Nightclub Owner, Realtor, and Auctioneer with Danny Hooper (Inspiring Advice) (#30) — Transcript
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 30
Dustin Serviss speaks with entertainer, auctioneer and former nightclub owner Danny Hooper about business, reinvention and enjoying life. Their conversation explores lessons from an unconventional career and the choices behind a fulfilling lifestyle.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Chapters
[00:00:24] Introducing Danny Hooper
[00:05:51] An early career decision
[00:11:58] The country-music nightclub
[00:16:41] Knowing when a business is failing
[00:19:23] Building a real-estate career
[00:26:36] Fundraising auctions and wealthy lives
[00:34:30] Fear and consequential decisions
[00:44:17] Renting before buying a motorhome
[00:49:17] A daily checklist for balance
[00:55:36] Danny’s fundraising resources
Guest & resources
Related episodes
Transcript
[00:00:01] Show announcer: Welcome to the Picture of Wealth, a podcast all about living more of your life now yet being responsible for your future. Lifestyle experimenter, wealth scientist, and financial coach, Dustin Service, shares life hacks, wealth tips, and interviews successful entrepreneurs on how they're thriving in happiness, purpose, and prosperity.
[00:00:24] Dustin Serviss: So I... I'm excited. Danny Hooper, thank you for joining us on the Picture Wealth Podcast today. I know we got lots to talk about, so, again, thank you for being here.
[00:00:34] Danny Hooper: Thanks, Destiny. Well, it's great to see you, buddy. And, of course, I wore this t shirt today, my brand new Moose Jaw t shirt. I did this as an homage to your dad, Tom, who used to play in Moose Jaw. I played a professional hockey
[00:00:49] Dustin Serviss: He did. Yep.
[00:00:50] Danny Hooper: And, he had a great career with Moose Jaw. He always spoke highly. I think your aunt still lives out there.
[00:00:55] Dustin Serviss: She does. She does. Yes. Very
[00:00:58] Danny Hooper: So I was I was, MCing a virtual conference for the municipalities of urban... Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association. They just changed the name. So I just finished MCing a a four day conference for them, doing it all virtually right from my home here. And, somebody was on speaking from Moose Jaw, and they had this T shirt on. I said, that's the coolest logo. That's a great... That is a great design. It's a
[00:01:22] Dustin Serviss: power... Yeah. It's a power moose, in the power position.
[00:01:26] Danny Hooper: I know. I said, send me a T shirt if you would. I said, I'll gladly wear that. I said, I got a good... One of my best friends is from Moose Jaw, your dad. And and I said, I'll promote Moose Jaw wherever I can. So we were up in Jasper skiing last week, and I was in Marmot on the mountain there, and I had my Moose Jaw T shirt on, and I was inviting everybody. I did a Facebook post saying, hey. Come to Moose Jaw. They've just opened this brand new Mount Capone.
[00:01:48] Dustin Serviss: Okay.
[00:01:49] Danny Hooper: Because anybody that knows anything about the history of Jaw actually spent some time there during the prohibition. And Yeah. Moose Jaw is famous for its underground tunnels that the rum runners and all that used to use during prohibition to get the liquor into the into the speakeasies and things like that. And Al Capone actually spent some time there. So I did this I did this post for Mount Capone, and I I shot it to them in Moose Jaw. They reposted, so it got lots of traction.
[00:02:15] Dustin Serviss: Well, that's, well, there's some history there that I I believe, my great grandfather was, instrumental in having a pool hall that, the tunnels may or may not have run underneath in, in the old days. So there's some old stories and, I think the Moose Jaw paper even ran a story about, old grandpa art. But thank you for the, I'm sure my father will really appreciate the boost
[00:02:40] Danny Hooper: in that
[00:02:41] Dustin Serviss: t shirt. We used to go there
[00:02:42] Danny Hooper: in the winter. We we both got notorious grandfathers because look at this. My grandfather, right here, buddy, was eaten by a bear.
[00:02:51] Dustin Serviss: I see a newspaper article. Bear, mauling kills city man.
[00:02:56] Danny Hooper: This is my grandpa, and, this is back in nineteen fifty nine. This is my dad's dad, my my grandfather. This picture was taken of grandpa just a few days before the bear killed him, but he was on a fishing trip, outside of, Hinton here in, the foothills of Alberta. And, yeah, the the black bear ran up and knocked his head right off it. Yeah. Yes.
[00:03:18] Dustin Serviss: It's a pretty So That's a pretty scary... So
[00:03:21] Danny Hooper: What did my grandfather teach me? Always carry bear spray.
[00:03:25] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. Or have more power than the, the ancillary bear. Yeah. Exactly. So you you go back to, born and raised in Edmond... Was it Edmonton or outside Edmonton?
[00:03:35] Danny Hooper: Oh, first of all, I gotta ask you. What what the heck are we doing here? You never even told me. You called me. We've been friends. I've known you since you were a little tyke, honestly.
[00:03:43] Dustin Serviss: Forty years. Yep.
[00:03:44] Danny Hooper: I've been so impressed to... From the sidelines to watch you build this incredible business that you've created and and the career that you've had, Dustin. And I'm not just saying this because it's your podcast, but, I've really admired you from afar. Your dad has always kept me posted as to what you've been doing, through your career, and I just, admire your your ambition. And, yeah. So when you called and said, oh, I wanna do a podcast with you, of course, I said yes. But then I didn't even stop to ask you what the heck this podcast is.
[00:04:11] Dustin Serviss: I know. Well, that just means this podcast is gonna be a hell of a good time.
[00:04:14] Danny Hooper: So What are we what are what are we talking about?
[00:04:17] Dustin Serviss: The Picture of Wealth podcast is a play on, you know, we've we've lived this life where I have, and this is sort of, you know, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, and I... The reason I asked you is is a long ways down, but we'll get there. So I was sort of under the impression that we work our asses off, get the best grades in school, climb the corporate ladder, build the biggest business, start your business, make it the best, and then sell it for the most amount of money. And at age sixty, you will then be happy. So the more money you could amass, the more happy you could be later in life.
[00:04:51] Dustin Serviss: So the whole purpose of all this hard work was sacrifice everything now, work evenings, weekends, and then at sixty, you'll have more money than the average person, and your happiness will be above average of other people. So... No.
[00:05:04] Danny Hooper: That's not the that's not the model that I followed. Well, I know it's all
[00:05:08] Dustin Serviss: when we checked
[00:05:09] Danny Hooper: it. We got you an alcoholic home with a lot of chaos, and there was no talk of school. You know, very little talk of school. If you went or didn't go, it wasn't a big thing. I didn't really enjoy school. I did I did, I grew up on a cattle ranch, west of Edmonton, a little town called Tomahawk, Alberta. I was born in Edmonton, but, a little later in my life as I was growing up, we moved out to Tomahawk. And I I tell people I I grew up in Tomahawk because that's where I had my first girlfriend. That's kinda where I really grew up. Yeah. But, yeah, I... I'm not joking. Dad was a dad was a drinker partier, and, I, he had
[00:05:51] Danny Hooper: me kinda convinced that I should be a lawyer for whatever reason. I think he, he had some friends who were lawyers, and I think he was trying to live vicariously through me. And so I thought, well, okay. I'll go be a lawyer. So I left the ranch after high school and, went to Camrose Lutheran College. I'm not even Lutheran.
[00:06:11] Dustin Serviss: Yep.
