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[Music] kiwi's Love at First like Finn we're making [Music] waves generate switch online
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[Music] today Don ha welcome to my podcast thank you it's uh so good to um have you here
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my team reached out to you to ask you to come on and this is your first ever podcast well look I've been request
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internationally to do podcast and I declined and then in the end I just thought this is my first podcast so it
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might as well be you what was it your daughter that twisted your arm my daughter is a fan of yours I was quite
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surprised she's only 20 so you got a wider audience there and she said you got to go on to this podcast look en
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Mo's on here John Key's on here look then she showed me the Instagram I thought oh my God I didn't know Dom hary
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was this famous so I thought I got to get on well uh um I've um been intrigued
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with your story um and there's a lot to unpack with you because it's sort of
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like um well the there the refugee background so it's sort like Rags to Riches back to rags again and then back
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to riches so um yeah there's there's a there's a lot to the donha story a lot
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of adversity i c I've been refuged twice and I wonder which one was harder so we
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can talk about that oh so Refugee twice as first time an actual Refugee yeah when I arrived here in 1980 and second
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time when I lose all my wealth I felt like I was a refugee again which one was harder yeah because
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yeah you were declared bankrupt and there was um you were placed in receivership and um because of your uh
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high-profile there were some headlines and um it was very very public I I I'd
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imagine that was quite humiliating at the time well that's what I mean like when you first come here as a refuge you
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um you don't know anything so it doesn't matter what happen to you you're just a
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refugee but when you build your wife become high profile and and all of that's taken away from you man I think
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that was harder when you were when all your sort like all your rights and all your
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freedoms have been taken away from you you feel like you are Refugee again but probably hit you a lot harder because
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you understand a lot more things y well we'll get to all that but first of all
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how are you today well I'm I'm wake up this morning and I thought man I got to
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go on a DN happy show so I'm I'm excited EXC and and how's you you were telling
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us just before we started recording that you've got um you're dealing with some
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health issues this year B yeah B posy I got it in March yeah and I'm just still
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it's been in 9 months now but it takes about 6 months to recover up to 9 months
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so I'm I'm still going through it right now and yeah I'm almost normal yes so
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sort of like a paralysis of the face and you were telling us about um a traditional Vietnamese remedy do you
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really want me to tell that okay so I I had B py and and then my father said look I don't care what you try it won't
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fix you because he had it and he fixed himself and then somebody else in Vietnam had it and then they have to
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ring my brother ask how did my father fix himself and he went to the hospital and he saw this man in the hospital and
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my father said I'm giving up nothing will fix me and then this old man said don't worry it's simple so some TR
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woman in the Vietnamese Forest uh she said you go and get the eel cut the ti off get the blood put on your face leave
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it overnight and it will fix you so it fixed my father and I refuse to believe him because I hit phobia on ears you
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know I could be I'm fearless but I'm fear ears got snam me thing you know on
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your head yeah they gross so I had no choice I I had no choice but I went and bought seven eels and my father and my
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brother was helping me like 3 m away man let go some you know cutting this e toil off and then get the paper
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towel put the blood in my face and no kidding seven days later it fixed me I I just now I tell the story to every bosy
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people that's got it so cuz it can fix me it can fix them and I think this should be a a world why message to
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people at B py I did saw a n one of those basketball player player he was he was wearing his dark sunay and he said
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he get Bell py I sent on a message I said hey I understand the symptom you want to know how to fix it I can let you
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know how how it's done but I never heard from him yes yeah I mean I suppose some
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people would be like well I'd probably rather have the bells pause and let it
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run its C than put 's blood on my face let's go back and unpack the um donha
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story so what are your earliest memories like as a as a kid in Vietnam what earliest memories from back then
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okay well in Vietnam you don't have much you know like we live in a house uh sort
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of like in the country house and every day we just go to school walk to school come home never seen a bus before
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because there's no cars in his bicycles so then one day there was a bus a nice
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bus that just turned up on our driveway and then cuz my father he's Chinese my mom's
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Vietnamese and and the 70s Vietnam and China had a war going on so there's a
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bit of racial tension so they all the Chinese go back to China which is we are chinese vietnamese so then this bus
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turned up and then all a sudden my father said pack everything all a sudden pack everything
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why are we packing said we leaving I said where are we leaving said we're leaving Vietnam so you you tell what you
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tell in Vietnam so we all went pack and then the bus take us to this big boat and then uh we hop on it and then
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and my two uncles was part of uh the the belat and then because my father they were all fisherman they know how to
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navigate to Hong Kong and we didn't have to pay to go on this boat so the whole
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family just left in the place of one afternoon and leave everything behind and went to Hong Kong how old were you
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at the time I was 10 so that was the first time I I um see a car and then when we went to the Past China we had to
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stop to uh for the boat repairs and then for some reason there was another boat that had the cap the door of the captain
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was an our boat and the other boat was broken and they might us told them to Hong Kong they said if you don't tell
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our boat to Hong Kong we throw your daughter overboard so we had to tell this other
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boat to Hong Kong and then when we got to Hong Kong border I saw the warship was night whing
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their can and pointing at our boat because we could be Pirates you know and then we were not and then they gave us I
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pack up some slice sprits that's the first time I taste slice sprits that's
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what I remember and then when we get to Hong Kong then we went to stay in the refugee camp for a couple of years uh
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before we allowed to come well we we're not allowed to to come to New Zealand
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but uh it's like every country has a refugee quoter American England UK Australia so everybody wants to go to
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those countri no one wants to come to New Zealand we we didn't come here by choice we come here because we got no
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choice that's my memory of uh how we got here and and how we started yeah just
