He Lost Everything and Rebuilt a Real Estate Career From Scratch

Brett Miller, welcome to the Forward One podcast. Welcome, Brett. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. Super grateful to have you here. You're such a dynamic guy, grateful, always positive. I'm a huge believer in gratitude and attitude. You definitely exemplify that. Tell us a little bit about how your real estate journey began, because I know you have a really unique background as an entrepreneur. And I'd like to like unpack that a little bit first. Well, firstly, thank you for having me and congratulations to you guys and Paul and I'm here for your new company. I wish you guys much success. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm not really a positive guy when I'm standing next to you because you use it like all day long. Every Sunday I get a text from him, you know, a motivational text or something that's very inspiring or not only just real estate related, but general. And Josh, you're guy that you're always uplifting everyone around you and I appreciate it, man. That means a lot. I appreciate that, brother. So back to your question. What was it? So how did your real estate journey begin? When did it begin? How did it begin? What were you doing previously and why real estate? So I immigrated to America in 1993, started off personal training. A really good friend of mine, John John Park, had an exclusive gym. I trained a lot of celebrities, things like that. But that wasn't really what I had dreamed about doing. And as a kid, I was like, oh, I want to go to L.A., be in Hollywood and be an agent for actors and that type of thing. And basically gave up what was a successful personal training gig to go and work in a mailroom and make like $1,200 a month or something starting from scratch. At an agency? At a talent agency, yeah. And then I was an assistant to someone and became like a junior agent. And that's kind of where I realized I could sell a little bit. and I was selling these actors to casting directors and scripts or whatever. But I was in an office all day and I wasn't enjoying that part of it, to be honest with you. And I figured, look, if I can sell an actor to a casting director, what's going to give me the freedom to be out there looking? I remember sitting in an office like this, right? There was this amazing view of Los Angeles and I was sitting behind this desk for 12 hours a day. And, you know, with respect, we work really hard as real estate agents, but, you know, agents in Hollywood, they work hard. I mean, they're grinding it out just like we are, you know. And I was like, I just don't think I can be behind this desk doing what I'm doing, you know, day in, day out. So my late mother, bless her, she was a – at one point when I was a kid, she was doing some rentals for a friend who had a real estate firm in South Africa. So I saw it a little bit and I was around it and she enjoyed it. So that was my first little, I guess, maybe like a little intro to it. But many years went by and then I was like, okay, I'm going to walk away from this and I'm going to start – I'm going to get my license and sell some real estate. So I actually trained a family, a very wealthy Beverly Hills family, and they were my clients when I was doing the personal training. And they said, hey, come and work with us at our home office. They had a bunch of buildings, more commercial stuff. And I got my license, started working there. So not at a traditional broker? No, no, no, no. It wasn't at all. Yeah, it was a family office. And so I started working there. And I just wasn't enjoying it because it was just about the numbers. It was like in those days it was like fax machines. And it would be like the rent roll and what was the cap rates and the percentage. And I would fax it to someone. They'd be like, okay, this makes sense or doesn't make sense. I was like, wait a second. I'm kind of not really selling this. It just depends on how these numbers pan out, if it works or makes sense or it doesn't, right? Yeah, that's commercial. And in those days, they actually did make sense. So I landed up picking up – I think I did – my first deal was a triplex in Westwood. And that was my first taste of it. And then I landed up picking up a client who wanted a house in Nichols Canyon. And what was interesting was – so I go and I get in my car and I'm kind of driving around and I'm looking at signs and I see a sign by the Hurwitz James Company. It said Bob Hurwitz. So I call this number and I'm like, he's like, Bob, can I help you? And we start chatting. And about an hour later, we're still on the phone talking. And he says to me, wait a second, like, where do you work again? I was like, oh, I actually work for the Wolf family in Beverly Hills. He goes, wait a second, are you talking about Fred Wolf? And I'm like, yes. He goes, Fred's one of my best friends. And he actually said to me, he's like, wait, what is it? Why are you there? He goes, you have a good personality. We just met him. We've had an hour-long conversation. Why don't you come and talk to me? And I'll never forget. So he's like, come to my – it was a house in Truesdale, I think on Leslie Lane, and it was listed for like a million eight at the time. And I drove there on a Tuesday at Brokers Open, met with Bob, sat there, and we spoke about it. And he's like, I think you should come and give a shot at the residential stuff. So that's basically how. And that was when? You started? That was 2002. Okay. And, you know, Bob has an amazing business. He deals with, you know, luxury real estate, pretty much working from his beach in the marina. And he's an amazing salesman, you know. And he taught me a lot. And basically what got me going there, you know, is like, Brett, you have access to all my open houses. And that's really essentially how I built my business. Every single, single Sunday for I'm talking five years, even longer. Yep. I would work every single open house on a Sunday consistently. And, you know, I guess that's one of my positive attributes is that I'm very good at turning a stranger into a client and please go out one day into a friend, you know. And when people walk into an open house, I can, you know, communicate to them and give my points across. and I can befriend someone into hopefully trusting me and thinking that I know what I'm doing and allowing me to maybe send them some stuff and shoot them things that are not on the market and build a relationship and hopefully start closing some deals with them. So that was essentially how I got involved in residential. And that was a very vibrant time in the market that lead up to 2008. It was a feeding frenzy. It was. It was a great time. And, you know, it's kind of strange because, you know, just talking about Bob again. So today he's still one of my best friends. You know, we landed up doing a lot of deals together. In fact, I even sold Bob some properties. And I guess you could say that was my first round of making real money. But I did get distracted and I landed up. I had a very close friend, Anton, who had a massive hospitality company. And they were at the time had some of the best restaurants and bars and clubs in Los Angeles, a fellow South African guy. And I was young still and I was like – again, I was like, oh, this is so exciting. I'm like, oh, I want to be involved in these deals. I want to be involved in these deals. So I never forget. It was the biggest deal I'd done until that point. I'd sold a property in Malibu. I think at that time it was like just under $10 million. So even back then it was a big one. Oh, yeah. Like early 2000s? Yeah, it was a big deal. And I got my commission check and I didn't even deposit it. I signed it over to my friend and put it into a restaurant. Oh, wow. But I did these times. So I was just like a wild guy. I was like doing these things where in hindsight – and I don't want to get too