[00:06:12] Danny Hooper: But I went to Camrose Lutheran College. It's a satellite campus of the University of Alberta, and I started my bachelor of commerce degree. And, in fact, I... Not only am I not Lutheran, but I was the first Catholic to be elected president of the student council, true story. You can Google it, at Camrose Lutheran College. And the reason I got elected is because I had a hell of a campaign platform. Everybody else wanna make me Everybody I was running against wanted more bible study, more choir practice, all of this stuff, and my campaign platform was to get rid of the curfew on the girls' dorm. Perfect. Yeah.
[00:06:48] Danny Hooper: Back in the day, they had to be in at eight o'clock. The ladies had to be in at eight o'clock on, weeknights, and I think nine o'clock or ten on the weekend. So I turned it into a civil rights issue, and I had a landslide victory. Of course, all the guys voted for me, and about half of the girls, half of the... Well, all the bad ones voted for me. And, they got rid of the of the curfew on the on the on the campus to this day. So that's how I got elected. But two years into my, university studies, I realized this is not where I wanna be. First of all, dad didn't have the money to send me to college, so I had to pay my way.
[00:07:23] Danny Hooper: So how I did that is I put a little band together, a little three piece country band. I grew up in a country music home. In fact, my dad, back in the nineteen fifties and sixties, was a bit of a promoter hustler, and he and, a friend of his who was a DJ at a local country radio station, they set up a little business, and they used to bring in Grand Ole Opry stars into Edmonton to do shows at the Edmonton Gardens. K. So our house is all... I've got pictures. Somewhere, there's a picture of me sitting on Johnny Cash's lap, when I was about two years old. And so I got lots of em... Anyway, it was nothing but country music in our home.
[00:07:59] Danny Hooper: Man, when we were living in Tomahawk, I had a little weekend dance band. So now I go to college, and I'm going out on the weekends to play with my little dance band, and we're going out for five hundred bucks a night. And I had a bass player hired and a drummer hired. And at first, we split all the money. And, no one... And then I gotta back that up. We were going out for fifty bucks a man, so I was getting fifty there. So we're... We started at a hundred and fifty bucks. That's the story. So... And the true story. We start at fifty bucks each. So we're getting a hundred and fifty in it, but pretty soon we're getting popular.
[00:08:29] Danny Hooper: And now our rate went up to five hundred a night to hire us. And so I was playing every Friday, every Saturday night, and I quickly realized that you could still hire a bass player and a drummer for fifty bucks each, but I'm making four hundred bucks cash every Friday and every Saturday. I'm turning up in school on Monday mornings with eight hundred bucks in my jeans, and my buddies are bagging groceries Safeway for eighty five cents an hour back in the day. This is back in the early seventies, I guess. And, so I decided after two years of college because I did not like school. I did not enjoy it, and it wasn't for me.
[00:09:04] Danny Hooper: And, I I talked to my dad and I said, you know what? I'm gonna pack this in, and I'm gonna hit the road and see if I can make a go of it as a country music recording artist, which is what I did, and that was a big part of my career. I was an independent recording artist for, many, many years, and I laugh at... You know, nobody in BC will know my name. Very few people in Saskatchewan. My career was pretty much centered, right here in central and northern Alberta. And, so I quit college. I hit the road full time in nineteen seventy six, I think. I, entered a talent contest that summer at Klondike Days.
[00:09:41] Danny Hooper: I've got the trophy up on the wall right there. CFCW, the local radio station, had a talent contest, and I didn't win it. I was the runner-up. So the guy who did win it, he died. He had a heart attack about six months later. So to this day, I'm a little bitter that they didn't give his trophy to me because it's like Miss Rodeo Canada. You know? You got the Miss Rodeo and then you got the princess. Right? Now the idea is that if Miss Rodeo Canada falls off her horse and has a concussion that the princess comes in and gets everything. She gets the flag. She gets the nice saddle. That wasn't the case here. But I was just a runner-up.
[00:10:14] Danny Hooper: But the the the prize... Second place prize was a recording contract with royalty records. Stay here for a minute. Hang on. I gotta show you this. So this is my... I got I got a recording contract. I got to record this pair. That's me.
[00:10:32] Dustin Serviss: Awesome hair.
[00:10:33] Danny Hooper: Yeah. I know. So I hit the road with boxes of these things, and I start playing all these little oil rig towns in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I hit the road. And from nineteen seventy six to nineteen seventy nine, I was on the road seventy six, seventy seven, seventy eight, and seventy nine. I was on the road an average of forty eight to forty nine weeks out of the year, playing every little bar and every little honky tonk. And and, after that much time on the road, I was growing weary of of being on the road playing the bar scene. And it was not... You know, it had its moments where it was fun on the weekends when the bars were full.
[00:11:06] Danny Hooper: But when you're playing a little town like Provost or Casker or some place on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night
[00:11:14] Dustin Serviss: for a free It's the same seven people there every night.
[00:11:16] Danny Hooper: All... They're local alcoholics. Yeah.
[00:11:18] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. That's right.
[00:11:20] Danny Hooper: So, anyway, I said to my dad, I said, you know, I said, I'm out on the road, and I'm playing some pretty cool places like the Ranchman Steakhouse in Calgary, the Pump in Regina, the Barcade in Saskatoon. And these were nightclubs that featured really good food and really good entertainment. And I said to dad, I said, Edmonton doesn't have anything like that. So why don't we open up our own nightclub in Edmonton? And in fact, in, November nineteen seventy nine, we opened Danny Hooper's Stockyard, which was Edmonton's...
[00:11:48] Dustin Serviss: I didn't know this story.
[00:11:49] Danny Hooper: Oh, yeah. That was a good one. Here. Here, let me show you this. Yeah. Nineteen seventy nine, we opened. Danny Oh,
[00:11:57] Dustin Serviss: the menu.
[00:11:58] Danny Hooper: Yeah. The old menu. So this was Edmonton's first exclusive country music showroom, and we had a hell of a... An old Greek guy made the best steaks in town. I put them up against the keg steak or any steak. And our our food was phenomenal. And look at the stars that played... Of course, younger viewers here aren't gonna know these people, but older people will recognize names like Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, Ray Price, Gene Watson, Farron Young, Freddie Fender. All of these big stars came in and played the stockyards. So, we opened November nineteen seventy nine. We went broke in nineteen eighty six. Actually, that's not true.
[00:12:36] Danny Hooper: We actually went broke in nineteen eighty two. We just didn't realize it till nineteen eighty six.
[00:12:41] Dustin Serviss: Well, didn't you have any GICs at eighteen percent stock away for a rainy day?
[00:12:45] Danny Hooper: I have mortgages. I have mortgages I have mortgages at eighteen percent. And I'll tell you why we went broke at the stockyard, Dust, and you'll get a kick out of this. Our our club was located in an old church downtown, crappy location, ninety sixth Street, hundred and sixth Avenue. And, it was an old German Baptist church. The congregation had outgrown the the building, so it split off. And half of them went to South Edmonton, built a new church. Half went to the north side, built a new church. They desanctified the building and sold it. And, this would have been probably nineteen seventy.
[00:13:19] Danny Hooper: Originally, it was converted to a restaurant, and it changed hands a number of times. We came in and, there was a fellow running it, and we agreed to rent it. Dad and I did not have any money. So when we opened up the stockyard, so we said, well, can we rent it from you? And he he, signed a lease agreement with us. Four thousand dollars a month we were paying, but that included the knives, the forks, the cut rate, everything. We took over. We signed this lease. We... In two weeks, we were open up. We had the wagon wheels on the wall and, lit up disco dance floor. We'd taken that out, and we'd we'd made it look like a country bar.