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looping back to that boat stuff so uh how long is the boat ride from um Vietnam about a month about a month yeah
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and how was it overcrowded how many people on the boat well there were that needed 300 people it was a big but big
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passenger boat yeah when you get to Hong Kong they burn all the boats that was crazy they line all the belts up and
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they burned them all who burns them the Hong Kong government right CU they couldn't store them anywhere yeah so
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they just burned them but I I can't imagine is it is it like do do does your
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family have their own room or their own bathroom facilities or is it um no where
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you sleeping on the boat you sleep on the floor like this room here could sleep our whole family and there's no
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bathroom on the boat the bathroom was just a whole Dro of the sea that's it it
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was very quieted and you get seasick uh whatever you wear the same clothes you don't have any clothes or change any
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change of clothes at all so you think from from your parents perspective it's it's an act of
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desperation right like it's that they're doing what's the right thing for
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themselves and for and for you and well I think at the time my father secretly was already building his a Bo to leave
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Vietnam but it's it's only a boat with 30 people and all a sudden you got this
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massive ship almost to take you there and you have to pay the you got to pay a k go per hit to get on it m we didn't
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have to because uh they rely on us to get us them everyone else in Hong Kong so and said
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they should be they forom to pay us a Kiloo per head that we take them to Hong Kong but when we got there they didn't
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pay us but I don't think it matters because we got there without safely and without paying so that was a
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trade-off yeah what are your memories of that as a as a 10-year-old boy like did
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you feel did you feel um you know did you feel safe did you feel scared no I didn't feel scared all I
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feel safe because when you're 10 year old you feel like the the elders are looking after you and but when you go
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from Vietnam where you see people every day you talk in your language and you go
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to Hong Kong and you see like you know the English policeman that's really big
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and powerful and they all speak a different language then yes at that time you feel intimidated because you don't
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understand yeah I can still still remember staying at refugee camp where everybody gets the same size of
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aluminium bow so buckets big trums of food will arrive you K up you get scoop pumpkin peas meat rice even the baby get
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the same size bow so that means the baby doesn't eat all the food we get to eat
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the balance yeah that's that's what I can remember yeah so who was there in
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the high family there was your mom your dad yeah and there was my mom my dad and
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this uh we had five boys and two girls and the family so we had quite a big family and we when saay in the camp we
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got like you know how you got the bun bits where we got the triple bun bits they go three levels high and it's in
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the D they can get quite hot in summer cuz there fan going on so yeah so we get all of these bunk bits and and in One D
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you have like maybe a thousand people and obviously there's andh house fightings and steerings and all sorts of
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stuff that can happen in there wow so then so you come to New Zealand um and then you you're placed in
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the um the refugee Center at mongy yes um you guys can't speak any English no
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and so when we come to New Zealand we stay there for three months uh for them to check all our
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health out and give us all the medicine and give you ills blood you need it no didn't even see it y then didn't see it
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y then we had nine family that sponsor our family nine families and they all bring us food blankets put and they find
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a house for us so they find a house in alar for us so we stay in for house and hota and uh
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obviously we just thought this is it uh meaning like you know obviously aling South is quite a rough area but we
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didn't know any different we thought this is is it this is how it is so so we
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sign a $120 house a week and then every week the sponsor will bring food blankets to to our family and then I get
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his go to school I was put into standard four at the age of 12 speak zero English
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and um being in Old toown when you go to these primary schools that the kids in Old Town they teach you all the swinging
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wordss so the f word is the the first word they taught me I'm not kidding I go
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home and tell my mom what you know today so I I swore at my mom and she swore back at me and we still don't know what
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it means today I know what it meant but my mother still don't know what it means
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because she don't speak English at all so that was part of the fun yeah I can imagine um I mean when you're a kid
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when you're a 12-year-old kid um you you still have an ability to to adapt and to
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learn and pick up new things but um I can imagine how difficult that was for you appearance you know sort of being
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stripped of your entire identity and um that must have been really really challenging for your parents oh it is
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and I I got to admire my father so much I mean I I think back okay let to say I'm 56 now when he was
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50 he took his whole family left the country to nowhere and today all of us are married
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he's like uh grandfather or great-grandfather of night SI or nephew and NES and my mom and dad are still
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alive they 94 92 wow and they love to see the leacy created in a brand new country I mean like I might achieve
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monitary terms but I cannot achieve what he achieved you know or make that sharp
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decision to pick up and and leave is crazy Y what about the um the rest of your siblings have they all done okay
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for themselves yes they do we we got into uh we stay in an old house for 3 years and within 3 years Believe It or
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Not uh we saved together and we bought our first family home but in 3 years bring in New Zealand bought the first
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home and Pap toy toy for 55,000 why we can buy a home so quickly was we all work together and all the
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money save together and I think today's uh in today's night we always thinking
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that uh affordable of buying a home is hard it's hard because we all keep our
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own money but today you know everyone can earn $1,000 a week mention four arrows M you know like put $800 side
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$200 for your lunch you would save 3,000 a week in the space of 6 month you can buy a home but today I want to bring
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that message back that home ownership is your possible if you work together but there must be leadership in the family
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somebody got to be in charge yeah yeah and you your dad ended up um um buying his own business a bakery well after our
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first home then then yeah we started uh bought up our first bakery called the saon bakery in won spring and then from
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there we all taught ourselves how to B because my dad now how to B my brother know my uncle know and then we buy our
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second Bakery our third Bakery and then bought our second third fourth house and
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at one point our family all together had 35 bakeries but they didn't know how to
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franchise because they just know how to bake so then they they sell their Bakery