distracted on that time in my life. But it was around that – just before 2008 and I got involved in these restaurants. And then when things took a downturn, I actually lost a restaurant where I had a lot of money in it. And it was a little challenging for me because it was a hard time in my life. I lost that restaurant. And I said, okay, well, I'll just – this was just before the crash. I'm like, that's fine. I'll just get back into my real estate because I actually got – I went almost out of real estate at that point. I hadn't – there were about two years where I wasn't really doing real estate at all. I was just focused on these restaurants, building – and then I started to get involved in another restaurant in Beverly Hills that didn't go too well either. So I'd sunk a lot of cash into these restaurants. I was like, okay, I'll just go back and sell real estate. And then the market crashed and I couldn't. So it was a challenging time in my life. And once I came out of that nightmare after pretty much losing everything, I was like, okay, look, I'm not going to – I know what I'm good at. I'm good at selling real estate. That might be the only thing I'm good at in terms of business. And every time I got distracted and did anything else, I lost money. So let me ask you a couple of things coming back to that. So what was roughly your best year pre the hospitality world in terms of just even number of deals? I can't remember what happened for breakfast last week. I'm getting older. I mean I sold something for $10,000. I had a check of $180,000 or whatever at the time. I mean I'm probably made myself – I don't know – north of 500K that year, six, seven – I don't really remember exactly. And so when did you in your own mind or maybe you never did say like, hey, I'm good at this? Do you recall that? I mean obviously at that point you knew you could make a great living out of it because you were. But when did you feel like, hey, this is – I guess maybe when did you attach real estate to being part of your identity? Maybe is a better way to say it. So I would say after selling real estate for a few years, I could tell I was good at it. But it's all relative. I'm pretty hard on myself. Even today, I know I'm good at it. But then I go online and I see – I don't want to name names. I see some guy that goes, oh, 1.2 billion sold in 2025. I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm not good at this at all. Well, it's all relative. Yeah, I know what I'm just saying. That guy did in two weeks what I did in a year. And I had a pretty decent year last year, thank God. So I'm probably – I'm quite tough on myself when it comes to that, which is something I need to maybe avoid. I want to hit on the open house piece for a moment because many top agents have built their businesses on the foundation of open houses. If you can reflect back on the open house dynamic, what was your focus when you were hosting an open house? Like what were the priorities? What was the preparation? What were you trying to achieve? Well, there's two things in an open house you're trying to achieve. Number one, you're trying to sell the property you're sitting in for yourself if it's your listing or your broker or someone's company or a friend if whatever. So that's your main goal, right? The second goal is to pick up buyers and build that relationship and hopefully sell them that home or sell them something else. So that's the goal. And what I realized – I mean I always knew I was a people person. I mean I love people. I connect with people very easily. I can walk into a room and the person standing next to me, I can have a two-hour conversation, walk out there, and they'll be my friend if we connect on those levels. So I kind of leaned into that. And as I started to get into real estate, you always go with your attributes, right? So I knew that by trial and error, knowing that, OK, me doing a bunch of mailings and spending, I don't know, five grand on hitting an area and postcards and all these things and maybe getting X amount of leads off that. If I took that same five grand and just plunked myself at a restaurant on my own. Took your friends out to lunch. Yeah. Took your friends out to lunch over and over again. Or even by myself, just, you know, I sat myself at a – let's say in Malibu, I sat myself at Tavern of Tony's and sit there and talk to the person next to me at the table. And, you know, excuse me, and I can actually – Engage. I can engage. And I can connect. You're that guy. I'm so jealous of that guy. But that actually is, I would say, is my – maybe my – Superpower. Well, I wouldn't say – but that actually is my marketing tool. Like there's people in my office there. It's your superpower. Yeah, they go and they're very good at mailings and there's people – I mean people know they knock doors and I mean I've knocked doors once in my career for an hour and it's like this just isn't for me. I don't like it when people knock on my door and ask if I want to sell my house when I'm eating dinner or watching TV or whatever it is and I just want to be that guy. But then you talk about a guy like Santi who built an empire of knocking doors in 2008 or whatever. So what works for certain people – I think one of the keys to life, quite frankly, is identifying your unique superpower. Absolutely. And clearly you have because everyone is unique. And obviously per that superpower, that passion drives consistency and sustainability. The ability to connect over time. And do it with consistency, as I said, because greatness takes time no matter what you're doing. And you earn that opportunity way before they have the need, right? You're not looking for the needle in the haystack. Like you're sitting there trying to develop relationships so that you can be of value to someone so that when they have the need to buy or sell real estate, you're their guy. Yeah, and then obviously it depends. Look, they're not only meeting me that week or whatever. So what are you doing once you meet that person as well? And that probably – I'm actually not good at that. The follow-up. The follow-up. So like I mean if we're like being completely honest on this podcast, I'm not the most organized guy in the world to be honest with you. Like if you saw how I like even in my phone, how I stagger my buyers, you'd probably be like, wow, how does this guy even close the deal? So it's not my forte and I – Have you discovered any systems along the way to kind of fill that gap? I have. I mean I've gotten better at it. You know, on a Sunday, I normally will sit down and be like, okay, like who are the buyers that I'm really active with at the moment and put an order of priority and so forth and maybe use that week to kind of focus on the X, Y, Z or these people. But at the same time, you know, my mind fires pretty quickly. And like for instance, like yesterday, someone shot me an off-market property and I was like, wait a second. didn't someone ask me for this? And I had to literally go into my phone in Texas, which is, again, shows my disorganization because I could have had another way of going to, looked at a phone, oh, this guy asked me for that on such and such a date, but I didn't have that. So I went in and I shot this buyer. I said, hey, we haven't spoken in a couple of months, but I think it was about a year ago, you asked me for this condo in Malibu. I just got this off market and I'm showing it to him next Sunday. But again, I could probably do more deals if I wasn't. The synchronicity was you were better at it. Yeah, I have a similar problem. But I understand that it's all floating in the ether of my mind and trying to put those two points together. I think for me, a lot of real estate is putting the two dots together. But I feel like it's also the universe bringing those two dots coming together at the right time because a lot of it is just synchronicity where, like I say, that text came in. Absolutely. If that text didn't come in, I probably wouldn't even have thought of that buyer maybe for another two months or maybe never. I mean I don't want to say maybe never because it doesn't make me seem like a good real estate agent or not. But again, like I have a lot of buyers. I wish I had as many listings as I do buyers. 