[00:13:54] Danny Hooper: And we opened up, and, we were just about broke within the first two, three months because nobody came in. It was... We opened late November nineteen seventy nine. It's forty below and blah blah. But early in nineteen eighty, a movie came out called the Urban Cowboy that starred John Dravolta. Now overnight, everybody was into country music, mechanical bulls, and we were the only game in town. And so our best... We were just slammed. So, anyway, we're going like crazy. For about a year, we've been making a lot of money there. And all of a sudden, one night, there's a commercial realtor comes into the place, and he's got some clients in tow.
[00:14:31] Danny Hooper: And he's got the MLS catalog out, which they used to use these catalogs back in the day with all the real estate listings. He's walking... It's a Friday night. We're packed, and he's got these people, and he's showing them around. I went up to this guy, and I said, excuse me. He introduced himself. He's with Royal LePage, and I said, what are you doing? He said, well, I've got people interested in buying your your club. Nice. Well, that's... It's not for sale. He said, well, yeah. You're for sale. It's right here in the catalog. I said, what? I said, why would we be selling it? I said, we're... It's a gold mine.
[00:14:59] Danny Hooper: And he said, well, you're listed in the catalog, so the light went on. I went straight to my office downstairs, and I phoned the landlord. And, I said, Willie, I said, what's going on? I said, there's people in here having to look at the place. He said, oh. He said, I've been meaning to call you. Oh. And I said, oh, yeah. So what's going on? He said, well, he said, I... He said, I put the place on the market. I said, well, how can you do that? I said, we haven't missed any rent. We've been paying you four grand a month. We pay you right on time. He said, well, you've been paying the rent. I haven't been paying the mortgage.
[00:15:31] Dustin Serviss: Ugh.
[00:15:31] Danny Hooper: So it was being foreclosed on. So I'm gonna fast forward this story. Next Monday morning, dad and I are going to talk to our banker. Of course, we'd only been in business a year. We're, they don't care that you're a swinging country music nightclub in an old church. They're not gonna touch that with a ten foot pole, and we could not find conventional financing anywhere. So we had to go to underground financing, in the noncommercial market, private Yeah. Whatever you wanna call it. But we signed a mortgage with, with a guy for prime plus nine. Prime Plus nine on a four hundred thousand dollar mortgage. So...
[00:16:06] Dustin Serviss: Prime was probably at that time, like five.
[00:16:08] Danny Hooper: April nineteen eighty two. April nine... So this is nineteen eighty... Only ten percent.... One way he's done. April nineteen eighty two, Prime hit twenty one point nine percent in Canada.
[00:16:19] Dustin Serviss: Canada. Holy.
[00:16:20] Danny Hooper: Prime was twenty one point nine percent in Canada. We're at Prime plus nine. So we're paying a thirty percent thirty percent on on this, four hundred thousand dollar mortgage. That's a hundred and twenty grand in interest a year. That's ten grand a month in interest, and you're selling rum and coke. You can look at the menu for a buck seventy five.
[00:16:39] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. And a beer for
[00:16:41] Danny Hooper: a dollar ten. Those numbers weren't gonna work. So, anyway, again, long story short, we hung in as long as we could. As typically happens in these kinds of situations and lots of times, business owners, they pour their heart, they pour all... Everything they have into their business. And when it starts to fail, they don't recognize when it's time to pull a pin and sometimes to cut your losses and just get the hell out. And we did not see that at all. And, basically, everything we've made in the first year, year and a half of the business, and we'd taken a lot of money out of it, we started putting back in thinking that we can save this thing.
[00:17:17] Danny Hooper: We're gonna hang on. The economy's gonna turn around because when the national energy policy came in in nineteen eighty... I think it was about eighty two, if I'm not mistaken. The economy here tanked, and the clients that we had, we had oil companies that ran charge accounts with us, and we had a lot of them that we would bill for twenty five hundred, three grand a month. They were going bankrupt, so we're left with a bunch of receipt. It was just not a good situation at all. So I learned a hard lesson there, but, it was one of the best things that ever happened in my life was that that nightclub, failing.
[00:17:50] Danny Hooper: It was hard on the ego as those sorts of failures are, but, it's... Was such a blessing in disguise at the time. And I say that to encourage anybody that's going through challenges right now that we're facing during this pandemic. A lot of people losing their businesses. But, you know, I've I've I've got strong faith, and I've just... I I just believe that there is a master plan and that, very often we're we're blind. We don't know when it's time to to pivot and change course. I just call these things when they happen in your life. I call them turning points. And ninety percent of the time, you you can't plan for them. You don't know why.
[00:18:24] Danny Hooper: It can be an illness. It can be a divorce. It can be any kind of catastrophic event in your life. But if you hang in and you redirect and and, stay focused and work hard, you can come out of it. And it was the best thing ever happened because from there, I, you know, found myself sitting across the desk from a bankruptcy trustee with a choice, go bankrupt or pay us back our money. And, I I couldn't do that. I was able to negotiate a settlement, and they gave me one year to pay them back the amount of this settlement, which at the time was a ton of money for me, and I had no idea how I was gonna make that money.
[00:18:57] Danny Hooper: So I, had a sister who was with Royal LePage. She was selling real estate. She said, well, come try the real estate business out. And, I did, and I went in there completely naive, but broke, very motivated. And because I was so naive, I just took off and started rocking it. And, I got I got the... My debtors settled in eight months. So it didn't take the whole year. I got them paid off in eight months, and then I was able to, refill....
[00:19:23] Dustin Serviss: Think what do you think so early on you... And again, I know you're something that's different, but when you're trying to set up that, real estate practice is likability, the strategy you took, or what was your strategy to kind of build the real estate other than just sheer grit and nose to the grindstone having to pay back the debt?
[00:19:44] Danny Hooper: Well, that's a good question. It was not easy from the start. You know, I may be a likable character, but, the name recognition that I mentioned that I had actually worked against me initially. And the reason was people knew me as a country singer slash nightclub owner. The stockyard was very high profile. The morning after we closed the doors and went broke, we were front page on the Edmonton Sun. I don't have that hanging on my wall, so I don't need that reminder. But we were high profile. So the first few months were really tough. I started door knocking, going door to door, and people go, Danny Hooper, what are you doing?
[00:20:18] Danny Hooper: And I'd say, well, I'm selling real estate now. They go, oh, we have a realtor. Thanks very much. Or if I cold call people, they'd say, oh, no. We have a realtor. Thank you. So what I did is I went down to the real estate board. I said, I I need an award. I need some credibility. So what do you have to do to get the million dollar sales award? And they said you have to sell ten houses. It was... That was basically the gig back in nineteen... This is nineteen eighty six I started real estate. So I set that as a goal to sell ten houses. And I got out there and I just humped and hustled. And, when I...
[00:20:51] Danny Hooper: After I'd sold my ninth house and I was moving on to my tenth one, I went to the television station. I said, how much does it cost to buy advertising during the news? Six o'clock news. And they said, well, whatever whatever the amount was, I remembered it being the equivalent of what my average commission was. I said, okay. I'm gonna earmark my tenth house, the commission, and that's how much advertising I'm gonna buy on the six o'clock news. And, so I I... And then I sold my tenth house. I knew the... I'd be getting the award. So we produced a thirty second commercial of me sitting on my desk. I was with REMAX by now.
