Hey, today we have a special guest. I'm a special amigos de Martinez. And I'm kind of tongue tied right now. But it's all good. It happens. We go on the flow with it make it happen. But I have a special guest today, Ricardo was Dallas. One of the beauty things about businesses, he always had the debt when things happen. And there was something that happened. And Ricardo is like, I'm here, I'm ready, and he's gonna show up. So we're here. So it's one of the things where you gotta, you gotta really adapt on the fly and make stuff happen on your business and entrepreneurship. So we're gonna talk about stuff like that. But here's a special guest for Carter was Dallas, Houston, Texas. How are you doing today? I'm doing excellent, man. Thank you for the invitation, Daniel. Man, I just got I just released our episode we just did a month ago or so from Florida. So it's really kind of it's really, it's really kind of cool to see that video come out, because I like doing in person stuff. And I always gonna have the opportunity to do it. So it's always has it's a double edged sword. Yeah, it's, you do it on the fly, right? Like that, in that particular occasion. I have my equipment there, and the cameras and and the audio recording and all that and, and he just happened to you. and I were just talking and I told you, hey, why don't we just put this on video and put on YouTube? Ryan? And that's exactly what we did. That was a pretty good interview. Actually, on on that, on that. On that video on YouTube, somebody posted that you save them from getting a CDL. I commented on it. Yeah. He said, Hey, man, this dude just saved me from going and get a CDL. So you know what? That's excellent, because now we know that we at least already impacted one person in a positive way. And, and this is what this is all about. That's what it's all about, man. That's why I like one of my big mantras ever since I got into this space was I support people that support people. And it's really, it's really like a personal mantra of mine. Because like, Whatever you do, doesn't affect me, whatever you whatever I do doesn't affect you. But as long as we're making the world a better place, it doesn't really matter to what extent we just help each other out. And it's such a, it's such a blessing to find and find other people like me and like you that are really trying to change the world and how people look at the world in general. Yeah, we just want to I just want to impact as many as I can, one way or another, right? It doesn't have to be done, I benefit from it or whatnot, I just want to see other people succeed, man, and, you know, in this real estate world that we're in, it can be very lonely, if you don't surround yourself with the right people. If you don't become part of like a community like the one you have, you know, and for a lot of people out there that are not plugged in and are getting started in real estate, they bumped into us, either through AIG or YouTube or Facebook. And I wish when I started investing in real estate back in 2008, I would have bumped into a group like the one you have built, for instance, the hive mind, right? It didn't exist back then. And I look for it, I was actively looking for something like that. And I could never find it. So I cannot I started on my own and did my, you know, I started literally trying to find a group that I could fit in, and people that I could learn from, because I didn't have a mentor. I didn't know what the right mentor was. So you know, doing this podcast together and putting it out there for people that are actually looking to to learn and grow. It's amazing today that we can help so many people like that. Yeah, it's the power of impact has limitless potential. When you do stuff like YouTube and podcasts and stuff like that. It's just you don't get it, you have no idea the amount of people it's actually reaching at any given point. Because like, and this is something that I've recently known as, like my podcast has reached like 20 countries now. And I'm like, Oh, we're 20 countries like what in the world? Now you're making an lei making like global impact. As far as running education. I'm sure you've reached more countries than I have. So it's the it's the reach and the endless possibilities that that can happen through creating. I remember I remember man, when I first started podcasting, this is back in 2017 or 16. I don't remember exactly the date. And I got on the podcast platform. And I saw that I had people listening to us in China. And I was like, what China? And then I have people that were in Africa, say Africa, real estate investing, why would they be interested in what we're doing right? I haven't looked at the stats today. But one thing I can tell you that is I have listeners that are very, very loyal. These guys are in Spain, South America, Central America. We have a lot across the US as well, right. But we are reaching a broader audience today across the world. And the beautiful thing is Real Estate Investing in the US can be done from literally from anywhere. Thanks to tools like this, where we can connect on a camera and have a virtual interview conversation or whatnot, because you can operate businesses that way now, like, I'll give an example, my whole team is overseas. I used to be the guy that had an office with everybody on the floor, like we're running a sales floor type of Wolf of Wall Street, you know, sort of thing. I wanted to have my people close to me, I wanted to do morning hurdles and do stuff with them. But eventually, we transitioned into going virtual and now we have over 80 people in our staff overseas in Venezuela, actually. And the business operates, yes, this actually better than it used to be before so. So yeah, it's crazy that, you know, technology is allowing us to work across different not only countries but continents. And, and we're operating a much leaner business because of that today. So I'm really glad you mentioned that. So the CEO of Airbnb, he made a post about how people you don't have to live in, in Silicon Valley, you don't have to live near San Francisco to have a high paying job anymore. Yeah, there's people there's high, there's good talent everywhere. And location should not limit them by the job they should hold. So I'm really glad you mentioned that because there's, there's there's good people out there everywhere, you got to find them. And now with the technology, we can hire them, train them, keep them accountable and provide them to actually do their work from home. And, and for me, I love I'm working home for four years. I'm like, I don't ever want to commute to work anymore. Like it was commuting to the office. Yeah, for me, I come to the office, I do operate out of an office because man, it's kind of hard to work from home with my kids and