal debate and I learned two really, really powerful words. What if it does work? What if I could show you? What if I could experience? What if I tried? What if the magic of what instead of you half is really freeing, right? Oh, I have to go take my kid to the dentist. No, I get to go take my kids to the dentist because kids are my kids and I love them and they love me. It's that reframing of the challenges that we get every single day. And it's not easy. It's not easy. I've mentored and coached 70-year-old people and 16-year-old people.

(21:07):

I personally don't believe that youth has any more traction in development than an older person does. Basically what it comes down to is a simple saying. Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? If you are, I can make you aware of some different things. But once you are aware, you can never be unaware again. So be careful what you ask for. That's why there is that pyramid I believe of. They call 'em the one percenters at the top. Those one percenters are the ones that fight that internal dialogue every single day, in my opinion. So input, input, input. Who are you listening to, who you're following, where do you get your advice from? Who tells you that you can rather than that you can't. And you get to see miracles all along the way. People just turn their lives around and it's pretty powerful. It's very cool.

Nicole Lopez (22:03):

That's amazing, and that is powerful, and thank you for sharing that. I just love it, the reframing your thought process and input, input, input. Yeah. Awesome. So now you are a real estate investor and you're working on flipping Boston. Tell us a little bit about that experience and yeah, share that

Dave Seymour (22:26):

With us. Yeah, it was interesting. So it was fairly early in my real estate career. One of my coaches said to me, you've got to go into the marketplace and find other investors. Real estate investing is a team sport. Find what value you can bring to the marketplace. Bring it and see what kind of law or reciprocity you can work in your marketplace. And I met this guy who ended up being on the show with me. Peter actually met him on Craigslist. That's where we met. Wow. Yeah. He had an ad on Craigslist looking for investors with money. He was looking to raise capital. I broke as a joke, right? I'm broke as a joke, and I'm like, I don't care. I'm going to reach out to him anyway. And I met him on a flip he was doing down on the beach here in Lynn, mass and just a couple of brothers from another, that's all we grooved a little.

(23:14):

I was able to bring some of my contacts at the city to the table, which were advantageous for him, and I could feed off of what he was doing with his flipping of properties. But during that period of time before the TV show, the guys in the seminar world who taught me the business saw that I was doing the business and getting results, and they're like, Hey, Dave, why don't you go teach? I'm like, what are you out of your trees? I'm still 50,000 in the hole. I, I've just finished working a short sale on my own house and now you want me to stand up there in a suit and talk Turkey? They're like, look, and it was an old time educator, and he said to me, David, he said, you don't have to be the expert. You can be the reporter. He said, if you know for a fact that what you're standing in front of works, if it's implemented, then report the success of the guy girl that you're representing up until the point that you can report your own success. So I got into that speaker world, and what was really cool about that was it was in the early days, and I was surrounded by guys like Gary Vanerchuk and who's the guy who does clickbait? Click invest, no, click Russell Brunson.

(24:33):

Oh, okay. Russell Brunson sets up funnel ClickFunnels. Russell Brunson was part of that crew, and there were a few other guys, and I'm not saying we are connected today. There was a group of guys moving around at that period of time. Anyway, Russell Bronson sent me an email and Russ said, Dave, you're a funny son of a gun. I know you're still in a fire department, but I know you're implementing real estate. This production company in New York's looking to bring flipping shows back in. This was like 2000 and late nine, 10. It was still like real estate was still a cancer as far as everyone was concerned. And so I downloaded an application for this TV show, and it was very vanilla name of the company, blah, blah, blah. Tell me about your team, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I remember some of the marketers and Gary V being one of 'em, if you ever listened to Gary, he uses profanity purposefully.

(25:29):

He doesn't use it just because he could drop an F bomb. He uses it for purpose. I never forgot that. And that's what I did with this application. I loaded it with profanity, straight up, name me your company, go F yourself, L, LC. And I just kept going with it because at that moment, again, an incipient time, what do I have to lose? So they see the form, they go, who's this guy swearing at me on a form or it goes in a pile or they do something else? But the last line, the last line on the application was, don't waste my time. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Get on a plane train or automobile. Drive up to Boston. I'll show you how we do it in Boston. Same way we do firefighting, running in, running out. Do not call me. Just come now. Let's start filming. Something like that, right? And I press send 15 minutes, max Nicole, 2 1 2 area code.