40 buyers right now, 50. I don't know. There's a lot. That a huge amount of buyers But again but how many buyers are what makes sense today A lot of my buyers are developers Trying to put those go find a reward Half of that 40 developers? That's about half of that. And I'm just going to come back to like when you're grateful and have a good attitude, which I know you do, there's a gravitational pull. People want to connect. So like that in and of itself is its own way, a system that a lot of agents, quite frankly, just don't possess. So I know you do, and I think that's where a lot of opportunity will present itself. Well, again, as I say, being honest on this podcast, Josh, you are an extremely positive person all the time, whereas I can be. And when I am, I do attract, and things do come to me, and the texas do come in when they're meant to, and that happens. But I can also go in the complete opposite direction. I can get into that downward spiral where I am negative. I'm not clear. I'm hard on myself. I'm repelling things. And I can dwell in that space longer than I should. So again, if you ask me what – I appreciate the honesty. It's like you attract what you project. I'm a huge believer in that. And at least at the very least, you have that level of self-awareness to know that because if you're not aware, then you can't quote-unquote fix a challenge. But at least the awareness puts you in a position to create a solution. You know, so I have one of my best mates, Rod. Rod Vianna, if anyone's listening. He's an amazing mortgage broker, Mortgage Globe. Go check him out. But Rod is a very – he wakes up in the morning, meditates for an hour, like goes to retreat, like very – Does the whole miracle morning. Yeah, like very, very, very, you know, cold plunging, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like three-hour morning before he even looks at his phone. You know what I mean? Whereas, you know, I've tried for years to try and meditate. I just can't seem to do it. So I try to find my own weight of release. So for me, I'm a runner. So thankfully, I'm blessed at the moment. We live in Malibu, and I've got this amazing boardwalk close to my house. So for me, I hit that boardwalk hour run. I get into that runner's high, which for me is a meditative state. I come out of that, and that is my release. So when I say that I have these bad days or these negative spirals, whatever you want to call it, if I can make the time to go and have that run, normally I'll come out of that run feeling a little bit better, a little bit cleansed, a little bit more positive, and hopefully he can get back on the horse and be more like Josh and sell some real estate. Josh is a little bit of a unicorn. Don't judge yourself. That's it. So let me ask you this. Now, coming back, you've spent time in the hospitality world. I mean, inevitably learned a lot. Then you came back into real estate. Yeah. So like I say, that was a very challenging time. I literally lost everything. So I had to – I started from scratch. But then I was like, okay, so how did I do this before, right? I mean start making some calls again, let people know that you're kind of back in the game or whatever. But it went back to square one. I was like, okay, I've got to get some open houses. And I started – was I with Bob at the time? Yeah, I was. I think I was still with Bob Hurwitz at the time. started working open houses again and and you know getting you know the market started coming out from this whole crash in 2008 and you know fortunate enough to start building my business again and um you know thank god everything has been on a upward trajectory and and you know it's been amazing and i was able to and how has that evolved how is so that's like roughly i'm gonna guess 2010 ish i mean is that yeah so no a little bit later so 2008 yeah i'd lost one of the Yeah, around 2010, 2011. Okay, yeah. Yeah, 2011, 2012, started getting back into real estate. But again, nothing works easy. Those were years where I wasn't making amazing money. You know what I mean? A couple hundred grand if I was lucky. And so they were tough years too. You're going to rebuild yourself. And I'd actually lost my home in that first – in that nightmare. So it was about getting your – basic things like getting your credit back on track, things like that. So it took a bit of time and America I think can be very forgiving. If you put your head down and you work hard, you can achieve. So I – but again – So what have been the pillars? So open houses. Bring us – because you're very – Open houses was my main. But then like I said, I realized that – and I tried the other things. I tried the writing letters and I mean, you know, there were times where I picked up a buyer where they said I want something in the flats. I would drive the flats daily to see what had been torn down is something new. I'm calling a developer sign, you know, doing the really working hard to try and, you know, find a property off market and do what I could to help that client get what they needed and hopefully close a transaction with them. and you know speaking of just that particular client I met at an open house and they told me they wanted something and I worked with that client for five years before I sold them something and I landed up selling them an incredible house in in in the Palisades on Amalfi for I think it was like 13 or 13.5 or whatever it was but it was five years of work turned out they like some of my best friends today. But again, you've got to stay on it. There was a lot of time, a lot of showings, a lot of efforts, a lot of driving, as I said, looking. There was a lot that went into that one sale. So to your point, just working the opens, staying on top of your clients. But when I said, okay, what marketing does and doesn't work, right? So I remember the one time I was standing in a Starbucks and there was a person behind me and they said something on their phone or something about wanting to move or whatever. I said, hey, I couldn't help but overhear what you said. I'm a real estate agent. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? If you don't mind, let's chat. I'm not a pushy guy. Maybe I have something you want. We sat down. We had that coffee and literally within 60 days, I closed an escrow with that person. I love it. So I pretty much stick to that and I don't – I'll be honest with you. I don't really do that much other marketing. So opportunity exists everywhere, everywhere in your life. Your footprint is where the opportunity exists. Wherever you're standing in that moment is where the opportunity exists. Yeah, and then so like – And it's taking initiative. Sorry because like so many people would have been in that position. They wouldn't have done anything. I mean quite frankly, the vast majority of even real estate agents would not. So here's something that happened recently, which I have a big regret on. So I went to see – I don't want to name names of celebrities and stuff, but I went to go see an opening of a movie, right? And I'm with my beautiful wife, Kimberly, and friends of ours. We're in Ojai, and they invite us to this screening. And we go see the screening, and it's a major, major director standing there. And my first instinct was I'm going to walk up to this guy, and I'm going to introduce him. I'll make sure that we connect. I'm going to sell this guy property. And I said to him, he was bombarded by a bunch of people and they wanted to show me this new hotel that opened up across the way or whatever. So we walked to the hotel and I still