SPEAKERS

Greg McKeown, Drew Scott, Linda Scott


Transcript

Greg McKeown 

How are you doing?

Drew Scott 

Doing great. Yes.

Linda Scott

How are you doing?

Drew Scott

You have a very soothing voice. I think this is a great way for us to spend our day, it’ll get us relaxed.I tried putting on a British accent; it didn’t help me because my accents aren’t the best.

Greg McKeown

I want to hear your British accent.

Drew Scott  

It depends what you want me to sound like. I could do more of a queen. I do hybrids. I don’t actually do real accents.

Greg McKeown  

I don’t mean to knock a man, you know? But I didn’t know what that accent was.

Drew Scott

Nobody does. Not even me.

Greg McKeown  

Linda, do you do an accent?

Linda Scott  

Well, I don’t know.

Greg McKeown  

That was all right. When I try to sound like an American, I just sound like Bill Clinton.

Drew Scott 

Oh, that was like Bill Clinton from the Wild Wild West.

Greg McKeown

That’s it, I can’t do anything else.

Linda Scott  

I was picturing the cowboy hat.

Drew Scott 

So you know, when I was an actor as a kid, way before hosting or real estate or anything, my first real passion was acting. So I started – I did some theater and then we did some – my brother Jonathan and I both did acting at the same time and we did some commercials, and then as I was a young adult, I got into, late teens or early 20s, Smallville, it’s a series where you know, Superman is in this village. It’s a huge CW show-

Greg McKeown  

I know Small World.

Drew Scott 

Smallville.

Greg McKeown

Smallville.

Drew Scott  

Smallville, yeah. Small World is another show that was awesome, but I was too tall for that one. But anyway, in Smallville, though, I had a small bit part, but then I actually got to be Superman stand in and photo double. So-

Greg McKeown 

I like this. I like this. I want to go back to the beginning. I want you to give me like, two minutes on parents.

Drew Scott 

So, starting on my side? Growing up mom and dad – so my mom worked 9 to 5, she was a paralegal at a law firm in Vancouver. We lived and grew up in a town outside of Vancouver, Maple Ridge, up in Canada. And so I remember, you know, usually she was gone before we got up in the morning, and then she would come back later in the day. And then mom would always, during the week, she would prep all the meals for dinner, and then she would do meals on weekends for us. Whereas my dad usually prepped breakfast for us because he worked. He was a child counselor, and he would have flexible hours. The whole reason my dad actually gave up, he was in the movie industry and did these other jobs before that, where he was always away. And he gave that up to be at home with us so he could raise us and spend more time with us. And so I thought that was a really amazing thing. We’d get our mornings with dad, our evenings with mom and dad, and our weekends together.

We grew up on a ranch, and so that was a big, important thing for them to have us really integrated in that farm and ranch life where we’d be out on our horses all day, taking care of the horses. We learned a hard day’s work through them on the ranch. I think it really did shape us. The life lessons that they gave us as well really shaped us. They encouraged us to go into whatever we were passionate about. And they supported us through and through, which really meant a lot.

Greg McKeown 

How big was the ranch?

Drew Scott 

So when we were younger, we had – first our horses, when we were kids, were over in another property. It was a neighboring property. And then we got a 5 acre hobby farm. And then end at the of grade 9, our parents bought a quarter section. So it was about one hundred and sixty acres outside of Calgary. And yeah, it was smaller when we had the 5 acre property, but the horse trailer went up into the Golden Ears mountains, so up into the mountains, it actually passed right through our property. So it’s pretty cool for us having horses, we could just hop right onto the trail and ride for miles and miles up into the mountains. There was no being lazy. I mean, our dad is one of the hardest workers we’ve ever met. He just – no complaining. He just gets out there and he just does it. And I do remember as a kid, actually, it’s funny. There are all the jobs we’d have to do – every year we would have to repaint – my dad had fences, these 3 board white fences all around the entire acreage around all the different individuals.

Greg McKeown 

Yeah, horse fences in fact.

Drew Scott 

Yeah, horse fences. And it’s all – the rings had different fences around them. So there was fencing everywhere. But my dad was always, we always joke that we’re Scottish, so we’re cheap.

Greg McKeown  

Can you do a Scottish accent?

Drew Scott  

Well, I kind of tried to do some Scottish accent, but none of my accents are really that great.

Greg McKeown  

This is from a child actor.

Drew Scott  

Yes, who is claiming to be good with accents. But the thing is my dad would always get a cheaper paint. And so we would have to repaint. It would fall, it would flake off every year, we’d have to redo it. I’m like, Dad, let’s just do a bit more quality work. And then we wouldn’t have to redo this every year. I was always trying to find ways around the ranch to get out of doing what I thought was unessential labor around the ranch, I was always trying to find more effective ways. For example, picking up rocks. My dad would have us as kids, collect these little buckets, small buckets, that we would put rocks in. This a five acre parcel, and we would be constantly picking up rocks all the time. And so we finally protested and we said, we’re not doing this unless you can pay us a nickel a bucket, and he said sure. Because it was still a heck of a lot cheaper than him having to pay what he would have to pay to get guys to come in. And then we realized we’d go for 10 cents.

Then we went up to a quarter a bucket and I remember saying to my dad, why don’t you just pay $200 and get one of those big rakes that come behind your truck and then it’ll pull all the rocks up and save us all this hassle. He’s like, no, no, that’s what you guys are here for, it’s fine. I was always trying to find a more effective and more efficient way to do anything even as a kid.

Greg McKeown  

Yeah, that is very interesting. I want to come back to it. But it sounds to me like your dad wasn’t, you know, like, it wasn’t about the rocks?

Drew Scott  

You know, in reality, I feel it kind of was, but no, I mean, what I really love looking back now as an adult, is I could see when my parents were trying to have us do things that was a life lesson. And I could see that they were actually coordinating a plan of attack for certain things too. Because you know, sometimes as a kid, if my dad says “no” I try and suck up to my mom so that she would say “yes”, I can do something. And I know that they always backed each other and they always communicated with each other to not let that happen. And they would call us out on it right away so that it’s not a habit that we would get into. And so they definitely did a lot of things around the ranch property that were life lessons for us.

Greg McKeown  

Well, and the other thing they did, which, you know, when you’re young, you don’t really think about your parents making big strategic decisions, you’re just living in this reality, this is normal. But what they did was they lived on a ranch. So that’s like a huge decision. That’s like one decision that made one thousand decisions for the experiences that would happen and all the work that would be required and all of the, just the whole, the whole experience that you then lived with was the result of that, you know, original strategic decision.

Drew Scott

Yeah, I mean, their true passion when they first met was surrounding a ranch as well. I mean, my dad, he’s Scottish. He was born in Lanark between Glasgow and Edinburgh. And so for him, he used to watch old cowboy movies as a kid and his dream as a teenager was to go out to North America and work on a ranch and become a cowboy. So at 15 he had no money to his name. He worked his way over on a ship and he lived out his dream. He became a cowboy. And then he met my mom. And their dream together was to have a business where they would have a ranch and they would take people on pack trips up into the mountains on horseback, you’d camp for up to a month. And they lived out their dream. They did that together. And they did it for many years. And so when we were born, they had moved from the Rockies in Banff, just outside of Calgary. They moved from there out to Vancouver, because they wanted to take this business out to the West Coast and attempt to grow it there.

And that’s where we had the hobby farm, and that’s where I learned to ride, and we had horses, and it truly was a great story hearing how they met and lived out their dream and then they were passing that on to us.

Greg McKeown 

And then Linda, tell me about your parents.

Linda Scott

Yeah, so they grew up in Vietnam and came to Canada in ’77, I think yeah. So yeah, I grew up in Ontario-

Greg McKeown  

Where in Ontario?

