Success is not something we pursue. It’s something we attract. And the way to do that is by committing to your commitments. Darren Jacklin did not become the world-class speaker and hyper-successful entrepreneur he is today by chance. In fact, he was labeled as mentally retarded in school and most people – even himself – once thought he would not amount to anything significant. How he went from that to being a high-performance trainer to over a million people and a co-founder of one the world’s biggest real estate companies is a tale that will easily make it to the top success stories of our lifetime. And success leaves clues – clues that Darren graciously shares with us in detail in this conversation with Michelle Seiler Tucker. Join in as they talk about creating non-negotiable daily habits, being accountable to yourself, making your own metrics, and creating a master plan in life. You’re going to love this conversation!

—

Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

 

Commit To Your Commitments: How To Break Free From Labels And Create A Master Life Plan Towards Massive Success With Darren Jacklin

I’m so excited to have Darren Jacklin on the show. From growing up with learning disabilities to barely passing public high school, to living on the streets and on welfare, and to multiple suicide attempts, Darren Jacklin thought he was fated for failure. He was repeatedly told that his disability would forever keep him from amounting to anything. For years, he struggled under the weight of these labels, accepting this as his destiny until the pivotal moment when someone finally believed in him. This gave him the power to believe in himself for the very first time and completely reshaped his life.

Darren has since trained over 1 million people in 48 countries across four continents, including 157 Fortune 500 companies. As an independent Board of Directors with eXp World Holdings Inc., he has rung the closing bell at NASDAQ twice. He also serves on other high-profile public and private Boards of Directors. Darren is a world-class speaker and investor in both real estate and business. Darren, welcome to the show.

—

I’m so excited to do another show with my very good friend, Darren Jacklin. Darren, welcome to the program.

I’m grateful to be here. You have allowed me to be here to make a difference.

It’s all about making a difference on the road, isn’t it?

Absolutely. The secret to living is giving.

Let’s talk a little bit about you and your back story. Tell our audience a little bit about Darren Jacklin and how you’ve got to where you are now.

I have a unique back story growing up. I failed grade one at public school and then was misdiagnosed with a learning and reading disability. As determined, I would be input into special education classes and labeled retarded. From grade 1 all the way to grade 12 of public school, I was in special education classes. I never went to regular public school. When I became seven years of age, I realized I didn’t fit into the school system and with my classmates.

I created my first little business called Rent a Kid. I would go out and cut grass, shovel snow in the winter times, and deliver the newspapers six days a week in my neighborhood. I saw all these different opportunity zones. 7, 8, 9 years of age all the way up into my teenage years, I was very entrepreneurial. I was out solving problems in my neighborhood. If I ever wanted something, I looked at going, knocking on doors, solving problems, and monetarily getting exchange money for that. That’s what I started to do.

How does this kid is labeled mentally retarded, learn how to solve problems and become entrepreneurial? Who labeled you as mentally retarded? Was it your first teacher in kindergarten or the first grade you said?

I was in grade one and I was very hyperactive. I didn’t sit still at my school desk. I was out there, very extroverted at the time. I had a lot of energy and wanted to do a lot of things, so they had to get me to conform and still, eyes front, and pay attention like the rest of the kids in class. My attention span was very short in school and I’m not a theory person. I’m a practical and results-oriented person. I need to do things. I’m very action-oriented. To me, to sit there and listen to somebody talk, it’s like, “Just get to the point. Give me the executive summary of the bottom line.”

Did they test you back then?

They did. I went through different psychological tests. I have had different tests now like IQ level and intelligence. Not academia smart but like street smart or entrepreneurial smart. I went through a lot of different personality tests. Back then, I was in a city of fewer than 20,000 people in the population in a place called Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada. Only a few elementary schools, a couple of junior high schools, and one high school. It was a very small place and not a big financial budget with regards to the school district as well. I learned to adapt and change as a way of survival because I felt I was never good, smart and worthy enough.

What about your parents? If I was your parent, I would be like, “He’s not mentally retarded. I know how bright my son is.” I would be your biggest defender. How did your parents take to that?

My parents adapted to it. Both my mother and father are wonderful people. They are still alive to this day. They are both divorced, remarried and in relationships. My mom grew up in a small community in Saskatchewan with less than 100 people in a population. My dad grew up not too far away from where my mom grew up with a couple of hundred people in a population.

It’s a small rural farming community in Saskatchewan, Canada. The province of Saskatchewan at the time had less than a million people in a population, so a lot of small rural communities. We didn’t live in a big center like big cities around North America internationally. It’s much different in a major center than a small, little farming community.

Most of our goals don’t require our actions. It’s about creating teams and teamwork.

You were labeled mentally retarded and were in special education classes all the way through high school. I know because you were labeled mentally retarded, you probably didn’t believe in yourself, right?

In those formative years, I had a lot of internal self-talk dialogue. I wanted to be accepted by other people, my environment and fit in. I never fit into a circle of friends. What I found my escape was business, going out and cutting grass, shoveling sidewalks in my community, and solving problems because I’ve got attention.

People recognized, appreciated, rewarded, listened and understood me. They didn’t judge me and they admired me as a young, ambitious little kid out there, solving problems in my community and ambitiously always working. When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to get home from school because I wanted to go cut grass, deliver newspapers, shovel sidewalks, and do other jobs in my neighborhood. That’s where I’ve got attention.

Parents would probably want more kids like you.

By the time I was nine years old, my best friends in my neighborhood were still great friends and we still communicated through social media. I hired my friends in my neighborhood because we leverage in business, working smarter, harder and in teams. I realized at a very young age that most of our goals don’t require action. It was a big turning point for me as it is about creating teams and teamwork.

At the age of seven, when you started your business, Rent a Kid, how did you even have that concept? Did you grow up in a family of entrepreneurs?

They are both government workers. My mom was a nurse. My dad worked in power engineering at Saskatchewan Crop Insurance as a crop insurance adjuster. I grew up in a government-employee family. I grew up in a middle-income neighborhood with a lot of government employees. That environment was not entrepreneurship or small business ownership environment. I didn’t grow up in that kind of environment.

My neighbor was a very high-profile political leader, and I used to cut her grass, shovel her snow and deliver newspapers. She was a Deputy Premier of Saskatchewan, Canada. She actually became my first paying client. I learned a lot by watching her because she was always getting hugged and slugged in the media.

She was always on the front page of the media, always being media advertised, but people liked or didn’t like her because of her political view. I knew her personally because I saw her all the time and I had a personal relationship with her. I respect and admire her for her taking all that criticism but also being praised in the public media.

She was your mentor, so to speak.

Indirectly, yes. She was a mentor because she had a lot of influence on me because I saw her as an icon person. Also, as a young kid growing up in a city of fewer than 20,000 people and delivering the newspapers to her home six days a week and see her sometimes on their front page of the newspaper, then go into the newspaper and seen lots of articles on her. Sometimes they would write negative articles in the media and I’m thinking, “That’s not true or accurate because I know her completely differently than how the media or the public portrays her.”