[00:21:26] Danny Hooper: I'd shipped it over from LePage to REMAX. I'm sitting on my desk and, hi. I'm Danny Hooper, and if you wanna buy or sell a house, twenty five seconds of blah blah blah. But the last five seconds was an announcer's voice coming on saying congratulations to Danny Hooper on receiving the MLS million dollar sales award. And the night that hit on the six o'clock news, the phone started to ring Dustin, and it didn't quit. It didn't... As a matter of fact, three years later, I I got the, REMAX Hall of Fame award, which is a million dollars, paid out in residential commissions. That's what the award was back in the day.
[00:22:02] Danny Hooper: He had to earn a million dollars in residential commissions to get the Hall of Fame award. So I did that in in just a little over three years. And, you know, the rest of the history, your dad was the vice president of marketing for REMAX, and we became very close friends. And, it was thanks to your dad that, they... REMAX took me on the road, and I traveled and spoke, I think, in every province and every state down in the states doing motivational and, speaking and sales training, for REMAX. So it was a it was a ton of fun. It was a great experience.
[00:22:30] Dustin Serviss: So in those... So now you've, like, got us to about age thirty ish, thirty five?
[00:22:36] Danny Hooper: Yeah. Yeah. About thirty five. I think I was, yeah. I was... Yeah. I was... Because I was probably about twenty nine when the stockyard folded twenty eight, twenty nine. So, yeah, early thirties, early thirties now.
[00:22:47] Dustin Serviss: So in there, were you ever worrying about, you know, saving for this retirement or, you know, investing or all that kind of stuff that would be perceived responsible adulting, back then?
[00:23:01] Danny Hooper: Yeah. Definitely. Because back then, you know, when you're identified, you know, as as as being a a mover and a shaker, you know, the phone was ringing every day with some kind... You know, somebody, a financial planner. They weren't called wealth management people back in the day. They were just financial planners. And so, yeah, we got involved in in some things, and, and none of it went well for me. And, I was just... I got some poor advice. I was, you know, I I wasn't with the right people. And, so didn't have a good experience with that. You know, I remember losing a bunch of mutual funds at one point and,
[00:23:37] Danny Hooper: you know, the economy was cycling and I was... It was me. It wasn't so much the people that I was dealing with. I I don't think I was hustled. I was just being naive. I didn't do my homework. I didn't do my research. So very quickly after losing some money in those kind of traditional type of of, investments, I decided I... I'm gonna stick with what I know, and that's real estate. So, I started to buy real estate. And at one point, I had a... I think thirteen houses or something that I that I bought. And I sold that whole portfolio to a family from Hong Kong that came over. I sold them a nice big luxury house here in West Edmonton, and they
[00:24:13] Danny Hooper: wanted to get into investment property. So I said, hey. You know, I've got nice package here for you, and they're all rented out to good tenants and good leases in place and and that. So, yeah. I did that. And then another time, I bought five new houses in one day, out in Stony Plain. There was a subdivision, and there were these manufactured homes that they were building. And the economy was flying at this point, and, they were bringing... The plant was bringing workers over from Germany to build these manufactured... These ready to move homes. And so I cut a deal, with the manufacturer of these homes to buy five of these things.
[00:24:52] Danny Hooper: I said, if you will guarantee leases, because they were they were scrambling trying to find a place to put all these German workers and no place to put no housing. So I said, I'll buy five of these if you'll guarantee leases, and I'll put the German workers in there. So that turned out to be a real good deal for a little while. But then sadly, shortly after that, Lisa, my wife and I got divorced. And so we had to sell all that. But, fortunately, we hit right at peak there, so we'd done really well on on. So Yeah. Anyway, I believe in kinda sticking with what you know. But it's funny you say that. You know? We talk about this. You know?
[00:25:27] Danny Hooper: Here I am now. I'm sixty three years old, and, I'm... You know, Barb has got a successful business. Now we are taking a very serious look at investing now for retirement. You know, our needs have all changed. You know, so we're talking to insurance people. We're talking to the wealth management people, and we're talking about, you know, now what do we do to shift around some of our holdings and, you know, tax becomes a big consideration and just state planning and all the rest of it. So we're going through all of that right now.
[00:25:55] Dustin Serviss: One one thing that you mentioned, we were chatting a few weeks ago on the phone that it was a catalyst to to this reach out in the podcast is you mentioned, you know, and I wanna hear about the the the auctioneering, which is your latest, you know, sort of... Or a long time thing, but your new thing is you you mentioned I'm not gonna actually stop working and retire as long as I can. And and I've seen you auctioneer. I've seen it in action. Help me understand the rush you get from being an auctioneer and the thought philosophy of not retiring and just if you can work, keep working.
[00:26:36] Danny Hooper: Yeah. I just, you probably know, as I know, a ton of people with a ton of money have done very, very well, followed kind of the traditional ladder... Climbed the traditional ladder of success. And I see these people at the fundraising auctions, and I'll just back up a second and say that back in nineteen eighty seven, I I started doing, fundraising auctions. You know, at the core, I've always been an entertainer. When people ask me what, you know, what do I put down on your occupation, I put entertainer because that's... I started as a young kid doing magic shows and haunted houses in the garage and charging neighborhood kids a diamond.
[00:27:12] Danny Hooper: So I've always had that banded, of course, the music business and the nightclub business, and real estate was the little time out kinda from entertainment. But once I got out of real estate in nineteen ninety five, I got back to entertaining full time. So to expand my, offerings, I knew I couldn't come back into entertainment, make a decent living as a country singer. And so I said I have to broaden out. So I focused on developing my skills as a corporate master of ceremonies and a fundraising auctioneer, and that business has just completely taken off. And, at my peak here a couple years ago, I was doing, you know,
[00:27:43] Danny Hooper: a hundred events a year and flying around clients... Lots of time flying me in jets to get from one auction to another and serving organizations as small as little church groups and schools and sport teams on up to the National Football League and the David Foster Foundation. So... And everything in between. So, got really, really busy with that, and the the the the money was great. And, anyway, I just drew a little blank here. Your question
[00:28:08] Dustin Serviss: again I'm I'm, you know, your your your connection with the crowd.
[00:28:14] Danny Hooper: Okay. Yeah. Well, we start talking about that. So at these fundraising auctions, I see a ton of these people with all this money, and they support these auctions like crazy and stuff. But I know some really unhappy people and some really miserable wealthy people. You know? And when I go to some of these bigger galas, you know, the big big ones, the the... And the really super rich people, and you could... I don't know. I... You can kinda look at people once you get that sixth sense and you and you get to read people as I know you do well. You get a sixth sense when there's true joy and and when it's masks and
[00:28:46] Dustin Serviss: Yeah.
[00:28:47] Danny Hooper: All the rest of it. So, yeah, my rush, you know, I mean, I just, you know, I just... I'm at a point right now where it could've... Boy, I've cycled through a lot of money, you know, made a ton of money and, cycled through a lot of it. But we're just at a really joyful place in our life right now. The resources that we do have available now, we wanna manage them properly over this next period of time. But, I... My greatest joy in life, aside from just love I get with my family and being happily married now and and all of that, my greatest joy is is my work. That's my mistress.
[00:29:22] Danny Hooper: And I get just a real adrenaline charge being on stage and entertaining people. That's the passion, the gift that God gave me. You know, everybody gets something special. Everybody gets unique talent or skill. I always say that. One of my greatest pet peeves is when people squander, you know, the natural gifts that they've, been given. The other sad thing for me is when people don't recognize the gifts that they've been given. And and further to that, when they don't see and appreciate and understand that no matter what your gift or talent is, what you're passionate about, you can learn to monetize that. You you can monetize.