see him. And I said, hey, I'm going to walk across and go and talk to the guy. And they were like, dude, don't bother the guy. Man, he's good. Don't do it. I'm like, really? They're like, yeah, it's kind of tacky. Like, don't do it. And I was like, okay. And for some reason I listened to them and I'm like – and then I got in the car. And we said goodbye. I got in the car and looked at my wife. I was like, wow, I just made a massive mistake. She's like, why? I said, well, what's the worst that could have happened? I could have walked up to him and said, hey, man, what are you doing? I'm kind of with – sorry, you're amazing. Congrats. It's so nice to meet you. Goodbye. Or he could have said, hey, whatever – I was going to – I had my mind of trying to give him my card or whatever. It was going through my mind at the time. You never know what could have happened. And I'm like, if you don't take the chance, you've got nothing anyway. So I walked away from that with nothing. What are the chances of me ever landing in front of this major, major director again? It's probably not going to happen. And to me, it was a choke just because I know what I can do when I'm standing with someone. But I'm going to say this to you. The next time that happens, and it will, you won't hesitate a second. Yeah. So again, I always come back to like we all make mistakes. The question is what do you learn from the mistake? And you reflected and you became that much more definitive on what you'll do the next time. There will be a next time. You're right. You can't take that one back, but there will be a next time. The next time you won't vacillate. You'll be definitive and going up to that person. Agreed. Yeah. Because it exists. I mean, amidst, you know, our friend amidst stories is very similar. And look, we've all been in that position, you know, where we're debating. We don't want to be like everyone else. We don't want to, you know, be imposing. I mean, I'm me, too. And, you know, and it takes experience. It takes mistakes to really have the level of clarity to say, who gives an F? Like it's coming from authenticity. It's coming from contribution. I'm going to go do it. And if that person, it doesn't land on them well, it's all meant to be for that same reason. Yeah, I mean anything I would do or say would come hopefully out of a respectful way. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, it was just a real – like it bothered me. That's great. But then you talk about the downward spiral thing. Like it bothered me for days. My wife was like, dude, like snap out of it. Got to let it go, man. Yeah, let it go. Yeah, learn from it for sure and let it go because you can't do anything about it at this point other than what happens next time. It's a burden. I think it's an American thing too. Your friends were American or were your friends American? No, my wife is – no, but funny enough, my two friends are South African. It's funny because I feel like Americans have more humility than they need, right? like oh i would never go to that director and you know but i'm going to argue it's not humility it's like they're afraid to be embarrassed or like i don't know i'm yes well i think that's part of the part of the humility there's a distinction though like you know um so i'm gonna switch to so you referenced and i know this because i know you personally working with developers so let's talk about that for a moment how did that start what are the pros and cons of that because I think that's an important thing for our audience to understand. There are some pros and cons. Let's talk about that. Well, I mean, I guess I always was working with developers. I mean, we all do rights along the way. Not at all. Well, I mean, like Thomas James Holmes or TJC back in the day, they were big clients of mine and, you know, did a lot of transactions with them when they first came out. And that might have been my first introduction to really, really having developer clients that was consistent, you know. but the positive and the negative so I'll never forget so actually at one point I so I landed up leaving Bob after a long long run with him I mean maybe like 14-15 years we were together and I went to Normand and Associates with Gavin who's one of my best friends who's the manager of the office and we'd actually done funny enough a development deal and that's how it came about and Gavin was like hey you know like why don't you come talk to him and then I landed up going to nothing negative towards Bob or anything, but just time for a change or whatever. And landed up out of that develop because Gavin had to develop and I was selling a tear down on Inglewood in Mobusa, where it was. And out of that transaction, Gavin, I guess, could see what I could do. We had actually done a deal before of a condo that he had – condo building in Brentwood. So besides, we were both South African and we were friendly. So I landed up having a meeting with him and Mikey and landed up working there. Sorry, I lost my train of thought. About developers. Pros and cons. Yeah. And so I went to – I had a really good 2015 and 16. And I ended up going to Normand & Associates in 2017. And all I did that year, the only thing I did was I chased massive developers, big developers. And I was writing the biggest offers of my entire career. I was writing deals at – I'm talking about for teardowns in Truesdale. like for 18 million on Robert Lane, like big, big offers that I was, but we kept missing them. And I was losing out on these deals by a couple million bucks or whatever it was, but months and months and months were going bar. And- You weren't selling anything else. I wasn't selling anything. You were focused on those. On market or off market or some of both? Probably most off markets. Okay. I'm pretty, excuse me, I'm pretty good at the off market stuff as we all are. But so – and I would walk into the office so excited. I was like, oh my god, I just wrote an $18 million offer. Like they're asking 22. I think I can get – it's not much of a gap, but it would fall apart. And I mean I'd like to think that I can close a deal. And they just weren't closing. And months went by and I turned around like, wow. I think I made like 80 grand, like 50 grand. And it was like August. I had made no money. And I was like, wow, this isn't working. This isn't working. And I ended that year not making much money at all. And just a little bit of context. So it was 2017. I'm very superstitious with numbers. 2018, I knew it was going to be a great year because my younger brother, Anthony, who passed away, his birthday was the 18th of February. And I said to – like 2007, we had just bought our house. So I said I'd come back from that whole nightmare. We had just bought our house in Baldwin Hills, beautiful home, overlooking the city. And coming back from that nightmare I went through to building up the scratch to even put down 20%, 30% of what it was to buy the house took almost everything I had. And I never forget, when I closed on this house in 2017, I said to Kim, don't worry. I have a deal with a developer. We're good. I'm going to make – it's wrapped. I had the buy-in. It was pretty much locked in, but it wasn't locked in in writing. And I think I had taken out quite a bad loan to get that house because I had a blemish on my credit, which was going to be off in six months from the time I bought the home. But I took a massive chance because I knew that I have an eye and I knew that this house was a winner. And I bought the house from my friend Paul Skickney, who's an amazing flipper developer who was a client who we actually have a company called Agent Wise where we – with Josh knows where we try and we flip homes and have agents get involved. the deals and that's another business model which we could discuss at a later time. So Paul was kind enough to do the deal with me and when I closed on that house, after