Living Every Moment | Ken DeLeon

Nice. Well, it's such a pleasure to be here. Actually, I might not even need the microphone. Such a pleasure to be here. Draper University, everyone, is very well regarded. So it's an honor to be here to speak. So thank you so much. So I'm speaking today about residential real estate. And residential real estate, you're probably thinking, you know, there's not too much innovation in residential real estate. It's kind of— it's been the same way for a long time. Nobody's really innovating in that space. You know, so, you know, what could you talk about? What would, what would be interesting in residential real estate? Because I mean, the reality is no one's really doing anything different in residential real estate. So, my man.

VR.

Oh, nice. Okay, perfect. Yeah, virtual reality is definitely coming now. You're starting to see that. Yeah, VR is becoming a huge thing where you put the Oculus Rift on and you feel like, you know, you could be in Shanghai, but still you're kind of feel like you're walking through the house right here. But given that residential real estate's boring, you know, is it interesting or—

I don't know.

Well, actually, you know, that's the whole point. Nobody was in residential real estate. So what I would say to you guys is try and think about what space you want to be in. So what drew me to residential real estate was that nobody innovative was in that space. So when you think of, like, where are the most brilliant minds going, you think of tech. medicine, finance, law. You don't think of residential real estate. But a lot of my success in life comes from putting yourself in a position where nobody else is, taking the chances other people are afraid to do. And through that, I kind of found a space that was very, you know, ready— antiquated and ready to be innovated and ready to be changed. So today I'm gonna be talking about some success in business, but also just a little bit about mindset. for kind of achieving your goals. I do some motivational speaking as well, a little bit, because I've been through some intense life events. And I think from that I've learned a lot about life and how to live the life you want to live. So let me— before I begin the speech on real estate, I'm just going to give you a super short introduction about my background and kind of why I believe in taking calculated risk and leaving a legacy.

Ken DeLeon had a lot of tragedies in his life starting at a very young age. But instead of focusing on the negative, He's taken strength from the hard knocks he's suffered, and now he's using this knowledge to help others.

It's only about a 4-minute video.

It's a super quick life synopsis.

I want to love what I do. I want to wake up happy because I never know when I'm going to die, and I want to make sure that every moment's the best. I'm Ken DeLeon. I'm 40 years old, and I'm a real estate agent, and I live in Palo Alto, California with my beautiful family, including 4 very energetic children. I grew up in Boca Raton, Florida. And I had a sister who I've loved throughout, Jane. And Jane was always the very focused one. But then as time went on, Jane kind of started not doing so well. Teenage years are hard, but it was sad to see Jane's kind of decline. And then eventually Jane reached a point of depression. And sadly, I'm the one who found her. And I shook her and shook her and said, no, Jane, no. And it just forever changed me. Jane's fatal flaw was letting other people determine whether she was happy or unhappy. And by proclaiming my own greatness, I realized that I can control my life. And I discovered the great irony in life, in that once you stop caring what other people think of you, the more people care to be around you. I was taking a walk with my father before starting at the law firm. That walk would nearly take and forever change my life, for I was hit by a car going 45 miles per hour, slammed into my right leg, and it shattered my fibula and tibia right away. Ended up launching myself over the car, smashed through the windshield, and then the driver who was on drugs ended up beating me inside the car for 3 miles as I pled with him, stop the car, stop the car, I'm hurt, I'm hurt, stop the car.

He screamed at me, get out!

Get out! As he's beating me. And then finally we hit a red light. He pushed me out. I tumbled down on my bad side, and then he screeched away. And there I was, my hands contorted backwards, the greater pains in my leg, and I knew my life had changed. And who I was just a few minutes earlier, a few miles back, was different. And this was my— one of my greatest challenges that I was gonna face.

I just have to move on. I just have to rehab as much as I can and just focus on what I can do instead of what I can't do.

Because psychologically, I'd already accepted my life had changed, but I already envisioned that physically I'm going to be as strong, and mentally I'm going to be stronger. I didn't want to give that power to my attacker to take that from me. I call myself the real estate rock star. I actually had an ad showing myself as a rock star. And it's had amazing success. And I think the key is give yourself permission to be truly who you are, and you're going to attract the right people. To have cancer so young and to have it be so large is very concerning, and I thought of the children I would not get to play with, the legacy that I wouldn't get to leave. But through it all, I realized that no matter what, you can't control your life. But what you do with that event is completely within your power, and I resolved that I was going to optimize this experience, whether through death or hopefully survival, that I would learn as much as I could, convey as much as I could within that time, and live life proudly. I'm thankful to say I ended up beating the cancer within 9 months, went from the size of a softball to nothing, but still it awakened me again to enjoy every moment and to love my children and to love my life.

What is the next step?

What am I going to learn from this? What I love most about public speaking is that all the lessons I've learned throughout my whole life, the value of them gets multiplied. And when I'm speaking to a crowd of 100 or over 1,000, those lessons are now worth 100 to 1,000 times what they ever were. And the excitement and intoxication I feel when I'm in front of a large crowd, I can just sense their energy. It's better than anything I could ever dream of.

Thank you, guys. I just wanted to show you that. Kind of shows some of the mindset I had getting into this. When I do my motivational speeches, and today is more about business, but you'll actually like the title. When I do my motivational speeches, I try to answer that eternal question, why? Why do bad things happen to sexy people? Because, you know, you guys are a sexy crowd. You understand some bad things happen to us. But what I found, what does not kill you makes you sexier. And then I— what I go through is I go through the 3 life tragedies I've had and then kind of the many life lessons I've learned from them. And what I can tell you is this. My life is so much better through having gone through what I've been through than if I didn't. Because what I found is life is a blank slate. It's neither inherent— life events, they're neither inherently good nor evil. A car hitting you, being diagnosed with cancer, you can't control the event. But what you do with that event is totally within your mind. And I actually kind of reframed it. And some of the things I talk about is you control your life. And the key is even when I'm at the abyss, when I'm at that low point in my life, I always think, what can I learn from this? How can I launch higher? And I use tragedy as a springboard towards greater insight and wisdom. And it used to— it actually— you know, I answered the question in the end. Why do bad things happen to sexy people? We actually have it reversed. It's the bad things in life that make you sexy. Because sexiness is just—

I mean, I'm kind of using it as a metaphor, but it's self-confidence and love of self.

And you want to seek those hardships in life. But what I realized from coming so close to death is that how do you live a life so great that you don't fear death? Because I think I could die at any moment. And the key is when you die tomorrow, theoretically, you're happy with the life you lived. And the way you do that is living every moment intensely and leaving a legacy. And there's many ways to leave a legacy. You know, you could do it through friends, through children, but also I think through business. And that was kind of the mindset I had. Let me enter— let me enter a profession that I can really change, and then they learn and grow from it and innovate it.