my wife and they come into the room asking questions. Do you want a lunch right now? Do you want the what do you want to eat for dinner? Are the kids coming? Daddy, Daddy, let's play something right. So I have to go away. Because I have a couple of small children. And they, when I'm around, they want to have my attention. So if I'm around all day, guess what they're trying to get attention all day. So that's why I have an office. And I actually operate better out of an office because I get to focus in and in in zoning what I'm doing. But I think I'm gonna move to I'm gonna move out of Texas actually next year, and I'm gonna try to work from home again, I'm getting a bigger home that way I can I can, I can get a space for like, dedicated for the office. And for my studios for my studio for the most part, because I got a lot of cameras in my podcast. And whenever you come back to Houston just hit me up. So we can we can record some content. But it's for the whole area, all the equipment that I bought throughout the years that I got a house that somewhere where I can do my content creation. And that's where I'm going to work from home. Hopefully next year sometime in the summertime. For now, we'll just keep the office in Houston. And until our lease is up in March, and then we're out of here. Are you said you said are you moving out of Houston or you're just kind of moved? I am moving out of Houston. I'm actually going to Miami, Florida. So they move? They move? Congratulations. I've been in Texas for 2021 years now. That's me. And I've done great things here. I'm very grateful to the state of Texas and the city of Houston. But it's time for me to move on is you know, I want to go back home for me home is Miami, my family's there. My parents, my mother, my two brothers that I have. And then you know, I've been away from them for many years. And I want to have I want to enjoy my family more. Now. I valued things different today than I did many years ago. Not too long ago, I would say for me it was money, money, money, hustle, hustle, hustle, let's make it happen. I gotta I gotta I don't know, I'm in a quest to get rich or whatever. Now he's like, Okay, we've done that. We've made millions, we lost millions. We're coming back out of it. But now he's like, I don't need to go, you know, pursue I don't know, a $10 million checking account. I want to pursue a Sunday with my father. I want to pursue a Saturday with my mother. I want to pursue seeing my 24 year old daughter, you know, for dinner every week. And that's what I'm looking for. So I'm not that I'm not hustling. I'm still working and I'm still growing our business and all that. But going virtual. And now being nationwide, is allowing us to do that because I could move to Mexico if I wanted to is it will not change a bit. The only thing that will change is possibly the in person interviews that we do on our podcast that is harder for some for some people to go to Mexico or maybe they don't even want to go to Mexico because it's not as safe as it is in the US. But we live in a world that we can go go to work from anywhere today, so I'm seeking closer to my family and a lot of my friends that I have in South Florida, I want to go back back there and, and live a better life. No, I can I commend you, because a lot of people, they, I can tell you again, the wiser and older and you realize what's really important. And a lot of people, they think money is important, but money comes and goes, Man, like I said, you've made millions and lost millions, you've lost money. And I think it's one of those things where, like, what really what's really important is the family side of it. So I really commend you for that. Like I said, it kind of hurts me a little bit too, because my father just passed away. Oh, sorry. December. So hearing you go back to your father and your parents. And you see, you know, what was your father? Chicago, right. So you guys were far away from each other. Right? And my father is also far away from me and my mother is far away from me and, and also from my children, like, grandparents want to see their grandkids right. So I recognize that and I want to, you know, I want to be closer to my family. They, you know, I don't know how much longer I'm gonna have them around or they're gonna have me around because he could go either way. And, and that's all it is, man. It's it's a it's a change. Plus Florida is pretty cool, man. You got Orlando you got key Disney you got, you know, Universal Studios, you have Tampa, Florida, which you know, you got the best, you know, Clearwater Beach. And and the other one that I usually go to with the kids. I forget the name right now. But there's so many things to do in Florida. It's unreal man. And, and it's a little hot hurricane season. kind of throws a little a few curveballs to you, but nothing that I'm not used to already because I lived there for seven years already. So I just want to give my children better quality quality of life than the one we have in Houston. Another one in Houston is bad. But there's more things to do for kids out there. On a Saturday and Sunday. I'm wondering here, what do I do with the kids? Yep. California is very similar. Although your weather is better than Florida. I will say that. Yeah, I like it out here. It's very interesting. So I commend you, man. Like I said, it's, it's kind of exciting man. I moved from Chicago to Atlanta. I lived in Atlanta for six years, I moved now I live in Southern California. And like, I told my wife like one day we might live overseas, who knows? It's one of those things we're like, why not? Like if you if you can do it? This is what I'm saying. So making making the future you want the real estate? And correct is amazing. Let me ask you this. How do you manage so many employees overseas? Delegation, man, the power of delegation, right? So number one, it all starts with massive imperfect action, there is no such thing as massive imperfect action that doesn't exist in our world or in any world. Yeah, once we learn how to deal with that, then we can live with people making mistakes, with AWS making mistakes, things of that nature. And then all you do is you manage those mistakes, right? How do you how do you respond to this, to the mistakes that we make? Or that I make or my people make, that's how what really matters, right? Because we're human beings, we're, we're, we're going to make mistakes, even. Even if you do the best risk analysis there is out there to mitigate all the different risks. There is always an unknown that may come and bound bite you in the neck. And next thing you know, your plan fell apart, right? So massive, imperfect action, number one, number two, learning how to trust other people. I learned that there's a lot of other people out there that are on my