putting in everything, I think I had like $10,000 in my bank account and I had this horrible loan at like 8% or 9% and I think my mortgage payment was $8,000. But I had this deal lined up that I was going to make this money and we're good. I closed that and long story short, the guy sold that deal to someone else for $50,000 more and didn't come back to me saying, hey, can you come up? and that hit me hard. But again, I was writing all these deals and these big development deals that unfortunately weren't actually closing. So that was a tough year for me and there was a point like, do we sell this house? Do I rent it out? Like, what do we do? And I kind of boxed through the year and I said to Kim, on the 1st of December, I said, we're going to throw a New Year's party here and we went and bought decorations. Happy New Year. And we put all over the house, everywhere on the 1st of December and we had these like happy new year 2018 everywhere because of my late brother yeah i said i know 2018 is going to be a great year i'm not going to chase these developers i'm going to get back to the basics i'm going to work my open houses i'm going to i'm going to sell a condo for 500 grand i'm going to do the basic real estate that i know works that i know i can sell and close and i think it It was by April I'd done like 14 transactions of 2018. And thank God I'd like to unpack that for a minute. Like 14 deals, where do they come from? Broadly I know you can remember Give us a I don want to sound like airy but it was energy It was getting out of this negative 2017 chase or whatever I was doing And like I say, there was a reason these big deals didn't – I can bridge a gap of $4 million on a deal. I know I can, and I just wasn't. And it was – call it Anthony being an angel. Call it my mindset. Call it 2018. Call it whatever you may want to be. There was just a switch of energy and outlook and positivity and mindset. So the 14, I just wanted to discuss because we still haven't answered that. Was that past relationships? Was it new relationships? It was a bit of both. It was just moved into this new neighborhood. We had become friends with neighbors up the street. They loved us. So there was some neighborhood. So they actually know, but then we started having a ball. Ladera was a great – you were in Ladera. Is that what you're saying? Baldwin Hills. Baldwin Hills. Yeah, that was a very up-and-coming area at the time as well. It was exploding there. Yeah, it was exploding. I mean, yeah. People found out, oh, there are all these mid-century moderns. You get these great views, the price point. Yeah, yeah. So the house we bought was actually a Buffen-Hentzman house, which are famous architects. And we have like a 300-degree view of Los Angeles. It's a very, very pretty house. We're lucky with that. And thank you, Paul. And so those neighbors had referred a couple friends. I landed up selling them a few properties. I was doing my open houses. But like condos, and I guess the market was just thriving too. I mean it's not just me, right? I mean obviously it's a busy market. Yeah, the market was very vibrant. And like everything in real estate, right, it's all momentum-based. So you start closing – you get a listing or whatever of a condo in Brentwood for $800,000 and you sell that or you double pop that one and you meet four or five buyers. And out of the four or five, you sell those two people to – and then it's like everything. It's just got the momentum. The ball starts to roll and I call it a real estate wave. And I actually am a very wavy agent. Like I can have bad years and then have great years and have bad years and have great years. How did you connect with those in the neighborhood? The people? Yeah. So again, someone walks past me. I'm going to say, hey, how are you doing? I'm Brett. We just moved into this house. You know, I'm not going to, you know. You were active. And there's a very big developer that actually lives on my street on Weatherford in the government of Keith. Yeah, he's a monster developer. So we've befriended each other and we've done some deals together. Yeah. So just really engaging, connecting, that's coming back to your superpower. You've got to go out there and take initiative and do that. I've got to just continue to say that, which something that may seem so obvious to you is not necessarily obvious to others is my point. Yeah. Yeah. You're always hunting. Hunting is a strong word. I don't know. I understand. But you use the word salesman a lot, and salesman is a strong word too in American vernacular. It's – I don't want to say Americanized because that wouldn't be fair at all. I don't say a negative connotation. But when I go back to South Africa after being here for 30 years, I can tell how – when I meet someone how my mindset is. The questions are asked. I'm like always thinking real estate. But I guess it's – you're almost just trained into that way of thinking. It's not a negative or it's not gluttony or coming out of I want money. It's just like, okay, you're here. What do you do? But South Africans, it's not so much kind of cut to – maybe it's even an L.A. thing. I'm like, hey, how are you? Oh, cool. I'm great. So what do you do? So just more direct here. A little bit more direct, yeah. Go to New York and see what that looks like. They always would tell me about – go to L.A. Everyone's like wishy-washy and whatever. New York, it's like boom, boom, boom. Straight forward. So I always say I'm a fast New Yorker. You are. But again, everything's relative, right? I find L.A. people are quite direct. I feel like they are always open for the conversation, right? I particularly am not very good at small talk, right? And starting the – like I want to have interesting conversations. I'm always interested in people. I'm curious. So I'm always – I bridge that small talk gap by just being able to ask questions, right? Like be curious about people and engage them. And when I say hunter, I also mean like just being present in the moment to explore. Opportunity. Yeah. I mean someone said something to me very early in my career and it stuck with me and they said there's nothing more dangerous than a real estate agent that actually doesn't need the commission. Do you know what I mean? And I thought about that. I was like, wow, what does that mean? Like we all need commission but there's a lot of agents that are independently wealthy or come from wealth or whatever it may be. I watch certain agents' behavior and how they sell or how they interact with their clients. And you can tell when someone is after the deal or after – even when I do shows, I can tell. I've been doing this for a long time. I can tell when someone walks into my listing and how they're interacting with their clients and when the client brings up something and how they answer or not. If they're honest or if they're really, really going for the close or if they're there just to actually – Pick up a paycheck. Yeah, or if they're there to actually help their buyer and their family get into a home that they love and want. Like I say, for me, it took five years once to get clients and friends. When people know you're willing to walk away, it creates a whole different complexion. And it also gives you that much more confidence. So I think that, to me, when you said that, that's how I interpret that. That's a takeaway. If they're willing to walk away because they know their value or whatever the case may be, and then they – You mean that agent walk away? Right. If the agent is willing to walk away, they don't need the deal to your point, and they're willing to walk away. If it's not the right person, the right deal. I was just about to say. They have a certain level of confidence, and people – I mean human nature is to sort of want what you can't have. I mean a little bit. There's a psychology there. So I think that's how I see that. So people are attracted to