What would you do if you found yourself in debt at 24 with no income or credit to speak of?
Thank you for tuning into the “Inspired To Invest” real estate podcast. This week, Alfonso Cuadra, the “godfather of real estate” is with us. Alfonso’s journey has been far from smooth.
Entrepreneurial from the start, he built a big business early on, but it crashed and burned. Real estate became his saving grace. Alfonso, who now boasts a 27-year-long career in the industry and a multi-million dollar portfolio, shares his extraordinary journey from financial illiteracy to financial freedom. His belief in the power of real estate investing to transform lives is infectious, and his story is a testament to the power of determination and the will to change one’s life. Alfonso’s journey wasn’t always smooth sailing.
Like many of us, he faced his fair share of obstacles and doubts. The fear of failure and lack of self-confidence plagued the early years of his career. Yet, Alfonso overcame these hurdles with a simple yet powerful strategy – trust your gut, do your due diligence, and never underestimate the power of a team. His experiences, including dealing with drug dealers and prostitutes in value-add deals, demonstrate his courage and tenacity.
As Alfonso says, “No matter where you are in life, you too have the power to change your situation.” But Alfonso’s aspirations extend beyond his own financial freedom. His personal goal of helping others has led him to start his Youth Foundation.
Through this foundation, Alfonso aims to inspire young people to take risks, try new things, and take the right actions to reach their goals. As we explore Alfonso’s journey, we’ll also be exploring the importance of focus, alignment with one’s ultimate goal, and the delicate balance between career goals and family time. Join us on this journey, and you might just find the inspiration you need to kickstart your own path to financial freedom.
To connect with Alfonso directly, you can find him YouTube, his personal Instagram page and Wealth Genius instagram page and online.
A huge thank you to our sponsor, Control and Compound Financial for bringing us this episode of “Inspired To Invest”. To learn more about Infinite Banking and how this can benefit you, connect with them at @controlandcompound on YouTube, social or online.
To connect with our host, Serena Holmes, go to her linktree and to buy a copy of her book, The Accidental Entrepreneur, click here.
And, for everything related to real estate and real estate investing, please make sure you’ve subscribed to @serenaholmesrealtor on YouTube & other platforms. We also have a page dedicated to this podcast on Instagram and Facebook @inspiredtoinvestpodcast where we preview guests each week, highlight their episodes, top takeaways, tips, quotes and more.
Are you a full-time real estate investor with an inspiring story to share? Apply now!
Tune back in on Wed., Sept. 27 for a guest who provides opportunities for people to invest in real estate passively through joint venture partnerships.
Thanks for tuning into the “Inspired To Invest” Real Estate Podcast hosted by Serena Holmes & remember, “when you invest in yourself, the sky’s the limit”
Real Estate Investing Podcast Transcript
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1
00:01
Welcome to the Inspired to Invest podcast, where we’re sharing stories from real estate investors and how investing has changed their lives. This episode of Inspired to Invest has been brought to you by Control and Compound Financial. Hey everybody, welcome to the Inspired to Invest podcast.
00:21
I have an amazing guest today, named Alfonso Cuadra. I had the opportunity to hear him speak for the first time just a few months ago and, of course, I had to have him on the podcast. So before we get started, I’m going to read a bio about Alfonso so you can get to know him a little bit, and then, of course, he’ll help fill in all the blanks for us so you can get to know how inspirational he truly is. So, alfonso, he’s been in the real estate investing industry for 27 years and he’s known as the godfather of real estate. In the process, he’s built a multi-million dollar portfolio across North America, with a focus on multifamily as well as, more recently, land development. He’s the founder of a real estate investing education company called Wealth Genius. I’m a new proud member, and he’s also the founder of the Quadra Youth Foundation. So welcome today, alfonso. How are you?
Speaker 2
01:09
Let’s have fun, let’s educate, let’s bring people to the next level. If you’re watching this right now, you want to get your popcorn, you want to get comfortable because you’re going to want to stay to the end. Because, like I said, serena, you’re asking me about maybe dropping some nuggets for newbies and things like that. Here we’re going to drop bombs.
