'A Leadership & Real Estate Conversation' with Mitchell Goldhar, SmartCentres REIT

In a personal and engaging conversation, Leon spoke with the successful Canadian businessman and visionary, Mitchell Goldhar. Learn about the defining moments of his life and career,  the candid leadership and life lessons learned along the way, a bold outlook on the future of Canadian retail, office and residential real estate and receive an insider's perspective and entertaining anecdotes about working with Walmart. 

Mitchell is the founder, Executive Chairman and largest shareholder of SmartCentres REIT, a commercial and residential real estate company with 166 properties in each province across Canada. SmartCentres is publicly traded on the TSX with assets valued at $10.4 billion.

Mitchell started SmartCentres with the vision of offering Canadians fair pricing on their weekly shopping needs. He put everything at stake to help Walmart enter the Canadian market, based solely on a handshake deal. That relationship deepened and he remains Walmart's only real estate development partner in the world. 

Mitchell's current focus is an unprecedented $12 billion transformation of SmartCentres' existing properties, from shopping centres to city centres. This includes SmartVMC, the new 100-acre master planned city centre in the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre; one of the largest urban mixed-use developments in Canada. 

Transcript

So, I'm Leon Goren For those of you don't know, I'm the CEO of PEO Leadership North America's peer to peer network and Advisory Committee, and welcome to the way forward live webcast series. If you're joining us for the first time and your co president, business owner, and a corporate executive looking to grow your leadership capabilities and performance and of course, grow your business you've landed in the right spot. In this rapidly changing business landscape where margins of error are getting smaller and smaller. The importance of expanding your connections leveraging the collective experience and knowledge of our community and having insightful and meaningful conversations with the right peers is now more important than ever. Appeal leadership. Our members include some of Canada's strongest leaders representing almost every industry, they lead both Canadian SMEs and large multinationals. Our leaders understand the impact of connecting and discussing issue and opportunities with high caliber peers as they all work to successfully achieve the personal, professional organizational objectives. If you're thinking about the future of your business, and navigating through the many unknowns that lie ahead, if you're thinking about your stakeholders and your employees and how you will continue to engage and inspire and support them. And if you're thinking about whether and how you should pivot your business and understand the importance of being able to step outside of your business to learn from others, then I urge you to reach out and connect with us, you can visit our webpage at p OE dash leadership COMM And you can consider taking part in our 60 day trial program and understand what it's like to have an executive advisor and Advisory Board and the community helping you realize your goals. Feel free, I'll have my email so you can email me directly if you're interested. So as we kick off our morning session, I like to thank Michelle Samson, and we're gonna share a couple of slides here of the mon Metropolitan center for helping us pull together this session. The VA Metropolitan center VMC for short, so I'm going to keep referring to VMC is situated the 400 and 407 is accessible via subway and rapid transit and is emerging as the financial innovation and cultural center of Vaughan. There are over 400 acres being developed into an urban Oasis that includes residential, retail and Class A office. Now 100 of those acres includes the smart VMC project, and that involves our special guests Mitchell goldstar, Canadian businessman and founder of smart centers, a commercial and residential real estate company, with 166 prop properties in each province across Canada. Mitchell is the Executive Chairman and largest shareholder of smartcentres Ri publicly traded on the TSX with assets of 10 point 4 billion. Mitchell started smart centers with the belief that all Canadians deserve fair pricing for their weekly shopping needs. With a shared vision. He worked out Walmart and to the Canadian market, which they did in 1994. Mitchell remains Walmart's only real estate development partner in the world. Mitchell's leading Project 512 Smart centers transformation from ownership of retail space to ownership of complete connected, mixed use communities on its existing properties across the country. This $12 billion intensification program consists of rental apartments, condos, senior residents, hotels, offices and self storage facilities. Project 512 includes that smart VMC that I showed you earlier. It was also the owner of the Penguin Group of Companies penguin pickup rival film studios, Cleveland's house resort and Maccabi Tel Aviv football club. He holds a political science degree from European University and has been an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management since 2004, where he has been awarded Teacher of the Year. He's a member of the board of onyx Corporation, indigo bit books and music, the Canadian concussion Center at Toronto General Hospital, and is Director Emeritus with the sickkids Foundation. So just as we begin, we're going to conduct a bit of a fireside chat, then we got a few surprises for you, but get you all involved with a little bit of a grid. You'll get to see it as we're moving through this. And we'll get started. Good morning, Mitchell, and welcome to PL leadership's waiting for webcast. Good morning. Good morning to you and good morning to all. It's great to have you here today. And I so I thought we'd we'd start off our conversation. You've been so successful, and really a pioneer in the real estate industry. And I'm wondering, to getting there, can you maybe share a few of the things about yourself growing up? And that sort of got you on that on this journey? Well, I mean, first of all, I certainly I hope I'm not so old, the call the pioneer, I'm certainly not a pioneer. Never was a pioneer. But But I mean, you know, I grew up, actually, I'm sitting in my my house right now, which is five minutes away from, from where we grew up, our family home. So which is in North York, you know, so, yeah, I mean, I grew up in a, you know, in, in when I was young, when we were young, you know, we grew up in a mostly for the most of us are middle class families and stepping back from a distance, you know, in a traditional structure, and my mom, you know, was a, you know, she didn't go to university, she actually came to Canada when she was 12. And, you know, remarkably positive, sweet person, you know, glass half full person. And more remarkably, is that she's actually a Holocaust survivor. And my dad, you know, my dad was born in Toronto, and, and kind of, you know, he grew up in the back of a variety store with my grandparents who are hardworking, you know, immigrants, who, for all intents purposes, really, they were an educated and they could barely even