From Immigrant Hustle to Real Estate Power Couple – Their Inspiring Journey

What if your best business partner is also your spouse—and your toughest boss? We share how two teachers packed a U-Haul, chased a bigger life in Texas, and transformed a side hustle into a top-producing real estate brokerage without losing the plot at home. The path wasn’t linear: a 2008 licensing sprint, early Zillow experiments, a move to San Antonio with a small sphere, and mentors who cared as much about margins and jeans as they did about GCI. Along the way, a premature birth at 27 weeks forced a reset that changed everything. Erin stepped out of the classroom, mastered the back office, and turned scattered spreadsheets into systems, client parties into community, and chaos into four times the profitability.

We talk real tactics—open houses that still work, bank-branch prospecting, positioning that fits both luxury listings and first-time buyers, and the small branding choices that make clients feel safe. We pull back the curtain on launching a brokerage: when to leave the big split, how to price your time, and why clean accounting is a growth engine, not a chore. Then we go deeper: rules for couples who work together, like resolving conflict the same day, setting lanes for sales and operations, and remembering the first job is family. You’ll hear how a CASA toy-drive holiday party grew to hundreds at The Rock, why community beats cold ads, and how to find mentors who save you years by telling you the inconvenient truth.

If you’re a realtor, loan officer, or small-business owner wondering when to jump, this story offers a clear blueprint: stop waiting for perfect, ship the work, and iterate in public. Subscribe for more real estate strategy, business systems, and honest conversations about building a life and a company you’re proud of. If this resonated, share it with someone you’d trust as a business partner—and a life partner.

#KeyFactorsPodcast #RealEstateAF #CesarAmezcua #ErinAmezcua #RealEstateJourney #CouplesInBusiness #ImmigrantStory #BrokerLife #NICUSurvivor #FamilyFirst #LoanBot #TexasRealEstate


2:27 – Meet Cesar & Erin  
3:16 – Cesar’s journey from Mexico to college in Texas  
5:07 – Erin’s military upbringing & family sacrifice  
8:10 – The hilarious story of how they met  
16:01 – The ultimatum that led to their move to Garland  
19:55 – Becoming a bilingual teacher on an H-1B visa  
27:23 – Both get real estate licenses in Dallas  
30:04 – Why they left it all to move to San Antonio  
33:53 – From PO Box in Helotes to full-time real estate  
43:02 – Launching their own brokerage in 2013  
46:07 – Premature birth changes everything  
49:10 – Erin joins the business—and makes it 400% more profitable  
54:01 – Advice for couples working together in real estate

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open And Banter
• 1:29 Show Intro And Guest Setup
• 2:17 Cesar’s Origin Story And College Years
• 5:15 Erin’s Military Family Roots
• 9:00 How They Met And Early Sparks
• 15:45 The Move To Dallas And Teaching Path
• 23:20 First House, Mentor, And Licenses In 2008
• 27:06 Relocating To San Antonio And Starting Over
• 33:10 Breaking Through: 22 Sales And Early Tactics
• 38:00 Mentors, Branding, And Positioning
• 40:13 Why Start A Brokerage
• 43:20 Growing Pains And Back-Office Chaos
• 46:05 A Preemie’s Fight And Erin Steps In
• 51:15 Systems, Profitability, And The COVID Test
• 55:30 Working With Your Spouse: Roles And Rules
• 1:00:00 Culture, Conflict Resolution, And Execution
• 1:03:50 Advice For Couples In Business
• 1:07:00 Community, Parties, And CASA Toy Drive

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Monday, better Tuesday, better Tuesday, better for five years, ten years, fifteen years. How much better you are getting better every single day? That's how much way you're just taking small steps, meaning you'll try to get all the time.

SPEAKER_05: 0:44

Uh uh. No, no, no. So one of the things the biggest thing we have in common is that all what we all work with our spouses. Yeah. We all work with the same here. Yeah, we all work with our spouses, and it was, you know, it was kind of like um, how do I say it? It was a a we weren't expecting for everybody to be as collaborative with us because they all we all have the same goals, same same goals, same beliefs, same, you know, common sense, which is you know, there's a big shortage of that nowadays.

SPEAKER_06: 1:16

I totally agree. Let's kick it off. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_04: 1:20

Ready.

SPEAKER_06: 1:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21

All right, we are ready. Another episode of Key Factors Podcast Real Estate AFN3, two, one.

SPEAKER_06: 1:29

And welcome back to another episode of Key Factors Podcast Real Estate AF, where the AF stands for and finance, and I'm your host, Mark Jones, and we are powered by Lone Bot, Smarter Mortgage Matching, now available on the App Store and Google Play. And today, guys, I wanted to have a discussion with some folks that I recently met and want to know more about. I think there's plenty that you guys out there can learn from, especially their journey. But without further ado, matter of fact, before we do that, JC, if you can throw the screen up, I gotta I have to, I have to, I have to look at that guy right there. Hello. That was so without further ado, you can kill it. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05: 2:16

That is that was that was the first.

SPEAKER_06: 2:17

Let me introduce Cesar Amesqua and his wife Erin. How are you guys?

SPEAKER_02: 2:22

Good, thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_06: 2:24

Absolutely fantastic. So, as we kick off this discussion, if you could tell us a little bit about yourselves, and we'll have you start, and then Aaron, if you could tell me about you.

SPEAKER_05: 2:35

Well, you know, a lot of people don't know. I spent, you know, I had dinner with some mastermind folks this past Thursday. Is it Thursday when I anyways? And yeah, I sat next next to Levi Rogers the whole dinner. Dude's hilarious. I mean, my my jaw so he really is. And and he didn't know that I was actually born and raised in Mexico. He didn't know I was born and raised in Mexico. He he's like, I he's like, Man, I've known you for 12 years and I have no idea. So I was born and raised in Mexico, right across the border from Eagle Pass. And, you know, no, I wasn't born into riches and one of those, you know, that that comes out.

SPEAKER_06: 3:14

He said right across Mexico, not Mexico City. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_05: 3:18

I I was a border kid and uh yeah, just grew up, you know, very, very poor. My wife is here to attest to that. And 16 years old is when I decided to just leave. I have no idea how my parents did it, no clue. And did your parents stay? Oh, yeah, yeah. No, everybody's still over there. My brother lives in West Texas. We both went to Angelo State, so she went to Angelo State as well. That's where we met. Okay. And yeah, 16 is when went to St. Anthony. I graduated, let's say fifth in my class out of 50. So that'll be in the 10%. Okay, yeah, yeah. Gave me a scholarship to go. And nerds. That's how I yeah, thank you. And that's how I ended up in West Texas, you know. That's how I ended up. I was out of 6,500 something students in the whole university, I was the only student from Mexico. So, did you get a scholarship? Yes. Okay, very good. Yeah, academic.

SPEAKER_06: 4:12

Very good.

SPEAKER_05: 4:13

And football was all taken.

SPEAKER_06: 4:14

So yeah, for us little guys. I thought I was gonna be a football star. I actually got one one semester of uh paid football college at McMurray and Abilene. Okay, and it was like, okay, this is a different game.

SPEAKER_05: 4:30

I I have a friend that played he was a kicker for McMurray for a little while.

SPEAKER_06: 4:34

Okay, yeah. We call it the dirty dirty. Yeah. And then it got super clean. They redid everything completely, and then they started winning as soon as I left. There you go. Always happens. So, Aaron, how about you? Where you come from?

SPEAKER_02: 4:48

So my family is originally from Nebraska. Okay, but my dad was in the Air Force, so I traveled. Yeah. We moved every three years until I got to middle school. We moved to San Angelo.

SPEAKER_07: 4:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 5:00

So I went to middle school there, went to high school there. My dad actually was going to be transferred, and I was like, I can't move. It's my senior year. I can't move. I was on, you know, played sports and a whole bunch of things. So he left for a year so we could stay. Graduated from there, went to Angelo State.

SPEAKER_06: 5:20

Right down the street.

SPEAKER_02: 5:21

And we met each other.

SPEAKER_06: 5:23

Stumbled upon this guy.

SPEAKER_02: 5:24

Yes. The end of the state. Oh, it wasn't until the end? It was the towards the very end.