Linda Scott  

In Toronto and Mississauga.

Greg McKeown

Yeah, I know Mississauga. I know Toronto. I actually lived there for 2 years.

Linda Scott  

Oh really?

Greg McKeown  

Yeah on a service mission I was in the inner city areas of Toronto. I could, I don’t think I should,  but I can sing Oh Canada

Linda Scott

That’s great.

Drew Scott 

It’s interesting though, when you learn it in elementary school we learned to sing it and then we also learned to sign it.

Linda Scott 

And in French.

Drew Scott 

And we did French. So we learned it 3 different ways.

Greg McKeown 

So I have a part of my heart up there. In fact, one of my friends at the time Paul Dodd  just sent me an email today with some letters from back then. So I’m very much in that special time, it was formative. It was a really thrilling part of my life as I’d left England and suddenly was on the other side of the world and just getting to know people. So on, and so anyway, so you came from Vietnam, you’re in Toronto?

Linda Scott 

As kids, they would often tell stories of how they got to Toronto. And that was through a series of boats. They were part of the boat people that can get to Vietnam. And my sister, second eldest sister, was born in Malaysia in a Red Cross camp, which I think is just so crazy.

Greg McKeown  

Amazing.

Linda Scott 

Yeah. And it’s wild what can happen in you know, in dire times, but yeah, they made it over to Ontario and that’s where we grew up. And as kids, I would remember my parents as being like serial entrepreneurs. My dad was always running around starting businesses.

Greg McKeown 

Like what? What businesses?

Linda Scott 

So they were always in like the wedding and entertainment business-

Drew Scott

Electronics.

Linda Scott

Electronics. We had a DVD or movie rental store. And as soon as we were old enough, so 8 or 10, we would work with them. So we would spend our weekends at the stores and we would help move all of the LaserDisc and set up the microphones and the karaoke sound system for weddings. So as much as I didn’t enjoy it as a kid, when I think back I, you know, I feel lucky that we were a part of that experience.

Drew Scott

Also feel lucky that your parents let you wait until 8 years old to start working. I started working at 7.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, that’s pretty late.

Greg McKeown

There’s such a visual in my mind of the boldness of your parents to even go, I’m doing this, we’re going to America against all odds, you know, we’re going to figure out how to do this. We’re going to get on those boats, we’re going to arrive by, I’m making stuff up here, but it would be consistent with the other stories of that generation. They start with nothing. They just make this happen.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, definitely. And the stories are just so overwhelming. And whenever I think about it, it does remind me how lucky we are to even contemplate, what am I going to do today? Because we have that choice. Whereas people who have gone through that experience, they didn’t have the choice to think you know, what are my passions that I’m going to live out? Their decisions were based on survival.

Drew Scott  

Oh, exactly. Yeah.

Linda Scott

Like, how are we going to get food? How are we going to get off this boat safely? Where are we going? Like we don’t know where we’re going. So, yeah, everyday, I’m thankful that they did that which gave us the opportunity to even think, you know, what are we going to do with our lives to make a difference?

Greg McKeown 

John Adams has a quote and I’m going to not get it quite right. But it was when he was the French ambassador in France, or at least was there working with the embassy there, and he’s asked in court, you know, what do you believe? What are you about? And he said, look, I study war, and economics so that my children can study art and philosophy and culture. And I think there’s more to it, maybe even goes to grandchildren and so on. But the idea that we have to sacrifice and build a certain set of things so that our children and grandchildren can have the opportunity that we literally cannot reach right now. So it’s investment, it’s intergenerational investment. And so you’re having these two very different experiences at this point in your lives. When did you two meet?

Drew Scott

We met 10 years ago, just over 10 years ago, in Toronto. So it was the first season of our show Property Brothers. And we were filming in Toronto, the show had started airing but it hadn’t taken off yet. And Jonathan and I were asked to be the celebrity models at this Fashion Week event. Our wardrobe sponsor was asking us to come and walk the runway for them. And so we said, sure, you know, maybe it’s a good opportunity with press and what not. And anyway, so at this event, I noticed this girl backstage, and she was stunning. But I noticed her personality is what was really pulling me towards her. She was talking with some people, and she just had this energy around her that was just this fun loving personality. And so I wanted to get to know her. I didn’t get to know her, instead I saw Linda and I started trying to…. No, but yeah, in the beginning there, it was Linda that I saw, there was nobody else I mean that she caught my eye right away.

And I made an excuse to come over and talk and bond, without, you know, hitting on her. I was of this state of mind, nobody wants to be hit on, but I wanted to create a conversation with her. And so my in was just that she was holding a bottle of water. And so I just said, “Where’d you get the water?” And she quickly came back with, “Where’d you get the pizza?” That I was holding and we just kind of noticed we had the same sort of similar personality character, you know, humor, and we hit it off and we started chatting and you know, I think our relationship grew pretty fast because we connected on a different level. And she ended up being my tour guide of Toronto, showing me a few cool spots to go.

Greg McKeown  

Which spots did you go to? What were the cool spots?

Linda Scott  

We went to Soma which is a chocolate-

Drew Scott  

Hot chocolate.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, but they make chocolate too. A mini chocolate factory I’d say. Do you remember the Distillery District when you were there, in Toronto?

Greg McKeown

I’m trying to remember that but it is not coming to my – there’s a lemonshe that I remember.

Linda Scott 

Oh yeah. So that’s downtown, on front.

Greg McKeown  

This was downtown, you’re saying?

Drew Scott  

Yeah, the distillery is close in that downtown area, but it’s a bunch of old brick buildings. It used to be factory buildings. And yeah, it’s a distillery as well. So this was all on our first day we did sushi, hot chocolate, and then karaoke, because well it was supposed to end after hot chocolate. And I said, okay, I’ll see you later. It’s my best friend’s birthday and we’re all going karaoking. So, it was a great date-

Drew Scott  

And then when she said karaoke, I’m like, oh, I’ll come. And I invited myself.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, he invited himself. And when we got to this karaoke bar, no one else was there. So I’m calling my friend Rodney and he’s just too drunk to know where he is. He ended up at the wrong bar. So we got the karaoke room to ourselves for an hour.

Drew Scott  

I knew at this point, I knew I had her hooked because karaoke is my jam. And I was like I know a few songs that I know are gonna win her over. And I’ll walk this in right here.

Linda Scott  

And yeah, I mean, I don’t remember thinking, man, this hour is taking forever. It is fun. It’s a blur now. Yeah, I think on a first date one might think oh man, I’m like stuck in a room with this new guy…

Greg McKeown 

It could be a very long hour.

Linda Scott 

Yeah. But it was fun. It just felt comfortable.

Drew Scott  

Wouldn’t you say the voice of an angel was just permeating through the walls?

Linda Scott  

Yeah. When I sang?

Greg McKeown

When you say it was your first date, what was the period of time between when you met and the “Hey where’d you get the water? Where’d you get the pizza?”

Drew Scott

It was a couple of months.

Linda Scott

2 and half months?

Drew Scott

Yeah, because we were filming and then we were just leaving town almost right away. And then I ended up coming back again for some press and stuff. And so yeah, I feel it was actually a good thing that we met, we connected, because there was the event we were at then there was an after party. So we really got to hit it off, learn a bit about each other and then give ourselves a bit of distance so we didn’t jump on it too fast. I’m very analytical with everything. And so I find in the past sometimes that I’ve seen with myself, as well as friends, is if you have someone new that you meet, and you then all of a sudden jump in and you spend too much time too quickly with that person, it doesn’t last as long. And I really enjoy the fact that we had that time apart; talked a little bit via phone or email, and then we were able to grow from there.

Greg McKeown  

And then okay, so I know I’m gonna jump fast here. But when did you get married?