sign their own name, be honest, but they were smart, savvy, hardworking people. And, you know, my dad, you know, he, he, he never finished high school, which, which I think is kind of amazing, you know, people are proud of their, of their, their, their, their kids going to university, or academic accomplishments, I'm actually very proud of the fact that my dad didn't finish high school. Because he, he thereafter, just made his way by his wits, which he had, and has a lot of, very smart guy. And so we grew up in this environment where it was, you know, kind of suburban, you know, three kids, I have an older brother, Stephen, a younger sister, Karen, and my mom was stay at home and my dad got up early, went to work early and was always home for dinner. And so it was kind of kind of like that, but, you know, my dad was an entrepreneur, you know, businessman, and so we would hear the background music would be, you know, you know, just illuminations and equivocations about what was going on in the business world. So I guess I, you know, you pick up on the background music of your family and your and your and your parents. And for me, eventually, my dad went into real estate and I guess I was just kind of channeling into all of the, you know, what were you know, colorful stories of his of his real estate journeys. So I kind of liked that. And I kind of always knew at an early age, that's what I wanted to do. So that's what I ended up doing. I was kind of a simple kid, you know, I kind of always just kind of kept it simple. So eventually that did come to pass. was great. I knew the neighborhood because I know we went to the same high school as you. You were just a couple of years behind you. Just thank God I stayed. You know, in my grade, I could have met you if I hadn't, you know, just you know, done that last bit of homework. I we could have met actually in high school eventually. That'd be great. So you know, it's interesting. You join the family business after graduating and that's a lot. That's a big decision for a lot like some of our members often go through that. Do I join the family business? Do I go out on my own, but you made the leap in that What was that? Like? And what sort of prompted you to do that? Yeah, you know, well, when I was a teenager, by the time I was in my mid teens, I was already kind of, you know, hanging out with my father, you know, going for drives, and his friends and my parents friends, were always were seemingly, many of them were in real estate, I mean, everybody, you know, let's face it, everybody's in real estate in one way or another. And, you know, it can actually just be by virtue of owning a home, but, but so many of their friends were in real estate, so we would drive and look at real estate, I would just be kind of, you know, in the room, you know, if my father was a pilot, you know, I just be kind of sitting in the plane, you know, and, and by just being in the plane, you know, you just kind of feel what feels right, what feels wrong, you know, you know, what the smells are, like, you know, the vibes, you know, when things are working, things aren't working, and you kind of when you're at a young age, and you're around that, and you're picking up on it, you know, when you're, you know, still young, you kind of feel like, you can do it, you know, it's just your, it's just your natural habitat. And so it wasn't like a decision, it was just the natural next step from my interest, my, my early, natural, you know, my interest that my teenage interest in real estate, and, and, and, and the characters that I've met through through my parents and my dad, to be involved with them, and in that industry, so it wasn't some big decision. Having said that, you know, what, while I did learn a lot, and my, my father was certainly, my, my first mentor, in business, family business is, is a tough thing, you know, I think it is a, an important decision, something people should think about, it's easier to join the family business, it's, it's more difficult to, to choose not to, especially if you're going to be in the same industry. So eventually, after working in business, in business with my brother, Steven and my sister for a while, and my father, you know, I guess I just sort of felt that, you know, I believe in, I believe in family very much, and I believe in business, but I, I don't really believe in the family business. I think businesses have to be run by one person. I know that it would be nice if if Harvard were right about how to manage businesses, but no, people are, you know, people are a big part of, of the, of the equation. And ultimately, businesses really need to be run by one person, rightly, there's nothing wrong with that. And in families, you know, families, everybody's the same doesn't matter. And everyone should be equal. In businesses, really, it's more Darwin, you know, you need to you need, rightly or wrongly, you know, somebody needs to leave it. And so, eventually, I was in my 20s, and I started to want to, you know, you know, do my own thing, and I didn't like the, the, you know, I never had experienced, you know, the kind of things that were that were coming up in terms of the family business. Nothing too, too. Nothing too. too serious, but I just didn't just saw it as a, as a potential issue. So, I ultimately decided to, to leave the family business. And, well, everything was good. And, and I think that was a good decision. Because actually, I think I may have lost, you know, a business partner in my, my dad and my brother. But I think I sort of ended up gaining, you know, father and a brother on the other side, and we are very close family to this day, and we all kind of do our own thing. And so that's my feeling but family businesses, it's actually not helpful. I think there's a lot of veneers going on on the outside of family businesses. I think there's a lot of struggle and I think people should have more courage to say so and and no hard feelings but you know, kind of thing. Yeah. I think that's extremely helpful for those that are considering it and those who are actually immersed in family business. So you leave the family business your late 20s and until now, you've had quite the journey developed 65 million square feet 30 million square feet of which was Walmart, which is 175. Walmart's and this is in your your late 20s. You come up with this idea. You someone put a stamp there that almost every three weeks, you're opening a new Walmart within 14 years and The other really anything, as we mentioned is Walmart was really doesn't have any partners in this world you were they really from a real estate development side, you were their only partner? How did this come about a young guy coming down? and convincing Walmart? I'm the person I'm going to take Walmart across Canada. Yeah, you know, when you put it like that it does sound, you know, kind of unlikely, you know, and I guess in a sense, new things do get summarized, and they often do sound unlikely, but actually, you know, I grew up in an environment where I told you a little bit about my, my grandparents and my parents, I mean, you know, there was a basic sensibility in our family of just, you know, we had, I guess, my dad, you know, he didn't finish high school, so maybe had a little