In this episode he breaks the ice by explaining all about ice hockey, one of the many sports he grew up loving and playing. While he’s now on the other side of the world, his passion for sports hasn’t wavered, though it does look a little different! After trying his hand at renovation, managing restaurants, and taking care of $50 million portfolios, he’s now focused on meditation, manifestation, and shiny blue new things— all while maintaining his passion for sustainability.

Timestamps:
00:36 | From Snow to Sun
04:07 | Taking Time to Recentre
10:53 | Coming from Canada
14:26 | The Journey
16:38 | Sports, Eh
18:46 | Lacing Up the Skates
23:31 | Persistence is Key
29:48 | No No Reno

Resources and Links:

[00:27:17] With property development, you can choose the people you want to work with that align to your vision, that align to your goals, that care about the outcomes, and you can nurture that. So it took a little bit of time, but we got there in the end.

This is Property Investory where we talk to successful property investors to find out more about their stories, mindset and strategies.

 

I’m Tyrone Shum and in this episode we’re speaking with Mike Day, the Managing Director of Apexx Developments. He shares what it was like growing up surrounded by snow rather than the sea, his unique approach to life, his Fortune 500 background, and why he wouldn’t touch a renovation again with a ten foot hockey stick.

Tyrone Shum:   

Day named his company Apexx Developments, with an extra ‘x’, due to his inclination to add the ‘x factor’ to everything he does. Originally hailing from Calgary, Canada, he swapped snow for sun and took his business and project development skills to Sydney.

Mike Day:   

[00:00:36] I'm the Managing Director, I look after all aspects of our business, from project management to all the legal side, all the directorship titles that I take on when we bring investors on to buy property. So handling all the annual accounting, taxes, everything from a director role. 

  

[00:00:36] Then I take on the full PM end to end management, looking at handling all our builders, all our contracts, all of our legal requirements, all of our material selections, everything. 

  

[00:01:12] So depending on the cycle that we're in, in the development process, Tyrone, my days can really vary. Like this week, I'm setting up a strata corporation, I'm negotiating refinancing now that one of our units is sold to get rid of seven eighths of our debts. And I'm juggling our builder, and we just achieved occupational certificate yesterday on my current development. But six months ago it would look totally different. 

  

[00:01:42] What we offer is a complete end to end service with everything where the investor basically doesn't have to do anything other than tune into a fortnightly investor meeting, hear the updates and then in the tail end, I actually start providing updates daily through Facebook Messenger or another type of messaging app where we post pictures and videos. 

  

[00:02:07] And I give them an update every single day on everything that we're progressing from either the build to anything outside of the build.

Tyrone Shum:   

He works closely with different consultants and his team to manage the day-to-day as they work together to achieve their goals.

Mike Day:   

[00:02:34] The team is the most critical part. So I've got marketing teams, I've got legal teams, I've got builders, all my design consultants, and I leaned on them quite heavily. 

  

[00:02:47] And then even so much so to developing rapport with the sub trades of the builder. So the electrician has been really critical in my current development. And so have a few other key people, so making sure everything's set up, especially when it comes to developing a really high end luxury residence, like what we're doing down at 14 Bulls Road, which is my current development, and we entitled it Azure because it's on the water. 

  

[00:03:15] But one of the key elements we're discussing, just to give you a flavour, having meetings with electricians and security guys to make sure the lifts [work] because each residence has its own personal lift in it. 

  

[00:03:29] So you have to make sure that everything's functioning and running. And the security system is communicating with the control for automation system we've installed in the house that controls everything. So it can get pretty complicated in certain aspects. And you really need to have the right team to be able to get through and manage everything that you need to get done in a day.

Tyrone Shum:   

While his typical day at work varies, his morning routine is a little more predictable.

Mike Day:   

[00:04:07] [A] typical day is trying to wake up and start with 20 minutes of yoga and a 10 minute meditation with my fiance. I'm not always successful in finding the time for that every single day. But I find that it really helps me to just relax and recentre in the morning before jumping in the shower and getting on with it. 

