Overview
Patrick Francey has spent more than four decades building businesses from the ground up, and this conversation at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference captures the practical intelligence behind that track record. Interviewer Clayton Smith sat down with Francey on the conference floor in January 2024, where Francey shares insights drawn from over 40 years in business -- covering the origin of The Everyday Millionaire podcast, the frameworks he applies when evaluating people and businesses, and his unfiltered take on what actually builds lasting culture inside a company.
Francey's path started not with a plan but with necessity. When the National Energy Program hit in the early 1980s and left him unemployed with a family to feed, he launched what became Professional Skate Service -- a business that is still operating today, more than 40 years later. That pattern of entrepreneurial accidents repeated itself when he joined and later acquired the Real Estate Investment Network from Don Campbell in 2011. His approach across both: identify the right people, build a culture that makes people want to stay, and step back from daily operations once the system is strong enough to run without you.
The interview goes deep on ego as a hidden constraint on growth. Francey describes how his own ego initially prevented him from being coached, and how it nearly stopped him from launching the podcast altogether. His insight -- that ego protects identity by keeping people small, not just by inflating them -- is a clean reframe that cuts against the standard "check your ego" advice. The application is practical: if a voice tells you not to put yourself out there, that is the signal to push through, not pull back.
On the Alberta real estate side, Francey offers a candid city-by-city breakdown. He is bullish on Calgary and the province generally, points to affordability and wage fundamentals as the underlying drivers, and identifies the pre-construction condo market as a category to avoid. He expresses measured caution about Edmonton specifically, citing the political environment and a shifting employment base. For investors looking for cash flow, he points toward multi-family product in Calgary, Lethbridge, and some surrounding communities as the better play.
Throughout, Francey holds a consistent line: remove emotion from investment decisions, focus on data, evaluate the people driving any venture before anything else, and stay honest about whether you are doing real research or building a confirmation bias feedback loop. The conversation is grounded, direct, and without the promotional gloss common to conference interviews.
Why This Matters
This interview is worth preserving not because Patrick Francey has a novel system to sell, but because he has genuinely lived the principles he describes. The businesses he references are real, the failures and stumbles are acknowledged, and the frameworks he applies come from decades of direct experience rather than borrowed frameworks. That makes the signal density unusually high for a conference floor interview.
The ego reframe in particular has lasting value. Most conversations about ego treat it as arrogance to be suppressed. Francey's version -- that ego also keeps people playing small, not just inflated -- is a more complete and more useful mental model. It explains why capable people with real things to offer sometimes do the least with them. That insight applies far beyond podcasting or real estate.
His Alberta real estate breakdown is a practical data point for anyone invested in or watching that market. Coming from someone who has been tracking Alberta fundamentals through REIN since the mid-2000s, the city-by-city assessments are grounded. The warning on condos in particular is direct and on the record -- useful context for anyone evaluating that market segment.
The broader theme -- culture as a designed system, not an organic outcome -- is durable business wisdom. The specifics of Pro Skate or REIN matter less than the underlying operating principle: that retention, environment, and shared values are actively built, not inherited, and that one toxic hire can cost more than the revenue they generate.
Key Points
- Francey's business career began as an accident -- forced into entrepreneurship by the National Energy Program in the early 1980s, he launched Professional Skate Service in 1984, which still operates today from a single Edmonton location he has not held a key to since 2006.
- The primary filter for evaluating any investment or business opportunity is people first: who is driving the bus, what is their track record, and how well do they put the right people in the right roles and adjust when they get it wrong.
- Language does not lie. Francey uses the language a person uses -- in conversation, not just in pitches -- to assess their real relationship with a problem. You cannot hide behind words indefinitely, and an experienced ear picks up the gap between the stated problem and the real one.
- Culture is not organic -- it is designed. Francey does not define culture for his teams; he facilitates the conversation and lets the team build it together. Camaraderie, accountability, no-gossip norms, and physical environment are among the outputs of those conversations.
- Retaining a toxic high-performer costs more than the top-line revenue they generate. Letting that person go and holding the line on culture values consistently produces a replacement who fits better.
- Ego operates in two directions: it inflates (arrogance, attention-seeking) and it contracts (keeping people small, making them invisible). Both are forms of self-protection. Most people only recognize the inflated form and miss the contracting form entirely.
- Francey's decision to launch The Everyday Millionaire podcast was nearly killed by his own ego telling him he was not qualified to do it. Eight years and multiple seasons in, he acknowledges he should have turned up the volume sooner.
- Coaching requires coachability. His coaching programs with wife Stephanie (a world-class mental performance coach) filter for ego at intake -- they are coaches, not coaxes, and participants who need to be talked into being coached are not the right fit.
- Confirmation bias is a real risk at conferences like VRIC. Francey names it explicitly and uses outside perspectives and conversations with people who have achieved strong results to pressure-test his views rather than simply accumulate agreement.
- Alberta is a compelling real estate market for fundamental reasons: highest average weekly wages in Canada, much lower cost of living than BC or Ontario, no provincial sales tax, and a steady inflow of people moving for affordability and jobs.
- Condos in Alberta are not a sound investment vehicle. Francey is direct and on the record: outside of personal use, pre-construction condos in Calgary in particular carry risk, and incoming Ontario and BC capital flowing into that segment is likely to face problems in two to three years.
- Edmonton gives Francey pause relative to Calgary -- the political environment, a government-dominated economy, and the reduced employment pull from the Fort McMurray oil sands sector make the investment case less clear than it once was.
Quotable
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Patrick Francey
"You cannot hide behind words. There's some great guys that can stretch the truth a long ways, but it always shows up in your language."
This lands because it reframes due diligence from financial analysis to listening. It shifts the investor's edge from data access to conversational skill -- something available to anyone willing to pay attention over time.
Patrick Francey
"We're coaches, not coaxes. If you're here for coaching, great. If you're here to be coaxed, you're in the wrong program."