SPEAKER_06: 5:30

So did you guys know each other in? I mean, Angela, it's not a big place. Not really. No. No, yes, at the same time.

SPEAKER_05: 5:40

Okay, so her brother and I are fraternity brothers. And before I say that, I just I just want to say that I have a huge amount of respect for what Rick, her dad, for what Rick did. He took off for a year to like loneliness in South Korea. Oh wow. So she could graduate high school. And I've always, you know, like I I don't think I could have done that to to you know to kind of delay his deployment, or I don't know what they call it, but he took off you know for a year and lived in South Korea by himself so she could graduate. So, you know, I've always been very now.

SPEAKER_06: 6:16

Mind you, South Korea is a it's a beautiful place. I know in places, it's kind of like very inexpensive, very I mean, did he come back with a mail owner bride or something?

SPEAKER_02: 6:26

No, he came home with a lot of cool stuff for us.

SPEAKER_06: 6:28

Okay, yeah. Some fake Jordans, some Ford's. Couldn't tell. Yeah, you couldn't tell until you like spelled out.

SPEAKER_02: 6:35

That was before the time of FaceTime, and you know, my parents would email each other. Wow. That was it.

SPEAKER_06: 6:41

So she stayed, he went. She stayed, yeah. Holy cow, yeah. For a whole year, I don't know if I could do that either. There's a lot of people, oil fields, stuff like that, that that I see their profession, and I go, Man, hats off to you. Yeah, that's not enough money for me.

SPEAKER_05: 6:53

But we so yes and no, I'm fraternity brothers with her brother Jason. And Jason and I, I mean, we weren't like the best friends, you know, we just frat brothers. That was a we partied together. And part of part of the I was a freshman, he was a sophomore. Part of the obviously you go through the whole hazing process, of course. Uh, which was a lot of fun. So anybody out there complaining about hazing, just chill. They didn't do it right. They didn't do it right. And he says, Hey, you know, we had to get these interviews. So he says, Hey, go go to this street, and there's gonna be a sign that says Aaron. And I'm thinking A-A-R-O-N. A-A-R-O-N. So, you know, pledge brother of mine, Nick, and I and I were just driving up and down of the street, and we're like, I can't find Aaron. Like, who and who's Aaron, by the way?

SPEAKER_02: 7:43

And these are like massive signs, you know, like sports signs, like huge.

SPEAKER_05: 7:47

Yeah, volleyball. Yeah, and then we finally see we're like, oh duh, it's E-R-I-N. That's Jason's house. And I I knew Jason, I knew his mom, I knew his dad right when he came back. Right. I met Rick, and I actually crossed paths with with Aaron twice. Once was okay, it was a party we were having, and it was her 18th birthday. Oh goodness, and so I'm there, and you know, I'm doing my own thing at this point. And and she walks in, you know, with this air of like everything stops. How dare you all mere mortals look at me? That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 8:34

Okay, and I'm really thinking, like, oh my gosh, this is like the little sister of somebody walking in. Like, I was so embarrassed to come ask for something. Sure. So I was just like, Don't look at me, I'll just be in and out.

SPEAKER_06: 8:46

Meanwhile, you were cooler than the other side of the pillow.

SPEAKER_02: 8:48

I was trying to act like it, right?

SPEAKER_05: 8:50

Yeah, so she's walking around like this, and I was like, What's Jason's sister doing doing here? I was picking up a bottle of Parabay.

SPEAKER_06: 8:58

This is West Texas shenanigans, you know.

SPEAKER_05: 9:00

Of course, of course, so that was one, and then the other one for the first three years of my college career, I had a girlfriend. Okay. And for those three years, I really didn't party much, didn't get out much. You know, I didn't my I worked a lot, went to school, and during parties, I didn't really want to hang out at the parties, you know. My my girlfriend at the time did not want to go to the parties, and so I would end up working parking lot duty or you know, the entrance or something. That's how it works with fraternities. Yep. And I was the guy that got the kegs and collect money at the door. There you go. So one one night, morning, this was late, it was like two o'clock, and I see this Jeep Cherokee that's broken down, and it's Aaron and her friend Jill. And it's Jill's Cherokee, and it's broken down, and I see all these guys surrounding it. And I said, That's Jason's sister. Let me go see if I can help. I go and I start looking around. I have no idea what's going on, and I tell them, like, hey, if y'all need a ride, you know, I can just give you a ride back to your place, and then Jason can bring you back. Then Jason shows up with, you know, a companion, and he looks at her and says, Hey, see this guy right here? Trust him with my life. I'm like, wow, really? That's awesome. And he basically ponder off to me. And she just went like, hell no, I'm not going with some random guy. Right. So I have no idea what happened to her that night. I just like, whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 10:36

We called somebody we knew.

SPEAKER_05: 10:37

Yeah. I was like, what makes perfect sense? The whatever lady.

SPEAKER_01: 10:41

You know, I was like, thanks, no thanks.

SPEAKER_05: 10:43

Yeah, I was like, whatever lady. And I would see her at church. We went to the same, we're both Catholic. We went to the same mass. We I called it the hungover mass because it was on Sunday at 10 a.m. So everybody there that was we all reeked of whatever was thin. Yes, a lot of that. And we're just like, oh my gosh, but we gotta get through it. And I would see her away. I was like, Oh, that's that's Jason's sister. She's the you know, she's the one with the pretty eyes, and and that's that's the untouchable. I I well, I had a I had a I had a girlfriend, of course.

SPEAKER_06: 11:19

That was it wasn't anything that crossed your mind.

SPEAKER_05: 11:21

No, but it was you know, Jason's sister, you know, the one with the pretty eyes. That was it. So I knew her, but she obviously had no idea. So what made the flip switch flip?

SPEAKER_02: 11:33

There was one night we went out to a bar. This was years later. I had two or three friends with me, and one of the friends I was with knew the group of guys that he was with, and she was like, Oh, let's go over there, let me introduce you. So we walk over and I'm just talking, and I introduce myself to him. Really, you know, that hey, I'm so-and-so. Where are you from? I ask him that question, and he looks at me and goes, You don't know? And I look at him like, Are you kidding me? Like, why would I know where you're from? I just met you. Wow, you know, and he gets like buttons, yeah. And I'm sitting here going, Who are you? You know, so that's how that conversation started. And then we talk about each other, and after I met him, I ri remembered. I was like, You're that guy that drives that Tahoe that you tried to get us to ride home from that party a couple years ago. Oh, so you you did remember.

SPEAKER_06: 12:28

I did remember, and he was like, Yeah, she remembered the whole time, by the way. The whole time.

SPEAKER_02: 12:33

So I was like, Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 12:34

Playing cool still. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 12:36

So I that I was very insulted that evening, by the way. I'm sure.

SPEAKER_06: 12:40

I'm sure ego, tail between the legs.

SPEAKER_05: 12:44

I was Mr. ASU. Okay. And I everybody on campus knew me. Everybody, I I drove my own golf cart for crying out loud.

SPEAKER_06: 12:53

Van Wilder's Van Wilder stuff.

SPEAKER_05: 12:56

Wow, I believe that. And she could tell you it's it's true. I drove my own golf cart to class, I worked everywhere. I ran the arena, I ran the event center, concerts, everything. You name it, it was it was me. I I operated the jumbotron, the sound systems. Wow. The president, I was on a first name basis basis with president, vice president, all the deans, everybody just because I was I was an international student.

SPEAKER_06: 13:21

I was gonna say it had probably to do with the international factor, and you were going above and beyond in every aspect thus far that I can tell.

SPEAKER_05: 13:32

It was it was I as an international student, you're not allowed to work off campus.

SPEAKER_07: 13:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 13:36

So I was always like tied to being in the school. So if I wanted to work, I had to be on campus. So I was always on campus and a part of you know student government, part of you know, the fraternity, part of you know, the student alumni association, everything I could get involved with. I just wanted as much America as possible.

SPEAKER_02: 13:54

Yeah, it was my experience was opposite. Really? I lived off campus, I worked off campus, I would go to school and leave. Well, go to class and leave.