bit of a little bit of, you know, an edge about authority and, you know, institutions. And so when he was in business, I think he always kind of had a soft spot for the underdog, you know, and I think I sort of related to that growing up, I think I did. It drove me. So when I sort of went out on my own. And even before I I did have a preference to try and do whatever I was doing in business was basically real estate to be, you know, having the average household income in mind, the average household earner in Canada in mind, which led me to watch very closely, what was going on in the various sectors of real estate, and particularly, I became interested in retail. And during the mid 80s, prices were rising. And I found it offensive that basics, for average, people were going up at the rate that they were going up, it was a little thing. sounds silly, but it did actually touch me that it was wrong. And, and so I looked to try to do something with real estate, that would sort of be catering to the average household income. And while I was doing that, and looking for land, and actually even proposing, you know, discount outlets, if you will, here and there, you know, a couple places in Toronto, Walmart separately, we're looking at Canada as a possible foreign market entry. And they actually people, people wonder how I met Walmart, you know. And there is one story that I flew down to Bentonville and I pitched a tent outside their office and wouldn't leave until Sam Walton would meet me and you say true, isn't true. And I love that story. And I kind of should just, maybe when I get older, I'll actually start to actually believe that, but it is not true. You know, actually, Walmart called on some stupid sign that I had on a property that I didn't even own, you know, they were just on their own driving right into the Walmart, you know, no one called Walmart, sometimes for fun. You know, he was scouting around, you know, looking at the market, you know, as a early stage or landing party, and he ended up my office. And so I was ranting, about, you know, how Canadians were being, you know, badly treated by the, the landlord at the time, and retailer at the time, large landlord, landlord, large retailer, relationship and really bothered me, it's really funny because actually, I used to just live in T shirts, you know, I, I'm really not happy that I am wearing this button down shirt here. T Shirt Guy, kind of, you know, still just like, you know, t shirts and jeans. Anyway, the price of T shirts were going up. And it really bugged me like, it's funny how these things can be little things. I go into a store a T shirt was five or $10. And it became 20 and became 50 really bugged me. So I would be ranting to this fella from Walmart. But he didn't tell me he was from Walmart. So he went away, you know, after this rant, and he called me a couple months later and said, Hey, you know, remember we met? I thought he was a real estate agent. I didn't think I'd ever heard from him again. He said he represented a company that was looking for large square footage. And he did call me back. He said, Hey, I'm Doug Sperber from Walmart Bentonville. And we'd like to talk to you about maybe, you know, exploring, you know, Canada. And I'm, like, you know, looking for the camera thinking, you know, this is my camera camera or something. But actually, he was true. And then so he says, look, will you quickly be prepared to, you know, to meet with us? And I said, Yes, I would be prepared to meet with you, because they're the ultimate, you know, retailer who serve the average household income. And he says, okay, he says, How about we meet in St. Louis. And I'll never forget that because it was really actually my first experience. No, that stuck to my ribs with Walmart they this fella, so so why St. Louis, he was kind of excited to go to Bentonville Actually, this is like a woman's head office, his story Mecca, where Sam Walton opened his first store. And he says, well, it's one flight for both of us. And, you know, I always thought to myself, wow, a giant Walmart, talking to me, you know? And he's thinking about, like, it's just respect, you know, it was just respect. He said, it'll be easier because we're both only we'll both take one flight, like, right from the beginning, he was equal. And so we met in St. Louis and a windowless sob boardroom in the airport, never got out of there. The whole day talked about a strategy for Canada. And we shook hands that I would do all these things, all the work find sites and, and they would, you know, rent the space from me and we shook hands, we never wrote it down. And quite frankly, you know, the years and years went by, they honored that. And of course, we partners ever since actually prefer that sort of that to the tent pitching down. Actually, it's very telling of what that Walmart culture is like, catching along. Well, I knew I mean, that culture for you, but you became good friends with the with the family there over the years, as well. So it's an amazing story. And yeah, yeah, well, you know, everything starts at the top and Sam Walton Of course, I never got to meet him, but but I did. Very early on Meet Rob Walton Robson, so Robson, Walton Ramon, who is the oldest son of Sam and Andrew, from the moment I met, I met Rob Walton, you know, who, of course, you know, as chairman of Walmart is coming up to Canada to look at sites that we have been looking at when I say we mean, we Walmart, real estate guy and myself, and then eventually be traveling Investment Committee in a real estate committee came up to Canada, which was headed by by Rob, and, and you know, we started in Windsor. And this was all very much, you know, undercover. Nobody knew in Canada that we were doing this. And, you know, so he landed, you know, they land in Windsor, and I met them in Windsor, and they were a little bit late. And Rob was on the phone, I'd never met him in 1992. I've been working on this for a couple years already. And the first thing the Rob said to me when he got off the phone came out of the loft. He wasn't too sorry, too. Sorry. Sorry, I had to take that call. You know, sorry, to keep you waiting, you know, like, really meant it, you know? And I'm like, No, I would have waited, I would have waited a month if he was, you know, five minutes, you know, sorry. And Hi, you know, I'm Rob Walton. And then, you know, as you mentioned, is, ya know, I know, I've heard about, you know, great to meet you, and, you know, incredible, you know, respect and, you know, humility, and and it set the tone. So yeah, I mean, over the years, Rob, and I became friends. We're also, you know, business colleagues, of course, and, but it's been a natural fit and easy fit, we're both very much aligned. And, and yeah, we're, we're very good friends to this day. That's great. Thank you for sharing that. So I'm gonna hold off going to the grid, because what I want to do is, is get your perspectives. There's a lot of people in the room that are every, obviously, most people in the room are into real estate one way or the other, they own the home and stuff. But there's a lot of business individuals in the room thinking about what the future holds and in the various different segments of real estate. And I know they'd really appreciate