Clean and memorable. It sets a filter at intake that protects the coach's time and the quality of the room. The wordplay (coaches vs. coaxes) makes it sticky and easy to repeat.
Patrick Francey
"Ego will keep us playing small. It protects itself -- and how would that manifest for a person? Immediately my ego kicks in: you're not smart enough, nobody will listen to you, who the hell are you to start a podcast."
This is the most practically useful insight in the interview. It names the internal mechanism that stops capable people from acting, using his own podcast hesitation as a concrete and honest example most listeners can map onto something in their own life.
Patrick Francey
"If you want to buy a condo to live in it, good for you. From an investment perspective -- don't invest in condos in Alberta. Full stop."
The bluntness is the value. At a conference full of promotional pitches, a flat declarative statement with no hedging stands out. It also signals that Francey is willing to say an unpopular thing on the record.
Wayne Dyer (quoted by Patrick Francey)
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
Francey invokes this in the context of seeking outside perspective and fighting confirmation bias. It is a well-known quote, but placing it in the specific context of conference-going and information evaluation gives it fresh application.
Concepts
People and Culture
People-First Due Diligence
Before evaluating numbers, assets, or markets, Francey looks at the people driving a venture. Who is in charge, what is their track record, and how do they select and manage the people around them? A strong leader who builds well-positioned teams covers for weaker conditions. A weak leader with great conditions still tends to produce bad outcomes. This applies equally to evaluating a junior miner, a real estate syndicate, or a business partnership. When there is no track record to review, the assessment shifts to conversation quality -- how a person talks, what they reveal inadvertently, and where their language runs ahead of their actual understanding.
Language as a Truth Signal
Francey holds that language is where misrepresentation eventually breaks down. The gap between the stated problem and the real problem shows up in the words people choose, the topics they avoid, and the framing they reach for under pressure. This is not about catching people in lies -- it is about recognizing that how someone describes a challenge reveals their actual relationship with it. A person who has done real work on a problem sounds different from one who has rehearsed a narrative about it. Extended conversation, not pitch decks, is where this becomes visible.
Culture as a Designed System
Francey does not impose culture on his teams -- he convenes the conversation and lets the team articulate what they want to work in. Camaraderie, mutual accountability, no gossip, showing up on time, clean physical environment -- these emerge from the team, not from a poster on the wall. The distinction matters: values that a team has named and claimed for themselves carry more behavioral weight than values handed down from above. Francey revisits these conversations annually, treating culture not as a fixed asset but as something that requires active maintenance.
The True Cost of a Toxic Hire
Francey's retail business carried a high-performing salesperson who was culturally corrosive. The decision to let that person go was difficult because of the top-line revenue impact. But the consistent finding, reinforced over many years, is that holding the line on culture and accepting the short-term loss reliably produces a better replacement. The cost of keeping the wrong person -- in morale, retention of other staff, and management attention -- outweighs the revenue contribution. This requires sufficient confidence in the culture to believe it will attract the right next hire.
Longevity as a Staff Metric
When evaluating a business -- particularly from the outside -- staff tenure is a signal Francey actively looks for. High turnover in a retail or service environment suggests something is wrong: compensation, management, culture, or all three. His own Pro Skate operation carries staff who have been with the business 15, 20, and 25 years. That kind of retention in a retail context is not primarily a compensation story -- it reflects an environment where people actually want to show up. This metric is often overlooked in favor of financial ratios but is easier to assess in a direct conversation.
Ego and Mindset
Ego as Identity Protection -- Both Directions
The standard model of ego is arrogance -- oversized self-image blocking good judgment. Francey adds the underrecognized mirror image: ego that keeps people small, invisible, and inactive as a form of self-protection. Putting yourself out there creates the possibility of rejection and judgment. The ego resolves this by generating compelling reasons not to act: you are not qualified, nobody will care, who do you think you are. This protective contraction feels like humility or realism but functions as avoidance. Recognizing it requires noticing when the internal voice is protecting the self from exposure rather than making a sound strategic judgment.
Coachability as a Filter at Intake
Francey and his wife Stephanie run coaching programs with an explicit intake filter: they do not accept clients who need to be convinced that coaching is valuable. The distinction between coaching and coaxing is a practical one -- coaxing consumes resources and rarely produces the outcomes the client claims to want. Someone who enters a coaching relationship with defensiveness or ego investment in already knowing the answers will resist the process at every step. The filter protects both the coach and the participants who are genuinely ready to work.
Absentee Ownership as a Business Design Goal
Professional Skate Service has operated without Francey holding a key since 2006. That is not retirement -- it is the result of building a team and a system capable of running without the founder's daily presence. This is a design goal, not an outcome that happens on its own. It requires identifying and investing in people who can own their domain, creating systems that reduce founder dependency, and being willing to genuinely step back rather than micromanage from a distance. Francey has replicated some version of this pattern across multiple business lines.
Investing and Markets
Alberta's Fundamental Investment Case
The case for Alberta is grounded in three overlapping fundamentals: highest average weekly wages in Canada, significantly lower cost of living relative to BC and Ontario (including no provincial sales tax and substantially lower fuel costs), and a steady inbound migration driven by people seeking both employment and affordability. These factors create durable demand for rental housing and steady population growth. Francey has been tracking and communicating this thesis since at least 2019, and the subsequent performance of Calgary in particular has validated the underlying logic.
The Condo Warning
Pre-construction condos in Alberta -- particularly Calgary -- represent a specific risk Francey names directly. Investors from Ontario and BC who see Alberta condo prices as cheap relative to their home markets are importing a product preference that does not match the local culture or rental demand profile. Alberta is not a condo market the way Toronto or Vancouver are. When those pre-construction buildings complete and the investors try to either resell or rent, the mismatch becomes visible. Francey expects this to surface clearly within two to three years of this conversation.