Still, at seven years old to have a business idea as a kid to go out there shovel snow and mow lawns, I’m still wondering, where did that come from?

I think it came on a pain.

Some of the best businesses come out of pain. Did you go to college?

I never went to college and never passed public high school. In fact, one day, when I was in grade 11, I was taking a class by a guidance counselor, and a school teacher came and sat me down in the Guidance Counselor’s Office. They asked me what I want to do if I graduate from grade twelve of public school. I said, “I want to travel the world. I want to build businesses and companies. I want to create lots of opportunities and make a big difference in the world.”

They both looked at each other and said, “Darren, you are never going to go to college or university. You may not publicly graduate from high school. You may not even make it to see your twentieth birthday.” That really affected my self-confidence because there were mentors or role models to me.  I did graduate from grade twelve and moved from Swift Current Saskatchewan, Canada, West to a place called Vernon, British Columbia, Canada that has a population of around 60,000 people or less. I did multiple suicide attempts to end my life because I had no direction, focus and purpose. I didn’t know who I was as a human being.

 

My final attempt at driving my car at 85 miles an hour, 140 kilometers an hour towards a telephone pole, I stopped the car and said, “I can’t do this.” I’ve got scared. I drove to a nonprofit organization that was a 24-hour telephone crisis line. I rang their doorbell and one of their counselors came out, and I said, “I’ve got to turn myself in. I’m trying to commit suicide.”

They brought me in and offered me some counseling services. This was back in the 1990s. From there, one of the counselors introduced me to a program called Dale Carnegie Training. He wrote a book called How to Win Friends & Influence People, a best-selling book and that was a turning point. From Dale Carnegie, I went into an organization called Toastmasters International in the early 1990s. That shaped my environment around positive people, mentors, coaches and role models.

One day, a lady by name of Sue Urquhart believed me more than I believed in myself. She said, “I think that we could mentor Darren Jacklin to become a world-class speaker.” She planted a seed, and I’m like, “Who are you? You don’t even know who I am. That’s a big claim.” I was scared but she sees me. As a result of her believing in me more to believe in myself, now I have personally trained over a million people all over the world in many countries on many continents in the last few decades of my life.

Do you feel like your family believes in you?

They did the best they could that they did but they didn’t understand me because I didn’t fit in. I think they believed me but they didn’t understand me. They couldn’t make sense of me because I wasn’t like every normal kid in the neighborhood. As kids are going to school, I’m like, “School is boring to me. I want to go out there serve people, solve problems and make a difference to my neighborhood.” I used to daydream in school and get in trouble.

Now, as an adult, I do a thing called Dream Building. In terms of vision boards and the manifestation of things, I want to acquire in terms of my milestones and my targets. I drive around, do buy real estate and acquire all this stuff. I’m always dream building, but in school, it was called daydream. I was always told don’t daydream, which I think is dangerous for kids to teach them.

Many things taught us gone dangerous. I have always said that labeling our kids is one of the worst things that you could ever do. Many teachers and educational professionals always ask, “How smart are our kids?” We need to change the question to, “How are our kids smart,” not, “How smart are our kids,” because you are extremely smart and intelligent but you don’t fit their mold or their box.

Therefore, they labeled you as mentally retarded because you don’t fit the box. That’s absolutely insane. Les Brown, who I love and adore, who was on my show not that long ago, was labeled mentally or ethically retarded as well. Educational professionals need to stop doing that. They need to stop labeling our kids. Did they also diagnose you with add ADHD?

They did. They put me on a drug called Ritalin and they diagnosed me. Years later, I met a gentleman in my life and he said, “You are ADHD.” I said, “That’s what I was labeled.” He goes, “Do you know what that is?” I said, “Why?” He goes, “Attention developed to a higher dimension.” You just don’t fit into that box and you have a genius level in different ways in terms of your hierarchy of values.

We need to be focused on changing education. I feel like my daughter is labeled, too. She’s labeled as ADHD and not fitting in that particular box. We need to change the way that teachers and the entire professional labels our kids because not so many are as fortunate as you. As you said, you were suicidal. Not so many make it as a very successful entrepreneur as you have because you had that one lady who believed in you.

I made a lot of mistakes, screw-ups, adversities, failures, and challenges. I was once homeless for a few months, lived on the street on welfare, and my next neighbor of a garbage dumpster. It’s interesting, when I was in my late teens, I made a bunch of money from various different odd jobs and I did a bunch of investing. I then met two guys one day that wanted me to invest in a startup company. I’ve got elated and got this dopamine fix. The next day, I go down to the bank and I take all this money in cash.

I coasted all these loans and lines of credit. I signed a thing called a GSA called the General Security Agreement with the financial institution. I didn’t know what that meant. It means they collateralize all your assets, and I didn’t have much and started my life. I had a car, I was renting a place, and I had an apartment. A hundred and twenty business days later, the bank called a demand loan. They exercised the right on the General Security Agreement.

Bailiffs showed up at my doorstep and knocked on my door because I was a co-signer. He goes, “Are you Darren Jacklin?” I said, “Yes.” He goes, “We are here to repossess your car.” I don’t need money. We have a couple of outstanding parking tickets but what happened was all the telephone calls and collection letters back in the 1990s were going to a mailing address that wasn’t mine, and all the phone calls were going to an answering machine that these guys had set up. I’ve never got into the collection of phone calls or collection letters.

It was a surprise that I’ve got the bailiff to my door to repossess and take my car to auction, to sell it and pay off these loans. For the next several years, I’m going through all this legal battle stuff and clashing with these creditors. I have no money, I live on the street, and I was completely out of integrity. I had to go to court one day and the judge brings me up to the front of the courthouse in the room there and he says to me, “Young fellow, where’s all your paperwork?”

I said, “I don’t have any paperwork. It was all verbal agreement.” He goes, “You an intelligent, nice guy. I’m going to share something with you. Mr. Jacklin, when a person with money meets a person with experience, the person with the experience ends up with the money. That’s why you are here. You had money, you met people with experience. You didn’t know what research or due diligence was, and you gave them the money on speculation.” I said, “I owe money. I co-sign the loans. I need a few years to pay it off, so I can get back in good standing.”

It took me several years to pay off everything. I had people upset and angry with me but I was trying to be the nice guy trying to co-sign guys to help them out with entrepreneurial ventures, a startup company. Now, I’m much more strategically and methodically planned out when it comes to due diligence. I’ve got some very smart people on my teams now that know how to do due diligence.

There’s an overflowing abundance of financial wealth. The fastest way to get your cash is to solve a problem and be in service to other people.