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off and then they just set up sell the bakery off as today you can see the the bakery all around New Zealand uh all of
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that baking recipe started from our family you if you go to Asian bqu you can know that the pie the apple donut
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the cakes everything they look very similar it's because we started in 1982 but if we now had a franchise we put it
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on a hung B right now or more but we didn't so you you worked um parttime in
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the bakery um basically every spare minute outside of school you were working in the bakery yeah there's no
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school Camp there's no Sports in the weekend you go home after school you go
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to the baky squ the tray off the floor do the dishes in the weekend you do the same
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thing basically that's my life you know like you get thought to work in a very early
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age so I miss out a lot on that school the school that my daughter and my son now get to have I I do not have
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yeah did you um did you enjoy that though or did you feel like a sense of fomo because all your you fear of
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missing out all your friends at school were doing fun activities in the weekend and you had to when you started going to
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college and then you you miss out you miss out the after school even event the weekend Sports and didn't allow to go to
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disco and things like that and oh man you do feel like you are missing up but but for some reason my father has
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instilled that respect hard work culture and our headit that we don't disrespect
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his instructions so so yeah and I think his value is now create that value and myself and that's a value that I create
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throughout my company culture now and it changed a lot of people h y is is that just the Chinese
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way well it is a Chinese way a Vietnamese way but not everybody follow that way because as an adult if you
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don't care about your kids you can't carry it through so I can see some family where they cannot carry that same
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way through because because the parents have to be strong where the parent is not strong they can't carry their value
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through so your kids are are kiwi kids they born here and the Dead's done very
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well for themselves are they um do they have the same sort of respect for you or
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do they 100% yeah do they they carry my value and U they appreciate what I do for them and they do things now it's
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quite it's quite funny when your kids live with you you talk the same language
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every day now they talk your language they use the same value as you taught them to their friends and it's amazing
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you see yourself in each one of them and each one of them carries a different value which is part of you and and the
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feedback on obviously people when they meet wow your son's amazing your daughters is amazing they did this they
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did that and for them to get employment right now it's like you know they'll be
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the best employee in any company because they can outperform anyone uh for their
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ability and their resilience yeah so so you're working you're working in the bakery um and you
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have higher aspirations for yourself I you wanted to be famous right you wanted to be an actor right what did what did
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your dad think of that well my dad only wanted me to be a baker and I'm I'm the
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black sheep in the family I always want to be the richest man in the family and I told him that many times and he just
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laughed at me so I tried selling M selling Kirby vacuum cleaners had the store in the flea market had a nightclub
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so do all sorts of things and I fail and then he just told me that I told you so and I I was rebellous
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against him because I listened to a lot of motiv motivational TS and I talk at martial arts and then I said Thomas
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Edison filed the lightbolt 99,999 times so I still I I still got thousands to go so you can say what you
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want so then when I talk about martial arts I thought that I'm going to be Blye
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I thought I'm going to be famous uh being a martial artist and I was very good at it I had a th000 martial arts
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student student 35 black belts under me I can jump over cars run over fence without hand without using my hand so I
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went audition the same way ble with audition meaning that they can't replace
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a St man that can do that but uh being in New Zealand I only get bad parts like you know all the quam
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Watch scene was on it crime watch yeah that's an old an old TV show that was yeah you know somebody
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like the the rooll leg from about Tam New Market you know robberies trying Korean fisherman all those roles and at
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one time I was on a movie with civil shepher as well I was a Tha pirate so you get all these bed PS so I
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thought no I'm not going to get famous being an actor here oh so you were always the villain you were never the
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leading man no I was not but I I did had a a part when I was auditioning I got a
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r for this I don't know what this movie is called now but it was about an Asian
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man the Australian vment in the in the middle of the desert somewhere and and I CAU the P
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but I said but I sign at least for my bakery now so I can't be away for 6 months so I I watched the movie The guy
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died he trying in the cave that was my role but I had a least of my bakery so I couldn't take the part but that who
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knows where would that lead to right but anyway that was my fake so yeah so well
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okay so why real estate why um cuz it seems like the easiest um path for you would be to stay in the family business
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and yes become a baker Why Real Estate well I hate it being a baker to be honest I was like 24 19 to 24 working 72
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hours a week you know when you're young you go out the night club you know you
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want to look for your girlfriend you can't cuz you got to go to work at 5:30
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in the morning and then one day uh uh a agent worked at my shop and I said what do you
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do for living He said I'm an agent and he said uh I said how many house do you
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sell this month he said I sell two and I said um how much you get pay he said I got to pay 12,000 for each one and then
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my head I thought man if I sell six houses a year I can take the whole year off so my bakery was worth 120,000 at
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the time I studied my real estate course and you talk about cutting your losses I sold it for
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60,000 just to get out of the bakery and become an agent now my father thought I
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was even more crazy see my mother was crying because she gets to count my money every day she doesn't count it
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anymore so I became an agent in September 94 and I went to the company and I asked the boss I said how many
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hours does your agent number one agent work a weit to become number one he said she works 50 hours and I had zero
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experience and I said if I work 72 hours I'll be her now I didn't know being a
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realight agent you got to have the listing the customers I just know that I work 72 hours bet I apply my Baker hour
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into to real site where I work for 84 hours even 100 hours and my first year no kidding I sold 86 properties without
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any experience and one particular month I got paid 53,000 after tax now in the bakery I earned 30,000 for the whole
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year doing 72 hours week one month I got to pay 53,000 that year I bought in a total of 440,000