The Edmonton Uncertainty
Edmonton historically has followed Calgary with a lag in real estate cycles. Francey is uncertain whether that historical pattern will hold this time. His concerns are structural: Edmonton is heavily government-employment dependent, the Fort McMurray employment pipeline that historically drove workers through Edmonton has contracted, and the political environment introduces additional uncertainty for investors. He does not rule out Edmonton, but he frames the risk-return profile as less favorable than Calgary or other Alberta centres and suggests investors need clear answers to the economic driver questions before committing capital.
Confirmation Bias Management at Conferences
Francey explicitly names the echo chamber risk of events like VRIC and takes deliberate steps to counteract it. He listens for outside perspectives, pays attention to people who have achieved strong results through different paths, and uses the Wayne Dyer framing -- changing the way you look at things -- as a prompt to question his own assumptions actively. The goal is to come away with refined or challenged views, not simply confirmed ones. This requires some discipline in a setting specifically designed to reinforce enthusiasm for particular investment theses.
Implementation
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Lead Every Evaluation with a People Assessment
Before reviewing financial projections, asset quality, or market conditions, assess who is running the operation. What is their track record? How do they hire and manage the people around them? Have they built teams that outlast them in a role? If this information is not available from a track record, invest time in extended conversation -- not a pitch call -- and listen for what the language reveals about how they actually think about problems versus how they present those problems.
Facilitate a Culture Design Conversation with Your Team
Rather than defining culture and handing it down, convene a conversation with your team and ask what kind of environment they want to work in. Document the outputs. Common themes -- accountability, mutual support, physical environment, behavioral norms like no gossip -- carry more weight when the team has named them. Hold an annual version of this conversation to ensure the culture remains actively maintained rather than assumed.
Use Staff Tenure as an Evaluation Signal
When assessing a business you are considering investing in or partnering with, ask about staff tenure. High retention in front-line roles is a leading indicator of culture and management quality. Low retention is a signal to investigate further -- not a disqualifier on its own, but a prompt for harder questions about what drives people out and what the management team believes causes it.
Hold the Line on Cultural Fit -- Even for High Performers
When a high-performing hire is toxic to the team culture, make the call to let them go. Accept the short-term revenue impact. Document the reasoning and share it with the remaining team if appropriate -- the act of holding the line communicates that the culture norms are real, not aspirational. Monitor the outcomes over the following 6-12 months to build confidence in this approach as a repeatable principle rather than a one-time painful decision.
Recognize When Internal Resistance is Ego Contraction
When you feel reluctance to put something public -- a business, a perspective, a piece of work -- pause and interrogate the source of that reluctance. Is this a genuine strategic or quality concern, or is it the protective contraction that Francey describes? The distinguishing question: would the reluctance disappear if you were certain no one would judge the outcome? If yes, it is ego-driven. If no, it is a legitimate signal. Use this as a filter before shelving projects or delaying visible commitments.
Screen Coaching Clients and Collaborators for Coachability
If you work in any advisory, coaching, or consulting capacity, build an intake filter that assesses the client's genuine readiness to be challenged. This is not about assessing intelligence or motivation -- it is about assessing ego investment in existing answers. Someone who enters the relationship needing to demonstrate they already know the answers will resist the most valuable parts of the process. The filter protects both parties.
Apply a Confirmation Bias Audit at Information-Rich Events
At conferences or events where the participant population skews toward a particular thesis, actively seek out perspectives that challenge or complicate your current views. Identify two or three people who have achieved strong results and ask questions designed to surface disagreement rather than agreement. Treat the event not as a validation exercise but as a testing environment for your thesis. Leave with at least one assumption you arrived with that you are now less certain about.
Evaluate Alberta Real Estate by Economic Fundamentals, Not Headlines
For any Alberta city you are considering, answer these questions before committing capital: What drives employment in this market? Is that driver growing, stable, or contracting? What is the inbound migration trend and what is pulling it? Does the property type you are considering align with what local renters actually want? For cash flow investors, duplex-to-sixplex multi-family in Calgary and secondary cities like Lethbridge represents a different risk profile than pre-construction condos marketed to out-of-province buyers.
Build Toward Absentee Ownership from Day One
Design your business with the operating question: what would need to be true for this to run without my daily presence? Identify the roles that depend on you personally, and systematically either document, delegate, or hire for them. Francey achieved this with Pro Skate by 2006 -- well before most business owners consider it possible. The sooner the design goal is named, the sooner the decisions that support it become visible.