some perspective from you and some of your thinking. So when you think about the future of retail, and I know you maybe think about it from a short term and a long term perspective, there's been so much trend change and transformation, smart centers, you guys have been transforming as well. But if we were sitting 18 months today, what does the landscape look like? Like and maybe what does it look like five years from today? Yeah, okay. First of all, we need to put things into some kind of a kind of some kind of context, you know, you may not people may not appreciate because it's sort of an ambient background to life in Western society, but we live in a very dramatic, you know, we live in a, in a, in a culture that has a high you know, very Boil actually superficial part of the world where drama and narratives are, you know, are played out, you know are valued. I mean, we can, we can value stories and narratives I mean, the old heart, you know, life imitating Hollywood really playing out because we're so prosperous here, it's really not in sync with how things actually happen on the ground. You know, so while there are always changes, I mean, change is I mean, you know, nothing, nothing that's constant is change. And it's, you know, it's, it's, it ebbs and recedes. But, you know, if you're talking about the change in retail, for example, there are changes in retail, but they're not the, quite the version that you hear in the media, or the newspaper, or social media for that matter. And, for example, there's about 1617 square feet, per capita of retail in Canada. And that would be about 600, and some odd million square feet, I guess, of retail, so will that increase, stay the same or shrink? Okay, so I will disappear. So the, the feeling in the market, you know, has suddenly turned to, it's somewhere between it's going to disappear, or there'll be something left, you know, there'll be some remnant of the status quo, you know, really, it doesn't change overnight, and it doesn't go down without a fight. And it is not going to change as rapidly as the valuations have changed. So Morse measured a more sober, you know, analysis of what will probably could happen with return consider is that that 16 square feet per capita will go down, say, it even goes down to 10 square feet per capita, keeping in mind that we have population growth, and keeping in mind that we're not building new retail in Canada. And a lot of retail is being redeveloped for reasons that the property is just more valuable as heroes for whatever it may be. So it's not a dramatic fall off a cliff change, certainly not in Canada. But I would say, if you wanted to, you know, have a US sobering view of how it might look in each year for the next 10 to 15 years, imagine that we'll go from 16 600. And, you know, let's say 600, and some odd million square feet of retail to, let's say, 400 million square feet of retail, in the next, you pick it, you know, seven years, 10 years, 15 years, there will be retail in 10 years from now. And, and there will be more ecommerce than there is today, in 10 years from now as well. If I'm off, so maybe there'll be nine square feet, maybe there'll be eight. But it will be a measured step by step process as we seek in the United States is different. They have 50% more retail per capita than us. And they're more inclined to, you know, they have weaker retail or on the margins, and they're more inclined to change. So that's a little bit different than than in Canada, but we're talking about Canada. So I would see that that would be that's my prediction. I think, you know, you can play with the numbers on the margins. But I think that that's kind of my hunch about what's happening. And also, you know, you know, that's, I think that's really helpful. It's pretty hard. And I like some of this. Yeah, I think that is that's, that's helpful. And you're right, it's sobering. I mean, the media drives a lot of this, but it's funny, you walk down young street today. I mean, we're pretty well in the same neighborhood. And unfortunately, you see a lot of places closing. Right. So that reinforces a lot of, I think a lot of people's thoughts and some of the sobering messages. Do you have also a perspective, maybe on the office space side, both? You know, there's a lot of conversation, right? When I sit in different groups with all these leaders. There's a lot of questions around when they return back to the office, whether they'll need as much space, how they'll reconfigure their offices, whether they should give up offices, I think Shopify point months several months ago said, Oh, we can all work from home. The reality is when as I sit in these groups is actually don't believe that's going to be true. We're already seeing incredible fatigue on zoom and missing that human element. But I'm curious, you know, what your perspective would be on that Yeah, I mean, I love my office, development and landlord friends. So I'm a little reluctant to to say that I do think there are going to be some, you know, some reduction in demand for for office space in the near term. And maybe midterm, I think I think that eventually, of course, things will, you know, be converted or, you know, fill up from various, you know, various future changes in the market and rental rates, and so on and so forth. But I cannot see a scenario where these demand will meet the supply. If we think in terms of major markets in Canada, I think if whether it's, you know, the right thing to do or not, it seems like the will of larger institutional office users is too expensive experiment with some split some hybrid of physical, you know, in office and at home, remote office, how long that lasts. And once we really permanently commit to that, in certain respects, what the flaws will be, remains to be seen, but I think they will act on it. I think that when it comes to renewals, I think you will see some, you know, evidence that the larger office users will not renew large blocks of space, if it was to be now today, I think they would walk away. The problem with Office is that when you even have 5%, or 10%, more supply than demand, you know, rental rates are very sensitive, you know, it's very, very much driven by brokers, they represent a lot of these companies, they're very tuned into vacancies, and trying to make the best deal they can for their, for their tenant clients. And, you know, office rents Can, can be affected by a little bit more supply and demand. So it'll be interesting to watch. And unfortunately, with Office, there's a lot of taxes, I think the government may have to consider what to do with respect to taxes on Office, because taxes are very high. And when you have a vacancy in retail, I mean, the taxes are low. It's not a hardship. But when you have vacancy in office, and you're the landlord, not only do you not collect the rent, but you have to write a check a big check for taxes plus your share of common area. So that's going to be an interesting one to watch. I'm not convinced that remote working remotely is the final change, I think we have to think beyond it. But at the moment, I think companies are almost wanting to sound relevant by talking that up, I don't know that they've actually really thought it all through. Because my observation is