From Nothing to Everything ft. Albert Preciado | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 45

0:03What's up everybody and welcome to another episode of Coffees for closers where we speak to industry leaders shaping the future Today's guest is a self-made entrepreneur who overcame adversity to become the founder and CEO of The Mortgage Guys, Ambiance Realty, and Driven Enterprises. Starting from humble beginnings, he built a multi-million dollar empire and is now a driving force in not just the mortgage industry, but also the self-help space as well. From surviving the 2008 mortgage meltdown to becoming a real estate investor and motivational speaker. He's an inspiration to thousands across the globe.

0:46Let's dive into his incredible journey and meet the one, the only, Albert Preciado. Hey, thank you for the introduction. I never had an introduction like that. Thanks, Albert. I should hire you full time for that. I know. Thank you. I get that a lot. I feel like my introductions are just the best in the space. Yeah. I appreciate you coming down. and I appreciate you making the time to meet with us here at our headquarters and I look forward to jumping on your show at one point. Albert, you've always been on my radar, not only just to meet, I've been a fan, I've been following you. I know you're doing a lot of big things in not just the mortgage industry, but I love what you're doing with your brand.

1:23You've built a massive brand, the Mexican Prince of Bel-Air, very, very catchy. And in all the conferences you're doing, the driven conferences are rocking. You get big speakers out and you're really making an impact on people's lives and I appreciate that about you. So cheers to you, my brother. Cheers for that. All right. So number one thing is, you have a massive brand, you know, yourself. And the thing is that one of my rules is when somebody recommends or refers me to someone else, I don't think about it. So I'm just like, hey, you know, like they were asking me, hey, sign into your Instagram.

2:02And, you know, when they tell you that, it's like, oh, shit, they're going to, it's almost like somebody, taking out your wife on a date or something like that but it's like something that imagine somebody jacks or steals your Instagram I know it's terrifying but it's like what one of the biggest lessons I've learned is is to work with people or or partner people with people or do things with people that are referred so like when you know you come referred by Dan Fleischman he's like you gotta meet him I think he texts us in a group text yeah and I was driving you know and and then And I'm like, who is this guy?

2:36And I'm like, well, Dan said to call him. So we called. We spoke. Now I'm here. So thank you for having me here. And you're awesome. You're killing it. Yeah. And what's great about these relationships is like who knows what's going to be bore out of this relationship. Like what sort of ideas, what sort of synergies, what sort of partnerships are going to be born out of this relationship. And that's what's exciting. That's what's exciting. actually Dan it was Dan who said on my show it's like the most powerful thing I have is the people in my phone right you know like your networks are truly your net worth and because at some point you stop looking for new people you stop like let's say you you need a lawyer you don't google top lawyer you you need a somebody that's going to help you with a mortgage company you don't google it you you get your phone and you're like okay let me ask my circle of influence hey do you guys know top lawyer do you guys know a top mortgage person yeah this guy this guy and boom you just referrals only yeah and that's where we're at thankfully we have that blessing where we can work with our inner circle you're like the egyptian version of me here in nirvai yeah i should call myself the egyptian prince of belary prince of erva oh it'd be newport beach for me yeah um so i like to start the show off with a couple uh uh opening questions and uh what's a like just the 20 ,000 foot overview of the Preciado Empire.

4:02You're talking about the headquarters? All your companies. What do each one do? The headquarters is like 20 ,000 square feet. Oh, yeah. The floor that we have right there. Oh, it's literally. Oh, okay. On the Sancias, nearly 20 ,000 square feet. So what we started creating was, I used to call it my triangle because I didn't, before I started into business, I don't know much about business, but I'm just I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm humble and I'm coachable. So I've always been like that. So I want to learn. But at first, you've got to make mistakes. So I'm starting. I'm doing a calling it a triangle because I have mortgage.

4:43I have real estate and then I have driven. And then, you know, that's vertical integration. So I started a vertical integrating a lot of businesses that feed each other. Yeah. Mortgage was my first company because I was a loan officer. I was a loan officer when I was 19, 20 years old. So I started in mortgage and then I was just a loan officer. I was getting my commissions and then 2008 happened. When 2008 happened, I lost everything, became homeless. I slept in the Ford Explorer for two months. So two months I was sleeping in the Ford Explorer with my now wife, Sil. and I just didn't want to quit.

