May 22, 2023 • 40 mins
In this episode of Entrepreneur Unleashed, Edward Collins interviews Sergio Trocones, a manager at a hedge fund and former marketing agency owner.
Sergio explains that the freedom to create value was a major factor in leaving the 9-5, and he also remarks that money follows value creation.
He also discussed how reading books and getting close to mentors were fundamental in developing the necessary tenacity when talking to experienced people.
Don't miss out on this insightful conversation!
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If you're like me, you're always looking for ways to grow your business—but what if I told you there was one thing that could help you get to your next level?
I offer web classes on how to Own Nothing But Control Everything. The secrets that millionaires use to stay protected, pay the least taxes possible, and keep growing their wealth. If you're interested in learning more about this opportunity, go to: https://thefinancialfreedomblueprint....
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Edward Collins (00:00):
Awesome. This is entrepreneur unleashed podcast
episode with Sergio. Take oneand there's only one take.
Sergio Tronconis (00:11):
My name is Sergio trakone. And this is
entrepreneur unleashed.
Edward Collins (00:15):
Welcome back to another episode of entrepreneur
unleashed. My name is EdwardCollins, I'm your host. And if
you've been watching any ofthese episodes, you know that I
firmly believe that the best wayto shortcut your journey of
success is to learn vicariouslythrough others, other business
owners that have been throughthe thick and thin of it have
been where you may be now andwhere you're looking to get to,
(00:36):
you can learn from what they'vebeen doing, essentially,
knowledge is is something thatis your power, your ability to
get that knowledge and thenultimately put it into action is
what's going to change yourlife. So we're joined today in
studio by Sergio. Sergio isgoing to talk about his life.
And I'm going to ask him tons ofquestions. And I know you guys
don't want to wait any longer.
So let's just jump right intoit. Sergio, thank you so much
(00:57):
for being here.
Sergio Tronconis (01:00):
Thank you for having me.
Edward Collins (01:01):
Oh, it's a pleasure. I know that that I
know a lot about what you'redoing. But the audience may not.
So if you wouldn't mind give uslike a, a high level perspective
of who you are and what you'redoing right now.
Sergio Tronconis (01:12):
Sure. I am an entrepreneur. And right now I'm
a manager at a hedge fund. Beendoing it for a year now before
that I used to run a marketingagency. So I've been doing a ton
of different things over thelast seven years since I first
quit the nine to five. And yeah,right now it's raising capital
for our hedge fund.
Edward Collins (01:29):
Awesome. When you look at at the nine to five,
that that was, that's where alot of people are at the moment.
They're actually thinking aboutgetting into entrepreneurism,
they're trying to think, well,how can I start a business? What
type of business? Can I start?
What before you start yourbusiness in the nine to five?
What was it that motivated youto want to get out of that?
Sergio Tronconis (01:50):
Well, I think it's a good question. Because
it's, it's different dependingon on anyone you ask. So for me,
it's freedom, right? The nine tofive, I like to do what is best
for the business. And sometimeswhen you work at a business
that's either midscale or large,you can only work within the
parameters that they give you.
So I am a very creative person.
(02:13):
And for me, I need the freedomto find out what's best for the
customer, the investor, andwhat's best for the business.
And if I have that freedom formyself to do, I know that I can
take the business a lot further.
So that's the main reason for meif money comes second, I tend
not to be too money focused, I'drather focus on the business and
(02:34):
the money is the byproduct butof course, you know, the money
would come second.
Edward Collins (02:39):
Yeah, I mean, if you're creating value for people
value creation, it's access tomoney and money follows value
creation in general. So what gotyou into the nine to five
though? Like what Tell me alittle bit about your
background?
Sergio Tronconis (02:51):
So it's funny because I actually I dropped out
of college, okay. And the waythat I got into the nine to five
was coincidental because numberone when I dropped out I was a
biology student. So I knownothing about sales marketing,
okay, you know, in sales is oneof the fundamental aspects of
any business and for any of youguys out there if you are
(03:11):
wanting to get more money inyour in your life, get into
sales, are we say that so I wentto biology dropped out, and I
met this developer through afamily connection. And he was
working with investors, right, Istarted raising so property
development, propertydevelopment, yeah. Okay. He was
raising money from foreigninvestors and raising money
(03:32):
through private equity. And Isaid, I love this space looks
like there's a ton of moneythere. Let me work for you. It
was kind of he gave me a chanceto work there. And that was my
first corporate job, justfiguring out sales and marketing
and raising money from 80 yearolds, and I was a 1920 year old
struggling because, you know,nobody takes a younger kid
(03:52):
serious raising money. But Ithink that for me, was the
fundamental piece of my life todevelop that grit, right is
dealing with all of that. Andthat's where it all started
from.
Edward Collins (04:04):
I know that like as a young person it's it can be
difficult and intimidating to bearound people that have money
because you don't have any yetalso be around people that
haven't life experience, becauseyou don't have any yet exactly
what what was it that that gaveyou the ability, the grit, if
you will, to go into work eachday and meet with people. Did
you have mentors at the time? Orwere you reading lots of books?
(04:26):
Like what was it?
Sergio Tronconis (04:27):
Yeah, actually, it was reading lots of
books, but that's not enough.
Right? I mean, you have toimplement so you read implement
read implement at that age, Idon't know many mentors. So one
of my biggest mentors was theowner of that development. Okay.
We got close, right. He was afamily friend. So you know, our
relationship was closer from thegecko. But it's also finding
people through life right?
(04:51):
There's coincidences that happenyou're at a you're at an event
networking event and you youlook at the person that's way
above you and you need to havethat mindset as every It sucks
in the beginning. And that'sgonna be you and everything
whenever you start. Yeah. Andyou got to understand that the
person that doesn't suck, that'swhere you have to go and connect
with right? And because that'swhat's going to level you up. So
(05:12):
that was that's always been amindset for me is not being the
smartest person in the room. Ifanything being the lowest person
a root cause that tells me I'mright. I mean, you're in the
right room. Yeah. So that'sthat's how it helped me. And yet
it 1920 years years old, imagineme in an oversized suit. Yeah,
you know, and I've been there. Iremember when I did it. So yeah,
(05:32):
I was raising EB fives. And I'msure you know that. Yeah, that
is and it was foreign investors,you know, trying to give them a
green card. Green Card, theirfamily, they're under a lot of
pressure. Yeah. And it wastough. But it was necessary for
me to develop that grit. So putyourself in positions to develop
grit. In order to get far
Edward Collins (05:54):
yeah, the green card through through investment
is definitely an interestingprocess for a lot of people go.
When when you look at thatexperience for you, like when
you were in the nine to five, weuse networking at that point to
where did you So you started offnetworking, getting to know
people because technically youwere in sales, but as an
(06:14):
employee, not as an independentcontractor. Correct.
Sergio Tronconis (06:17):
So it's interesting, because when I got
hired at first, they wouldsupply leads to me, right to
start getting oriented to startmaking calls. And then all of a
sudden, they said, You got tohit the streets. So I had to
develop my own leads. It tooktwo years, but I was able to do
it successfully. I raised 9million at 20 years old. Yeah,
(06:37):
for me at that, at that age washuge. Yeah. And it was good
money. You know, for a 20 year Iwas making the most money out of
all my friends. Exactly. Andyeah, I had to go out there
knock on doors, I was workingwith a lot of realtors, EB
fives, there's a lot of Realtorsin Miami, a lot of dough with
foreign investors. And I wasknocking on a lot of their
doors, and I was able to build awhole database of two to 3000
(07:00):
realtors, Oh, wow. Two years,because I was going to events
everywhere all the time. I wasdriving everywhere every week.
So yeah, I mean, it was it was alot of networking.
Edward Collins (07:09):
What was your like, main like, tool, if you
will, in networking, like didyou have like a tactic that
utilized in order to connectwith people what was at the time
or now at the time.
Sergio Tronconis (07:21):
So at the time, it was? Well through
through through these networksand connections that I would
make, I would always try to havea sales pitch or some type of
presentation for the realtors.
That would be my tactic. Okay,because it was a lot more
transactional. And that's why Iasked you whether it was before
now because now since I am theone of the managing partners of
(07:42):
currents capital, the way Inetwork is getting closer to the
investor really understandingtheir needs, because back then
it was a lot more transactional.
EB five, I know exactly whatyour needs are. You just need to
know your money safe. Right? Andyou need to make sure that we're
developing the necessary jobs sothat you could get your butt
over here. Exactly. So back thenit was a lot of public speaking.
(08:06):
Okay. Yeah.
Edward Collins (08:07):
And then so public speaking is interesting,
too, because you you're goingout in public, talking about
your pitch sharing that pitchwith with people that were
stranger to you otherwise? Whatdid you do in order to learn how
to do that?
Sergio Tronconis (08:19):
Well, trial and error, trial and error and a
lot of YouTube videos, right?
This? God bless my girlfriend,she used to help me a lot, you
know, back then, it was thenitty gritty in the bedroom, one
bedroom apartment that she had.
And, you know, we would practicein there. And I'm sorry, I got
good. But I know that the firstfew presentations were horrific.
(08:40):
Oh, yeah. But eventually, I wasgiving presentations to groups
of 50 people, and then 100people and then 150 people. And
it got interesting.
Edward Collins (08:48):
I think this is a really important topic for
people to really resonate with,because the concept of
practicing so many people don'tdo it. No, like, they'll go out
there, and they'll just try towing it. I mean, I, I think it's
so underrated the value that youget from actually doing things
over and over and again, beforeyou're doing them in front of
(09:08):
other people. Right, exactly. Totest it out. Like I can
remember, when I was younger, Iwas basically learning how to
sell as well. And I would justpractice in front of the mirror,
just saying it over and overagain. I know that sounds
strange. But literally every,every every person of success
has practiced what it takes toget them the success they want.
