Realty Life
Veteran realtor and industry leader Ken McLachlan talks with real people about their passions, their accomplishments and the moments that changed their lives. Realty Life is an inspirational and powerful look at how life turns and the journeys that follow.
Realty Life
Yannick Dagenais' 24/7 Real Estate Hustle
What fuels a 10-year-old boy to become a real estate powerhouse by 29?
Ken McLachlan sits down with Yannick Dagenais, a young agent from Ottawa who turned childhood adversity into entrepreneurial fire.
From launching a community basketball league at 14, to building a window-washing empire through university, to owning 24 doors in real estate and ranking among the top solo agents in his company, Yannick’s journey is packed with hustle, heart, and hard-won wisdom.
They explore the power of discipline, the impact of early-life challenges, and why Yannick tracks everything from his protein intake to property investment ROI with military precision.
Listen For
10:10 – How a Window Cleaning Biz Funded His Empire
16:55 – Fear vs. Discipline: His Guiding Forces
21:01 – A Day in the Life of a Real Estate Machine
30:06 – The Real Dream? Helping Others Become Millionaires
Guest: Yanick Dagenais
Ken can be reached at:
Ken McLachLan (00:11):
This is going to be fun. I'm here with a good friend of mine that I've gotten to know at different events that we have in the company. He's worked for our company for many years. The first time I ever met him was at a golf tournament where I think he killed me, but our team didn't do that well, but he was sensational as always. But I think it's important that we have this young man on the podcast today. I want us to learn what inspires him, what's helped him grow, the success that he has and what actually gets him out every day to build and grow his business. So really pleased. We're honored to have with me today, Yanick Dagenais. Welcome.
Yanick Dagenais (00:54):
Thank you for having me.
Ken McLachLan (00:55):
Perfect. I said your last name, right? Correct.
Yanick Dagenais (00:57):
You did. You did awesome. You did
Ken McLachLan (01:00):
Well. I am glad you're here. And how are you today?
Yanick Dagenais (01:03):
Very good. Yourself?
Ken McLachLan (01:05):
I'm great. So a little background. You're 29 years old, correct?
Yanick Dagenais (01:08):
Correct.
Ken McLachLan (01:09):
Live in Ottawa. You're a real estate agent? Correct. Have you lived there all your life? Ottawa,
Yanick Dagenais (01:15):
Rockland. So the east side of Ottawa.
Ken McLachLan (01:16):
Yeah. But part of Ottawa community like that?
Yanick Dagenais (01:18):
Yes.
Ken McLachLan (01:18):
Yeah. So tell us a bit about what you're 29. How long have you been in real estate?
Yanick Dagenais (01:24):
March, 2019. So five full years. Five years and a half.
Ken McLachLan (01:30):
So you started when you were 20 or 24?
Yanick Dagenais (01:35):
I was turning 25 in a month.
Ken McLachLan (01:37):
25. Did you go to university or secondary?
Yanick Dagenais (01:40):
What did you take? Human kinetics. The goal was to be a gym teacher.
Ken McLachLan (01:44):
Wait a minute, wait, wait. You took what?
Yanick Dagenais (01:47):
Human kinetics. So the idea was,
Ken McLachLan (01:49):
Tell me about that.
Yanick Dagenais (01:50):
My mother's a, so I was raised by a single mother. My mother's a teacher and I have a twin sister that she also went towards the teaching path. In my mind, it was always my mom's a teacher. I needed to be teacher. My idols in high school were always gym teachers. So for me that was the way to go.
Ken McLachLan (02:09):
So you were going to be, you got your degree in that and you were going to go that you're going to teaching. So how did you get into the line we're in now real estate? What
Yanick Dagenais (02:18):
Happened? So I think it started at 14 years old. My business, I started my first business when I was 14. I started a basketball league in my community. They had this program in Ontario, it's called summer business or summer company or something like that, to give you a first grant of 1,500 at the beginning of the summer and another grant at the end of the summer. And I decided to, there was nothing in my community for basketball, and I was a big basketball player. So once a week for eight weeks straight, I had this basketball league community. So I remember being 14, I was going around local YMCAs, local basketball teams, presenting my little flyer that I actually printed out today I wanted to show. For me, this is a huge piece of learning.
Ken McLachLan (03:00):
So you're showing me A-C-M-S-L Facebook page,
Yanick Dagenais (03:04):
Cave Caveman Basketball Summer League. That's what it was called.