[00:29:54] Danny Hooper: And I think I was the first auctioneer to ever charge for doing a charity auction because up to the point that I started charging back in nineteen eighty eight to do an auction, that was unheard of. Because you go to auction school and they say, as an auctioneer, you're expected to donate your time to charities and it helps build your business and it promotes goodwill and it's just as an industry, that's what we that's how we give back. And I didn't necessarily buy into that. You know? I recognized early on that going in as an entertainer at at a charity auction, I was getting people laughing.
[00:30:24] Danny Hooper: The more they laughed and the more I entertained them, the more money they spent. And then I started to really hone those skills and figure out little techniques and strategies and and, little tricks of the trade that I had to get extra money out of people. So it was very easy to measure the value that I was adding to these nonprofit events. So based on that, I was able to get my fees up. I started at five hundred tonight. You know, as soon as time ran out and I was getting double booked and multiple requests for a date, I knew then it was time to incrementally move my fees up. And I've steadily done that over the years to now, you know, I I
[00:30:59] Danny Hooper: charge an appearance fee and I charge a a commission, on the live auction and cash appeals and thing. Nobody seems to mind paying it because, again, it's measurable. I can, you know, I say...
[00:31:10] Dustin Serviss: Well, it's a results based, compensation. And I think just to back up a sec, so, you know, for anyone who doesn't know, when you do an auction, you know, someone can do an auction or a charity event without a professional like you, and they can have, you know, Barry, the guy that's the local president or something, do it trying his best and gets, you know, x amount of dollars where you come in even with your fees, you're gonna extract more out of the crowd. Even that after they pay you to to generate, you know, that result. So...
[00:31:40] Danny Hooper: Absolutely. And I guarantee that, you know, that's... You know, we tell all our clients if we don't perform, you don't pay. That's... You know, I'm I'm that confident in that I know how to get the money if if the people are in the room or virtually now for these auctions. You know, I I have the skill sets down to to get that money, and it's something that I've worked very, very hard, and working with a bunch of professionals. You know, I'm a member of an organization of benefit auctioneers, who share freely of information as people in your industry, I'm sure, share. And I learned that back in the days.
[00:32:13] Danny Hooper: I learned that the most successful people in the business were the ones who were most likely to help you along and share and, give you tips and and help you out. So, anyway... But, yeah, it's a measurable business, and I have so much fun doing it. I just love getting up in in front of a bunch of strangers and making them laugh and entertaining them and then making a lot of money for the organization and then being able take a nice paycheck home. So, you know, I say... I tell people all the time, I don't golf. And, if you're a passionate golfer, you never hear a passionate golfer say, I only have to golf one more month and then I can quit.
[00:32:50] Danny Hooper: Or someone who's passionate about fly fishing, I only have to fish one more weekend and then I can quit. And that's how I feel about the entertaining and what I do. So I'm out... I... My goal, my dream is to die on stage one night in the middle of a joke that I hit the floor before the punchline. And I just wanna see how long people leave me lying there, I think it's part of my
[00:33:10] Dustin Serviss: Part of the part of the show. Yeah.
[00:33:12] Danny Hooper: Part of the show. But the nice thing is they will leave me long enough that I will be glad, and I'll be able to watch all that, hopefully, hopefully, from up above. But, no, that... That's such a key. You know? Is it finding something in life that brings you true joy, something that you're passionate about? For some people, it's golf. For some, it's fishing. For some, it's knitting, whatever, quilting, whatever. Find it, and you're gonna wanna do that until the day you die.
[00:33:34] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. Well, you've you've definitely, done a number of pivots, and it's chasing different passions in in different places in some circumstantial. But
[00:33:44] Danny Hooper: Well, really, what it is, Dustin, it's... Really, when you think about it, it's all been looking at my core skill set, which is entertaining. I know how to entertain, make people laugh, and figuring out different ways to monetize off that core skill set.
[00:33:59] Dustin Serviss: Right. So no one should apologize for that ever.
[00:34:02] Danny Hooper: Yeah.
[00:34:02] Dustin Serviss: You know, in in chasing that that dream. But have you ever found, fear in making some of those pivots? Or how how do you overcome decision fear when making a a big leap in in opportunities, in, in pivots?
[00:34:23] Danny Hooper: And I've got doors banging here for a second.
[00:34:25] Dustin Serviss: Oh, yeah.
[00:34:26] Danny Hooper: Okay. I think we're clear now. Sorry. What was the question, Dustin?
[00:34:30] Dustin Serviss: No. My question is is is how you overcome fear when you're making decisions. In this day and age, I find a lot of clients and and we take in so many things and, you know, with COVID and with the new economy and with the amount of social media and the bandwidth our brains have to take is is, sucked, you know, can be sucked dry because we take in so much. So when it comes time to making big decisions for people, they're... They don't maybe have enough bandwidth to make a a debate and then make an effective decision. They either jump into things like investments too soon or just haven't done the research, or they wait too long because they can't
[00:35:12] Dustin Serviss: make up a decision, and then they miss the opportunity. But for you, you've made a couple very key pivots in your life. And have you ever feared doing those pivots, or has it always just sort of naturally fit together?
[00:35:28] Danny Hooper: No. I've definitely... There's definitely been fair. Very... I think it's probably fair to assume that everybody just about deals with fear. You know, some of the pivots that I made were not by choice. You know, when your nightclub goes broke and the bank's coming in and locking the doors and seizing all the booze, you're out of business and you've got to pivot. So, yeah, very, very scary time then, and it was scary getting into a completely unrelated industry, real estate, and trying to figure that out. But, I... That was the first time I really learned to surround yourself with with good people.
[00:36:03] Danny Hooper: I got into the real estate business, and I had some wonderful mentors, hugely important. And I was a member of a mastermind group, that, they had a mastermind group here, back in the day, and it was the top ten REMAX realtors. And so that would became a goal early on to to try and qualify to be one of those top ten. So once I got into that mastermind, now I've got ten really good mentors. And I just had good coaching. I just, you know, I just wanna back up for just a second and talk about what you say about the limited bandwidth, you know, and and this has really become evident to me here, you know, coming into this,
[00:36:39] Danny Hooper: new marriage and five beautiful grandkids. But these kids are seven to thirteen years of age. They are all on their devices full time. We just had our grandson stay with us last night, and this little guy, he's he's brilliant. He can tell you more about geography and history and politics. He's just... But he's on his device twenty four seven, and I just don't know how the... Anybody's brain can... You know? And when you're sitting there... And I don't know what he's doing or looking at, but I I know that people sit scroll through either Facebook or the Instagram and the news feeds and all the rest of it.
[00:37:10] Danny Hooper: And nowadays, you know, and we certainly learned this through the whole experience we had during the Trump era is that we really now don't know what is true and what is fake news. And and fake news now is... It's... Seems to be completely okay with people. So I don't know. Personally, when I'm faced with the big decision and things like that, I just try and strip, all... Everything away, try and get down to the basics, the fundamentals. And if it's, you know, we're going through the financial planning right now and it's just getting down to what's, you know, what's the truth? What are the basics of this thing?
[00:37:43] Danny Hooper: Because everything, every business, everything can be stripped down to its bare basics.
[00:37:50] Dustin Serviss: Well, then, I picked up from a counselor a long time ago. She said, you know, you're gonna... You're gonna think about an opportunity. And so going from where you are here today, there's a potential opportunity up, you know, to the right. You know, somewhere there's a there's a goal that you see or an opportunity. And to get there, there's a whole series of what could happens. There's all these scenarios that you can... And you're a creative guy and you you can logically think it, but there's right at the end, there's what's the worst that can happen.