(09:32):
Right? Like we've talked aboutsports, you're not like if
you're a basketball player,you're not taking shots just in
the game. Right? Right. You'regoing into the courts
beforehand, you're going thecourts after the game and you're
you're doing it over and overagain. But the same thing
happens in business and sales. Ilove I love that you touched on
that. When you look at where youwere then so you were you're
(09:53):
doing pretty well, in the salescapacity. I mean, you raised a
ton of money at such aridiculously young age. Like,
that's unheard of. A lot ofpeople don't do that. Why? Why
did you make a decision then totransition out because you're
making good money?
Sergio Tronconis (10:09):
Because what freedom it was the freedom the
freedom.
Edward Collins (10:12):
Describe the freedom for me, like, what was
it that you were seeking?
Sergio Tronconis (10:15):
It's funny because when I first started at
that development agency, or thatreal estate developer, they were
starting out. So I had, I waswearing many hats. And for me,
that was great, because I wasexploring my strengths. And that
was how I was able to find thatposition of hey, official
capital raiser. And eventually,they came with the process of
(10:38):
implementing strategies andimplementing systems that would
restrict my parameters in myposition. So from there, I said,
Hey, I'm making good money.
Okay, but I'm not happy anymore.
Right. So what did I do, Istarted learning how to trade.
And I've been, I've been tradingfrom before this job. I've been
dabbling. I mean, a lot of youknow, what forex and stocks are.
(11:01):
So I started learning about whatall of that was. And throughout
that transition, I was like, letme really learn how to trade and
like we just said, practice, Istarted waking up earlier
started learning how to tradefrom 4am to 8am, when I had to
go to work, and then when I gothome from 6pm, to 10pm. So I was
trying to condense the mostamount of time to get out in the
(11:23):
fastest amount of time possible.
And I was successfully able todo it. So that was the main
reason trading, I actuallystarted making more than I was
making at that at the developer.
Okay. And I quit from there. Iresigned I hate the word quit. I
resigned. And from there, it'sjust it's, it's been the
entrepreneurship journey. know,when I started
Edward Collins (11:44):
when you handed in that resignation, it was
scary. Did you have a plan B inplace at that point in time or
plan being Oh, man, so what didyou do like though? Like you
handed resignation, then whatwas the next step?
Sergio Tronconis (11:56):
Just as a lot of people trading about keep
growing.
Edward Collins (11:59):
So you're basically saying, Okay, I'm
gonna make my money. Basically,engaging in trading activity.
Exactly. And I'm hoping thatthat'll be enough to support the
lifestyle on
Sergio Tronconis (12:10):
myself and my girlfriend, because that was
another thing, right? We allhave goals. We want to start
retiring. We start making money,we start retiring people. Yeah,
exactly. Right. So yeah, for me,there was never a Plan B, I
just, I can't picture myselfever quitting when I start
something. So yeah, that wasalways my plan a but it's funny,
(12:32):
because in life, there's alwaysgoing to be coincidences. And
throughout the time, I startedmeeting partners, right, like my
current partner, Cody, who was abig piece of my puzzle that
started introducing me to newbusinesses. So one part is
always sticking to the plan A,but always being open to
(12:52):
perceiving those opportunitiesand those strategic partnerships
that could either shift you to anew industry that you haven't
touched yet, or make you betterin your current industry,
because the moment you think youknow, everything you start
losing, yes, you know, so it'salways staying a student.
That's, that's what I've alwaystold myself as well.
Edward Collins (13:10):
Now, during that period of time, did you struggle
at all? Was there any issuesthat came up? Like, tell tell us
a little bit about that?
Sergio Tronconis (13:16):
My rock bottom was when I had to steal toilet
paper from a Japaneserestaurant. Oh, wow.
Edward Collins (13:20):
I'm definitely gonna dive into that. Yeah, what
led up to the rock bottom? Notthe rock bottom itself. But what
led up to it.
Sergio Tronconis (13:28):
The mindset in trading. I mean, if I'm sure
you've traded before, it's, forme, it's 80% mindset. And the
moment I quit those first sixmonths were like living in
heaven, because the negativitiesdidn't start hitting it. The
pressure of maintaining thebills paid, you know, the debt
paid. So I started making badtrades. I started thinking
(13:51):
negatively, more bad tradesstarted coming in, and I started
getting more and more into debt.
The account started coming downand every single day, you're
like, crap, you know, I have tomake another trade, you start
overtrading making more baddecisions. So it's, it's part of
it right now. I laugh, but inthe moment, it was, it was
tough. And that one night, mygirlfriend I went to go eat at a
Japanese restaurant in Miramar,and she came back and we were
(14:13):
outside in the in on the street,and she's like, Hey, I did
something. Don't be mad at me,but I know you're gonna be happy
about it. She opened up herpurse, and it was a piece of
toilet paper or like the wholeroll. And we celebrated and then
we were done celebrating. We'relike, what have we got into that
we're celebrating stealing thispiece of toilet paper. So for
(14:33):
me, might sound silly, but thetoilet paper was a huge shift in
my life. And that becauseremember, when you're in a
negative mindset, you're notperceiving any opportunities.
You're just in the ship. Sothat's what flipped a switch.
And I'm like, Okay, I need to, Iunderstand myself. I can't live
completely off of trading.
(14:54):
Because the pressure for me toomuch. I need to have at least
two sources that offset eachother. And that's where I
started perceivingopportunities. And guess what,
six months later I met mypartner, we started getting into
different businesses, and thingsstarted getting better.
Edward Collins (15:08):
Okay, what was the first business you got into?
Sergio Tronconis (15:11):
With my partner? Yes. Marketing
Marketing? Yeah. So
Edward Collins (15:14):
let's talk about that a little bit like what was
that business like? So it's
Sergio Tronconis (15:17):
all it's, it was all social media marketing,
branding, content creation, youknow, podcasts like this. And I
was always reluctant to be onsocial media. So it was a big
mindset shift, paradigm shift.
And it was tough for me totransition simply because, hey,
I need to do this, or else I'mgonna keep trading negatively.
(15:37):
So I need to offset it. So I hadto have that personal
conversation with myself. Yeah.
And make it happen. So thatagency, we ran it, I ran it with
him for about four or fiveyears, he ran it before me, but
he brought me on as one of theguys that would have the client
relationships with their, withtheir clients, and, you know,
(15:58):
manager of all the people thatwould be working with us. And it
was a good, it was a goodjourney, because that's what
helped me build my socialpresence, because that's what we
were doing for people. And Isaid, Why not myself. So I
started growing my page juststarted creating content started
going to networking events,again. Because as a trader, you
say, I'm a hermit now,
Edward Collins (16:19):
in front of my screens, and I'm gonna exactly
let that be the way I live mylife.
Sergio Tronconis (16:23):
Exactly. And that and I'm an extrovert, I'm
an introverted extrovert. Okay,so I like to go out and meet
people. So for me, I see it as acoincidence, because they're
strengths that I wasn't using.
And thanks to that, I was ableto start using them again. And
they flourish. So I was okay,this is a sign that I gotta I
gotta go all in. And I did. Andthings really blew up from
(16:43):
there. Okay, yeah.
Edward Collins (16:46):
Now, you're in an environment where you're
building your social mediapresence and that point, yep.
What were some of the tacticsyou use to do that?
Sergio Tronconis (16:54):
There's many.
There's, of course, contentcreation, there's advertising,
there's press release that youcan that you can obtain paid
press, it helps with views. Andthen there's leveraging
influencers, right. So we did alot of leveraging influencers,
we had a whole bunch ofconnections that would bring
influencers to the table.
Edward Collins (17:14):
What like, what type of connections you're
talking about, like?
Sergio Tronconis (17:16):
So there's brokers out there that they
would find a plethora ofinfluencers that would be
willing to run campaigns forother people, right? Hey, go
follow this guy. Like, shoutout. So
Edward Collins (17:27):
shout out essentially, yeah. So that
Sergio Tronconis (17:29):
that was the main thing we were doing. Okay.
And that's how I grew mine. Soit was a mix of shout outs going
to networking events andadvertising content. There's,
there's a formula to it. Okay.
Right. But
Edward Collins (17:40):
when you look at at the things that moved the
needle the most, what would thathave been? In what sense from
building like building yoursocial profile? Like, what were
the things that you were doingthat had the most impact?
Getting in front of the camera?
Get in front of? That's itstarted, right? Yep. And how did
you build the confidence to dothat? Because that so many
people are so like, fearful ofgetting on camera in the first
(18:01):
place.
Sergio Tronconis (18:02):
Yeah, same mentality I use when I started
doing the speaking gigs. So it'sfunny, because I've done
speaking, I've done speaking infront of hundreds of people. But
when I raise the camera, and I'min front of a story, I start
stuttering messing up. Yeah.
It's like, how am I gettingnervous with myself? You know,
so? Because there's the on theother side, there's maybe
(18:23):
100,000 50,000 people watchingyou? Yeah, you know, so that's,
it gets in your head. But whatwe mentioned at first is
practice, right? You have to doit. Sometimes you just got to
pick it up, talk your stuff,post it, don't even think about
it. Right. Whatever happens,which sometimes those are the
best type. Oh, is when youactually mess up five times
because you feel more human? Oh,yeah. You know, sometimes we
(18:46):
tend to get too robotic. Soyeah, that was it for me is kind
of just filming, posting,filming, posting until I got
good at it. Yeah.
Edward Collins (18:55):
And it's the repetition, the repetition. We
live in, in this Instagramsociety right now, where most
people just see the end result.
They just see the good stuff.
Exactly. They see the editedclip Exactly. Like I had one
post on on Instagram has like,over two point. Wow. 2.1 million
views on it. That's awesome.