Ken McLachLan (03:07):
Caveman basketball. Summer league
Yanick Dagenais (03:09):
In Rockland. Get it. So Rockland
Ken McLachLan (03:11):
Caveman.
Yanick Dagenais (03:11):
Yeah. Okay.
Ken McLachLan (03:12):
So you started this basketball league in Rockland grade the age of 14.
Yanick Dagenais (03:18):
Yep,
Ken McLachLan (03:19):
10th grade. And how did you make money on it? Tell me about that.
Yanick Dagenais (03:22):
It was a hundred or 120 per player. I had 95 players and I was working full-time Monday to Friday at YNC as instructor. Where I think I started my real estate career properties is that all this money went toward my first property, which I bought at 18 years old, right when I started. Wait,
Ken McLachLan (03:43):
Okay. I want to get into that. So you started this league, you developed it, you charged him $95 to get involved, correct. Or
Yanick Dagenais (03:50):
How much money was it? I think, but 9,500
Ken McLachLan (03:52):
Bucks. So you had 95 players and you ran this for the summer. You got a grant from the government to do this,
Yanick Dagenais (03:57):
But
Ken McLachLan (03:58):
Where did you get this spirit of entrepreneurship? Where did that come from?
Yanick Dagenais (04:05):
That's a good question. I think the answer is I added in me. It got fueled up. It started when I was 10 years old. My parents got divorced. My father basically just took off and me and my sister did not want to be raised anywhere near him. So at a young age, me and my sister got exposed to two things, money essentially, because my mother teacher a good job, but we were two and she wanted us to keep the same lifestyle. So we kept the same house, we kept the same sports, we kept everything, which, because she didn't want us to, for example, move in a rougher area. And then the kids being involved into drugs and take, obviously she's a teacher, so she saw what it could do to someone to take that pat. So she did not want us to take that pat.
(04:55):
But it did come at a price where, for example, money was often a conversation. We couldn't eat everything we wanted at that age. Sometimes we had to careful with the budget, we couldn't do certain things. So what it showed me, or I guess it light up a light if I can say that in English, is that at a young age, I was exposed to money and I felt powerless in a way that I became the man of the house at 10 years old, no one to show me. For example, I had to cut the grass, but no one ever showed me how to cut the grass or it sounds stupid, but every little thing that you're supposed to do outside of, or as a guy, no one ever showed me or a father. Never really.
Ken McLachLan (05:38):
Yeah. So was the money situation when your dad left and you were with your mom and your sister, did you feel this insecurity around money that you were afraid that you were going to be without
Yanick Dagenais (05:50):
Powerless?
Ken McLachLan (05:52):
What's
Yanick Dagenais (05:52):
That mean? I still remember the exact same spot. I remember my, they were arguing, blah, blah, blah, and I had no idea what to do. I went downstairs and I went in a little ball, I guess next to the couch. I still remember bawling my eyes out there. And that feeling I had in that specific spot was basically, I felt like I was too young. I couldn't do anything. We didn't have any power, money. I felt like there was nothing I could do. And I remember that feeling because in my mind it was, sorry, my language, but fuck this, I'm going to do something about it. And then that's how I started. I think
Ken McLachLan (06:29):
In business old 10, you were 10. I
Yanick Dagenais (06:30):
Was 10 at that time. And then the business came along at 14.
Ken McLachLan (06:34):
So what an impact. I mean, we're all faced with different things in our life, challenges and stuff like that. And what we make of them is what matters. And so you remember that clearly at 10 years old, the powerless feeling you had and knowing that if you were, correct me if I'm wrong, knowing that in order for you to succeed in life and do something and take that feeling away, you had to do something about it
Yanick Dagenais (06:57):
Yourself. Correct.
Ken McLachLan (06:58):
And nobody else would do that for you? No,
Yanick Dagenais (07:02):
And I think that's something I learned. So when I got into real estate, a lot of people were asking me, oh, how do you do this? How do you do this? And at first, in my mind, I, I didn't know what to answer. I'm like, what do you mean? What am I doing? I'm doing it. I don't know. I don't have an answer for you. And I think the best answer I came up with throughout the years was, and we'll get to that, but I had a window cleaning company and I had this contract in Abram. It was a four level building. So basically 40 foot, about 10 foot per level, give or take 40 foot building. And my ladder was 34 foot basically, I still remember I had this employee, the ladder was all the way extended to the up. So 35, 34 feet, my two feet were at the last metal bar, and I was holding myself with one N on the window frame
Ken McLachLan (07:52):
Outside.