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that is so much money that's more than the Prime Minister it's crazy money so
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then I realized whatever my father tells me that I can't do whatever my community
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tells me what I can't do was on your head so from there it just no looking back was was was um that must have taken
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some real courage um on your part to go against your appearance wishes though yes because I didn't want to stuck in
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that environment and become limited and earning and real estate was a vehicle that you can earn
00:23:29
unlimited money yep and I was lucky enough to uh get mentors and Coach along the way to help
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me so really is just an example of um yeah hard work beating Talent right yes and then obviously you make a lot of
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mistakes on along the way you know like you you made mistake cuz you don't know
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what liquidation mean you don't know I mean at a point where I saw a um ba and
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Thompson for S side in front of the house and I didn't know that it's there
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sign that I shouldn't be approaching them but I thought that they got the agent on the sign that was the honor so
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I ring up the bfo agent and say hey this is Don how can I sell your house for you
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I mean dumb sometime is good being dumb is actually sometimes good yeah yeah you're just not knowing
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not knowing the rules yeah and in the private s sign it says no agents right it say private S no agents so I ring up
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the owner I said hey um this is Don ha here can I sell your house for you and I and he said I told I told I said no
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agent on my sign I said that's what I taught you see you haven't got an agent when you say no
00:24:34
agent I'm an agent so well was your was your English not not particularly good at the time or no
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it was not very good because at school I I failed uh fifth form twice I failed sixth form twice too my father said
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you're not clever enough you going to leave school and join the family bakery
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so no English was terrible uh spelling and all that sort stuff I I Rely a lot on help so but I had the ability to earn
00:25:04
people's respect and Trust very quickly when I lock on their doors I uice myself
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and I was I was working for the people first before I work for myself and that was my secret was to work for the people
00:25:17
first the money comes later yep uh I think from um from your background like from where you came from
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it's sort of like um you've succeeded um against the odds and I think that makes
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part of the the story more inspiring right yeah well since my success you know if you look at all the South
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Oakland agent now today there there's many many ethnics and that uh because of
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me I created the the pathway for everyone that now it's possible to do that so so yeah that's been quite a
00:25:47
incredible creation I have created so many millionaire agents so many millionaire investors even so many
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millionaires but in my own company it's and my family now we all millionaires m
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yeah and and um at the point we're recording this towards the end of 2024 this is your um 30th Anniversary wow 30
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years in real estate yeah 30 years real estate and I done now over 120,000 hours
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cuz every week I still do 70 hours do you yes yeah what is an average they look like now well these days I don't
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physically do the work I do the thinking and I do the key accounts and I give instructions on my team and then I do a
00:26:24
lot of event seminars uh I I have to scy up now where the secret of skying up is
00:26:31
create a rpe once sell it a thousand times just like today's podcast you create this recipe once and then you
00:26:37
could have thousand listeners that knows your message that's sking up yeah um
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when did you when did you first feel um rich or financially secure was it the first year of real estate when you were
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suddenly were making more than what you were making in the bakery or well the goal to make a to become a millionaire
00:26:54
and my goal was to become a millionaire before I 30 and then when you hit a millionaire Network that's when you feel
00:26:59
like wow you made it and then there was a there was another man in the company where he's been divorced and he said
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well you're not a millionaire yet I said why not I said well your wife will take
00:27:10
half so you'll be 500,000 so he inspired me to get the second million so my wife
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can hit this the other million so so I said okay I'm going to go and get two
00:27:19
million instead of one and you You' you've still got the same wife though
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yeah well she's too expensive now yeah we've been married now for I don't
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know 20 something years so oh congratulations and and your um your business cards when you first started
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out do they um it said donha licensed to print money yes well I used a James Bond
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method was James Bond is Licensed to Kill with his business card7 the minute I got my business card
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I said I'm licensed to print money so policeman would pull me over before he
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gave me a ticket I give him a business card I sold it policeman now in 11 houses uh and I now s a lot of uh poty
00:28:02
to policeman and only a few weeks ago I got sto at Mission B there and a policeman pull over for brief testing
00:28:09
and then the minute he made me count to five and he said Don ha I got a house I want to
00:28:16
sell uh what should I do so I quickly reach for my business card now just remember in business got to be ready at
00:28:22
any time without warning always have a business card so I give him my cat and I said here's
00:28:29
my cat and then I don't want to talk to him anymore cuz it it was on JY and I
00:28:33
said you give me a call when you're ready so so from that that's how we expanded from visiting uh doctors I I I
00:28:40
me to a bunch of doctors now uh DST you know all profession it's now it's very
00:28:47
good to have doctors on call when you need stuff you know yeah so what was you um what was your uh what was your net
00:28:54
worth you don't have to answer this if you don't want but um you know I know
00:28:58
that you are very um yeah money focused and success focused so if you want to answer it that's cool but what was your
00:29:04
what was your net worth um just when we're going into the global financial crisis I had $120 million of assets yeah
00:29:11
$60 million net worth at one point I even forgot I had 12 houses in poke Koy I lost count it was that crazy I was
00:29:21
buying a sour house a week and uh I had uh I built houses I had land I had everything and then I had 43 race horses
00:29:31
too on top of that it was crazy it was yeah what was the appeal with race horses horses are an expensive hobby
00:29:38
aren't they they are but you know when you do one thing and you get bought you
00:29:43
know like like you do really bought and then somebody come along and say hey look you can buy a horse a half a
00:29:48
million it could make you three million I thought man this is easy in real estate you know so then I thought I
00:29:56
thought that you can trust people on that basis but no it's if the horse got
00:30:02
a Bor chip is Le you don't know but they tell you buy you buy it right because
00:30:07
but you can buy a horse for half a million and it could be only 1500 so I went and bought all of these horses and
00:30:14
I was been giving some bad advice cuz people take advantage of me on that basis but I did bought that the bill
00:30:20
coat uh for 2 million and I thought I thought this is where the hit line and I thought I thought this make
00:30:29
me if for marketing purpose I went and bought the horse so the night before make sure I did the cooking clean the
00:30:36
kitchen so my wife I said tomorrow I'm going to buy a horse you know she didn't
00:30:40
know how much I want to spend so I said yeah okay so I thought okay you see okay
00:30:46
so so I went I like proudly to say to you the was there of duai and all the other high players and I outb all of
00:30:55
them and I pay 2 million bucks for this a be C and fair enough become world famous you know and then after that I
00:31:02
thought okay I'm now going to run a naming competition that that all New Zealand people can send the names to
00:31:09
name this hor we receiving 20,000 naming for this horse and I was quite stupid in one case
00:31:18
was there was this beautiful air horses on Air New Zealand she she saw me on the
00:31:22
flight she wrote me her phone number down and she put coru as the name of the the
00:31:28
horse but I wonder if she she put her phone number down so I can date her I'm
00:31:32
not sure I never ring her I put her name in the Box get you in trouble it cost you half your money cost you half your
00:31:38
money so okay so so the um the zabil cult that was at the uh K Millions yeah oh my God that is a that is a daunting
00:31:46