5:20So I didn't want to quit the mortgage space. I stayed in the mortgage space and then I recovered and then slowly, you know, it started getting better. And then 2013, I get a call from a rep, a lender rep. Her name is Gina Carr and she tells me, hey, Albert, you should start a mortgage company. You're very, you know, you're an entrepreneur and you think like an entrepreneur. And I didn't even think about it. Like I didn't even, I wasn't even thinking about being a business owner. Although I did read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad when I was young, when I was 19 years old. And I always thought about it, but I never really thought I would ever be a business owner.

5:55So I said, let me go for it. Let me do it. I Googled how to open up a mortgage company and I just winged it. And then we start the mortgage guy and then problem after problem after problem after problem. And long story short, I know you said I was a real estate investor. I was a real estate investor. I bought, over time, I bought 18 properties. and then what happened is year one year two year three i'm going out of business in mortgage because it just doesn't make sense i'm making less money than when i used to be a loan officer because now i have all the expenses liability i i get the lawsuits i get all the problems so i end up selling all things we're working on solving yeah yeah you're you're you're always solving for x solving for something so i i stop um i start selling each property one by one until I sell all of them, which the net of that was$2 million around there.

6:51So I had$2 million that I got from selling all the properties just to pay and survive the whole mortgage upcoming. And then after years, right, we started. So 11 years, Ambience Realty has been active in business for 11 years. That's the real estate company. yeah mortgage guys is going on 13 years and then uh driven enterprise is going on nine years so we started those three companies we started doing the events and then the events helped us recruit more agents helped us get more more customers and now now we're here you've been doing a great job and uh and then you've also done a great job with just the brand that the the albert preciato brand you know all over social media big following big social media following um and it's very rare in our space and i was talking about this with you earlier it's uh there's just not a lot of people who have a big personal brand in our space right you know there's just it's just not something that we have really embraced in our space obviously i'm i've been campaigning a lot for that and uh i'm sure you have too so we're gonna see hopefully some massive changes and it's good to be leaders on that forefront in our space and i also like to follow up the that question is uh with uh with another question um which is uh what is albert preciato's morning routine what is your morning routine what do you do every single morning it's changed over time but what i what i do is i i i get three days out of one so my most important day is the morning the the first part which is so i get day one is from six in the morning till 12 my second mini day is from 12 to six and my third mini day is from 6 to 12.

8:36So sometimes it's 6 to 12, you know, 6 in the morning till midnight, but sometimes it's 5 a.m. till 11 p.m. So I sleep six hours, but my first mini day is my morning, which is 6 to 12 on the average. And what I do during the first day is I focus on the important things. I work on myself. I work in the business. And what's working on yourself? Working out, you know, what's working in the business, working on systems and processes on the next innovative campaign? What's going to be the next disruption that you're going to create? So that's what I like to do before 12. Compartmentalize your day. Yeah.

9:18Into three. Like I'm not going to do a podcast at 10 in the morning. I'm not going to take meetings at 10 in the morning because then that I just lost my most important part of my day. So all of that, training, meetings, podcasts, they have to happen after 12. So 12 to 6, that's the time for that. And then 6 to midnight is when I have dinners. And usually dinners, I either go with my wife or I like to have dinners with other future or current business partners. Because I feel like if you go to dinner, just to have dinner, you're wasting an opportunity to create another relationship. So I like to take advantage of dinners.

10:00That's awesome. That's awesome. So I like how you, and I love asking that question because everyone does their morning routine different. And everybody just, every time I ask that question. I don't do cold plunges. I don't do any of that shit. You know, that's all. I don't think I've talked to one guy that goes, I wake up. Actually, no, maybe I asked one person. But I've had so many founders and CEOs here. And everyone does their morning routine different. And there was only one guy that did the cold plunge. Yeah. And he had it in his house and he just got it installed and he just got on that kick.