 

[00:04:33] The days can be sometimes quite long in the sense of right till six [or] seven o'clock you're still on the phone dealing with [things]. The builder will take calls quite late because the service that we get from our current builder is amazing.

  

[00:04:53] But yeah, you're just in and out constantly all day long. And then at the end of the day, I try to get to the gym, and finish off with trying to look after myself and have a really healthy meal.

  

[00:05:08] I've really completely changed my lifestyle in the last... since COVID. We've pretty much just cut out everything. It's really lean, very healthy eating, and it's really helped sort of centre my mind, my body, helps me focus and coffee helps too.

Tyrone Shum:   

Sometimes their meditation features calming nature sounds, while other times they prefer a voice to guide them along.

Mike Day:   

[00:06:39] And generally, it's more of an energetic meditation. So really getting your body to relax so that you can really focus in on what it is you want to achieve during the day. What are your long term goals?

 

[00:06:57] And then at the end, my fiance and I always say, 'Let's do the last five minutes'. And there's a little gong after every five minutes so that we know when to change our focus. So it's like, 'Gong!' And then okay, that's that five minutes. Now I'm going to focus on this and really put out to the universe what we're looking to receive and wanting from life.

 

[00:07:23] Manifestation is really quite incredible, Tyrone. I have an energy coach who's one of my investors who absolutely changed my life about two years ago. Right from meeting her, we just started working through some of the energy that I was putting into things. And within a month and a half, the deal that I'm just about to sort of wrap up construction on just popped onto our plate, and it was all smooth and flowed. 

  

[00:07:52] And I think it was all sort of part and parcel due to that receiving and being open to receiving. Sometimes people think, 'Oh, yeah, I'm open', but they've got all these restrictions in their mind about how they want to receive things. 

Tyrone Shum:
One of the most monumental things she’s taught him is that you have to be open to receive, no matter how it comes to you.

Mike Day:  

[00:08:12] So that was a big, huge critical component to my current success, [it] was really getting inside and understanding who I am, what are my goals, and what's the energy I'm putting out. What frequency am I operating on? And is that allowing everything that I want to receive to come to me?

  

[00:09:00] Even this morning, I didn't have a lot of time. But my partner just said to me, she's like, 'Come on, just five minutes'. And so we did.

  

[00:09:10] You wake up and maybe you check your phone right away and you're like, 'Oh, I've gotta address that email. I gotta get back to this person. I gotta get this done'. But then it just allows you to slow your mind down and feel centred before you actually start your day. Even just five minutes. 

 

[00:09:25] Afterwards, we even looked at each other and said, 'Five minutes wasn't enough, was it?' Like, it's hard to really, truly get your body to get into that meditative almost sort of hypnotic state. 

  

[00:09:38] Because I did some hypnotherapy as well at one stage in my [life] a few years ago and that's like a full hour session where he really gets you to fully relax and delves into [things]. And things just start coming into your mind as he guides you and asks you questions. And it really helps you to sort of clear out a lot of things so you can tune in to what it is you really want in life, man, it's absolutely amazing. 

  

[00:10:05] To be honest with you, Tyrone, I didn't think anything of that stuff. If you said to me [things about] reiki and energy healing and meditation, three years ago, I'd be like, 'You're losing it, man. Go have another glass of crazy'. But it works. It is amazing how you can tune into the frequency of what you want.

Tyrone Shum:   

Day delves into his early life growing up in Calgary, Alberta, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Mike Day:   

[00:10:53] So instead of driving around a beautiful place and seeing all these beautiful water views we have in Sydney, sometimes in Calgary, you can crest the hill, if you look west, and it's just mountains as far as the eye can see. It's really quite spectacular. 

  

[00:11:11] I was recently back in Canada, for a four week ski holiday in January. And man, it really reminded me how much I missed the mountains and how connected I am to the mountain.

Tyrone Shum:   

Although he grew up a flight away from the ocean, the mountains and the sea are both close to his heart.

Mike Day:   

[00:11:46] It's amazing actually, even just here in Sydney, on days if there's been a really high amount of stress, or maybe your day is just not going the way you want, like, just heading down to the beach and just getting your feet stuck in the sand. 

