Story time: EXACTLY how I met my three mentors

I'm going to share the three people who have made the biggest impact on my life, who have been my mentors, exactly how I met them and how that happened. So let's start here; we're going to go old school.

My first mentor I met when I was about 13 years old. Now, a bit of a background here: when I was 12, I was really, really, really into saltwater fish, aquariums, reef tanks—like all of that sort of stuff. I was super into it. When I was 12 years old, I joined a website; it's called ReefCentral.com. Like, look it up—it's a legitimate website—it's called ReefCentral.com, where people share their tips and their tricks about keeping reef tanks, saltwater aquariums, keeping Coral, Cn &es. I mean, like everything is on ReefCentral.com.

When I was 12 years old, my biggest passion in life was having a reef tank. I mean, I had always wanted to have a reef tank, and when I was 12 years old, I got myself a little reef tank and I was obsessed with it. So I would go on ReefCentral.com and I was big into photography at the time and I would take pictures of my aquarium and I would post them online. Through ReefCentral.com, we'd also post these monthly meetups, and again, I kid you not, like I can't even make this [__] up, but we would meet once a month and we would talk about our reef tanks. We'd share our tips and tricks, and we'd trade little pieces of coral and we'd sell fish. It was an amazing community behind it.

I was really big into photography, so I took pictures of my aquarium, posted them on ReefCentral.com, and met all these people through the meetups. I was just really involved, and at the time, I thought, "You know what? I'm going to be a marine biologist. This is my calling. This is my passion." I just loved saltwater aquariums as a kid. I mean, I still do; I’m still obsessed with saltwater aquariums.

Through going to these meetups and posting online and all this sort of stuff, I met this guy named Chris. Now, Chris owned one of the coolest websites that sold and imported and exported exotic fish and coral. I looked up to his website; I loved his website, and all I wanted at the time was just to go to his warehouse and take pictures of his fish and coral. That was it. That was my only intention as a 13-year-old kid: "Chris, can I go up? Can I take pictures of your fish and coral? That would be the coolest thing in the world." And he agreed.

My mom, I remember, she drove me to the warehouse, and I was just blown away. If you could imagine a 13-year-old who’s really big into aquariums, like seeing a warehouse—a full [__] warehouse—full of fish, coral, seahorses, and starfish. I mean, I was just like blown away. I took pictures of the fish and the coral, and that was all I wanted to do: just take pictures of the fish and coral. I had no intention of anything else. That was it. That was all I wanted to do, and if I was just able to do that, I’d be happy. I could die that day and I'd be like, "You know what? My life is complete. I'm done."

Chris saw how passionate and how into the photography and the fish and the coral I was, and he went to me and my mom, who was with me at the time, and he said to me, "If you'd be interested in working Tuesdays and Thursdays after school, I'd love to have you come in. You could help me out, you can take pictures of the fish and the coral, and in return for all of your help, I'll give you some free fish and some free coral."

So I went to my mom and I'm like, "Mom, mom, mom! Please, please, like please let me work after school Tuesdays and Thursdays! Just please, like I'll do anything! I'll do my homework, I'll do my chores; just let me know what I need to do and I will do it." Sure enough, my mom agreed, and Tuesdays and Thursdays would come around. I looked forward to them so much because it meant I got to work and help him out at his store.

It was through that that I became my first mentor, and I had no idea at the time that Chris would have the impact he did today. I honestly attribute a lot of the foundation that I have today with Chris, and let me explain why. Chris's store was one of the top stores in terms of not only the inventory that they had but in terms of customer service. He had probably one of the best customer service of anyone in the industry, and his philosophy was this: you always need to give someone more than what they expect.

For instance, if someone ordered $100 worth of items from him, he would make sure that they got $110 or $120 worth of value from that. He always made sure the customer was surprised and gladly excited about their order, like, "Wow, this is awesome! This is way better than what I expected!" Those are the types of people that like to write reviews online. Those are the people that like to post about their experience, and it's just a win-win for everybody because the customer is happy; we get more exposure, they become repeat business, they give referral business, and we just grow from that.

So Chris taught me from a very early age to always give the customer more than what they expect and just to realize the importance of customer service. Now, when I was about 14, 14 to 15, he started paying me and I’d start earning about $1 per picture that I took, and I would Photoshop and put it on the website. So I became obsessed with getting as many pictures as I could done, earning a good chunk of money when you’re like 14, 15 years old. Like that, it adds up.

Through that, he would start letting me pick up phone calls and handle some of the customer service, and that was actually probably one of the biggest impacts for me—being able to talk to the customers one-on-one, especially when I was like 14, 15 years old. To be able to deal and interact with the customers, if the customer was ever unhappy and felt that their order wasn't worth it, we would make it right no matter what it was. Sometimes we’d give full refunds. That was what he put me up to: just making sure the customer was happy and making sure that they were satisfied with the entire experience.