team that are a lot smarter than I am. They are, you know, more capable than I am. They're better prepared than I am. Most of them got degrees. I'm not even a degree. A guy I dropped out of college, the College when I was 20. Because I was just chasing other things. And, and they are the ones that run the team. I just empower them to do it. And when they make a mistake or when things don't go the way we want to do we we we connect with each other we talk about it. We put it as a lessons learned or as a best practice whichever way goes every week. On Mondays we have like on Samos cash, which is our wholesaling business. We have a weekly agenda, and I suggest that everybody in this call that's watching this podcast right now, even if you're a solopreneur you're one person. You must have a meeting with yourself or with your team on Monday so you can get the or tools Say whichever day works better for you, but preferably on Monday to get the week right on track. And every Monday we meet, the first thing we do is we do a morning huddle, which is we usually watch videos on certain videos. Sometimes it's a, it's a YouTube series. Sometimes it may be a Netflix documentary, or it might be a, I don't know, if let's say you came up with an acquisition strategy. Course then I buy a lot of courses from a lot of my friends. And I train my people with those courses. So right now we're actually going through Jerry greens acquisitions causes as a team, and every Monday we dissect it, and we put what we learn about it, we talk about it as a team. And that's about a goal a good 30 to 45 minutes conversation. And once we get that done, then we're going to the lessons learned from last week, what did we learn last week that we did wrong, or we could have done better. And we put all those in writing, we talk about it, we navigate the different avenues that we could have went through. After that we go on the best practices. Okay, we did all these things wrong. But now what did we do, right? Because it's not about just punish punishing ourselves on our mistakes, is that okay? We did these things wrong. But we also did these things, right? What were those things? As a team, we collaborate, we talked about it. And then after that, we just started diving into KPIs like how many deals do we get, how many calls that we may, how many text messages to go out, we got it all dialed down to a science. And because of that, we're able to predict when we're going to have bad months and bad weeks, or a great month or a great week. And we're able to tweak and peek, how we continue to move forward in order for us to be successful. So it's it's that's how I manage my team pretty much now my wholesaling team. I do have a CEO he's let me see sir, you probably met No, I don't know if you met him. He was a he was a in Jacksonville, you probably saw him walking around. So these are pretty much runs the team now I am I'm also I'm only on the team as a, I would say as a coach, and as a mentor and a guide. But I'm not necessarily talking to sellers or buyers or we're nothing my all of our properties that we're doing my guys from Venezuela are buying them and selling them 100% They negotiate, they make the offers, they assign the deals, they send the contracts, we have our own title, coordinating transactional coordinators, we have two of those, we're actually training to more because our volume is increasing right now. And and I empower them to go through and learn and reach out to other people and you know, it's empowerment, it comes down to empowerment, Daniel, it's like you have to empower them to be able to be self sufficient. And that in the in a way that if they make a mistake, they're not penalized for it. Yeah, right. So if they make a mistake, hey man, don't do it again. Let's move on to the next one. And a lot of business owners like us they have a problem on letting go and that's why they don't grow like they wanted to grow like everybody wants to go make a million dollars a month but not a lot of people are willing to let go to empower others so that million dollars comes from the efforts of some other people so that's how we we've been able to manage that growth Are you are you the practice iOS entrepreneur operating system? Yes, we are. I operate on the VTOL vision traction organizer I actually I before this call, I was on a call with somebody that is one of my students. I was I don't even know if he's my student but I'm coaching him on that he's he's got 25 of RBAs right now in between texting cold calling and and acquisitions. And last month he generated $600,000 worth of of assignments on volume but it's because we operate on that on the on on the traction method right the vision traction organizer so it's it's it's I've been living and dying by that thing for the last six years or seven years that's amazing yeah I've I'm it's really cool that you operate it's it's really cool to have you every a lot of your business even outside Venezuela you really a lot of people want to get some million like you said a million dollars in revenue but it's not often it's not after work of your own merits not and that's not my revenue today by the way like like we yeah, we got you know, we got great months and then we got some months that we fall flat on our faces and for many different reasons, but I think on on the on the VA side and on the on our platform as well. We'll get to those numbers no later than the end of this year. Hear, because they go, they go as a package. On the wholesaling side, we are producing anywhere from right now, about $400,000 a month on assignments, but they take 30 to 90 days to close. So sometimes longer than that. So the volume is being produced. So I think this year, we'll probably end somewhere around three or $4 million worth of revenue. But we just started kind of like cranking it up. So so we started slow, because I had to do a lot of changes, train those guys overseas, we had to let go everybody that we had in the office, I only have Ceaser here in the office now. We used to have like 12 people here. And now it's just me and Caesar and our 2700 square foot office Go figure. So we're literally turning all the different spaces into things that we can we have a gym in the middle of where what it used to be the not the conference room, but the bullpen that's now we put a gym in there so we can get fit. Because I got I got a few pounds to go a few like meaning like 30 or 40 pounds I want to get rid of. So So yeah, we're we're utilizing this space, the best we can. And but yeah, we had to transition and when you transition your software from revenue you suffer from, from creating new contracts. And we literally stopped for about three months lead generating, we did have a lot of deals on the board. So that kind of like kept us moving for a while. And