Linda Scott  

  1. 2 years ago already.

Drew Scott  

2 years ago. May the Fourth. We are nerdy Star Wars peeps. And it was in Italy. And so for us, you know, we wanted to go – we wanted a destination wedding. We wanted to go somewhere where we could actually spend a week with family and friends because the last 10 years since we met, our lives have been extremely busy on the road. We were in a different city filming every few months. We’re on a plane every couple of days for whether it’s press or whatever it might be, and so we don’t get to see a lot of our friends and some of our family as regularly as we would want to. Or as if we were at home the whole time. And so yeah, we wanted to bring everybody somewhere. And we went to Italy, Puglia, and it was a sort of a throwback to the pizza and water. So the pizza when we first met was Italy. And also we ended up, instead of people giving us gifts for the wedding, everybody donated for us to give clean water for life to this village in the Amazon.

Greg McKeown

It’s very cool. And then just explain this to me now, you go from the ranch to you said, first in theater. I’m not sure I would put those two things together naturally. So is that because your dad was already in, you know, prior to being on the ranch he’d worked in movies and that’s why? How did you make the jump from horses to theater? And what was the first show, too?

Drew Scott

Yeah. So when we, you know, while we were at the ranch growing up on the ranch, we were going to, you know, our school had a good theater program. And even before we were in theater, Jonathan and I, we had so much energy. We were at home, we were always, you know, we were kind of making our own little songs, making our own little plays, trying to entertain our parents, family, friends, and anybody who would even look at us, we were trying to entertain them. We had a ton of energy. I’m sure we were annoying as hell to my parents. And so yeah, they at one point, they had said to us, you know, they’re trying to look for a way that we could have an outlet for all of our energy and the local parks and rec, they were doing a course on how to become a clown. So you could actually be paid to entertain at birthday parties and such. And so we loved this idea. So we went. We learned to juggle, we learned to blow-up balloon animals, and paint faces and-

Greg McKeown

How old were you when you did that?

Drew Scott

So Jonathan and I actually started our first business at 7. And then actually we started clowning at 8. So it was all around that same time.

Greg McKeown  

So what was the first business? If you did clowning at 8?

Drew Scott  

Yeah, so the first business was actually an arts and crafts kind of a thing. It was making these decorative hangers. So we would take a wire hanger, then we would weave a nylon around it and create our little rosettes. And so just these pretty hangers, and we saw them, we were at some sort of an I don’t know, it was an art show or craft show or something. And Jonathan and I looked at each other and we’re like we could do this. We were always looking for some way to make money, some way to be able to afford to get the things we wanted to get.

Greg McKeown  

What did you want to get?

Drew Scott  

At that age, what we wanted was, well, our parents had taken us to Scotland when we were 5 years old. And our dad got us hooked on our Scottish heritage because he would tell us all these stories about the knights, and the armor, and the swords, and the battles, and kings, and queens, and the cathedrals, and all these amazing stories, and he took us around to show us all these old buildings and properties. And I was hooked. So was Jonathan. We were totally hooked on this heritage. And so we wanted to collect swords. And so our dad said, we’ll go back to Scotland in a few years. But you guys, if you want swords, you have to buy them yourself. I’m not just gonna buy it for you. And so he really lit that fire under us. If we want something, we have to earn it ourselves. And, and so we were always looking, you know, whether it was, you know, getting the quarter from the shopping carts in the parking lot, or whether it was recycling bottles and getting the 5 cents.

We looked for every way, a paper route – and I was always looking for a more efficient way to make more money to be able to afford these swords that I wanted. So by the time we were 10 we had started this business, sorry, I’ll back up, we started the business at 7. We did that for a couple years. Then we started clowning. And these hangers we literally, Jonathan and I would make them by hand and we got so busy, we had a woman from Japan who started ordering them from us by the thousands. And so she wanted these American paraphernalia, you know, hangers in her stores in Japan. And so we hired on our friends, our older brother, our mom would make rosettes for us while we’re sitting there watching cartoons-

Greg McKeown  

How many of these hangers literally did you sell? Give me the number.

Drew Scott

I don’t know the exact number, but it was thousands because we had you know, we started door to door, we were selling them to neighbors, friends, family. And if I recall, I think we were charging something like a dollar seventy-five a hanger, and people would buy 5 or 10. And we came up with marketing materials. Jonathan I had our sales pitch down. So here we are, two little 7 year olds, sales pitching people door to door on, you know the quality, the handcrafted quality of these hangers. And if you buy more, it’s better for consistency and the aesthetic of your closet. All of a sudden, we just had a whole, we made up all this stuff that we thought would help us sell. And then we started selling to some larger groups. And when we saw this woman who was buying them in for Japan for stores, that’s where we shifted and we were selling less to, you know, neighbors and friends, and we started looking at businesses that might be interested in these hangers.

So, something like that, you know, it was fascinating. It was great. It was a fair bit of work, you know, making these hangers but then we’re always looking – what’s a more efficient thing that’s more fun to do. And when we started thinking about clowns, entertaining at parties, we get to be our own, you know, center of attention. We thought that was amazing. And here we were, after we did our course, 8 years old, and we started being hired by parks and rec. We were only making I think, eight dollars an hour doing these birthday parties for kids. And we would do one here, one there. And then one of the birthday parties we went to, we heard the parents say that they were paying the leisure center. They were paying them a hundred dollars for us to come. Yet, we were only getting eight dollars. So Jonathan and I created our own little business. I think by this time, we were 9 or 10.

But we started our own entertaining business where we would rent ourselves out as clowns and we started making one hundred dollars an hour at 10 years old. And so that was sort of us always trying to look for a way that we can improve ourselves and do more for ourselves and grow our business. I think a lot of that work ethic did come from growing up on the ranch.

Greg McKeown 

Did you buy a lot of swords?

Drew Scott  

Yes, I have a pretty extensive sword collection. We have medieval. We have, you know like, Spanish Toledo blades. I have Japanese samurai and katana blades. But past that I mean Linda and I love antiques. I love historic homes. And we also have, I have a coin collection. I have a super nerdy coin collection and I have coins that date back to two thousand years ago. You know, eleventh century England. And so I’ve expanded upon that nerdious ways when I was a kid as an adult.

Greg McKeown  

You have collections of these things still?

Drew Scott  

Yes, I definitely do. And it’s funny with coin collection people, you know, will say to me sometimes like, oh, that’s so smart. Such a great investment, a coin collection. I’m like, it’s not a smart investment. I’m paying thirty dollars for a penny. But no, it’s something to pass on to my grandkids one day, and it’s just a passion and I love how I got hooked on it as a kid with my parents and my dad, the stories he’d tell us in Scotland.

Greg McKeown

But what’s so interesting to me is that image of 7 year old, 8 year old, 10 year old doing these businesses, like what’s driving that? Is it just the desire for these swords as you’re saying? Was it being modeled in some way? Or do you just think look, we must have become that way, that we were just built to do this together.

Drew Scott

You know, like Linda and I talk about this all the time. And Jonathan and I talk about this from time to time and you know, I don’t know exactly what it was that clicked when I was a kid that made me obsessive over that. Wanting the swords and whatnot and growing but even I remember as a kid when I would have at our bank, we would have the little passbooks, and my dad would take us in every week and any savings that we had, we could put it into the bank and then we would see on the passbook, the new lines. How much we’d saved and how quickly that would start to grow. And there was something about that I can remember that I was addicted to seeing this money I was saving grow. I was a really good saver. I know a lot of kids spend, spend, spend, Jonathan and I, both we were really good at saving and it was growing fast. And we were always finding new ways to make money to put into our accounts and grow. And you know, as a kid, I think part of it was the fascination with seeing more money in the bank.