  

[00:12:03] Or sometimes I like to... going back to the meditation, just go back and just do, like, a two minute sort of thing but maybe lean up against the tree and feel the energy of the earth. I'm an earth sign. So I really ground out on the earth.

  

[00:12:22] Maybe there's a bunch of your listeners going, 'Who is this guy talking about all this hoity toity energies and grounding and meditation?', but, like, it just really works for me.

Tyrone Shum:    

[00:12:47] And when you think about it, what we're building and developing is also trying to make sure it's also sustainable. So we're looking out for the environment at the same time as developers. So I think that's all part and parcel of what we do.

Mike Day:   

[00:12:59] Absolutely. It's a key criteria for me as well. 

  

[00:13:01] We try to use as many sort of sustainable materials as possible when we're doing our material selections. It's one of the questions we ask our suppliers.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:13:11] So tell us a little bit about when you grew up in Canada. What was that like? And how long were you there for?

Mike Day:   

[00:13:17] I was in Canada 'till 2006. I've been in Sydney, Australia now since 2006. So almost... what are we at now? 17 years. But I left Canada when I was 30. I had come out to Australia in 2001, did a year of travelling but never left Sydney. I ended up just loving it here. And I'm still trying to get back to that trip, to go and do a year of travelling around Australia.

  

[00:13:53] I've had many different lives, Tyrone. I managed large restaurants and had a staff of 80 to 100 people, dealing with all different aspects of dealing with teenagers and young kids who you employ in the hospitality industry. It was more of a glorified babysitting job than anything.

Tyrone Shum:
Following his stint in hospitality, he moved into project management and sales within the oil and gas industry.

Mike Day:  

[00:14:26] For the last decade, I worked for a Fortune 500 company in the oil and gas space, managing projects and dealing with huge capital expenditure projects. Lots and lots of materials, tendering, dealing with legal, every aspect of the whole sales process. 

  

[00:14:48] I have a real background in learning from Fortune 500 lawyers, contract management, contract review. So my past has really sort of helped me to... 

 

[00:15:00] Managing restaurants is like managing a business because you've got repair and maintenance, you've got staff, you've got so many different aspects to learn about management of that type of business. Then you move over to a huge sales organisation and you've got, like, a $50 million portfolio of projects to manage. And it's a totally different thing. 

  

[00:15:21] And the management were incredible. They really opened up the P&L to me, the profit and loss statement, and really showed us where the money I was bringing in went and how it was used. 

  

[00:15:33] And so you get a real sort of flavour, even though I wasn't making those decisions, of exactly what my contribution in these businesses is, and how big, huge corporate business doing $200 million a year or something is done. 

  

[00:15:49] And then I moved over to be an entrepreneur and look after myself and a director of my own company. So it's incredible how the journey sort of progresses and how life prepares you without even knowing what your sort of ultimate purpose was, and where you're going to find the most joy.

Coming up after the break, he carves up some cold, hard facts about ice hockey…

[00:17:11] From about grade seven onwards I would do every sport under the sun.

His dream career that didn’t come to fruition…

Mike Day:   

[00:25:06] And I was really quite anxious to get out in the world and start making money and looking after myself. So I took the decision to not even try.

He explains how he got his start in property.

Mike Day:   

[00:30:24] And you can see how quickly you can grow your wealth like this.

And that’s next. I’m Tyrone Shum and you’re listening to Property Investory.

Tyrone Shum:   

While Canada and Australia are worlds apart in many ways, growing up in Canada was as focused on one thing as it is for many Australians.

Mike Day:   

[00:16:38] I love, love business and I love numbers, but I would have to say, Tyrone, I definitely wasn't an academic back in school. I was all about sports. 

  

[00:16:49] I played every sport under the sun. I played ice hockey, I love to ski. But back in primary school, what we call junior high which is like what Americans would call middle school— here we only have two sets, primary and high school, in Canada we had three, its primary school, junior high and high school. 

  

[00:17:11] From about grade seven onwards I would do every sport under the sun. Whatever the school would offer, I was on the team whether it was the badminton team or the volleyball team or the basketball team or the wrestling team. 