10:32Yeah. Man, but I can't do cold. I'm from Egypt, man. We're like, we don't do cold. You know, I do the sauna. I mean, I'd rather get in the jacuzzi than a cold plunge. Yeah. I mean, that sounds painful. I don't need the cold plunge to wake me up. Like when you wake up, you wake up. A cold shower, which I hate. We had the hot water not working yesterday. I had to take a cold shower. and that was already like it was punishment. Reminds me when I was broke. I don't need to remind myself that I'm broke when we're jumping into a cold plunge. Yeah, it's like really like dissatisfying. I mean, if you need motivation and you need to get on a cold plunge to get motivated and to wake up, I think you have bigger issues.

11:09That's true. Like I wake up motivated. I'm like, shit. Like I, you know, most of the time I wake up and I feel like shit. By the way, can we, is it fine if I say shit? Yeah, that's fine. You're good. Yeah, so like I wake up. You're real, bro. I wake up and I feel like shit. Wake up. First thing I do, take a piss. And then I'm like, okay, I'm up. So I want to feel better. I start my day. Then I'm thankful that I'm alive. Yeah. Because you get one more day of life. Yeah. Thank God. But every day, every day, I want to live it like it's my last day. So two things I always do every single day. I live my life like it's my last day.

11:46And I never leave home without giving a kiss to my three little daughters. Give a kiss to? Yeah, I kiss my daughter every time I do that. I smother those kids. Like I kiss him before I leave and I tell him I'm going to be right back. But I always want to give him a kiss because what if one day I don't come back? At least I left the house giving them a kiss. Yeah. Those are two rules that I never break. Never. I could be like somebody could be something could be happening that's crazy or I might be super late to something. I'm not going to leave the house without giving my three little daughters a kiss.

12:21that's awesome now i like uh to also ask like out of all the businesses you could have started or you know began with why'd you start in the mortgage industry because that's what i knew i didn't know anything else and and i think when you start a business you got to start a business that you know or you got to partner with somebody that knows the business like it would be dumb for me or for you to go start a restaurant business if you don't know anything about restaurants It would be dumb for you to be, you know what? Let me start a solar business. You don't know anything about solar. Now, if you partner up with somebody that knows solar, then it makes perfect sense.

12:59But you got to understand the business you're starting because business is very hard. And it's already hard enough. And what people don't understand, I don't know if you've been through this, but when you start a business and you've been open and active for a decade, you're going to get lawsuits. you're going to be you're going to go through a lot of times where you're almost going out of business you're going to battle a lot of heart attacks you're going to get attack attack you're going to get hated you're going to have uh everything irs problem state of california if you're in california problems you're going to get a lot of stuff that's going to happen and it's going to be a battle so what i tell people is i have a i have a a triangle that goes up in pain thresholds.

13:45So you got to be a level six pain threshold to make it past 10 years. If you're a level three, level four, you're not going to make it. Level five, you know, maybe you make it past five years, but you got to be a level six to make it past 10 years. That's true. Because somebody that's been in business for five years hasn't been tested yet. Like people don't make it past one year two years three years five years okay now now you get my attention but let's let's see 10 years because somebody that's that has been flashing and showing a lifestyle or showing some success for three years hasn't been tested yet they're going to go through some stuff and and i don't think they'll bounce back it's very hard yeah i mean the world of entrepreneurship is not getting easier it's just getting more difficult yeah um what do you think like for you what do you think was your source of inspiration to become an entrepreneur my parents uh my parents always wanted to buy a house and they had my dad and my mom they had like 40 50 000 saved up and this was back in 1990 so i'm about six years old and six seven years old like my daughter italiana and i remember we used to go we were looking for a house in burbank you know burbank yeah so we were looking for homes in burbank 1990 there's houses in burbank for about 85 90k now you don't find anything in burbank for under a million so we were very close to finding a house but my parents were never never able to get it because they had a they had a bad realtor a bad loan officer and they just didn't have the knowledge on how to do it right.