Speaker 1
01:34
Well. I’ll let you do most of the talking. I think it’s obvious that I am fighting a little bit of a cold, but obviously I didn’t want to reschedule you, so I guess, to get things started, I just want to kind of lay the foundation for everyone so they can understand. You know, what did life look like before real estate for you?
Speaker 2
01:50
So I was in business. Actually, I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 17 years old and I didn’t mean to be an entrepreneur. I didn’t know what the word entrepreneur meant. I still don’t know how to spell it. I always mess up at the end. Is it a E? It’s tricky, it’s tricky, it’s a tricky word to spell.
02:13
But I became an entrepreneur as a result of becoming a young father and that kind of put me on the path and changed the trajectory of my life. At 17 years old, obviously you’re a young man and I try to get a job, but the job wasn’t paying very much. So I started a business and quickly understood the power of profits right, and that business grew and grew and by the time I was 21, I had stores all across Canada, from Vancouver all the way to Halifax and everything. The problem was I was an entrepreneur, I was very industrious, but I was not financially literate. I had to invest my money. I didn’t know what to do with my money and, 21 years old, making millions of dollars, and then, 24 years old, negative a million dollars. I pretty much spent money not realizing that hey, you know what, maybe you put some reserves away. The money was coming in and I thought it was going to be coming in forever and it wasn’t. You know, at some point the tap dried up and I was in trouble.
03:30
So I’m 24 years old and I said something’s got to change here and so I started to educate myself on real estate. The first thing I did was I went after bios. I started with some bios and thinking grow rich rich dad, poor dad and then I just became addicted to these books and education and what I learned about studying wealthy people, because I thought, if I want to you know what I asked myself at 24, what do I really want? Do I just want to like build businesses or do I want to change my life? And you know, and change everything that I’ve done? And I just read about successful, you know wealthy people and what I realized is what I realized they have multiple streams of income, yeah, and they’re they’re investors, not consumers, so I was very much a consumer. And, lastly, what I would say, the common thread amongst all of these wealthy people was the idea that they all invested in real estate. Right, they all have their wealth in real estate and assets.
Speaker 3
04:42
Yeah.
Speaker 2
04:44
So that’s what I said, that’s what I’m going to do, right, I made a decision that I was going to change and, you know, I went from being a consumer to an investor and I invested into mentorship and by the time I’m 30 years old, I’m financially free.
Speaker 1
05:03
Amazing Now, was there anyone that guided you through this process? Like, obviously you’re reading books and stuff like that, but was there anyone that you leaned on to get additional guidance and he started to want to put these things into practice and take action?
Speaker 2
05:17
Well, the organizations like Welf Genius didn’t exist. You know, I remember trying to figure this out. I knew that real estate was the path, I just didn’t know how. Yeah, I was in a dark place.
Speaker 1
05:30
Forget on it.
Speaker 2
05:31
Yeah, I was in a dark place because my business wasn’t doing very well and I wanted to go back and rebuild my business and I couldn’t pay myself a salary, so no income. I destroyed my credit. I’m 24 years old, I got a small family, and so what am I going to do? Right, this is before the internet. I mean not before the internet, but we’re actively on the internet all the time and had to think about having these mediums before it would have been. I would have said you’re crazy. So the marketplace was the classified sections in the newspapers. Do you remember newspapers?
Speaker 1
06:13
I do. I went to school for journalism, so yeah, I know what they are.
Speaker 2
06:18
Yeah, so if I ask my daughters that, they might not be able to answer the question, but ultimately you know these newspapers. At the back of all newspapers you had the classified sections and I remember reading through the. I was reading through, I always read through the classified sections just to see what’s going on, if something’s up, and I remember seeing, oh, this guy Tony, he’s looking for joint venture partners. This guy Tony had hard money to lend. This guy Tony had an apartment for rent. This guy Tony has a property for sale. Tony’s everywhere.
06:53
I got to talk to this guy Tony and so, you know, I connected with Tony and I asked him to be my mentor and he said you know I don’t do that. And so I said, what if I make it worth your while? And then he gave me a number that would probably scare most people. I wanted it so much and I needed to create a cheat code that I wanted to tap into someone else’s experience because everything up to that point hadn’t worked for me, and so that’s kind of like that was my first experience getting mentorship. After that I was addicted. I mean I’ve invested, I would say, into the millions in myself and my personal development, coaching mentors. You know I’ve poured into myself to get to the next level. Every time I feel the ceiling, I push, push, push, push, push and I find myself. You know, the best way to do that, to fast track that, to compress the time, is to get to someone, get to someone or connect with someone that has done it before.