We take our time because I learned that there are three kinds of money. There’s calm money, cautious money, and nervous money. If you are looking at an investment opportunity, is your money calm, cautious or nervous? If it’s not calm, don’t write the check. If it’s cautious, do deeper dive into due diligence, talk to accountants and lawyers. If it’s nervous money, run the other way and don’t get involved.

How do you make that determination if it is calm, cautious or nervous?

I will give an example. Cryptocurrency, I don’t understand that at all, so I don’t vet it to me that speculation. I’m a cashflow investor. I like cashflow. I think you are probably the same way. To me, when you say cryptocurrency, I get tense in my body and get cautious and nervous. I would never deploy any capital into that because I’m not a speculative investor. I don’t gamble. I like to put money out there to multiply money but also get cashflow every month. I like things like real estate and acquiring businesses that produce stable, monthly, recurring, passive cashflow.

I made a lot of mistakes in the early days. I read a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad who changed my life and gave me a different mindset. I started to realize the different people around me. I like to be around people who’ve got quiet money, not loud money, people I hang out with very low profile but high impact people. If they walked down the street, you would never know they are a multimillionaire, decamillionaire or hectomillionaire. You would never know because they don’t have any visibility or exposure to that, which is very low profile but high impact people.

Going back to your childhood, not to stay there but I think it’s such a profound story and can help so many of our readers. How did you take everything that happened to you and turn it into opportunities? When you said that you checked yourself in from suicide, they recommended Dale Carnegie, which I used to teach Dale Carnegie for three years, and then Toastmasters. Did they admit you right then and there? Did they keep you for a while? How do you keep yourself from going back to that negative place?

One of the mentors was Jim Rohn, who I listened to these days. He passed away on December 5, 2009. I remember the day he passed away. I had a chance to meet Jim a few times. In fact, the first time I ever went to a Jim Rohn seminar, I was flat broke financially and living on welfare. I had a lady who bought my ticket to go see him. I was very low self-esteem. I couldn’t make eye contact. I didn’t believe in myself. I had a lot of negative self-talk. I sat in the front row that this lady bought my ticket, and I took copious amounts of notes.

I write things down in my journal but also what I discovered because success leaves clues in daily habits and routines. I would go to seminars and workshops. In the 1990s and 2000s, I would leave feeling depressed and beaten up because I would put these men and women on a pedestal, and I put myself in the pit and I’m thinking, “I’m trying to pay my rent on time, improve my credit score, keep the wolves away from the door and be a good citizen. These people are talking about these big huge astronomical goals.

I couldn’t relate to that because I’m just living paycheck to paycheck, scraping by here. I’m just trying to figure out how to make an extra couple of $100 a month here. Help me out. Throw me some knowledge here.” What I discovered was when I started to study successful people, what were their daily habits and daily routines? What do they do during the waking hours of their day? When I discovered from these daily habits routines, for example, a lot of successful people read a minimum of ten pages a day of a good book.

Reading a good book is easy to read, and it’s also easy not to read. That’s the difference. It’s easy to do and easy not to do but ten pages a day, times 365 days in a year is 3,650 pages, which is 12 to 50 books a year cover to cover. I was labeled in grade one with a learning and a reading disability. I had that belief system that I’m stupid.

Were you labeled with dyslexia?

I’m not labeled with dyslexia but a slow learner and retarded. These are common words that were used in my class, “You are a retard, slow learner, special ed kid.” These are verbal things that people said to me frequently growing up.

You’ve got teachers that said this.

You are going to hear, “You will never going to go far and do much in your life. You will be lucky if you see your twentieth birthday and if you graduate grade twelve from public school. You will never go off to college or university.” In the beginning, I always say there are three steps. First of all, people call you crazy. I’ve got told by many people in my life that I’m crazy because I have big visionary ideas and things I want to do. Step number two is then when things work out.

I have had some home runs and big wins in my life personally and professionally in the last several years of my life. Now they call you lucky and then you start making a bunch of money as I have in my life. I’ve dedicated and committed with Tatiana over the next decade $100 million towards global philanthropy through a family foundation called LY2NK.

First of all, they call you crazy and lucky, and then you have a couple of financial wins or liquidity events, now they call you a crook because you rise above the masses. You are not living paycheck to paycheck and it’s the only way you’ve got to. The masses live paycheck to paycheck because they trade time for money in a linear income. They don’t understand multiple revenue streams of income and earning passive residual income. It’s a different mindset and skillset. I used to always blink at rich people who work for money. It’s inaccurate and it’s not true.

Rich people don’t work for money. They make more money while they sleep than while they are awake because they invest in stable, monthly recurring opportunities. I’ve got introduced to Monthly Recurring Revenue, MRR, in business that changed my life, “Monthly recurring revenue, what was that?” It’s where you get a client, they pay you monthly recurrent revenue. For people who have a cell phone, that’s monthly recurring revenue to the cell phone company.

 

The people who have cable television and internet service, that’s monthly recurring revenue to the cable providers. That’s the key thing is monthly. A lot of people go out of business because number one, they have less than three revenue streams and they don’t have monthly recurring revenue. Sometimes, peaks and valleys in business when times are tough, they know that monthly recurring revenue and then they get hit. It takes them out sometimes.

You are stealing my thunder because that’s the stuff I talk about all the time. You’ve got to have at least 4 to 5 congruent revenue streams and you have to have a reoccurring model in your business. Talk to me about mindset again. How do you keep your mindset up? How do you not go back to those dark days when everybody told you you would never amount to anything? Were the kids mean too back then?

Absolutely, because I went to school with special education kids. One of the kids in my class wore a hockey helmet to the school. He used to bang his head on the desk, against the wall and stuff. They were mean and we bullied each other and stuff like that. A lot of practical jokes and goofing around.

You were then bullied by the teachers.

We were labeled and put into a special classroom, and we were told that we were these special education kids. We were segregated from everybody else. Growing up, you felt like, “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m feeling normal. I can have conversations with everybody. There’s nothing different about me. I’m not good at maybe exams in school, at memorization and sitting still because I’m bored but let’s go do something.”

That’s my life. When I would go after school evenings and weekends, I would go and expand that energy with my relative business. I’ve got great joy to that. I liked going on knocking on doors and going to meet people and solving problems. I call these opportunities zones. I always say to people, “We don’t have money problems in life. We only have thinking problems.

There’s no lack of financial capital. There’s probably an overflowing abundance of financial wealth. All you’ve got to do the fastest path to cash is go solve a problem, go be in service to other people who’s got your money.” When I was a kid, I was always around, “Who’s got my money? I want to buy a bike. I want to buy something.” Go knock on a door, listen to people, ask questions, solve a problem and exchange money for them.

We are taught as children to don’t talk to strangers. With strangers, we get everything we want, need, and desire in our lives. In fact, the strangers that we haven’t met yet are the ones that are going to take us to the next level in our lives but most people are scared to talk to strangers. Strangers have everything that you want in your life.