(26:26):

I figured on the phone. I go, I thought I told you not to call me. And I hung up the phone and I'm like, please call back. And that's where it started. They called back, the guy laughed. He was actually from New England, even though he was working in New York. And he said, you're a funny bastard. He said, you're either a lunatic or a genius. I said, I don't know what I am, but we flip a few houses, we have some fun. And that's where it started. They shot a little demo thing. They sent it to the a e network. A E network said that big English guy looks like he could be a little more aggressive. We want to see more of that. So there you go. I pulled back the curtain on it. Some of it was real, real, and then some of it was manufactured real, but it's a reality TV show.

(27:12):

But what that did was obviously, if you think about it in business, and even right now at this moment, we are talking to each other as perceived experts in our business, right? Well, why do we want that perception? Because it's good for business. Everybody wants to be the expert, to be the voice, to make the noise. And obviously the TV show gave us that. It's funny, one minute I'm sitting in a firehouse watching reality TV shows, and the next minute I'm on one, and then the next minute I'm sitting on the Today Show with Kathy Lee and Holder. The next minute I'm sitting with Becky Quick and Joe Karen and on Squawk Box on CNBC or whatever the heck it was on. And I'm like, I keep on looking for the hook. You know what I mean? Like I said to you when you introduced me, I'm like, who's this guy? But that changed the landscape dramatically.

(28:06):

It's interesting. It had a double-edged sword to it, because when you're still trying to do business and people know you, now they think you've got all the dojo, you know what I mean? And the prices are going up, and then some people know, yeah, the prices are going down. They just want to say, Hey, I did a deal with that guy from tv. So it was an interesting journey. We did 29 episodes, four years. We did a great episode with a guy by the name of the, hell was his name, can't remember his name. Anyway, he was a tight end with the New England Patriots. We did a deal in the north end of Boston. Yeah, it was good. It was a good episode. During that period of time, they bombed our marathon

(28:48):

And we did, yeah, we did an episode around the Boston Marathon bombing. We built out a disability accessible home for a guy and his girl. He had lost one of his legs in the bombing. So we got to do some great work. We really did. We got to do some great works, and it's a cool story. I'm not a cool guy from tv, but it's in the background. It was fun,

Nicole Lopez (29:14):

But it's part of your journey and it's part of you building out your business. It was part of kind of almost your testimony of, I went to this training and it does work. These are the principles that you need to use, the tools you need to have. It's awesome.

Dave Seymour (29:29):

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. 10 minutes before we started recording today, I'm booking flights to England because there's an education company in England that is very similar to what I went through here in the States, and they're like, Hey, Dave, will you come over and be a keynote speaker for us? I'm like, are you kidding me? It's like the prodigal sun returns. You know what I mean? So I'm doing a gig in, they didn't give me much time next week, so I'm doing a gig. So I jump on a flight and go up to Peterborough in the Midlands of England and go speak for some investors over there too. So that's part of the downstream from the TV days and the education space. But it's a cool life. It's good.

Nicole Lopez (30:10):

Yeah, that's excellent. It's good.

Dave Seymour (30:11):

Yeah.

Nicole Lopez (30:12):

So I'm going to pivot slightly just in terms of, there's one of the things I like to talk about or to emphasize is the importance of generational wealth. So just basically generational wealth

(30:25):

The importance of thinking about real estate investing or investing in general with that kind of frame of mind. Can you speak a little bit to that?

Dave Seymour (30:36):

Yeah, for sure. Look, I know that some of the strategies are a little nuanced up in Canada in comparison to what we do, but in the education arena, there's a lot of emphasis on what we call wholesaling, controlling the piece of real estate with the contract and then selling the equity in that contract to another investor. As long as the homeowner doesn't get hurt, no investors get hurt, it's a great deal. You can make five grand, like I said, on my first deal, or I've made up to, I dunno, 120,000 on a wholesale transaction. So there's money to be made there. There's also money to be made in a flip. You buy an ugly duckling, you make it beautiful, you put it on the market, beautiful family moves in, you make some money. But both of those are just jobs. They're jobs. They don't come with a retirement plan. They don't come with a strategy for generational wealth. So I think for me, generational wealth is created through passive income, through owning assets.

(31:35):

Again, I don't listen to all the messaging obviously up in Canada in comparison to down here, but it's so egregious that the only message given is throw money in your 401k, give some more money to Wall Street. I promise you Wall Street is not concerned with your generational wealth strategy. Wall Street is concerned with their fee structure and how much they can get in assets under management. And the laws down here are brutal because there are hidden fees within 401k programs and retirement plans down here that don't even have to be shared with the owner of the asset. They can legally take money out of accounts and you don't even know about it. And so many people are, I'm going to say it because it's true and it's a horrible word, but I'm going to use it anyway. It's that sheeple mentality. We see it with mass concepts.

