Our series “How I became a …” digs into the stories of accomplished and influential people, finding out how they got to where they are in their careers.
Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Drew and Jonathan Scott are household names — literally. With a $250 down payment just out of high school, the Scott brothers bought and flipped their first house and have, in turn, created a real estate empire.
Whether helping people buy and renovate homes on HGTV, designing furniture and décor with Scott Living, producing new shows with Scott Brothers Entertainment, writing best-selling books or entering into the digital space with their new venture GuruHub.tv, there’s essentially nothing that the Scott brothers haven’t done.
USA TODAY caught up with real estate guru Drew Scott to talk about everything from the NBA to grabbing an opportunity.
Question: What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done?
Answer: I’ve gotten to play in the Celebrity All-Star Game three times, and for me that’s a really big thing because, as a kid, I wanted to be in the NBA. The first time I got to play, down in Orlando, I was on the court and I was checking Anfernee Hardaway, who I looked up to and think is one of the greats in the league.
Another thing was when we were filming down in Galveston, Texas, and got to do a behind-the-scenes tour of NASA, and they put us in this simulator – like a giant metal arm that grabs you around the waist and lifts you up – so you got to experience what it would be like if you were on the moon or in the International Space Station.
For me, just getting to experience something new all the time is what’s most exciting for me.
Q: Who is your biggest mentor?
A: As cheesy as it might sound, my parents — there’s support that parents give their kids, and then there’s what mine gave — just beyond encouraging. I wanted to be an actor as a kid, and a lot of people would tell you to be realistic, but from a young age, our parents really realized that Jonathan and I were so driven. When we set our mind to something, we could make things happen, and they were so supportive.
We first learned to be handy from our dad – he taught us how to swing a hammer, to finish a basement, to build a space.
In my professional life, someone I really look up to is Kathleen Finch. She was the head of scripts at HGTV, and is now one of the heads of discovery. She is a businesswoman like no other – she knows every aspect of her business, which I look up to. She exudes professionalism and also has this trait of personability, which really amazes me.
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Q: What does a typical day look like for you?
A: It’s long days, and it depends on which show.
Right now with Brother vs. Brother, Jonathan and I both do our own design and renovations. So we’re up typically 5:30 or 6 a.m., we’re filming all day. We have meetings and interviews at lunchtime, and then at the end of the day we have meetings for our furniture line or we have development meetings for our production company, Scott Brothers Entertainment.
Right now we’re working with Habitat for Humanity and are doing two builds for these amazing families in Nashville, so we’re basically on a plane every two to three days. Even when we’re in a city to film the show, we’re still always on a plane to work with one of these other campaigns or activations or QVC. It’s usually around 10 p.m. or so where we’re wrapping up.
Q: What does your career path look like, from college to now?
A: Some people think it’s a success story overnight, but it just wasn’t that way at all. We were just always pushing the envelope, trying to reach for that next rung and trying to find an opportunity. We’re very much opportunistic in a way that we’re always open to finding these new opportunities. It wasn’t luck — we made sure that we had the skills in place so that when an opportunity came around, we were ready to act.
We started our first business at seven years old. Jonathan and I were making these decorative hangers that people thought were a cute arts and craft thing for kids, but we were like, no! We didn’t want to just do a paper route – we want to make some real money and we want to grow this business. We started selling the hangers to a woman who had a chain of American stores in Japan, and we were selling them in the thousands.
Jonathan and I were great with entertaining, we were great with putting on a show, so we became clowns for parks and rec and learned to entertain crowds. From there, we realized we had this entertainment bug, so why not try acting? We got into acting and when we graduated high school, we thought, how could we keep acting and produce our own shows?
We heard real estate was a good way to make money, so we thought, let’s get into that — it could fund our creative endeavors so that we could do what we loved to do. We got every late-night infomercial package, every book, every VHS tape to teach us how to make money in real estate. We bought our first house when we graduated high school, and it was a $200,000 house — we assumed the mortgage and bought it for a down payment of $250, and that’s where it all began.
We flipped it and made a $50,000 profit, and that’s where we realized, if we’re smart with real estate, we could expand into any passion we had. As we started to grow and flip more properties, I became a real estate agent and started making money as an agent representing clients. Jonathan went to school for real estate design, and we grew our company, Scott Real Estate, where we started to represent clients to renovate their homes and build their homes and commercial projects.
I tried to get back into acting in Vancouver and started getting pitched as a host for real estate shows because of my real estate expertise. At first, I remember thinking, this is lame — I don’t want to be a host, I want to be a superstar, I want to act. The more we talked about it, with our personalities and how we are on our feet, we thought maybe there is something good with hosting; maybe it could give us the opportunity to grow our brand and the businesses that we run, and it did.
We’ve expanded into our production company, our furniture and décor line and into stuff like GuruHub.tv, a digital lifestyle network. It’s just really exciting for us to see the opportunities that we are able to grab hold of and grow.
Q: What would you say is the biggest lesson you’ve learned?
A: I can remember when I was younger and my dad saying to Jonathan and me, “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.”
I think that’s one of the key points when we were really young. He told us that if someone told us we couldn’t do something, to find five ways that we could. And that just always really resonated with me. There are so many people out there, and they don’t have the right to tell you that you can’t do something.
Also, as a kid, I was in high school and I remember there were these two bullies. Every now and then, they would always try and pick on us – I don’t know why, I think they just liked to try and bully. One day they confronted us, Jonathan and me, and I said, “why are you always picking on us? I don’t understand, because we’ve never done anything to you.”
I remember that he piped up and said, “it’s because your brother’s an idiot and has a big mouth!” So I turned around and gave Jonathan a little hit and said to him, “why don’t you stop being an idiot and having a big mouth?” even though the bully was just making that up. Jonathan didn’t do anything to antagonize him.
I realized after that moment – why did I turn my back on who’s always had my back, even though this other person was just lying to get their way or trying to justify something that they were doing wrong? So that’s stuck with ever since then – to never turn my back on those who support me, and to never turn my back on my family and friends.
Q. What are three of your go-to songs to get you through a really busy day?
Q: What advice would you give to someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?
A: Part of it would be the same advice that my dad gave me when I was younger — never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. There’s always a way to do it if you leave yourself open to those opportunities.
I don’t believe in getting lucky, I never have — luck is actually being ready to take advantage of an opportunity when it arises because you have the skill set you need and the drive and determination to do it. We’ve always had that ability to grab hold of opportunities because we were ready for them.
There’s a saying that I like to change — that good things come to those who wait. I don’t like that saying because the great things were already taken by those who were ready to make the move. Don’t always wait and take too long and overthink an opportunity or a career path or whatever you want to do in life. Don’t rush into anything, but figure out what you want to do, get yourself ready to take the opportunity, and move. If you wait too long, someone who is more driven or who has more passion will grab it before you do.