auction that is so much money oh the rors pack and you know you get request to go on uh TV interviews and sky and I
00:31:54
had two requests I hav had a I don't know sometime I'm just making these stupid decisions or I had a
00:32:01
request to be on Playboy magazine for interview for buying this horse I declined him and then I had
00:32:10
another request to be on a car advertisement for this Chinese car and China I declined them too mhm at the
00:32:18
time when you're so busy doing things you you can say no to certain things so
00:32:23
anyway I don't know what would happen if I did appear in the Playboy magazine
00:32:27
interview I don't know why they want to interview me so um yes so buying a horse for $2
00:32:34
million do in hindsight um and on reflection like do you think it was um a good investment or was it like part of
00:32:41
like an ego project like for the donha brand well the whole idea of buying the $2 million horse for you hoping that it
00:32:47
will win a lot of good races and become going to stun and you can charge $100,000 for a service what make you you
00:32:53
know 30 million a year but you when you bought the best horse from the best mother and the best father it doesn't
00:33:00
mean that the son is going to be the best is it it's no different from you could have a rich parent and your son
00:33:06
could become an alcoholic and a failure well that horse only won two race 40,000
00:33:12
and didn't win any other race St for it what a a f you know St horse so I still got the
00:33:21
horse show in my office I think the horse is dead now yeah you didn't go to the funeral no I I didn't I didn't after
00:33:29
all of that I thought no I paid 10 million or so to buy all my race horses and cash too that was crazy it was a
00:33:37
crazy era and then the president of em uh they might may promote the am Mel cup which I get to take a pH my horse and
00:33:47
they put me in the front page of the hero over a superm model so all of the experience uh I had no regrets I I met
00:33:55
the most amazing people had the most aming experience and I'm still here so that's I had no regrets what about your
00:34:02
parents at the time like when when they hear you spending $2 million on a horse um what do they say at that point do
00:34:09
they just trust your judgment and trust that you know what you're doing is right
00:34:12
or do they you know I don't think they know I don't think they know until later
00:34:19
I don't think even they know when up here in the rich list neither so uh then
00:34:23
I told him and at that moment my father just giving up on me he just said look I
00:34:27
I can't control you I can't tell you what to do uh you just do what you do
00:34:32
and and you and you'd been successful to that point so y yeah and no admittedly
00:34:38
when they com at receivership he he my family helped me a lot so that's good
00:34:43
yeah yeah yeah which takes us to um yeah the global financial crisis where um you
00:34:50
were declared bankrupt and you're in receivership so uh this was 2012 so I'm
00:34:55
guessing you were like 40 early 40s at the time yep yep um yeah how was that how how did that
00:35:04
happen did you what what happened how did you end up getting into that trouble well first thing when you don't know uh
00:35:11
document that you signed and your lawyer just advise you sign here when you get a
00:35:15
loan document without explaining to you so then you give your company away as a guarantee and then you sign these
00:35:22
documents and then when the interest rate hits 12% you can't pay for your mortgages because
00:35:30
it's so high and then we were selling 110 houses a month we only selling 10 it's like and then it cost me 200,000
00:35:38
to fit my horses a month it was crazy oh so you just sort of like um overcommitted stretched a bit
00:35:47
thin not enough equity in your properties there were plenty of equities but there's not enough cash flows okay
00:35:53
to to pay for all the other costes yeah and then then when the bank put you in the receivership you don't even know
00:36:00
what the word receivership means until you go through it and then they just took control your
00:36:05
company and you know I I was living in a $6 million house in Woodford I had uh a
00:36:11
Mercedes I had a Porsche and uh man and I had to become attendant after that can you
00:36:21
imagine you know that you had nothing from from all of that clamour and you go down to zero you go and rent a house for
00:36:27
a year and you have to give back your car and and my daughters they were on night maybe 6 and
00:36:36
three at the time we had to move down the road to rent the house and that's the first time I become a tenant I got
00:36:43
to feel sorry for tenants out there honestly you know the question they ask how you going
00:36:49
to pay for it all the sort of stuff and that's when my dog L what what's there
00:36:54
and I said you got a dog I said have you meet my dog hereid you know she's beautiful have you meet my dog so and
00:37:01
then then he agrees to rent me this house and then um from there we had to start again from
00:37:11
zero and I got to say prior to the bankruptcy and receivership I can pick and choose who I want to work and sell
00:37:19
for but when you start again you got to you can't pick and choose anymore you
00:37:25
you will ring up the person that you don't don't even like the highest price
00:37:30
out there not sell you have to take them on and when you put your sign on the highest price of the properties you know
00:37:37
it's not going to sell but the buyer doesn't know what's the highest price do
00:37:41
they they ring you up and you can sell them something else so Baker can't be
00:37:45
chooses so then I had a Singaporean developer he was so good to me today he's um he owns a mure hotel now up up a
00:37:52
Queen Street he people like you you like the tree the trunk will always stand but the branch will get blown off
00:38:02
or the top will get blown off you will recover and you make it again and he given me to take charge of his total 162
00:38:11
site development in t Tak when he was living in Singapore I named the subdivision sunai estate after the
00:38:18
mother of the horse that I bought and he supported me and I couldn't believe it that he's
00:38:25
given me this $80 million velopment because of my experience not because of what happened to me and from there
00:38:31
because of that it it recover my profile and my credibility and today we're quite
00:38:37
friends and I I never forget that you know Loyalty means a lot and and believe in the ability of the person not because
00:38:45
something had tainted their name and we forget about that person uh I never forget people who supported me Stand By
00:38:53
Me on that basis and today I give a lot of people that second chance because because no one will talk to them but I
00:39:01
do yeah where did that drive come from to start again I mean so you you you know you're middle-aged at almost
00:39:08
middle-aged at the time early 40s you got a young family um you've been burnt
00:39:14
very badly um yeah why not just get a normal job like go back to the bakery or something well the the thing is I never
00:39:21
work for anyone uh on a sick day or holiday pay I I don't know what it's
00:39:28
like but I had the ability to believe that I can do it once I can do it again uh the receivership the bankruptcy uh
00:39:37
happened not because by I would say by choice or it happened because before people just didn't like
00:39:47
me for being successful or talking back against them so I knew that I can make it again I knew I had the ability to do
00:39:55
it once you can do it again and I call it the perfect storm because after the GFC after the recovery there's that
00:40:02
period where the property Market recovers really quickly and I tell my my agent I said look work 100 hours a week
00:40:09
because this opportunity don't come as quickly my agent were doing that 50 hours a week I was doing 100 hours a
00:40:17
week and the different was they were earning 800,000 I was earning 5 million M and I was able to recover a lot of
00:40:24
that lost spe and and it's a perfect storm I call it and we just about to come to the
00:40:31
perfect storm in 2025 cuz the real estate sector now it's been suffing for the past three years I
00:40:37
believe the perfect storm will come back in 2025 again what what does it mean exactly to
00:40:42
be bankrupt well when you're bankrupt first you can't travel anywhere because you
00:40:47
don't have any money and you can't drive a car for more than 5,000 and you work and I think I don't
00:40:55
think you can earn more than 60,000 year neither so you become a a normal citizen your bank rupy period And I
00:41:06
thought it taught me a lot because for three years I couldn't do anything is
00:41:09
that how long you okay for three years three years you were restricted but you had the ability to
00:41:16
work and to spend that time to redevelop your system and build your people and and think what you're going to do when
00:41:23
you come out of it so for that period that was very hard when you travel overseas you've got to um get your
00:41:31
father to pay for you or someone pay for you because you got no money uh things like that so and getting credit is very
00:41:39
very hard and no company will get you credit and things like that so when I started again a lot of company they
00:41:46
don't give me credits uh and and even today we still don't take credits because we see that every month if we
00:41:56
got our Supply and we pay them off we know exactly how much money we got so some of the company now saying that hey
00:42:01
you should have an account with us cuz you're our bigest you're our bigest
00:42:04
account but but we quite like it that way cuz no account no credits you pay for it that's
00:42:12
it full stop so that's been working really well on that basis yeah how was how was your mental health over that
00:42:20
time for some reason when I when I was put into receivership at the time I play the song &em I'm Not Afraid that was my
00:42:29
theme song it's a great song I just keep playing it every every day to to keep me
00:42:37
going my mental health was was actually stronger and sometimes I get people kill
00:42:43
outside my company because they went through the same process and they want my advice and I save a lot of people
00:42:49
money ever since so now my mental health is surprisingly every day it's get stronger not weaker for some reason what
00:42:57
happened but that's just my selief that I can do it what about yeah if if you go
00:43:03