once we figured out a lot of those kinks, and we train the people and the senior and the junior acquisitions and the senior and the junior dispositions, that's when I said, Okay, we got to crank up the engine again and go so. But that's thanks to the VTOL Daniel, like, I literally I get on the vision traction organizer, every quarter, you know, we look at the challenges, we look at the rocks, we'll look at where we are for the year, and I knew I was falling short. So I had to make changes, you know, we actually fell short last year in our revenue by a lot like we didn't even get close to it. So if I didn't have that tool, I wouldn't know how to adjust. Maybe some people will but you know, it's easier to adjust by having that tool in place. And I had to make changes. And some of those changes were drastic, I had to let go of my CEO, I had to let go of a bunch of talented guys that I had on the on the in the office. I had to let go. So my top acquisitions, guys, some of them left on their own, they had a little chip on their shoulder. So things like that, you know, and and what would you just you just adapt and keep on moving? And and that's it. I mean, you can't worry about what you lost, you got to focus more on what you're gonna get. And I'm playing long term. Yeah, pretty short term. So if I lose my revenue for three months, because I'm readjusting, I'm okay with that. Because I know month four, five and six are going to be lead generating months. And then seven, eight and nine are going to be where we start receiving all the fruits, but then after that he should continuously go consistently. So it's a big being being the boss is never easy. And a lot of people a lot of people look up to like, I want to be the boss. I'm like, you might not like that position. Yeah, no, no, he's not but it's I enjoy it. I I actually enjoy my freedom now. Even though I work more than I ever did when I was employed on a W two, I oh my time. So if I want to get on a plane and go to San Diego and chit chat with you for a day, I can do that. Right. You know, if I want to go to Florida and see my my family, I do that if we got events, you know, going all over the country, which by the way, I see you got an event coming up in August. It looks pretty, pretty amazing. Yeah, we've, we do an annual event every year. And we got we're going for a lot of dough this year. And that's one of the one of the cool things. We're we're kind of bounced around. I think we're doing Phoenix next year. So it's kind of we do annual events to bring people together and have fun. We have a lot of people that met each other at our event. Yes. From there. So it's a great opportunity to go to live events just to network. It's kind of cool. And your events coming in June to write how many in June June 2425 26. Okay, your affiliates are going to be there. Think Alma from San Antonio is going to be there. And Tony Tony Romero is going to be there as well. So yeah, I actually have a family vacation so I can't come or what have I been we've been planning a family vacation to go to like Yellowstone for like a week with my family. What we're all coming together. And then we've been planning for like two years but after my dad passing away, we kind of pick the location and or kind of go in that direction. Yeah, lesson learned for me on this event coming up in June even though it's gonna be sold out. We will already sold out all the VIPs we're starting to sell out on the general admission we have 120 VIP tickets sold already for over 1000 bucks. And what one of the lessons learned is that is that I did it in June and a lot of people that should I came to the event or on vacations already that's something they plan months before so this will probably be my last event that I ever do during the summertime. I moved it from May to June because there were a lot of events happening in May and I didn't want to conflict with those guys, especially in Phoenix and then I moved it to June thinking okay, I'm gonna buy me another month to properly market it. But then I started bumping into a lot of my friends I would I do it I would have went but I'm going on vacation so it's okay no big deal you know, it is what it is so, so yeah, I'm gonna stick to March and October which are to me, those are the best dates for events. Man, we we did ours in August. I think it was like right before school, or for school people so we had a lot of people come on. Yes. Cool time you're good right? Because now people are back in the city. They can plan for the weekend. Like us like business owners we can take a weekend off and no big deal but vacation time it becomes a challenge especially for people going like you're going to Yellowstone I got friends going to Europe. Some speakers couldn't come that I that were supposed to speak in this event because they're going somewhere else so these lessons learn you know, you don't you don't always have it all figured out. It's kind of interesting. They even said because I wouldn't I wouldn't have thought anything of of it. And then like when Kizzy messaged me about maybe a month or two ago to sponsor and I'm like, right? It's already set. And it's kind of crazy, though, because like, like me like, my, my schedule is like set for the end of the year already. And I'm like, What the heck, like last year was not like this, like this year is gone? Well, you're growing, right. So what went when you look good, you experienced the growth that you guys are having, not only on the company side, but on a personal level. You fill up your calendar pretty, pretty quick. If you tell me you have anything going on in September, I can't make it because I'm already gone for like three or four different events that are taking place. Funnel Hacking is in September, tab is in September, and I'm going to all of those. I saw another event popping up today in September. And I was like, it looks good. But then I said no, my whole September is gone. So it gets kind of crazy too. Because even for us like like two, three to three traveling things in the month like you're done. It's tiring, number one, you're not sleeping in your own bed. It costs money, because every time you go out there is 1000s of dollars is not just a few 100 bucks, like it used to be back in the day. So not that the money is an issue for a lot of people. But it is an issue for a lot of people. You know how many events can they go to, you know, in the same month or in a year, especially when tickets are, you know, in the 1000s, or the hundreds of dollars or whatnot, hotel airfare ticket the meals while you're there. So a lot of those things add up, man, that another thing you don't mention is I actually work more on when I go out on events because I sleep less because we're out late. Late dinners we're having, like we've got my