SPEAKER_06: 14:04

That in the same time, you're you're from that town technically for the last several years, and you wanted to stay here instead of going over to South Korea.

SPEAKER_02: 14:12

So, yeah, I it was a totally different college experience for both of us. Wow.

SPEAKER_06: 14:16

Townies, yeah, yeah, you can't fix them. But hey, those those backwood parties, there's nothing like it, man. She went to those. I didn't. I did, yes. Back at Abilene in Abilene, that was the only thing to do. Matter of fact, the three colleges right there, Abilene McMurray, we had what ACU? ACU right down the street, Christian, yeah, yeah. And then there was one other one, not Harden Simmons, something else, but they would we would all come together every weekend. It was like we threw proper party parties, sir.

SPEAKER_05: 14:44

Yeah, we actually got venues and you know, had like a proper DJ and lights, and you know, it was coming from Mexico, yeah. We threw pop we threw proper parties.

SPEAKER_06: 14:54

Where's the charanga? Huh?

SPEAKER_05: 14:55

Yeah, so but that's how that's how that's how we met. That's awesome. She was the first one to say no. Okay, okay. I'm like, challenge accepted.

SPEAKER_06: 15:03

Amen. Kind of similar situation with me and my wife, yeah. But I won't even go into detail on that. So now that you guys met, what when at what point did you guys move to San Antonio? Oh my. Because you started your real estate career in San Antonio, correct? No. Okay, let's start there. Where did that transition?

SPEAKER_02: 15:22

He graduated college a year before me.

SPEAKER_06: 15:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 15:26

I don't know if I should get into that story. Uh let's let's just how old of a far he is.

SPEAKER_05: 15:30

No, you gotta you gotta tell the ultimatum.

SPEAKER_02: 15:33

So I was still there. He was grad he graduated, he was still working on campus because he had one more year on his visa, student visa.

SPEAKER_05: 15:41

It was called optional practical training. Okay. Uh, it's OPT. And as long as you were working in a field that you study, yeah. That you study, you you could work. So because my job was customer service, right? I graduated with a business administration marketing communications degree. So it made it made sense to stay there for to figure out what would what I was gonna do.

SPEAKER_06: 16:03

Yeah, yeah. Could you imagine if it was servicing customers? We were no, we were good. We were good. I okay, cool. We got sense of humor.

SPEAKER_05: 16:13

No, no, no. Testing the waters. Not uh not over there. Um but uh yeah, it was it was that's how I I I I was allowed to stay and you know continue to work while figuring out what what to do. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 16:27

So I was still in school. It got to a point where I was gonna graduate in instead of May, it was December, right? So I had one semester left. This was the summer before my last semester, and he his his license or what permit was about to expire, so he had to make some choices.

SPEAKER_07: 16:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 16:47

I either move, he had a cousin that was in Plano, she was in doing uh bilingual teaching, and they would give work visa because they were in need of bilingual teachers. That was an option, or stay and get his master's. And he was like, I don't want to get my master's, so this is gonna be my option for me. And he went and visited, he got a job offer, came back, and basically was like, You gonna come with me or we're gonna end this relationship because I can't do this long distance.

SPEAKER_06: 17:15

And that that was probably somewhat new of a relationship at that point in time, all right?

SPEAKER_02: 17:21

Maybe a year. Okay, so yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was not even a year.

SPEAKER_05: 17:27

Maybe six months. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 17:29

Yeah, because we always say Halloween. Halloween is our like official first date.

SPEAKER_06: 17:35

Easy to remember.

SPEAKER_02: 17:37

So I thought about it for a little while and I was like, okay, I'm in. Because at this point, I'd already been in San Angelo for a long time. Yeah. I was ready, like you can only go to so many parties and they're all exactly the same, right? I was I was ready to leave. So I still had three roads.

SPEAKER_06: 17:53

I I still remember going through there to get to uh Abilene. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 17:58

So I had I think nine hours left for to graduate.

SPEAKER_06: 18:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 18:03

It just so happened that all my nine hours were like entry-level, like economics, like speech, biology. Okay. I was a chemistry major, so with the biology mind. So I already had like everything done. So I figured out a way where I was like, I'm gonna go to this junior college and this junior college and this junior college, get my nine hours, transfer them back, I'll still graduate. Called my dad, did not tell him that. Was not happy.

SPEAKER_05: 18:32

Yeah, did not go well.

SPEAKER_02: 18:34

Like, not happy. They lived in Nebraska at the time, so it wasn't even a face-to-face, it was just a phone conversation. But I was like, I got this, I can do it. I mean, looking back, like I don't really know how I probably wouldn't have trusted a 21-year-old, 22-year-old at the time.

SPEAKER_06: 18:48

I'm surprised he didn't ask if he was a Mexican or a Mexican.

SPEAKER_02: 18:51

And they'd only met him once. That's money.

SPEAKER_05: 18:56

That is money.

SPEAKER_02: 18:57

They'd only met him once.

SPEAKER_05: 18:59

Yeah, yeah, they only met me once. Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 19:02

So we I did it. We left.

SPEAKER_05: 19:04

We packed our we packed our stuff. I had my job in Garland, Texas. I worked for Garland ISD for six years as a bilingual teacher, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, you know, and they obviously they they sponsored with the H1B visa. And I had a promise, not not a promise, but they said, hey, you stick around, you know, we'll help you get a master's degree, we'll help you get your, you know, your your permanent residency. And you know, that was the that was that was my plan right to to continue, you know, the chasing the dream, right? Yeah. And so I had all that lined up when they when I met with HR, when I met with my my future principal, they said, yeah, you stick around, we'll make sure you have your your work permit ready, and they had it ready. By the time I got there, they they had all that lined up. It was a f I think it was a five-year work plan, and then you could apply for citizenship. They would sponsor no, not citizenship. Okay, no, it was for your permanent residency. Gotcha. And that permanent residency runs about two years, and then you renew it, and then it goes to 10 years. Okay. But that was my plan. Yeah. You know, that was my plan. And I just went to her and I said, Hey, we either come or going. That's it. It's I don't do long distance. It's four hours. Right. It was just it, it wasn't gonna be it weren't gonna work out. But she didn't even hesitate. She's like, Okay, that's awesome. Just packed up her shit and that's packed up my shit, and we left after a barbecue that my roommates threw for us. Yeah, and we were we had a little U-Haul that was pulling with my Tahoe with Mexican license plates. Really?

SPEAKER_02: 20:50

Yeah, the whole time with the little two-door Tahoes. Oh, my favorite. Those little blazers.

SPEAKER_06: 20:55

You know how many of those I've owned? Eight. Really? Eight. Yeah, that was. There was a point in time in my sorry, side note, guys. Those are nice. There was a point in time in my life where so I I grew up when I turned 16, my mom gave me her Tahoe, but it was a four-door Tahoe. I went and threw big tires on it, sound system the whole nine yards, and loved the two-door, but never could get one because at that point in time it was they were still too expensive and hard to find, etc. They stopped making them after 98. Yeah. So once I got to being an adult making some real money, I'm like, yep, I want that one. I want that one. So did did I remember that? To flip them. It's like if I can get it for four, I know they're worth eight to ten at this point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:42

See, when I told them, like, you're that guy with that car. Did I remember him or did I remember his car?

SPEAKER_05: 21:47

A lot of girls remembered my car.

SPEAKER_02: 21:49

Because it was a cool car.

SPEAKER_05: 21:51

A lot of girls.

SPEAKER_06: 21:52

There's I still see them on the road and go, man, I wonder how much he would take for that.

SPEAKER_05: 21:56

Yeah. No, I'm always shopping for them because you never know. I still want to, I still want to rehab. That's gonna be a collector. Yeah, absolutely. And but yeah, all all the girls, like when I was single, all the girls, oh, you're that guy with the Tahoe, you know, with the Mexican license plates. Yeah, yeah, that's that's me. That's me, you know. He started off cool. How you doing? I mean, how you doing?

SPEAKER_06: 22:19

If you rolled up onto campus with the two-door Tahoe and Mexican license plates, Mexican license plates and Greek letters. Now, did he speak perfect English at that time?