that we are all more productive. Forget about what we'd like and forget about placating millennials. At the end of the day, you know, it is business. And it's live bullets. And people, businesses are more productive. At least this is my observation. So don't don't listen, to me, this is just my observation. When people are together, so maybe offices in their collection may change a little bit here and there, and they are, but to actually be remote, and expect to get the same kind of productivity. So I think there's going to be a lot of reckoning, there's gonna have to be reckoning and salaries, they're going to have to be reckoning in other areas of DNA for running a business. If, in fact, this remote office thing is going to be permanent or semi permanent, and none of that has kicked in yet. So I think there's a few more chapters to be written. But bottom line, yes, I do think there's going to be lower demand and office space in the next year from now on for the next. The next chapter. Okay, no, again, that's, that's, that's helpful. Very helpful in 30 years, I don't think that that means that you have to, I mean, if you're a business owner, I don't know that you have to follow that. You know, you know, follow that, you know, there is a bit of a herd mentality going on with that, you know, you can think a second time you know, you know, you don't have to jump on that, you know, people who are advocating for work at home and they love being at home and all the all the, you know, social benefits and fan events, you know, with all due respect, you know, if we want the lifestyle that we have no, no, no We want to layer in the, you know, the state home and the other benefits of that, you know, we're gonna have to give stuff up, we are definitely going to have to give up things, we're going to have to have smaller homes, we're going to have to have fewer toys. And that's fine. You know, I think we have too many toys in our homes are too big. But we got there for a reason, it was a collective decision by all of us to live the way we were living pre COVID. So it's highly relevant to understand why we made those choices. And to really question whether, you know, we're going to make a paradigm shift from those choices. You know, after nine months of living in this, you know, you know, this very peculiar, you know, under these conditions, it's going to be interesting to watch, but I wouldn't bet against, and I would be thinking twice about whether or not you know, to dive right into a boarding the work in an office, you know, model, there might have to be some flex, there was already flex, people were already, you know, working remotely, somewhat pre COVID. But if I was a small business or medium business owner, I would be looking to maybe use as an opportunity to negotiate a better rate and better terms and experiment a little bit with some of this. But I wouldn't, you know, jumped to conclusions that this is certainly not going to be the final change. Yeah, no, I would agree. And we're kind of seeing that, I think, if you ask people five months ago, they were all excited about working at home, if you start to ask people today, you're starting to realize that very hard to do strategy and innovation over zoom, and not being in the room together with your senior teams. And, and they're starting to miss the human element. So it's funny, the pendulum always swings one way, and then it sort of comes back possibly, yeah, and you know, what, you'd be honest, I, we, I hope all my competitors, you know, do the remote thing, you know, because, you know, you're gonna see, you know, people are gonna, you know, try and placate this sort of moment in time and all this, you know, very, I'm sorry to be such a, you know, kind of, you know, downer, but, you know, to placate all this, we can have it all thing, we can't have it all, I'm sorry. And so, I think what will happen is your competitor is, is is, is working in a efficient model of being in an office for the most part, and, you know, you'll lose ground, you're you'll lose, you may lose ground, you know, I would predict you will lose ground. And so you'll have to react to that. And, and then there's the other issues, which is, you know, working at home, the blue may come off the rows for other reasons. And, but home working from home or work working remotely, is not, you know, is a is a concept that's here to stay. The question is, of course, degrees. So, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll have to watch, we can watch. That's great. Thank you, Mitch. So I'm gonna ask, maybe, maybe put up the grid, and it's still trying to get everybody involved here with some rather than going to individual questions. We're gonna do a little poll here. We're gonna put up a little grid here, you're gonna see there are 10 possible boxes. And I'm gonna run a poll here. And I think, is a poll coming up on our screen here. There it is. So why don't y'all choose one of the topics that you're the most interested in here, submit? And then we'll get Mitch to tell a little story behind what's behind the box there. Is this like prices? Right? niche, it's like, Listen, that's, that's the level. That's the level you're dealing with. All right. So now, where is the poll? if everybody's submitting their poll? I can't see. I actually can't Oh, I can see that. Yeah. Okay. So if I go back to the poll, I mean, do I get your take the screen off again? So just stop sharing the screen, if you can. And then I just want to see the poll results. And we have to Oh, here we go. So Mitch, the biggest thing is the big number one biggest bumps in the road. Oh boy. Oh, boy. Well, yeah, there's been many I will tell you that we could do a whole you know, fireside chat and all the money I've lost. You have a if if you put together all the deals that I lost money on, you know, that would be a big business right there. Or, you know, you'd be a rich man. But, you know, big bumps in the road where I mean, early days, I told you that I met Sperber he came in the office and didn't tell me who he was. And I ranted and he went away. And then he called me and we met in St. Louis and all that. So then I just worked out, I want you to know that I would have worked with Walmart. I mean, I did actually work for Walmart for nothing, but I would have worked from 1989 when I met Doug Sperber until now for nothing. Okay. I mean, my greatest joy in business has been working with Walmart. It's just the most remarkable company in world. And the lessons that I've learned through dealing with them day in day in and day out for 30 years, is just invaluable. And I sort of felt that way when I met Doug Sperber in 89. And then so I worked for almost two years with Doug secretly nobody knew and can even tell my family and looking for locations tying them up. It was the late 80s, early 90s. Everyone was getting out of real estate. Real estate was a bad word the recommence had blown up. You know, banks were didn't want to hear the word real estate, they were taking people's real estate back on bad loans. And here I was out there trying to buy people actually couldn't, but they didn't believe that somebody was actually buying this property wherever I was, I could have been in London, Ontario, you know, Carlton, Simcoe, berry