15:34And every time they had dreams, they fell short. I used to go paint homes with my dad. I was six years old. I used to go paint with him when we had holidays, weekends, days, whatever, spring break. I would go with him to work. And I remember he used to paint homes in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, and nice cars, all green. And I remember I asked my dad one time, hey, dad, how come we don't live here? How can we live in the ghetto? Why do we live in an ugly place where there's shootings, drug dealings? Why don't we live here where we come paint? And he explained to me, rich and poor, there's the really wealthy rich people.

16:19And then there's the middle class. What's the difference between middle class and poor people? It's the same. Well, now it's the same shit. is middle class is poor in california like like i i was speaking at an event and i said who's who's who here is is is poor and and very and people like i get a few hands up and i'm like who's middle class and then a lot of people raise their hands and i'm like it's the same shit like there's no difference so my dad explained to us to me you know like hey there's a really rich people and i said well dad how come we don't live here how come we can't do this how come like how do we do it?

16:57And he said, it's not for us. So I was always inspired because I told my dad, hey, I'm going to prove you that it is for us. And I asked my dad, how do you do it? How can I do it, dad? And he said, if you work harder than everybody else and you never quit, maybe you could accomplish this. And I told my dad, okay, I'm going to show you. I promise you that one day I'm going to be really successful. I'm going to be the most successful. I'm going to be the millionaire the rich i don't even know if i said millionaire but i told him i'm gonna be the richest successful person in our family and and i'm gonna show you so my dad and my mom they're the the best parents like anybody can ask for like we we couldn't have asked for better parents my dad and my mom super ethical hard workers and that's what i learned from them hard work and being ethical and and so i wanted to do it for them i wanted to show them that it was possible so the your resilience your tenacity your grit um and even your motivation to start your own company all came from your parents from my parents yeah and my parents sent me to school i used to take the school bus i used to go to granada hills and back then that was the nicer part huh it was it It was nice, yeah, because I used to live in Echo Park, but before Echo Park became what it is today, so before it was ugly.

18:21But Granada Hills back then was beautiful, and it was the first time I came across white people because where I lived, everybody was Latino. And over there, I went there, and everybody was white. You're Egyptian, but you're light-skinned, blue eyes. I'm real familiar with Granada Hills. I used to go there, too, all the time, from Simi Valley. I'm a brown guy, so I'm a brown kid. I get to the I had reverse racism so I grew up in a brown community as the only white guy we had the opposite problem yeah and everyone made fun of me for being white yeah well I had the opposite people made fun of me because they called me wetback they told me to go back to Mexico or you just go back to Echo Park nobody's making fun of you right right but I would have turned out maybe I would have ended up being a gangster or something like that 18th Street or 18th Street was the one Mara Salvatrucha was for Salvadorians I don't know but I got bullied and humiliated in school.

19:14So that also motivated me because I got bad grades. People made fun of me. ESL student, they put me in special ed, then ESL because they noticed, well, he's not special ed, but he's ESL. He just doesn't understand. So I was even more motivated going through school and dealing with all the bad treatment. And I said, I'm going to leave this high school, Kennedy High School. That's where I went. And I'm going to show all these people that I'm going to be somebody. And I started working on all the stuff that I didn't like about myself. Nice. So you didn't go to college. You just went straight to grit.

19:47I went to college and I dropped out from college. Yeah. What college? Was it CSUN? Glendale Community College. Okay. So you've seen a lot of challenges. You've overcome some extreme adversity. What sort of challenges do you foresee in the future with your different businesses? I don't. Well, you're always going to have challenges. I have challenges every day. But I think that the biggest challenge anyone can have right now is if they don't adapt. So people with a lot of experience, and they say, I have a lot of experience in mortgage. I've been in mortgage for 30 years, and they're all excited and pumped up about it.

20:30But they're broke. They're making less money than they used to make 30 years ago. And I'm like, guys, you don't have experience. You don't have 30 years of experience. You have one year of experience repeated 30 times. You haven't grown. You should be embarrassed. If you have 20 years of experience, 30 years of experience, even worse, you should be embarrassed because you're in the same spot. In 30 years, you should have grown. Every year, you should have doubled. And I know there's recessions. There's bad economies. And it's all right to drop for a few years. But you've got to level up still.