SPEAKER_02: 22:28

Yes. Well, that's why when he asked me, you don't know, and I'm like, well, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_06: 22:33

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 22:34

Yeah, no, he's actually he had like probably West Texas, like Twang.

SPEAKER_06: 22:40

Twang.

SPEAKER_05: 22:40

If you get me out there, yeah, it comes back, yes, it comes back in a matter of seconds. Yes, I mean, quick.

SPEAKER_06: 22:46

And it's not getting lazy when you get back there, it's getting back to home base. It is home.

SPEAKER_05: 22:51

Yeah, it is for me. For me, St. Anthony's home, Angelo State. It it you just get there and it just feels like home. Every time I go to St. Anthony, it feels like home. Every time I go to ASU, it feels like home. It's just such a great feeling. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_06: 23:06

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05: 23:06

And we got a lot of similarities, minus the fact that uh I'm I'm I'm a brother, but the I did not know that until you mentioned it last time. I said, Oh, did not see that one coming. Did not, yeah, did not see that one coming. I was uh that was a bit of a surprise.

SPEAKER_06: 23:24

But there you go.

SPEAKER_04: 23:27

See you're taking me back to college, but I didn't have one of those cool things. I had a big old tricked out blazer. Oh, the GMC was a good one.

SPEAKER_06: 23:34

The GMC they they came out with the talk right after that, almost simultaneously. Take it.

SPEAKER_04: 23:39

Yeah, I had about as good of a time in college as you, I think.

SPEAKER_05: 23:43

That's awesome. Yeah, so we're we're we we leave for Garland, Texas. Okay, and you know, we You're doing the teacher thing, doing the teacher thing. She suffered for a solid year uh working at a daycare center while she's trying to finish.

SPEAKER_02: 24:02

Going to three different colleges to take these classes. Wrap it up, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 24:06

Yeah. And we got all that done. We needed one one last favor from ASU. You know, luckily I knew the dean to make sure that her all her classes came in and made sure that she graduated on time and she did. Just like I promised her parents, you know, she's gonna graduate on time and she did. She graduated on time. And we we just we were living the life in Dallas. You know, we were both teachers. We moved to Rollette. Okay. It was our first house. We bought our first house. I met our first realtor who eventually became my mentor. And yeah, we were living the life. We live, we we paid$151,000 for a three-bed, two-bath, two-car garage, eighteen hundred square foot home, brick all around on a golf course.

SPEAKER_02: 24:52

Wow. And I looked it up the other day.

SPEAKER_05: 24:54

Wow. It's like$375,$400.

SPEAKER_02: 24:57

And it looks exactly the same.

SPEAKER_05: 24:59

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 25:00

Same mirror that I put in and everything. Zero up, same flooring that we put in.

SPEAKER_06: 25:05

We should never have sold that thing. I say the same thing with all of our rental properties. We bought our first one for$132, sold them all in 2019 because we were gonna go flip properties. I mean, it was the right time. We did good, but at the same time, it's like, dang. Yeah, but it just held on to all those.

SPEAKER_05: 25:21

That's the one that that's the one that got away. Yeah. We have we have two houses that got away. That one and the go lightly house that we had a we had a chance of buying like one acre in Helotus for like one acre in Helotus right off of 1604 for like 369.

SPEAKER_06: 25:34

Ooh, I know. Ooh, whereabouts in Helotus at Fossil Creek. Okay, fossil, yep, I know exactly what that's. I grew up in Halotus, so to speak.

SPEAKER_05: 25:42

Yeah, Fossil Creek. We had one acre, and I I thought it was sitting and they needed to sell, and we talked about it, and I almost approached them, and then an offer came in. We're like, okay, problem solved. No big deal. Now I look back, darn it, it was one acre looking up on the mountain. It was yeah, it hurts. It hurts.

SPEAKER_06: 26:01

Oh, but we live on. Yeah. So now you're in Garland. You bought your first house, you came in contact with this realtor that, and you mentioned became your mentor. Where did the merge or the shift in okay, I'm done teaching, I'm going to jump into real estate. And that started in Garland. That started in Garland.

SPEAKER_05: 26:25

We covered 14, 14 cities up there. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 26:28

We both got our real estate license the same summer together. We took the classes together, got our license.

SPEAKER_05: 26:33

580-573, 580-574. How cool is that? Uh, we tested the same day, and we just, you know, being a teacher during the summer is really expensive.

SPEAKER_07: 26:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 26:43

Because you have some income coming in, but you have all this time. Right. And you're out at the mall, you're getting out, spending. So I needed a side hustle. And she we both got licensed, and then I started doing real estate part-time with Mary Pat, my mentor. With uh, I was with Keller Williams for one year.

SPEAKER_06: 27:03

And this was what, 15 years ago?

SPEAKER_05: 27:05

2000. 2008. 2008. Okay. Perfect. Perfect timing.

SPEAKER_06: 27:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 27:10

There you go. Perfect timing to start a to start a real estate career. So we went to we were doing open houses, we were doing what we were talking about last time. I mean, you're just putting in the work. Right. That's right. You know, four open houses a weekend, going to trade shows, going to anything that had people, getting in front of people as much as possible.

SPEAKER_07: 27:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 27:30

And we, you know, we just kept on working it. And then eventually she said, you know what? I'm gonna get my master's. You keep on doing the real estate thing, but I'm gonna get my master's because she wanted to go into administration. Okay. School administration. She, how many are you? How many years did you clock in?

SPEAKER_02: 27:45

11.

SPEAKER_06: 27:46

As business administration for the school?

SPEAKER_02: 27:49

No, as teaching.

SPEAKER_06: 27:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 27:51

Yeah, so I got my master's when we were in Garland. And then I started looking around at, you know, okay, I'm ready to move up. There's there's a lot of politics into the city. There's a politics and uh plenty of things. I didn't know it, very naive at the time. You know, I was probably 20, 28. Wasn't bilingual, they needed that, you know.

SPEAKER_06: 28:11

So I was like so you had a real Mexican that didn't teach you some Spanish? See?

SPEAKER_02: 28:21

Not then though.

unknown: 28:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 28:22

Back then okay.

SPEAKER_02: 28:25

He never spoke Spanish, never around me. So no, I didn't I never picked it up. And his family was far away, so we weren't around them very much.

SPEAKER_07: 28:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 28:33

But then I was finally, now it's like 2010. I was like, let's let's move.

SPEAKER_05: 28:41

We were we if we had stayed up there, we were having a lot of fun. Sure. A lot. I mean, we're 28, 29, making good money because back then, you know, a 53,000,$54,000 salary times two, yeah, plus I was selling what$30,000 worth of real estate per year on on the side. So it was Thursday happy hour. Yeah, Friday, Knox Henderson, Saturday, Uptown, Sunday, the lake. Yeah. Back to work on Monday and repeat working out every day, sometimes twice. It was just us and our two puppies.

SPEAKER_07: 29:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 29:20

And I told her, I said, if we stay here, we're never having kids. My family is 10 hours away, pretty much. Yeah. Your family lives in San Antonio. If we stay here, we're never doing it. So I told her, I said, let's just up and go.

SPEAKER_02: 29:34

It was more I was like, okay, I'll start looking for a job. If I get a job, we're out of here.

SPEAKER_06: 29:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 29:40

You know.

SPEAKER_06: 29:41

So and at that time, your real estate business hadn't taken over your life just yet. It was it was to the point where you're still doing it part time. I've learned plenty. I can do this anywhere. Just gotta Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 29:53

I had a great broker. Big shout out to Bill and Mary Jordan over at William Davis Real. They they're fantastic. Once I left Killer Williams, I figured you know Killer Williams wasn't wasn't for me. I went to William Davis and they they ran a fantastic shop that they still do. And they they they took good care of me. I was able to keep a little bit more of my commission. They were very similar to kind of what what Jeff does. Sure. And yeah, they they took care of me. I was able to save some money and finally just looked at her and said, Hey, if we don't move now, we're not gonna have kids, like Fox Ticking. Yeah, Fox Ticking, and we never see your parents, we never see my parents. Let's just get closer to home.

SPEAKER_06: 30:40

So it sounds like you guys grew up pretty quickly in that decision-making process there.