Tools & Resources
Mentioned Resources
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| The Everyday Millionaire Podcast | Patrick Francey's long-form audio podcast, now in its eighth season, interviewing entrepreneurs who have achieved extraordinary results from ordinary starting points. |
| Real Estate Investment Network (REIN) | The Canadian real estate investor education network that Francey joined in 2006 and later acquired from founder Don Campbell in 2011. Focused on data-driven residential real estate investment across Canada. |
| Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) | Annual conference in Vancouver focused on junior mining, precious metals, and resource sector investing. Venue for this interview. Draws speakers including Rick Rule and Aaron Gunn among others referenced in the conversation. |
| Professional Skate Service (Pro Skate) | Francey's original Edmonton retail business, launched in 1984 and still operating today. Cited as a case study in absentee ownership and long-term staff retention. |
Suggested Resources
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Real Estate Investing in Canada -- Don Campbell | The foundational REIN text on data-driven Canadian real estate investment. Directly tied to the network Francey acquired and the analytical framework he references throughout the interview. |
| Ego is the Enemy -- Ryan Holiday | A natural companion to Francey's ego discussion. Holiday examines the same protective and contracting aspects of ego that Francey describes, across entrepreneurship, creative work, and investing. |
| Good to Great -- Jim Collins | Relevant to the people-first due diligence and culture sections. Collins' work on getting the right people on the bus -- and in the right seats -- is the framework Francey is drawing on when he evaluates leadership quality. |
| Statistics Canada -- Weekly Earnings by Province | Primary source for the average weekly earnings data Francey cites in his Alberta investment case. Useful for verifying the provincial wage comparisons he references and tracking the trend over time. |
Source Material
[00:00]
Hey everybody it's Clayton Smith here and I have the Everyday Millionaire Patrick Francey with me here. Patrick is here at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, checking things out. We're going to talk a little bit about some of his insights, his podcast, what brought him here today, and some of the takeaways that he has. Patrick, how you doing? I'm fantastic, great to see you. You as well. All right, so first off tell us a little bit about your podcast and let's go from there. Well my podcast, The Everyday Millionaire -- I'm into my eighth season now. It's primarily audio, although I am into the YouTube space a little bit. That's not my primary focus right now, but it's been in the audio space -- like I say, we've been doing eight years. The premise of the show is that I'm interviewing seemingly ordinary individuals who have achieved extraordinary results, and that's really what the premise of it was. I often investigate the question of entrepreneurship: is it nature or is it nurture? So I'm having conversations with my guests about what do you do today, but how did you get to where you are -- what was your upbringing, how are your siblings, what was your family all about. I get into the kind of background of how it is they got onto their journey. And where did they gain their entrepreneurship from -- their tenacity, their skills. I try to come from a space of anybody listening can look at it and go, oh, if they can do it I can do it too. So that's kind of the approach I take in the interview.
[01:30 approx]
And it's a long format -- usually an hour, an hour and fifteen. Okay, great. Well now we get to turn the tables here. Now you're on the spotlight. Now you're here and we get to talk a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey. So what got you to the point where you now have a podcast called The Everyday Millionaire? How did you become the everyday millionaire? Well, you know, it's interesting. The journey for me was -- I've had two or three what I refer to as entrepreneurial accidents. So back in, you know, when I was younger, which is many many years ago, my entrepreneurial accident was when oil and gas got hit with the National Energy Program in Canada. And what that then led to was me being unemployed, which then led into -- well, I have to figure out how to feed my family. I was a young parent at that time. And ultimately I got into being an entrepreneur. Actually, the business that I started at that time back in 1984 is still around today. It's one of the businesses that I still own and it operates today. What's that business? It's called Professional Skate Service -- Pro Skate. I've had a number of locations over the years. I'm actually down to one location in Edmonton, which is just awesome. I love it. Great team of people there. And that's what it really really took -- having that team. Haven't had a key to the store since 2006. So it's interesting to have an absentee owner but still be in the business with the team.
[03:00 approx]
Okay, and so what are some of the other ventures that you've accidentally stumbled on? Well again, I went on to the Real Estate Investment Network in 2006 when I was ready to exit my business in terms of a day-to-day kind of operation. I had started investing in real estate back in about 2000, and along that way I came across the Real Estate Investment Network and met a guy by the name of Don Campbell. He wasn't the founder but he was one of the original guys, and we got to know him a little bit. We went on vacation with him and his wife one year in 2007, and he said would you like to move to British Columbia and work with me? And I said sure. Anyways, that then led into me working with him, and in 2011 I ended up buying the business from him. And that's still part of what I do today, although it's not my primary focus anymore -- it's still a big part of what I do and what I like to do.
[04:00 approx]
Okay, now from a lot of your business experience -- now that you've collected and accumulated over the years -- what are some of the things that you look at when you're evaluating opportunities? Because we're here at a resource conference, you've got a lot of companies making pitches at you now. How do you separate the good from the bad? We heard Rick Rule here talking about the Pareto principle and the 80/20. How do we focus on and narrow down to that 20%? Well, you know, it's interesting. In this space where you're actually looking at investing capital into a company, there's that aspect of it. Rick makes a really good point and I agree 100% with him -- we have to look at the people. Who's driving that bus? And number one, who's driving the bus, what is their skill set in putting the right people on the bus and in the right seats, and then adjusting as they need to.
[05:00]
And there's a part of that that is interesting. Because even when you're looking at business owners and entrepreneurs -- and I know many of them, I've worked with thousands of real estate investors who are also many of them business owners -- there's a part of it where you say, well, what's your track record? And sometimes they don't have any track record, and then the assessment's got to be -- well, let's have some more conversation. And through that conversation you can start to distill down within their language the way they approach things. I've gotten pretty good -- 40-some years later into business -- I trust my gut in terms of having conversations with people. I strongly believe, and I know this to be true for me, is that you cannot hide behind words. There's some great guys that can stretch the truth a long ways, but it always shows up in your language. And even as a coach when I'm listening to somebody -- they're trying to tell me what the problem is, but in the telling me that their problem is, they actually get to what the real problem is. Because you just can't hide behind language. So that's a little different conversation, but ultimately you have to look at the people, you have to look at the leadership, you have to look at the culture of the business. Culture is incredibly important. And what is the environment that they're trying to create?
[06:30 approx]
And that is for me -- what has seemed to work. In my own businesses, what's really important to me is creating a culture within the team that they actually are a huge part of designing. I don't define the culture. I'll get together with my team and every year I go, okay, so let's talk culture. What do we want this culture to be about? What do we want the environment to be? They're two separate topics. When I facilitate those kinds of conversations I hear about camaraderie, I hear about somebody's got my back, I hear about showing up on time, I hear about no gossip, no complaining, no blaming. Those are the kinds of language that I try and get the team to not only buy into but really truly go -- no, if we could create that culture, I would want to work here and I would want to stay working here. And then on environment -- I want this to be clean, I want people to look after and be responsible for what they're doing, I want it bright, I want it shiny. So the point is this: when I'm assessing another company, I'm looking at -- at least in the back of my mind, if not seeing it or hearing it -- I want to know that it's there. I want to know the culture. What the team is all about. Longevity speaks a lot. What's turnover? I look at my one retail business in Edmonton -- I've got staff that have been with me 25 years, 20 years, 15 years. And it's a retail environment. So it really is about people wanting to work and work hard. And it's not always about money. Yes, it's important. But what I found is that if you're driven just by money, sometimes the clients suffer. I want it to be about not only my clients but working conditions and lifestyle -- so people have fun when they come to work.