Right. But I didn't take that inone take. I mean, I believe I am
(19:18):
sure. I imagine like my teamcould tell you Yeah, probably
took 19 days. Yeah, in order toget like something that says 45
seconds. And that's the realitylike, yeah, I when I post and
it's published, it sounds great,right? Because it's curated?
Correct. Take my team has editedit. Make sure that you get the
(19:42):
right angles
Sergio Tronconis (19:44):
and they cut you off like that time. Sounds
like a whole sentence soundsexactly. Yeah. And
Edward Collins (19:48):
that process is something even then it's taken
me a long time to be able to getit down to just 19 takes right
Right, right like because one Iam perfectionist, so you don't
need to be that though, right?
There are plenty of people thatcan build a real good social
media presence without, withouthaving like perfection in in the
mix. Right? You can you can justbe authentically you. Right. And
(20:11):
that can move the needle with
Sergio Tronconis (20:14):
Yeah. And I and that's a good topic, because
it.
it's a good point. Becausethere's a lot of influencers out
there that they're too perfect.
Yeah, right. And for me, nowthat we're in the topic of the
marketing, there's an influencerbubble, there's two mega right.
And there's gonna be a pointwhere influencers are just doing
things for money and perfection.
And people are gonna stopfollowing them, people are going
(20:37):
to stop buying from them,companies are going to stop
trusting influencers. Andthere's going to be a whole
shift right of out of themillions of influences, or are
probably half of those are goingto get chopped off. And the ones
that are going to say are theones who are influential in
their own authenticity, andpeople who follow them because
they can actually connect. Butif I go on social media, I'm
(20:58):
like, I'm perfect. I've neverbeen through any struggle, I
make millions on a daily basis,right? Who the hell is gonna
connect with me? Exactly.
Because the big guys aren't onsocial media anyway. Exactly.
You know? So you got to havethat authenticity, and there's
no better vibration thanauthenticity. Oh, my goodness.
Yeah. And authenticity is justwhen you incorporate that
conversations flow.
Edward Collins (21:19):
I was talking with another social media star,
if you will, millions ofsubscribers type of situation.
And he was just talking aboutjust be authentically you.
Because there's a billion peopleon the planet, about 6 billion
of them using using some form ofsocial media at any given point
in time, right? You don't needall 6 billion in your camp, you
(21:41):
need the ones who resonate withyou. And if you if you try to be
fake, I mean, that's just somuch work. Like you constantly
have to be someone who you'renot. I, like I am who I am,
right, like when you see me onsocials, that's just me. Maybe
19 takes later, but it's stillmade. I mean, I don't I don't
present myself to be anythingother than who I am. Right. And
(22:03):
I just think that that's thethat's the thing that that gets
people to connect and resonatewith me. Correct. And I think
that that's why people resonatewith you, you are who you are,
like, when I dive through yoursocial media. And I'm like,
Yeah, that's Sergio. Yeah,because I had a conversation
with him the other day, he's,this is how he talks.
Sergio Tronconis (22:20):
Yeah, I have some videos and reels on there
that I just stuttered two times,and I'm like, whatever.
Edward Collins (22:24):
But that's just you. And that's why people
resonate with you. That's whypeople connect with you. And
that helped move the needle inyour agency. And it build your
build your popularity and buildyour people can know like, and
trust you. What was the nextstep, though? Because the the
marketing endeavor that was howlong was that?
Sergio Tronconis (22:46):
That was years. Yeah, that was that
turned into my whole career,essentially. I mean, I started
doing trading part time at thattime.
Edward Collins (22:52):
Okay. Yeah. And then what made you decide to
make a change? I was again, thathappens, right? You made a
change out of the nine to five,because you want it freedom.
Correct. But now you were in astate of quote, unquote, a
freedom as much as any businessowner can be really free. We're
the crazy one.
Sergio Tronconis (23:11):
We go from nine to five to 24/7.
Edward Collins (23:13):
Exactly right.
We trade the ability to work 40hours for someone else to work
80 to 100 hours for us Exactly.
Which
Sergio Tronconis (23:19):
I really rather do anything. Absolutely.
Edward Collins (23:21):
It's your it's your baby. Yeah. But what was
the thing that motivated you tomake another change,
Sergio Tronconis (23:28):
from marketing, to marketing to
anything else? Well, I thinkthere's two things. Number one,
social media marketing agencies,right now, there's a lot of
them, it got real saturated,gotta be backtrack, it got real
saturate, and there's a lot ofthem that are kind of falling
off, and revenue starts slowingdown. So that's number one. And
number two, we just want it toget bigger. And sometimes the
(23:51):
vehicle that you're in isn't theindicated vehicle, right? It's
not the correct one, there'ssome vehicles that you could
really squeeze the juice out of.
And we said, Where do thewealthy play? Right? Hedge
funds,
Edward Collins (24:05):
they play with money? Money,
Sergio Tronconis (24:06):
Right? So we saw an opportunity, because
we're always also investing ourmoney. And we found some really
good strategies that work forus. So we said, why can't we
just implement these strategies?
We've built a huge network ofpeople over the last six, seven
years. And we bring thoseopportunities to the few people
who are accredited within thosenetworks to our fund. Okay, so
(24:27):
it has to do with that. And, youknow, the strategies that we
found in understanding that,hey, we do have big goals, we do
have audacious goals. We have tofind a new vehicle that that can
do that for US interests. Andfor me, marketing has always
been real good for me because ithelps me better connect with
people, right? Everything has todo with relationships, and being
(24:51):
able to go through thatmarketing phase before I got
into the hedge fund phase. Kindof reintroduce me again, To
start connecting with people,right? Because when I was
trading if I went to trading tostart raising capital again, I
became an introvert. Right?
Because I wasn't talking toanyone other than my girlfriend,
my family. Right, right. Soyeah, that's that's why I
(25:13):
transitioned... For me.
Edward Collins (25:15):
When you when you look at that transition
itself, though, like, obviouslythat you recognize that that's
where money was was washappening, right? Correct. Yeah.
But what what were the steps youtook?
Sergio Tronconis (25:27):
Because it was tough?
Edward Collins (25:31):
So what steps did you take one to learn about
that? And then to implement it.
Sergio Tronconis (25:37):
So first of all, there's transitioning
within industries where there'sgoing to be a gap, right?
Because opening the fund tookabout four or five months, okay?
It took money took a lot ofmoney. And of course, through
that five month period, you'respeaking to your attorney, your
admin, group, your auditors andyou're learning through the
steps that you go through mypartner, he has real good
(25:57):
connections with a lot ofdifferent attorneys and admin
groups that the attorney is ableto refer. So he starts learning
about that. I bring in myexpertise of capital raising,
and I start reintroducing myselfto that. So there's that five
month transition where it wentfrom making a ton of revenue to
stopping the agency and makingno money. Yeah, so that was that
(26:18):
for me, that was scary. Yeah,but but I was like, hey, if I
did this once, I could do itagain, right. And every single
time we go through this four orfive months transition, because
it's not the first time I'vedone it, I know that when it's
done, and we start the ballrolling, the the return is 10x,
Ray, 100x, whatever it is. Sothroughout those five months, it
(26:40):
was a lot of going back to thedrawing board reading books on
investing again, right, becauseI do have my own trading
strategy, but we're working forretail investors and
institutional investors,accredited investors. So
throughout those five months, itwas just reintroducing myself to
it, learning everything I couldabout the hedge fund, I mean, I
have money saved up. So it's notlike throughout the five month
(27:02):
period, I need to figuresomething else out to do right.
So I just, it was like schoolfor me, you know, went back to
school, with books and YouTubeUniversity. Yeah, right. Nothing
is just learning. Now it'slearning through experience,
right? Every single month, welearn something new, every
single month, we have morecapital A under management. And
with that, you have to updateyour strategy. And you have to
(27:24):
change your strategy, right? Forevery X amount of money you
manage. You need new strategies.
It's not the same one isn'tgoing to work the same. If you
have 10 million today and 100million tomorrow. You know, you
know this. So it's, it's, it'sit's a progressive learning
progress. Process. Yeah.
Edward Collins (27:44):
When you look at at the YouTube University, as an
example, what I find so manypeople trying to do is is to
wing it, and just like go onthere and use it as a search
engine and hope for the best.
Like, how did you learn tocurate the information you're
getting? Because that seems tobe the most difficult thing?
Sergio Tronconis (28:02):
Yeah. Cuz there's a lot of information out
there that you shouldn't listento. Definitely. Yeah. And I
think it's learning throughexperience. So when I started, I
got rid of all those personaldevelopment videos that you
would see right, that thinkingGrow Rich, Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
There's a ton of other booksthat I've read. So right now,
(28:23):
I'm not focused on personaldevelopment, but I know exactly
what my investor needs from me.
And I know how to curate thatand find the specific
information. And once I do,whoever is teaching that that
influencer or YouTuber, I haveto research them to make sure
that they are doing what theysay. Because there's guys out
there that they say how tomanage 100 million. I can't talk
about that, because I'm notthere yet. But they are because
(28:46):
they read it or learn from itfrom another YouTube channel.
Right? You know, you're notthere yet. You can't be
teaching. If you haven't hadthat experience, yet. There's
ways that you can do it. Butyeah, that's that's my process
is making sure that that personknows what they're doing, and
that it's a proven process.
Edward Collins (29:05):
I find that it's so difficult because like, what
I've gotten into now is a lot ofpeople will ask me to take a
look at the videos that theyfind online and determine
whether or not it's legitimate.
Right. And there are I thinkthere are a lot of well meaning
content creators out there
Sergio Tronconis (29:20):
I saw that you reviewed a few..
Edward Collins (29:22):
I tried to be nice about it, because I think
for the most part, a lot of themare well meaning like they
they're just trying to do what'sbest for their community. And
they share things that they mayhave heard, but it's not stuff
that they actually know. Yep.