SPEAKER_05: 30:45

Oh, yeah. We we we punch first and ask questions later. Yeah, it hasn't always worked out, but you know, we that's how we learn.

SPEAKER_07: 30:52

Yeah, you know we learn.

SPEAKER_05: 30:53

The sooner, the sooner you make the mistake, the sooner you can correct it. Amen. Yeah. And we 2010 invited a bunch of friends over for a barbecue. They helped us pack the the U-Haul.

SPEAKER_02: 31:04

We packed in what it was like 30 minutes. Wow.

SPEAKER_05: 31:07

Yeah, a whole house in 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_06: 31:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 31:09

We had a barbecue in an empty house, and then we drove out the next morning.

SPEAKER_06: 31:13

And did you know where you were gonna stay?

SPEAKER_02: 31:15

Where I mean we stayed, well, that summer we had strategically packed, and when we came down to visit, we would bring stuff. So we had we had like a storage unit. So we didn't have too much stuff, it was just the big stuff in the U-Haul. But everything in storage stayed with my parents. I started working in August. Okay, my new school, and he was like, Okay, I'm full-time real estate. So he knew uh just a handful of people from high school here.

SPEAKER_06: 31:44

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 31:45

That was it.

SPEAKER_06: 31:45

That was the sphere.

SPEAKER_02: 31:46

That was it. Yeah, wow. So every day I would go out, go to work, and he would just try to figure it out, hustle, get out there and figure out what to do. Wow. We were also looking for our our house.

SPEAKER_05: 31:59

Took about three months for us to find our home. Yeah. We lived with her parents, and I mean it was easy because she would go off to work and take care of the dogs and just try to figure out kind of what's going on. Right. With my broker still from Dallas. I still have I still have my my my mom has a bunch of those, the my first business card, and it it has a P.O. box from Helotas. Oh wow, wow. I operated out of out of a P.O. box in Helotus, and my first, I mean, once we landed here, we got you know situated with the house and and all that. And once started working, I think other than the purchase of our home, I sold two houses in 2010 and then just hit the ground running 2011.

unknown: 32:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_05: 32:45

2011. My goal was to replace my teacher's salary. I almost doubled it.

SPEAKER_07: 32:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 32:50

And my broker from from Dallas was like, hey, are you how are you doing this? I said, What do you mean?

SPEAKER_06: 32:57

It's like you sold, you sold 22 houses, dude. Well, see, first off, there's way more people in San Antonio than there is in Garland. Yeah. But everybody likes me here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 33:09

I just, I just, I tell people it's just it was a lot of open houses. It was a lot of, you know, going to the the you know, bank branches. Yeah, you know, the Walls Fargo's, the Bank of America's.

SPEAKER_06: 33:21

And you're you're right. Back then there wasn't as many mortgage companies because they had all closed down for the most part.

SPEAKER_05: 33:28

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_06: 33:29

It was, I mean, back then there was it was world savings that then turned into this, turned into that, and then they all poop dissipated, and then they all started popping back up as you remember. Yeah, Starking broker. I remember Starking Mortgage. I remember that too. And I so I got in the business in 2012. So it was, I guess, a year after you started hitting the ground running. And same concept. I mean, I didn't know anybody in the real estate game, but I knew a lot of people, and I'd been in San Antonio the whole time. And it was, how do I reach a ton of people? Well, let me try this social media thing back then, before anybody was doing it, and I repeated over, but the closing picture, I was one of the first to do that, in my opinion, anywhere back in 2012. Nobody was using social media for that purpose. And I would put a post out and maybe one like, but then what was happening is I was having so many closings that it was like, oh, there's another one. This guy's doing it. There's another one, there's another one. And I was the one giving the deals to the realtors. Austin Pantuso was my first. I jumped in the business. We I had known him since we were younger, and I said, Hey, give me a turn down, give me something. Like, I need to figure it out. And he said, You know what? I've got a turn down, you figure it out, you're my guy. Yeah, okay, let's go. In everybody's office. Okay, now what do I do? Now what do I do? Yeah, yeah, it was it was trial by trial by error.

SPEAKER_05: 34:54

Yeah. Back then, you just went and tried it. If it worked, great. If it didn't, it didn't work, okay. And uh I ended up at ERA colonial.

SPEAKER_02: 35:06

I think that's where that picture is from.

SPEAKER_05: 35:08

Yeah, that picture is from ERA. Okay. Uh the that was my first photo shoot here in San Antonio, my first official photo shoot. Yeah, no idea I looked that young. But then again, that was 15 years ago. So 14 years ago. And I got I got recruited by by Tom and Molly over at ERA. And I was there for a year. I met my second mentor, my true, true second mentor. Big shout out to Chad Hughes. And he he would like, it was weird because I don't know, he kind of like took to me in a way. Sure. He'll deny it to this day, but he would, I would walk by, he's like, hey, come here. Because he had an office. I didn't. I was out in the bullpen. Yeah. Hey, come here. What kind of car do you drive?

SPEAKER_06: 35:56

He was sizing you up the whole time.

SPEAKER_05: 35:59

Like this. He's like, you shouldn't drive that. Okay. I've seen how many clothing you had. Time to buy something else. You need to buy this. And to this day, I drive a forerunner because Chad Hughes told me to buy a forerunner. You can go. He's like, hey.

SPEAKER_02: 36:13

Pretty sure it's the same one you bought.

SPEAKER_05: 36:15

The no, this is this is this is 2.0.

SPEAKER_02: 36:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 36:18

And he's like, hey, what kind of jeans do you wear? It's like, well, I have these Tommies that are they fit nice. He's like, no, no, no, no. You need to wear sevens. Seven jeans. You need to wear sevens, bro. Okay. You need to wear sevens, right? Because you can show up with sevens of the Dominion. You can show up with sevens in the South Side. That's fine. Okay. But no nobody likes your jeans.

SPEAKER_06: 36:40

And it's not I'm not even going to say back then. Even now, it's the little things like that. Yeah. That separate the ones that are going to get the business or not. And as silly as that sounds.

SPEAKER_02: 36:54

Oh, we've had a client that told us before, like, I think you asked them, like, what was the difference between me and the other realtor? And their answer was your car.

SPEAKER_06: 37:05

The forerunner. I believe it. I believe that. And it it's just mental roadblocks that people put up themselves just from watching shows, seeing it before, that kind of stuff. It associates you with success and being able to go, okay, that's that's our guy. We can trust in him because it either is a facade or that's the real life. But either way, he's faking it the right way.

SPEAKER_05: 37:30

It was it was thanks to him that I started dressing like a bum.

SPEAKER_06: 37:33

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05: 37:33

Yeah, because he it was always for him, it was always boots, jeans, and a nice button-down. And you never, and he was he was realtor number two in the city at the moment. And I, you know, he'd never wore a suit, he'd never wear a jacket. I'm like, wow, I want to be like that one of these. I want to be like Chad when I grow up. Really want to be like Chad when I grow up. And I think it was what was it three years ago that we were at the Business Journal Awards? I think it was like three years, and I'm sitting here, and he's sitting on the table next to us. And you know, we have a great relationship. We talk maybe two, three times a year, and it's always like, how can we improve our business, you know, collaboration or competition, then the whole thing. And it was it was when I got the nod. Finally got the nod from from Obi-Wan, you know, when because they're they're naming, you know, you know how it goes on those awards. They they they start naming the people the closer they get to number one, and they haven't called your name, they're like, wow. So they call his name, and you know, he gets the award, and yeah, you know, fist bump. And you know, now I'm in the top 10, and they still haven't called my name. And he he looks he looks to me and he's like, he just says, like, I'm like, and then now I'm in the top five. He's like, serious, and or who was that? That was me. Okay, and finally, I think that year I was number five. Yeah, I think that year I was I was number five, and they call my name, and he looks at me and he's like, I was like, Yes. Wow, yes, finally, yeah. I got the nod from from Obi-Wan.

SPEAKER_06: 39:12

Yes, the the confirmation that I'm cool now too.