(32:32):

I don't have to go through the covid thing, I'm not going to do that, but that was a beautiful example of how fear-driven concepts create mass movement. And it's the same with retirement. You're on the retirement red line, you better put this money in this fund, and you early put money in that fund, and people don't even know what the heck they're doing, and they think that they're building retirement plans. We know in the states that social security is not going to take you across the finish line. The government is not going to take you. They'll take your money, but they won't take you over the finish line. So what do you do? Well, it's wealth creation through physical assets. Crypto might be sexy. I don't have any, doesn't make any sense to me. Give me a 12 unit building that pays me six to $800 a month in positive cashflow.

(33:20):

Makes sense to me. I know it's going to be worth more money 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the line. So wealth creation is a concept that allows me to defer taxes and increase monthly incomes, and I want to do that in a passive capacity. I do not want to be a landlord dealing with tenants, toilets and trash. So a systematized approach to multifamily investing really is a play for wealth creation. And what's interesting is everybody's got a number that they have to meet every month, 5,000, 10,000, 2000, whatever that number is. When you can get enough cash flowing assets that take you to that point of taking out that monthly nut, that number 2000 a month, that's your goal. Let's get to 2000 a month. And I know that all bills are paid. You're not buying cars, boats and leather coats and depreciating assets. That's not the strategy.

(34:15):

Hey, go after a nice dinner with your better half. Beautiful. Enjoy it. Don't go buy a Mercedes. Don't start with the bling bling bling and yeah, yeah, yeah, and all that stupidity, stop it. Don't do that. That's immature. It's not wealth creation. But when you can eliminate that monthly number through passive income, you then see that hockey stick trajectory because now you get to reinvest. You get to reinvest, and 10 units become 20, 20, 40, 40, 60, 60, 80, and off you go. And there comes that tipping point. So generational wealth is then created through 10 31 exchange, which is a tax deferment strategy we have here in the states where you can eliminate all tax exposure and you just roll over that tax exposure into the next asset. You've got to meet some timelines. So you go from a 50 to a hundred unit, but you're still an active investor. And what I mean by active is you are managing those assets. Then there's a time, and that's where I'm at in my business today, is you'll get what's called passive investors or accredited investors who say, I want to put a hundred thousand dollars, 200, 2 million, whatever that number is with that guy and that company, that girl, that company, because they can work my money better than the stock market can

(35:31):

With less fees and more upside potential. So that's where I see generational wealth being made. And then also if you ask my 15-year-old or my 13-year-old what their philosophies are, it's not the same philosophy my father gave me. Right? Again, not right or wrong or moral, just different. So my boys understand philosophy of capital. They know what compounding interest is. They also know what compounding costs are. So I think, again, it's education, but don't be the person who gets so educated that they don't do anything. That's a big problem as well. So educate and then implement. And I think I know for a fact anybody can do it just won't be in the time that they want. It takes a little bit of time,

Nicole Lopez (36:19):

Right? The preparation, the understanding, the building up that knowledge. And just to kind of set something from a Canadian perspective, we have the RSP, which is the Canadian version of the 401k, and in terms of equity investments, there are some companies here in Canada who do similar things. I can't really speak to it because I'm not a financial advisor from that perspective, but it's something similar like what Dave is talking. What Dave you're talking about is something that is available within the Canadian market as well.

Dave Seymour (36:56):

There's a ton of Canadian money in the us. There's a ton of Canadian money in the us. And look, here's what I know because I've heard it, I don't know it because I know it, but there are strategies legal that can address the double taxation. That's the one every Canadian goes, Nope, double tax. Stop it. That's that mindset piece. Again, there are ways to navigate that so that it's still a really strong return profile for the investor. It's just having the right attorneys and accountants on both sides of the border.

Nicole Lopez (37:28):

Exactly. Exactly. Awesome. And that is true, right? Attorneys, tax, accountants, everything. That's who you need on your team.

Dave Seymour (37:34):

Let them do that.

Nicole Lopez (37:35):

That's who you need on your team, like an investment team. As I said, real estate investing is a team. Teamwork,

Dave Seymour (37:42):

It's a team sport. It's a team sport.

Nicole Lopez (37:44):

So I have another question for you. So what do you know now? What do you know today that you wish you knew when you came to the us? What would you know now that you wish you knew at that time?