go to a party or something after party and you get up early, you get to work and be within the room with the people and all that right. So I completely I'm the same way. Sometimes Sometimes like in this. So last weekend I went to pod fest. Pod fest is this huge podcasters event. They do I think is once or twice a year, like the week before. But yeah, so I was there the first two days and the set the last few days because it was a four day event. I checked out i i just on Saturday I slept until like noon. Because I was tired. My body was saying hey man, you need to rest so it's a good event. By the way. I'm probably gonna make it again next year. So I have learned just in there. Yeah, I have to like schedule because like those events I wanted to go to but I'm really good. Too late, too late. What I knew right now you're building right? You're building your community, you're building the hive mind and going to one of your events, not necessarily will mean that you're going to is going to benefit on how you're building your business today. Right. So I went there because we have a media company now that we're launching in the next few months, where we're going to serve as real estate investors on the media side. And I wanted to see what were what people outside of the real estate space where the when I was it and I got to connect with a couple of guys and I got some good ideas and we're gonna start a brand because I want to start servicing other industries. I just don't want to stick to real estate if Tomorrow, real estate Takes a Dip. Like right now the prices are changing, markets are changing a little bit. I've already I started in 2008. So I came in in a recession. Then in 2017, I had my own recession because of hurricane Harvey in Houston and all the flips I had, I want to prepare better for the next recession that will come not that will come this year or next year. But whenever he shows up, I will be diversified not painting on just real estate related products or services. I want to be in other industries. So I'm starting to go into all different branches. Because what we do is marketing at the end of the day, at least on the wholesaling side, right? We're, we're marketers, and we just happen to attach it to real estate. So that that set of skills and the systems like the hive mind, I can literally get on a hive mind account, started lead generating to sell leads to roofers, there you go. And I just went outside of real estate is still attached to real estate, because he's, you're changing rules for a house. But now you're going to to the retail side, right? I can go and get up with a restaurant owner that struggling and said, Hey, how you like to fill up this, this this restaurant? Let's do a marketing campaign using the hive mind. For instance, we're going to go ahead and pull the whole neighborhood and we're going to skip trace everybody, and I'm going to text all these people to make sure we get foot traffic through your restaurant, how would you like that done? The guy will be like, what is it? How are you going to how am I gonna pay for that? Well, let's work on a revenue sharing split ideal or something. But this tool can be used for so many different things. It's unreal. So I'm going on that route to where I want to start going in different verticals. That way, I'm not just relying on real estate, I got other things going on. Yeah, and that's one thing that's huge about I think business in general is that once you get like once you create one revenue stream, you always got to diversify into other assets, which is why like dividend paying stocks might not believe that might not be like the top thing you want to do because you invest in real estate, but it's something you might want to throw some money in just to get cash flow from that. So it's one of those things where you can diversify and diversify your businesses, diversify your income, diversify all that stuff. That way, nothing's affected. And when it comes down to it, you're still doing what you love, and nothing, nothing's been affected. And what I'm gonna I'm gonna hit on your brilliancy right there is that you went to the podcasting event to see what other people doing in different niches. That's a hack for anybody who wants to starting a business or a niche specific, go see what other people are doing in that niche, learn from them, and just copy that for your niche. And you're in business. You can learn through all that, learn through all that, that process just by copying somebody else in a different niche 100%. That's exactly what I went into. And also I wanted to see how I can service them. I'll give you an example. So in they had a they had a portion COVID fest where they talked about video, podcasting, right. And this podcaster goes on stage. And he starts talking about monetization of his videos, like how he's monetizing on Amazon, he's monetizing on YouTube. And I'm looking at the figures, right, and I'm not gonna get into the figures. But once I understood what kind of money those guys make, I was able to register a bunch of solutions for them. Because literally, they don't make a lot of money with with these videos, this podcast, like YouTube paying them a check or whatnot. Yeah, there's guys that have gotten millions of views or whatnot, those guys are are abnormal. But the average podcaster or, or person that's doing videos and creating content they got, they got to literally distribute their, their material through a bunch of different cloud platforms to make a decent living, not even to make a lot of money. So, you know, I was talking to Caesar who was there with me, I said, Man, can you imagine if I put the guys from the real estate world on that stage and talk about the profits they make using the same content creation, the same thing? It's just that we talk about on a different subject, which is real estate, wholesaling, renting multifamily, right. These people here on this other side, have no idea that there is another world that they can use their talents, and their their, you know, they're, they're, you know, they're all the resources that they have. They just need to learn our side. And he's, yeah, Ricardo, I think if you did an event right next to this venue, and those guys will come into your event, they will be completely wiped out by the idea of making millions of dollars a year by you know, wholesaling or becoming a landlord or fixing flippers or whatever, because they're already creating the content. They're just creating a whole different space. Yeah, I've learned some stuff about monetizing podcasts. And I'm like, I could go down that route. But because it cost to produce this stuff, it costs to produce, like, somebody, somebody's going to edit this video on it after release it. I mean, I'm here spending my time on this, this