SPEAKER_05: 39:17

Yeah, there's one of those moments where I was like, I made it. You know, I've I'm I'm I'm there, yeah, I'm there, I'm solid. When when your mentor is like good job, buddy. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06: 39:28

No, absolutely, and it means a lot. But I could totally see that that feeling, that that that moment that you yourself, because we're always the hardest or toughest critic on ourselves. I don't know if that's true with you, but definitely true with me. It's that confirmation, finally, you know, this is what I've been working towards. You could have been making plenty of money, but until you got that person's approval or that's a huge deal for me. Oh, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02: 39:59

I'm sure and he isn't Chad also the one that encourages you to oh yeah, open our open up this brokerage.

SPEAKER_06: 40:06

So let's let's let's now fast forward to that. JC, how are we doing on time?

SPEAKER_04: 40:12

41 minutes in.

SPEAKER_06: 40:14

Okay, we got about 20 minutes. Okay, and I want you guys to take me through the journey of what made you realize or decide to open the brokerage. And at that time, was it just you? Were you helping out with that stuff? Where were where how did that what inspired that?

SPEAKER_05: 40:32

So again, back to Chad. Yeah, he where I'm walking and he's like, Hey, come here. It's like, what are you doing here? So, what do you mean? Like, what are you doing here? You're not taking Relo, you know, at the time, relocation business, of course. And I said, Yeah, I don't like working relo. He's like, Well, why are you here? This is too expensive for you. You know, I know what your split is, I know how much you're paying per deal. This is way too expensive. Just leave. Go at least go to Keller Williams. I mean, there's a cap over there, right? I said, Okay, and I I had my broker's license already. I always wanted to get my broker's license. I got I can't remember how old I was when I got licensed, but I got my broker's license. And I went to Tom, who was my my broker of record, and I said, Tom, I'm leaving. And he's like, Why are you leaving? I said, because I want what you have. I want well, I'm not, I mean, there were there were there were a a a franchise. Okay. I said, I I want my name. I want my name on the on the on the front door. And then at that point, there was nothing. He encouraged me. There were everybody there was super super helpful. And I just went out by myself. I said, just yeah, I didn't even have a name for the brokerage yet. It was 2013, July 2013. And didn't even have it was just Caesar a Mesco broker. That was it. That was those, those are my contracts, and got everything set up. Was working with a designer, and at first it was CA and Associates. Okay. CA and Associates, and that was a bit of a mouthful. And the logo looked like a penguin sideways.

unknown: 42:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 42:10

So I started doing my thing. We we hooked up with Zillow. Okay. You know, in the early days, back when it was cheaper. When it was cheaper.

SPEAKER_06: 42:17

And they allowed other people to participate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 42:19

And you know, we did really well with with Zillow. That's where I met people great people like like Levi, Micah. And we just we we kept on working, and little by little the brokerage kept on, you know, growing and growing and growing. But in the back end, it was a freaking mess. In the back end, it was a freaking mess. It was just absolute just destruction.

SPEAKER_06: 42:42

Because at that time you were a producer, not necessarily administration.

SPEAKER_02: 42:47

Well, and the first agent that we had, it was one of our really great friends. And it was more because I have all these leads coming in and I can't handle them all. I need help.

SPEAKER_05: 42:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 42:58

So he convinced her she was our neighbor.

SPEAKER_05: 43:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 43:01

Next to you.

SPEAKER_05: 43:01

Shout out to Carmen. There you go. Sister from another mister.

SPEAKER_02: 43:04

I can help. So she came along. And that's how it kind of grew.

SPEAKER_05: 43:11

A lot of our a lot of our agents are plients. Okay. About 80% of our agents are past clients.

SPEAKER_02: 43:17

But still at the time. So he's working, producing, getting more agents so that they can produce. Sure. Back behind the scenes, still a mess.

SPEAKER_05: 43:25

Yeah. I mean, our our dining room is full of like files and folders. Right. You know, when it was time to do accounting, holy shit.

SPEAKER_02: 43:34

So at the time I wasn't doing much with him. I was still teaching.

SPEAKER_05: 43:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 43:38

I would during the summertime. Like there was one summer I remember being like, you need to email your clients. And he's like, Well, I don't know how to do that. Like a mass email.

SPEAKER_04: 43:47

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 43:48

And this was before CRMs and stuff. So I was like, give me the list. And I'm trying to make an Excel sheet of his clients and putting them into Google so he could at least have like groups to email. Yeah. So that's what I did during the summer. And then I kept tabs of another spreadsheet for like his expenses. So when we went to get our taxes done, he'd have something. So that was as far as I was doing.

SPEAKER_05: 44:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 44:14

And then it happened.

SPEAKER_05: 44:16

Uh oh. Yeah, then it happened. Life got better. You well.

SPEAKER_02: 44:20

No, not really.

SPEAKER_05: 44:23

Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_02: 44:24

Our daughter was born premature.

SPEAKER_05: 44:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 44:27

27 weeks. She was born at 27 weeks. I was on bed rest since she was 20 weeks old. So we had kind of a rough start to that. So I middle of the school year, I was out.

SPEAKER_07: 44:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 44:42

And then when she came home, I was like, I gotta make sure that this kid is set. Like she's already delayed on a lot of things. We had a lot of therapies. I went to him, I was like, I can't go back to work.

SPEAKER_07: 44:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 44:52

I can't give this to my mom. I gotta stay home and make sure this kid's good. So I did. And that's hard to do after you've been working for so long. Like so I'm taking care of my kids, and I kind of feel like not like what's my purpose, but a busybody. Like I need to do something at home. And we already had help too with the kids, and so I was like, well, what am I gonna do? And I'm looking at his desk and I'm looking and I'm like, well, maybe I need to organize this. So I kind of get it and I start doing some stuff. Um we just got QuickBooks and I was like, okay, let me learn how to do some of this. Things like him saying, Oh, I want to have a party for our clients. I want to have a party. And I don't know how many times I heard it, and it just didn't happen, but it never happened, right? Because he's out all the time. So finally I was like, I'm just gonna make up, we're gonna do it. So I he comes home, you know, and I'm like, okay, I called so this place and this place, and this and he's like, okay, our first movie event happened. So I just slowly kind of worked yourself out of there. Getting things off of his infiltrated your system and organizing them and well, the best I could, and trying to all at the same time, I didn't really fully understand the business. Right. So, you know, at times he'd be like, You just need to do this. And I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Like, but I guess I'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_05: 46:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 46:14

So that's kind of how it started.

SPEAKER_05: 46:16

And then there's there's been moments in my life where I've had a bucket of cold water poured on me. Oh, I'm sure. And that that was I mean, that I mean, Adriana being born. I mean, that was that was intense. And I remember telling her, you know, hey, first year is on me. I'm gonna bust my ass and do what I can to make sure that you don't have to worry. Northside is D was absolutely amazing in helping us, especially with all the insurance. Big sh big shout out to the the Billy, Billy Naven, her last principal. He was he was crucial in making sure that we were taken care of. And I get a phone call. I'm driving down 1604, you know, just my merry self, you know, yay, happy, happy. And she calls me, she says, Hey, do you have any clothing coming up? I said, I don't I don't know why. She's like, We're not making that much money and bucket of cold water. She's like, You need to make more money because we're not making enough money. And I said, You're speechless as a husband, right? You know, you're you're speechless. You're like, Oh, I thought I was crushing it, dude. You know, I was I'm in the top 100 for NARIP and you know, and that didn't matter. She she had fully immersed herself into the business, right?

SPEAKER_06: 47:36

She knows your business now from the back end of it, what you're spending and how much is going out each month. With why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_05: 47:43

Why are you doing that? What is this happening? How many more closings do you have? And then in a matter of two years, we became 400% more profitable just because she plugged in and decided to say, you know, she said, I'm not going back to teaching. She just said, I'm I'm done with teaching.

SPEAKER_02: 48:04

She she jumped in and well, part of it was I was like, okay, if I go back to teaching, who's gonna do my job?

SPEAKER_06: 48:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 48:10

I'm gonna have to hire somebody.

SPEAKER_06: 48:12

Right. And I'm like, is that even worth it? Correct.

SPEAKER_02: 48:15

So I was like, I'm it's just better for me to be here.