Yanick Dagenais (07:54):
Okay. And at that time, I didn't even know really what I was doing. And when I look back, I am like, okay, this was pretty stupid.
(08:03):
But I think that's exactly the mentality that I had no excuse. It was whatever needed to be done was done. The thought of dying, that they didn't even occur in my head. It needed to be done. I have the contract, it needs to be done today. I have another contract tomorrow. I don't have time to, it needs to be done. That's all. I don't have time to call someone a lot of, I guess, friends or that I have, let's say you had a father figure you would take the time to call your father. Hey, can you help me out? I didn't have that. Me. You didn't have that. I'm on my own. That's it. Get it done.
Ken McLachLan (08:37):
So you did it. Yeah.
Yanick Dagenais (08:39):
Well, again, I would not do that again, but it was extremely stupid that day. But it was just to tell you the mentality.
Ken McLachLan (08:44):
Tell us about the window cleaning business. So what age did you get into that and why?
Yanick Dagenais (08:49):
So, 18, 19, the first year of university.
Ken McLachLan (08:52):
Okay. So tell us about it.
Yanick Dagenais (08:54):
The idea was to do more than minimum an hour. I had the basketball league, which was going well, but that was only once a week. But my other jobs were, I did a lot of serving summer camps. And then I wanted something that at that point, it was my third business, the window cleaning business. So I wanted something that I could work outside, do my own hours, be on my own schedule, but basically bet on myself. Essentially when you work someone, you're betting on someone else. If you work by yourself, you're betting on yourself. Yeah. No, boom. I did a lot, lot of door to door. The first three years, basically my days where I was starting to clean windows at 6:00 AM give or take, I would clean windows all the way up to six, 7:00 PM and then do door to door, seventh and nine, seven to nine 30.
Ken McLachLan (09:40):
So door knock after to dig up business after that.
Yanick Dagenais (09:44):
Sorry, what?
Ken McLachLan (09:45):
You would door knock after you finished your full day of work to get new
Yanick Dagenais (09:48):
Business? Yep.
Ken McLachLan (09:50):
And you're 18 years old at this time. Years old. Most of your friends, most of us were out there doing drugs and partying and you'd bypass that whole thing. You actually worked and built it up. And how long did you have the window cleaning business?
Yanick Dagenais (10:04):
10 years. I got rid of it last year.
Ken McLachLan (10:07):
And it made a lot of money for you?
Yanick Dagenais (10:10):
Honestly, I want to say that it is probably the part of my real estate business right now. My real estate business in real estate, and it's going very well. But I want to say that's probably the window cleaning business that got me to the point where I am today. Because two things, it got me out of my shell and two, all the money I was doing, I was putting everything aside to buy property. So my first one was at 18, 19, 20, and so on. But it gave me credibility. So when I started my real estate career, I had my university degrees. I had seven or eight properties, income properties. So at least when I went to a client and I'm like, Hey, this is the property income property for you, it.
Ken McLachLan (10:43):
So let me back this up a bit. You mentioned you had three businesses, real estate's, your third business, what was the second one?
Yanick Dagenais (10:49):
So it was called Alpha lead generation, SEO. So search engine optimization. Basically we would own real estate, but in the virtual world, for example, I would create a towing company website for whatever city. And then we started to search engine optimization. So organically added ranked on Google,
(11:13):
We would get a fake number, which we could connect to any number we want. So initially when the website would start, it would start generating business. We would literally get a call saying, Hey, I'm stuck along the iWay, can you help me? Yeah, no problem. Someone's going to be there in 20 minutes, whatever, call a towing company and say, Hey guys, can you handle more business? This is what we do. We rank websites. Can you handle free business for the next three months? So we would feed this business free business. Once the website would generate a steady income of calls, I guess, then we would rent the website, for example, 500, $600 a month. And basically whatever the fake number we would've on that website, when people clicked it, it would send it to whoever's renting the website.
Ken McLachLan (11:58):
Yeah, brilliant.
Yanick Dagenais (12:00):
If that guy didn't want to rent the website, no problem. We'll just rent it to your competitor.
Ken McLachLan (12:04):
How long did you do that?
Yanick Dagenais (12:06):
A year, two years. Give or take.
Ken McLachLan (12:07):
It did. Okay.
Yanick Dagenais (12:09):
It did okay. I just, you're spending about 10, 12 hours a day on a laptop. I couldn't do that.
Ken McLachLan (12:16):
I can't imagine you doing that sitting there
Yanick Dagenais (12:17):
And no, I didn't like it. Crazy. That's the reason. Didn't
Ken McLachLan (12:20):
Like it. Okay. So let's talk about real estate. So well, a couple things. First I'm going to talk about where did you get the idea that real estate buying real estate was important for you?