But then even more than that, I think for me, there was such an interest in seeing if I set my mind to something, I could make it happen even when other people were saying you couldn’t do it. And you know, that was a piece of advice my dad gave me when I was young too. There are a million and one people out there that will tell you you can’t do something so why don’t you go and find 5 ways to do it. And that stuck with me and everything we did. People would say you can’t start your own business at 7, we did it. You can’t make a hundred dollars an hour when you’re 8 years old, 10 years old. We did it.

Greg McKeown

It’s interesting. How you, both of you, had parents that were entrepreneurial in their thinking, and modeled that, and then of course from that encouraged it in you, does that sound fair?

Drew Scott

Yeah, I mean, you know, when I think growing up with my mom and dad’s personalities, my mom was always a real outside the box thinker, very creative. Always tackling something new and willing to tackle or try something new and different. My dad’s personality, he was more just get in there and do it. So whatever the idea was, I mean, he was always open to new ideas, new things, but he’s like, he doesn’t wanna hear excuses, doesn’t want you to take time, too much time thinking about whatever it is, just get in and do it. And so I think the blend of their 2 personalities and their outlooks is what really shaped me…

Greg McKeown

Yes because there’s a culture that you were being, you know, that you were born into. And at least as I hear the story, I think of that phrase, fish discover water last. It’s like you were just in that culture, you were just in an environment of yes, you can try new things. And if you’re going to try them, you better get on and do it. And, so that combination, you just were being taught and demonstrated, why not? Go try it. You know, you’re being literally told that, literally encouraged that. That was just normal for you. Whereas I think for a lot of people, that is not the norm.

Drew Scott

Yeah. And I remember as a kid, too, you know, in school, our mom was always helping us with work projects for school, and she always wanted us to get the best grades possible. But she wanted us to think creatively. So how can we get extra points? I can remember, like, you get your grades and your marks, but how can we get extra bonus marks and stuff like that? And she was all about it. And so she was always trying to get us to think of creative ways that we can pitch an extra assignment to the teacher. And I remember there’s this course that she found, you know, the saying where there’s a will, there’s a way? There was an old course that was called Where There’s a Will There’s an “A”. And it was sort of like a little test for you to be able to think outside the box to get better grades, and really shape yourself and grow in school. And so she was all over that. And I remember we, Jonathan and I, got to the point where we started, not even with our mom pushing us, we would start creating opportunities to pitch teachers, but me and my minimalistic ways or efficient ways.

I started pitching teachers in on assignments that I could use for multiple classes and multiple teachers. So for example, in French class, I was wanting to get my grade up from a B to an A. And so I pitched to the teacher, I’m like, “Hey, what about if I do this little play, I’ll put on a play, I’ll write a play. And it’s going to be Jonathan and me acting out a scene in French.” It’ll be all French, whatever, and she did it. But what I had also done is I pitched that to my theater class as a scene that I’m going to do. And I pitched it to a writing class because I was writing the script and all of a sudden I just cut my workload down by a third. Because I was now using this for three different classes for grades and so, yeah, I mean, right from the beginning, our parents were shaping us to really be thinking outside the box and always finding new ways to create a new path.

Greg McKeown

Yes, there’s a way of thinking that you’re describing, a game that you were playing of “What if we put this together differently? Could we put the same amount of energy but get 2, 3 times, 10 times the results of what would normally be done.” That’s what I hear in that story.

Drew Scott

Yeah. And that’s honestly the way we are now in our lives and our businesses that we run. I mean, we’re always, we’re very efficient. That’s one thing that our production or our network partners know of us is, we can take a show that might typically take, you know, another production company, you know, a month to shoot, we could shoot it in, you know, maybe three weeks or two weeks, and we can get more quality content and we can get all this engaging content. And we can also do it at a better price point. And I think it’s because Jonathan and I are always challenging ourselves to find ways to improve. Like, we honestly feel like we’re lifelong students. I don’t think I’ll ever master anything because I think I’m always wanting to learn how to improve.

Greg McKeown

Give me a specific example of what you would do differently that cuts it from a month to 3 weeks or 2 weeks.

Drew Scott

You know, there, it’s easy in production. If we’re just talking about production, it’s easy just to throw more bodies on a production site on a shoot to get more content. Or there’s the order of how you shoot things could make you have extra days that you need to shoot to get it. But what we’ve been good at doing because we’ll have up to thirty-nine houses at one time, that we’re doing thirty-nine episodes at a time, and the way we shoot it, we layer our projects and our productions so that, one, it’s more cost effective for us overall as a company. We can also utilize you know, we don’t just do our shows we also produce other shows with other talent, but we can utilize them, have our resources across all of our shows, which again, helps us minimize the amount of time and cost. And so it’s layering all these different aspects of production that really brings us in, sort of under what typical budgets might have been, or timelines.

Linda Scott  

Yeah. And I think in all of that, what you’re really good at doing is delegating it or finding the right team members to help carry it out.

Drew Scott  

We have our team who are the best of the best. I mean, they’re amazing. We could not do what we do if it wasn’t for them. And that was a hard thing for me to do earlier on. As I started getting into my adult years, graduated high school, went to college. I am a perfectionist, I like everything being the best it can possibly be. And it was really hard, early on for me to let go of that control and trust that other people can also do a good job. And they’ll even bring some cool ideas to the table that I would have never thought of.

Greg McKeown

Linda, why did you point that out specifically? What is it that you observe, that’s made all of this possible?

Linda Scott  

I mean, we talk about it all the time where a lot of people look at the shows and think, wow, how do you guys do it? What they don’t see is the immense amount of work and energy and effort and creativity in the teams that surround us that make it all possible. Yes, they’re the faces of whatever product we’re creating, but the machine runs because of all of the people part of it. And what Drew and Jonathan are great at doing is identifying those talented people you know, who give themselves to a project so selflessly.

Drew Scott

But Property Brothers, that one show alone, Property Brothers Forever Home, that creates a hundred and fifty jobs between production and construction, and our team back in the office and edit post facilities. So when you think of the number of people, a hundred and fifty people just for that 1 show that is what makes it seem seamless. There’s no way we could do that on our own but this has been a slow build to that. I mean when we started at the beginning we were a lot smaller company. I mean in the very beginning Jonathan and I would just make our own little projects and we would run and kind of do it all ourselves.

Greg McKeown  

Tell me about that very beginning part of it. Like, how did it begin?

Drew Scott  

Well, so Jonathan and I both loving acting, so when we were clowns way back to those clown days we realized, I did find it a little annoying to have to put on all that makeup, and the time we were spending doing that, and the fun for us, I loved being on stage. I love to entertain whether it was a birthday party or whether it was a parade. I loved being out there entertaining people. And then I got an itch for acting because my dad had taken me to a few sets. You know, I think we went to one of the Rambo or the First Blood sets with Sylvester Stallone and I went to a set that had John Travolta and Kirstie Alley for “Look Who’s Talking” and to see them acting on camera, I’m like, “I love that, I could do that, I’ve done theater, why could I not do this?” And so, as we got more into that passion, Jonathan got more into magic as his passion totally random, but he’s very, very good at it. And he loved that aspect – from a clown, we used to do magic tricks as clowns.

And so these passions, we realized, you know, we don’t have any money. And if we wanted to make our own films, or he wanted to tour with his magic, we needed to make some money somehow. And so that’s where we started thinking about real estate as a way to fund our creative endeavors. And so in the beginning, what we would do is we would work a little bit, and then we would make a short film, or we would work a little bit, then we’d write a script, and then we just get something on camera. And the quality in the very beginning wasn’t great, but at least we were creating and that was feeding something in us that was just growing as energy. And then 10 years actually went by and we had barely done any acting or magic. It was almost all just real estate. And that’s when I actually went to go back into acting. I missed it. I wanted to audition more.