21:08You got to recover and then keep going up because mortgage, real estate is always like this. It drops, but it's always going vertical. So 30 years of experience is no good, especially in real estate and mortgage, if you don't adapt and pivot. And what do I mean by that? You got to start using AI. You got to start using technology. You got to start using social media. You got to get into all the new stuff because if you don't, your competitors, especially the fresher ones, the younger ones, they're going to take over. Yeah, and that's what's happening in our industry. You see a lot of mortgage professionals, they just don't want to adapt.

21:44Yeah. It's such an archaic business. The ideology of adapt or die just doesn't resonate. Personal brand, why would I need a personal brand? What do you mean AI? You saw what happened to the dinosaurs. That's what I call them, dinosaurs. They didn't adapt. I actually it's funny that you say that um it's kind of like they talk about this I had the CEO of Blockbuster on here two days ago yeah you know and I asked him the question I'm like so everybody wants to know what happened with Netflix and Blockbuster so he no no it's not that actually it's funny because everyone thinks everyone uses them yeah as the poster child for adapt or die everybody like when you like if you were to use your analogy right now you'd go look at what what happened with blockbuster and them not acquiring netflix but that's not really what happened what happened was they that it happened during the 08 crisis and they had a billion dollars on their balance sheet and they and they were they couldn't refinance the debt so they just had to file bk and they actually had owned a streaming company and because they couldn't get like the bailout they just basically went under what they went belly they had a billion dollars in debt yeah they had a billion on the balance sheet they couldn't you know refi it was like that the debt was too high so they had to refi they had to fire he knew he didn't he did he just didn't do a the bankruptcy the right way he could have done a better job with the chapter 11 that's what he he said that on the show so i mean see that that's another thing like a lot of people don't understand that a lot of these people there there's chapter 11 bankruptcy that you could use he could have done that um but 100 their board didn't he he had the board and they didn't sign off and so so they could have blockbuster could have been much bigger than netflix because they actually owned streaming at the time right and netflix didn't own streams they had already acquired a streaming company but they just had it was just bad timing the 08 crash ruined them so you know people don't don't know like i'm i love reading like i i used to read a book a week and I did it for the longest years.

23:48I went on big runs. And you got to study history because history repeats. And that's why contacts, like your circle of influence, is really important because you could grab your phone and you could be like, hey, friend, bail me out. I need a million dollars. I need five million dollars. I need this. I need that. Jeff Bezos, he starts Amazon, right? and what happens he starts Amazon I think it's 1995 and he needs money he's going out of business and you know what he does he sells 20 % of his company for a million dollars and that 20 million that 20 % that he sold for 1 million dollars guess how much that's worth now multiple hundreds of billions yeah best investment ever people don't understand though that the jeff bezos of today wouldn't be alive or here if he didn't raise or sell 20 of his company for a million dollars and and and that's why business is uh it's the it's the long game and people don't get that like i i'm sure you have you have a lot of followers you do a lot of funny stuff on social media too i'm sure you have some haters right dude if i don't have haters i'm not doing social media right if i don't have haters like then i'm failing yeah so so like when when i came here you told me something you said that albert's very what very polite guy very polite guy right not nice guy yeah i don't i don't i'm i'm very nice nice so and then i'm like but you got a lot of haters too yeah so people don't see that see like like my my assistant today's telling me hey albert uh i don't i want everybody to like you i i don't like you get a lot of negative comments and you know what i do i give chanel bags to my employees i fly them private i buy them rolexes i uh lend them the ferrari i fly their family in i give them cash uh prices i treat them out to nice places.

26:02I mean, I can go... Extreme loyalty, yeah. I could go on and on. I give them equity of the company. I just do a lot of great... Even employees, I do a lot of great things. But people only... People focus on the bad things. So I tell my assistant, hey, you know what? People are always gonna... Like I have way so many people that love me way more than the people that hate me. Yeah. But the people that hate just stands... Like it shows more. Like it gets more attention. Good stuff doesn't get too much attention. I do something good and I post it on my social media and people talk shit. I do something bad and people are or I do something controversial and people are like talking, talking, talking.