What I discovered as a young kid, as human beings, all we are is a network of conversations. If we are up in the International Space Station looking down now on planet Earth and we mapped out all these human beings that are on planet Earth, and we linked them all together, we are a network of conversations. Social media is a network of conversations. As human beings, why aren’t we having more conversations and making more requests for what we want in our lives?

If you asked me what I’m up to, I have my top ten personal goals. I carry my goals with me everywhere I go as a non-negotiable. I asked 9 out of 10 people, “What are your goals or dreams for this year?” Nobody can tell me what they really want in their lives. How do you have a direction for your focus? How do you know what your milestones and your KPIs are in terms of your measurements? You have no direction. If you have your goals, you commit. Every day, I write my goals 730 times a year. Every morning and night before I go to bed, I have a non-negotiable daily habit that I write my goals out.

Do you write the same goals every morning and night? They don’t change?

Every day.

Do you know many times a day?

I wrote it out twice a day. If I get rejected, adversity, failure, challenge or setback that impacts me and punches me in the face, then I rewrite my goals to refocus my mindset and to reset my focus on what I have committed to.

Once in the morning and once at night, right?

Absolutely, because I start and I end my day. I start my day with gratitude. In the first 2 to 3 minutes, I wake up and I give thanks. I count my blessings. I thank my feet, my heart, my vital organs, and all the moving parts of my human body in gratitude. I’m so grateful for my feet, eyes, ears, and my heart for all the things that they do to take care of this meat suit in this human being’s body. I’m appreciative so that changes my vibration of energy but most people don’t realize that there’s no guarantee we are going to go to bed at night.

Commit to your commitments.

When I was younger, I used to wake up to my alarm clock and do different jobs and odd jobs. My alarm would go off early in the morning. Before I was even out of bed, I had asked myself this question, “What time can I go to bed?” I’m not even out of bed. My feet didn’t even hit the floor yet and I’m asking myself, “What time can I go to bed tonight?”

I discovered from my experience is that the quality of our life is determined by the quality of the questions that we ask ourselves. If we go to Google and we type in, “Why am I stupid?” It will come pages of why you are stupid. If you go to Google and type in, “Why am I a genius?” It will come pages of why you are a genius.

We have to be aware of our mindset of what questions we ask, and the labels that we attach and put to ourselves like, “I’m stupid. I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not worthy.” The thing is classy versus trashy or whatever people say to themselves. One of the things I always say is I’m always at the right place at the right time with the right people and the right opportunity. I have 120 affirmations that I read to myself every day as a non-negotiable daily habit.

I do have information from my daughter and we do that every morning and every night before she goes to bed.

I leveraged time. When I’m brushing my teeth and shaving, I’m reading my affirmations in the mirror. That puts me into a high peak performance state, which raised my vibration of energy and gives me mental clarity and focuses but also my mindset. If I’m going to a high-level meeting in person or virtually before I jump on that call, I schedule time in my calendar as a little buffer time. I review my top ten personal promises of my goals and daily affirmations, so when I come in, I’m fully present and I’m in the moment.

I always thought Tony Robbins said 3 to 5.

I started with that but it grows. When I started doing 3 to 5 affirmations, that was a lot for me and then being consistent doing it every single day. On October 1, 2021, I started doing ten pushups, and I have been consistent with ten pushups a day and people were like, “You can do a lot more.” I can do a lot more. For the next three months, I’m building that discipline and consistency of ten pushups a day.

After this quarter because I started Q4, October 1st to December 31st, I’m going to do ten pushups a day. That’s my habit and my routine. On January 1st of Q1 of 2022, then I will start doing maybe 20 or 25 pushups a day. My goal for this quarter is ten pushups a day consistently every single day. It’s a non-negotiable daily habit.

What about the one thing? A lot of entrepreneurs throughout 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 or 50 things they want to accomplish, and I’m always like, “Let’s pick and focus on one thing, and let’s go for that one thing.” Do you believe in that philosophy?

I do. Every Sunday, I sit down. I time block into my calendar and I plan my week in advance. What I do is I look at my week ahead of plan and map it out. I handwrite things out in my journal. I’m an old-school guy and I don’t like technology. I look at my weekend advanced plan and think about planning the future, quarterly and yearly goals. I then look at and think, “Who can help me move on those goals?” Most or many of my goals do not require my actions.

I then look at Sunday afternoon as a weekly habit. What’s my number one goal this week? Nothing else matters. If everything went sideways with this one specific target this week, I’ve got to accomplish. It’s a mindset of do or die. That’s what I focus on. Throughout the week, Monday to Friday, my calendar is structured towards what are my top ten personal promises, and then what are my weekly calls. I have an alarm that goes off that I pre-programmed with an audible alarm and I have to do a report.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have to report on my metrics, my KPI, Key Performance Indicators, where I’m at, whether I’m on track or off track. I like air traffic control. Here’s the plane flying one of my destinations and I’m reporting to air traffic control metaphorically. Am I on track or off track? I have it as accountability of where I’m at.

When you first started doing this, it felt weird, uncomfortable and you don’t want to do it but after you do it for a few months, you develop a habit and routine, and you raise your standards of who you are in terms of accountability and responsibility, then it becomes a non-negotiable habit. I’m lost if I don’t have my accountables. I’m lost if I don’t have my week ahead plan.

Every Saturday, I have time blocked in my calendar with a reminder. I sit down and I look at, “What’s my weekend review? What worked and didn’t work well?” I asked myself two questions. “What am I not thinking? What’s my blind spot?” I’m not thinking about taking care of my health, relationship or putting some money aside for future projects going for.

I start to think, “What am I not thinking about? What’s something I need to pay attention to? What am I not seeing around me? What am I so busy that I’m not seeing opportunities or zones all around me? What am I not seeing in terms of solving problems?” Maybe to expand my portfolio or to work with my foundation. Somebody who has been reaching out to me is a good friend of mine. I have put them off and maybe it’s a cry for help.

Maybe they need to talk to me or it’s something that they are dealing with something in their lives or going through personally or professionally. A 5 or 10-minute conversation can make a traumatic difference in their lives, so I write that down. When I say, “What am I not seeing? You need to call your buddy, Ryan.” I write it down. I put it on my calendar. I make a phone call and I talk to him, “I just want to check in on you. How’s your wellbeing? What are you up to? What are you working on? How are things going? How’s the family? How’s your relationship? How’s your career, job or business?” I always do that. It’s very important because all we are is a network of conversations and we are in the people business.

 

I love how you set that one goal, have that accountability every week, have that weekend check-in to see what went well and what didn’t go well, and most importantly, what you are missing. Is there any other great daily routine to follow? I know you have so many like reading books ten pages a day and doing pushups. You liked number ten, obviously.