online and Google Don har there's still some articles that come up from that
00:43:06
time um so it was it was uh it was a very public Fall From Grace and I I feel like the like there's there's a thing in
00:43:14
New Zealand called tall poppy syndrome uh where you want to cut down successful people and I feel like there's probably
00:43:19
sections of um the media or real estate that sort of rubbed their hands together
00:43:24
with a Glee at your demise um yeah was that humil oh it is it's very hard and and even
00:43:30
still today it has some effect on certain uh things that I do people come they don't know me but they just say
00:43:37
well why do you want to do business with him for well my question is like do I owe you any money the answer is no they
00:43:42
I say well do you know me the answer is no then then they just go and openly criticize you online for no reason for
00:43:51
no reason they just criticize but I think you get used to that now because every industry in every people you will
00:43:58
receive 5% or 10% of the people that just criticize you for no reason yeah and when you become like Dom hary
00:44:06
there'll be certain people that criticize you too but it's just part of become prominent become
00:44:12
somebody yeah I need to remind myself like I I don't like everybody so I can't
00:44:16
expect everybody to like me um but there's um yeah there is have you heard the um the analogy about crabs in a
00:44:23
bucket yes yeah so y yeah I feel like there's um there's a lot of like like
00:44:29
crabs at the bottom of the buet in New Zealand in particular and that's uh I
00:44:33
would say seeing the world now and seeing how New Zealand treats people I mean the price only reports on bad price
00:44:40
they don't report on like good price you know like we can change people's life we
00:44:44
achieve this we achieve that but they love selling bad place and look if you go to America or other part of the
00:44:53
country people only can say Hey look it's okay you can recover keep going it
00:44:57
sewing the seed believe in yourself we're here for you you know that encouragement means everything but if
00:45:03
you receive so many criticism on social media and you can't handle it and and
00:45:08
that leads to suicidal alcoholic drugs and obviously there's many many stars
00:45:15
that has gone through that because they don't know how to handle that but for
00:45:19
some reason it doesn't get to me what were the um biggest lessons um you learned about yourself in that
00:45:25
period Well I was you got to get your structures right number one you can't trust 500 people you think you know 500
00:45:35
people can trust 500 no I think if you can put your finger up and count 10 people you can trust now I say five you
00:45:43
quite lucky so having the best lawyer best accountant and having the best advisor and Trust Le people reference
00:45:50
them check them out before you agree to certain things money can't just pass
00:45:55
over the counter just because you meet somebody for an hour and you think you can trust them with someone you can meet
00:46:00
for like a 100 hour so that was a lesson that I learned yeah so your circle just
00:46:05
got way way smaller way smaller yeah because I suppose when you're when you're bidding on $2 million race horses
00:46:11
in Cara you've got a very very big circle oh all Sundays Night 500 other people that want to know you and you
00:46:18
think everyone's the same but but you got to think again everyone just want a
00:46:22
piece of you yeah you what was um what what was harder like the first adversity you know being being a kid and
00:46:31
a refugee and you the boat and everything else the resettlement to New Zealand or or this this period oh the
00:46:38
second part was definitely a lot harder because you you mentally can understand things and you you become quite popular
00:46:47
and you had a lot of wealth and then to lose all of that overnight it's it's
00:46:54
crazy it's like how do you handle it you know so and then you lose all your control because all of a sudden your
00:47:00
email gets turned off your website gets turned off all your signs been removed it was crazy it was like I don't
00:47:08
know how someone can handle that but somehow I got through it it was a lot harder for sure yeah yeah yeah you well
00:47:16
not only did you handle it like um you know you you you rebuilt and you recovered what what were you driving at
00:47:21
that time just out of curiosity what was your $5,000 car I was driving a Holden oh I ever holding now I'm not even
00:47:29
bankrupt I'm just a podcaster holding Captiva um what advice would you give to
00:47:35
someone facing um like a big adversity in their own career I think I think it's really
00:47:42
important that you talk to someone with higher power and talk to someone who knows talk to someone who's been there
00:47:49
before I think hiding in the room can only become worse you need to communicate now when that happened to me
00:47:58
most most people will hide at home I decide still to treat my best clothes and take my wife out to the be
00:48:05
restaurant and face the public and you can hear people whisper about you but you got to have that strong ability to
00:48:14
face the reality so I was still doing exactly the same thing as I do but I make a lot of communication to a lot of
00:48:23
people that I help on the way up and look at the time that happened staff uh that they were they were worth only
00:48:30
5,000 when they come to me and now they were like 20 million worth and they said
00:48:34
here's a checkbook uh and I put it on my desk write what you want one guy come to me
00:48:40
here's my car I have nothing but you created me take my car so it was crazy I
00:48:45
said look no amount of money you give me will help me so keep your money I said no I don't need your car I got my family
00:48:50
too so having that ability to have that it's called you know that that program
00:48:57
hokan's hero you know a Chan without rank but he still control his troops that was I was like that I had no rank
00:49:04
but I still had control over my troops why I create the Loyalty so that part was a lot of support and I had loyalty
00:49:11
for my customer my friends my family so even everything taken away from me but I had a lot of help M was it was it
00:49:20
hard on your marriage at that time no it wasn't my wife she's amazing she she's in qu able for staying with me
00:49:28
cuz that's a true T of marage you know when I first metet her she was working
00:49:31
in my bakery I was paying her six bucks an hour so so no she she's thought by me
00:49:39
and uh I I find it having a supportive wife or partner stand by you uh yeah that that's incable Yeah
00:49:48
well yeah I'm um tiny bit younger than you I'm 51 and you realize um as you get
00:49:53
older no one no one gets to um age or stage in life without going through some adversity and um I I think um with every
00:50:02
adversity there's some some lessons that come along with it and um you know makes
00:50:05
you it gives you new appreciation for things like loyalty doesn't it 100% loyalty partner business and friendship
00:50:12
it's is really really important because if you don't have loyalty maybe your
00:50:18
business might not be as strong because you need loyal customers business to support you staff employees and
00:50:27
everybody lawyers accountant they they will support you if you create the Loyalty you know yeah so is this when um
00:50:35
you became part of Remax after that after the global financial crisis and you you reestablished yourself got
00:50:40
yourself back on your feet yeah um is this when remix came along no and I started Don Harry say for seven years or
00:50:48
so uh when I reach that uh when you when you went to that receivership part and bankruptcy part
00:50:55
you go and apply for for every fanchise no one wants to know you because they don't want your name to take their brain
00:51:02
so I had approval Believe It or Not by one of the major brand in the country so for three months they said yep we will
00:51:10
take you on let's go and train your staff for three months and then after 3 month they said we got Don House people
00:51:17
now we don't need him anymore let's decline him can you believe it this is
00:51:21
this is like crazy right so we we went and did all the training and then they declined my f they approv it 3 months
00:51:28
early they declined me they got 35 my agent and they got rid of me so quickly within two weeks I said
00:51:36
well we got no choice now but to start don't have real s up as a brain so we
00:51:41
did do that and then one Friday afternoon I call all my agent back to my new office and I had all the business
00:51:49
card printed their Flyers everything they need to start as a new agent I put on the box cover
00:51:56
everything in black cloth and I made the announcement I said guys today we become
00:52:00
donha real estate independent go and tell those people down the road thank you for hosting us and come back to me I
00:52:09
mean God can you imagine me making that statement like I'm a nobody I start a
00:52:15
new brand and I call all my troops back 34 out of 35 walk that afternoon come back to join my
00:52:21
company that's the power of loyalty yeah so from there we we start don't have real estate and we were doing
00:52:28
like 750 million s a year when we were with a brand before that we do 150 million a year and then Remax at the
00:52:36
time even decline us to become their franchise believe or not but after seven years we got so
00:52:43
successful remix Tred to get us Jo for three years we declined them but in the end uh they give me a book and they say
00:52:50
one Locker word makes a lousy fire a thousand Locker work makes a great fire what it mean is that when you on your
00:52:56
own uh brand you are that one loc of wood when you with a group of uh people or franchise or countries you become
00:53:04
that thousand local what you can exchange informations that was one thing that got me and then I was going to pay
00:53:11
my agent to travel the world to do a lock on certain countries for distribution of my product and then remx
00:53:19
it we can give you the world which is the H 15 countries around the world on that basis I join remix and 2018 it's a
00:53:28
franchisee then in 2020 I was so good that they offer me to buy the whole country so now no one can get rid of
00:53:38
me so so what does that mean exactly so you you you are you're the CEO of Remax
00:53:44
New Zealand yeah so I was a CEO and I appoint a new CEO now when I bought Remax in 20 2020 and talk about 12 they