26:45So like no matter what I do, just the negativity, all that stuff is going to stand out more. so I tell her hey you know what when you have haters that's just people that are jealous of you that become envious that become haters and then one day they're going to be like I used to know Albert I used to fly private with Albert I used to be Albert's friend and then it's going to be 10 years later but what people don't understand is say you know what business is not for everybody it's like being in the army It goes hand and hand. You could die any day, and it's going to be very, very dangerous. And you're going to have a lot of people that are going to betray you, that are going to lie to you, cheat, gossip, and just they want to see you fail.

27:37But the biggest revenge is going to be massive success. Massive success. And that's what drives me. I love the haters. Yeah, me too. Haters keep coming. We should have a haters party. Yeah, we should. We'll do an event for the haters. like haters come in for free because they're the biggest cheerleaders that you'll find yeah because they're giving you free content like they're they're posting on your stuff they're they're uh helping your algorithm yeah and you know that people that love you they watch your content maybe one hour a day or maybe 30 minutes a day or maybe even a minute a day so so for example like like i i barely met you but you're you're a cool guy man man i love what you stand for i love what you do i could tell you're a good human i'll watch your content five minutes a day two minutes a day i get two minutes of your time that's awesome we become like brothers at that point and i'll watch it and whatever i see i'll make a nice comment because i i'm just busy you know i'm busy i'm creating i'm posting stuff i'm having people react to me i'm not reacting to other people but the haters they watch your content like five hours a day they're there They wake up to you.

28:46They go to sleep to you. They're taking time out of their day to comment a paragraph talking about you. That says more about them than you. They are obsessed with you. And I'm like, wow. I'm using them. I'm using them to increase my social media algorithm. They're my fans. So I want to thank the fans. The haters are the biggest fans. I love them. I appreciate it. They worked the hardest for you. Really hard, yeah. They take time out of their day to just comment. So thank you for the comments. On that note, is there like a mantra that you live by in your head? Like outgrind everybody or something like a mantra that just runs in your head every day.

29:32You got to stay driven. When you stay driven, you're unstoppable. Once you lose your drive, you're going to get stopped. So like me, I'm always driven. Like I wake up driven. That's why we named our event Driven. Because that's a big community, a large community of driven individuals. And if you're driven, you'll accomplish any of your dreams. I love that. And you've managed to do that. I mean, we were talking about like, why do people like criticize or comment so much hate, things like that? Well, you got to understand where they're coming from. You know, like there's people, there's people that haven't been tested yet, people that have a nice lifestyle for two years, three years.

30:18They have a lot of followers and they're kind of like the new kids on the block. Yeah. But you have people that have been doing that for a decade or more. Like that to me is what gives you the credibility. They've been doing that for so long. so it comes to a point where they're like hey um this guy has been driving ferraris and rolls royces for for five years and and they and it gets on their nerves and and then they leave your company and then they want they want to see you fail and then it's like oh shit it's already 10 years he's still driving ferraris and he's still he's still there and it gets and and then they become, it's almost like they want to see you fail.

30:59They live their life. Their purpose is to, I want to see this person fail because why? Just because they're envious because they see in you what they want to have, but they are not willing to put, to sacrifice, to put in the hard work and to not give up. You know, most people give up on their dreams. So that's why when you're driven, you're unstoppable anything is possible it's not just the sacrifice it's like the suffering how much suffering have you endured you battle heart attacks you get attacked like it's a lot of things it's like people don't know even now like like oh he's got millions of followers like people don't understand like i get turned down every day creating content like because i'm doing man on the street content like it's yeah it humbles you yeah like i'm like here i am i'm like here i'm this big ceo with you know tons of employees or whatever like yeah hi mr shallaby whatever and like on the street like i'm spit on yeah and it's it grounds me but that but that that also makes you better yeah you're not you're not scared of doing anything you're not scared of approaching people or but that's what it takes if like people want to be creators like you got to get out of your comfort zone there is no comfort but you're a good sales guy when people ask me hey, Albert, how do you become great in sales?

