Hey everybody, hello and welcome to Spotlight Vancouver, Washington.
I'm your host, Doug Varenas, and I wanted to kick off basically the first episode of
this podcast, this video podcast, with kind of just an introduction about myself and what
this podcast is going to be all about because I think I'm in my third iteration of this
YouTube channel and this journey.
And so if you have a growth mindset like I do, you know that sometimes you're going
to go through some tweaks and modifications before you get it the way you want it and
who's to say this won't be one of them.
But what I started out doing on YouTube was sort of as a real estate agent was a relocation
channel.
And so it was also geared towards Vancouver where I live, Vancouver, Washington.
And it started out as touring houses, providing information on the market and providing tips
and tricks.
And so a lot of my content has been real estate related, obviously with an emphasis on like
providing information.
So it's me talking to the camera, kind of like I'm doing now, but in a more sort of condensed
format where I'm either touring a house, which I really love to do, or providing information
that I think the audience is going to find useful and it would be like the five steps
to getting the house of your dreams or, you know, three hacks and getting your offer accepted,
something like that.
And I really enjoyed doing that content because I do hope that people found some value in
that and I do think there is a lot of value in that kind of content and who's to say I
probably will continue to produce that sort of content.
But what I basically got really burnt out.
And I felt like I was talking to people and not with people and I wanted to have the responses
and the information be a little more nuanced.
And I've always wanted to do kind of a longer form channel and have interviews sort of be
the backbone of that.
And so, you know, if I was going to do some content on a certain aspect of real estate,
I would want to talk to, you know, a real expert in that specific area and then we could
have sort of a back and forth and the audience can get like a much more thorough answer and
a more nuanced answer.
And that just wasn't possible with the short form.
I mean, if you're doing like Instagram, Reels or TikTok, YouTube, you can do that a little
better.
But I felt the conversation was one way.
And so my goal with this podcast is to talk to people in the community who are doing cool
stuff in Vancouver and to kind of get their background story, learn how they came to be
who they are and the cool things they're doing in the community.
And a lot of these guests will be probably entrepreneurs.
A lot of them will be in the real estate agency, but I don't want to limit it to that.
In fact, I'm consciously trying to get people from all over the community who are doing
cool stuff.
I have some guests lined up that I'm excited about.
And it's an opportunity to have a conversation.
And I think that the audience really wants more nuance.
They want a lengthier explanation.
They want to engage with somebody for longer than 30 seconds.
So it's sort of in a way kind of the anti-TikTok podcast.
And so I'm looking forward to expanding the audience and the guests to include entrepreneurs,
artists, people in the medical field.
People who've retired early, financial experts, real estate experts, and really focus on what
makes Vancouver an awesome place to be.
And so that is my mindset going into this new iteration of my YouTube channel.
And what I'm hoping to provide to the audience is some inspiration, some practical tips,
because I really think the audience are people who maybe they want to own businesses or they
want to start something.
They want to create something, and maybe they don't know where to start or they want to
build those connections with people in their community.
So I'm also hoping that my audience will reach out to the people I have on the show, as well
as myself to get some more information.
And hopefully I want to inspire people to make Vancouver even more incredible and a
greater place to live.
And a lot of that I think is through entrepreneurship.
And that can look different ways for different people.
I could be kind of a standard business where you're buying and selling things.
It could be getting into investing.
It could be producing art.
It could be helping disabled children find employment, more adults.
So the possibilities are endless.
And so I'm looking forward to connecting and communicating what's going on in the city
of Vancouver, because I do believe it's an incredible place.
And I've lived here for the past, what's it going on nine years now?
And I've been in the Pacific Northwest since 2004.
Oh, yeah, that's gonna be about 12 years.
If I look at the simple math, right?
So it's been quite a while since I've come to the area.
And a little bit about myself, again, my name's Doug, and I am a real estate agent licensed
in Washington and Oregon.
And I grew up in the Southern California area, specifically the San Fernando Valley, and
even more specifically the town or the city of Recita, which is famous for being the home
of the original karate kid.
There's also a lot of references and songs and movies and stuff to it.
And I believe when these references are made, they're made in a sort of like, it's a really
kind of a bland, generic kind of hoof place.
And that's the kind of context that it's usually brought up in.
I don't think that's the case.
I do think it's an interesting place.
And where I grew up was incredibly diverse, and my classmates were from all over the world.
And, you know, my high school, they spoke like 100 different languages.
It was pretty incredible.
And so I'm lucky to be from there.
But at the same time, I always felt like this wasn't the place I wanted to be.
You know, it's really hot.
It's sort of a concrete jungle.
The movie industry is really huge there.
So it's kind of got this, I don't know, fake vibe to it.
You know, people are wanting to like, you know, they're actors.
You know, a lot of them are aspiring actors.
