Episode 32: Interview with H. J Chammas Author of Millionaire Mindset and Success Habits

Who is H.J Chammas?

Dawn: Hello, everyone. We are live and streaming across YouTube, Facebook and Linkedin. This morning I have a special guest with me and this gentlemen is joining me with a very interesting story and background. The reason I have invited H.J Chammas with me, is, because he has achieved some great things. But I think his journey is probably one of the most interesting and I think with all business owners, entrepreneurs, you know, it’s all very well looking at the end result, but we want to know the nitty gritty. So we’re going to dive in and speak to H.J all about his award-winning books and bestsellers. He is a self-made employee millionaire, which I always find interesting because in the world of property and I have property business too, everyone always wants to know how do you get started?

I think sharing that story really of, you know, how it all comes about because taking that first step that we people listening to this morning who are thinking, “Oh my goodness, I would love to start a property portfolio”. The fact that they’re in a job which is what you’ve done too and as you got financial freedom by investing in properties all across Asia, Dubai, Europe, tell us a little bit about what you’re doing now. So people get a flavor for where you are and then we can travel back in time and find out a little bit more about how you got there.

H.J: Yeah. First of all, thanks for having me on the show, it’s a real pleasure.  I’ve been watching a couple of the podcasts you’ve been doing and they’re awesome. Really awesome. I really feel privileged to be your guest here today. So going back to your question, what am I doing now?  I’m totally dedicated to three things. I am an active investor in rental properties and that’s my passion, as you can see from my books and we can discuss later how I, how I arrived there. I also have a coaching business. So I coached students through my courses, one-on-one or through group coachings about how to make it from an employee, a paycheck to paycheck and I hold their hands so that I can walk them through a process so that they go to the other side of the table and become full-time investors.

Number three, what I’ve realized is people with all of those things sometimes tend to be procrastinating or they need some push. So I launched a new business called Casa bait, which is a real estate crowdfunding platform in that, in this business model, I allow people or wannabe investors to become passive investors. So that don’t need to have the headache of managing properties or doing this and that we do everything for them. They just fund some properties, each one, according to how much they could afford.

Dawn: It’s like they can kind of take some money and dip into it without having the full responsibility of having to raise all the money, to get a particular property. So it’s popular. Now we’re seeing so many businesses, aren’t we with crowdfunding and I think it is a popular option because it makes property investing available to people in all ages, all stages. I think one of the fears or the reasons that people don’t get involved in property is that first step, you know, look some people are renting, some people have got their own houses, they’ve got other commitments and to raise that amount of money for another property just seems a bridge too far. So tell us about your new book. That’s just launched on Amazon.

H.J: Yeah, so recently I launched a book called the millionaire mindset and success habits, and the idea came out of my engagement with my students. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I have this coaching business and that always intrigued me or surprised me how much all of us we were programmed and that I was also programmed. There’s a kind of society programming. The program is in a way to be, to always have fear, to think nothing could be achieved to being things are impossible and all that kind of stuff. This makes us always come on the defensive. So I call it this is the building inside of us. So we need to awake the giant inside of us to fight. This has been in the side of us and to transform our mindset from a mindset of limiting beliefs, to one of empowering beliefs and this needs to, you know, some people to fall and to wake up for it and to have a process for that.

Dawn: In terms of, you know, growing up etc, did you just naturally fall into this? Is this something that you thought you’re always going to be doing? Would it be something that people kind of within your family expected? What was your, what your background and your upbringing like?

H.J: Hell no, so that’s not my background.  I think actually I think this is the first time I mentioned it on a podcast or, yeah I think so.  I come from Lebanon, so I was raised in a country that was affected by civil war, you know. It’s like there used to be like the Berlin Wall, Beirut used to be divided into Western East where the Muslim and the Christians used to live and it was really a devastating war. So then when I became a young adult, I really wanted to break out of all this kind of background and I immigrated out of, Lebanon. I was practically poor. I have practically less than a hundred dollars in my pocket and I just wanted to do something about it. So it was a very tough road.