32:15Because I'm good in sales. You're good in sales. And the thing that I tell people is you got to talk to strangers. So what I tell, especially for men, I tell men or women, let's say you're a man and think about the worst sales guy you've ever met that doesn't talk doesn't dress good smells bad doesn't comb his hair uh and it's just very very insecure and and then like the biggest introvert right so how do you get him good in sales so i tell i tell these people hey find the best nightclub uh what's the best nightclub here in irvine or newport we got one nightclub it's called time nightclub it's in costa mason time light time time time time so time nightclub so go to time nightclub club yeah and and then what i want you to do is identify the three hottest chicks all right so find the three hottest chicks and then make it a a must that you gotta close one of them tonight and by closing you know you're gonna close them you're gonna get their number you're gonna take her home whatever but practice is the first night you're gonna they're married well don't take them home just play a game and get their number and and then and then and then see how far you can go and that starts a lot with one self-confidence like you have maintained good composure good health good fitness like a lot of married guys or a lot of people in the mortgage industry like let themselves go yeah junk they eat fat they don't definitely don't read the ingredients on anything like you were reading the ingredients on like you know what protein bar you're gonna eat what you don't track doesn't improve yeah so the you know we got a lot of people like just like let themselves go be slops guys one of my mentors always taught me you know you always gotta be two weeks out of divorce like which means you got two weeks to hit the streets that's your divorce you know like you gotta be like on your a-game at all times basically like ready you know because you know your wife could leave you at any time you got to be ready to so that but that concept that that that thought process applies to you know always being at peak performance right always be at your peak performance mentally physically emotionally spiritually um now you got three daughters and one thing i like to always bring up with parents on this show is how are you instilling because me and you we grew up dirt poor so grit came almost naturally it's almost like a superpower to be poor right yeah one thing i i always work on and try to improve because i got four kids you got three kids is how are you instilling that same level of grit into your children well i'm not i'm the first one to tell you i'm not perfect uh i i'm i'm the i'm soft with my girls uh i'm the type that They're like, hey, daddy, I want to have a treat.

35:16Hey, daddy, I want some coins for my Roblox. Yeah, I need Robux is what you're talking about. You want Robux. Is that what it is? Yeah, it's Robux. It's that game on the iPad where they buy coins and things like that. You could spend, by the way, millions of dollars on that game. Yeah, so I'm probably one of those. So what I do, so I get soft with my girls. you know because easier get softer with girls than boys but but what i do is like sometimes i i try to i try to make them earn things so i'm like okay well we're gonna get some coins but you're gonna do this you have to uh clean up your room you have to uh finish like they want you want to get something sweet okay well you gotta eat your food but also we're very good because i let uh seal my wife she's the one in charge at home so she's in charge of what the girls are going to do and and then i'm in charge uh outside at work so like she is it's what mom says but but um like for example i'll give you an example if you have you have you have kids as well what do you do when when one of your kids comes to you and whether it's girl or boy and well let's just say you're two boys right One of your boys comes and he says, hey, my brother hit me.

36:38What do you tell him? We reprimand the boys. They always hit each other, by the way. Actually, my four-year-old is always hitting every kid. He's fighting the whole. But if one of your kids comes, whether it's the sister saying, hey, she comes crying and she tells you, my sister hit me. What do you tell her? Well, we do like a timeout thing, make them stand in a corner. You believe her? what if well because usually it's no she hit me first or things like that no we confirm yeah we definitely confirm but usually we catch them in the act too so like one of my daughters comes and it and and berlin's like italia hit me and i'm like okay hit her back what are you telling smack him back yeah well the girl's fight hit her hit her back and she's like and at first they're like so so then i'm like well you what are you gonna do when when you're when we're not here Like, you girls have to figure it out.

37:35Like, you got to, and then what we do is we also get them both in trouble. Okay, you hit her, you hit her back. Now both of you are in trouble. So no iPad for a week. And they both get punished. So then it's like a team thing. So like, hey, we're on the same team because if one of us does something bad to the other one, now you're both in trouble. I like that strategy. Yeah. I like that strategy. Now, I want to ask you this. You've built some good wealth already, right? If you were to go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell your 20-year-old self how to build? What would you tell your 20-year-old self to build wealth?