  

[00:17:24] In high school I refined that quite a bit, I just did what we call football in Canada. I guess we would refer to it here as gridiron. I did play rugby but we didn't call it football there, or footy, it's just called rugby, but it was rugby... not rugby league but union union. And I really liked the union rules a lot better. So but it's been, again, funny that I played three years of rugby and then I ended up living in Australia. 

  

[00:17:57] But my main passion was always ice hockey. And in Canada, we would never say ice hockey, you just say, 'I play hockey'. Because playing field hockey or grass hockey in which people would probably associate if you said I play hockey, they would assume grass hockey here, right? And they're always surprised here in Australia to learn that there's an ice hockey league and there's rinks everywhere and that we travel around and we play in a really cool league.

Tyrone Shum:   

He paints a picture of just how popular ice hockey— or, for Canadians, hockey— is in his hometown.

Mike Day:   

[00:18:46] When I grew up in Calgary, there was only about 700,000 people. And we had 80— that's eight zero— ice rinks in the city. And getting ice time was still difficult because every kid plays hockey. And here, just to give you a flavour, in a city of 5 million people in Sydney, there's only four ice rinks.

  

[00:19:14] But the competition here is pretty incredible, actually. Like, they have a league cup. Like, there's a couple of different leagues. There's the Australian ice hockey league that travels around Australia, but I didn't play in that. I'm a little bit too old in years to be playing at that level now. 

  

[00:19:36] I played in what we call a senior league where at the highest level sort of thing. And most of the players on the ice are from Canada, the US, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, France, you know, wherever. It's all European and North American players with probably about a 20% mixture of Aussies. 

  

[00:20:00] And it's all really good. And we play at just the high finesse level without the full body contact, but it gets pretty rough out there. And I've been known to throw the body around a little bit and be a bit aggressive. I tend to be that way in life in general.

Tyrone Shum:   

As you might expect, keeping a large area of ice frozen in Australia is much harder than on the other side of the world.

Mike Day:   

[00:20:39] The ice is a lot different here as well, because it's so warm, keeping the ice rink cold inside is difficult. And in the summer, the ice is very soft. Whereas in Canada, the ice is solid. It's really, really hard. We would be sharpening our skates every two or three ice times. Whereas here, I can go with one sharpening on my skates for almost the whole year because the ice is so soft.

  

[00:21:08] I grew up in a community that had a lake. And so everyone who lived in that community had lake access. And we'd sling our hockey stick over our shoulders, put our skates on the stick, walk down to the lake, and we'd be there for hours, probably, at least two or three days a week, just playing what we call shinny. 

  

[00:21:32] So you have your shins on your legs. And the reason we call it shinny is because you can't raise the puck above your ankles because it'll hurt. So it's just about passing and stick handling. And there's usually no goalies to shoot at, but it's just about moving around the ice. 

  

[00:21:52] And if you've ever seen ice hockey, it's a very fast paced game. There are systems that we learn, but at any given moment, we just know where we're supposed to be in relation to our position on the ice and what areas of the ice we cover and what our responsibilities are. 

  

[00:22:08] So it's a very, very fluid game. So it's not like basketball, where you're setting a pic, and this guy has to stand here and here and then you run that play. It's like, the puck can go anywhere. And there's no guarantees of anything. So it's very fluid and dynamic.

   

[00:22:46] I'm teaching my fiancee to skate and because she's from Colombia, I don't think she'd ever stepped foot on the ice maybe more than a couple of times in her life. So she's always amazed when she comes to the games, and she watches us just skate around, like we're walking, and then still have the ability to handle the puck, get hit by another player and whatever. So it's all encompassing, for sure.

Tyrone Shum:   

He had his fair share of falls and mishaps on the ice and sports fields growing up, which he attributes his determination in life to.

Mike Day:   

[00:23:31] I'm a very persistent person. When we set ourselves a goal, whether it be a business or personal or sport or whatever, like, I never give up. It's always straight to the outcome. And even if you're struggling and you're hitting barriers, it's like, stop, pause. What are we doing wrong here? Let's analyse and let's keep driving forward. 