Not only that, but just the inner workings of the back office in terms of emails and how important follow-up is. That’s another thing too: we would follow up with every one of our orders. We would give them a call to make sure they got everything okay, make sure that everything arrived safely, that they were happy with their order. We would just spend a few minutes with each customer, just making sure they were happy.

I think you guys can understand my obsession with customer service. Even the way I respond to all the comments—even though you're not really a customer per se, you guys are the ones that are watching my videos, that are supporting my channel, that are commenting, that are liking, that are interacting with this. My way of customer service is acknowledging those comments, responding back because that's appreciation. That's building the channel; that's building what this community is that I'd like to have grow on YouTube, and that is my form of customer service and customer appreciation: responding to all of your comments. That is why customer service to me is so important.

Now my next mentor I met when I was 18, and he became my real estate mentor. Now, I didn't expect to meet him; it just happened by chance. I didn't first think that, like, if I want to get in real estate, I need to find a mentor first, and then I can go to real estate. I just went on my own path, so let me explain it. When I was about 18 years old, I would go to open houses, and my only goal from going to those open houses was just to talk to the agent and ask them specific questions about the industry.

I'd walk up to a random open house, and I suggest all of you do this by the way if you're interested in getting into real estate. Take my advice and do this because it worked really well for me. I would go up to a random open house and I just focused on the high end, by the way. I just focused on like three-, four-, $5 million houses and up so I didn't waste my time with any of that. I just wanted the high end.

So I’d go into these open houses, not knowing anybody as a completely random 18-year-old. I walk up when the agent wasn't busy and I'd introduce myself and say, "Hey, I'm Graham. I want to get into the real estate industry. I just wanted to pick your brain for a few minutes and ask you your thoughts in the industry, how it’s changing since 2005, 2006. If you enjoy it, what are your recommendations for someone just starting out at 18? Is there anything I can learn from you that I can maybe implement in my own business? Any advice on where you would start if you were me?"

That was my only objective: to maybe get five or six minutes with an agent and pick their brain a little bit. I did this for months, by the way. I did this for about 2 or 3 months every single Sunday from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. I’d go, I’d go to these open houses and I met a lot of agents. I would say pretty much all the agents gave me really mediocre [] advice. The most common advice I heard was, "Work hard. If you work hard and you stay smart, you'll be successful. Just work hard." That's like the [] mediocre advice that doesn't help anybody. It's an easy cop-out of just like, "Work hard."

You know, just stay—it’s just stupid. It’s just really, really stupid. But not only that, I got a lot of agents discouraging me. The next common thing I got was, "You should go to college. You are too young to sell real estate. Nobody's going to really trust you because you're 18; you don't have any experience, so it's going to be hard for you. It's going to be really difficult for you." Everyone was very discouraging.

Now, when you’re 18 years old, sometimes you have selective hearing and you’re really, really, really stubborn, so when I heard that I would just think in my mind instead of like, "Oh [__], maybe they're right." In my mind, I thought like it would just bounce off. It wouldn’t even affect me. It would be like their words are here, and then they just bounce off my brain. It was as if I never even heard it because I thought that they’re all wrong. I’m like, "This is impossible. There’s no way that that would happen." So I didn’t really take a lot of that too seriously, so I kept going. I didn't get discouraged from that.

About 2 and a half, 3 months in, I walked into a random open house. I had no association with this open house; it was a random one in Bel Air, and I met this dude. His name is Van, and Van was so encouraging of me getting into the real estate industry. He was so supportive, and it was a slow open house that day. I think we talked for about an hour. He was the first one from everybody I’ve talked to—maybe I talked to like dozens and dozens of realtors—he was the only one that told me like, "Now is the best time to start in real estate. You don't need a college degree. You're 18 years old; you don’t have a wife, you don’t have a mortgage, you don’t have any expenses. You have no overhead, so if you don’t do a deal for your first year, it really doesn’t matter at all. By the time you’re 22 and your friends are graduating college, you will already have had four years in the business, and I guarantee that you’re going to be making at least six figures by that time. Not only that, you’re going to have no debt and you’re going to have four years of business experience under your belt, and that’s going to put you way ahead from everyone else."

That made the biggest impact on me—that I could have four years of work experience, that there’s zero downside and there’s zero reason not to do it now. We talked for about an hour; it was so impactful for me to hear all of this. At the end of our conversation, he asked if I’d be willing to meet him in his office that week, and I was just like mind blown! Like, "Oh my God! I literally came in there just expecting a 5 or 6-minute conversation and now I'm going to meet this dude in his office? That is insane!"

So I’m like, "Okay, yes, when and where? I’m there!" I met him a few days later, and when I met him, he basically offered me a proposal. He said, "I'm really busy right now with sellers, but if you want to come in and work as a buyer agent, we'll split everything down the middle 50/50 for whatever business you bring in, and not only that— for any business you bring in, I’m going to help you close the deal. I’m going to kind of teach you what I know. We're going to split things 50/50 for any business you bring in."