What I do every Saturday in my journal is, “What tasks I do this week that I don’t want to do anymore?” That’s a reoccurring question so you take a look. It could be grocery shopping. Can you outsource grocery shopping or get somebody else to get the groceries delivered to you? Can you get somebody off one of the websites that you can contract? Laundry and housekeeping, can you outsource all that? One of the things is packing. I don’t like packing. I travel a lot and packing stresses me out. Before COVID-19, Tatiana had a House Manager, and our house manager worked onsite in her home.

I know the feeling, we had a nanny and a house manager too, and we don’t have one now.

That makes a big difference. What tasks are on my to-do list that I don’t want to do anymore? I look at what am I tasks I need to get accomplished this week personally and professionally, and what are things I’m avoiding or putting off. I’m starting to show a recurring pattern here because when I started to see a pattern, I started to develop over a few weeks, a month or so. I’m not going to act on this task but it’s frustrating to me because I want to get it done.

Who can I outsource, delegate, eliminate or automate this task so I can remove it from my weekly metrics of keeping track of it? That’s another thing I do. The other thing I look at is how do I get close to new money? There are two types of it. People who’ve got money problems that don’t have enough money, and there are friends of mine who’ve got lots of money through multiple revenue streams coming in that have a lot of capital that they need to allocate, deploy every month or quarter.

How do I get close to new money? He will say, “Why do you focus on getting close to the money?” I write people’s names down, how do we get close to new money, and then I write down who’s got my money this week. When I focus on who’s got my money, I now know how to use my time because what I’m looking at is people to co-invest with me. As I’m building more and more passive recurring revenue streams, I need access to capital so I go and solve a problem by showing somebody how to risk-mitigate by asset protection. Risk mitigation show how to protect against the downside.

I’m always looking at who’s got my money this week because then I can say, “This person is making a lot of money, they went through a liquidity event, they sold their company or a bunch of real estate on a cushion of cash.” They are trying to figure out the best strategy for themselves to solve for, generational wealth planning or their family going forward, somebody like, “Here’s some deal flow. Here are some opportunity zones that we are looking at. Maybe we can potentially partner up in co-invest together.”

I asked another question in my journal. What is it about money this week that I need to learn? You and I talked and had a call about trust. I wrote that down. You had mentioned something on one of our telephone calls about trusts in the United States because people were moving to Puerto Rico. You are like, “You don’t have to move to Puerto Rico for taxes. You can set up this trust.” I wrote this trust down and I have my virtual assistant research it as a task, and she’s going to get back to me with what she found online plus, I can ask you about that because you’ve got experience.

I’ve got the experience and the resources. Anything else?

Every Sunday, what obstacles are possible to happen this week and how can I manage them in advance? I will give you an example. I’m here in Vancouver, Canada. We have had some storms with our weather, high winds and a lot of rain. They were forecasting the media that we may have some power outage because of the high winds with a lot of trees here in British Columbia, Canada.

I reached out to some people that I had scheduled calls with to let them know that we are having some weather issues here in Vancouver, Canada and we may have some possible power outages, so as a contingency plan, my Zoom video conferencing and internet might go down. I’m forecasting and pre-planning in advance that that may happen.

Another question I ask myself is what obstacles might I have run into this week and how do I solve them in advance? It’s like an airline pilot. We are going to fly from Vancouver to Toronto. What obstacles might I run into this week and how do I solve them in advance? I’m thinking like an airline pilot, how can I mitigate and pre-plan things in advance so it doesn’t take me off-course? I do this every Sunday as a non-negotiable weekly habit.

What’s the outcome of that? Do you feel that you plan for these obstacles to occur but then they don’t occur?

I prepare for worst-case scenario situations and hope for the best but I have always speculated and prepared for the worst. Giving an example, I ran into a challenge where I put myself out of integrity. Everything I do, I have an alarm on my phone. To me, early is on time. What happened was I went to get on a Zoom video conferencing call with a bunch of I did not know. When I jumped on the call, Zoom video had to do some security updates. I come on to the call and I’m late. I’m out of integrity because I gave my word that I would be either on time and on a place. Just like with you, I’m out of integrity with you. I have to restore my integrity and so the thing was, is going to cost. I come on to this call and I’m embarrassed.

What I’m present to is that people that don’t know me, what’s going on in their mindset, “Is this guy unreliable? Is this person a flake? Can I get to know, like or trust this person?” As I said, did your money go from being calm to cautious to nervous money? When I come on, the gentleman who’s the moderator says, “Darren Jacklin is here. Let’s get started.” I said, “Before we start, I would like to stop right for a moment, slow things down. I would take the next 90 seconds. I need to restore my integrity and apologize.”

He says, “Don’t worry about that. Let’s get going.” I said, “No, I’m incomplete. We need to stop things because now there are people on this virtual call that aren’t going to listen to me because in their mind, is this guy reliable? Do I like this person? Do I trust this person? All these things that go on that I need to speak about.”

Success is not something we go out in the world to pursue. It’s something we attract into our lives by the person that we become.

I address my lack of integrity on that. I restored my integrity, and what I did is I wrote down in my journal after the call that going forward, I’m going to make sure my security updates on my Zoom video conferencing, any of their apps or websites going to be using, they are checked often and frequently so that problem does not happen again to mitigate that risk because I had a risk there. The minute I restored my integrity, then I asked the group, “Is there anybody on this call that has anything that needs to say to me to make sure that we are complete and that we can move forward?”

One of the ladies raised her hand on Zoom and she said, “Thank you so much for teaching everybody on the Zoom video conference call how to restore integrity. It’s because many people talk is cheap.” I always say that talk is cheap but I think most people cheapen their talk. One of the questions people ask me a lot of times they go, “Darren, how did you build your self-confidence? Growing up as a kid labeled as retarded, special education, not being good and smart enough. You must have been pretty insecure and hard on yourself.”

I’m like, “I was, absolutely.” They say, “Yes, you come across but you are very confident. How did you build this confidence?” I said, “I built my confidence by committing to my commitments.” Think about that for a moment. Do you follow through and give, “I’m going to clean up my house then I will send you doubt.” You didn’t follow through. You are out of integrity. One day, it’s storming here in Vancouver, Canada with high winds and rain. I committed to my calendar to go hiking.

I assessed the situation and I went. Pouring rain and I’ve got soaking wet, had an incredible experience but I still went because I was committed to my commitments. This is great for managers, supervisors, team leaders or people that are hiring people is when you are hiring staff, are they accountable for committing to their commitments? Even yourself, just notice where you fall out of integrity by not following through on committing to your commitment.

I’m committed to getting up from 4:30 AM to 4:45 AM. I don’t negotiate with myself. The alarm goes off, I’m up and I’m at it. You don’t negotiate with yourself. Do it. Stick to your commitments.