Speaker 1
08:02
Yeah, no, absolutely. So then what did that first real estate investment look like? Like I know your story, but for anyone else that they don’t know you like. What did that look like going from the first investment?
Speaker 2
08:11
My actual first investment. It was when I was 21. But I didn’t do it as an investment. I pretty much bought a house as a consumer and you know, for me that experience was incredible because, you know, no one in my family in Canada had owned a house. My grandparents owned a house back home, where I come from, el Salvador, but it was that was it? Like there was no land ownership in my family really to be talked about and my grandparents had lost their house. You know, at some point they couldn’t afford it. They had to sell the house. So you know there was no one, no one in my family had owned a house or land, and so it was really fascinating to me. And you know I bought it for all the wrong reasons, but I still.
09:04
I entered the game and you know I’m 24 years old and that was my first experience with the single. I did convert the basement into a unit, but there’s still a lot of money going out, not enough money coming back in. So I did sell that house and when everything was kind of like I’m rebuilding myself, when I was 24, you know I’m negative of $1 after rebuild myself, I sold everything that I had. I went from driving fancy vehicles to, like you know, regular vehicles, and you know all of the things, because I wanted to rebuild myself.
09:42
The idea was to take whatever’s there and then reinvest those funds. I didn’t know that everything, all the stuff that I had bought, would lose so much value, except for the house. The house was the only thing that retained its value. In fact, it increased in value. And, you know, I find myself with $93,000 from selling that house. And my first move, you know and this is why you need the mentorship, because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have any income. I had no income, no credit, and the first thing that I did do was a conversion. We turned a duplex into a triplex.
Speaker 1
10:35
Now did Tony put that in his name as a money partner? Because you’re talking about having no credit and obviously like just the circumstances. So was that kind of the nature of that relationship?
Speaker 2
10:45
No, he just told me what to do. I had to find things out on my own.
Speaker 1
10:49
Okay, so then how did you finance something like that, like?
Speaker 2
10:52
obviously $93,000 is not enough to buy a house. Private mortgage Okay Right, it was a private mortgage. I didn’t even know about private mortgages.
Speaker 1
10:59
Yeah, and most people don’t. So I think the bank had the money. Well, that’s just it. I think a lot of people just aren’t aware of all the different things that are out there, because I think I have no money. How do I get started? Yeah, and that’s for podcasts like this can help educate people right.
Speaker 2
11:15
No, I love it, I love that you’re doing this. I mean, everybody needs education, and podcasts like this can help someone go to the next level. Ultimately, for me it was. I just I didn’t want to get in my own way, right? So I didn’t know about private lending, I didn’t know about appraisals, I didn’t know about anything, right? I just I was like, okay, this is what you should do, and that’s what I did. I took a duplex and I converted into a triplex Automatically. I’ve done a few things. I figured out how to live for free, yeah. And then I’ve increased income, right, because you’re taking a duplex to a triplex, you increase the income, which means you can increase the debt you can put on the property. So that’s what I did. I refied that property with a bead lender, but in those days it was easier to get a mortgage when you own the property than when you didn’t.
Speaker 1
12:27
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2
12:32
And I was able to pull out the initial investment To me. I still didn’t understand what I did. I don’t know how I have the property and I’m walking out of the lawyer’s office with a check.
Speaker 1
12:47
Yeah, I did something right here.
Speaker 2
12:53
No, it felt like whoa, how do people don’t know about it? Yeah, and basically I went back to my mentor at that time and I said, okay, I did this. What’s next? He’s like do it again. So I’m investing all of this money in the coaching, but basically it just rinsed and repeat. That’s exactly what it was. I needed to build my portfolio and I ended up that year with 11 properties.
Speaker 1
13:23
Well, that’s a lot in one year.