And so, you know, you get the impression that a lot of people are kind of acting.
And that's just my opinion.
Like, it's interesting because I haven't been back to that area in so long, but I think
it's just a real fascinating place.
Like the food, the restaurant scene is incredible.
The art scene is incredible.
I think it's a great place to visit.
I just never felt at home there.
So but I grew up there.
And when it was time for me to go to college, because, you know, that's what you had to
do back then.
I elected to go to Humboldt State University, now known as Cal Poly Humboldt, I believe.
It is in the extreme northern part of California on the coast by Eureka, the university's in
the town of Arcada.
And so that's where I spent my undergraduate, cool place, beautiful area.
Had a great time there.
Can't say I remember a lot of it, but I had fun.
And I was a geography major.
And so if you know anything about being a geography major, you know that it's there's not a lot
of employment options.
But the crazy thing is I was in the last class that did pen and ink cartography.
So it was on like a light table and you'd have different size pens to represent different
meanings on the map.
And at the same time, they were offering like a GIS, a computer mapping certificate.
And this is what it was like brand new.
It was pretty exciting.
But I guess I just didn't get it.
I was probably also kind of pretty lazy at the time.
Like I was getting ready to graduate and I'm like, I don't want to do I don't know about
this computer thing and this cartography, computer cartography GIS.
I don't know what's going to happen.
So I didn't do it.
So you know, it's part of life is like you just, I don't know.
It's not something I really regret, but it's an interesting kind of footnote because that
is a great field to be in.
And it's it's all over the place.
Like interactive maps are everywhere.
And so it's an incredible industry.
Coming to the end of my college career, I needed a job.
There wasn't besides the computer cartography, which I neglected, there wasn't a lot of options.
And so I saw a flyer in the career center about teaching English in Japan.
And I had been to Europe.
I backpacked Europe after high school by myself.
I had a plan to go with a friend and for some reasons I won't get into like it just didn't
happen and I was determined to go.
And so I went by myself for it ended up being the month, I think it was five weeks.
And you know, I was a 17 year old kid going around Europe.
So it was quite the experience and I really got the bug for international travel then.
So when it came time to look for a job, I'm like, I can go to Japan.
It's a great way to, to kind of scratch that traveling itch.
And I also get paid.
It was more money than I ever made at the time.
And so I went to Japan as an English teacher.
I wore a suit every day.
I lived in Nagoya city, Japan in IHC prefecture.
Nobody probably knows where that is.
And I tell people that it is the Detroit of Japan.
So kind of a gritty auto business centric place.
It has a reputation for producing sort of some gruff language, gruff, you know, it has
kind of a granular vibe to it.
Like it's kind of a gritty place.
I didn't find it that way.
I really liked it.
And because there was less tourists there, you kind of got put in to contact with more
locals.
You know, nobody spoke English there in Japan outside of Tokyo.
It's hard to find anyone who speaks English.
There are people.
Yeah, so in Nagoya, I didn't know any Japanese at the time.
I was really into studying the language.
I worked at an English conversation school.
I studied a lot.
I went to volunteer schools taught by former school teachers.
And so I had some good education.
I learned Japanese.
I would study a lot and I practiced at night.
I, you know, I went out every night and I immersed myself in the sort of the drinking
culture there.
And I would study literally, I would have times where it would just be like six, eight
hours and then I would go out and I would kind of use what I learned to when I went
out.
I would, that's how I kind of remembered it.
I would study it and then I would use it.
And I recommend that as a foreign language learning concept.
So I lived, I ended up, I thought it was going to be a year, maybe two years.
And then it just kind of kept going and going.
And I, I got different jobs.
I got a job with a agency that sent me out to auto manufacturing plants to teach their
workers English because they were going to be transferred to Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee,
you know, these auto, you know, a lot of them were in the South or in the sort of Rust Belt
areas where they had a lot of auto manufacturing and they were sending their workers there
to teach us workers about, you know, the manufacturing process and they were collaborating.
And so they needed to have like a basic understanding of English.
So I taught conversational English at these big auto manufacturing plants, Toyota and
Denso and Mitsubishi, a lot of big names.
And I got to know these workers and they were delightful because they were just the entry
level workers, you know, they're their everyday person in Japan.
And I got an idea of what it was like for like the common man in Japan.
So it was a great insight, a very rich peak behind the curtain into the culture.
And I really enjoyed that.
But as you know, the longer I went on, my Japanese got really good.
Conversationally could, you know, I was pretty fluent, let's say.
But I just, it's hard.
Living in a foreign country is hard.
No matter what country it is, it's not easy and it kind of wears on you over time.
And I found that was happening to me, the longer I lived in Japan, you know, the kind
of less I fit in in a way.
Like I wanted to fit in.
I wanted to be part of the culture and part of the country.