Yanick Dagenais (12:33):
So in high school, when I started the basketball league, I had this mentor in Rockland where for me, it was a great example, a solid marriage. He was running with his wife every morning in the town had I think 10 income properties. For me, that was the dream. I guess
Ken McLachLan (12:52):
The mentor
Yanick Dagenais (12:53):
Is pillars, was family being in shape and wealth obviously. And for me that was so I didn't know the guy. I sent him a message, I'm like, Hey, can I sit down and buy you coffee? And that's how it started. Yeah.
Ken McLachLan (13:07):
Was he in your life today?
Yanick Dagenais (13:09):
Yeah, I still see him maybe once every three months, four months, give or take.
Ken McLachLan (13:12):
Wow. So meeting with him, being inspired by what he was doing as an investor at the age. How old were you when you bought your first house?
Yanick Dagenais (13:21):
18.
Ken McLachLan (13:22):
Okay. So how many houses do you have now? Do you want to tell us? Or
Yanick Dagenais (13:24):
Doors? 24.
Ken McLachLan (13:26):
24 doors. And you're 29,
Yanick Dagenais (13:30):
Correct? I'm trying to catch up with my age. That's the goal. So I know there's Sixplex and we're at 30 anyway. I'm turning 30, so we'll be fine.
Ken McLachLan (13:38):
Yeah. And are you still buying? Are you confident in the market? Okay. So you switched, you bought houses to everything else. The natural progression with it. You got your degree in university, you did all that stuff and you had to come to the decision. Now that I have my degree, I either can get into that field, be a teacher with my mother, and still have the investments on the side or get into something different. So what compelled you to not get into teaching or using your degree?
Yanick Dagenais (14:09):
And that's something I tell a lot of people. The matrix, if you will, will tell you that you do your degree and you're in class all the time and you get good grades and you study. And so my mother's a teacher. My deal with her was that as long as I got a seven GPA, I could do whatever I wanted. That was the deal. So basically starting with year two of university, I was never in class. They would literally bring me down the aisle to show me my driver's license to prove that I was the guy doing the test. I was never in class. I was studying, but very late after my door to door at 10:00 PM when I was done my door to door and back home from the window cleaning, that's when would study and review all the slides from university. But was I in class during the day? No. I was cleaning windows, putting many aside to buy future properties and doing door to door.
Ken McLachLan (15:00):
That was your whole university?
Yanick Dagenais (15:02):
Yes, sir.
Ken McLachLan (15:03):
So you didn't spend a lot of time in the classroom wasting time doing that. You actually did your work.
Yanick Dagenais (15:09):
Yes.
Ken McLachLan (15:09):
The prospecting. And after, how much sleep did you get every night?
Yanick Dagenais (15:12):
Not much. 4, 5, 6 hours.
Ken McLachLan (15:15):
And you did this for four years?
Yanick Dagenais (15:17):
Four years straight. And with multiple jobs, like I had serving jobs, my time was fully booked. Wow. Yeah.
Ken McLachLan (15:25):
Where the hell did you get this?
Yanick Dagenais (15:27):
Just again, a fire was lit up in me at the age of 10 years old. And the way I say this, you always have two choices, right? You either complain or you do something about it. My fear
Ken McLachLan (15:41):
Was, yeah, what gets you down
Yanick Dagenais (15:43):
The fear of not. So I always compare it to, it's going to sound funny, but video games, video games, often you get the choice to upgrade certain things and then it takes you down a certain path, right?
Ken McLachLan (15:57):
Yeah.
Yanick Dagenais (15:58):
So something I think I do properly is that I can foresee where my, for example, if you put no time into eating well and doing physical activity, you're eventually going to end up with health problems. Correct? Correct. You don't need a crystal ball to know that. But if you put, for example, three hours a day into your business, well that's going to give X result down the road if you put 10 hours. So you have to do a balance between family fitness, your career, real estate career for example. And the amount of time you allocate and obviously how smart you work towards those goal is going to take you. So, sorry, I'm drifting, but what was the
Ken McLachLan (16:38):
Question? You're not, well, you're doing a great, I'm just the inspiration we're talking about how did you become so driven? And you're talking about So the
Yanick Dagenais (16:46):
Fear.