[08:30 approx]
Okay. No, that's good. And so you mentioned how important it is to focus on people, on the individuals, paying attention to their language, and then you talk about coaching people. Now, in your organization when you're coaching people and you're listening to the words they're saying -- at some point you're going to have a point in time where somebody's just not that coachable. How do you handle that difficult situation? Well, within the business -- when you start to create culture and environment -- if I own a business and even within my management team, we have conversations. I do a check-in once a week or once every two weeks with my team. When I'm talking to my general manager about hiring or who he's got for staff, they'll say, oh man, I just got this guy, I think he'd be an amazing sales guy. I go, well, hire him. And he'll say, yeah, I just don't think he's going to fit in the culture. I go, don't hire him. Right. And we've actually made that mistake over the years -- I say mistake, it's always a learning thing -- but we've hired somebody who was awesome in sales, just killer sales, but toxic with the rest of the team in terms of who they were culturally. Sorry, man -- you've got to go. Right. And that's hard to do if you've got a guy that's having an impact on that top line. But we found -- and this has proven to be true over many years -- let that guy go. Stay and stand on your values. And then the person that needs to fill the gap, the right person will show up.
[10:02]
And that's that. On the coaching side of it -- my wife Stephanie and I, and Stephanie's a world and Olympic class high performance coach, mental performance coach -- we have a fundamental saying which is: we're coaches, not coaxes. If you're here for coaching, great. If you're here to be coaxed, you're in the wrong program. And so that means that part of our filter process is we want somebody who is coachable and who doesn't have a lot of ego around being coached. I can speak to that one with a lot of experience, because one of the most difficult things that I had to get over is being coached. When I heard "being coached," my pattern -- as a younger man -- was that I heard "being wrong." My ego told me, oh, you're not that good, you're not that smart. And it's so ridiculous -- that's why I hired a coach, yet my ego got in my way of being coached, because I had to know it all, I should have been smarter. So it's an interesting dynamic you learn over the years. But that's an important part of our own coaching and the coaching programs and the filter process that we have. I'm not going to talk anybody into it. We either align -- you like what I say, you go, I kind of agree with his values -- and you know, anybody who's even looking for a coach, that's part of your own filter system: do they align with your values? And if they do, then you're probably heading in the right direction.
[12:00 approx]
So you bring up an interesting point -- in your own mind shift to become coachable, would you say that's a huge roadblock for a lot of people? The ego and -- give a few thoughts on what comes to mind when you're talking about a person's ego and how that can stand in their way. Well, it depends on how you look at ego. Most people look at ego and think they see somebody as arrogant and they go, man, that guy's got a big ego. And that's certainly a part of ego. But ultimately our ego is there -- I look at ego as part of our identity, right. And ego is there for a couple of different reasons, but ego always wants to protect itself. It will protect itself by either overstating -- look at me, I need attention -- or it will understate. So there are those individuals whose ego keeps them small. Our ego protects us. It protects our identity, what it sees as our identity. Now this gets a little bit nuanced and complex and maybe a little bit deep, but ultimately, as much as we think ego is elevating us, we have to be very careful because ego will keep us playing small, and it protects itself.
[13:30 approx]
And how would that manifest itself for a person? I've got a perfect example of that. Before I started the podcast -- I was feeling some pressure from peers saying, write a book, write a book, write a book. I didn't feel like I had a book in me. And when I was sitting on the beach one day in St. Lucia on vacation, thinking about what I want to do -- I literally don't know where the idea of the podcast popped into my mind. And I thought to myself, I should start a podcast. Immediately my ego kicks in: you're not smart enough, nobody will listen to you, who the hell are you to start a podcast? And so through that time I was on vacation, I was journaling and writing, and I went, oh -- that's my ego trying to protect me from putting myself out there.
[15:00]
To this day I think one of the most difficult things that I do -- although it's easier -- is put myself into that public space. And you have to get to a point where you have to let go and go, it doesn't really matter what anybody thinks of me. There are going to be a lot of people that actually like me -- they like how I present, they like how I speak, they like my cadence, they like my beard, they like my message. And then there's going to be those others that look at this and in like 20 seconds go, I'm out, this guy's an idiot. And I go, okay. And then you've got to get to a point where you don't care. So that's ego at that point saying to me: play small. And if there was some guidance in this particular interview that I gave to anybody -- don't let that get in your way. As a matter of fact, even now eight years later, I should have turned up the volume a long time ago. Interesting. So -- but there's no -- I've been on my journey, so I don't live too much in regret. No, no. That's good. And we weren't really intending on the conversation to go this way -- this is great.
[16:00 approx]
Now just to bring it back to the conference here -- you picked up a couple interesting little things there. Should we show the world? Oh, there it is actually right there -- yeah, there you go. See, look at that. I came and I bought shiny things. Just a couple pieces of silver -- 3 oz to be exact. There's a 2 oz piece in there that's a little bit of a collectible, I think. Okay. I'm not into collectibles. I'm just in it for the utility of silver and the monetary value. Yeah. Now we've been hearing a lot about that at the conference and a lot of people are talking about silver. So we'll see. There's so many people talking about silver here. Might be a time to sell -- I don't know. Yeah, you never know. But you're talking about the monetary value in the silver, and we were chatting about that earlier about some interesting things and how that plays into what brings everybody here -- they want to learn a little more about what to invest in, what are the big trends, what are the data points that are out there, and how they can formulate a decision on what to do next.