Keep your personal promise to yourself and what you give your word to, and what happens is when you start to become reliable and consistent. Most people are not consistent. They will do it for a short time and then they fall off. That’s why with me doing ten pushups a day, my intention was to become consistent with ten pushups over three month period. Be consistent with ten over October, November, and December, and then level it up from there and increase the metric. That was the goal.

Now I have an Apple watch, so I metric everything on my watch. I play a game that I’m either going to beat my watch and my watch is going to beat me on my metrics. The key thing is to measure everything. Most people don’t measure. If you don’t measure, you can’t manage it. The measure is how many steps you make in a day. When I was building my corporate training business, I used to make 400 cold calls a day and 2,000 cold calls a week. I was 3, 4, 5 months behind on paying my phone bill sometimes. I was getting collection phone calls from the phone company calling me as I was trying to make phone calls.

I would hope that they wouldn’t disconnect my phone, and sometimes it did happen. I’ve got disconnected. I was obsessed with making phone calls. I sucked when I first started doing telephone sales. I went and got a job for minimum wage dollars with a national magazine company as a telephone marketer. Monday to Friday, 5:00 to 9:00 PM, we had to make 400 cold calls per shift. That was all metric and tracked selling magazine subscriptions.

After a couple of months, my supervisor said, “You can’t go any further. You need to go on your own.” When I meet real estate agents, mortgage brokers, financial planners or entrepreneurs, I’m like, “How many phone calls did you make this week?” They say, “I made four.” You are not going to succeed. Do you want to create financial success and grow your business? It’s not going to happen.

You have to take massive consistent action over a sustained period because here’s the thing to understand. Success is not something we go out in the world to pursue. Success is something we attract into our lives by the person that we become. It’s an inside job. Focus on becoming an attractive, successful person. I spend 1 to 2 hours a day, it’s scheduled in my calendar and it’s non-negotiable a thinking time. In that thinking time, I also do one hour every day of physical exercise because I’m clumsy when it comes to exercise. I’m down almost 35 pounds in weight just from being consistent with my health goal.

I never took my health seriously because I was never good at physical education. I’m not that kinesthetic. I’m somebody you wouldn’t bet on to play. Don’t find me to play on your sports team because I’m going to disappoint you. If you want to become successful in growing and scaling a business, I’m that guy in your team but when it comes to physical education, I’m not that guy.

One question that has always puzzling to me, and you and I talked about this before are you take yourself with your background so many other children that have been abused and neglected, in and out of the foster system, been labeled mentally retarded like you and Les Brown were. How come 98% or 99% of them will end up on the streets, end up on drugs, prison or dead, and a very small percentage will end up with massive success like you and Les Brown has. Why is that? Why is it that so many end up not successful when very few end up successful?

From my own experience, and I have pondered this a lot over the years. I think the environment is stronger than willpower. It’s your environment of the people, association, inner circle, who you spend time and associate with is critical. I have had a chance to guest speak and volunteer speak with gangs and outreach. I was speaking before school.

Your environment is stronger than your willpower if you leave things to yourself like your device, so myself releasing all this weight this 2021. I joined a hiking group. I have a private WhatsApp group on the hiking channel. We are a very active hiking group from all different skill levels. If I had not joined that hiking group and not been proactive on the WhatsApp channel, I wouldn’t have released all this weight.

I was left to do it by myself, which is not the highest on my hierarchy of value list but because I was in an environment of people from all different walks of humanity and skillset levels of working out and exercising. There was accountability and responsibility for me to show up at the scheduled hikes in our calendars with the group. I didn’t want to disappoint myself but I also other people.

I will use an example. When kids are growing up and they are fatherless, then they will seek a male role model. That male role model might be a gang leader or a drug dealer. I’m totally drug-free. I have never done drugs and never drugged in my life. I don’t judge people who do drugs because that’s a choice. To me, my addiction has been business, and here’s the reason why. It’s my sport. I suck as a kid with sports like physical activities. I’m a man in business because what businesses do is solve problems.

 

It’s serving people and being in service to people. I love solving problems. I get dopamine in it. I’m getting laid from solving problems. I love doing that. To me, I see this opportunity zone. If you and I go watch a news media, CNN News, I would get all upset and depressed. I get excited thinking, “Look at all these opportunity zones, look at all these ways to serve humanity. It’s God’s to-do list. Let’s solve all these problems.” Whenever I see people complaining, I see opportunities. The mindset is how do you turn the crisis into an opportunity?

Let’s go back to your environment. Your environment was special ed. Your parents who bought into the story, and your teachers who labeled you as mentally retarded. How did that environment help you become the person that you are now? Many of these kids are in abusive homes, living on the street, in gangs, doing drugs, etc. They haven’t been able to change that environment.

When I was delivering newspapers, that was my physical exercise. I was not good in school with physical exercise but I had to use up that energy. I was delivering newspapers six days a week around my neighborhood. I would go there, and every two weeks I had to go collect money at the door by knocking on the door and collecting the money from the newspapers.

People would appreciate and respect me. I get into conversation with them. I felt that I was wanted and valuable. People are like, “Do you want to water my plants? Do you want to walk my dog? Do you want to rake my leaves? Do you want to paint my fence?” I’ve got introduced to all these different concepts or revenue streams. The big thing is that young people don’t have an environment that supports and helps them.

You actually created that environment yourself because if you didn’t do that, you would have probably been stuck an out environment as special ed and teachers labeled you as mentally retarded. You probably would have been stuck and maybe never climbed out.

I became addicted because I’ve got attention from it. It was positive reinforcement attention. The more I did it, the more people started to recognize me. When I was delivering to the Regina Leader Post newspaper, I remember they would all these prizes like potato chips and you win a Boombox ghetto blaster and Sony Walkman. I remember those yellow Sony Walkmans back in the 1980s and I’m like, “I don’t have the money. I want to get that Sony Walkman.” I had to go out and sell newspaper subscriptions, and then I’ve got the Sony Walkman.

I’ve got recognized for that. I’ve got the attention and that became addictive to me. That was a big thing for me. The thing is that people join these environments that are harmful or not the best environments for them because they fill a void. Our voids fill our values. For me, one of the reasons why I love to travel so much to this day is because, as a kid growing up, I was always micromanaged. One of my big pet peeves is don’t tell me what to do.

I have told my mom at the age of 8 or 9 that I would never, ever work for somebody else because I don’t like to be told what to do. That’s my biggest pet peeve.

As a kid, I was always told what to do. I always had to conform. That’s why financial success is important to our life because I wanted to live life on my own terms. One of the things people ask me all the time they go is, “What time do you go to bed?” I said, “I go to bed when I’m tired.” They go, “What time do you wake up?” I say, “When I’m done sleeping.” They go, “How do you do that?” I say, “Consistently.” They are like, “That’s arrogant. You are being cocky.” I’m like, “I live life on my own terms. I want to go wherever, whenever, and whoever I want on my own terms but let me choose.” I want the options and those choices.