Dave Seymour (38:04):

Belief. I really do. It's like belief. I came, like I said, from a very narrow cultural perspective on wealth and life, and I'll keep on saying it every time I qualify afterwards. It's not moral it, you're a bad person, you're a good person. It's not where I'm coming from. It was what I was groomed to be product of my past. So today, if I'd have known what I know now, I'd love to tell you I'd be retired and I wouldn't be working. I'd be doing this. I wouldn't. I'd still be looking for the deal. There's nothing better than the hunt of a good deal, packaging a deal, putting it together. But I just wish that I was able to overcome my own fear challenges faster. I don't regret or don't regret my time in the fire department. I don't. There's, there's foundational lessons that are learned there that are implemented over here.

(39:12):

Teamwork, comradery, diligence, commitment, transparency, all of these things, everything that we have. So again, look to surmise, without getting into a word salad, I really would just have wished I could have overcome the fears of not knowing sooner, because the journey would've still been the journey, but maybe I wouldn't have been in the fire department. I wouldn't have learned the lessons from there that I implement here. So God is good. It's his plan, not mine. It's just show me which way to go, brother. That's how I look up. I just look up. Sometimes I go, I don't know. Sometimes doing nothing, by the way is the right thing to do. You just got to take a breath. Yeah,

Nicole Lopez (39:55):

No, no, actually, I love that because you know what? The journey is the journey, and if you didn't go on that journey, you wouldn't have learned all the things that you learned and be where you are today to be able to share with everybody else and to share your experience and help them.

Dave Seymour (40:11):

Yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing with the sober journey. Like at breakfast with one of my buddies today, 35 years without a drink, he's just coming up on two years and he's got the relationship stuff going on, and he's having some challenges, and it's like I can share experience, strength, and hope with this guy because I've been through it just like the guys who helped me when they were going through it. So it really does, from the fire department, you don't go into a burning building on your own to get sober. You don't get sober on your own. You do it with other men and women who are on that journey. Wealth creation is not done alone. You're following mentorship, guidance, investing in yourself, investing in the right people around you. Don't be scared to write that check. So often, the fear of writing the check just stops people in their tracks, and I get it. I get it. If all you're taking home is 200, 300 bucks a week from all of the hours that I was putting in, I get it. It's hard to write a check for 5, 10, 15, 20, $19 million. It's not easy, but have faith that you have followed the path. Have faith that you have done the work. You don't do it blase. None of it is done in a blase manner. It's a serious business for serious people, but it's got some serious fun and serious rewards attached to it too. So

Nicole Lopez (41:32):

That's

Dave Seymour (41:32):

It. Yeah.

Nicole Lopez (41:33):

Awesome. Well, Dave, I just want to thank you so much for joining us today, real estate with Nicole, sharing your journey, sharing your nuggets of wisdom. I think there's a lot of wisdom we can pull from the discussion today. And any last words that you want to leave us?

Dave Seymour (41:53):

Yeah, get in the game. Get in the game, right? It's almost like Yoda. There is no try. There is either do or don't do you know what I mean? Get a little Yoda moment going in your life. You'll be amazed at what happens. And it's okay to take baby steps. You don't have to make giant leaps all the time. I've been on stages with Tony Robbins, but he's all about massive, massive passion, massive action, massive results. Let's just try a little something first. Easy, big Tony. Yeah, God is good

Nicole Lopez (42:26):

All the time. All the time. Thank you so much, Dave. Really appreciate it.

Dave Seymour (42:31):

Thank you.

Nicole Lopez (42:33):

Today's guest, Dave Seymour, really reiterated the three pillars. I like to focus on real estate investing with Nicole. One of them is to know more, making sure that we are educated, we understand what the real estate space is, what the investment space is, understanding the basics of financial management are really critical to our success. And then to be prepared. He really simplified it by saying we needed to make sure we put the appropriate tools in our toolbox, looking at our tool belt or looking at our toolbox, making sure we have the hammer, we have the hose from a fire perspective, we have that ax that we need. We're listening to various people who have been successful in the industry. We have the appropriate people on our teams, whether it's a lawyer, a tax accountant, a real estate agent. Just making sure that we are truly preparing ourselves, putting together a strategy so when we act, and he didn't emphasize that it is important for us to act and not let fear and over analysis paralyze us from taking action in a confident manner because we educated ourselves and we prepared ourselves with an appropriate strategy.

(44:00):

Like what you hear, follow me today and subscribe. Also, I'd really love if you could share this episode with friend or family member. This is Nicole Lopez signing off from Real Estate with Nicole. See you next time.