And like it's taken me 25 yearsto learn the things that I know
about the tax code and how tostructure businesses and how to
(29:42):
create wealth through businessor real estate. Like it's taken
me a long time to learn thatstuff. And I've learned it by
actually doing it right. So whenI jump into some of these
videos, and you hear some of thethings that are said, I'm like,
Why did you ever hear that?
Because that's just not rightlike Like you can't do it that
way, in your curation process,then so you would you'd go back
(30:07):
and investigate thoseindividuals who were sharing the
concepts with like so that youknew that you could follow it.
Sergio Tronconis (30:12):
Of course, for example, there's a guy on online
that I'm going to one of hisevents this month is called
Bridger Pennington fund launch.
Yeah. He's talking about openingup hedge funds. So I wanted to
make sure that he's ran a hedgefund before and that's been
successful at it. And that'spretty as simple as a Google
search and searching maybe eventhe companies that they own
right? You just start goingthrough that rabbit hole,
Edward Collins (30:36):
Do your due diligence,
Sergio Tronconis (30:37):
Do your due diligence. Exactly. Everyone
should always do it no matterwhat you're doing, either
researching for education, orresearching to make an
investment. Yeah, you got to doit. You know. And it's funny
because people go to universityin school, and they don't
research it on teachers.
Exactly. Right. Oh, who is thisguy? That's research that's
working people working inHarvard, for example, that might
be teaching an MBA right classor course, and they've never ran
(31:01):
a successful business orbusiness worth a billion
dollars. And they're justtalking about how to do that.
Right. Right.
Edward Collins (31:10):
So it's difference between academics and
real wisdom. Right, exactly.
Wisdom is a practicalapplication of knowledge earned.
Sergio Tronconis (31:17):
Exactly. And you can write a review on
someone who did it. Yeah. Butit's not the same coming from
that person. Exactly. You know,there's pieces of experience,
like you said, that you don'tpost anywhere you keep it to
yourself until somebody asks,exactly, you know, wow,
Edward Collins (31:34):
When you look at at where you are now, then so so
you're operating this hedgefund, you're building it up?
Like, what's your day to day?
Like? What do you what are youengaged in on it?
Sergio Tronconis (31:43):
So right now I'm taking the position as well
as COO. So we are implementingprocesses for current client
relationships, we'reimplementing, hopefully, a new
CRM soon. But my day to daywork, I wake up, you know, I do
my my routine, I have to makesure that I'm good mentally and
physically, before I go outthere and start speaking to
(32:04):
people. And pretty much there'sa lot of calls throughout the
day to raise capital. And nowwe're going to be, you know,
building more relationships withour investors. So it's, it's a
mix of just a bunch of calls forinvestors, making sure
everything is going right. Andwe do daily reporting for
investors. So we have a town.
Yeah, it's rigorous. But we're,it's competitive. You want to
(32:26):
stay ahead. And yeah, that's,that's my day to day. It's,
it's, it's simple. But I've beenable to structure it to call it
simple, you know,
Edward Collins (32:38):
I'm curious, like, as, as Chief Operating
Officer, a few LC Oh, thedevelopment of process and
procedure, like, tell us alittle bit about how you go
about doing that. Because Ithink that that's an area that a
lot of business owners strugglein, that they don't build out
processes and procedures, notofficially, right. And they all
they sort of wing it, right? Alot of business owners are,
(33:01):
unfortunately, in the habit ofwinging it, because sometimes
Sergio Tronconis (33:04):
they get it right, and a lack of lack of
capital to lack of capital.
Edward Collins (33:08):
So what's your what's your process for
developing processes andprocedures?
Sergio Tronconis (33:12):
So it's funny, because I've learned through
osmosis, and I've learnedthrough courses that okay, so I
took a course for six sigma, oh,yeah, while I was working with
developer, and while I wasworking with the developer,
that's where he made thetransition from a new company to
a company with strategies or acompany with structure and
(33:34):
processes. So I was able tophysically be there as it
happened. So I took all of thatin. And for me, it's what I did
with the marketing agency withmy partner, when he brought in I
developed systems to streamlineprocesses. And if you're getting
into a company that already hasemployees, and has people taking
different hats, number one ismaking sure that each person
(33:56):
knows what hat they have oninterviewing that person making
sure that they're even strongfor that position. And if
they're not, you switch themover to another one, and
replicating that process for anew hire. So it's grabbing
everyone's input, making surethey're right for it, making
sure that that process thatthey're managing either for
account managers, capitalraisers, administrators,
(34:18):
whatever it is that you canreplicate that for somebody
else. Mm hmm. So that's the wayI see it. And fixing those
little discrepancies in theprocesses that aren't
unnecessary that then that mightbe costing time and money. And
those processes usually resultin more money and a happier
investor, right?
Edward Collins (34:36):
Yeah.
Interesting. When you look at atwhat's next for you guys, like
where do you see things goingover the course of the next two
to five years.
Sergio Tronconis (34:44):
We want to get to a billion dollars a year. We
have been implementing strategicpartnerships. Right now. We have
strategies in equities andforex. We're getting into
private equity with with astrategic partnership that's
been To bring us access to thoseprivate deals before the IPO,
(35:05):
and then we're getting into realestate. So it's moving into new
vehicles, again, the whole thingthat's gonna bring us the
capacity to bring that amount ofmoney in and being able to
consistently bring in a positivereturn. Okay, so that we have an
audacious goal and is to have abillion AUM.
Edward Collins (35:25):
It's definitely doable. It's definitely do. When
you look at at the areas ofstruggle right now, though,
like, what what would youidentify as the biggest
challenges that you guys aregoing through?
Sergio Tronconis (35:35):
Like any new fund, and I'm assuming because
we're a new fund, and I'vespoken to other guys that have
newer funds, it's getting in thestreets, right, getting around
the right circles, okay,building trust, and sometimes
that trust comes with time.
Yeah. And unfortunately, wecan't speed up time, you know.
So that's the biggestchallenges, okay, we're getting
into the right rooms, we are theNew Kids on the Block, we're
(35:57):
always going to be perceived asthat, until we hit, we hit our
five year mark 10 year mark,which is fine. But that's it,
because everything else has beenthank God has been pretty,
pretty smooth. Right? Raisingcapital has been smooth, the
returns have been smooth. So, sofar, so good.
Edward Collins (36:20):
One of the things I like to do with every
guest that comes on is I like todo sort of like this mental
exercise, okay. And if youwouldn't mind, taking those
journey, what I'd like to do isI want you to imagine for a
moment that you have the abilityto go back in time, okay, any
previous version of your you andyour life. And you can share
(36:43):
with that younger version ofSergio, one piece of wisdom.
What would that nugget of wisdombe? And who would you be giving
it to?
Sergio Tronconis (36:52):
Well? There's so many things, I'd like to say,
yeah. Because in every, in everyphase, you have different
worries and different doubts. Iwould say number one is never
doubt yourself, okay? I'd keepit very simple and condensed. I
would say just don't doubtyourself, it's going to be fine.
(37:14):
It's always going to be fine.
Just keep that positivementality. Don't get into the
negative turn of things, becausethat will bring more negativity.
But always trust yourself. Ifyou can't trust yourself, nobody
else is going to trust you. Sothat and stick it through.
Somebody told me stick itthrough seven years ago that's
been engraved in my head, everytime I go through some type of
(37:34):
trouble or whatever. That quote,keeps me going.
Edward Collins (37:41):
What younger version of Sergio needed to hear
that most?
Sergio Tronconis (37:45):
Right before I started working in my corporate
job, okay, and the the one whenhe quit, and it was a year later
when I was really struggling.
Yeah. Those two. Wow. Andthere's gonna be a lot I'm sure.
Edward Collins (37:59):
That's life, right? Yeah. Well, I wonder if
there's a second parts of thisexercise. Okay. I want you to
imagine then, for a moment, thata future version of Sergio has
now come back in this moment andis joining us during this
conversation, and he's going toshare a piece of wisdom with you
now. What would he share?
Sergio Tronconis (38:19):
I would say it's gonna turn out a lot better
than you expect. Yes, yeah. Ilove that, you know, all those
little worries and things thathappen. In between, it's gonna
turn out way better than youexpect. I love it. You know, and
I don't know if you've ever seenthat video, which is a visual of
you in a problem and then itstarts panning out and it goes
(38:40):
into the universe and then thegalaxies. So yeah, yeah. little
speck in the universe. We allare at the end of the day. None
of it matters. Right. But it'salways going to turn out better
than you expect.
Edward Collins (38:51):
Yeah, yeah. Now is the only thing that's real.
Sergio Tronconis (38:54):
Now is the only thing that matters. The
past is in it's frozen, it can'tmove. It can't change. The
future hasn't happened yet. Soright now is what you need to do
to make whatever it is you wantto do happen.
Edward Collins (39:07):
Wow. You know, well, I appreciate you so much
for coming out here and how ifthe audience wanted to get in
touch with you learn more aboutwhat you're doing, like your
story, how you're actuallyhelping people like what's the
best way for them to get intouch with you?
Sergio Tronconis (39:20):
My Instagram?
Okay, so it's my first and lastname Sergio Tronconis one
underscore That's it.
Edward Collins (39:26):
Okay. Yeah. So all the fake ones out there to
make sure that yeah,
Sergio Tronconis (39:30):
that's the one is not wondering what kind of
discord
Edward Collins (39:34):
I'll make sure that it's in the show notes as
well. Sir, thank you so much forcoming out and sharing so
authentically with us. Sure. Iknow that I've enjoyed it. And
guys, I know you've enjoyed ittoo. And if you have and you're
not yet a member of up level andour community you're definitely
want to do it because eventhough this particular episode
is over, so just going to besticking around to share some
(39:55):
actionable counsel to theindividuals that are part of the
community. So if you You want tolearn how to get access to that,
be sure to go to uplevelentrepreneur.com forward slash
join up level and ultimately getan opportunity to learn
vicariously through this guy,even more than you've already
enjoyed so far. Once again, myname is Edward Collins. This has
(40:16):
been another episode ofentrepreneur unleashed. I thank
you so much for investing yourtime with us. And I look forward
to seeing you on the nextepisode. Bye for now. Sergio,
thank you so much. Thank you.