00:53:52
only did 465 million a year on my first year I gr the company to 750 million the
00:53:59
second year 1.2 billion wow yeah and this was um smack bang in the middle of the pandemic as well and you no kidding
00:54:08
we settle on the shut lockdown and we had a choice to pulled out but I said now this is an opportunity for us to
00:54:16
make generation changes so we choose to settle on zoom and we had a toast on Zoom any people will say no no don't go
00:54:27
ahead with it but I choose to do that and then at the time a lot of people losing job business was shutting down so
00:54:33
when we do our Zoom seminar we had like 180 people turn up to zoom every time and my Bas record was I saw 50
00:54:42
properties in 3 hours through Zoom a million bucks and fees 3 hours joing the lockdown okay just go back to my 1994 I
00:54:53
did 440,000 in the whole year I did a million bu in 3 hours wow that was unheard of so that period was again
00:55:02
another perfect storm for us to grow our brain and our business and our sales everybody was at home they can't travel
00:55:08
so they all choose to buy properties and on that basis yeah we we make a lot of money wow do you know what your net
00:55:16
worth is now I would say now I probably recover what I lost you know but now these I said buying a
00:55:26
$50,000 house or buying a $6 million $10 million property because your your mindsets changed you don't go and buy a
00:55:34
uh $500,000 home anymore instead of building one house you build 15 or 20 house or 30 house so so your ability now
00:55:41
has multiply a lot so and and with our new Venture now with our our biggest achievement today is uh our manage fund
00:55:52
uh it's called space fund so the manage fund is it's very hard to get it took us a year
00:55:58
and a half to get to get approved by the FMA and it's a fund that can uh have say
00:56:03
a say the Oakland City Mission building right now is part of the fund is $27 million and that building is now move
00:56:11
into the fund and our job was to go and raise 27 million de free the property and offer the return to the investor at
00:56:18
5.5% and they get the equity gain so all of a sudden to be able to achieve a fund
00:56:26
and I think that will go above Remax because it'll be like a 1010 billion Fund in the next 10 to 15 years it will
00:56:33
have like so many highrise buildings you always wonder how does someone own a high-rise building don't you like you
00:56:39
you saw a high-rise building how do they buy it well they didn't buy with their
00:56:43
money they they have a contract to buy the building and then they go and raise the fund so that the fund manage the
00:56:49
building we now become one of the big boys that is my ultimate achievement today
00:56:57
wow are you proud of yourself I am but I believe that I'm only 25% of what I wanted to achieve
00:57:04
right now I I still believe that I'm nowhere near 50% so I I I have the ability to make things happen I think
00:57:11
it's because I choose to not sell in my local area but sell the whole country
00:57:16
from here to Queenstown and sell in Australia so I get to meet so many million years and billion years and they
00:57:23
have their success and failures too and I learned what's B works for them what
00:57:27
best works for this person and now if you come to me with something I can advise you why because I have that
00:57:33
Global Experience to tell you what work what don't work so on that basis knowledge is so so important now yeah
00:57:41
does does is is money still um a driver for you now a motivating factor or does it get to the point where where you've
00:57:48
got enough and you're comfortable and oh you never have enough people ask me
00:57:51
what's your religion I it money it what you do for spare time I it money it uh
00:57:56
what what else drive you is it more money at least you do you think do you think part of that is because um you
00:58:04
know you you grew up so poor you know there's a story in your book which we'll
00:58:09
get to in a second where you you talk about being a being a you know a kid under the age of 10 in Vietnam finding
00:58:16
these um dented um cans of tinted food and selling them for money so do do you think it's
00:58:23
um like a hangover from that in a way you just want money because you see money is well no because if somebody now
00:58:30
saying don't I pay you a million dollar to sell my property it's worth only $
00:58:33
800 but I want to sell for a million I know I can sell for a million because of my position but I choose not to take the
00:58:40
advantage of position of power so if it's only worth 800 I should be selling
00:58:45
for 780 or 750 because my client got a benefit so no matter how much money people pay me if they give me a wrong
00:58:52
product for their own G I'll turn it down but I guess I put it down to say Ronaldo right now or any professional
00:59:01
sports people they still play sport because they got a fan club that follows them I mean you look at bitney spray for
00:59:08
example you know she's still singing and touring she's wor billions but because
00:59:13
of the needs of the fan or the needs of the client you get a kick out of it because why you the only one that can
00:59:19
give them a solution so on today's market I I call myself an artist I don't
00:59:25
think that I'm a real sight agent anymore when say I can work work into this table clear everything off it you
00:59:31
give me a product I can draw I met for you what you need to do to get the results because of my
00:59:38
intellectual knowledge that I can give you the results then you get a kick out of it
00:59:45
because once you completed the S then you create the employment for H H some contractors and then when you drw past
00:59:53
the building and you see it finished and said wow look what I created and you get so much respect when you go on site
01:00:01
because all the contractor know that you're the one that create employment for them that part of it money can't
01:00:07
replace it's an incredible feeling yep you what do you look for when someone walks in the door at Remax um
01:00:16
looking for a break or a job okay so I I'll tell you a story recently that I I
01:00:22
went for work the other day and I work in a cafe and this guy come and greet me and he's Vietnamese and he said I always
01:00:30
wanted to meet you and he said I always wanted to become an agent but other people tell me that I'm too short and
01:00:36
I'm not good looking enough I can't be an agent what I couldn't believe it
01:00:40
what's hard got to do with it I know and then I said well the number one Remax
01:00:43
asent in the world he's in the wheelchair believe it or not and he is and I said you can become what you want
01:00:48
to become and then so I sat down had a cup of coffee and they come and talk to me and then and then when I woke up and
01:00:56
I pay for it and they said don't worry it's on my tab so number one was respect
01:01:01
and I said I'll drop you one of my book on my way to work so I went home shower
01:01:06
dropped the book to him I said are you free on Friday he said yes so I said come to my office I have a training
01:01:11
session you can join us and then he said then he text me back he said I'll come
01:01:16
and work for you for free if you teach me and I'll do the dishes make coffee
01:01:21
for everybody just tell me what to do so every Tuesday and Thursday he's in the
01:01:25
office now and he volunteer his time he's married he's got a daughter she's 14 months old now that guy will
01:01:32
have the recipe for Success cuz he's his hunger for teaching and if he show that
01:01:38
commitment we'll give the same commitment back and we a million Al and and out of nothing and that's what
01:01:44
builds loyalty and trust and creation so so we're looking for people who's got
01:01:50
the will power to learn but more important to demonstrate respect uh and they very UPF
01:01:57
front yeah now you mentioned your book um so yeah you've got a book out called
01:02:01
the art of exponential success and you were kind enough to give me a copy of it um can you expand on some of your
01:02:07
personal Phil philosophies first of all um Refugee mentality what's that well you know like you're always
01:02:15
Underdog and you always got to have that respect of people and you want to be successful but you can't cut corners
01:02:26
and you help people along the way and and there's always that disadvantage being a refugee you know like obviously
01:02:34
like if if everyone's from here they should have all the advantage above you
01:02:38
but they don't take that advantage and I just took that advantage that I want to
01:02:44
build myself I want to create a legacy for my children and I want to create a legacy for a lot of people that's
01:02:51
associate with me and I have created that now H what what about um no limits thinking what is
01:02:59
that there is no limit to what you want to achieve like if you achieve a million
01:03:04
bucks which is a lot of money but now a million dollars it's like a 90-day challenge now
01:03:11
you can do a million back I reckon 90 they challenging to $2 million or $3 million so but then again when I first
01:03:17
started to earn 100,000 it's very hard but once you know how there should be no
01:03:22
limit so I believe that once you know how you should just keep on scaling there should be no limit of what you
01:03:29
can't can't earn and um yeah another one of your personal Phil philosophies small
01:03:35
steps leading to Big results yes always small steps because if you want to become the best of the best and you want
01:03:43
to deal with the best well don't forget the best they always started from the
01:03:46
bottom so you got to do small increments to get to the top a classic example of that is um I got this B in there in
01:03:55
Australia who who came on messaging me and and wanting me to sell his product and I I
01:04:02
didn't know who he is so I request for a zoom meeting with him and then they did
01:04:07
had a zoom meeting and he's got a $3.5 billion project in the go co and he just
01:04:12
text me this morning hey I got a new project coming on 750 million thank you for helping my first project and if I
01:04:21
did not communicate with him and just work my way up I'm now his friend you know M so that's that's been an amazing
01:04:27
journey on that basis yeah that's awesome um and in your book you talk about the importance of creating a
01:04:33
disciplined life yep yep discipline is very very important I somehow I bought up without drinking smoking
01:04:42