Greg McKeown  

But hold on, just to be clear. So for 10 years, you’re not doing any Property Brothers stuff. You’re just doing the property. You’re actually just doing work in real estate. Is that correct?

Drew Scott  

Yeah. At that point there was no Property Brothers, you know, before all the real estate, I was just wanting to be an actor. And that’s all I was thinking about. Just me, you know, having an agent. You know, I remember when I was a teenager, I auditioned for a few things, and I would wait to hear back. Didn’t really book a lot, just some small things. And then, as we got into real estate as a way to fund our creative endeavors, this is you know, flipping houses trying to make money off of flipping houses and doing the work ourselves. We learned to be handy. And our dad taught us how to, you know, finish a basement and drywall and do tiling and all this stuff. Anyway, so then I did 1 commercial, I did a Toyota car commercial; I was a basketball player. Over those 10 years, that was the only thing. And so when I came back to Vancouver to do more acting to follow my passion, I was networking. I had saved up some money from our real estate, our company had done well and grown a little bit.

And I was putting all that money over into networking, acting workshops, everything I could think of to try and create opportunities; making my own short films, independent films, working on other indies. And I was quickly going through all of my savings. I had about forty grand of savings. And I went all through it. And then I realized without even checking in, within less than a year, I had spent about a hundred and forty thousand dollars. So I put myself into about a hundred thousand dollars of debt, trying to go after this passion of acting and creating my own films. And then that’s when I had stopped and I had a check in with myself and was saying, like, “What am I doing?” This is a passion, but I don’t want to cripple myself and make myself go bankrupt.

Greg McKeown

You were like, I need to go I need to go back to hangars.

Drew Scott  

Exactly. Where’s that young, 7 or 8 year old? So I was only doing acting, I wasn’t focusing on the real estate. And then I realized, well, what I need to do is, I need to have that support net of the income that was great for real estate, that can help me with this pursuit without crippling myself financially. And at that same time, I had actually started getting pitched as a host for a real estate show, because I had all this real estate experience. And I’d never thought about hosting. And so this was the very first time in my life where I wasn’t thinking about acting, I was proposed this idea of being a host. And I had done stand up, sketch, and improv. I was really good on the fly. I was good with improv. And that really helps as a host. And so all of a sudden, several production companies started pitching me for host opportunities. And then I booked a gig that was called Realtor Idol. It was basically American Idol for realtors. It was a terrible show idea. It didn’t end up working out for me. But the production company liked me. They thought I had some great personality. I have this great experience. And at this point, though, when I’d come back to acting, I started seeing myself more as a brand, as a brand and as a business instead of just seeing myself as an actor waiting for an agent to call me for a gig.

Linda Scott 

And I think that’s how you treat everything, though. So not just when it comes to your TV personality brand, but I remember you talking about your real estate company. You know, it’s not just a real estate company that offers services, like you are a brand. And you guys always marketed that way.

Drew Scott

Well, exactly. I mean, most realtors are independent, they work under a brokerage, but they work independently. And a lot of them just wait for clients to come around. And then they work with the client and then they wait for the next one. Everything I did, I started seeing it more as a brand that I could build. If there was integrity in the brand, that would create more business. That’s great marketing, and promotion. And so as an actor I was pushing myself like a business. And so I was creating a lot of these opportunities that came my way, especially these ones as a host. And so in the end, I ended up pitching back to this production company. I have a brother, we work with clients in this way, we find them houses, we renovate these houses for them. We try to give them their dream home. I feel there could be a show here and they picked it up and they started pitching us-

Greg McKeown  

They didn’t know you had a twin brother at this point?

Drew Scott  

No in the beginning because Jonathan wasn’t interested in acting. For Jonathan, he just wanted, at the time he was working our real estate company out of Calgary. And I was back to Vancouver pursuing acting. And so, in the beginning, I didn’t think to pitch, Jonathan, because I was only pitching myself as an actor. But once I started getting interest as a host, Jonathan and I had a chat and we thought, you know, we’re twins. That alone stands us out, you know, apart from ninety-nine percent of the people out there. And what are the interests that we have? One we do real estate together. So we start pitching ourselves to production companies and networks. And we pitched Jonathan for a magic show, me for a sport related show because I was all about sports. But the thing that really hit was us working with clients and doing real estate. And then in the end, that turned out to be Property Brothers.

Greg McKeown  

One of the things that’s really interesting to me about that story, is that there is, no Property Brothers, there’s no – that whole story hasn’t happened. So you’re just trying to, you’re spending all this money,  you know, not necessarily wasting it, but just burning through this money. Doing acting, he’s doing real estate, like there’s no method in the madness.

Drew Scott  

Yeah, I mean, I would say there was some method, but I was not fully structured and how I should have been, I should have been following my finances a little bit better. But what I was thinking at that point was, if I just did everything I can think of that could create an opportunity, acting classes, networking, creating my own shorts, all these different things, working independent films, doing student films, whatever it might be. I thought if I did it all, that’s going to help. But in the end, it did help in some sense because it created some of these avenues, but I did too much. And I ended up doing too many things that were just distractions from things that could have been better focused that would have made a bigger difference.

Linda Scott 

But I think what you did do consistently, and you’ve talked about this before, is that you were very methodical about making your contact list. And you know, being genuinely interested in learning from these professionals and these experts and being very mindful of keeping in touch and checking in with them every few months. And you do this when it comes to personal relationships as well, which I think matters the most because, you know, in friendships like it works in friendships as it does in business. And I think the fact that you do it in both shows you care.

Drew Scott 

Yeah.

Greg McKeown  

It’s the easiest thing in the world for somebody to slip out. Somebody you have a good relationship with, you slip out for a month, and it becomes a yes, yes. It happens to me still where I’ll get an email suddenly from somebody or come across somebody and I look at the date and it is literally five years or even longer, it’s not intentional. It’s an unintended thing. Linda, tell me what’s going on in your world while this is all happening. We know where it crescendos. We know that moment that you meet but, but tell me, what were you doing through those years?

Linda Scott  

Where do I start? I mean, I guess if we pick up where my parents influenced me, as a kid, and as a teenager, my dad would always say, yeah, you have to get into business and I always thought like, why? Why do I have to get into business? And like you said, you know, the fish is always last to discover water. I didn’t realize that. Everything is business. I always thought, you know, why? Why do I want to get into that when I just want to be an artist, or I just want to draw or design clothes all day. So I kind of wanted to go against what my parents were doing. Not that they ever forced anything on us. But yeah, I always thought business is so boring, not realizing that, you know, it’s just a way of life.

Drew Scott  

It’s funny that in your mind, the way it sounds is that business was just like, it’s almost like a building.

Linda Scott  

Yeah totally.

Drew Scott  

That’s business. You’re gonna go do business, instead of, anything is an aspect of business.

Linda Scott  

Exactly. Yeah. And I saw it as a dichotomy of like business and art, not knowing that, you know, anything you’re passionate about could be a business.

Greg McKeown

But that’s what you saw. You didn’t see your parents from your description. Oh, this is what they were passionate about. They were like “This is an opportunity, and we’re trying to make it, and we need to make it because we don’t have something to fall back on.” And you know, so that’s what business was, that’s what you observed, that’s what it seems like.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, it was definitely a necessity and not a passion, which is what I was always, what I am always, you know searching for.

Greg McKeown

What was your passion? What did you want to be at this point?

Linda Scott 

Oh, geez. Um, let’s see.

Drew Scott  

This could take a while.

Linda Scott  

A flower shop owner, ice cream shop owner. And again, see business, it’s still business.

Drew Scott 

Shoemaker.