Ken McLachLan (16:47):
Well, the fear, but I think what you're really describing, Ann, is the discipline that you were able to have to actually put the work in the time
Yanick Dagenais (16:55):
To do
Ken McLachLan (16:55):
It. You weren't afraid to do the work. You're not afraid to do the work even today. But from an early age, you knew that in order to succeed and to be fulfilled, you have to actually put the time in and actually do it and proceed on that. So whatever you take on, you actually do the work all the time. Correct. And with your real estate career, you have developed into, I think, and I can't verify this, but I think I can say that you are the number one single agent in our company of over 2100 agents that sells the most homes by yourself.
Yanick Dagenais (17:32):
The amount of transaction, I think you're
Ken McLachLan (17:33):
Right. Yeah. Transactions per year.
Yanick Dagenais (17:34):
I think you're right.
Ken McLachLan (17:36):
And you're fourth, fifth, sixth year real estate. And you're doing this all by yourself. And do you have an assistant?
Yanick Dagenais (17:42):
Nope.
Ken McLachLan (17:45):
Nope. So what do you do for fun
Yanick Dagenais (17:49):
Parties?
Ken McLachLan (17:50):
I've seen what you'd do for fun, by the way.
Yanick Dagenais (17:53):
Yeah, I know. So once in a while I'll need to go out some I need to just let go and have fun. Yeah, but do I do it often? No, but once in a while, yes. You just need to disconnect. Have a fun night. But then in morning, I do have the guilt of going back to work. It's always there.
Ken McLachLan (18:15):
Yeah, you do it, don't you? You're so disciplined. That's what I love about you is that you're really clear on what you want to do. How do you deal with rejection?
Yanick Dagenais (18:25):
I don't care at all. You don't? Zero? No.
Ken McLachLan (18:28):
Well, there's a lot of people do though. I mean, there's a lot of people that are afraid to, and I always had the problem as well. You're afraid to ask for what you want because the fear of not getting what you want. I mean, somebody might say, I'm not going to list with you. I'm not going to go out with you, I'm not going to, whatever it is. And the fear of, oh, they're rejecting me personally. My
Yanick Dagenais (18:47):
Approach. Yeah, sorry. No, sorry. Keep
Ken McLachLan (18:48):
Going. Go ahead. I want to hear what
Yanick Dagenais (18:50):
My approach is that I am sacrificed. For example, I don't have a wife, I don't have kids. I am extremely disciplined. I literally put my heart on the line with this job. So my philosophy is that if you don't want to work with me, that is zero problem. I'm going to put my time and my old energy in somebody that's going to see the value into what I'm doing. And between you and I am looking into my local area, charging, not going to get into the exact amount I'm charging, but I'm charging less. I'm charging probably a little less than the top competitors. The 103 transaction I did considering if I would've charged the full amount that most age in charge, statistically speaking, I would be extremely, I think I'm doing it in a very honorable beneficiary way that I'm not screwing over my clients at all. It's not a question of screw over, but I'm offering a
Ken McLachLan (19:54):
A fair, fair.
Yanick Dagenais (19:55):
More than fair value place
Ken McLachLan (19:57):
On that. On that
Yanick Dagenais (19:57):
For the service I'm bringing, I think the clients are getting,
Ken McLachLan (20:00):
Yeah. And this is not a commentary on what you should or shouldn't charge for commissions. This is basically that your business model, you do X and you're developed your business model by doing X, and you're happy with that, what it gets you and the value present to that. So that's important to you. But you said just now that when to deal with about rejection, it's basically it just bounces off. You don't take it personally at all.
Yanick Dagenais (20:26):
I take two seconds to think about it and then that's it. Move on.
Ken McLachLan (20:30):
And again, that was a learned behavior or was that something that's just been in you all your life?
Yanick Dagenais (20:36):
Again, it's the mentality. Remember that latter example? The whatever needs to be done is done. So rejection is literally part of the process. And I understand that. And you're going to get rejected maybe 40 times before it works on the 41st time you learn 40
Ken McLachLan (20:55):
Times. Yeah. Do this for me. Describe a perfect day for you or typical day.
Yanick Dagenais (21:01):
Typical day. Usually wake up at 6:37 AM That's right now. As of right now?
Ken McLachLan (21:07):
Yeah. Right now.
Yanick Dagenais (21:08):
Tell us, wake up 6:37 AM eat breakfast. We'll answer email for about an hour. Go to the gym. Nine to 10. That's the only pretty much hour. I turn my phone off after that 10 to 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM I'll be all over the place. So whether it's looking for potential investments for myself, looking for investment for my clients, prospecting for clients, my usual real estate.