[17:30 approx]
And when you look at some of the things going on in the international situation -- we can bring that down to Canada. We heard Aaron Gunn speak earlier on some of the national issues and then down to local issues. What are some things that come to mind for you with some of the international factors we've been hearing about and how that factors into what you're going to do next? Well, you know, when you come to an event like this you start to realize that as big as this event -- several thousand people here -- it's not the norm of what we would call the general public or the masses. A little bit of an echo chamber. It is, much that way. But having said that, it also confirms that maybe what we're researching and finding out -- I don't listen to mainstream media. I haven't for many, many years, but certainly the past four or five years I've really turned up the off button on my mainstream media stuff. I just don't listen to any of it anymore. And those anchors -- without the risk of criticizing them -- they're just scripted. There's not journalism in it. They call themselves journalists, but I don't -- if you're not an investigative journalist, I don't really call you a journalist. I might call you an opinionist, I might call you a sensationalist. But rarely is there what I would call investigative journalism happening. So I just stay out of the mainstream media stream of thought.
[19:00 approx]
Having said that, there's a lot of research that has to go into creating a thesis and developing a thesis that's saying -- okay, when I look at where we're going economically, whether as a country -- we're at the effect of what's going on south of our border in the US. And of course we look at the global macro -- what's going on in Russia/Ukraine, China/Taiwan, North Korea, what's happening in the UK, Germany melting down, the Middle East, UAE -- all of that. So there's a lot of disruption. And when we look at East versus West and how that's starting to unfold -- having to bring some kind of productivity back into our country that we all shipped offshore -- and Canada being a
[20:02]
-- nonproducer, sadly, relative to what we have available from a resources point of view -- then as an investor I have to say, okay, where do I hedge my bet, how do I mitigate risk? Now of course being in the real estate game, I own some real estate and I've invested in real estate a lot over the years, and that's been my primary focus. Having said that, several years ago I started looking at precious metals, equity markets, other places to place capital to kind of hedge my bet on the devaluation -- the monetary flood that we have of the money supply. And precious metals happens to be one of those things that is appealing to me, as is any hard asset -- real estate certainly, some equity. And as we're here these past couple of days, looking at some of the junior miners that are out there -- I'm going, okay, those are speculative investments. But having said that, I'm not going all in on anything. Do I have some room for some speculative assets? I have to sit back and look at it and go, yeah, probably. And then where does it fit in with the overall picture?
[21:00 approx]
Patrick, what's one takeaway that you would have from coming to the conference? You know, as much as we seek and find confirmation bias when I come to an event like this, it really opens up my eyes that number one, I'm on the right path -- that's what I need. And again, I get all of the -- we're in the echo chamber that we're in -- but I also look at some of the speakers and some of the people that I've met and had conversations with, and I would consider them really intelligent, nothing extreme about who they are or what they are. They've done very very well in their lives and in their businesses and with people and financially, and they've done exceptionally well. So I'm looking at that going, there is a path. When I consider their views of the world and I align with their views primarily or mostly, it just gives me some confidence. One of my favorite quotes by Wayne Dyer is: when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. And I'm always being open to looking at how I'm seeing things and shifting my perspective, and not being drawn into this whole confirmation bias. It's very easy to get there. So I question it all the time. Try and get out of the emotion of it -- something that you hear time and time again. Investing in general is very emotional. We see that happening in the real estate world -- first-time home buyers, next-time home buyers, everybody's got an opinion, they're looking for somebody to blame. Very emotional. And so in what I coach in the world of real estate -- don't speculate, invest. Which means look at the data and take the emotion out of it. Does the data support the investment?
[23:00 approx]
Gotcha. All right. Now speaking about real estate -- there's probably going to be one or two people watching here who are involved in real estate, and as soon as they see Patrick Francey they're going to say, oh, must be real estate. Now, I'm from Alberta -- you've got some holdings in Alberta -- what are some opportunities that you think we could see over the next few years in Alberta real estate? Alberta in general -- then we can break it down. Well, Alberta in general I think will do really well. We've been hammering the drum about Alberta since really 2019. We've always been bullish on Alberta, and it's been slow to come back around. But four years ago -- prior to COVID -- we had actually released a report in December of 2019 on COVID. Like, we'd already seen -- we didn't know what it was going to represent, we just knew this was a thing. We actually wrote a report on it and released it December 2019, on COVID and the potential impact. It went on to be far more than we had even imagined. But even pretty early on, when the lockdown started in March 2020, we immediately went into this virtual world and we're telling
[25:00]
people about Alberta. We saw the direction -- by the end of 2020 we could see where Calgary was going to go, and we were talking about it. I don't know how much clearer we could have been: putting capital into Calgary, buying cash flow real estate, being responsible. It's not like just throw money up against the wall and see what sticks. Be pragmatic, be systematic, follow the system, follow the process. And now as we sit here in 2024, you look at Calgary and you go, well, that was a good run, a good lift so far. More to go, more to come. Now I'm going to put one little nuance factor in there -- there is one concern I have with Calgary. Anybody who's from Ontario looking at Calgary -- everything looks cheap, right? They have a world they live in in Toronto, GTA. Same idea with Vancouver. What they're seeing is that they look into Calgary and see condos for $290, $350, and they go, oh, I'll take three. And it's such a different culture, such a different environment in Alberta when it comes to that condo market. So they're putting capital into pre-construction condos. And I think we're going to start hearing, probably in about 2 or 3 years from now, about all of the Ontario and even some BC money that flooded into Calgary investing in condos. And I can't be any clearer -- I've stood on that soapbox -- I've said it very loud: if you want to live in a condo, you want to buy a condo to live in it, good for you. From an investment perspective -- don't invest in condos in Alberta. Full stop. That's my stand. And I'll live with that statement. It's been on record many times.