I'm breaking careful there. Thatwas so awesome.
Awesome. This is entrepreneur unleashed podcast
episode with Sergio. Take oneand there's only one take.
Sergio Tronconis (00:11):
My name is Sergio trakone. And this is
entrepreneur unleashed.
Edward Collins (00:15):
Welcome back to another episode of entrepreneur
unleashed. My name is EdwardCollins, I'm your host. And if
you've been watching any ofthese episodes, you know that I
firmly believe that the best wayto shortcut your journey of
success is to learn vicariouslythrough others, other business
owners that have been throughthe thick and thin of it have
been where you may be now andwhere you're looking to get to,
(00:36):
you can learn from what they'vebeen doing, essentially,
knowledge is is something thatis your power, your ability to
get that knowledge and thenultimately put it into action is
what's going to change yourlife. So we're joined today in
studio by Sergio. Sergio isgoing to talk about his life.
And I'm going to ask him tons ofquestions. And I know you guys
don't want to wait any longer.
So let's just jump right intoit. Sergio, thank you so much
(00:57):
for being here.
Sergio Tronconis (01:00):
Thank you for having me.
Edward Collins (01:01):
Oh, it's a pleasure. I know that that I
know a lot about what you'redoing. But the audience may not.
So if you wouldn't mind give uslike a, a high level perspective
of who you are and what you'redoing right now.
Sergio Tronconis (01:12):
Sure. I am an entrepreneur. And right now I'm
a manager at a hedge fund. Beendoing it for a year now before
that I used to run a marketingagency. So I've been doing a ton
of different things over thelast seven years since I first
quit the nine to five. And yeah,right now it's raising capital
for our hedge fund.
Edward Collins (01:29):
Awesome. When you look at at the nine to five,
that that was, that's where alot of people are at the moment.
They're actually thinking aboutgetting into entrepreneurism,
they're trying to think, well,how can I start a business? What
type of business? Can I start?
What before you start yourbusiness in the nine to five?
What was it that motivated youto want to get out of that?
Sergio Tronconis (01:50):
Well, I think it's a good question. Because
it's, it's different dependingon on anyone you ask. So for me,
it's freedom, right? The nine tofive, I like to do what is best
for the business. And sometimeswhen you work at a business
that's either midscale or large,you can only work within the
parameters that they give you.
So I am a very creative person.
(02:13):
And for me, I need the freedomto find out what's best for the
customer, the investor, andwhat's best for the business.
And if I have that freedom formyself to do, I know that I can
take the business a lot further.
So that's the main reason for meif money comes second, I tend
not to be too money focused, I'drather focus on the business and
(02:34):
the money is the byproduct butof course, you know, the money
would come second.
Edward Collins (02:39):
Yeah, I mean, if you're creating value for people
value creation, it's access tomoney and money follows value
creation in general. So what gotyou into the nine to five
though? Like what Tell me alittle bit about your
background?
Sergio Tronconis (02:51):
So it's funny because I actually I dropped out
of college, okay. And the waythat I got into the nine to five
was coincidental because numberone when I dropped out I was a
biology student. So I knownothing about sales marketing,
okay, you know, in sales is oneof the fundamental aspects of
any business and for any of youguys out there if you are
(03:11):
wanting to get more money inyour in your life, get into
sales, are we say that so I wentto biology dropped out, and I
met this developer through afamily connection. And he was
working with investors, right, Istarted raising so property
development, propertydevelopment, yeah. Okay. He was
raising money from foreigninvestors and raising money
(03:32):
through private equity. And Isaid, I love this space looks
like there's a ton of moneythere. Let me work for you. It
was kind of he gave me a chanceto work there. And that was my
first corporate job, justfiguring out sales and marketing
and raising money from 80 yearolds, and I was a 1920 year old
struggling because, you know,nobody takes a younger kid
(03:52):
serious raising money. But Ithink that for me, was the
fundamental piece of my life todevelop that grit, right is
dealing with all of that. Andthat's where it all started
from.
Edward Collins (04:04):
I know that like as a young person it's it can be
difficult and intimidating to bearound people that have money
because you don't have any yetalso be around people that
haven't life experience, becauseyou don't have any yet exactly
what what was it that that gaveyou the ability, the grit, if
you will, to go into work eachday and meet with people. Did
you have mentors at the time? Orwere you reading lots of books?
(04:26):
Like what was it?
Sergio Tronconis (04:27):
Yeah, actually, it was reading lots of
books, but that's not enough.
Right? I mean, you have toimplement so you read implement
read implement at that age, Idon't know many mentors. So one
of my biggest mentors was theowner of that development. Okay.
We got close, right. He was afamily friend. So you know, our
relationship was closer from thegecko. But it's also finding
people through life right?
(04:51):
There's coincidences that happenyou're at a you're at an event
networking event and you youlook at the person that's way
above you and you need to havethat mindset as every It sucks
in the beginning. And that'sgonna be you and everything
whenever you start. Yeah. Andyou got to understand that the
person that doesn't suck, that'swhere you have to go and connect
with right? And because that'swhat's going to level you up. So
(05:12):
that was that's always been amindset for me is not being the
smartest person in the room. Ifanything being the lowest person
a root cause that tells me I'mright. I mean, you're in the
right room. Yeah. So that'sthat's how it helped me. And yet
it 1920 years years old, imagineme in an oversized suit. Yeah,
you know, and I've been there. Iremember when I did it. So yeah,
(05:32):
I was raising EB fives. And I'msure you know that. Yeah, that
is and it was foreign investors,you know, trying to give them a
green card. Green Card, theirfamily, they're under a lot of
pressure. Yeah. And it wastough. But it was necessary for
me to develop that grit. So putyourself in positions to develop
grit. In order to get far
Edward Collins (05:54):
yeah, the green card through through investment
is definitely an interestingprocess for a lot of people go.
When when you look at thatexperience for you, like when
you were in the nine to five, weuse networking at that point to
where did you So you started offnetworking, getting to know
people because technically youwere in sales, but as an
(06:14):
employee, not as an independentcontractor. Correct.
Sergio Tronconis (06:17):
So it's interesting, because when I got
hired at first, they wouldsupply leads to me, right to
start getting oriented to startmaking calls. And then all of a
sudden, they said, You got tohit the streets. So I had to
develop my own leads. It tooktwo years, but I was able to do
it successfully. I raised 9million at 20 years old. Yeah,
(06:37):
for me at that, at that age washuge. Yeah. And it was good
money. You know, for a 20 year Iwas making the most money out of
all my friends. Exactly. Andyeah, I had to go out there
knock on doors, I was workingwith a lot of realtors, EB
fives, there's a lot of Realtorsin Miami, a lot of dough with
foreign investors. And I wasknocking on a lot of their
doors, and I was able to build awhole database of two to 3000
(07:00):
realtors, Oh, wow. Two years,because I was going to events
everywhere all the time. I wasdriving everywhere every week.
So yeah, I mean, it was it was alot of networking.
Edward Collins (07:09):
What was your like, main like, tool, if you
will, in networking, like didyou have like a tactic that
utilized in order to connectwith people what was at the time
or now at the time.
Sergio Tronconis (07:21):
So at the time, it was? Well through
through through these networksand connections that I would
make, I would always try to havea sales pitch or some type of
presentation for the realtors.
That would be my tactic. Okay,because it was a lot more
transactional. And that's why Iasked you whether it was before
now because now since I am theone of the managing partners of
(07:42):
currents capital, the way Inetwork is getting closer to the
investor really understandingtheir needs, because back then
it was a lot more transactional.
EB five, I know exactly whatyour needs are. You just need to
know your money safe. Right? Andyou need to make sure that we're
developing the necessary jobs sothat you could get your butt
over here. Exactly. So back thenit was a lot of public speaking.
(08:06):
Okay. Yeah.
Edward Collins (08:07):
And then so public speaking is interesting,
too, because you you're goingout in public, talking about
your pitch sharing that pitchwith with people that were
stranger to you otherwise? Whatdid you do in order to learn how
to do that?
Sergio Tronconis (08:19):
Well, trial and error, trial and error and a
lot of YouTube videos, right?
This? God bless my girlfriend,she used to help me a lot, you
know, back then, it was thenitty gritty in the bedroom, one
bedroom apartment that she had.
And, you know, we would practicein there. And I'm sorry, I got
good. But I know that the firstfew presentations were horrific.
(08:40):
Oh, yeah. But eventually, I wasgiving presentations to groups
of 50 people, and then 100people and then 150 people. And
it got interesting.
Edward Collins (08:48):
I think this is a really important topic for
people to really resonate with,because the concept of
practicing so many people don'tdo it. No, like, they'll go out
there, and they'll just try towing it. I mean, I, I think it's
so underrated the value that youget from actually doing things
over and over and again, beforeyou're doing them in front of
(09:08):
other people. Right, exactly. Totest it out. Like I can
remember, when I was younger, Iwas basically learning how to
sell as well. And I would justpractice in front of the mirror,
just saying it over and overagain. I know that sounds
strange. But literally every,every every person of success
has practiced what it takes toget them the success they want.
(09:32):
Right? Like we've talked aboutsports, you're not like if
you're a basketball player,you're not taking shots just in
the game. Right? Right. You'regoing into the courts
beforehand, you're going thecourts after the game and you're
you're doing it over and overagain. But the same thing
happens in business and sales. Ilove I love that you touched on
that. When you look at where youwere then so you were you're
(09:53):
doing pretty well, in the salescapacity. I mean, you raised a
ton of money at such aridiculously young age. Like,
that's unheard of. A lot ofpeople don't do that. Why? Why
did you make a decision then totransition out because you're
making good money?