  

[00:23:56] And even when it comes to property and negotiating deals with vendors, like, sometimes it's just not flowing. And you have to sort of take a pause and go, 'What are we doing here that's creating this not to flow and not to get this deal done?'

Tyrone Shum:   

Day made his way through school with one career goal in mind— and not the one he has today. 

Mike Day:   

[00:24:39] At the end of the day, I really wanted to be a firefighter, actually. And I don't know what happened. I still am trying to get back to myself and why I made the choice I did. I think I got convinced by friends or other people that, '[It's] such a long wait, you're not big enough, maybe you won't pass the test, maybe it'll take six years to get a posting'. 

  

[00:25:06] And I was really quite anxious to get out in the world and start making money and looking after myself. So I took the decision to not even try. 

 

[00:25:15] And it's probably one of my life's only regrets, where I just got rid of a dream I'd had since I was a boy. For the sake of money. 

  

[00:25:27] So when we talk about money now, and we do deals, I really try to centre with myself and say, 'Okay, are you doing this for just the money? Or is there joy? And can you inject love and energy into whatever it is we're going to do?' 

  

[00:25:44] Because I think I made a decision for money back then, just to get going, to get into the world and become an adult. 

  

[00:25:52] But I went to University of Calgary, I took a business degree kind of thing. It was horrible, boring. I didn't enjoy school at all, it wasn't really for me. University undergrad degrees are really geared towards trying to sell you something, again, which is a master's or something. And so half your degree is spent just on all these options, and things that are meaningless to you, and you really just want to get to the core subject, learn what you need to learn, so you can get out and start doing business.

As soon as he was finished, he went straight out with the intention of getting into business.

Mike Day:  

[00:26:37] So I started learning the restaurant industry, because one of my other dreams was to be a bar owner, but I never really pursued that. 

  

[00:26:45] Because at the end of the day, when you see the type of staff you have to employ, throwing out cutlery, breaking your dishes, the building [needing] constant repair, and with the flue systems in the kitchen, and all the equipment that you need, a lot of your money just gets sucked out by people who don't care about your business. And you're really powerless to that, because you can't function that business without those people.

 

[00:27:17] Whereas [with] property development, you can choose the people you want to work with that align to your vision, that align to your goals, that care about the outcomes, and you can nurture that. So it took a little bit of time, but we got there in the end.

Tyrone Shum:   

[00:27:35] And I guess maybe a big question for you, would you try even going back to seeing becoming a firefighter, now that you potentially could? Or do you think that's a long con dream?

Mike Day:   

[00:27:47] It's something my fiance asked me the other day, actually. And I mean, I'm certainly in shape to possibly go back and do it. But it's the same story here in Sydney. How long is it going to be till you actually get a posting? Would you come through as a floater? 

  

[00:28:06] And then the other question, really, for me is like, can I be on shift 24 hours straight and actually function? Because I need my sleep, man.

 

[00:28:17] I said to her, and she laughed as well. She's like, 'Yeah, I don't know how well you'd go with that, getting up in the middle of the night and actually like having to think about being safe running into a building'. But I think adrenaline would kick in and you'd probably get used to it and be fine. 

  

[00:28:35] But more recently, I thought to myself, I'd probably be more geared towards... what do they call them? On the ski hill, the guys wearing the red jackets, the ski patrol. So it's still first aid, you're still rescuing people, but you get to do it with a pair of skis on underfoot. And you get to go up and down the mountain looking for people needing help or directing people or making sure people are safe. 

  

[00:29:03] So I kind of thought maybe that would be something a little bit more that I could do a little later in life after property, and I've checked all the goals and achieved everything I want to here.

Tyrone Shum:   

It’s certainly a big change coming from Canada to Sydney, but he was motivated by all the right reasons.

Mike Day:   

[00:29:48] When I was here in '01, I met a woman [and] by the end of the year we were engaged. We got married and then she wanted to move to Canada. 

 

[00:29:59] So we went back to Canada and that's where my property development journey started. I did a couple of custom houses, architectural homes. And then my last project was a renovation, and I'll never do that again. 