[27:00 approx]
Having said that, when you look at duplex -- where you can start to cash flow -- you can't buy a single-family detached of course, but duplex, triplex, fourplex, sixplex, whatever you might want to do -- those are great opportunities still in that province. Calgary, I'm very bullish on, and even surrounding areas. I look at even Lethbridge or Medicine Hat -- great areas. I'm a big fan of Lethbridge, for example. Red Deer's kind of in that middle neutral ground -- still okay, kind of steady. When you get into Edmonton, I get a little bit nervous right now given the politics of that particular city. I don't know that the juice is worth the squeeze in the long run. A little bit of controversy warning here. Having said that, I look around the city -- I look at specifically, let's say, St. Albert. There's always been a tax -- they've been heavily taxed with property taxes, always been a little bit that way. Not that there's no opportunities, but I would look to St. Albert, Spruce Grove, Nisku before I got into Edmonton proper. Now that's not to say there aren't opportunities in Edmonton -- there is. But you really have to know the area and you've got to go for cash flow. You've got to do the math.
[28:30 approx]
Now a lot of people are getting into the sixplex, eightplex game in Edmonton now, and the new bylaw changes have really allowed for and facilitated a lot of that. A lot of people are taking advantage of the MLI Select program to make that happen. Are you working with anybody right now, or do you have any thoughts on those activities going on in Edmonton? Well, you know -- here's the question. As an investor, strategy aside, tactic aside -- we have to look at what drives an economy. When we look at economic fundamentals and some of the influencers that drive an economy, we're looking at real estate and saying, not where is real estate today, what are they doing today -- we have to look and say, what will that real estate be like in 5, 7, 10, 20 years from now? So we have to look down the road. As much as I look at Edmonton today and I'm questioning it given the political environment -- ultimately I have to say, if I'm going to place capital, can I get growth? What is the return on that investment over a bare minimum 5 years, but looking at 10 to 15 years on a particular piece of
[30:00]
property? What am I looking for? I need cash flow, I need some appreciation. Because interest rates are not as low as they have historically been, I'm not going to get as much mortgage buy-down. So I have to look and say, is that the best place to put my capital? Again, strategy and tactic aside -- I have to look at: economically, how do I see any given city? I think there's opportunity in Edmonton. At the time of this conversation we can say well, historically Edmonton follows Calgary. Given that, you'd think now's the time to get in on Edmonton. I'm not confident it's going to follow the trend of Calgary -- I think there may be a departure from historical pattern in that regard. Some may look at it and go, no, with what's going on in Edmonton, I just don't see enough economically happening. It's a government city, and I don't see enough productivity. When I look at what's happening in Fort McMurray, for example -- even Grande Prairie -- the oil and gas industry has changed. Suncor is still going hard but they're not what they were 10 years ago. And so the jobs that were being driven in -- the employment that was being gained in Edmonton because people were working in Fort McMurray -- that's pretty much gone. And so when you look at that, you're going, okay, what's driving that economy? Those are the questions I'd want answered as an investor before putting capital into Edmonton.
[32:00 approx]
Okay. Now when it comes to things like the housing crisis -- we keep hearing about it all the time -- and the federal government's plan to bring in a half million new immigrants to Canada every year. I know from some anecdotal stories just talking with Uber drivers who've been fairly new to the country -- they're looking at places like Toronto and Vancouver -- too expensive. They look at Calgary -- Calgary's prices have started to move up. And some are starting to actually look at Edmonton just based on price and affordability alone. So what are some of your thoughts there? Well, first off -- it was a recent announcement that the government, literally in the past couple of days, has said they're going to cut back on international students by about 35%. So that's brand new. When you look at over a million people coming into this country, permanent residents, non-permanent residents -- as an investor, what do I want to know? Part of treating real estate investing like a business is saying, okay, I've got this client base, and those clients are my tenants. As an investor I have to look and say, what's the demand for what I'm providing? We've got people coming in, they need a place to live. First phase is I've got a line-up of clients. Can I accommodate whatever demographic I'm going to focus on?
[34:00 approx]
Some people are going to focus on students, some are going to be focused on non-permanent residents, others are going to say, no, I want long-term people that have got big careers and they're professionals. Whatever your demographic is, start to have that plan in place. And this is what we knew: Calgary was going to be really really popular and continue to be, by the way. And then Edmonton is the affordability factor. When I go to Edmonton or into Alberta in general, it's like everything's on sale. Now if you live in Edmonton or Calgary, you're going, what the hell are you talking about? But it's not -- literally I can compare. From groceries to clothes to you name it, Alberta is way less expensive. Plus we don't have provincial sales tax. I consistently see a minimum spread of gas at 35 cents a liter -- I'm always paying at least 35 cents a liter more here in British Columbia, often as much as 50 cents more. So you start to look at gas, you start to look at food -- I don't even want to get into vehicle insurance. As much as Alberta complains about their vehicle insurance, it's nothing compared to what my experience is here in British Columbia.
[35:00]
So again, why does that matter? It sounds like a complaint, and it's not -- it really is what I'm assessing Alberta as a province, and what I'm sharing with your viewers is: what does that mean? It means that people are going to move to affordability, and they are moving to affordability in Alberta. And that's why we're seeing record growth in Alberta -- aside from jobs, the volume of jobs, their average weekly salary is the highest in the country right now. If you're in Alberta you go, what are you talking about, I don't make nearly enough. Well, okay, got it. But you're still -- the highest average weekly income in Alberta is higher than anywhere else in the country. So people are moving there for jobs, for higher income, for a much lower cost of living. And for that they can put up with a little bit of cold weather. And ultimately that's it. So we look at real estate in that regard and we've got this steady stream of clients moving into the province. If we are real estate investors slash rental housing providers, we've got a great opportunity.