Walmart came from small towns, right? So I was working in these small things. I'd never been there when I when I did my analysis of all the towns that Walmart could, could could operate in based on what I learned from Doug and Walmart. I mean, I went to places I'd never heard of, in Ontario when you're still working Ontario. In some cases, I remember I drove towards Lake Simcoe once when I was reading some stats on Simcoe, Ontario, like I actually thought there was a town near Lake Simcoe. And that's how early days it was for me. Just so you know, Simcoe, Ontario was on, you know, Lake, Lake Erie, and nowhere near Lake Simcoe. So, there's lots of embarrassing situations like that, but, but I did, you know, my learning curve was vertical, I learned a lot. And I was very excited about the cause. I was very driven by the cause of bringing low prices, to average household incomes. I mean, that was my thing, I really couldn't give a rat's ass about, you know, making money or making money on Walmart, I really, truly couldn't care. it to me, was its own reward. And I was just in heaven, I was working every day looking for sites. And of course, it leads to meeting an architect needing an engineer, I couldn't tell them what was going on. And, you know, I used a lot of things going on for those two years. And then suddenly, Doug tells me that, you know, Sam Walton, and the Walmart real estate committee want to come up to Canada and look at all these sites. And, and, and, you know, approve them. So, you know, I prepared for this, and I remember this because it was, it was in that it was in April 2019 92, when he told me that, so, and I plan a bike trip, I have not taken a holiday for two years. So I planned a trip, I got on a bike trip with my, with my dad, and you know, a guy named Manny Shaq and a bunch of other family friends, it was the greatest trip of the world was crazy trip. Like for us, it was like, you know, the greatest thing and I wanted to, so I booked a trip, then I had to put down a deposit on his bike trip. And it was to France. And it was $900 the deposit. And so the trip was in July. So Doug calls me and says they they're not coming, he called me in April, they're going to come in May. So I'm getting ready, we're going to look at a dozen properties and go on incognito. And I had them all tied up and I had plans done and you know, no names. I never said the word Walmart for five years. And, and then they they say no, Doug calls and says, Nope, can't come. Can't come in May you're gonna come in June. And so I said, Okay, no problem June. So, you know, June are getting ready, still, you know, more properties tied up. And no, we can't come in June. You're gonna come in July. Well, July I had this trip, you know, and I haven't gotten it. So you know, fine. Okay, fine. So I told you the trip, I tried to get my deposit back. I still to this day, it really annoys me. They wouldn't give me my deposit back because no, it wasn't sick. I just couldn't go. So I cancelled the trip and the trip went in. They go don't cause me just before the trip in July and says they're not coming. Walmart and Sam Walton and the rest they're not coming to see the site. And by the way, we decided not to come to Canada. Thank you very much. It's been great working with you. And by the way, you know Doug would come up once a month we traveled hither and yon you know, looking at markets doing every drive setting it up for Walmart to come in. And I'll never forget it in the picture of the phone, you know, I was on the phone, you know, like this. And, you know, I, my whole being, you know, was in this, and I'm trying to comprehend this. And he says, Thanks a lot, you know, it's been great, you know, and I say, I wanted to say you go to hell, you know, like, what have you done? I've been working for tonight. But what came out of my mouth was, I don't care. I'm gonna keep working on it. He said, okay, you know, you go right ahead. And I did. And I kept doing everything that we were doing together, but without him. And I kept calling him and leaving him voicemails trying to get him. I never, like, I know what it's like to not get a return phone call from Walmart, okay. You know, but for a year or more, I couldn't, you know, I just kept working on it. And then a year or so later, Doug called me up. By the way, Doug, and I would go into lots of meetings together. And I, I would never let him speak because he had a foreign accent, you had a southern accent. So I would introduce him. And, you know, I'd say this is my engineer, you know, we meeting with the mayor of Midland or something. And I wanted him to see what was going on, and what it would take to get approvals and everything and, you know, there's a lot going on, and I would introduce him, you know, I make up a name, Bob, you know, this, that and, and one day, you know, I made up a name and called him, Shlomo, I just said, Oh, and this is, Shlomo, you know, and, and he, of course, you know, wasn't expecting that. And he he coughed up a lung. But he his nickname, you know, in the office, he told the story back. And then when they started talking, calling him, Shlomo, so he called me up a year and a bit later says, Hey, he says it, Shlomo. He says, I just came out of a meeting. And we're thinking Walmart are thinking of coming back to look at Canada, because then then gone into Mexico, and instead of Canada, and we want to talk to you about it. And that was great. I said, that's great. I'll never forget where I was. And because I kept working on it without because I believed in the cause, so much, and I learned so much from Walmart, that I knew that they would, you know, I thought I knew, and I knew, I believed in whether I knew or I didn't, I did believe that they were going to fit into this country, and play a very important role. And, and, and they called me back, and I had more sites tied up, and we never looked back. And that was probably 1993 or four at that point. And, and, and they, of course, announced their entry into Canada in 1994. That was a big bump in the road. What a great story. I mean, two things that struck me one is, if you're going to take away from that is the belief in what you do, you just illustrated and vocalize how important that is to push forward. And the second is the persistence and resilience. I mean, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. And you need to have the stamina. And that's, that's an incredible story in terms of easy when you feel strongly about something, you know, if you can, you know, align yourself with something, look, I never set out to be, you know, make the kind of money that is, in fact, you know, it's kind of ironic that, you know, I was really wanting to do something that would save people money, and I ended up, you know, making, you know, a lot of money doing that, but I certainly, you know, I've sacrificed a lot, I have no illusions about it. But I've enjoyed every minute of it, to be honest with you, if I, if I was doing that, and driving a cab, or whatever, I'd still be I think, just as you know, in terms of my personal feelings about it, I think I feel the same way, you know, the real worth, that I in value that I've gotten out of the experience with them would be no different if I had just done what I did