that in certain respects. When you said walk away, I was like, well, what are you walking away from? I agree. I would never walk away from anything, not because I want the dollar. I'm only going to walk away, like you say, if someone really treats me badly or speaks to me badly or doesn't really appreciate the work that I'm putting in or so on and so forth. But at the same time, it's also the challenge. Like when you're working with someone and you're going on the search to find them something, there's nothing more rewarding than bringing someone into a house, especially if something is off-market where someone doesn't have access to it. It moves them. Hey, like I found something I think you're going to like and they walk and go, wow, this is amazing. Like thank you. And then 10 years later, they're still living in a house and they've brought up two children in there. It's a good feeling. They feel seen, right? They feel heard. Yeah. Right? Yep. And that's gratifying. So what's the future? Like you've worked with developers. You do development yourself. You invest yourself. You've been around this business now and you're a savvy business person, independent of real stage. Thanks, Josh. What's the ideal world look like for you over the next few years? So again, I just moved to Malibu, right? And obviously a very tricky market to break into. You know, there's monster agents out there. Sorry. There's monster agents out there that dominate and I'm not going to bump Chris or Sandra out of the way anytime soon and both great guys. So if you ask me what my real estate dream is, it would be to be selling properties in Malibu. Please go developing some properties out there. But at the same time, I have friends and clients who are my friends that live out here. My office is still in Brentwood on San Vicente. So I'm always available. I have my core business, Westside, and thankfully people do call me and say, hey, I need your services. We're thinking about doing this. We're doing that. Or come take a look. We want to sell. Maybe we want to move here or there. And so my future would be to try and build some type of a name or – I have done transactions in Malibu and significant ones, but it's very sporadic because I've never lived there or focused there. But to build some type of a name and get a little bit of a brand there and get known in that community of someone that is a good agent, an ethical guy, a good guy and knows what he's doing, knows what you're talking about and can source a lot of off-market stuff and do some deals there. The development there is a little tricky as well because Malibu is a lot harder to deal with in terms of getting things done through the city. agent-wise with Paul would be a focal point of building that brand. And we came, what we thought was from a very good place, it was essentially came where Paul and I were discussing about possibly doing some developments. And I said to him, I feel that agents are left out of these deals. You sell someone a lot – let's just make the numbers easier – a million dollars. You get your 2.5%. You make your $25,000 and you split it with your brokerage and you walk with whatever. And if you're lucky enough and you have a good relationship with that person or the deal is you get the listing on the flip and you'll make some money. But if the developer buys that lot at a million dollars right and knows what he's doing, that person is going to make $500,000, $600,000 on that deal. And I said, why can't agents be part of this? Well, we said, why can't agents be a part of this transaction? Maybe they want to put their commissions in. Maybe they want to throw additional funds in. I don't want to get too far into our business model, but there's ways for agents to bring clients in and get paid. To participate. Yeah, participate. So that's the word. And we're trying to actually help agents because it is harder to do deals today. It's more competitive. And I'm a perfect example. If I would have not done the restaurant things and just got involved in real estate deals, I would have been a whole different level of financial freedom today. Do you know what I mean? Sure. And I've asked hundreds of agents when we were thinking about doing this agent-wise, hey, do you guys invest in real estate? And I was so surprised how many agents don't invest in real estate. Some don't even own their own properties and so on and so forth. So we thought this would be a cool vehicle for agents to kind of participate in deals. But even if you – excuse me if I may say to Josh, hey, Josh, you're doing deals at the moment. Do you want to throw 500 grand to somebody? And Josh goes, actually, I like this transaction. This is a good one. The numbers make sense. It's around the corner from my house. I like this. Yeah, sure. Maybe Josh will throw somebody into that. He'll take his profit in a year from now. Maybe keep it in and roll it into the fund and keep it going and so forth. But our premise of that whole business – and again, of course, we want to make money. We're not saints. Well, we are saints. We still want to make money. But our model is a lot of the profits go to the investors. We don't take any management fees. We take – our scale is actually heavily sided towards having the agents and investors taken care of. So I'm going to answer your original question. What does the future look like? I'd like to try and build something. And again, I don't want to sound like I'm a complete humanitarian here. There is hopefully profit for us on the back end. But if I can help my friends and colleagues and I know a lot of people in this business that can get involved in deals that can actually turn around and go, wow, that was a pleasant experience. They're good guys. And I actually walked away making some money. I think I'm going to – maybe every deal I do, I'm maybe going to throw $20,000 at this or whatever. And if we're helping our fellow colleagues get ahead in life and invest – because, again, forget the real estate. I've invested in crypto. I've lost it. Anything I do is not in real estate. I lose. Hey, you create enough value for others, and the money, I always say, is a natural byproduct. I think that's – I live my life that way, and it's worked well for me. And we make some mistakes along the way too, for sure. That's the only way we learn. When you brought up – you used the vernacular salesman like several times, right? Oh, man. I'm not coming across as a cheesy salesman. No, but I marked it up to cultural vernacular, right? But what does it mean to you to be a salesperson, I guess, or a realtor, or to represent your clients in their endeavors? You always know when you're being sold something, right? So like I'm a car guy and I like to get in and out of my cars pretty quickly and so on and so forth. And you walk into a dealership and you just know when a guy is selling you, selling you hard or a guy is there to help you see the amazing value in the Thunderbird or the Porsche or whatever you're looking at. And when you do sales for a living, you want to buy stuff. Like you want to be sold. At least I do. But it's nice to be sold by someone who's not actually selling you something. And it's providing the service. And that's what I've realized. And again, learning from the best around me or even agents that I've done deals with where I've negotiated with certain people or walked away from a transaction going, wow, I wish I was more like her. She really, really was coming from a true place of service 100% of the time. I felt it throughout the deal. I think it's something that you learn along the way when you're honing in on your skills. If it's not a natural ability, you should learn it. Yeah, but even if – I mean I would think I'm a natural salesman. But at the same time, there's natural salesmen. I know guys that are very forceful and it works for some people. But I guess you also got to find kind of