Let’s fast forward to your massive success now because you have taken your obstacles and turned every single one of them into golden opportunities. Let’s talk about how successful you are now.

In the corporate training business, I trained over a million people in 50 countries on 5 continents. That’s pretty spectacular for somebody who’s mentally retarded. I have had over 100,000 cold calls over five years to build that up. I metric everything. I beat up my phones. I have just dialed and dialed. Now, you have all these CRMs and the software stuff. I still use flip charts. I’m still mapping out and picking on my flip charts to put them up all over my bedroom wall. People say, “Why don’t you give up the flip chart?” This is a tool and it worked for me for many years of my life. I don’t change it because it works. I know how to use it. It served me very well.

It is the environment but it’s also willpower. You have a tremendous amount of willpower, dedication and motivation.

Whatever you lack in skill, make it up in numbers. When I started phone calling people, I sucked. I used to practice in front of the mirror. I mumble, stutter, dry mouth, all that stuff, these hang-ups and rejection calls. I have been rejected so many times in my life. I have had so many noes in my life. I have had more noes and more rejection than I have yeses. The thing was, whatever you lack in skill, you make it up in number. When I was a kid growing up, I had self-confidence in talking to girls. I used to take $0.10 Canadian.

How did you have that self-confidence to talk to girls?

I had a strategy. What I did is I took $0.10 Canadian and put it in my left pocket. The goal by the end of the day was to transfer $0.10 from my left pocket into my right pocket. Every time I talked to a girl, and I just said, “Hello, good morning, good afternoon or good evening.” If I was contacted with a hello or a smile, that was a yes for me. I would take the penny secretly and transfer my left pocket to my right pocket. I did that for a long time. In the 1990s, I used to have an elastic band on my wrist. Every time I think negatively, I would snap the elastic band snap.

I worked for a few years and sometimes, my wrists would be swollen. You can see all the red marks from snapping the elastic band. I was disappointed and accountable to myself committing to my commitments. I gave my word that I’m going to snap the elastic band. It’s non-negotiable, I’m going to snap it. I learned through pain or pleasure.

Stop pitching and selling. Start educating and informing.

What I did was I started to keep track of all the phone calls. Let’s pretend to make a $1,000 commission on 100 phone calls. 99 noes and 1 person says yes. What I would say is, “For each phone call I make, it’s $10.” For every no, it’s $10 because eventually, out of 100 phone calls, I’m going to get a $1,000 commission. My mindset was whatever I lack in skill, I make it up in numbers. I’m going to get paid for every no. If I get two, it’s going be closer to a yes.

That’s what I was about to say. Every no gets you closer to a yes. A national average, how many noes does it take to get to the yes? Seven. You are way above average but now, practice makes perfect. You probably have a much higher closing ratio.

The thing is all we are is a network of conversations. If you came up with me, wherever I go, I say, “Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. How are you?” to people. If I sit in a restaurant, I want to know the server or waiter’s name because we are in the people business. I’m always curious about people because we are a network of conversations. Anything that you and I want is going to come from strangers.

All it is having conversations and making requests. For every question that we don’t ask, the answer is always no. When we make a request, only three things will happen. 1) People will accept the request. 2) They will decline the request. 3) They will counteroffer the request. I’ve got a lot of travel, I’m on the road internationally and I have seen a lot of hotels, a lot of airline flights. When I check in the hotel, “Can I make a request? What would it take to receive a complimentary upgrade?” They are either going to accept decline or counter offer. What would you think your request to get into a first-class or business-class airline ticket? I’m always making requests but I’m not attached to the outcome. I’m just playing a game.

That’s prudent right there. Profound what you said and not attached to the outcome. Many people get attached to the outcome, and so when it’s a no, they can’t handle it and they are destroyed from that.

Go talk to more people because the thing is, people were all a network of conversations. Everything you want in your life is going to come from having conversations. It’s about building relationship equity. Most people are transactional. They are not relational. I’m relational. I used to be transactional. In fact, when I used to raise money back in my 20s or early 30s, I screwed up big time. It was a life lesson. I was flat broke one time financially. I was standing at a Holiday Inn, I scrimped and saved whatever I could paid for the airline ticket and the hotel but I didn’t have the money to pay for my breakfast.

I stayed at a continental breakfast at the hotel but I didn’t have the money to go meet an accredited investor at a different place. I invited the investor to come to the Holiday Inn. This is where I’ve got confronted on my integrity and my lack of character of who I was as a person years ago, and I grew from this. I snuck this high net worth investor into the Holiday Inn into this continental breakfast, and there are signs visible all over, only registered guests to go to this continental breakfast.

I come in. This guy sits down and I’m pitching for $50,000 for this business venture I’m involved with. I lunged in this guy pitching and selling. The guy looks at me. He goes, “Darren, can you shut up? I’m not going to write you a check now. You need to learn something because I’m about to walk out the door and never see you again. I’m going to teach you something because I used to be like you years ago. Stop pitching and selling, and start educating and informing me. I have a lot more history and experience than you do. I’m a lot older than you. I’m the guy writing the check, so stop pitching and selling and start educating for me.”

Take a look at how many people you know when you go to a trade show, conference, workshop, seminar on social media, people are always pitching and selling but they are not educating and informing. Something I learned many years ago in the corporate training industry. When I was going out and selling corporate train services, I learned this in the medical industry. I then went to a pharmacy company to sell them my corporate training services, and the guy said to me, “Darren, you are creating a lot of risk for yourself.” I’m like, “What do you mean?”

He goes, “Always remember this. Prescription before diagnosis is called malpractice in the medical industry. You are prescribing before you are diagnosing. You need to be listening and asking questions and building relationship equity with me so I get to know, like and trust you.” That’s what people don’t do on social media. They friend request and try to pitch people as transactional. There is no relationship equity built. I don’t know if I know you, like you or trust you so I delete you.

We have talked about your success. You are also one of the founders, I believe, and the Board of Directors of eXp Corporate Realty.

I serve as the first independent Board of Directors of eXp World Holdings Inc. the eXp Realty. I joined in 2013. There was the Founder, our CEO, and myself, the three of us. We had a couple of hundred people in the entire company back then. We are building the airplanes and flying them. We had no money and couldn’t pay our real estate agents on time. Now, we have 67,000 people in 19 countries on 5 continents. We are a public traded company on NASDAQ. I have had a chance to go twice down in New York City.

We are in the closing bell with the team. I’ve got the numbers that every four minutes, somebody around the world joins eXp Realty as a real estate agent. It’s an incredible success story of what we are doing. I’m so proud of the team for what they do in day-to-day operations and all of our real estate agents, brokers and support administration team.

I serve on three different paid Boards of Directors, one being the eXp, another one is a cybersecurity company out of Chicago that we are in process of going public with now, and another company that’s based out of New York City that’s in the medical office space industry where we’ve got $350 million in assets under management. I have a portfolio of companies that I have from accounting firms to private equity, real estate, and all kinds of stuff. I have people run the day-to-day operations and then report to me.