Speaker 2
13:27
My second property was a seven-unit apartment building and my third was a 10-unit apartment building. You know something about reading all of these books about all these wealthy people. What I realized quickly is that no one was talking about the single-family home, or no one was talking about the duplex. The duplex, most of them have real assets, whether they’re residential assets, residential people and I knew that I needed the economy of scale in order to speed things up. And so, within that year, not only did my company flourish because I was no longer trying to take money from my company to survive I was able to reinvest all of the funds and then rebuild the company, but then I finished with a real estate portfolio and a career I didn’t even know. Real estate investing was a thing like someone could just do for the rest of their life.
Speaker 1
14:32
Yeah, I know, and I think that’s the thing that most people aren’t really aware of, and, like you, it’s kind of like you think you buy your house, you just need somewhere to live and you don’t realize how powerful that can be in different ways. So I think 11 properties in one year, especially starting out as a big success. What was your biggest learning along the way with all of that?
Speaker 2
14:55
My biggest learning was everything that I didn’t know. I didn’t know that this whole world existed. I didn’t know about accumulating assets. I didn’t know about think about it. I’m 24 years old. I mean, my world is very small in terms of experience and the things that I’ve had access to. I’ve lived in poverty in my whole life. I didn’t know that anybody could own these types of assets and anybody can change their situation, no matter where they’re at.
15:32
When I was 15 years old, I was living on the streets and if you would have tapped me on the shoulder and you would have said, alfonso, one day you can have assets, you can have this and you could be in a position to changing the outcome of your life, I would say you’re crazy. You know, life just happens to you. What I realized there’s power and urgency. So that’s the first thing that I learned there’s power and urgency. Number one no income, no credit. I had to make something happen and I think that urgency drove me to success. It just drove me. It’s like, oh, I was trying to figure out how I’m going to survive. Then, when I look back, I’m like, okay, I’m doing it.
Speaker 1
16:16
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2
16:17
And so that first year I put my head down and went to work. By the time I’m 30 years old, I’m financially free. You know I sold that company, that I told you that was a negative a million dollars. I sold it. I sold that company and you know, I like now I’m like 30 years old, like I don’t have to work another day in my life, and so what I learned from that experience that first year is that anybody can do this right. And I remember asking myself why doesn’t everybody do this? I mean this is incredible. This can help so many people. It’s helped me. I mean, I’ve come from a life of poverty and you know, I just want to share it with everyone. I wanted to like shout it at the top of the mountains. Well, I realized nobody listens, they just look like a crazy person.
Speaker 1
17:13
I think some days they can Like. I think one of the challenges is that people get the job that they’re told that they need to get their whole life and then they’re in that job so they think they’ve got security. They become complacent, they get comfortable and stuff like that. So it’s like they maybe don’t feel like that because they don’t have the sense of urgency that you’re talking about, right?
Speaker 2
17:30
It’s the story with the hound dog. You know the story with the hound dog. The hound dog is on the porch and the owner’s right there and the hound dog is sitting there. And you know, there’s this person walking by and they’re like he’s looking at this hound dog. He’s like he’s the owner. He’s like hey, do you notice that your dog is like like crying or something Like something’s wrong with your dog is just doing this. And so the owner looks at the dog. He’s like, ah, don’t worry about it, he’s just sitting on a nail. Oh dear. I was like what? He’s sitting on a nail, why doesn’t he move, right? And the owner was like well, it doesn’t hurt, bad enough, right? And that’s the way society is.
18:17
Yeah, the 96% of the people out there know that they’re living way beneath their potential, know that life sucks, all of their job sucks, they don’t like what they’re doing, they don’t have time with their families, but it just doesn’t hurt bad enough, right? They’re sitting on a nail, complaining, whining, like that hound dog, but ultimately they’re not taking any action towards changing anything, and so they just end up with this average life, and that’s what society preaches. You know People to be average, and so the idea is, to be comfortable is like the kiss of death. You can be easily comfortable and things slightly irk you, but not enough for you to do anything in your life, because what happens is people stop growing, they stop learning, they stop creating, they start holding on to the stupid things that they’ve built because they’re like, oh, I don’t want to lose this.