SPEAKER_06: 48:18

Yeah. And it's almost one of those concepts of if I find a way to make you more money and pay for myself, can I stay?

SPEAKER_05: 48:28

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so she took she took special coaching for QuickBooks, she developed her own systems, did everything to because the back end was a mess. Yeah. So she basically cleaned up the whole back end. We were able to implement more systems, we were able to go to conferences, we were able to go and learn from other people, interact with other people, and then you know, we're doing great, and then boom, COVID hits. Yeah. I always thought I was the hero of the story for from COVID. You know, I was like, oh, I'm out, you know, just yeah, punching and selling houses. And I wasn't the hero of the story. She was the hero of the story because she kept the house in order. In order. She was there with the kids, distance learning, all that jazz, making sure our daughter grew up. You know, she went through all of that. I I keep on telling her, you know, there's at one point I'm gonna, you know, call my cousin that's a photographer, and we're gonna do a Wonder Woman shoot. That's awesome, you know. That way our daughter can have you on her wall because she would go to the hospital. I mean, our daughter was there for three months. Wow, you know, we didn't we didn't take our baby home. You know, when we went home, we didn't take our baby home. Okay, that's that was that's tough. Yeah. And but she was there, you know, four times a day driving to the medical center and holding, feeding, changing, doing just so we could get her out. She's stubborn. Yeah. To this day, she is. They call her miracle baby because no, nothing developmental, not everything is everything is where it needs to be, but golly, she is stubborn. Yeah, and we put a lot of work into that though. She did. Yeah, I hid behind work. She was the hero of this. It wasn't me. I hid behind work. I was like, I'm working really hard, I'm working really hard, I'm working really hard. Right. That's my job. I'm working really hard. She went through all those punches that were, I mean, those were hard punches to the go. And you know, we we have a picture of of Adri's hand, you know, the for her first picture. Her hand is the size of my thumb. Wow, that's how little she was. Now you see her now. You never know. No, she she does jujitsu. She she's I mean, she's taller than probably half her class already, long legs like her mom, and attitude, and she's nice and she's stubborn, and she sings and draws and does all kinds of things. And that was, you know, that that's how this whole thing started because it wasn't supposed to work out this way, right?

SPEAKER_02: 51:06

You know, she I never ever thought I was gonna be full-fledged in real estate working alone. Never crossed my mind. Yeah, I was actually still like contemplating should I go to admin? That was a possibility still.

SPEAKER_05: 51:21

So she saves the day there, then saves the day during COVID, right? And we just the growth just continues, yeah. The growth just continues, and now we're you know, we're going into into you know a different cycle, and she's taking on more responsibility, she's taking on more different things to grow to grow the business. I'm just the guy that smiles for a living, yeah, you know, and goes and sells houses, but she takes over like these monumental changes in our life, and people ask us all the time, like, how can you work together? Well, it's it's a lot of collaboration, but at the same time, it's a lot of arguments. There's a lot of arguments, there's a lot of things of like, dude, I can't read your mind, right? I'm squirrel guy, right?

SPEAKER_06: 52:10

Same here, and and and and I'll I will add the following in my opinion, conflict is kind of what you're talking about, and conflict in my world is a great thing until it goes unresolved. So I would imagine that the conflict that you had was resolved, therefore, it became a huge bonus to everything that you're doing. You guys grew every time there was another conflict, it was seeking resolution, not you're an idiot, you're an idiot. I would guarantee that's not how it went went. It's we've got a problem, and this is the way I see it. This is the way I see it. Well, you have two different views. Let's put those together and then come up with our game plan. And then it sounds like you guys are fantastic about execution.

SPEAKER_02: 52:59

The yeah, we have our we have our flaws, but I I think the biggest thing is I know what he's really good at, right? And I also know what he's not so good at.

SPEAKER_06: 53:08

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 53:09

So I can't expect him to do those things that I know he's not great at or he doesn't love. So I already know from my end, like those things need to be picked up by somebody. Yeah, maybe it'll have to be me. Right. Because he's out there killing it on all the stuff that he's really good at, right? So it's just kind of knowing your place.

SPEAKER_05: 53:26

And you know, we we we work together, but at the same time, that's not our first job. Okay, okay, that's not our first job. Our first job is to be absolutely, we both grew up with amazing parents. We both grew up with absolutely amazing out of this world. We were parents rich.

SPEAKER_04: 53:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 53:47

A lot of people grow up rich. We grew up parents rich. Okay. My my dad, may rest in peace. He was out of this world. My mom is out of this world, three-time cancer survivor. Wow. Her dad, a lot of sacrifices since he was there, we're very young. We, we, I mean, the odds of you know, a girl that was born in the Philippines at Clark Air Force Base, and a guy that was born across the border. What are the odds of you know, us two coming together and our families being so similar? Sure. And Kay, I just, I just I love Kay to death. She's my she's my she's my second mom. She she's probably the reason why I married her.

SPEAKER_06: 54:30

And that's beautiful. The idea, uh, just like you said, of two completely different cultures yet equally the same. How strange but beautiful that is to display for everyone out there, you know, the idea that just blows my mind, but at the same time, I I totally get it. She is very white. My wife is pretty white.

SPEAKER_02: 54:55

I was gonna say it's like cult, there are a lot of there has been moments that have been like, oh, this is a cultural clash between us that I didn't realize because the way our morals and our values are so aligned, right? You know, that you don't in between things you come across something random and you're like, oh well, we're clashing because it's a cultural thing. I'm not used to that. He's not used to the way I do it.

SPEAKER_06: 55:19

Have you learned the words pinchupendejo?

SPEAKER_02: 55:21

Oh, I know that. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_06: 55:22

There we go. She walked by, she's like, You're so Mexican sometimes. I'm like, what? It's just, you know, it's just the way we do things.

SPEAKER_02: 55:30

The bad words you learn first.

SPEAKER_06: 55:32

Absolutely. And then you learn how to use them properly.

SPEAKER_05: 55:35

If we speak slow enough in the household, which is hard because I'm from the north. Right. You know, northern Mexico, we speak very fast. So she's like, I'm gonna go take a nap, guys. So when my brother, my sister, you'll do that.

SPEAKER_02: 55:48

My brain, my brain, yeah, my brain hurts too much, and then I'm like, okay, I'm too next.

SPEAKER_06: 55:52

Every other word, it still doesn't make sense. I'm out. So let me ask you guys to wrap this from your story. You guys started with very little great parents, great background, great with great parents comes great ethics, comes a good work ethic. Call it your backbone, so to speak. You both had great backbones and then came together to do life that, in my opinion, in opinion, is almost by design on how it's supposed to be. Because if you're talking to somebody and they say, Oh, I've never had any fights with my wife, or I've never had any adversity, okay, you're full of shit. Sorry. You're not being honest with me. And taking what you guys have learned, what is some good advice that you would give to because there, I I can guarantee there are plenty of husbands and wives out there that are considering doing the same thing. They maybe haven't had enough production over here for this person to quit to jump over, or many different scenarios, but I'm sure there are folks out there that are going, hmm, maybe we could do that. We've been talking about it. What what does that look like? What's some advice that you would give to someone listening? No rush.

SPEAKER_05: 57:18

This is where I'm like, first of all, I mean, never, like you said, never leave something unresolved. Yeah. That that you have to you know, you have to go through the gauntlet and just you know sort it out somehow, somehow. Because your co-worker, she's actually my boss. Yeah, okay. It's I tell everybody the same thing. She's actually my boss. If she tells me not to spend money on certain things, I won't spend money on certain things, period. Yep. And I I you know, the the the work day ends, and then you go back to husband wife, yeah. And you can't leave something unresolved, you can't be upset, you can't be mad, and then expect to go to bed like nothing. Like you have to you have to clear all that out. And there's been nights that we stay up late, yeah, because I tell her, like, no, we cannot go to sleep like this, right? Gotta sort this shit out. And you know, he's really good at that. Yeah, I I we can't just, you know, and in my family, like we we talk a lot, right? And we're like, hey, get get that shit out, like just scare it out. Let's just let's let's figure out a solution, then we can go to bed. Yeah. Okay. So never leave anything unresolved would be would be one piece of advice that I would I would give. Probably the most crucial one is never never leave anything unresolved for sure.