That, to me, was just like, I was like done. This is it! As an 18-year-old, I thought I made it in life. I thought, "You know what? This is it. This is my moment. This is going to be life-changing," and it honestly was. It was because of him that I am here where I am today. To be completely honest, I'm not going to [__] you: even though I worked really hard, even though I worked smart, even though I found like a good niche doing Craigslist leases that led to a lot of business and sales, if it weren't for that guy Van, I would not be here today.

It's because of his teachings and because of his experience and because of his help that I am here making these videos for you guys. I did work really hard; I worked really long hours, I sacrificed a lot. I didn't have a social life for the first few years, but I could have done that regardless without him, and I still would not be as successful as I am today. So let me get that out there. I’m going to get that out in the air so it's there.

Learning from him made the biggest impact because this is a top agent in Los Angeles—like the top 1% of all Cal Banker agents internationally—like this is the guy. Learning from him cut my learning curve down dramatically. I think I learned more in the first year working for him than I could have in 5 years working on my own.

So for anybody watching, the takeaway of this mentor is that I highly recommend working with someone more experienced when you're starting in real estate. You don't need to start real estate with a mentor; I would recommend starting first as if you don’t have a mentor—just go on your own path, and I think it just naturally happens over time.

Now, my third mentor—his name is Jason, and he's the owner of the brokerage I work for right now. I met Jason about 7 years ago at Coldwell Banker. Our offices were side by side when he first started, so I met him there. Shortly after joining C. Banker, he ended up opening up his own brokerage, and he basically had a home office that he would work out of. Since he was a real estate broker, he did deals under his own name, so we kept in touch, but we didn’t really communicate that often.

About 2 and a half years ago, I did a random deal with him in the Hollywood Hills. It was a lease that I met off Craigslist; I represented the tenant, he represented the landlord. When I did this deal with him, it was good to reconnect with him. It was good to catch up, and he explained to me that he's opening up his own real estate brokerage office and it was across the street from where we met up. He asked if I’d like to see it, and I’m like, "Dude, yes! That’s epic! I would love to see it!"

Now, I had no intention of anything happening from this. I just thought we would do a deal. I thought it would be great to see him again and catch up, and that be it. Now, we went to the office that he was just opening up, and I was blown away. I mean, it’s a beautiful office, and I’m here right now filming it. Jason offered me a spot working with his real estate brokerage, and he made it in such a way that it was just a better offer than where I was at Coldwell Banker, and I felt that it was a good opportunity for me to change things up and to grow.

Not only that, but I can earn more commission working with his brokerage than with Coldwell Banker, so I said yes. Now, I had no idea this was going to happen. I had no idea that I would be here today. My intention was honestly to never leave Coldwell Banker; I was satisfied there, to be completely honest with you. I mean, even though I kind of plateaued in terms of my growth, I was satisfied there. I was happy there; I had no intention of anything happening from that. Things just naturally progressed.

Now, Jason has transitioned from the owner of the brokerage I work with to a personal friend and a mentor who I look up to and aspire to be a lot. Jason is like Van, except on steroids in terms of his productivity, his sales volume, and getting [__] done really, really quickly and effectively. It’s amazing to have that happen and have another person I can learn from in addition to Van, and in addition to the impact Chris has had on me.

A note about mentors is that it's about blending everyone in with what works with your personality. For instance, if I said and did the things that Jason says and does, it wouldn't work for me. If I said and did the things that Van says and does, exactly word for word, if I did exactly what he’s doing, it wouldn't work for me. If I did the things that Chris said, it wouldn't work for me.

And here's why: it doesn't necessarily all fit my style, my personality. I think what's most useful is that when you take different bits of people that you look up to and that you admire and you incorporate that into yourself, it becomes who you are deep down as a person, and it is relatable to you and you resonate with it, and it just becomes part of your personality at that point. If you try to imitate somebody, it doesn't come off as being natural; it comes off as being fake, and that kind of turns people off.

But when you're able to pick and choose things that you resonate with, that you like, that work for you, that's when you're able to develop as a person and grow from learning bits and pieces of everyone else and incorporate that into your own style.

In the first scenario with Chris, I just wanted to take pictures of his fish and coral. I didn't even think of anything. With my second mentor Van, I just wanted five or six minutes of his time to let me know his thoughts on the industry. Jason—I just did a deal with him and wanted to check out his real estate brokerage. I had no idea what would come from that.

Again, it’s less about going up to somebody asking, "Will you be my mentor?" and more about just doing it, regardless of whether you have a mentor or not, and chances are a mentor will come into your life naturally. It’s less about asking for something and more about just doing it and having someone come in and see you naturally on their own accord and helping you out.

I really hope this video helps. I really appreciate you watching, and thank you so much for watching my videos. Thank you so much for everybody that subscribed. If you, if you haven't already, by the way, subscribe, like the video if you enjoy it, comment down below, let me know your thoughts, and if you haven't already, add me on Snapchat and Instagram. I'm posting on Instagram now, so you don't want to miss out on that. Until next time!