Linda Scott  

Shoemaker, fashion designer, for two seconds. Maybe I wanted to be an actor.

Drew Scott 

Architect.

Linda Scott 

Architect for two seconds. Forensic scientist. Yeah, like and that’s always been my mind. I’ve always just been the, you know, the butterfly or like the hippie of the family. You know, Linda never knows what she wants.

Drew Scott  

She’s a dreamer. You just have so many things that you want. And that’s what I actually fell in love with, is that Linda has such a positive outlook and she’s a dreamer. And nothing is impossible. If you really just let your mind flow.

Linda Scott 

I’ve always had the passion for it. But when I look at Drew and his passions and his drive to make it happen, I think that’s where we differ a lot. Because I will feel so many things and have so many passions, but I don’t innately feel ready to or courageous enough to go out there and get it.

Greg McKeown

And just make it happen.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, yeah.

Greg McKeown

Even now, what would you do if you could just do anything? If you didn’t have to have it perfect, what would you do, if you could do anything?

Linda Scott  

Okay, that I know because we’ve talked about this. So I would open up boutique hotels around the world. That would have, you know, vernacular architecture so that when you wake up in this hotel, you know where you are. And you’re a part of that community just by staying here. And that kind of stemmed out of our experience of traveling on the road so much and literally waking up. And I’m sure you have this too; not knowing what room we’re in, what city we’re in, and it’s a void of culture. So yeah, my dream would be to open up these boutique hotels that serve the existing community, not just tourists; and it would have a community garden, yoga studios, art studios, and it would give visitors a chance to experience the local culture.

Drew Scott 

We’re trying to find ways with the infrastructure, of what we have where we can. We’re moving towards making that a reality because I think that would be amazing. Some sort of a sustainable farm, a spot that is a draw. There’s an attraction, we do events for the community, but it’s also something great for tourists. But the one thing I find has been really interesting, the differences between Linda and my personalities with all of these sort of passions, you know, is the way: so for example, when Linda has something that she loves, she dreams of something and she has all these ideas for it. We’ve found it interesting that sometimes when something starts to come to fruition, and it starts to happen, there’s certain processes that need to be in place for it to happen; it becomes more of a business. Then she loses the drive and the passion for it because as a dream, it was amazing and whimsical and fun, but as a reality, it’s a business. And it’s structured, and structure is not as interesting.

Whereas for me, I have a dream, a passion of something, I push to make it happen, and when it starts to happen that lights even more of a flame under me and I love it and I love to see that thing grow. So it’s always been this interesting dynamic, and I think it’s why Linda and I actually work well together is because I can start to take those things and make it grow. As long as I’m still keeping you passionate about your original ideas.

Linda Scott  

Yeah and definitely that is why we work so well together. And yeah, I do have a love hate relationship with structure and I think I’ve learned how I feel about it more while in isolation. I think typically I would say that I don’t like structure. But after the first couple weeks at home, and I work from home a lot anyway, so I’m used to setting our own hours. But I realized that I felt so directionless and that I, you know, we started making a schedule because I need structure to feel purposeful. But in terms of our dynamic, I do love that when I have a dream or a passion I do deliberately share it with with you, Drew, because I know that in your head, in your brain as soon as I say what the idea is, you’re already putting the pieces together of the tools that we need to make it happen.

Drew Scott  

It’s actually very systematic for me when she gives me an idea. I purposely don’t tell her all the hard, tough things that you have to do behind the scenes to make it a reality. I try to handle all of that infrastructure, and just keep it fun, and entertaining on the surface.

Linda Scott 

No, I don’t need it always to be fun and light. I understand that, you know, business is not always fun. And that’s not what I’m after. I don’t know what it is-

Greg McKeown

So I have a question for you, Linda. Is it for you just that the structure of business itself is sort of boring, painful, whatever, or is it a neural association? That business is what you observed when you were growing up? What do you think?

Linda Scott 

I’m sure it’s more of the latter. But I think in addition to that, it’s maybe my perspective of typical businesses where it’s purely driven by profit. And that’s what I don’t want to get lost in. Even though I know that that is at the heart of business. It’s hard for me to operate with that directive.

Greg McKeown

You have an aversion to that.

Drew Scott 

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We have this conversation all the time. Whereas, you know, my outlook is if you have this thing that’s a passion and it can start to drive revenue and grow, then that’s more money, and more strength of that passion that can actually do good…

Greg McKeown 

So clearly, you don’t have an aversion to that. Right. Like, from 7 years old you have, you love that, your association with earning money in a business is seeing it in your bank account. It’s the fun of doing it. It’s the family enjoying this possibility. For you it is associated with, it’s all upside. That’s what I hear in that story. But for you, Linda, I hear it’s almost like there was a sort of breaking point or a real like delineation where it was like, not this. Like, I don’t hear in your story ingratitude. Like, I’m not grateful for what my parents did. It’s just, I will not do this. I am not going to do this with my life. That’s what I hear in your story.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, and maybe that comes from the fact that a lot of our childhood growing up, our parents, because they had to, you know, the immigrant mentality we were talking about. They had to work all the time. And we never faulted them for it or we never gave that a second thought. But that was the reality of it. You know, they were always working. We were either at home by ourselves, which was, you know, great. It was fun for us. But I guess I just don’t want to throw, not throw time away, but spend our entire lives working. And that’s why when, when and if we are spending all of our time working, I need it to be purpose driven.

Greg McKeown

You just said something that I thought was interesting. You created a visual of you being at home. Sounds like with your siblings, while your parents are working in the business. And again, it’s not like that’s some terrible memory, but there’s a feeling about that memory that you say “That’s not the life I want to create in my future family”.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, definitely.

Drew Scott  

We’ve talked about that too, with, you know, Linda and I, both of us, especially with what I do with hosting the shows, and we’re in different cities for long periods. Neither of us have this desire to be absentee parents. I mean, for us family is everything. And I think that I can totally see that.

Greg McKeown  

When you reflect on this now with a sort of perspective, what are your thoughts right now?

Linda Scott 

I definitely think that’s where part of the aversion comes from, even though you know, no ill will towards that parenting style or out of necessity. But it is definitely something that I am grateful to have had the experience to know what I don’t want to do.

Greg McKeown

Yes, it was important. It sounds to me that it was this really important line in the sand. You know, breaking with something, you’d seen something, in fact they had earned for you, in a way was the opportunity to not do what they had done. But what I wonder is whether this has now served you, you know, it got you into a new way of living, you know, a new kind of life, you’ve taken a completely different course in your path. Like I wonder if it’s outlived its usefulness? You know, that that decision early on, that, you know, basically business means X and creativity means Y and the two cannot over, you know, like maybe that’s lived its purpose, lived its usefulness. And it’s time to, you know, discover a new mindset going forward. What’s your thoughts?

Linda Scott  

Yeah, that’s a completely clear perspective of it. And when I say I’m grateful for that experience, I should use that to fuel, you know, to fuel the fact that we, or I, now have the opportunity to explore different passions that I even have that opportunity is being wasted if I’m just continuing to be, like avoiding it.

Drew Scott  

Yeah. I like the fact that you have something to learn from and now you can define what business is to you.

Linda Scott

Yeah

Drew Scott

I think that’s pretty cool to define business in a whole new way, an exciting, passionate, fun way. That means something completely different than what you remember as a kid.

Greg McKeown  

Well, I think that when we’re young, we have a young person’s understanding of the world, right? Like we can’t not have that. We have the experiences we have and we can’t pretend we don’t. And so we make decisions that are based in that worldview. And my experience is that those decisions live with us for a long time into the future, and we’re not even aware that they’re with us. Let me just give an example. I remember as a, you know, I don’t know forty year old something like that certainly well into my thirties, staring in a mirror at myself, dressed head to toe in a high quality, expensive stormtrooper costume. And I’m looking at myself about to buy this costume. And in that moment, I think first of all, there is not one part of me that wants this. I do not want to buy this and in the second moment, I realized that I have wanted to buy it for thirty years. It was the time when Return of the Jedi came out. And my older brother said to me, wouldn’t it be great to own a, you know, legit stormtrooper costume.