19:16
And so the second they start doing that they are in contraction. They’re dying pretty much. If a plant’s not growing, it’s in contraction. And so for me, the philosophy it’s like whoa, you went from zero to 11 properties in your first year to growing the portfolio across North America. You know hundreds and hundreds of doors, multi-million dollar portfolio. It’s all about expansion, living in expansion, allowing yourself to expand and grow, because that’s where you’re gonna find fulfillment, right? No, I agree.
Speaker 1
19:53
I think you need to give yourself a sense of purpose and what you’re really working towards. So I do want to understand a little bit more around the obstacles and even the successes when you look at starting there to where you are now. But before we go into that, we’re just gonna have a really brief break for our sponsors.
Speaker 3
20:07
Hey, christina Wyatt here from Control and Compound. You might have heard the term infinite banking recently. It’s getting more and more popular in the real estate community. Well, I’ve got Darren Mitchell here, the infinite banking guru, to tell you about it in 60 seconds. So how does infinite banking work? Well, an infinite banking type policy is gonna be high cash value. What that means is we’re gonna grow our cash value inside this insurance policy as fast as we can. This money is gonna stay in compound tax-free for the rest of your life. But because you have that, you can leverage other money. The insurance company will loan you 90% of your cash value. But they’ll loan you their money. Your money stays in the policy. Their money’s automatically loaned to you.
20:46
You put that money in real estate. You do some great real estate deals. You pay the loan back, you rinse and repeat. The whole time you’re doing this, your money’s growing completely tax-free. Plus you’re multiplying the money. Plus you have a death benefit when you hit retirement. What do you do Now? You start taking tax-free loans from the policy to top up your retirement income an extra $500,000 a year. That money. You don’t pay that money back till death. Then there’s a massive death benefit. The death benefit pays off the policy loans and there’s lots left over tax-free death benefit to your family. That’s infinite banking, and at Control and Compound, we are the experts at infinite banking for real estate investors. To learn more, go to controlandcompoundcom.
Speaker 1
21:26
Thanks again for following along with this episode of Inspired to Invest. In addition to real estate investing and running my own brand experience agency for 18 years, I also published a book called the Accidental Entrepreneur in October of 2021. This is my story and it chronicles how I turned tragedy into triumph to embrace my destiny in entrepreneurship. If you’re interested in picking up a copy, you can find the link at serenahomesrealtorcom and you can also find my link tree with all of the retailers in the details below. Thanks again for your support.
22:01
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Inspired to Invest podcast. I have Alfonso Quadra here, the godfather of real estate. He’s sharing with us his humble beginnings and how he went from living on the streets as a teenager to becoming a young father, becoming a millionaire entrepreneur in his early 20s essentially going broke and then getting into real estate and building this huge portfolio. So you’ve talked about starting with that triplex conversion 11 properties in your first year and you look back From then to where you are now. What would you say are some of the biggest obstacles that you’ve faced as you’ve been scaling your portfolio?
Speaker 2
22:37
the the. The one of the biggest obstacles that I faced was Thinking too small, right? You know, people look at my portfolio and the things that I’ve done and they’re like whoa Alfonso, like Amazing you know yeah exactly.
22:58
But you know, I’ve, I’ve spent a lot of time being scared, right. I, you know, I grew up in a, in a in a very tough situation, and that doesn’t build like self-confidence. That self-confidence didn’t come easy to me and Ultimately, you know, I didn’t think that any of this was Possible for me, and if you don’t think it’s possible for you, it will never happen for you. And so, you know, I spent a lot of times just coasting and In contraction, not even knowing it, even though I’m advancing.
23:38
I grew my, I grew my portfolio and I had like these, like bursts of energy, words like, okay, like I can make things happen, you know. And so you know I don’t, I don’t suffer from that anymore. Right, I’m gonna push everything until you know, because in my mind, you know, this is how I Can live life to the fullest, you can live in it in true expansion, in every Barrier of every life. And so the some of the obstacles is thinking too small, not trusting my gut on certain deals, so okay. There’s the other side of it, okay, thinking too small, not trying right, yeah. Or the other side is, you know, thinking you’re invincible, yeah, and not doing the numbers correctly right.
Speaker 1
24:26
Actually, my next question is what’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you as a real estate investor? So maybe that’s like the perfect segue.