Talk to us real quick because we are almost out of time here. How do you master plan the next ten years of your life? I think that’s very interesting and it could be a golden nugget for our readers.

Most people don’t plan to fail then they found the plan. The key thing is that in our lives, we are always master planning. I walk people through a step-by-step process where I get them to look at the next ten years of their life. We then begin with the end in mind and we reverse engineer or work backward to this day. It’s an incredible high-level collaborative mindset shifted people’s lives. First of all, whatever you really want in your life, personally or professionally, if it’s not scheduled into your calendar or social media calendar, it does not exist in your life.

People who were playing a big game in life have a master plan for their lives. They don’t wish it to happen. They don’t speculate about it. They have it documented and written out like a business plan in business or a flight plan flying an airplane. You have a master plan for your life. We look at your emotional, mental, physical, financial, family, spiritual, social life contribution and career of your life.

 

We look at all these different areas of your life, and we start to map things out, forecast and project how you want to live your life over the next ten years financially, health-wise, relationship-wise, career, business or job-wise. Tatiana and I with LY2NK Foundation, which is our family foundation, are thinking 250 years out of 3 generations. We are around people in the family office space that have 500-year plans. There’s a family in Houston, Texas that has a 1,000-year plan that’s documented for generational wealth planning.

In fact, I’m meeting with a family in person that has fifteen generations. Their family trusts go back to 1485. I was in Dubai with a family over there. Their family trusts go back over 600 years, so you start researching this and dive deeper into it. Most people can’t even plan a two-week vacation. The thing is, when you start thinking about what you want in your life, then you start to map out and plan it on paper. Most of your goals don’t require your actions. This is where you create teams and teamwork.

While you are sleeping, you can have people that are outsourced or virtual assistants working to fulfill you, hitting your milestones and your targets. That’s what being through me as a solo entrepreneur for many years. I’ve got in the way of myself. I was a cog in the wheel. When I realized, “I need to step aside. I need to delegate responsibility but still maintain control.” I need to go from doing the activities to directing the activities, being the visionary and hiring the integrators. That was a big thing for me.

That’s the big thing for all entrepreneurs because so many entrepreneurs get stuck working in their business instead of working on their business. Talking about planning, that’s why 80% of businesses don’t sell because business owners don’t plan their exit.

I have 3 to 4 hours a week scheduled time blocked into my calendar for master planning my life.

You said that you scheduled time to think because that’s another thing that so many entrepreneurs don’t do because we are bogged down with the day-to-day, they don’t stop to think. They don’t sit down and have that dedicated time to think because it’s thinking where you solve all these problems.

Another thing is too, as a quarterly business review. At the end of each quarter, Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4, you scheduled in your calendar and I was scheduled a year in advance. We time block where we sit down, whether it’s a half-day, full-day or two days of uninterrupted focus time, was set meeting agendas and attendees. We go through a quarterly business review. What worked? What didn’t work? What do we want to improve? What are our blind spots? How do we solve things? How do we mitigate risks? How do we do asset protection? Can I do this in our personal financial lives?

Nothing too is planning as part of your master plan is having a 3 to 6 months food supply, MREs, meals ready to eat, and having cash reserves. In 2008, 2009, I’ve got hit hard and almost went bust because I didn’t have any cash reserves in the market tank. I was out high and dry, and over the last couple of years, I have done very well. We have cash reserves and contingency plans, so just in case something should happen, we have these contingency plans in place, which is very important.

All your estate plan end-of-life planning. Every 90 days, Tatiana and I sit down and we look at all of our usernames and passwords. We look at all the apps and the websites that we are on. We looked at all the people we were involved with financially that were all with different businesses. We update all of their contact information every 90 days because Tatiana and I both live high lifestyles because we travel a lot. If something should unexpectedly happen to us, we have a contingency plan that our executive directors or our beneficiaries can step in.

Our end-of-life plan is already in place. It’s all updated and accurate but also all the people we are involved with because what happens is sometimes you get people that grow and expand their financial wealth or their high profile. They exit rich. Now, they go through a capital liquidity event, have a bunch of cash and they die, and then their immediate family or whoever their executive director of beneficiaries come in, and it’s so fricking disorganized. The next 2 to 5 years, they are trying to unfold and figure this all out, and all these people are calling you wanting money. It’s crazy.

Darren, you have given us so many great golden nuggets, great advice. Any last-minute thoughts for our readers?

Realize that in life that you are either coming from a problem. You are in a problem now and you are heading towards a problem. Everybody is screwed up in their lives. Every human being on the planet has got something that’s not working in their lives, and the bigger the levels you grow and expand your life personally or professionally, you are managing more things. Realize that your words are very powerful, and committing to your commitments is so important.

Ask for help. Don’t do life by yourself. We want to look good but we don’t want to look bad as human beings. Reach out to other people. Don’t do things by yourself. People are always waiting for an invitation, making requests, and asking people. You would be amazed that people will accept you and want to be a part of what you are up to, help support you and make a difference in your life.

Realize that your life has peaks and valleys, and life is like the seasons. There are four seasons in life. Things are hard and challenging. Maybe you are in winter, so start planting seeds for the spring. Some of you are winning big and you are in summer but like the squirrel, you’ve got to think of winter and start stacking your nuts.

If you go through a valley, you want to make sure you’ve got liquidity, cash reserves, contingency plans and you’ve got your house in order. It’s so very important. When things are good, like things are with Tatiana and me, we are preparing for worst-case scenarios. We are contingency planning for the worst case, so we are preparing in advance like a pilot prepares for storms and other aircraft, beautiful blue, sunny sky flying but they are preparing for just in case.

Thank you so much, Darren. You are amazing and extremely intelligent.

Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Important Links:

• eXp World Holdings Inc.
• Darren Jacklin
• Toastmasters International
• How to Win Friends & Influence People
• Dale Carnegie Training
• Les Brown – Past episode
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• Toastmasters
• LY2NK Foundation

About Darren Jacklin

From growing up with learning disabilities, to barely passing public high school, to living on the streets and on welfare, to multiple suicide attempts – Darren Jacklin thought he was fated for failure. Throughout his upbringing, he was repeatedly told that his disabilities would forever keep him from amounting to anything. For years, he struggled under the weight of these labels, accepting this as his destiny, until the pivotal moment when someone believed in him. This gave him the power to believe in himself for the first time and completely reshape his life.

Darren has since trained over one million people in forty-eight countries across four continents including one hundred fifty-seven Fortune 500 companies. As an Independent Board of Director with eXp World Holdings, INC. (Nasdaq: EXPI), he has rung the closing bell at Nasdaq twice. He also serves on other high-profile public and private Board of Directors. Darren is a world-class speaker, and investor in both real estate and business.