And from that moment, I held that idea. I held that, that is the mental model I’m going with. And I didn’t really realize it was with me. Until you know, years and years all these years have gone by I’ve been holding this intent, this understanding of the world until this Halloween moment, and I’m suddenly free of it. I go, I have no need for the stormtrooper costume. That was like a 10 year old idea. You know, 10 years old. That sounded cool. But I’ve carried it with me all these years not knowing it. And so that became a shorthand for Anna and I most often, her using it with me saying, look, is this a stormtrooper? Is this something you’ve held on to past its usefulness?

Drew Scott  

Is this a sword? Is this a coin?

Greg McKeown

Yeah, well, that’s right. And of course, it’s true for the things of our lives, the stormtrooper, the physical stuff. But it’s also true for the decisions we’ve made that keep carrying on with us, through decades. Yet sometimes not just through decades, in fact, sometimes for generations. I have found this very touching myself to actually not a dissimilar time to the stormtrooper moment to discover at a similar point in my life, that there were ideas. I had beliefs, I had weaknesses. I had concerns I had, that were like a fault in the stars. Like a real weakness that I had no idea about, because they’d always been with me. And when I started to look at them and discover them and understand them and put language to them, I found that they were intergenerational in nature, that they had been passed down through generations. Unspoken, undiscussed. Passed down to me. And I came to describe this as the little black box problem, which is when a generation doesn’t deal with something, when they just don’t want to talk about it.

Their motive generally is I don’t want to pass this down to my children. I don’t want to give them this pain or this issue or this, you know, so we won’t talk about it. But actually what happens is you pass it down unopened, unaddressed and just more nameless. And so sometimes, it can pass on and it doesn’t even have language anymore. So there’s weaknesses within those problems and challenges and all sorts of burdens and stormtroopers that we need to examine, look at, pick up and say, do I want this anymore? Do I want the stormtrooper? Do I want this belief, this idea, this decision? Or can I, in an act of intergenerational liberation, put this down, pass on this, so that I can deal with it, handle it, and then grow into a better version of myself in the future, and also free up generations that come after me. What I’m curious about is when I think about the description of, Drew, your father, this dream is so vivid, in my mind, of I want to be a cowboy.

I mean, I’m in Scotland, and I want to be a cowboy. I mean, what I’m trying to say about that, first of all, is like, there’s not many people in Scotland who are trying to be a cowboy like that, you know, in a similar way. Obviously different but in a similar way, Linda with your parents coming from Vietnam, the average person from Vietnam, and I know of course, there’s a whole generation that did do it, but still the average person didn’t do it. They had their own endless dream. And it changed. I mean, every aspect of both of your lives are completely transformed by this decision that was years before you, it’s not just one decision that makes a thousand as we think in our decision making processes, it’s one decision that’s made a million, right. It’s just almost impossible to state how many different decisions have been made in each of your lives because of those decisions. And so, this leads to this question of what’s the endless dream that you could create together? You know, or separately and then complimentary?

I don’t know, but like, what’s the end of the dream now? If we could be free of all of that, but recognize the power in this moment, this new freedom, what would you build? Would it be these hotels? Or would it be something or would it be the shoes? What would it be? What would this impossible dream be for you now?

Linda Scott  

My biggest dream would be, and to share this together would be to create and sustain a movement of kindness. And that’s it.

Drew Scott  

I think though, what I love, Linda on this scale, a small scale of who we are with our family and our friends. She evokes this emotion in people of being a better person or she evokes kindness in people, and I think to be able to take that, and elevate that to a grand scale. So what I was going to say, different wording, but was, I would love to create and sustain change. Whereas people are continually considering others, considering the planet, considering doing what is what they know in the deepest roots of who they are, is right. Treating other people the way that people should all be treated with respect. And creating that positive change, I think would be an amazing thing. And I think there is a path just doing that. I hope in some way we’re already doing that.

Greg McKeown  

There was a very profound answer I found for both of you that Linda, will you express that phrase again? It seemed like that was, was that just a spontaneous phrase? Or one you’ve used before? Can you say it again?

Linda Scott  

I think I said that my wish would be for us to share this dream and making it come true of creating and sustaining kindness.

Greg McKeown  

Creating and sustaining kindness. I mean, that’s obviously, it’s a concept. It’s a principle. It’s a statement. It’s not concrete yet, but that is an unusual answer. When I hear that continue a sustainable kindness, it feels higher aspiration, even than what has been done so far. You know, it reminds me, let’s say, I know you know that Oprah Winfrey right in the middle of, you know, her success and she’s doing all these kinds of shows and she’s, you know, she’s becoming a phenomenon. She’s become a phenomenon actually. She’s probably, it was probably around the same time as you are in this phenomenal journey that you are on. And she goes, it’s not right yet. You know, like, or it’s not yet fully manifest.

And each episode from then on with her show, she said every episode has to have an intent. And she understood differently about this higher intent of what she was doing. And I think that’s what took the show from being a successful daytime talk show into something that I think has been pretty unusual in television before or since. And I just wonder, it’s a question. I don’t expect the answer today. But I wonder what this new manifestation will look like, could look like, 5 years from now? Or 10 years, let’s say 10 years from now. What might it look like?

Drew Scott  

Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting thing to try and think of what this concept in our heads right now of kindness could manifest into, could become. I am, you know, the thing that you look at what Oprah has done and how she affects so many people in such a positive way. And she puts so many people first in many ways, but it’s obviously her brand as a business too, and she’s done such a great job growing in a way that gives her the strength to affect people across the globe. I mean, to me, what it looks like to me is that we could see, like, physically see more happiness in the world. We see more stories in the news or we see more moments on social media being shared of positivity and people together. Because you can look in the news or you can look on social media and there is a lot of negativity. And the way that people perpetuate that is by sharing it and talking about it growing it but, you know, is there a way to start to get people to think more about sharing and creating positive ways of sharing positivity and stuff. But it’s infectious. We were chatting with a medical professional not too long ago. I can’t remember who it was. But they were saying how you look at a virus like COVID. It’s contagious. And if you think about emotions, they’re contagious. If you think about happiness, if you think about a smile, a smile is contagious. And so if you look at things in a different light, there is a way for us to spread. Kind of like the way Deepak Chopra says too, if everybody took a minute to take a deeper breath, and reflect and find a moment of positivity and stillness, that could really change this world. That’s what I see. I mean, I hope to see.

Linda Scott  

And adding to your reference of you know, it’s not right yet, I, for me, I do feel you’re right in connecting to that reference for me. I do feel that, regardless of all of the amazing things we’ve done, and I don’t want to minimize that at all, but I always do feel currently that something is not just right yet, like, there needs to be, I feel some sort of a major pivot in perspective or direction for it to feel right for me.

Greg McKeown 

There’s a higher manifestation of this platform, of this impact, you can see that it could be used differently. That there is a, let’s call it a 3 dot 0 version of everything that’s being done. I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but does that sound about right?

Linda Scott 

Yeah, totally. Exactly. It’s not you know, better than, it’s just, you know, serving something greater.

Drew Scott  

If you see you know, like the shows that we’ve done, and you know, our with our magazine which Linda is a huge part of our magazine and the team that we work with too. It’s always that we’re trying to reach people in a different way to create this change in positivity and inspire people in their lives. And I think if you look back 10 years to the beginning of our shows, what we do now is very different than what we did before. And that’s why I feel 5 and 10 years from now, it’d be very different than what we’re doing right now. But I hope and I feel that that’s a way of us continually honing in on what’s important, how can we make the best mark for what we’re trying to do? And go from there.