Ken McLachLan (21:36):
So how do you get clients? What's your program?
Yanick Dagenais (21:39):
Yeah, every time I drive, I try to call. That's one. So just to check in, not even talk about real estate, just hey, hey buddy, how are you? How's life? So talk to different people. I try to do a lot of community events. So whether, for example, basketball leagues a tournament, once in a while, invite different group of people. For example, I love surfing during the summer, so I invite people to surf at my place. But
Ken McLachLan (22:06):
Wait a minute. You live in Rockwell, right?
Yanick Dagenais (22:09):
No, Windover actually.
Ken McLachLan (22:10):
Windover. And you live on a lake, don't you?
Yanick Dagenais (22:13):
On the water? Yes.
Ken McLachLan (22:14):
Yeah. And you surf on this?
Yanick Dagenais (22:16):
Yes sir. Yes
Ken McLachLan (22:17):
Sir.
Yanick Dagenais (22:17):
A wake surf boat? Yeah.
Ken McLachLan (22:19):
You have a boat and do that. When do you have time for this?
Yanick Dagenais (22:22):
At night. At night.
Ken McLachLan (22:23):
At night.
Yanick Dagenais (22:24):
And that was, so I just finished building this place. The conversation was should I get a cottage for this, blah, blah, blah. I don't have time for a cottage. I don't have time to go away for a weekend. But I do have one hour and two hours here. And then so having the boat literally park in the yard is, you can jump on
Ken McLachLan (22:39):
It,
Yanick Dagenais (22:39):
Surf for two hours, come back, work or even have your laptop. Sometimes I'll do my deals on the laptop, on the boat, whatever.
Ken McLachLan (22:47):
But
Yanick Dagenais (22:47):
I'm known to be the guy with the laptop. I always have my laptop on me.
Ken McLachLan (22:50):
Sure. 10 o'clock in the morning, you're actually, your workday starts really is what you're
Yanick Dagenais (22:54):
Doing. Yeah.
Ken McLachLan (22:55):
And how much time do you dedicate each day to developing a new business? Do you have a program on that? Do you have something in your head that says, I have to spend three hours today, or
Yanick Dagenais (23:06):
I want to say in my day, I don't spend a lot of time to getting new clients, but I spend a lot of time on my current clients. For example, this recent client of mine, I bought his place, his income property. I found this tenant forum at free of charge,
(23:26):
Explained to him the whole process I usually take. So the questions I ask show him exactly how to do the tenancy agreement, do it for him, but also take the time to show him exactly what he needs to do in the future, should he wants to do it himself. After that, send him a gif, make sure he has a nice picture with his new income property. So he's proud of it because he obviously worked to do the down payment and obviously anybody's proud of having their first income property. So that client obviously is going to be extremely happy. And he's going to tell all his friends, why would you not go with this guy?
Ken McLachLan (24:01):
So if you weren't in the picture as the realtor, can somebody else, can I step in and do what you're doing? Is it something that you can transition over to me? I mean, have you got a system in place, everything written down or programmed? No
Yanick Dagenais (24:16):
System in place. I need to get on that.
Ken McLachLan (24:19):
Well, I am not suggesting you do, I'm just trying to dig into how you do it. If it's transferable to somebody else, which might not be, because really driven on who you are and your personality and your drive to do this thing is what sets you apart from a lot of people actually. See, there's a lot of people that have problems with the rejection aspect of it. They don't want to bother people. They think they're bothering people, not that they ever bother people. And because of that, they stop. There's a lot of realtors out there that I've talked to, and a lot of people that struggle with this, that they don't want to be in the position that I don't want to be a sales or saleswoman looked at upon as that way. Therefore, I'm not going to, I can't phone people because it bothers them. I can't do this, do that. Where really it's all about connecting with people and being a service to people and giving people the opportunity to use your services if they need them. I don't think you've ever talked people into doing anything that they don't want to do, but it's providing for them the service and doing that. So getting past that inclination. Not to phone people is a big thing. Really big. And you've done that, be able
Yanick Dagenais (25:31):
To do that. I don't do phone calls.
Ken McLachLan (25:33):
No, but you do talk to people though. You do connect with people, you do do that. You don't prospect cold calls and stuff like that because that's impersonal. That's not your
Yanick Dagenais (25:41):
Style.
Ken McLachLan (25:42):
But in order to connect with people and take advantage of the time and have the discipline to do it, is what you have done. And do you consider yourself unique to other people that you're able to do that? Or do you think that anybody could do it?