with Walmart, and not, you know, ended up you know, being successful in terms of financially. I want to point out another bump bump in the road was that when Walmart finally came, I needed money. And a lot of it fast, and I chose one bank civc What was it? Let's just say maybe it was the IBC. And, and they were great. They responded they liked the idea was all undercover. And they did set up a line of credit for me, which was astronomical for me at the time was $64 million, which eventually when it did become public that Walmart was coming, blossomed and bloomed into or exploded into, you know, a lot more and then they change their direction. And they wanted. They wanted, you know, to free up their balance sheet to do other things. It was actually billable crossings at the time. And it was in the kind of late 90s and they called me up and said, you know, and they're very, very polite way. You learn a lot about institutions you start As a small entrepreneur, you have to your world has to get larger every day, and you need to how to how to work in the institutional world. And, and institutions are very polite when they're, you know, putting you putting you down as I'm putting you to sleep. And I know I got that call, you know, we'd like our money back, well, I was 37 years old, and I owe civc $475 million. And it was all at their pleasure demand loans. And also, you know, for half built shopping centers, and half built shopping centers are not worth half, a fully built shopping center, no half build building is worth half of the completed building will matter what it is. And so yeah, the process of working through that was very, very difficult. I look like this, in part because of this experience. I thank them for that experience. It taught me a lot, including not boring from one bank. But I understand their their, you know, their, their their decision. But, you know, I did go through a terrible time, you know, I actually started getting blindness in my I had no bad, you know, no feeling in my arm, like over the period of time that I had to figure out how to pay this back. I went through a terrible, terrible time, it was about a year. And it certainly has, you know, influenced my, my, you know, influenced my decision making in terms of how to do things, I ended up being partners. I then went to rob, Rob, Rob Walton, and said, Look, Rob, I can't deliver all the Walmarts in Canada that you want, and borrow from all the institutions in this country, which is not going to work. And I don't want to live that way. Why don't we be partners, you know, you lend, you lend me the money, I need to do your stores. And we'll be partners. Because every time I put a Walmart store on land, the land value goes up. And I'm benefiting from that. But I'm, but I'm suffering with a debt that I owe. I can't sleep, you know, I just saw I traded ownership stake and gave you know, so Rob agreed, and Walmart became the banker. And, and the program went exponentially up, after I became partners with Walmart didn't have to borrow from the banks. And that quote you made at the beginning, there is part of those 14 years, for the next 14 years, we opened one Walmart store on average, every three weeks for 14 years in a row, and the financing for all of that. And of course, Walmart only represents 25% of the square footage. So it was Walmart and everything was financed by Walmart, out of their free cash. And of course, they were partners in the real estate and then did very, very well in the rent was on a formula. So their rent is also very, very low and very attractive. So became a bit of a match made in heaven, like the was kind of the icing on the cake. But that was a very, very, you know, very big bump in the road. Yeah, it you mentioned partnerships, I just want to ask you that, because that's also something that comes up a lot with our members. And what's your perspective on partnerships? I have a lot of entrepreneurs who say partnerships are the worst thing, like anybody, they're constantly and they go, No, you got to do it yourself. But in your story, just share the importance of thinking outside of that, and actually engaging. And have you done many other partnerships or? Yeah, not a lot. I'm really not a advocate of partnerships, actually, if you don't have to have a partner, I mean, I think it's easier to not have a partner in business. There's all kinds of reasons why you may need a partner, and then you just just have to deal with it. But I think their philosophy, my philosophy with partnerships is firstly, early days was I want the partner to do better than me. And you know, I I don't mean this as a cliche, it's just the way I was and the way I am I got more, you know, joy out of them doing well, then my doing well, I always did better, because they did well, because then we do a second and then we do a third. You know, and it there's nothing to it. Like, even if you play games with partners, or you edge partners or you try and you know, take advantage because you have more info than them. It's not even worth that much. what's worth a lot is looking out for them taking care of them. And if they have anything to bring to the table, they'll bring it in spades. And it's turned out to be true to besides the fact that you know, you just you just you just get more pleasure out of it. Nowadays, my criteria for partnerships is actually even simpler. It's, is it going to be fun, you know, am I going to enjoy this partnership with these people can they hold Their own? And are they long term minded, like, like us very long term minded. And in any business I do. Even though I keep getting older, I keep doing things in a long term way. So. So if we're like minded that way, then of course, look after them. It's a very simple formula. But you know, I try my best to look after Walmart. Can you imagine Walmart looking after you? I mean, it's a natural reaction. I mean, you don't do it for that reason, but it's a natural reaction with the human condition. And they did. And they always had my back. I mean, can you imagine having company like that, having your back? But you know, I didn't do it for that reason. And I always got up earlier and stayed on to find ways to save Walmart money, because that is their core culture. And, and they always appreciated that. So yeah, I believe in those kind of partnerships. That's great. Mitch, I know we're tight on time, and that Greg had so many great stories may have to do this again. So we really get into those stories. But a couple of final questions around for around. In your opinion, is it a good time to be investing in real estate today? Like, when we look at the markets, not just even looking at real estate, everything seems to be just only one way up? up? Up and away? Yeah, yeah. People are so curious. And and if they are, where, where would they focus? Or where would they even think about investing on the right, yeah. Look at people tend to want to invest in things that are going up, it's not historically the wise thing to do. There are probably, you know, sort of sectors and pockets to invest in, in real estate, there always is. But, yeah, you'd say that a lot of sectors are fully valued retail, for example, is not so that's an area that you might seem counterintuitive, but that's exactly