is my physical time. So it's one of the things where like, I've heard of people like charging the guest like a flat fee. Or, let's say you're promoting your event, they might charge you, Hey, can I get a link to share for your event you promote on my podcast, and I'll get revenue share off that, right. So being creative with your audience to leverage it to create revenue, you can. And I've actually, I'm not gonna mention any names, but I have another friend that is in real estate. He has one of the biggest podcasts. I had lunch with him a couple of weeks ago. And I asked him why he didn't take sponsors. He said, Well, that's not what my podcast is all about, I just want to, if I take on a sponsor, I gotta be using the service or the system. And I just don't want to promote things that I don't know what they're all about, right? But you're right. My Event is actually gear like that all my speakers pay. Now there, I'd make sure I vet them, I make sure their seven figure guys, or they're getting close to being seven for years. And then you know, they share the stage, because I don't have a back end coaching program that I sell for whatever. So I have to share the cost of the whole event. And then I do that, and then we sell tickets to it. So it's kind of like what you're talking about. But I do it on the event side. I don't do it on my podcast, because I only did that once. And it was with somebody I didn't know, they reached out to me. And they said, Hey, can you put me on your podcast? And I said, you got to pay to play, you know, but I didn't know who this person was. And that was kind of like a buffer from me saying, yes, you can come over. There was like, Look, if you pay this sponsorship deal, I will bring you in as a sponsor, because I don't know who the hell you are. Yeah. So and then they said, Oh, no, we don't have a budget for this. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And that was it, you know, like, by, right? If I really, if I put you on my podcasts, you gotta be legit. Period in whatever you do. I don't know if they're legit or not, you know, they're there. You know, maybe I have to get to know them. So what I tell them is, I have this other guy, he says, Ricardo, let's get on a zoom, call, let's meet, I want to tell you, I said, Brother, I don't have time for that right? Now you need to come to my event. At the event, I can meet you, I can shake your head, because I'm qualifying the person I'm talking to now. Right? So it's a little different. It might might sound a little arrogant, maybe. Maybe that was my arrogancy from the past, when I used to be very arrogant. I brought that back to with me here. But into that today, man, you have to filter people out. And that's one way to do it. Now you could very well get a lot of sponsors for your podcast, why not, but as long as they're, you know, vetted are there, they, they go along, you know, your core values, you know, they don't, they're not trying to rip people off or whatnot. I'm willing to take people like that all day long. Now that I'm marketing for it. But, um, but I tend not, you know, my podcast is my way of giving back. So that's why I'm not trying to make a lot of money out of it. I just want to give a message back. That's it. Yeah. For me, it was just like I wanted to, I wanted to provide value, but there's opportunity there to make money. But I didn't want to let other sponsors come in and do that. I'd rather sponsor myself. And a sponsor can take over your space, and you don't realize it right. Or they can say something like, Oh, yeah. I'm sponsored by the hive mind or the hive mind. And these are, so you got to be very selective and very careful on who, who you allow in your space. That way doesn't create a conflict for your message. So let's talk and I really like with Doug on this. I like that we're not even talking about real estate at the whole, the beginning. But I mean, it's kind of cool. But I like talking about podcasting in general, just because I like let's talk about impact. Because what are some benefits of impact you've seen from the podcast in general? And I really, I really want to tune into this a little bit deeper as far as providing podcasts and Spanish because me and you we talked about this in Florida and providing education and Spanish. So what's your what's your opinion about making an impact and impact in Spanish in general? Look, any language, we could be Vietnamese for all I care and I will be trying to create some content in Vietnamese to help that that community write in any language. And based on my four or five years of experience that I've had doing a podcast now the one thing that fulfills me the most is when somebody reaches out to me and says is, thank you so much for that podcast. Like I just told you earlier, thank you so much for that podcast today with Daniel. That guy saved me from getting a CDL. Now he's probably pursuing joining a Real Estate Group. Hopefully he's the hive mind, you know, or whichever there's plenty of them out there that are good, you know that the important thing is that he takes action. And he does it right. So, last week, I told you, I was in Orlando or a pod fest, and I went to a bar. And it was on like a restaurant and I'm at the bar of the restaurant having a few drinks. And this guy out of nowhere man comes to me and stands right next to me, I got a little afraid. I was like, Hey, what the hell is going on with this guy? He's like, are you Ricardo? And I was like, Yeah, this is in Spanish. And I say, yeah, he's like, man, thank you so much for your podcast. He's helped me so much. I'm actually a builder here in Orlando. But I didn't do real estate, I started getting into real estate after I watch your podcast. And I was like, what, and he showed me his Instagram, all the houses he's building and stuff. I touch somebody at a level that I had no idea, I didn't even know this person. Now we're connected, we exchanged on, we're following each other on Instagram. And now he's got my cell phone, I got his cell phone, and I'm gonna put him on my podcast when I go to Orlando again, because now I can, I can interview him, right, and he can tell the experience on what it is to come by. So the impact man, it's, I can put literally a measure to it. Because we've impacted people that we don't even know they exist. And in a positive way, and, and that's why I started my podcast from day one. It was to help other people out, because I didn't have that help. When I started, and I was like, You know what, man, I'm just gonna go help as many people out as possible, I'm gonna throw my message out there, I will show them how to do this for free. Like, literally you, all you gotta do is watch all my videos on YouTube. And you learn how to do this for free. And, and there's people out there that