Speaker 2
24:34
Well, I mean, I could probably spend the whole Talking about I’ve done a lot of crazy things about a lot of crazy properties. You know, I’m the I’m the value ad guy that went in there and and and, you know, to properties with syringes and prostitutes and Drug dealers and crackheads. You know what I mean. That’s kind of like how I got my start and my, my, some of my obstacles were just assuming. I Just made assumptions that, oh, I can get all these people out. Yeah, oh, the government’s gonna be on my side if someone isn’t. And so you know I made a lot of assumptions. Don’t assume right, what I learned is how to live an expansion grow. But trust my gut, instance right. Trust the experience that I have. Make assumptions on on properties. Don’t live in La La Land.
Speaker 1
25:38
Yeah, and back it up with due diligence. Obviously right, you could have a feeling of something and then you look into it and yeah. They could go on either side.
Speaker 2
25:46
So those two, I mean those are pilot polar opposites right, like on one side I’m thinking too small, right, and it’s like I’m afraid to make a move. But then I get the these bursts of expansion, and then I go through these expansion phases in my life and then All of a sudden, you know, I think that I can do things when I can’t right and do my proper research, do diligent Right, and so you know, a lot of it is like if you’re taking a elastic band and you stretch it to its capacity, you, when you let it go now, now the elastic band is has contracted, but now it’s bigger than it was before, and then stretch it again, and then you let it go again, but now it’s bigger than it was before. Right, so that’s kind of been my life. It’s like they’re in. By no means am I telling people like it’s wrong to contract sometimes.
26:37
Yeah it’s wrong. It’s wrong to to, to Consolidate, and it’s wrong to stabilize. I’m not saying that, in fact, you’re gonna grow, build the portfolio, make sure that everything makes sense, make sure that you’re making money yeah, right, and and then and then grow again, right? So stabilize, maximize, optimize is what I tell my students all the time. Like, yes, you’re gonna be building your portfolio. My mistakes were hey, I kept growing without Stabilizing, okay, making assumptions that I could do things and and I couldn’t. So you got to continue. You got to continue to grow, you got to continue to get out of your own way. Those obstacles for me were, were, were huge. The other thing is the other, I would say, biggest learning and I had. Was it learning or obstacles? That way?
Speaker 1
27:33
Well, yeah, I mean it all kind of ties together, right.
Speaker 2
27:36
Yeah, yeah, the, the, the. The obstacles that I I had to face were when I had to leave certain markets. So At the very beginning I was very local. Then I went to secondary and treasury markets. Yeah, and I, I, then I expanded to other markets and eventually across Canada and the US. So Never underestimate the power of a team. Yeah, um, when you, when you think you can’t afford it, that’s when you have to, yeah, you have to invest in people.
Speaker 1
28:17
Yeah.
Speaker 2
28:18
The gap between where you are and where you need to be in life is people, and so Um one of the obstacles for me was hiring people when I, when I, couldn’t afford it. Yeah she was so crucial for me to continue to build the business. Yeah and so I would say those are the three. The first one, thinking too small. Second one Uh, not making assumptions yeah, making assumption, and, uh, you know, not doing my numbers. And the last one is the the idea of people. Like people to grow, you need people.
Speaker 1
28:50
Yeah, no. When you think about advice that you’ve been given like obviously those are some really good Lessons that you’ve learned, is there anything that stands out to you as some of the best advice and a mentor has given you or a coach that you’ve ever had?
Speaker 2
29:04
the best advice. Actually, someone sat down with me and they’re like okay, yeah, I understand you want all these things now, but let me ask you a question what do you want to be? What do you see yourself in 10 years? Oh, I see myself here, there that my company is doing this, and they’re like okay, so the, the action steps that you’re taking today, are they in alignment with where you are in 10 years? And I was like no, and so, and so the the best advice that I’ve ever was given is like okay, get really clear on the long term vision, yeah, and once you understand what the long term vision is, now bring that to the present and make sure that every single decision that you make is in alignment with that vision. Yeah, because what happens is we get distracted. We have goals, we have this, this false idea of time that we have all of this time when we don’t, yeah, and we just end up wasting a lot of time and moving away from the things that we want.
