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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 came from 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,” 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.
Greg McKeown:
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:
And then okay, so I know I’m gonna jump fast here. But when did you get married?
Linda Scott:
- 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.
Greg McKeown:
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 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.
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.
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.
Greg McKeown:
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, “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:
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.
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 to us doing that. I hope in some way we’re already doing that.
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. That’s what I see.
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, really?
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.
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:
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.
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 for 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 the other thing I got out of this chat is that I really need to work on my accents.