are making it happen today. So I do my podcasts with expect without expecting anything on return, unless somebody is trying to get on my podcast. And I have to kind of like put a buffer on it, because I just want to put people that are legitimate on my part, like you, you're legitimate, you run the hive mind now and, and you came from driving trucks and you've grown, you know, big time. And, you know, yeah, that that I like your story, because your story empowers other people to go do what you're doing right now. Right? I was a W two guy. And I made money for a very long time and in the Dota, two world and I was okay by just being a landlord and collecting, you know, properties on, on, you know, as a rentals and things of that nature. And then I got laid off and I had to pivot and become a full time entrepreneur. So those are the stories I'm looking for. It doesn't matter what walk of life. Whether you were a millionaire before or a poor guy, there's always a transition and a growth that happens in our lives. And I want to empower other people to mimic, or to at least say, you know, what, if Daniel can do this, so can I. So that's the main reason I do my podcasts is kind of hard to put out. Like what kind of impact we do because we impact people, and we don't even know it sometimes. And the whole the whole point of that question was I wanted to see if you had a story, because I love hearing stories. Just stuff like that, because it happens to me too. And it's just it's, you can't put a price tag on that. And you don't even you don't even know, you don't even know. No, we have multiple people like and I will tell you how the podcast started. Back in 2016. We arguably we were the biggest rehabbers in the city like we were flipping a lot of houses. But we were not networking with anybody. Like we were in our own lane. All we did was go to rehab to rehab, the rehab, we didn't know who anybody was literally we were completely unplugged for the hook from the whole real estate space. But somehow, private lenders or hard money lenders, were seeing our properties float around the market, whether it was going on the market or we wholesale it to somebody or or we were buying and using their money. So they start sending people to our office. And I remember it was like five times people showed up in my office. My office was in Brookshire Texas is on the west side of town is far away. If you want to go to my office and you live in Houston that's an hour an hour and 30 minutes drive easily. Back then not today but back then he was like that. And I hear a knock on the door and I opened the door and I usually I wear Bermudez and a T shirt like this right? Yes sir. How can I help you? And he's like, is Ricardo here? And I'm looking at like you're looking at him what's going on? Number. Man, I hear that you guys do a lot of flips. I say, Yeah, we do. Tell me how can I help you? So and So told me to come stop by your office and pick your brains. And I was like, okay, come on, man. And literally, Daniel, I will just download as much as I could for the next two or three hours. What happened was after like, the fifth or sixth time that happen within a couple of months. And it was from different people, it was like the universe was sending us all these people to the office, my business partner, Dennis, at the time comes to me and said, Dude, you got to stop doing this. Because we get a sub team into a meeting where we literally are dumping our brains into them, which is cool. I don't mind helping people out. But they're taking our time. And then when we're done with them, we still got to put in our work, which means we don't leave the office until nine or 10pm. That is what I really want to help these people out and how can we do it? And he's the one that suggested that we did a YouTube channel and a podcast. And that's how the whole thing started. That way, when they came to pick, our brains will say, Hey, do us a favor, go watch all the videos, then you can come with some questions. That's, that's such a it's such a good way. Like, it's a good way to filter people, because then people will actually go through the education side of it. And then they come with better questions. And it's not that we Hey, how do you wholesale, like, well, that I answered that video five times in these five interviews, you know, like, I'm not going to ask that question right now because it's a time waster question. You if your people ever to high level that like high level questions, because now it makes her mind think, if it's a question to answer it 1000 times, and it's on YouTube, just YouTube it like, Come back, come back with better questions. What is a quote that is yours or somebody else's that you resonate with? A quote that is mine, man. I always say like, when when people ask me, what do you do, I say I'm an action taker. The end, like I don't have anything else to say, I just take action on the things that I want to do I implement, I execute. There's many quotes by I read a lot of books. In the morning, I read at least 10 pages during my morning routine. And one quote that I can think of right now. I don't know there's so many of them. When when when you get old because I read like three or four books at the same time. So today, I pick up one and tomorrow I pick up a different one. So I started getting all this different information. It's hard to zero down on one quote. But that's what it is man, action taker, even in my Facebook profile, if you go there, on my bio, that's what he says action taker, then that's it. So that's the only thing I can answer with right now. Okay, that's a good that's a good one, too, because a lot of people and I had had talking to somebody yesterday and like, what is it? What does it take to do to become a millionaire make million dollar month, all this stuff. And it's just like, it's being consistent. And taking action. That's the only thing that separates us from everybody else. Like, if you want to separate yourself from the 10%, you just got to take action in general, just start because not 90% of people will not start anything, they just won't start. So separate yourself from them is just can be consistent. And that's one, but you know what everybody says they want to be consistent. Everybody, you get hot top performers, right? And you ask them, what's your secret? I'm consistent. But in reality, their secret underlying that consistency is that they're not afraid of losing. They're not afraid of risk. And they know that if they put marketing dollars to work, which is for your audience, that might be probably the biggest breakthrough. You gotta get used to losing some money, man. That's it. Like, this is not a big business where we all win all the time. You see it on on on social media, guys making a million dollars this month, guys