Sergio Tronconis (10:09):
Because what freedom it was the freedom the
freedom.
Edward Collins (10:12):
Describe the freedom for me, like, what was
it that you were seeking?
Sergio Tronconis (10:15):
It's funny because when I first started at
that development agency, or thatreal estate developer, they were
starting out. So I had, I waswearing many hats. And for me,
that was great, because I wasexploring my strengths. And that
was how I was able to find thatposition of hey, official
capital raiser. And eventually,they came with the process of
(10:38):
implementing strategies andimplementing systems that would
restrict my parameters in myposition. So from there, I said,
Hey, I'm making good money.
Okay, but I'm not happy anymore.
Right. So what did I do, Istarted learning how to trade.
And I've been, I've been tradingfrom before this job. I've been
dabbling. I mean, a lot of youknow, what forex and stocks are.
(11:01):
So I started learning about whatall of that was. And throughout
that transition, I was like, letme really learn how to trade and
like we just said, practice, Istarted waking up earlier
started learning how to tradefrom 4am to 8am, when I had to
go to work, and then when I gothome from 6pm, to 10pm. So I was
trying to condense the mostamount of time to get out in the
(11:23):
fastest amount of time possible.
And I was successfully able todo it. So that was the main
reason trading, I actuallystarted making more than I was
making at that at the developer.
Okay. And I quit from there. Iresigned I hate the word quit. I
resigned. And from there, it'sjust it's, it's been the
entrepreneurship journey. know,when I started
Edward Collins (11:44):
when you handed in that resignation, it was
scary. Did you have a plan B inplace at that point in time or
plan being Oh, man, so what didyou do like though? Like you
handed resignation, then whatwas the next step?
Sergio Tronconis (11:56):
Just as a lot of people trading about keep
growing.
Edward Collins (11:59):
So you're basically saying, Okay, I'm
gonna make my money. Basically,engaging in trading activity.
Exactly. And I'm hoping thatthat'll be enough to support the
lifestyle on
Sergio Tronconis (12:10):
myself and my girlfriend, because that was
another thing, right? We allhave goals. We want to start
retiring. We start making money,we start retiring people. Yeah,
exactly. Right. So yeah, for me,there was never a Plan B, I
just, I can't picture myselfever quitting when I start
something. So yeah, that wasalways my plan a but it's funny,
(12:32):
because in life, there's alwaysgoing to be coincidences. And
throughout the time, I startedmeeting partners, right, like my
current partner, Cody, who was abig piece of my puzzle that
started introducing me to newbusinesses. So one part is
always sticking to the plan A,but always being open to
(12:52):
perceiving those opportunitiesand those strategic partnerships
that could either shift you to anew industry that you haven't
touched yet, or make you betterin your current industry,
because the moment you think youknow, everything you start
losing, yes, you know, so it'salways staying a student.
That's, that's what I've alwaystold myself as well.
Edward Collins (13:10):
Now, during that period of time, did you struggle
at all? Was there any issuesthat came up? Like, tell tell us
a little bit about that?
Sergio Tronconis (13:16):
My rock bottom was when I had to steal toilet
paper from a Japaneserestaurant. Oh, wow.
Edward Collins (13:20):
I'm definitely gonna dive into that. Yeah, what
led up to the rock bottom? Notthe rock bottom itself. But what
led up to it.
Sergio Tronconis (13:28):
The mindset in trading. I mean, if I'm sure
you've traded before, it's, forme, it's 80% mindset. And the
moment I quit those first sixmonths were like living in
heaven, because the negativitiesdidn't start hitting it. The
pressure of maintaining thebills paid, you know, the debt
paid. So I started making badtrades. I started thinking
(13:51):
negatively, more bad tradesstarted coming in, and I started
getting more and more into debt.
The account started coming downand every single day, you're
like, crap, you know, I have tomake another trade, you start
overtrading making more baddecisions. So it's, it's part of
it right now. I laugh, but inthe moment, it was, it was
tough. And that one night, mygirlfriend I went to go eat at a
Japanese restaurant in Miramar,and she came back and we were
(14:13):
outside in the in on the street,and she's like, Hey, I did
something. Don't be mad at me,but I know you're gonna be happy
about it. She opened up herpurse, and it was a piece of
toilet paper or like the wholeroll. And we celebrated and then
we were done celebrating. We'relike, what have we got into that
we're celebrating stealing thispiece of toilet paper. So for
(14:33):
me, might sound silly, but thetoilet paper was a huge shift in
my life. And that becauseremember, when you're in a
negative mindset, you're notperceiving any opportunities.
You're just in the ship. Sothat's what flipped a switch.
And I'm like, Okay, I need to, Iunderstand myself. I can't live
completely off of trading.
(14:54):
Because the pressure for me toomuch. I need to have at least
two sources that offset eachother. And that's where I
started perceivingopportunities. And guess what,
six months later I met mypartner, we started getting into
different businesses, and thingsstarted getting better.
Edward Collins (15:08):
Okay, what was the first business you got into?
Sergio Tronconis (15:11):
With my partner? Yes. Marketing
Marketing? Yeah. So
Edward Collins (15:14):
let's talk about that a little bit like what was
that business like? So it's
Sergio Tronconis (15:17):
all it's, it was all social media marketing,
branding, content creation, youknow, podcasts like this. And I
was always reluctant to be onsocial media. So it was a big
mindset shift, paradigm shift.
And it was tough for me totransition simply because, hey,
I need to do this, or else I'mgonna keep trading negatively.
(15:37):
So I need to offset it. So I hadto have that personal
conversation with myself. Yeah.
And make it happen. So thatagency, we ran it, I ran it with
him for about four or fiveyears, he ran it before me, but
he brought me on as one of theguys that would have the client
relationships with their, withtheir clients, and, you know,
(15:58):
manager of all the people thatwould be working with us. And it
was a good, it was a goodjourney, because that's what
helped me build my socialpresence, because that's what we
were doing for people. And Isaid, Why not myself. So I
started growing my page juststarted creating content started
going to networking events,again. Because as a trader, you
say, I'm a hermit now,
Edward Collins (16:19):
in front of my screens, and I'm gonna exactly
let that be the way I live mylife.
Sergio Tronconis (16:23):
Exactly. And that and I'm an extrovert, I'm
an introverted extrovert. Okay,so I like to go out and meet
people. So for me, I see it as acoincidence, because they're
strengths that I wasn't using.
And thanks to that, I was ableto start using them again. And
they flourish. So I was okay,this is a sign that I gotta I
gotta go all in. And I did. Andthings really blew up from
(16:43):
there. Okay, yeah.
Edward Collins (16:46):
Now, you're in an environment where you're
building your social mediapresence and that point, yep.
What were some of the tacticsyou use to do that?
Sergio Tronconis (16:54):
There's many.
There's, of course, contentcreation, there's advertising,
there's press release that youcan that you can obtain paid
press, it helps with views. Andthen there's leveraging
influencers, right. So we did alot of leveraging influencers,
we had a whole bunch ofconnections that would bring
influencers to the table.
Edward Collins (17:14):
What like, what type of connections you're
talking about, like?
Sergio Tronconis (17:16):
So there's brokers out there that they
would find a plethora ofinfluencers that would be
willing to run campaigns forother people, right? Hey, go
follow this guy. Like, shoutout. So
Edward Collins (17:27):
shout out essentially, yeah. So that
Sergio Tronconis (17:29):
that was the main thing we were doing. Okay.
And that's how I grew mine. Soit was a mix of shout outs going
to networking events andadvertising content. There's,
there's a formula to it. Okay.
Right. But
Edward Collins (17:40):
when you look at at the things that moved the
needle the most, what would thathave been? In what sense from
building like building yoursocial profile? Like, what were
the things that you were doingthat had the most impact?
Getting in front of the camera?
Get in front of? That's itstarted, right? Yep. And how did
you build the confidence to dothat? Because that so many
people are so like, fearful ofgetting on camera in the first
(18:01):
place.
Sergio Tronconis (18:02):
Yeah, same mentality I use when I started
doing the speaking gigs. So it'sfunny, because I've done
speaking, I've done speaking infront of hundreds of people. But
when I raise the camera, and I'min front of a story, I start
stuttering messing up. Yeah.
It's like, how am I gettingnervous with myself? You know,
so? Because there's the on theother side, there's maybe
(18:23):
100,000 50,000 people watchingyou? Yeah, you know, so that's,
it gets in your head. But whatwe mentioned at first is
practice, right? You have to doit. Sometimes you just got to
pick it up, talk your stuff,post it, don't even think about
it. Right. Whatever happens,which sometimes those are the
best type. Oh, is when youactually mess up five times
because you feel more human? Oh,yeah. You know, sometimes we
(18:46):
tend to get too robotic. Soyeah, that was it for me is kind
of just filming, posting,filming, posting until I got
good at it. Yeah.
Edward Collins (18:55):
And it's the repetition, the repetition. We
live in, in this Instagramsociety right now, where most
people just see the end result.
They just see the good stuff.
Exactly. They see the editedclip Exactly. Like I had one
post on on Instagram has like,over two point. Wow. 2.1 million
views on it. That's awesome.
Right. But I didn't take that inone take. I mean, I believe I am
(19:18):
sure. I imagine like my teamcould tell you Yeah, probably
took 19 days. Yeah, in order toget like something that says 45
seconds. And that's the realitylike, yeah, I when I post and
it's published, it sounds great,right? Because it's curated?
Correct. Take my team has editedit. Make sure that you get the
(19:42):
right angles
Sergio Tronconis (19:44):
and they cut you off like that time. Sounds
like a whole sentence soundsexactly. Yeah. And
Edward Collins (19:48):
that process is something even then it's taken
me a long time to be able to getit down to just 19 takes right
Right, right like because one Iam perfectionist, so you don't
need to be that though, right?