And you know, people were incredibly kind and understanding and I met a lot of people
there and I had a lot of Japanese friends.
I made it a point not to hang out with English speakers who didn't try to immerse themselves
in the culture.
So but it was, it was frustrating.
But you know, the best of times it can be, it can be quite a load to live in a foreign
country.
And so I got pretty tired of living in Japan.
I found myself becoming a little embittered about the whole process.
And so I kind of just woke up one day and was like, it's time, you know, I think it's
time to leave.
So I packed up my stuff and shipped it back to the US and I moved back to Los Angeles.
I had no plan of what to do at all.
I had some fits and starts in Japan.
I actually went to grad school in Japan for geography again.
It was, it's really random how I got that opportunity.
And you're probably saying yourself, oh, that's cool.
That's wow, that's amazing.
And but the end of the day, it was sort of, it helped my Japanese, but I wasn't again
doing any of the stuff that was going to get me paid.
I have a degree from Nagoya University in a master's degree in geography, but again,
the career opportunities weren't jumping out at me.
No one was, you know, no one was going out of their way to hire me.
So I didn't really have a plan.
And so I went back to the US.
I was living with my parents for that for like a year.
I was miserable.
I was trying to figure out what to do.
I didn't have a lot of direction.
I didn't have a lot of focus.
I just, I just needed a place to kind of chill out and, and just get my thoughts together.
And at this point, my parents were getting ready to retire.
My father was getting ready to retire.
My mom wasn't working anymore.
And they were talking about moving up to Oregon, retiring up in Oregon.
We had always done our yearly camping trip up in central Oregon, like in the Bend area,
La Pines, Sun River area before it was cool.
And so my folks were looking at places up there and they finally found a home in Roseburg
in Southern Oregon and they purchased a home there.
And so I was asked or I volunteered.
I don't remember.
I, I went up there to, I needed a change and I wanted to be, I had experienced living in
the Pacific Northwest and I wanted to be back up there.
I had spent so much time away from my parents that I kind of wanted to be close to them,
but not too close.
And so I took care of their retirement home while they were kind of preparing things and
going through that transition.
And I would basically go back and forth up into Portland because I wanted to be, again,
like I said, I wanted to be close to my parents, but not too close.
And Portland seemed really cool.
There was a great kind of scene there.
It was exciting.
I had never lived there once.
I had never been there.
I just kind of heard it was cool.
I actually saw they had a max and because I lived in Japan, I really liked trains.
I thought the public transportation was amazing.
And the fact that Portland had a max train kind of sold me on it.
And so I went back and forth.
I stayed at the youth hostel in Portland when I came up and I would just try to get jobs.
I would apply random places.
Finally I got a job at a Trader Joe's.
I had some grocery experience in college and so I hounded the people at Trader Joe's until
they gave me a job.
That's the short story is I just kept calling them and calling them and calling them, asking
them if they had a position until they are finally like, please stop.
Please stop calling us.
You can have the job, please.
So I worked at Trader Joe's and I didn't want this to be my career and I kind of got
stuck there.
And I decided eventually I just wanted a career.
I wanted something that was meaningful and not that there's anything wrong with working
at Trader Joe's, but it didn't have a lot of meaning to me as far as changing the world
or providing some service to people.
I've since kind of changed on that.
I think anything can be a valuable service.
It doesn't have to be something that's really altruistic, like helping the sick or needy.
It certainly can be those things, but I think everybody's role is of value.
But anyway, at the time I'm like, I need to, I think maybe I'll try nursing.
And so I went to nursing school for a term and I just found, well, before I even went
to nursing school, I had to do the prerequisites.
So I went to Clark College.
I did some prerequisites.
I did really well, which gave me a lot of confidence.
I'm like, I can learn things.
I'm a good student and I got all A's.
I got into Clark College, did the first term, hated it.
It just wasn't for me.
I'm not a super A personality type.
And honestly, I just wasn't ready for the demands.
They wanted me to be responsible for my learning.
And I was, to be honest, I was a lazy learner at the time.
And so I was miserable.
And I was like, I can't do this.
So I quit and I felt, I was really low.
I felt bad.
I was back at Trader Joe's.
You know, I told everyone I was going to nursing school and then I just bailed on it.
So people were like, okay, yeah, you're back.
You tried that.
Of course it didn't work out.
And so I think another year went by.
Anyway, I was searching online because I wanted to use those prerequisites.
I didn't want to just have them kind of throw them away or not use them.
And so I found occupational therapy, which sounded like the perfect field for me.
If you don't know what occupational therapy is, you're not alone.
It is kind of, it's, it's a branch of healthcare that focuses on, it's a holistic form of care
that's very like patient driven.
And it basically is, is uses task analysis to help somebody who's experienced like an
injury or illness get back to the functional life skills they need to do or want to do.