when the opportunity is there is when everybody thinks and are sure, not just wondering thing, but they're sure that something is is to put, you know, like they think retails could put, you know, well, of course valuations are reflecting that. And so you have to think a second time, is this actually a good time to invest in retail? Not per se, because retail is going to grow? But per se because retail is very well located and strategically located in real estate, and what else can you potentially do with it? So yes, there are areas to invest in real estate, but I would say, you know, industrial is looking very highly valued. Right now, I don't know, we're gonna do some industrial, you know, very carefully, but there's no question that there could be a scenario in the not too distant future that the supply will outstrip the demand, believe it or not, because there's a lot of demand. But there's no barriers to entry of industrial, there are barriers to entry for retail, for example, or were. So I would say, Be careful, you know, proceed with caution on industrial, people are really keeping track of what everybody's doing. They're all just doing it. You know, there might be opportunities with office if there's alternative uses, or you can buy it right. So, you know, seniors homes, I think there is a lot of runway still with seniors, even though there's some bad press, it's not seniors that are having problems with COVID. It's long term care. And there is a natural, you know, market growth in senior so I think there's, I think, you know, storage is still got some some runway, but they're all pretty fairly valued. Those are not secrets, the secrets would be the the counterintuitive areas, like I said, like, you know, buying up retail that's strategically located, and finding, you know, having the patience to convert it. Well, you could look pretty smart in a few years from now. But right now, people are looking at you like you have two heads. So that's what that's usually what people look at. That's usually the the early day anatomy of a good idea. You have to tolerate that, that stage where everybody's thinks you're crazy. But that may be a part answer to your question. No, that's a great answer. And I have one more nationalistic question in terms of the US market. And do you have any aspirations to look into the US like, I deal with a lot of high net worth individuals in Texas, they're throwing money and investing real estate there. You seem to really focus on the Canadian side. Any aspirations going south? Yeah. Quite the contrary. I am afraid of the US market. I know that there's huge you know, huge. You know, huge employee wealth, his main use and wealth is last us. I find it to be irrationally competitive. I mean, I find it to be you know, a lot of ways the US is, is more of a you know, it's more of a company than than a country. You know, it is a fiercely and almost irrational and competitive place. The only thing worse than having a bad business. You know, idea in the US is having a good business idea in the US. No You have a good business idea in us, you know, there is an enormous amount of people coming after you. And you know, with irrational competitiveness, it doesn't mean that you can't go up with the tide and down with the tide, you kind of got to be early and then go up with the tide and play it by the pound, I don't like playing it by the pound, I'm more of a create something guy, I'm more of a long term, thinking strategic chessboard kind of guy, I believe that real estate, really, the value to create new money is made up really only two ways in real estate, it's, it's it's land use change. And that just takes time, and you have to have a sense for where things are going. And, you know, make those moves early, or luck. And when you are lucky, you know, it's often interpreted as being smart. But there's a huge component of luck when values just go up. And the US market to me, they're the swings are, you know, the tide going in, and the tide going out. And you got to be in early. Because when they go down, you know, there's just, it's, it's, it's bleak, it's it's dental records, it's, it's, it's, you know, carcasses, I I wouldn't want to put it all on your on the line. Even though you know, it's got an allure in terms of how much money you make I like Canada, it's more, you know, stable or sound more measured and less competitive, quite frankly, we don't have as much opportunity. We don't have a dynamic economy, where any, any idea can get financed, you know, anybody can come after, you know, it's very curtailed by the conservative banking structure, and it's quite spread out and inefficient. So it doesn't allow for, you know, too many, you know, it's not that much meat on the bone. So if you've got your thing and you protect it, when you get up early and stay late, you know, you can, you know, you can print them you can have a pretty good run, that's not necessarily the case, us which is why the Walmarts of the world are so remarkable, staying on top for you know, 3540 years in the US. It's thank you so much for joining us today and really giving us a great session for for everyone in the audience. By the way, if you ever get a chance to go see Mitchell speak live. I know he has lost today on zoom. You see the other stories, and I've heard a few of those stories and they're absolutely fantastic. You're an incredible storyteller Michel. But you actually put a lot of like, when you listen, you take things to heart here and you think about how they're relevant to you. So thank you again for sharing those stories with us and sharing your perspectives it's it really is a pleasure. Thank you for having me. So again, if you're interested in our the way forward live webcasts and this one will be has been recorded and will be put out there please visit us at p OE dash leadership.com you'll find a number of our recorded past webcasts including Dr. Jason sock. We talked about resilience today. If you're at all having trouble battling through this whole COVID thing and feeling the February blues, please go listen that webcast That guy is phenomenal and incredible individual coaching some of the top athletes and CEOs in the world. We've had Professor Rosabeth Cantor from Harvard, Joe Jackman, Harry Kramer, there's a whole group of different webcasts for you to enjoy coming up March 23. We welcome Steven Kotler the author of 13 books, including nine bestsellers and three New York Times bestsellers, Stephen will sit down for a fireside chat, and share his insights on decoding the secrets of elite performers, athletes, artists, scientists, CEOs, who have achieved what was provably as thought as impossible, will learn how we can stretch far beyond our capabilities making impossible dreams much more attainable for all of us spread the word Steven Kotler is committed to leadership. And finally my offers out there you have my email. So email if you'd like to learn more about what we do, and maybe even give it a shot unless you try something you never know. And a 60 day trial doesn't take much of your time. I'd like to wish you all a fantastic day and a wonderful rest of the month. I'm happy to see February on its way out and spring on the horizon. We'll see you next month. Thank you for joining us today.