SPEAKER_06: 58:39

Yeah, and I would say that that's great advice. Same concept with my wife and I. Is she's on the real estate side, insurance side, I'm on the lending side, but every day there's something that we come across. There's a buyer that we're working with together that it's just, my god, we've got to drag him across the finish line. And I'll get frustrated and she'll go, all right, bring it down. Keep in mind this is what we do, you know. And it's that little constant reminder of of sanity that that that injects itself into me. And I go, Okay, all right. Hello there, better, you know? Just one of those things. Yeah, just gotta suck it out. Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 59:15

So I I guess I would say, and this is kind of a gent more general in any part of the business you could put it in. And I I really didn't learn this until just a couple years ago when we did a book study and I read something. But don't wait for it to be perfect, just jump in and start.

unknown: 59:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 59:35

But when I read that, there were some things that I was trying to do, and I was like, Oh, I can't do this, I can't do this. You know, when especially when you're working in a business and you feel kind of alone. Sure. You're like, I can't do this, I can't figure it out, or no, I don't want to, I don't want to send this email because it's not right yet.

SPEAKER_06: 59:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 59:53

Just send it. Yeah. You know, and once I read that, I started kind of looking around me at other people in the industry. Emails I was getting, marketing they were doing, and I was like, theirs is not perfect. Right. Like I'm looking at this, like this is from Canva. They made a mistake here. So why am I waiting?

SPEAKER_06: 1:00:10

You're right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:11

And then I looked back at telling the story today all the times that we didn't think about and hesitate and just jumped in. You know, so I would say, just do it. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be all set in stone. You don't have to have a massive plan.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:28

Just jump in and start figuring stuff out. As long as you have that mentality of we can figure this out, I think it'll all it you'll you'll be fine. And you can keep growing and moving from there. None of this stuff in our story that I could ever imagine when I moved to Dallas. Like this is where we were gonna be today. Not even on my radar. I was gonna go to pharmacy school.

SPEAKER_07: 1:00:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:52

Like, and it just things didn't happen. So that would be my advice is just stop waiting and jump in and do it.

SPEAKER_06: 1:01:00

Life by design. And I have to agree with that as well. There's there's so many folks out there that wait for perfect, even when it comes to little things like I'm gonna do video. And then they wait, they record it, and then oh, that didn't look good, or I'll do it later, I'll redo it later. Get the stuff out there. Number one, you're going to learn good, bad, and different from that action that you're doing. And and and I think the moral or present the the ideal is take action. Just take action and learn from what you're actually doing. That way you can use it for the next time or not.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:40

And just like you said earlier, you're you're probably your most critical to yourself than anything. So regardless of what it is you're doing, nobody's gonna be out there j judging you, you know, and I tell our kids nobody's thinking about you.

SPEAKER_06: 1:01:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:54

Really, they're thinking about themselves, they're not thinking about you. So just wear what you want to wear. Show up how you want to show up. There's no one's gonna be looking at you, they're thinking about themselves.

SPEAKER_06: 1:02:05

Boom. That that's gonna be a clip right there.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:08

It's the truth.

SPEAKER_06: 1:02:11

I have to agree. It's the truth. So well, guys, this has been great. I just learned a ton about you both, and and I'm very impressed. I am honored to have uh shared that conversation with you, and I'm glad that that that that I'd like to get to know you guys even better outside of this world, this world, not this world.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:32

That's a little too far. Easy there, Elon. Right? Exactly. Well, our our kids go to the same school, so there you go. That's right.

SPEAKER_06: 1:02:39

So, is there anything else you guys would like to add to this? I I would actually like to have you both back to have a conversation about some topics. You guys get to pick the topic, controversial, not now that our listeners have heard your story, know who you are. I know that they're gonna want you back. We'd love to. That would be awesome. Definitely.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:58

Yeah, no, we'd love to. I would say, you know, in you know, because we now we've met so many people, and you know, big shout out to Rob. He's in Japan right now, he's vacationing with a family, but he's the one that pulled me out of my cave and introduced me to all these wonderful people because I was just in my own little, you know, I was a lone wolf. Yeah, that was and I was proud of that. I was like, I'm the lone wolf. Like, no, actually, you know, you need to go out and meet new people so you can grow, yeah, be in bigger rooms with smarter people.

SPEAKER_06: 1:03:28

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:28

And that's that's what I would encourage people to do, to just get out there and meet people, grow with people. And now that we've learned that, we've both grown so much in the past couple of years, learning from learning from Jeff and Clarissa. Yeah. You know, we we you know, we went out to dinner a couple months ago and just learning about their story, Gillian Denise, Adolfo and Lisa. I mean, I could go on and on and on and on about you know their journeys and how they do things, and just get out and really, you know, just make yourself vulnerable and say, I don't have this right. I don't have this right, I'm not doing it right. Is anybody else doing it right? Right. Is somebody doing it better than me? You'd be surprised how many people will say, Oh, I'll help you. Absolutely. You're you're you're doing that, you're doing that wrong. So you should probably try this other way because we we're the same way. Yeah, we're the same way. You know, we have our our Christmas party this coming Sunday, which by the way, both of y'all are invited. Woohoo! It's uh open bar. All right. At the rock, our Christmas party, thanks to her, has grown from 175 people to 450 people. Wow. There's not a real realtor in town that can touch my Christmas party. Wow. Yeah, that's throwing down the gauntlet, just like drop boom, mic drop. Yeah, what's up? 450 people, free pictures with Santa. It's at The Rock this Sunday. We have our we have our our registration link on on our Instagram.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:56

It's a toy drive for Casa. Awesome. Toy drives usually are one of their biggest donors for this time of season.

SPEAKER_06: 1:05:03

So entry into this requires absolutely do not show up empty-handed.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:09

I have to punch you. I will punch you if you show up empty-handed. I don't care who you are. It's always a toy drive for Child Advocates San Antonio. That's you know, charity that we have very close, you know, to our heart. Yeah. And, you know, thanks to her, we've been able to grow it to 450 people in attendance over three hours at the rock. Yeah, you know, we we went from you know a small little venue to you know where this purse practiced, right? Which is pretty awesome. Rain or shine, you know, there's games gonna be on the on the on the big screen, there's homemade cookies, hot chocolate, open bar, crafts for the kids, yeah, pictures with Santa Claus. We she had these basketballs designed. If you go to my Instagram, you can see the basketball that she designed uh with our logo. How cool! So she opens orders what like 12, 15, and by the end of the party, they're all gone.

SPEAKER_06: 1:06:04

That's cool.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:05

By the end of the party, they're all they're all gone. Clients will be like, Can I take this?

SPEAKER_06: 1:06:09

Like, go for it. I don't care, man. Take it. Go. It's already paid for it. Yeah, just go.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:13

It's it's all good.

SPEAKER_06: 1:06:14

And it's depreciating anything.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:15

Yeah, it's it's losing value as we speak. It's fine. Let me let me autograph it for you.

SPEAKER_06: 1:06:20

Right?

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:20

But yeah, it's it's uh you know, invited, be happy to have you guys, and thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_06: 1:06:27

Absolutely, Aaron. Hats off. That was your first podcast, and nobody even knew until I said that right now.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:35

Next time I'll I'll do better.

SPEAKER_06: 1:06:37

Professional, and incredible Wonder Woman here, ladies and gentlemen listening in. As always, I appreciate you tuning in. If you haven't already, make sure to like and subscribe. We're up to 31,600 subscribers, and that's just on YouTube alone. We are on other platforms like Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google, and all the others. But I hope that you guys are getting at least a fifth of what I get from these conversations, and they are with folks that are in the trenches doing the work, putting in the work, taking the risks, and then learning from those mistakes, right or wrong, and grateful enough to share them with you guys. So um, that being said, guys, thank you again for joining this conversation. Uh, you guys out there, um, as always, I promise to continue to bring you experts like this that are willing to share their journey with us transparently and real AF. That means and finance, remember that. Um, other than that, we will catch you on the next one.

unknown: 1:08:00

I am a master. I am a master.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:06

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