what works for you and your personality. I come back to like it's authenticity. It's passion. It's knowledge. like when you combine those and it's when it's when it's authentic and genuine and if it's not and people are just feeding you what they think you want to hear instead of being honest and truthful you can feel and sense that that's that's the stigmatized sales people those that actually are passionate about and believe what they're saying and they say it again with vigor with authenticity with passion with knowledge with actually real information that's great salesmanship And that's what – I think that's what falls well on people. It lacks the stink of desperation. For me, first and foremost, I feel I always try to come from a place of service. And with that service, hopefully create some value and try 100% authentically try to do the best for my clients in terms of getting the best deal for them, selling the best way I know how to in a listing. presenting the property in the best manner in the best light to the public on my instagram whatever you're doing open houses and and try and do you know the best job you actually can because i don't like making mistakes and even if i do get paid on a deal where i feel like i could have maybe squeezed an extra 50 grand out of so like it does sit with me i i it bothers me when i don't feel i 100 did my best and so i hope that my clients there's no doubt feel that and see it Because I do care. I don't want to sound cheesy, but I really, really do care. I care about my clients. I care about them getting a good deal doing a good job for them and also walking away from the deal knowing that I did my best and that they felt that and you know there have been times where yeah I mean there have been very hard deals where maybe I've walked away and got that didn't go so well or you know that person I didn't feel the most positive energy coming from that person we just closed this and is something wrong and did I do something wrong and I can have these mind games where if I feel like I didn't handle it the right way and whether it's real or not real, probably a lot of it's not real to be honest. In fact, most of it's probably not real. It bothers me. So I know coming from my heart that I'm a very authentic – I don't want to use it with salesmen. Well, you have real estate agents. The car guy was at a sales meeting that morning and they said, hey, we have extra inventory of the T-Birds. If you can move those, I'm going to give you a $1,000 bonus on it. And that's his motivation for pushing you towards the T-bird, opposed to kind of finding out what you want and satisfying your needs, opposed to his. So let me ask you this. Real estate or perhaps even outside of real estate, you don't need to name names, and it may not mean anything to us. But like who do you like admire and want to like in some degree emulate in business and why? And you don't even need to name it. It's more of like why. You know, so here's the thing. Like what I fight with right now in my life is, again, I was in that hospitality world, right? And I'm a foodie and I love, love, love food and I love that industry. And if you are – This is Chef Joe. I'm not kidding. I love to eat. Oh, my God. He's a great cook. I mean, I can cook well. I wouldn't call myself a chef. I wouldn't call myself a chef. But like a lot of the times when I'm on those runs or whatever we're talking about, I'm always thinking – I'm still always thinking food. I'm still always thinking of, okay – I mean I've learned from my mistakes and I know the $50,000 rent a month restaurant, which is what we had back then even. It would be 100 today probably is probably not the way to go. But I still have this gnawing desire to achieve something in that world, to achieve some success in that world. We did have a bit of success with the restaurant, but like, yeah, true success. Are there any people that you would love to emulate in that respect? And I guess really the question is like what are those attributes that you admire? I wouldn't say there's a specific person that – obviously my chefs and anyone who knows who's one of my favorite restaurants, I admire him for what he's done and achieved. But I wouldn't say there's a specific person that has built something that I'm like, oh, I want to be him. Another thing I do is I'm a DJ. That's right. And I'm actually a pretty good DJ. And for you to say that, you've got to be pretty good. In the perfect dream world. Yeah, yeah. If you ask me what I'd love to be doing, we'd be flying around the world, DJing at parties, beaches. And that would be my absolute dream. But I'm a good DJ, but I'm not good at actually building songs and making tracks. So I think it's very challenging to become a substantial, world-renowned DJ if you don't have actual number one hits playing. Producer. Yeah. Yeah, producing stuff like that. So who do I admire? I admire the guy that's sitting in Ibiza, Black Coffee, a fellow South African who just bought 157 million rand house in Clifton overlooking the ocean. In the true sense of the world, those are really the guys that I'm like, wow. Is there anyone in real estate? And you don't have to name names, but is there anyone you can think of in real estate and why? Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously admire the guys that have come from nothing. You know, you talk about Asante who, you know, came from where he did and what a guy like that has achieved. You know, there's a lot of agents that I see that work smart and not so hard that are able to close these transactions with amazing people. and I don't want to name names, but I aspire to be more like that. Please, God, if I could. I admire Paul, my partner, a lot in terms of, again, someone coming from South Africa with nothing and building a company that he has where the guy's flipped 700 homes in 20 years. Wow, yeah. So he's on the list for sure. Don't get a big head, Paul. So yeah, there's guys that I see putting up these monster houses where I walk into it and I go, wow, can you imagine building something in Bel Air that sells one day for $50 million that you're a part of? They're involved in that or you're the builder slash agent on a deal like that. It would be the highest level of success for me. You know what I mean? And then I have clients. I have very close friends of ours that we met, Elisha and David. They are friends that we met actually when Kim and I were just coming out of the struggle and we're living in an apartment in the marina. And we met them laying at the pool and we became close friends. And to this day, we are best friends and family. Our lives are very aligned. but they are people that have an impeccable eye for design. They are, first and foremost, my best friends, but my clients that I've sold four, five, six, seven deals with. And every single time they do something, it's just it was a condo to a house here to a house there. Now they own a property at the top of Bel Air Road that is just unreal. And they I admire a lot because I know, again, where they've come from and to see people with extraordinary talents that they have, you know, these turn, you know, homes that are just gutted into masterpieces where I know I can do that right now. I just couldn't. I don't I can have an eye, but I don't have that eye yet. Yeah. And so I admire them a lot, too. If I could emulate them and even do half as good as what they've done with the properties that I've sold them, that would be amazing. So it's nice to have friends that you surround yourself with that also – that you can learn from and that inspire you to do better and be better in the business that you do. I guess my question to you is because I've got to know you. I consider you a good friend. Thanks. With respect to your brother. Um, how does that impact your life? And it's a big, broad question. It's a big one. Yeah. So unfortunately I've actually