partying I'm not that person and I think when you get into adversity you can
01:04:48
simply go and if you were drinking you probably drink 10 times more if you smoke you probably smoke time 10 times
01:04:55
more and and and and you become you do that every day it becomes a habit so that habit becomes
01:05:04
a losing habit and I qu it that's a demon in you know every one of us will have a demon in us a demon is like you
01:05:11
can't quit certain things that you can't quit on because it's addictive well I
01:05:16
don't have none of that in me so my discipline is uh a sleep in will be 9:00
01:05:22
in the morning and that will be like maybe once a month but every other day it's like I get up I go to work
01:05:30
constantly thinking research discipline it becomes a habit if you if you do it like 20 times in a row it becomes a
01:05:37
habit so my habit every day is to do what I do I see somebody who uh serve me well in the restaurant I would offer an
01:05:44
opportunity to work for me come for job interview uh it's just an instant habit
01:05:50
that you develop what what time are you up out of curiosity most mornings well I
01:05:56
could have about 7:00 a.m. in the morning cuz my son has to go to school and sometime I take turn taking him to
01:06:01
school my wife you know so but I sleep late I sleep most late at midnight or 1 in the morning I think an advantage for
01:06:07
you is um like work is your hobby eh it's your passion oh yes if you love your
01:06:13
work is not work yeah people say like oh Don you work so hard and then that guy didn't pay you and you do get that I say
01:06:21
no I didn't work hard they think I work hard I don't think I work hard what what
01:06:25
is hard work you you trace up you talk you think you plan are you're not person
01:06:31
hammering cutting concrete you know shoving dirt that's hard work so but when you when you love your
01:06:39
work it's not work I never ever think that I'm working for some reason I never
01:06:46
think I'm working cuz you love you love doing what you do yes and now my daughter she's working for a company she
01:06:51
said my work is not my work I love my work and I I love the company I work for and I love what I do so she says the
01:06:58
same thing to me but she's getting paid for her work but she still don't think
01:07:01
she's [Music] working um yeah another one of your pistol Phil philosophies in your book
01:07:07
boundless compassion what's that yeah compassion is really really important really uh being compassionate
01:07:14
to people understand the situation understand someone go a difficult times and understand how they feel and
01:07:23
don't ignore them just remember when you go to bathtime someone remember you and someone just can't help you
01:07:31
financially but what's able to pick the phone up talk to you send you some flowers uh that that little part of
01:07:41
gesture mean so much to that person at the time and even today like for example an opposition agent had a car accident
01:07:50
and I stopped and she was in a panic you know she didn't know what to do I got my
01:07:56
cell phone out make the call to her husband and today she still talks about it and I saw another opposition agent at
01:08:04
the airport and the C she was carrying this big giant SURFboard or something she couldn't check then I stopped help
01:08:11
her again she talks about it these little things means a lot of people but we take it for granted that no I'm too
01:08:19
busy don't talk to me you're wasting my time people remember that more and it makes you feel good as well
01:08:27
doing nice things for other people but are you able to have compassion for people that um you know when when things
01:08:32
got tough for you people that turned their back on you would you now be able to have compassion for them or
01:08:38
no well that's a good question uh I I do have people who's not loyal to me one or two that um I'm still learning
01:08:51
through that process we we don't we see each other we still say hello goodbye
01:08:56
but we don't get close but we never ignore each other on that basis and I think that person
01:09:03
knows because all the people that stay with me and along the way they all got far far better and that person is still
01:09:10
where he is so that's sort of like teach yourself a lesson you should have compassion at the
01:09:16
time so us to say forgive but don't forget correct yes yeah yeah for sure yeah um money aside what does success
01:09:24
mean to you you uh like yeah beyond the financial aspect of it what is Su how how would you define success success now
01:09:32
is to be able to create success within yourself and translate into people you associate with and you see their success
01:09:42
when you see their success in fact you you will probably have tears in your eyes when you see
01:09:47
someone that achieve amazing results and they get up there and they say because of Dawn I now achieve this achieve that
01:09:55
h it means far more than money because you a part of you in these people and you know I go people even now pray for
01:10:04
me in church for example because I spoke in in church and I help church family getting properties and to me that
01:10:13
Community needs more help than ever and if you can see let's just say 50% or 30%
01:10:19
of the church members on the house that's beyond success yeah y um and in terms of Legacy like what do you hope to
01:10:27
leave behind both in real estate and in your personal life well I'd like to write a few more books and um create
01:10:35
educational program so that people can continue learning for me and then create institution uh for investors and then my
01:10:43
children can continue with the legacy is um it's what I hope to achieve this has been a great chat today
01:10:51
you're super inspiring thank you why why do you want to do more books you just
01:10:55
feel like you've got a lot of listens to share well I I got a my next book should
01:11:00
be called the out listening because you know when you talk your wife she doesn't
01:11:05
listen to you or when you talk to your children don't listen to you or when you talk
01:11:11
yourself he listen to you and I think that out of listening I I got to say this s here D you're a great listener so
01:11:17
you give me a time to listen to me and you respond with an answer to become the greatest podcaster you got to be the
01:11:24
great listener but these days people don't listen anymore they only can listen to their own voice so I think the
01:11:31
ad not listening is going to be quite a good book absolutely well you know my um
01:11:36
my mom and dad used to say to me you've got two ears one mouth use them accordingly y yeah yeah oh know this has
01:11:43
been fun it's been really cool um yeah it's an a fascinating backstory um and I
01:11:50
think part of the Don House story that I like the most actually it was probably the worst part of your life the the dip
01:11:54
in the middle with the global financial crisis because um I think it's inspiring
01:11:58
to come back from something like that bigger than ever well every business successful business people walk off
01:12:03
through it especially you look at all the billionaire the millionair you ask them every time have you had adversity
01:12:08
they all say yeah a lot of times and no business has not experienced that but would they talk about it publicly would
01:12:16
it be reported publicly not all but you ask they will all share with you but you
01:12:22
cannot be successful without fail you learn from your failures to prevent it from happening again and you learn from
01:12:30
your mistake you learn to have better friend you learn to have better connections you learn to who to work for
01:12:36
who not to work for so all that lesson you cannot get there if you don't go through that difficult terms and I I
01:12:45
seen it all the time I read a lot I study a lot and everyone go through it well yeah I mean failure is a stepping
01:12:51
stone to success isn't it absolutely but I appreciate you sharing because it's
01:12:55
you know no no one no one really wants to talk about their flaws or their or their low points in life because it's
01:13:01
hard isn't it it's hard to talk about but I think it's important well if you
01:13:05
hide it it's probably not a good thing cuz it's when I'm at my event and
01:13:09
seminar I probably talk about it because the audience okay and instead losing 5 million they might lose 500,000 or
01:13:19
50,000 it's the same thing how they feel and how you feel it's a same feeling
01:13:25
because to them it's a lot at the time to you it's the same but every one of us
01:13:30
got different values and different tolerance at the time so when you can talk about it and some people even come
01:13:37
up and give me hack and quiet you know because I share my story that's it's
01:13:41
amazing there it's powerful yeah yeah so well this has been great I'm going to um
01:13:47
get in my car now and listen to the Em andm song I'm Not Afraid I I haven't
01:13:51
heard that song in years um yeah how does it go I'm Not Afraid yeah I'm not
01:13:56
afraid to take a stand but I got a new song now I got a I I replace it song with uh this is the moment you know this
01:14:04
is the moment what's that song oh you got to look it up it's amazing Lally
01:14:08
this is the moment when all all my ducks in the row and you know all the path is
01:14:13
gone away and who sings that it's actually a opera singer I don't know who
01:14:18
sings it but that song if you do get to where you are you should read and listen
01:14:22
to it CU all the words in that you can let all your past go and you can only say this is the moment so this is
01:14:30
the moment being on the Dom hary show so when when when is that do you listen to
01:14:35
it in the car on the the way to work is it something you do every day sometime I
01:14:39
use it it's my theme song I want to get on stage right and sometime I use it at
01:14:42
my um my Awards because when you have your award your company achieving you achieving you play that for your your
01:14:51
whole audience to listen to it and everyone in the audience will have their own moment at the time this is my moment
01:14:57
you know very emotional I'm going to check that out yeah hey donha thank you so much for
01:15:03
being a guest on my podcast thank you very much for uh inviting me on the podcast and I got to say I I I had
01:15:09
invites from America Canada and many other podcasters but uh I got to say this is my first ever podcast done so
01:15:18
congratulations also well I appreciate it thank you for