Then I got recruited into the corporate world and like any other person, I was doing the rat race from paycheck to paycheck and nothing was happening. You know, I was moving from a County to the other, because I was getting promoted and the more I got promoted, the more my income increased and the more my expenses increased, I was always trapped. Not until I learned how to change my mindset and subscribe to a new set of empowering beliefs. This is how really, it was like the trends, like the tipping point for me, what made me shift to the other side of the table and change my whole, reality about personal finance and money.

Buying your first property

Dawn: Yeah because I think it’s such a common thing. I mean, there’ll be so many people listening who are thinking exactly the same, the, you know, that they’ve moved  through the career or they’ve started a business and the thought of them, you know, with all the other responsibilities and expenses they’ve got then to be thinking about property. So, biggest thing I guess everybody wants to know is like, when did you buy your first property? How did it come about how did you make that first break?

H.J: Yeah. So at that time when I purchased my first property, I was based in the Philippines in East Asia and at that time I got to know a very famous guru, a real estate guru. He was into properties all over the world with some factories in the Philippines, because he used to export to the U S all those garments and fabrics. So I was really knocking on his door every week. I want to get coached by you. He never gave me time. So I was  consistent until one day he told me, yes, I’m gonna, I’m gonna coach you. But of course he put some conditions on me that, I need to follow his rules and I need to take action, and sometimes he might ask me some crazy stuff.

Like I worked for him for six months as like a property manager without getting paid and this was crazy. How can you work for free? But then after I finished stunt I understood that he was coaching me by putting me on the job and it allowed me the chance to learn things while doing them instead of only theory. So at that time I took my first step. I invested in a one bedroom apartment in Manila, in the business district there in McCarthy, in the Philippines and amazingly, I got it with almost nothing from my own pocket, less than 7% out of my own pocket, because I knew how to negotiate for properties. Then there is a nod for that and science as well, you know? So, then I got to started to get about 46 if I recall return on investment. And slowly, slowly, I started to add my next property and the next, and then it became kind of a habit. You know, like you have a cookie cutter, you just keep on doing the same, same stuff over and over, and always are gonna have some mistakes, but you perfect your way, along the way, you know.

Dawn: So in terms of your portfolio now, how many properties have you got?

H.J: So,  I got like, I’m not like a guru with thousands of properties. Like what you hear about the U S and stuff? No, I have less, I have less than 50, about 40 plus, but it’s not about, it’s not about the number as much as it is about the value of them, because in some countries, like in Dubai, let’s say for a property, for a townhouse or for a villa, it cost a million dollars for a Villa for one unit, you know? Whereas some other parts of the world, it could be a hundred thousand dollars. So it’s about, I think the value of the portfolio and most importantly, the way I sit, it’s not about even how much you have as money in the bank, as much as it’s important about your passive income, how wealthy are you? So if you stop working today for how many days can you live, throughout your life you know? That’s more important for me than the absolute number of the apps sort of figures.

Biggest challenge in the property journey

Dawn: What do you think has been, you know, the hardest time, I mean, you know, hear entrepreneurs stories all the time you hear about people’s, you know, woes of background, but along the way of obviously your property, journey, what’s been the hardest thing? Have you had times where you’ve, you know, I don’t want to do this anymore, or, you know, you’ve really worried about, you know, pressing forward.

H.J: Of course, I actually remember on my first deal with all the coaching that I’ve been going through, I really remember it was a rainy day in the Philippines. I was going in the car and just to go to the public notary and sign all those papers to own the property. I was praying literally to just to have an accident so that I don’t make it there. You know, then when I was really signing on those papers, my pen was shaking. You know, I was, you know, shy about it because I was signing on something that was worth much more than what I have, because I told you I paid almost nothing from my pocket. So I was taking leverage, which is the bank loan. Yeah. So I was taking a loan and in my bank account, I almost had zero. So, you know, it was much bigger than what I could afford, but I had to take this leap of faith because I knew that I was following the process.