[00:38:16] Danny Hooper: Yeah. And if
[00:38:16] Dustin Serviss: you go right to the worst that can happen and you can deal with that
[00:38:21] Danny Hooper: Yeah.
[00:38:21] Dustin Serviss: Then everything else is mute and then move on with it. But if you go right to the end, okay, I couldn't handle that, then you don't need to analyze it anymore. If you can't handle it, then you're going for it.
[00:38:31] Danny Hooper: Yeah.
[00:38:31] Dustin Serviss: Then it's it's cut and dry.
[00:38:34] Danny Hooper: It is cut and dry. You know, and I guess you wanna... You just wanna mitigate your risk, as as an investor or as any kind... No matter what you're doing. If if I'm a...
[00:38:43] Dustin Serviss: Fear change, it could be...
[00:38:45] Danny Hooper: In playing a sport, anything. You're gonna try to mitigate your risk by having the right equipment. If you're a hockey player, if you're an investor, it's gonna be... You know, don't put all your eggs into one basket. It's all those... They Classic. And and surround yourself with good people. Go to the experts. Go to the experts for the advice. There are people... I I have learned that a long time. I gave up flying. I was a private pilot for many, many years. They did a lot of flying, really enjoyed it, but I gave it up years ago when I was doing, at the morning show on CFCW Radio,
[00:39:14] Danny Hooper: when I recognized when I was flying by myself in my plane that I was... My rented plane. I never owned a plane, but I... The plane I was flying, I started to recognize that I wasn't as sharp as I needed to be for recalling radio frequencies and all the stuff you need to watch. Because when you're in a plane and the wheels are off the ground, you're kinda locked in. You're locked in. You gotta get that thing back to the airport and get it landed.
[00:39:38] Dustin Serviss: The only thing more than that, is a commitment is a helicopter.
[00:39:41] Danny Hooper: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So... What what I realized is that, you know, I'm I'm putting myself at risk here, and it was sleep deprivation was the culprit because I was getting up at four thirty or five every morning to be on air to do this radio show until nine in the morning, get home, sleep until noon, get up, try and get prepared for my evening auction events because at the time I was playing a hundred events a year. So... And the the auctions might be in Calgary, Jasper, Lloydminster, might... Anywhere. And I'd have to drive back through the night from Calgary to be back in time to do the radio show.
[00:40:14] Danny Hooper: So I was suffering from sleep deprivation, and I gave up my flying. And I realized then that there are better pilots than I'm ever gonna be. And to mitigate the risk, I'm I'm not gonna do this anymore, fly privately. When I have to fly, I'm happy to fly commercial. So... And now, you know, we're looking at... You know, we're talking to insurance experts and wealth planners and all of that and the bankers and lawyers. And, you know, we're going through a whole raft of experts right now trying to learn everything that we can before we pull the trigger and make some decisions here.
[00:40:44] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. Well, that's, that's exciting. And and on the sort of wealth front, if you think, you know, you've done very well for yourself, but you think of the five richest people that that are in your sphere, and then you think of the word... You know, you think of the five wealthiest people you know. Is it the same five people?
[00:41:04] Danny Hooper: Absolutely not.
[00:41:06] Dustin Serviss: And and so that
[00:41:07] Danny Hooper: Absolutely not. Some of some of the most joyful people I have... We know lots of wealthy people who have a lot of joy, but we know a lot more unwieldy people who have very joyful lives.
[00:41:19] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:41:19] Danny Hooper: So, you know, joy and and, being rich and being joyful. And joy is different than happiness too. You know, I'm talking... You can you can... Having a lot of money, you can be happy. You can go shop. You can go spend. You can go buy something that's gonna make you happy for a minute. That's one of the great lessons that I have learned. I've I've had some some some good revelations, through the years. I do a lot of journaling. And, one of the mantras that I had throughout my entire career, I think, was SFP. And that stands for SFP, and that's simple, fun, and profitable. And if it's not simple, if it's not fun, if it's not profitable, I
[00:41:55] Danny Hooper: don't touch it. And the second that I'm in a business where things start to get a little too complicated, and not as much fun anymore and not simple and the real estate business for me was starting to get that point, I I pulled the pen and walked away from it and didn't regret it for a second. I took all those boxes of real estate trophies that I had here when we built the new house last summer and put them in the dumpster. You know, that's not how I define my self any longer. It used to be by how many trophies and awards I had up on the wall, and that forced me to set a lot of goals that I
[00:42:26] Danny Hooper: paid a huge price for personally, you know, when I achieved those goals, you know, divorce and the family falling apart. And to this day, I still suffer with the daughter that's not talking to me because she still hung up about the divorce fifteen years ago. You know? So, you know, having a lot of time here through COVID to sit and think about my life and unpack a lot of things. And Barb and I went through an incredible program through the church called Freedom Sessions. And, this was where... It's a nine month program where they have you... They basically got you and dump everything on the floor.
[00:42:54] Danny Hooper: You pick up your life one piece at a time and examine it and process it and figure out how you're gonna deal with it and, you know, stuff going right back to childhood. So we went through all that, and it was just just so freeing, you know? And I just have all this time to... So simple, fun, and profitable. That was one of the mantras and and still to this day. And we now have adopted that, same philosophy into our relationship. If it's not simple, if it's not fun, if it's not profitable emotionally for us and profitable as far as nurturing our family and our love for each other and our grandkids and our kid, we're we're not gonna do it.
[00:43:28] Danny Hooper: We're not gonna touch it.
[00:43:29] Dustin Serviss: It's an easy easy decision.
[00:43:31] Danny Hooper: So SFP was a good one that I came up with. The other one was, and this this one, I'd spent a lot of money before I realized this one. And this one is that you don't have to own it to enjoy it.
[00:43:40] Dustin Serviss: Yeah.
[00:43:41] Danny Hooper: And I've had the seventy five thousand dollar wakeboard boats that when you go to sell them, they're worth thirty. And I had the million dollar bus entertainer coach, you know, that when you go to sell it, it's worth four hundred. And I've done, you know, I've done some things. I look back at some of the boner things I've I've done and spent money on and things that at the time I figured I had to own. And, now we're big on renting. You know, I said to Barbie last week, we're playing a crib game one night, and I said, honey, we should buy one of them class c motor homes and, jump in and just go travel. She said, oh, we'll rent one for a month.
[00:44:17] Danny Hooper: Very practical, very smart. She said, now we'll rent a class c motor home for a month. And then if you really enjoy it, we'll rent it for a second month.
[00:44:25] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. Well, you mentioned the, the the income thing. And, you know, it was about three years ago for me that every year, I was increasing my revenue twenty six percent. That was the goal. So some years you hit it, some years not. And one day, I extrapolated out and said, by the time I'm fifty five, I'm gonna have to be making, you know, five point nine million, have nineteen or twenty five staff, and all this extra headache. And when I usually ask entrepreneurs, you know, we're we're meeting, I say, you make four hundred or five hundred thousand a year. What would it mean to your life if you made three hundred and had every Friday off?
[00:44:58] Dustin Serviss: And usually, their, you know, their brains kinda, I can never take Friday off. But did you hear the numbers? Can you live on three hundred? Oh, yeah. For sure, we can. And we can still save. Well, then what do you do, like, when you make five hundred, what do you do with it?