[36:00 approx]
Okay, terrific. Well Patrick, we've covered a lot of ground today. We did -- I hope it's helpful. It was great. Well, thank you very much. Pleasure having you on here. Patrick Francey, The Everyday Millionaire. And how do people get in touch with you, how can they follow you? Well, the best way to get a hold of me if you want to send an email or something is CEO@reincanada.com. That's probably the simplest way to get in touch with me. Okay, and your podcast again is The Everyday Millionaire. EverydayMillionaire.com. Awesome, pleasure, thank you very much.
AI Prompt
AI-generated from source material. Verify important details against the original source.
AI Implementation Prompt
CONTEXT This prompt is grounded in an interview conducted by Clayton Smith with Patrick Francey, founder and host of The Everyday Millionaire podcast and serial entrepreneur with over 40 years of business experience. The interview was recorded at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference in January 2024 and covers three interconnected domains: evaluating people and businesses, building and sustaining organizational culture, and allocating capital in Alberta real estate. Francey's core thesis is that sustainable business and investment outcomes are driven primarily by the quality of people involved -- their language, their track record, how they build and maintain teams, and how they respond to being challenged. He frames culture as a designed system, not an organic outcome, and argues that ego -- particularly in its contracting, keep-yourself-small form -- is the most common hidden obstacle to growth for capable people. On the real estate side, Francey has been tracking Alberta fundamentals through REIN since 2006 and through direct investment since 2000. His current view (as of early 2024): Calgary is the primary opportunity city, Alberta's wage and cost-of-living fundamentals create durable rental demand, pre-construction condos are a category to avoid for investors, and Edmonton's case is less clear due to political environment and a contracting employment base from the oil sands sector. KEY PRINCIPLES 1. People are the primary variable in any business or investment evaluation -- before numbers, before market conditions. 2. Language is a truth signal. How someone talks about a problem reveals their actual relationship with it. Extended conversation exposes what a pitch cannot hide. 3. Culture is designed, not inherited. Teams that build their own culture norms are more committed to them than teams handed culture from above. 4. Ego operates in two directions -- inflation (arrogance) and contraction (keeping yourself small). The contracting form is more common and less recognized among capable people. 5. Coachability is a filter, not a given. People who enter coaching needing to be coaxed into it will resist the most valuable parts of the process. 6. Confirmation bias is the primary risk at information-dense events. Seek outside perspectives actively and use them to pressure-test, not just to confirm. 7. Investment decisions require a data-driven, emotion-removed approach. The question is always: does the data support this, over a 5-10-15 year horizon? 8. Affordability is a durable driver of population movement and rental demand. Alberta's cost-of-living and wage advantage relative to BC and Ontario is structural, not cyclical. 9. The condo market in Alberta does not function the same way as in Toronto or Vancouver. Out-of-province capital flowing into pre-construction condos is likely mispriced. 10. Absentee ownership is a design goal, achievable through systems, team selection, and intentional delegation -- not a reward for eventual success. KEY LEVERS - People assessment -- identifying who is driving any venture and how they build around themselves - Language listening -- extracting real signal from extended conversation rather than curated pitches - Culture design -- building shared norms through facilitated team conversation rather than top-down imposition - Ego recognition -- identifying when internal resistance is protective contraction versus legitimate strategic judgment - Market fundamentals -- evaluating real estate on economic drivers, employment trends, migration, and demand profile rather than current price action - Investment horizon framing -- anchoring decisions to 5-10-15 year outcomes rather than near-term conditions WHAT THIS IS NOT This framework is not a system for rapid deal evaluation or pitch deck assessment. It is a slow, relationship-grounded approach that values extended conversation over structured analysis. It does not provide a formula for identifying the right investment -- it provides a set of qualitative filters that reduce the probability of backing the wrong people or markets. It is not a bullish case for all Alberta real estate -- Francey is explicit that Edmonton is uncertain and that specific product types (condos) are problematic. The ego discussion is not a meditation practice or self-help framework -- it is a practical diagnostic for identifying when internal resistance is sabotage versus signal. IMPLEMENTATION MODES 1. Apply -- help me use Francey's people-first framework to evaluate a specific business, investment, or partnership I am considering 2. Diagnose -- help me identify whether resistance I am feeling toward a decision or action is ego contraction or legitimate strategic hesitation 3. Culture Build -- help me design a culture conversation for my team, including the right questions to ask and how to document and act on the outputs 4. Hire/Fire Decision -- help me think through whether a high-performing but culturally problematic person should stay or go, using Francey's framework 5. Alberta Market Analysis -- help me evaluate a specific Alberta city or property type against the fundamentals Francey describes 6. Confirmation Bias Audit -- help me identify where I may be building a thesis through agreement rather than evidence, and what questions to ask to pressure-test it 7. Coaching Filter Design -- help me build an intake process that assesses coachability without being off-putting or filtering out good candidates 8. Absentee Ownership Roadmap -- help me identify the steps and decisions required to reduce my day-to-day dependency in a business I currently run 9. Language Analysis -- help me analyze how someone describes a problem or opportunity to identify what they may be revealing inadvertently 10. Investment Horizon Framing -- help me reframe a near-term investment decision into a 5-10-15 year evaluation question AI OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS Stay grounded in Francey's specific frameworks and language as described in the source material. Do not import generic business advice or motivational content. When the user describes a situation, ask clarifying questions before offering analysis -- the quality of the people involved and the specifics of the market matter enormously and cannot be assessed from surface-level descriptions. Challenge weak assumptions directly and respectfully. If the user is building a confirmation bias around a particular investment or decision, name it. Draw connections between the ego, culture, and investment sections where they are genuinely relevant -- these domains overlap in Francey's thinking. Avoid double hyphens -- use plain language transitions instead. GUIDED DISCOVERY Ask me up to three questions, one at a time, to determine: (1) what I am trying to accomplish or decide, (2) which ideas from this interview are most relevant to my specific situation, (3) how Francey's frameworks could be applied most directly and practically to what I am working on. Once you understand my situation, help me build a practical implementation plan.