Money as an enabler

Dawn: So, you know, what’s your feelings around money, what’s your attitude to money? Have you always you know, since that property going forward had kind of the, you know, over the fear. What do you feel about money now?

H.J: You know, I think money is an enabler. It’s only an enabler. I think what people need to know or realize in their life, they need to have a crystal clear clarity about what’s the big, why, what do they want out of life? Most often, when people dig deeper and ask themselves a multiple layer of why’s, it all boils down to family, to spirituality, to stress-free life, to happiness, to health, and what you realize that money is only an enabler for you to have more time, more choices, to do all that stuff that you want. When you come to this peace of mind about money is not the number, as much as it is as an enabler to allow you to do all of that. And also then to pay it forward and start helping people out, your attitude changes about it. Then you start to think about the more I can help people out in my businesses and my books and whatever I’m doing, the more money will follow me. So you should not chase money as much money should be chasing you because you have a mission. You have a vision, and this is in reality, you will see that when you change this kind of thinking money and it will become much easier to think about it than earlier.

Dawn: In terms of obviously the wealth side of things, I mean, you’re very clear that, you know, it’s not down to money. It’s about all of the different facets that we want within our lives. I mean, I think some people will find it difficult, you know, when they’re currently homeschooling kids and, you know, they’re in lockdown to even think about taking something else on, and it almost feels like an overwhelm. What would be your advice? Like one thing that you could say to do today that could change their future in terms of the way that they’re thinking about the money and the wealth.

H.J: I think they it’s all about self-education. If that’s something a person is to achieve, they need to get educated about this thing. And now it’s quite simple, like watching a podcast, like the one we’re having now, watching YouTube channel, reading books, online courses. So there are a lot of options out there. It’s about picking this course or this training that really suits you and then start educating yourself before making the move. Because people think always I’m going to educate myself when I want to make it. No, you have to be ready before that and then when you get educated, you start to see opportunities that you never saw before, because now your mind is programmed in a different way. People start to tell you, “Hey, you’re lucky”, but it’s not about lucky because I was prepared and then I got opportunities. As you know luck is one that opportunities meet the preparedness. So you’re prepared and you’ve got the opportunities and you create your own luck and the whole process. So educate yourself. It’s all about education, education, education, and there are lots of options out there.

Recognising your personal truths about limiting beliefs

Dawn: So as you have just launched your new book, would you, um, kindly share a little bit about, uh, yeah. Or a section out of it, something a tip or something that would entice us, just a little snippet nugget that we can, we can have from yourself?

H.J: Yeah, definitely. So the book basically speaks about how we’re all programmed about a certain, you know, it’s like a written program that you go to school, you get high grades, you graduate, you join the workforce, you get the high-paying job and you get the pension and life goes on. Beautiful. And then you wake up one day, in your mid forties, you’re afraid of getting fired. Then you see a lot of others getting fired and you think oh S***, now it’s too late for me. So the way it happens here, I take the audience or the readers through a journey of what are those limiting beliefs. Then I invite them to do a deep thought. What’s the really personal truth about each one of the limiting beliefs that we might have in our own mind.

Once you acknowledge that, and you have peace with your own personal truth, this is when you’ll be able to transform this personal truth to an empowering belief. And the whole journey becomes whatever used to be a limiting belief comes now your new empowering belief. So the book covers 11 of those main limiting beliefs. Of course there’s much more, but in my experience, those 11 are the pillars. Like if you really get them right,  it will be easier for you to unfold any other limiting beliefs you might be having.

How time chunking can make you more productive

Dawn: Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s such an interesting thought because when we think about the two types of mindset, it’s so true. And we’ve all been in both probably at different times and having a growth mindset. It always changes the day-to-day to the excitement, because you’ve got this new focus and it’s like a new found opportunity. So I think it’s true with everything. I mean, we’re not saying you know, give your job up or do you do whatever, but, you know, for each person it will be different, won’t it, in terms of what their true wealth, you know, and their financial freedom is. So, are you someday, sort of day-to-day that is, you know, working 10, 12 hours, what’s your, day-to-day sort of like?