Speaker 1
30:15
You know and I think it’s easy to get swept away, like to your point, that you’re so busy taking action on things. You know, I was at an event recently in a home builder From BC was speaking and he said that now he has one day a week where it’s just like for thinking, like he literally just as a day where he doesn’t book anything and it’s just so that he can think and reflect and plan. And I think that’s so important because it can get very it’s so easy to get distracted and swept away and all these things and, like you said, it can actually take your focus away from what you’re really trying to build and what you’re trying to achieve.
Speaker 2
30:46
Not every opportunities for you. That’s what I learned. Yeah, you know there’s. There’s lots of opportunity. The problem is the world. That doesn’t. There’s no lack of opportunity in the world. Every single opportunities for you. You don’t have to jump on every single thing. You need to ask yourself are the things that you’re doing, are they in alignment with the ultimate goal? Yeah, but they’re not. Don’t do them.
Speaker 1
31:10
Yeah, no, I hear you on that. And if it’s crisis and compromises, like your peace and your family time, being able to sleep at night, like there’s that balance between you know what you want to achieve in your career and then also the other side of it, right? So, leading to the next question, in terms of financial freedom numbers you’ve talked about you, know this long term plan and you’ve got this big portfolio already. So what does your financial freedom number look like? And I can be anything.
Speaker 2
31:36
I already I already reached my financial freedom number when I was three years old, over 15 years ago. Right, my financial, my financial freedom number doesn’t exist. You know I have everything I need. You know I don’t have to work another day in my life. I know it’s all, it’s all fun. You know, I’m just I’m seeing how far I can take things and I play these games with myself, you know, to challenge myself and continue to grow and expand and ultimately, you know, when I was 30 years old, I realized that.
32:13
You know, life was about fulfillment and what brings me the most fulfillment in life is to help other people achieve their financial goals. And so you know, like I know that, you know, when I, when I had all of my time back, I mean, I was able to be in a position where I can help other people, and I was only able to help people once I had my time back. And that’s that’s exactly what I want to do. You know I want to help humanity by helping them become free. Yeah, once they’re free, they’re going to do amazing things in their lives. Yeah, that’s why I started the Youth Foundation.
32:52
You know the Youth Foundation is. You know it’s. It’s to help young people learn about financial literacy and if they’re not to wait to their 30 or 40 to be financially free, they can do that in their 20s and then go out and do amazing things. Yeah, you know, all of us were so capable of so much we can. I mean disease and all of these things. This is, these are things that are not, are not cured or we haven’t found cures for, because we’re, we just haven’t put all the focus Within like months. We can come up with a cure for COVID-19. Right.
33:34
Yeah, it’s like, it’s like when everybody focuses on this one thing and it’s like this is what we need to solve. Human beings solve problems, that’s. Who are right? Yeah, from the from, from, like all of the problems and issues, of all of the things in life. And so if we can give people their time back, yeah, we’re going to solve amazing problems. Maybe we get new problems, but ultimately, I think it’ll be like a renaissance on earth, right?
34:03
So I want to be just a small part of that. I want to contribute to that. I want to help people get back their time the, the letters, the emails, the the DMs that I get from people that say that thank me and send, you know, send me long letters of how now they get to spend all their time with their families and they know they get, they get to contribute to their churches. To me, that tells me that I need to keep going, right, yeah, and so financial freedom. You know, you asked me that number. I achieved that number. Now I’m more about how many people I can help. I’m on my mission.
Speaker 1
34:39
That could even be your new purposes. How many other people that you help achieve financial freedom Right?
Speaker 3
34:44
Yeah.
Speaker 1
34:45
A million people achieve financial freedom, and I’ve even found that myself that you know. I started participating on different platforms thinking I’ll connect to different audiences, and I wasn’t expecting that every time I did it a few people would reach out. So nice, my day could be half spent just on the calls with people just talking about options and what they could be doing, and I think there’s something really special to know that you’ve had that positive impact and it’s just again that catalyst that might change that trajectory for them. And then they’ve got this return of time with their family or financial freedom, whatever it may be right.
Speaker 3
35:17
And you thought about your youth foundation.
Speaker 1
35:20
When you think of the youth and inspiring them, what’s one thing that you would tell an investor that’s starting out right now?
Speaker 2
35:29
the youth, a youth someone younger.
Speaker 1
35:31
Like you meet someone that’s in grade 10 or 11.