[00:45:10] Danny Hooper: Well, I
[00:45:11] Dustin Serviss: just spend more and I save more. Yeah. Okay. Well, what... Can you save enough with three hundred? Well, probably. And it's just sort of this this light, and that's back to how we started the podcast and and the essence of it that getting people to figure out how hard do I need to work to get whatever is important in life. And that that, you know, you mentioned the motor coach. The example I use is an Airstream trailer, a twenty eight foot Airstream is probably about a hundred and twenty thousand. A twenty eight foot Jayco is probably forty thousand. Yeah. So, you know, they both are gonna take you camping five times a year,
[00:45:46] Dustin Serviss: which is the max you're probably gonna go. Right. And really, you wanna be around your family and your friends around the campfire, not even in the freaking trailer.
[00:45:53] Danny Hooper: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:45:54] Dustin Serviss: But it's a status thing. It's it's the old school status that... Exactly. Oh, yeah. I... You know, hopefully, someone asked me how much I paid for that trailer, and I can tell them.
[00:46:02] Danny Hooper: It's ego and it's status, and that is a great killer. And that's one of the real things I had to wrestle with Dustin personally was overcoming my ego. My ego got me in so much trouble, in my life and, you know, yeah, it's just... You know, I look at the major stumbles that I made in my life, and ninety percent of the reason was was my ego. And, you know, the Bible talks to us about humility, and, I just, you know, I'm just studying that and working hard at being humble now, more humble and just living in gratitude. And to your point, another great question is really being able to honestly
[00:46:40] Danny Hooper: look yourself in the mirror and honestly ask the question, when is enough enough? Like, what is... And Barb and I are sitting right now doing our retirement planning going, oh my gosh. We're gonna... Yeah. It's... Yeah. Unless the, bomb comes and blows it all out or some really catastrophic... But then hopefully, we're going to heaven. So Yeah. The end game for us as Christians, you know, it looks pretty good. And I... You know, and when you... When... And that kind of alludes back to what you said earlier. When you know what the worst case scenario... What's the worst that can happen? I I could die.
[00:47:11] Dustin Serviss: Yeah.
[00:47:11] Danny Hooper: Alright. Now it depends on which faith is. If you think that's it, it's... We're all gonna face that. And that's the worst that can happen. So naturally, you don't wanna blow your brains out saving every penny and suffering it through a lifetime to have this big nest egg and then perhaps the banks collapse or the economy collapse or whatever, and and you're hanging yourself in the closet. You don't wanna live like that. So it's balance. Right? It's just... It's moderation. It's balance. But we definitely believe, you know, we get up every morning and say, hey. What are we gonna do for fun today? Because every day, you gotta have some fun.
[00:47:42] Danny Hooper: Years ago, when I shared this with your dad and when I was out, speaking for REMAX, this is a very popular thing I shared with people, and it was my, tool I used back in the day when my life was really getting out of balance with real estate. As it happens in that industry quite easily because... Especially when you're a realtor with a young family, by the nature of the business, especially back then, you had to be out working on weeknights. You had to be working on weekends doing the open houses and showing homes and things like that. So you're completely counter to the rhythm of family life.
[00:48:13] Danny Hooper: And, I created a tool called the KTV checklist, and that was my key personal value checklist. And on that personal value checklist, I put all the things that were important in my life. So, family, it said, finances, fun, friends. I had a list of all these things, and I printed up a bunch of sheets of these. I had them in a binder. I used this tool for a number of years, and it was amazing. Every morning, I'd get up and I'd say, okay. Family, what's one thing I'm going to do today for my family? With my... What's one thing? Write it down. Just a sense. What's one thing I'm gonna do today for finances?
[00:48:50] Danny Hooper: Oh, gotta talk to my financial planner about this, or I gotta call a bank and open up a new savings account or what. What's one thing I'm doing today for my business? What's... So I would write this sheet out, and then I would put that in the binder. Tomorrow morning, I get up. The first thing I did is I take a look at that KPV checklist from yesterday, and I give myself a check mark for the things I accomplished that day and x for the things I didn't. Put that into a binder. At the end of the month, you've got a month's worth of these things. You sit and you flip through.
[00:49:17] Danny Hooper: And very quickly, those red x's, the things you missed will jump out at you, and you just track the data a little bit. You very quickly see where you're off course. And that tool, that single tool, like KPB checklist, really helped pull me, back together and and get a lot more balance in my life.
[00:49:32] Dustin Serviss: What, and that's, that's... I'm I'm gonna put that in the show notes. But what what do you journal about? You know, and I'm I'm a journaler myself, and and people often ask, what, you know, what do you actually write? But I'm interested to know, you know, you don't have to tell me the specifics, but is there a theme or is there, you know, a a key thing that you write down about certain things, the same every every day or every month or whenever you journal?
[00:49:59] Danny Hooper: Yeah. Mine's not so much a dear diary thing. It's it's... Would be deeper... A lot deeper than that. Some of my favorite books in my book collection, I've got four or five really wonderful books on on journaling. And, so it's something I've studied over the years, and, I've got a closet full of journals. I started when I was, I think, fifteen years old, fourteen, fifteen, was when I first started to journal. I don't do it every day. One of the great techniques that, I've adapted lately, and most rigs may have kinda fallen away from it. But, I I would talk to you, prior to us starting to record the
[00:50:35] Danny Hooper: show about the experience when I came back from Victoria. I've been living in Victoria for four years, came back to Alberta. And, just before meeting my wife, Barb. I had nine months, very quiet time, very spiritual development kind of time. And I read a a wonderful book called The Artist's Way by Julie Cameron. And, one of the techniques that she... And it that was the best book I've ever read when it comes to self help or motivation or anything. It's called The Artist's Way, and it just... It's a book that speaks to creative people. And, how often we're misunderstood.
[00:51:07] Danny Hooper: It it creates lots of challenges in our relationships because lots of times creative people are a little ADD or a lot ADD, and it's all these types of things. But one of the the things she talked about at length in there was, journaling, and she calls it your morning pages. And I got onto that like a dog and a bone. And for about a year, solid there, got up every morning, and it's, I use the little Moleskin, journals, and I write... You write three pages. And it's just freewheeling. It's just getting the pen. It's just, hey. It's a pretty nice morning here today sitting at my desk in my yada
[00:51:40] Danny Hooper: yada, having a cup of coffee, and and you just, you know, let your subconscious kind of flow down through the pen. And there's really interesting readings, in those journals in that nine month period as I was going through that transition coming out of what had been a very traumatic time in my life and, abusive period of my life and and just settling down and getting ready for for a true, marriage.
[00:52:03] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. No. That's, that's good. No. And I think, again, really appreciate, your time. One thing you mentioned that I forgot was, as a... On the on the record, thank you to you, for when I left my previous partnership nearly, that was two thousand fourteen. So, six, seven years ago, you were one of the calls that I made of the, basically, three, four key mentors, and I, you know, talked to you about your stuff. So thank you very much for encouraging me to take that leap because I wouldn't be sort of where I am here today. So thank you, Danny.
[00:52:39] Danny Hooper: Well, Dustin, I remember that conversation too.
[00:52:42] Dustin Serviss: As
[00:52:42] Danny Hooper: a matter of fact, we had a couple of conversations on the on the subject at at that time. So, yeah, I just... Like I said earlier, I just really admire what you've done. Just I just love seeing young people that just take life serious and take business serious and, take their families serious and and just build, a meaningful, joyful life, and, you've been a great example of that. So you found your way very, very quickly. I remember when you're a kid just doing the bodybuilding and stuff, just, you know, how focused and intense you were. And you talk about a dog and a bone, and that's Well,
[00:53:11] Dustin Serviss: now now people are gonna be commenting saying, let me see the Speedo pictures. Yeah. For
[00:53:17] Danny Hooper: sure. But you were very, very focused early on. And, I know that your dad's very, very proud of you, and I'm certainly proud to call you a friend as well.