H.J: By the way, that’s an awesome question because always people think when you’re financially free or financially dependent. You’re lying on the beach and all this.  It doesn’t happen. The only difference is that before being financially dependent, I used to work for others. Now, I work for myself, for my students, for my audience. I fulfill my path, my mission in life, which is adding value to people’s lives, you know, so in my usual day, but now I have the option of one stop working, one to spend time with my family. I’m not limited to a certain time in the office. So,  my usual day is I wake up. I’m a very early man by the way. I wake up at 6:00 AM every day before everyone else. And this is where I focus. I do a lot of the things that need focus and meditate and you know reflecting on things.

This goes about till about 10. Then I take a break.  I spend time with my wife, with my family, where now, you know, during the pandemic sometimes no schools. So it’s fortunate to have this family moments. And it goes like that until early afternoon. Then at around two after lunch, this is where I take another, you know, a couple of hours, like three to four hours. And I focus on the other things where I can write an article. I can reply to my students because as I told you on the coaching programs, I need to have my students and deal with their needs as well. So I did all those deeds, all this, you know, it’s like the operational stuff. And then also on my properties portfolio, I have a tenant that required maintenance here, somebody new was there, a check bouncing over there and you need to manage all of those kinds of stuff, which takes like half an hour or 50 minutes every day, but you need to plug them in your schedule. Otherwise you would get derailed and then you know,  you never do them.

Dawn: Yeah. It’s interesting you chunk your time. I’m a big advocate of chunking your time and I’m doing the specific things in a particular time, like even doing emails and calls and things like that. Um, I think when you open your day up to everything, you just become really very busy and it’s very difficult to quantify what you’ve achieved. And I think sometimes just taking a step back and only allowing specific lengths of time to do jobs, you kind of get it done quicker. Don’t you, you know, it’s a weird, weird thing.

How our biggest challenges are our biggest opportunities

Dawn: What do you see then you know, the biggest challenge for, you know, 2021. I think people are in this, we don’t really know where we’re at, what’s happening and you know, what do you think the biggest challenge for us will be over the next 12 months?

H.J: I think what people perceive as a challenge nowadays, personally, and some people think I’m out of my mind. I think it’s the biggest opportunity in life. And I’ll explain why. So, basically, if you think about it, the vaccine is coming in and I don’t want to go on this story about all this conspiracy theories about the vaccine. I think the herd immunity is going to happen in the next few months within 2021. Now what happened in reality, because of the economic crisis that happened, due to the pandemic, the prices of assets really dropped down. And if we think about property, property prices across the globe really plummeted, it went down. So now it’s the golden opportunity in some countries, the selling price is below costs. Can you imagine that the low cost of construction is crazy? So now, if you think of it as an opportunity, this is when you start to scoop properties or you scoop any kind of assets you want.

I don’t want everybody to be into properties, but if you think of it as an asset is below market price, is below its value is time to scoop it. Because this is when people make their fortune. I made mine in 2008 is when I entered into real estate, it was the global financial crisis. Everybody thought I’m crazy. Everybody was going out. I was going in, and now it’s the same thing. I think it’s an opportunity if people know how to do it and when to do it in the right way, because a lot of people think, Oh, I can do it by a low-balling here and there, but it’s not like that. There’s a process. That is a way to analyze things. It’s all based on numbers, not on emotions, you know? And so I think it’s an opportunity, not a challenge. You will decide if you think of it as a challenge, you’re going to sit at home and cry. I lost my job. I’ve got to do all this stuff. Or, you can take this opportunity and you change your own reality.