Yanick Dagenais (25:56):
The only thing I think I'd bring on the table that some people might not bring is that the experience of about 11 years that I've started with absolutely nothing and built a 24 door real estate portfolio other than that, and again, I didn't have any and out or whatever. So if I did what I did at the age of 18, I think anybody can do it as long as you put in the time.
Ken McLachLan (26:21):
What would you tell a person starting out today in this business? What would you don't out
Yanick Dagenais (26:25):
Don? Count your hours. Don't have excuses. Take care of your body. That's important because there's no point of being number one in the business if you're healthy or you're going to die from cancer a year later because you,
Ken McLachLan (26:37):
You eat well as well. You're really looking at, you're eating.
Yanick Dagenais (26:41):
It's the long-term approach, right? Everything doing now is for in 20 years from now. So if I'm not thinking that way, what am I doing?
Ken McLachLan (26:48):
So tell me about 20 years from now, who are you? What do you got? What
Yanick Dagenais (26:52):
Are you doing? I don't think I'll ever retire. I'll reduce my hours and work with maybe just my, some specific clients I want to work with. Maybe I'll have my real estate portfolio that should be paid off. So I should be making, and those are things in my services. Sorry, I'm drifting. But
Ken McLachLan (27:11):
In
Yanick Dagenais (27:11):
My service, I literally created my own diagrams like numbers, which is Excel for Apple about it calculates exactly your pension plan in 20, 25 years from now.
Ken McLachLan (27:23):
So you had this mapped out already.
Yanick Dagenais (27:25):
I know exactly how much I'm going to be doing at exactly what age. And yeah, I have literally drafts doing simulation on if ever the interest rate goes up to this amount, if ever it goes up to this amount. Everything is, I do this with eating as well. I literally calculate everything. I eat calories, I'm length.
Ken McLachLan (27:44):
Okay, let's back up here. Let's back up. So this is very, very analytical, very good stuff. Yes. Okay. So what you've just said is that I've asked you the question 20 years from now, what is it? That kind of thing. And you said you've written and have models telling you exactly what it's going to be like based on even the things that change in the model, interest rates and things like that. So you're very clear on what your objective is and what it will look like based on the numbers that you're putting in there. You also have just said that you do the same thing with your eating, so you're very calculated in what you eat. So does this mean that you, what's that look like? I mean, we're all kind of struggling something, not all of us, but often what we eat is very comfort driven, not fuel
Yanick Dagenais (28:35):
Driven.
Ken McLachLan (28:37):
And so actually when you look at what you're eating every day, you actually calculate the number of calories you're putting into your body.
Yanick Dagenais (28:42):
Calories and proteins mostly. Yeah.
Ken McLachLan (28:46):
And you keep a record of that, right?
Yanick Dagenais (28:49):
Yes, sir. Yeah.
Ken McLachLan (28:51):
And so your objective is that, I mean, tell me how that looks. Tell me about that.
Yanick Dagenais (28:55):
So calories like 2,300. And in terms of protein, I'm aiming for example, between 180 to 200 grams of protein a day to keep the muscle mass. And then same thing with, for example, my business model. I have objective of, I know my bottom line, how much I need to do to cover everything. And then ideally to do every year my goal is, for example, 35 transaction. I do well above that, but that's the minimum goal I'm aiming for every year.
Ken McLachLan (29:26):
So you have the discipline in your food, you have the discipline in your business. What other parts of your life are you that disciplined with
Yanick Dagenais (29:33):
Fitness? Family as well. I want to say, for example, my twin sister lives 200 meters away. My mother's a hundred meter away. So we don't schedule, we don't have a schedule there at 7:00 AM and I had to leave at seven 20. No, but we see each other often. So that's, I want to say pretty disciplined toward that side. Those again are the three pillars of that model I had when I was in high school. I was family, wealth and fitness.
Ken McLachLan (30:02):
So what's your big, big dream? Big,
Yanick Dagenais (30:05):
Big dream.
Ken McLachLan (30:06):
Yeah. Under the box, like unbelievably big,
Yanick Dagenais (30:10):
Big, big dream. So a good question. I think I go for smt, like for example, next year I want to build two sixplex. So that's the small dream, I guess. The big, big dream,
Ken McLachLan (30:23):
The uncomfortable. I want to hear about what's uncomfortable for you.