[00:53:24] Dustin Serviss: Well, thanks, Danny. What, in closing, what what would be your ultimate picture of wealth?
[00:53:31] Danny Hooper: Well, having love, number one, in your life. Because if you haven't got love, you don't have anything because love gives you somebody to share, life with. And and sharing is just enormous. And and, you know, if you're in this life to accumulate experiences and objects and things solely for yourself, that's a pretty shallow existence, an empty existence. And, true joy comes in sharing. And as we get wealthier, we're not able to share just with our loved ones, but beyond that, share with the community and and people and organizations, in need. So love would be the big one. Health is the next one.
[00:54:09] Danny Hooper: You know, Barb and I are both kinda fitness fanatics. She's got me on a Fitbit here and stuff, and we got a little gym downstairs. We love working out, you know, on our own or together, but, just, we both take our health very, very seriously. And, I think everybody's smart enough to understand if you don't have your health, you don't have anything at all. Money, like, if you're to list the top ten things that are important to Barb and I as a couple or even me just personally, money would be down at the... Towards the end of the list. And at one time, it was number one. Right? It was...
[00:54:43] Danny Hooper: And that's when my life was completely upside down and, as I said, driven by ego and making a lot of bad choices. And I've come to understand through the COVID period as I've gone and done a lot of self introspection and we've worked through the freedom session and I've done journaling and things, I've learned, a little too late that sometimes the distance between your choices and the consequences of your choices is... Can be a very great distance. Starfall. Distance between your choices and the consequence of those choices can often be a very, very, very
[00:55:16] Dustin Serviss: So there's a lag.
[00:55:17] Danny Hooper: There's a It can be... It can often be... You don't... Yeah. I don't see the consequences right away quick. And, as I said, today, I'm still paying consequences for, you know, choices and decisions I made, you know, thirty years ago.
[00:55:28] Dustin Serviss: So... Right. Well, thanks, Danny. I, where can people find more information on, on who Danny Hooper is?
[00:55:36] Danny Hooper: Go to my website at danny hooper dot com. Danny hooper dot com. And, if you're looking at having a fundraising event or know somebody who is, I've got a whole, resource section on there where, this is something else I did during COVID with the spare time is I created a twenty some little two to three minute tutorials on how to organize a successful fundraising event. So how to organize a live auction, how to find donations, how to sell tickets to your event, how to sequence your live auction, how to set up a silent auction, super silent auction, a wild card auction.
[00:56:07] Dustin Serviss: I didn't know somebody existed.
[00:56:09] Danny Hooper: Oh, yeah. It's, it... You know, and you talked about that earlier, you know, getting some regular Joe up to do your auction at your event just because he's got a good heart. And and, you know, it's, it's... If if you need if you need, brain surgery, you're not gonna go to a gynecologist. Right?
[00:56:26] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. Right?
[00:56:27] Danny Hooper: You're gonna go to somebody who knows what they're doing. So it's no different in our business. I would be dead in a minute if I had to go do a cattle auction, a livestock auction Yeah. Or an auto auction. You know? Barrett Jackson, I wouldn't even... They wouldn't look at my application. I wouldn't even send an application because I know nothing about... You know, the auction industry is, like so many industries, is highly specialized. And the fundraising, auction is a very specialized, auctioneer, that knows how to do those things. So, anyway, there's lots of good information on the website.
[00:56:58] Dustin Serviss: Well, I... You know, the plug for... And, again, I was trying to close off, but I can't help myself because it's such a great story. I've seen you in action with, I can't remember the event, but it was, it was a sailboat. So someone had donated a sailboat and... For a week, and then there was a chef. And, the guy who owned the sailboat or or or couple was sitting there, and then you had two people bidding on the the sailboat trip. And so once it got to a certain point, it was getting kinda slowing down, and we're gonna call it. And I think you said, okay, mister Smith. Would you do two sailboat trips? And he said, yeah. Sure. That'd be great.
[00:57:33] Dustin Serviss: And he went sold. And it was... Both those people were so happy because they both got a sailboat trip, and you just created double double for the charity, which is Yeah. A win for everybody.
[00:57:44] Danny Hooper: So that's And that's something that a livestock auctioneer might not necessarily think to do. Yeah. You know? Or an auto auctioneer might not think to do, because they only... They're only concerned with how much can I get for this car or for this cow?
[00:57:55] Dustin Serviss: Well, it's only one item. The one item. With the with experiences, that's a great,
[00:57:59] Danny Hooper: I'll leave you with just a funny story here. I was in Kelowna selling a multimillion dollar home. This is a couple of years ago, and it was... I was working at the time for for a, wonderful friend of mine, Alex Lambert, and he's got Lambert. It was called the garage sale luxury auction house. And Alex had this cup for whatever reason he partnered up on. He partnered up on this particular house with a company out of... I think it was Florida. So the president of this company from Florida comes up. He gets up before the auction starts, and he said, we're so proud to be here in Canada.
[00:58:29] Danny Hooper: He said that we have brought along a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne, and we're gonna ask, mister Hooper, the auctioneer, to auction this bottle of champagne. And whatever it sells for, I'm gonna personally write a check and double the amount, and we're gonna donate that to the hospital here in Kelowna.
[00:58:43] Dustin Serviss: Here we go. Here
[00:58:44] Danny Hooper: we go. So I get going. I said, alright. Would anybody go five thousand dollars on the bottle of champagne? Let's go five five hundred and five thousand dollars. Well, Jane Gilchrist, who you know, the top realtor out there in Kelowna, one of the top realtors. Not Gilchrist. Jane,
[00:59:00] Dustin Serviss: Hoffman. Hoffman.
[00:59:01] Danny Hooper: Jane... Pardon me. Jane Gilchrist is a friend of mine from Edmonton. But Jane Hoffman, she's so wonderful. And she puts her hand up because she had the listing on the house, and so she just wants to
[00:59:11] Dustin Serviss: be able to afford it.
[00:59:12] Danny Hooper: So she puts her hand up at five thousand, and I was surprised because I was starting at five just to be funny. And I said, how about six thousand? Well, one of the registered bidders to bid on this house, he puts his hand up. So I go six thousand, seven thousand, eight thousand, nine thousand. Sold out to Jane for ten thousand dollars. And I... So I said, Jane, are you happy? She said, absolutely happy. And I said, sir, I'll tell you what. I said, it's not quite yet nine o'clock. Liquor stores are still open. We can run and get another bottle of Dom Perignon. Would you consider matching Jane's bed at ten thousand dollars? He said, absolutely.
[00:59:43] Danny Hooper: It's going to the hospital. So bang, bang, till we had twenty grand, mister Florida had to write a check for twenty thousand dollars. Yeah. He wasn't... You could just see the blood drain right out of his pocket. Oh, yeah. I don't think he was happy with the with the auctioneer as what the hospital in Kelowna was.
[01:00:02] Dustin Serviss: Oh, for sure. Well, that just... Again, hire a professional and, you can make it a lot easier. So thanks, Denny, and I look forward to catching up and hearing your next update.
[01:00:14] Danny Hooper: See you, buddy. Appreciate it. Thanks, man. Talk soon. Yeah. Take care.
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