Dawn: Interesting thought processes, because there’s a lot of people even today who will be going through a lot of hardship, you know, on the back of it from, you know, losing loved ones and things like that. And it is it’s changing that perception and thought processes, and then thinking, well, what, what can I take from this? You know, it’s a bit like every cloud, I suppose, has a silver lining, but it’s moving forward and not staying in that zone too long. It’s difficult. I mean, if you, obviously, you know, you’ve got 40 properties and things like that. You’ve got financial freedom, you know, obviously before probably what kept you up at night was probably more money motivated to what keeps you up at night. Now, what’s your biggest worry?

H.J: My biggest worry is, not being able to spend enough time with my family, although I give them, if you compare me to meet me before, when I used to have a job, I really had no time before that to my family. Now I have much more time, but still I have this kind of, a good feeling that I want to spend much more time with them. And I feel that I might be missing those bonding moments and those awful moments. And that’s what my wife always tells me, so, okay, man, you’ve done it, you’re there, so why are you still working? I always say it’s never about work as much as about adding value. I’m able to help people out if you imagine the number of emails and calls and whatever I receive. But people thanking me, you know, in one  email sometimes with only two words – Thank you. It gives me those, feelings of pleasure of that’s wow. I was able to change someones life. Yeah.

Dawn: And it’s a passion, isn’t it? You know, if you were to choose one thing then in your life that you would say that you are most proud of what, what would it be? The one thing that you would say?

H.J: It’s I think, on the personal level is my family. Actually, my wife, I’m proud of the moment that I met my wife.  At that time, I was very persistent, consistent, consistent. So she used to be in Lebanon. I used to be in the Philippines. Imagine I used to fly every three weeks, 17 hours flight, just to see her for four days. Imagine every two months I was doing the round of the world, if you think of it in a math way. So I’m so proud of that because I knew that she was the one and I was really insistent that I work on that relation despite of all distance. And because of her, it gave me all the motivation to do whatever I’ve done in my life.

Because I was poor. She came from a wealthy family, so the bar was high. And I wanted to really raise my standards and do all this stuff. So that one day in time, her parents wouldn’t think of me as though I’m no one. So I wanted to prove that and this was a big motivation. I’m very proud of her, of my son, Ryan, I love him a lot. I love her a lot. And then of course on the business side is my book publishing because with books, I can reach more people. The more people I reach, the more people I can impact, the more lives I can impact. And this really I get a lot out of, as I told you, as a pleasure, because I’m able to add value to people’s lives.

Getting your first book published

Dawn: So for my final question, because I’m sure people will be thinking about, you know, books, podcasts, things like that. How did you get your first book out? Did you go through the normal publishing contract route? Did you self publish? How did you get into it?

H.J: Yeah, so you know, I never intended to be an author by the way. So what happened  when the first time we knew that my wife was pregnant, we didn’t know at that time, even the gender, something inside of me pushed me to open my laptop and just write down all the lessons I went through in my life. Because I was in my early forties at that time and I thought maybe what my son or daughter will be 18 plus. Maybe I’m not going to be there for them. So I want to write for them something that could be the lessons of life and how I was able to make it from an employee to financially independent. Then, you know, I was actually on the laptop. One time my wife saw the script, the manuscript, I was open in the laptop, she got intrigued and she called me.0 

I was out of home and she told me, Oh, you’re out of your mind, what’s happening. So she taught me, you have a great something and why aren’t you sharing it with the word. Dr. Joyce, I don’t know how to do it. I’m not an author, just notes for our kid, you know, that’s it. So she challenged me and then I approached the penguin random house and they have partish publishing as part of the sister company. I send them the manuscript out of, you know,  I want to get my wife off my back. Okay, I’m going to do it and don’t worry about it. I’m going to do it. So I sent her the manuscript without anything really on my mind. And I was surprised I received a call from them. I was at that time in Dubai. I received the call. They told me, wow, we see this as  the rich that did that for the poor for the 2020s. It’s an amazing book and we want to publish it. And I was surprised, and this is how it all started. I’m an incidental author, not really a planned author.