making 500,000 100,000 fitted out, whatever the number is. What about the most they lost? Yeah, they don't display those. Because that doesn't sell you follow me? Or I think he's sales. It's just that people are embarrassed to. To put it out. I vocally say all the time, I lost more than $10 million in between 2017 and 2020. I quit counting at 10 because I didn't want to get more the press was like you know what, knowing what I lost doesn't serve me anymore. So I just want to go and get back on track and rebuild myself rebuild my operation. rebuild my life because your life gets shaken up when when something like that happens. And that was not long ago, you were talking about four or five years ago, you know, we're not talking about you know, 2008 which is people already forgot about it. You know, and and he's because We are wired for safety. Since we're children, we get water for safety. And 99 of the people that get in this business cannot execute, because they need that safety factor. And they cannot embrace the risk, pure and simple. So if you haven't braved the risk, and you understand that you're going to take some losses, and most likely those losses will happen at the beginning right away. Right away. You're not putting money Mark, how many times have you had people go on the hive mind put money on marketing, and it didn't work many times, all the time. It's the most to upfront to exactly. But then what happens is the guy that that was consistent, and was able to take the punches and kept on going on month number three, four or five got a breakthrough. And now he's making money even on the on the old leads that he had. And now he's able to go and rebuild. So that's my message for your audience today is, you know, what, embrace failure, man embrace. Embrace it, because he's coming to you, and it's coming to you hot. When I when I started going through my downside, where I started losing everything I had. I just embraced it. Because I'm like, Okay, it's out of my control. I just need to find a way to rebound. And if we're in 2022, I'm still rebounding. Right? Yeah, constant state of rebound. I'm building I'm still building. You know, and now, I'm more confident about what I do today. Because now I have experience. And I know what the ugly the I know, the ugly side of our world looks like, I know what happens. When you're facing foreclosure. I know what happens to be foreclosed on. I know what happens when you have to deed a property back to a lender. Now, I have know how to navigate all those waters. Now. That's something I didn't know. Because I was one of those guys that went up. And I started making a bunch of money, millions. But that's all I experienced, I experienced winning, I didn't experience a lot of losing. And then all the losses came kind of like together at one spot. And now it's kind of like, okay, I know what it takes to win. I know what it feels losing. Now I can balance the two out. And honestly, all my business partners that I had during that time, they're no longer doing this. Consistency, man, people that do real estate for a long time, the numbers thin numbers that are heavily and like you've been doing it for a long, long time. So the people that have been doing it since you've been doing it, it's probably very, very minimal. So it's kind of cool to see the consistency factor and the longevity of a person, you know, you're not going anywhere. I really want to plug your podcast in the real estate entrepreneur podcast, go check it out. Like I said, I ended up so recently with it. You're nearing our 200 episodes, right? Like 190 or something like that. Yeah, we're somewhere around 200, we have recorded probably, probably close to 200, I will record be recording a ton tomorrow. And in the next few weeks. What we do is we record a bunch and then we released them. And I got to have your partner on my podcast at some point, Anthony, so I never met him, I think I shook his handles once. I've always been closer to you. For some reason, we keep bumping each other in, in, in in different events and things like that. But I love to interview him because he also has his side of the story right on on, on how he came to where you guys are today. So I'm extending an Invitation to him. Hopefully, if he ever comes around Houston, feel free to give him my phone and I'll be happy to talk to him. I'll make sure he gets connected with you. But real estate entrepreneur podcast episodes in Spanish. So if you're Spanish speaker and you can share with us things people are definitely checking out. And then where to get a hold of you is Ricardo zappos.com. Yeah, ricardo.com. And that's my website. I bought my name, I suggest if you guys are if your name is available, go get it because that's going to be the best business car they can give somebody. And that's it all my links to all my the rest of the stuff that we do or events or podcasts. They're all in there. So feel free to come in. And if you got a question, send me a message through the website. I'll be more than happy to respond back to you. Man, I really appreciate your time. Like I said, I know we bumped across a couple of times across different spaces. And that's a cool thing about traveling and doing events as you come across different spaces. We actually had dinner in Los Angeles young months ago. So it's interesting to meet people and actually have people that you've known for a long time just never actually met them. It's cool to have the conversation. I'm really glad you came on the podcast man. I want to say continue doing what you're doing. I know you're not gonna stop killing my words, but I know the value You bring to the marketplace and to the education space out there. It means a lot to people like me and people that look like us, you know. So I really commend you to providing that education and providing those resources because it is not taken lightly. It is not taken lightly. You're making a big difference in the world. And I appreciate that. Man, thank you so much for that, that and I really appreciate the invitation to your podcast. And guys, just go out and take action guys. You guys have a great platform on your hands. You got great leadership, there's a great group of people that are helping each other out inside the hive mind. You know, leverage that as much as you can. And I'm pretty sure you're gonna get to your goals, eventually, one way or another. So just be consistent consistency. And don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. That's it, you know, don't be afraid of failure. It happens. It happens to all of us even after we become winners. There are losses that come our way and we just have to deal with them, you know, so it's part of life. Your wonder right there. Thanks. Thanks for coming around and see on next episode. Well