There are plenty of people thatcan build a real good social
media presence without, withouthaving like perfection in in the
mix. Right? You can you can justbe authentically you. Right. And
(20:11):
that can move the needle with
Sergio Tronconis (20:14):
Yeah. And I and that's a good topic, because
it.
it's a good point. Becausethere's a lot of influencers out
there that they're too perfect.
Yeah, right. And for me, nowthat we're in the topic of the
marketing, there's an influencerbubble, there's two mega right.
And there's gonna be a pointwhere influencers are just doing
things for money and perfection.
And people are gonna stopfollowing them, people are going
(20:37):
to stop buying from them,companies are going to stop
trusting influencers. Andthere's going to be a whole
shift right of out of themillions of influences, or are
probably half of those are goingto get chopped off. And the ones
that are going to say are theones who are influential in
their own authenticity, andpeople who follow them because
they can actually connect. Butif I go on social media, I'm
(20:58):
like, I'm perfect. I've neverbeen through any struggle, I
make millions on a daily basis,right? Who the hell is gonna
connect with me? Exactly.
Because the big guys aren't onsocial media anyway. Exactly.
You know? So you got to havethat authenticity, and there's
no better vibration thanauthenticity. Oh, my goodness.
Yeah. And authenticity is justwhen you incorporate that
conversations flow.
Edward Collins (21:19):
I was talking with another social media star,
if you will, millions ofsubscribers type of situation.
And he was just talking aboutjust be authentically you.
Because there's a billion peopleon the planet, about 6 billion
of them using using some form ofsocial media at any given point
in time, right? You don't needall 6 billion in your camp, you
(21:41):
need the ones who resonate withyou. And if you if you try to be
fake, I mean, that's just somuch work. Like you constantly
have to be someone who you'renot. I, like I am who I am,
right, like when you see me onsocials, that's just me. Maybe
19 takes later, but it's stillmade. I mean, I don't I don't
present myself to be anythingother than who I am. Right. And
(22:03):
I just think that that's thethat's the thing that that gets
people to connect and resonatewith me. Correct. And I think
that that's why people resonatewith you, you are who you are,
like, when I dive through yoursocial media. And I'm like,
Yeah, that's Sergio. Yeah,because I had a conversation
with him the other day, he's,this is how he talks.
Sergio Tronconis (22:20):
Yeah, I have some videos and reels on there
that I just stuttered two times,and I'm like, whatever.
Edward Collins (22:24):
But that's just you. And that's why people
resonate with you. That's whypeople connect with you. And
that helped move the needle inyour agency. And it build your
build your popularity and buildyour people can know like, and
trust you. What was the nextstep, though? Because the the
marketing endeavor that was howlong was that?
Sergio Tronconis (22:46):
That was years. Yeah, that was that
turned into my whole career,essentially. I mean, I started
doing trading part time at thattime.
Edward Collins (22:52):
Okay. Yeah. And then what made you decide to
make a change? I was again, thathappens, right? You made a
change out of the nine to five,because you want it freedom.
Correct. But now you were in astate of quote, unquote, a
freedom as much as any businessowner can be really free. We're
the crazy one.
Sergio Tronconis (23:11):
We go from nine to five to 24/7.
Edward Collins (23:13):
Exactly right.
We trade the ability to work 40hours for someone else to work
80 to 100 hours for us Exactly.
Which
Sergio Tronconis (23:19):
I really rather do anything. Absolutely.
Edward Collins (23:21):
It's your it's your baby. Yeah. But what was
the thing that motivated you tomake another change,
Sergio Tronconis (23:28):
from marketing, to marketing to
anything else? Well, I thinkthere's two things. Number one,
social media marketing agencies,right now, there's a lot of
them, it got real saturated,gotta be backtrack, it got real
saturate, and there's a lot ofthem that are kind of falling
off, and revenue starts slowingdown. So that's number one. And
number two, we just want it toget bigger. And sometimes the
(23:51):
vehicle that you're in isn't theindicated vehicle, right? It's
not the correct one, there'ssome vehicles that you could
really squeeze the juice out of.
And we said, Where do thewealthy play? Right? Hedge
funds,
Edward Collins (24:05):
they play with money? Money,
Sergio Tronconis (24:06):
Right? So we saw an opportunity, because
we're always also investing ourmoney. And we found some really
good strategies that work forus. So we said, why can't we
just implement these strategies?
We've built a huge network ofpeople over the last six, seven
years. And we bring thoseopportunities to the few people
who are accredited within thosenetworks to our fund. Okay, so
(24:27):
it has to do with that. And, youknow, the strategies that we
found in understanding that,hey, we do have big goals, we do
have audacious goals. We have tofind a new vehicle that that can
do that for US interests. Andfor me, marketing has always
been real good for me because ithelps me better connect with
people, right? Everything has todo with relationships, and being
(24:51):
able to go through thatmarketing phase before I got
into the hedge fund phase. Kindof reintroduce me again, To
start connecting with people,right? Because when I was
trading if I went to trading tostart raising capital again, I
became an introvert. Right?
Because I wasn't talking toanyone other than my girlfriend,
my family. Right, right. Soyeah, that's that's why I
(25:13):
transitioned... For me.
Edward Collins (25:15):
When you when you look at that transition
itself, though, like, obviouslythat you recognize that that's
where money was was washappening, right? Correct. Yeah.
But what what were the steps youtook?
Sergio Tronconis (25:27):
Because it was tough?
Edward Collins (25:31):
So what steps did you take one to learn about
that? And then to implement it.
Sergio Tronconis (25:37):
So first of all, there's transitioning
within industries where there'sgoing to be a gap, right?
Because opening the fund tookabout four or five months, okay?
It took money took a lot ofmoney. And of course, through
that five month period, you'respeaking to your attorney, your
admin, group, your auditors andyou're learning through the
steps that you go through mypartner, he has real good
(25:57):
connections with a lot ofdifferent attorneys and admin
groups that the attorney is ableto refer. So he starts learning
about that. I bring in myexpertise of capital raising,
and I start reintroducing myselfto that. So there's that five
month transition where it wentfrom making a ton of revenue to
stopping the agency and makingno money. Yeah, so that was that
(26:18):
for me, that was scary. Yeah,but but I was like, hey, if I
did this once, I could do itagain, right. And every single
time we go through this four orfive months transition, because
it's not the first time I'vedone it, I know that when it's
done, and we start the ballrolling, the the return is 10x,
Ray, 100x, whatever it is. Sothroughout those five months, it
(26:40):
was a lot of going back to thedrawing board reading books on
investing again, right, becauseI do have my own trading
strategy, but we're working forretail investors and
institutional investors,accredited investors. So
throughout those five months, itwas just reintroducing myself to
it, learning everything I couldabout the hedge fund, I mean, I
have money saved up. So it's notlike throughout the five month
(27:02):
period, I need to figuresomething else out to do right.
So I just, it was like schoolfor me, you know, went back to
school, with books and YouTubeUniversity. Yeah, right. Nothing
is just learning. Now it'slearning through experience,
right? Every single month, welearn something new, every
single month, we have morecapital A under management. And
with that, you have to updateyour strategy. And you have to
(27:24):
change your strategy, right? Forevery X amount of money you
manage. You need new strategies.
It's not the same one isn'tgoing to work the same. If you
have 10 million today and 100million tomorrow. You know, you
know this. So it's, it's, it'sit's a progressive learning
progress. Process. Yeah.
Edward Collins (27:44):
When you look at at the YouTube University, as an
example, what I find so manypeople trying to do is is to
wing it, and just like go onthere and use it as a search
engine and hope for the best.
Like, how did you learn tocurate the information you're
getting? Because that seems tobe the most difficult thing?
Sergio Tronconis (28:02):
Yeah. Cuz there's a lot of information out
there that you shouldn't listento. Definitely. Yeah. And I
think it's learning throughexperience. So when I started, I
got rid of all those personaldevelopment videos that you
would see right, that thinkingGrow Rich, Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
There's a ton of other booksthat I've read. So right now,
(28:23):
I'm not focused on personaldevelopment, but I know exactly
what my investor needs from me.
And I know how to curate thatand find the specific
information. And once I do,whoever is teaching that that
influencer or YouTuber, I haveto research them to make sure
that they are doing what theysay. Because there's guys out
there that they say how tomanage 100 million. I can't talk
about that, because I'm notthere yet. But they are because
(28:46):
they read it or learn from itfrom another YouTube channel.
Right? You know, you're notthere yet. You can't be
teaching. If you haven't hadthat experience, yet. There's
ways that you can do it. Butyeah, that's that's my process
is making sure that that personknows what they're doing, and
that it's a proven process.
Edward Collins (29:05):
I find that it's so difficult because like, what
I've gotten into now is a lot ofpeople will ask me to take a
look at the videos that theyfind online and determine
whether or not it's legitimate.
Right. And there are I thinkthere are a lot of well meaning
content creators out there
Sergio Tronconis (29:20):
I saw that you reviewed a few..
Edward Collins (29:22):
I tried to be nice about it, because I think
for the most part, a lot of themare well meaning like they
they're just trying to do what'sbest for their community. And
they share things that they mayhave heard, but it's not stuff
that they actually know. Yep.
And like it's taken me 25 yearsto learn the things that I know
about the tax code and how tostructure businesses and how to
(29:42):
create wealth through businessor real estate. Like it's taken
me a long time to learn thatstuff. And I've learned it by
actually doing it right. So whenI jump into some of these
videos, and you hear some of thethings that are said, I'm like,
Why did you ever hear that?
Because that's just not rightlike Like you can't do it that
way, in your curation process,then so you would you'd go back
(30:07):
and investigate thoseindividuals who were sharing the
concepts with like so that youknew that you could follow it.