Yanick Dagenais (30:28):
That's a good question. It's a good question. 10 years ago, my answer would've been something like, I want to own 10 properties. I want to be successful in business. And it would've been very vague. I'm at a point where I love my life, so I love what I'm doing right now. Fitness industry is going well, the business is going well. I love dealing with my clients. So do you want a family? Yes, absolutely. Eventually. So the next five years is going to, I'm going to have to spend more time towards that side. But two years ago, the last five years for me as a real estate agent really changed or accelerated the whole process. And then you had Covid, so all the properties doubled in value as a real estate agent career, obviously it went super well. So my goals that I was almost supposed to get in 25 years got not done, but sort of done in five years. So it's like I need to reevaluate where
Ken McLachLan (31:25):
The big dream. Yeah, I'd love to hear your big dream. I think that I'd love to see you spend time at being a little bit more outrageous if I can say this to you, more outrageous than what Yannick looks like at 55 years old. And what would be outrageous for you to even think of outrageous might be I want to get on a spaceship and fly to the space center, or I don't know, something stupid.
Yanick Dagenais (31:53):
I'm a very simple guy. So family honestly keep helping people. Fitness keep in shape.
Ken McLachLan (31:58):
But all within that realm though, I mean, I'd just be curious to hear what maybe you don't. I mean, I never had that outrageous dream either or not either. But I never had that outrageous dream. My thing was always about I got to live this journey. I have to really put in the time, the effort and the energy and all parts of my life to be fulfilling for me. So when I am 55, 60, whatever, I'm going to have everything the means to live a life of choice at that time. Not that I don't have a choice now, but to really develop along that. So maybe you don't have to have that outrageous. I have. I know you do.
Yanick Dagenais (32:37):
My greatest pride is, so the thing I like the most about our business and I think I like the most or would fulfill me the best is a lot of my close friends right now, and even clients, close clients, everybody that's sticking to me, I'm helping them build a incredible real estate portfolio with tips and tricks. And so I think the thing I'm the most proud of is I can say that I think I have three or four clients that I don't want to say I did it for them, they did it themselves, but I've helped them become millionaires and for that,
Ken McLachLan (33:11):
Yeah. So you're impacting your client base to develop their wealth portfolio as well, which is incredible. I mean, that's
Yanick Dagenais (33:17):
Improving their life, it's improving their life, more time to travel, more time with their family, more time for their health. So it's all the benefits that brings. Yeah, I think that's the greatest thing.
Ken McLachLan (33:28):
I think that's the greatest thing too. I mean, that's a good way to end it. I mean, you're so inspired, inspirational, a young man, 29 years old, to develop what you're doing to have the discipline, what you're doing. And one of the questions I often ask people, and you've already answered it before I asked it, is what? There was an impact around the age of 13, and you've said it 10 and 14, which is about the same period that defines who you are today. It sets you on the path and you clearly define that moment in the basement, in the corner, how that has impacted your entire life and made a difference for you. And that to me speaks volumes. You usually could have gone down that road of being resentful, angry, and just sitting, doing nothing, but you chose to make a different, it'd be a victim.
(34:19):
You chose to make a difference, and you're choosing to make a difference for yourself and for others. I want to commend you for that. That's incredible. And I'm really proud to be working with you, proud of what you do. I know the energy you have. I've been around you to watch you, the difference you make for yourself and others. There's almost this fearless part of you. And I know it's not fearless that you would jump out of a plane without a parachute. I know there's the fearless is that you would jump out of a plane with a parachute and do it. There's nothing really that you're not reckless. You're very calculated and you're very, I don't think anything can stop you. And I'm convinced of that really, that the sky is the limit for you. And I am so glad you spent the time today spending time with us to tell others how to do it, inspiring people how to do that, and really to have the discipline to get out there and do things really and not be afraid of it. So it wasn't that bad, right, today.
Yanick Dagenais (35:26):
No, I loved it. Yeah. I think it's my third podcast.
Ken McLachLan (35:29):
Yeah. Great. If people had to get ahold of you, how would they do it?
Yanick Dagenais (35:34):
Instagram, cell phone, text.
Ken McLachLan (35:37):
So give us the numbers. What's your cell
Yanick Dagenais (35:39):
Phone? Three six one seven three eight three four.
Ken McLachLan (35:42):
And your email address?
Yanick Dagenais (35:45):
Yanick, Y-A-N-I-C-K dot dash net. D-A-G-E-N-A-I s@almarkottawa.com.
Ken McLachLan (35:53):
Yeah, we're posted on the top there. But Yanick, thank you for being here. You're a privilege to talk to and I'm inspired by you. Thanks a lot, bud.
Yanick Dagenais (36:01):
Thank you for having me.