Greg McKeown 

The opportunity I think you have is so great and so important. I mean, to me, this really matters, cracking the code on this for the next 10 years, you know. Not simply doing more of what’s been done, however great that’s been, however successful that story is and books have been written and could be written about it. But to discover, what could we do, really? What could we do?

You know, just look at this whole John Krasinski thing, which of course, you’ve seen, I’m sure, and it’s great that he’s doing it and that they can be applauded, of course, but just to contrast it with the negativity you see in almost every other medium. News, is to me what is so striking about it. What has the journey been over the last 10 years, when you say it’s different than it was before? What’s that difference been?

Drew Scott 

I think the one thing that is a big difference is we have been, you know, we try to listen to our audience. We try to listen to what is important to them, what they would like to see, things that we see that we think could help inspire them. And so the type of show, you know, Property Brothers too has had many iterations as well before it was people buying a house that we were renovating to help the family. And then we realized, well, there are a lot of families that already have a house that they might have inherited from their parents. Or the kids, you know, have grown up in the houses, they love their home, but it’s not quite working for them. So we’ve been trying to say, well, how can we find a way to connect with these people who already own these houses and that’s what Property Brothers Forever Home became.

Linda Scott 

I think for me, the most notable evolution I’ve observed is, you know, obviously, when you’re first starting out, as a new face, a new brand, you don’t really have much pull and you’re at the mercy of the professionals, the experts already in the field of TV and production. So you have what the network wants. Now, we’ve all done a great job at building this brand in this platform. And now we have the say to create media that can say something more than, you know, just design. We can talk about how design affects families.

Drew Scott  

Well, and I think actually, in that note, too, we’ve really honed in more on family and the importance of how we can actually truly affect positive change in in a family with what we do, whether it is the renovation, whether it’s the peace of mind that a functional and beautiful home can bring to people.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, not that the original iteration of the shows didn’t, I mean, family was always always at the heart of everything. I think now we are fortunate to be in a position where if we have a cause we’re passionate about, we are able to creatively find a way to integrate it into whatever projects we’re working on.

Drew Scott  

Yeah and expanding on that, like for example in the beginning, it was just Property Brothers. But with growing and listening and finding ways to impact, so our kids series, we have a kids book series called Builder Brothers. And that’s been a way for us to reach a younger audience. And there’s, you know, great lessons and messaging for kids about working together and supporting each other. And, you know, there’s more good ideas than just yours. Our magazine “Reveal,” being able to show people in all aspects of lifestyle, how they can get the most out of life. And so that’s the big change. For me. I think that we’ve grown to a spot where we’re able to go after, like Linda said, all these different avenues that are passionate for us to try and really see what’s really making a difference. And we’ll continue to grow from here, I’m sure podcasting is the same.

Greg McKeown  

It sounds like the shift has been, if I simplify it, from house to home.

Drew Scott 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it’s house to home and home to lifestyle, really is like that growth because there’s so much more than just the structure we’ve always defined. The difference between house and home. A house, it’s the studs, it’s the windows and doors, it’s the roof. But a home is where the heart is. A home is where there’s an emotion and a connection that you have that your family has. And that carries throughout your entire day. It affects you in your relationship, in your business life, in every aspect of your life.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, I think that’s a clear distillation of, I guess the meaning of what we do. And Drew mentioned the podcast. The entire purpose of the podcast was to force us to slow down and to have these conversations in a context that everyone is familiar with the home. And we wanted to bring out certain concepts and values that should and could start at home, you know, important conversations that need to be had whether it’s regarding relationship, or healthy eating, or business or-

Drew Scott  

Well also, like you had said to us before we were chatting, Greg, you and Anna had said too it’s so there are things that, you know, you don’t realize it’s ingrained in you from your younger years, or it’s just something that is just the way it is. And there’s so much that you, so many ways that you can influence the younger generation, or you can influence your kids by your actions when they’re growing up. And so we wanted to make sure you know it with everything we do. A lot of kids watch our shows. We want to have kids. We spend a lot of time with our nieces and nephews, and our friends’ kids, but we want to make sure that we are always putting ourselves out there in a way that truly feels right to us in that way that we can affect positive reaction in anybody around us.

Greg McKeown  

I think you’re right on target like the very red hot center of what matters when you say it’s about home, and bringing somehow light into that place.

Drew Scott 

Yeah, we, you know, everybody deserves to love where they live. Everybody deserves to love the time they spend with their family and wherever that center point is for them they’re home. You know, you want to have that at home, that evokes that emotion in you that does feel positive for your life.

Greg McKeown

In a way, what I want to do is sort of leave on this, not the past, not the sort of hundred years in the past, but into the future. Which is your marriage, in your life, in your business, can have such ramifications. When you multiply it down generations. These decisions that have disproportionately affected your life and given you these opportunities, given this moment, can be paid forward, not just for a year, not just for another show, not just today. But something very profound can change. I guess in the business, but also in your own home environment.

Because that really, at least to my estimate, is the thing that lasts the longest. You know, I’ve been a student of human systems now for, you know, for quite a while, and what I’ve learned is that they’re very brittle. Countries are very brittle. Cities last a lot longer than countries. Companies are the most brittle thing almost imaginable. They just blow to bits in hardly any time, massive failure, right? Cities last a lot longer, but nothing lasts even in close to intergenerational family, right? That’s the longest thing. And so even things that we don’t think of that profound right now, you know, we don’t see them as being that significant, can have tremendous impact when you multiply it by a few generations from this. And you have that chance to do that in your own marriage, in your own family now, but also, in this platform that you’ve been given that I think is a gift that I think is part of your unique mission, you know, part of your purpose.

I’m speaking out of turn to say that, but that’s my conviction. And I just wonder, what is possible and what is in store as you go forward? And I think discovering that, really asking what’s essential, what’s the highest point of contribution? How can we create that kindness, you know, through that platform? What a difference this is going to make. To me that matters. To me, that is essential. And I think on that note, I will simply say, thank you for your time. Thank you for being so open. Thank you for talking, for challenging me, for teaching me in your example.

Drew Scott  

And I think what we need to do is talk in 5 years to see if things did actually move in the direction we hoped and dreamed.

Linda Scott  

But also sooner than that.

Drew Scott  

We’ll talk sooner than that too.

Greg McKeown 

You’re like I’ve had enough. 5 years, Greg.

Drew Scott  

No honestly, I want to say a huge thank you to you because you know, obviously, I’ve told you this before. You’re very inspiring for us to listen to. Your thought process and everything that you’ve worked on throughout your life, it’s very, I can see how you change people’s lives in such a great way. And it excites me having this conversation because I think this is helping us move in the direction we want to move.

Linda Scott  

Yeah, thank you so much for taking all this time to chat and for sharing your wisdom and yeah, it does really get me excited. I don’t know at which points but several points during our conversation my hands were getting sweaty because I was getting, you know, excited for hearing this clarity. You know, it did make me want to jump up and take action.

Drew Scott  

And then she wiped those sweaty hands on me.

Greg McKeown

No, but what you just said was a material change. Because I think what you said was, what I heard you just say was, I could see the connection points between what my real passion and mission really is, at the highest level, and how this platform could maybe be merged and more often developed into something that those things really meet and they don’t have to be falsely separated. That’s what I think the sweaty hands moment is.

Drew Scott  

And the other thing I got out of this chat is that I really need to work on my accents.


Greg McKeown

Credits:

  • Hosted by Greg McKeown
  • Produced by Greg McKeown Team
  • Executive Produced by Greg McKeown