Sergio Tronconis (30:12):
Of course, for example, there's a guy on online
that I'm going to one of hisevents this month is called
Bridger Pennington fund launch.
Yeah. He's talking about openingup hedge funds. So I wanted to
make sure that he's ran a hedgefund before and that's been
successful at it. And that'spretty as simple as a Google
search and searching maybe eventhe companies that they own
right? You just start goingthrough that rabbit hole,
Edward Collins (30:36):
Do your due diligence,
Sergio Tronconis (30:37):
Do your due diligence. Exactly. Everyone
should always do it no matterwhat you're doing, either
researching for education, orresearching to make an
investment. Yeah, you got to doit. You know. And it's funny
because people go to universityin school, and they don't
research it on teachers.
Exactly. Right. Oh, who is thisguy? That's research that's
working people working inHarvard, for example, that might
be teaching an MBA right classor course, and they've never ran
(31:01):
a successful business orbusiness worth a billion
dollars. And they're justtalking about how to do that.
Right. Right.
Edward Collins (31:10):
So it's difference between academics and
real wisdom. Right, exactly.
Wisdom is a practicalapplication of knowledge earned.
Sergio Tronconis (31:17):
Exactly. And you can write a review on
someone who did it. Yeah. Butit's not the same coming from
that person. Exactly. You know,there's pieces of experience,
like you said, that you don'tpost anywhere you keep it to
yourself until somebody asks,exactly, you know, wow,
Edward Collins (31:34):
When you look at at where you are now, then so so
you're operating this hedgefund, you're building it up?
Like, what's your day to day?
Like? What do you what are youengaged in on it?
Sergio Tronconis (31:43):
So right now I'm taking the position as well
as COO. So we are implementingprocesses for current client
relationships, we'reimplementing, hopefully, a new
CRM soon. But my day to daywork, I wake up, you know, I do
my my routine, I have to makesure that I'm good mentally and
physically, before I go outthere and start speaking to
(32:04):
people. And pretty much there'sa lot of calls throughout the
day to raise capital. And nowwe're going to be, you know,
building more relationships withour investors. So it's, it's a
mix of just a bunch of calls forinvestors, making sure
everything is going right. Andwe do daily reporting for
investors. So we have a town.
Yeah, it's rigorous. But we're,it's competitive. You want to
(32:26):
stay ahead. And yeah, that's,that's my day to day. It's,
it's, it's simple. But I've beenable to structure it to call it
simple, you know,
Edward Collins (32:38):
I'm curious, like, as, as Chief Operating
Officer, a few LC Oh, thedevelopment of process and
procedure, like, tell us alittle bit about how you go
about doing that. Because Ithink that that's an area that a
lot of business owners strugglein, that they don't build out
processes and procedures, notofficially, right. And they all
they sort of wing it, right? Alot of business owners are,
(33:01):
unfortunately, in the habit ofwinging it, because sometimes
Sergio Tronconis (33:04):
they get it right, and a lack of lack of
capital to lack of capital.
Edward Collins (33:08):
So what's your what's your process for
developing processes andprocedures?
Sergio Tronconis (33:12):
So it's funny, because I've learned through
osmosis, and I've learnedthrough courses that okay, so I
took a course for six sigma, oh,yeah, while I was working with
developer, and while I wasworking with the developer,
that's where he made thetransition from a new company to
a company with strategies or acompany with structure and
(33:34):
processes. So I was able tophysically be there as it
happened. So I took all of thatin. And for me, it's what I did
with the marketing agency withmy partner, when he brought in I
developed systems to streamlineprocesses. And if you're getting
into a company that already hasemployees, and has people taking
different hats, number one ismaking sure that each person
(33:56):
knows what hat they have oninterviewing that person making
sure that they're even strongfor that position. And if
they're not, you switch themover to another one, and
replicating that process for anew hire. So it's grabbing
everyone's input, making surethey're right for it, making
sure that that process thatthey're managing either for
account managers, capitalraisers, administrators,
(34:18):
whatever it is that you canreplicate that for somebody
else. Mm hmm. So that's the wayI see it. And fixing those
little discrepancies in theprocesses that aren't
unnecessary that then that mightbe costing time and money. And
those processes usually resultin more money and a happier
investor, right?
Edward Collins (34:36):
Yeah.
Interesting. When you look at atwhat's next for you guys, like
where do you see things goingover the course of the next two
to five years.
Sergio Tronconis (34:44):
We want to get to a billion dollars a year. We
have been implementing strategicpartnerships. Right now. We have
strategies in equities andforex. We're getting into
private equity with with astrategic partnership that's
been To bring us access to thoseprivate deals before the IPO,
(35:05):
and then we're getting into realestate. So it's moving into new
vehicles, again, the whole thingthat's gonna bring us the
capacity to bring that amount ofmoney in and being able to
consistently bring in a positivereturn. Okay, so that we have an
audacious goal and is to have abillion AUM.
Edward Collins (35:25):
It's definitely doable. It's definitely do. When
you look at at the areas ofstruggle right now, though,
like, what what would youidentify as the biggest
challenges that you guys aregoing through?
Sergio Tronconis (35:35):
Like any new fund, and I'm assuming because
we're a new fund, and I'vespoken to other guys that have
newer funds, it's getting in thestreets, right, getting around
the right circles, okay,building trust, and sometimes
that trust comes with time.
Yeah. And unfortunately, wecan't speed up time, you know.
So that's the biggestchallenges, okay, we're getting
into the right rooms, we are theNew Kids on the Block, we're
(35:57):
always going to be perceived asthat, until we hit, we hit our
five year mark 10 year mark,which is fine. But that's it,
because everything else has beenthank God has been pretty,
pretty smooth. Right? Raisingcapital has been smooth, the
returns have been smooth. So, sofar, so good.
Edward Collins (36:20):
One of the things I like to do with every
guest that comes on is I like todo sort of like this mental
exercise, okay. And if youwouldn't mind, taking those
journey, what I'd like to do isI want you to imagine for a
moment that you have the abilityto go back in time, okay, any
previous version of your you andyour life. And you can share
(36:43):
with that younger version ofSergio, one piece of wisdom.
What would that nugget of wisdombe? And who would you be giving
it to?
Sergio Tronconis (36:52):
Well? There's so many things, I'd like to say,
yeah. Because in every, in everyphase, you have different
worries and different doubts. Iwould say number one is never
doubt yourself, okay? I'd keepit very simple and condensed. I
would say just don't doubtyourself, it's going to be fine.
(37:14):
It's always going to be fine.
Just keep that positivementality. Don't get into the
negative turn of things, becausethat will bring more negativity.
But always trust yourself. Ifyou can't trust yourself, nobody
else is going to trust you. Sothat and stick it through.
Somebody told me stick itthrough seven years ago that's
been engraved in my head, everytime I go through some type of
(37:34):
trouble or whatever. That quote,keeps me going.
Edward Collins (37:41):
What younger version of Sergio needed to hear
that most?
Sergio Tronconis (37:45):
Right before I started working in my corporate
job, okay, and the the one whenhe quit, and it was a year later
when I was really struggling.
Yeah. Those two. Wow. Andthere's gonna be a lot I'm sure.
Edward Collins (37:59):
That's life, right? Yeah. Well, I wonder if
there's a second parts of thisexercise. Okay. I want you to
imagine then, for a moment, thata future version of Sergio has
now come back in this moment andis joining us during this
conversation, and he's going toshare a piece of wisdom with you
now. What would he share?
Sergio Tronconis (38:19):
I would say it's gonna turn out a lot better
than you expect. Yes, yeah. Ilove that, you know, all those
little worries and things thathappen. In between, it's gonna
turn out way better than youexpect. I love it. You know, and
I don't know if you've ever seenthat video, which is a visual of
you in a problem and then itstarts panning out and it goes
(38:40):
into the universe and then thegalaxies. So yeah, yeah. little
speck in the universe. We allare at the end of the day. None
of it matters. Right. But it'salways going to turn out better
than you expect.
Edward Collins (38:51):
Yeah, yeah. Now is the only thing that's real.
Sergio Tronconis (38:54):
Now is the only thing that matters. The
past is in it's frozen, it can'tmove. It can't change. The
future hasn't happened yet. Soright now is what you need to do
to make whatever it is you wantto do happen.
Edward Collins (39:07):
Wow. You know, well, I appreciate you so much
for coming out here and how ifthe audience wanted to get in
touch with you learn more aboutwhat you're doing, like your
story, how you're actuallyhelping people like what's the
best way for them to get intouch with you?
Sergio Tronconis (39:20):
My Instagram?
Okay, so it's my first and lastname Sergio Tronconis one
underscore That's it.
Edward Collins (39:26):
Okay. Yeah. So all the fake ones out there to
make sure that yeah,
Sergio Tronconis (39:30):
that's the one is not wondering what kind of
discord
Edward Collins (39:34):
I'll make sure that it's in the show notes as
well. Sir, thank you so much forcoming out and sharing so
authentically with us. Sure. Iknow that I've enjoyed it. And
guys, I know you've enjoyed ittoo. And if you have and you're
not yet a member of up level andour community you're definitely
want to do it because eventhough this particular episode
is over, so just going to besticking around to share some
(39:55):
actionable counsel to theindividuals that are part of the
community. So if you You want tolearn how to get access to that,
be sure to go to uplevelentrepreneur.com forward slash
join up level and ultimately getan opportunity to learn
vicariously through this guy,even more than you've already
enjoyed so far. Once again, myname is Edward Collins. This has
(40:16):
been another episode ofentrepreneur unleashed. I thank
you so much for investing yourtime with us. And I look forward
to seeing you on the nextepisode. Bye for now. Sergio,
thank you so much. Thank you.
I'm breaking careful there. Thatwas so awesome.
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