Speaker 2
35:33
What’s one?
Speaker 1
35:34
thing that you want to leave with them, with so that they could try everything you know.
Speaker 2
35:38
what I mean Like the thing about being young is that you can go high risk and high reward you got time to bounce back.
35:47
Yeah, you have time to bounce back, you can try things. You live at home, right, so there’s not those handcuffs of the mortgage and the monthly payments every month. And so you can be creative, you can build, you can create, you can grow, you can shine. And that’s what you should be doing when you’re young, because there is no limits. The limits are, they come when you’re older because, oh, you can’t do this, you can’t do that.
36:14
No, that’s not possible. This is not possible. This is not possible, Right, and so try things. The only way you’re going to know what you like is by doing what you don’t like. Yeah, and you need to try that.
36:29
That’s being young, is having those experiences, and so my foundation, we do one day workshops and they’re called the ultimate teen entrepreneur. So I go through financial literacy, investing in real estate, starting a business, soft skills like learning how to sell, learning how to stand up on stage and delivering a talk and public speaking, all the things that, in my mind, those are the things that are going to matter in the next five years, because everyone is gone behind the screen, that we’re losing those interpersonal skills. And if we can develop those interpersonal skills, those are the people, those are the future leaders are like oh my God, you can talk to people, and so I’m, I’m, I’m passionate about supporting, helping young people start things. Yeah, and that’s the, that’s the, the biggest advice that I will give someone getting getting started. Start, yeah, Just figure it out. You know like, if you have a man, if you can get a mentor, good, if you know like, at the end of the day, nothing should stop you, Right, and you know people like us well, I would say more like me, old folks like me.
37:55
We have to think about things. There’s too much thinking that happens before we do something versus someone that’s young. It’s like you know the best thing that you could be in a, in a in a in the best position you could be. The best position you could be is having nothing, knowing nothing, because it’s a blank slate, and then you could just like input, really good information, and take all the right actions moving forward. Versus someone that has a little bit of success, not even a little bit of success the average, the average go to. You know you got a house, to cars, kids are going to school, this and that. You know you got the average household and you’re afraid to lose that, that you’ll never try.
Speaker 1
38:36
Yeah, yeah, no, I can understand that, I guess, in terms of quotes, like, I love things that inspire people and motivate people. So what would you say is your favorite quote?
Speaker 2
38:47
Success is what you attract by the person you become. So you set, you want to set big goals, you know, and set massive goals, but it’s not for the end result that you’re doing this, for right, like, if you get to your goal, you’re going to be like okay, like you know, if you want to climb Mount Everest, you get to the top, and then what? Yeah, you know what I mean, but the, the, the, the beauty of setting big goals is to see the person that you’re going to become on the way to achieving those goals. And so Jim Rohn, he said success is what you attract by the person you become. Because on the way to chasing these goals, you are getting stronger, you are building connections and you’re attracting all the right people to you. The second you decide to become, that’s when you start attracting the right people, the right circumstances, the right ideas, the right capital, the right deals, the right partnerships, the right everything to match the person you’ve just become. It’s only natural.
Speaker 1
39:45
Yeah, no, I love that. Now, I know we’re running low on time, so I just want to make sure that people can connect with you. I know you’ve got a great platform. You’re launching your own podcast as well, so where can someone that’s out there watching connect with you and find your content?
Speaker 2
39:58
Listen, find me on YouTube. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. I have about 1200 videos on there. I don’t do content, content like, like other people. I’m just kind of like spur of the moment kind of a person and also I say anything there that resonates with you. Reach out.
Speaker 1
40:17
Awesome. Thank you, and we’ll include your information, obviously below. Thank you so much for your time today, alfonso, and for anyone watching. Remember, when you invest in yourself, this guy’s the limit. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks again to our sponsor, control and Compound Financial for bringing you this episode of Inspired to Invest. The views represented on this podcast are for general information only and does not constitute investment or other professional advice or an offering of securities. The hosting guests featured on Inspired to Invest make no representations as to the performance of any particular investment. Should you decide to make an investment, you are responsible for conducting your own review and analysis. It is recommended that you obtain independent legal accounting and tax advice from licensed professionals.