  

[00:30:22] That's kind of how I got started in property. And you can see how quickly you can grow your wealth like this. So in Canada at that point in '01 you could buy a house for, say, $200,000. Put $40,000 in renovation into it and sell it for $375,000 three months later. 

 

[00:30:43] So that's what I did in my last project, which was a really great result, but was an absolute nightmare, and I'll never do it again. So as far as an investment strategy goes. Just me personally. 

  

[00:30:58] There are people who just love renovations and they could do them over and over and over again, and I take my hat off to them. But I like new things. I like to knock down and rebuild. As soon as you get stuck into something and it's like, 'Oh, we need a new pipe here. You need to replace the plumbing'. And the cost just go like this. And there's too many unknowns for me.

Tyrone Shum:   

The first renovation project he did was an infill lot that he bought from a developer who had already installed all the civils.

Mike Day:   

[00:00:19] [I] worked with an architect for a nice design project, managed the thing by myself, and then came up with a result and put it on the market. 

  

[00:00:30] And I ended up building it for about $260,000 and we sold it for $380,000. So it took about six months to build. And it was like, 'Okay, good to go'. And then that was kind of the aha moment. It's like, 'Wow, I can really do something special here if I deliver the right product, and I can make a whole year's salary in, say, six or eight months', depending on the build time, of course. 

 

[00:01:00] Some of the projects we do are like, two [to] two and a half years because of the DA process here. But when you're doing something simple, like I did in Calgary with an infill lot, building a single home, you don't need a DA. It's what we call CDC here. It just takes a few weeks to get your approval, submit your designs, and off you go, it's all compliant, and you just build it.

Tyrone Shum: 

Looking at the profit he made, he wishes he could replicate it over and over again.

Mike Day:   

[00:01:31] I started with a very little amount, like, I think $40,000 of my own capital to buy the property, get everything sorted, get the loan in place, get the construction, and we just did it all. And then, you sell it, you're like, holy cow. And so then I did that again. 

  

[00:01:47] And then I finished with the reno and I'm like, 'I'm gonna go back to the building something new thing'. And that was really sort of where my passion came in. 

Tyrone Shum:
Then, when he came to Australia, he changed his investment focus.

[00:02:07] I was sort of transitioning over to a Fortune 500 company in the project management space, and I was having a lot of fun climbing the corporate ladder. So I switched my investment focus to investment properties. So [the] buying and holding sort of strategy, but still building new. Finding the lgrowth corridors in certain cities and capital cities in Australia, building something there that will then appreciate. 

  

[00:02:37] I recently just sold my first investment property and had a really amazing profit based on the boom following COVID there. So I cashed out right at the right time, last May, right before the interest rates started going up, and everyone was still wild and hot and crazy. So I had a really amazing result with the sales cycle we went through to get the end profit.

 

[00:03:07] And that actually propelled me into getting out on my own and leading my own  company kind of thing.

 

[00:03:18] I was doing that before, but I was still kind of taking on a bit of a day job role just for cash flow. 

  

[00:03:25] But for the last two years, or year and a half, I've been out on my own and it's been the best decision I ever made. I love being in charge of my day. I love being in charge of everything really. And not having anyone looking down on me going, 'What are you doing?' with expectations. 

  

[00:03:47] And being able to work with a team of investors that I have is incredible, because you have this team of people who support you with their capital, but it allows all of us to achieve our property dreams simultaneously.

Mike Day’s story continues in the next episode of Property Investory. He shares the wealth-building strategy that wasn’t for him…

 

[00:06:50] Then later on in life, about four years ago, I thought, 'I'd really like to just have some steady cash flow'.

 

His advice for those starting their renovation journeys…

 

[00:13:02] Some people are really good at it. They're really calm and cool and are just like, 'Yeah, no problem. We know that was coming'.

He divulges the ultimate reason he prefers development to renovation, and the finishing touch he adds to every project he does.

[00:16:29] So it's those little touches that I really love about the development process and why I chose that path.

 

And that’s next time on Property Investory.