had a lot of loss. I've lost my whole family. Um, uh, both myself and my wife, Kimmy, she doesn't have much family either. So, so we, we, uh, our friends really are our family in the true sense of the word. So when you ask how, you know, how Anthony impacted my life, it was, you know, it was, he was my best friend. He was my only family living here in Los Angeles with me. When he passed, it was a year and a half of real mourning. I wasn't motivated to do anything. I was struggling and disbelief in God. This is a much longer, deeper conversation to be had here. You talk about, again, positivity in business and things like that. When you're down and your head's down and you don't really believe in, you know, is there a God? Like if there was, why would this – why does this happen to the sweet boy, you know, and you just don't see the light anywhere? Even if it's sunny, shining California and it's the best summer's day and it's just gloomy, how do you go out there and sell real estate? Who's going to want to work with you anyway when you're down, when you're not attracting? You've got to hit with a swing jammer. You're repelling. so you know it got it got to the point where i was in a bad depression you know from it and you know crying every day like just you know driving around listening to the pashmode which i felt like not like not getting out of this and then you know you know my beautiful wife kimmy she said to me the one day she said you know brett i love you but it's hard you know i'm here with you forever but it's hard like anthony wouldn't want this no he'd want you to get up and and fight and And then it turns into a little bit of fire. Then you're like, wait a second. And I'm like, I'm a miller. He's a miller. Like I've got to go out there and hold the family name high. I've got to achieve. What am I going to do? Like sit here and moan and groan. And I'm never going to get home at that point. And he died in 2015. And so that will show where I said that at that point I still didn't have much. And I truly believe that Kimberly is saying to me like, all right, I love you. it's time to go. Like get off the couch and do what you do. Let's change the trajectory. It was a fire relationship. Let's have some fun again. She loved Anthony as much as I did. And that's – you want to hold your family name high and I want him to be proud and my parents to be proud of me. And please God, they are. And those few years, I think it was 2016, those were the years where I started fighting again in terms of getting out there, getting in my car and pushing and staying focused and like, okay, I'm going to go out there and do what I do and sell some real estate and hopefully help some people get into some nice homes. And thank God it works. But now he's an angel on my shoulder. I believe in it all again. I believe in God. I believe in the source, and as long as I hopefully can stay connected, things will come my way, and I can achieve a little bit of success along the way. Yeah, I was going to say thank you for sharing that and being vulnerable, and I can assure you that they're all unbelievably proud. That I can say with the utmost of confidence. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Well, the human struggle is different for different people, and capacity is sometimes rammed them. Things happen that we have to deal with, and you've reinvented yourself several times. You had everything. You lost everything. You had everything. You lost everything. She's about enough to do that again because it all takes time. I have enough character at this point, right? Yeah. But it's – it helps me understand the core of how and why you are such a good connector with people, right? Thank you. It's important to you, right? And I think that's really wonderful. It is. I've always been a lover of people and like really like being interested in your fellow man and someone that's standing in front of you and what they have to say and what they do. and fascinates me where people come from and the different businesses they're involved in and their families and so forth. But then there's also not so nice people in this world too. And the older you get, you get burned. I mean I had a business partner in one of the deals, the restaurant deals, I thought was going to be my mentor in life and it turned out to be not the best situation. And then like, wait a second, that's not good. So then you start to doubt and you start to wait. Not everyone is amazing. But hopefully you're wise enough where you can be smart enough to sniff out who's on your team, who's not on your team. To narrow the possibilities of a bad outcome. And start to actually – you don't want the negatives in your life to overlap too much into the positive, especially when it comes to people. I agree. Like I'm a huge believer, give people the benefit of the doubt until they show you otherwise, knowing that you're going to get disappointed and that's OK. It's like I always say when someone, quote unquote, burned you or you break up with someone, you never date again. You never I mean, you can't let so many people extrapolate that and like never trust again or never. They become super cynical when they get burned by someone. I just think that's that's unfortunate. I understand that, but I get that's just part of the expectation that I create. People are going to disappoint you, and I'm always going to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. So you said the word expectation, so I don't actually expect anything anymore, if you know what I mean. And I don't – don't expect anything and be surprised. You got it. Pleasantly surprised at every result. I agree. I agree. That's the attitude I take to. We're going to move to the fire round, and it's designed to be quick, fast, visceral answers. Don't overthink it. And it's just a lot of fun and simple. I checked, Joey, the ones I'm going to do. Okay. He's going to be a lot of fun with it. So what's your favorite childhood memory? Sitting on the beach with my parents in Mschlanga, looking at the ocean, throwing a Frisbee, and then going to RJ's steakhouse for dinner. Just – I wouldn't say it's a memory. It's memories. It's the holidays. It's this nostalgia of sharing moments with my family that I can no longer share them with. All right. So what's the best compliment you've ever gotten? You got good teeth. You got good teeth? I love it. Look at that. What's the quality you most admire in others? Honesty and loyalty. You have a lot of passion, so I love this question for you. What is your greatest extravagance? Hey. Food and cars. Any particular kind of food? Sushi and pasta, but I'm kind of allergic to gluten now, so it's a little bit of a problem for me. What do you consider to be your greatest achievement? Kimberly. Which talent would you like to have? What is a talent you'd like to have? I'd like to be able to actually make music to produce house music tracks. Yeah, I'd like to have that talent. House is having a comeback, apparently. I don't know if it ever went away. In my mind, it did. Are you like an old house here, like Chicago or something? Philadelphia. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. So you're somewhere like real house, like deep house. Yeah. What's the attribute that you have that you're most proud of? Sincerity, honesty, openness, vulnerability. I'm pretty much an open book, which may not be good all the time, but I'm an open book. Do you want to ask another one? No, go, go, go. Go to the mountain. So you're athletic. You love to run. Inevitably, I know you hike. You go for a hike. You're climbing this great little mountain in LA, and you get to the top, and you look down, and beneath you are your friends, your family, people that you really care about. and you get to shout down at them one thing. What do you shout? Are you proud of me? Love it, brother. Mike, I'll speak for you. I'm a fan. I'm a fan.