So, you know, I kind of, I work with people who had strokes, you know, get back to like
feeding themselves and gardening and, you know, just being able to do transfers out of their
bed.
And then so getting back to the occupational therapy is I went to occupational therapy
school of Pacific University and I became an occupational therapist.
And so I wasn't working at Trader Joe's.
I was an occupational therapist.
I worked at the school district with children with disabilities, a lot of autism, ADHD,
you know, specific learning disabilities.
And so, you know, I've been doing that for quite a long time.
But again, I think I'm just wired to not to do something for like maybe a decade.
And then I get kind of bored.
I want to do something different.
I like exploring.
I like doing different things.
And so I just got to the point where I just was kind of burnt out as well and wanted to
try something new.
And I had been, I owned my home.
I didn't have a great experience with my real estate agent buying that home.
And before I owned that home, I had a condo.
And so I had rented that condo out for quite a while.
So I had a rental property and I owned a home.
I eventually sold that rental property and my girlfriend and that, but now wife, we bought
an investment home in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
And during the pandemic, we had purchased several more homes.
So we had purchased like four homes total.
We were lucky enough to be able to do that.
And so I had always been interested in real estate.
I had been participating in buying and selling properties for investment.
My parents have also always been, they wouldn't call themselves investors, but they are sort
of buying the worst house in the best neighborhood people and they will spend the time and energy
to fix it up themselves.
They're big DIYers.
And so they had been doing that since I was before I was born.
And they had kind of continued to do that and they would fix up a home and they would
purchase a new one, sell the old one.
They weren't landlords.
They didn't like buying those properties for rental purposes, but they would definitely
build a lot of equity and buy another home, buy a modest home.
So it wasn't like they were splurging out to buy something crazy big or expensive.
They would just buy the next home, pocket some of that equity and do it again.
And they did this like two or three times.
And so I'd always been exposed to that DIY aesthetic and kind of real estate as an investment.
And so I decided to, because I had these kind of lukewarm experiences with realtors in the
past, I'm like, I think I could do better.
I could provide a service that, you know, provide the aspects of the real estate transaction
that I wish I had when I was buying real estate that I just weren't provided to me.
So there's a lot of great agents out there and there's a lot of not great agents.
And so I just happened to come upon some of the real kind of average to below average
agents and I'm like, I could do better and I can provide a service to the community.
And so I got my real estate license.
I have been working in real estate for the last couple of years, helping people buy and
sell homes.
And I've also, my wife and I have been building up our investment portfolio.
I am a big fan of financial freedom and personal finance is a real passion of mine.
And so it's something I've always been good at.
My dad will tell you the story of how I was, you know, six years old.
I might have been younger.
And I wanted this cool MX bike, a diamond back BMX bike.
And it was like $300, which might as well been a million dollars at that time.
And he said, if you can save up your money, your allowance money, because I got an allowance
at that time, I will buy the rest of the, I will match your half.
So I had to come up with 150 bucks.
I got paid like $3 a week making leaps and stuff.
And so I saved, I don't know how I did it, but I saved up that money really quickly.
And my dad tells me he was so shocked, like he had to scramble to get the other half because
my parents didn't have a lot of money.
They were, you know, we didn't grow up with a ton of money.
We always comfortable and had what we needed, but they is because they kind of scrimped
and saved.
And he had to scrimp to get that other half of my diamond back bike because I got it.
And it was a sweet bike.
So I've always been a good saver, and then I learned how to kind of invest later in life.
And so I'm kind of on this journey of financial freedom, investing and helping other people
buy and sell homes, which I'm really excited about.
So getting back to the podcast, that's a little bit about me and kind of in a nutshell, a little
bit about my background.
And so again, I want to welcome you to this podcast.
And I'm so appreciative that you're listening right now and just want to let you know that
I'm really looking forward to speaking to people in the community and to get those different
perspectives and get those stories, get that inspiration and that practical information
that people in our community have people of Vancouver, Washington, because I think there's
such a resource and such an inspiration for people who want to get started either investing
or starting their own business or just creating something new.
So I want to welcome you to Spotlight Vancouver, Washington, and welcome you along for the ride.
If you happen to be someone who you think would be a good fit for this show, feel free
to reach out to me.
My contact information will be in the description.
I would love to hear from you.
And even if you think like, oh, I don't, you know, I have nothing to offer, you might be
wrong and you probably are wrong and you probably do have quite a bit to offer the community.
So feel free to reach out or if you know anybody who would be a good fit for this podcast,
feel free to reach out to.
And again, thank you so much.
I'm pumped.
I'm looking forward to speaking to everybody out there and just connecting with the audience,
connecting with my guests and just having fun while doing it.
It's been fun to have this intro and I will see you again soon, everybody.
Take care.