 

How believing in ourselves is the most important thing we can do

Dawn: But you knew what so many people are the same thing. I mean,  I did my book back in 2019. I just put my proposal out to one publisher. So, you know, I was lucky to get it, but mine sat in their spam folder for six months until they got back to me. So, yeah, I mean, if there was one lasting takeaway that our listeners and viewers, can have, what would that be? One last takeaway that you would like them to remember?

HJ: I think we need to believe in ourselves. If we have a vision, if we know what’s our big, why, what drives us in our lives, believe in yourself, educate yourself, change your mindset from a limiting mindset on empowering one and just make it happen. Stop doing what I call the captivity of passivity and the, sorry, I need to throw this in as a word. So I call it in our circle of friends. We call it the intellectual masturbation. So people think a lot and then they will never take action. They think of that date and then they never go on the date. They think about money. They never take action to do the money. So stop this. I am, and they need to start educating yourself and take action and change your reality.

Dawn: I think the thought process of the why? I don’t think for me, that’s ever changed, my why I keep going through what is my why? And it evolves. So each and every day, my why is slightly different because there’s changing factors and environmental factors that come into it. And I think from lockdown, I think a lot of people have taken action and step forward, but a lot of people have come a little bit paralyzed by the overwhelm of it because the monotony of the day to day, I think has, it’s kind of got to people now. So if they can go and think about their, why, how would they plot this out? Do you recommend them? People writing it down, thinking about it, what’s the best way just to take some Headspace to do this.

 

How to download your free book

H.J: Yeah. So look, I think they need to write it down and they need to, because when you think about your big why and the things you want in life, you start to categorize them. You find a category about family, a category about wealth. One about career and one about spirituality and helping your church, your community, one about your success. And you start to categorize, you put them into categories. And then when you start to link them together, you’ll be amazed that what comes on top would be your personal stuff at the money. And then your money will becomes an enabler. And to have to do that, by the way, I would like to offer the audience a free book, that they can download. And the first chapter of this book is really, it takes them through the big why. And the whole process. This book is a number one best seller by the way, but I’m giving it away for free. Now it’s called the four stages of building wealth, and it could be downloaded from www.employeemillionaire.com/four stages.

Dawn: Perfect. I will put this onto the link onto the podcast as well on dawnmcgruer.com. And we’ll put when the videos go out, obviously and the podcast, there’ll be links in both. So, you know, make sure that if you want to get it, grab it now, and get working on it and make a difference, do something different today that makes you feel positive that you’ve taken a little bit of control. So, if people want to go and find you, where can they find you on social media?

H.J: So all my social media, my is hjchammas, which is on Twitter, on Instagram, on LinkedIn as well. On Facebook it’s called REI cashflow. So real estate investing for cashflow, REI cashflow, and on those, on my social media platforms, I read always, write articles, a lot of free stuff. Sometimes I throw in free books as well, free courses because, it’s just to keep the momentum going and really trying to reach out to as many people as possible and to really help them out.

Dawn: Perfect. Well, you’re a member of our group as well. So if people want to come and chat and ask any questions, you just need to go to Facebook, to Dawn McGruer’s marketing and motivation and mindset group. And, you can come and join the party there, so we have all of our podcast guests in there, and also you can watch the replay there too. So thank you so much for joining us. What are you going to be doing for the rest of the day?

H.J: So now I’m gonna go out there, stay with my son. You know, I, I need to, I need to act like a small boy, like four years old, but then with the toys and the Lego and building stuff, just look it up. I love it.

Dawn: Oh, well you have a super day and thank you so much. And I cannot wait to get my hands on the free copy of myself. I’m going to go and do some activities as well. So thank you and take care. And again, we will hopefully see you soon in the group.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode and don’t forget I’m going to be with you each and every week. So download and listen on dawnmcrguer.com or on iTunes and come and join us in our Facebook community, too. All the details are on the website and I’ll see you next week.